Comments on §77-78, Science Between Skepticism and Faith
In his criticism of the epistemological orientation, Hegel is following a lead mapped out by Jacobi and according to which we have an immediate intuition of being. Yet he's not in fact going to adopt the Jacobian position. He voices the objection here--ok, so we are already engaged with being, we are already upon the path of thought, we do not have to and indeed must not halt ourselves as the epistemologist would demand, but on what basis can this immediate engagement constitute the science of being? How can we credibly take whatever appears to be the science's ground?
But Hegel of course isn't proposing this. He navigates a median between Kant and Jacobi by making being already intuited but mediate. He is not, as we have seen, establishing a foundation at the outset, but rather the means by which the foundation--really the conclusion--is to be pursued. This teleology just is, for Hegel, the structure of this mediation, which in turn just is the structure of the intuition. Through this series of equations, Hegel is able to insist against Kant that being is intuited while yet insisting against Jacobi that being is mediate.
The question then becomes of course what the nature of this mediation is. And the encounter of this nature is what Hegel calls the soul's self-education, the path which is follows by (against Kant) engaging with being while (against Jacobi) not taking it as absolute. How this can have a structure, what this structure is, and how or whether it can conclude in anything determinate--these things we yet do not know, but presumably will be the very substance of the Phenomenology.
But Hegel of course isn't proposing this. He navigates a median between Kant and Jacobi by making being already intuited but mediate. He is not, as we have seen, establishing a foundation at the outset, but rather the means by which the foundation--really the conclusion--is to be pursued. This teleology just is, for Hegel, the structure of this mediation, which in turn just is the structure of the intuition. Through this series of equations, Hegel is able to insist against Kant that being is intuited while yet insisting against Jacobi that being is mediate.
The question then becomes of course what the nature of this mediation is. And the encounter of this nature is what Hegel calls the soul's self-education, the path which is follows by (against Kant) engaging with being while (against Jacobi) not taking it as absolute. How this can have a structure, what this structure is, and how or whether it can conclude in anything determinate--these things we yet do not know, but presumably will be the very substance of the Phenomenology.