A Very Heterodox Reading of

Markus Gabriel
A Very Heterodox Reading of

the Lord-Servant-Allegory in Hegel’s
Phenomenology of Spirit
Given the complexity of the argument to follow, which should stand or fall in its
own right, I will refrain from extended commentary on other possible or actual
overall readings of the influential chapter of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit that
I will focus on in this paper. My paper is neither a survey of the recent literature
on the topic, nor do I intend to place it in the context of recent trends in Hegel
scholarship. However, before we get started with the actual work, let me just
briefly note that the recent engagement with Hegel by John McDowell, Robert
Brandom, and Robert Pippin in America and Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer and
Anton Friedrich Koch in Germany has led to very significant breakthroughs in
our understanding of the philosophical stakes of Hegel’s arguments.¹ Some of
their pioneering work pertains to the arguments presented in my paper. The com-
mon denominator of this breakthrough is that this recent work is able to recon-
struct Hegel’s arguments in a manner which departs from Hegel’s own form of
presentation, as this is often almost indecipherable by our contemporary stand-
ards. Yet, there are at least two presuppositions widespread in these readings as
far as the Phenomenology of Spirit is concerned I do not share, one methodolog-
ical and the other more substantial.
The methodological assumption I reject is that Hegel presents his views in
the Phenomenology, such as his views about sense-certainty, perception, and
self-consciousness. In this book we do not find any of Hegel’s views on these
topics. Rather, he is discussing various attempts to give an account of truth-
apt reference to objective states of affairs which all fail for interesting and sys-
tematically connected reasons. In presenting and discussing the structure of
these failures Hegel at most presents his view about the nature of failures in phi-
 Cf. (McDowell 2009); (Brandom 1999); (Brandom 2007); (Brandom 2008); (Pippin 1989); (Pip-
pin 2007); (Pippin 2011); (Stekeler-Weithofer 1992); (Stekeler-Weithofer 2005); (Koch 2006); (Koch
2008); (Koch 2011). In his interesting book on Self-Consciousness (Rödl 2007), Sebastian Rödl
proposes a theory of self-consciousness that bears important relations to Kant and Hegel,
even though he does not present his account in explicit discussion with theirs. As will become
clear in due course, Rödl’s account is closer to what is going in the Science of Logics where
Hegel, or rather his interlocutor, is trying to repair the weaknesses of the Phenomenology-discus-
sion of the topic.
DOI 10.1515/9783110498615-004
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96 Markus Gabriel
losophy. Specifically, in the Phenomenology he argues that there is rational theo-

ry change in philosophy and not just an arbitrary or contingent exchange of
opinions.² He supports this view about the nature of philosophy by showing
how one failure needs to another failure which resolves some shortcomings of
an earlier failure while at the same time generating new problems. The Phenom-
enology is, thus, a systematically constructed series of failed conceptions of
truth-apt reference to objective states of fairs. No position within the Phenomen-
ology, none of the famous shapes of consciousness, represents Hegel’s theory of
said reference. This is one of the sense in which the Phenomenology is an intro-
duction to the standpoint of philosophy as science, that is, as a positive develop-
ment of philosophical concepts. In my reading, I emphasize the feature of the
project according to which we are dealing with a “presentation of appearing
knowledge (Darstellung des erscheinenden Wissens)” rather than with Hegel’s
own philosophical knowledge-claims about the nature of conscious intentional-
ity.
The substantial assumption of recent reconstructions that I do not share is
that Hegel’s project is the continuation of Kantian transcendental semantics
and not (primarily) an engagement with metaphysics and ontology.³ Hegel fre-
quently expresses a variety of criticisms of Kant, particularly against his distinc-
tion between appearances and things in themselves, and he himself insists that
there is no coherent way of thinking about conscious intentionality without ad-
mitting that we can unproblematically grasp things in themselves.⁴ But I will set
these historical details aside in order to present a somewhat detailed and very
heterodox reading of a highly influential chapter of the Phenomenology, “Lord-
ship and Servitude (Herrschaft und Knechtschaft)”.⁵
 Thanks to Robert Pippin for insisting on this point in discussion.

 To be more precise, Robert Pippin who is often credite with a Kantian reading of Hegel does
not exactly hold this view, as he believes that Hegel is Post-Kantian to the extent that he rejects
the modern (Leibniz-Wolffian) dogmatic rationalist metaphysics attacked by Kant, but not meta-
physics as such. This does not rule out an appreciation of earlier enterprises in metaphysics and
ontology. On this see also (Gabriel 2007) and (Gabriel 2009). On Hegel’s critique of Kant in light
of the reading proposed in this paper see my (Gabriel forthcoming).
 This is, I take it, where McDowell’s project of finding “intentionality unproblematic” is really
continuous with Hegel. Hegel does not give up the idea of an independent reality to be referred
to or thought about, but rather wants to think of that reality as precisely compatible with the fact
of its availability to concept-mongering activities. Cf. (McDowell 2009, p. 3).
 For the sake of simplicity I will translate “Herrschaft” by “lordship” and “Knechtschaft” by
“servitude” and, correspondingly, “Herr” by “lord” and “Knecht” by “servant.” I hope that no
particular bias of interpretation will be associated with this decision. The argument presented

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A Very Heterodox Reading of the Lord-Servant-Allegory 97
The degree of heterodoxy of my paper can be determined by measuring the

extent both to which the reading it suggests radically departs from the tradition
and to which it manages to deflate Hegel’s metaphors. By a “deflation” of meta-
phors, I mean the clear identification of the concepts Hegel refers to with the
help of his metaphors. His metaphors are part of larger allegories he sets up
in order to illustrate how “natural consciousness”, that is, everybody who is
aware of their awareness of something, is blinded by its homegrown picture-
like representations, what Hegel calls “Vorstellung”.⁶ Deflationary readings of
Hegel thus generally tend to be heterodox in the sense that they identify the
non-metaphorical concept behind apparently metaphorical terms, such as
“life,” “desire,” “master,” “death,” “satisfaction,” “recognition,” etc. A very het-
erodox reading such as the one sketched in this paper is, accordingly, very het-
erodox in the sense that it is maximally deflationary. In short, I believe that every
single one of the expressions most cherished by the most influential traditions of
commentary on the often so-called “master-slave-dialectic” is a metaphor for a
concept, and that consequently certainly all orthodox readings are misled by
metaphors.⁷ To put it as bluntly as I can: all theories of life, desire, or social rec-
ognition that take themselves to be grounded in Hegel’s views are only grounded
in Hegel’s metaphors. Interestingly, Hegel does not even use the word “Anerken-
nung” “recognition” a single time in the self-consciousness chapter of the Phe-
in the chapter should not hinge on a prior understanding of these terms, precisely because Hegel
gives these terms a clearer meaning in his discussion of the underlying concepts.
 For a discussion of the strengths and potential weaknesses of “allegorical interpretations” of
Hegel in general see (Pippin 2011, pp. 14– 15), n. 12. Hegel himself characterizes an allegory as
“ein Ganzes, das durch äußre Attribute dargestellt wird” (Hegel 2008, p. XXX). On the concept of
“Vorstellung” in the context of the philosophy of subjective spirit and the metatheoretical rele-
vance of it see (Gabriel 2015). (Rometsch 2017) rightly points out that any reading on the tradi-
tional spectrum, from the “orthodox” social reading to McDowellian heterodoxy will rely on
some allegorical claims, as any such reading will have to give a philosophical, conceptual mean-
ing to Hegel’s metaphors spread out over the texts.
 Of course, some prominent vocabulary of the chapter, in particular, “self-consciousness” are
taken at face value. One of my reasons for this is that they belong to the meta-vocabulary which
is driving the development of the account from the standpoint of absolute knowing, that is, the
standpoint of theory-construction which is precisely not taken in by the metaphors typically as-
sociated with the accounts of conscious intentionality discussed in the form of shapes of con-
sciousness. Notice that the criterion of heterodoxy is defined in light of the orthodoxy, where
the orthodoxy is represented by the social readings of the chapter. For an early criticism of
the social readings as such see (Kelly 1966). Thanks to Michael Forster for making me aware
of Kelly’s work. For a nuanced discussion of various possible aspects which have be discerned
in the lordship-bondage chapter see (Forster 1998, pp. 247– 255).

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98 Markus Gabriel
nomenology, but there only speaks of recognizing, Anerkennen, which is an es-

sential ingredient in his diagnosis of the failure of self-consciousness.
Before the games begin, I will first (1.) explain what I take to be the actual
stakes of the argument of the Phenomenology. Hegel explicitly determines a goal
and sets up rules that determine achievement conditions. If he either does not
act according to the rules or does not reach the goal by legitimate steps, the argu-
ment fails. In other words, I will first broadly sketch what the “method” is. I will
then (2.) reconstruct the introduction to Chapter IV of the book, which bears the
title “the truth of self-certainty.” In part 3. I will then reconstruct the argument of
IV.A., the famous chapter on “Dependence and Independence of Self-Conscious-
ness; Lordship and Servitude.”
1 The Rules of the Game
First and foremost, we need to settle the meaning of “consciousness.” Given

what Hegel says in the Introduction, the meaning of “consciousness” can be pin-
ned down as intentionality in the minimal sense of a state which is about some-
thing. “Consciousness” in Hegel simply means aboutness. “Knowledge,” another
term Hegel frequently uses in the Introduction, and famously claims to be a re-
sult of the Phenomenology (in “Absolute Knowledge”), presupposes intentional-
ity. One cannot know what one cannot refer to at all. Knowledge is knowledge of
something; it involves objects or facts that are not necessarily a relatum in the
relation of aboutness. Trivially, some things we can know are not identical
with being known – the state of knowing is at least not in all instances identical
with what it is about, with the possible exception of the state of knowing what
knowledge is. Any theory of intentionality has to account for the fact that inten-
tionality can be a part of knowledge. This provides us with two constraints that
are very important for the development of the book: objectivity and fallibility.
The objectivity of intentionality consists in the fact that it can be about ob-
jects that would have been the way they turn out to be when referred to, had
no one ever referred to them. Ways objects would have been had no one referred
to them I call “maximally modally robust facts.”⁸ Maximally modally robust facts
are very objective, as it were, but of course objectivity is not defined by the fact
that intentionality is about this or that particular kind of object. The objectivity of
 That there are such facts should be counted among the realist platitudes one has to accept
when spelling out what it is to refer to a reality we do not produce by referring to it. For a
more detailed discussion of this see (Gabriel 2008). For further discussion of the book in the
light of the topics of this paper see (Koch 2012).

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intentionality is a feature of intentionality and not of its objects. We will see in a

moment why this is so.
The second constraint, fallibility, becomes important once we realize that in-
tentionality is entangled with knowledge and that it can go wrong. There can be
reference failures, and if there is a reference failure, any knowledge claim built
on the instance of intentionality in question will be a false knowledge claim and
not amount to knowledge. A knowledge claim can fail by being based on a ref-
erence failure. Here is a simple example: A famous clown approaches. We see
something red on his face and believe that he is wearing his red clown nose
and hence claim to know that a clown nose is approaching our position in
space-time right now. However, it turns out that the clown is not wearing his
nose today, but rather happens to be carrying a red ball in front of his nose
for some reason.
We can think about all sorts of objects, some of which are involved in max-
imally modally robust facts, such as the formation of our planet.⁹ Some other ob-
jects are not as robust. Some social objects, such as certain social roles are evi-
dently constructed insofar as they would not exist had no one been around to
have beliefs about them.¹⁰ Trivially, higher-order beliefs involve some facts
with a null degree of robustness, such as the fact that I have a belief about a be-
lief. This will be crucial for self-consciousness.
To sum up, the basic entity under scrutiny is consciousness. And conscious-
ness is a relation between something and what it is about, where the aboutness
is the relation. Most saliently, intentionality is realized as an aspect of knowl-
edge, that is, when we know something about something. In this scenario,
there are two very general constraints on intentionality: It has to be objective
and fallible.
The third and last constraint, topic-neutrality, derives from Hegel’s post-Kant-
ian concern to unify reason; it can be boiled down to the following chain of rea-
soning. It might seem that acts of referring to good food, to the Big Bang, to uni-
versities, to cats, and to the moon are structurally different in that referring to
these different kinds of objects requires different kinds of activities. In this
case, it might seem that there could not be a unified account of intentionality
 Here I using “object” in the wide or formal sense of anything we can have a truth-apt thought
about. This includes events such as the Big Bang or the formation of our planet. Arguably, Hegel
himself operates at a similar level of generality in the self-consciousness chapter, as he is dis-
cussing accounts of intentionality that try to break free of the model of perception as reference to
particular, stable objects in a given scene.
 On the “ontological subjectivity” of social facts in contraposition to their “epistemological
objectivity” see, of course, (Searle 2007) and (Searle 2011).

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100 Markus Gabriel
or an overall theory of intentionality. However, all entities in my fairly random

list can be referred to and known about, and it is not evident why the difference
in content should entail a difference in form. The post-Kantians Fichte, Schel-
ling, and Hegel agree that we need a unified treatment of intentionality in
order to avoid splitting reason or rationality itself into an indefinite number of
capacities or faculties. A theory of intentionality should consequently be able
to account for intentionality’s topic-neutrality, that is, for the fact that we can
refer to all sorts of objects and know about them by referring to them in which-
ever way is useful to accomplish the ends of intentionality, most particularly
knowledge.
The Phenomenology is a succession of theories of intentionality. The criterion
for accepting or rejecting a theory is defined by the three constraints: Objectivity,
fallibility, and topic-neutrality. The starting point of the whole book, Sense-Cer-
tainty, for instance, accounts for its topic-neutrality by ontologically committing
only to individuals. Everything we can refer to and thereby acquire knowledge
about is an individual. Let us call this “rampant nominalism”. These individuals
exist anyway, they are maximally modally robust, and this is why we can be right
or wrong about them. The theory breaks down for many reasons, the simplest
being that it does not withstand self-application: Given that it claims that
there is intentionality and given that it claims that everything there is is an indi-
vidual, there is an individual that consists of an instance of reference, an in-
stance of being referred to, and the instance of these two being relata of the re-
lation of aboutness. Sense-Certainty is not capable of distinguishing these three
individuals from any other three individuals: it is forced to think of relations as
just more individuals, which triggers famous regresses reminiscent of Aristotle’s
third man argument and Bradleyian, British Idealism regresses.¹¹ The claim that
everything we can refer to is an individual entails under self-application that any
instance of reference is both itself an individual and can only consist of individ-
uals if it has a structure at all. For this and many other pertinent reasons, Sense-
Certainty fails. The goal of the Phenomenology is thus well defined: We are look-
ing for a theory of intentionality, which accounts for its objectivity, fallibility, and
topic-neutrality.¹²
 Cf. (Horstmann 1984).

 We cannot rule out in advance or ad hoc that this theory can be about itself. We are simply
capable of developing a theory of aboutness, of having thoughts about aboutness, and of claim-
ing knowledge about aboutness. As long as one accepts the three constraints, it is not necessary
to argue that self-reference is essentially different from reference full stop, as this violates the
constraint of topic-neutrality.

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2 The Truth of Self-Certainty: Introduction
The chapter on self-consciousness deals with self-reference in the form of higher-

order intentionality. The first part of Chapter IV. serves as an introduction of the
concept of self-consciousness and culminates in a discussion of higher-order in-
tentionality in the last two paragraphs (¶¶11– 12). I will not be able to account
for the origin of self-consciousness, which is the theme of the preceding chapter.
This would take me more than one additional paper. All we need is the thin no-
tion of consciousness according to which some subject S can think about some
object or other. Let us take a look at diagram (D1), which is the minimal diagram
of consciousness:
(D1) S → O
The relation described by (D1) is asymmetrical in that the topic-neutral, fallible,

and objective most universal form of intentionality has to allow for many instan-
ces in which what is referred to does not itself refer to anything, whereas the sub-
ject S, that which is about something, is introduced as a referrer.
Hegel calls the functional position of the O the “In-Itself” in order to empha-
size the objectivity constraint, given that we must not rule out in advance that
some Os are maximally modally robust. There can be different instances of
this form: I think about the rain, you think about the number 4.
The first diagram of self-consciousness, the starting point of Chapter IV., is
diagram (D2):
(D2) S → (S → O)
Initially, the idea of self-consciousness is to identify the syntactic object “O”, that
is, something in the object position, with non-intentional objects, that is, objects
that are not themselves thought of in terms of intentionality. A non-intentional
object is an object not endued with intentionality. Avoiding complication with
traces, texts, or other kinds of symbols, let us add that as far as the self-con-
sciousness chapter is concerned, intentionality is restricted to conscious inten-
tionality. This, of course, immediately raises the question how the bracketed
term can be in the object position of the second-level consciousness. How can
consciousness of a non-intentional object be a (syntactic) object of self-con-
sciousness without being a non-intentional object?
The other main problem at this stage is created by topic-neutrality. Accord-
ing to this requirement, the syntactic object O could also be an instance of con-
sciousness. The only constraint for the embedded O is that S is some subject and
O some object. In this case, we can have instances of the form: S thinks about
himself thinking about the cat. One can also not rule out the following instance:

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102 Markus Gabriel
S thinks about himself thinking about himself. This is what Hegel means when
he says, “that being-in-itself and being-for-an-other are here the same” (Pinkard
¶¶166¹³).].¹⁴ The embedded In-Itself is itself a (D1) and a (D1) is an asymmetrical
relation, a “für ein anderes Sein,” as Hegel puts it.
Now the most important point at this stage, which Hegel makes explicit in
¶¶2, is that the following instance of (D2), (D2*) (where S is always she herself,
the same subject, S1):
(D2*)S1 → (S1 → S1)
is motivated only by the fact that it cannot be ruled out by the overall form of
self-consciousness. However, there are other instances of self-consciousness in
the formal sense such as when S thinks about herself thinking about the house:
(D2**)S1 → (S1 → O1)
or notably also when S1 thinks about S2 thinking about the house:¹⁵
(D2***)S1 → (S1 → O1)
When Hegel says that for self-consciousness, “The distinction as an otherness is

in its eyes immediately sublated” (¶¶167)¹⁶ (¶¶2), this just means that self-con-
sciousness with three S1s, that is, (D2*), is only any old unmotivated instance of
(D2). It is unmotivated insofar as there is no reason to privilege it over (D2**).
Both are, however, motivated as instances of (D2), nothing more and nothing
less. This entails that one cannot motivate (D2*) as an instance of (D2) without
motivating (D2**) as an equally valid instance. This is why “Ich bin Ich” (I am
I) does not suffice, a fact Hegel sums up in the following sentences:
Since in its eyes the distinction does not also have the shape of being, it is not self-con-
sciousness. Otherness thereby exists for it as a being, that is, as a distinguished moment,
 All English Hegel references are from the forthcoming Pinkard translation, which, in addi-
tion to being the most recent translation, dispenses with many errors found in the long-standing
Miller translation.
 “…daß das Ansichsein und das für ein anderes Sein dasselbe ist” (GW 9:120).
 Notice that the structure of self-consciousness rules out that one takes the relation itself as
an object. To take the relation as an object is to take it as an object either as an instance: aRb or
as a logical form: xRy, but never just as R. The reason for this harks back to the failure of sense-
certainty referred to above. At this stage of the argument we already know that relations are not
individuals, whatever else there may be, which is not yet settled. Due to the asymmetry of the
relation it is also ruled out that the object refers to anything. If there is an object in the structure,
it serves as a regress blocker.
 “Der Unterschied” is “unmittelbar als ein Anderssein aufgehoben” (GW 9:104).

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but, for it, it is also the unity of itself with this distinction as a second distinguished mo-
ment. With that first moment, self-consciousness exists as consciousness, and the whole
breadth of the sensuous world is preserved for it, but at the same time only as related to
the second moment, the unity of self-consciousness with itself (¶¶167).¹⁷
(D2*) happens to be an instance of self-consciousness as much as (D2**). Antici-

pating a bit, we can already call (D2*) “the lord” and (D2**) “the servant.” The
question then becomes how we can have a unified account of self-consciousness
that explains how we can be both self-conscious of being conscious of any other
object and self-conscious of being self-conscious. Now Hegel writes that the dif-
ference between the lord and the servant is (¶¶3), “The difference between its
appearance and its truth” (¶¶167).¹⁸
Yet, both positions need to be reconciled in our overall theory of intention-
ality, as they both are instances of self-consciousness. As John Campbell writes
in a similar context, general awareness or self-consciousness here needs to be
reconciled with the fact that “there is no such thing as a particular type of aware-
ness without the object being there to differentiate that exercise of awareness
from any other.”¹⁹ The need to reconcile self-consciousness in general and its
many particular instances in our overall theory is what Hegel calls “Begierde
überhaupt” (desire in general/as such) (¶¶2). “Desire” does not refer to what
we now would ordinarily call desire; it refers to the rationally motivated desire
of the theorist of self-consciousness to present a unified account of the phenom-
enon under investigation. We need to keep in mind all the time that “self-con-
sciousness” is the name for a theory of intentionality, and in particular, for a
theory of intentionality explicitly accounting for the fact that we can refer either
to objects that are not themselves intentional agents (such as mountains) or to
objects that exhibit intentionality as an essential feature (like ourselves). There-
fore, we can refer both to referring to non-intentional objects and to referring to
intentional objects, as this is exactly what the theory of intentionality is doing.
In the next paragraph, ¶¶3, Hegel introduces the concept of “life” and adds
it to the vocabulary. Arguably, “life” here refers to reduplication, which plays an
important role later. The unity of self-consciousness, the general formula of (D2),
subsumes independent instances of itself. These instances are independent inso-
 “…indem ihm der Unterschied nicht auch die Gestalt des Seins hat, ist es nicht Selbstbe-
wußtsein. Es ist hiemit für es das Anderssein, als ein Sein, oder als unterschiedenes Moment.
Mit jenem ersten Momente ist das Selbstbewußtsein als Bewußtsein, und für es die ganze Aus-
breitung der sinnlichen Welt erhalten; aber zugleich nur als auf das zweite Moment, die Einheit
des Selbstbewußtseins mit sich selbst, bezogen” (GW 9:104).
 “[der] Gegensatz seiner Erscheinung und seiner Wahrheit” (GW 9:104).
 Cf. Campbell 2008, p. 654.

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104 Markus Gabriel
far as we have not derived any rule to differentiate them a priori by inspecting
the formula itself. The point is that the fact that the servant can take any object
whatsoever and refer to it, introduces an element of contingency. The objects we
happen to be able to refer to cannot be known by inspecting the fact that we can
in principle refer to them. Yet, whenever we successfully refer to an object we
happen to encounter, an O, we repeat the same procedure. Hegel frames this
point in ¶¶4– 5 by saying that the unity of self-consciousness is infinite in the
sense of not ruling out any object as an instance of an object to be referred to.
There is no a priori limit to intentionality. Everything can be referred to. Yet,
what happens to be referred to is often independent of this fact. Some objects
might as well not have been referred to, which can easily be shown if we take
into consideration the fact that if we happen to know something, this is mostly
contingent: It was not necessary that we knew it and we might have not known
it. Given that any instance of consciousness is itself an object we can refer to,
consciousness itself remains independent of self-consciousness, even though
this independence is embedded in our awareness of it. We are aware that we
might not have been aware of being aware of object O. Being aware of O
might entail that we can accompany it with an “I think”, as Kant had it, but it
does not entail that there actually is an “I think” attached to any thought, as
this amounts to an actual infinity of higher-order thoughts.
In the following two paragraphs (¶¶6 – 7), Hegel argues that all of this gives
us a more complicated theory structure, which he then works with in the lord-
servant episode. This structure can be represented in a diagram, which has
“two moments” as he calls it and can be drawn like this:
S→ S
(D3) S1
S→O
In words: We (the theorists of intentionality) are aware that we can either be

aware of being aware or be aware of something else. Hegel names the disjunc-
tion “Gliederung” (a division into groupings) and the fact that an O is generated
by the diagram “Gestaltung” (a taking shape).
However, nothing rules out that we are aware of being aware of the disjunc-
tion. In this case the upper branch of the diagram generates a fractal or self-rep-
lication. Let me just draw one further branch in order to keep things as simple as
possible for the moment: (D3*).

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(D3*) S O
The opening of this tree is what Hegel calls “Auseinanderlegen”, or elaboration,

and he coins it as “Leben als Prozeß”, life as a process. Hegel here plays with the
fact that a pro-cessus literally means a coming forth from something and that it
designates a movement.²⁰ The fact that we triggered an infinite progress or proc-
ess is what Hegel calls “das Leben als Lebendiges,” life as living things. The proc-
ess moves through different stages and each instance is an instance of it, a “Leb-
endiges”, a living thing. Immediately after introducing the distinction between
life as process and life as a living individual Hegel writes:
This estrangement of the undifferentiated fluidity is the very positing of individuality. The
simple substance of life is thus the estrangement of itself into shapes and is at the same
time the dissolution of these durably existing distinctions. The dissolution of this estrange-
ment is to the same extent itself an estrangement, that is, a division of itself into groupings
(¶¶171).²¹
The repeated pattern is a “genus”, it is a repetition of the same in various instan-

ces. However, it is only a pattern for the theory of intentionality, which triggers
all its instances by combining the minimal formula of self-consciousness with
its legitimate applications.
¶¶8 – 10 contains a summary of what Hegel calls an “experience”. An “expe-
rience” is the discovery by some theory of intentionality that its minimal formula
has instances that do not meet some of the accepted constraints on a successful
theory of intentionality. The concept of “experience” Hegel introduces in the Phe-
nomenology denotes an insight into theory failure. The theorist of intentionality,
 Just as a historical side-remark, it should be noted that Hegel here is engaging with the Neo-
Platonist theory of conceptual content and its relation to the structure of what they call “life”.
For a fairly comprehensive discussion of Hegel’s sources and his way of integrating them see
(Halfwassen 2004).
 “…dies Entzweien der unterschiedslosen Flüssigkeit ist eben das Setzen der Individualität.
Die einfache Substanz des Lebens also ist die Entzweiung ihrer selbst in Gestalten, und zugleich
die Auflösung dieser bestehenden Unterschiede; und die Auflösung der Entzweiung ist ebenso-
sehr Entzweien oder ein Gliedern” (GW 9:106).

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106 Markus Gabriel
whom Hegel calls “consciousness” insofar as she instantiates her theory, and the
“shape of consciousness” insofar as her whole theoretical edifice is concerned,
is usually depicted as reacting to theory failure with rational theory change. In-
sofar as the theory change is rational, Hegel refers to it as a “determinate nega-
tion”. In particular, pace Brandom’s reconstruction of the terminology, it is im-
portant to emphasize that determinate negation is a name for rational theory
change and precisely not an element in our overall semantics.²² It does not
mean that some expression only has content in contradistinction to some
other expression and it is not even related to anything like the opposition be-
tween semantic atomism and semantic holism.
As I said, in ¶¶8 – 10 Hegel describes the experience of self-consciousness.
He first introduces “das reine Ich” (the pure I) or “das einfache Ich” (the simple
I) which is (D2). Self-consciousness only becomes aware of itself as an instance
of (D2) by abstracting from the particularities of (D2*) to (D2*n). It has to “de-
stroy” (vernichten) “the independent object” (den unabhängigen Gegenstand)
in the sense that it has to recognize any number of (D2*s) as just more instances
of (D2). The instances thereby come to depend on (D2); they are interpreted as its
instances. Once the theorist manages to acknowledge this fact, Hegel speaks of
“satisfaction” (Befriedigung). The famous satisfaction of self-consciousness is
the identification of an instance of self-consciousness as such an instance by
the self-conscious theorist herself. However, the problem triggering the experi-
ence is that all the (D2*s) turn out to be independent instances of (D2) insofar
as there is no overall rule privileging any (D2*) over any other. The (D2*s) are in-
dependent, their order is not antecedently or a priori determined. In particular,
this causes the following problem.
Let us say that self-consciousness is a fairly simple formal system consisting
of axioms from a highly general theory of intentionality and some rules of infer-
ence, or rather substitution rules.
(AX1) Every instance of consciousness is fallible. (Axiom of Fallibility)
(AX2) Every instance of consciousness is objective. (Axiom of Objectivity)
(AX3) The theory is topic-neutral: Every legitimate instance of conscious-
ness, every intentional subject, and every legitimate instance of ob-
jecthood, every object, has to be accounted for by the overall theory.
(Axiom of Topic-Neutrality)
 Cf. (Brandom 2002, p. 49, pp. 55 – 57, p. 180, p. 194, p. 229). For further discussion see (Gabriel
2008, §14– 15, pp. 374– 401).

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(AX4) The theory has to be consistent under self-application. If it takes itself

as an object, this must not amount to paradox or contradiction.
(Axiom of Self-Application)
At the stage of self-consciousness, we have two minimal diagrams:
(D1) S → O (Consciousness)
(D2) S → (S → O) (Self-Consciousness)
We also know that “→” is asymmetrical whenever it has an O on the right-hand

side, for “objects” are defined as often being non-intentional in that they are not
followed by a further arrow. If we have an object that is itself intentional, we
write an S followed by an arrow.
If these are all the rules of the formal system, we cannot rule out that the
system is incoherent.²³ In addition, we have no proof of its completeness. It
might turn out incomplete, incoherent, or even explicitly self-contradictory if
we can derive a theorem contradicting the axioms or if we can derive two mutu-
ally exclusive theorems. In self-consciousness the main problem is that it gener-
ates vicious infinite regresses on the one hand and arbitrary regress blockers on
the other hand. The theorist is therefore confronted with the constant possibility
of being undermined by an instance of (D2). If there is an instance with infinite
complexities, the theorist cannot be satisfied, as she is not able to tell whether
the instance at some point in its life, in its explicitation, turns out to be contra-
dictory or not. Thus, Hegel concludes: “Self-consciousness attains its satisfaction
only in another self-consciousness” (¶¶175).²⁴
In contradiction to orthodox interpretations, Hegel is not speaking here
about the success conditions of recognition, socially mediated self-awareness
in human beings, the structure of the gaze of the other, the desire to make the
other’s desire one’s own desire, or anything of this sort. Rather, he is saying
why self-consciousness as an overall model for a unified theory of intentionality
 Hans Sluga has pointed out to me that it should already be clear at this stage that no theory
of intentionality can be objective, fallible, and topic-neutral according to these constraints. How-
ever, Hegel is more charitable to the attempt to develop a universal theory of intentionality meet-
ing all criteria. Yet, the major result of the Phenomenology is indeed that intentionality is the
wrong paradigm for a relevant topic-neutral theory of all forms of thought, as he believes
that in logical thinking about thought we need a different account of objectivity. The position
of absolute knowing that defines the procedures of the Science of Logic-sequel to the Phenom-
enology will first attempt to give up fallibility. In logical thinking we cannot be fallible in the
same way in which we are fallible with respect to maximally modally robust facts in general.
This causes problems of its own evidently beyond the scope of a single paper.
 “Das Selbstbewußtsein erreicht seine Befriedigung nur in einem anderen Selbstbewußtsein”
(GW 9:108).

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108 Markus Gabriel
fails. It fails for the simple reason that it cannot prove that it is complete and
non-contradictory. It is only capable of accounting for some of its instances, in
particular, for instances with certain self-referential implications. It cannot
cover the whole ground and remains essentially incomplete. This is why Hegel
writes that it can reach its satisfaction only in another self-consciousness. He
presents this as the conclusion of an experience, as the peak of self-conscious-
ness’ failure and not as the celebratory moment of mutual recognition, or even
as the class-free society of some utopian theorists. Self-consciousness as such
winds up in contradiction, its satisfaction is incoherent, which is why there
are many further steps and chapters in the Phenomenology leading to the insight
that not all forms of self-consciousness or rather higher-order intentionality
should be construed as bipolar intentional relations.²⁵ It is not capable of ac-
counting for both the independence of some of its instances and for itself
under self-application.
3 The Lord-Servant-Allegory
This famous-all-too-famous chapter discusses independence and dependence of

self-consciousness. The first is called “Herrschaft” or “lordship” and the second
“Knechtschaft” or “servitude.” Before moving a little faster through the stages of
the argument of the chapter, I would like to give a very close reading of the first
paragraph in order to highlight just how far removed the orthodox readings are
from the text itself. In the first paragraph Hegel distinguishes between “a recog-
nized (ein Anerkanntes)” and “the movement of recognizing (die Bewegung des
Anerkennens)”. He explicitly says that self-consciousness is only a recognized
insofar as it is in and for itself. By this he means that self-consciousness is itself
just another object, a recognized. This point can be conveyed by a wordplay de-
signed to convey the pejorative undertone of the German word “Anerkennung,”
which has the “An-” of “Angewohnheit” or “Anerziehen” as a prefix. It has the
same meaning of the Latin ad- in attraction, which comes from ad- and trahere.
A literal etymological translation of “Anerkennung” would be “Ad-Cognition”
rather than “Re-Cognition.” An alternative word-play would translate “ein Aner-
kanntes” as “a recognize-IT”, an object of the attitude of ad-cognition. The point
 I disagree with Robert Pippin’s rejoinder to my paper in recent discussions to the extent that
I do not believe that Hegel presents his solution to the problems he raises in the Phenomenology.
What it means that Hegel himself prefers a different account of the phenomenon of self-con-
sciousness in a broader sense would be a different topic. In this paper I only focus on a partic-
ular chapter and its discussion.

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is that “ein Anerkanntes” is a placeholder for whatever happens to appear in the

object slot of the self-consciousness function, whatever satisfies the function.
The concept of self-consciousness has instances in which an instance of self-con-
sciousness is the object of an overall self-consciousness, for instance, in the case
of the self-application of the theory itself. Hegel is structuring the chapter with
the help of forks, as it were: Self-consciousness can be both of another object
and of itself. Hegel constantly makes reference to the Neoplatonic theory of con-
ceptual content as a theory of life, something represented by Porphyrean trees,
which are still quite common when representing the relation between genus and
its species. The concept of the genus thus opens a fork onto its species, which
Hegel underlines with a very skillful and obvious alliteration in the second sen-
tence of the first paragraph, which reads in German:
Der Begriff dieser seiner Einheit in seiner Verdopplung, der sich im Selbstbewußtsein real-
isierenden Unendlichkeit, ist eine vielseitige und vieldeutige Verschränkung” (GW 9:109).²⁶
Of course, there is a further twist to the poetry of the text, as the reduplication
graphically underlined by the alliteration also refers to the “w” in the German
word for self-consciousness, which is a reduplication of the v, a double v. We
can now draw a particular (D3) diagram, the diagram of pure recognizing, (D3PR):
S1
S2
(D3PR) S1 (S3 → O)
S3 → (S3 → O1)
The sub-diagrams on the right-hand side are recogniz-ITS, they are merely Aner-
kannte. The overall diagram on the contrary represents “the movement of recog-
nizing”. Recognizing is taking something as an object of self-consciousness. The
difference between cognition and re-cognition is that the latter is mediated by a
further level of awareness. If I recognize something, I am aware of me being
aware of it. Given that there are no restrictions on the identity of the subject,
we can add a further level if S1 is aware of herself being aware of S2 being
aware of O1. These are the instances of self-consciousness focused upon by
 “The concept of its unity in its doubling, of infinity realizing itself in self-consciousness, is
that of a multi-sided and multi-meaning intertwining…” [¶¶178].

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110 Markus Gabriel
the classical readings of the chapter, for this is the structure of the gaze in Sar-
tre’s dating cafe: He is aware of being aware of her awareness of his hand: His
hand moves slightly closer to hers. He is doing this with a high level of self-
awareness pretending not to be aware of it, always watching in which way she
is aware of the approaching hand, etc.²⁷ However, Hegel’s interest here is not
that there are these interesting instances of self-consciousness and what role
they might play for the social life of self-conscious beings such as humans. Rath-
er, he is discussing the structure of a formal system designed to model self-con-
sciousness, and the system is threatened by the fact that it has the (D3*) as a
regress-triggering instance. Hegel calls this instance “the movement of recogniz-
ing.” Note that Hegel nowhere in the whole chapter uses the word “Anerken-
nung.” He only ever speaks of “Anerkennen.” You simply will not find recogni-
tion in the chapter, but rather only recognizing.
Of course, Hegel, or rather the theorist of self-consciousness with whom he
is in dialogue, does not stop at (D3*). Rather, the first stage of the chapter, laid
out in ¶¶1– 7 indeed culminates in the celebrated, albeit widely misunderstood
phrase: “They recognize themselves as mutually recognizing each other”
(¶¶184).²⁸ Once again, this has nothing to do with Hegel’s theory of recognition.
It is another move introduced by the theorist of self-consciousness in order to
prevent her system from inconsistency. The diagram of “mutual recognizings”
or of the pure concept of recognizing looks like this:
S1 → S 2
S2
(D3PR) S1 (S3 → O)
S3 → (S3 → O1)
In this picture, S1 recognizes S2 as recognizing S1 as recognizing S2. Yet, this is

only the beginning of the experience of self-consciousness in this chapter. It is
the conclusion of the first stage of the presentation of self-consciousness. The
rest of the chapter, in which the actual work is done, is divided into three
more stages:
 Unfortunately, I cannot go into the details of my preferred instances of piling up levels of

awareness in contemporary TV comedy as it has developed since the advent of Seinfeld and
Curb Your Enthusiasm.
 “Sie anerkennen sich, als gegenseitig sich anerkennend” (GW 9:110).

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Stage 2: ¶¶8 – 12: “The result of the first experience”

Stage 3: ¶¶13 – 16: The Lord
Stage 4: ¶¶17– 19: The Servant
Hegel explicitly marks the transitions between these stages and sets them apart.
He sums up Stage 2 by specifying “the result of the first experience”, and then
first develops the problem with the concept of the “lord”, in order to conclude
the chapter with an analysis of the problem with the concept of the “servant”.
There is neither any exegetical or de dicto clue to suppose that he is stating
his preferred theory of self-consciousness nor any de re reason to believe that
he ought to be doing this anywhere before “Absolute Knowing” – and it is pos-
sible that he is not even doing so in that chapter. Hegel is quite explicit about the
level of reflection at which he presents the shapes of consciousness: They are
theories of intentionality that we, that is, the phenomenological I – as it were,
the narrator – of the text and we, the readers, observe as problematic and con-
sequently have an experience characterized by a moment of failure and rational
theory change. Let us go through the problems presented at stages 2– 4 and see
what really happens there.
Stage 2 (¶¶8 – 12)
The “pure concept of recognizing” displays itself first and foremost in the form of
an inequality (Ungleichheit). “Gleichheit” (equality) is the German word for “par-
tial identity”, that is, identity in some, maybe in most respects. Some objects are
partially identical or gleich if they share a sufficient number of properties and
correspondingly are unequal if this condition is not met. The inequality here con-
sists in the fact that, as Hegel states, one self-consciousness is merely a recog-
nized and the other one is merely a recognizing. That is to say, when S1 is
aware of S2, that particular awareness is not essential for S1: She could be
aware of all sorts of other things and happens to be aware of S2. The same
holds for S2’s awareness of S1’s awareness. S1 and S2 are merely individuals:
“What comes on the scene here is an individual confronting an individual”
(¶¶186).²⁹ By this Hegel means that they are random theorems of the formal sys-
tems. An “individual” here does not mean a person, it means an individual in the
ontological sense of something below the level of generality of a genus. And He-
gel’s point here just is that there are different individuals, different instances of
general awareness, whose existence seems to be utterly contingent. In this sense,
 “…es tritt ein Individuum einem Individuum gegenüber auf” (GW 9:111).

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112 Markus Gabriel
an individual merely confronts or rather stands in opposition to another individ-

ual. At the same time, they are paradigmatic instances of self-consciousness in-
sofar as they instantiate the very structure of the theory as it has been developed.
The theory of self-consciousness is a form of awareness that is aware of the fact
that someone can both be aware of someone’s awareness of someone’s aware-
ness of itself and be aware of someone’s awareness of someone’s awareness
of some non-intentional object. To make this slightly simpler, it is sufficient to
maintain that any theory of self-consciousness has to be able to account for
self-awareness and awareness of non-intentional objects in the same terms,
namely in terms of a topic-neutral theory of intentionality. In that sense, the
forked arrow seems to be a paradigmatic form, the logical form of self-conscious-
ness. However, no instance of (D3) exhausts its generative powers, its life. All in-
stances are individuals falling under the concept (D3). But this means that we
have a pure concept, (D3) and at least two instances. These two instances are in-
dependent of the fact that they are integrated into particular instances. They are
independent theorems united in more complicated theorems, but themselves in-
dependent. In particular, Hegel identifies two building blocks or “moments” in
(D3PR):
It is by way of that experience that a pure self-consciousness is posited, and a conscious-

ness is posited which exists not purely for itself but for an other, which is to say, is posited
as an existing consciousness, that is, consciousness in the shape of thinghood (¶¶189).³⁰
We thus have a pure-self-consciousness, which corresponds to the upward struc-

ture of the pure concept of recognizing. It is the repetition of the tripartite struc-
ture of self-consciousness. Within this structure we find a subordinated element
or moment, which are the various instances of (Sx→(Sy→Oz). Hegel identifies
them at the end of Stage 2:
…they exist as two opposed shapes of consciousness. One is self-sufficient; for it, its es-
sence is being-for-itself. The other is non-self-sufficient; for it, life, that is, being for an
other, is the essence. The former is the [lord], the latter is the servant (¶¶189).³¹
 “…es ist durch sie ein reines Selbstbewußtsein, und ein Bewußtsein gesetzt, welches nicht
rein für sich, sondern für ein anderes, das heißt, als seiendes Bewußtsein oder Bewußtsein
der Gestalt der Dingheit ist” (GW 9:112).
 “…als zwei entgegengesetzte Gestalten des Bewußtseins; die eine das selbständige, welchem
das Fürsichsein, die andere das unselbständige, dem das Leben oder das Sein für ein anderes
das Wesen ist; jenes ist der Herr, dies der Knecht” (GW 9:112).

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Accordingly, Stage 3 deals with the lord and Stage 4 deals with the servant. In my
interpretation of the reference of the anaphoric pronouns in the last sub-clause
of the last sentence of ¶¶12, the lord and the servant are both moments, and they
correspond to life on the one hand and being for another on the other.
Stage 3 (¶¶13 – 16)
The problem with the lord in the structure of the pure concept of recognizing is
that there is “… A one-sided and unequal form of recognition” (¶¶191).³² In other
words, the lord is always a fork, a twofold awareness of some other awareness
with another awareness as its object and of some other awareness with a non-
intentional object as its object. The lord is aware of the servant who in some in-
stances (where Sx = Sy) is only aware of being aware of a non-intentional object.
The servant only works on (“bearbeitet es nur”) the object, whereas the lord is
aware of the servant’s structure of awareness. At this point, Quine can provide
us with further assistance. In ¶¶6 of Word and Object on “Posits and Truths”
he comes to the following remarkable conclusion:
Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of

the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that
is being built.³³
This corresponds exactly to the situation of the lord. The lord is a description of
the theory-building process of the servant. From the standpoint of the servant,
the object is real. Yet, the servant is built by the lord, and from the standpoint
of the lord his object is a posit. In other words, the lord is aware of the ontolog-
ical commitments of the servant and the servant merely holds them. What the
servant accepts as real and out there, the lord recognizes as a posit, allowing
him to withhold judgment, what Hegel calls “die reine Negation” (pure negation)
and “Genuß” (consumption) (GW 9:113/¶¶190).
Yet, this amounts to the following tension in the theory. The lord on the one
hand withholds judgment about a particular ontological commitment. On the
other hand he has to force the commitment onto the servant. The servant is clear-
ly wrong when he takes the object to be plain real in the sense of a non-inten-
tional object embedded in maximally modally robust facts. His realism is not
naïve in a good sense, but misguided. The overall structure of the lord’s self-con-
 “…ein einseitiges und ungleiches Anerkennen” (GW 9:113).

 (Quine 1960, 22).

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114 Markus Gabriel
sciousness both commits him to there being a real object O and there not being
such a real object O, but merely a posit. It is only real in the eyes of the servant
who is wrong about this reality. The lord forces the commitment onto the servant
and forces the servant to take the commitment literally. Yet, if there were no serv-
ant whatsoever, we would have to conclude that there is no truth-apt thought
about non-intentional reality, which would be an untenable form of first-order
idealism, according to which there are only objects if someone refers to them.
This should not be the result of any theory of intentionality, as it plainly contra-
dicts the objectivity constraint that Hegel refers to as “independence” in the
chapter under consideration. The lord therefore fails.
Hegel could have stopped the chapter at this point. However, he adds anoth-
er stage to the argument in order to give the theorist of self-consciousness one
more chance. Here, as in the preceding chapters of the Phenomenology, Hegel’s
method is built on maximal charity. Given that the lord found objectivity to be
problematic, the theorist of self-consciousness gets another chance to fix this
problem by making good on the objectivity constraint. The lord is mistaken in
privileging self-reference over reference to non-intentional objects. For him,
the latter is “inessential”. However, without the subordinated arrow pointing
to reference to non-intentional objects, the different acts of self-reference or
self-awareness could not be distinguished. The pure negativity of self-awareness
freed from any external constraint cannot account for the fallibility and objectiv-
ity constraint, which is a well-known problem in theories of self-awareness based
on the alleged incorrigibility of self-awareness together with the claim to privi-
leged access. Be that as it may, for Hegel the problem of this constellation is
that one has to be able to understand both the overall or general structure of
self-awareness and how there can be many different instances of it: My being
aware now of my being aware, your being aware now of your being aware, my
now being aware of you now being aware, etc. What differentiates between
these instances is trivially not their general structure, but rather the fact that
they are always combined with some subordinated reference to some non-inten-
tional object or other. The latter specifies the relevant realist truth-conditions. In
precisely this sense Hegel claims that, “…the truth of the self-sufficient con-
sciousness is the servile consciousness” (¶¶193).³⁴ “Truth” here just means ob-
jective truth-conditions. The servant provides the truth-conditions and therefore
does all the work of distinguishing different instances of self-consciousness.
 “…die Wahrheit des selbständigen Bewußtseins ist demnach das knechtische Bewußtsein”
(GW 9:114).

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Stage 4 (¶¶17 – 19):
Accordingly, the theorist of self-consciousness insists in the last stage of the ar-
gument that this does not cause any problems for the view. However, servitude in
turn has an experience presented in the last stage of the chapter. The argument
hinges on servitude being another instance of self-consciousness. Servitude is
embedded in the overall structure of (D3PR). It is a subordinated form of con-
sciousness, introduced by the general lord-structure. It is “im Herrn (in the
lord)” as Hegel repeatedly puts this. In other words, it depends on prior theory
decisions. It is introduced in the context of a theory of self-consciousness. This is
its explanatory job, its Arbeit. Servitude serves a well-defined job. Yet, this job
cannot be done without specifying it as an instance of self-consciousness. “How-
ever, by means of work this servile consciousness comes round to itself”
(¶¶195).³⁵ For the logical form of the servant is an instance of (D2), for example,
(D2S) S3 → (S3 → O1)
Recall that the servant performs the conceptual task of individuating the lords.
There are different lords only because the servant works on different non-inten-
tional objects. These objects block both an infinite regress of adding self-con-
sciousness to self-consciousness ad infinitum and the need for the overgeneral-
izing self-reference of the pure concept of recognizing. By referring to a non-
intentional object, the servant instantiates a stable asymmetrical relationship
terminating in an object. A servant is aware of being aware of an object. The
awareness he is aware of is awareness of a non-intentional object. The object-
awareness therefore has fixed truth-conditions. Hegel calls the higher-order
awareness of the object-awareness an “Anschauung,” an intuition, emphasizing
the givenness of the object within the object-awareness. Yet, the intuition is not
directly of a non-intentional object, but of a given instance of object-awareness.
There is a difference between someone being aware of herself as being aware of,
say, a tree, and someone being aware of a tree. This is brought out in English by
some usages of “self-conscious.” A self-conscious laugh is not just laughing
about something, but is disturbingly aware of its conditions of laughing. An over-
ly self-conscious thinker stands in her own way, like a skeptic who is not able to
order a meal in a restaurant without constantly reassuring herself that she is not
a brain in a vat. The self-conscious thinker of object-thoughts is threatened by
“fear”, the fear of the loss of the object, as the object has been introduced
only in the relation of being referred to by fiat. It just happens to be there, in
 “Durch die Arbeit kommt es aber zu sich selbst” (GW 9:114).

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116 Markus Gabriel
front of someone’s attention, as it were. It could be anything, independent of the

truth-conditions the thinker projects from her point of view. This is why the serv-
ant continues paying attention to the object, he stabilizes the object within the
repetitive acts of the lord for whom he does the service of being his principle of
individuation.
The experience of the lord motivating the transition to the next chapter on
the Freedom of Self-Consciousness (Stoicism, Skepticism, and Unhappy Conscious-
ness) brings two thoughts together: “Dienst,” or “service,” and “Bilden.” “Bil-
den” certainly does not mean “cultural formative activity,” as Pinkard translates
it. It means forming an image. We can translate this into the point that self-con-
scious awareness of some non-intentional object projects truth-conditions by
having a propositional intentional content. If I am aware of being aware of the
tree, my belief specifies the content that there is a tree in front of me. If I am
wrong, I would still have specified this content, which justifies the cautionary
use of “bilden.” I project or imagine my truth-conditions by producing some
propositional intentional content. Yet, this whole activity is part of the explana-
tory project of the theorist of self-consciousness. That means that every servant is
only one instance out of many. Thus, there are many servants, many propositio-
nal contents associated with the same non-intentional object as well as many
propositional contents associated with different non-intentional objects. Bearing
this explanation in mind, the following quote should now be intelligible:
Without the discipline of service and obedience, fear is mired in formality and does not ex-
tend itself to the conscious actuality of existence. Without forming an image, fear remains
inward and mute, and consciousness does not become the “it” which is for itself (¶¶196).³⁶
The theorist of self-consciousness is aware of the servant’s awareness. She de-

scribes this awareness essentially as a contingent instance of some structure,
as a theorem derived from the formal system. In this context, the theorist is war-
ranted in positing indefinitely many servants, and thereby spreads “fear” over
“the conscious reality of what is there”. In other words, the combination of
fear and service corresponds to the notion that there is an indefinite number
of servants in reality itself. There has to be an indefinite number of servants
for the simple reason that we can think of many thinkers thinking about all
sorts of objects. In this sense we can associate many thinkers and their literal
perspectives onto what there is with the objects. For any independent object,
 “Ohne die Zucht des Dienstes und Gehorsams bleibt die Furcht beim Formellen stehen, und
verbreitet sich nicht über die bewußte Wirklichkeit des Daseins. Ohne das Bilden bleibt die
Furcht innerlich und stumm, und das Bewußtsein wird nicht für es selbst” (GW 9:115).

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there are many intentional subjects who could be aware of it at the same time
and thereby take it for real. Reality is partially aware of itself, namely in the
awareness of individuals being aware of non-intentional, unaware objects.
Hegel concludes the discussion of servitude with the claim that servitude
does not get its quantifiers right: it cannot meet the universality-constraint of
the theory according to which the theory of intentionality explains how every-
thing can become the content of truth-apt thoughts, as anything, that is any de-
terminate object or other, can be aptly described as whatever it is. He draws a
distinction between the fact that the servant has “a meaning on his own (eigner
Sinn)” and that this amounts to “stubbornness (Eigensinn)”. The problem Hegel
has in mind is that it is not possible to identify the universal conceptual form of
self-consciousness with all the servants instantiating it, for the servants, just as
the lords, are just more or less random instances. Piling up cases of self-con-
sciousness does not satisfy the demand for a complete theory of intentionality.
As long as the concept of self-consciousness in its relation to its various instan-
ces has not been derived from itself in the form of a universal rule, we have no
proof for the completeness, non-contradictoriness, or even the overall coherence
of the theory of self-consciousness. It remains an unprincipled form of free asso-
ciation,
[…] a freedom that remains bogged down within the bounds of servility. To the servile con-
sciousness, pure form can as little become the essence as can the pure form when it is
taken as extending itself beyond the individual be a universal culturally formative activity,
an absolute concept. Rather, the form is a skill which, while it has dominance over some
things, has dominance over neither the universal power nor the entire objective essence
(¶¶196).³⁷
4 Concluding Remarks
On closer analysis, and with the help of an adequate method of translation,

Hegel reveals himself to be a very meticulous and detailed conceptual analyst
of various elements underlying potential and actual theories of consciousness
in general, and self-consciousness in particular. As such theories are premised
on theories of intentionality, of conscious reference and self-reference, Hegel is
 “…eine Freiheit, welche noch innerhalb der Knechtschaft stecken bleibt. So wenig ihm die
reine Form zum Wesen werden kann, so wenig ist sie, als Ausbreitung über das Einzelne be-
trachtet, allgemeines Bilden, absoluter Begriff, sondern eine Geschicklichkeit, welche nur
über einiges, nicht über die allgemeine Macht und das ganze gegenständliche Wesen mächtig
ist” (GW 9:115 – 116).

Authenticated
118 Markus Gabriel
eager to reduce complex theories to such elements and give an account of their
shortcomings.
The reading sketched here, therefore, makes sense of the very idea of a Phe-
nomenology of Spirit as an account of apparent knowing, of illusory knowledge-
claims that all fail for systematically related reasons. They are the wrong tools as
they cannot achieve the level of universality needed for a theory of absolutely
everything that is capable of first accounting for everything it is not, second
for itself, and third for itself within the broadest domain possible, the domain
of absolutely everything. If anywhere, Hegel develops an outline for the success
conditions of such a theory in the Science of Logic, a science culminating in the
absolute idea. However, on closer analysis, the Science of Logic also fails in in-
teresting ways, and also does not claim closure. It remains “a realm of shadows”,
as Hegel says, and we need access to non-philosophical facts as the ultimate
content to be accounted for by philosophy. The ultimate battleground for Hege-
lianism versus Post-Hegelianism thus is the Realphilosophie as it is presented in
the Philosophy of Right and the Encyclopedia. Even though the last two centuries
have seen a fight over this ground, I believe that we still have to settle the actual
stakes of this debate by first presenting Hegel’s arguments in detail, assessing
their range, and then searching for systematic translations of his projects outside
of logic and metaphysics, where I take him to still be among the very best phi-
losophers of all time. I believe he ultimately fails in the Realphilosophie in
ways that shed light on his project in logic and metaphysics, but this is another
story, far too long for a single paper.
Bibliography
Brandom, Robert (1999): “Some Pragmatist Themes in Hegel’s Idealism.” In: European
Journal of Philosophy 7. No. 2, pp. 164 – 189.
Brandom, Robert (2002): Tales of the Mighty Dead. Cambridge, Mass./London: Harvard
University Press.
Brandom, Robert (2007): “The Structure of Desire and Recognition.” In: Philosophy and
Social Criticism 33. No. 1, pp. 127 – 150.
Brandom, Robert (2008): “Untimely Review of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.” In: Topoi: An
International Review of Philosophy 27, pp. 161 – 164.
Campbell, John (2008): “Consciousness and Reference”. In: Brian P. McLaughlin/Ansgar
Beckermann/Sven Walter (Eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Forster, Michael (1998): Hegel’s Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit. Chicago: Chicago
University Press.

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Gabriel, Markus (2007): “Hegel und Plotin.” In: Dietmar Heidemann/Christian Krijnen (Eds.):
Hegel und die Geschichte der Philosophie. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft.
Gabriel, Markus (2008): An den Grenzen der Erkenntnistheorie. Die notwendige Endlichkeit
des Wissens als Lektion des Skeptizismus. Freiburg/München: Karl Alber.
Gabriel, Markus (2009): Skeptizismus und Idealismus in der Antike. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.
Gabriel, Markus (2015): “Hegel’s Begriff der Vorstellung und das Form-Inhalt-Problem.” In:
Kazimir Drilo/Axel Hutter (Eds.): Spekulation und Vorstellung in Hegels
enzyklopädischem System. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 7 – 27.
Gabriel, Markus (forthcoming): “What Kind of Idealist (if any) is Hegel?” In: Hegel Bulletin.
Halfwassen, Jens (2004): Plotin und der Neuplatonismus. München: C.H. Beck.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (2008): Vorlesungen über die Philosophie des subjektiven
Geistes. (= Gesammelte Werke 25. No. 1, ed. by Christoph J. Bauer). Hamburg: Meiner.
Horstmann, Rolf-Peter (1984): Ontologie und Relationen: Hegel, Bradley, Russell und die
Kontroverse über interne und externe Beziehungen. Königstein: Athenäum.
Kelly, George Armstrong (1966): “Notes on Hegel’s Lordship and Bondage.” In: The Review of
Metaphysics 19. No. 4, pp. 780 – 802.
Koch, Anton Friedrich (2006): “Die Prüfung des Wissens als Prüfung ihres Maßstabs. Zur
Methode der Phänomenologie des Geistes.” In: Jindřich Karásek/Jan Kuneš/Ivan Landa
(Eds.): Hegels Einleitung in die Phänomenologie des Geistes. Würzburg: Könighausen &
Neumann, pp. 21 – 33.
Koch, Anton Friedrich (2008): “Sinnliche Gewißheit und Wahrnehmung. Die beiden ersten
Kapitel der Phänomenologie des Geistes.” In: Klaus Vieweg/Wolfgang Welsch (Eds.):
Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes. Ein kooperativer Kommentar zu einem
Schlüsselwerk der Moderne. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, pp. 135 – 152.
Koch, Anton Friedrich (2011): “Hegel: Die Einheit des Begriffs.” In: Johannes
Brachtendorf/Stephan Herzberg (Eds.): Einheit und Vielheit als metaphysisches Problem.
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 177 – 198.
Koch, Anton Friedrich (2012): “Review of An den Grenzen der Erkenntnistheorie.” In:
Philosophische Rundschau 59, pp. 185 – 189.
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York: DeGruyter, pp. 159 – 184.
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120 Markus Gabriel
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Searle, John (2011): Making the Social World. The Structure of Human Civilization. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
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Formanalyse von Wissen und Autonomie. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.

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Markus Gabriel

A Very Heterodox Reading of

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losophy. Specifically, in the Phenomenology he argues that there is rational theo-

 Thanks to Robert Pippin for insisting on this point in discussion.

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The degree of heterodoxy of my paper can be determined by measuring the

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nomenology, but there only speaks of recognizing, Anerkennen, which is an es-

1 The Rules of the Game

First and foremost, we need to settle the meaning of “consciousness.” Given

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intentionality is a feature of intentionality and not of its objects. We will see in a

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or an overall theory of intentionality. However, all entities in my fairly random

 Cf. (Horstmann 1984).

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2 The Truth of Self-Certainty: Introduction

The chapter on self-consciousness deals with self-reference in the form of higher-

The relation described by (D1) is asymmetrical in that the topic-neutral, fallible,

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(D2*)S1 → (S1 → S1)

(D2**)S1 → (S1 → O1)

or notably also when S1 thinks about S2 thinking about the house:¹⁵

(D2***)S1 → (S1 → O1)

When Hegel says that for self-consciousness, “The distinction as an otherness is

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(D2*) happens to be an instance of self-consciousness as much as (D2**). Antici-

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In words: We (the theorists of intentionality) are aware that we can either be

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The opening of this tree is what Hegel calls “Auseinanderlegen”, or elaboration,

The repeated pattern is a “genus”, it is a repetition of the same in various instan-

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(AX4) The theory has to be consistent under self-application. If it takes itself

We also know that “→” is asymmetrical whenever it has an O on the right-hand

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This famous-all-too-famous chapter discusses independence and dependence of

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is that “ein Anerkanntes” is a placeholder for whatever happens to appear in the

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In this picture, S1 recognizes S2 as recognizing S1 as recognizing S2. Yet, this is

 Unfortunately, I cannot go into the details of my preferred instances of piling up levels of

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Stage 2: ¶¶8 – 12: “The result of the first experience”

Stage 2 (¶¶8 – 12)

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an individual merely confronts or rather stands in opposition to another individ-

It is by way of that experience that a pure self-consciousness is posited, and a conscious-

We thus have a pure-self-consciousness, which corresponds to the upward struc-

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Stage 3 (¶¶13 – 16)

Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of

 “…ein einseitiges und ungleiches Anerkennen” (GW 9:113).

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Stage 4 (¶¶17 – 19):

(D2S) S3 → (S3 → O1)