為什麽西方哲學界讀不懂黑格爾？

不久前我給出了一個西方專業哲學界讀不懂康德的例子(詳見西方哲學界讀不懂康德之一例 )，最近又遇到一個西方專業哲學界讀不懂黑格爾的例子。這裏是鏈接：https://www.academia.edu/s/823b25b8fd?source=link，有興趣的讀者可以自己也去參與那裏的討論。這個例子比上次那個例子更震撼，因為，這裏除了作者之外，有好幾個一看就應該是所謂的黑學專家，但是明顯地，他們沒有一個人讀懂黑格爾的《精神現象學》。

當然，西方專業哲學界讀不懂黑格爾，康德，亞裏士多德，柏拉圖，就如同中國專業哲學界讀不懂老子一樣，或者說全世界的專業哲學界讀不懂那幾位的哲學一樣，早已不是新聞。今天的專業哲學界甚至連尼采這位詩人的非常直白的文章都會覺得是高深莫測的哲學大典，就別提上麵那幾位相對深奧的哲人的文章了。不過，這裏我要討論的上麵那個鏈接所給出的例子有其特殊性。如果專業哲學家因為康德，亞裏士多德，柏拉圖，和老子的文章，或黑格爾的其它文章的文字難度大，邏輯比較複雜而讀不懂也就罷了，可他們在上述這個例子中表現出來的對黑格爾的《精神現象學》的誤解有其特殊性。不是說這本書的文字有多難或有多容易，而是說他們表現出來的問題還不僅僅是對文字的理解有缺陷的問題。

黑格爾的《精神現象學》的文字是出了名的難懂，甚至被認為是最難懂的文章，因此如果讀者們在細節上遇到困難，或讀不懂具體的段落中的某些話，都是完全可以理解的。但是，這些專業哲學家們至少應該知道黑格爾在那本書裏主要在說些什麽。這是因為黑格爾不是象我這樣為拯救世界哲學而孤軍奮戰之士，他在世時是堂堂的大學哲學教授，不但有學生去聽他的課，而且有一大堆哲學界的朋友，其中甚至包括歌德，謝林等大家，就是作為他死對頭的叔本華也與他有社會交集，因此，他就算不可能給當時讀者詳細解釋那本書的具體細節，隻要告訴他們那本書說的是什麽，那麽他的那些介紹就必然會隨著一代代的課堂教學而口口相傳，就會被記載在迄今為止已經出版的成千上萬本介紹黑格爾哲學的專著中。

即便是黑格爾這個人比較粗心而沒有考慮到讀者們可能會完全不理解他在幹什麽，隻要那些人當讀不懂那本書時問黑格爾一句，“你的那本書的出發點到底是什麽？你討論的到底是什麽內容？”，黑格爾自然會告訴他們他在《精神現象學》中是考察人的意識如何得出人們所掌握的對於整個世界和人生的各種真理，並將個人的意識看作是一個整體精神Spirit的特例，因而從對於個人的認識過程來探討文化現象這樣一個基本的思路，以及他的這本書與康德的哲學的關聯與不同等基本要點。

這裏尤其重要的一點是，黑格爾在《精神現象學》一書中對於意識的考察完全不同於今天的實驗科學從外部驗證的方法，是站在意識本身的角度來看待知識是如何形成的或真理是如何獲得的。但他這種內視又顯然不同於古東方的那種所謂內觀，而是回到意識內部來看外部。這種特殊的觀察方式，除非讀者足夠細心從他的文中把握了這一點（他在書中其實有提到），或者他明白地告訴了讀者，一般人是很難想象得出的。而今天居然專業哲學界似乎無一人把握了這種考察方式，可見過去這兩百多年裏他們既無一人如本人這樣細心地從他的書中把握了這一點，他黑格爾也從未明確地向他人講解這一點（否則一定會代代相傳地記錄下來）。盡管黑格爾其實把這些都寫在了那本書中，但是由於那本書的表達方式之特殊和語言之難懂，如果他能提綱挈領地將該書的要點向當時的讀者介紹一下的，今天這個世界對該書的理解就會大不相同。

這裏的讀者如果有興趣可以去那個鏈接讀一下原文，再看一下那些黑學專家們的留言（除了我在那裏的留言之外），就會發現，他們居然直接將黑格爾在《精神現象學》的第四章中所說的主仆關係直接就用來解釋現實社會中的主仆關係並進一步上升到社會階層的對立和鬥爭的問題，而完全忽略了黑格爾那是在借用生活中主仆關係來討論自我意識的認識世界和得出真理的過程。

當然，既然黑格爾用現實生活中的主仆關係作為比喻，那就必然涉及到他對於現實生活中主仆關係之特點的觀察和理解。因此，作為一般讀者你非要說你根本不在乎他對於意識和自我意識的討論，你隻對黑格爾對於現實生活中的主仆關係的領悟和表達感興趣，那也無可厚非；畢竟對於任何一個作品，讀者都可以按照自己的需要和理解來從中得到啟發。但是，作為一篇專門來討論《精神現象學》的文章，以及專門研究黑格爾《精神現象學》的專家們在向這個世界介紹這本書的時候，作者以及參與討論的專家們就不能完全忽略黑格爾到底在講什麽而將他用來比喻的內容作為他的主要論點來介紹。

這裏最大的要害是，當黑格爾用主仆關係來比喻自我意識的活動時，盡管會涉及到他對於現實生活中的主仆關係的觀察和理解，但他畢竟不是在那裏對現實世界的主仆關係進行全麵的討論。換句話說，如果他要是對現實社會的主仆關係進行全麵的討論的話，那他就不會隻局限於文中所涉及到的那些非常片麵的特點。。。在這樣的情況下，你將他在那裏涉及到主仆關係的話拿來作為主仆關係的一般的全麵的真理，並引申到社會階級的對立和鬥爭，那就過於偏頗了，隻能說明你根本不知道黑格爾到底在說些什麽。別忘了，他們可都不是在隨口亂說，而都是根據各種不同的名人的參考文獻來發言的，也就是說，過去兩百多年裏的參考文獻就沒有一篇正確地告訴他們黑格爾在《精神現象學》裏到底都在幹些什麽（或到底是如何考察意識並進而對精神Spirit的特性進行工程浩大的相當全麵的討論）的。

回到前麵的話題，要知道黑格爾在出版《精神現象學》之後，還活了幾十年，在大學教了幾十年的書，他那個時代的人有大把機會來向他提出上述問題。因此，他有大把機會向他們做出一些關於那本書的最基本的解釋。如果當時的人沒有錯過那樣的機會的話，也就不至於出現今天的黑學專家們都不知道黑格爾在那本書中到底在幹些什麽的狀況。

因此，這裏我們可以對為什麽今天的專業哲學界會讀不懂黑格爾的《精神現象學》的原因做出一個合理的判斷：因為當時有機會向黑格爾提問的人沒有要求黑格爾對於他那本書的出發點和到底在講什麽做出提綱挈領的解釋，而黑格爾也因為覺得既然都在書中提到了，就不必專門再講了。

其實，這個現象並不僅局限於黑格爾的《精神現象學》，它所反映的是存在於黑格爾的所有著作，以及康德，亞裏士多德，柏拉圖，老子等作家的所有著作的一個普遍的現象 --- ---人們在這些作家活著的時候並不稀罕去要他們解釋清楚他們的作品，而是等他們死後才開始發揮自己的想象力來對那些作者的著作進行正確的或胡亂的解釋。這裏的要害不是他們沒有機會在那些作者活著的時候問他們，而是在於那“不稀罕”這三個字。正如老子活著的時候感歎道：“我的話非常容易懂，卻沒人在乎（吾言甚易知，甚易行。天下莫能知，莫能行。）”，而等他死後，整個世界都開始煞有介事地對老子的話進行詮釋翻譯了。

那麽為什麽會出現這種現象呢？這裏有兩方麵的原因，其一是前麵提到的，在那些人活著時候其他人不稀罕來問他們，至於為什麽會是這樣我就不在這裏深入探討了；其二是那些人死後，研究那些人的文章就變得非常的稀罕了。當然這裏的一個最基本的原因是那些人的文章確實有價值，對於人們的生活有指導意義，而且能讓人們通過閱讀它們得到智慧的享受。不過，這隻是對於一般人來說的基本原因也是最主要的原因甚至可能是唯一的原因，卻不是對於在那些作者死後來研究他們的作品的專家們來說的最主要的原因。。。對於那些專家們來說，那些作品在作者死後變得特別稀罕是因為對他們來說好處大大滴，這裏指的不是從那些作品中獲取智慧的好處，而是對名聲地位和金錢來說的大大滴好處。。。。。。君不見那些作者在世時往往如老子哀怨那樣是“懷裏揣著真理的寶玉，身上卻披著破棉襖（知我者希，則我者貴。是以聖人被褐懷玉。）”，而他們死後，卻可讓成千上萬一代又一代的研究人員借著對他們的作品的正確的或胡亂的解釋而名利雙收裘馬揚揚，製造出一個個讀不懂他們著作卻想象力豐富的專家大師來。

所以，西方專業哲學界讀不懂黑格爾，或康德，亞裏士多德，柏拉圖，老子的真正原因並不完全在於他們的文章難懂（盡管那也確實是一個重要的原因），更在於人類文明機製中存在著的驕傲和利益的因素；並不完全在於今天的學術界的閱讀力的不足（盡管那也是一個重要的原因），更在於當初的讀者們沒有稀罕地去向那些作者問個明白。

當然，真正吃虧的並不是那些死去的作者，而是用社會資源供養那些專家的社會大眾。他們原本以為他們的信任和資源的付出可以讓那些專家們為他們帶來對於經典作品的正確的解讀，帶來理解和應對現實生活的真正的智慧，但是，他們沒有意識到的是人類文明的機製中存在著很多有悖於真理和智慧的因素，而那些因素常常在操縱著社會的運作，包括對於真理和智慧的探索和介紹。。。。。。

 

[慕容青草]

為了幫助那些專業哲學家們搞清楚黑格爾到底在說什麽，我剛才又去那個討論鏈接留了下麵這個評論：

In my previous comment I mentioned that there are two levels of allegorical writing in this post. Somehow, that seems to have caused some confusion here. So I guess it might be beneficial for me to briefly lay out how I read the section of "Lordship and Bondage" in The Phenomenology of Spirit.

It looks clearly to me that Hegel was ingeniously using the metaphor of master-slave relationship to depict a picture how the self-consciousness operates in our mind, and from there he further leads the discourse to reveal a big picture of how Spirit operates universally.

There are two levels of prerequisites for understanding this: the level of the mind, and the level of the world.

At the first level, as I mentioned in my previous comment that we need to do some introspective examination of how the mind works as Hegel did in The Phenomenology of Spirit, then we can correctly apprehend his use of the master-slave model for the elaboration of how self-consciousness works, not the opposite, i.e. not how self-consciousness helps to elucidate how master-slave relationship operates as has been so commonly assumed in the academia of philosophy.

At the second level, it is very difficult for readers without any religious background (which might possibly be the majority in nowadays academia), and thus without knowing the concept of "Providence", to relate the personal self-consciousness to the universal work of Spirit. As Hegel later mentioned in some other lecture that he does not "make a demand on" the faith of the audience, but he would "appeal to your belief in it, in this religious aspect".

Now let's come back to the section of "Lordship and Bondage" in The Phenomenology of Spirit, which starts with the following sentences:

[Φ 178. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS exists in itself and for itself, in that, and by the fact that it exists for another self-consciousness; that is to say, it is only by being acknowledged or “recognized”. The conception of this its unity in its duplication, of infinitude realizing itself in self-consciousness, has many sides to it and encloses within it elements of varied significance....] (The Phenomenology of Mind, tr. J B Baillie)

It is so obvious that in the above passage Hegel was talking about how self-consciousness works; nevertheless, in order to apprehend this, we need to look a bit how self-consciousness works in our own mind. The only reason that we are aware of the existence of self-consciousness is because we know that we are knowing what we know, which reveals the two sides of the self-consciousness: one side we know, and the other we know we are knowing what we know.

SO the wording of "duplication", "unity", "distinction", "distinguished", and "recognized" are all elegantly proper to depict the above mentioned fashion of the work of self-consciousness.

Now let's look at the next:

[Φ 189. In this experience self-consciousness becomes aware that life is as essential to it as pure self-consciousness....The one is independent, and its essential nature is to be for itself; the other is dependent, and its essence is life or existence for another. The former is the Master, or Lord, the latter the Bondsman.]

Here Hegel introduces the so-called master-slave relation into his depiction of self-consciousness, which is naturally and unambiguously allegorical.

Now let's come back to the passage which might have caused the most confusion:

[Φ 187. The presentation of itself, however, as pure abstraction of self-consciousness consists in showing itself as a pure negation of its objective form, or in showing that it is fettered to no determinate existence, that it is not bound at all by the particularity everywhere characteristic of existence as such, and is not tied up with life. The process of bringing all this out involves a twofold action — action on the part of the other and action on the part of itself. In so far as it is the other’s action, each aims at the destruction and death of the other. But in this there is implicated also the second kind of action, self-activity; for the former implies that it risks its own life. The relation of both self-consciousnesses is in this way so constituted that they prove themselves and each other through a life-and-death struggle. They must enter into this struggle, for they must bring their certainty of themselves, the certainty of being for themselves, to the level of objective truth, and make this a fact both in the case of the other and in their own case as well. And it is solely by risking life that freedom is obtained; only thus is it tried and proved that the essential nature of self-consciousness is not bare existence, is not the merely immediate form in which it at first makes its appearance, is not its mere absorption in the expanse of life. Rather it is thereby guaranteed that there is nothing present but what might be taken as a vanishing moment — that self-consciousness is merely pure self-existence, being-for-self. The individual, who has not staked his life, may, no doubt, be recognized as a Person; but he has not attained the truth of this recognition as an independent self-consciousness. In the same way each must aim at the death of the other, as it risks its own life thereby; for that other is to it of no more worth than itself; the other’s reality is presented to the former as an external other, as outside itself; it must cancel that externality. The other is a purely existent consciousness and entangled in manifold ways; it must view its otherness as pure existence for itself or as absolute negation.]

First of all, the beginning sentences

[The presentation of itself, however, as pure abstraction of self-consciousness consists in showing itself as a pure negation of its objective form, or in showing that it is fettered to no determinate existence, that it is not bound at all by the particularity everywhere characteristic of existence as such, and is not tied up with life. The process of bringing all this out involves a twofold action — action on the part of the other and action on the part of itself. In so far as it is the other’s action, each aims at the destruction and death of the other.]

unambiguously depict how self-consciousness operates.

However, the confusion might arise when it comes to the third sentence

[But in this there is implicated also the second kind of action, self-activity; for the former implies that it risks its own life. ],

although it should not.

Again, we need to do a bit introspective meditation to read The Phenomenology of Spirit. Just close your eyes, and try to see what you know at the moment. I am very sure that as soon as you did what I suggested, your attention will be directed to "what you know", not the content of your knowing...that is to say you come back to your master self-consciousness, and lose your slave self-consciousness. The rest of the above passage Φ 187. should be read similarly.

BUT on the other hand, can we learn something about the social relationship of master-slave in the world from the section of "Lordship and Bondage" of The Phenomenology of Spirit?

Yes, we can, and it is actually a valid inference of that section for two reasons: 1) the use of the master-slave model is not a pure fabrication out of imagination, but based on his observation of real life; 2) it comes to the stage between the first level of individual consciousness and the second level the universal work of Spirit as I mentioned earlier: the reality of the social world shares some patterns with the individual mind.

However, if this section is not about self-consciousness but about the relationship of master and slave, then it would be definitely elaborated in a very different way, since the description of the relationship of master and slave in this section is so partial and meagre, while its depiction of self-consciousness is so thorough and rich.

Therefore, the correct way of looking into the issue of master-slave relationship from the said section is to start from the position of individual consciousness to look out at the master-slave relationship, instead of taking the whole text as a discussion on that relationship by using the metaphor if self-consciousness.

Once again, it is extremely important to respect and hold onto the original text even if it is very difficult to read!!!

Thanks

Ron

[慕容青草]

今天有點多餘的精力，去那個討論鏈接（https://www.academia.edu/s/823b25b8fd#comment_722859）對那位Mark Alexander的可笑的評論中關於我的部分進行了回復。。。下麵是我的回復原文。。。在貼原文之前，先指出一點：我並沒有像在本文中那樣告訴他黑格爾到底在講什麼，而隻是指出他的評論的荒唐。。。熟悉我在網上討論風格的人都知道，這是我的一貫做法---如果有人出於無知來胡扯，我隻負責指出他的荒唐之處，而不負責給他補習輔導，對待中文網軍如此，對待臉書上的網軍或PP如此，對待這位Mark自然也不會例外。。。下麵是我的回復：

Hi Mark,

Although historical background could be helpful for us to read the text, it is the text that we should focus on. Unfortunately, very often we could see commentators habitually resort to borrowing historical background for their reading of classic texts that they feel difficult with. After all, today in our contemporary cultural political environment, not all people write in the exactly same tone, and it has always been the case, including the days when Hegel was writing The Phenomenology of Spirit.

As a matter of fact, it is the same with reading any text, no matter a classic like The Phenomenology of Spirit, or a simple short text, such as my previous comment on this post --- you just have to focus on the text itself to avoid misreading the text.

It looks to me that you just missed the point of my comment completely in your mentioning of my previous comment.

I did not have any intention to diminish the value of the use of any model, and I still could not read from the text of my comment any tone of criticism of his use of the model; hence, I am bit loss about what you tried to address by 'if Hegel is not offering us a “model to describe the world” then his ideas would be considerably less useful to us'......

Although I don't judge whether it is possible for Hegel to use another approach of discourse for the self-consciousness issue besides the master-slave model, I never denied the good role of the use of that model either.

As for the specific context in my previous comment, what I was trying to point out is that we should not treat the example used by Hegel to elaborate the main theme as the main theme itself. But even if you don’t read in the way as I intended to express in the comment, I still don’t see how you figured out that I was trying to deny the usefulness of the mode……Now if we come back to a bigger context of the complete book of The Phenomenology of Spirit, I am sorry to say that I don’t feel that you get the point of what The Phenomenology of Spirit is about either.

We just cannot use the historical background or other works (e.g. Philosophy of Right) to replace the text of The Phenomenology of Spirit when we talk about the meanings of the text of The Phenomenology of Spirit.

Please allow me to say that Honesty is often reflected in the respect of and holding onto the original text even if it might be difficult to read!

Regards,

Ron

[慕容青草]

專業哲學界流傳著一個故事說黑格爾臨死前道，隻有一個半人讀懂了他的哲學。。。不知此言是否屬實或為專業哲學界用來遮羞的借口，但是這次的經曆告訴我們，顯然迄今為止參與討論的專業黑學家們沒有一個讀懂黑格爾的！！！

[慕容青草]

不知這裏的讀者這兩天有沒有機會去那個討論網頁看熱鬧。。。今天又來了一個讀不懂黑格爾的黑學專家。。。因為他的留言太過經典，典型的是讀不懂文章就亂扯曆史背景，好像一扯曆史背景就不需要讀文章了。。。按照這樣的荒唐邏輯，今天這個世界上所有的作者都應該寫同樣的文章了。。。這是今天的專業哲學界亂用遮羞布的墮落的一個太典型的表現了。。。所以，我不由得要將他的評論轉載於此，好讓讀者們好好認清一下今天的專業哲學界到底是什麽樣的一個狀況：

Mark Alexander 3 hrs ago

Thank you for inviting me to contribute to this stimulating debate, which has clearly generated a lot of interest. The sheer variety of standpoints represented by the participants here demonstrates, I think, the continuing relevance and importance of Hegelian thought in today’s polarised and fragmented world. I suspect, were he alive today, Hegel would not only have found the present political landscape uncomfortably familiar, but would be lamenting our lack of progress.

The chief premise of Ilario’s provocative essay is that, in the end, “the Master-Slave dynamic is nothing more than a failed recognition”, in which both parties go through a rather straightforward reversal of roles that not only levels the playing field between them, but render the entire ‘fight for recognition’ redundant (or ‘self-defeating’ as Adrian describes it in this discussion) because “we have returned to our starting point”. Whilst this is an interesting view, there are a number of reasons why it cannot be sustained. Ilario is effectively saying that nothing is achieved by the dialectic process, that the Slave simply becomes as despotic as his former Master, while the Master renders himself as powerless as his former Slave. Unfortunately, as I will attempt to explain, this fundamentally misinterprets Hegel’s project.

It is worth placing Hegel’s ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ (PS) within its historical context. After all, Hegel recognised himself as “a son of his time” and that “philosophy is its time apprehended in thoughts” (Preface to the ‘Philosophy of Right’). Written in 1807 – the same year that slavery was abolished in England –in the wake of the demise of the Holy Roman Empire, and at the height of Napoleonic rule, Hegel interprets Western civilisation at a moment of unprecedented change. On the one hand, the chaotic fever of revolution continued to in turns inspire and terrify citizens across the West, whilst on the other, a remarkable project of rational codification, harmonisation and centralisation rippled across these very same nascent states. From the enlightened despots of the time emerged documents like the French Code Civil of 1804 and the Austrian Code of 1811, translating natural law principles into rational systems designed to unify the diverse customs and traditions of disparate European peoples.

This is important because Hegel is writing about the oppressed, not from the perspective of a colonial or bourgeois class, but from the position of those beleaguered Europeans living under occupation. Raad – in this discussion – raises important questions here about imperialism, but such a critique is arguably ethnocentric in itself. There is – sadly – not a nation on earth which doesn’t oppress some group or minority within its borders in some way or other. This is Hegel’s insight, drawing on what Kant calls the “unsocial sociability of man”. It is a universal truth, inherent in our nature. The Master-Slave dichotomy is alive in every one of us. It is this internal conflict, reflected onto others in a Hobbesian struggle, played out across history, that Hegel unravels and which will later form the key premise behind his Philosophy of Right.

Paulo Freire’s ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ is an excellent example of how Hegel’s dialectic can be adopted in practice, and just why the Master-Slave allegory is more about overcoming oppression than it is about ‘willingly’ coming to terms with and accepting one’s oppressed status. The idea that the emancipated Slave simply swaps places with his former Master, so that both parties are effectively back to square one, completely ignores the potentially transcendental nature of the journey itself. The experience of oppression is so fundamentally transformative that one cannot realistically claim that no change has occurred within the formerly oppressed individual. Doing so risks not only insulting the former Slave, but overlooking the value of their lived experience and the dialectic process itself. Put simply, no-one who experiences hardship or suffering comes out the same as they were to begin with. I argue this is true of all life-changing, traumatic events. As Hegel puts it, self-consciousness “will enrich itself... in the course of its experience” (PS §173), “we are in the presence of self-consciousness in a new shape” (PS §197).

Phenomenology is after all the very process by which we develop self-consciousness and knowledge in the course of our lived experience, with each painful moment in our lives being integral to the whole, precisely because it shapes who we are in the present. In my 2018 paper, ‘A Phenomenology of Freedom: finding transcendence in captivity’ (www.academia.edu/39623855/A_Phenomenology_of_Freedom_finding_transcendence_in_captivity), I explore how we can only truly appreciate the nature and meaning of ‘freedom’ when it is taken away from us. As Alexandre Kojève explains in his brilliant ‘Introduction to the reading of Hegel’, “the Slave – through the fear of death – understands himself, understands Man, better than the Master does” (p. 48). Hegel tells us that “the fear of the Lord is indeed the beginning of wisdom” (PS §195). By his model, oppression is therefore a prerequisite to transcendence (PS §196). “Man achieves his true autonomy, his authentic freedom, only after passing through slavery” argues Kojève (p. 27).

Hegel need not assume, as Raad suggests in this discussion, that the slave is a willing party to his enslavement who merely “surrenders to the Master”. It is after all, a position reached after a ‘life and death struggle’, not some negotiation process. Writing this from my prison cell as I battle with my own struggle for recognition, I know all too well the powerlessness and fragility of the Slave’s position, a product of injustice and inequalities in the balance of power. Yet the changes that can occur within an individual through the process of enslavement are important. The idea of transformation or purification through ordeal is not a new one. It has existed for centuries, embodied in stories and legends like those of Orpheus and Eurydice, Jason and the Golden Fleece, or the trials of Tamino in Die Zauberfl?te.

As Freire identifies, “the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity, become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both” (p. 18). A truly dialectic process must result in unity, or synthesis. That means that the enlightened, emancipated slave, becomes not merely the product of both Master and Slave, but a sum greater than its parts with the power to bring about harmony between the two factions. This, as Freire argues, “is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well... Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both”.

Ron rightly suggests in this discussion that Hegel’s dialectic method relies on allegory, but if Hegel is not offering us a “model to describe the world” then his ideas would be considerably less useful to us. Remember, Hegel is all about action. In his Preface to the Philosophy of Right he describes philosophy as “an inquisition into the rational, and therefore the apprehension of the real and present”. He has no interest in merely describing “a castle in the air”. The Phenomenology represents more than just the evolution of a single mind, but the destiny of mankind itself, unfolding through time. The actions of individual consciences which he describes, have a collective force and impact. They combine to create historically significant effects that shape our world. It simply isn’t possible for the journey encompassed in the Phenomenology to occur in the course of one lifetime, within one individual. Rather, Hegel’s Phenomenology sets out the course of humanity, described allegorically through the primordial, pre-social, sense-conscious man or woman.

As Guy rightly mentions in this discussion, Sartre’s argument misses the point, but I disagree with Guy’s interpretation that “Hegel is not interested in any clever argument about whether a struggle for recognition could be overcome”. As Kojève explains, only “the Slave knows what it is to be free… the experience of the Fight and its result predispose the Slave to transcendence, to progress, to History” (p. 22). “Only the Slave can transcend the given World… Only the Slave can transform the World that forms him and fixes him in slavery” (p. 29) and so “he is led to transform the given social conditions of his existence, that is, to realise a historical progress… This progress has meaning for him which it does not and cannot have for the Master” (p. 50). “In dialectical thought, world and action are intimately interdependent” remarks Freire (p. 27). “There would be no human action if humankind were not a ‘project’, if he or she were not able to transcend himself or herself, if one were not able to perceive reality and understand it in order to transform it”.

We can say then that Ilario’s thesis only holds for the Master, enslaved at the end of the process to materialism. There is an interesting question I think about whether the ‘reflection into unity’ holds true for subsequent generations. Do the descendants of the Master and Slave inherit their forefathers’ hard-won insights, and if so, by what means? If humanity gradually develops its capacity for reason over time, with each generation progressing “from one stage of insight to the next” as Kant puts it in his ‘Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose’, we must assume surely, that the ‘fight for recognition’ is translated into different forms for each generation. In this way, mankind makes its steady march towards the “final cause of the World”, the ‘End of History’ when freedom is fully actualised on earth. Even so, without reliving the same ‘life and death’ struggle staked by the Master and Slave, Kojève argues that modern man transcends himself “by projecting himself on the idea of private Property, of Capital, which enslaves him… it is from himself, therefore, that he must free himself” (pp. 65 – 69).

The same cannot be said however, for the Slave, represented today by the struggle of oppressed people across the world. They play a key role in the liberation not only of themselves, but of mankind. This is a role that requires real action, activism, and political engagement. “As the oppressed, fighting to be human, take away the oppressors’ power to dominate and suppress, they restore to the oppressors the humanity they had lost in the exercise of oppression” (Freire, p. 30). The unfolding of freedom in the world, Hegel’s ‘End of History’, requires the eradication of oppression in all its forms.

Ideas shared by Mark from his prison cell and transcribed here exclusively for academia.edu by the freeMarkAlexander.org campaign

[慕容青草]

鑒於這裏的大多數讀者都無暇去閱讀本文提供的鏈接中的討論文章原文和黑學家們的評論，我這裏把我在那裏的發言轉貼一下以幫助大多數感興趣的讀者對本文有更好的了解。。。先說明一下，參加討論不是寫文章，因此不宜寫的太長，我的評論已經很長了，再長就不好了，因此我在評論時是盡量壓縮，撿最重要的要點來說：



Hi Ilario,

Thanks for the invitation. It’s a very interesting writing, and the following is some of my thoughts:
1) The article starts with several interesting sentences:
[The master/slave dialectic is one of the most analysed and celebrated passages of Hegel’s Phenomelogy of Spirit.][ In it, Hegel proposes two budding forms of self-consciousness, the master and the slave, which can be understood to mean different things depending on the level on analysis applied.][ As we shall see, they are most commonly taken to allegorically represent two constitutive moments of self-consciousness, the dependent and the independent, as each battles for supremacy over the other, risking its life in the process.]
Although the second sentence seems to indicate that the author would allow different interpretations of the master/slave model in Chapter IV of the book based on the needs for analysis, in the third sentence, however, the author does point out that Hegel was actually using the model “to allegorically represent two constitutive moments of self-consciousness”.
However, very soon, in the following few sentences, the author seems to have forgotten what Hegel was actually doing but starts to present the master/slave dialectic in a social interpersonal perspective, in line with what is indicated in the second sentence, and then follows it through to the end.
2) Here we see two levels of allegorical writing: a) Hegel allegorically uses the master/slave model for his elaboration of the dialectic of consciousness; b) The author allegorically uses Hegel’s model of consciousness back to human master/slave relationship.
Then the question arises: is the analysis of social relationship the main intention of Hegel in Chapter IV of the book? Or is the reverse allegorical use of the master/slave model actually the true intention of Hegel? Or does Hegel use the dialectic of consciousness solely for his analysis of social relationship in an allegorical way, instead of studying the nature of consciousness itself?
Based on what have been talked about the Chapter IV of the book, or what have been talked about the whole book of The Phenomenology of Spirit, I guess many would answer positively to the above questions, which seems to have been the view shared by many in the academia, and unfortunately it is wrong.
The reason why I would give a negative answer to the questions is quite simple: as the name of the book “The Phenomenology of Spirit” tells, it is NOT a book of “The Phenomenology of Things”, and therefore, Hegel was not using the dialectic of consciousness as a model to describe the world, but occasionally used life examples to help him to understand and elaborate the dialectic of consciousness.
3) Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit needs to be read with some introspective meditation. It is hard to imagine that one can understand the book without doing some introspective meditation since that is obvious what Hegel was doing. Only if we read the book with introspective examination of how consciousness works or struggles its way to get the truth of everything, we can better understand what Hegel was talking about.
4) Would this understanding of the book make it lesser in philosophy comparing to making it a buoyant enlightenment or edification for social practices?
My answer is no. To contrary, it would make that book even more important philosophically since it can help many to think more profoundly as Hegel did. But lesser or more important, either way, we have to respect what the truth really is.

Regards,
Ron