This is the second essay in my series, The Phenomenological Papers, a series of three essays on similar topics. You can find the first essay here. Like the first, this is also an old essay that I have substantively revised, so much so, in fact, that the original is unrecognisable in it. This, and the next essay, will be on something I have long been preoccupied with: the experience of art. Not totally happy with the formulation, but I hope you enjoy.
The universal need for expression in art lies…in man’s rational impulse to exalt the inner and outer world into a spiritual consciousness for himself, as an object in which he recognises his own self. He satisfies the need of this spiritual freedom when he makes all that exists explicit for himself within, and in a corresponding way realises this his explicit self without, evoking thereby, in this reduplication of himself, what is in him into vision and into knowledge for his own mind and that of others.
– G.W.F. Hegel
I. There is always an apparent tension between our seemingly complex and infinitely extensive inner life and our ability to deliberately express it in such a way that we feel adequately represented in the world. At any given moment in our lives, it feels as though, even within the blink of an eye, a culmination of memories, thoughts, and emotions flood through us – arbitrating and adjudicating our action. We sometimes tend to see this ocean of subjectivity as something of our ‘true selves’ or as our true and complete feelings about things. Consequently, we have a fundamental desire to represent this in the world, especially to others, whose recognition we desire. We want to feel understood by those around us – to have our ‘private’ subjectivity recognised as legitimate in a world of objects.
What do I mean by ‘legitimate’
here? Something is legitimate to us, in this sense, if there is some external
validation of its existence by other persons or by an object that is
independent of us, not just ourselves or our own impression of things. For
example, suppose that at night I see a bright light flash across the sky that
is unlike anything I have seen before, but I’m the only one who saw it. In
situations like these, we feel torn because no one else was there to validate
or invalidate our perception of this flash, nor can it be integrated into our
prior beliefs. “Am I crazy, what was that?” you might think. We desire an
explanation of this phenomenon because we are certain that it happened, that we
saw something, but uncertain why and wish to settle it through
some process of external validation. There are a couple of ways this could go.
There could be an external explanation or an internal explanation,
and it could be validated either by persons, or by further objects.