Hegel's Philosophy of Mind — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
Georg Hegel · en
variety of ideas: for in response to whatever it meets, the living and
active Soul ideates, or gives rise to a representation. Thus, while the
soul is one, its ideas or representations are many. Taken separately, they
each express the psychic self-conservation. But brought in relation with
each other, as so many acts or self-affirmations of the one soul, they
behave as forces, and tend to thwart or check each other. It is as forces,
as reciprocally arresting or fostering each other, that ideas are objects
of science. When a representation is thus held in check, it is reduced to
a mere endeavour or active tendency to represent. Thus there arises a
distinction between representations proper, and those imperfect states or
acts which are partly or wholly held in abeyance. But the latent phase of
an idea is as essential to a thorough understanding of it as what appears.
It is the great blunder of empirical psychology to ignore what is sunk
below the surface of consciousness. And to Herbart consciousness is not
the condition but rather the product of ideas, which are primarily forces.
But representations are not merely in opposition,—impinging and resisting.
The same reason which makes them resist, viz. that they are or would fain
be acts of the one soul, but are more or less incompatible, leads them in
other circumstances to form combinations with each other. These
combinations are of two sorts. They are, first, complications, or
“complexions”: a number of ideas combine by quasi-addition and
juxtaposition to form a total. Second, there is fusion: ideas presenting
certain degrees of contrast enter into a union where the parts are no
longer separately perceptible. It is easy to see how the problems of
psychology now assume the form of a statics and mechanics of the mind.
Quantitative data are to be sought in the strength of each separate single
idea, and the degree in which two or more ideas block each other: in the
degree of combination between ideas, and the number of ideas in a
combination: and in the terms of relation between the members of a series
of ideas. A statical theory has to show the conditions required for what
we may call the ideal state of equilibrium of the “idea-forces”: to
determine, that is, the ultimate degree of obscuration suffered by any two
ideas of different strength, and the conditions of their permanent
combination or fusion. A mechanics of the mind will, on the contrary, deal
with the rate at which these processes are brought about, the velocity
with which in the movement of mind ideas are obscured or reawakened, &c.