I. Sensuous-Certainty; or the “This” and Meaning Something
90
Knowing which is initially our object, or immediately, can be nothing but immediate knowing, knowing of the immediate, or of what is. Likewise we ourselves have to conduct ourselves immediately, or receptively. We therefore are to alter nothing in the object as it presents itself, and we must keep our conceptualizing of it apart from our apprehending of it.
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.
92
However, if we take a look at it there is a good deal more in play in this pure being which constitutes the essence of this certainty and which declares it to be its truth. An actual sensuous-certainty is not only this pure immediacy but also an example of it. Among all the countless differences thereby popping up, we find in every case the chief difference, namely, that in that certainty both of the already noted “this’s,” namely, a this as an I and a this as an object, precipitates all at once out of pure being. If we reflect on this difference, it turns out that neither the one nor the other is only immediately within sensuous-certainty; rather, both are mediated. I have certainty through an other, namely, the item, and this likewise is within certainty through an other, namely, through the I.
93
It is not only we who make this difference of essence and example, of immediacy and mediation. Rather, it is that we find this difference in sensuous-certainty itself, and it is to be taken up in the form it has in sensuous-certainty, not in the way we have just determined it to be. It is posited in sensuous-certainty as the simple, immediately existent, or as the essence, the object. However, it is posited as what is other than the inessential and the mediated,3 which is not in itself in sensuous-certainty but which instead is through an other, the I, a knowing that knows the object only for the reason that the object is but which itself can just as well be as not be. However, the object is; it is the true and the essence. The object is indifferent as to whether it is known or not. The object remains even when it is not known, but if the object does not exist, then there is no knowing.
94
The object is therefore to be considered in terms of whether, in sensuous-certainty itself, it is in fact the kind of essence which sensuous-certainty passes it off as being. That is, it is to be considered as to whether this, its concept, which is to be the essence, corresponds to the way it is present within that certainty. To that end, we need not reflect on the object and mull over what it might be in truth; we need only to consider it as sensuous-certainty has it in sensuous-certainty itself.
95
Therefore, sensuous-certainty itself is to be asked: What is the This? If we take it in the twofold shape of its being, as the now and the here, then the dialectic which it has in itself will take on a form as intelligible as the This itself. To the question: “What is the Now?”, we answer, for example, “The ‘now’ is the night.” In order to put the truth of this sensuous-certainty to the test, a simple experiment will suffice. We write down this truth. A truth cannot be lost by being written down any more than it can be lost by our preserving it, and if now, this midday, we look at this truth which has been written down, we will have to say that it has become rather stale.
96
The Now, which is the night, is preserved, i.e., it is treated as what it was passed off as being, namely, as an existent. However, it instead proves itself to be a non-existent. To be sure, the Now itself maintains itself but as what is not the night; likewise, it maintains itself vis-à-vis the day, which it now is, as what is also not the day, or it maintains itself as a negative as such. This self-maintaining Now is thus not an immediate Now but a mediated Now, for it is determined as an enduring and self-maintaining Now as a result of an other not existing, namely, the day or the night. Thereby it is just as simply as what it was before, Now, and in this simplicity, it is indifferent to what is still in play alongside it. As little as night and day are its being, it is just as much night and day. It is not affected at all by this, its otherness. Such a simple is through negation; it is neither this nor that, it is both a not-this and is just as indifferent to being this or that, and such a simple is what we call a universal. The universal is thus in fact the truth of sensuous-certainty.
97
We also express the sensuous as a universal, but what we say is: This, i.e., the universal this, or we say: it is, i.e., being as such. We thereby of course do not represent to ourselves the universal This or being as such, but we express the universal; or, in this sensuous-certainty we do not at all say what we mean. However, as we see, language is the more truthful. In language, we immediately refute what we mean to say, and since the universal is the truth of sensuous-certainty, and language only expresses this truth, it is, in that way, not possible at all that we could say what we mean about sensuous being.
98
The same case comes up in the other form of the This, namely, in the Here. For example, here is the tree. I turn around, this truth vanishes, and it has inverted itself into its contrary: Here there is not a tree but rather a house. The Here itself does not disappear, rather it endures in the disappearance of the house, the tree, etc., and it is indifferent to being a house, a tree. The This shows itself again to be a mediated simplicity, or as being universality.
99
While this sensuous-certainty has proved in its own self that the universal is the truth of its object, to it pure being therefore remains as its essence but not as immediate. Rather, it remains as that to which negation and mediation are essential, and it thereby does not continue to be what we mean by the term, “being.” Rather, what we mean is: Being with the determination such that it is the abstraction, or the purely universal; and what we mean to say, for which the truth of sensuous-certainty is not the universal, is all that remains apart from this empty or indifferent Now and Here.
100
If we compare the relation in which knowing and the object first came on the scene with the relations in which they come to stand in the result, then the relation has reversed itself. The object, which was supposed to be what was essential to sensuous-certainty, is now the inessential, since the universal, which the object has come to be, is no longer the kind of universal which the object was essentially supposed to be for sensuous-certainty. Rather, sensuous-certainty is now present in what is opposed to it, namely, in the knowing which previously was the inessential. Its truth is in the object as my object, or, in what I mean; the object is because I know it. Sensuous-certainty is, to be sure, thus driven out of the object, but it is not yet thereby sublated. Rather, it is only pushed back into the I, and it is still to be seen what experience will show us about sensuous-certainty’s reality.
101
The force of its truth thus lies now in the I, in the immediacy of my seeing, hearing, etc. The disappearance of the singular Now and Here that we mean is deterred because I hold fast to them. Now is daytime because I see it; here is a tree for precisely the same reason. However, sensuous-certainty experiences in these relationships the same dialectic as it did within the preceding relationships. I, this, see the tree and assert the tree to be here. However, another I sees the house and asserts that there is no tree here but rather a house. Both truths have the same warrant, namely, the immediacy of seeing and the surety and assurance which both have about their knowing. However, one vanishes into the other.
102
In all this, what does not disappear is I as universal, whose seeing is neither a seeing of the tree nor of this house. Rather, it is a simple seeing, which is mediated by the negation of this house and so forth. It is therein just as simple and indifferent towards that which is still in play in the background vis-à-vis the house and the tree. I is only universal in the way that now, here, or this is universal. To be sure, I mean an individual I, but I can no more say what I mean by “now,” “here,” than I can say what I mean by “I.” While I say: “This here, this now, or a singular,” I say: “All this’s, all heres, nows, singulars.” Likewise in that I say: “I, this singular I,” what I say is “All I’s.” Each is what I say it is: I, this singular I. However much this demand is set before science as its touchstone (a demand which it would surely not last out), namely, that it deduce, construct, find a priori, or however one wishes to express it, a so-called “this thing” or “this person,” still it is reasonable that the demand should state which of the many things “this thing” or which of the “I’s” “this I” means. But it is impossible to state this.
103
Sensuous-certainty therefore learns from experience that its essence is neither in the object nor in the I, and that the immediacy is an immediacy of neither one or the other of them, for in both, what I mean is instead what is inessential, and the object and I are universals in which the Now and the Here and the I that I mean do not endure, or are not. We thereby come to posit the whole of sensuous-certainty itself as its essence and no longer only as a moment of sensuous-certainty, as happened in both cases, in which at first the object opposed to the I and then the I itself were each supposed to be the reality of sensuous-certainty. It is thus only the whole of sensuous-certainty itself, which clings tenaciously in such sensuous-certainty to immediacy and which thereby excludes from itself all the opposition that took place in what preceded.
104
This pure immediacy therefore no longer has any concern with the otherness of the Here as a tree, which is a Here that is a non-tree, nor with the otherness of Now as daytime, which passes over into a Now that is night, nor with another I, for which something other is the object. Its truth is preserved as a self-consistent relation which makes no difference of essentiality and non-essentiality between the I and the object, and into which therefore no difference at all can force its entry. I, this I, assert therefore that here is a tree, and it is not the case that I turn around so that the Here would become for me not a tree, or that I myself at another time take the Here not to be a tree, the now not to be the daytime, etc. Rather, I am pure intuiting, and I stick with, namely, that “Now is daytime,” or else I also stick with “Here is a tree.” I also do not compare the Here and the Now themselves with each other; rather, I cling tenaciously to an immediate relation: “Now it is daytime.”
105
Since this certainty itself thereby no longer wishes to step forward when we draw its attention to a Now that is night, or to an I for which it is night, we step up to it and let ourselves point to the Now that is asserted. We must let ourselves point to it, for the truth of this immediate relation is the truth of this I which limits itself to a Now or to a Here. If we were afterwards to take up this truth or to stand at a distance from it, it would have no meaning at all, for we would sublate the immediacy that is essential to it. Thus, we must enter into the same point of time or space, point it out to ourselves, i.e., allow ourselves to be made into the same I as that is a knowing with certainty. Let us see, therefore, how what is immediate, which is pointed out to us, is composed.
106
The Now is pointed out, this Now. Now: It has already ceased to be as it was pointed out; the Now that is is an other than that pointed out, and we see that the Now is just this Now as it no longer is. The Now is, as it has been pointed out to us, what has been. This is its truth; it does not have the truth of being. It is nonetheless true that it has been. However, what has been is in fact no essence; it is not, and the issue at stake had to do with what is, with being.
107
In this pointing out, we therefore see only a movement and the following course of the movement. (1) I point out the Now, and it is asserted to be the true. However, I point to it as something that has been and thus sublate the first truth, and (2) I assert the Now as the second truth, that it has been, that it is sublated. (3) However, what has been is not; I sublate that second truth, that it has been, or, its having-been-sublated,4 and, in doing that, I negate the negation of the Now and so turn back to the first assertion, namely, that Now is. The Now and the pointing out of the Now are therefore composed in such a way that neither the Now nor the pointing out of the now are what is immediately simple. Rather, they are a movement which has various moments in it; this is posited, but instead it is an other which is posited, or the This is sublated, and this otherness, or the sublation of the first, is itself again sublated and in that way returns back to the first. However, as reflected into itself, this “first” is not wholly and precisely the same as what it was initially, namely, an immediate. Rather, it is just something reflected into itself, or a simple which remains in otherness what it is, namely, a Now which is absolutely many Nows, and this is the genuine Now, or the now as the simple daytime that has many Nows within it (that is, hours). Such a Now, an hour, is equally many minutes, and it is this Now which is equally many Nows, etc. – Pointing out is thus itself the movement that declares what the Now in truth is, namely, a result, or a plurality of Nows taken together; and pointing out is the experience that the Now is a universal.
108
The Here that has been pointed out and to which I cling is likewise a this here, which is in fact not this here but is rather an in-front-of and behind, or an above and below, or a right and a left. The above is likewise this multifaceted otherness in the above, below, and so forth. The Here, which is supposed to be pointed out, vanishes into another Here, but that one likewise vanishes. What is pointed out, held onto, and which endures is a negative This, which only is as the heres are taken as they are supposed to be, but which, in being so taken, have sublated themselves; it is a simple summary of many Heres. The Here that is meant would be the [geometric] point.5 However, the point is not, but rather, as the point is demonstrated as existing,6 the demonstrating points to itself as showing itself to be not immediate knowing but instead a movement from out of the many Heres which were meant into the universal Here, which is a simple plurality of Heres in the way that the daytime is a simple plurality of Nows.
109
It is clear both that the dialectic of sensuous-certainty is nothing but the simple history of its movement (that is, its experience) and that sensuous-certainty itself is nothing but just this history. For that reason, natural consciousness also proceeds to this result, what is the true in sensuous-certainty, to keep pressing ever forward. It learns from experience about it, but then it likewise forgets it again, and then it starts the whole movement all over again right from the beginning. It is thus a bit astonishing when, in the face of this experience, it is set up as a philosophical assertion, or as a universal experience, or even as the outcome of skepticism, that the reality, or the being, of external things as this, or as sensuous, is to have absolute truth for consciousness. Such an assertion does not at the same time know what it is saying; it does not know that it is saying the opposite of what it wants to say. The truth of the sensuous This for consciousness is supposed to be a universal experience, but instead it is the opposite which is a universal experience. Each consciousness again itself sublates such a truth as, for example, here is a tree, or now is midday, and declares the opposite: Here is not a tree, but rather a house; and likewise it again straightaway sublates the assertion which sublated the first assertion as itself being only again an assertion of a sensuous This. What in truth has been experienced in all of sensuous-certainty is only what we have seen, namely, the this as a universal, or the very opposite of what that assertion assured us was the universal experience. – With this appeal to universal experience, we may be permitted to anticipate some concerns in the practical sphere. In this respect, what one can say to those who make assertions about the truth and reality of sensuous objects is that they should be sent back to the most elementary school of wisdom, namely, to the old Eleusinian secrets of Ceres and Bacchus, and that they have yet to learn the secret of the eating of bread and the drinking of wine. This is so because the person who has been initiated into these secrets not only comes to doubt the being of sensuous things, but rather arrives at despair about them. In part he brings about their nothingness, and in part he sees them do it to themselves. Nor are the animals excluded from this wisdom. Instead they prove themselves to be the most deeply initiated into it, for they do not stand still in the face of sensuous things, as if those things existed in themselves. Despairing of the reality of those things and in the total certainty of the nullity of those things, they without any further ado simply help themselves to them and devour them. Just like the animals, all of nature celebrates these revealed mysteries which teach the truth about sensuous things.
110
However, those who set up such assertions, in line with the previous remarks, also immediately say the opposite of what they mean, a phenomenon that is perhaps best able to bring them to reflect on the nature of sensuous-certainty. They speak of the existence of external objects, which, to put it more precisely, can be determined to be actual, absolutely singularly individual, wholly personal, individual things, each of which is absolutely unlike the others. This existence is said to have absolute certainty and truth. They mean this piece of paper on which I am writing (or rather have written) this. But they do not say what they mean. However much they actually wanted to say what they mean about this piece of paper, and however much they wanted to say it, still it would be impossible because the sensuous This, which is what is meant, is inaccessible to the language which belongs to consciousness, or to what is in itself universal. In the actual attempt to say it, it itself would thereby rot away. Those who began a description would not be able to complete it, but instead they would have to leave it to others, who would themselves finally have to confess to speaking about a thing that is not. They therefore do mean this piece of paper, which is here totally other than the one mentioned above, but they speak of actual things, external or sensuous objects, absolutely singular entities, etc. That is to say, they say of them only what is universal. Thus, what is called the unsayable is nothing other than the untrue, the irrational, what is the merely fancied.7 – If nothing more is said of a thing than that it is an actual thing, an external object, then it is only expressed as the most universal of all, and what is thereby expressed is its sameness with everything rather than its distinctiveness. If I say: “A singular thing,” then instead I say something entirely universal about it, for everything is a singular thing. Likewise, this thing is anything one pleases. To characterize it more precisely: As this piece of paper, every and each bit of paper is a “this piece of paper,” and I have only spoken, as usual, of the universal. However, if I wish to lend a helping hand to speech, which itself has the divine nature of immediately inverting the meaning, then of making it into something else, and in that way of not letting the meaning get into words at all, then by my pointing out this piece of paper, I thus learn from experience what the truth of sensuous-certainty in fact is. I point it out as a Here, which is a Here of other Heres, or which in its own self is a simple ensemble of many Heres, which is to say, is a universal. In that way, I receive it as it is in truth, and instead of knowing what is immediate, I perceive.