Chapter 6 Chapter 1 Sensible Certainty; The One and Meaning

The knowledge which is at first or immediately our object is nothing but immediate knowledge in itself, that is, knowledge of what is immediate or existing.We must also treat it directly or receptively, and must therefore treat this knowledge only as it appears to us, unchanged, and without allowing conceptual grasp to intermingle with this knowledge. This concrete content of sensible certainty makes it at once appear to be the richest kind of knowledge, even an infinitely rich kind of knowledge.For this infinitely rich content, there is no limit whether we trace the breadth it presents to us through space and time, or we take a piece of this rich material and delve into its depth through in-depth analysis.Moreover, sensuous certainty seems to be the truest knowledge; for it has not omitted anything from the object, but has the object presented to it in its entirety and completeness.But, in fact, this certainty also provides, so to speak, the most abstract and impoverished truth.It says only so much of what it knows: it exists.And its truth consists only in the existence of things.On the other hand, in this certainty consciousness is only a pure ego, or in this knowing I am a pure this and the object is a pure this.The reason why I know this thing is not because I, as a consciousness, develop myself in knowing this thing, and use my brain to think about it in various ways.Nor is it because of this thing, which I know for sure, because it has many different qualities, is itself richly related to itself, or has multifaceted relations to other things.The truth of sensuous certainty is irrelevant in both cases; neither the self nor the thing [object] has a multifaceted mediating meaning here, the self does not contain multifaceted representations or think multifacetedly, things do not mean Qualitative diversity.Rather it is only: the thing exists (or there is such a thing), and the thing exists simply because it exists.It exists—this is what is essential to sensuous knowledge, and this mere being or this mere immediacy constitutes the truth of sensuous certainty.Likewise certainty as a relation [as certainty about something] is only a direct and pure relation: consciousness is the ego, and nothing else, but a pure this, the particular [ego ] Knowing the pure one, or something in particular.

But this mere being, which constitutes the essence of this sensuous certainty, and which is proclaimed to be the truth of sensuous certainty, if we try to look more closely, we shall see that there are still more other things in this mere being. s things.The sensible certainty of a reality is not just this pure immediacy, but is an instance of it.Among the innumerable differences that arise here, we see everywhere the main difference, namely, that in this immediate sensuous certainty the pure is at once split into the two "ones" already mentioned: This one as self and this one as object.If we try to reflect on this difference, we can see that the one as ego and as object is not only direct, only in the certainty of the senses, but at the same time indirect; The thing, the thing, is certain, and the thing is also certain through an other, the self.

This difference of essence and instance, of immediacy and indirectness, is not merely made by us, but we find it in sensuous certainty itself; as in the form of certainty, not as we have just defined it.On the one hand posited in sensuous certainty is the simple, immediately existing thing or essence, the object.And the other facility set up is the non-essential and indirect thing that does not exist in itself, but exists through something else, that is, the self. The self is a cognitive function. The reason why it knows the object, Just because the object exists, the knowing self may or may not exist.But the object exists, it is reality, it is essence.Whether the object is known or not, it exists the same.Even if it is not known, it still exists; but if there is no object, there can be no knowledge.

We must therefore inquire whether, in fact, the object is, in sensuous certainty itself, as essential as it appears to be; Our purpose is not to ponder over and over what the object really is, but only to examine what the object is contained in the certainty of sense. Sensible certainty should therefore ask itself the question: what is this one?Let us look here and here at the double form of existence of this one, and the dialectic it contains will have an intelligible form like the one itself.Thus to the question: what is this time?For example, we can answer like this: It is night now.To demonstrate the truth of this perceptual certainty, a simple experiment suffices.We write this truth; a truth does not lose its truth by writing it down; any more than it loses its truth by keeping it.If we look at that written truth at some later time, now at noon, we must say that it is outdated.

Write down "This is night" and keep it, that is to say, treat it as it is, as it exists.But it turns out to be a non-existent thing.It is true that the time itself still remains this time, but what remains is a time other than night.Likewise in daytime, the present "this is daytime" also remains as present, but what remains is not present as day, in other words, the present which is preserved is a general negative.This self-retaining thing is now not an immediate thing, but an indirect one; for it is determined as a permanent and a continuing thing because it is nothing else, e.g. day and night.Thus it remains as simple now as before, and in its simplicity it is indifferent to everything that still belongs to it; "this time" is neither night nor night. Like day, it is also day and night; it is not at all affected by its otherness.Such a mere being, which exists through negation, is neither this nor that, but a non-this, and equally indiscriminately both this and that—like this The simple we call the universal; therefore the universal is in fact the truth of sensuous certainty.

When we speak of something perceptual, we also speak of it as a universal thing.What we say is: "the one", that is to say, the universal this, or when we say: it is, that is to say being in general. When we say this, of course we do not have in mind a universal this or being in general, but we say something universal; in other words, we do not really say what we mean in sensible certainty. so-called things.But, as we shall see, language is the truer thing: in language we ourselves immediately negate our signification; and since universals are truths of sensible certainty, and language merely expresses such truths, let us take our What is meant by a sensuous being is quite impossible to put into words.

The same would be the case with "here," another form of "this one."For example, here is a tree.I turn around and this truth disappears and is transformed into its opposite: here is not a tree, but a house.Here itself does not disappear; rather it persists in the disappearance of the house, the tree, etc., and is equally the house, the tree, without distinction. "This one" thus manifests itself as mediated simplicity or universality. Since sensuous certainty itself proves the truth of the universal as its object, pure being remains its essence, but this pure being is not an immediate thing, but one whose essence is negativity and mediation. It is therefore not what we mean by being, but a determined being of abstraction and pure universality, and our meaning, since it does not have as universals the truth of sensible certainty, has only to do with this The empty or indifferent is now opposed to here.

If we try to compare the relationship between cognition and object at first appearance and the relationship between them in this result, we can see that the relationship between them is exactly reversed.What was said to be the essence now becomes the inessential in sensuous certainty; for the universal which the object has become is no longer essential to the sensuous certainty, as the object is to it, and the sensuous Certainty now resides in the opposite, that is, in the aspect of cognition that was not essential before. The truth of sensible certainty lies in the object as my object, or in my meaning: the object exists because I know it.Thus sensuous certainty is indeed expelled from the object, but it is not thereby annulled, but merely forced back into the ego.Let us also see what experience will show us about this truth of sensible certainty.

Thus the force of the truth of sensuous certainty is now in the ego, in my immediate sight, hearing, etc.; As for disappearing. "It is daytime" because I see it; "here is a tree" because I see it. In this case, however, sensible certainty undergoes the same dialectics as in the former.I, this one, saw the tree, and was sure it was a tree; but the other I saw the house, and was sure it was not a tree, but a house.Both truths have the same certainty, both have the immediacy of seeing, both have the certainty and certainty of their respective knowledge; but the certainty of the one is lost in the certainty of the other.

What has not disappeared in this process of understanding is the self as the universal, and the seeing of this self is neither the seeing of the trees nor the seeing of the house, but a simple seeing, and this simple seeing is achieved through Established by the negation of sight of this tree, this house, etc., in the process of which it treats equally simply and indiscriminately everything that belongs to it: house, tree, etc.The ego is only the universal, just as the general here, now, and this one is the universal.Doubtless I mean an individual self, but just as I cannot say what I mean here, here, so I cannot say what I mean by self.When I say: this one, here, this time, or a particular thing, I mean all this, all here, this moment, something else; likewise when I say I, this particular me , I'm generally speaking, everything about me.Every me that I say is me, this individual me.If one asks of science as its touchstone—and this is a test that science cannot stand—that it "deduces," "constructs," "finds out a priori" (or any how to say,)

If there is a so-called "this one thing" or "this one particular person", then the person who makes the claim should say which thing, or which self, it means; but it is impossible to say this of. Sensible certainty thus experiences that its essence is neither in the object nor in the ego, that its proper immediacy is neither that of the object nor that of the ego.For in both respects what the ego means is an inessential, and the object and the ego are universals in which what I mean by this time, here, and this one cannot last. , or none exist.We then arrive at the result that we must posit the whole of sensuous certainty as its essence, and not just a moment of it, without, as in the previous two cases, first placing the object opposed to the self, and secondly the object opposed to the ego. The opposite self-recognition of the object is its reality.Hence only the whole of sensuous certainty itself remains there as immediacy, and thus excludes from itself all previous antagonisms. This pure immediacy thus has nothing to do with the transition from "here" as tree to "here" which is not tree, and with the transition from "here" as day to "here" as night. coherence, or rather, it ceases to be relevant to another self whose object is something else.This truth of pure immediacy always maintains itself as a relation of self-identity, which makes no distinction between the ego and the object, essential and non-essential, so that in general the distinction does not permeate this self-identity. relationship.I, the [subject], therefore affirm that this is a tree, and I do not turn around, lest it should become a non-tree for me.And I don't notice: Another self sees this as a non-tree, or I myself will see this as a non-tree in another place or time, and will regard this time as a non-day; and this I am just pure intuition : I insist there alone, it is daytime, or here are the trees, and I do not compare here with the time itself, but I insist only on a direct relation: it is daytime. The sensible certainty that "it is day" is lost if we call attention to a time when it is night, or to a self that sees it as night, and in this case, let We go up to it and point out the moment it affirms.We must let us point out the now; for the truth of the immediate relation is the truth of the self which confines itself to a now or a here.This truth would be utterly meaningless if we came to examine it later, or from a place or time remote from it; for we would cancel out the immediacy which is of essential importance to it.We must therefore enter into the same point of time or space, pointing them to us, that is, making us that same self with definite (sensuous) knowledge of this one.We can then see what is the nature of the immediate knowledge pointed out to us. We point to "this time" [or now], this time.This time; when it has been pointed out, it has ceased to be this time.And the present that exists is no longer the present we pointed out, and we see that the present is precisely that which, while it was, no longer exists.That which is pointed out to us is now already a thing of the past, and the past (or having been) is the truth of the then (or present); there is no truth of Being. Yes, it was true at this time.But whatever was there is in fact not real; it no longer exists, and our original problem was to find existence. Therefore, in this process of pointing out, we only see the following movement and process: (1) I point out this moment and affirm that it is true; but I point out that it is something that has passed away or something that has been sublated , thus sublating the previous truth, so (2) I now affirm the second truth, that is, this time has passed and has been sublated. (3) But what was past does not exist now; we then supersede that past being or superseded being, i.e. the second truth, and thus I negate the negation of the present , so it returns to the first affirmation, that is, exists at this time.Hence the nature of the moment and the pointing out of the moment is not an immediate and simple thing, but a movement in which different moments are involved; the establishment of the one builds up the other, or sublates the other. took this one.And the sublation of the other or the first is itself sublated, and thus reverts to the first.But this first returning to itself is no longer quite exactly what it was at first as an immediacy; but rather a simple thing returning to itself or maintaining itself in its counterpart.It is a now, a now that contains countless nows.This is the real now, such a time as simple day, which contains many hours - hours - in itself; such a time, as an hour, contains many minutes in itself, and Every minute as this now also contains many nows and so on.So pointing out the now itself is the process of saying the truth about what the now is, that is, a result or a complex of many times; pointing out the now also makes us experience This is a universal. The here I pointed out is also this here, which is actually not this here, but a front and a back, an upper and a lower, a right and a left.The above itself is likewise the multifaceted other of this one above, below, and so on.The here that is pointed out disappears among the many other heres that will likewise disappear; what is pointed out, persists, and remains is only a negative this, the reason why this negative this can be It persists only because it recognizes the heres as they ought to be and at the same time causes them to supersede each other in it; it is a simple complex of hereses.As for what is signified here should be a point; however, the point does not exist; on the contrary, when the point is pointed out as something that exists, the pointing out itself shows that pointing out is not an immediate cognition, but A movement, a movement from the here signified, through the heres, into a universal here (or here as universal), just as the day is a simple complex of times, is Many simple complexes here. It follows that the dialectical development of sensuous certainty is nothing but a simple history of its movement or of its experience, and sensuous certainty itself is nothing but this history. Naive consciousness therefore always progresses to this result, to what is true in sensuous certainty, and by this process makes its experience.But consciousness always forgets its experience again and again, and goes through the same process all over again. It is surprising, therefore, that anyone should object to this (dialectical) experience, and propose a so-called "universal experience" (and also as a philosophical claim, even as a result of skepticism), that: as The existence or reality of this external or sensible thing has absolute truth for consciousness.The man who holds such an opinion really does not know what he is talking about, that what he is saying is the opposite of what he wants to say.This truth of sensibility to consciousness is said to be a universal experience; but its opposite is precisely the universal experience.Every consciousness again and again sublates the truths it has established, such as "Here is a tree," or "It is daytime," and says the opposite: "Here is not a tree, but a House"; and in this affirmation that supersedes the first affirmation, there is still a sensuous, individual affirmation, still this one, which is also immediately to be superseded.In all sensuous certainties, as we have seen, there is really only the experience that this one is a universal, which is just the opposite of what has just been said about it as universal experience. —— While referring to this appeal to common experience, let us discuss in advance the question of the scope of practice.In this regard, it may be said to those who assert the truth and certainty of the reality of the objects of the senses, that they had better return to the wisdom of the lowest schools, to the old age of Eleusine and wine. God's mystery; there they must first learn the secret of eating and drinking.For those who have entered into this mystery have not only come to doubt of the existence of sensuous things, but have even despaired of their existence, which they negate on the one hand, and on the other hand see that they negate themselves.Even animals are not ignorant of this wisdom, and even show that they deeply understand this wisdom.For the animals do not regard sense-objects as beings in themselves, and stand still towards them, but despair of their reality, and are fully confident of destroying them, they [animals] deal with them without restraint. , eat them.All of nature, like the animals, proclaims these open secrets, and these mysteries teach men what is the truth of sense things. But, as has been indicated above, it seems that those who make such claims say exactly the exact opposite of what they mean—a phenomenon which perhaps most sufficiently prompts them to ponder the nature of sensible certainty.They speak of the existence of external objects, which may more precisely be defined as actual, absolutely individual, wholly individual individual things, each of which cannot find a single being absolutely identical to it. things; and, according to them, such a being has absolute certainty and truth.They mean the sheet of paper on which I am writing, or rather on which I have written; but they do not say what they mean.If they really want to say what they mean by this piece of paper, and they want to say that, it's impossible, because the sensuous "this one" is beyond the reach of language, which is Belonging to the sphere of consciousness, that is, to the sphere that is universal or universal in itself.In the actual attempt to say "the paper," the "paper" is thus crushed; those who begin to describe it, cannot complete their description, but must first give it to someone else , and these people will eventually themselves admit that what they are about to say does not exist.What they mean is, of course, this sheet of paper here, which is quite different from the one there; but they are speaking of "real things, external or sensuous objects, absolutely individual Exist" and so on, that is to say, what they say about them is only their universals or universals.Hence what is called ineffable is nothing but unreal, irrational, merely signified. —— If we can say nothing about something except that it is a real thing, an external object, then we only say that it is a most general thing, and therefore nothing but it and all other things. The sameness of things without speaking of dissimilarity.When I say: This is an individual, I mean rather that it is an entirely general, since everything is an individual; and this same is all that we can conceive.Strictly speaking, as far as this piece of paper is concerned, all paper and every piece of paper is this piece of paper, so what I say is always just general things or universals.But if in order to assist language—because language has such a sacred property that it can directly reverse the meaning and transform it into something else (that is, the universal), so that the meaning cannot be expressed by language at all. Expression—I just point to this piece of paper [with my hand], and I have the experience of realizing what the truth of sensuous certainty is in fact: I point out that my sensuous certainty is a "here," And this "here" contains many other heres, or it is itself a simple collection of many "heres", in other words, it is a universal; so I regard it as it really is Phase], that is to say, I am not knowing an immediate thing, but perceiving it.