Chapter 23 (a) Pleasure and Necessity

Self-consciousness, which is conscious of itself as reality at all, has an object within itself, but this object which it has is first of all only for itself, not yet existing.Existence is opposed to it as another reality, because this reality is a reality of its own.The purpose of self-consciousness is to realize its self-existence, so as to regard itself as another independent existence.Its first purpose is to realize itself as an individual being in another self-consciousness, or to make this other self-consciousness its own; It has the certainty that the other is itself or already in itself. ——When it rises from the static existence of ethical substance and thinking to become its own existence, it has made the ethical aspect and the laws in concrete existence, knowledge and theory obtained by rational observation, etc., like a kind of gray cast behind themselves like vanishing shadows; for these things are knowledge of a thing whose being and reality for itself and self-consciousness are another thing.It is not the spirit of heaven that enters and fills this self-consciousness, the spirit of the universal in knowledge and action in which individual feeling and enjoyment are silenced, but the spirit of the earth, the spirit of the earth The only real reality is that there is such a thing as the reality of individual consciousness.

It scorns science and understanding, This supreme human faculty— It ran under the devil's command And will eventually return to perdition. ① ①Hegel quotes Goethe's "Faust" the first part of the student's poem to the effect. ——Original Editor Self-awareness throws itself into life and brings into full play the pure individuality with which it emerges.It is not so concerned with creating its own pleasures as it is with enjoying it directly.The only shadows of science, law, and principle that exist between it and its own reality tend to dissipate like a dying mist, not at all equal to the certainty of its reality. It contends; it seeks life for itself, just as it picks overripe fruit, which falls into its hands as soon as it is picked.

Ⅰ.hapiness In only one respect, the act of self-consciousness is an act of desire; it does not aim at the annihilation of objective existence as a whole; Form is an illusion without essence; for self-consciousness considers its otherness itself to be this objective essence or its own nature or ego (Selbstheit).If desire and the object of desire are independent of each other in an element, this element is living concrete being; but if this element belongs to the object of desire, then when this desire is enjoyed, the element is Was sublated. But now the element which separates the two into an independent reality is the category, a being which is essentially a representation; Whether it is a natural consciousness or a consciousness developed into a law system, in short, it is this consciousness that keeps each individual as an independent individual.As a matter of itself, such a separation is not to self-consciousness, for self-consciousness knows other self-consciousness as its own intrinsic nature.Self-consciousness thus achieves this: enjoys pleasure, becomes aware of its own realization in an independently manifesting consciousness, and intuits the unity of two separate self-consciousnesses.Self-consciousness achieves its purpose, and just as it achieves it experiences the truth of its purpose.It understands itself to be this individual essence existing for itself, but the realization of this end depends on the sublation of this end; for it realizes that it is not this individual self-consciousness that becomes its object, but rather itself and The unity of other self-consciousness is thus the sublated individual, or the universal.

Ⅱ.inevitability Enjoyed pleasure is certainly positive, that is, it has become objective self-consciousness, but it is also negative, that is, it has superseded itself.Since self-consciousness comprehends its own actualization only in the positive sense, the experience it acquires in its consciousness is a contradiction: in its experience the reality attained by its individuality sees itself as negative. The essence of negation destroys reality; the negative essence is a force that devours reality, although it is vacuously opposed to reality without reality.The essence of this negation is nothing but the very concept of individuality itself.But this individuality is also the poorest form of the self-actualizing spirit, since it is for itself an abstraction of reason or the immediate unity of being-for-itself and being-in-itself; its essence is therefore only an abstract category.However, it is no longer an immediate, simple form of being, as it is before the observing spirit; before the observing spirit, it is an abstract being, or when it is posited as a foreign object, it is a thing. Average sex.And now here, being-for-itself and mediation enter into this thingness.This individuality thus emerges as a circle whose content is the developed, pure relationship of the simple essence.So when we say that this individuality has been realized, it simply means that it has thrown the abstractions of the circle out of the simple enclosure of self-consciousness, and invested them in "for it [consciousness ] into the "existence" or element of objective extension.

Thus, in the enjoyment of pleasure, it is these empty essentialities which become objects for self-consciousness as its essence, such as pure unity, pure difference and the expansion of their relations; besides this, the individual The object, which sex experiences as its essence, no longer has content.This content is that which is called inevitability; for so-called inevitability, doomed fate, etc., is precisely that which cannot be said exactly what it does, what its definite laws and affirmative content are, for it is The absolute, intuited as being, the pure concept itself, is that relation which is simple and empty, but irresistible and irresistible, whose result is nothing but the nothingness of individuality.Necessity is this solid connection, for what is connected is pure essentiality or empty abstraction.Unity, difference, and relation are such categories, each of which is not something in itself, but exists only in relation to its opposite, and therefore cannot be independent of relation.They are related to each other by virtue of their concepts, because they are pure concepts in themselves; and this absolute relation, this abstract movement, constitutes necessity.The mere individuality, that is, the individuality which at first has as its object only the pure concept of reason, does not therefore step out of the theory of death into life, but rather into the consciousness of its own inanimateness. Inwardly, it realizes that it is only an empty and alien necessity, a dead reality.

Ⅲ.Contradictions in self-awareness It is a transition from a single form to a universal form, from one absolute abstraction to another, from pure being-for-itself cut off from all other beings, to The pure opposite, the transition to being-for-itself, which is therefore equally abstract.The situation thus manifests itself in this way: the individual simply dissolves into nothingness, and the absolute fragility of individuality is shattered in the equally hard but continuous reality. —Since the individual, as consciousness, is the unity of itself and its opposite, this transition is not what the individual is conscious of; but its purpose and its realization, and what it previously thought to be essential, is not in itself Is the contradiction between what is essential, at all or of which the individual is conscious;—the individual experiences in what it does, that is, in the fact that it has acquired its life, that there Meaning: It [was] seeking life, but what it gained was death.

The transition from its living existence to its inanimate necessity thus appears to it as an unmediated reversal.What is mediated must be that in which the mediated two become one, and therefore must be the consciousness which in one moment knows the other, which in its destiny knows its aim and action, Knowing its destiny in its purpose and action, its own essence in this necessity.But this unity is for this consciousness just pleasure itself, or the simple, individual emotion, and the transition from its moment of purpose to the moment of its true essence is for it a moment to its opposite. Pure leap.For these two moments are not contained and united in emotion, but only in the pure self; the pure self is a universal or thought.Consciousness experiences for it that its truth should be realized; through this experience it becomes rather an insoluble enigma to itself; the consequences of its actions do not appear to it to be the very actions themselves .What happens in it is not for it an experience of its own, the transition is not a simple change of form of the same content and essence, which is sometimes represented as the content and essence of consciousness and at other times Representation is its own object or intuited essence.Abstract necessity thus becomes the force of that mere negation, uncomprehended universality that shatters individuality.

The manifestation of self-awareness in this form has been developed to this point.The final moment of its existence is the thought of itself lost in necessity, or of itself being something absolutely foreign to itself.But self-consciousness itself survives this loss, because this necessity or pure universality is its own essence.This self-recovery of consciousness, the knowledge of necessity as itself, is a new configuration of consciousness.