Reason, Self-Transcendence, and Modernity in Hegel’s Phenomenology

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.

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Abstract

Chapter 5 displays narrative unity in the “Reason chapter” of Hegel’s Phenomenology by showing how consciousness as reason becomes, and takes successive forms as, purposive activity: first, as organism, then, as end-directed human action, and finally, as human action that is its own end. The successive forms of purposive activity in the chapter are generated as attempts to resolve the overarching tension between rational consciousness’s certainty of itself as an existing individual and its certainty of being all reality. The internal criticism of the successive forms of rational consciousness in the chapter amounts to a general criticism of distinctively modern self-consciousness, particularly of its individualism. It is argued that the alleged resolution of reason’s tension in the transition at the end of the chapter to spirit, in particular, to ethical life, itself contains a tension between the realization of reason, on the one hand, and its repudiation, on the other.