Philip John Dick

25/10/2020

Hegel and The Unhappy Consciousness

The rise of Hegelianism in French philosophy took place in the early 20th century, largely thanks
to the disseminating efforts of Alexandre Koyrè, Jean Wahl, Jean Hippolyte and Alexandre
Kojève,. (V.Y. Mudimbe, 1994, pp. 5-6) (Roth, 1988, p. 1) Our discussion will refer to these
“early interpreters” of Hegel as well as to the more recent French Existentialists who derived
much of their Hegelianism from the early interpreters. (Stone, 2017, pp. 1-2)

Both Hippolyte and Wahl saw Hegel’s notion of the “unhappy consciousness” as being
fundamental to his overall project. (Stern, 2001, p. 238) (Roth, 1988, pp. 3-4) By this they meant
that the “unhappy consciousness” - the consciousness which experiences itself as an internal
contradiction, as a being caught between the two poles of universal infinitude and contingent
finitude - is emblematic of (Hegel’s) History at large. (Roth, 1988, pp. 3-4) Each moment in
History, like each stage of consciousness’s development, is wedged between the concreteness of
the past and the transcendent horizons of the future. But the “inertia of the past” (the “what-has-
been”) and the “pull of the future” (the “what-could-be”) creates an antagonism for the present:
the present becomes alienated in that it is neither past or future, but “something in between”.
This is, fundamentally, the same alienation that besets consciousness when it realizes that it “is
what [it] is not, and is not what [it] is” - a phrase that, from Koyrè to Sartre, permeates French
thinking. (Sinnerbrink, 2014, p. 129) This realization - which is consciousness becoming self-
conscious - is what produces the “unhappy consciousness”. (Sinnerbrink, 2014, p. 19) It is
unhappy because it is alienated, and alienated because it recognizes that it is a “negativity”
which oscillates “between” consciousness’ two poles (i.e. subject-object; past-future, finitude-
infinitude). Only when humanity dies and history ends, says Kojève, will consciousness be
happy again. (Baugh, 1993, p. 430) (Wahl, 1929, p. 95)

But Hippolyte’s and Wahl’s Hegel sees consciousness as bearing a much more noble purpose
than ‘happiness’. Instead, the mission of consciousness is to spiral up into the Absolute by
coming to know itself, by merging with itself. (Sinnerbrink, 2014, p. 131) Alienation is the price
we pay for this transcendence. Why? Because consciousness cannot transcend itself without first
alienating itself, without becoming self-conscious.

As self-conscious beings, we are able to “step back” from our engaged activity in-the-world, and
see ourselves as detached objects of analysis - much like insects pinned down to a dissector’s
bench. This “stepping back” is our self-alienation. It distances us from our concrete existence
and its established modes-of-being, thereby allowing us transcend them. In other words,
consciousness can only progress insofar as it turns itself into “thing” which can be known and
overcome; But the act of “knowing” entails the alienation of the “knower” from the “known”,
the “subject” from the “object” - just like the prodding dissector is alienated from the inert
beetle. Only by splitting the unreflective, unified consciousness into the alienated “subject-
object” consciousness of the self-aware human, is consciousness, and consequently history (since
history is the accumulated objectification of consciousness), able to progress. “Spirit” (roughly
defined as the co-evolution of consciousness and history) is moving teleologically towards its
apogee - “Absolute Spirit” - through a relentless (and sometimes bloody) process of self-
Philip John Dick
25/10/2020
alienation and self-overcoming. (Sinnerbrink, 2014, p. 131) (Roth, 1988, p. 23) This process is
the dialectical “motor” which drives “Spirit’s” progression, and we, as self-conscious beings, are
condemned to suffer the blows of internal combustion.

The “unhappy consciousness” is thus taken by virtually all the French interpreters to be an
intrinsic and insurmountable feature of human self-conscious existence. This is opposed to the
Marxist view that the “unhappy consciousness” is a mere symptom of Capitalist oppression.
(Baugh, 1993, p. 5) Marx rejected Wahl’s claim that consciousness is inherently unhappy, and he
certainly rejected Koyrè’s claim that “the unhappiness of human consciousness is the sign of a
rupture…at the very heart of Being” (Sinnerbrink, 2014, p. 129). Instead Marx insisted that once
social revolution took place and Capitalism was overturned, consciousness would be happy
again. Marx’s myopia was, according to Hippolyte, his failure to recognise that “loss coincides
with progress”, that alienation is the precondition of progress (Roth, 1988, pp. 34-35). For Marx,
alienation is the symptom of a sub-optimal historical situation; for the French interpreters and the
Existentialists, alienation is the necessary condition for progress towards a better historical (and
personal) situation.

But consciousness is not just alienated in relation to itself, says Sartre, whose work, once dubbed
“the philosophy of alienation” (Rae, 2012, p. 4), is largely a fusion of Heidegger and
Kojève’s/Wahl’s Hegel (Marmasse, 2013, pp. 239-241) (Sinnerbrink, 2014, p. 148).
Consciousness is also irrevocably alienated from the Other, and this “Other-alienation” is, Sartre
insists, prior to self-alienation. (Rae, 2012, p. 64)

One of Sartre’s critical claims in Being and Nothingness is that we initially come to experience
ourselves through the objectifying “look” of the Other. In other words, self-consciousness
emerges as a result of “being touched”, as a result of the individual consciousness “bumping up
against” the alienating presence of other consciousnesses, and coming to know itself indirectly
through their recognition. (Low, 2010, pp. 199-211). Being “looked at” reveals to consciousness
that it has a body which is vulnerable, that it is “no longer simply free to determine itself” - that
it is not just a transcendent subject. (Sartre, 2003, pp. 282-291) Kojève’s Hegel agrees with
Sartre that it is only because of the Other’s alienating “look” that consciousness “turns inwards”
and sees itself as an object, thereby becoming self-conscious. (Roth, 1988, p. 97) (Rae, 2012, pp.
67-68) But when consciousness becomes self-conscious it realizes that it is not simply an object
or a subject, but a negativity which, by means of negation, is constantly oscillating between these
poles. Without the “proto-self-consciousness” of the social-realm, the individual consciousness
cannot become internally self-conscious. Simply put, we must first be alienated by the Other,
before we can alienate ourselves. And as we have seen, without self-alienation, consciousness
cannot transcend itself.

But what is it about self-alienation that allows consciousness to transcend? Well, strictly
speaking, alienation in itself does not allow transcendence; it is alienation along with its
corollary, “negation”, that does. Self-alienation is the necessary pre-condition of transcendence;
but negation is what actually drives the process of transcendence - it is the “fuel” of the
dialectical “motor”. Negation is the function of consciousness, and consciousness is a negativity,
says Sartre, Wahl, Kojève and Hippolyte’s Hegel. (Sinnerbrink, 2014, p. 127) (Baugh, 1993, pp.
98-99).
Philip John Dick
25/10/2020
Whilst negativity is the root of the alienated “unhappy consciousness”, it is also “what forms the
very foundation of [a] specifically human existence - that is, [a] truly active, creative,
historical…and free, existence.” (Kojeve, 1969, p. 155). Negation and its attendant alienation, is
understood by the French interpreters as being the positive creative principle behind Spirit’s
development. “All action is negation” says Kojève (Dale, 2014, p. 86) This is fundamentally why
“loss coincides with progress”: only by saying “no” to a current stage of consciousness can
consciousness transcend to a new one, only by saying “no” to what we are, are we able to adopt
new attitudes and actions - without a “no” we cannot change or create.

Bodybuilder’s illustrate a very clear example of this “negative creativity”. The bodybuilder
objectifies their own body, and then proceeds to “critique” this body - they self-alienate. From
this position, the bodybuilder will proceed to negate the established concrete existence of her
body, for the sake of a transcendent goal - her ideal body. Each rep of the dumbbell, each gram
of fat-loss, each self-criticism, is a negation; a negation which, taking place in the present,
negates the past, in view of a future. It is this process writ large that gives rise to history.
(Hippolyte, 1969, p. 13)

“Thanks to negativity, the world moves”, as Wahl aptly puts it. (Wahl, 1929, p. 96) It is because
of the “gulf of negativity” that subject and object, past and future, are able to maintain the
“separation” that allows them to enter the fruitful dialectical dialogue that is “Spirit”, and which
ultimately serves to re-unite the two poles back into their original spiritual unity; a unity which
paradoxically enough, does not annihilate the fundamental differences between them but “holds
them in harmony” until such time as they once again split apart and begin their journey back
together again. (Navickas, 1976, p. 29) (Dale, 2014, p. 101) Self-alienation (which is initially
sparked by Other-alienation) paired with the “negative creativity” of consciousness is the
dynamic core of “Spirit’s” progression. That which makes consciousness “unhappy” is also
what drives it to continually higher levels of integration with the transcendent and universal
Absolute.

The story of Hegelian reality is, for Hippolyte, the story of an Absolute that “alienates itself and
becomes its own phenomena in order to re-conquer itself.” (Hippolyte, 1969, p. 8) The eternal
process of self-re-conquering is part of God’s infinitude. God seeks to re-discover Himself by
alienating Himself and creating Jesus, who much like the “unhappy consciousness” is a suffering
entity who is literally stretched out and nailed between opposing poles. In fact, it seems to me
that Jesus is the most potent example of the “unhappy consciousness”: A half-mortal, half-divine
being whose resultant alienation (culminating in the crucifixion and resurrection) ultimately
delivers him back to union with the Father. Even the secular Sartre believes consciousness wants
nothing more then to become a God. (Sartre, 2003, pp. 784-789) History then - the story of the
Absolute that alienates itself in order to come to know itself again - begins with the unhappy
consciousness, in precisely the same way that Christian time begins with Christ’s birth (anno
Domini). Jesus - the most alienated yet heroic figure of all time - marks the beginning of history,
the beginning of the Absolute’s journey back to itself, the beginning of God becoming self-
conscious. Given this parallel, it is no stretch to say that for the French interpreters of Hegel -
whether Christian or not - alienation takes on a veritably divine and cosmic significance.
Philip John Dick
25/10/2020

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