Jean Wahl and Hegel-scholarship in the Age of Existentialism (Part Two)

The first edition of Wahl's book on Hegel (1929).

This post completes our discussion of French philosopher Jean Wahl's Le Malheur de la conscience dans la philosophie de Hegel [The Misfortune of Consciousness in Hegel's Philosophy] (1929). We outline the reception of the idea of "unhappy consciousness" which is central to Wahl's interpretation of Hegel and then evaluate his understanding of the idea.

 Part One is here.

Introduction (Stephen Cowley)

Let us first locate the concept of the "unhappy consciousness" (das unglückliche Bewusstsein) within the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), the wide-ranging book on mind and culture in which it plays a key role. The term "Unhappy consciousness" denotes a divided state of individual consciousness searching for a return to wholeness, such as that which emerged with the Stoic withdrawal from civic life under the Roman Empire. The Phenomenology as a whole has a multi-layered structure like a Roman viaduct or aqueduct.

Pont du Gard, by Nîmes, France.

The first four chapters on sensation, perception, intellect and self-consciousness describe the aspects of mind that lead individuals to uphold and embody a common culture of reason. These are like four pillars grounded in external sensation. The fifth chapter on Reason is like the first level road of the structure, resting on these pillars, on which the following storeys are built. On its basis, chapter six on Spirit addresses the historical evolution of a common culture in three sections. Its pillars might be described abstractly as lordship, alienation and reconciliation, or called in concrete historical terms 1. Greece/Rome, 2. France and 3. Germany. On top of this lie the top storeys of Religion and absolute knowledge. 

The unhappy consciousness appears in the second half of the key chapter four. This chapter has two titles: “B. Self-consciousness” and “4. The Truth of Self-certitude”. Contrary to any expectation of a tripartite structure, there are only two sub-sections, “Independence... of Self-consciousness” and “Freedom of Self-consciousness”. However, the introduction is quite long and might be considered an untitled sub-section in its own right. It introduces the themes of “life” and “desire”. The first titled sub-section includes the famous “struggle to the death” by which order is imposed by the sword and a defectively one-sided level of mutual recognition reached between lord and servant. Such a hierarchy is common ground in any society with a class structure and not specifically German or European, though the language is that of German feudalism (Cole, 2014). After the decisive confrontation with death, it basically discusses economic relations.

 

The part on the Unhappy Consciousness is the concluding part of the second titled sub-section on Freedom, following on from Stoicism and Skepticism. One might argue that the second subsection on Freedom is an outcome of the first on the Economy, as only economic production permits freedom. However, the two sections are commonly seen as rivals. In the reception of Hegelian ideas for example, Wahl’s religious stress on the Unhappy Consciousness was a rival to Kojève’s economic-political reliance on the Struggle for Recognition as the key to the book. However, the themes of Desire and Work reappear in the Unhappy Consciousness section, economic concepts that lead me to doubt the exclusively/religious character of the unhappy consciousness. 

Reception history of the Unhappy Consciousness

Developments of Hegel's thought in his own lifetime and later readings both shed light in different ways on the significance of the concept of the "unhappy consciousness" prior to Wahl. Google Ngram searches suggest that the term is particularly associated with Hegel and Hegel-scholarship: its use before the appearance of the Phenomenology (1807) is rare. Let us consider these in turn:

Hegel's lifetime

Hegel's Philosophical Propaedeutic (1809), a posthumously published manuscript used for his school teaching, replaces the "Stoicism, Skepticism and Unhappy Consciousness" section with two paragraphs titled "The Universality of Self-Consciousness", described as a "transition to the universal will - the transition to positive freedom". These read:

"Universal self-consciousness is the view of it as not something particular, distinct from others, but rather as the self-existent universal self. In this way it recognises itself and the other self-consciousness in itself and is recognised by them.

In accordance with this its essential universality, self-consciousness is real for itself only insofar as it knows its reflection in the other (I know that others know me as themselves) - and knows itself as essential self, as the pure spiritual unity of belonging to one's family, one's homeland, etc.  (This self-consciousness is the foundation of all virtues, of love, human friendship, courage, all self-sacrifice, all fame, etc.)" (Rauch, 1999)

It seems then that Hegel began to rework the Unhappy Consciousness chapter soon after the Phenomenology was published in 1807, stressing the passage to universality. 

Subsequently, Hegel gave five sets of lectures on self-consciousness in Berlin on the basis of the Encyclopedia in its three editions (1817, 1827, 1830). However, the structure of this treatment again differs from that in the Phenomenology. In Berlin, Hegel proceeds directly from the economic (in a broad sense) concepts of desire and work, master and servant to their institutional embodiment in the structures of the family, civil society and the state. There is no historical diversion through Graeco-Roman philosophy and the unhappy consciousness, as in the Phenomenology. Instead, similar material is displaced into discussions of education or given in popular lectures on history. The reason seems to be that the Berlin lectures are a systematic presentation of the content of philosophy, rather than the historical presentation of the emergence of the systematic viewpoint in the Phenomenology. There are English versions of the Berlin material in the translations and commentaries of Wallace/Miller (Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind) and Petry (Subjective Spirit, Berlin Phenomenology).

This pattern continues in the first German commentary on the Phenomenology, by Georg Andreas Gabler (1786-1853). Gabler was a student of philosophy and law in Jena from 1804-07 where he heard Hegel (in 1805-06) and so was one of the few to have witnessed the Phenomenology as it came into being in Hegel’s mind. He later went on to be a schoolteacher before succeeding Hegel in Berlin. His commentary is called Kritik des Bewusstseins (Critique of Consciousness, 1827). Gabler covers only the first five chapters, down to the end of Reason. The discussions of Self-consciousness and Reason are abbreviated. A projected second volume never appeared. Gabler takes the same line as the later Hegel in replacing the section on Unhappy Consciousness in the development of ideas of Self-consciousness by a passage on “Universal Consciousness”. The purpose of this is to fill in the gap between the particular self-consciousnesses that emerge from the struggle for recognition and the universal culture that characterises Reason. Gabler writes:

“This universal self-consciousness is the realm of every higher spiritual community and universality, the element of substantiality underlying all essential and spiritual relationships, in which alone each truthful ethical substance, such as family, people, country, state, as also all virtues and ethical relationships, such as friendship, love, honour and so forth have their existence and truth.” ((para 149, page 235)

This might be a way of interpreting the Unhappy consciousness – it could be seen as seeking universality - in the many senses that might be taken, some of which are indicated in the above quote. Religion would be one approach to that, as would a broader subsequent revision of social relationships not exclusively religious in character.

In 1831, Hegel was intending to republish the Phenomenology, apparently in a substantially unaltered version (Pinkard, 2018, 468-9), shortly before his death. The later revisions thus fall short of an outright repudiation of the idea of "unhappy consciousness".

Later readings: Haym, Lasson and Baillie

The next major commentary on Hegel's work to discuss the Phenomenology at length was Rudolf Haym's Hegel und seine Zeit [Hegel and his Time] (1857). Haym describes the Unhappy consciousness section of the Phenomenology as follows:

“It seems that the “unhappy consciousness”, supposed to develop starting from the skeptical consciousness, is straightforwardly a universal form of consciousness; but the more we accustom our eyes to the shadowy outlines of the sketch, the more the matter is beyond a doubt: we are dealing in truth with a characterization of the ecclesiastical and monastic ethics of medieval Christendom.” (300) 

To my knowledge, this is the first occurrence of what is now the standard religious reading of the Unhappy consciousness. Haym's book was reckoned a "fire-ship to Hegel's reputation" and drew its inspiration from Feuerbach's materialism. Hegel's reputation in Germany declined, save in history of philosophy, replaced by such trends as neo-Kantism, positivism and admiration for Schopenhauer. The British idealists were interested in Hegel, but more in the Logic and later System than in the Phenomenology, of which William Wallace said that "only a king can retrace its course." (Wallace, 1873, xxxii).

Thereafter, Haym's interpretation was adopted in Georg Lasson's centenary edition of the Phenomenology, which incorporated headings that relate the unhappy consciousness to the history of Christianity. It is important to note that these are not in the text originally published by Hegel in 1807.The principal headings introduced into the contents page and text by Lasson are:

"Subjective piety:

a) The changeable consciousness

b) The form of the Unchangeable

c) The Union of the Actual and Self-consciousness 

1. The pure consciousness: the life of emotion: devotion

2. The individual and actuality: The deeds of the pious consciousness

3. Self-consciousness passing into reason: Self-mortification." 

Lasson adds his own preface, focusing on Hegel's "Early Theological Writings" that were published by Nohl in the same year, having been commented on by Wilhelm Dilthey the year before. (This refers to the 1907 first printing of Lasson's "3rd edition" rather than the revised 1928 version. The omission in the latter is explained in the 1928 version, IX). 

The headings by Lasson were then incorporated into the first English translation by Scottish professor James Black Baillie (1910, revised 1931). Baillie adds his own notes to the body of the text, writing, for example:

"The background of historical material for this type of mind is found in the religious life of the Middle Ages and the mental attitude assumed under the Roman Catholic Church and the Feudal Hierarchy." (Baillie, 1931, 241)

Both Lasson and Baillie's editions were available to Jean Wahl. Walter Kaufmann notes that the religious interpretation is also characteristic of Josiah Royce's translation, included in Jacob Loewenberg's Hegel Selections (1929) under the title "The contrite consciousness". 

This interpretation was extended by French commentators Alexandre Kojève and Jean Hyppolite. Kojève (1946) distinguishes sections on Asceticism, Monk, Priest and Layman. It has been rarely questioned since. A partial exception is John Burbidge's essay "Unhappy consciousness in Hegel: an Analysis of Medieval Catholicism?" in Hegel on Logic and Religion (1992).

Jean Wahl on the Unhappy Consciousness

Wahl’s commentary covers only the first two thirds of the section on the Unhappy Consciousness. The paragraphs are 208-218 in Miller’s translation. The last section that is not covered uses imagery that can be related to medieval monasticism. I summarise Wahl's analysis and them offer some critical comments in conclusion.

Judaism (Miller paras 208-09)

Hegel, Wahl observes, begins with an opposition of a manifold, shifting, changing consciousness and a simple, unchangeable nature or essence [Wesen]. We take ourselves at first to stand on the inessential side, but wish to liberate ourselves from its superfluity. The very constancy of the divided consciousness’s relationship to the unchangeable itself brings stability to it. We raise our eyes to the eternal [as in the Psalms], but this raising makes us aware also of our own individuality. The eternal in consciousness itself takes on individuality. The very path back and forth becomes familiar to us, but the moment of difference remains predominant. At first, God is an alien judge and we feel outcast; but secondly, there emerges a relationship; and thirdly, at last, a kind of joyful reconciliation and individual and universal.  

 

Wahl argues that the unity of consciousness is the cause of its affliction. He echoes Hegel in speaking of “this unfortunate consciousness that is born of skepticism” (Wahl, 164) The synagogue announces the church. The progression of the book is from:

• Material hostility (master and servant) 

• Spiritual struggle (unhappy consciousness) 

• Unity of Spirit.

This Wahl describes as the movement form Montaigne to Pascal, a move from skepticism to piety.  He finds many veiled references to Christianity. The ground of Christianity was prepared by skepticism and Judaism, which proclaim duality and immediate unity respectively. Consciousness has sought a new starting point in the East. 

Wahl speaks of the Psalms turning to Lamentations and mentions Job and Ecclesiastes. He says: “Pascal at Port-Royal is an image, more than an image, of Christ in the Garden of Olives.” (167) Pascal was a famous French convert to an intense Christian faith. His use of French examples highlights the universal scope of Hegel’s analysis. [The use of the ancient world as a palimpsest of modernity is a feature of the Phenomenology. However, the Biblical references are illustrations by Wahl, not directly attributable to Hegel. – SC]

Christianity (Miller paras 210-12)

Like Dilthey, Wahl takes the rejection of the form of master and servant as decisive for Hegel’s understanding of Christianity. The theorist of duty, he thinks, simply moves the external commands of God into his own consciousness. Wahl writes:

 “Like religious consciousness, moral consciousness is thus misfortune. [...] The romantic, Fichtean exaltation of the self is thus still the Christian and Jewish consciousness.” (86-88) 

In the following paragraphs, we move from:

• God as judge, to 

• Relationship, to 

• Reconciliation.

These moves are experiences of self-consciousness in its misfortune. It involves relationship of the Unchangeable (das Unwandelbar) to the individual, of individuals to each other and action on their part to be one with him. The Unchangeable must take on the form of something that happens, or has happened, to enter into relationship. However, such presence brings with it contingency and chance. Hence its presence necessarily becomes conceived as having disappeared (in time) or as distant (in place). We are united to the Unchangeable through Christ. Hegel thus assimilates the Creator God of the Bible to the unmoved mover of Aristotle. 

Wahl sees in these passages something akin to the movement from being and nothing to becoming in the Logic. The unhappy consciousness sees itself as nothing faced with being. The Wisdom of Solomon must become embodied in a Son of David. He says: “Christianity is only the awakening [in] consciousness of this contact of the Unchangeable and particular.” (170) He cites Abraham and Moses, David’s kingdom and the advent of Christ and continues:

“The fact is that Judaism could be defined as a Stoicism in reverse, or a Skepticism turned into theology, and that in any case it opens the way definitively to the higher ideas of religion, while remaining all the while itself at a lower level.” (171)

It is the unhappy consciousness that produces the idea of the unity of universal and particular. The preconditions of this need to be rehearsed to generate piety and understanding. In history, a middle point between the blinding sun and the blinding cloud of dust is sought. The living Christ is subject to the dialectic of the here and the now – so he is placed at a distance. The heavenly Jerusalem seems just as distant as the earthly one to the believer. 

The Development of Christianity (Miller paras 213-18)

The unhappy consciousness changes its focus from the Unchangeable, accompanied by its own self-abnegation, to the embodiment of the Unchangeable. We wish to identify ourselves with (the cause of) Christ. [Hegel introduces an equivalent term here: das entzweite Bewußtsein. In Miller, this is “divided consciousness”, but entzweite also has the sense of broken (in two, like a twig). This sheds some light on the nature of the unhappiness, or misfortune, of the unhappy consciousness. -SC] 

The main points that Wahl draws from the text are as follows: Para 213. We move from the Jewish law to the God of Christianity. There is an expectation of Christ.  214. Hegel emphasises the distance, even of the incarnate Christ. 215. We look first at pure consciousness. Wahl says: 

“It will be only later that one will see that the attention lent to the Unchangeable by consciousness is at the same time an attention paid to consciousness by the Unchangeable.” (180) 

Wahl calls this “theological relativism” and “mystical monism”. [The relativist interpretation was that of Feuerbach and David Strauss. – SC] 216. Christ is a different figure from the gods of Olympus. Both can be thought of as amalgams of universal and particular, but Christ is a figure of a different order. 217. Piety at first has the form of feeling. Wahl invokes Schleiermacher as an example. He writes: “Schleiermacher’s thought represents well both the thought of the disciples at the moment of Christ’s death and the thought of the Germanic world.” (184) Jacobi too feels such a longing (Sehnsucht). Wahl attributes a “painful consciousness” to the disciples. The incarnate Christ is a This, subject to the dialectic of the world of sense (as expounded in the Phenomenology). Hence we find a tomb in place of the divine life we seek. Wahl attributes to Hegel the idea that (naive) piety is something to be surpassed. The disciple, the crusader, the romantic are cases in point. 218. The world of desire and work is to be sanctified. 

Wahl suggests that religion is to be subverted by the union of subjective and objective in absolute knowledge. The unhappy consciousness will reappear in the Phenomenology on the path to the spiritual daylight of the present. Christianity renders the abstract oppositions of the previous world views concretely. Wahl summarises:

“Judaism [...] becomes the Christian unhappy consciousness and gives birth to the idea of the incarnation; and the succession of Kings gives birth to the son of God. [...] But Christianity, although it can, in contrast to Judaism the religion of the indeterminate beyond, be called the religion of the incarnate beyond, remains a religion of the beyond. It concludes a sensuous element that gives rise to a new opposition.” (189)

Thus we arrive, not at a synthesis, but at a point of contact that can become a synthesis only through enlargement. This realises itself through:

• Contact (the death of Christ, Crusades, romantic longing) 

• Work and communion (Candide, Faust, the blessing of bread and wine) 

• Asceticism (Cloisters, priesthood and laity).

Thereafter come the Renaissance and Reformation. [Once again, concrete historical references are often read into the text by Wahl and not explicitly there in Hegel. - SC]

Concluding Remarks

There is a parallel between the chapter on Self-consciousness of which Unhappy consciousness is the culmination and the preceding three-chapter section on Consciousness, which begin with the everyday observation of a tree and a house (a natural object and a human artefact), but in which there is a certain incursion of scientific material by the end of the third chapter on Force and the Understanding. The equivalent to natural science in dealing with self-consciousness is history and hence we might anticipate similar incursions of historical material into the concluding portion of the self-consciousness chapter. Both chapters then, function as something like transcendental or psychological deductions concerned with the possibility of experience in general, but they include scientific and historical material in their latter sections, when we move from the generality of immediate experience to more mediated and conceptual material.

Since reading Wahl, I have become suspicious of an exclusively religious reading of Unhappy consciousness. The identification of "the unchangeable" with God, for example, is questionable, as more things than God (e.g. the past, the eternal laws for one who is not a lawgiver) are unchangeable. One religious image (incense) is inserted into the English translation by Miller (1977, para 217), though it is not there in the German. In another case, the ringing of a bell is assumed to be religious, but in fact there are town bells as well as church bells and the bell was a central image in a poem by Schiller (Die Glocke) that had recently appeared.

In short,  the common readings of the Unhappy consciousness should be rethought. The scope of the move to reason is broader than a negative portrayal of medieval Christianity and the content of the argument is worth recovering and reviewing. This is not to suggest that religion is not a force in the Phenomenology, but that chapter four is broader in scope, because more abstract, than chapter seven that is explicitly concerned with religion. A positive result from this enquiry will require a close re-reading of this and related texts. I hope to develop this thought in a future post.

References

Burbidge, John  Hegel on Logic and Religion. SUNY, 1992.

Cole, Andrew. The Birth of Theory. Chicago: UP, 2014.

Gabler, Georg Andreas. Kritik des Bewusstseins. 1827; Leiden, 1901.

Hegel, G.W.F. Phänomenologie des Geistes/ Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit. Bamberg & Würzburg: Goebhardt, 1807; Ed. Lasson. Meiner, 1907, 1928; Trans. Baillie, NY: Harper: 1910, 1931; Fr. Trans. Hyppolite, Aubier, 1939 [n.d.]; Trans. Miller, Oxford: UP, 1977. Trans. Pinkard, Cambridge: UP, 2018 (& other editions).

Hegel, G.W.F. Logic. Trans. Wallace. 1873; Oxford: UP, 1975.

Hegel, G.W.F. Philosophy of Mind. Trans. Wallace, Miller. Oxford: UP, 1971. 

Hegel. G.W.F. The Berlin Phenomenology. Ed. Michael Petry. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1981. 

Haym, Rudolf. Hegel und seine Zeit. 1857 [French trans. by Pierre Osmo, Gallimard, 2004]

Hyppolite, Jean. Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Aubier, 1946; Evanston: Northwest UP, 1974.

Kaufmann, Walter. Hegel: Reinterpretation, Commentary and Texts. Doubleday, 1965.

Kojève, Alexandre. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Ed, Queneau, 1946. Trans. Bloom. Cornell, 1969.

Rauch, Leo. Hegel's Phenomenology of Self-Consciousness, SUNY, 1999. [Rauch's book was published posthumously, edited by David Sherman.]

Wahl, Jean. Le malheur de la conscience dans la philosophie de Hegel. Paris: PUF, 1929, 1951.