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Hegel Response Paper Many people believe that dreaming is a state when the self-consciousness is set free from its own consciousness, the state of the mind being disengaged from reality, where it can be whatever, wherever, whenever. Idealism can be thought of as the

opposite of dreaming, the opposite as being the state of the mind not only depending on mental activity, but on self-consciousness itself. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a German philosopher in the late 18th century and early 19th century, has been one of the greatest contributors to German Idealism, especially throughout his Phenomenology of Mind, where the human consciousness, he believes, is in evolution. Hegel was one of the few philosophers who adapted to the triad process in his thoughts. In a deeper understanding, the triad is when one proposes an intellectual proposition, basically a thesis, and comes up with its antithesis; along the way, the two reactive propositions cordially create a synthesis, where two propositions are in agreement. So, if idealism is the concept of thinking in transcendence, it is a thesis. According to Hegel, the antithesis of idealism is supposed to be materialism, in which physical substances are the reality, in which thoughts are in immanence. During the Age of Enlightenment, when intellectual reason was above all in Western philosophy, idealism was popular. There were several legendary idealists in history, essentially including Hegel; however, an even stronger idealist is Immanuel Kant. Kant was famous for his development of transcendental idealism, the theory believing that knowledge begins by the perception of what is apparent, thus transcendence is applied. Unfortunately, Hegel did not completely agree with what Kant was saying and believed that this was a form of materialism. For Hegel claims, "but it could not transcend them unless they had a subsistence of their own," (pg.4, Hegel). Therefore, Hegel is familiar with the concept of idealism as a self-consciousness that is

poignant without any phenomenon, a self-consciousness that is alive through complete deliberation. Going back to the idea of self-consciousness, for the self-consciousness can be either an idealist, like the fellow philosophers, Hegel, Plato, etc. or it can be a materialist. If the self-consciousness were to be idealistic, then otherness, or the distinguishable selfconsciousness of another ego, as Hegel states, would merely be a thought rather than an entity that inevitably shapes itself. In other words, the self-consciousness of others is not crucial to an idealist due to the excess of contemplation they have; whereas if the selfconsciousness were to be materialistic, then the concept of another self-consciousness is vital to itself because it is in immanence with the other. An example where idealistic and materialistic self-consciousnesses may exist is in the lord and bondsman, where the lord is most likely the idealist, the subject, and the materialist is the bondman, the total object. According to the Brazilian educator Friere, this is a form of oppression, a murder indeed, especially when pertained to education. However, the two self-consciousnesses are bound to form a thesis and an antithesis, with a synthesis that is likely to exist. Since the selfconsciousness is aware of itself because of other people, the idealists will know themselves as idealists but it is doubtful that the materialists will know themselves as materialists. Awareness and knowledge may be the only gate towards a synthesis. Idealism and materialism are everywhere. For they have changed the perception of the human mind is many ways today. In essence, the self-consciousness in every person, or entity, is significant and devoted to thought. Dreaming, different from idealism and different from materialism, will kidnap one away from self-consciousness.

Works Cited

Hegel, Georg W F. The Phenomenology of Mind. Trans. J. B. Baillie. 1807. New York: Harper & Row's Torch, 1967. Marxists Internet Archive. Web. <http://marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/phindex.htm>.