Hegel and Sense Certainty.

“Because of its concrete content, sense-certainty immediately appears as the richest kind of knowledge, indeed a knowledge of infinite wealth for which no bounds can be found, either when we reach out into space and time in which it is dispersed or when we take a bit of this wealth, and by division enter into it. Moreover, sense-certainty appears to be the truest knowledge; for it has not yet omitted anything from the object, but has the object before it in its perfect entirety. But, in the event, this very certainty proves itself to be the most abstract and poorest truth. All that it says about what it knows is just that it is; and its truth contains nothing but the sheer being of the thing [Sache].[1]
Why begin the Phenomenology with sense-certainty? Is sense-certainty really a beginning, or rather is it merely part of a beginning; perhaps, a movement toward a beginning we might wish to make? Is it possible that by beginning with sense-certainty we are dealing with a kind of history of our beginning, a history of the beginning that we must make? Are we in the process of forcing sense-certainty to make claims it would, or could not make by itself? Does Hegel’s beginning somehow justify itself in view of the end, or goal toward which our project advances? Perhaps, even further, we might ask just who is this ‘we’ who attempts to make a beginning of this kind at all? ‘We’ cannot help but begin from when and where ‘we’ are, as such, the object, ‘we’ will take, as our object of examination, will have its own when and where. If we, at the start, or immediately, take knowledge to be our primary object, as Hegel proposes we do,[2] it would seem necessary, or at least helpful, to be able to say what ‘we,’ and this knowledge, are. ‘We’ taking this ‘knowledge’ to be our object, suggests a duality, which would be our duality, or rather a duality which could only be apparent to us, the duality of our own starting point, and the starting point of sense-certainty itself. We must always keep in mind this duality, that of ‘our’ object, or the object of observing, or philosophical, consciousness, in this instance sense-certainty as the form of consciousness that we are examining; and the object as it appears for this form of consciousness itself, or the movement as it is undergone by ordinary consciousness. In the examination that follows we will attempt to answer firstly, why Hegel begins the phenomenology with sense-certainty; secondly, how sense-certainty can be viewed phenomenologically, or as a phenomenon of sense-certainty; thirdly, how examining sense-certainty in this way, proceeding, as it were, dialectically its contradictions can be made to manifest itself, from within itself, and in turn be resolved by positing a new object. Finally, it will be maintained, that ‘we,’ readers of Hegel, engaged in this immanent critique of sense-certainty, do so already from the point of view of self-consciousness as our own necessary starting point.
How seriously can we take the claim of sense-certainty? If we attend to the quote above, we are faced, at the onset, with a strong epistemological claim. Sense-certainty, as both an immediate, that is without mediation, and a certain, content of experience. Sense-certainty therefore comes first because it purports to have the simplest, or least complex object. As such, sense-certainty appears to be a kind of passive apprehension, one, which adds nothing of itself to the objects it apprehends, allowing the object to unfold its own richness. However, if we are attentive to the claim of sense-certainty we are thereby doing that which sense-certainty itself cannot, we are actively taking up the claim of certainty, the claim to possess a certain knowledge of the world, and offering it up to a reflective glance. We are, as it were, taking sense-certainty at its word and attempting to determine whether or not it is capable of fulfilling its word. It is ‘we’ who take this knowledge as our object; in this instance ‘we’ take sense-certainty to be the form of knowledge which beholds the simplest object. The object of sense-certainty, that is the object it claims as its own, pretends to be the most complete and at the same time the simplest object possible. ‘We’ take sense-certainty as the object for us, while sense-certainty claims this complete determinate object for-itself. It is phenomenology that allows us to engage in this movement in a kind of immanent critique, such that ‘we’ are capable of seeing how sense-certainty must treat its apprehended objects. It is precisely phenomenology, therefore, which allows us to take seriously the claim of sense certainty.
We have demonstrated how it is that ‘we’ are able to take sense-certainty at its word and it is the case, as Hegel states it, that “Consciousness provides its own criterion from within itself.” [3] The word of sense-certainty is therefore made manifest in the movement of sense-certainty, in spite of, or perhaps despite the knowledge it may, or may not have of it. The claim of course, as we have said, is a strong epistemological claim to possess, or have access to particular instances of objects, to be able to immediately apprehend particular objects in their determinate particularity. However, if we attend once again to the quote provided at the beginning of this examination we see that sense-certainty is only capable of imparting with the being of its apprehension, so rather than expressing something determinate, a particular content of experience, it is only capable of expressing the universal fact of existence. The ‘this,’ which consciousness conveys is what Hegel terms “pure being”[4] or what we might call pure presence as such. However, at the same time as consciousness posits the object of sense-certainty, that is the essence of a sense-certain apprehension as the being of the thing, it posits an inessential knowing in the ‘I’ which knows the object only in the sense that the object is. Therefore the object appears as a kind of positive content for the passivity of sense-certainty to apprehend, while the activity in the ‘I’ remains inessential. For ‘us,’ however, this movement, namely the movement between the passive and the active is ‘our’ movement,[5] or perhaps as Hegel puts it in the introduction:
“Consciousness simultaneously distinguishes itself from something, and at the same time relates itself to it, or, as it is said, this something exists for consciousness; and the determinate aspect of this relating, or of the being of something for a consciousness, is knowing.”[6]
‘We’ must, as it were, suspend, or put aside this movement if we are to ask, “What is the This?”[7] Taken phenomenologically, these two moments, which are required in order for consciousness to know anything at all are maintained as separate moments and must be treated as such in order for sense-certainty to fail to meat its claim.
The ‘This’ therefore appears, in its immediacy as both ‘Here’ and ‘Now,’ that is as situated both spatially and temporally, but even with these apparent determinations the ‘This’ appears as a kind of being in general, or a universal. However, as we stated early on in this exposition, sense-certainty wants to claim that it has content, which is both determinate and particular, and therefore in every instance consciousness intends the particular. It is however, as Hegel puts it in section 97:
“But language, as we see, is the more truthful; in it, we ourselves directly refute what we mean to say, and since the universal is the true [content] of sense-certainty and language expresses the true [content] alone, it is just not possible for us ever to say, or express in words, a sensuous being that we mean.”[8]
Sense-certainty, therefore, intends, or means to utter the particular as the determinate immediate content of consciousness, however, language is “the more truthful” in that it does not allow sense certainty to say what it intends but rather what it actually has, namely, the universal. However, is it not the case that sense-certainty makes no claim to be active, we are not, as it were, dealing with a reflective consciousness, that is this shape of consciousness might remain as a passive apprehension without mediation and never need to cross into the active expression of the determinate content it claims to uncover?[9] As such, this failure to mean what it intends places the burden of determinacy in the intentionality of the ‘I’ as the other moment, or what was previously the inessential moment. The dialectical movement has, through the uncovering of the contradiction, lead to a reversal of the previous position that is the object has become inessential and the fate of sense-certainty has come to rest in the ‘I.’ The ‘I’ itself however, is not something that comes to a rest, but rather remains in flux, the ‘I,’ once again intends itself as a determinate particular, as ‘This’ ‘I,’ ‘Here,’ ‘Now.’ However, the intending once again hits the universal, language remaining truer than the claim of sense-certainty. The intentional ‘I,’ therefore has no content, neither does it have anything determinate, but rather is left with the vacuous universals, which are never what they are in the moment they are invoked, but rather as invoked are negations of what was intended. Sense-certainty, therefore, far from being the richest form, or shape of consciousness finds its moment of truth in the universal.
Sense-certainty, therefore, is nothing other than this movement, it can no longer be understood as two distinct moments but rather, as a history of this loss of determinacy. Initially the loss of determinacy resides in the object, a failure in the ability to fix a determinate content upon the object apprehended. Secondly, when the ‘I’ tries to invoke itself in the moment of apprehension finds that it is not itself, but something else, a negation of self, and hence experiences the loss of self in the very moment when it attempts to determine itself. The history, or movement, as a totality uncovers that the truth of sense-certainty is a series of indeterminate moments, or rather that the proposed truth of sense-certainty was an illusion. The dialectic has, thereby, moved and as a result posits a new form of consciousness, which alters the nature of the object itself. No longer does sense-certainty search for the illusion of the particular in the universal, but perception, the new form of consciousness, is able to fulfill the truth of sense –certainty, in that it is able to take the universal as a perception rather than a certainty. The dialectic has moved by positing a new form, which addresses the contradiction inherent in the initial form, or stated otherwise the new form of consciousness contains the determinate negation of the former.
Sense-certainty negates the possibility that there are moments of mediation between itself and the objects it apprehends. This is, at once, the reason Hegel begins with it as the simplest possible form of consciousness, and the source of its contradiction. Proceeding phenomenologically, Hegel is able to undertake an immanent critique of sense-certainty, and thereby take sense-certainty at its word. The contradiction between what sense-certainty claims and what it actually makes manifest sets the dialectic in motion. From the phenomenological perspective each move, or transition appears as a kind of gamble, or wager. Hegel’s critique, however, also takes place from the perspective of the ‘we’ who already have access to absolute knowledge, as such; it already presupposes the goal towards which it moves. As such, from the point of view of philosophical consciousness each transition appears as a necessary transition, necessary in the sense that it brings us closer to knowing absolutely. It is perhaps true, therefore, that each transition seems to bring us closer to the possibility of beginning, which is at the same time the end.
[1] G.W.F Hegel. Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans A.V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. § 91.
[2] Ibid., § 90.
[3] Ibid., § 84.
[4] Ibid., § 91.
[5] For Hegel knowledge appears to be both passive in the sense of a kind of apprehension, but also the positive creation of an active consciousness. As such this seems to point to the fact that sense-certainty is an earlier form of consciousness than the actual starting consciousness of Hegel’s methodology.
[6] Ibid., § 82.
[7] Ibid., § 95.
[8] Ibid., § 97.
[9] It seems to me that sense-certainty must fail in its own terms, namely, that it must not have access to the particular determinate content it intends. Language, or expression merely makes manifest this lack, or the absence of determinate content but is not the source of the lack of determinacy.