Hegel Essay

Brief overview of Master/Slave Dialectic

One individual wins the conflict (master) because the other gives way (slave). But the master remains in the individuality of desire, while the slave attains ability to abstract from this individuality in work.

Desire (of self-consciousness)

1. Having moved from consciousness to self-consciousness, Hegel now considers how the subject first conceives of itself, which is a pure will or desire that affirms itself in overcoming the world around it.

2. But this is unsatisfactory, as the subject continually needs new objects to overcome; so it must find its satisfaction instead in other subjects, where this will eventually lead to Spirit, in which individuals find unity with others while preserving their independence.

Mastership and Servitude

3. This will involve a process of mutual recognition.

4. However, such mutual recognition has not yet been achieved; instead, each self tries to overcome the other in a life and death struggle.

5. As one self realizes that with death all is lost, it gives way and becomes a slave, while the other becomes the master.

6. However, the recognition the master achieves is inadequate, while at the same time the slave acquires an understanding of the world around it that takes him beyond desire.

Overview of self-consciousness, framing the Master/Slave Dialectic (From class)

1. Consciousness of an object implies a self-conscious.

2. Desire is the most basic form of self-consciousness. When I am met with resistance, I become aware of myself.

3. We have a fundamental impulse to negate things, i.e., distinguish myself from them and say ‘no’ to them.

4. Hence, we have a fundamental impulse to destroy and master our surroundings. We need the contrast, this negative relation to objects, in order become self-conscious.

5. What follows is the subject noticing the subjects’ self-consciousness. Subjects cannot be treated as mere objects → mutual recognition is the goal (first indiciation of Absolute Knowing)

6. But it’s really a struggle for humanity to not view other subjects as objects to be destroyed

For Absolute Knowing, in the Notion of Spirit we be need: unity of difference independent self-consciousness.

Overview of Lordship and Bondage (From class)

In their original mode, humans desire things.

If we only try to control objects, we never get assured of oneself → we need others in order to understand ourselves.

At first, recognition of the other as a subject is hard for us.

Asymmetry/Contradiction: I am recognized, the other recognizes me. “One being only recognized, the other only recognizing.”

We want recognition from others, but we’re not willing to give it back → leads to life and death struggle.

This asymmetry leads to war, willing to stake one’s life to prove their identity.

One side realizes this struggle is futile:

• if I kill you, I don’t get recognition

• if you kill me, I can’t be recognized either

The subject realizes that life is essential to them. The subject who gives up the struggle becomes the slave.

Slave and Master:

Master: in the position of dominance, but this is merely an illusion. Because the slave has the demoted status of an object, there is no subject to recognize the master.

Slave: Recognizes the futile life and death struggle.. becomes mere object.

The outcome of this relationship is a one-sidedness. Roles become reversed, as the slave becomes a mere object, they start to realize their own consciousness. So, the slave actually gets the better end of the deal: they recognize themselves as an independent self-consciousness, whereas this is unavailable in the master’s position.

“As a consciousness forced back into itself, it will withdraw into itself and be transformed into a truly independent consciousness” (193).

While the master has not risen above the level of desire, the slave has become an independent subject. The slave no longer sees the world as alien to him. He has learned (through the stages of fear, service, & work) respect for his world and the things in it; no longer motivated by the desire to consume and destroy.

3 Stages of the Slave’s realization

1. Fear.

• In the initial relationship of domination, slave fears for his life. His life is unstable. In this trembling, the bondsman becomes aware of himself, the possibility of his death.

2. Service.

• The master puts the slave to work. In service, the slave is forced to give up his own desires, but is now not consumed by them like the master is.

3. Work.

• In his work, the slave creates his own permanent object, he doesn’t simply consume. He leaves his mark on the world with his creation. He has acquired a mind of his own through his work — discovering himself by himself.

• “Through this rediscovery of himself by himself, the bondsman realizes that it is precisely in his work wherein he seemed to have only an alienated existence that he acquires a mind of his own” (196).

General insights

Humans become self-conscious, aware, only in society. Our work, our practical engagements constitute who we are.

Another good summary of the slave’s process of realization:

“First, the slave experiences the fear of the master (lord) and the fear of death, “the absolute Lord.” [34] In this experience, the slave recognizes life as temporary, as fleeting, and comes to understand himself as not essentially bound to his natural existence. He must form a self-conception that is distinct from his merely natural self. Second, in being made to work for the master, the slave can distinguish himself from his immediate desires. He would like to eat or paint, say, but must suppress these desires in order to follow the master’s commands. In other words, through working for the master the slave learns discipline. Finally, in creating objects not for his own consumption, but for the use of the master, the slave learns that he, by using his own mind and ingenuity, can leave his mark on the world. Hegel tells us that, “consciousness, qua worker, comes to see in the independent being [of the object] its own independence.” [35] The slave’s relation to the world is not one of pure consumption. He sees the world not as something to be dominated, to be mastered, but an arena in which he can express himself, his own mind.”