Hegel on the unconscious self

Hegel possessed a strong mastery of linguistic style characteristics like as irony and metaphor, as well as an extraordinarily rational mind. Hegel's works combine all of these powerful instruments and generate discursive claims throughout his philosophy. His philosophical works stood out as outstanding due to a mix of his mind's discursive efforts and his distinctive rhetorical method of communication. Hegel's philosophic work was dependent not only on his use of metaphoric language, but also on his dialectical and discursive descriptions of the various levels of consciousness1. It is quite surprising to know that Hegel did not show much interest in imagination as a philosophical problem. Neither did he have any philosophical concern regarding rhetoric expressions. However, Hegel, just like many other classical or modern philosophers used rhetoric expressions and imagination as a way of expressing his thoughts. The phenomenology of spirit (1807) is a clear illustration of this; in this work, one can see how imaginative and rational Hegel’s mind was.

The phenomenology of spirit is a piece of work that is full of clever stylistic instruments of language such as metaphors and irony. However, most of Hegel’s commentators, perceive this work to be just a conceptual idea and nothing more. Most of the readers and commentators of Hegel’s work have all attempted to answer the question of ‘what is the phenomenology of spirit all about?’ Part of this group of people are of the idea that this phenomenology concept was an attempt by Hegel to show the true nature of his system. These group of individuals understood the phenomenology to be speaking of a moment during Hegel’s philosophical development showing his comprehension of the requirement to counter the abstract conception that existed in the absolute present of those times. The second group of readers and commentators views the phenomenology as a piece of work done by an independent genius. In this group, there were French interpreters such as Alexander kojeve and Jean Hyppolite who were greatly fascinated by Hegel’s ability to connect types of consciousness with types of social existence. In the book ‘Introduction to the reading of Hegel,’ Alexander states that the genius nature of the phenomenology is seen when Hegel clearly and easily gives a description of the most essential characteristics of the human condition. This goes a long way to show that he looked up to him, probably considered him to be one of his mentors and even knew him in person. For this reason, this book is a reliable source for philosophical students or researchers that would want to understand the works of Hegel. This book is a compilation of lecture notes where by the lecturer was Hegel.

Hegel’s representation

A separation of one’s mind abilities into thinking and perceptive abilities is quite old and common. Hegel’s more noticeable innovations are divided into three mental faculties; the thinking, the intuitive and the representative. The element of representation (Vorstellung) is faced by some challenges; some of the phenomena Hegel puts under the representation rubric, are sensory for example, hallucinations, delusions and dreams. On the other hand, the rest are attributed to thought for instance the phenomenology of language. In this case, Hegel separates the phenomena of intuition from the intuitive nature. Hegel is of the idea that in representation, the mental state which is subjective becomes explicit. For this reason, one may think that a representation will automatically show how subjective it is by simply looking at it. However, this is not the case; representations such as hallucinations, are not necessarily portrayed to be more subjective than any other perceptions. All mental statuses are subjective but the outstanding question is what exactly makes these mental states, or perceptual states acquire the name ‘representations.’ The content of one’s mental state has some subjectivity that is considered to be implicit if it is intuitive. At the representation stage, this content becomes explicit. According to Hegel, the contents of one’s mental state are not necessarily explicit to the subject having a subjective representation.

Hegel argues that some of the wise hallucinations and delusions should not be considered representations. He insists that these types of hallucinations and delusions should be made explicit to an objective perception. An objective view point in this case would realize that even in intuition the content is subjective as much as it agrees with the objective reality. At this point it is clear that intuition and representations are not entirely exclusive; this is because intuition has a way of forming a subset of representations. In intuition, we have a kind of representation and for this reason, most people will state that the difference between intuition and representation is the attitude one has after knowing its state but this will only make others make assumptions that a situation where an individual is watching images in a theatre and reacting to them is somehow similar.

Hegel on the unconscious self

In all of Hegel’s work, you will or may have noticed that he rarely spoke of the unconscious self. In fact, if you look closely, you will realize that they are limited to a few passages in the Phenomenology of spirit and the Encyclopedia of the philosophical sciences. As much as Hegel did not come up with a formal theory of the unconscious self, he did not entirely ignore this issue. In the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences, you will notice that Hegel speaks of the unconscious self; he described it as “the nightlike abyss.” In relation to the subjective self, the nightlike abyss meant that a person in this kind of state lacks the objective nature required for one to have absolute knowledge.

The nocturnal abyss was not an original theory by Hegel rather he borrowed the thought from Schelling, Boehme and Neo-Platonism. In this case, the role of subjectivity in Hegel’s in regard to the unconscious mind is of prime importance. Subjectivity has too much power over the unconscious mind because it will never be abandoned for new truth nor will it be preserved in a new form; it finds a way of coexisting with universality. Hegel’s first time to make reference to the nightlike abyss is within the stage of presentation where there is a world where multiple images and presentations are preserved subconsciously.

In phenomenology, Hegel, originally defines consciousness as a manifestation of the self of the world to a subject whose being is unconscious. The presence of a subjective spirit in one’s being especially during the initial unfolding as soul is what Hegel referred to as the unconscious spirit. In addition to that, Hegel, claims that the intelligence of the abyss, follows a specific course of development to absolute knowledge beginning with simple knowledge such as the intuition of an immediate object, presentation by withdrawal from relationships to singularities of objects and Grasps of concrete universals.

Hegel’s theory of Imagination

The earliest works of Hegel such as, Faith and knowledge and Differenzschrift give an incomplete and imperfect account of a person’s imagination. Hegel’s theory is based on his adoption of the Schelling identity Theory and his critique of the works of Kant and Fichte whose main principle is the subject. To be in a position to judge the benefits and failures of Kant’s and Fichte’s view, we must first take a good look at how the original sundering imagination is formed. Imagination is seen to be a sundering absolute in Hegel’s earliest works of Faith and knowledge where he claims that a metaphysic of subjectivity has greatly affected the whole cycle of its types throughout the various philosophical works of Jacobi, Fichte and Kant. According to Hegel, this kind of subjectivity has brought the whole cultural process to a stop. Hegel therefore believes that the true philosophy; Speculative philosophy should arise.2In this work by Hegel, he criticizes Kant and Fichte and in the process, we get to see Hegel’s perception of the role of imagination. In both Faith and Knowledge and Differenzschrift shows the difference between use of intellect to understand the truth (the wrong way of understanding the truth) and the recognition of reasons which are self-made by use of speculative philosophy (the correct way of understanding truth). Kant and Fitche used the first approach which in Hegel’s view was wrong. According to Hegel, Kant does not recognize the speculative aspects of the imagination while Fitche fails to recognize the speculative aspects of the practical parts of reason. Hegel’s understanding of the role of imagination can be seen clearly through the criticisms which he developed by closely associating his ideas with Schelling’s account.

According to Kant, Reason and imagination are two different faculties (ideas) which possess distinct products (synthesized imagination). The former ideas of Kant can however never lead us to true knowledge because his ideas are just from pure intuition. According to Kant, ideas are not concepts but pure intuitions that are not in any way discursive; Ideas are merely intuitive representations.

Kant is also of the belief that true ideas can only come from a divine mind; Intellectual ideas can only come from a divine mind. In this case, it becomes impossible to prove the truth of ideas as the results are antinomies and paralogisms. There is an epistemological disunion in Kant’s works between imagination and reason and between ideas and synthesis; this goes a long way to show that it is impossible to have a reconciliation between our being and thought and between our ideas and our experiences. From Kant’s work, we can postulate a divine mind in which the true ideas can be found; however, we would never be able to understand it or its inner possibility. Kant’s work was unacceptable to Schelling and Hegel due to its failure to unite thought and being, and its alienation from the absolute. Kant’s separation of reason and imagination does not make much sense to Schelling and Hegel because to them, there’s no difference between imagination and reason. In this case Hegel’s theory of imagination defines imagination in such a way that it appears to be like a wavering between finitude and infinity

Filling in some loopholes found in the post-Kantian philosophy, the theory of imagination by Hegel, mainly focuses on the purpose of imagination and resolves the question of its absence. Hegel’s phenomenology of spirit

Hegel’s lectures of 1805-1806 build on the definition of imagination a little bit more clearly. During this time, he spoke of imagination in terms of time and space, the element of subjectivity and the animal body. He discusses time in terms of inwardizing; which is the negative moment for dialectic identity marking. This negative moment being temporal and a major characteristic of the imaginative mind causes two major implications for the theory of imagination. First, is that the spatial aspect of this theory is portrayed as non-essential at this stage; The spatial aspect is determined by assessing the lateral speed of the meaning every single word (the intention of the word). The second effect of the predominance of the temporal is that at this point we are again dealing with some type of plunge into the night.

Hegel’s lectures are categorized into three; the beginnings of language, intuition and recollection. He refers to the three categories as moments which discuss imagination in general. It is also not astonishing that in regard to the role of night time, he also refers to these moments as “a dreaming spirit” and compares and contrasts them with the fully awakened, communicating spirit. By comparing Aristotle’s notion of imagination with Hegel’s we will be able to understand the difference in both views. This is by use of time as a negative moment which causes the inwardizing, movement of the mind necessary for production of images.

Hegel’s theory of recollection

The focus in this notion of recollection (Erinnerung) is the unhappy consciousness which confronts itself to achieve the goal of absolute knowing.If you take a look at Hegel’s table of contents, all you are able to see is a series of images or a gallery of images. You may think these features are misplaced but they are rightfully there. These images are what make the texts Hegel wrote possible and also it is the same images that make consciousness and absolute knowing possible. Once the reader understands this, it becomes easier for one to get into Hegel’s course of thought and finally find it super easy to tap into their recollective powers and attain that absolute knowledge.

Recollection is considered to be the first of the three main stages of representation and is divided triadically. This brings about a challenge among the readers because Hegel has used the term ‘recollection’ within all the three stages of representation without making a point of stating that the meaning has shifted slightly as it is now used in both simple and complex manners. This may cause readers to experience confusions at the small cost of some odd stylistics.

Recollection is defined as original recollected intuition; intelligence postulates the content of feeling in its inwardness, own time and space. Therefore, an image is freed from its initial immediacy and abstract singularity when compared to others. It is taken up into the universality of the intuition in general. This means that an image no longer has the entire determinateness intuition has and is contingent. Generally, it is isolated for the exterior immediate context, place and time intuition was at. Hegel identified his concept of intuition with time; this was one of the possibilities he had mentioned in one of his lectures.In this notion of recollection, the content of intuition is given an internal structure which is enough to make a representation of an object. However, the specific sensate clump, is not joined to the others by the strict principles of category that form the spatiotemporal structure in the intuition field. Despite the freedom from this structure, the content of feeling is not left devoid of all categorical structures. The structures developed in the Encyclopedia phenomenology are presupposed in this case.

Absence of these categories would cause the subject-object to split to remain meaningless to the subject; making the subject lack the ability to perform the act of recollection. The act of recollection involves a subject’s ability to compare his or her states with the extra-mental object. In recollection, anything that is referred to, however, gets some form of permanence only at the expense of the clarity of the immediate, fully determinate singularity of what is intuited. Intuition blankets and dims in becoming an image. This passage brings to mind the differences between an idea and an impression; he differentiates the two on the basis of their vivacity and force. This distinction is similar to Hegel’s distinction of clarity of intuition, relative freshness and recollection. Hume’s differentiation is however phenomenological as he finds no other way to explain why an idea is not as vivid as an impression other than simply stating that from impressions we derive ideas.

Hegel on the other hand, is able to give a detailed theoretical explanation of the phenomenological distinction between representation and intuition. According to Hegel, a strong presence of mind is not just a matter of the original strength of a feeling but also of the weight in the constructive process it is given. The concept of recollection is deemed to be quite straightforward but it is also a little bit problematic. This is because it involves a person’s unconscious preservation of images isolated in the recollection. Every representation in form of a recollection is preserved in the dark night abyss of intelligence. There are two main confusing aspects in regard to Hegel’s notion of recollection. First is the fact that there is no possible way of individuating various representations or feelings. For instance, is the representation of a black typewriter similar to the representation of a typewriter with 12 missing keys? If we treat all our intuitions as representations, then this would mean that we agree with Hegel’s notion that states that a person’s complete intuitive experience of the world and any other inner intuitive feelings developed at later stages is preserved in the recollection.

The second confusing aspect is on the mode of preservation of recollections; it is wrongly conceived as a pigeonholing operation within the mind. Hegel insists on the “necessity to grasp the concept in the concreteness, just as it is, like a seed which contains virtual and affirmatively possibility; all the determinateness’s that came into existence for the first time during the development of the tree.” According to Hegel’s proposition, it is clear that the thought of images being locked into a mental closet encourages a misconception of the mind where images will remain to be independent actualities that are simply rearranged by the mind.

Hegel also insists on the simplicity and unity of spirit shown by the fact that all these images are retained in the mind; not discreetly or individually and we learn a very important lesson from this; we get to understand more about the generative power of spirit. Hegel uses the metaphor of a seed to show that the infinite generative power of a person has been a central fact in the contemporary reflections on the nature of the mind.

Recollection brings on a moment of being to itself; this is when a person’s being is superficially conjoined to their perception. For instance, as Verene illustrates it, it is that moment when “this being of myself, which is placed before the object, is that night that self wherein I sunk the self…”

Recollection is a constant companion of speculation as the ever-present key to the concrete concept.

Hegel’s notion of recollection and imagination as written in Rethinking imagination

The authors of rethinking imagination discuss the various ways through which the concept of imagination has been construed and showcases some very interesting scenarios of the purpose of imagination in the development and management of modernity. Bringing together a large collection of informative essays Rethinking imagination adresses competing sets of ideas, oscillating between the modern and post-modern, creativity and sublimity. The debates in this book, are thematised from a perspective of imagination. The authors of this book take two directions; the first direction having an aim to address a sociocultural interpretation in which the contrasting contemporary figures can be viewed as continuous distinction and automatization of spheres and systems that go well beyond the categories of labor. The second direction is of an ongoing philosophical discourse that seeks to show the relationship between imagination and reason since the enlightenment era.

From this book, one is able to see some differences and similarities in the concept of imagination and reason by Hegel and the authors of this book. The differences can be attributed to the changing time and the major advances in the philosophical field. For instance, in rethinking Imagination, the author acknowledges that representations are not necessarily as a result of external shocks and also seems to agree with Hegel that we have an ‘inside’ that is a flux of representations. However, the author of ‘Rethinking Imagination,’ takes an interesting twist by also acknowledging that animals do have an ‘inside’ just like human beings; but, we are not able to say anything meaningful about their representations. For example, the author gives an example of how no one can tell how it feels to be a bat. This book defines the ‘inside’ as perpetual and indissociable. The authors also note that none of the long-time philosophers addressed this issue.

Rethinking Imagination differs significantly with Kant’s differentiation of categories. The author states that Kantian categories of transcendental schemes and empirical representations cannot in any way be used as distinctions of representation. The author advocates for a more precise approach; one should keep in mind that any representation, from affects and intentions has a qualia and organization which in turn has generic traits and figures which appear in categorical schemes.

According to Rethinking imagination, the authors discuss the difference between traditional and modern imagination and the distinction between creative imagination and imitative imagination and the contrasts between productive and reproductive imagination. The contrast between the productive and reproductive imagination refers to the divergence within the contemporary thought.

Contrastingly, Kant’s treats imagination and reason as two totally different things. While the author of the book is showing the similarities between the two. Kant speaks of senses in a way that opposes the receptivity of the impressions to spontaneous concepts. However, the author shows his stand by siding with Fichte who is of the idea that imagination goes hand in hand with spontaneity.

Also, worth noting is the difference between the definition of the term ‘imagination.’7 Rethinking imagination refers to imagination as a state and not a process. Hegel in his notion of imagination defines imagination as a process of wavering between finitude and infinity.

Conclusion

Hegel was one of the first modern philosophers to insist that all our ideas especially those that we express in sciences and philosophies are not only connected but form a large interconnected system. Unfortunately, you cannot alter one system and leave the rest hanging as problems will arise. For example, the human body; each organ be it the lungs, heart or kidneys if one is removed the functionality of the body will be altered in such a way that one will have to seek medical attention as soon as possible. Hegel studies the philosophy of spirit under three categories; the absolute spirit, the subjective spirit, and objective spirit. Hegel is of the idea that individuals with an objective mind are at a better position of knowing the absolute truth when it comes to recollection. Subjective minded persons on the other hand stand a lower chance of knowing the absolute truth.

The notion of imagination has been highly debated on by Kant, Schelling and Hegel with each objecting the other ideas and propositions. Kant believes reason and imagination have some differences; in terms of the different faculties and products. The faculties here being the ideas and the products being imagination syntheses. Schelling on the other hand defines imagination as a wavering between the infinite and the finite. Hegel defines imagination as reason with an absolute self-intuitive nature. This absolute knowledge has been referred to by Hegel in his works; where he says it is only possible for objective-minded people who are not in a ‘nocturnal abyss’ state of mind. However, as much as Hegel claims that the imagination is an absolute original sundering, the originality of the identity of subject and substance is baldly asserted. Therefore, it does not make much sense. If we are to follow up this development, then we might have to adopt their particular starting point. Unfortunately, the starting point is not clearly argued for. This brings about another problem; Hegel does not disclose how exactly the intellect will develop out of substance. He however shows how a one-sided subjective or intellectual reconstruction will suffer the logic of loss.

Bibliography

Alexandre Kojev, Introduction to the reading of Hegel, Cornell University Press, 1980.

Bates, Jennifer Ann. Hegel’s theory of imagination. Suny Press, 2012.

Donald Phillip Verene, Hegel’s Recollection: a Study of Images in the Phenomenology of spirit (Albany:SUNY Press, 1985).

Gillian Robinson and John Rundell, eds., Rethinking Imagination: Culture and Creativity (London: Routledge; 1994).

Hegel,Georgwilheim Friedrich. Hegel: Faith and Knowledge: An English Translation of GWF Hegel’s Glauben und wissen. SUNY Press,1977