Master-slave dialectic

The master-slave dialectic is a section of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit which seeks to demonstrate the attainability of absolute knowledge. Here, Hegel states to be concerned with a) how individual human beings become conscious in their place in the universe, b) how beings can be fully aware of what they are and validate their existence as human beings, and c) if there is a possibility of coming to know the true significance of human existence independent of other human beings (absolute knowledge). Hegel’s conclusion later becomes one that positions self-consciousness as a product of society and culture that is unachievable through individual experience. Hegel’s main point is essentially as follows: Human existence is one of mutual recognition, and without mutual recognition, we will never become self-aware or strive for meaning. It is only by seeing ourselves in relation to other human beings in society that we can come to understand ourselves and our position in the world we live in.

For Hegel, the process of demonstrating absolute knowledge is conducted by and through consciousness itself. For absolute knowledge to be attainable, consciousness must understand things as truly as they are. Consciousness, Hegel believes, critiques its knowledge of the world around it by following the dialectic of experience, a particular type of procedure that eventually brings consciousness to “truth”: the stage of what he calls absolute knowing. Hegel claims this to be a natural procedure, which is used throughout the master-slave dialectic, later contributing to consciousness’ participation in a power dynamic as well as an understanding of alienation that is fundamentally negative. Through the dialectic of experience,  consciousness places in place a standard of truth, a conception of the world as it is in truth, and it does this initially without any form of external input. Consciousness then holds the world to that standard to determine whether the evidence of the external world aligns with the standard of truth. Consciousness consistently finds that the standard of truth fails in specific, concrete ways to match up to the world, and based on this failure or determinate negation, consciousness regenerates both itself and the standard by modifying or alternating the standard. Most importantly, as a natural occurrence, consciousness does not give up if its standard of truth fails because of its determinate negation. Consciousness continues until its standard matches the way the world is and thereby has attained absolute knowing. The dialectic of experience is an educational and pedagogical experience (if you plan on staying here, maybe bookmark this). 

It is through the dialect of experience that consciousness finds the external world around it to exist solely for itself. Everything alive is for the use of consciousness, and consciousness believes the world to be a mere nullity (Hegel §174). Consciousness at this stage sublates its surroundings. It desires everything to be its own and attempts to fulfill this desire through consumption. However, consciousness soon realizes that the consumptive desire it has is unfulfilling; the standard that was input has failed, and consciousness realizes that a form of otherness is needed. Consumptive desire, according to Hegel, is necessarily unfulfilling because desire is the lack of having (§174). Thus, self-consciousness is “unable by way of its negative relation to the object to sublate it, and for that reason, it once again, to an even greater degree, re-engenders the object as well as the desire” (§175). This means that self-consciousness has realized that it must change its standard of truth (that is, how it conceives the object of its desire) because it has realized that the consumable object, once consumed, is gone. This leads to the unending dialectic that consciousness has on the dependency of desire on life; it is no longer a pure nullity. Consciousness learns that it is feeding off of what it claims it does not need but is, in fact, dependent on. Self-consciousness, upon learning that it is unable to fulfill its desire through consumption, will come to realize that it “attains its satisfaction only in another self-consciousness” (§175). Consumptive desire turns into cognitive desire; it desires an object that will not become a nullity to self-consciousness and will have self-sufficiency. 

Having the presence of another self-consciousness is not enough to satisfy self-consciousness; what it requires is mutual recognition. Self-consciousness will soon find itself interacting with another self-consciousness that is also a living self-sufficient self-consciousness that cannot be consumed by the former self-consciousness (§176). Due to its need for mutual recognition, the former consciousness realizes that for self-consciousness to be self-consciousness, it must be outside itself. For self-consciousness to recognize itself as such, it must come into contact with another self-consciousness. This need for mutual recognition is precisely why it is not sufficient for a self-consciousness to coexist with another self-consciousness. There must be an acknowledgment of the other’s existence, and this must come from both sides of the dynamic. Each consciousness must acknowledge the others. The need for mutual recognition means that there will be a form of interaction, a struggle, and it is out of this struggle that the master-slave relationship arises, paradoxically, as a failure of mutual recognition. In this struggle for mutual recognition, both self-consciousnesses confront each other. Realizing that they are unable to consume one another, they feel threatened by the other’s presence. However, one self-consciousness will aim at mutual recognition, while the other will aim at consumption. The latter consciousness still holds an egotistical viewpoint on consumption and life. This consciousness is unafraid of death because it has yet to understand that it is dependent on life for its existence. The former consciousness has recognized its need for mutual recognition and its dependency on life, and it finds itself in fear of death more than in fear of the second consciousness. At the end of this confrontation, the former self-consciousness becomes the slave consciousness, recognizing the other, the master, while the latter self-consciousness becomes the master consciousness as it is recognized (§185). For Hegel, this is a failed attempt at mutual recognition because mutual recognition would have set both consciousnesses free. 

The self-consciousness that has not risked their life, the slave-consciousness, may be recognized only insofar as it is an object able to produce what the master self-consciousness consumes, but it has not achieved the right of being recognized as a self-sufficient self-consciousness. Furthermore, “one is self-sufficient; for it, its essence is being-for-itself. The other is non-self-sufficient; for it, life, that is, being for another, is the essence. The former is the master, the latter is the servant” (§189). That is, master consciousness has not learned that it is dependent on slave consciousness for its existence, as it is still under the assumption that things exist for their consumption; this form of consciousness is still egocentric. The slave consciousness, on the other hand, lives for its master consciousness; anything that it makes is removed from it — hence, the work they produce is not their own. The slave consciousness’ labor is in itself self-realization externalized, as it expresses itself in the world. Since they can produce objects through their labor, slave consciousness realizes that it is through their labor and the work they produce that they are self-sufficient and able to produce objects through and by themselves. However, it must detach itself from its labor, in a form of alienation, because its work does not belong to them, and therefore, it does not belong to itself. This process of detachment is two-fold (§196), as the nature of producing something provides for the slave-consciousness both fulfillment as it is through their produced objects that they can express themselves, but the things it produces are removed from it, as they do not belong to it, they belong to the master. This creates alienation. The connection between slave consciousness labor and its alienation is vital and a key factor in their later responses (i.e. stoic and skeptic consciousness) because alienation from the objects that they produce is directly impacted by the inability to own what they produce. The master consciousness does not face the same alienation; everything in the self-consciousness of the master consciousness exists for itself and is there solely for its consumption. The master consciousness does not struggle with a sense of alienation because the recognition that was not granted to the slave consciousness because of its fear of death was granted to the master consciousness. After all, the master consciousness was unafraid to die. The slave consciousness, however, does not receive mutual recognition and is forced to produce for the master consciousness’ consumption, unable to own anything they create, and consequently must alienate themselves from their work. As a result, slave consciousness is now tasked with dealing with its current unrecognized state and the alienation that comes from it. 

Alienation will receive two different responses from the slave self-consciousness: stoic and skeptic. These responses attempt to resolve the condition of alienation in which slave consciousness has found itself to obtain freedom through mutual recognition. The principle of stoic self-consciousness is as follows: “consciousness is the thinking essence and that something only has essentiality for consciousness, or is true and good for it, only insofar as consciousness conducts itself therein as a thinking creature” (§198). Stoic self-consciousness decides to adopt a determinate view of the world and aligns their values with the ‘reality’ of their situation, that of slave-consciousness. The stoic consciousness has accepted its role as the slave and adopts the mentality that it will change the things that it can, but will not attempt to change the things it perceives it is unable to change. One of the unchangeable circumstances of stoic consciousness is its role as a slave to a master. Hegel shows that the stoic attitude ultimately fails because it is unable to sustain itself and hold itself against the world of alienation. It proceeds to attempt to solve this issue through skepticism, but the skeptic attitude also fails. The skeptic consciousness questions everything, tearing it down, but in the process, it undermines and destroys itself. Due to the hierarchical power dynamic that exists between the master-consciousness and the slave-consciousness, alienation is given a profoundly negative connotation. The responses that alienation receives from the enslaved self-consciousness are not to be easily dismissed. They rise from the viewpoint of a self-consciousness that has been conditioned into perceiving their “otherness” as something negative; something from which they should attempt to remove themselves if they wish to obtain freedom through mutual recognition. 

Negative alienation arises because of the distance that slave consciousness must have between itself and what it produces. However, it is through the production of those objects that slave consciousness will find itself to be self-sufficient, and the master consciousness will be dependent on slave consciousness for their consumption. Negative alienation could not, however, occur without the dynamic created in this dialectic. Since it is during the initial confrontation that the master-slave dynamic is established, and it is that dynamic that creates the issue of alienating oneself from the products one produces, the concept of negative alienation is directly influenced by and dependent on the power dynamic represented in this text. As a response, negative alienation further perpetuates the presupposed notion that power dynamics, as universals, are inherently negative. However, the former being dependent on the latter does not mean that the latter is dependent on the former. Negative alienation is a consequence of this power dynamic and should not be viewed as separate from the power dynamic; rather, it is a production of it.