Quotation
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“Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged.”
G. W. F. Hegel · German idealism · Modern · 1807
What does it mean?
Self-consciousness exists for itself only by existing for another. It needs acknowledgement. Hegel's famous struggle follows from this sentence, and the sentence is stricter than the struggle's legend. A rival reading jumps straight to a fight to the death and a slave who secretly wins, and treats the opening as scenery. The opening is the claim: a self alone, unacknowledged, is not yet the self the chapter is talking about. Another reading makes acknowledgement a demand for niceness.
Did G. W. F. Hegel really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A. V. Miller's English. The sentence opens the dialectic of recognition, often called the master-slave or lordship and bondage section. Acknowledgement is not a compliment. It is the condition of a self that can be a self.
Where it comes from
Phenomenology of Spirit, the master-slave section (§178–196), in A. V. Miller's translation
Approximate date: 1807.
How to use it
A newcomer in a workplace in Coventry is not, on this sentence, a self in that world until someone acknowledges them as one. The acknowledgement can be a contract, a name spoken correctly, a place in the argument. It can also be withheld. The withholding is not a private rudeness only. It is the social fact the chapter thinks selfhood depends on. That does not make every slight a dialectic. It says why some slights go deeper than manners.
A mindset reading
Do not start with the moral that the slave is the true master. That moral is a compression of a later moment, and it is disputed. Start with recognition, which is the premise. If the premise is wrong, the legend of the struggle has nothing to stand on.
Understand the philosophy
The Phenomenology of Spirit, 1807, chapter on self-consciousness. Miller translates Anerkennung in this register as acknowledgement. Other translators say recognition. The argument is the same. The master-slave pages are an experiment inside it, not the whole phenomenology.
- self
- society
- freedom
FAQ
What does it mean?
Self-consciousness exists for itself only by existing for another. It needs acknowledgement. Hegel's famous struggle follows from this sentence, and the sentence is stricter than the struggle's legend. A rival reading jumps straight to a fight to the death and a slave who secretly wins, and treats the opening as scenery. The opening is the claim: a self alone, unacknowledged, is not yet the self the chapter is talking about. Another reading makes acknowledgement a demand for niceness.
Did G. W. F. Hegel really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A. V. Miller's English. The sentence opens the dialectic of recognition, often called the master-slave or lordship and bondage section. Acknowledgement is not a compliment. It is the condition of a self that can be a self.
Which work is it in?
Phenomenology of Spirit, the master-slave section (§178–196), in A. V. Miller's translation Approximate date: 1807.