105. On Sexual Pleasure in literature and philosophy

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105. On Sexual Pleasure in literature and philosophy

(Goethe’ Faust and Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind)

In Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind, there is a chapter called "Pleasure and Necessity". Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is one of the most difficult and famous books in the history of philosophy. The chapter "Pleasure and Necessity" is also very esoteric, but it quotes Goethe's "Faust". This gives us a good idea of Hegel's ideas, because Goethe's "Faust" is one of the most important books in world literature, and Hegel admired Goethe. Hegel's relationship with Goethe is varied, but we'll only focus on the "Pleasure and Necessity" chapter of the Phenomenology of Mind.

Goethe was the German equivalent of Shakespeare in England.

Hegel was younger than Goethe, but they lived in the same era. It is significant that Hegel studied Goethe's Faust and made philosophical statements about it. Hegel and Goethe, they can be said to represent Germany's two great mountain ranges in philosophy and literature. In that sense, the chapter "Pleasure and Necessity," although short in length, is a valuable cultural asset that provides a glimpse into the commonality of literature and philosophy. and is of particular interest to us because it deals with the issues of sexual pleasure and love. This broadcast will focus primarily on the sexual pleasure section of Goethe's Faust, after which we will briefly elucidate Hegel's philosophical statements.

The part of Hegel's Pleasure and Necessity that quotes Faust is as follows.

"It (=Spirit of Earth) despises intellect and learning, the best gifts of man. The ideal, abandoned to the devil, can only lead to ruin". (From Goethe's "Faust"). (Phenomenology of Mind 1. Lim Seok-jin translation in Korea p. 378)

Therefore, it is necessary to understand Hegel's thought based on this part.

First of all, "It despises the intellect or learning, the best gift that man enjoys." The first part is a direct quote from Goethe, and the second part is an arbitrary addition by Hegel.

Goethe's masterpiece play "Faust" tells the story of Dr. Faust, a man of learning and knowledge who becomes frustrated and loses hope in life, and finds joy and a lover through an oath with the devil Mephistopheles. In exchange for this happiness, Dr. Faust agrees to give his soul to the devil. The reason Faust lost hope in life was because he despised intellect or scholarship, as stated above. He was the greatest intellectual of his time and had tremendous knowledge in many fields, and so he mumbles to himself, "I'm done.

Faust: “Ah! I have studied philosophy, law, medicine, and even theology with all my might, and thoroughly; but here I stand now, a poor fool. I'm no smarter than I was before, and I've spent a decade dragging my student's nose up and down the halls of academia, calling myself a master or a doctor. My heart almost burns to realize that we know nothing. (...) Nor do we have wealth and money; we have neither the honors nor the glory of this world; even a dog would not wish to live in this state any longer!” (Faust 1. Jungseoyong Translation in Korea p. 29)

From the above quote, Faust realized that although he had studied thoroughly, he knew nothing; that is, he had reached the limits of his academic studies. Furthermore, he had no property, no money, and no fame and glory.

So, he convinced himself that he was living a life worse than a dog.

This is how Faust is tested by God and the devil Mephistopheles. This is the same idea as the biblical book of Job. The only difference is that in the case of the Book of Job, the devil tests Job's faith by putting him through tremendous trials, but in the case of Faust, the devil tests Faust's faith with sensual pleasures: he magically makes the old Faust young and gives him the pretty maiden Marguerite. (Gretchen) to enjoy sensual pleasures. The devil's strategy was that Faust, despairing of knowledge and scholarship, would restore his passion for life through physical enjoyment instead of theory.

Faust understands this plan and delivers his soliloquy as follows. First of all, in a conversation with a pupil called Wagner, he discusses the existence of two opposing desires in his heart: the joy he feels from reading and studying books and, conversely, the desire to indulge in lust and seek sensual pleasures. In other words, reason and emotion are opposed. This is the inherent ambivalence of human beings. However, Faust had already realized the limits of his desire for reason. Above, Faust scorns intellect and learning, the greatest gifts of humanity. He once said as follows.

Faust.

You only feel the one yearning at best,

Oh, never seek to know the other!

Two souls, alas, exist in my breast,

One separated from another:

One, with its crude love of life, just

Clings to the world, tenaciously, grips tight,

The other soars powerfully above the dust,

Into the far ancestral height. (Microsoft Word Faust.doc 1120)

Having abandoned his rational desires, Faust now wants to pursue only his emotional desires. He has abandoned the hope of daring to leave the taint of the world and ascend to the realm of the sublime sages. Now it is the other way around.

Indulging his lustful appetites, he clings to the temporal world. He wants to pursue only sensual pleasures.

Many of us experience this state as well, especially during our college years, when we either endlessly pursue studies and theories, or, on the contrary, we love lasciviousness and want to seek pleasure and love through contact with the opposite sex. Of course, we have to be able to afford it. There are always particularly beautiful girls sweeping in colleges and certain departments, and when the OOO of the ### department is announced, everyone admires her and wants to meet her. When a slender woman passes by the green campus of a university in long white trousers, the hearts of young men flutter, but then they have to go to the library and read difficult academic books. When spring comes, the moans of men and women can be heard at night through the forest paths that go up to the mountains during the festivals. Even knowing this, there are many male students who come to the library with nothing to do, either because they have no girlfriend or because they are busy studying for the high school exams.

This state is the same as Faust's state, except that Faust is now older and has lost his youth and felt the despair of death. He has naturally given up the pleasures of theory and scholarship.

This is Faust's own desire, and it's the devil's plan to exploit it. These sensual pleasures are highly valued by Faust, which is why he says :

Oh, let the spirits of the air,

Between the heavens and Earth, weaving,

Descend through the golden atmosphere,

And lead me on to new and varied being!

Yes, if a magic cloak were mine, that

Would carry me off to foreign lands,

Not for the costliest garment in my hands,

For the mantle of a king, would I resign it!

(Microsoft Word Faust.doc 1120)

Through mystical fantasy, rather than human, rational endeavors, Faust tries to overcome his despair. This can happen in our lives as well: he wishes to obtain a magic coat and fly to an unknown country. It is a law that such hopes bring with them the price of sin. It's a similar phenomenon with many people who get hooked on drugs. Drugs are said to be able to give us pleasure that is far greater than our usual satisfaction.

The temptation of evil is illustrated through Mephistopheles as follows.

Mephistopheles :

“I am the spirit, ever, that denies!

And rightly so: since everything created,

In turn deserves to be annihilated:

Better if nothing came to be.

So all that you call Sin, you see,

Destruction, in short, what you’ve meant

By Evil is my true element. (Microsoft Word Faust.doc 1340)

The nature of the devil is negation. It denies the positive. It sees good and evil backwards. We all love good, but the devil loves evil. We like to create; the devil likes to destroy. They like to hinder and beat others rather than help them, and they like to kill rather than save. This is the "Mephistopheles" quality. This kind of people are increasing around us. This kind of evil is the nature of the devil.

The devil has the power of witchcraft, which is similar to God's creative power. Because of this power, people are tempted by the devil. Even if it is not a personal power or superpower like "Mephistopheles," there are many people around us who have this kind of witchcraft or fraud. Many people sin because they are tempted by criminality.

Mephistopheles

My friend you’ll win more

For your senses, in an hour,

Than in a whole year’s monotony.

What the tender spirits sing,

The lovely pictures that they bring,

Are no empty wizardry.

First your sense of smell’s invited,

Then your palate is delighted,

And then your touch, you see.

Now, I need no preparation,

We’re all here, so let’s begin! (Microsoft Word Faust.doc 1445)

The Devil's powers are centered around sensual pleasure and the senses of hearing, sight, smell, and taste. It is not a mere trick or momentary illusion; in this sense, it is an all-sensory transformation. Indeed, this state of transformation is a blessing, the equivalent of ascending to heaven. The temptation of the devil is great. Your senses will be brought to ecstasy. Mephistopheles assures us. But this excludes mental or moral pleasure. There is no sacrifice for the sake of others, no joy in seeing others do well, no pleasure in solving a community problem. It is all personal, sensual pleasure, nothing but selfishness.

But Faust still has a memory of the goodness and righteousness of his former life: a conscience that rebels against his evil impulses even as it follows them.

Faust. From the dreadful turmoil of my mind were drawn sweet notes ripe to my ears; and my heart, which still retained the feelings of childhood, was deceived by the afterglow of those pleasant days; but I curse them. I curse all that holds my soul in this cave of sorrow by temptation and deceit, by trickery and rhetoric, and most of all I curse those lofty desires to which our minds are captive! Cursed be the dazzling phenomena that excite our senses! (Faust p. 91 from Korean translation)

As a child and as an adult, Faust has always lived right and done many good things for others, which is why the peasants respect him, and his pupils respect their teacher. But no one has seen the change in him. In this sense, the devil tries to cut him off from his past. Now, through his deal with the devil, he tries to live fresh, indulging in all kinds of sensual pleasures, but there is still a part of him that is good and wise. That's why he sometimes resents Mephistopheles' schemes.

That is why he curses deception and rhetoric. That is why he curses, above all, those lofty desires to which our minds are captivated! He curses the dazzling phenomena that excite our senses! he boldly proclaims.

However, Faust's pain and despair are eventually overcome by the temptation of Mephistopheles.

Mephistopheles : In this world I will be your servant, and work without ceasing under your direction; in return, when we meet again in the other world, you must do the same for me. (Faust p. 95)

To this, Faust responds as follows

Faust : I, if I were to lie idle in bed, might as well be doomed at once. If I were to be deceived by your rhetorical theories, if I were to fall into self-drunkenness, if I were to be amused by the pleasures of sensuality, it would be my last day. Come, let us make a wager! (Faust, p. 95)

Even though Faust is aware of Mephistopheles' devious plans and the humiliation and pain he will suffer in the future, he still wants something to change in his reality. His life is such a hellish situation that he wants to end it if he is deceived by the devil's syllogisms and fooled into self-delusion or into the pleasures of sensuality.

Through the Devil's witchcraft and sorcery, Faust is able to retain his passionate youthful impulses and have a love affair as planned.

In this sense, the devil has tremendous supernatural power.

That's why Faust eventually makes a bet to sell his soul to the devil. Faust and the Devil go to meet the student, but before they do, Mephistopheles says something disdainful of reason and scholarship, and this is where Hegel quotes from the Phenomenology of Spirit.

(Wearing Faust's long robes) Let us despise the highest powers of man, which are reason and learning. Let them be energized by false spirits through witchcraft and magic. (Faust p. 103)

This demonic philosophy is linked to a disdain for theory.

Mephistopheles. My dear, theories are all gray. The blue is the golden tree of life. (Faust p. 111)

As we'll see later in the Hegel section, Hegel criticizes Mephistopheles' claim that all theories are gray. What he means by saying that theories are gray is that people's consciousness, or self-consciousness, sees theories as irrelevant to themselves, meaning their own ignorance. Hegel sees this as a lack of human awareness of oneself.

The grayness of theory is something we often experience. How much knowledge and theory is around us? There are subjects like economics and law, or math and medicine. There are tons of books and YouTube videos about women's issues, relationships between men and women, or sensual pleasures. In this sense, Mephistopheles was misleading when he said that all theories are gray, and sometimes this can resonate. Regardless of theories, there are many things in front of me that demand immediate action. Dating, choosing to eat out, and other life events require split-second judgment and impulse, and in times of crisis, immediate action. These are the golden trees of life, I suppose.

The problem is that in the case of Faust and Mephistopheles, the golden tree of life doesn't grow through common sense, but through magic and tricks.

Finally, the devil's witchcraft and illusions come true. Mephistopheles must brew a potion to fulfill the promise he made to Faust earlier, and the place is the witch's kitchen.

After drinking the potion in the witch's kitchen, Faust's body is rejuvenated by 30 years. Faust doesn't believe it at first, but then he realizes it. He goes out into the street and sees a young woman named Margarete and immediately falls in love. Margarete is also called Gretchen.

Faust. Alas, what a beautiful girl she is! I have never seen such a child. She's polite, quiet, and a little bit sassy; her red lips, her sunshine cheeks, I'll never forget her as long as I live in this world; the way her eyes look down into my heart; the way she sprinkles me with a little bit of her hair, it really makes me ecstatic! (Faust pg. 141)

Faust's problem is that he immediately wants to seduce this naïve, shy, and especially pious girl who likes to confess. He ignores his moral code and falls into lust. He mutters, "I have been seduced by the sight of you!

Is it a magic mist that has enveloped me here; the impulse of pleasure rushes over me, and I feel myself dissolving into a dream of love! Are we but playthings to be flirted with as the wind blows? How shall I atone for my insolence if at this moment she should enter? O that so great a flirt, even Ida should be so timid! I would fall at her feet as if I might melt away! (Faust, p. 148)

Faust, who has gone from being a top scholar to a flirt, is in a state where his senses and desires are 100% stimulated, and he is completely infatuated with Gretchen, an innocent and beautiful girl, but he doesn't know how to attract her. Again, with the help of the devil, he throws a pretty box (jewelry box) into her room. In this process, Faust finally connects with Gretchen. This is shown below.

Faust. : How is it going, is it going well, do you think it will be soon?

Mephistopheles. : Alas, bravo, you seem to be on fire; in a little while Gretchen will be yours; I will meet her this evening at the house of my neighbor, Marthe; she seems to me to be a very good matchmaker and tosser. (Faust p. 163)

Faust and Gretchen are thus united, and Gretchen becomes pregnant with his child, but Faust is unaware of this. Then, through a complicated series of events, Faust kills Gretchen's brother Valentin in a duel, and Gretchen is framed for the murder of her mother and baby, and is condemned to death. Faust breaks into the prison to rescue Gretchen, who is in prison for this crime, but Gretchen refuses.

Gretchen is saved by praying in prison, and her final confession is as follows.

Margarete. : I am yours. Father! Save me!

Angels, holy hosts, surround me and protect me!

Mephistopheles. She is judged!

Voice. (From above) She is saved!

Mephistopheles. (To Faust) Come to me!

(He disappears with Faust.)

Voice. (from within, fading away) Heinrich! Heinrich! (Faust p. 250)

This concludes the first part of Goethe's Faust. In Part 2, Faust falls in love with a Greek beauty named Helena and pursues a more enterprising life.

2. Hegel's Theory of Pleasure in the Phenomenology of Mind

Hegel's theory of pleasure and necessity is esoteric. It requires a lot of philosophical history to explain it properly. Here, I will introduce only one simple thing: Fichte's theory of epistemology. The fundamentals of epistemology are the self and the non-self. The existence of the ego is certain. The non-self is everything other than the self. The Other. It is the purpose of epistemology to establish the non-self through the ego.

Fichte's philosophy is what Hegel calls the realm of reason in the Phenomenology of Mind.

The realm that is one step higher than reason is called spirit by Hegel.

Fichte's ego is also referred to by Hegel as the being-for-itself or self-consciousness.

This implies that the ego is the only entity that acts independently of itself.

Hegel's characteristic is that he sees the connection between the being-for-itself and the other as an action, and in the Pleasure and Necessity chapter, he sees sexuality and sexual acts as such an action.

The phenomenon of sexual desire or sensual pleasure is observed by Hegel in the context of the relation between self and other. Pleasure is the phenomenon of making the other one's own. In that sense, reason is the instrument and precursor of the spirit. If reason is the child, then the spirit is the adult. That's why Hegel also refers to reason as an abstraction of the spirit: the child is the abstraction of the adult.

To say that reason is an abstraction of the spirit is to say that humans have sex out of sexual desire and instinct, but that this eventually produces the second generation and leads to the reproduction of the species. This is the central logic of the chapter on pleasure and necessity.

Hegel illustrates this relationship between reason and the spirit with a passage from Goethe's Faust, the aforementioned.

Mephistopheles says: My dear, all theories are gray. The blue is the golden tree of life.

The passage.

Hegel says that knowledge or theory is gray when the self-consciousness does not know mental reality and sees it as purely being-for-itself. In other words, when reason is only concerned with its own instinctive desires and covets a woman, but neglects the family, community, or nation. Hegel puts it this way :

The shadows of theories, laws, and principles, which were the only link between the self and its reality, disappear into a dense fog in which there is no trace of their true nature. (Phenomenology of Mind p. 379)

Hegel's interpretation of Dr. Faust's abandonment of knowledge and scholarship is that he has fallen into the blind lust of pleasure, unaware that the mind is a higher essence. In other words, Faust has fallen into a state of individual being-for-itself (self-existence). The rational part of the mind, such as scholarship and law, now disappears into a mist, where its true nature is nowhere to be found. We experience this phenomenon all around us. For example, a person who studied hard law and became a lawyer may go to a bar and indulge their desires, but then they go too far and do something illegal and get arrested.

Hegel also describes disciplines, laws, principles, etc. as the link between the self and reality, which makes sense. They are also the means by which a person needs to eat. In this sense, Faust's fall is part of human nature.

These desires finally fulfill their purpose. He meets a beautiful woman he loves and enjoys pleasure. As mentioned above, the fulfillment of this purpose brings about a different state in the next moment: becoming a lover, or even marriage. However, if you are a playboy or a pure hedonist, you may not like this constant relevance. Hegel describes this situation as follows.

When self-consciousness thus fulfills its purpose, it is in the very midst of this that it becomes clear what purpose really is. The self-consciousness grasps itself as an individual entity, but to realize its purpose is to destroy this individuality, for the self-consciousness is no longer the object of this individuality, but rather the unity of the self with other self-consciousnesses, or the self as a universal rather than as an individual." (Phenomenology of Mind p. 381)

In interpreting this section, we must also refer to Hegel's personal life.

As we know, Hegel was a young man who did not make it in academia, and in 1807, when he published the Phenomenology of Mind, he still had not become a professor and was even forced out of his job as a part-time lecturer by Napoleon's invasion of the Weimar Republic.

He also had a love affair with his boardinghouse mistress, fathered a child with her, and even promised to marry her. His own experience was also a trigger for “pleasure and necessity” chapter: an old bachelor who had studied extensively and written numerous philosophical treatises was unable to overcome his loneliness in a financially impoverished state and engaged in a rational relationship with a boardinghouse mistress. Faust, too, pursued his desires, impregnated a woman and, as if that weren't enough, sent her to prison.

Let's look at the above quote in this light. To take it further, sensual pleasure or love leads to contradictions. No, love itself has its own contradictions. Sartre says that love is impossible or that love fails, almost in the same way as Hegel: I love a woman of my own volition, of my own subjectivity, but I also want to be loved by her. This requires me to become the person she wants me to be. In this, I lose my subjectivity. Consider the following sentence of Sartre.

When we respect the subjectivity of others, we say that we love. But in the end, love is abandoning one's own subjectivity and entering another's world. That feeling is called hate. And so love fails. ... (from Sartre’s Being and Nothingness)

Love has this internal contradiction. This, in turn, is consistent with Hegel's ideas. This contradiction between pleasure and love is what Hegel categorizes as the positive and negative sides of man.

Enjoying pleasure, of course, has the positive connotation of objectifying oneself as self-consciousness, but it also has the negative connotation of destroying oneself. Therefore, even if the self-consciousness tries to see self-realization through pleasure in only a positive sense, his experience is bound to come across as contradictory to the consciousness. The self, having acquired reality as an individual, lacks reality. In the midst of the empty confrontation between his individuality and the field of unreality, it is dissolved by the appearance of a negative situation that has the power to destroy this individuality. This negative phase is the very essence of the individual." ( Phenomenology of Mind, p. 380)

What we can glean from the above difficult sentence is that a human being with a sexual drive (= ego) will ejaculate in the process of satisfying his needs. This is objectified self-consciousness. The desire for pleasure is a strictly subjective state. But the ejaculated semen is re-materialized, that is, it produces an objective thing. This is the positive meaning of desire. But this ejaculation also has another meaning. In the 19th century, when we didn't have contraception like we do today, intercourse could only result in ejaculation into the vagina or elsewhere. This is what Hegel meant by reached reality. He also called it a contradiction: ejaculation results in pregnancy, which is a separate matter from the original desire. This is the contradiction that lurks in the pleasure that is enjoyed. This is what many people experience.

This is the case with shows like "Highschool Student mother and father" that are popular on TV in Korea these days.

Faust experienced this as well.

Hegel himself seems to have experienced this, and it's bound to happen, especially if you're having a fling without formal marriage in mind. Hegel calls this "the emergence of a negative situation that has the power to destroy the individuality." This used to happen all too often.

Hegel describes this situation as follows.

But at this point the individual is only a spirit that has achieved a meager degree of self-realization and therefore still exists only as abstract reason (die Abstraktion der Vernunft.) or as a direct unity of the self in the self and the self in the other; his essence therefore appears only in abstract categories. (...) The world of things thus appears as a torus in which simple essential beings develop pure relations. The realization of individuality in this form is nothing less than an abstract torus movement (Kreis von Abstraktion) in which the individual leaves the state of being enclosed within the unitary consciousness, confronts himself, and tries to unfold himself in the world of objects. (Phenomenology of Mind pp. 380-381)

What we are referring to here is the expansion of one's existence through the birth of a child

through the birth of a child. The abstract here is like being forced to accept a baby that has not yet been born, instead of greeting it with joy: you did not have intercourse or conception in anticipation of the child, but the child was born unexpectedly; but this birth is necessary for the perpetuation of yourself, your lineage, and, by extension, the human race, and the self-consciousness that seeks only pleasure does not recognize this. This is what Hegel called the abstract category, which Hegel also called the direct and simple form of existence. This abstract unfolding is what Hegel called inevitability, or fate.

It is impossible to say what this thing called necessity or fate does, what its certain laws or concrete contents are, because it is only an absolute and pure idea which can only be said to be there, a relation which is simple and empty, and which is carried on without a shadow of a doubt, which is the true form of fate, and in which the individual can only be helpless to what happens." (Phenomenology of Mind, p. 381)

The above sentence is easy to understand when you see such scenes in movies and dramas. In other words, inevitability or fate is exactly what people feel when they engage in sexual acts in the passion of love or pleasure. It is especially the feeling of men. It is an unexpected event - fate. It is unexpected news. Nature uses sexual passion to create offspring. This is especially evident in animals and other living things. In the days before birth control, individuals were at the mercy of what was happening. Hegel's strength is his philosophical conceptualization of this contradiction of youth.

3) The Birth of Baby and being-for-itself and being-in-itself

Sartre organized his philosophy into two categories: being-for-itself and being-in-itself : things are being-in-itself : humans are being-for-itself. In other words, material beings without consciousness or mind are called being-in-itself, and humans with consciousness are called being-for-itself.

The latter have freedom, while the former are largely created by humans, so their nature precedes their existence. Sartre left us with the famous proposition that human existence precedes his essence: man is born not knowing what the purpose of his life is, but of course he can discover purpose or meaning. On the other hand, being-in-itself, like a ballpoint pen, has a reason and purpose befor being born and is created according to it’s purpose.

So in the case of a being-in-itself, essence precedes existence.

However, in Hegel's case, which is Sartre's source, the logic is that the superego turns into the immediate, and the being-for-itself turns into the being-in-itself. This is the story of sexual instinct and the birth of a child. This is the logic of the pleasure and necessity chapter at the same time. Hegel expresses it as follows.

Here consciousness passes from the form of the unitary to the form of the universal, from absolute abstraction to its opposite, from the pure object of the self, which denies communion with the Other, to its opposite, the world of the immediate, which is also abstract. (Phenomenology of Mind p. 382)

The free human being, who at first, like a high school dad, looks with bewilderment at the completely unexpected event of lust and love, the appearance of a child, gradually comes to terms with his alter ego and begins life with a new destiny. This is the simple secret of life hidden in the incredibly difficult philosophical concepts and theories mentioned above. It is, of course, the most secret and precious secret of life. Hegel concludes this as follows.

The form of self-consciousness called pleasure has been experienced up to this point; what now appears in its final stage is the idea that, in the face of inevitable fate, it has come to an existential self-loss, and therefore regards fate as absolutely estranged from itself. But self-consciousness has here actually survived in the face of inevitable fate, for the inevitability of fate is the pure power that pervades all things, which is the very essence of self-consciousness. When consciousness returns to itself and comes to recognize the inevitability of fate as its own essence, it takes on a new form.

4. Conclusion

The current reality in Korea is darkened by the unwillingness to marry and the low birthrate and aging population. Whatever the reason, these are negative phenomena.

However, without procreation and family, a person will remain in pure freedom, or self-consciousness, and it will be difficult to live in a higher stage. Hegel sees this as an ascent to the universal self. Faust also experienced this as a common form of life. Both Goethe’s Faust and hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind depict a life course that leads to a new world of life through the pursuit of sensual and selfish desire.

Summary : On Sexual Pleasure in literature and philosophy

(Goethe’ Faust and Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind)

In Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind, there is a chapter called "Pleasure and Necessity". Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind is one of the most difficult and famous books in the history of philosophy. The chapter "Pleasure and Necessity" is also very esoteric, but it quotes Goethe's "Faust". This gives us a good idea of Hegel's ideas, because Goethe's "Faust" is one of the most important books in world literature, and Hegel admired Goethe. Hegel's relationship with Goethe is varied, but we'll only focus on the "Pleasure and Necessity" chapter of the Phenomenology of Mind.

Goethe was the German equivalent of Shakespeare in England.

Hegel was younger than Goethe, but they lived in the same era. It is significant that Hegel studied Goethe's Faust and made philosophical statements about it. Hegel and Goethe, they can be said to represent Germany's two great mountain ranges in philosophy and literature. In that sense, the chapter "Pleasure and Necessity," although short in length, is a valuable cultural asset that provides a glimpse into the commonality of literature and philosophy. and is of particular interest to us because it deals with the issues of sexual pleasure and love.

(· · ·) As we know, Hegel was a young man who did not make it in academia, and in 1807, when he published the Phenomenology of Mind, he still had not become a professor and was even forced out of his job as a part-time lecturer by Napoleon's invasion of the Weimar Republic.

He also had a love affair with his boardinghouse mistress, fathered a child with her, and even promised to marry her. His own experience was also a trigger for “pleasure and necessity” chapter: an old bachelor who had studied extensively and written numerous philosophical treatises was unable to overcome his loneliness in a financially impoverished state and engaged in a rational relationship with a boardinghouse mistress. Faust, too, pursued his desires, impregnated a woman and, as if that weren't enough, sent her to prison.

Let's look at the above quote in this light. To take it further, sensual pleasure or love leads to contradictions. No, love itself has its own contradictions. Sartre says that love is impossible or that love fails, almost in the same way as Hegel: I love a woman of my own volition, of my own subjectivity, but I also want to be loved by her. This requires me to become the person she wants me to be. In this, I lose my subjectivity.

Furthermore the unexpected birth of a baby changes the essence of subjective instinct or sexual pleasure. In philosophical terminology the being-for-itself turns into being-in-itself. It is the meaning of the “pleasure and necessity”.

https://youtu.be/DRMwBNuR_8I