Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit

Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged. §178

Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged.

Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged.

(Subject:) Self-consciousness (Predicate:) exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, (Subject:) it (Predicate:) exists only in being acknowledged. Here thinking, instead of making progress in the transition from subject to predicate, in reality feels itself checked by the loss of the subject, and, missing it, is thrown back on to the thought of the subject. … Thinking therefore loses the firm objective basis it had in the subject when, in the predicate, it is thrown back on to the subject, and when, in the predicate, it does not return into itself, but into the subject of the content. … The philosophical proposition, since it is a proposition, leads one to believe that he usual subject-predicate relation obtains, as well as the usual attitude towards knowing. But the philosophical content destroys this attitude and this opinion. We learn by experience that we meant something other than we meant to mean; and this correction of our meaning compels our knowing to go back to the proposition, and understand it in some other way. §62-63

(Positing:) Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for (Negation:) another; that is, it exists only in (Negation of the negation:) being acknowledged.

Descartes: “I am, I exist Descartes: “I am, I exist.” —> “I am therefore, speaking precisely, only a thinking thing, that is, a mind, or a soul, or an intellect, or a reason.” Hegel: We are, we exist through each other. —> We are social beings. Our being includes a demand for universal recognition of all by all.

“simple being-for-self, self-equal through the exclusion from itself of everything else” §186

It is only through staking one’s life that freedom is won. §187

“simple being-for-self”—> risks life in struggle for recognition with another (§187) —> “pure being-for-self” (§187)

“simple being-for-self” —> risks life in struggle for recognition with another —> “pure being-for-self” —> unequal recognition: the lord = “being-for-self;” the bondsman = “being-for-another” (§189)

The truth of [the lord’s] independent consciousness is accordingly the servile consciousness of the bondsman. §193

the first “individual:” “simple being-for-self” —> risks life in struggle for recognition with another —> “pure being-for-self” —> unequal recognition: the lord = “being-for-self;” the bondsman = “being-for-another” —> 1st reversal: the truth of lordship is bondage —> “the thing” (§191)

the first “individual:” “simple being-for-self” —> risks life in struggle for recognition with another —> “pure being-for-self” —> unequal recognition: the lord = “being-for-self;” the bondsman = “being-for-another” —> 1st reversal: the truth of lordship is bondage —> “the thing” —> the lord and the thing: enjoyment; the bondsman and the thing: work (§190)

Through work … the bondsman becomes conscious of what he truly is Through work … the bondsman becomes conscious of what he truly is. Work … is desire held in check, fleetingness staved off; in other words, work forms and shapes the thing. The negative relation to the object becomes its form and something permanent, because it is precisely for the worker that the object has independence. This negative middle term or the formative activity is at the same time the individuality or pure being-for-self of consciousness which now, in the work outside of it, acquires an element of permanence. It is in this way, therefore, that consciousness, qua worker, comes to see in the independent being [of the object] its own independence. §195

the first “individual:” “simple being-for-self” —> risks life in struggle for recognition with another —> “pure being-for-self” —> unequal recognition: the lord = “being-for-self;” the bondsman = “being-for-another” —> 1st reversal: the truth of lordship is bondage —> “the thing” —> the lord and the thing: enjoyment; the bondsman and the thing: work —> 2nd reversal: the truth of bondage is independence

In that experience, it [the slave’s self-consciousness] has been quite unmanned, has trembled in every fiber of its being, and everything solid and stable has been shaken to its foundation. §194

The true is the whole. But the whole is nothing other than the essence consummating itself through its development. Of the Absolute it must be said that it is essentially a result, that only in the end is it what it truly is; and that precisely in this consists its nature, namely to be actual, subject, the spontaneous becoming of itself. §20

Appearance is the arising and passing away that does not itself arise and pass away, but is in itself, and constitutes the actuality and the movement of the life of truth. The True is thus the Bacchanalian revel in which no member is not drunk; yet because each member collapses as soon as he drops out, the revel is just as much transparent and simple repose. Judged in the court of this movement, the single shapes of Spirit do not persist any more than determinate thoughts do, but they are as much positive and necessary moments, as they are negative and evanescent. In the whole of the movement, seen as a state of repose, what distinguishes itself therein, and gives itself particular existence, is preserved as something that recollects itself, whose existence is self-knowledge, and whose self-knowledge is just as immediately existence. §47