Hegel'de Öznellik

The subject of this thesis is Hegel's theory of subjectivity as it is developed in his major works of Phenomenology of Spirit and the Science of Logic. Hegel had a peculiar understanding of subjectivity whose influence was not only limited with the nineteenth century nor merely within the philosophical circles. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, which was published in the year 1807, he presents a systematic account of his theory of subjectivity within which he makes an exposition of his prominent and critical position with respect to the prevalent epistemological and metaphysical issues of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in particular. This work has an original place in the history of philosophy in terms of its unusual way of dealing with the epistemological problems when compared with its contemporaries in the sense that unlike a usual philosophical exposition, it carries the traces of a literary work or an essay on the history of philosophy from place to place and has remained as a contemporary subject of discussion that are still current today. Far from being a personal choice concerning the style of writing, Hegel's originality in this sense is directly related with his philosophical claim that he aims to show in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Since one of the most essential and influential philosophical claims of him is related with the role of history for the understanding and conception of subjectivity, he reflects the dimension of historicity to his own philosophical exposition as well. Thus, the Phenomenology of Spirit is composed from the stages of the development of the figures of consciousness each of which stands for a particular historical and epistemological phase. In addition to the dimension of historicity, as one of the effects of his idea of development and the dynamism of subjectivity, the introductory and final concluding chapters of Hegel's works occupy an important position in terms of his system and his unique understanding of method. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, Introduction, Preface and the first main chapter of the book on "Consciousness" exemplify the introductory parts and they present different experiences of reading. One of the aims of this thesis is to discover the role and the effect of these introductory parts over Hegel's theory of subjectivity. With this respect, the question of method and the problem of beginning constitute the two determining axes of the general themes that play role in the development of the thesis. The thesis is constituted of two main chapters. The first chapter, entitled "The Problem of the Beginning: From Figures of Consciousness to Absolute Knowing" is focused on the first two chapters of the Phenomenology of Spirit and examines Hegel's conception of consciousness and self-consciousness with respect to the problem of subjectivity. Besides the significance of the introductory parts that is mentioned, the Phenomenology of Spirit itself stands as the first part of the Science of Logic and the relationship between these two works comes to the fore as a separate question in the literature. In this connection, the last chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit, "Absolute Knowing," introduces the philosophical consciousness as the final figure of consciousness which, after having traversed and has left behind the former figures, has gained the philosophical insight. Hegel claims that the development of consciousness from the figure of sense-certainty to absolute knowing as a whole stands as the presupposition and thus as the preliminary of the Science of Logic; since the logical forms of thinking and the necessity of philosophy, as well as the legitimacy of the claim that thought can establish its own ground by going beyond finite representational forms, are in need of proof. In this context, Hegel criticizes even Immanuel Kant, one of the most revolutionary figures of modern philosophy, particularly in epistemological terms, for having merely assumed the table of categories in the first critique without feeling the need to ground and justify it and argues that he had satisfied this need within the framework of his own system of logic. The second chapter of the study, entitled "The Structure of Subjectivity and the Absolute Method: 'The Circle that Presupposes its Beginning'" focuses on the methodological goal between the Phenomenology of Spirit and The Science of Logic and examines Hegel's method based on "speculative thinking," which he positions as an alternative to finite forms of thinking that he deems inadequate for philosophical knowledge. Empiricism, ancient metaphysics and Kant's transcendental philosophy are among philosophical attitudes targeted by Hegel's criticism of finite forms of thinking. In both the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Science of Logic, we encounter the problem of "attitude," "approach," that shapes Hegel's philosophical project and constitutes one of the main axes of his discourse. According to Hegel, history has always been shaped by the prominence of certain attitudes towards knowledge, and these attitudes have been reflected in both theoretical and practical acts of societies and individuals, independently of their relevance with a particular epistemological discipline such as natural sciences, ethics, aesthetics or ontology, and have played a decisive role in the formation of the culture. Therefore, although our acts of knowing and ways of doing and even being are determined by the historical and social conditions of which we are already a part in our state of "natural consciousness" as Hegel calls it, our general tendency is to think and act according to these determinations rather than to question and to explore them. However, to the extent that the subject remains within the determinations of this "natural consciousness," it cannot establish the ground of its own subjectivity; in other words, unless it embarks on the adventure of discovering the possibility of freedom in its theoretical and practical acts, it must remain condemned to the ground of subjectivity that has already been determined independently of the particular subject in question. Hegel designed the Phenomenology of Spirit to reveal the phenomenological development process of the path that "natural consciousness" sets out to become "philosophical consciousness." As long as consciousness, in its act of knowing, encounters objects that are shaped according to the epistemological ground it has, that is, to the attitude of knowledge we have just mentioned, and discovers epistemological needs that it realizes are not met in relation to these objects, it will return to the ground and conditions that provide it with this object and thus discover a new ground that can fill the deficiency in question. The moment this new ground is established constitutes a new figure of consciousness, and on this ground consciousness acquires a new attitude towards the object and the act of knowledge. However, this path which leads from consciousness to self consciousness, from reason to religion and finally to absolute knowing, and which includes many points of resort between these basic stages, is an extremely laborious path, a path of "despair" with Hegel's expressions –. At the very least, consciousness will not be able to avoid falling into this despair in so far it loses the ground it considers reliable throughout this long journey; but if it does not surrender to this despair and pursues its phenomenological adventure till the end, it will reach "absolute knowing," that is, it will ultimately be able to reach the criterion of certainty it seeks in its knowledge. For Hegel, the act of absolute of knowing represents philosophical consciousness and although it appears as and at the end of this long phenomenological journey, it actually marks a beginning. According to him, the real task of philosophical consciousness begins at this point: The subject of phenomenology, freed from the concrete and representational forms of thought, will return to the point where it started by constructing the Science of Logic, that is, the categories of thought that make philosophical thinking possible; first on its objective ground, i.e. being, and then on its subjective ground, i.e. the concept, this time in an epistemologically complete manner. Therefore, although it may seem that we have a linear system consisting of two separate works, Hegel has designed a holistic project that expresses a circularity in addition to this linear progression. From this perspective, there is potentially no difference between the natural consciousness or subject of Phenomenology of Spirit and the subject of the Science of Logic. They can only be taken as expressions of different epistemological attitudes of one and the same subject. One of the aspects that distinguishes Hegel's thought and his understanding of subjectivity is that rather than treated as mutually exclusive, these attitudes are analyzed to the extent that they emerge in a certain relation of necessity with each other and constitute the founding ground for an attitude that can explain what is new and what is missing or inconsistent in the previous ones. Rather than a philosophical system that is the result of a fixed and predetermined method, this approach appears as an epistemology and theory of subjectivity based on a dynamic and developmental process that can be traced along two axes: the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Science of Logic. As I mentioned above, Hegel, within this project, had criticized even a figure like Kant, whose name has become synonymous with critical philosophy in the modern period, for having assumed the categories of thought along with a certain conception of knowledge and experience, asserting the principle of presuppositionlessness as a condition for establishing a philosophical system and constructing these two works on the basis of this principle. This radical position, which leaves out to presuppose even the basic categories of logic, raises a number of difficulties, with the problem of method being the leading one. If natural consciousness does not think independently of the determinations of the historical and epistemological conditions in which it actually finds itself and phenomenology allows us to focus only on what happens in the act of knowing of this consciousness, given that the phenomenologist also has a certain historical epistemological attitude; can we claim that the epistemological distance covered by consciousness in its phenomenological journey and the phenomenologist who follows this journey are free from presuppositions? On the other hand, when the possibility of relying on any principle or method disappears, how is it possible for us to establish a ground that enables the transition and development between the figures of consciousness thereby ensuring the relation of necessity between each figure? These questions which concern the first chapters of the Phenomenology of Spirit that deal with the transition from consciousness to self-consciousness, Hegel's theory of subjectivity and the possibility of a self-constructing method, as well as the meaning of the transition that Hegel aims for in this work in terms of standing as the first part of the Science of Logic, constitute the themes behind the first chapter of the thesis, which explores the Phenomenology of the Spirit within the framework of the initial chapters on the transition of consciousness to self-consciousness. Within the framework of Hegel's claim that there is a self-constructing method in the Phenomenology of Spirit, as well as his emphasis that this method cannot be treated as a form independent of its content; this study follows the order of Hegel's analysis as it is in the first chapter of the thesis regarding the difficulty involved to form an attitude against the claim of presuppositionlessness without first examining the development of the figures of consciousness including the moments of sense certainty, perception, and understanding that constitute the aforementioned initial chapters of the book. In this chapter, where the question of beginning and method is discussed through the concepts of "immediacy" and "mediation" that characterize Hegel's philosophy, Pierre-Jean Labarrière's distinction between the "linear" and "circular" movement of consciousness is followed in order to set the stage for the second chapter of the thesis, which examines how these two types of movement constitute the possibility of two types of reading that can enable an understanding of the relationship between the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Science of Logic. Bu inceleme sırasında, bilincin lineer hareketinden döngüsel hareketine kavuşmasının; yani duyusal kesinlik, algılama ve kavrayış figürlerinin gelişim sürecinin bir sonucu olarak öznenin artık yalnızca kendine dışsal ve kendi karşısında, kendinden bağımsız olduğunu varsaydığı nesnesi ile kurduğu ilişkiye odaklandığı epistemolojik tutumundan sıyrılıp bu nesnelliği kavrama ve bilme edimini de içeren deneyiminin öznellik veçhesini de kuşatan bir epistemolojik tavır geliştirerek özbilince geçişini sağlayan sürecin Hegel'in öznellik anlayışı açısından kilit bir role sahip olduğunu göstermek amaçlanmıştır. What is aimed with this analysis is to show that the process through which consciousness develops a circular movement out of its linear movement plays a key role for Hegel's conception of subjectivity. As a result of the linear development of the figures of consciousness from sense-certainty, perception and understanding, the subject reaches an epistemological attitude that enables it to become self-consciousness in the sense that it does not consider its objects as merely external and independent but also encompasses the subjective aspect of its experience including the moments of its act of understanding and knowing this very object. The first chapter of the thesis, which is devoted to argue that this role functions as a kind of turning point that will enable an understanding of Hegel's theory of subjectivity not only within the boundaries of the Phenomenology of Spirit but within the framework of the Science of Logic, is concluded with the phenomenological exposition of self-consciousness as a ground to return to in the last section of the second chapter of the thesis. The second chapter mainly aims to focus on how Hegel develops his conception of subjectivity within the framework of the Science of Logic, taking into account its relation to the Phenomenology of the Spirit, through the concept of "absolute method" analyzed at the end of the chapter. In the Science of Logic, Hegel does not compromise on the principle of presuppositionlessness that he asserts in the Phenomenology of the Spirit and puts forward a complete system by following the logical movement basic categories of thought. Within the framework of this principle, the Science of Logic and the Encyclopedia Logic which is intended to serve as an outline of the former, not only claim to leave out the historical content of these concepts but also frequently include criticisms with respect to particular thinkers and philosophical accounts that are associated with the concepts in question, in order to distinguish his own reconstruction of concepts from that of the systems that preceded it. The first section of the chapter consists of Hegel's views with respect to propositional thinking followed by his criticism of empiricism and older metaphysics that he regards as "finite forms of thinking" as against his speculative thinking and focuses on their effects on Hegel's system of thought. The aim of these critiques is to clarify Hegel's claim that the philosophical attitudes he calls finite reduce philosophical thinking to the finite ground of the representational attitude of the understanding as against the infinite ground of reason – in the Hegelian sense. In the context of this critique, Hegel's views on the form and content of philosophy are evaluated and in the next section of the chapter which focuses on the foundation of subjectivity within the framework of the Science of Logic, the discussion is based on how Hegel's concept of "true infinity" plays a role in shaping Hegel's concept of self consciousness as an alternative to the concept of "bad infinity", which stands for the deficient conception of infinity as a result from finite forms of thinking. In the last part of this section, the concept of self-consciousness is reconsidered within the framework of the logical reconstruction of subjectivity in the third doctrine of the Science of Logic and its relation to Hegel's general method. The last part of the Science of Logic is analyzed in terms of his conception of the "absolute method," taking into account the principle of speculative identity that he puts forward in his treatise The Difference BetweenFichte's and Schelling's Philosophical Systems on the grounds that, although belonging to his early period before the Phenomenology of the Spirit, it carries clues to the systematic framework of his maturity, particularly with respect to his understanding of methodology. Hegel argues that this method is the only method that makes it possible to deal with the infinite form of speculative thinking which expresses the identity of being and thought and claims that this end, which reveals itself as the absolute method, even though it seems to emerge as the last chapter of the Science of Logic, stands indeed as an immediate beginning in the sense of the realization of presuppositionless thinking from the very beginning in terms of liberating the doctrines of Being, Essence and Concept that constitute the Science of Logic from their linear axes, bringing them to their circular totality. Finally, this part of the thesis examines the relationship between the immediate expression of consciousness as the presuppositionless beginning of Phenomenology of the Spirit that leads from its linear movement to the circular movement of thinking through self-consciousness and absolute knowing, and the expression of immediacy of the Science of Logic which corresponds to the concept of "being" as its beginning that restores the circularity of thinking through the mediation of "essence" and "concept" in terms of Hegel's understanding of subjectivity and method, and concludes with the question whether this method stands as the presupposition of Hegel's system based on the principle of thinking without presuppositions.