Peak 119 Object Form

We must use a certain means to achieve a certain goal, and we must adopt a certain form to obtain a certain content. However, you have to abandon all forms and say that I don't need form, I can directly grasp the content. This is why Husserl later attempted to grasp the so-called phenomenon object through this method, where the object of this phenomenon is consciousness, and the object within the phenomenon is the essential intuitive concept.

So, in Husserl's view, he used a word called 'proof', which we scientifically translate as proof, indicating that we don't need anything else, it can directly prove itself. Consciousness itself does not need others to prove it. The activity of consciousness itself is the process of proving itself. Thought does not need anything else to prove it, but on the contrary, other things require our thoughts to provide proof.

Just like we need to discuss a problem and provide an explanation for a thing or phenomenon. We ask others to give an explanation first. 'Give an explanation first' is to ask you to provide a reasoning explanation for the matter. However, can you provide an explanation for the reason itself? How can you give an explanation in the same way as you express your thoughts. The same way of using your discourse applies to our own ideas.

Therefore, thought cannot prove itself. In other words, the mind cannot prove itself with anything else, it can only prove itself with itself.

Thought is used to prove the existence of other things, but thought itself cannot be proven by other things. This is a characteristic of thought itself. According to Hegel's understanding here, it is about the activity of consciousness, how it ultimately becomes an absolute spirit, that is, when we truly elevate the absolute spirit, as we just described, elevate it, abandon formal rules, and directly question it as pure knowledge content, that is, when we want to form a concept of "white", we do not need to use specific white things to verify it one by one.

We can also talk about 'white' things, and this idea is actually very easy to understand in mathematics. When we talk about any specific number, we never see it as an object, we always see it as a form or a concept. Why consider it as a concept?

It's because we perform operations between numbers. For example, if 1+1=2, when we see this equation, we don't need to imagine any specific object. We don't need to associate the number itself with other objects it represents, because the number itself is not an objective thing, it is a concept used to represent the quantity of one thing.

Therefore, when we use mathematical methods to express ideas, we are expressing ideas at the conceptual level, you are not expressing ideas in the sense of objects, you have no relationship with objects anymore. So, how is a concept constructed? A concept is precisely about discarding the various limitations formed by the concept of relativity itself. This abandonment is called abandonment.

The Phenomenology of Spirit itself, according to Hegel's own description, which is the description we just gave, also regards it as the science of experience about consciousness, and the series of forms that consciousness passes through on this path, which is the history of the formation of consciousness itself towards science. Consciousness itself is the process we just talked about from consciousness to self-awareness, and then to reason. After reaching rationality, the ultimate goal is to achieve an absolute spirit, consciousness, self-awareness, and rational absolute spirit. It is such a process.

In the process of evolution, philosophy becomes science. So, "Phenomenology of Spirit" actually describes the historical process of the development of philosophy itself, and it is also the process of absolute spiritual development. Because we realize self-awareness, then move on to rationality, and ultimately form absolute spirit, it can also be seen as a process of the ultimate formation of absolute spirit.

Let's take a look at the epistemology of Phenomenology of Spirit. If we really see absolute spirit as a process of development from self-awareness to rationality, it seems that what we are reading is not a theory about the existence of the world, but a theory about the development of consciousness activity itself. Therefore, it belongs to human cognitive activities, and it seems that it should be a cognitive problem.

However, the understanding here is indeed different from what we usually understand. It is not like Kant's understanding, where we can simply arrange the different historical stages of cognitive activity, describe the characteristics of cognitive activity presented in each historical stage according to this historical stage, and then give it a certain concept or category to explain this cognitive activity. Instead, we view this conscious activity as a process of continuous evolution and development.

So, he is different from Kant. Kant opened a traditional Chinese medicine shop, which treats all the steps in the process of understanding like traditional Chinese medicine, placing each step and each type of medicine in different positions; Hegel is not a traditional Chinese medicine shop, but a mobile clinic that constantly applies our grasp of consciousness activities to ultimately solve the fundamental problems of people's spirit.

So, Hegel is a barefoot doctor, not the owner of a traditional Chinese medicine shop. He has to constantly move forward and face new problems, because every Being he faces is actually a problem that must be faced in the process of absolute spiritual development.

Therefore, Hegel regarded the development history of human society as a manifestation of absolute spirit in the human world.

Marx elevated the concept of his absolute spirit. Marx interpreted the absolute spirit as an objective law, believing that this absolute spirit is actually just an explanation of the objective regularity of the development of things.

But we can read that Marx was a student of Hegel because his way of thinking was still Hegelian. You still need to use a unified thing to explain the development and changes of human society.

So, Marx's philosophical way of thinking and his problem-solving methods are Hegelian. Especially in Marx's philosophy, whether discussing dialectics or the history of human social development, it is derived step by step according to the way given by Hegel.

Hegel regards cognitive activity as a process of contradictory development between knowledge and objects, therefore, the emergence of any new knowledge is based on the result of a conscious activity towards a new object. So, in the process of constantly forming new consciousness activities, the new knowledge formed, we follow this historical development clue, that is, the dialectical relationship between knowledge and objects, constitutes what we call the problem of the relationship between thinking and existence.

He said that when we find that knowledge does not match the object, we must change the knowledge to match the object and form new knowledge. The original knowledge, after all, was formed based on the corresponding object. The change in knowledge now also means that the object is no longer equivalent to the knowledge, so it is necessary to change oneself to adapt to the new knowledge.

What can we infer from this passage?

It is the interaction between knowledge and objects, whether knowledge is attached to objects or objects are attached to knowledge. From here, knowledge actually shapes and transforms objects. And in this process, the core role is played by human consciousness activities, especially human self-awareness activities.

So, understanding is not only a process of changing knowledge, but also a process of changing objects. Therefore, the change of objects here means that the object that was originally thought to be a free object by consciousness has now become an object of consciousness. This is the relationship between freedom and self action.

In itself and for itself "is a core concept in Hegelian dialectics. We often say that the objective world is a world in itself, and according to this understanding, the world in itself is human society. We are used to explaining these two things this way. In fact, Hegel's understanding of the meaning of freedom and self action is far from simple.

The world of 'freedom' means that we can find the basis for the existence of this thing, that is, we can grasp freedom from questioning its substantive requirements, that is, when we question its reality, we can find its basis and consider it to be free.

However, 'self actualization' is an object established for oneself, an object existing for oneself, and an object existing not for anything else but for oneself. What is oneself?

It is consciousness itself, the object formed for the activity of consciousness itself, which is called a self created object.

In the process of freedom and self action, Hegel formed a spiral upward process of human cognitive activity. This process involves understanding the activity, which is constantly elevated through the relationship between freedom and self action with the object itself. So, Hegel's cognitive activity is not a simple cyclical process, but a constantly rising process.

Because he is constantly denying, that is, he wants to abandon the existing free objects and generate new self created objects.

So, the relationship between freedom and self action precisely reflects a very important aspect of Hegelian dialectics. From this, we can obtain Hegel's epistemology and a basic description of Hegel's understanding of cognitive activity, that is, how he discusses cognitive activity.