the closer we approach the ideal and metaphysically determinate potential of a perfect impartiality, the greater the quantity, quality, and accuracy of our informed self-awareness becomes. Were it to be possible to actualize, at such juncture this information regarding ourselves as awareness would become literally devoid of limits—though, at the same hypothesized juncture, self as a point of view simultaneously vanishes. Stated more colloquially, our informed self awareness at this hypothesized juncture would become perfect and infinite, thereby entailing that all points of view (which are by nature limited) transcend into a literally selfless awareness. — javra

This is roughly how I understand Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. I'm looking into Werner Marx's interpretation based on the preface and introduction, and it's just great.

There’s nonreflective self-awareness; this is for all intended purposes a redundant means of addressing the basic constituency of any awareness, no matter how small or undeveloped, for here there is an innate distinction between the point of view concerned as different from that which it regards and interacts with as other. Then there’s conceptual self-awareness; this is when a first-person point of view entertains concepts of itself as a being; the concepts are nevertheless that which the given first person point of view regards and are thereby yet other relative to itself. Then there’s a third type of self-awareness which is what we ordinarily take it to be. I’m still searching for a more adequacy term for it, but am currently using "informed self-awareness". This is when one holds a non-dualistic awareness of what one as a first-person point of view is. — javra

In other words, we start with a non-dual perception of the 'object' which is not yet an object, since it is not yet opposed to a subject. Then a distinction is imposed between what is pure object and what is added by a subject. Finally, this distinction itself as grasped as 'within' a self-differentiating subject-substance, returning us to the initial non-duality, but only after assimilating a rich system of self-distinctions. The bare or 'abstract' unity is replaced by a 'concrete' or differentiated unity. This journey strikes me as in some sense an idealized history, structured by a dialectical necessity. All positions but the final position are unstable on their own terms. They die or envelop themselves as partially negated due to an internal rather than external critique. I like the metaphor of a voice that tries to speak its own nature, a voice that overhears and remembers what it has said about itself so far, a voice with memory and intention, always directed outward, beyond itself, toward that which remains unsaid and its own ear. This 'unsaid' and this 'ear' are a kind of pregnant void.

The more recent argument in the posts above reminded me of Hegel. How might science-directed philosophy be related to quasi-religious philosophy? Since both strive for a truth beyond utility (and in this case even use the same metaphor of light), maybe they aren't so opposed as they seem. This article supplies a clear summary of a fascinating chapter in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit on just this issue. Houlgate's book is another great source.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/37/The_Dialectics_of_Faith_and_Enlightenment

My own approach to the issue is simply to recognize the value of both approaches. Science-directed philosophy offers a kind of hygiene or discipline. On the other hand, quasi-religious philosophy more directly addresses the whole of our situation. Science-directed philosophy can err by closing itself off from realms of experience. Quasi-religious philosophy can err by refusing to use science-directed philosophy to sharpen itself and avoid dogmatism.

Thus, either it is to be denied that our structures, through which the cognitive process articulate itself, are absolute or we are force to admit that the method of deducing them is not pure(independent from ALL experiences whatsoever). — Ikolos

Hi. I'm reading about this kind of issue in Husserl at the moment.

I think the idea is that we deduce them from experience as always already structuring experience. So a priori knowledge is itself a posteriori, even as it is understood to apply to future or possible experience.

The beginning of cognitions is not the beginning, strictly, of knowledge: knowledge requires a system, thus a more complex working process: a simple multiplicity of cognitions do not constitute knowledge, in so far as we have to be aware of the cognition been happened, and being of ourselves. — Ikolos

Have you looked into Hegel? This reminds me of one of his themes. I agree that knowledge requires or is a system. If you tell me everything you know about cars, you will have to tell me pretty much everything you know about roads, and so on. Objects/concepts point away from themselves to other concepts/objects.

And we can also talk about how the concept of the self is constructed from experience. The self seems to refer to experience turning back on itself, experiencing itself as experience. Are there basic structures (perhaps inexact) that we just can't get behind as we employ them in our attempt to do so? Has any theory of the subject told its final truth? Is there such a final truth?

This is based on a mere assumption, i.e. that experience isn't capable of necessity and rigorous universality, while such properties are OBJECTIVELY recognizable in the sciences(e.g. Pure Mathematics: algebra, geometry). — Ikolos

I think you raise a great issue. Again, Husserl comes to mind. I think you would love Phenomenology Explained by David Detmer. I'm impressed by its clarity. Kant is great, but I think Husserl (standing on the shoulders of Kant) might be better.