Paul Bailey95 said:Note: We’re kicking things off with the inner realm from chapter three to serve as an intro to two and a half parts, rather than doing an introduction first—then we’ll dive straight into consciousness and sensory certainty. That's it.
The Interior, or the Realm of the Interior
1.
So, here’s the deal: the essence of a thing isn't something consciousness hits head-on. Instead, consciousness relates directly to the thing itself—meaning, just as the thing presents itself to consciousness, consciousness takes that presentation in. It’s like consciousness steps into the middle of this tug-of-war between two opposing forces to try and find the actual bedrock (the thing) underneath. On one side you’ve got Reason, on the other you’ve got the Interior, and the middle ground is that connecting force—the very essence of power. But—and Hegel is being very explicit here—that essence is fleeting. Basically, Reason can't actually "see" that core essence because it vanishes; it’s ungraspable precisely because it disappears. This is what we call a "phenomenon." It’s the same vibe as in the first chapter, where Reason looks at an object in its immediate surroundings and claims it exists or is "real," even though that object isn't truly real in that moment because it’s just a passing flash—it lacks staying power, even if Reason perceives a struggle behind it. For Reason, a phenomenon is the essence of a thing that is, in reality, nothingness. Take a house or a building, for example. To Reason looking at it right now, it’s a solid reality—it’s "here and now"—but give it enough time and that house is gone, replaced by a forest. That building isn't just a appearance to Reason; Hegel goes further and calls it a total illusion. A whole, complete illusion. It sounds wild, but this massive collection of appearances is nothing more than a total illusion. This means everything we pick up through our senses, and almost everything Reason deals with (assuming it’s working with phenomena), is just one big facade. And get this: modern science spends all its time dealing with this exact facade—these objects of phenomena that Hegel calls a total illusion. When you factor in Nobel Prizes in modern science, you realize those awards basically go to people who spend their lives studying this very thing: the totality of illusions. You could almost call them Nobel Prizes for Illusions.
When a psychologist does their job, they’re dealing with phenomena—specifically the psychological kind, not, say, geometry. Otherwise, you'd have psychologists studying the lines and planes of schizophrenia. No, they deal with the "essence" of hysteria, the "essence" of schizophrenia, or autism, and so on. In short, they deal with the essence of vanishing phenomena. But for Hegel, an essence that vanishes isn't really an essence at all; it’s non-existence. A tree that’s been cut down isn't "being" anything anymore. This entire "totality of illusion" is exactly what makes up the interior—this play of forces, this internal reflection of the whole. Within this, consciousness uses these objects to establish what its perceptions are like, but these moments lack any real permanence; they’re constantly flipping over into their own opposites. Take the "essence" of the flu: it hits a person, then it’s gone. Or take a sudden burst of rage—like some guy losing his cool at a dive bar—it hits, and then it vanishes into thin air. All this stuff, this whole dance of forces, is negative. But the truth of the negative is actually the positive—the self-existing object. The essence of an object for consciousness is mediated by the movement of the phenomenon, and the essence of perception or sensory objects always carries that negative weight of disappearing. When we perceive a tree, we see the "essence" of it, but that essence is fleeing. The sensory object is always in flux, always disappearing. Consciousness reflects on this disappearing tree or house, but it turns that reflection inward, creating the idea of the "interior" of the object. It tries to separate the reflection of the thing from its own internal reflection, even though it’s really just one single process. To consciousness, the "interior" feels like something external, something different from itself. Yet, within this private interior, consciousness finds a sense of certainty—a way to find its own true moments of being. However, consciousness doesn't actually realize that it contains these moments or this certainty within itself. It doesn't realize it because the "being" of that interior is, to consciousness, just a negative movement. Consciousness is just a vanishing phenomenon. It’s like how youth is a vanishing phenomenon to a grown man; anyone who clings to that fading youth and pretends he’s still a kid is just a screaming monkey or a pathetic fool. Just as youth has no permanent "being" because it's transient, consciousness doesn't have its own independent being. The "interior" is a concept that consciousness hasn't even begun to truly grasp yet.
When you realize youth is slipping through your fingers, consciousness does this absolutely wild thing—it performs what’s basically a "leap of faith." Because we’re aware that everything is fleeting—that nothing actually sticks around and everything, including ourselves, is ultimately transient—consciousness tries to outrun that emptiness. It jumps into this totally foreign, unknown territory where it feels even slightly steady or unshakable, which is what consciousness labels as "the beyond." Here’s how the mechanics work: This "beyond" sets itself up as the absolute opposite of everything we perceive as temporary or hollow. It positions the supersensual realm as the "true" world, while our messy, sensory, vanishing reality is cast as the "untrue" one. Consciousness ends up trapped in this duality between the here-and-now and the beyond, a gap it can't quite bridge. On one side, you have this disappearing physical world; on the other, you have this permanent, perfect, and—for the theologians—totally inscrutable "beyond." It’s protected by its own mystery; you can’t argue with it or attack it because, to the conscious mind, it represents *something* substantial, whereas humans feel like *nothing*—just imperfect, passing shadows. It’s like those mystics talk about God being a "dark cloud"—it just makes the gap between us and the beyond feel impossible to close.
So, we’ve got the "beyond" acting as the self-referential starting point, but—and this is crucial for Hegel—it’s only an incomplete manifestation of the mind. He’s very clear about this: that otherworldly realm is just an unfinished version of mind, not the whole story. But interestingly enough, the truth actually lives within that incomplete stage. If we bring humanity into the mix—all those driven individuals and the masses—this "beyond" isn't worthless. It’s just... well, fundamentally insignificant in the grand scheme. Think of it as a stepping stone toward Spirit. That said, for actual people, that step is massive. When life here becomes too much—when things get bleak, hopeless, or just plain crushing—this "beyond" steps in like a sort of "consciousness trick," easing the despair and giving people just enough faith to keep moving.
If we look at depression as the defining malady of the 21st century, it’s pretty clear that losing touch with the "beyond" is a byproduct of modern earthly despair. No matter how much anyone wants to believe humans can just exist as purely material, living substances, most people simply cannot function without that sense of something greater. For them, the "beyond" is a necessary rung on the ladder to Spirit, and we really have to respect that as a fundamental truth. Keeping this in mind, Hegel suggests our subject is a conclusion sitting between two poles: interiority on one side, reason on the other, with "phenomena" sitting right in the middle, driving the movement that defines reason. It looks like this:
a) Interiority—the realm of the inner self, intuition, and the supersensual stuff.
b) Reason.
c) The middle ground, or "phenomena"—basically the stuff modern science obsesses over.
The phenomena in category (c) provides the data that Reason (b) uses to identify the interiority found in (a), eventually leading to a lived experience of that inner reality.
Let me give you a concrete example. Take Mark—let’s say he’s a deeply devout guy who actually experiences something we’d call "beyond." He has a vision of heaven, presented by an angel in his room. That supersensual, otherworldly moment manifests as a phenomenon in his physical space. Mark is dead certain about what he saw. He tells a priest about the vision; the priest might dismiss it, but he reports it to his superior, and so the story spreads. Years later, Mark is questioned again, and he still insists his vision was real. This means Mark’s Reason (his intellect) accepted that phenomenon as a true part of his consciousness. Eventually, Mark passes away, and his vision undergoes a rigorous test by others using Reason to determine if his experience of the "beyond" was legitimate. Through long deliberations and study, they eventually validate his vision as a genuine encounter with the "beyond"—an interior reality that manifested as a phenomenon, was processed by his Reason, and finally became a confirmed experience. We have to emphasize: without Mark and his consciousness, there is no vision of the beyond; and without people, there wouldn't even be a concept of the "beyond" to begin with.
(More coming next time)
Nobels of Illusion 😁
The core of this passage is the idea that something which will vanish tomorrow doesn't truly exist today, because it lacks permanence ("a being that vanishes is not being, it is non-being"). In other words, only that which is eternal truly exists, while everything else is part of this "totality of illusion." Everything transient—everything finite—is relative. According to this logic, true being doesn't even exist, because anything ever created is destined to disappear eventually...
This perspective is typically labeled "philosophical" 😉 and the people who view the world this way are called "philosophers" (nothing rattles them, they remain unshakable because they "understand" that "everything is relative," and so on. Though, practically speaking, "if you accept that your physical world is merely an illusion, you won't experience the meaning of the physical world")
This totality of illusion is also what Hegel describes as the interiority—the play of forces, the reflection of the whole within itself. Within this totality, consciousness uses objects to establish what the perceptions of being are like, creating moments without stability or rest that constantly subvert themselves. For instance, consider the "being" of a fever in a person: the fever takes hold, then it passes; or take the "being" of an emotion, like a sudden outburst of rage in a crowded bar...
Through perception, we see the "being" of a tree, yet that "being" fades away; the sensory object is always in flux within the movement of appearance. Therefore, it always carries a negative connotation of vanishing, disappearing, and the like.
By what logic can a "totality of illusion"—the external appearance—be its own "interiority"?
All these "vanishing" appearances—the tree, the house, the fever, the person, etc.—can disappear as individual categories (a specific tree, a specific person), but they will never disappear from the
world of ideas, from which they will inevitably "reincarnate." Today's individual will pass away, but tomorrow a new one will emerge; it is the same pattern with the tree, the fever, and so on.
Consciousness emerges from the appearance of a tree or a house, which is constantly vanishing. It reflects upon itself, yet this very act of self-reflection transforms that reflection into the internal essence of the object. This allows consciousness to distinguish the reflection of an object from its own self-reflection, even though they stem from a single reflective process. Consciousness possesses an internal dimension that stands in opposition to itself—something foreign, something distinct—yet within this private interiority, consciousness finds its own certainty. This internal state serves as the metric for truth and provides the moments where consciousness exists for itself. However, consciousness remains unaware of this; it does not realize it possesses such internal moments or certainties, precisely because the "being-for-itself" of that internal realm acts as a negative movement for consciousness.
Trees and houses are always disappearing—but they also
constantly reappear...
What is being described here as "self-reflection" is essentially what psychology calls the "internalization" of an external image. We take an external perception and imprint it onto our psyche, allowing us to conjure it up at will later without needing to physically observe it again. The external object or concept now resides within our consciousness—or more accurately, within our "memory." Martinus argues that everything we perceive through our senses and encode into what we eventually call the "mind" isn't actually the creation of new images, but rather the
recognition of those same images—concepts already etched into the vast memory we carry with us. I’m not entirely convinced by the claim that "consciousness has an internal something that is different from itself"—if this internal element is produced via consciousness, how can it be considered foreign to it? And what exactly is this "negative movement"?
Upon witnessing the disappearance of youth, consciousness performs something truly extraordinary. Because it is aware of the transience of all phenomena—aware that things are perpetually vanishing and that nothing permanent or lasting can ever be grasped, and indeed aware of the ultimate nothingness of everything, including itself—consciousness performs a sort of "leap of faith." To overcome the vanishing nature of reality, it leaps into a realm that is entirely unknown and alien to it, a realm in which it feels a sense of stability or unshakability, which consciousness labels as the "transcendental."
There is a slight logical inconsistency here, specifically the idea that
one movement cannot experience another movement. If everything that is transient is created and exists in a state of continuous motion or change—from birth to disappearance—then a consciousness that perceives and experiences this constant flux cannot itself be purely transient, changing, or finite. The experience of anything requires a point of contrast. Isn't that the case? If we want to experience the passing or existence of something, we can only do so by using something else that is *not* passing or changing. If that "something else" is consciousness, or the ego, then that consciousness—that ego—must be imperishable and eternal, serving as the necessary opposite to the phenomenon it observes. Anyone who can grasp this logically wouldn't need any kind of "leap of faith" 😉
a) The interiority or the realm of the interior (the transcendental, intuition, etc.)
b) Reason
c) The middle ground, or phenomena (the subject of modern science)
I have to admit, I struggle to follow this division. Why is "interiority" defined by things like "intuition," while reason is somehow categorized separately? Is reason meant to be a sensory category? In my view, both reason and intelligence fall under the umbrella of human "interiority." They aren't the same as the raw images flashed onto the "screen of consciousness" when the eye receives light impulses from an external "object," or when the ear picks up sounds, colors, or shapes.
Otherworldliness is emptiness; it is a phenomenon of nothingness. Nothing actually manifests through this appearance, and Mark doesn't see an angel presenting him with a vision of paradise in his room—he sees nothing showing him nothing. What emerges is nothingness, and then it vanishes, whether it be Mark himself or his vision of paradise. Once the vision of paradise appears and subsequently disappears, it is no longer paradise, regardless of how briefly it was revealed.
To put it another way, the "paradise" Mark perceives vanishes just as easily as the chair in his room, the room itself, or Mark himself—as we established at the start of this analysis when noting that every phenomenon is relative because it will "vanish tomorrow." Consequently, it follows that there is essentially no fundamental difference between the tree, the house, Mark, and the angel 😉 (none of them possess an inherent "essence")
The inner essence of things that people defend isn't actually unknowable to the mind. Accordingly, they defend otherworldliness against the intellect by claiming the mind can never and will never be able to grasp it, implying a limitation of the mind or something similar, as if the intellect itself were restricted. The reality is quite simple: the interiority or the "otherworldliness" is entirely empty, and nothing can be known within emptiness. When they claim the divine essence or divine providence is unknowable, they are simply saying: "It is empty."
The truth is that the assertion that "the mind cannot know the otherworld (or the transcendent, the supposedly unknowable)" is incorrect, and I disagree with it. Hegel wrote his works during an era characterized by a harmonious and accepted division between "science" and "faith/religion"—a time when it was taken for granted that only the material could be scientifically understood and proven, while anything "hinted at" by faith was relegated to the realm of the forever unknowable and unprovable, the eternal subject of "faith." Well, we are moving past that today. Science is increasingly finding evidence, or at least logical explanations, for many things that would have fallen under the category of "faith" during the Hegelian era. Therefore, the LOGICAL MIND PROGRESSES—it discovers more and more, no longer confined to perceiving merely current material or external phenomena, but beginning to bring to light what was once considered mere faith and dismissed as "unknowable divine will," sealed away as "unreachable for all eternity."
There is nothing unknowable to the human mind. And there is no end to human knowledge....
Otherwise, everything would perpetually spin in circles and repeat itself endlessly; we would be living in hell. Granted, many people actually
believe they are, but until they prove it through experimentation and observation, this theory remains strictly within the domain of pure faith. 😉
To make a point: many great thinkers and scientists born after Hegel have narrowed that gap between "science" and "faith" (a gap which, judging by this interpretation, Hegel's philosophy somehow seals off and declares final, using it as its very foundation). This spans from Einstein, who was the first to establish that "faith without science is blind, and science without faith is lame," down to many modern researchers who unanimously argue that many things previously labeled as "faith" are being proven as scientific truths. Quantum physics and astrophysics, through their discoveries, have confirmed many of the "eternal truths" found in Eastern texts, which during the Hegelian era were dismissed as mere "faith"...