Thinking science chapter 2

The Sensible Concept

The Mediation between subject and object

©By Abdel Hernández San Juan

Written in english and translated to english by Abdel Hernandez San Juan

    The issue of this paper on concepts as something itself is focused in discussing and developing my own scientific theory on concepts deliberating it while discussing classics pertains on concept such as Kant and Hegel.

   With all certitude clear on the fact that the issue can be considered almost previously undiscussed and disatended I would like to recall in starting with remembering a critique developed by a sociologist about who I have taken distance but who paradoxically was in my concern clear in focusing the necessity to be critics to sustantialism in the evolution of epistemology as Pierre Bourdieu frequently did and advertised.

  Certainly, my theory of concept, conceived and developed in a deep discussion with Kant and Hegel may be characterized between several other differences by objections around sustantialists.

   The impetus and impulse to commit myself with this theoretical endeavor about a so major issue to us as contemporary thinkers such as the concept of concepts, is motivated by the fact that to me concept can be characterized as the more disatended and even undeveloped issue we have received from tradition, an issue itself almost undiscussed with many zones of unexplored relations yet, a field of crucial things but mostly abandoned.

   I will like to start my analysis by discussing some issues around the Hegel logic of concept in his science of logic.

  We should not forget chapter by chapter that the Hegel exposition of concept start in the science of logic with a development on what he defined as the genesis of concept and such a genesis was discussed as derived from or having its source in substance, a concept of substance Hegel assumed from the legacy of Leibniz and spinosa.

   Hegel visited the issue of the concept not only in his logic of concept tome, but through also the logic of being and the logic of essence and from the introduction between other things because the sustantialist and essentialist basis of his presuppositions as well as his dialectique mode to understand relations between pairs was usually defined by the idea that everything are moments of the same, by this reason, and considering the relevance that in general he assigned to concepts ontologically we should distinguish all the forms through which concepts are disseminated within other things which are not the source of concepts itself from the specific moments when concepts are called as something itself separated from any other thing and discussed in a more delimited form.

   In fact, at the end of this paper I reserved a few pages to notes about things Hegel assigned to concepts which to me are not precisely related with it.

   The main moment to call concepts can be recognized within ten pages of the tome of concepts near to the beginning of the tome.

    By focusing and discussing the main things regarded by Hegel on concepts we will perceive and identify how at the heart of his theory of concept there are several disseminations by which concepts are indistinguished from another series of notions generally related in certain form with concepts but different to it such as the "I", "conscience", perception and representation.

  My objective in doing this revisitation of the main moments when Hegel called concepts as something itself is focused in discussing when with precision can we assume that we are certainly near to what is specific to concepts and what is not, moreover, we will recognize the specific zone that correspond to concepts while at the same time perceive that this zone seems to be however unattended and not focused as the main point from which the phenomenology of concepts source and originate and the one around which the theory of concepts should be discussed and developed in a more deeper and attentive form.

  This is not a way to say that Hegel approach to concepts is not relevant itself, we recognize his worthy and that under him concepts received an impulse that redefined it to our days as no one thinker before him, but at the same time we will show the need to recognize how even in him the issue was vaguely attended yet and stay untheorized.

   Let first see in his own words how Hegel discussed what he himself defined as the genesis of concepts

    "From this side concept should be before all considered in general as the thirst one in respect to being and essence, this mean the immediate and reflexión. Being and essence, by instance, are the moment of the concept becoming, but concept is the base the true of being and essence at the same time. Both are contained in concept because concept is the result of both, but both are in the concept non longer as being and essence but without returning yet to the unity of both

   The objective logic which consider being and essence constitute by the way the genetic exposition of the concept. In a more exact form, substance which is itself already real essence, essence in the unity of being have penetrated in reality. As result the concept have intself the substance as an immediate presupposition, substance represent itself what concept is as manifested. The dialectique movement of the substance through causality and reciproque action explain the immediate generation of concept, by the mediation of it, the becoming of concept is generated. But the becoming of concept have as always becoming, the meaning of being the reflection of something that trespassed its fundaments and what appear as another crossed is itself the true of concepts. In this form we see that the concept is the true of substance"

     We don’t need to much than this paragraph to immediately recognize the sustantialist basis of the Hegelian theory of concepts.

      Now well, we need to set boundaries on certain things precisely related with the indistintions mentioned above.

      In fact, when Hegel speak here on concept we can see it in a few paragraphs forth this is not precisely concept what have being clear away –even if he believe it in that manner---but before well to the undistinguished source of several notions related with concepts in diverse forms but different to concept and not related with the true phenomenology that constitute the exact place of concepts.

   Certainly Hegel is here speaking on the source of conscience from a substantialist perspective so that he gave to the physical and chemical sources of perception, representation, conscience and self-conscience, the name of concept. The source of concepts as something itself as I will attempt to discuss further is far to correspond to this zones of ontology and is instead related with another zone we will see soon.

   In a few words, behind his words we have indistinguished a whole chain of notions related first with the pass by from the so-called sensible multiplicities we discussed before regarding ancient and classics meanings of this concept both to Hegel as before to Kant as another name to what in a modern sense we can identify as sensoriality, the universe of the datas of our physical senses presupposed under an undiferiented storm between world of sense, world of reality, the becoming of palpable sensoriality, etc., this is nothing different than the past by from feeling to perceiving it, the move from the external to the internal, from the previven multiple sensibility—another name to reality, to subjectivity, to the intuition that repit the instincts reflected in a first reflex of sensibility to conscience and from conscience to reflexion, from reflection to representation or in reverse and from representation to the progressive substitution by which things such as conscience, self-conscience, intellect and reason star to take a way, and a distance from such previous palpable sensoriality through synthesis abstractions.

   In fact, isofar as discussing his substantialist genesis of the concept a few paragraphs later Hegel start to discuss the synthetic apriori judgement of Kant stablishing his parameters around distinctions between reflexion, representation and abstraction to arrive to the final conclusion that the concept is nothing more than "the I" and is identical to it just when we realize that the German philosopher was thinking in "the I" and in conscience when he used the word concept.

   Now well, if from one side in his discussion of the genesis of the concept he was calling concept the conscience, the self conscience and "the I" and to arrive to then he previously afforded the whole chain of intuition, perception, representation and reflexión, from another side far to this ten pages, he was calling concept another chain equally unrelated with the well-defined phenomenological zone, area and or source of concepts by confusing it with judgements and syllogisms, a whole trip between subject and predicament which pertain to grammatology and language issues instead than to the concept as he to a certain point—see discussion around judgements at the end.

    What remains then of all this to the concept as something itself distinguished from whatever another chains?. Very far we will arrive through the analysis to the few paragraph in which to me we are sited in the specific phenomenological field that indeed correspond to the concept and nothing else, but before doing so we need to reconstruct yet some aspects of Hegel exposition resumed above. After a long encircle surround of words and arguments Hegel sustained:

      "I will limit myself here to an observation that can serve to the comprehension of concepts as developed here and facilitate to guest accurately with it, the concept when it has obtained an existence but itself it is free, and is nothing else by the I, whence it is pure conscience itself. I have without doubt concepts, I mean, some determined concepts, but the I is the pure concept, whence which as concept have reach its existence. According to this representation I have concepts, and even the concept as much as I also have a dress, a colour or certain extrinsique properties, Kant has superated this extrinseque relation of the faulty of the intellect concepts and the concept itself to arrive to the I. One of the more profound and correct opinions we may find in his critique of reason is that which affirm that the unity that constitute the concept have to be recognized as the originary unity of synthetic apperception, meaning, as a unity between I think, meaning, the self conscience. This proposition constitutes the so-called transcendental deduction of categories, but have being always considered as one of the most difficult parts of Kantian philosophy maybe not by another reason than because it requires the superation of the pure relation between I and the intellect, to go outside it toward the thought

   Object—the overline is mine we will see soon we—day Kant, is that in cuyo concept the multiple and a given intuition are unified. However, this union of representation require the unity of conscience in the synthesis of it. Whence, this unity of conscience is what constitute the relation of representation with its objects ---overlined is mine—y about which the possibility of understanding is founded. Kant distinguish the subjective unity of conscience, meaning the unity of representation, the fact that if I have a conscience of a coexistent multiplicity or a of a successive, depending on empirical conditions

   Through the categories as objective determinations, the multiple of given representations is determined in a manner that it is taken away to the unity of conscience. According to this exposition the unity of the concept is the condition by which a thing is not a pure sensible determination or a pure intuition, or also a pure representation, but an object which objective unity is the I which itself. Conceiving an object, really, consist is nothing more than in the I appropriation of it, the I penetrate it and take it away to its own form. The Object whence have its objectivity in the concept y this one is unity of self-confidence in which the object is received, its objectivity, meaning the concept, is whence nothing else but the nature of self-conscience y don’t have another moments or determinations than the I itself".

    We already see how from the substantialist genesis of the concept defined by the union between being and essence from which the concept become to existence the Hegel exposition of the concept continues within a chain of notions without doubt related but to use his own words nothing is being yet sustained about concept by itself and itself, meaning what concepts are as concepts and nothing else, on the one hand, in this exposition the concept become related with the relations between representation and sensible multiplicities as reality and or as datas of the sense and such a sensible multiplicity yet reflected in representation goes toward the formation of an unity defined as self-conscience and "the I" about which the concept consist, to this point nothing is ear yet on the concept itself, it is not yet a concept, but in the last three sentences Hegel mention a few notions around which the phenomenology of the concept is really based and stablished, his distinction between sensible multiplicities and an object as what become something that cant be reduced to such sensible multiplicity and the pure intuition of the senses, this is yet here not sufficiently well defined and less theorized but at least perceived and differentiated.

   Let see it overlined again but now with more emphasis in the zones, areas and issues that indeed and really start to arrive to what correspond to the specific phenomenology of the concept:

  "According to this exposition the unity of the concept is the condition by which a thing is not a pure sensible determination or a pure intuition, or also a pure representation, but an object which objective unity is the I which itself. Conceiving an object, really, consist is nothing more than in the I appropriation of it, the I penetrate it and take it away to its own form. The Object whence have its objectivity in the concept y this one is unity of self-confidence in which the object is received, its objectivity, meaning the concept, is whence nothing else but the nature of self-conscience y doesn’t have another moments or determinations than the I itself".

    Now well, this is precisely the point and the moment when we have the appearing of the object in contrast to the multiplicities and we will attempt to theorize and discuses forward how this phenomenology work and how should theorize and understand it.

   In a few words, the subject is positioned in front of the object as his otherness, as his opposite, which the subject want to know as subject of knowledge, but in the concept the object as universal abstraction acquire its true and its objectivity and in this mode the object become to the subject the objectivity of the concept in whose form the subject find not only to know objects but more importantly to recognize itself in between them as an object between the objects.

 But indeed, this is not as simply, rather the issue of one of mediation but in a form deeply rich and unexhausted at the phenomenological level without yet and before recognizing the potential of that relation as the main source and condition of the possibility of knowledge.

  Before being a matter to the ontological ground of knowledge, the relation between subject, concept and object stablish the richness field of the phenomenological principle by which the concept is the sensible mediation between subject and object.

   Let see this step by step.

   First we need to might recognize that seldom the concept made pair with the object or the subject as what really made pair with the subject is the object, however, according to Hegel the apparition of object take shape with the unity of "the I" and Self conscience. I consider that this is a defect of Kant system and Hegel assumption of it.

   What we have in regard to such an attention of Kant and Hegel is nothing else but the pass by through which "the I" and the conscience become objects to the subject and whence nor only as a matter of self conscience or conscience of the conscience but also and beyond that as the distance according to which the subject start to differentiate itself by layers of the several forms that the object receives.

    On one side in respect to the subject we have an object which in respect to the sensible multiplicities –palpable sensoriality—is an otherness to the subject, this is such the world of coexistences and successions evoqued by Hegel, while taking away from the immediacy of the palpable sensoriality of the sensible multiplicities on the way to the process of perception of it as reflected and as representation we have another level or stratus in which the subject start to become object to himself, the subject as object, but in another sense the subject return to positioning itself in front of the object the subject evolutioned to be considered.

  In this sense the object might be considered one time as the otherness of the subject, but forth such an otherness object is diluted and or disseminated within forms of the subject as object and at the same time through the layers of self-distance, the object only obtains its objectivity as object beyond be considered subjectivity in the form of the concept to the subject and finally as a mediated abstraction, only in the subject we have a concept of the object.

  Given that in Kant as well as in Hegel subjectivity is diluted according to the genesis exposition of conscience and "the I" the pass by of subjectivity is presupposed to bring with inside it the substance which was declared by them as absolute even as reality, under such a form to understand it being and essence appear as interrupting and or obstructing the pass by of non-subject things into the starting of subjective things in respect to it such as perception, representation etc, the possibility of the subject to be constituted, to have its own temporality, spatiality and mobility ontologically.

   In a few words, the subject was already there from before in its own ontological serie even before defining "the I" and conscience by which we are meaning that the relation between subject and object is older and originary than perception, representation, intuition, conscience and "the I" and more over that in respect to the concept this is a way to say that what we have is not as much the becoming of a substance through essence and being toward the unity of the I and conscience, but a subject that start the coexistence of two simultaneous becomings from the moment the object is mediated in the subject by the concept.

  The object itself, in fact, is nothing else than the so-called "sensible multiplicity" or "palpable sensoriality" world, this sensible multiplicity certainly may be considered as coexisting and it certainly persist later reflected in perception and representation but only in the concept such a sensible multiplicity become an unity and this unity is the object.

  The object is itself such a sensible multiplicity but according to how the concept mediate it to the subject, in a few words the unity and the order is operated by the concept and since it happen the main domain of relations in between is defined by the triadic principle of:

                   subject, concept and the object

    Again the object itself is nothing more that the "sensible multiplicity" forming an unity to the subject in the concept and this unity of such a previous multiplicity in the object to the subject is mediated by the concept and only through the concept it have a sensible mediation, the concept in a few word, we will further see this in several forms, is the sensible mediator between subject and object.

  Only to a subject something is an object and there is nothing between subject and non-subjects than objects, we are then working here with a-causal notions far to the idea of genesis, this is not a way to say that causality and genesis is not itself a point of departure to the analysis of certain things, but instead to say that such a serie is not logically the one which correspond to concepts.

  We are not here in front of the relation between essence and substance because the object itself being nothing else than the "sensible multiplicity" is already an abstraction of that multiciplity in the concept to the subject.

  The formation of concepts is then created by the subject in concepts. Whence the Hegel exposition of the genesis of the concept explain other kind of things such as "the I", conscience and self-conscience and how under it essence, being and substance are expressed, this is not the logical serie of the source and phenomenological organization of the concept.

  This is a form to finally say that the specific phenomenological order which correspond to the concept is grounded in the relation between subject and object while not in any form, but in specific forms about which we will soon go in deep.