In hierdie bydrae sal aangetoon word op welke wyse Hegel in die Phänomenologie des Geistes (1988; hierma FvdG (2013)) betoog dat subjek en objek nie afsonderlik van mekaar bedink kan word nie. Die antwoord op hierdie vraagstuk lê in 'n bepaalde toeëiening van die begrip van die absolute wat as dialektiese bemiddeling tussen subjek en objek dien, waaruit die begrip van selfbewussyn na vore tree. Selfbewussyn is nie alleen 'n hoër vorm van subjektiwiteit nie, maar vorm deel van die groter werklikheid van subjek en objek. Enersyds is die belangrikheid van hierdie vraagstuk van so 'n aard dat dit verdien om geïsoleerd binne Hegel se Phänomenologie bespreek te word, en andersyds moet die vraagstuk gekontekstualiseer word sodat die wyer debatte waarbinne Hegel se antwoord op hierdie aangeleentheid neerslag vind, ook die nodige aandag kry. Ten slotte moet daar ook gewys word op die posisie wat hierdie onderwerp binne Hegel se eie sisteem beklee, naamlik as oorgang tot die begrip van Anerkennung, bloot om die problematiek van denke oor die selfbewussyn as geïsoleerde onderwerp uit te wys. Die debat rondom die verhouding tussen subjek en objek sal vanaf Kant gerekonstrueer word, met die twee sleutelfigure van Fichte en Schelling as verteenwoordigers van uiteenlopende strominge waaruit Hegel geput het. Beide staan egter 'n bemiddelende, spekulatiewe toevoeging tot die subjek-objek-verhouding, die absolute, voor. By Fichte staan die absolute nader aan die subjek en by Schelling die objek, oftewel die natuur. Hegel neem elemente by beide oor maar behou die absolute as bemiddeling. In die eerste drie hoofstukke van Hegel se Fenomenologie van die Gees (FvdG) word die objektiewe aanspraak wat die wetenskap op die waarheid maak ondersoek en word dit as ontoereikend aangebied aan die hand van die inherent weersprekende begrippe (dat 'n ding tegelyk uit 'n eenheid en veelheid van kragte kan bestaan) waarvan dit noodwendig gebruik maak om wetenskap te kan wees. Hiermee wil Hegel nie die wetenskaplike metode as sodanig irrelevant verklaar nie, maar poog om die groter beweging wat die begrip van objektiewe eksterne werklikheid moontlik maak, te identifiseer en uiteindelik te inkorporeer by 'n meer omvangryke begrip van waarheid. Sodanige omvangryke begrip sal noodwendig rekening moet hou met die subjektiewe; die verstandsaktiwiteit waaruit begrippe gevorm word. Anders as by sy voorgangers (Descartes en Kant) beweer Hegel egter nie dat die subjektiwiteit die werklikheid omvat nie, vandaar sy gebruik van die begrip van die fenomenologie, wat op die gebeurtenis van die verskynsels fokus. Die ware is nie 'n afgesonderde noumenale sfeer wat nooit deur die subjek geken kan word nie, maar ontvou as dít wat ten dele deur die subjektiewe, die interpreterende selfbewus-syn, oopgemaak word. Ten slotte dra die besef van die wederkerigheid van subjek en objek by tot die totstandkoming van die selfbewussyn, 'n begrip wat wys op die verweefdheid van bestaan (syn) en self. Drie fases van die objektiewe opvatting van die werklikheid word in die proses van die totstandkoming van selfbewussyn uitgedaag: die aansprake van die sintuiglike sekerheid, die waarneming (gegrond op Hume se sogenaamde "secondary impressions") en ten laaste die begrip van krag as dit wat onderliggend aan alle liggame is. Hegel wys daarop dat die selfbewussyn nie die resultaat, of passiewe waarnemer is van die werklikheid soos dit in die wetenskap voorgestel word nie, maar dat dit 'n noodsaaklike bydrae lewer om die werklikheid van die wetenskap te postuleer sonder om die gewaarwording tot subjektiwiteit te reduseer. Die objektiewe en die subjektiewe is nie twee geskeide domeine van die werklikheid nie, maar gee gelyktydig aan mekaar oorsprong. Laastens sal daarop gewys word dat selfbewussyn nie eenduidig is nie, maar in verhouding staan tot ander selfbewussyne.
This article will explore in what sense subject and object are considered reciprocally in Hegel's first three chapters in the Phenomenology of Spirit. The third chapter, although notoriously difficult to read, is one of the most important epistemological documents in modern philosophy. Hegel's approach will be traced within the debate stemming from Kant's transcendental philosophy mainly through Fichte and Schelling. It will be shown that Hegel incorporated elements from all these figures to arrive at his unique position. Kant's transcendental philosophy established the idea that the thinking consciousness contributes fundamentally to knowledge to the extent that knowledge is fully produced by the subject, and the true nature of the object is unattainable to consciousness. The widely held conclusion was that Kant S thought amounted to a too strong divide between subject and object. Fichte and Schelling managed, thanks to the notion of the absolute, to mediate between subject and object, thereby opening the door to Hegel's dialectics as a philosophy of mediation. Both Fichte and Schelling, as was the case, broadly speaking, with German Idealism taken as a whole, still considered thinking as an activity of being that contributes to the fulfilment of being, linking objects to consciousness. Fichte's "absolute I", a consciousness that precedes the consciousness of the self, standing over the self and the object, was deemed to resemble the Kantian subject too closely. Schelling's natural philosophy, on the other hand, situates the absolute within nature and consciousness as developing from within nature towards the deployment of the self. This approach was considered potentially falling back into a dogmatic mode of thinking. Even if these positions remain caught in problems they seek to overcome, they did make notable progress in addressing the question of the relation of the subject to the object in a modern context. Hegel develops his initial answer to this question in the Phenomenology of Spirit first as an inheritor of the Enlightenment, notably empiricism, but stands critical of its basic suppositions. He does not accept that complete knowledge is immediately accessible, and resorts to the notion of the Absolute to indicate that mediated knowledge leads to truth. Unlike Fichte, Reinhold and Schelling, he does not immediately introduce the absolute as a mediator of knowledge but arrives at it through counterarguments for the positions put forward by the assumption of immediate objective knowledge. This dialectic approach leads to the unfolding of consciousness, self-consciousness and Spirit. Our subjective contribution to knowledge production is also not assumed beforehand, like in Kant, but is the result of the confrontation with the assumptions made by experiential knowledge. Without subjectivity, knowledge of the unity of reality is impossible, as is knowledge of the difference between objects. Knowing objects according to their nature requires subjectivity from which order is established, but the subject experiences itself as standing in relation to objects. Consciousness is confronted by an outside world that must be made sense of. Not only is the establishment of the relation between subject and object important but according to Hegel, the subject's relation to the object is reflected in his self-understanding and self-consciousness. The notion of self-consciousness is revealed precisely by the relation between subject and object, but not before this relation. Hegel therefore starts his journey to the absolute through natural consciousness, a consciousness that takes immediate knowledge of objects around us as authoritative. One can call this immediate knowledge objective in the sense that it takes no queues from subjectivity. Hegel proceeds to critique objective knowledge, claiming that immediate knowledge doesn't reckon with the factor of time, and therefore cannot be the ultimate source of truth. This critique is ambivalent, as it does recognise the world of objects as a source for knowledge, however, this must be supplemented by our own consciousness in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of this knowledge. Consciousness becomes an essential ingredient necessary for understanding. The second chapter introduces perception as the measure of reality. Perception brings a multitude of things under a general principle, thereby creating an understanding between things and their general substance. This second approach to truth cannot explain how generality and particularity exist in the first place. Hegel moves to the notoriously difficult third chapter in which he describes the dynamic relation between force and understanding. Force is identified as the underlying dimension of external reality, but it has in turn to be postulated, making necessary the involvement of the understanding as hypothesising activity. At first, force is merely described in terms of its expressions, but acknowledgement of its fundamental trait as underlying the whole of physical reality without being a tangible thing, leads to the realisation of the role of the understanding. This realisation is self-consciousness. Self-consciousness becomes aware of its participative role in its determination of the underlying structures of reality, structures that are postulated, and not apparent. In the last section, it is pointed out that self-consciousness is not to be understood as standing alone concerning objects - self-consciousness also stands in relation to other-selves. Self-consciousness is not an object and cannot be fully determined as is the case with things. This does not form the primary concern of the article and will merely be described to point to the position of self-consciousness within the larger scheme of Hegel's thinking. This does not take away the importance that the topic under discussion here has for the development of Hegel's system, which is the reason for the focus given here.
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