The Master/Slave Dialectic

From The Vaults: 19th Century Philosophy Midterm, Spring 2017

Hegel’s doctrine at once proves itself to itself and its other by being in and for itself and at once in and for an other. What is meant by this opening statement is this: that Hegel’s system is at once so amazingly complex and at the same time so beautifully simple; and that— this very fact of his doctrine, illuminates exactly what the doctrine is trying to show anyway. That intricacy and simplicity are themselves two movements of the same Notion. A becoming movement of the same Notion, or concept. A concept which is ultimately consciousness, but consciousness can only actually become conscious by becoming aware of itself. Thus consciousness is pure desire to self-consciousness.  This essay will delve into and seek to develop these ideas set forth by Hegel, as well as attempt to explain why “fear of death” acts as a crucial role in Hegel’s system of recognition in the master/slave dialectic, and show why “it is only through staking one’s life that freedom is won.” What did Hegel mean by this and how does Hegel do this himself? Is Hegel himself free? Or another bondsman enchained to the lords of desire?

Hegel could be seen as the bondsman of the ideal itself which would be the lord. The ideal itself would be Spirit, or pure self consciousness’s desire to recognize it’s self and it’s other in and for themselves; and that this unfolding over time would be the history through which Spirit has continually accelerated it’s desire to recognize itself. Hegel goes on to demonstrate beautifully how these becoming motions collapse into themselves, and like electricity are always in a constantly vanishing flux. Hegel could be seen as the bondsman to the lord the ideal through which he, Hegel himself, serves through the Work. The work which is itself his attempt to explain the system and at once how words could never quite explain the system. Everything is itself at once its opposite, which, as soon as it becomes itself the opposite is again becoming its other opposite. Back and forth and back and forth like electrons. But through the endless Work, Hegel at once becomes aware of himself as being-for-self and at once being-for-other, which is, in this case the worthy pursuit of the ideal. It is out of Hegel’s very fear of himself dying, and thus negating his own consciousness which is in itself the pure ‘I’, in which he works so feverishly hard to inscribe into doctrine the work so that it is may thus continue once Hegel inevitably dies. Hegel himself who says, “having a ‘mind of one’s own’ is self-will, a freedom which is still enmeshed in servitude,” (Section 196, Phenomenology of Spirit, pg.119). Hegel developing the phenomenology and attempting to have his own mind and own will is at the same time the servitude to the lord the ideal. It is in itself the perfect example of the master/slave dialectic. Hegel would likely say that he gained his own freedom by staking his life to the work and the pursuit of German Idealism. 

Hegel shows in The Science of Logic that being and nothing are the same. This could be understood through the Phenomenology as consciousness’s twofold essence as self consciousness, or also desire being a negative and empty thing, and thus the filling of the desire being the movement of the Notion. As illuminated in class, the broccoli is negated for the preservation of life. Broccoli and not broccoli produce the notion and flux of life. Or furthermore as the force of motion, electricity: which does not regard the negative charge and positive charge as separate forces and distinct but again as the notion of the whole itself. Which is at once self, other, not-self, not-other, the collapsing of it all back to the start, and the circle again. The circle of circles. Thus Hegel himself experiences an emptiness, a desire to understand the phenomenological world that his senses perceive. Hegel himself who says, “Consciousness, as self consciousness— is Desire in general,” (Section 167, Phenomenology of Spirit, pg. 105); leads us to a point which shows that Hegel’s desire is to know himself and at the same time that desire is the knowing of the other- the ideal which is Spirit. This is again how Hegel’s doctrine in the very way he designed it, is always at once proving itself, negating itself, moving through the motions of the Notion, and collapsing itself back to itself. Hegel’s very fear of death is that which sets him in motion to work. Which is at once the work of Spirit and it’s other, which is himself, Hegel, and his other, itself, Spirit. Through the work he is able to free himself because he is staking himself and his life to produce the work, and therefore gains true recognition by Spirit  and Spirit gains true recognition of Hegel. 

Thus it would follow that Hegel is at once, the bondsman to the lord the ideal, but at the same time— since the doctrine shows that things are in themselves, becoming their opposites— if he has truly developed self-consciousness, he would be the lord which exists independently and for itself, by the very will of setting himself in motion to work. Motion is the Notion of the vanishing Force of the flux of Life. The master/slave dialectic is a failed recognition because the master is not willing to die for the slave but the slave has already proven he has no choice but to be willing to die for the master. Thus the slave becomes the free, independent consciousness, who has had this absolute fear of death, and thus gained his freedom, where as the master has not yet found himself at a place of absolute fear of death and the other and therefor is dependent on his self-consciousness through the object of desire which is his power over the slave. If Spirit is alive, it would have to have this absolute fear of negating itself to become a free and independent thing. Which it does by its very essence in its attempt to self preserve itself through the work of Hegel. Hegel himself who says, “‘I’, that is, ‘We’, and ‘We’, that is, ‘I’,” (Section 177, Phenomenology of Spirit, pg. 110). Thus Spirit and Hegel are the same and not the same, and what they both, the two-fold movement of the Notion, do, is explain this paradox logically. Through the movement of becoming, the vanishing flux of the Life Force, electricity, positive and negative, the pure negation and movement, desire and the negation, all collapse into themselves as the one and all unity of pure absolute Understanding. 

Sources: Hegel’s Phenomonology of Spirit & The Science of Logic

Ian Vincenzo Crispi, 2017