You know, I get the feeling that you have grasped all that pretty well already. — WerMaat

Thank you. Appearance can be deceptive !

(I've not even read all of the articles you've linked.) — WerMaat

Tsk, tsk ! :wink:

I think you are entirely right. It would be helpful to circle back. After all, the circle is the best and most powerful image of the self-movement of spirit. Since it is so easy to get lost in the details and opacity of Hegel's writing, before moving forward I want to collect a few things together that he has said.

12: ... the whole which has returned into itself from out of its succession and extension and has come to be the simple concept of itself.

Returning to itself from out of itself the whole comes to know itself. This is the fundamental movement of spirit in its self-realization. It is articulated by Hegel in various ways. It is important to see that this is a self-enclosed movement whose progress is not linear. There is nothing outside of it.

13: Only what is completely determinate is at the same time exoteric, comprehensible, and capable of being learned and possessed by everybody. The intelligible form of science is the path offered to everyone and equally available for all.

Until the whole completes itself, that is, comes to know itself, knowledge is still indeterminate, incomplete and the possession of the few. Who are these few? The philosophers who have moved knowledge forward. Knowledge is self-knowledge is a double sense - the movement from the Delphic "know thyself" to knowledge of the spirit's knowledge of itself. With the completion of this movement the individual, the subject knows itself in the truth of the whole. It is not available for all in the sense that information is, but rather as self-realization.

13: To achieve rational knowledge through our own intellect is the rightful demand of a consciousness which is approaching the status of science. This is so because the understanding is thinking, the pure I as such, and because what is intelligible is what is already familiar and common both to science and to the unscientific consciousness alike, and it is that through which unscientific consciousness is immediately enabled to enter into science.

The understanding is thinking, thinking is the pure I, the pure I is the understanding. Knowledge and understanding are in this way distinguished. How is it that what is intelligible is what is already familiar and common? What is intelligible is what is or can be understood, that is, made intelligible through the understanding, through the I that thinks, and is thus found not in the object but in thinking the object. What is made intelligible in thinking is then available to all. It is through the thinking of the few that knowledge is made possible to all who think. Thinking is carried forward by the few and becomes the available possession of all.

17: In my view … everything hangs on grasping and expressing the true not just as substance but just as much as subject.

Hegel is not just expressing an opinion. It is his view that will become what everyone will be able to see. In this moment of the movement substance and subject are distinct. But the true is as much one as it is the other.

17: ... substantiality comprises within itself the universal, or, it comprises not only the immediacy of knowing but also the immediacy of being, or, immediacy for knowing.

Substance is the whole, knower and known. Substance is not in or a name for the universal. The universal is within substance. It should be noted that Hegel is not rejecting immediacy. We know the immediacy of being in that we are. The immediacy for knowing is 'der Sache selbst', the thing itself that is to be known. I intentionally translated it in this way to draw the connection with Kant.

17: However much taking God to be the one substance shocked the age in which this was expressed, still that was in part because of an instinctive awareness that in such a view self-consciousness only perishes and is not preserved.

If substance is the whole, and as such there can only be one substance, then God is in truth subject. It is not just that God was taken or regarded to be subject. It is something now understood if not yet known. And because it is not fully realized, self-consciousness perishes, but this is only half of it. It is also preserved, taken up anew.

18: Furthermore, the living substance is the being that is in truth subject, or, what amounts to the same thing, it is in truth actual only insofar as it is the movement of self-positing, or, that it is the mediation of itself and its becoming-other-to-itself.

The movement of self-positing is the movement described in paragraph 12, the movement in which the subject returns to itself from out of itself. It is a mediated process, but not, as for example with Kant, the mediation of the object given in experience by the subject's understanding, but rather the mediation of the subject with itself. This is not to exclude the object. The object is taken up in the understanding, the I thinks it. In taking up the understanding itself, the understanding is mediated, that is, becomes an object for knowledge for the subject.

[Edited to add:

18: The true is not an original unity as such, or, not an immediate unity as such. It is the coming-to-be of itself, the circle that presupposes its end as its goal and has its end for its beginning, and which is actual only through this accomplishment and its end.

I think you are entirely right. It would be helpful to circle back. After all, the circle is the best and most powerful image of the self-movement of spirit. Since it is so easy to get lost in the details and opacity of Hegel's writing, before moving forward I want to collect a few things together that he has said. — Fooloso4

Well, we are roughly a quarter of the way up the mountain. And sidetracks have been explored.
Good to have a picnic break to survey the scenery. I will digest later.
Summaries are always useful, thanks.

19. The life of God and divine cognition might thus be expressed as a game love plays with itself.

“Thus” indicates that the life of God and divine cognition follow from what has been said. God and the divine are not separate from but within the circle. A game love plays with itself, the game of uniting two as one, but to play the game one must first become two, dividing and uniting itself with itself. Divine life and divine cognition are being and knowing.

Hegel immediately adds that this idea must be thought with due seriousness, that it was won through the suffering, the patience, and the labor of the negative. The reference is to the life and death of Christ and the themes of suffering and sacrifice, death of the body and life of the spirit. Whatever Hegel’s own beliefs were on such matters, they are an important part of the history of spirit, if not in terms of actual events then in terms of the shaping of consciousness.

Precisely because the form is as essential to the essence as the essence is to itself, the essence must not be grasped and expressed as mere essence, which is to say, as immediate substance or as the pure self-intuition of the divine. Rather, it must likewise be grasped as form in the entire richness of the developed form, and only thereby is it grasped and expressed as the actual.

What does the pure self-intuition of the divine mean? First, this intuition is the subject’s intuition. As immediate substance it takes the divine to be other than itself. To be grasped and expressed as form requires that it be articulated both as self-forming and formed, as both the development of form and the entire richness of the developed form. It is only from this stage of its development, when it has become actual, that it can know itself.

This is summed up in #20:

20: The true is the whole. However, the whole is only the essence completing itself through its own development. This much must be said of the absolute: It is essentially a result, and only at the end is it what it is in truth.

He goes on to express this:

The beginning, the principle, or, the absolute as it is at first, or, as it is immediately expressed, is only the universal. But just as my saying “all animals” can hardly count as an expression of zoology, it is likewise obvious that the words, “absolute,” “divine,” “eternal,” and so on, do not express what is contained in them; – and it is only such words which in fact express intuition as the immediate.

Zoology is not adequately expressed by the universal “all animals”, for in the universal the particular is negated or not expressed. All animals tells us nothing about any particular animal. In the same way, “absolute,” “divine,” “eternal,” tell us nothing about the particulars within the universal.

Whatever is more than such a word, even the mere transition to a proposition, is a becoming-other which must be redeemed, or, it is a mediation.

Hegel goes on to explain mediation:

21: ... mediation is nothing but self-moving self-equality, or, it is a reflective turn into itself, the moment of the I existing-for-itself, pure negativity, or, simple coming-to-be.

The transition from a word to a proposition is mediation for it must be thought and expressed. So too the absolute, the divine, eternal, must be mediated, that is, thought and expressed, given shape and content. But they are mediated by, the I. Existing-for-itself, the I is other than the subject or object of thought. At the same time it negates this otherness by making it one’s own by the understanding. What is thought, the universal, comes to be the subject matter, which is to say, the subject’s matter.

The I, or, coming-to-be, this mediating, is, on account of its simplicity, immediacy in the very process of coming-to-be and is the immediate itself. – Hence, reason is misunderstood if reflection is excluded from the truth and is not taken to be a positive moment of the absolute.

Reason is not unmediated intuition. It is not the understanding. It is positive in that it reflects on what is taken up in the understanding as immediacy without reflection on the process of unity. It is, in other words, reflection on a central problem of philosophy at least since it was first expressed by Parmenides: thinking and being are the same.

The movement in consciousness is from the immediacy of objects in consciousness, to their difference or negativity as objects of rather than from consciousness, to the immediacy of objects of consciousness, their sameness or positivity as objects from consciousness.

Reflection is what makes truth into the result, but it is likewise what sublates the opposition between the result and its coming-to-be. This is so because this coming-to-be is just as simple and hence not different from the form of the true, which itself proves itself to be simple in its result. Coming-to-be is instead this very return into simplicity.

Hegel expresses the same idea in yet another way, this time making explicit that it is not just something that occurs in the consciousness of the individual:

However much the embryo is indeed in itself a person, it is still not a person for itself; the embryo is a person for itself only as a culturally formed and educated rationality which has made itself into what it is in itself.

It is not the capacity for rationality but the culturally formed and educated rationality that allows the person to become for herself what she is in herself. While the importance of culture was recognized by the Greeks, it was to a large degree atemporal. The importance of history as self-moving and self-development was not a factor. The truth was regarded as unchanging. Today both views are represented and defended.

Pinkard #23

"23. The need to represent the absolute as subject has helped itself to such propositions as “God is the eternal,” or “God is the moral order of the world,” or “God is love,” etc.

In such propositions, the true is directly posited as subject, but it is not presented as the movement of reflection taking-an-inward-turn. One proposition of that sort begins with the word “God.” On its own, this is a meaningless sound, a mere name. It is only the predicate that says what the name is and is its fulfillment and its meaning. The empty beginning becomes actual knowledge only at the end of the proposition.

To that extent, one cannot simply pass over in silence the reason why one cannot speak solely of the eternal, the moral order of the world, etc., or, as the ancients did, of pure concepts, of being, of the one, etc., or, of what the meaning is, without appending the meaningless sound as well. However, the use of this word only indicates that it is neither a being nor an essence nor a universal per se which is posited; what is posited is what is reflected into itself, a subject.

Yet, at the same time, this is something only anticipated. The subject is accepted as a fixed point on which the predicates are attached for their support through a movement belonging to what it is that can be said to know this subject and which itself is also not to be viewed as belonging to the point itself, but it is solely through this movement that the content would be portrayed as the subject. Because of the way this movement is constituted, it cannot belong to the point, but after the point has been presupposed, this movement cannot be constituted in any other way, and it can only be external.

Thus, not only is the former anticipation that the absolute is subject not the actuality of this concept, but it even makes that actuality impossible, for it posits the concept as a point wholly at rest, whereas the concept is self-movement."

I think Hegel at no point goes theological, and appears to be blowing-up so-called theological knowledge, subjecting it to the same family of criticisms he has already used. On the other hand, religion is absolutely a part of the history of mind - that he cannot dismiss, nor do I think he is trying to. I also think even in his time it was unwise to be to clearly or explicitly anti-religious.

I think Hegel at no point goes theologica — tim wood

I don't know what this means. Did Spinoza "go theological"?

The first question should not be whether he believed in God but what he means by God. Once that question is answered the answer to whether he believed in God would be, for those who hold traditional beliefs, no. But that is not the end of the matter. Like talking about man when he is but an embryo, we should wait to see how things develop.

He does not reject:

... taking God to be the one substance

When he talks about:

The life of God and divine cognition ...

this reads to me like an affirmation. But it seems clear from what he has said that his concept of God is not the God of the Bible or the God the traditional theologians.

I also think even in his time it was unwise to be to clearly or explicitly anti-religious. — tim wood

There is some truth in this and I am sure that Hegel, like his predecessors, was well aware of the practice of philosophical esotericism - hiding your meaning from those who are not ready for it. I think that what he says would be regarded as anti-religious by many both in his time and ours, who consider themselves religious. His comment about:

... taking God to be the one substance shocked the age in which this was expressed ... — tim wood

speaks to this.

As a contrasting parallel to Foolso4's remarks involving Spinoza, it is interesting how Spinoza complained how certain thinkers were sure what was possible for the "Absolute" without being in a favorable spot to observe such things. That sort of thing reminds me of:

Thus, not only is the former anticipation that the absolute is subject not the actuality of this concept, but it even makes that actuality impossible, for it posits the concept as a point wholly at rest, whereas the concept is self-movement." — tim wood

The limits of observation sounds like a good place to start a Phenomenology.

I asked about the reversibility of terms because the logic that seems to be operating here does not seem to be focused on corresponding necessity to event in the way other ideas of causality are often discussed.

I asked about the reversibility of terms because the logic that seems to be operating here does not seem to be focused on corresponding necessity to event in the way other ideas of causality are often discussed. — Valentinus

OK. It would be helpful if you could expand on this objection.
If this is about the Master/Slave dialectic, then there are many views and interpretations.
If it is about the particular Rockmore quote I linked to, then he probably had more to say on the subject.
For me, this is only an awakening which will hopefully lead to a deeper understanding, given time and application. Clearly you have read more and have developed opinions which you are sharing. Thanks.

So, to return to your objection. It requires more detail from you. What is it that concerns you ?
Where is the weakness ?
How does it affect the overall drive of the argument, the acceptance of Hegel's theory - or its importance in the progress of philosophy ?

I need to read more about this. To this end, I place the following links:
( any other help would be appreciated)

http://culturalstudiesnow.blogspot.com/2017/03/hegel-on-master-slave-dialectic-summary.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master–slave_dialectic

http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2014/05/hegel-on-the-master-slave-relation/

The first question should not be whether he believed in God but what he means by God. — Fooloso4

Indeed.

Like talking about man when he is but an embryo, we should wait to see how things develop. — Fooloso4

Perhaps. However, the Preface is by its very nature limited.
For a more expansive, possibly clearer view, we would need to read the chapter on Religion.
A foray into Rockmore...

Chapter 7
"Religion"

One of the great, enduring mysteries of Hegel scholarship is the role of religion in his mature theory, including the Phenomenology. More than a century and a half ago, the breakup of the Hegelian school after his death into different factions already turned on different approaches to this mystery. In simplest terms, the orthodox, or Hegelian middle, desired to maintain what was perceived as his synthesis of religion and philosophy, the Hegelian right wished to subordinate philosophy to religion, and the Hegelian left wanted to eliminate the religious component entirely.

The idea that Hegel is a basically religious thinker is very strong, for instance, in British Hegelianism, which routinely relates all phenomena to the self-development of religious spirit that is equated to the Christian God, thereby further expanding the traditional right-wing reading of Hegel. — Tom Rockmore

https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft7d5nb4r8;brand=ucpress

That sort of thing reminds me of:

Thus, not only is the former anticipation that the absolute is subject not the actuality of this concept, but it even makes that actuality impossible, for it posits the concept as a point wholly at rest, whereas the concept is self-movement."
— tim wood — Valentinus

At first glance the quote looks to be the words of tim wood. As suggested before, to avoid any confusion on requotes, it is good to give Hegel his due by either naming him and/or paragraph.
WerMaat agreed with this and changed accordingly.

I know that clicking on the link returns you to the post where you can see it relates to para 23.
However not everyone clicks, it is simply read as is, especially in requotes. As can be seen when I quoted you just now.

Unfortunately, Tim continues the practice of posting Hegel paragraphs without using the quote function.
Why ?

[ I only recently mastered the art of the quote function from external sources (different from internal quoting other posters) due to similar concerns.
In my case, I didn't wish to take credit for words not my own.]

Hegel expresses the same idea in yet another way, this time making explicit that it is not just something that occurs in the consciousness of the individual:
— Fooloso4

However much the embryo is indeed in itself a person, it is still not a person for itself; the embryo is a person for itself only as a culturally formed and educated rationality which has made itself into what it is in itself. — Hegel

It is not the capacity for rationality but the culturally formed and educated rationality that allows the person to become for herself what she is in herself.

[ On requoting this, I noted the original Hegel quote marks were not transferred. I needed to use the quote function again :roll: ]

Re: para 21:

So, becoming all that you can be depends not only on capacity for reason but being part of a society of others with whom you can relate and depend on for nourishment and enrichment. Combined with reflection it leads the way to an improved understanding of particulars and the universal. Is that about right ?

While the importance of culture was recognized by the Greeks, it was to a large degree atemporal. The importance of history as self-moving and self-development was not a factor. The truth was regarded as unchanging. Today both views are represented and defended. — Fooloso4

I am surprised that the importance of history in or as self-development wasn't recognised by the Greeks.
What did they see as the truth ?
How does this compare with the Romans ?
That will probably come later...

I think one thing is clear, God is not known by revelation or by intuition or by feeling. Since truth has the element of its existence solely in concepts (6), what is necessary is the expression of the concept of God.

In paragraph 4 we find the following statement:

However, the commencement of cultural education will first of all also have to carve out some space for the seriousness of a fulfilled life, which in turn leads one to the experience of the crux of the matter, so that even when the seriousness of the concept does go into the depths of the crux of the matter, this kind of acquaintance and judgment will still retain its proper place in conversation.

What is a fulfilled life? Given the themes of wholeness and completion, a fulfilled life is only realized within the movement of or perhaps with the completion of the whole. In any case, it must be a life guided by reason. If is the life that is self-positing. The life in which the thinking I, the subject, is its own authority.

In paragraph 4 — Fooloso4

Hah. Talk about circling back...
We kinda skipped over that right at the beginning.
(Amidst the confusion of Kaufmann v Pinkard and their different paragraph numbering )

Glad you rectified that and added your understanding. Most helpful.

So, becoming all that you can be depends not only on capacity for reason but being part of a society of others with whom you can relate and depend on for nourishment and enrichment. Combined with reflection it leads the way to an improved understanding of particulars and the universal. Is that about right ? — Amity

Yes, the development of the individual is through the development of the culture. But also, it is "the few" the philosophers who are responsible for the development of the culture.

I am surprised that the importance of history in or as self-development wasn't recognised by the Greeks. — Amity

Human nature, according to the Greeks, is unchanging. Self-development is toward this end. The realization or actualization or completion of one's nature is not dependent on history. We are no more or less capable of this than the Greeks.

The importance of history, the ability to think change, was one of if not the most important contributions of Hegel's philosophy. It has been said (I don't know by who) that Hegel is Spinoza plus time.

What did they see as the truth ? — Amity

The truth is what they sought. Whatever it is, they thought, or perhaps more accurately publicly professed, it must be unchanging. If the truth can become false then the truth has no meaning.

How does this compare with the Romans ? — Amity

It became the standard, the eternal verities, veritates aeternae. One might think of it as the victory of Parmenides over Heraclitus, but with Hegel Heraclitus lives to fight another day.

Yes, the development of the individual is through the development of the culture. But also, it is "the few" the philosophers who are responsible for the development of the culture. — Fooloso4

So, we should thank our lucky stars ? For the 'few' - who knew what to do?
And the opposing view ?

with Hegel Heraclitus lives to fight another day. — Fooloso4

:smile:
I am beginning to enjoy Hegel. Worth the effort.
Thanks again.

So, we should thank our lucky stars ? For the 'few' - who knew what to do? — Amity

Since we are reading Hegel it would only be appropriate to that him.

And the opposing view ? — Amity

Of the many? Hegel thinks he and the gang have taken care of that as well. What was once the possession of the few has now become available to all.

However much the embryo is indeed in itself a person, it is still not a person for itself; the embryo is a person for itself only as a culturally formed and educated rationality which has made itself into what it is in itself. — Hegel

It is not the capacity for rationality but the culturally formed and educated rationality that allows the person to become for herself what she is in herself. While the importance of culture was recognized by the Greeks, it was to a large degree atemporal. — Fooloso4

Fooloso4, don't put to much weight on this sentence... Upon rereading this passage I stumbled across a mismatch in the translation.(It stood out - the translation is usually excellent!) I believe that the translator as inserted a clear interpretation, while the passage in the original is ambiguous.

The German sentence reads:

für sich ist er es nur als gebildete Vernunft — Hegel

The English goes:

is a person for itself only as a culturally formed and educated rationality — Hegel

"gebildet" means nothing but "formed". It has the second meaning of "educated", true, but Hegel's context leaves it open whether the rationality has simply "formed" and developed itself, or whether it was "educated" from an outside source. And the word "cultural" does not show up at all.
I feel that Hegel is leaning more towards the self-formed. A reference to culture and education - the social environment forming the individual - is entirely missing from the whole passage. Instead, it's all about self-reflection:

... which has made itself into what it is in itself. — Hegel

Hegel's context leaves it open whether the rationality has simply "formed" and developed itself, or whether it was "educated" from an outside source. And the word "cultural" does not show up at all. — WerMaat

Not from an outside source. As I said in an earlier post, there is no outside, all is within the whole.

I feel that Hegel is leaning more towards the self-formed. — WerMaat

Yes, I think that this is right, but self-formation is a cultural formation. We are shaped by and within our culture. As individuals we are not wholly separate or other. To use the agricultural root from which we get culture, it is the soil in which we grow and are nourished.


From the Wiki article on Bildung:

Bildung (German: [ˈbɪldʊŋ], "education, formation, etc.") refers to the German tradition of self-cultivation (as related to the German for: creation, image, shape), wherein philosophy and education are linked in a manner that refers to a process of both personal and cultural maturation.

More specifically:

The concept of Bildung. What is a fundamental theme of Hegel's philosophy is Bildung. This term might be translated as 'education', but it could also be rendered, more appropriately in many contexts, as 'formation', 'development' or 'culture'. For Hegel, the term refers to the formative self-development of mind or spirit (Geist), regarded as a social and historical process. Bildung is part of the life process of a spiritual entity: a human being, a society, a historical tradition. (Allen W. Wood, "Hegel on Education". https://web.stanford.edu/~allenw/webpapers/HegelEd.doc

You are probably correct about Hegel's concept of "Bildung" in general.
But in this precise passage of the Vorrede, in this specific context? I don't see a reference to culture, to society or education in its literal sense. (Latin e, ex: out, out of & ducere: lead - the "leading s.o. out" implying the involvement of an outside party)

Pinkard #24

"24. Among the many consequences that follow from what has been said, this in particular can be underscored: It is only as a science or as a system that knowing is actual and can be given an exposition;

and that any further so-called fundamental proposition or first principle of philosophy, if it is true, is for this reason alone also false just because it is a fundamental proposition or a principle.

– It is consequently very easily refuted. Its refutation consists in demonstrating its defects; however, it is defective because it is only the universal, or, only a principle, or, it is only the beginning.

If the refutation is thorough, then it is derived from and developed out of that fundamental proposition or principle itself – the refutation is not pulled off by bringing in counter-assertions and impressions external to the principle. Such a refutation would thus genuinely be the development of the fundamental proposition itself; it would even be the proper augmentation of the principle’s own defectiveness if it were not to make the mistake of focusing solely on its negative aspect without taking note of its results and the advances it has made in their positive aspect.

– Conversely, the genuinely positive working out of the beginning is at the same time just as much a negative posture towards its beginning; namely, a negative posture towards its one-sided form, which is to be at first only immediately, or, to be purpose. It may thereby be taken to be the refutation of what constitutes the ground of the system, but it is better taken as showing that the ground, or the principle, of the system is in fact only its beginning. — Hegel, trans. Pinkard

---
Ty, amity!

The self-development of the individual takes places within the self-development of the whole, which in turn is led by the philosophers from within the whole. We do not each of us come to think as we do on our own. The development of the thinking I is a historical development not something that develops on its own in each individual.

The development of the thinking I is a historical development not something that develops on its own in each individual. — Fooloso4

I'm not disagreeing. But I still posit that this is not in the specific passage I quoted - Hegel is using the Embryo-to-aware-self as a metaphor, he's not expounding a theory of education.

Concerning #24: I had been a bit vague about Hegel's definition of "negation" - this passage helps me out a lot. The whole process of universal-negation-sublation is explained here in very clear words, isn't it?

Ty, amity! — tim wood

:up:
Thank you !

Hegel is using the Embryo-to-aware-self as a metaphor, he's not expounding a theory of education. — WerMaat

I agree. What I am stressing is the importance of culture in the development of the thinking I. In terms of the context and history of the term it seems to me to not be an interpretation rather than translation, although the line between them is not always clear.

I think so too. The notions of culture and education that are going back and forth, I'm agnostic on, but I am pretty sure that in as much as Hegelian motion is in things like the plant and the tree, I think he is going to argue that history/culture is similarly shaped and conditioned by impersonal movement - without being specific about it, because specificity does not yet seem to me to be the point, here in the Vorrede. I do not think that excludes human effect, but rather that it's all not an effect on the scale of this or that individual. although in the case of a Napoleon or a Julius Caesar he makes an exception. But of these considerations Hegel will have much more to say in his main texts.

You don't go to a restaurant to get what you like, rather you go to a restaurant to (because you) like what you get. — tim wood

This statement is clearly false, and does not make sense. There is an illusion of sense, which you have created with ambiguity of verb tense. When you properly distinguish between what you've gotten from the restaurant in the past, from what you expect to receive in the future, then you will see that the reason you are going to the restaurant is your expectation to get what you want, not because of what you've gotten in the past.

The fact that you like what you've received there, in the past, does not motivate you to go there, in the future. What motivates you to go is the expectation of getting what you like, in the future. And this is the very opposite of what you say. This is the very difficult aspect of consciousness to understand, the conversion of past experiences into an expectation for the future. And understanding this conversion is very necessary because it is the expectation for the future which motivates one to act, not the experiences of the past. You cannot avoid this difficult aspect of consciousness, hiding it behind smoke and mirrors, by creating the illusion that it is past experiences which motivates one to act.

With some effort, point found and taken, MU. I shall try to keep it in mind in this thread on a Hegel text. Please don't forget to take your meds.