Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Martin Heidegger

Schelling, writes:

      But because the relation of the limited to the absolute is, like the limited, manifold, philosophizing must aim at relating to this manifold. The need necessarily arises for producing a totality of knowledge, a system of science. By this means the manifold of those relations will first be released from being accidental, in that they will preserve their places in the context of the objective totality of knowledge, and their objective completeness will be brought about. The philosophizing which fails to construct a system represents a continuous escape from limitations. It is more like reason’s struggle for freedom than reason’s attaining pure knowledge of itself, in its certainty and clarity about itself. Liberated reason is identical with its action, and its activity is a pure presentation of reason itself.⁶

      Absolute knowledge is genuine knowledge, the science. That science which knows in an absolute way “knows the absolute.”⁷ Science as absolute knowledge is in itself system, according to its most essential character. The system is not an optional framework or an ordering of absolute knowledge by way of addition. Rather, absolute knowledge is conceived and is exclusively aware of itself only when it unfolds and presents itself in and as system. Thus, we must not rewrite the main title of the Phenomenology of Spirit—“System of Science”—to read “System of Philosophy.” Rather, philosophy itself means nothing but the science in system or system of science (as absolute knowledge). (Hence it becomes clear how absurd it would be to say, with regard to this Hegelian concept of philosophy, that it expresses a striving for a “scientific philosophy” in the conventional sense of this word.)

§3. The significance of the first part of the system with regard to the designation of both of its titles

      What does it mean to say that the first part of the system of science requires the science of the experience of consciousness, or the science of the phenomenology of spirit?

      To begin with, we must not lose sight of the fact that the first part is science, which cannot now mean some scientific discipline or other. Rather, science means absolute knowledge, and this in turn means the system. The first part of the system of science, as science, is itself the system, the system in its initial presentation.

      What must this initial presentation of science be like? The answer is provided by both titles used for designating the first part of the system of science. These titles are worded differently, say something different, and yet they mean the same. We shall first try to elucidate each of these titles separately, in order then to determine what unites them in sameness. Subsequently we can grasp the specific character of the first part of science.¹ But this calls for a preliminary look at what is peculiar to the second part of the phenomenology-system; and in accord with what was said earlier, that in turn means taking a look at the first constitutive part of the final encyclopedia-system.

a) “Science of the Experience of Consciousness”

      The first title used for distinguishing the first part of the system of science reads: “Science of the Experience of Consciousness.” The words which make up the title are familiar to us as long as we take the title in its outward appearance, and particularly if we know the philosophical terminology. And yet this familiarity does not help us; on the contrary, it misleads us. If we do not keep in mind, both from the outset and subsequently, that “science” here means “absolute knowledge,” then we are already hopelessly led astray. Only by keeping that meaning in mind can we grasp what is meant by “experience,” “consciousness,” “experience of consciousness,” and finally by “Science of the Experience of Consciousness.”

      To be sure, a real title, which does not stem from out of perplexity or with a view to appeal and the like, can be understood only on the basis of a thoroughgoing appropriation of the work so entitled. Such an appropriation is also necessary for understanding the introduction of that work. Therefore, even if in discussing the titles we now refer above all to the introduction² to the Phenomenology, and to its important preface,³ then we gain a limited and provisional understanding of the titles. But above all we must do without a complete interpretation of the pieces just mentioned.

      Insofar as we have provisionally explained what the concepts of “science” and “consciousness” mean in Hegel’s sense, we can now inquire what the expression “experience” in “Science of the Experience of Consciousness” means. We are familiar with this expression as a technical term in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. One of the formulations of the problem of the first Critique is the question concerning the possibility of experience. Here experience means the totality of the theoretical knowledge of existing beings (nature). In this sense even today the natural sciences are called experimental sciences.* It is this kind of experience which, in terms of its essence, is the object and theme of philosophical knowledge. That is why the Critique of Pure Reason could be taken as a science or theory of experience, a theory about what experience is.

      But if Hegel characterizes the Phenomenology of Spirit as the science of the experience of consciousness, then (1) experience is not taken in the Kantian sense, and (2) phenomenology as the science as such does not mean a knowledge of or about experience. This holds particularly true when we grasp experience as Hegel does. What does experience mean for Hegel? Is there any connection at all between Hegel’s concept of experience and that of Kant and his problem? If the answer is in the negative, from where does Hegel get what is then obviously his own concept of experience?

      We must ponder what the word experience means generally, prior to its terminological use in philosophy, in order to see that it is not arbitrarily and without reason that Hegel uses the word in this central place.

      For example, we say: I have learned or experienced [erfahren] that such and such has happened, for example, that lightning has struck a house. “I have learned or experienced” means that I have not merely heard something about it, but rather that I heard it from someone who knows it and was there, or who heard it from those who were there. I have heard, I have learned. Again, someone is sent out to inquire about something—e.g., the condition of a patient—and returns with the response that “there was just nothing to find out [erfahren].” Here the term erfahren means to find out, to establish how certain things are. In this and in similar cases, erfahren means to learn and to establish how things are, what is happening and what has happened. Experiencing [in Erfahrung bringen] means to pursue the matter itself in a certain way and to see whether what has been said or believed can be confirmed. Experiencing means to let an opinion be confirmed by the matter itself. Accordingly, experiencing is a knowledge which is confirmed by someone who goes directly to things and sees them. Such knowledge makes a person who lets himself be guided by it an experienced human being. Because he is experienced, he can be regarded as one who has been proved to be, for example, an experienced physician. To say that someone is experienced is to say that he knows what he is doing, observes how things must be going if they are to take the right and not the wrong course.

      The issue for us is not to list and explain all of the differences, nuances, gradations, and interrelations of meaning in the term experience. Rather, we would like only to find out in which direction Hegel’s use of the word goes. And in this respect it should be pointed out that the use of this term by Hegel is not in line with the meanings we have mentioned so far. If we bring these meanings into a first group, then experience means the immediate demonstration of an opinion or a knowledge by way of returning to things in the broad sense of the term, i.e., by seeking recourse in the intuition of some thing as the means of its confirmation. There is a second group of meanings which does not focus exclusively on the element of seeing for oneself or on taking a view of one’s own in order to confirm an opinion and to be guided by it. Rather, in this group of meanings experience connotes the process of undergoing experiences in the course of which the experienced matter itself will be confirmed and its comportment verified by determining whether or not the matter is what it is, or how the matter is joined to something else. Experiencing here means testing the matter itself