Commentary on Subjective Spirit, Chapter 7
The Articulation of the Subjective Spirit (§ 387)
This stands in a single paragraph and follows the same figure:
“A. In itself or immediate; thus it is soul or nature-spirit — the subject matter of Anthropology. B. For itself or mediated, still as identical reflection in itself and in another; spirit in relation or particularization: consciousness — the subject matter of the Phenomenology of Spirit. C. Spirit determining itself within itself, as subject for itself — the subject matter of Psychology.”
A–B–E, as in the Anthropology itself. The immediate, the mediated, the self-determining.
And Hegel says what happens at each stage: in the soul, consciousness awakens; in consciousness, spirit posits itself as reason; in psychology “spirit, being within itself, rises to consciousness.”
In the lecture course Hegel says it more clearly than in the printed text. The 1822 transcript gives the division in formulas one can hold in mind:
“In the first part spirit merely is, in the second it appears, that is, it has separated itself from nature and makes nature merely its presupposition […] Psychology is spirit only in relation with itself, not with the external world.”[1]
And even more concisely: “The first part, then, is spirit as nature-spirit; at the second stage spirit is in relation to another; at the third [in relation to itself].”
The 1825 course gives the same movement with a reason the printed book does not name — why the Anthropology cannot simply remain in place:
“The second part is the end of this: spirit in this its corporeality is not calm, not persisting; according to its concept it is eternally active, eternally progressing; thus it reaches the endpoint of Anthropology and proceeds to the being-for-itself of spirit. Thus it relates to the natural, in which it was submerged, as to something external. And spirit, which relates to the natural […] as to something external, is consciousness.”
Not calm, not persisting — the transition follows from the activity itself, not from a deficiency noticed from outside.
Being — appearing — relating itself to itself. This is the same articulation as in § 387, but with verbs instead of determinations.
Erdmann’s transcript gives it even more concisely, in a way that explains the middle position of the Phenomenology in a single word:
“In Anthropology spirit is submerged in its natural corporeality; in psychology spirit forming itself within its freedom, free spirit; — between the two lies the fact that spirit begins to step out of nature but is still related to nature, stands in relation to it.”[2]
Submerged — stepping out — forming itself. And for consciousness a determination requiring no elaboration: “Here we are, and we know of something, have an external object and at the same time know of ourselves.”
Noteworthy is the aside on Psychology: Erdmann calls it “spirit forming itself within its freedom, the free spirit” — the name is already present here, at the entryway, for the whole third part. This supports Tuschling’s finding: the innovation in this lecture course is not an appendage at the end but present from the very beginning.
And a classification the printed text lacks: “The standpoint of consciousness is that of Kantian philosophy in general.”
This states what the Phenomenology deals with and against what it is directed: against a philosophy that stops at the opposition of subject and object. Kant does not appear by name at this point in the Encyclopedia — in the lecture course Hegel names him. [KF]
On the Anthropology, in the same context he gives a determination more concise than anything in the book: “Spirit considered in its corporeality — where it is still in its state of nature, not yet stepped out of its existence. This existence is one inadequate to spirit, and thus immediately the opposition of soul and body appears, the struggle of spirit against its corporeality, against its unfreedom.”
Struggle against one’s own unfreedom — that is the task of § 403 in four words.
For the reading, this means: the three parts do not treat three objects — not soul, consciousness, and spirit as three things — but a single process in three constitutions. Whoever reads them as separate compartments will not understand the transitions. [KF]