Resource
91
The concrete content of sensuous-certainty permits itself to appear immediately as the richest cognition, indeed, as a knowing of an infinite wealth for which no limit is to be found, whether we venture out into the reaches of space and time as the place where that wealth extends itself, or when we take a piece out of this plenitude, divide it, and thereby delve into it. In addition, it appears as the most veritable, for it has not omitted anything from its object, but rather, has its object in its complete entirety before itself. However, this certainty in fact yields the most abstract and the very poorest truth. It expresses what it knows as this: It is; and its truth only contains the being of the item.1 For its part, consciousness only is in this certainty as the pure I, or, within that certainty, the I is only as a pure This, and the object likewise is only as a pure This. I, this I, am certain of this item not because I, as consciousness, have thereby developed myself and have variously set my thoughts into motion. It is also not because I, as consciousness, am certain of this item for the reason that the item of which I am certain would be a rich relation in its own self according to a set of differentiated conditions or would be a multiple comportment to other items. Both have nothing to do with the truth of sensuous-certainty. In that certainty, neither I nor the item have the meaning of a multifaceted mediation, nor does I have the meaning of a multifaceted representing or thinking, nor does the item have the meaning of a multifaceted composition. Rather, the item is, and it is only because it is. For sensuous-certainty this is what is essential, and this pure being, or this simple immediacy constitutes its truth. Likewise, as a relation, certainty is an immediate, pure relation. Consciousness is I, nothing further, a pure this, and the singular individual 2 knows a pure this, or he knows the singular.
🔗