Hegel’s Logic: An Essay in Interpretation. John Grier Hibben 1902
The chief representative of the doctrine of immediate or intuitive knowledge is Jacobi, who insists that all knowledge obtained through the categories of the understanding is derivative and therefore finite and conditioned, and because finite and conditioned, therefore unsatisfactory.
Moreover, through any process of reasoning whatsoever, it is impossible to rise to the high level of apprehending the true, the infinite, the unconditioned, that is, God Himself. But by an immediate revelation of the reason we may know God intuitively. The being of God cannot be proved, bat it can be immediately recognized. The words “knowledge,” “faith,” “intuition,” are the terms used to indicate this immediate deliverance of the consciousness. Hegel’s criticism of this position is somewhat as follows: Although the knowledge of God may be regarded as an immediate intuition, nevertheless, it is an intuition which must be considered as an intellectual product, that is, it must rise above the things of sense. It must deal with facts which have special reference to our thinking mind, with facts of inherently universal significance. Pure and simple intuition, therefore, is nothing more or less than pure and simple thought.
The distinction between thought and intuition is merely a verbal one, The fundamental difficulty with the position of Jacobi is this, that while he claims the intuition to be immediate, he overlooks the possibility that what may seen to be complete in itself is nevertheless a product, though it be a finished product, and as a product, therefore the result of some process which has produced it. Hegel’s position is that in all immediate knowledge the elements which are immediate have behind them somewhere a process, and by that process they are mediated. For instance, a seed is an immediate existence as regards the flower and fruit which may spring from it. As we hold the seed in our hand, we have no hesitancy in calling it a finished and complete thing in itself. The flower and fruit, however, are mediated by the processes which are started by the vital force latent in the seed. And yet from a similar point of view, the seed itself may be regarded as a product resulting from a process by which it has been mediated, and comes to be what it is in its seemingly complete and independent state. We may further illustrate the Hegelian idea of mediation by the knowledge which we may have of a book whose title, author, and general point of view we know only by common report, hot we ourselves have never read the book itself. Such knowledge Hegel would call immediate in a general and abstract sense, and that kind of immediate knowledge would have no special significance or value. However, after reading the book and marking the relation of step to step in the gradual unfolding of the author’s conception, nod the hearing of each part to the whole as it finally reaches its complete expression, we find that our knowledge has grown in definiteness and consequent value through this process which is one of mediation. And then also the book as a whole will be found to leave upon our mind a certain final impression as a summary of its total significance, which in torn we would call immediate knowledge; for in the course of time the various steps of the process of mediation become merged in the very result of the process itself, and we come to retain in consciousness only the finished product as a whole. Such immediate knowledge, however, which is the result of a mediating process, is vastly different from the vague and indefinite knowledge which goes before and is independent of all mediation whatsoever.
This distinction gives a deep insight into the Hegelian method and general point of view.
So also religion and morals contain, of course, as their most marked characteristics, the elements of faith, or immediate knowledge, and yet from another point of view they must he regarded as conditioned on every side by the mediating processes of development, education, and the formation of character. Hegel holds that everything from one point of view is immediate, but from another point of view is to he regarded us mediated. The relation between mediation and immediacy is one of the keys to a thorough understanding of the Hegelian system. It need he only referred to here in passing by way of anticipation, inasmuch as this relation is developed at length in the second part of the Logic. His doctrine of essential being as there expressed is made to mot upon the unity which underlies the seeming antithesis of mediation and immediacy.
Hegel further criticises the theory of immediate knowledge on the ground that the criterion of truth is found not in the character of that which purports to be true, but in the bare fact that it has found a place in consciousness. This makes subjective knowledge the sole basis of truth.
Whatever is discovered as a fact in the individual consciousness is thereby declared to be a fact evidenced by the consciousness of all, and to be regarded even as the very essence of thought itself. This, however, does not necessarily follow; and if granted, it proves too much, for as a result of such an argument there may be found as valid a warrant for the superstitions of savage peoples as for the doctrines of the Christian religion.
As Hegel remarks, “It is because he simply believes in them and not from any process of reasoning or argument that the Indian finds God in the cow, the monkey, the Brahmin, or the Lama."[6] It must also he acknowledged that the immediate knowledge of God merely tells us that He is. Thus the idea of God as an object of religion is narrowed down to an indefinite, vague, supersensible being devoid of all positive attributes. From this point of view He must ever remain the Unknown God. Such an idea of God is upon the same level as Herbert Spencer’s characterization of God as “the Unknowable.” Moreover, the abstract thought of the metaphysician nod the abstract intuition are one and the same thing. From either point of view, God is conceived as a being vaguely indefinite and undetermined. To call God a spirit and to say that we know Him as a spirit immediately, Hegel insists, is only an empty phrase; for the consciousness, or better the self-consciousness, which the idea of spirit implies, would necessarily render that idea more specific and definite by analyzing it is such a way as to show the various elements which constitute its essence and by separating it from all else that might be confused with it. But such an act of thought is itself a process of mediation. Thus all strictly immediate knowledge is vague and indefinite, and the very act of making it definite and distinct necessitates the subjecting of its immediacy to a process of mediation. Without such a process all knowledge is both unscientific and unphilosophical.
The results which have been reached through Hegel’s criticism of the various attitudes of thought to the objective world may be briefly summarised as follows: – The metaphysician has his abstract forms of thought, but they prove to be empty. The empiricist has a vast wealth of material but unthought forms in which to express the name.
The critical philosopher has his thought forms, but that which seems to be the material at hand ready for the casting, proves, upon investigation, to be shadowy and unsubstantial.
The intuitionist possesses thought forms but they lack any distinctive pattern; and therefore whatever may be the material which is run into them, the casting which results is always the name, possessing no specific characteristics and therefore without significance or value.
The evident defects of these various types of philosophy Hegel seeks to obviate by uniting jots one system the partful truths which they severally contain. By what method this is attempted and with what success it is attended, we shall hope to see in the detailed exposition of the Logic, – the task which lies immediately before us.