Chapter 16 1. The Rationality of Observation

We see that this consciousness, through which being acquires an "otherness," has now, yes, re-entered meaning and perception, but meaning and perception are not of the kind that are simply convinced that there is an other. Certainty, rather, this consciousness already has the certainty of knowing itself as this other.Before that, to perceive and experience something in things was just an occasional or accidental thing for consciousness, but now it uses observation and experience by itself.Meaning and perception, which were previously superseded in relation to us alone, are now superseded in their own right by consciousness; the task of reason consists in knowing the truth, in taking meaning and perception as The thing of a thing seeks it out as a concept, that is to say, it seeks only its own consciousness in thingness.Reason, therefore, now has a general interest in the world, because it knows itself to be in the world, or rather, it knows the world as it is now to be rational.It seeks its other, because it knows that in the other there is nothing but itself; it seeks only its own infinity.

Reason at first only conjectured itself to be in reality, or only generally knew that reality belonged to it; There is a sign of ownership on it.But this apparent self is not its last interest; And while it thus joyfully pursues a general occupation, it finds in its property something foreign, something which abstract reason does not have in itself.Reason conjectures that it is something deeper than the pure self as the pure self, so it must demand that the difference, the rich and diverse existence, become something that belongs to the pure self, and therefore it must demand that the pure self itself be regarded as reality. Intuit it, and find itself the existing image and thing.But if reason disentangles all the guts of things, opens all its veins, hoping to get out of them, it will not achieve this fortunate end; on the contrary, it must first complete itself in it, so that it can then experience to its own completion.

Consciousness observes, what does that mean?That is to say, reason wants to discover itself as an existing object, that is, an object that exists in the actual, sensuous present mode, and considers itself to be such an object for itself.This observing consciousness thinks and professes that it does not want to discover or experience itself, but on the contrary wants to experience the essence of what things are.We say that this consciousness thinks itself and professes that it does not want to experience itself, because this consciousness is reason, and reason itself is not yet an object for it.If consciousness had known that reason was both the essence of things and itself, that reason could only be present in consciousness in its own image, it would rather sink into the depths of itself, where Look for reason instead of looking for it in things.If it has found reason in its own depth, it pushes it back from there to reality, in order to perceive its sensuous appearance in reality, and at once treats this sensuous manifestation essentially as a concept.However, when reason appears directly only as the certainty of consciousness that it is all reality, reason regards its reality as the immediacy of being, and likewise it regards the unity of the self with this objective thing. regarded as a direct unity.In this unity reason has not yet separated and reunited the moment of being from the moment of me, or rather, it has not yet recognized this unity.

Reason, therefore, as observing consciousness, goes to things, thinking that all it knows are sensuous and opposed to me; but the mere actual action of it clearly contradicts this supposed idea, because It knows things, that is, it transforms the sensibility of things into concepts, it transforms them precisely into a being that is at the same time me, so that it changes thinking into a thinking that is, or being into a being. thought being, and in fact it affirms that things have truth only as concepts.In this process, as far as the observing reason is concerned, only things are known, but as far as we are concerned, what is known is consciousness itself; and the result of its movement will be What is in itself becomes for-itself.

Then we can now examine the observing act of reason in the various stages of movement of the reason of observation, and see how it understands nature, spirit, and even the relationship between nature and spirit as perceptual existence, and see how it understands nature and spirit in this movement. Finding itself in the course of the process as the reality that exists.