An Essay Featured in The Absolute Choice
Sections XIV-XVII
XIV
A major role of the State (and “present moment”) is to help us face Determination and come to see it as a Necessity for ourselves and for freedom. Given that we are all born with an “abstract freedom” which makes us feel like we ought to be “totally free,” it is not natural for us to see determinates as necessities, which is why we need trust in the State to help us move beyond what comes naturally. By “State,” again, I don’t mean just the government (though that is part of it), but the whole gambit of practices, fields, groups, interactions, and the like which we find ourselves “thrown” into by being “thrown” into “now.” What exists “now” Hegel gives us reason to think exists for a reason, and if it exists “now” there is reason to think we need it to come to the place where we experience “determinations” as “necessitates,” and thus experience determinations as things which enable us to be free and fuller subjects. Without those determinations, we’d be worse off.
The world, in its determinations, is increasingly connected, which is to say we increasingly encounter difference personally, increasing anxiety. As we face that anxiety, we will be tempted to “return to the past” or design a future free of that anxiety, hence why Hegel has justified “The Now” through the State, slamming the door behind us and locking the door ahead of us. We must face today, but that means we must risk encountering “The Real” of Lacan and ourselves, a risk everything within us will naturally work to avoid and deny. However, if we can muster the courage to face “The Now,” Hegel has provided us with the tools to believe that what “emerges” is that which we are justified to assume and use. Though Hegel has locked us into “now,” he has not left us hopeless and without direction.
What emerges “now” there is reason to think is needed “now,” and for Hegel that would be Hegel. If we couldn’t assume “now” as our “nonrational foundation” for thinking, ourselves, and the like, then everyone would have to pick their own “nonrational foundations,” and so everyone would splinter off, fracture, and sociological chaos would ensure — as arguably has happened. Hegel gives us a justification to assume “the nonrational foundation” of “The State of Nature/Now,” which makes it possible for us to find “shared intelligibility” and avoid infinitely splintering off and apart. However, for that to work, we must also do the work as subjects to handle encountering and interacting with profound levels of diversity and difference. This is because the State has led to Pluralism and Globalization, and if the State is justified we must start assuming these developments (we cannot pick and choose what we want to be justified by the State).
We prepare for the future not by thinking the future but primarily by thinking the subject and preparing the subject for the future today. The future is only acted upon, and all action must take place now: it is only today when the future can be faced. And the complexity and uncertainty of the future is infinite: the likelihood of us accurately preparing for it is virtually nonexistent. But we can meaningfully work on ourselves as subjects, and the better we develop as subjects the more able we will be to handle whatever future we might walk into (like a trained artist stepping into a free-style cypher). However, this will not be easy, for us the subject only ever exists “now,” and “now” is the place of anxiety, limits, and “The Real.” Faced with limits, it is tempting to look to avoid them, but Hegel will give us tools to think of these “limits” and “determinations” as opportunities of choice.
Hegel’s political project mirrors his work in Phenomenology of Spirit and Science of Logic: “Absolute Knowing” is where we come to see the limits of the subject as enabling conditions. The limits of the subjects move from being “determinations” which aggravate us into “necessities” which enable us, while in Kantianism we are “limited” to phenomena because “things-in-themselves” are simply cut off from us. Entirely different political projects arise between Hegel and Kantianism due to this difference on the role of “limit”: in Hegel, our inability to reach “the thing-in-itself” is precisely the enabling condition which empowers us to experience things in a meaningful and non-arbitrary way, while in Kantianism the noumenon is a hard limit (for the sake of saving faith from reason, etc.). In Hegel, the State exists to help us see our “limit” as what is necessary for us to be enabled, while in Kantianism the role of the State is to organize our lives unable to access “things-in-themselves.” In Hegel, the State helps us live with an Unknown, while in Kantianism the State helps us live with Unknowability. The Hegelian State can prove more hopeful, while I fear the Kantian State leads into a “Meaning Crisis” and a weak view of the State. In Hegel, we can achieve meaningful knowledge about “The Absolute” (however incomplete), while in Kantianism we only ever deal with phenomena. Kantianism leads to Pragmaticism, Fideism, and Scientism. Philosophy dies.
Kantianism envisions a “Kingdom of Ends,” but this is unimaginable in Hegel, because a history without tension is a history that ceases to be limited and enabled by that limitation, and thus has come to an end. As discussed in “Bridging the Kants” by O.G. Rose, right or wrong, I do think the Kantian believes that, though reason cannot access “thing-in-themselves,” it is possible for us to act and live in a manner that might participate in “things-in-themselves,” hence a role for “practical reason” to achieve moral life. A Kingdom of Ends then would be a State in which rationality did not deconstruct religion or morality, which is to say a State in which everyone engaged in “practical reason” and thus realized the moral life. For Hegel, the moment reason is dead, Philosophy is gone, and so we would not be capable to “conceptually meditate” this “practical reason,” and so we would never use Philosophy to sublate our instincts and help us avoid pathologies and self-effacement. We must “dialectically work through negativity” or suffer, yet a “Kingdom of Ends” suggests it is possible to reach a point where “dialectically working through negativity” is no longer needed. We’ve reached the end of history. All is well.
In Hegel, the State never reaches a place where there are no more “determinations” we must individually as subjects come to accept as “necessitates.” There will always be “determinates,” and we will always feel like we “ought” to be “totally free” and yet are not. Following Kantianism, it seems we should work toward a State in which “determinations” are removed and we indeed are “totally free” (thanks to “practical reason”), and yet for Hegel “determinations” are necessary for us to be free. If “determinates” are gone, we cannot sublate them into “necessitates,” and so freedom becomes effacement (for a State to not be Hegelian is for a State to engage in an “effacement drive”). The same logic applies to the subject and thinking: if there are no “limits” which the subject must integrate with or that thinking much work with, then thinking and the subject are effaced. Kantianism is a temptation.
For Hegel, the role of the State is not to lead us to a “Final End” we have not arrived at yet, some “Kingdom of Ends” in which war and conflict shall be no more. No, to head off anticipating that future would be to ignore the “Owl of Minerva” and engage in a “spurious infinity,” because that perfect future will never come, and so we will always be waiting for the next moment, then the next moment, then the next moment…For Hegel, the role of the State is to provide us with the resources and direction to engage in “The (Re)turn.” This point is also made when I discuss “The (Non)journey” of Hegel, but basically the idea aligns with David Hume and what seems to me to be a hope of many thinkers and notions. Life is not ultimately about going somewhere, nor is it about staying somewhere: the goal is “(re)turning” and making “a real choice” to commit to that “(re)turn.”
XV
What is the difference between “Spirit” and “State” in Hegel? This seems like an important question, for the language of “Spirit” pervades Phenomenology of Spirit while “State” is the language of Elements of the Philosophy of Right. What’s the difference, or is there one? I must admit, this will be speculative, for there are parts of me that find “Spirit” and “State” identical, and other parts of me that see them as distinct — but perhaps this is to be expected when dealing with Hegel, a master of A/B. Regardless, both books by Hegel seem to suggest that “description is proof,” a notion which overlaps with “Fiction Is the Mathematics of the Humanities” by O.G. Rose. In that paper, it is argued that if “good fiction” always involves irony, then there is “reason to think” there is something about irony which is essential to the constitution of the human subject. Perhaps not, but a work of literature functions like a “proof” of how humans “are,” though by “proof” here I don’t mean something which “forces ascent” but that “gives us reason to think.” If in “fiction that works” we see characters constantly misunderstanding one another (like in Chekov), then there is “reason to think” there is something about hermeneutics which is deeply indivisible from the human experience. Now, we’d have to argue what “working fiction” entails, and hopefully that is accomplished elsewhere in O.G. Rose, but hopefully the point is clear: fiction can be an ontoepistemological “proof” (though not necessarily, which please note suggests that the loss of fiction might be the loss of our capacity to understand ourselves).
In a way, we can see Phenomenology of Spirit as like “a proof of fiction,” per se, and Hegel’s phenomenological description of how Spirit comes to “unfold” to itself provides “reason to think” Spirit is an entity constituted by a “dialectical movement” (A/B). History is like “a literary proof,” per se (a point which suggests Hayden White), and as “the history of Spirit” provides reason to think Spirit is A/B (and that “Absolute Knowing” is a state of recognizing A/B as essential), similarly Elements of the Philosophy of Right is “a historic/literary proof” which provides reason to think the State is “a justified ground for assuming the Now.” As “the story/history of Spirit” provides reason to think Aristotelian logic needs to be updated in Science of Logic, so “the story/history of State” provides us reason to think we should assume “The Now” as the foundation of thought — which critically is an assumption Spirit needs if it is to trust in the “Absolute Knowledge” it has comes through history to realize (“now”) (as described in Phenomenology of Spirit). If the State is not justified, then the Spirit is not justified in its current State. Spirit must then critique its State, but as Merold Westphal puts it, ‘[h]ow can there be criticism without presuppositions?’⁶³ There cannot be, and so Spirit would require presuppositions, ruining its progress and causing Spirit to collapse on itself — failed. Hence, the justification of State is necessary for a justified acceptance of “Absolute Knowing” by Spirit.
Anyway, according to the masterful Merold Westphal, apparently one of Hegel’s favorite jokes was ‘about the poor fellow who wouldn’t enter the water before he had learned to swim’ (take a second — I didn’t get it at first either).⁶⁴ For Hegel, to not start philosophy until we find the right method is the exact same mistake: we end up never doing philosophy. This is because “doing philosophy” requires “doing philosophy,” which is “thinking of the Absolute,” because philosophical thought participates in the very constitution of the Absolute (a point which will be elaborated on in “Absolute Knowing” by O.G. Rose). Furthermore, for Hegel, philosophy is an “ontoepistemology,” and so any epistemology brought to philosophy will make it clear that no philosophy is to be done. We learn to swim in water, and so if we will not swim until we can bring “the skill of swimming” to water, we will never swim; likewise, if we will not do philosophy until we can bring “the right epistemology” to philosophy, we will never do philosophy (a similar logic applies to “tarrying with the negative”: we cannot be ready to do it, just do it). No epistemology can be “the right epistemology” for philosophy except the epistemology arrived at in philosophy, which is necessarily an ontoepistemology.
Hegel’s hope is to convince that we are “always already” in the Spirit and the State, as if someone who is “always already” in the water — it’s too late to be someone who “won’t get in the water before learning how to swim,” per se. We’re live, and so we better learn how to swim now or we will drown. But if we didn’t believe we could learn to swim, we might give up and drown. Similarly, if we couldn’t believe we were justified to think according to “The Now,” we might not believe there was any reason to even try thinking philosophically “now” (because we could have made a wrong turn without realizing it), and so surrender and thus fail to realize Spirit. Thus, Hegel removes from us the possibility of thinking we could avoid Spirit or State (“the water”), as he at the same time gives us reason to think we can realize Spirit (because an “ontoepistemology” is possible, seeing as thinking can participate in the Absolute which constitutes us, A/B). Unfortunately, it is possible for us to “float in water,” close our eyes, and pretend like we’re dreaming, as we might try to tell ourselves someone will come along and save us from the currents (like religion, science, pragmaticism, fundamentalism, or some other “bestowing force,” to allude to O.G. Rose on Nietzsche) — hence why Hegel makes his arguments for why we should keep our eyes open.
‘[T]he heart of [Hegel’s] philosophy [is] the concept of the Absolute as Spirit,’ and Spirit is an A/B identification of “self as other,” which means the structure of the Absolute is A/B as well.⁶⁵ The State/Nature is A/B, and Spirit/Notion is A/B, and there is “reason to think” this is the case regarding Spirit because of Hegel’s “literary/historical proof” found in Phenomenology of Spirit, as such is the case regarding the State thanks to Elements of the Philosophy of Right, all of his justifies the work of Science of Logic. ‘Merely to assert the truth is not to know [though], for that can happen quite by accident,’ and so Hegel had to lay out his case through his books, and we must “conceptually mediate A/B” through time, philosophy, and experience — for knowing A/B would not be knowing it, and encountering the Absolute would not be “Absolute Knowledge.”⁶⁶ And since ‘[t]he goal of philosophy is not to gain power over the Absolute but to know it as it truly is,’ the only road is the long road, for the long road is the Absolute itself. The means and the end are one: “speculative reason” is concrete as reason to live.⁶⁷
What is Spirit, though? Well, it’s not mere consciousness, for it is ‘[t]hrough consciousness Spirit intervenes in the way the world is ruled,’ as Westphal reminds us with the Jena fragment.⁶⁸ ‘Spirit is what is absolute, and only Spirit’s knowledge of itself can be Absolute Knowledge,’ which would suggest that if we can learn what the Spirit “is” and how it “unfolds,” we will have gained “Absolute Knowledge,” ‘that point where knowledge is no longer compelled to go beyond itself.’ ’⁶⁹ We are Spirit, and what is “Absolute” for us is the realization which no other realization can further exceed, which for Hegel is the realization of “A/B as essential” and/or “otherness as essential” (which ultimately means we must make an “Absolute Final Choice” regarding the Apophatic or Nothing, as will be expanded on later in The Absolute Choice). This realization cannot be exceeded because it is our very constitution, and if we exceeded it we would cease to “be” — and so “Absolute Knowledge” leaves us with the choice of accepting this reality and integrating with it (which more positively brings with us the (perhaps terrifying) realization that we help constitute “The Absolute”), or rebelling (perhaps like Lucifer) and ending up pathological. That’s another topic, but the point is that recognizing “incompleteness” (B of A) in each state of “The Phenomenological Journey” eventually leads us to the place where we realize “incompleteness” was experienced because we are “(in)complete” (A/B) — what compelled us forward is what we finally realize is an essential feature (what compelled us “forward and from” ends up being on what we should dwell). And since we are “justified” to accept our State, we are justified to believe this Absolute realization of Spirit is “grounded.” In Hegel, intersuppositionally, we are justified to accept our “State of Now” and A/B, and so justified, we can then (re)turn to Logic.
Anyway, let us say more about Spirit so that we might overlap it better with State. ‘Spirit is a social reality, a unity of individual human selves, not a timeless metaphysical reality akin to the world of Platonic forms or Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover. It is something present, not a supersensible beyond.’⁷⁰ We have associated State with “collective consciousness” and something “emergent” which is irreducible, and indeed this seems to be a way to describe Spirit as well. The State is the Nature of the Spirit, while the Spirit is the Notion of the State.
For Merold, when it comes to the “I” and “other” which constitutes Spirit, ‘it is important to see that their relation is not that of simple otherness,’ for ‘a totality is not merely an aggregate, being part of a whole means more than being one of a bunch.’⁷¹ ⁷² It is not “I and other” in Hegel but “I/other,” which is ontologically distinct and new. ‘Spirit needs to be for itself what it is in itself. Substance must become Subject. Not only must each I know itself also as We, but the We must know itself as I. The social whole must become conscious of itself.’⁷³ ‘This carries with it the clear implication that a philosophy orientated to the ego is abstract and incomplete until it becomes a philosophy of Spirit, that transcendental philosophy in the Cartesian and Kantian sense finds its own foundation beyond itself.’⁷⁴ ‘He is I only as he is We.’⁷⁵ But at the same time, ‘[h]e knows himself only in the customs and laws of his people,’ which means Spirit needs State as State needs Spirit.⁷⁶ One is doing itself as other. I/other.
Spirit does things which “I and other” doesn’t do, which suggests that Spirit entails a certain relation between “I” and “other” that seems meditated by the subject. ‘Where the experience of I and We is to be found, there is Spirit,’ but does that mean Spirit is found wherever there is a group?⁷⁷ No, I don’t think so: I think Spirit is found where people make “The Absolute Choice” and identify with something “other” and greater than themselves, not merely “be” with others. History actually progresses, not just advances, where “I” and “other” choose “I/other,” a choice that brings about emergences which are reflected in the how the State transforms through time (through each section of Elements of the Philosophy of Right) and which are reflected in how the Spirit approaches “Absolute Knowing” (through each phase of Phenomenology of Spirit). However, since Hegel did not live during nuclear weapons, it seemed more inevitable that an advancing history would eventually be a progressing history, for eventually “I” and “other” would identify as “I/other” and bring about something new which before was not possible.
‘Only in love are we one with the object,’ and so where there are people but no love there is no Spirit.⁷⁸ “The Absolute Choice” is indeed a choice of love which identities everything as an A/B, which is a love relationship. The dialectic is love, and so the universe is love, for the universe is like the eucharist, which is a marriage of spirit and matter (A/B) (as discussed later in The Absolute Choice). ‘[L]ove is more adequate to the concept of Spirit than life,’ and yet life might be a more adequate concept of State.⁷⁹ Yet love is life, and so Spirit is State (as Notion is Nature), but note that ‘Hegel is careful not to let the unity of those who love each other eliminate their difference.’⁸⁰ As the great Merold writes:
‘The beloved is not opposed to us but is one with our essence. We see only ourselves in the beloved, whom we in turn, nevertheless, see as not ourselves — a wonder which we cannot comprehend.’⁸¹
The Christian Trinity comes to mind here, which is three persons one essence, and each person sees themselves and yet not themselves in the other — perhaps we could say the State and Spirit share a similar relationship? Is the Spirit a State of love? Regardless, in Hegel, everything shares in “the image and likeness” of “The Trinity,” and considering this we could say ‘that the unloved life is not worth living,’ for a life without love is a life which misses out on what life “is.”⁸² Love is “the act of A/B,” and since A/B is existence, we can see in love, as “justified” by the State, alignment with the Absolute which constitutes reality. ‘Spirit is [thus] immoveable and irreducible ground and starting point for the action of everyone’ — everything else is “a privation of being,” which in Christian theology constitutes sin.⁸³ ‘Spirit is here described with four characteristics of the divine […]
1) It is causa suit, self-sufficient, self-contained, self-supporting.
2) It is transcendent, a substantial self which stands over against the individual self as an other.
3) It is the ground of the individual’s action.
4) It is also the goal and purpose of the action.’⁸⁴
Love opens us to all of this, and since love is “intersuppositional,” it is in love that we can engage in a philosophy which avoids the “presuppositions” which Hegel desperately seeks to avoid. Keep in mind though that love entails relationships, and we learn in Lacan that relationships force us to face “The Real” — what Hegel is making foundational to philosophy will bring out the worst in us (Žižek is right). But there seems to be no other way to avoid ‘the state of nature cum social contract type thinking [Hegel] […] repudiates’ (seeing as “the intersuppositional” seems to be the only way to avoid this, and yet the intersuppositional requires relation), for ‘recognition is not to be understood in terms of social contract but of society as substance.’⁸⁵ “The State (of Now)” then is not a “social contract,” but a deeper emergence constituted by an “Absolute Choice” of I/other, which will inevitably fail due to the tragedy of life we cannot avoid, but even in that failure, the Choice can ‘give[] content to the concept of Spirit in such a way as to make clear what must be regained’ — and with each failure we will hence see reason to sublate.⁸⁶
How does this all work, exactly? It sounds mystical and bizarre, but we should always keep in mind that, for Hegel, ‘concrete social experience [is] the starting point for philosophy’ (“The Now”).⁸⁷ I think Merold provides us with an incredible metaphor to understand Hegel’s thinking:
‘The manner in which the social whole may be said to be the ground and goal of human activity is relatively unproblematic. It is illustrated by the way in which a team is the ground and goal of an athlete’s activity. The team is the ground of his activity as that without which he could not perform. You can’t pitch without a catcher. And the team is the goal of the athlete’s activity in that it is the team’s success that finally matters most. Being voted Most Valuable Player is never a satisfactory substitute for the team’s winning its way to the World Series or Super Bowl.’⁸⁸
Is soccer concrete? I think so, and yet it isn’t — strange, yes? Also, don’t teammates relate through something at least like love? If so, then a team is only possible with love, and a team is indeed an A/B. And isn’t there something like Spirit in a team, which is possible because of the rules and laws which make a sport like soccer possible? And so a team seems to be a State/Spirit. Soccer couldn’t exist if there was only one person, and yet soccer couldn’t exist if a bunch of individuals didn’t come together, perhaps compelled by something they couldn’t explain.
The State is “The State of the Now,” which means it is the concrete version of the abstract Spirit, which never exists without the State. For me, Spirit is abstract/concrete (A/B), and so State is a term which refers to the Spirit while emphasizing the concrete part of it, while Spirit is a term which refers to the State while emphasizing the abstract part of it. In sum, we are dealing with an A/B of State/Spirit, with Phenomenology of Spirit emphasizing the abstract side while Elements of the Philosophy of Right emphasizes the concrete, but both are meaningless (and Un-Absolute) without the other. Both are needed for “Absolute Knowing,” and there is no “Absolute Knowing” without both. “Absolute Knowing” is identification of ‘Spirit as the I that is We and We that is I,’ which means Spirit is the emergence of an “Absolute Choice,” and that emergence is “concrete” in the same way a soccer team is concrete (and yet no soccer team can be found in nature).⁸⁹ In “Absolute Knowing,” I/other as Spirit ‘is at home […] in its otherness as such’ (A/B).⁹⁰ The State is the Natural expression of Spirit, while the Spirit is the Notional expression of State (A/B).
XVI
In “The Net (31),” we discussed how a point of consciousness is precisely to pay attention to something until we get to the place where we can interact with it without thinking about it. We discussed a possible distinction between “focusing on things” and “giving attention to people” (considering Simone Weil), but regardless the goal is to reach a point of “total relation” (to use Alex Ebert’s language) where we can interact with the thing or person “without thinking about it.” A beautiful dance occurs mysteriously, when the dancers somehow just seem to know what “the other” is thinking, and yet the dance is beyond thought. Similarly, we can feel “fully present’ to life precisely when we quiet our minds and “just take it all in.” Thought seems suspended, and yet stupidity is also a state in which “we are not thinking.” Mastery is the ability to do something without thinking about it, and yet not thinking about what we are doing is also a sign that we are foolish. What’s going on?
David Hume discusses how we need to leave “common life” precisely to “return to it,” but why then can’t we just remain and never leave “common life?” Following the Kyoto School, before “The Mirror Stage,” we exists in a “Pure Experience” where “the subject/object divide” doesn’t exist, and then we develop an ego which makes this divide emerge, and yet we then need to return to a state in which this divide vanishes again — why not just stay in “Pure Experience?” Well, it’s because there seems to be something transformative and beneficial which occurs “in the act of returning” which cannot be gained in the act of staying. The same applies to repetition, which in Hegel and Deleuze is always a negation, and thus repetition can precisely be the act that unveils something new. Strange, yes? We must “(re)approach” “determinations” so that we experience them as “necessities”; otherwise, we cannot experience freedom, which suggests that we can only find freedom in what has already been.
(Re)turn, (re)lease, (re)petition — these are not the same as return, release, and repetition, and yet the difference can only be known in the experience of the difference, in action and life. The difference doesn’t seem like it can be fully grasped in abstraction; the difference requires a negation of “return” through departure into a “(re)turn” when the journey ends where it began. “Return” is an idea that actually doing and giving ourselves over to unveils it to be a “(re)turn,” and the same logic applies to “(re)lease” and “(re)petition.” This hints at why in Hegel we cannot stay in abstraction, for in abstraction only return, release, and repetition prove possible: for us to undergo “(re)turn, “(re)lease,” and “(re)petition,” it must be in concretion, and that means there must be a negation of abstraction through action and experience. The State is in the business of providing us with the resources and “determinates” we need to engage in “(re)turn,” “(re)lease,” and “(re)petition,” and to give us “reason to believe” that engaging in these actions is best. Arguably, regardless of the period of history, we need to engage in these “(re)-practices,” but how exactly we can accomplish this changes based on how “the now” develops. Today, the “(re)-practices” require Philosophy (for example), as we have reason to think because Philosophy is with us “now.”
As in Science of Logic Hegel is interested in “the thought-as-such” and “the category-as-such,” versus say a particular “thought-of” or “category-of,” so here I am interested in “the return-as-such,” the “release-as-such,” and/or “the repetition-as-such” (or “the (re)practice-as-such”). What we see in Hegel is not so much an interest in what exactly we are leaving and returning to, but a claim that it is returning itself that provides a transformation that is possible no other way. The Western subject is not the universal subject, but for Hegel it doesn’t so much matter the exact details of the kind of subject we “are”; rather, what matters is that we somehow leave this conception of the subject and eventually return to it (anew). So it goes with “common life” in Hume — it doesn’t matter if we start in a city or the county — as it goes with the ego, identity, and so on. “The (re)practice-as-such” is what Hegel suggests is a source of transformation that we can gain no other way. We cannot simply stay in what we start in and gain this transformation: a “(non)journey” is necessary (as elaborated on in The Absolute Choice).
For the Kyoto School, we do not start with an ego, and yet there seems to be a difference between building an ego we later release and staying in a state of never having an ego in the first place. Could it be that we have just unfortunately found ourselves with poorly wired brains that force us to work through an ego to simply “return” to where we started (with nothing gained)? Or is indeed something gained (which means we “(re)turn” versus just “return?”). Hegel suggests that latter, or at least Hegel gives us “reason to think” this return is not “(just) a return” but “a (re)turn,” in that this is what Philosophy has arrived at concluding (and the State gave rise to Philosophy). Yes, Philosophy arose to this validation of “(re)turn” in Hegel, so perhaps Hegel is self-congratulating himself, but Hegel has earned his position. He has given us reason to think and believe in sublation, and “(re)-practices” align with Hegel’s thinking on sublation. Furthermore, it does seem to be a matter of experience that those who “return” are different from those who never return, and it does seem that the possibility of “true infinity” versus “spurious infinity” can be realized and lived no other way.
There is something gained in “releasing the ego” that cannot be gained by never developing an ego in first place; there is something enabled in us by “leaving and returning to common life” that cannot be experienced if we just “stay in common life”; and so. And if we do not undergo this transformation, there are real consequences, say in that we fall into “the banality of evil” or “autonomous rationality” (as discussed in Belonging Again). The State has perhaps moved into Pluralism and Globalization precisely to encourage a journey from where we start, equipping us with Philosophy so that we are not overwhelmed by “otherness” along the way, but the price of this encouragement is that we identify with the journey (making it spurious) and not with the “(re)turn.” Furthermore, if we must engage in “(re)-practices” to transform in a certain and important way, this in itself is a “determinate” the State would have us treat like a Necessity and enabler of freedom. (Please note another “(re)-practice” might be “(re)surrection.”)
It is not the case that all “returns,” “releases,” and the like are necessarily good, for if I “return to a toxic relationship” or “release something that I fear” (to name two examples), I have easily made mistakes. However, even in these situations, we could ask what is it about “the return itself” that is so problematic, say in “returning to a toxic relationship?” It’s one thing to be in a toxic relationship (we can be manipulated, deceived, etc.), but if I return to a toxic relationship, this says a lot. It can suggest my framework through which I understand situations could be compromised, that I find my identity in being mistreated, and so on: the point is that the implications between “being in a toxic relationship” and “returning to a toxic relationship” are significant, and in Hegel we are asked to think about “the return-as-such” that brings about such differences.
If we start in “being,” then move into “becoming,” but then return, we step into “(be)ing,” which brings to mind “How the Absolute Might Move” and work of Alex Ebert and Layman Pascal. To stay in (stable) “being” risks effacement, but staying in (autonomous) “becoming” also risks the same, as we will face trouble if we employ an abstraction that we never negate into a concretion. There is something about the “(re)-practice” that avoids effacement and seems necessary for sublation, while staying in “being” or never transitioning out of (pure) “becoming” are similarly problematic. Perhaps part of the reason is how in the “(re)turn” to x, we find a blend between simplicity and complexity. We are familiar with x, and yet on “(re)turn” we find it is not the same. We come to experience something familiar and “simple” as that which can change and shift, and so simplicity turns out not to be so simple after all. But where we are constantly experiencing “something new,” there is too much change to ever really experience the complexity possible in everything: we experience a “spurious experience” where one thing always leads to the next, and we never really experience what is possible in a given thing. Where there is no “(re)-practice,” there is little possibility of a “true infinity,” only a “spurious movement” from one thing to the next.
As discussed in The Absolute Choice, a “true infinity” is like how a circle relates to itself, while a “spurious infinity” is a list that goes on forever (1, 2, 3, 4…). Hegel seeks sublation in “true infinity,” while “spurious infinity” leads to effacement and pathology. In order for a circle to be a circle, the line composing it must return to where it started and “connect”; likewise, for us to be “like a circle” (a “true infinity”), we must similarly “come around and connect” with our origin. Otherwise, there will be a gaping hole in us, and since we will keep living though, that means we must be more like a “spurious infinity,” a line trailing off from one new point to the next, which makes us vulnerable to pathological effacement. To live spuriously is to ignore our “lack” (Lacan) and fail to integrate with it, while “true infinity” has us address our “lack” and work through it. In a circle, the “lack” is moved to the center, whereas a circle which doesn’t connect leaves “the hole” in its side, gapping. A “gapping hole” causes pathology; when “the lack” is in the center, we’ve integrated with it. A role of the State is to help us make this “lack centering” move.
A circle is complex in that it’s a “true infinity,” and yet it is also profoundly simple. After all, it’s just a circle, and so in “true infinity” we find a state which is simple/complex, as seems necessary so that we can dialectically relate to both and ourselves. A role of the State is to help create the space in which we can relate to the world in terms of “true infinity” (a simple/complex “circle” in which “lack” is centered), but that means the State both has to help us believe there is “good reason” to engage in “(re)-practices,” while at the same time creating the socioeconomic condition needed to sustain our “homes” so that we can “(re)turn” to them. In discussing a need to “(re)turn home,” I don’t necessarily mean we need to move back “home” and live there, but rather that we need to come to terms with our “origin” and accept whatever it might have been, its current state, and how it has shaped us individually. It is natural to grow up, “leave home,” and never think about it again, either because we are too busy, because we don’t like how we were treated, or the like, but all of this will lead to an ill-formed subject. The lurking claim in Hegel is that there is something that doesn’t develop properly if we never “(re)turn home,” which perhaps can be associated with Simone Weil’s claim that “we need roots” or prove vulnerable to Affliction (A/A). If home was not a good place for us, we need to face that and not deny that reality, but this in itself is a kind of “(re)turn,” for rather than pretending like home didn’t happen, we face it. We “center” it.
What has been written in this section needs to be expanded on, as hopefully will be provided in “Realization, Choice, Hegel’s (Non)journey, and the Tense Reconciliation of Art and Skill” by O.G. Rose. For now, to review with Alex Ebert’s language, we start in a “Pure Experience” that moves into an ego, and from the ego we need to “(re)turn” to a “Total Relation” that is like “Pure Experience,” and yet different in critical and distinct ways. In Hegel, we “always already” engage in “Absolute Knowing,” and yet something is gained in going on the “Phenomenological Journey” to realize the “Absolute Knowing” we always already had that cannot be gained from simply staying in our starting state. We “journey to where we start,” and yet we are not the same. And a role of the State is to help us feel justified and legitimate to engage in this “(non)journey,” which is support we really need, considering how strange this undertaking can seem. If we succeed in this “(non)journey,” we can become like a circle in which “lack” has moved into our center, a place of integration, versus remain in our side as a “gaping hole,” leading to “spurious effacement.” Paradoxically, the circle is freer than the line, for the circle has accepted its Determination as the Necessity of relating back on itself as “a being of lack” (of “Absolute Knowing”), and as a result found freedom in itself. The line, however, remains ever-looking elsewhere for what it can only find in connecting with itself and central “lack.”
XVII
The State is to help us experience “determinations” as “necessities,” which means we mature from a desire for “abstract freedom” to accepting “actual freedom,” which requires “limitation” to be defined as itself and possible, which means accepting Necessity is an act of accepting “lack” and “Absolute Knowing.” As Hegel writes:
‘I am then free no longer merely in this immediate thing, but also in a superseded immediacy — that is, I am free in myself, in the subjective realm. In this sphere, everything depends on my insight, my intention, and the end I pursue, because externality is now regarded as indifferent. But the good, which is here the universal end, should not simply remain with me; on the contrary, it should be realized.’⁹¹
In myself, to myself, there is nothing to keep me from seeing what I want to see or experiencing what I want to experience (a point which suggests Weil’s “Attention”). Imagination is unbound, and I naturally feel as if I “ought” to be “absolutely free.” But we are not — we are “thrown” into this world — and the question is simply how will we respond? Will we rage against our “determinations,” or will we learn to want and will them into “necessities?” This suggests it is important which “determinations” we focus on, and on this point we can return to Hegel’s famous owl:
‘A further word on the subject of issuing instructions on how the world ought to be: philosophy, at any rate, always comes too late to perform this function. As the thought of the world, it appears only at a time when actuality has gone through its formative process and attained its completed state […] the owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the onset of dusk.’⁹²
As we asked earlier and will ask again: if this is all so, why bother with Philosophy? Well, again, Hegel’s emphasis here is that we cannot change the State now, only perhaps change the State to come, but that possible influence is primarily a result of us focusing on ourselves and our own private “Phenomenological Journeys.” Here, again, is how I see the Elements of the Philosophy of Right in connection with Phenomenology of Spirit: Hegel has justified the State and Philosophy, which might then tempt us to believe we should focus on the State and change the world. This is certainly what Marx argued, where Hegel seems to just want us to examine and reason about life. Hegel seems to deny us the possibility of using the Philosophy which has been justified to replace or overturn the State (again, a fine line Hegel tries to walk between “passive acceptance” and “State respect”), an attempt we have reason to try, precisely because Philosophy has been justified, but in the same move that Hegel justifies Philosophy in the State, Hegel also wants to make clear that we shouldn’t use Philosophy against the State; instead, we need to use Philosophy with the State, cooperatively (A/B). But how exactly?
Hegel does not suggest the State will necessarily lead us to a peaceful and unified “Kingdom of Ends,” but rather suggests the State will always entail tension, and even that this tension will become harder to live with and handle as increasingly more diversity is “brought into relationship” through Globalization, Pluralism, and the like. On the point that Hegel describes a world increasingly “under the same umbrella” but not necessarily more “unified” or peaceful, I appreciate Žižek articulation in Less Than Nothing:
‘It is true that one finds in Hegel a systemic drive to cover everything, to propose an account of all phenomena in the universe in their essential structure; but this drive does not mean that Hegel strives to locate every phenomenon within a harmonious global edifice; on the contrary, the point of dialectical analysis is to demonstrate how every phenomenon, everything that happens, fails in its own way, implies a crack, antagonism, imbalance, in its very heart. Hegel’s gaze upon reality is that of a Roentgen apparatus which sees in everything that is alive the traces of its future death.’⁹³
Everything is A/B, not A/A, but this does not mean everything is “unified” somehow. Hegel describes a history of greater connection, but this doesn’t necessitate a utopia; in fact, the antimonies of each being will become more pronounced and difficult to manage. And since the State will not bring us a “Kingdom of Ends,” we will easily be tempted to rebel against the State and overthrow it, hence why Hegel works to justify the State and train us to see it as a Determination which is a Necessity for our freedom, development as subjects, and the like. The State cannot give us utopia, but it can give us today. Today can be a good day.
I repeat, I do not think Hegel thinks Philosophy cannot change the world, but that Hegel wants individuals to change themselves according to Philosophy versus change others. If we are trying to change the world, then we are likely not taking “otherness” seriously and as significant, which is to say we are likely working in service of Self-Consciousness (A/A) versus Reason (A/B). This is perhaps the mistake the French Revolution ultimately fell into, though it perhaps started off trying to operate according to Reason. We are always at risk of falling back into Self-Consciousness (A/A from A/B), and for Hegel if we focus on “changing the State,” the likelihood we will make this mistake is high.
Hegel wants us to examine the State to conclude that there is “good reason to think” that the possibility for a “Phenomenological Journey” (a possibility which we have found ourselves in today) is justified, and furthermore a possibility we “ought” to manifest. Hegel does not want us to change the State, but instead for us to create “Communities of Absolute Knowing” into which the State is eventually sublated. This is a point I would like to stress: I do not see Hegel as telling us to ignore the State now because Philosophy has absolutely nothing to do with the State, but because Philosophy deals with the (future) State and indirectly by creating alternative “ways of life” and communities under the State which can eventually “negate/sublate” the State. Into what? Well, a “Present Dance,” perhaps — a “Community of Absolute Knowing” which experiences difference/multiplicity itself, the foundational “determinate,” as a Necessity.
What do I mean? Well, we learn in Hegel that “The Absolute” is not Unknowable but Unknown, and because this is the case it is possible for the subject to “adjust” and “condition” itself in such a way that there can be “reason to think” that the subject can experience more of “The Absolute” than less. Not with certainty or any possibility of “final competition,” no, but it’s important that we have “reason to think” the State has something to do with “The Absolute,” or otherwise the State is likely to lose legitimacy (similar to the problem of how Law seems arbitrary and irrelevant if it is not backed by a sacred tradition or belief in God). Kantianism unintentionally sets the State up for this mistake in stranding us on this side of the noumena, for though perhaps “practical reason” can help us access “The Absolute,” it is not clear what degree of the State is founded on “practical reason.” We must decide and interpret that for ourselves, which means there is likely to be a lot of disagreement and confusion, and the moment we think about this problem, we are not operating within the realm of rationality, and thus we fall back into our initial problem.
Kantian metaphysics tends to lead us in the direction of “The Absolute” as Unknowable, which means the Kantian State is at risk of losing legitimacy and authority (from “The Absolute”). For Hegel, a role of the State is not only to position itself as “participating in the Unknown of the Absolute,” to some degree, but to at the same time help us feel like we can participate in “The Unknown Absolute,” versus conclude “The Absolute is Unknowable,” which can lead to nihilism and hopelessness. As we “adjust” and “condition” ourselves according to the State for the sake of “participating in the Absolute,” precisely because there is “good reason to think” the State is justified and “more like the Absolute than not,” we by extension also find “good reason to think” our “adjustments” and “conditioning” help us approach “The Absolute.” Furthermore, if the State has something to do with “The Unknown Absolute,” we too have something to do with “The Absolute,” and this can give us hope and a feeling of not living arbitrarily, as it is important for the State to help us feel so that we do not slip into nihilism (as I fear today we have).
The State can help us feel that it is “good” that we must “adjust” ourselves to participate in “The Absolute,” and thus help us feel that this “determinate” is a Necessity which increases our freedom. Furthermore, in Hegel, we have “reason to think” the State helps us adjust to increase and improve our relation with “The Absolute,” and fortunately the State is always there sustaining us (even if we aren’t thinking about it and just going about our day). The State becomes our “starting position,” the “now” from where we begin, and blessedly we can begin at this moment’s relation with “The Absolute” (possible thanks to those who came before us, like prior scientists or explorers), which we have “reason to think” is better than the starting point of decades before. No, we cannot be certain of this, but we can be confident in this notion, as we can be confident that Science and Law today are better than what they were in the past. That doesn’t mean they don’t come with their own trade-offs and dangers, but we at least have reason not to deconstruct everything. If we critique, we have reason to reform more than revolt.
The State provides us “reason to think” that ceasing to think about what the State presents us with is not a surrender, but a justified assumption (and we must assume something for thought to be possible), which is not merely “presuppositional” but primarily “intersuppositional.” Ultimately, we cannot think about everything, and yet it seems as if acknowledging this is a failure — why try Philosophy at all, then? Because the State’s current “now” is an embodiment and manifestation of all the thinking and action which came before, and to be “thoughtless” about “This” is justified. In this way, we can see where Hegel provides space for “thoughtlessness,” as Belonging Again argues is necessary but also dangerous (for it can generate Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil”). Critically, the “thoughtlessness” of the “This” I am describing is one of and for Philosophy, and thus it is not a place for which “active thinking” ends (suggesting why in Hegel we can avoid some of the dangers of “thoughtlessness”). Furthermore, we can consider here a “Philosophical Present” which is possible thanks to This.
“Present” means gift and “now,” and we can consider this Present as a mixture of those notions, which is why we are able to “be” today in a manner where we totally give ourselves over to it. Considering the justification of the State, we have reason not to be cynical, to not believe we should escape this moment, as we have reason to believe the people we are around and encounter “ought” to be here with us and “ought” to be people with whom we engage. The “Present” is a gift, possible because of History, and it is the gift of being able to believe in Now. We don’t have to wonder if we should. We have “reason to think” that we don’t have to worry. And in this mode, we can “Totally Relate” to This (moment) (to allude to Alex Ebert’s work), which means it is possible for us to experience “The Nothing of Everything” (“Absolute Knowing”). We can give ourselves over to Now. This.
As discussed in “The Phenomenology of the Artist,” through great work and practice, great dancers can “simply know” what their partner will do. They can follow one another and match the moves “without thinking about it,” and yet this “thoughtlessness” is only possible thanks to great thought and great effort. It is like the “givenness” described in Belong Again, but it is also different in that it results from “gifting,” which suggests a distinction between “given(ness)” and “gift(ing)” (which Belonging Again Part 2 will have to expand on). Here, I only way to say that Hegel provides us “reason to think” that engagement in “the thoughtlessness of a gift” (“Present”) is justified. We are not naive.
Attention is required (considering Simone Weil) for “the gift of dance,” and in dance a multiplicity comes to relate “as if one,” perhaps in “Total Relation” or at least close to it (to use Mr. Ebert’s language again). “Harmony” in O.G. Rose can mean “a multiplicity that is practically one even though not technically such,” and this is what becomes possible in, and justified by, the Present. “Simplicity” in theology means “a being without composite parts,” and God is considered “simple”; similarly, a “harmony” is “simple,” and the Present makes possible “practical simplicity,” if only we conditioned ourselves accordingly. And here we can see where multiplicity itself can be a “determine” in Hegel that can be approached as a Necessity for the perhaps truest and best possible experience of freedom and authenticity possible. “Harmony.”
Multiplicity and division are historically viewed as “products of the Fall” and even evil, and yet in Hegel multiplicity can be negated/sublated into a blessing. If there was no kind of multiplicity at all, there perhaps couldn’t be God, for there couldn’t be “The Trinity,” and yet if there was just multiplicity, we would be fragmented, alienated, and miserable. Multiplicity and difference are perhaps the first “determinates” we encounter, and for the State to provide a means by which we can experience these “determinates” as rather “necessities” is perhaps it’s greatest accomplishment. Indeed, this is perhaps the greatest accomplishment of Philosophy as a whole, which is to say the Present is the place of “Absolute Knowing” in which “The Harmony of the Dance” can be realized. This is to “be” in “the image and likeness” of God, for I agree with Lewis that God is a Dancing Trinity.
I have critiqued Deleuze in my work, believing his epistemology errs on the side of “autonomous nonrationality” and lacks “conceptual meditation,” but I also want to make it clear that Deleuze was right and brilliant to emphasize “difference” as fundamental and something philosophy needed to take seriously, not simply as a negative compared to “being.” Arguably, the most fundamental “determinate” of all is “difference,” which means “multiplicity,” and to come into this life is to be faced with “difference” which doesn’t fall under our control. Our feeling that we should be “totally free” is thus challenged, and so we find ourselves dealing with an anxiety that we don’t readily overcome. But under the State, this fundamental “determinate” of different/multiplicity can come to be negated/sublated as the precondition which makes possible a “Present Dance” that would otherwise be impossible. What originally upsets us hence comes to be seen as blessing, and Hegel provides grounds for us to feel justified in that sense of a blessing. We are not deluded. We have “reason to seek” Dance.
Deleuze is necessary for Hegel, though Deleuze himself might have wanted little to do with Hegel. Difference itself is the ultimate “determinate” which Hegel wants us to negate/sublate into a Necessity, for indeed there is no possibility of a “Present and Harmonious Dance” without difference and multiplicity. Indeed, the greatest “determinate” is multiplicity and difference, and Hegel transforms it into a Necessity for “The Present.” The Present is Dance. Choosing to believe this is part of “The Final Absolute Choice” (as we’ll discuss), and in Hegel suggesting a way to a great Dance, we can see in Hegel a rejection of the totalitarianism and uniformity he has historically been interpreted as supporting. Hegel is not that Hegel.
All this might sound idealistic, but history depicts a movement toward “multiplicity as gift,” though only if we can learn to handle and cope with greater and greater encounters with “difference.” To encounter difference is hard, and so making difference, the most fundamental “determinate,” something we experience as a Necessity is arguably the most difficult challenge. But Hegel shows in Elements of the Philosophy of Right reason for us to have hope: we start in a state of anarchy which attempts to maintain (pre-birth) “abstract freedom” in the realm of actuality (an effacement), but gradually starts realizing Morality into Ethical communities. We do improve, even if not smoothly. But Morality starts in a minority first, surrounded by an “anarchistic majority,” as Ethics starts in a minority — the movement of “negation/sublation” is often if not always from a minority to a majority (often gradually, though “gradually” is a word that means different things to different people). Considering this, the place and people in whom “progress” emerges is small and fragile, but so far progress has defied the odds. Everything which changes everything starts off small — small size doesn’t necessitate small odds.
I see Hegel supporting a similar “small move” regarding the emergence and spread of “Absolute Communities,” and if we focus on “changing the world,” this development will not readily occur, perhaps because we use efforts to change the State to run and escape from having to do our own “Phenomenological Journey,” which is existentially demanding and difficult. Perhaps it is natural for us to try to change the world so that we can self-deceive ourselves into thinking that we are taking “otherness” seriously (thus moving from Self-Conscious into Reason), when really we are only taking seriously “otherness” as it serves us. We are self-deception machines, it seems, and perhaps Hegel understood this and decided that if he gave us any room whatsoever to think we could change the world now, that we would use that opening to avoid the work needed for “Absolute Communities” (while also denying that we were avoiding the work needed for “Absolute Communities”). Thus, Hegel tells us that the owl has taken flight, but this does not mean we aren’t still standing on the ground, watching the owl soar, able to use our hands for work. We can look down back onto Minerva’s tree and notice a nest. There is an egg, an egg which will need to be nurtured. The future is not over yet.
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Notes
⁶³Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 15.
⁶⁴Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 3.
⁶⁵Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 42.
⁶⁶Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 60.
⁶⁷Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 4.
⁶⁸Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 84.
⁶⁹Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 187.
⁷⁰Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 129.
⁷¹Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 140.
⁷²Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 141.
⁷³Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 130.
⁷⁴Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 137–138.
⁷⁵Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 140.
⁷⁶Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 140.
⁷⁷Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 129.
⁷⁸Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 131.
⁷⁹Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 132.
⁸⁰Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 131.
⁸¹Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 131.
⁸²Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 135.
⁸³Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 143.
⁸⁴Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 144.
⁸⁵Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 142.
⁸⁶Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 143.
⁸⁷Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 146.
⁸⁸Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 144.
⁸⁹Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 217.
⁹⁰Westphal, Merold. History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology. Atlantic Highlands, N.J. Humanities Press Inc., 1978: 213.
⁹¹Hegel, G.W.F. Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Translated by H.B. Nisbet. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008: 64.
⁹²Hegel, G.W.F. Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Translated by H.B. Nisbet. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008: 23.
⁹³Žižek, Slavoj. Less Than Nothing. Paperback Edition. Brooklyn, New York: Verso Press, 2013: 8.
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