K.R. Westphal - Hegel's Internal Critique of Naïve Realism

Hegels Internal Critique of Nave Realism
Kenneth R. Westphal
University of East Anglia , Norwich
The definitive version of this article appears in:
Journal of Philosophical Research 25 (2000):173229.
A BSTRACT . This article reconstructs Hegels chapter, Sense Certainty (Phenomenology of Spirit , ch. 1), in detail in its historical and philosophical context. Hegels chapter develops a sound internal critique of nave realism that shows that sensation is necessary but not sufficient for knowledge of sensed particulars. Cognitive reference to particulars also requires using a priori conceptions of space, spaces, time, times, self, and individuation. Several standard objections to and misinterpretations of Hegels chapter are rebutted. Hegels proto-semantics is shown to accord in important regards with Gareth Evans view in Identity and Predication.
[Note: The present anlaysis is extended (and completed) in: Westphal, Kenneth R., Analytischer Gehalt und zeitgenssische Bedeutung von Hegels Kritik des unmittelbaren Wissens. Jahrbuch fr Hegel-Forschungen 8/9 (2002/03h):12943.
(The Analytic Content and Contemporaneous Significance of Hegels Critique of Immediate Knowledge.)]
INTRODUCTION
The first chapter of Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Sense Certainty, or the This and the Meaning, has probably received more comment than any other section of Hegels book, even more than his notorious discussion of Master and Bondsman. However, there has been substantial disagreement about and misunderstanding of the aim and character of Hegels discussion and argument in this chapter. Only two prior studies have examined and reconstructed Hegels text in detail. Those studies, by Kettner and by Harris, have considerable merits, but I dont believe that they have fully or properly identified the subject of Hegels critique, nor have they quite properly characterized or assessed the merits of Hegels argument.1 This essay reconsiders afresh the aim and structure of Hegels critique of Sense Certainty. I begin with a brief summary of Hegels argument (2). This provides a basis for identifying the philosophical views Hegel criticizes (3). I then reconstruct Hegels analysis in detail (4) and assess its philosophical implications (5). An adequate interpretation of Hegels Phenomenology, as with any great philosophical text, requires jointly fulfilling two requirements: systematically reconstructing Hegels theme in view of its central issues and arguments within their philosophical and historical context, and reconstructing Hegels text in detail to provide a maximally complete and accurate reconstruction, down to individual sentences, phrases, even terms.2 These two aspects of an interpretation must match. I have reconstructed the systematic role of Sense Certainty within Hegels epistemological argument in
W ESTPH A L , Kenneth R. 2000. Hegels Internal Critique of Nave Realism. Journal of Philosophical Research 25: 173229.
the Phenomenology elsewhere.3 Harris has reconstructed its role within Hegels philosophical Kulturkritik.4 (Hegels Phenomenology combines these two prongs, and my account of Hegels epistemology complements Harris account of Hegels Kulturkritik.) Here I present a complete reconstruction of Hegels chapter in its historical and philosophical context. Thus I return once again to Sense Certainty in order to provide a complete reading of Hegels chapter that (1) sets it in its proper historical and philosophical context, (2) reconstructs the complete text of Hegels chapter, and (3) examines and assesses its philosophical significance.5 Hegels phenomenological dialectic has been likened to Platonic dialogue.6 More illuminating, I think, is its relation to Platonic dialectic as exercises designed to improve not just our wits but also our understanding of the concepts, examples, and issues involved in some particular topic of philosophical inquiry.7 There is no question that Hegel greatly overestimated his readers preparedness for, indeed often their patience with, his exercises. However, Hegels expositors have worsened the situation by disregarding epistemology, and so failing to recognize Hegels clear references (in his Introduction) to Sextus Empiricuss dilemma of the criterion. Consequently, Hegels expositors have assumed that the Phenomenology begins directly with metaphysics. They have thus overlooked the absolutely central and basic epistemological issues Hegel addresses in the Phenomenology. In particular, they have failed to interpret Sense Certainty in the epistemological context Hegel provides for it. Thus it is well worth our while to return to Hegels text with epistemic issues clearly in mind.8 2 PRELIMINARY SUMMARY OF SENSE CERTAINTY
Hegels chapter on sense-certainty argues for one of Kants dicta, that intuitions without conceptions are blind, and against the possibility of aconceptual cognition of objects.9 Sense-Certainty presents a nave realism, according to which there is a world that is what it is independently of our thought, and that can be known intuitively or immediately, that is, without applying conceptions to it (G63.4-8). This view is close to Russells knowledge by acquaintance, though its prime examples of objects of knowledge are spatio-temporal particulars, not the sensedata, universals, or complexes favored by Russell. By beginning with a form of consciousness that holds this realism, Hegel discharges his own realist contentions in the Introduction to the Phenomenology.10 Hegel aims to retain the realist tenet of this ontology while rejecting aconceptual empirical knowledge and, with that, rejecting correspondence as a criterion of truth. Hegel argues on internal, phenomenological grounds rather than following Kant by arguing against aconceptual empirical knowledge on the basis of a very controversial philosophy of mind. He focuses on the use of singular demonstrative pronouns (tokens of indexical terms like this, that, here, and now11) in putative knowledge claims, because the use of descriptive terms would either cede or beg the question of the necessity of universal conceptions for knowledge. Hegel argues that even the use of tokens of indexical terms requires understanding indexical type terms and the implicit spatio-temporal cordinate framework they presuppose. Understanding indexical terms as tokens of types that have sense only within an implicit cordinate framework is far too much mediation to count as immediate knowledge, for it presupposes conceptions of space, time, self, and individuation. Conceptions of identity and individuation are necessary for knowledge, insofar as they are necessary for identifying and individuating objects of knowledge and for identifying and individuating cognitive episodes and subjects of cognitive episodes. These
conceptions thus involve or entail a conception of number, or at least of plurality. Hegels argument shows the necessity of these elementary logical, spatial, and temporal conceptions for empirical knowledge. His argument also shows that these conceptions are a priori, insofar as having and using them is presupposed by any experience that could serve for learning or defining any a posteriori conception. Furthermore, successful use of indexical terms or ostensive gestures indicates that we have the ability to determine the scope or range of space or time designated as relevantly here or now,12 but this obvious ability cannot be accounted for without recognizing our use of universal conceptions to designate or circumscribe the particulars we designate. Sense certainty is an inadequate form of consciousness on all of these counts. In refuting this view of knowledge, Hegel refutes strong forms of epistemological foundationalism. The important point Hegel sees, unlike many recent critics of foundationalism, is that rejecting foundationalism need not rescind realism.13 Realism survives the loss of the myth of the given and the loss of the myth of confronting theories with the brute facts or other unconceptualized reality. How realism survives this is, of course, a complicated story.14 3 THE (MAIN ) TARGETS OF HEGELS CRITIQUE
Who or what views does Hegel criticize in Sense Certainty? Henry Harris is certainly correct that one important target of Hegels critique of Sense Certainty is the pre-philosophical nave realism of common sense, which Hegel calls natural consciousness. Common sense generally is confident in its ability to know whatever particular facts or information about the world it desires. Consequently, it disregards issues in epistemology and any controversies about the possibility of knowledge, whether commonsense or absolute. One aim of Hegels analysis is to show that the nave confidence in our ordinary cognitive abilities and claims stems from how well our cognitive abilities are suited to their aims, not from how simpleunstructured and so failsafethey are. Philosophy begins in perplexity, and the first epistemic perplexity involves recognizing that our cognitive abilities and achievements, which we take for granted, are far more complex and sophisticated than we ordinarily recognize.15 Certainly commonsense nave realism is part of the story, but as Harris notes, Hegels methodological reflections in the Introduction to the Phenomenology follow an important point of Aristotles dialectical method, namely, critically reflecting on the opinions of the many and the wise.16 Who among the philosophically wise would or could Hegel have been considering? The strategic role for aconceptual knowledge of particulars, as a standpoint outside our propositions or conceptual schemes from which to assess their adequacy, justifies a primarily epistemological interpretation of Sense Certainty for both systematic and historical reasons. In his Introduction to the Phenomenology Hegel rehearses the dilemma of the criterion propounded by Sextus Empiricus, the problem, roughly, of establishing criteria for judging disputed claims without dogmatism, circularity, or question-begging.17 Aconceptual knowledge of particulars, or sense certainty, supposedly offers a direct escape from this dilemma by entitling us simply to look and see what the facts are. Aconceptual knowledge of particulars was espoused, both in Hegels day and in this century, just for this purpose. Among Hegels German contemporaries it was espoused by G. J. Hamann, F. H. Jacobi, G. E. Schulze, and W. T. Krug.18 These Germans were influenced by the Scottish Common Sense philosophy, though they simplified the Scottish view by disregarding the role of conceptions in forming beliefs about (and
hence knowledge of) commonsense objects or events. Reid rejected intermediating perceptual representations (ideas), but held that beliefs with propositional, conceptual content were required for knowledge of spatio-temporal particulars.19 In this regard, the Germans just mentioned held a view much more akin to what Moore and Russell called knowledge by acquaintance. However, Moore and Russell thought that the objects of such knowledge were not spatio-temporal particulars (physical objects and events), but rather sense data (and, in Russells case, universals and complexes). They took recourse to sense data in order to uphold the prospect of indubitability, infallibility, or incorrigibility.20 Moore avowed a representationalist account of perception of the kind those Germans rejected.21 In this regard, these German philosophers espoused a radically nave direct realism with regard to spatio-temporal particulars. In the twentieth century, this kind of radical, direct, nave realism was espoused by Schlick and Ayer, precisely in order to check our propositions from without, directly against reality.22 This purportedly simple, direct, immediate, aconceptual knowledge of particulars raises enormously complex questions in each of the many versions in which it has been developed. It is not germane to enter into most of these questions here because only one specific issue about this kind of knowledge is raised by Hegel in Sense Certainty. In particular, Hegel does not raise issues about the infallibility, incorrigibility, or indubitability (epistemic certainty) involved in such knowledge, nor does he raise issues about whether the objects of such knowledge must be minddependent, nor does he raise issues about whether such knowledge (if there is any) suffices to justify even commonsense beliefs about ordinary objects and events in our immediate surroundings. The sole issue Hegel investigates is whether basic knowledge of particular objects or events in our environs is aconceptual. The certainty of sense certainty is the certaintythe conviction, the positionthat sensation alone suffices for knowledge of particulars. This is Hegels typical usage of the term certainty in describing a form of consciousness; a form of consciousnesss certainty indicates what that form of consciousness is sure its knowledge and objects of knowledge are like, what their basic characteristics are.23 Hegel contends that sensation is insufficient for knowledge because simply picking out any alleged object of sensory knowledge requires conceptually mediated use of indexical terms or ostensive gesture. (Epistemic certainty is quite beside this point.) It is significant that Hegel focuses on demonstrative reference, for this involves non-logical yet nonempirical conceptions. This suffices as a preliminary indication of the target of Hegels critique.24 Three facts may appear to make reconstructing Hegels critique of sense certainty a merely historical exercise: the views he criticizes are generally very strong and hence inherently contentious; most of these views are no longer widely espoused; and Hegels contemporaneous German exponents of sense certainty were not models of philosophical rigor. There are at least two reasons why Hegels critique of sense certainty retains philosophical interest. First, the vagueness of the views of his contemporaries, combined with Hegels requirement of strictly internal critique, entails that Hegel bears the burden of analysis and proof by beginning with an utterly simple-minded view of immediate knowledge and distinguishing on grounds internal to that view various relevant kinds of mediation within our knowledge of commonsense particulars. The very terms of this debateimmediacy and mediationare almost hopelessly vague and equivocal. As I shall show, Hegel executes their difficult analysis and disambiguation brilliantly.25 Second, taking recourse to aconceptual knowledge of particulars in order to avoid historicism or relativism (to which Hegels views have been wrongly assimilated) exhibits a very common pattern
of argument that has been highly influential in epistemology from Descartes to the present. It has been widely supposed that the only way to maintain realism is to identify a certain privileged set of cognitions that individuals can have without relying on any social (and hence also linguistic) resources, and that allow individuals to check their conceptually formulated beliefs (propositions, judgments, theories) directly against the facts or reality. Realism thus is thought to require rejecting a fundamentally social or historical account of human knowledge. Conversely, those persuaded that human knowledge is fundamentally social and historical have generally held that this entails the rejection of realism. This alternative to realism may be called historicist relativism. In Hegels day it was espoused by Herder; in ours by Richard Rorty.26 Generally Hegel has been grouped with these historicist relativists simply because he holds that human knowledge is social and historical and he rejects the alleged asocial, aconceptual basic cognitions often thought to be required for realism. This dichotomy involves both a serious philosophical confusion and a serious misunderstanding of Hegels epistemology.27 In responding to Herders historicist relativism, Hegel was the first philosopher to recognize that realism is consistent with an astute social and historical account of human knowledge. Thus he shows that one of the most basic and pervasive (and often only implicit) debates in epistemology rests on a false dichotomy.28 For this reason, Hegels views are of great contemporary importance.29 Although most of Hegels positive views cannot be addressed here because they are not developed in Sense Certainty,30 it is very important to have this context of Hegels critique clearly in mind and to recognize in advance that Hegels critique of sense certainty is only a critique of epistemically nave realism, not of realism per se. 4 RECONSTRUCTION OF HEGELS ANALYSIS OF SENSE CERTAINTY
Hegels discussion divides into five sections; an introduction (15), three sections of analysis (619), and a conclusion (2021). In the first analytical section the object of knowledge is primary (611), in the second the subject of knowledge is primary (1214), in the third the subject and object are taken together (1519). Though it inverts the order of the first two phases, Hegel closely follows the classical skeptical modes based on the subject who judges, on the object judged, and on both taken together.31 Hegels arguments turn on what can be said using tokens of demonstrative terms (in the first two analytical sections) and on what can be ostended by gestures (in the third analytical section). (For easy reference I designate these three central analytical sections as Phases IIII.) The transition from Sense Certainty to Perception appears to be made only on the basis of a pun, but in fact is based on combining utterances with ostensive gestures. This suggests that central to Hegels arguments are the nature of and relation between what are known since Frege as sense and reference, or in earlier terminology, connotation and denotation or intension and extension. Now it is not to Hegels point to develop a semantic theory in the first chapter of the Phenomenology; the cognitive competence of philosophy must first be demonstrated (in the Phenomenology) before promulgating positive philosophical theories (in the Logic and Encyclopedia). However, it is very much to Hegels point to develop some basic parameters for, inter alia, a semantic account of singular demonstrative reference so far as this pertains to knowledge of particulars.32 In this regard, Hegel aims to explicate some basic conceptual presuppositions of cognitive reference to particulars. Hegels point is to show that what one says by uttering tokens of demonstrative terms and what one points out by ostensive gesture are linked and are only successful as referential acts and as components of knowledge of particulars by what one means, where definite
meaning and determinate reference to particulars are only possible via conceptually structured determinate thoughts about the temporal and spatial scope of the object, event, or spatio-temporal region one intends to designate. One can well argue that it belongs to the meaning of a token-usage of a demonstrative term that some particular speaker picks out and refers to some particular spatiotemporal region.33 The problem Hegel urges is that determining the original point of reference (the speaker) and the scope of reference (the designated region) requires conceptions of space and time and specific determinations of spatio-temporal determinables, where these determinations involve determinate use of conceptions. Hegels point is that demonstrative meaning or demonstrative thought are unintelligible, indeed impossible, on the basis of allegedly aconceptual knowledge. 4.1 Hegels Introduction to Sense Certainty In the first paragraph Hegel gives an all too brief account of why sense certainty is the first form of consciousness considered in the Phenomenology. Note that his account says nothing of certainty (or dubitability or fallibility or corrigibility), but places all the stress on immediacy:
The knowledge, which is at first or immediately our object, can be no other than that which is itself immediate knowledge, knowledge of the immediate or of what is. (G 63.46)
At the outset of Hegels examination of a series of apparent forms of consciousness (including forms of cognitive consciousness) in the Phenomenology, nothing has been introduced to justify any particular account of knowledge or of the objects of consciousness. To adopt any structured view of these matters requires justification, and at the outset there is neither reason nor evidence for doing so. Any such grounds must be developed through an internal critique of the most simple account there is of consciousness, of knowledge and its objects. The simplest account possible just is immediate, that is, unmediated knowledge; knowledge that involves no processing, no reflection, no conceptions, just bare awareness of an object or event. Prima facie, the object of such knowledge or awareness must also be immediate because if it were mediated, knowledge of it would have to grasp that mediation. Perhaps that could happen without any mediations within knowledge, but if so, that, too, needs to be shown to be the case. Hence at the outset of Hegels examination, the object must be taken as immediate also. The terms immediate and mediate and their cognates are extremely vague; it must be made clear what sorts of mediation or immediacy are relevant to the topic at hand, in the present case, direct knowledge of commonsense particulars. Hegels analysis clarifies these terms by examining various kinds or aspects of mediation or immediacy in elementary cases of human knowledge. Some of this clarification is provided, indirectly, in the second and final sentence of Hegels first paragraph. Hegel there states that, as phenomenological observers of this first form of consciousness, we, too, must observe this form of consciousness without misrepresenting it:
We must likewise conduct ourselves immediately or receptively , and thus alter nothing in it as it presents itself, and keep comprehension out of our apprehension. (G 63.68)34
Hegels term for comprehension is Begreiffen, which means to grasp or comprehend with conceptionsBegriffe. Because our approach as observers must follow the lead of the form of consciousness under observation (likewise, ebenso), Hegels comment about our proper attitude
also highlights the central issue for sense certainty itself, namely, whether even the simplest knowledge of commonsense particulars is mediated by conceptions. (That the relevant conceptions are formal but non-logical is made especially clear in Phase III of Hegels discussion.) The remark just quoted expressly addresses Hegels readers, who are to observe various forms of consciousness in the Phenomenology. Hegels view of such observation is complex; only a few central points can be mentioned here.35 Hegel does not think that either philosophical reflection on theories of knowledge or phenomenological observation of forms of consciousness involves aconceptual knowledge. One point of observing forms of consciousness is to examine a conception of knowledge together with its associated conception of the objects of knowledge as they are (or purportedly can be) instantiated in paradigm cases of human cognition. Each form of consciousness has its own favored cases of knowledge and objects of knowledge; Hegels critical examination ascertains whether a form of consciousness can account adequately even for those favored cases. Hegels advice to us, his readers, that we must observe receptively and keep comprehension out of our apprehension indicates that we should direct our attention, not to our own pet philosophical theory of knowledge (or to other preconceptions about knowledge and its objects), but to the cognitive phenomena generated by a form of consciousnesss attempt to instantiate a pair of conceptions of knowledge and of its objects. In this way Hegels phenomenological method extends and expands Kants notion of transcendental reflection. Kant defines transcendental reflection as the act in which we determine the proper origin (in sensibility, in understanding, or in reason) of various aspects or components of knowledge.36 Transcendental reflection thus requires a complete and accurate account of the sources of knowledge. Kants claims to prove various theses about human knowledge apodeictically plainly rest on his account of the sources of human knowledge.37 Kants claims about the apodeictic certainty of his conclusions have led generations of commentators and critics to suppose that Kant aims for Cartesian certainty, which requires eliminating all logically possible alternative accounts of human knowledge (or of apparent knowledge). Descartes failed to do this, and Kants critics have pointed out that Kant did no better than Descartes in this regard.38 This involves serious misunderstanding of Kants methods.39 Kant recognizes that no philosopher can conclusively eliminate all logically possible alternative accounts of human knowledge. Kants methods aim (inter alia) at determining what kinds of basic cognitive capacities we in fact havesc., we have two particular forms of receptive sensibility, that we have a discursive kind of understanding with twelve basic forms of judgment, that certain a priori concepts guide our integration of empirical knowledge. Kant specifies our kinds of capacities by determining what they must be in view of certain counterfactual circumstances that would preclude unified self-conscious experience; he does not, and does not try to, determine what they are in view of what they might be (within the limitless domain of logically possible views), nor what account of them might withstand the evil deceiver.40 This in turn raises the question of how to determine what are in fact our human kind of cognitive capacities and, insofar as an account of them forms a central part of any philosophical proofs, how to achieve agreement about that account. In the Transcendental Doctrine of Method Kant recognizes that an account of our cognitive capacitieshis metaphor is an inventory of the building materials of human knowledgecan only be developed by mutual philosophical criticism.41 In the concluding part of that section, The History of Pure Reason, Kant strongly suggests that the requisite mutual philosophical criticism is historical and must necessarily introduce an historical dimension into philosophical justification. In a passage that surely would have caught Hegels
attention, Kant amplifies this theme in the Preface to the Metaphysics of Morals.42 Hegels phenomenological method recognizes and extends these points by considering a comprehensive series of forms of consciousness that illustrate the core principles of the wide variety of philosophical theories of human knowledge. By presenting these forms as good-faith attempts to instantiate these theories, Hegel expects and enables us to examine the principles and paradigm examples of knowledge embedded in those theories without our having to take responsibility for those theories and their defense. By relieving ourselves of responsibility for defending these theories, we can better attend to our own cognitive capacities and experiences, in order better to determine what our cognitive abilitiesthat is, who we as cognizersare.43 This shift in attitude should enable us to determine what our cognitive capacities are in fact without trapping ourselves in the Cartesian conflation of justification with defensibility against even that most obstinate of colleagues, the evil deceiver. Hegel grants that sense certainty initially (or immediately) appears to be both the richest and the truest kind of knowledge (2); the richest because it appears to have an unlimited domain in space and time, whether macroscopically or microscopically, the truest because it omits nothing from the object. Indeed, sense certainty has before it the object in its entire completeness (G63.15). Hegels phrase has before it recalls the issue of direct, immediate presence to mind found in many Modern period and recent epistemologies. This allusion is reinforced by Hegels further discussion of what sense certainty excludes. Hegel indicates that the relevant certainty is based on the idea that the object of knowledge is directly before the mind:
[sense certainty] still hasnt left anything out of the object; instead, it has before it the object in its entire completeness. This certainty ... (G 63.1516)
Directness is the main issue, not conviction, indubitability, incorrigibility, or infallibility; the relevant certainty is the conviction that such direct, immediate knowledge is humanly possible and that it grasps the object in its full specificity. Hegel directly points out that the apparent richness and veracity of sense certainty is misleading; this certainty in fact presents itself as the most abstract and poorest truth (G63.1617). He claims that all sense certainty can say about its object is, it is.44 Why is sense certaintys cognitive claim so limited? One main reason is that its certainty excludes rather than requires any cognitive development or manifold movement of thought (G63.2022, .2527), and it excludes rather than includes any manifold intrarelations of characteristics within the object of knowledge or any manifold of interrelations of that object with anything else (G63.2224, .2728). To know such manifold characteristics or relations would require distinguishing and integrating them, and that would require active comprehension; passive apprehension wont suffice. Sense certainty, as direct or passive apprehension, specifically excludes any such manifold representing or thinking (G63.2627). This unequivocally identifies the target of Hegels critique as aconceptual knowledge.45 (A second reason why sense certaintys cognitive claim is so minimal is discussed just below and on p. 20.) Hegels entirely prospective suggestion is that knowledge by acquaintance excludes any complexity within cognition, and thus cannot accommodate any complexity in the object known. However, proof must come from the internal critique of sense certainty. (It is characteristic of Hegels introductory presentations of a form of consciousness to alert his readers to the main point of difficulty infecting that form of consciousness. His actual examination and critique must be
strictly internal, but his introductory remarks need not.) Because immediate knowledge excludes any complexity either in the act or the object of knowledge, the cognitive claim made by sense certainty is very restricted. The essential point for sense certainty is that its object is. Proper English usage would have us use exists here, but existence is already a more complex conception. At the outset only the most undifferentiated, simple conception of the object as something that is there and can be known is permitted, because nothing more sophisticated or complex has been justified. Likewise for cognition; it is a simple act of apprehension, nothing more. An act of immediate knowledge is a simple direct relation between a particular subject and some particular object (G63.2834). One point of starting with such simplethe philosophically wise might already say, such impoverishedconceptions of knowledge and its objects is to help us become clear about our own presuppositions, both the theoretical presuppositions we often automatically make about knowledge and its objects, and about the actual presuppositions of our actual cognitive acts and claims about the objects we actually experience. Especially in philosophy it is all too easy to oversimplify our theories and underappreciate our cognitive resources and abilities. Einstein surely is right that everything must be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler. The difficulty lies in distinguishing accuracy from oversimplification. Hegels phenomenological method is designed to address this difficulty. For the unphilosophical many, Hegels point in starting with such simple conceptions of knowledge and its objects is to invite the philosophically uninitiated to reconsider whether their commonsense realism is quite so simple as they pre-reflectively assume. Hegel indicates that sense certaintys supposition about knowledge is, of course, too simple (3). First, any actual sense certainty is only some particular instance or example of sense certainty. Sense certainty is a recurrent, that is, repeatable, phenomenon (G64.14). Moreover, sense certainty is a relation between knower and known. In any instance of sense certainty, these two terms mediate each other (G64.411). Jacobi, for example, thought it sufficed for immediate knowledge to reject representationalist accounts of perception, according to which we directly perceive mental representations and thereby indirectly perceive their cause or causes. In reply Hegel points out that eliminating a third, mediating term (medius terminus) doesnt eliminate mediation, namely, the mutual mediation of the two remaining terms, subject and object.46 Hegel further indicates that these distinctions are made by or within sense certainty itself (4). For purposes of internal critique, we must take these distinctions as they are made by sense certainty (G64.1215).47 Sense certainty is realist; it holds (posits; setzti.e., its position is) that the object is essential (G64.1516); it is regardless of whether it is known (G64.1921).48 A knower is only a subject of knowledge insofar as it knows some object. The subject is thus inessential and mediated; the subject doesnt exist unto (or in) itself, it may or may not exist, and only exists insofar as it knows an object, and cannot exist without an object (G64.2122). (Here I use exists for stylistic reasons where Hegel has cognates of Seyn.) Because of the realist position of sense certainty, the critical question to consider (to observe) is whether, in any instance of sense certainty, the object is in fact the kind of essence sense certainty purports it to be (5). Does the object available within sense certainty correspond to sense certaintys conception of it as being essential (G64.2325)? Hegel ends his introductory discussion by reminding us that this question is not to be answered by philosophical reflections on the true nature of the object. Instead, it is only necessaryand only legitimateto observe the object as sense certainty experiences it (G64.2628).
4.2 Hegels Examination of Sense Certainty: Phase I Hegels examination of sense certainty begins simply by asking it What is the this? (G64.29). The expression the this is as unconventional in English as it is in German (das Diese). Since this usage is unusual, I have retained it throughout, starting with Hegels chapter title. Because it is unusual, it requires explanation. Hegel often nominalizes terms, but why does he nominalize this one? The answer can be gleaned from the first claimthe first answer to this questionHegel ascribes to sense certainty. That answer, however, is given to a more specific question. Hegel divides Phase I of his examination by distinguishing the temporal and spatial aspects of singular demonstrative reference. Hegel substitutes for the this the two forms the now and the here (G64.2931). Hegel simply claims that this substitution provides an equally intelligible examination. If anything, it makes examining sense certainty more accessible and thorough. At the very least, this substitution is clearly foreshadowed by Hegels previous indication that space and time are the two dimensions of the contents of sense certainty (G63.913).49 Because sense certainty is supposed in the first instance to provide knowledge of spatio-temporal particulars, dividing the examination of sense certainty by distinguishing temporal and spatial examples is unobjectionable. Hegel accordingly substitutes the question, What is the now? and gives the illustrative answer The now is the night (G64.3233). Both the question and the answer are grammatically stilted. Why? Russells answer is that Hegel ignores the distinction between the is of identity and the is of predication.50 Hegel does ignore that distinction here, but why?51 As immediate, aconceptual knowledge of particulars, sense certainty doesnt have the conceptual resources to distinguish identity from predicationat least not initiallyand admitting predication for the purpose of identifying particulars would admit that universal conceptions are necessary for identifying particulars after all. (Indeed, to admit predication at the outset would give up sense certaintys characteristic aconceptual immediacy before all!) Distinguishing between identity and predication must be justified, and if it is to be justified on the basis of internal criticism (as required by Hegels phenomenological method), that criticism must begin with the denial of that distinction. That denial is then to be reduced to absurdity, and the affirmation of that distinction is then inferred by disjunctive syllogism. These reflections thus raise the question, why is sense certainty committed exclusively to identity statements? The answer is, because it is committed to aconceptual, direct knowledge of particulars. The only relation among particulars it can admit, at least initially, is the degenerate case of a relation, namely identity. Hegels stilted usage of the this, the now, and the night (in The now is the night) indicate that these designations are used by sense certainty in a way tantamount to Russells logically proper names: The this names or designates some one particular; the night also designates some one particular. The nominative usage of the night thus helps disengage the predicative usage of night (as in now it is night) and thus underscores the intended particularity of reference and the intended avoidance of predication of universal characteristics. The now is the night indicates that the now and the night designate one and the same particular of which sense certainty purports to be directly aware.52 To test the truth of sense certaintys claim (the now is the night), Hegel proposes to preserve it by writing it down and reexamining it later (G64.3336). The connection between truth and timelessness is both ancient and commonsensical. The Greek notion of truth involves not only a propositional sense of truth but also a sense found in calling someone a true friend: Somethings being true involves its being constant and thus being dependable.53 Referring to this aspect of the Greek notion of truth is not irrelevant, because elsewhere Hegel claimed that the ancient skeptical
10
tropes suffice to undermine sense certainty, and those tropes relied on this ontological conception of truth.54 However, Hegels critique of sense certainty does not assume the Greek notion of truth; it assumes nothing more than our commonsense conviction that truth is not itself indexed to time. Hence genuine truths do not lose their truth-value by writing them down or otherwise preserving them (G64.3437). This conviction requires no Platonic ontology; it is preserved even by that arch anti-platonist Quine in his doctrine of eternal sentences. Of course, statements that are true may be indexed to time. Indeed, this is Hegels point: statements made with indexical terms must be indexed to time (and place), and this cannot be done aconceptually. The inscription the now is the night has by mid-day gone stale (G64.3637).55 Why should the inscription, the now is the night, be preserved over time? Because it is presented as something that is (G65.2). This does not involve yet another alleged ambiguity in copula is (as it were: identity, predication, and being). Rather, this claim recalls the main point of sense certaintys realism, namely, that the objects of its knowledge are (exist), and are what they are regardless of their being known (G63.1718, .2830). The essence of the objects of knowledge, according to sense certainty, is to be (G63.2830, 64.1, .1516, .2931). This ontological claim by sense certainty does involve a Greek notion of being as changeless permanence. This notion, however, is not merely Greek; it is preserved in modern European languages and in philosophical parlance, too; in German as the contrast between Sein and Existenz, in English in the parallel contrast between being and existence. Sense certainty is committed to immediacy in all senses of the termat least until self-criticism drives it to recognize distinct senses of the term and to reject some as inessential to its core position. Consequently, at the outset sense certainty is committed to the most simple, least differentiated ontological claim possible, namely, that something simply is. Period. Unchangableness is sense certaintys criterion for something being essential. This must be the case, because any change would involve some form of mediation. Consequently, Hegels examination turns on determining what, if any, elements in sense certaintys experience persist unchanged in the face of its experience with the changing truth-value of its initial claim, the now is the night. To preserve this initial claim by inscribing it is to treat this claim as something that is, and thus as something changeless that thus fulfills sense certaintys criterion for being essential. The changing truth-value of this inscription shows, to the contrary, by sense certaintys own criterion, that the claim inscribed is a non-being (G65.3). Since the inscribed claim was intended to instantiate or illustrate the this, this this that is the night proves to be, not a being, but a non-being. When does it prove itself to be a non-being? ... Now, this noon (G64.36). Temporal mediation is one kind of mediation, and its role in or influence on the purported objects of knowledge is one count against unqualifiedly immediate knowledge. Hegel notes that the now preserves itself through these two different reports. Consequently, the now cannot be identified with either night or day (G65.35). In this regard, the now is something negative; it is distinct from (i.e., non-identical with) the day or night it designates. Indeed, this now is not immediate, but rather is mediated because it is determined as something that remains and preserves itself insofar as something else changesnamely night and day. Hegels language is stilted, but for an important reason. Hegel here works to introduce a very general notion of a universal. His account of universals must be very general for three reasons. First, he must avoid philosophical controversies about the positive analysis of universals.56 Second, he needs to justify the introduction of universals to a viewnamely, sense certaintythat rejects them altogether as components of cognitive reference to sensed particulars. Third, for Hegels argument
11
to succeed, he only needs to show that universals must be admitted by an adequate account of our knowledge of and reference to sensed particulars; he does not need to show how we are able to identify or use universals, nor does he need to show just what universals are, or what kinds of universals there are. Consequently he uses as untheoretical a formulation as he can. This is Hegels formulation:
This self-preserving now is thus not something immediate, but instead something mediated, for it is determined as something remaining and self-preserving through [the fact] that another is not, namely the day and the night. Nevertheless it is still as simple as before, now , and in this simplicity it is indifferent to that which occurs in it; just as little as night and day are its being, it is just as well also day and night. It is utterly unaffected by this its otherbeing. Such a simple that, through negation, is to be neither this nor that, a not this, and just as indifferently, also this as well as that, we call a universal. (G 65.513)
Hegels decidedly untheoretical, minimally extensional specification of universals makes the essential point and leaves the theoretical details for later (i.e., for the positive doctrines Hegel develops after the Phenomenology). The essential point is that one and the same universal has multiple instances. A universal is instantiated and so is exhibited or exemplified by its instances. Conversely, because it is a universal, the universal cannot be identified with or reduced to any of its instances, either distributively (singly) or collectively. This is true of functions with variable placeholders and their arguments (or specific values), it is true of types and their tokens, it is true of predicates and the specific characteristics of things they designate, it is true of determinables and their determinates, and it is true of repeatables and their repetitions generally.57 There are significant differences among these kinds of universals and they deserve philosophical attentionbut not here, where the basic point is that there is more to human knowledge of sensed particulars than simple direct apprehension of those particulars. The ironic point against sense certainty is that, by its own notion of truth and being as timeless and so changeless, the paradigm example of a known particularthe now that is the nightis neither a being nor true. In this episode (or experience, as Hegel calls it) the most obvious component that fulfills the criterion of being an essencechangelessnessis the now that is recognized to be a universal, a repeatable designation, tokens of which can be used to designate various particular times (G65.14). By its own criterion, sense certaintys object of knowledge is a universal. Sense certainty could avoid this conclusion by altering instead its criterion of truth or being, but that would require recognizing that its object of knowledge is mediated temporally and it would raise the issue of how sense certainty is able to identity and distinguish particular temporally mediated objects of knowledge. This issue is addressed in Phase III of Hegels examination. Hegel then tries to reinforce the point, that the object known by sense certainty is a universal, by appealing to the nature of linguistic expression. His argument is astonishing and easily misleading. Hence it requires careful interpretation. Hegel states:
We also pronounce [aussprechen ] the sensuous as a universal. What we say [sagen ] is: this , that is, the universal this; or it is, that is being in general. Admittedly we dont represent to ourselves the universal this, or being in general, but we pronounce the universal; or, we just dont speak [sprechen ] as we mean it in this sense certainty. As we see, however, language is the more truthful; in it we ourselves immediately refute our meaning, and since the universal is the true of sense certainty, and language only expresses [ ausdrckt] this true, it is thus altogether not possible for us to be able to state [sagen ] a sensuous being
12
that we mean . (8, G 65.1523)
Hegels argument uses several terms with closely related meanings, aussprechen, sprechen, ausdrcken, and sagen. I have tried to preserve both their close association and their at least terminological differences by translating them respectively as pronounce, speak, express, and say or state. (Say comes closer than state to sagen, but doesnt afford a well-formed English translation of parts of this passage.) The understandable temptation is to interpret this passage in light of Hegels remarks on language in his Jena manuscripts, on the one hand, and recent semantics for demonstratives, on the other. As recent accounts have shown, token demonstratives have a certain kind of meaning, a character or role, that is and is understood by competent speakers to be context- and speaker-relative, by which such terms designate particulars.58 The implication, obviously enough, is that Hegels proto-semantics is inadequate because he overlooks the fact that individual tokens of demonstrative terms do have this kind of meaning; uttering this ... in some context is in fact part of stating or indicating something quite particular. Hegels claim to the contrary, that we only state what is universal, appears not merely unjustified, but outright false.59 This criticism is understandable, but not ultimately tenable. Hegels passage must be interpreted in context, which means in this case, in the context of examining and assessing sense certainty. The point that token demonstratives have a certain kind of meaning (character or role) is of course correct. The problem is that this kind of meaning of token demonstratives cannot be admitted by sense certainty. Sense certainty tries to use token demonstratives as if they were logically proper names. As a logically proper name, an utterance of this should pick out one and only one particular. That it does not do. As a token demonstrative, an utterance of this picks out one and only one particular, but only insofar as both the speaker and any auditors understand how using token demonstratives functions on the basis of speaker- and context-relativity. This kind of relativity is too much mediation to count as immediate knowledge.60 Indeed, by the end of Sense Certainty Hegel shows that this mediation is at least in part conceptual mediation (Phase III, 4.4 below). Solving such scope problems is precisely the point of sense certaintys use of ostensive gestures in Phase III. The salience of those issues, and of means for addressing them, in Phase III strongly suggests that sense certainty overtly disregards such means in Phases I and II. Risking the accusation of excessive interpretive charity, I propose another interpretation of this passage (8). There are two important clues to guide a more charitable and ultimately more illuminating interpretation here. One is the point already mentioned, that this passage must be interpreted as part of an attempted internal critique of a radically nave, radically immediate sense certainty, a view tantamount to aconceptual knowledge by acquaintance. The other is the course and culmination of Hegels whole argument in Sense Certainty. As mentioned above, the first two phases (614) focus on utterances of token demonstratives. Phase III (1519) focuses on ostensive designation. In the concluding paragraph (21) Hegel introduces descriptions, and the transition to Perception is made by combining descriptions with ostensive designation (G70.2129). (This skeletal structure of Hegels analysis in Sense Certainty has not been previously noticed.) The purported result is to reject immediate knowledge and to take the object truly by perceiving it. To be sure, Hegels paradigm example of an object of perception is a concrete particular, a cube of salt (Di Saltz, G72.26). Hegels formulation of his transition from Sense Certainty to Perception is clearly aided and abetted by a German pun on Wahrnehmen
13
(perception) and wahr nehmen (take truly). But the philosophical weight of Hegels case rests on combining descriptions with ostensive designation. This clearly indicates that Hegels protosemantics isnt quite so crude as it initially seems. In particular, this clearly indicates Hegels awareness of the joint necessity of meaning (as embodied in descriptions employing universal terms) and reference (as embodied in context-specific designation or even ostensive gestures) for cognition of particulars. If this is correct, one way to put Hegels thesis in Sense Certainty is that neither meaning without reference, nor reference without meaning, suffices for sensory knowledge of particulars. If these terms sound anachronistic due to their association with Frege, the same point can be put in contemporaneous terms as follows: Neither connotation (intension) without denotation (extension), nor denotation (extension) without connotation (intension), suffices for sensory knowledge of particulars. In the remainder I shall show that a complete and careful interpretation of Hegels chapter justifies ascribing precisely this point to Hegels argument in Sense Certainty. If this is Hegels point, then Hegels claims about what language expresses in 8 must be interpreted very minimally. In particular, linguistic expression must here be taken in the minimal sense of a verbal utterance, as distinct from sentential or speaker meaning. Distinguishing a verbal utterance from linguistic meaning in this way, or at least distinguishing a speakers intended meaning from linguistic meaning, is directly justified by Hegels claim in this paragraph (8) that
Admittedly we dont represent to ourselves the universal this, or being in general, but we pronounce the universal; or, we just dont speak as we mean it in this sense certainty. (G 65.1719)
As a purported logically proper name, an utterance of this picks out indifferently any particular whatsoever. To this extent, Hegels claim that uttering this expresses a universal (G65.1516) is correct. Because sense certaintys radical immediacy commits it to treating any token demonstrative as a logically proper name (and an unambiguous one at that), it confronts precisely the problem Hegel brings out.61 Sense certainty cannot, at least initially, acknowledge this ambiguity because unambiguous use of this on any occasion would require disambiguation, and disambiguation would require some kind of cognitive mediation. The passage now under consideration (8) ends with what appear to be some very strong, even flagrantly false conclusions:
As we see, however, language is the more truthful; in it we ourselves immediately refute our meaning, and since the universal is the true of sense certainty, and language only expresses [ ausdrckt] this true, it is thus altogether not possible for us to be able to state [sagen ] a sensuous being that we mean . (8, G 65.2023)
If this passage is taken as Hegels expression of his own view, it sounds like he flatly denies the obvious, that we can refer linguistically to particularsas if Hegel never ordered a beer or a coffee, and as if Perception didnt begin with the example of a particular cube of saltspecified, of course, linguistically. However, Hegels method of internal criticism doesnt permit him to pronounce conclusions on his own behalf at this stage. His method requires that we interpret this passage as commentary internal to the constraints upheld by sense certainty. Within those constraints, Hegels statements make sense, indeed good sense. Hegels terms Meynung and meynen trade on the connotations of opinion, intention, and
14
ownership (what is ones own or mine; in German, das ist mein). Hegel states that language is more truthful than sense certainty (G65.20); this comparative statement pointedly does not say that language here already expresses the whole truth, or even a truth.62 He does say that the universal is the true (das Wahre) of sense certainty (G65.2122), and that language only expresses this true (G65.22). However, Hegel uses true (wahre) or the true to designate what a form of consciousness takes to be true.63 In the present context, Hegel says only that language expresses that which meets the criterion of truth upheld by sense certainty. That criterion requires changelessness. The only aspect of sense certaintys experience so far noted that fulfills this criterion is the now as a universal that recurs unchanged with regard to its changing instantiations (night and day). For this reason, it is supposed to be impossible to state or say, sagen, a sensible being that we mean (G65.2223). How so? Note first that Hegel does not deny that we mean or intend some sensed particular, nor does he deny that sense certainty intends some sensed particular.64 He only denies that either we or sense certainty can simply say so. Why not, exactly? If my above hypothesis about the skeletal structure of Hegels analysis is correct (p. 26), there is a good answer to this question: mere intentions do not suffice to determine which if any particular(s) is (or are) designated by a linguistic utterance. No verbal tag by itself suffices to determine reference, and no verbal tag suffices to determine reference even in conjunction with (mere) conscious intentions to refer to some sensed particular. Hegel does not argue that determinate reference to particulars is impossible, either linguistically or intentionally; he argues that the conditions for successful singular cognitive reference to sensed particulars are richer than sense certainty acknowledges. To anticipate, once again, those conditions include conceptual determination of the determinable conceptions of spaces and times via spatio-temporal cordinates. Hegel next devotes a single brief paragraph to the parallel case of the here (9):
The case will be the same with the other form of the this, with the here. The here for example is the tree. I turn around; thus this truth has vanished, and has inverted itself into the opposite: The here is not a tree, but instead a house. The here itself doesnt vanish; instead it is remaining in the vanishing of the house, of the tree, and so on, and indifferently is to be house, tree. The this thus shows itself again as mediated simplicity , or as universality . (G 65.2430)
Because the case of the here parallels the case of the now, Hegels discussion is quite brief. It is worth stressing that Hegel uses terms that can be used descriptively, a tree or a house, but he uses them here simply to designate particulars. He doesnt press the issue that descriptive terms make sense only because they have or convey meanings that are constituted by universals. This is in keeping with his aim to press the issue of the a priori status of our conceptions of space, time, individuation, number (plurality), and (as we shall soon see in Phase II) self. This charity towards sense certainty is of course also an important convenience, insofar as Hegel sought to write down his examination and have us learn from it by reading it. That leaves him no alternative but to use descriptive terms in a designatory manner in order to indicate his commonsense examples of putative sense-certain particulars.65 The main point of this episode is plain enough: any case of a particular object of sense certainty is only an instance; any human being who is sense-certain of one thing has the experience of being likewise sense-certain of something, anything else. If we can designate some one thing as here, it will not be long, given the vicissitudes of human life, before we designate something else as here. It happens as soon as we turn aroundor turn our heads, or simply glance away. The term here shows the same kind of universality as does now; it can
15
be used equally well to designate any of a wide variety of particulars that happen, on some occasion or another, to be here before one. Likewise, here cannot be identified with any one or with any set of the particulars designated to be here on various occasions. The term here remains throughout all these changes of contents of sense certainty. Consequently, the type term here fulfills sense certaintys criterion of truthchangelessnesswhereas the purportedly sense-certain particulars do not. Hegel next draws some interim conclusions about the nature and status of sense certainty (10). Hegel first stresses that, insofar as the conclusion (that the universal is the truth of the object of sense certainty) has been reached internallywithin and by sense certainty itselfthis conclusion follows from the fact that pure being remains essential to sense certainty (G65.3132). Hegel uses the dative case here, that pure being remains to it [to sense certainty] as its essence. (Indeed, his use of the dative is clearly deliberate, since he places it for emphasis, at some cost to stylistic elegance, at the head of his sentence; German grammar and style offer simpler, more idiomatic alternatives had Hegel wanted to use the accusative case instead.) The dative case indicates that this factor in sense certainty is one to which it responds, but also that this factor has not yet become fully explicit for sense certainty.66 Hegel further indicates that this pure being has become to sense certainty something that is no longer immediate, but something to which negation and mediation are essential (G65.3233). Consequently, this enriched, mediated, and yet still implicit conception of being is no longer present to sense certainty as what is meant or intended by beingi.e., something altogether unmediated and hence unchanging. Instead, this enriched conception of being, present to sense certainty, is determined or characterized asi.e., it simply is (ist)an abstraction or a pure universal (G65.3435). Hegel concludes by acknowledging that our meaning or intention or opinion, according to which the true of sense certainty is not the universal nevertheless remains over and against this empty or indifferent Now and Here (G65.3537). Hegel doesnt deny intentional reference to particulars, certainly not here. Moreover, his use of the accusative case, fr ... unsere Meynung indicates that sense certainty still explicitly conceives the trueits true, i.e., its conception of what truth is (das Wahre der sinnlichen Gewiheit)not to be something universal. (Hegels contrastive use of dative and accusative cases could not be plainer.) The question this raises is, how can sense certainty retain its explicit conception of its object while recognizing the universality of being, of now, and of here? As Hegel indicates in the next transitional paragraph (11), there is an obvious revision of sense certainty that preserves its core conception in the face of Phase I of its examination. Hegel notes that the initial relation between knowledge and object has been reversed. Originally, the object was supposed to be essential and knowledge was supposed to be inessential (4, G64.1522). Now, however, the object doesnt meet sense certaintys explicit criterion of essence. (Note that Hegel again goes out of his way to use an accusative construction to mark something being explicit: the universal, which [the object] has become, is no longer such as should be essential for sense certainty; das Allgemeine, zu dem [der Gegenstand] geworden ist, ist nicht mehr ein solches, wie er fr sie [sc. die sinnliche Gewiheit] wesentlich seyn sollte [G66.36; emphases added].) The object of sense certainty is mediated by spaces and times, in sum by occasions on which someone is aware of an object, and its designation is mediated by uses of tokens of the universal type terms here and now. Yet sense certainty seeks to preserve its original conception of immediate knowledge of particulars. This it can do by recognizing that sense certainty lies in the opposite element; that is, it [sense certainty] is now present in the opposite, namely in the knowledge, which previously was inessential (G66.67).
16
Sense certainty can maintain its core conception of immediate knowledge by holding that
its truth is in the object as my object, or in my meaning [ im Meynen]; it is, because I know of it. (G 66.78)
By this strategy sense certainty avoids refutation by adopting a certain kind of subjectivism that purports to preserve immediate knowledge of an objectwhatever object any particular subject claims on any particular occasion to know. Hegels critical question then is, can this strategy account for its own paradigmatic examples? Once again, the answer should be found by examining the experience sense certainty generates on the basis of this modified strategy (G66.911). Thus begins the third part of Hegels chapter, which contains Phase II of sense certaintys examination. 4.3 Hegels Examination of Sense Certainty: Phase II In the first paragraph of Phase II (12) of Hegels examination of sense certainty it is finally made explicit that sense certainty is, of course, a sensory affair. In Phase II, sense certainty asserts the primacy of the knowing subject, and maintains that the force of its truth thus now lies in the I, in the immediacy of my seeing, hearing, and so on (G66.1213). Insofar as Hegel does not deny the obvious relevance of sensation for empirical knowledge, and does not deny that we sense and refer to particular objects and events in having knowledge of themand we shall see that he maintains these unquestionable theseshis thesis is that sensation is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for empirical knowledge of particular objects and events. This second strategy by sense certainty avoids the problems found in Phase Ithe multiple reference of the mere (type) terms now and here and the multiplicity of referents, of objects of reference, on various occasionsby insisting on the primacy of what I see here now:
The vanishing of the individual now and here, which we mean, is prevented because I hold them fast. The now is day, because I see it; The here is a tree, for the same reason. (G 66.1315)
Hegel claims that the same problem arises again in connection with the I as arose in the first phase regarding here and now (G66.1516). His argument is surprisingly simple and brief:
I , this I see the tree, and maintain the tree as the here; an other I sees instead the house, and maintains, the here is not a tree, but rather a house. Both truths have the same certification, namely the immediacy of seeing, and the security and assurance both have of their knowledge; but the one truth vanishes in the other. ( G 66.1721)
In view of the preoccupation in mainstream epistemology with refuting skepticism and solipsism, Hegels argument is astonishing. How can Hegel so blithely ignore the problem of other minds? The answer is that neither skepticism nor solipsism can be defended, or even formulated, on the nave basis represented by sense certainty. Those pet problems of modern epistemology and its twentieth century atavars arise only on the basis of first distinguishing our experiences or our cognitive representations from our putative objects of knowledge. Sense certainty, which purports that we have immediate knowledge of particular objects or events in space and time, rejects such distinctions between appearances and reality, or rather, it simply does not admit them. Introducing such skeptical distinctions between appearances and reality must be justified, and nothing found so far in sense
17
certaintys experience justifies any such distinction. Nave realism is incompatible with such representationalism and skepticism; to address or even to formulate the issues of skepticism about the external world or about other minds requires first giving up ones navet about realism. Sense certainty has not done that, because it still has no grounds to warrant such problems.67 These reflections provide the proper context for considering sense certaintys second strategy and Hegels critique of it. Taken at face value, that is, taken immediately, the existence of other people, with their minds, together with our experience of them, is no less doubtful and no less obvious or evident than our experience of commonsense objects and events in space and time. Nor is the fact that other people experience and report on things and events they perceive prima facie any less doubtful or evident to us than our own experience and reports on what we perceive. Like our own claims, claims made by others are equally certifiedthat is, justifiedby their (purportedly) immediate perception of them; their claims have the same degree and kind of legitimacy as our own (G66.1921). About this, Hegel is clearly right. Since the contents of their claims can and often do differ from the content(s) of our own claim(s) at any time, they cannot all be true, can they? Does the one truth vanish in the other (G66.21)? If so, why? Obviously something has gone quite wrong here, but what? Plainly there is a very nave mistake here, but which mistake is it, and who makes it? It is worth recalling here a classical formulation of the law of non-contradiction by Aristotle:
the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect. (Metaphysics 3, 1005 b 1920; Ross tr.)
This ontological principle, of course, has its semantic and cognitive corollary regarding our ascription or attribution of characteristics to things or events (Met. 3, 1005b2530). The examples of sense-certain knowledge in Phase II of Hegels examination, one person maintains I see a tree here while another maintains I see a house, not a tree (G66.1719), are only inconsistent if one fails to distinguish among the subjects of knowledge who make these claims. Distinguishing different subjects of knowledge enables us to distinguish different simultaneous cognitive states or claims, each of which concern different objects of knowledge. Nothing requires us to suppose there is some one object that is both a tree and also a house and so is also not a tree. (Hegels obvious contrast between a tree and a house, retained from Phase I and continued here, shows that no treehouse is at issue. Hegel himself is not one of those hegelian synthesizers who would evade Russells point that the present King of France must either be bald or not bald by suggesting his Majesty wears a wig!68) The problem here is elementary enough. Hegels point is that the mere immediacy of sensory perception does not suffice to enable us to distinguish among subjects of knowledge.69 The solution to the problem is so obvious that our ability to solve it goes unnoticed, and so our resources for avoiding this problem go unanalyzed. That is the navit of nave realism, a.k.a. sense certainty. Philosophy begins in perplexity, and Hegels deliberately simple-minded examples are designed to get us to ponder exactly why and how we do not ordinarily face the problems he points out in sense certainty. This is good Hegelian dialectical practice, at which Hegel is the past master: take a view absolutely literally and see what follows from it about its own paradigm examples. Taking a view in an excruciatingly literal manner makes it possible to expose further unacknowledged assumptions made by those who espouse that view, assumptions that are necessary for the view to be plausible, even though those assumptions require a far richer account than the view admits.
18
Hegel next points out that these examples make the same semantic point about tokens of the demonstrative type term I as was made about tokens of now and here in Phase I. The I who sees is a universal in two regards. First, itsanyonessensing and sensory knowledge persist through various changing instances of sensed particulars. The I who sees, and its seeing, cannot be identified with any of those instances, though it recurs in each of them (G66.2226). Second, simply uttering the verbal tag I, although intended to refer to some one particular person, namely to oneself, no more designates oneself than it does any other person, each of whom is equally a cognizant subject who uses the term I, purportedly to refer to him- or herself (G66.2631). In this way, the case is entirely parallel to Hegels case about utterances of now and here: Hegel doesnt deny the intention to refer to particulars, nor does he deny the particulars referred to. Hegel only denies that sensationhere, the act of sensingalone suffices to account for how we can use tokens of indexical terms to refer to particulars, even to ourselves. Immediate knowledge is too nave, too simple, to use utterances as anything more than linguistic tags, as putative (unambiguous) logically proper names. As mere linguistic tags, tokens of this, now, here, and I do not name, refer to, or otherwise pick out any one particular from any others. Hegel closes this paragraph with a polemical rebuke to a polemical critic of Reinhold, Fichte, and Schelling: Willhelm Traugott Krug. Hegel reviewed three works by Krug in a highly impatient and polemical way in 1802 in the Kritisches Journal der Philosophie.70 Hegel pointed out that Krug simply missed the fact that the theoretical part of Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre purported to deduce the reality of the external world.71 In this context Krug issued his challenge to idealists to deduce or prove the existence of any particular at all, including e.g. his pen.72 Hegel seized on this alleged counterexample73 and pointed out that, whatever Krugs professed integration of transcendental realism with transcendental idealism amounted to,74 his actual argument for the reality of outer things was tantamount to Jacobis,75 and both Krugs view and his critique founder on the fact that he ladles out nave commonsense facts without considering how we are able to identify these facts.76 Although Hegel was never (quite) an orthodox Schellingian, Hegels philosophical enthusiasm ran quite high during his early years in Jena.77 Philosophical sobriety returned when G. E. Schulze published his brilliant anonymous satire and critique of Schelling and Hegel in his Aphorismen ber das Absolute (Aphorisms on the Absolute) in 1803.78 Among much else, Schulze brought home to Hegel the point that no philosophy, not even transcendental idealism, and certainly not any form of it that appeals to alleged intellectual intuition, can dismiss the problem of begging the question against dissenters.79 This set the problem for Hegels Phenomenology, especially his re-consideration of Sextus Empiricuss dilemma of the criterion, his phenomenological re-examination of epistemology, and his requirement of internal critique of opposed views.80 In the closing lines of this paragraph (13) Hegel again taunts Krug and the nave common sense he espouses so confidently for overlooking the crucial question about the conditions for the possibility of singular demonstrative reference and, through that, of knowledge of particulars.81 Hegels positive point, again, is that uttering linguistic tags does not suffice for such reference or knowledge. The fact that the same problem with the use of token demonstrative terms recurs both in tokens that purport to designate particular objects and in tokens that purport to designate particular subjects sets the stage for the third and most important phase of Hegels examination. Hegel develops the strategy sense certainty deploys in Phase III in the next paragraph (14). Here Hegel reports that sense certainty has experienced that neither its express criterion of essence nor its express criterion of immediacy is fulfilled either by its object or by itself (G66.3739). The intended particular
19
referents are found to be inessential (G66.3967.1)not in the sense that they are dispensable or otherwise not necessary for knowledge, but in the sense that they have no permanence and hence have no being, in that undifferentiated, immediate sense of the term canvassed earlier (G67.12).82 Hegel states that the object and I are universals (G67.1). Hegel uses the term Gegenstand here, by which he surely means object of knowledge, for he explains this by saying that in the object and I ... that previous now and here and I, which I mean, do not remain constant, or are not (G67.12). (Note again the explicit association of being with constancy.) In this sense the object of knowledge is a universal in the sense that this phrase indifferently designates any of the objects one happens to know on any of the occasions one has sensory knowledge of some particular object or event. Each of the two previous phases purported to locate the essence and the required immediacy in one or another aspect (or moment) of sense certainty. Phase I focused on the object of knowledge, Phase II on the subject of knowledge. In neither case could sense certainty sustain its claim immediately to know something essential (something that is). The third and final strategy is to take both of these aspects together (G67.26). The third strategy for sustaining sense certaintys claim to immediate knowledge of something that is takes both moments together as a whole and seeks in this way to exclude the oppositions (among instances and between repeatables and repeateds) that occurred in the first two phases (G67.68). This strategy ushers in the third and most important phase of Hegels examination of sense certainty. 4.4 Hegels Examination of Sense Certainty: Phase III The problem found in the first two phases of sense certaintys examination is that sense certaintys use of tokens of indexical type terms as mere verbal tags doesnt suffice to restrict the scope of any of its claims. Only by restricting the scope of any particular claim to a particular time, place, and person can sense certainty plausibly claim to have immediate knowledge of any particular. Indeed, given the impoverished use of language to which sense certainty is committed, it is a mistake for it to make a verbal claim to knowledge at all. If there is immediate knowledge of particulars within the strictures of nave realism, it must be found in the particular cognitive act itself. That is the core of sense certaintys third strategy. Hegel develops its strategy in two paragraphs (15, 16). In the first Hegel sketches sense certaintys restriction to some one particular cognitive act; in the second he notes that this restriction requires that sense certainty only use ostensive or demonstrative gestures, and rescind even the use of token demonstrative terms. Hegel expressly indicates that sense certainty now restricts itself to some one cognitive act regarding some one object of knowledge, and simply disregards any other cognitive acts regarding any other objects of knowledge, whether its own or those of others (15, G67.912, .1519). The inverted order of Hegels first sentence places the accusative object at the head of the sentence, This pure immediacy (Diese reine Unmittelbarkeit [G67.9]); here again Hegel uses the accusative case to indicate something that is explicitly for sense certainty. The explicitness of sense certaintys third strategy is emphasized later in the paragraph by locutions concerning what sense certainty maintains (This I thus maintains ...; Ich dieses behaupte also ... [G67.15]), what it takes no notice of (I also take no notice that ...; ich nehme auch keine Notiz davon ... [G67.1617]), and especially what sense certainty expressly upholds and what comparisons it does not make:
For myself I remain by the now that is day, or also by the here that is a tree; I also dont compare the here and now themselves with each other, but rather hold fast to one immediate connection: now is day. (G 67.1922)83
20
The immediacy of this purported cognitive connection again requires relinquishing predication. Hegels phrasing accordingly stresses the non-predicative use of the descriptive terms used to designate the relevant examples of objects of knowledge. He omits, that is, an article (whether definite or indefinite) when referring to tree, non-tree, day, night (in line 11 das before Nacht is a relative pronoun referring to Itzt; Nacht is feminine), non-day, and he uses a nonpredicative copula, an is of identity. This makes the full connotations of this paragraph even less idiomatic in translation (German retains from Latin many ordinary uses of nouns without an article), but the philosophical point behind Hegels deliberately stilted usage is plain. A new key to sense certaintys third explicit strategy is no longer to distinguish either the object or the subject as the essential moment in immediate knowledge of particulars (G67.1215). By rejecting this distinction, by disregarding other subjects and instances of knowledge, and by holding fast to one particular cognitive connection, sense certainty proposes to avoid scope problems and to obtain immediate knowledge of some one particular. The question is, which particular does sense certainty know on any given occasion? How does sense certainty determine which particular it knows on any given occasion? Its answer requires ostensive designation, as Hegel notes (16). In effect, sense certaintys response to the previous difficulties is to suppose that the mediations that have been uncovered all concern exporting its cognitive claim out of the immediate context of its direct cognition of an object. The immediacy of its knowledge cannot be preserved either through time or across space, and so cannot be reported to anyone else (G67.2730). Cognitive immediacy can only be had, if at all, by rigorously restricting ones scope to the object present here and now (G67.2325, .27). Whatever object this is can only be indicated by ostensive designation, the gesture of pointing (G67.2527, .3032). For these two reasons, we as phenomenological observers (that is, as Hegels readers who observe, assess, and learn from the various forms of consciousness examined in the Phenomenology) must enter into the same point of space and time and allow ourselves to be pointed to the very object here and now that sense certainty purports to know (G67.3032). This thought experiment is an act of interpretive charity on Hegels and on our part. In making this thought experiment, it is significant that Hegel insists that sense certainty must point out to us which object is meant to be known now and here; Hegels passive constructions emphasize that we are not interfering with or taking over sense certaintys activity or strategy.84 Hegels express contrast between the lack of immediacy involved in reporting a claim to another and the purported immediacy involved in directly pointing out an object of knowledge in the here and now (16) clearly marks the contrast between the use of linguistic utterances as verbal tags to designate particulars (in Phases I and II) and the use of ostensive gestures to designate particulars (in Phase III). This contrast needs to be noted here, for it will be important later for properly interpreting Hegels conclusion (in 4.7). Having set out the essential points of sense certaintys third strategy, Hegel devotes three paragraphs to its examination (1719). In general, Hegels point is that scope problems are neither avoided nor resolved by recourse to ostensive gestures. The punctual here and now does not contain any object of knowledge, and any extended here and now that can contain an object of knowledge can only be specified or determined by conceptual mediation of the sort eschewed by sense certainty. The first of these three paragraphs briefly develops the problem of the punctual present (17).85 Simple ostensive designation, the gesture of pointing, by itself at most indicates a punctual present that vanishes just as it is pointed out. (The bare gesture of pointing can only indicate a punctual
21
present because indicating a period of time, however short, requires specifying the indicated period, and that requires mediation, including the use of conceptions of times, durations, beginings and ends, and some sort of temporal framework of reference within which to specify these parameters of any indicated period of time.) Hegel of course grants that there is a punctual now at present, but as present this punctual moment is distinct from whatever punctual moment was just now ostended. Hegel also grants that the moment that is or was pointed out of course did occur. However, because that moment is past, it is no longer. This is at odds with sense certaintys purported knowledge of a particular object that is here and now. The extended present in which any particular object can be or can be known is not specified simply by ostensive gesture. Or rather, as Hegel goes on to show, the extended present in which any particular object can be known can be specified by ostensive gesture, but not in the simple, immediate way purported by sense certainty. Hegel develops the problems of the punctual present and the temporal scope involved in ostensive designation in the subsequent paragraph (18). Here he reiterates (twice) the points of the previous paragraph in greater detail (G68.17, .1012) in order to show that the now that is presently pointed out in any knowledge of any particular is at least to some extent temporally extended; it is a now that contains a plurality of moments (G68.79). The crucial point is that this enduring now crucially differs from the punctual now that was initially intended and ostended because the enduring now is not immediate; it is complex or mediated because it contains a plurality of moments or specious nows (G68.1216). Because sense certainty officially intends something immediate, it is committed to intending a punctual now. This raises the issue of how to specify or determine the proper scope of the actually intended, extended present now in which any particular is known. Hegel raises this issue simply by noting that now could specify simply a day, which contains a plurality of nows measured as hours; or the now could specify an hour, which likewise contains a plurality of nows measured as minutes; and likewise again for any minute designated as occurring now (G68.1618). Hegel doesnt develop this point further in this paragraph, but the import of this point is plain: designating any period of time as occurring now requires specifying, at least approximately, how long this period lasts, and this can only be done by distinguishing that period of time from other periods before and after it. (This point is reinforced subsequently in connection with the here, in 19.) Even rough, approximate specification of any present period of time requires having a conception of time and a conception of specific times or periods of time by which alone one can specify the actually intended, relevant scope of any period of time indicated by ostensive gesture (or, analogously, to specify the relevant scope of any use of the token demonstrative type term now). Ascribing this point to Hegel does not exceed interpretive charity; he highlights this point in the final sentence:
Pointing out is thus itself the movement which pronounces what the now is in truth, namely a result, or a plurality of nows taken together ... (G 68.1820)
Taking a plurality of moments, of nows, together requires grouping those moments together and distinguishing that group from any and all other periods of time. That is (at least in part) a conceptual achievement because it requires conceptions of time and of periods of time, and it requires the ability to use these conceptions in order to identify and distinguish specific times. This achievement may be ordinary enough, for it is presupposed by any of our ostensive gestures (or our
22
uses of temporal token demonstratives). However, the fact that this achievement is ordinary does not justify its disregard in an analysis of sensory knowledge of particulars, nor does it justify disregarding the fact that it is a conceptual achievement. Realism in epistemology may be defensibleHegel certainly seeks to defend itbut not nave realism. Hegel closes this paragraph by stating that pointing is the experience, that now is universal (G68.2021). This statement is puzzling because it is not entirely clear what considerations are supposed to lead to this statement as a conclusion. The immediate sentential antecedent concerns the true now as a result or as a plurality of nows taken together. This suggests that any particular, cognitively actual, temporally extended now is a universal insofar as it contains within it a variety of punctual nows. This does not quite fit even the very general sense of universal Hegel uses in this chapter;86 any particular extended now contains a plurality of moments; thus it cannot be identified with any one of those moments, but it can be identified with the set of those moments. However, a more satisfactory and sensible interpretation is available by emphasizing Hegels point that any particular extended now is a result. It results from taking some set of specious moments together, because taking those moments together is only possible byit only results fromdistinguishing that intended set of moments from any and all others, both preceding and succeeding. In this way Hegel drives home the point that designating any particular moment or period of time as occurring now requires some temporal cordinate system, and it requires understanding that system of temporal cordinates. Only by presupposing and understanding a temporal cordinate system of some sort can one intelligibly use gestures to designate some occurrent time (or period of time) ostensively; and likewise only in that way can one intelligibly use tokens of the demonstrative type word now. Note that this condition for intelligible use of temporal gestures (and demonstrative terms) holds for any and every one of us, either to use ourselves or to understand anyone elses use of those terms or gestures. Token gestures or token terms only make sense to ourselves or to others as instances of type gestures or type terms, and those type gestures or type terms only make sense (to ourselves or to others) by reference to some temporal cordinate, and such a cordinate only makes sense (to ourselves or to others) insofar as we have conceptions of time and of specific periods of time, and insofar as we can and do use these conceptions in order to identify specific periods by distinguishing them from other periods of time. All of this is presupposed by any designation of any object as being presently before one, and hence as an object of knowledge now. Sensory knowledge of particulars is conceptually mediated; sensation alone is insufficient for knowledge of sensed particulars because sensation alone does not suffice even to designate or identify which particular is knownwherever, whenever, and by whomsoever it may be known. To say all this is to give a rather fulsome account of the point of one paragraph (18), but saying less fails to make sense of Hegels deliberately foreshortened expression. (Hegels dialectical exercises can be strenuous, but philosophical insight cannot be won by stinted effort.) This account does, however, anticipate some of what Hegel says in his concluding paragraphs (20, 21) and will facilitate their analysis. Before turning to Hegels final conclusions, however, his brief parallel case about here must be considered. Having spelled out his case about time in comparative detail, Hegel is briefer about space (19). Hegel notes that the two cases are parallel (ebenso, G68.22, .24; cf. .3233). The way he develops his point about spatial designation thus helps to confirm the above interpretation of temporal designation as requiring the conceptual use of a temporal cordinate system. His argument about
23
space also helps illustrate the importance of a strictly immanent interpretation of his text, as undertaken in the present essay. Hegels case about spatial designation is straightforward. Any space that is pointed out as relevantly here is relative to what is in front and behind, above and below, and to the right and left (G68.2224). The same holds for whatever is above the relevant here, and likewise for any other point in any direction (G68.2425). Any space that is designated relevantly as here is a negative this and is something that is (Hegels emphases) only insofar as it is contradistinguished from other locations (that is the relevant sense of negative: negation as contradistinction). This is the point of Hegels otherwise obscure remarks that the heres are taken as they should be, but in this they sublate each other and that this is a simple complex [Complexion] of many heres (G68.2729). Hegel then says:
The here that is meant would be the point; but it is not. (G 68.2930)
Hegels use of the definite article in connection with the point indicates, once again, that some one particular point is meant, regardless of any other points; it is not meant as one point among many. This isolated, independent, context-free point is all that could be meant or intended by immediate knowledge. Hegel makes this clear by contrasting actual ostension of a spatial region with immediate knowledge later in the same sentence (G68.3031). Before developing this positive part of Hegels case, it is worth pausing to note an important hermeneutic point. 4.5 A Brief Hermeneutic Excursus. Hegels premise quoted above, that the here that is meant would be the point; but it is not, matches perfectly an historically prominent school of thought: materialistic atheism. As radical materialists, modern atheists contended, in the words of Ralph Cudworth, that whatsoever is not Extended, is Nowhere and Nothing.87 As John Yolton notes, Lockes Essay refers to the same view en passant.88 Now Hegel was very interested in materialism; indeed, his account of religion was strongly influenced by DHolbach.89 Does this fact, together with the virtually identical wording of Hegels premise and the main ontological principle of atheistic materialism, show that Hegel introduces a reductive materialist premise into his case against sense certainty? Certainly not, and not merely because Hegels naturalism is non-reductive. Interpreting Hegels premise as an expression of reductive materialism is ruled out by the philosophical context of Hegels chapter. That chapter aims to prove a specifically epistemic conclusion, opposed to nave realism, based on an internal critique of nave realism. Reductive materialism is not relevant to this issue, and appeal to such materialism is ruled out by Hegels method, which requires strictly internal criticism. This case is worth stressing for three reasons: First, it is unprecedented; no one has previously noticed the coincidence in the formulation of Hegels premise and the key ontological principle of atheistic materialism. Second, it is clearly implausible; no one could seriously suggest that Hegel espoused reductive atheistic materialismcertainly not in the middle of Sense Certainty, not even as part of an internal critique of it (which would relieve Hegel of responsibility for the premise). And third, interpreting Hegels premise in this way is no less justified than the common practice among Hegels expositors of finding passages or statements elsewhere in Hegels vast corpusor indeed elsewhere in the history of philosophythat match or echo a passage or sentence in the Phenomenology, and then importing whatever the interpreter thinks Hegel (or another author) meant
24
in that other context into the interpretation of the Phenomenology.90 If the present example is indeed far-fetched, so is the common hermeneutic practice of Hegels commentators. The connotations of Hegels statements must be interpreted strictly in context. In the Phenomenology, this means in the context of internal critique of opposed views, where the key issues addressed by those views are set by Hegels Introduction, not his Preface. Hegels Introduction provides the properly prospective view of Hegels problem and project. There he makes clear that his main project is to defend the legitimacythe justifiabilityof philosophical claims to knowledge, and that his main problem is to defend that legitimacy against the absolutely fundamental problems posed by Sextus Empiricus dilemma of the criterion.91 Hegels Preface, written after completing the Phenomenology, provides a preliminary conspectus of his entire projected philosophical science, that is, the Phenomenology plus the projected system of science that subsequently became the Logic and Encyclopedia. Hegels Introduction places quintessential epistemological problems at center stage. Because his commentators have generally disregarded epistemology (or have treated it only in extremely general terms), they have failed to understand Hegels Phenomenology, beginning already with its Introduction and certainly its first chapter, Sense Certainty. 4.6 Conclusion of Hegels Examination of Sense Certainty, Phase III To recall, Hegels premise is this:
The here that is meant would be the point; but it is not. (G 68.2930)
Hegel uses a definite article in connection with point, i.e., the point, to contrast with an indefinite article, a point, which would more clearly connote one point among others. Sense certainty can only maintain its claim to immediate knowledge if it can point to or ostend some one point without referring to or distinguishing that point from other points in space. That is not humanly possible. That is Hegels point in claiming that the point is not; no point we can designate fulfills sense certaintys utterly simple, unmediated sense of being. Any actual, extant point in space that any human being can point out is located within the context of, and its location is identified by contradistinguishing it from, other points in or regions of space. Consequently, no actual ostended point is identified or known immediately. It is only identified or known within the context of a spatial cordinate system, and identifying any one point within that system requires using conceptions of space and of particular spaces in order to contradistinguish some one intended point in space from any and all others. That is the lesson Hegel clearly if somewhat loosely sketches in his closing remark:
Instead, since it [the point] is pointed out as being [seyend ], pointing out shows itself to be, not immediate knowledge, but instead a movement, from the meant here out through many heres, to the universal here, which, is a simple plurality of heres, just as the day is a simple plurality of nows. (G 68.3033)
The corollary for knowledge of particular objects in space is plain: if we cannot designate their location immediately, then we cannot know them immediately either. Whatever mediation in terms of a spatial cordinate system, and whatever mediation via conceptions of space and of particular spaces or points in space is required to use that system, is likewise required for knowledge of particulars in spaceand, analogously, in time.92
25
4.7 Hegels Conclusions Hegel develops his conclusions in two long paragraphs. The first of them develops Hegels sole ontological conclusion of his critique of nave realism (20); the second develops his epistemological conclusions, and indeed, it extends his argument in an important regard (21). Hegels discussion is compressed, highly allusive, and sometimes polemical. However, with care good sense can be made of it. Hegels ontological conclusion is simply that thinking in terms of being or reality is not the proper way to conceive the sensible spatio-temporal particulars we experience. Why not? Obviously that depends on the sense, meaning, or connotations of these terms. As noted above,93 the sense of being intended by sense certainty, the only sense it, as immediate knowledge, can admit, is entirely undifferentiated and hence changeless. (Recall, any change would be some form of mediation.) Reality in the relevant sense is equally unmediated. Any more complex or sophisticated conception of reality requires justification, and ab initio no grounds to specify or to justify such a conception have been or could be introduced. Specifically, this undifferentiated or immediate sense of reality includes something not being dependent for its existence or characteristics on anything else; that is a key form of causal mediation. Hence this rarefied and highly metaphysical sense of reality is inherent in sense certaintys conception of being or reality precisely because it intends to exclude any and all forms of mediation. Hegel formulates the thesis he rejects (and purports to refute) as follows:
the reality or the being of external things as thises, or as sensibles, has absolute truth for consciousness. (G 69.46)
The new term here, absolute, contrasts here with relative, conditional, or mediated, and thus joins the connotations of being and reality implicit or explicit in immediate knowledge. The conclusion of Hegels critique of sense certainty simply is that no allegedly immediate human knowledge of sensed particulars warrants ascribing such absolute being or reality to those particulars. Indeed, Hegel generalizes this point to contend that no human sensory knowledge of particulars warrants ascribing such absolute being or reality to those particulars. This generalization is involved in Hegels pointing out that several different forms or accounts of human knowledge all converge in upholding the thesis Hegel rejects, and that they are all mistaken in doing so. In particular, Hegel mentions sense certainty (G68.34)the idealized form of consciousness analyzed in the first chapter of his Phenomenology, natural consciousness (G68.3637)pre-philosophical commonsense or nave realism, and the supposed universal experience (G69.3, .8), philosophical contention (G69.34), and result of skepticism (G69.4), all of which issue in the thesis of the reality of sensed particulars. This provides five routes to the thesis Hegel rejects. His mention of an alleged universal experience generalizes the point of his conclusion, and he reinforces this generalization by reference to such a contention (G69.6); which is to say, any view that upholds the thesis that sensed particulars are absolutely real or are absolute beings is mistaken. Hegels counter-thesis is not that we do not sense or know particulars, nor that there are no particulars we sense, experience, and know. His point is that those particulars do not qualify as absolutely real or as absolute beings, in the abstract, unmediated sense often intended or expressed or presupposed by insufficiently sophisticated views. Who holds such views? Only a preliminary answer should be given here. First, any
26
commonsense or nave realism that holds that we simply sense and thereby know things and events in our immediate vicinity. Second, the editors of the critical edition of Hegels works rightly note that Jacobis nave realism is a prime instance of the philosophical contention (G69.34) Hegel refers to, just as G. E. Schulzes skepticism about reason is a prime instance of the skepticism, to the result of which Hegel also refers (G69.4).94 To these specific references can be added W. T. Krugs nave commonsense realism, to which Hegel explicitly alluded earlier.95 I return to the question of the targets of Hegels critique below (5). To be sure, Hegels sole explicit conclusion regarding the thesis of the absolute reality or being of sensed particulars is only that we do not experience them as such. Our universal experience, Hegel points out again, is that each of us experiences a wide variety of sensed particulars, and that any particular we happen to sense is an instance of an object-known-here-and-now (G69.817). Consequently, none of the particulars we experience is experienced as a changeless, stable, persisting being or reality not relative to anything else. At the very least, as an instance of an object of sensory knowledge, it is relative to our experiencing it, and none of us direct our attention only to one thing all the time. Hegel then extends his conclusion by anticipating the parallel case in the domain of practice. His explicit mention of anticipation (G69.18) indicates Hegels clear awareness of going beyond what he has proved so far. Since he does not argue a further point here, he extends his ontological conclusion by appealing, in a highly ironic way, to what we all know quite well on the basis of our universal experience: sensed particulars dont count as absolute realities or beings just because of our fluctuating attention or cognition; they dont count as absolute realities or beings because they are subject, if not to generation, at least to corruption. Even animals know that sensed particulars are subject to change insofar as they eat things. That, Hegel suggests, is the most basic school of wisdom taught in the ancient eleusinian mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus through the mystery of eating bread and drinking wine (G69.2031). Anyone who maintains that sensed particulars are absolute beings or realities has forgotten this basic point (G69.1820) and ought to reconsider it at mealtime. Hegels reminder may be heavy-handed, but it is not misguided. We do know of the corruption of things on the basis of our quite general experience of them. The question then is: how do we know this about sensed particulars? What cognitive abilities are required or presupposed by this knowledge? Hegels main point in Sense Certainty is that this is a genuine and legitimate philosophical question, one that cannot be answered simply by saying we open our senses and voil we know! Hegels final paragraph (21) is compressed, allusive, and easily misunderstood. However, it contains some very important points that must be disentangled in order to understand and assess the proper conclusion to Hegels internal critique of nave realism. Hegel once again stresses the tension between the express thesis, that the reality or the being of external things as thises, or as sensibles, has absolute truth for consciousness (20, G69.46; this thesis is the grammatical antecedent to such a contention [G69.32]), and what strictly speaking is said by proponents of nave realism. Indeed, Hegel insists that they say quite the opposite of what they mean or intend, and that this phenomenon (Erscheinung [G69.34]) ought best to stimulate their reflection on the nature of sense certainty (G69.3235). Hegel reports:
They speak of the being of outer objects, which can be determined still more precisely as actual, absolutely individual, utterly personal, individual things, none of which has an exact duplicate; this existence is to have absolute certainty and truth. They mean this piece of paper, on which I write, or rather have written, this. But what they mean they do not say. (G 69.3570.3; cf. G 70.1013)96
27
The problem with such descriptions, Hegel rightly notes, is that they are entirely general; they utterly fail to pick out any one particular because these terms apply equally well to any and every particular. Consequently, such expressions characterize similarities among particulars instead of their particularities (G70.1419). It is important to note that only in this last paragraph of Hegels chapter, does he so much as mention absolute certainty, and this is only the second time Hegel mentions certainty as an element of cognition. (The first mention is at G66.1721; discussed above, p. 34f.) This confirms as clearly as possible that the point of Hegels chapter is not to dispute the corrigibility, fallibility, or dubitability of allegedly basic sensory knowledge of particulars. His concern is more basic than those issues about epistemic certainty: How do we, under what conditions is it possible for us to, refer cognitively to particulars? Before explicating the positive point of Hegels argument, it is very important to note two claims that Hegel does not deny. First, Hegel does not deny that particulars are particular. On the contrary, his argument depends on the premise that they are:
... everything is an individual thing. Similarly, this thing is anything one wants. If it is more precisely indicated as this piece of paper , then every and any piece of paper is a this piece of paper ... (G 70.1921)
Second, Hegel does not deny that we mean or intend to refer to particulars. He grants repeatedly that proponents of sense certainty do mean or intend particulars (G70.2, .3, .4), most explicitly in this passage: [t]hey of course mean this piece of paper here ... (G70.10). These points must be noted, because Hegels chapter has been misunderstood to aim to show either that the world consists of nothing but universals or that we simply cannot refer to particulars.97 The first supposition is wildly at odds with any examples, premises, or arguments Hegel develops in Sense Certainty; the second rests on too hasty an interpretation and on disregarding the fact that the next chapter, Perception, begins with the example of perceiving a particular cube of salt (G72.26). Hegels argument may be difficult to interpret, but it makes much better sense than these interpretations suppose! The notion that Hegel argues either that there are no particulars or that we cannot refer to them rests mainly on this admittedly puzzling passage:
If [proponents of sense certainty] actually wanted to say this piece of paper, which they mean, and would want to say , this is impossible, because the sensuous this that is meant is unreachable by language, which belongs to consciousness, to the universal in itself. In the actual attempt to say it, it would therefore decompose. Those who began its description couldnt complete it. Instead they must leave it to others who themselves ultimately would have to admit that they were speaking about a thing that is not. (G 70.310)
It is certainly surprising to read that the sensuous this that is meant is unreachable by language, and even more so, to read that this is because language belongs to consciousness, which is inherently universal. (This formulation recalls the end of 8, which was puzzling for similar reasons.98) Here Hegels final emphasis on is indicates that he is still criticizing sense certainty on internal grounds, and that introducing descriptions, whether brief or exhaustive, is inconsistent with the undifferentiated sense of being sense certainty ascribes to its putative object(s) of knowledge. To resort to descriptions is to introduce conceptual mediation into empirical knowledge because
28
descriptions only convey knowledge if the predicates they contain are understood and if those predicates pick out actual characteristics of the item allegedly known. If knowledge of a particular requires distinguishing and identifying its characteristics, then knowledge of particulars cannot be immediate; especially it cannot be aconceptual. Moreover, what any particular object of knowledge is, is a function of, orto put it in the terms Hegel is trying utterly to wear outis mediated by, its properties. In this regard, the sensuous this that is meant (emphasis added) is indeed unreachable by language, insofar as what is meant is supposed to be something unmediated (a mere being) that is immediately accessible to cognition. Sense certaintys official conception of being (of what it is for something to be) is completely at odds with its own experience and with its actual conception of particular beingsof sensed particularsregarding which it now admits that each has a variety of characteristics. Hegels rejection of the merely meant as untrue and irrational also must be interpreted as commentary internal to sense certaintys own strictures on knowledge and its objects. Hegel states:
They of course mean this piece of paper here, which is completely different from the one above. But they say actual things , outer or sensuous objects, absolutely individual beings [Wesen ], and so on. That is, they say about them only the universal. Consequently, what is called the inexpressible is nothing other than the untrue, the irrational, the merely meant. (G 70.1014)
Hegels surprising conclusion, consequently ... follows (if at all) only from the preceding premises. (In the original, this quotation is a single sentence; Hegels conclusion is introduced with the inferential connective daher, which functions grammatically like a relative pronoun to refer to the earlier clauses in the sentence.) Sense certainty finally took recourse to descriptions in order to try to specify a particular linguistically. The problem is that, however extensive a description may be, the amount of descriptive detail it contains does not insure that any extant thing satisfies the description, nor does it insure that no more than one thing satisfies the description. Consequently, descriptive detail does not suffice to secure cognitive reference to any particular. Consequently, just introducing descriptions does not suffice to express any particular that sense certainty may intend. Thus, on these grounds, sense certainty would have to admit that any intended particular is inexpressible (G70.13), it cannot be designated by this use of language. Because sense certainty is committed to knowledge of particulars, but because it has now taken recourse to descriptions to try to achieve that knowledge, it must conclude that the particular it intends is something untrue (G70.14). This conclusion follows in either of two ways: Its intended particular would count as untrue because sense certainty now expresses its truth and knowledge in a description, but that description fails to express (designate) the intended particular. Alternatively, it would count as untrue because sense certainty associates the truth of something with its being, and sense certainty now realizes that, because the particular it purports to know is characterized by a variety of characteristics, it is not a simple or unmediated being after all. Hegel does not make clear which of these alternatives is intended or is most important. I dont believe that this question must be decided; each is sufficient and both are relevant. Hegels claim that the intended particular would now count as something merely meantblo Gemeynte (G70.14)deliberately puns on what is merely intended, what is merely meant, and what is opined or believed in contrast with what is known. This, too, follows from sense certaintys recourse to descriptions, together with the realization that descriptive detail alone does not suffice to insure that the description is satisfied by one and only one particular. Once sense certainty takes
29
recourse to expressing its knowledge verbally, if verbal specification is insufficient to secure particular cognitive reference, then sense certainty fails to know any particular at all. If it does not have knowledge, but intends and maintains that it does, this is a prime instance of mere doxa, belief that does not count as knowledge. Likewise, the contrast between sense certaintys intention to refer cognitively to a particular and the inherent generality of any description it can provide to express its purported knowledge, shows that its purported particular knowledge is merely meant or intended, but not achieved. The remaining term of abuse in Hegels list is irrational (G70.14). Hegel has not previously discussed reason or rationality in this chapter. Consequently, its meaning and appropriateness cannot be judged solely on local terminological grounds. There is, however, a clear thematic ground for interpreting this term. One target of Hegels critique of sense certainty is Jacobi. Jacobis intensive attack on discursive reasoning led to the charge that he was an irrationalist. Jacobi responded to this objection by claiming the mantle of reason for his own view, by claiming that reason is our capacity for direct, immediate knowledge of particulars.99 Hegels point is that Jacobi cannot make his view of immediate knowledge hold up, and that once he is driven to use descriptions, he would have to confess that any merely intended particular is an object of unreason, not of reasonin his own use of the term reason. Hegels discussion of what is unreachable by language or what is inexpressible (G70.13) is very compressed and initially quite puzzling, but I believe good sense can be made of it. In particular, if these remarks are interpreted in view of what Hegel suggests at the end of this paragraph, very good sense can be made of them. Notice that Hegel only once refers to language (G70.5); otherwise he consistently refers to what can be said or (once) expressed. This usage is, I believe, deliberate and is intended to recall Hegels point about linguistic usage in Phases I and II, namely, that sense certainty can use terms only as linguistic tags. At the very least, sense certainty does not admit (in Phases I and II) that conceptual mediation in terms of a spatio-temporal cordinate system and conceptions of time, times, space, and spaces is necessary to use (and to understand the use of) tokens of demonstrative type terms. Hegel has been criticized for disregarding the possibility of definite descriptions, descriptions that happen to describe one and only one thing. Such descriptions do refer to and pick out only one thing.100 This criticism is misguided. A definite description ex hypothesi picks out only one thing. Does that suffice for knowledge? The issue in Sense Certainty is cognitive reference to particulars. Definite descriptions per se do not suffice for knowledge of particulars. To have knowledge of a particular by means of a definite description requires that we know that the description is satisfied by something; an empty description provides no knowledge of any particular. Such knowledge also requires that we know that the description is satisfied by no more than one thing; any description satisfied by more than one thing does not refer to only one thing and so does not provide knowledge of only one thing. Yet that was the point at issue. Hegel is quite right that listing characteristicswhether cursory or extensivedoes not suffice to secure cognitive reference to any one particular (G70.610, .1721). And now for the crucial move: Hegel expressly combines descriptions with ostensive designation. His discussion is compressed, but clearly hits the main point:
... if I wanted to help speech by pointing out this piece of paper, then I would have experience of what in fact is the truth of sense certainty. I point it out, as a here, which is a here among other heres, or which has within itself a simple togetherness of many heres, that is, it is a universal. By taking it up in this way, as it is in truth, instead of knowing something immediate, I perceive. (G 70.2129)
30
Hegels main point is clear: Neither merely uttering descriptions nor merely pointing things out suffices for knowledge of particulars. Combining ostensive gestures with a verbal description overtly constitutes attributive use of the predicates contained in the description, and using a description attributively in this way either acknowledges or concedes, first, that the particular in question occupies some amount of space within a larger spatial region and cordinate spatial framework (and likewise endures for some period of time within a larger temporal period and cordinate temporal framework), and second, that the predicates contained in that description designate (putativelyno issues about fallibility need be raised here) characteristics exhibited by that particular. Here, at last, is genuine predication, though Hegel does not label it with a distinct sense of is. Note that predication as a necessary component of cognitive reference to particulars is based on an ability to identify (at least approximately) the spatio-temporal boundaries of objects or events, and that such predication is used to determine (at least approximately) the temporal and spatial scope of token demonstrative reference (whether by ostension or by token indexical terms).101 Note, too, that Hegels argument is sensitive to the important contrast between specificity and particularity. Specificity of descriptionthe detail involved in compiling ever more predicatesdoes not suffice for particularity of reference. No matter how specific a description may be, as a description it may be satisfied by nothing or by several things. In either case, descriptive specificity alone does not suffice for particularity of reference. If a description (lacking overt or covert indexicals) counts as a definite description, that is a contingent fact about the contents of the world. Particularity of reference is secured by ostensive gesture, but only if the relevant region of space and time is indicated by distinguishing it from other spaces and times, and that can be achieved only by recognizing and characterizing at least some of the properties of the particular(s) occupying that region. Ostensive gestures only suffice for particular cognitive reference if these further conceptual achievements are involved in or cordinated with such gestures. The actual truth (die Wahrheit) of sense certainty (G70.25), in the sense of what is actually going on that underlies and explains the phenomena encountered in and by sense certaintyincluding its apparent cognitive claimsis that we perceive things (and events) that have some temporal and spatial extension and that have a variety of sensed characteristics. Correlatively, we are able to identify sensed particulars because we identify their sensed characteristics and, through that, we can identify (at least approximately) the relevant region of space and time occupied by that particular. In this way Hegel introduces the much richer account of knowledge discussed in the subsequent chapter, Perception. His transition is no mere pun (on Wahr-nehmen), but is a legitimate result of his internal critique of sense certainty: nothing as simple as sense certainty can be, and nothing simpler than perceptionas anticipated here and as sketched in the opening of Hegels next chaptersuffices as, an account of human knowledge of sensed particulars. 5 SUMMARY AND ASSESSMENT OF HEGELS CONCLUSIONS IN SENSE CERTAINTY
Insofar as sense certainty espouses immediate knowledge, Hegels chapter analyzes out of sense certaintys own experience a whole budget of ineluctable, cognitively relevant kinds of mediation. The most elementary kind of mediation involved in sensory knowledge of particulars is the mutual mediation of subject and object in any cognitive act. More significantly, our knowledge of sensed particulars is mediated both by time and space in terms of when and where we know various particulars; sensory knowledge of particulars is occasional and repeatedly instantiated by various
31
referents. Likewise, our cognitive reference to particulars is mediated by the distinction between types and tokens of the demonstrative terms now, here, this, and I,terms we can only use significantly by distinguishing, for any occasion, what is here now before me from what was experienced there or then by myself (on that occasion) or by others. Identifying what is here and now before me involves distinguishing the relevantly present spatial location and temporal duration from other spatial regions and other periods of time. Specifying the scope of here and now in these ways presupposes that we have and can effectively use conceptions of time and of periods of time, and of space and regions of or points within space. Our effective use of these conceptions requires that we understand and can effectively use some kind of temporal and spatial cordinate system. Our effective use of conceptions of time, times, space, and spaces to delimit the scope of the relevant now and here also requires that we can identify at least some of the manifest characteristics of the things or events we know. Identifying characteristics of things requires our possession, understanding, and effective use of predicates to designate those characteristics. In this regard, our knowledge of sensed particulars is also mediated by the variety of characteristics they have. More importantly, singular cognitive reference to particulars requires integrated understanding and integrated use of token demonstratives and descriptive predication. Thus sensation is necessary, but in all these regards is not sufficient, for knowledge of sensed particulars. In this regard, finally, knowledge of sensed particulars, though not effected solely by sensation, is mediated by sensation. All of this has been shown by Hegels internal critique of radically nave realism. These are significant results; how significant they are can be better appreciated by considering, again, who among the philosophically wise is subject to Hegels critique. Space does not permit researching particular philosophers at this point, but two closely related, highly influential views can be discussed briefly. (For ease of expression, I shall here revert to the ordinary use of concept.) Concept empiricism is the thesis that every term in a language is either a logical term, a term defined by ostending a sensory object, or can be defined by means of these two kinds of terms.102 Closely related to concept empiricism is a thesis about concept acquisition which holds that non-logical concepts are learned by ostending a sensory object, or by recombining terms learned by such ostension by use of logical operators. Taken together, these two theses, about meaning and about learning respectively, form the view known as abstractionism, traditionally (if wrongly) associated with Aquinas dictum, nihil in intellectu nisi prius in sensu.103 This dictum has been central to empiricism, both in the modern period and in this century. In opposition to this, a priori concepts were and are defined by rationalists as just those terms that cannot be defined in accord with concept empiricism or learned in accord with abstractionism. Insofar as defining a term ostensively or learning a term by ostensive definition requires identifying the ostended object or event (or its relevant, ostended characteristic), Hegel shows in Sense Certainty that rationalists are correct to hold that our conceptions of identity and individuation, of self, object, time, and space are all a priori; they are all presupposed by any cognitive experiences of any objects or events that could serve to define or to learn any a posteriori conception. The same holds for a rudimentary conception of number or plurality, by use of which alone we can have conceptions of identity and individuation, and so can distinguish different objects and occasions of knowledge. Before closing it is worth noting that a more radical form of empiricism can evade these objections. Hume mostly espouses abstractionism as defined above. However, when pressed his laws of association are cast, not as propensities we have to associate impressions or ideas, but as
32
propensities of or indeed statistical regularities by which ideas happen to agglomerate together and thus to produce certain complex ideas.104 On this more radical view, complex ideas arent learned by us or defined by us, rather they just come about within aourbundle of impressions following upon a certain kind of pattern of impressions and their consequent ideas. This is a drastic view, but radical enough to avoid refutation by Hegels critique of sense certainty. It is thus noteworthy that Hegel criticizes Humes view directly in his next chapter, Perception, for Hegel saw more deeply than Hume the troubles faced by this radical empiricism in attempting merely to account for our very concept of the identity of perceptible things.105 6 CONCLUSION
In Sense Certainty Hegel develops a powerful internal critique of radically nave realism. In the course of his critique, Hegel also defends the a priori status of a number of key conceptions necessary for knowledge of sensed particularsand for defining or learning a posteriori conceptions. By placing Hegels chapter in its proper philosophical and historical context, as a key debate in epistemology, it is possible to provide a complete, accurate, and philosophically illuminating interpretation of Hegels brief but challenging analysis. Hegelians who would resist such a strong epistemological interpretation of Hegels chapter must find another way of completing Hegels dialectical exercises that provides an equally, if not more, complete, accurate, and illuminating interpretation.106
[A FTERWORD : There is one final step in Hegels anlaysis of Sense Certainty which I examine in: Analytischer Gehalt und zeitgenssische Bedeutung von Hegels Kritik des unmittelbaren Wissens, Jahrbuch fr HegelForschungen 8/9 (2002/2003):12943.]
Notes
1. Matthias Kettner, Hegels Sinnliche Gewiheit. Diskursanalytischer Kommentar (Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 1990). Kettners analysis is by far the most rigorous and detailed heretofore, and should be studied much more widely. However, I do not believe that he sufficiently maintains the proper immanence of Hegels critique of sense certainty. Kettner is right that Hegel opposes ontological atomism (9), but he unnecessarily brings this point into Sense Certainty from Hegels Logic (67, 77). This undermines one key aim of Hegels Phenomenology, namely, to provide an exoteric introduction to his Logic (G 23.34; cf. 47.3448.4; 55.1824/ M 1415, 4243, 49). Kettner later recognizes that Hegels arguments in Sense Certainty cannot presuppose any of Hegels positive doctrines (the Encyclopedia or the Logic ) because Hegels critique must be strictly immanent (109, 173, 196, 20508, 213, 24041, 243, 246). Kettners reconstruction rightly focuses on reconstructing Hegels account of indexical reference (9, 83). Unfortunately, Kettners discussion of the strong immediacy thesis mixes these ontological and semantic issues. The real point of Hegels relational theses in Sense Certainty is to explicate the conceptions necessary for determining the spatio-temporal scope of particular uses of tokens of indexical type terms, and to show that such determination is presupposed by normal usage of tokendemonstrative terms. On this count, our reconstructions largely coincide in substance. Harriss commentary, Hegels Ladder (2 vols.; Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), on Sense Certainty, I ch. 4, reconstructs Hegels philosophical Kulturkritik brilliantly. However, by deemphasizing the Phenomenology as a self-completing skepticism (G 56.1213, M 50), he disregards most of Hegels engagement with the philosophically wise and their myriad of (inter alia ) epistemological views. See my discussion, Harris, Hegel, and the Spirit of the Phenomenology (Clio , 1998 [cited as Westphal 1998a]). The present essay is thus only the third attempt to meet Wolfgang Wielands important demand to come to grips with the details of Hegels text and arguments and Harris does not dig into the textual details. (See Wieland, Hegels Dialektik der sinnlichen Gewiheit, rpt. in H. F. Fulda & D. Henrich, eds., Materialien zu Hegels Phnomenologie des Geistes [Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1973], 6782; 6768). Elsewhere I have reconstructed in detail Hegels Introduction (in Hegels Epistemological Realism ; Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989; abbreviated HER ) and Perception (in Hegel, Hume und die Identitt wahrnehmbarer Dinge ; Frankfurt/Main: Klostermann, 1998; abbreviated HHW ). W ESTPH A L , Kenneth R. 2000. Hegels Internal Critique of Nave Realism. Journal of Philosophical Research 25: 173229.
33
I refer throughout exclusively to the critical edition of Hegels Phnomenologie in his Gesammelte Werke (Hamburg: Meiner, 1968f.), vol. 9. (This volume is designated G ; otherwise this edition is designated GW .) All translations are my own. Neither Millers (Phenomenology of Spirit ; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977) nor Baillies (The Phenomenology of Mind ; London: Macmillan, 1931) translations are accurate enough to support the detailed analysis undertaken here. Howard Kainzs translation (in Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit; University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994) is better, but not altogether satisfactory. I refer throughout to the 21 paragraphs of Hegels chapter. These may be numbered in Baillies, Millers, or Kainzs translation. (Miller and Kainz number Hegels paragraphs from the beginning of Hegels book; Sense Certainty is 90110.) On the few occasions that I cite passages from Hegels Phnomenologie outside of Sense Certainty, I provide a page number in Millers translation, designated M . 2. To determine a philosophers meaning, there are generally three sources of information. One is contemporaneous usage, both popular and technical. A special case of this, of course, are texts a philosopher cites, alludes to, or is known to have used. A second source is explicit definitions a philosopher may provide. A third is the particular way in which a philosopher uses a term or phrase. A special and especially important case of this is the philosophers use of a term or phrase in an argument. One main component of linguistic meaning is the inferential role played by key terms or phrases. (The idea, made explicit by Carnap, is that terms or phrases with different meanings can be used to draw different inferences. Hence distinguishing among those inferences that can be drawn only with the use of a particular proposition and those that cannot is Carnaps method for specifying and distinguishing between the meanings of propositions [The Unity of Science , London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1931, 91; The Methodological Character of Theoretical Concepts, Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science 1, 1956, 38-76; 49-52]. Carnaps account of explication is virtually identical to Kants account of Erklrung ; see KdrV A7279/B7557.) All of these considerations are relevant, indeed often crucial, to determining what a philosopher means and what he or she has proven or has failed to prove. Ideally, these three considerations about meaning should complement each other, not conflict. One of the challenges of philosophical interpretation of historical texts is to construct the most charitable and coherent account of a philosophers intent, regarding both what he or she meant to claim and also the persuasiveness or conclusiveness of the grounds he or she provided for those claims. One of the great hermeneutical benefits of analytic philosophy is that it involves careful attention to usage, inference, potential equivocation, and enthymemes or other implicit assumptions. This alone enables us to understand and assess the justification a philosopher provides for his or her views, along with a precise understanding of the main claims, principles, or theses expressed in those views. This is especially important in interpreting Hegel, for these techniques alone enable us to understand how and why Hegel contextually redefines his terms and principles as his analyses develop. Unfortunately, almost none of the vast commentary on Hegels philosophy has even tried to fulfill these requirements. Rather than bemoaning the continuing fallout of the split between continental and analytic philosophy, Hegel scholars should study, admire, and emulate the classic works on Greek philosophy. Research in ancient philosophy has flourished by using just the procedures recommended here. For further discussion of these issues and circumstances, see Westphal 1998a, and my review article, Hegels Epistemology? Reflections on Some Recent Expositions (Clio , 1998 [cited as Westphal 1998b]), on the work of Klaus Hartmann, Joseph Flay, Robert Pippin, Michael Forster, Terry Pinkard, and Justus Hartnack. 3. HER ch. 11. 4. 1997 1: ch. 4. 5. Space considerations require brevity about which views are subject to Hegels critique. I take up this issue in detail elsewhere. I comment on secondary literature only where I wouldnt simply repeat Kettners or Harriss remarks. 6. E .g , by W ieland (1973). 7. Cf. Platos references to exercises in the Parmenides (135d, 136c, 136e). Hegel admired the Parmenides as indeed the greatest work of art of the ancient dialectic (G 48.3435/ M 44), in which Plato ascribed to Parmenides the most sublime dialectic ... there has ever been (Vorlesungen ber die Geschichte der Philosophie I [E. Moldenhauer & K. M. Michel, eds., Werke in 20 Bnde; Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1971; designated MM ] 18:286, cf. 19:79; [E. S. Haldane & F. H. Simson, trs., Hegels Lectures on the History of Philosophy; New York: Humnaities, 1955; designated H&S ] 2:250, cf. 2:56). 8. Most of the recent attempts to explicate Hegels epistemology suffer from inadequate grasp of epistemology (see Westphal, 1998a, 1998b). The general disregard of epistemology among Hegel scholars has the additional cost that, because epistemology centrally concerns issues of justification, Hegel scholars have not attended adequately to the issues of justification Hegel addresses, nor to the issues of how and how well Hegel justified any of his views about those issues. This has had disastrous consequences for Hegels image and reputation outside of Hegel studies. 9. Throughout I use the term conception in order to underscore the point that mental constructs and our abilities to use them are at issue, and to leave the tern concept aside for the ontological structure Hegel designated by Begriff. For an analogous contrast, see Peter Geach, who uses concept for mental structures in contrast to Russells concepts and Freges Begriffe as non-mental structures (Mental Acts; rpt. Bristol: Thoemmes, 1992; 14). On Hegels ontology, see HER ch. 10. I summarize some main points of contrast between Hegels and Bradleys ontologies in Westphal 1998b, W ESTPH A L , Kenneth R. 2000. Hegels Internal Critique of Nave Realism. Journal of Philosophical Research 25: 173229.
34
4. 10. HER , chs. 7, 8. 11. G 63.18-20, 64.29-31, 65.24-25. 12. G 67.33-39, 68.22-33. 13. Evan Fales comments: Philosophers who oppose the doctrine of the given have often made use of the findings of twentieth-century work on the psychology of perception in arguing that the doctrine is untenable. To a philosopher of foundationalist stripe who maintains the doctrine, it might at first seem that such empirical discoveries could hardly be used to undermine the empirical foundations upon which any such discoveries must depend (A Defense of the Given ; Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996; 41). Fales cites Price as an example of this rejoinder (85 n1); to his credit, Fales takes these psychological findings seriously. However, he does not comment on how this rejoinder, exemplified by Price, assumes that foundationalism is the only candidate for realism in epistemology. Fales does insist that foundationalism is the best hope for realism in epistemology (xiv), and he is convinced that coherentism is inherently anti-realist and skeptical (xiii). 14. This summary is drawn from HER 15859. The present essay aims to substantiate this sketch. On Hegels socially and historically grounded realism, and the role of Sense Certainty in it, see HER ch. 11. 15. Note that amidst his lengthy list of commonsense propositions hes quite sure he knows, Moore states that W e are all, I think, in this strange position that we do know many things, with regard to which we know further that we must have had evidence for them, and yet we do not know how we know them, i.e. we do not know what the evidence was (A Defence of Common Sense, in Philosophical Papers; New York: Collier, 1962; 44). That Moore restricts the question of how we know to the question of what our evidence was indicates his lack of concern with questions Hegel examines of how we are able to identify the various particular objects and events about which we have or from which we derive evidence. 16. 1997 1:82, 166. 17. See HER chs. 1, 7, 8. For a summary of some main points, see Hegels Solution to the Dilemma of the Criterion (revised version published in: J. Stewart, ed., The Phenomenology of Spirit Reader: A Collection of Critical and Interpretive Essays; Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998; 7691 [cited as Westphal, 1998c]). 18. See: F. H. Jacobi, David Hume ber den Glauben: Ein Gesprch (in: Werke; Leipzig: G. Fleischer, 1815-), 2:3435, 5862, 17576; G. di Giovanni, ed. & tr., The Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel A LLW ILL (Montreal: McGill Queens University Press, 1994), 27678. Cf. Humboldts report of Jacobis own account of his view from November 1 and 4, 1788 (Tagebuch , A. Leitzman, ed., in Humboldts Gesammelte Schriften ; Berlin: Behr, 1916; vol. 14], 1:58, 61). J. G. Hamann, Sokratische Denkwrdigkeiten (Amsterdam: 1759; Smtliche Werke, J. Nadler, ed.; Vienna: Herder, 194957), 2:5782; bilingual edition in: Socratic Memorabilia (J. C. OFlaherty, tr.; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), 7374. G. E. Schulze, Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie (Hamburg, 1801) 1:5563; esp. 56, 58, 6263. W. T. Krug, Briefe ber den neuesten Idealismus. Eine Fortsetzung der Briefe ber die Wissenschaftslehre (Leipzig, 1801), rpt. in: Krugs Gesammelte Schriften (Leipzig: Fleischer, 1839), 7:44995; 489, 491. Hegel criticized Jacobis views in detail in his conceptual preliminaries (Vorbegriff) to his Encyclopedia . For discussion see my article, Hegels Attitude Toward Jacobi in the Third Attitude of Thought Towards Objectivity Southern Journal of Philosophy 27 No. 1 (1989), 135-56 [cited as Westphal, 1989]. The clearest and most developed representative of sense certainty is G. E. Schulze. Even in his most mature works, Schulze insisted that sensation sufficed for knowledge of particular physical objects, that such knowledge was immediate rather than mediate (i.e., inferential), and that such knowledge required no representations or thoughts to identify the object in question. He rejected Kants view that all knowledge requires judgment, and he rejected representational theories of perception because they lead to idealism. To criticize Kant, he adduced Reids objections to representational theories of perception, but he neglected Reids doctrine that a conception of the object is required to identify it (see next note). Schulze insisted on these views, even though he recognized that any belief that something is true (Frwahrhalten ) required judgment by the understanding. See Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie (Hamburg: Bohn, 1801) 1:5862; Psychische Anthropologie (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1826), 22, 5255, 59, 60, 12022; and Ueber die menschliche Erkenntni (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1832), Vorrede, 5, 9, 11, 13, 17, 18. Though his mature works appeared well after Hegels Phnomonologie, Logik , and Encyclopdie (1 st ed.), indeed after Hegels call to Berlin, Fichte was the most recent idealist Schulze took notice of. C. A. Crusius espouses views similar to Schulzes, but he ascribes the power of sensation to the understanding and speaks freely of sensation-ideas (Empfindungs-Idee). This mixture of issues and capacities disables Crusius from even posing the question that Schulze could and should have addressed, namely, how we identify (and thus know) the thing(s) we sense. See Weg zur Gewiheit und Zuverlssigkeit der menschlichen Erkenntnis (Leipzig: J. F Gleditsch, 1747; rpt. S. Tonelli,
35
ed., Die philosophische Hauptwerke; Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1965; vol. 3), 64, 65, 435, 437. 19. Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969), 11112, 212, 249, 265, 28790, 302; cf. 251. 20. Roughly, infallibility is the impossibility of error, indubitability is the impossibility of grounds for doubt, and incorrigibility is the impossibility of grounds for revision. For discussion, see William Alston, Epistemic Justification (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 24985. 21. Moore 1962, 54. 22. Schlick: I have maintained ... [that statements can be compared with facts]. I have often compared propositions to facts; so I had no reason to say that it couldnt be done. I found, for instance, in my Baedeker the statement: This cathedral has two spires, I was able to compare it with reality by looking at the cathedral, and this comparison convinced me that Baedekers assertion was true ... I meant nothing but a process of this kind when I spoke of testing propositions by comparing them with facts (Facts and Propositions, Analysis 2 No. 5, April 1935, 65-70; 65-66). Ayer expressly agrees with most of Schlicks view, though he tends toward a phenomenalism according to which reality is nothing but our sensations (The Criterion of Truth, Analysis 3 Nos. 1 & 2, 1935, 28-32). For discussion see HER 6264, 24546. (HER 246 note 121 concerns Schlick, not Ayer, and the correct page in FK is 213, not 214.) 23. See HER 92. Wieland (1973, 73), Quentin Lauer ( A Reading of Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit; New York: Fordham, 1976; ch. 2), Caroline Dudeck (Hegel on Private Experience, Philosophy Research Archives 3, 1977, 103112 [B5B14], 105), Martin De Nys (Sense Certainty and Universality: Hegels Entrance into the Phenomenology, International Philosophical Quarterly 18, 1978, 44565; 446); and Willem de Vries (Hegel on Reference and Knowledge, Journal of the History of Philosophy 26, 1988, 297307; 298) rightly understand the thesis Hegel seeks to refute, but do not adequately work out the details of Hegels analysis. 24. The idea persists that Hegels critique of sense certainty must somehow address sense data theories or (mutatis mutandis) unsynthesized Kantian sensations, because these are the most basic candidates for objects of knowledge and Hegel addresses them nowhere else. This suggestion is understandable, but mistaken. These topics are intricate, and deserve more detailed discussion than can be given here. I shall try to indicate briefly why these views cannot, are not, and need not be Hegels concern in Sense Certainty. What counts as epistemically basic? Sense data or unsynthesized Kantian sensations count as epistemically basic only on the basis of quite definite theories of human knowledge. At the beginning of Hegels Phenomenology, no theory of knowledge has yet been introduced, and none has been justified in any way. Hence no theory of human knowledge can be used to identify what is supposed to be epistemically basic. To do that would be to engage in what Hegel calls in Jena a philosophy of reflection--a philosophy that constructs an account of knowledge and its objects based on an assumed view of what human knowledge and its objects are like--rather than to engage in Hegelian phenomenology. Also, to begin with those views would fail to engage Hegels most serious philosophical challenge at the beginning of the Phenomenology, namely, to show that we should and must engage in philosophizing about our knowledge and its objects. The point and validity of such philosophizing must be justified to nave common sense, to advocates of immediate knowledge (especially Jacobi and Krug), and to skeptics about philosophy, none of whom would accept Kantian or sense-data starting points. Both Kantian sensations and sense data can be analyzed and defended only on the basis of fairly recondite philosophical psychology. Philosophical psychology is legitimate only if philosophy is a genuine mode or kind of knowledge. Hegels Phenomenology aims to establish this latter, more basic thesis before propounding positive philosophical doctrines, including in philosophical psychology. Hegel does aim to justify Kants thesis that intuitions without conceptions are blind, that objects and events can be known only by identifying them conceptually. But Hegel cannot justify this thesis by assuming a starting point of pre-synthesized sensations that are not objects of awareness, because that starting point begs the question. For all of these reasons, neither sense data nor Kantian sensations can be Hegels concern in Sense Certainty. At no point in Sense Certainty do Hegels examples, or the conclusions he draws from them, involve a plurality of sensations or sense data. Those issues are all reserved--rightly, I believe--for his subsequent chapter, Perception. Hegels examples in Sense Certainty involve a plurality of similarly ranked objects: day and night, tree and house, etc. Those objects are perfectly legitimate examples if indeed nave realism is Hegels target, and they do not raise problems of internal complexity until they are understood, i.e., conceived differently as things with multiple properties. That conception is neither reached nor justified until the very end of Sense Certainty. Second, at no point in Sense Certainty do Hegels examples, or his critical arguments, turn on the purported hallmarks of sense data, their epistemic certainty, i.e., their infallibility, incorrigibility, or indubitability. (Compare Robert Meyers critique, which does focus on these issues; The Likelihood of Knowledge [Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988], chs. 13.) For these two reasons, Hegels concern in Sense Certainty are not sense data. The reasons Hegel need not concern himself in Sense Certainty with sense data are indirect. First, philosophers have appealed to sense data as the only possible foundations for empirical knowledge. If Hegel can provide a nonfoundationalist account of empirical knowledge that responds to skepticism, then he will have removed one of the
36
primary motivations for espousing sense data (see HER , passim ); those motivations always have been fundamentally programmatic. Second, sense data require an internalist account of thought (roughly, the view that the content of any particular thought is nothing but a subjectively accessible mental act or entity). Hegel argues against such internalism, and in favor of an externalist account of thought (according to which the contents of many thoughts typically are or involve objects or events in the world) in Self-Consciousness and Reason. (I sketch Hegels argument for this externalism in HER , 16071. I argue independently for it, though in line with Hegels arguments, in Transcendental Reflections on Pragmatic Realism, in: K. R. Westphal, ed., Pragmatism, Reason, & Norms [New York: Fordham, 1998], 1759; cp. Kant, Hegel, and the Transcendental Material Conditions of Possible Experience, Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 33, 1996, 2341). Third, I believe that Hegels arguments against nave realism, that is, against aconceptual knowledge of spatiotemporal particulars, in fact also hold against sense data. (This I shall undertake to show elsewhere.) The basic problem is that sense data conflate two senses of object; one is an entity of which one is aware, the other is a propositional content expressing ones awareness that something or other appears to be the object of ones awareness. Appears is ambiguous between whatever sensory characteristics some object or event exhibits, and whatever sensory characteristics one takes that object or event to reveal; sense data theories require supressing this ambiguity. Also, as particulars, sense data must be located, individuated, and in a word identified within (phenomenal) space and time. Hegels arguments focus on the requirements for such identification of particulars; substituting sense data for spatiotemporal objects does nothing to evade Hegels critique. 25. De Nys (1978) tries to no avail to use the terms immediacy and mediation to explicate Hegels arguments. 26. On Herders historicism, see Frederick Beiser, The Fate of Reason (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), ch. 5. 27. See, e.g ., Thelma Z. Lavine, Knowledge as Interpretation: An Historical Survey, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 10, 194950, 52640, & 11, 195051, 88103. According to Lavine, The distinguishing feature of interpretationism, from the German Englightenment through American pragmatism to mid-twentieth century Wissenssoziologie is an affirmation of the activity of mind as a constituent element in the object of knowledge. Common to all of these philosophical movements ... is the epistemological principle that mind does not apprehend an object which is given to it in completed form, but that through its activity of providing an interpretation or conferring meaning or imposing structure, mind in some measure constitutes or creates the object known (526). Hegel argues that empirical knowledge must be interpretive in order to recreate, not to create, the object known. (See the next note.) That Lavine also misunderstands at least one main current of American pragmatism has been well argued by Frederick L. Will, Pragmatism and Realism (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997). 28. I document this specious dichotomy in HER , 6264, 24546. I show that Hegel was well aware of this specious dichotomy in HER , 67, and Harris, Hegel, and the Truth about Truth (in: G. Browning, ed., Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit: A Reappraisal; Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997; 2329). That Hegel was not an historicist-relativist is shown by Frederick C. Beiser, Hegels Historicism (in: F. C. Beiser, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Hegel; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993; 270300). Also see HER , esp. chs. 10, 11. 29. Only very recently have analytic epistemologists begun to explore the prospects of a socially and historically based epistemological realism. See the contributions by Alston, Kornblith, Kitcher, Longino, and Solomon to F. Schmitt, ed., Socializing Epistemology (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994). 30. I summarize Hegels positive epistemological views in HER ch. 11. 31. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1:38. Hegel knew Sextus very well, and he remarks on this set of three tropes in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy (MM 19:376; Vorlesungen: Ausgewhlte Nachschriften und Manuskripte (Hamburg: Meiner, 1983-; designated V ) 8:152; H& S 2:347). Although he recounts the main 17 tropes in his early essay on skepticism (GW 4:21418), Hegel does not mention these three there. 32. Cp. Kettner 1990, 197, 252, 256, who suggests (mistakenly, I believe) that Hegel intended or is required to establish more than parameters. Because Hegel aims only to establish some parameters of a positive account of indexicals in human knowledge, it is not germane to develop any detailed relations between Sense Certainty and recent semantic theories of indexical reference. 33. Cf. Kettner, 1990, 160; G. Evans, The Varieties of Reference (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), ch. 6. 34. Charles Taylor mistakenly quotes this passage as if it characterized sense certainty itself, instead of our proper attitude as Hegels readers and phenomenological observers (Hegel; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975; 141). Lauer (1976, 42) cites it to the same effect.
37
35. Hegel discusses the relevant kind of observation, not here, but in his Introduction. The main point to bear in mind is that Hegels phenomenological examination of forms of consciousness rests squarely on internal criticism of those forms of consciousness. Hence whatever grounds are developed to reject one form of consciousness and to adopt a more sophisticated form of consciousness must be developed on the basis of principles and examples inherent in the criticized form of consciousness itself. See HER , chs. 69. For a brief discussion of some key points, see Westphal, 1998c, or more briefly my entry Dialectic (Hegel) (in: E. Sosa & J. Dancy, eds., A Companion to Epistemology; Oxford: Blackwell, 1992; 9899). 36. KdrV A2623=B3189. For discussion of Kants view of transcendental reflection, see Herbert Schndelbach, Reflexion und Diskurs: Fragen einer Logik der Philosophie (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1977), 87133. He points out that transcendental reflection is the very method Kant employs in the Critique of Pure Reason . Also see Dieter Henrichs outstanding essay, Kants Notion of a Deduction and the Methodological Background of the First Critique (in: E. Frster, ed., Kants Transcendental Deductions; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989; 2946), 4046. Although Kant defines transcendental reflection in his prefatory remarks about distinguishing phenomena and noumena, Schndelback and Henrich point out that this kind of reflection has a much broader, indeed fundamental role in Kants first Critique. 37. Kant claims apodeictic certainty, e.g ., KdrV Axv, Bxxii note. 38. On Descartes failure, see HER ch. 3. The classic criticism of Kant in this regard is Stephen Krner, The Impossibility of Transcendental Deductions (in: L. W. Beck, ed., Kant Studies Today; La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1969; 23044). His view has obtained wide currency. 39. See Eckart Frster, How are Transcendental Arguments Possible? (in E. Schaper & W. Vossenkuhl, eds., Reading Kant; Oxford: Blackwell, 1989; 320). 40. On Kants transcendental (as opposed to empirical) psychology, see Paul Guyer, Psychology and the Transcendental Deduction (in Frster, 1989, 4768) and Patricia Kitcher, Kants Transcendental Psychology (New York: Oxford, 1990). On Kants Table of Judgments, see Michael Wolffs brilliant study, Die Vollstndigkeit der kantischen Urteilstafel (Frankfurt/Main: Klostermann, 1995). 41. See Onora ONeills excellent discussion in Vindicating Reason (in: P. Guyer, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Kant ; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992; 280308). 42. Ak 6:20607. 43. Cf. HER chs. 79; Kettner 1990, 10102; J. Lowenberg 1935, 27. 44. Cf. Jacobi, who could only say about the fact that something, anything, everthing is, Es ist! It is! (Briefe ber die Lehre von Spinoza , 7. Beylage; Werke 4/12a:155, cf. 150151; di Giovanni, 376, cf. 374). 45. Kettner sometimes overlooks this (1990, 7071), but elsewhere clearly recognizes that the target of Hegels critique is an aconceptual, direct cognition of particulars (1990, 233, 242). Unfortunately, his criticism of Hegel turns on pointing out the rich pragmatic aspects of the meaning ( Bedeutung ) of particular uses of tokens of indexical terms (1990, esp. 25665). Hegels point is that this kind of Bedeutung is, inter alia , conceptually mediated, and so is not available to sense certainty. If sense certainty thus seems to be too strong and hence too vulnerable a position, one must recall the enormous philosophical compulsion to espouse it as (supposedly) the only way to assess the truth of our propositions or conceptual schemes, the only way to provide secure foundations for empirical knowledge, the only way to defend realism, or (in fine) the only adequate way to settle epistemological controversies. 46. See Westphal, 1989, 147. Cf. MM 11:1812 (cited by Kettner 1990, 91), and the passage quoted from G. E. Schulze in note 48. 47. Wieland mistakenly suggests that the critical issue concerns the match between our view of sense certainty and its own view of itself. His attempt to substantiate this in the text disregards the contrast between Hegels introductory presentation of the issues (15) and his subsequent internal critique of a form of consciousness (619) (1973, 7174). Occasionally Wieland does recognize that only internal criticism is legitimate (ibid ., 74). 48. Cf. G. E. Schulze: And because even in immediate knowledge of objects, these objects do not stand to our I in the relation of an accident to a subject, but rather are related to the I as self-sufficient things relate to each other, [things] that are compared with one another in order to grasp (einzusehen ) their relations; we thus judge, that the objects of intuition (des Anschauens) would be there, even if our I were not there, and didnt intuit them (Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie, op . cit ., 1:61, cf. 62). 49. Cf. Kettner 1990, 109.
38
50. See Russell, Hegel and Common Sense (1912; review of H. S. Macran, tr., Hegels Doctrine of Formal Logic ; in: The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell; London: Routledge, 1994; 6:365) and Our Knowledge of the External World (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1914), 4849 note. Although Russell raises this objection against Hegels Logic , his point also applies to Hegels analyses in Sense Certainty and Perception. (On this latter, see HHW 7.) 51. Wieland (1973, 6970) recognizes the importance of raising such questions, but does not adequately answer them. Plumer overlooks these important questions, and criticizes Hegel for making elementary errors (Hegel on Singular Demonstrative Reference, Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 11, 1981, 7194; esp. 84). His critique of Hegel is completely misguided. Likewise, W erner Becker (wrongly) charges that Hegels argument turns on a mere solecism, treating the adjectives here or now as if they were nouns (Hegels Begriff der Dialektik ; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1969; 11416). Becker fails to raise the proper logical and semantic questions Hegel addresses. Cast in his terms, the question is, What must we understand, and what conceptions are involved in this understanding, in order to use the terms now and here adjectivally? 52. Because sense certainty disregards predication, it eludes the issues about the relation between predicates, properties, and particulars as characterized by properties. Consequently, Sense Certainty does not address issues regarding bare particulars. Taylor (1976, 166; The Opening Arguments of the Phenomenology [in: A. MacIntyre, ed., Hegel: A Collection of Critical Essays; New York: Anchor, 1972; 16263], 144) and De Nys (1978, 456, 458) mistakenly import this terminology and concern into Hegels chapter. For the same reason, sense certainty makes no judgments, causal or otherwise, about the objects it senses, contra R. Wiehl, ber den Sinn der sinnlichen Gewiheit (Hegel-Studien Beiheft 3, 1966, 10334), 11234. Compare Gareth Evanss deliberately simplified, non-predicative language in Identity and Predication (Journal of Philosophy 72 No. 13, 1975, 34363), 34750. 53. See G. Vlastos, The Third Man Argument in the Parmenides (in: R. E. Allen, ed., Studies in Platos Metaphysics; London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, N.Y.: Humanities Press, 1965; 231-63), 245-48; M. Burnyeat, Can the Sceptic Live his Scepticism? (in: M. Schofield, M. Burnyeat, & J. Barnes, eds., Doubt and Dogmatism ; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980; 2053), 25; and Charlotte Stough, Greek Skepticism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 142f.. 54. Hegel claims that the ancient tropes suffice to refute sense certainty in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, MM 19:36970, 372, 37475, 395, 400; V 8:145, 149, 151; H&S 2:34334, 347, 351. On the role of the Greek conception of truth in pyrrhonian skepticism, see HER 15, 16263, and Westphal (1998c), 7.1. On the pyrrhonist roots of Hegels arguments in Sense Certainty see Klaus Dsing, Die Bedeutung des antiken Skeptizismus fr Hegels Kritik der sinnlichen Gewiheit (Hegel-Studien 8, 1973, 11930). That Hegels arguments have pyrrhonist roots, however, does not entitle us to assimilate Hegels arguments to Sextuss. (Dsing does not propose such an assimilation.) On this, see Andreas Graeser, Hegels Kritik der sinnlichen Gewiheit und Platons Kritik der Sinneswahrnehmung im Theaitet (Revue de Philosophie Ancienne 3 No. 2, 1985, 3957). Whatever may be the roots of Hegels issues, examples, or arguments, the main point must be to reconstruct and assess Hegels own analysis as accurately and thoroughly as possible. 55. It is worth noting that the examples it is day and it is night are among those presentations of sense (phantasia ) that Sextus Empiricus grants are not equally credible, so that not all phantasia can be accepted as true (Against the Logicians [Works 2] I:391); those things are pre-evident which come to our knowledge of themselves such as, at the present moment, that fact that it is day and that I am conversing (AL II:144). 56. For this reason alone, Hegels topic in Sense Certainty cannot concern the debate between realism and nominalism about universals, contra many interpretations of this chapter. We shall see that none of his arguments address that debate. 57. Cf. Kettner 1990, 129. 58. D. Kaplan uses character (On the Logic of Demonstratives, Journal of Philosophical Logic 8, 1970, 8198), John Perry uses role (Frege on Demonstratives, The Philosophical Review 86 No. 4, 1977, 47497; 493f.), to designate that feature of token demonstratives that, in context, enables us to understand what object(s) is or are referred to. 59. Cf. Kettner 1990, 13038. 60. Kettner appears to recognize this elsewhere (1990, 146, 157). 61. Russell recognizes that this is an ambiguous logically proper name (Philosophy of Logical Atomism, Collected Papers 8:179). 62. M. Westphal (History and Truth in Hegels Phenomenology; Atlantic Highlands: Humanities, 1979; 73) and De Nys (1978, 456) miss this important point. Much of what M. Westphal says about Feuerbachs critique of Hegel is vaguely relevant to Hegels discussion, but it does not come to grips with the details of Hegels argument. At least he recognizes that none of what he says is explicit in the text (M. Westphal, 1979, 79). This is the typical result of trying to summarize rather than to analyze and explicate Hegels text and arguments: In attempting to speak on Hegels behalf, the
39
commentator speaks in Hegels stead. 63. See HER 104, 116, 121, 123, 12930, cf. 164 and below, p. 31. 64. Findlay entirely misunderstands this crucial point (Hegel: A Re-examination ; New York: Oxford, 1958; 9091). 65. Taylor suggests that Hegels objection turns on the requirement that knowledge be expressible in language, and that descriptions or classifications are inherently selective (1972, 14142, 145). Basically the same idea is presented by Terry Pinkard ( Hegels Phenomenology: The Sociality of Reason [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994], 24, 2627). Their claims disregard the carefully articulated details of Hegels analysis. 66. On Hegels use of dative and accusative cases to mark distinct levels of explicitness, see HER chs. 7, 8; esp. 10506. In his review of HER , Harris claimed that Hegel did not mean to make a conceptual distinction by use of dative and accusative cases (Philosophy of the Social Sciences 22 No. 4, 1992, 51234), 514. In Hegels Ladder he admits that Hegel does distinguish between what is implicit and what is explicit by using dative and accusative cases (1997, 1:203 note 43). Hegels use of such case distinctions here and below further substantiates my analysis in HER . On whether my analysis of Hegels criterion is unnecessarily complicated (Harris, 1997, 1:204 note 45) see Westphal, 1998a, 7.1. 67. Hegel offers no refutation of solipsism here, naive or otherwise, because solipsism is not espoused or adopted by sense certainty, contra e.g ., J. Lowenberg (The Comedy of Immediacy in Hegels Phenomenology II, Mind 44, 1935, 2138; 32), J. Hypolite (Genesis and Structure of Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit; S. Cherniak & J. Heckman, trs., Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974; 94), Lauer (1976, 49), David Lamb (Hegel and Wittgenstein on Language and Sense-certainty, Clio 7 No. 2, 1978, 285301; 29295, and Sense and Meaning in Hegel and Wittgenstein, in: D. Lamb, ed., Hegel and M odern Philosophy; London: Croom Helm, 1987, 70101; 7781), and Plumer (1981, 73, 7678). If sense certainty did adopt solipsism, Hegels internal critique, which turns on what others purport to be directly aware of, would be irrelevant. Likewise, Hegels argument does not concern private sense data because sense certainty maintains that it knows spatio-temporal particulars, pace, e.g ., M. Westphal (1979, 70). 68. Russell, On Denoting, Collected Papers 4:420. 69. Hegel only makes a semantic point about the demonstrative type term I and token uses of it; he does not offer any grounds here for a social conception of human individuals (pace Hypolite 1974, 9596). Hypolite claims that Hegels argument here can be understood only if we already know where it is leading (96). This is a sure principle by which to get out of a text only what one already expects to find in it, and to disregard and fail to assess the character and soundness of an authors actual argument. This principle condemns Hegel to the cardinal Hegelian sin of begging the question and insures that Hegelian legends shall be perpetuated without checking them against Hegels text. 70. Wie der Gemeine Menschenverstand die Philosophie nehme, --Dargestellt and den Werken des Herrn Krugs, GW 4:17487; tr. H. S. Harris in G. di Giovanni & H. S. Harris, eds, Between Kant and Hegel (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985), 292310. I shall refer to the pagination in GW ; both it and the translation carry the pagination of the original edition. 71. GW 4:176.714. In his translators notes, Harris points out that Krug clearly misunderstood Schellings argument on this count (308 note 20). 72. Briefe ber den neuesten Idealismus (Leipzig: H. Mller, 1801), 31f., 38, 7374. 73. He mentions it repeatedly in his review (GW 4:178.26, .35, 179.1, .4, .22, .32, 180.3, 184.14), and recurs to it in later (Enz . 250 note) as well as here in the Phenomenology. 74. GW 4:181.30182.7, 182.2234. 75. GW 4:184.30. In his translators notes, Harris points out that Krug does not identify his view with Jacobis, although his formulation (Entwurf eines neuen Organons der Philosophie [Meissen & Lbben: Erbstein, 1801], 27, 3738) is strikingly similar (309 note 48). 76. GW 4:180.511, 181.16. Hegel suggests the issue of the conditions for the possibility of singular reference and knowledge of particulars in the early idealist language of constructing consciousness (GW 4:181.3). 77. See Klaus Dsing, Spekulation und Reflexion: Zur Zusammenarbeit Schellings und Hegels in Jena (Hegel-Studien 5, 1969, 93128), Vernunfteinheit und Unvordenkliches Dasein: Konzeptionen der berwindung negativer Theologie bei Schelling und Hegel (in: K. Gloy & D. Schmidig, eds., Einheitskonzepte in der idealistischen und in der gegenwrtigen Philosophie; Bonn: Lang, 1987; 10936), and especially Die Entstehung des spekulativen Idealismus. Schellings und Hegels Wandlungen zwischen 1800 und 1801" (in W. Jaeschke, ed., Transzendentalphilosophie und Spekulation: Der Streit um die Gestallt einer Ersten Philosophie (17991807); Hamburg: Meiner, 1993; 2:14463).
40
78. G. E. Schulze, Aphorismen ber das Absolute, in F. Bouterwek, ed., Neues Museum der Philosophie und Literatur ; Leipzig, 1 No. 2, 1803, 10748; rpt. in Transzendentalphilosophie und Spekulation , op . cit ., Quellenband 2.1:33755; see K. R. Meist, Sich vollbringender Skeptizismus. G. E. Schulzes Replik auf Hegel und Schelling ( ibid . 2:192230). Schellings apologists should consider Schulzes critique very carefully. 79. See my essay, Kant, Hegel, and the Fate of the Intuitive Intellect, in: S. Sedgwick, ed., The Idea of a System of Transcendental Idealism (forthcoming). [Published in: S. Sedgwick, ed., The Reception of Kants Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 283305.] 80. On these topics, see HER passim . 81. Hegel states: If the demand is made of science as its crucial test, which it simply could not pass, to deduce, construct, to find a priori, or however one wants to put it, a so-called this thing , or a this person , its only fair that this demand say, which this thing or which this I it means, but it is impossible to say this (G 66.3136). 82. See above, p. 21. 83. Ich fr mich bleibe dabey, das Itzt ist Tag, oder auch dabey, das Hier ist Baum; vergleiche auch nicht das Hier und Itzt selbst mit einander, sondern halte ein Einer unmittelbaren Beziehung fest: das Itzt ist Tag. 84. ... we must go to it, and allow the now that is maintained to be pointed out to us. We must allow it to be pointed out to us ... (G 67.2526); We must therefore enter into the same point of time or of space which it shows us, that is, we must allow ourselves to be made into the very same this I who knows with certainty (G 67.3032). Both Miller and Baillie fail to preserve Hegels deliberate passive constructions. On the importance of our non-interference as phenomenological observers, see HER 13439. M. Westphal (1979, 72) seriously misunderstands Hegels point here. 85. The now is pointed out, this now . Now ; it has already ceased to be as it is pointed out. The now that is, is an other than the one pointed out, and we see, that the now is just this: insofar as it is, already no longer to be. The now, as it is pointed out to us, is something that has been [ein gewesenes], and this is its truth; it doesnt have the truth of being. It is therefore of course true that it has been. But what has been , is in fact no being [Wesen ]; it IS not , and the concern was with being (17, G 67.3339). 86. See above, p. 22f. 87. The True Intellectual System of the Universe: Wherein, All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism Is Confuted; and Its Impossibility Demonstrated , 1678, 9; quoted by John Yolton, Thinking Matter (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 5. 88. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (P. Nidditch, ed., Oxford: Clarendeon Press, 1975), Bk. 2 Ch. 13 24; cited by Yolton, op . cit ., 64. Yolton has 25"; this must be a misprint. Yolton also argues persuasively that Hume likely was influenced by this materialist doctrine ( ibid ., 83). 89. For DHolbachs influence on Hegels Phenomenology, see Harris 1997 (see his index for references). 90. Perhaps the prime instance of this procedure with regard to Sense Certainty are the parallels Purpus draws between Hegels discussion and ancient Greek sources (Die Dialektik der sinnlichen Gewiheit bei Hegel; Nrnberg: Schrag, 1905; Zur Dialektik des Bewusstseins nach Hegel; Berlin: Trowitzsch, 1908), which Hypolite (1974) follows. Lauer (1976, 42) rightly cautions against this procedure. Displaying thematic parallels, similarities, or echoes does not suffice to show that Hegels analysis is about those texts or issues. Rather, which textual parallels or allusions are relevant must be determined by reconstructing the aim and course of Hegels argument(s). See above, note 2. This point holds also of appealing to Hegels remarks about Stilpo (MM 18:53438, H& S 1:46469) in order to interpret his remarks about language in Sense Certainty (8, 21; see pp. 24, 27, 55). Obviously there are thematic relations between these texts, though there are also thematic differences, and Hegels lectures are too unspecific to prove anything, much less to prove exactly what or how he argues in Sense Certainty. Documenting possible or probable sources does not suffice to identify a topic, issue, or argumentative strategy. This is all the more the case regarding Kants Transcendental Aesthetic, which M. Westphal (1978, 68) claims forms the background to Hegels argument. Whatever arguments are familiar from Kants Transcendental Aesthetic, they are not reiterated in Sense Certainty. See note 92. 91. See HER passim and Westphal, 1998a. 92. Hegels arguments in Phase III parallel an important set of arguments in Kants Transcendental Aesthetic. Kant argues that space and time are each wholes and that any of their parts exist only by distinguishing regions of (or point in) space or periods (or moments) of time within space or time as wholes (KdrV A25/B39, A3132/B4748). However, Kants arguments primarily concern the nature of space and time themselves (namely, Kant contends, they are forms of human intuition) and only secondarily concern our conceptions of space or time, where those conceptions must reflect the properties of space and time themselves (A25, 26, 32/B39, 42, 49; 4:33.2, 33.16, 37.11/3:53.13, 55.1, 59.18; Kant added explicit reference to the concept of space and of time in the second edition: B38, 40, 48; 3:52.1519,
41
54.18, 59.1). Hegels arguments do not address the nature of space or time themselves (and so do not invoke Kants idealism at all), but address solely and explicitly our conceptions of space and time. 93. Page 21. 94. See the editors notes to G 69.36 at G 495. Cf. Schulzes 1801 claim: W hat we intuit (anschauen ), is altogether an individual, determinate thing, and no universal property of several objects. We do not perceive or immediately know an extension, an animal, a triangle in general, but rather an individual and determinate body, an individual and determinate animal, an individual and determinate triangle (Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie, op . cit ., 1:57). Note the emphasis Schulze himself places on the contrast between particularity and any universal characteristics of things. 95. 13, G 66.3136; see above, p. 37. 96. Cf. the passage quoted from Schulze (1801) above, note 94. 97. E .g ., D. W. Hamlyn (Sensation and Perception ; New York: Humanities, 1961; 14046), Ivan Soll (An Introduction to Hegels Metaphysics; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969; 91110), Plumer (1981), and M. J. Inwood ( Hegel; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983; 31117) contend that Hegels whole argument aims to deny the possibility of singular demonstrative reference. Their mistake is corrected by de Vries (1988). Joseph Flay contends that Hegel simply accepts the cognitive claims made by sense-certainty; that sense-certainty claims absoluteness, totality, and totalization; and that Hegel seeks merely to develop the absolute standpoint that warrants these claims (Hegels Quest for Certainty [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984], 35, 50, 25658, 266). However, sense-certainty only claims to know various particulars wherever each may be found; it does not make the totalizing claim (to be able to know everything all at once) Flay ascribes to it. In logical terms, Flay mistakes a distributive claim to know each particular where- and whenever it is found for the collective claim to know all particulars en masse. Sense-certainty never makes that collective claim; hence Flays objection is misguided. 98. See above, p. 28. 99. Werke 2:3435, 5862; cf. Westphal 1989, V.1, and Beiser 1987, ch. 2. 100. Soll has urged this criticism most strongly. Soll (1969, 101, 103-104) thinks that the target of Hegels attack is reference to (and with that, knowledge of) particulars, and notes accordingly that definite descriptions, comprising solely universal terms, may successfully pick out particulars. For a detailed refutation of Solls interpretation of Sense-certainty, see Katharina Dulckheit, Can Hegel Refer to Particulars? (The Owl of Minerva 17 No. 2, 1986, 181-94). Also see Dudeck, 1977. 101. Cf. Evans 1975, 35152. (By referring to Evans I do not mean to suggest that Hegel had a prescient, if nascent, objection to Quine.) Evans concludes: ... the line tracing area of relevance delimits that area in relation to which one or the other, but not both, of a pair of contradictory predicates may be chosen. And that is what it is for a line to be a boundary, marking something off from other things (ibid ., 352; cp. Geach 1992, 69.) This idea bears careful comparison with Michael Wolffs very insightful discussion of Kants and Hegels views on the law of contradiction and logical reflection in Der Begriff des Widerspruchs (Knigstein/Ts.: Hain, 1981). (The main points of his study relevant to the present point are summarized in HHW 18.) Fales supports his account of a conceptually informed given that can include primitive acts of recognition in large part because he equates intellect (and learning!) with inference (1996, 82, 10406, 123). This is an absurdly limited and historically uninformed equasion; identifying particulars by subsuming them under concepts (classifications, or stereotypes in Putnams sense) has been recognized from the Port Royal Logic onward to be a paradigm case of judgment, an act of the intellect. (Fales does once allow that classification is an intellectual operation [121], but this idea is strikingly absent from his polemic because of its absence his argument is only a polemic against the idea that unconscious inference or other information processing undermines the givenness of sensory elements in perception.) Fales admits so much historical, educational, conceptual, and memorial mediation into his version of the given that he is no exponent of sense certainty as characterized and criticized by Hegel; indeed, he proffers such a vitiated version of the given that almost any coherentist could accept it to say nothing of those philosophers, such as Hegel and Haack, who reject the supposed exclusive and exhaustive dichotomy between foundationalism and coherentism. Nevertheless, Fales flirts with a pure and unqualified concept empiricism that is refuted by Hegels critique of sense certainty when he states: ... propositions, and propositional thought, have the form they do just because that is the form of our experience of the worldand our conception of that world is formed by our experience of it (119). (Also see note 103.) 102. For discussion, see HER 48f. Lauer (1976, 4243, 50, 52) rightly notes that empiricism must be a main target of Hegels critique in Sense Certainty, but he does not specify which kinds or aspects of empiricism Hegel criticizes.
42
103. Geach (1992, 13031) argues that Aquinas did not hold the radically empiricist thesis usually associated with this slogan. Geachs discussion and critique of abstractionism is excellent. Geach addresses this view in the abstract. For an excellent analysis and critique of a recent proponent of abstractionism, C. D. Broad, see Robert Turnbull, Empirical and A Priori Elements in Broads Theory of Knowledge (in: P. A. Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of C. D. Broad ; New York: Tudor, 1959; 197231). Fales espouses a very weak form of the given, one that admits a good deal of conceptualization into the given, but even his view requires an untenable abstractionist account of empirical concepts and their acquisition (1996, 100, 103, 106, 108). 104. See Barry Stroud, Hume (London: Routledge, 1977), ch. 6. 105. See HHW . A summary is given in Hegel and Hume on Perception and Concept-Empiricism, Journal of the History of Philosophy 33 No. 1 (1998), 99123. 106. I wish to thank Robert Wicks and two anonymous referees for suggesting clarifications.
43

K.R. Westphal - Hegel's Internal Critique of Naïve Realism

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

K.R. Westphal - Hegel's Internal Critique of Naïve Realism

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Hegels Internal Critique of Nave Realism

The definitive version of this article appears in:

Journal of Philosophical Research 25 (2000):173229.

that we mean . (8, G 65.1523)

You might also like