Negation:from Finite Subject To Absolute Subject:A Study Of The Chapter Of Self-consciousness In The Phenomenology Of Spirit

German Idealist thinkers discovered the power of negation in human from the many events especially the French Great Revolution that took place since the modern age. They believed that it was this power that made human free and that freedom of self played a decisive role in all these events. Therefore, they argued that philosophy should be a theory of free ego. The idea of an ego with absolute freedom requires the ego’s infinity, because any limit on the ego is a limit on its action and thereby becomes a handicap of freedom. Kant’s self-consciousness provides a possibility for the theory of an infinite subject. Fichte found that carrying forward the activity of Kant’s self-consciousness and thus developing the static relation of self-consciousness and category into a dynamic relation would a system of absolute ego. Such a system is self-causing, i.e. it is a cause for itself, so no external cause is needed. As we all know, the thing-in-itself of Kant is nothing but such a external cause. From this perspective, Fichte’s absolute ego overcomes Kant’s thing-in-itself in some sense.What Fichte wants to establish by three basic principles of theory of knowledge is the mechanism of motivation for the development of ego into different categories. He finds that the nature of such a primitive activity is the unity of identity and difference, and he expresses this notion with the help of hypothesis, counter-hypothesis and confinement According to Hegel, though Fichte finds that nature of ego as the unity of identity and difference, he does not express it appropriately, since hypothesis, counter-hypothesis and confinement are collected by external reflections and do not constitute a self-explaining system. Hegel expresses the ego’s pure activity with negation, i.e. if the unity of category is the unity of self-consciousness, then self-consciousness is the self-unity of self-negation. Therefore, negation is the true nature of subjectivity, or in other words, subjectivity is negation. Negation does not need the help of external reflections; it is a completely self-generated autonomous system.It is just because of this change of self-consciousness from Kant to Hegel that the self-consciousness in The Phenomenology of Spirit takes on a quite different look from Kant’s theory of self-consciousness. The connotation of reflection as the core of self-consciousness undergoes a complete shift. The self-consciousness of Kant is discovered by the reflection within consciousness, while the core of Hegel’s self-consciousness is the self-relation of negation.The nature of the dialectical action of self-consciousness is the difference of negation, or the recognition of ego from the object, since object is ego. The subject acquires difference from the negation of self, and denies this difference as difference at the same time. Self-consciousness displays itself as desire in the first place. Desire is the direct negation of the object, and thus the simplest negation of difference. However, the true goal of negation of difference is not the elimination of the object but the recognition of ego from the object, i.e. the awareness of the unity of self and the object. Therefore, desire is not the truth of self-consciousness. In admitting concepts, the object becomes self-consciousness as well. However, self-consciousness fails to recognize itself. Through such stages as life-and-death struggle, ruling, and labor, self-consciousness externalizes the negation of self, thus making the object assuming its own form. As a result, the object becomes the subject’s true object, and with this comes the true unity of self-consciousness and the object. And thinking is the conception of this unity. This unity is first conceived as simple unity with the neglect of difference, and this is the spirit of Stoicism. Skepticism confronts difference and takes it with delight. However, though claiming the inexistence of difference, it cannot be blind to difference, which makes it a self-contradictory consciousness. The trouble consciousness is the self-knowledge of such a contradiction. Therefore, identity and difference appear in the same consciousness. The troubled consciousness places itself in the position of difference, and sets identity as its destination with which it tries its best to unify. Through ’meditation’, ’gratitude’, and the complete abandonment of self, HERE and THERE achieve a kind of unity. Consequently, with the unity of self-consciousness and the object, self-consciousness no longer takes the object as something alien to itself, and makes sure that it is itself the whole substance. With this comes the new attitude of consciousness towards the object, namely REASON.