The object of
our consciousness was produced by freely self-determining our power to think, by means of an arbitrary
abstraction.
Now it is claimed that this same object is present for us originally, i.e., prior to all free philosophizing, and that it imposes itself upon us just as certainly as we are conscious at all. If this is true, then there is
also an original consciousness of the object in question, even if we may not be precisely conscious of it
as a singular object at the same level of abstraction
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with which we have just [IV, 31] established it. It may well occur in and be accompanied by another
thought, as a determination of the latter.
Is this original consciousness any different from the one that we, as philosophers, have just produced
within ourselves? How could it be, given that it is supposed to have the same object, and given that the
philosopher, as such, certainly possesses no other subjective form of thinking than that common and
original form that is present in all reason?
But if this so, then why are we looking for what we already possess? We possess it without knowing that
we possess it. Now we simply want to produce this knowledge within ourselves. A rational being is
constituted in such a way that when it thinks it does not ordinarily take into account its own act of
thinking, but only what it is thinking; it loses itself, as the subject, in the object. In philosophy, however,
everything depends on becoming acquainted with the subject as such, in order to judge its influences on
the determination of the object. This can happen only by making the mere reflection [that is, the act of
thinking of the object] into the object of a new reflection. – To the non-philosopher, the project of
becoming conscious of consciousness may seem strange and perhaps even risible. This, however, merely
demonstrates the non-philosopher’s ignorance of philosophy and his complete incapacity for the latter.
Genetic description of the consciousness in question
(1) The I possesses the absolute power of intuition, for it is precisely thereby that it becomes an I. This
power cannot be derived from anything higher, nor does it stand in need of any further derivation. If an I
is posited, then this power of intuition is also posited. – Moreover, the I is and must be able to intuit
what it itself is without any further ado. Therefore, the particular determination of the faculty to intuit at
all, which is here postulated, also stands in no need of any [IV, 32] derivation from or mediation through
external grounds. The I intuits itself purely and simply because it intuits itself. – So much for the fact as
such.
(2) Let us now proceed to the determination of this fact. In doing this, we expect that each person will be
able to generate for himself what we are talking about, through his own self-activity, and that he will
also be able to obtain an inner intuition of what arises for him thereby.
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The intuiting subject (the intellect), which becomes an intellect precisely by means of the postulated act,
posits the tendency to absolute activity described above, in accordance with the postulate, as – itself: that is, as identical with itself, the intellect. The previously mentioned absoluteness of real acting therebybecomes the essence of an intellect and is brought under the sway of the concept, and this is how the
absoluteness of real acting first becomes freedomproper: the absoluteness of absoluteness, the absolute power to make itself absolutely. – Through the consciousness of its own absoluteness the I tears itself
away – from itself – and puts itself forward as something self-sufficient.
I said that it tears itself away from itself, and I will therefore begin by explaining this expression. – All
intuition is, as such, supposed to be directed toward something that is there independently of it, and that
is there just as it is intuited to be. The situation is no different with respect to the intuition we are now
discussing, since it is, after all, an intuition. As absolute, the I is supposed to lie there and to have done
so before it was grasped in intuition. The absoluteness in question is supposed to constitute its being and
subsistence, independent of all intuition. In cases where what is intuited is supposed to lie outside the
being of the intuiting subject, however, the intellect as such remains a passive onlooker. Here, however,
the situation is supposed to be different. What is intuited is itself the intuiting subject – not, to be sure, as
such, 9but still they share a single, unified essence; they are a single force and substance.
