The Here

⁹⁸ The same applies to the Here which is the other form of the This.

For example, the Here is the tree.

• I turn around and this truth, the tree, has disappeared.
  • The Here has changed round into a house.
• The Here itself does not disappear.
  • It remains even if the house, tree, etc disappears.

The This, as the Here, therefore is also mediated simplicity, a Universality.

⁹⁹ Pure being, then, remains as the essential element for this perception (sense-certainty).

• This is because perception (sense-certainty) in its very nature proves the Universal to be the truth of its object.

But that pure being is not in the form of something immediate.

• Instead, it is in the form of something in which the process of negation and mediation is essential.

Consequently, this pure being is not the unmediated version or our intended or ordinary meaning of being.

• Instead, it is an abstracted being.

Our intended meaning of being takes the truth of perception (sense-certainty) to be something not universal.

• This version of being is alone left standing, in contrast to the empty, indifferent abstracted Here and Now.

¹⁰⁰ If we compare the relation in which knowledge and the object first stood with the relation they have come to assume in this result, it is found to be just the reverse of what first appeared.

The object, which professed to be the essential reality, is now the non-essential element of perception (sense-certainty).

This is because the universal, which the object has come to be, is no longer such as the object essentially was to be for perception (sense-certainty).

The certainty is now found to lie in the opposite element, namely in knowledge, which formerly was the non-essential factor.

Its truth lies in the object as my object, or lies in the “meaning” (Meinen), in what I “mean”; it is, because I know it.

Perception (sense-certainty) is thus banished from the object and forced back into the perceiver I.

¹⁰¹ The force of the truth of that perception (sense-certainty) thus lies now in the I.

• It is in the immediate fact of my seeing, hearing, and so on.

Our intended unmediated Here and Now does not disappear because the I keeps hold of them.

The Now is daytime because I see it.

The Here is a tree for a similar reason.

Perception (sense-certainty), however, goes through, in this connection, the same dialectic process as in the former case.

The I version 1 sees the tree.

• It asserts the tree to be the Here.

The I version 2, however, turns around and sees the house instead of the tree.

• It maintains the Here is not a tree but a house.

Both truths have the same authenticity – the immediacy of seeing and the certainty both have as to their specific way of knowing.

• But the previous certainty disappears in the present certainty.

¹⁰² In all this, the universal idea of I does not disappear.

• This universal I does not see this tree nor of this house.
• It just sees more simpler – the product of sight
  • This is mediated through the negation of this house, etc
  • In being so, the seeing I is all the same simple and indifferent to what is associated with it, the house, the tree, and so on.

This idea of I is merely universal, just as the idea of Now, Here, or This are in general.

The ordinary, unmediated I is similar to the ordinary, unmediated Now and Here, and is different from the universal I, universal This, universal Here, universal Now, and universal Individuals.

Perception is Meaningless and Has no Essence

¹⁰³ Perception (Sense-certainty) discovers by experience that:

• its nature lies neither in the object that it is perceiving nor in the I that perceives

• the immediacy peculiar to it is neither an immediacy of that object nor the I

In the case of both, the content of the perception is non-universal (non-essential).

The object and the I are universals.

• These do not have the immediate Here-idea and Now-idea

Thus, the essential reality of perception is the totality of perception.

Thus, it is only the whole totality of perception (sense-certainty) itself which persists therein as immediacy.

• As a consequence, it excludes from itself all the opposition placed by its perceived object and perceiver I

¹⁰⁴ This pure immediacy is merely based on the otherness created by duality:

• The Here-idea-1 is in the form of a tree which passes into the Here-idea-2 that is a house and not a tree.
• The Now-idea-1 is in the sense of day-time changing into a Now-idea-2 that is night-time or any other perceiver-I that has another time as its Now.

Its truth stays as a self-identical relation. This relation makes no distinction of:

• essential and non-essential
• between I and object

Therefore, generally, no distinction can find its way into its truth.

My I-version-1 sees the Here as tree. This I does not turn around so that the Here stays as a tree.

But my I-version-2, another I, turns around and finds the Here as not a tree, but a house.

Or my I-version-A sees the Now as night, while my I-version-B sees the Now as day.

This instance of I, as I-version-B, uses only one immediate relation: the Now is day. It does not compare its Now with the Now of I-version-B, nor

Likewise, I-version-1 does not compare its Here with the Here of I-version-2.