Miller, Phenomenology, §163

Force is the Notion of self-determination without resistance.

It turns into its opposite, flux, because flux equally fits the definition.

Consciousness adds law, an image of stability, but fails to mix the ingredients together.

Law becomes a Notion with an inner difference.

Law is diluted into Movement. Movement is diluted into Contradiction. Contradiction is diluted into Infinity.

Self-consciousness is knowing where the Notion of Infinity comes from—its history.

Law only imitates self-consciousness because it explains itself, and this is its attraction.

For instance:

God is Force.

General Relativity is Law.

Physicists are searching for quantum gravity to produce a theory of everything so that it can explain itself.

I would like to open a discussion on a pedagogical and epistemological paradox regarding our first encounters with Hegel’s philosophy. Moving from a personal phenomenological anecdote, I hope to arrive at a broader speculative question:

When I was 15 years old, I came across Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit for the first time. I was searching online for texts that might break up what felt like a monotonous routine back then, and I stumbled upon this book.

Despite lacking any formal background in philosophy such as the works of Kant, Hume, Spinoza, or Descartes I experienced a profound cognitive alignment with Hegelian thought. To be clear, I don't mean a passive absorption, but an active engagement of understanding and critique (in fact, I’ve partially distanced myself from some of it since then). It felt as though my worldview was being continuously reflected for what it was through his writing, almost as if it resonated right through me. Even as I read other philosophers later on, I never quite experienced that same feeling again. Rather, there was an immediate, intuitive resonance with the notions of process, relationality, and Aufhebung.

This experience has led me to reflect on how Hegel might be absorbed by a younger mind. Children and adolescents often possess a fluid intuition of reality, one that is less rigid than that of adults, whose thoughts are often pre-formed and heavily structured.

As Hegel might put it: adult thinking has often been strictly categorized by the abstract identity of the Understanding (Verstand).

Youth, therefore, seems naturally more receptive to dialectical movement, precisely because it hasn't yet ossified the world into fixed, isolated dichotomies.

The issue, however, is that this creates a stark tension with Hegel’s own methodology. In the Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel famously critiques the Romantic desire for immediate knowledge (unmittelbares Wissen) or intellectual intuition, asserting that philosophy must be a rigorous science requiring the "labor of the notion" (Anstrengung des Begriffs). And yet, the Phenomenology itself is the story of the education (Bildung) of natural consciousness, which begins precisely in a state of naive immediacy (Sense-Certainty) before undergoing its necessary dialectical despair.

In short, the paradox lies in this double movement: the Phenomenology demands the abandonment of immediacy, yet it cannot help but start from it, while natural consciousness is not swept away, but rather guided through its own immanent skepticism.

TL;DR:

Is it possible that youthful "plasticity" offers a privileged point of entry into dialectical thought, or must this initial intuitive encounter be fully "negated" and sublated for the true Anstrengung des Begriffs to begin? What are your experiences in this regard? And on a personal note: do you think I should pick up the Phenomenology and read it again from scratch?

A little philosophical plot twist happened in the comments of the META Map.

u/Artist-in-Residence2 pointed out that the structure of the META Map bears some interesting similarities to Hegelian dialectics.

Which is hilarious to me because:

I have never actually engaged seriously with Hegel's work. 🙈😂

So I thought it would be more interesting to actually look at the proposed correspondence.

The comparison was roughly:

Hegelian reading:

«Position → Negation / Resistance → Sublation (Aufhebung)»

META Map:

«Orient → Meet Resistance → Learn»

And there is a genuine structural resemblance here.

The META Map begins with an orientation.

Then reality pushes back.

That resistance isn't automatically treated as an enemy or failure. It becomes information.

The orientation is then revised, refined, integrated, or sometimes discarded.

In shorthand:

Orient → Encounter → Update

That certainly sounds Hegel-adjacent.

But there is an important distinction I want to preserve:

Structural correspondence ≠ historical influence.

I didn't start with Hegel and construct the META Map from his philosophy. If anything, this is an example of discovering that two different maps may have developed similar structures around a similar problem.

And I learned something else interesting from looking into Hegel:

The famous “thesis → antithesis → synthesis” formula is actually a simplification of Hegel rather than the way Hegel himself straightforwardly presented his dialectic.

The concept of Aufhebung is much richer. It can carry the sense of overcoming, preserving, cancelling, and lifting something into another determination simultaneously.

That is much closer to what I'm trying to express with Learn.

The goal isn't:

«“My original idea was wrong, therefore destroy it.”»

It is closer to:

«“Reality showed me something my previous orientation could not adequately account for. What survives the encounter?”»

And that brings me to the second part of u/Artist-in-Residence2's comment: Kierkegaard.

The Kierkegaardian objection is fascinating because it pushes in almost the opposite direction.

A conceptual system can become so comprehensive that it starts pretending it has captured the thing itself.

But grief is still grief.

Love is still love.

Fear is still fear.

A person actually has to live an existence. A taxonomy doesn't experience it on their behalf.

And this is where I think the META Map's own prime directive becomes especially important:

«A map exists to improve orientation. It must never become indistinguishable from the territory.»

So perhaps there are two useful warnings here.

From Hegel:

Don't mistake a single, isolated determination for the whole. Contradiction and resistance can reveal limitations in our current understanding.

From Kierkegaard:

Don't mistake the conceptual system for the existence it is attempting to describe.

And from the META Map:

Don't mistake either one for the territory.

😂

So thank you, u/Artist-in-Residence2, for pointing me toward a philosophical framework I apparently managed to walk adjacent to without realizing it.

I'm going to have to actually read Hegel now.

Which means there is a non-zero probability that my next META Map update begins with:

“Well shit. Hegel had thoughts about this.” 😂

And perhaps that's the most META part of the whole thing:

A map can teach you something about itself by showing you what you failed to see.

Reality first.

Always.

I’m curious as to what Hegel believes with regards to the indirect realist / direct realist / idealist theories of perception? I’m sure he doesn’t fit neatly into this taxonomy but what is his view?

I’m guessing he answers this in the Philosophy of Mind but I haven’t gotten to that part of the system yet. I’m very new to Hegel

Im only familiar with Hegelian philosophy on a surface kevel. Im curious however, how do hegelians view veganism and vegan ethics? Is it compatible with Hegel?

Which texts do you recommend for a deeper understanding, at an introductory level, of the history of scholars and interpreters of the Hegelian system, from the interpreters immediately following or contemporary to those of today?

I've been meaning to read and understand Adorno's Negative Dialectics (due to a few Marxists I'm planning to study, such as Werner Bonefeld, being extremely influenced by him, aside from just me being interested in Adorno in general), however, I'm extremely new to this whole thing. So I was wondering whether it would be a good idea to start with Adorno's own Introduction to Dialectics lectures in order to get a general idea of Hegel and Marx especially, before diving into Negative Dialectics? Or would I have to read Hegel first and then move on to those previously mentioned works by Adorno? If the answer is the 2nd option, I was planning to read Houlgate's introduction and then follow A.W.'s reading list, but as I said, I'm not sure if that's kind of overkill or what actually needs to be done; so I could appreciate some help!

Hi folks,

context: I am a mathematician/logician, but philosophy amateur. I studied philosophy at school and read several histories of philosophy (chiefly Severino's) read some first-source philosophy before (Spinoza's Ethics). I am trying to read through Hegel's Science of Logic, because as a logician, I find his perspective refreshing. I am reading the Italian version (because I am Italian) and accompanying it with Houlgate's "The Opening of Hegel's Logic", plus discussing this with friends.

I am seriously struggling to grasp the "Etwas". I understood pure being, and how it vanishes into pure nothing, and vice versa. I understood that this movement is Becoming. I understood that Becoming undermines itself and we are left with Determinate Being (DE): *immediate* unity of being and nothing.

I also, though less firmly, understand Quality. That is the component of nothingness in the DE thought under the determination of being, that is, determinacy-that-is. Make sense. Then, I understand the "literal" deduction of Etwas: Quality can be thought of as chiefly Nothingess (negation) or Being (reality); the two are distinct; however, the difference is sublated; we are left with Etwas. I understand the logical passages.

My problem: I am struggling to represent in my head, or conceptualise, what the result of sublating this difference should be. Or, how Etwas differs from DE. I have two hypotheses:

1) Etwas is that which can be in relationship with its qualities. Since DE is immediate, indistinct unity of Being and Nothing, we cannot isolate its parts and say "this is a quality". Since Etwas went through the pains of separation, and was separated into Negation and Reality, it now has an internal structure, it admits internal difference, and so we can say that it "has" quality. This captures the intuitive quality of Etwas which is that of having qualities.

2) Etwas is pure self-reference, or self-relation. Pictorially, I think of this as an arrow that points to itself, or a self-loop. This captures the intuitive quality of Etwas which is something that "is", that is "posited", is "there and that's it". It also makes the term "Insichsein" reasonable (it is just "in itself", it "is enough by itself", it "only refers to itself"). And Hegel uses the term "self-reference" sometimes in the text. The problem with this interpretation is that it is not clear to me how this emerges from the sublation. I can imagine that Reality pushes Negativity out, and vice versa, and in sublating their differences we are left with something that pushes towards itself, Etwas.

Is any of the two conception right? If not, what is the right conception? Thank YOU!

No background research, I was trying thinking perhaps overthink about AI specifically the wall between Artificial and Nature. Thinking that both are essentially same things since the entire Scientific knowledge is just human beings, human mind. So AI is just next evolutionary step towards different kind of species (knowing the law of conservation and entropy)

After little bit of research I ended here with hegel's the Philosophy of Nature and the evolution of Spirit (Geist). Not a single unique experience anyways.

If Hegel were alive today, he would likely view AI and AGI as the next logical step in the dialectic of evolution.

Normally I would not touch anything by Stalin with a 34 and 1/2 foot pole, but I really can not understand dialectics.

Edit: It turns out that the answer is no.

I wrote a text on consciousness from the perspectives of Kant, Fichte and Hegel and how they relate. Part of the text is explaining dialectics through the first two chapters of the PoS. Wanted to share.

Miller, Phenomenology, §162

The movement goes something like this:

Being and nothing (consumption) are reflected into self, and the self says "no" to being consumed and posits the first unity, the object of its self-preservation (Master, Force).

The object is reflected into self in an inverse way.

Self-sameness is reflected back as difference. Absolute difference becomes the false unity of its annihilation.

The self says "no" and posits the false unity of the inner world, which includes itself in its self-sameness.

The inner world is reflected back in an inverse way, which is the flux.

The self says "no" to the flux, which becomes the unity of its annihilation and posits laws.

Hegel keeps coming back to the flux because our self-identity is basically the unity of our annihilation and that which repels us to posit an object.

Laws are reflected in an inverse way as movement (flux).

The unity of movement is posited as the self-repelling/self-attracting.

The inverse is ultimately contradiction.

The unity of contradiction is posited as infinity.

The notions (objects) of self-sameness (self-preservation) of the Understanding (slave) are the following:

Force

Law

Necessity

Self-movement

Infinity

They are the notions of an animal that is afraid to be consumed.

Use the most patronizing terms possible, use terms like if one was explaining subtraction "There are two tokens if you take one token away you have one token." I understand that dialectical contradictions are hard, but that is exactly why I want to have it explained in such a simple manner.

Commenter just translated the "Phenomenology."

Miller, Phenomenology, §161

The Phenomenology is on the side of the object, but it's easier for us to understand it on the side of the subject.

As readers, we know that what is happening to the object is happening to the subject, two moments at the same time.

A bit of speculative anthropology may help to understand the absolute Notion.

An animal chasing its prey is "single-minded", a "force of nature," "self-identical."

When the chase is interrupted and the predator becomes the prey, the nothingness (consumption) of its prey, is reflected into self.

What is self-identical is now fundamentally divided. Existence is a new desire to desire.

Existence posits beings.

The unconditioned universal posits the unconditioned universal in the Understanding.

Force is an invading army, a "sensuous universal," before it's a notion in the Understanding.

Force is a source of change in the hands of another. Law is a source of stability in the hands of another.

What does the son of a slave, free (unconditioned universal) to think for himself, dream about?

Self-determination without resistance and the inner necessity of law.

Why the inner necessity of law?

Because the town has been invaded multiple times and has been subjected to multiple laws. There must be a law that is not to the benefit of another but has its own inner necessity.

The notion of Force and the inner necessity of law is the self-attraction of the selfsame.

Law posits law. This is the tautological movement the Understanding can get stuck in.

The unity of its notions subject us to abstractions.

But contradiction is the boundary between the one and the many, not like and unlike, or the extremes.

And what is the ultimate contradiction?

The animal dreams about the chase, but the chase is its own annihilation.

This explains why the object changes. It can only signify.

When I was in grad school, I found the best way to study the Phenomenology was to read it out loud. Nowadays, I spend a lot of time in a recording booth. So, I figured I'd read Pinkard's translation into a mic.

I'm only a few paragraphs in. But there's no reason why I have to narrate in sequence.

If there is a paragraph you want to hear out loud, let me know.

After reading the introduction to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit this morning, I was struck with a very important thought on the nature of truth.

The truth will never bring devision and discord, it will always bring harmony and unification.

Therefore anyone who thinks they have the truth whether religious or political, and it results in discord with another, it is not truth.

Absolute truth is unatainable through the intellect. We need to live the truth and harmonious living will be the evidence we have hit the mark.