Hegel Final

8/8/2019 Hegel Final

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Michael Padilla

Post Kantian Topics

December 15th, 2010

Two Forms of Knowledge: JTB and Concept

What we have in thePhenomenology is an account of many things, ranging from

the refutation of the structure of the master and slave relationship such that it now seems

that the slave is actually in a position to have great value, topsy-turvy to common beliefs,

to an account of why the Greeks could not have been the types of agents that we are

today, that is, in a modern sense. Throughout the dialectic however there has been a goal

in mind, that mission is to come to an understanding of the sociality of reason (Vernunft).

In doing so, Hegel leads us to his notion of absolute knowledge, the type of knowledge

that is an account of accounts of the way the modern community has come to be, whose

defining feature, besides being an account of how we have come to where we are, is that

it relies on nothing that is outside the structure of the community; absolute knowledge

comes out ofthe structure, instead of being mediated through or by it. However, what

seems to be missing from such a comprehensive account is a clear claim on an

overarching question that has been present since Greece which is, What is knowledge?

This will be the prevailing question leading this paper down its path to come to find what

does a claim like, S knowsp, means in Hegels framework. Though there is a prevalent

belief that knowledge is a claim that is a justified true belief, what we will see is that

Hegels concept ofconcept, combined with the driving values of absolute spirit and

absolute knowledge, may undermine this claim, and it itself my posit its own account of

what is knowledge, that is, conceptitself.

Before diving into the arguments, I think a clarification of what kind of


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knowledge we are talking about is in order. By epistemic knowledge, I mean the kind of

knowledge that is usually thought of as being a justified true belief. A claim of knowledge

would need to satisfy the three conditions of the definition. The simplest condition to

satisfy seems to be that the claim at hand would need to be believed by the agent, in that

the person is not just saying a random order of words that happen to come to her mind,

that may be interpreted by someone else that the agent is aware of what he is conveying.

The agent needs to have an internal state of mind that what she is saying is true. One

would seem to have to deny the person who is merely making things up, and is doing so

knowingly, any form of knowledge claim.

The second condition, and seemingly a bit more complicated than the belief

condition, is the necessity of the claim to actually be true in reality. This is not to say that

there necessarily a nominal world that our capacities somehow come to only gain

representations of, but instead that our capacities can allow us to see the world as it is.

Thus, the case, for epistemic knowledge, is that the claim needs to be true in reality, that

is, it cannot be an illusion, nor can its truth value lay in a consensus of its validity; the

claim of S is p is either existent or it is not.

The third condition, and possibly the condition that will give away least to

Hegelian thought, is the condition of justification. There are various ways in which a

claim is to be said to be justified, but in epistemic knowledge, claims are able to be

justified if they have strong evidence pointing to the case as such. The person would need

to use this strong evidence in defense of her claim that S isp, and do so such that the

evidence does not point to something contradictory, since that is what it means to have

strong evidence for the claim. Thus satisfying these three conditions- of having the claim


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be a belief, having what is claimed to be true, and that the person has come to this true

belief with a reason, that is, with justification- will allow the person to fully claim that

they have epistemic knowledge.1

On the other hand, Hegel does not seem to agree that this could satisfy answering

our purposed question. The reason could be found in his reason for attempting to pinpoint

the uncovering of absolute knowledge in his work. Hegel, according to Pinkard, gives an

account of what an account of account is supposed to do, which is to prevent the

breakdown of the community into a community of dissembling hypocrites.2 The way

Hegel intends to do this is by showing that the account he offers does two things: (1)

show how a community can take some practices, methods, conditions, etc. as

authoritative and (2) how these practices can count as authoritative, even to those who do

not recognize it as such, say, because they are alienated. Both of these are needed to be

satisfied while still showing that the account fits into the way things are because not

doing so will rely on the mediation of an outside object. The reason the mediation

through or by an outside object is faulty is because such mediation would not be the

organic. In other words, because the knowledge attained would be determinate by an

other, then it can only be finite, as determined by that object.3

What we have then is what seems to be two constraints on what can count as

knowledge, by (1) we have that there is a process by the community, cognizant or not, in

which different practices are seen as authoritative, and by (2), we have that there must be

a reason why these authoritative practices are authoritative. What do these two

1 I intentionally leave out problems associated with Gettier problems since I believe such problems are not

pertinent to finding out what is knowledge? in this exploration, however, may be pertinent in a discussion

of whether or not Gettier issues are instances of knowledge.

2 Pinkard 261

3 Pinkard 262-263


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constraints on knowledge mean is that epistemic knowledge should be reassessed to see

how it is modified by them, and if it is modified, then what does that mean for its value as

a standard of knowledge?

Well we can see that (1) entails when one claims to have knowledge, that it must

be recognized by the participating community as such, so that knowledge is not just a

private state. What could have been the case otherwise is that the person who claims that

knowledge is a sort of mental state could claim that anything that they believed, and

believed that their evidence was strongly suggestive toward, was in fact knowledge. Of

course, this could be seen as fallible by an example of a person who is either on

hallucinogenic drugs or a person who gives strictly personal accounts that UFOs exist. If

a person on LSD claims that they perceive a purple elephant in the room, and that the

elephant is simply there, then this does not mean that there is in fact an elephant in the

room.4 Alternatively, if a person wakes up with a cut on his head, had an immensely lucid

dream (which he later came to believe was real) that aliens visited him and cut his head

for an experiment, then this still does not constitute knowledge, even if indeed aliens did

come into his home and cut his head.

The reason this is the case is because the community comes to take certain

practices as authoritative, and as such, it itself determines what could be taken as truth, in

their eyes. In the two previous examples, because the person was indeed on LSD and the

other was dreaming, or at least initially believed so, the community simply would not

take their claims seriously. Claims from the processes of hallucinating and dreaming just

are not the type of claims that carry authority. The community may be cognizant of these

processes of what it comes to take as authoritative, as what would seem to be the case

4 However, this does not mean that there was not an elephant in the room.


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with the denial of such with dreaming and hallucinating, but other authoritative sources

may come into the community a little more stealthily. These subtle, though present,

sources may in part hold the key into the next step in this investigation, in that it seems as

though these sources are the ones that can cause much conflict in knowledge claims.

Television used to carry some authority in the information gained from it, and the

claims made from that information. Such a case can be seen with the widespread anti-war

effort brought by the televised reports of the Vietnam War. The programs brought the

horror of war into homes across America which eventually helped fuel protests and

activism against the war. However, in recent years, there seems to have been a withdraw

from believing everything you see on television, and possibly to the extent of dont

believe anything you see. This could have been spurred on by highly trusted news

stations simply publishing lies, for example, Dan Rather publishing unverified documents

on former President G. W. Bush. However, there are still millions of people who believe

that television is an authority on claims, and as such, should be used as a standard. What

all this means is that there are practices that the community can take as authoritative, and

this ought be to part of the standard for knowledge, since if the community does not

recognize your claim as such, then you have no value in your claim.

Thus, there is an idea that the community bestows upon you a sort ofcredit, or

utility for getting things right, that is, wissenin their eyes.5However, it seems that

knowledge itself, or the very idea of knowledge, is not something that is dynamic as this

view supposes it is. What this view suggests is that when a person can reliably use their

capacities to do a certain action, say, of a professional baseball all-star hitting a game-

5 I presume that one would have to get it right in their eyes in conformity with the authoritative methods of

the time. For example, in todays biology, one would have to be able to not only reproduce it, but have a

method laid out so that others could reproduce it as such.


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winning home run, that he can gain creditfor doing so. Since the community would

recognize that him having the skills of a professional all-star allowed him to hit a 90mph

fastball to win a championship game. However, it also entails that the community could

deny creditto a benchwarmer rookie who just happened to be called up to bat because the

manager wanted him to make a sacrifice bunt, however took the opportunity as a chance

to show what he had. The rival team, sports casters, possibly even fans and team

members of the benchwarmer rookie, would probably deny giving creditto the young

player, even if he had hit the same 90mph fastball out of the park as the all-star would

have done. This seems counterintuitive to what knowledge is supposed be, as a certain

state that is not so easily dynamic.6 It is as Socrates points out in Meno, that true opinion

may run away and escape if one forgets to tie it down, but it stays put if properly tethered

(96e-100d). I believe that Hegel offers such an account for this type of knowledge, in his

idea ofconcept (Begriff/Begreifen).7

What it means to conceptualize (Begreifen) is to comprehend, both in the

sense of include, comprise and in that of understand, conceive and implies an effort

to grasp or to encompass. 8 What this means is that for one to have the concept of

something, one cannot simply have a representation of that thing. To have a mere

6 By easily dynamic I mean as in the case with the two baseball players hitting the baseball with one

possibly being denied credit. This is similar to a real life example of Russell Bucky Dent who played for

the Yankees in the 1978 AL East Divisional Playoffs. Dent, who was not known for his power swings with

40 home runs in 12 seasons, while other power hitters have 40 home runs in a season, hit a homerun in the

leading to a Divisional Championship and a spot in the World Series. It is well known among Red Sox fans

that Bucky Dent does not deserve credit for his home run. Not-easily dynamic, I think, should beacceptable with knowledge claims, as those types of entire shifts of knowledge sometimes occur, as when

the Americas were first discovered, those who claimed to know the breadth whole world were suddenlywrong.

7 I take that bothBegriffandBegreifen are referring to the same conceptonly differing in verb form and

noun form, respectively. From Hegels Dictionary, Michael Inwood. Accessed via

https://blackboard.haverford.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?

tab_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_69361_1%26url

%3d

8 ibid. CONCEPT
https://blackboard.haverford.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_69361_1%26url%3Dhttps://blackboard.haverford.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_69361_1%26url%3Dhttps://blackboard.haverford.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_69361_1%26url%3Dhttps://blackboard.haverford.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_69361_1%26url%3Dhttps://blackboard.haverford.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_69361_1%26url%3Dhttps://blackboard.haverford.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_69361_1%26url%3D


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representation of a thing is to know it but not grasp it. Conceptshould not be confused

with the knowledge attained from the experiential world, that is, the empirical world

through sense data as Kant seems to claim (Vorstellung).9 In other words, to have a

concept of something is to not merely to have the type of knowledge one can attain from

second hand sources, say, a book, but to actually live it, and have it absorbed into your

mindset and way you think. For example, an African-American man can read all the

literature on slavery, visit museums that have exhibits on it, and even trace his own

lineage to his ancestors that may have been slaves, however, he will not have the

embodiment, the soul-encompassing feature, of the concept ofAfrican slavery in

America. He can however gain of sense of the sorts of prejudice that may have been

present in the years of the civil rights struggle, if he were to go and live in a prejudiced

city and experience the prejudice himself.

A conceptis something you incorporate into yourself, as an organism. Hegel

differentiates two concepts, the life and the organism. The life of an individual seems to

be similar to the common notion we have of life, something that needs to collect and use

energy to continue existing. It exists as an individual, however, at the same time, when it

meets a member of the of the opposite sex of the same genus, becomes a member of the

genus,for itself10. What this means is that the individual, though has been seeing herself

as a me, now sees itself as a human me. This is the generic process, and when the

organism reaches this point, it itself, as an individual, dies in the processless habit of

life. 11 The organism, on the other hand, is the encompassment of the things that make

the thing what it is. An organism does not necessarily need to be living, as the Earth itself

9 ibid. CONCEPT

10 ibid. KNOWLEDGE

11 ibid. KNOWLEDGE


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is an organism, as it has many organic things that make it Earth. As with other organisms,

say a plant, Earth can take inorganic things and make it part of itself,for itself. For

example, Earth can take the o-zone molecules and have them part of its own

homeostasis, rather than just randomly floating atoms. Similarly, a plant can take

otherwise inorganic sulfur molecules and make it part of its structure of an organism.

With this distinction now clear, we can see how a conceptcan be incorporated

into an individual, as part of his structure as an organism. It seems then that much like

how sulfur atoms could help become part of the root system of a plant, that if a conceptis

united with an individual, that it would become part of him permanently. This means two

things, first, that the person who has gained the concept cannot forget the concept, since

it is not the kind of thing to be forgotten, or remembered for that matter, and second, that

this conceptis also not something that passes onto thespiritof the community. It seems

that the latter is true for the same reason that the conceptcould not be fully realized by

merely reading books, in that it is something that you must come to know (Erkennen).

The former seems true because it is the nature of gaining something in the form of

absorbing it into an organisms structure; concepts are not like a series of numbers which

one is supposed to memorize, as concepts are not something that you learn.

Thus, are concepts the entities that ought to be thought of when one is thinking of

non-dynamic knowledge? Well it seems as though one problem that still persists is the

issue ofcreditattribution. The problem seems to lay in that, like claiming that that a

person has a state of mind of knowing S isp, she must show that it is not merely a

private state. When we say that we have a the grasp of a certain concept, it is not clear

that the community, those who determine if a claim satisfies the conditions set forth by


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what they take to be authoritative, can evaluate the claim.

This may seem the case at first glance, however, I believe Hegel can offer a case

in how ones grasp of a conceptcan come to light, even though it may be unfortunate

circumstances if it is not thus recognized. As seen in (1), the community determines if a

case satisfies the grounds that it takes for a claim to be taken as authoritative, however,

taking a look at (2), we can see why these grounds are in fact the ground rules in the

first place. The why question is answered by Hegel by his appeal to the communitys

spirit, in that, the way the community comes to form, shape, and absorb the authoritative

ground rule is through the past struggles of ancestors that may be living, though have

contributed to the community as an organism. In doing so, the underlying grounds for the

ground rules become part of the structure of the community, not something that can be

simply forgotten or taken away without restructure. What this means is that if a person

can come to a grasp a concept, I believe then that the community can come to recognize

that she has attained a grasp of it, iff the community itselfhas a grasp of the concept in

question.

If the community did not have a grasp of what the conceptis, then I believe that it

would be impossible for the person to fully claim that they grasp the concept. Take the

example of a philosopher who is well acquainted with Hegels idea of the alienated

modern individual, who is then suddenly taken back in time, to preach to the Greek

community. I would assume, and I think Hegel would agree, that no Greek would

understand what the philosopher is talking about. Indeed the Greeks would not say that

the philosopher has a grasp of any concept, because it is a conceptthat does not exist.

That may be their answer, but what is really the case is that the philosophers evidence of


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her claim of the grasp of the conceptsimply does not match up to their authoritative

structure. On the other hand, take a different example, say, of the modern day

meritization of academics. Though grades are some reflection on if the student was able

to do the work or not of the given course, what grades are, at least what they seem to be

at the collegiate level, are reflections of the students ability to grasp the concepts of the

course. Of course a student could argue all they want that they have indeed grasped all of

the required concepts and deserves the highest honors, however, if the student is unable

to satisfy what the community takes to be the authoritative standards, in this case

producing well thought out pieces of work, then he cannot make the claim, and is thus not

seen as correct in his claim.

What we have then is an account of how conceptcan escape the trouble of being

merely a private state. If the community can confer onto you the creditfor having the

concept, then you can say that what you have is as such. What is important here to note is

that if person is simply ahead of her time, then all that can be said is that it is

unfortunate that she cannot receive credit for her true wissen, however, hopefully her

work can go on into thespiritof the community in the form of a book or some other idea-

preserving form, which can eventually make its way into the structure of the community

as an organism.12

What does this claim mean for justified true belief? Well it seems as though that

justified true belief can survive in Hegels framework, if one takes there to be two forms

of knowledge, one that can be dynamical to the age, and an other that is seemingly

12 Though this seems to contradict what I claimed earlier, that second, that this conceptis also not

something that passes onto thespiritof the community, there is a difference. What I mean is that when a

person dies, if indeed they have grasped a concept, then it does not necessarily move on into the spirit of

the community. However, if the person creates something else that does move on into the spirit of the

community, a book that will be read again one day, and not jus rot in a library, then their realization of the

conceptmay in fact be preserved in the spirit.


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always there be realized. This seems to be the main difference between justified true

belief and concept, which is important because it may give us insight into what kinds of

worries we should have when thinking about knowledge.

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