Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 2 (of 3) — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 2 (of 3)
Georg Hegel · en
β. “Ordinary conception is now a sort of comprehension (κατάληψις),
or correct opinion or thought, or the universal indwelling power of
thinking; that is to say, it is the recollection of that which has
often appeared to us,”—the picture. “For instance, when I say, ‘this is
a man,’ I, with the help of previous perceptions, at once by my power
of representation recognize his form.” By dint of this repetition the
sensuous perception becomes a permanent conception in me, which asserts
itself; that is the real foundation of all that we hold true. These
representations are universal, but certainly the Epicureans have not
placed universality in the form of thinking, but only said it is caused
by frequency of appearance. This is further confirmed by the name which
is given to the image which has thus arisen within us. “Everything
has its evidence (ἐναργές) in the name first conferred on it.”[150]
The name is the ratification of the perception. The evidence which
Epicurus terms ἐνάργεια is just the recognition of the sensuous through
subsumption under the conceptions already possessed, and to which the
name gives permanence; the evidence of a conception is therefore this,
that we affirm an object perceptible by the senses to correspond with
the image. That is the acquiescence which we have found taking place
with the Stoics when thought gives its assent to a content; thought,
however, which recognizes the thing as its own, and receives it into
itself, with the Stoics remained formal only. With Epicurus the
unity of the conception of the object with itself exists also as a
remembrance in consciousness, which, however, proceeds from the senses;
the image, the conception, is what harmonizes with a sense-perception.
The recognition of the object is here an apprehension, not as an
object of thought, but as an object of imagination; for apprehension
belongs to recollection, to memory. The name, it is true, is something
universal, belongs to thinking, makes the manifold simple, yea, is in a
high degree ideal; but in such a way that its meaning and its content
are the sensuous, and are not thus to be counted as simple, but as
sensuous. In this way opinion is established instead of knowledge.