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As was mentioned earlier, Hegel's position in the Logic, and hence the system, presupposes the overcoming of what he calls the "opposition of consciousness' (SL 49, 51, 45/WdL I 30, 32, 24f.; cf. E § 3), or the epistemological hiatus between subject and object. It is generally assumed that the Phenomenology of Spirit is supposed to shoulder this burden by presenting us with the genealogy of the emergence of spirit in and for consciousness. Thus the ">Phenomenology is supposed to serve not only as a "ladder" to the standpoint of the Logic but, more importantly, as its justification. But as we have already seen, the 1807 Phenomenology has strictly speaking left this opposition behind before it even begins. Instead, the opposition emerges within it as one of the shapes of consciousness called "Perception." Nevertheless, Hegel seems to have held on to the justificatory function of the Phenomenology at least up to the point at which he had revised Book One of the Science of Logic, i.e. until shortly before his death in 1831. On the other hand, he himself had denied the Phenomenology a justificatory role as early as 1817. This conflicting evidence is reason enough to examine once again Hegel's view(s) on the role of the 1807 Phenomenology vis-à-vis the system.

DOI: 10.1007/978-90-481-3622-3_4

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