Chapter 41 (b) The Truth of Enlightenment

That dull weaving [activity] from which the mind can no longer make any distinction, then enters itself and resides beyond consciousness, which on the contrary becomes aware of itself.The first moment of this clear understanding is determined in its necessity and condition by the fact that pure perception, or that perception which is itself a concept, realizes itself. ; it realizes itself because it situates itself, or determines, in itself.Thus it is the pure perception of negativity, that is, the negation of the concept; and the negation of the concept, likewise pure; so that there arises the pure thing, the absolute essence, without any further determination.If it is further defined, perception, as the absolute concept, is a distinction [activity] of those differences which cease to be distinctions, of those abstractions which no longer support themselves but are supported and differentiated only by the whole movement. or a distinction [activity] of pure concepts.This differentiation [activity] of the indifferent is exactly what it is: the absolute concept makes itself its own object and posits itself as essence in relation to the above-mentioned movement.This essence then lacks an aspect in which abstractions or distinctions are distinguished, and thus becomes pure thought as a pure thing. —This is the state of mind which we have said before that faith, when it loses its distinctive content, sinks into that state of mind, that is, that dull, unconscious weaving of the mind within itself;—and at the same time That is to say, the above-mentioned movement of pure self-consciousness, for which the essence should be an absolutely alien beyond.For since this pure self-consciousness is a movement between pure concepts, i.e., differences without distinctions, pure self-consciousness actually collapses into an unconscious weave, that is, collapses into To be pure sensation or pure thingness (Dingheit). — But the concept alienated itself, because it is still in the stage of alienation at this time, does not recognize the same essence of the two aspects of the movement of self-consciousness and the absolute essence of self-consciousness, and does not recognize that it is in fact the essence of both of them. The same essence of both the substance and the subsistence.Since this estranged concept does not recognize this unity, the essence is only an objective other side for it, and the consciousness that makes this difference (in this case, its itself is in itself) other than), is only a limited consciousness.

On this question of absolute essence, Enlightenment split itself into two factions that quarreled with each other, just as it had quarreled with faith before.One faction can prove itself to be the victorious faction only because it has split itself into two factions again: for it has shown from this split that it contains in itself the principle which it formerly opposed, and thus has shown that it has superseded The one-sidedness with which it appeared in the past.Interest formerly divided between itself and the other, now rests entirely on the one side and forgets the other, for interest now finds that the very opposition with which it is concerned lies within its own side. There are.At the same time this opposition has risen in the higher element of victory, and in this higher element it is presented in a purified form.Therefore, this split in one faction, on the surface, is a misfortune, but in fact it is a great fortune for this faction.

I．Pure Mind and Pure Matter The pure essence itself does not have any difference in itself, and the difference between the pure essences is due to the presence of two such pure essences before consciousness, or because of the appearance of two consciousnesses of pure essences. —The pure Absolute Essence exists only in pure thinking, or rather it is pure thinking itself, and is therefore at all beyond finite things, self-consciousness, and is only the essence of negativity.But in this case, it is precisely Being, the negation of self-consciousness.As the negation of self-consciousness, it is also related to self-consciousness; it is an external being, and this external being, because it is related to self-consciousness that can distinguish and determine, has its own causes. The differences that arise from being tasted or seen, etc.; and this relation is that of sensuous certainty and perception.

If we start from this sensuous being into which the above-mentioned negative beyond necessarily transitions, and at the same time abstract its relation to these specific modes of consciousness, we see that what remains is only matter, only in itself The dreary knitting and movement going on.The first point to be noted at this point is that pure matter is only what remains after we have abstracted away the activities of seeing, feeling, tasting, etc., that is, pure matter is not what is seen or felt. , tasted, etc.; what is seen, felt, tasted is not matter, but color, a stone, a grain of salt, etc.; matter is rather pure abstraction; And in this way, the pure essence of thinking is clearly revealed. The pure essence of thinking, or in other words, pure thinking itself, is the absolute without distinction, without definition, and without predicates.

One school of Enlightenment calls the predicate-less Absolute, which is beyond the consciousness of reality and exists in thinking, from which it started as the Absolute Essence; while the other school calls it Matter.If they were distinguished as Nature and Spirit or God, then Nature, as an unconscious weave within itself, would lack the richness of life unfolding, and Spirit, or God, would lack the consciousness to distinguish itself.The two, as we have seen, are exactly the same concept; their difference does not lie in the matter itself, but purely in the fact that the two schools of thought are formed from different points of departure, and that the two schools of thought stop at One of his fixed points stays in place.If they go beyond their fixed point, they will come together and realize that what is said to be abominable to one party and stupid to the other is the same thing.Because, for one school, the absolute essence exists in its pure thinking or is directly perceived by pure consciousness, it exists outside limited consciousness, and it is the other side of the negativity of limited consciousness.

If this school reflects on the fact that, on the one hand, the simple immediacy of thinking is nothing but pure being, on the other hand, that which is negative for consciousness also occurs with consciousness. This is because the copula "is" in the negative judgment not only separates the subject and object, but also connects the separated two words together, and if you notice this, then, this other shore, as a What exists externally will be related to consciousness, and this other side, since it is determined by external beings, will be the same thing as what is called pure matter; the present Where there is a missing link, there will be. ——The other school of enlightenment starts from perceptual existence, and then removes the perceptual relationship of taste, vision, etc., making it pure in itself, an absolute substance, something that is neither felt nor tasted; This being then becomes a predicateless simple, the essence of pure consciousness; it is the pure concept existing in itself, or pure thought in itself.This perception does not move in the opposite direction in its consciousness [activity], it does not go from what is (which is pure being) to what is thought (which is the same as pure being) thing), or rather, it does not go from the pure positive to the pure negative; nevertheless, the positive is pure only through negation, since the pure negative, being pure, it is self-equal, and precisely because it is self-equal it is affirmative. —In other words, neither school of Enlightenment has reached a metaphysical concept like that of Descartes, neither understands that being and thinking are one and the same in itself, neither realizes that being, pure being, is not a concrete reality, but pure abstraction, and, conversely, neither school sees that pure thought, self-identity or essence, is, on the one hand, the negation of self-consciousness and thus being, and on the other hand, as Immediate simplicity is likewise nothing but being; thinking is Dingheit, or rather, thingness is thinking.

Ⅱ.Utilitarian world The reason why essence has hitherto divided itself into two (Entzweiung) is because it has been considered in two different ways; These two modes of consideration are again united; for the abstract moments by which the pure being and the negative are distinguished from each other are then united again in the object considered by the two modes. —The universal that they have in common is the pure self-vibration or the abstraction of pure self-thought.This kind of one-way rotation movement with itself as the axis must scatter itself and turn it into many links, because only when it distinguishes itself as a link, it is a kind of movement in itself.This moment distinguishes movement and leaves behind the immovable [essence] as an empty shell of a pure being that ceases to be real thought, ceases to be its own life; for this distinguishing movement, as difference, It is everything.But this movement of distinction, since it places itself outside the above-mentioned unity, is a succession of moments, a succession of the moments of being-in-itself, being-for-it, and being-for-itself without returning to itself. ;--it is the reality to which the real-consciousness of pure insight has as its object,--utility (or usefulness, Nutzlichkeit).

Utilitarianism, ugly as it may be from the point of view of faith, or of feeling, or of that abstraction which calls itself speculative for the purpose of producing being-in-itself, is nevertheless such a thing in which pure Insight realizes itself and has itself as its object, and here pure insight no longer denies its object, nor does it consider its object to be of empty or pure otherworldly value. For pure perception, as we have seen, is the concept of existence itself, or such a self-equal pure personality which distinguishes itself only by making each distinguished moment It becomes a pure concept in itself, that is to say, it is not at all different; it is a simple pure self-consciousness that exists not only in itself but for itself in an immediate unity. .This self-consciousness, therefore, is not a perpetual existence, but, on the contrary, it ceases to be something at once when it is differentiated; , it is not in itself, but rather for something else in essence, and this other thing is exactly the kind of power that absorbs it or swallows it.

But this second moment, which is the opposite of the first moment, being-in-itself, like the first moment, immediately disappears; or rather, as an existence only for him, it disappears. process] itself, and in this way, the existence that returns to itself, the existence for itself, is set up.But this simple being-for-itself, as its own equivalent, is rather a being, and therefore a being for something else. —Pure insight, when it has developed its moments, that is, when it is an object, has this nature, manifested outwardly, is useful (das Nutzliche).The useful is an in-itself persistence or thing which is at the same time a pure moment; it is therefore absolutely for something else, but it is for something else precisely only For it is in itself; the two opposite moments then return in the indivisible unity of being-for-itself.But the useful, though expressing the concept of pure insight, is not pure insight in general, but rather pure insight as representation and as its own object; There is a moment, which is itself a being that has returned to itself, but only as being-for-itself, that is to say, only as an abstract moment that appears on the one side and is opposed to the other.

What is useful is not itself a negative essence that regards these moments as opposed to each other and at the same time treats them indiscriminately from the same point of view or attitude, or treats them all as one. They are viewed as thoughts in their own right (as they are as pure perceptions).The useful thing itself retains the link of being-for-itself, but the link of being-for-itself does not interfere with the two links of being-in-itself and being-for-others. If so, being-for-itself should be the self (or subject).Therefore pure insight, in what is useful, has as its object its own concepts in its pure moments; it is the consciousness of this metaphysics, but not yet the conceptual understanding of this metaphysics;

It has not yet reached the unity of being and concept.Since the useful still retains its form as an object of pure perception, pure perception no longer retains a world existing in itself and for itself, but nevertheless retains a world distinct from itself. .But now that the oppositions have been developed to the point of the concept, at the next stage they will dissolve and enlightenment will reap the fruits of its actions. Ⅲ.Self-certainty If we examine the attained object in relation to the whole sphere [of spiritual life], we find that the actual world of edification has reduced itself to the vanity (Eitelkeit) of self-consciousness—to such a being-for-itself, which This kind of existence for itself still has the content of cultivating the chaos of the world, and it is still an individual concept, not a universal concept for itself.But this particular concept, when it comes back to itself, is pure perception—and pure perception is pure consciousness as pure ego or negativity, just as faith is pure consciousness as pure thought or affirmation.Faith finds the above-mentioned (pure) self as a complementary moment to its perfection;— But since faith tends to disappear due to this supplement, we can only see the two moments [complementing each other], a thing that exists as an absolute essence, that is, affirmative, only by pure insight. Come to investigate. —— Although pure insight is complete, as self-awareness, it still lacks the reality-world of illusory consciousness. Thinking raised itself from this reality and the world to the height of thinking in the first place.In one sense, what is lacking in pure insight is already supplemented in utility, because it achieves positive objectivity in utility; pure insight is thus a real consciousness satisfied in itself. .This objectivity now constitutes the world of pure perception; pure perception has become the truth of the world of ideas and of reality, that is, of all antecedent worlds.The first world of the mind is the vast kingdom of its dispersed definite beings and individual certainties of itself; just as nature divides its life into an infinite variety of forms, although it has many forms , but there is no type of the corresponding form①.The second world contains types and is the realm of being-in-itself or the realm of truth as opposed to the above-mentioned certainty.But the third world is the kingdom of utilitarianism, where usefulness is truth, and truth is also self-certainty.The realm of truth of belief lacks the principle of reality, or rather, the individual's own certainty.However, actuality, or the self-certainty of this individual person, lacks being-in-itself.In the object of pure perception these two worlds are united.What is useful is the object, since self-consciousness penetrates the object and derives from it its own individual certainty, its enjoyment (its being-for-itself); This insight or insight contains the real essence of the object (the real essence of the object is a thing that is seen through, or exists for an other); this insight itself is therefore true knowledge, Self-consciousness, on the other hand, has immediately its universal certainty of itself, its pure awareness of itself, in a relation in which truth and present and actuality are united.The two worlds are reconciled, the heaven and the earth are handed over to each other, and the kingdom of heaven descends to the human world③. ① The first world refers to the enlightened world, which is the world of isolated and scattered self-lost spirits. - translator ②The second world refers to the world of belief, which is the world of essence and the world of universal things, but it has no real certainty of self-consciousness; only in utilitarian or usefulness can the two become one and constitute the third , for a self-aware world. - translator ③This transformation and transition heralds the arrival of the French Revolution and "absolute freedom".Self-consciousness has reconciled the two moments of reality certainty and truth into a world of its own; it has now only to realize itself in its own world.Its world is both self-existence and reality certainty, both heaven and human world.For Hegel's meaning, please refer to his "Philosophy of History", triptych edition, starting from page 485 on the French Revolution. - translator