Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Martin Heidegger

      Our clarification of the complete title of the work has still not provided us with an answer to the question: To what extent does the system of science require as its first part the science of the experience of consciousness, or the science of the phenomenology of spirit? As long as this question is not answered, we have, strictly speaking, not explained the full title, for we have left unexplained the meaning of the phrase “first part.” Or to put it differently, as long as this question is unanswered, it remains unexplained why “Phenomenology of Spirit” stands simultaneously as a main title and a subtitle.

a) Absolute knowledge coming to itself

      We mentioned already that the function of the first part can really be grasped only by considering the second part. And yet if the discussion of the title brings to light the inner thrust of the work, then the inner mission assigned to the first part of the system must also become intelligible. In its first exposition, science allows absolute knowledge (the absolute itself) to come out in its becoming-other-than-itself, in which it returns to itself, in order to grasp itself as absolute knowledge in its essence and nature. Hence, Hegel writes at the end of the introduction to the Phenomenology in one of his magnificent sentences in which language has become one with a mind which has been philosophically molded: “In pressing forward to its true existence, consciousness will arrive at a point at which it gets rid of its semblance of being burdened with something foreign to it, that is only for it and as some sort of other. Appearance becomes identical with essence and at just this point the exposition of consciousness will thereby coincide with the science of spirit proper. And finally, when consciousness itself grasps this its own essence, it will signify the nature of absolute knowledge itself.”¹ Thus, the exposition of spirit as it appears in its character as movement itself reaches the point of becoming and of being actual, absolute knowledge. In and through its character as movement, the exposition becomes itself what is to be exposed. The exposition and what is to be exposed coincide, not by chance but necessarily. It should discover that absolute knowledge as the knowledge that it is, exists, and so itself knows itself absolutely. (Absolute self-knowledge is not a free-floating theoretical comportment, but the manner of actuality of absolute spirit; and as such it is knowledge and will at the same time.)

      What does absolute knowledge gain by this? The gain for absolute knowledge is that it is with itself, i.e., it is in its own element, where it now unfolds itself absolutely as absolute knowledge for the purpose of knowing absolutely what it must know as such. But knowledge unfolded thus is presented in the second part of the system, i.e., in the second exposition of absolute knowledge. Accordingly, the first exposition has the inner mission of preparing itself for the element or “ether” in which absolute knowledge as such breathes. As Hegel says: “In it {the Phenomenology} it {spirit} prepares for itself the element of knowing.”² Only in this way is consciousness transposed into its genuine element. “The spirit that has developed in this fashion and knows itself as spirit is science. Science is its actuality and the realm which it builds for itself in its own element.”³ Thus, the first part of the system has the inner mission of bringing absolute knowledge to itself and into its realm (element, ether); and in this realm it should unfold its supremacy as the second part.

      What takes place in the first part is the coming of spirit to itself on the path which is appropriate to the character of its own possibility of movement (experience, phenomenology). The realm