Hegel on perception - his introduction of essence (Wesen und Unwesen)

Perception

Let's come to the details of our journey in Holism now. This means, we are going to investigate the two moments of perception. On the one hand, the object that falls apart in many sensations, on the other hand the unifying tendency that brings all of these sensations together. However, this process is much more complex and will include an analysis of all human, social constructions. All of them support the constitution of one single object, but before we reach this realm of absolute knowing, Hegel writes:

"Der Gegenstand ist dem Wesen nach dasselbe, was die Bewegung ist, sie die Entfaltung und Unterscheidung der Momente, er das Zusammengefaßtsein derselben."

What Hegel will introduce here is a more complete notion of Wesen (essence) than it has been in the Greek philosophies. We will come to this in a minute. First we have to see that there is just one movement that relates itself to an (Gegenstand) object that stands against. This Gegenstand is not the simple sensation, it is already more. If we take an object that is in front of our eyes and analyze the many properties, we will not find the essence of the Object as a Gegenstand. There is something that holds the object together, so that it does not fall apart.

We need to keep in mind, that we are not talking about a mysterious, real existing energy, but something that brings the object to us as it is in our perception.

Hegel assumes now that the differentiation of the moments of sensation is the same as their unification, even though both of them are oposed to each other: The simple sensations and the unification of properties.

As Hegel states these two moments, sensation and unification, are opposed in their characteristics of the Wesen, of the essence of the outstanding object (Gegenstand). This means the unification of all sensations that are given is ESSENTIALLY different from the sensations. However, both of them belong to the Wesen of the object. In other words, we could not imagine the object without singular sensations, but also not as a unification of these sensations.

Nevertheless, Hegel also remarks: If there is a Wesen than there must be something in this process that is not theWesen. Hegel calls this the Unwesen. However, the Unwesen as the central part of this process is at the same time all what is the foundation for the Wesen, since these moments can just be differentiated if they are with regard to their unification.

This means the Unwesen belongs to the Wesen.

A more concrete analysis of this relation between Wesen and Unwesen has to follow. However, we see here that there is no presupposed substance, but a Wesen that is at the same time its opposite. The unification is at the same time differentiation into sensations. Are they equiprimordial, or has one of them priority?