September 17, 2013 Perception Notes In the opening introductory sections of Perception, Hegel talks indifferently and interchangeably about: Universality (on my reading: material Determinate Negation incompatibility) Mediation (on my reading: material inference) For instance, for (b): wealth of sense-knowledge belongs to perception, not to “The immediate certainty, for which it was only the source of instances; for only perception contains negation, that is, difference or manifoldness, within its own essence,” [112]. He talks about universality, or the unity of being and the negative…” immediate “…sensuous [115]. And for (c): universal is in its simplicity a universal…” [112]. mediated “[T]he I've argued that (b) is the key, fundamental notion. Given that, one can show that (a) and (c) are already implicitly in play, by the arguments I offered in discussing (Quickly: Sense Certainty. being incompatible with is a universal that and can share, and one can introduce an p q r inferential relation iff everything incompatible with is incompatible with p entails q q p.) One of the big tasks of is to show that the very concept of universality implicitly Perception contains an intricate metaphysical structure articulated by 5 kinds of complex difference (negation) themselves intelligible in terms of one basic distinction between two kinds of difference. In we are moving from conceptual contents (Strawson) to Perception feature-placing ones. [Note that I make a version of this transition, in different terms, in Chapter Six of Are Singular Terms, and Why Are There Any?”] Consciousness MIE: “What understanding itself as perceiving is trying to reconcile with immediacy as independence determinateness of universals. The main argument of is that Perception The metaphysical fine-structure of is determinate universality negation. And therefore: It is impossible to reconcile the of universals with being determinateness in the sense of of their relations of to and from others, immediate independent difference along at least six dimensions. Consider the two distinctions: exclusive difference / mere difference [ausschlieende vs. gleichgültige Verschiedenheit], object/property (or particular/universal). One of the prime
September 17, 2013 Perception Notes In the opening introductory sections of Perception, Hegel talks indifferently and interchangeably about: Universality Determinate Negation (on my reading: material incompatibility) Mediation (on my reading: material inference) For instance, for (b): “The wealth of sense-knowledge belongs to perception, not to immediate certainty, for which it was only the source of instances; for only perception contains negation, that is, difference or manifoldness, within its own essence,” [112]. He talks about “…sensuous universality, or the immediate unity of being and the negative…” [115]. And for (c): “[T]he universal is in its simplicity a mediated universal…” [112]. I've argued that (b) is the key, fundamental notion. Given that, one can show that (a) and (c) are already implicitly in play, by the arguments I offered in discussing Sense Certainty. (Quickly: being incompatible with p is a universal that q and r can share, and one can introduce an inferential relation p entails q iff everything incompatible with q is incompatible with p.) One of the big tasks of Perception is to show that the very concept of universality implicitly contains an intricate metaphysical structure articulated by 5 kinds of complex difference (negation) themselves intelligible in terms of one basic distinction between two kinds of difference. In Perception we are moving from feature-placing conceptual contents (Strawson) to ones. [Note that I make a version of this transition, in different terms, in Chapter Six of MIE: “What Are Singular Terms, and Why Are There Any?”] Consciousness understanding itself as perceiving is trying to reconcile immediacy as independence with determinateness of universals. The main argument of Perception is that The metaphysical fine-structure of universality is determinate negation. And therefore: It is impossible to reconcile the determinateness of universals with being immediate in the sense of independent of their relations of difference to and from others, along at least six dimensions. Consider the two distinctions: exclusive difference / mere difference [ausschlieende vs. gleichgültige Verschiedenheit], object/property (or particular/universal). One of the prime
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