Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 2 (of 3)
Georg Hegel · en
destroy the latter; it takes its stand alongside of it, and only bases
its assertions on its own principle. Everything, however, then, comes
round to this, that because the ‘I’ is absolute, the ‘not-I’ cannot
be absolute. On the other hand it may be said as justly: “Because the
thing is absolute, the ‘I’ cannot be absolute.” If it is legitimate,
Sextus further says, immediately to pre-suppose something as unproved,
it is absurd to pre-suppose anything else as proof of that on whose
behalf it is pre-supposed; we only require to posit straightway the
implicit existence of that which is in question. But as it is absurd
to do so, so also is the other absurd. Men set to work in the finite
sciences in a similar way. But when, as in a dogmatism like this, a
man asserts his right of pre-supposing something, every other man has
equally the right of pre-supposing something. Consequently the modern
immediate revelation of the subject now appears. It does no good for
any man to affirm, for example, that he finds in his consciousness that
God exists; since anyone has the right to say that he finds in his
consciousness that God does not exist. In modern times men have not got
very far with this immediate knowledge—perhaps not further than the
ancients, (ε) In the fifth place everything perceived has, according
to the trope of Relationship, a relation to something else, to what
perceives; its Notion is just that of being for another. The same
holds good with what is thought; as the universal object of thought it
likewise has the form of being something for another.