Reason, Self-Transcendence, and Modernity in Hegel’s Phenomenology
Oxford Handbooks Online June 6, 2017 William F. Bristow
Hegel's 'Reason chapter' in the Phenomenology of Spirit achieves narrative unity by tracing how rational consciousness becomes purposive activity, first as an organism, then as goal-directed human action, and finally as human action that is its own end. These successive forms arise from attempts to resolve a tension between rational consciousness's certainty of being an existing individual and its certainty of being all reality. The internal criticism of these forms constitutes a general critique of modern self-consciousness, especially its individualism. The transition to spirit—specifically ethical life—contains a tension between the realization of reason and its repudiation.