On the essence/appearance issue: he is already making a claim here for their identity – an identity, though, that relies on a sort of dynamic process of which these are moments. From the other direction, the Logic opens with possibly the best description of immanent critique I’ve seen, anywhere – admittedly, we’re not following an unfolding path traced by shapes of consciousness – but he does imply that whatever it is that we are following, has, as its starting point, where Phenomenology has taken us to… But I’m not saying any of this as any kind of strong stance – I’m not confident of my grasp on either of these texts, and I am confident that I’m not understanding the sharp divide that it seems common to draw between them, which suggests that something about my reading is really idiosyncratic – perhaps something minor, like what I’m looking for in the text, but perhaps something more major and significant…

So yes: I’m looking forward to working through the Logic too (and will probably keep tossing some things up on Phenomenology here and there as well, since I still haven’t blogged anything beyond the lord-bondsman discussion in that text ;-P). But I definitely want to hold onto this thread for the reading group discussion.

I’ll also be interested to see what Tom writes, in his projected discussion of the relationship between the Phenomenology and the Logic.

I don’t know the logic very well, N, which is one of the reasons I am so excited about the reading-group idea. But from what I do know, there is a fundamental shift in Hegel’s thinking, which takes place in the Logic (and can also be found in the Encyclopedia and the Aesthetics): he replaces the Notional discourse with the ‘appearance of the Idea.’ This is a huge change, since it seems to transform the very conditions of ‘immanent critique’ in favour of an explicitly speculative register. That is, instead of ‘inhabiting a shape of consciousness’ and developing the embedded series of normative claims within it by uncovering contradictions, the speculative register begins with the explicit claim for the Identity of essence and Idea through Appearance (in the Shorter Logic Hegel describes this via his conception of particularity, which welds together singularity and universality). Simply put, there doesn’t seem to be any Notion left.

But I don’t want to say more than this, since I’m already on the verge of overstepping what I can confidently assert. We’ll have to track it in the reading group!

By the way: when parallel material crops up in the Logic, on a very superficial read on my part at this point, it seems that Hegel alters some elements of the order of presentation. This probably makes sense, given the different registers of the two works, but I was wondering if you had any thoughts on this – on what it means? (Or on whether I’m simply mistaken in having this impression…)

I have only one minor thing to add, which is based on my own very personal, and highly idiosyncratic reading of the phenomenology: you don’t emphasize enough how Hegel’s labour here gives birth to the Notion, and that it is the self-reflective grasp of the Notion that opens up the possibility of Self-consciousness. That is to say, I take the task of the first few sections of the text to be a ‘phenomenological deduction’ of the Notion, and ‘Self-consciousness’ through to ‘Reason’ to be an articulation of the inherently socio-historical grounds of Spirit.

Let me rephrase slightly. If we return to the first sentence of the Introduction of the Phenomenology, we will remember that the starting point, as it were, for Hegel’s considerations is framed by a dichotomy, an Either/Or:

It is a natural assumption that in philosophy, before we start to deal with its proper subject-matter, viz. the actual cognition of what truly is, one must first of all come to an understanding about cognition, which is regarded either as the instrument to get hold of the Absolute, or as the medium through which one discovers it.

And, as you’ve pointed out so elegantly above, the basic problem of ‘Force and Understanding’ stems from a separation of law from the supersensible. What needs to be emphasized, I think, is that this dichotomy, however subtle or nuanced it may be, remains within the problem space that Hegel indicates at the Beginning of the introduction. Simply put, ‘Force and understanding’ remains within the horizon of a fundamental misconception of the Absolute, and of the tasks of philosophy, for it treats the Absolute in a duplicitous manner: as noumenon, which the understanding works upon, and as a medium (Kingdom of Laws). So, the movement from Sense-certainty through Force and Understanding is really an attempt to immanently develop the Notion. As Hegel puts it,

This unconditioned universal [of perception], which is now the true object of consciousness, is still just an object for it; consciousness has not yet grasped the Notion of the unconditioned as Notion (§132)

and then a page later:

What has emerged for it [i.e. the Understanding] as a result is the Notion of the True — but only as the implicit being of the True, which is not yet Notion, or which lacks being-for-self of consciousness, and which the understanding without knowing itself therein, lets go its own way. (§ 133)

What makes this section so difficult, at least for me, is that the Understanding is, by definition, not-self-reflective, and hence Hegel needs to coax out of it a a being-for-us that remains problematic for-it (BTW I love your analogy of transposing a 3D object into a 2D space. I think that’s precisely the problem here). And, since the Understanding is ‘scientific’ the problem takes the form of the ‘external conditions for the possibility of the being of truth’ (and which will later become ‘life,’ once the Notion is explicit).

But this is a minor point, I think.

OK, I need to run to the library — hopefully the above is coherent and helpful.

Cheers