In this photo series, I attempt to imagine the “what-is-it-like-ness” of Hegel’s Absolute Spirit through the lens of Thomas Nagel’s question about subjective experience—“what is it like to be a bat?” My central thesis is that “thisness,” as Hegel conceives it, is both universal and immanent, encompassing an assemblage of relationships rather than residing solely within one isolated perspective. Yet when read through Nagel’s account of subjective experience, we discover a productive tension between Hegel’s universal vantage point and the situated, singular viewpoint of a bat—or, for that matter, any entity in the world.
Hegel addresses the question “What is this?” in his Phenomenology of Spirit by examining how consciousness perceives and names the world. He argues that sense-certainty initially attributes “thisness” to an individual entity, but on further reflection, we see that “thisness” is not unique to any single entity. Instead, it appears universally across all individuals: “If they wanted to say ‘this’ bit of paper which they mean, … the sensuous this that is meant cannot be reached by language, which belongs to consciousness, i.e., to what which is inherently universal.” [1] Moreover, “thisness” is a non-qualitative property that defies neat separation; attempts to articulate one entity’s “thisness” always fail, since language generalizes: “… they say ‘actual things’, ‘external or sensuous objects’, ‘absolutely singular entities’ and so on, i.e., they say of them only what is universal. Consequently, what is called the unutterable is nothing else than the untrue, the irrational, what is merely meant but not actually expressed.” [2] For Hegel, therefore, the “what-is-it-like-ness” of the bat also includes the cave, the rocks, and other bats—thisness is an interconnected, universal property that defies any strictly individual perspective.
This emphasis on universality finds support in Hegel’s broader project. According to Hegel, the consciousness grasping “thisness” is not merely a single subjective self; rather, it merges various subjective viewpoints with what he calls the objective spirit. Indeed, his Phenomenology of Spirit serves as a preparatory exercise, guiding the reader toward conceptual thinking. First, it is regarded as a type of propaedeutic, an induction into “the standpoint of purely conceptual thought from which philosophy can be done.” [3] Second, the vantage point Hegel offers transforms “thisness” into a general ontological property, closer to a bird’s-eye view that integrates all perspectives into one conceptual framework.
Such a universalizing perspective stands in contrast to the views of Merleau-Ponty and Sartre, who link “thisness” to a single, embodied subject always situated in the world. In this framework, the “what-is-it-like-ness” of a bat is best understood through the bat’s limited, singular viewpoint. The bat exists in a particular time and place, and its experience is phenomenologically unique. By comparison, Hegel’s “haecceity” (thisness) of the bat is observed from an overarching consciousness that conceptualizes not just the bat itself but also the broader context in which it lives.
This idea that every entity can have a “point of view” leads to intriguing cases involving non-conscious entities. For instance, imagine a cave containing both a rock and a bat. The “haecceity” of the bat differs from that of the rock, yet each can be said to occupy a vantage point of its own. While the rock is not conscious, one could still envision “thisness” radiating from the rock itself, making the bat an object enclosed by the rock’s perspective. In this sense, the rock’s vantage point, though not traditionally sentient, challenges the divide between subjective and universal approaches, hinting that each entity theoretically “carries” its own view.
Thomas Nagel addresses this tension between universal and singular standpoints in The View from Nowhere. He suggests that while a purely objective vantage point can extend our understanding, it leaves out certain irreplaceable features of first-person experience. At the same time, a purely subjective standpoint is not enough to yield broader theoretical knowledge. “There are things about the world and life and ourselves that cannot be adequately understood from a maximally objective standpoint… however, much it may extend our understanding… a purely subjective standpoint is not sufficient either,” [4] Nagel argues. He therefore advocates for combining a personal viewpoint with an expanded conceptual perspective, acknowledging both one’s subjective position in the world and the broader reality that position belongs to. As he writes, “…we can raise our understanding to a new level only if we examine that relation between the world and ourselves… and form a new conception…” [5]
Ultimately, “thisness” emerges as the interplay between the universal and the singular, the individual perspective and the assemblage, and the transcendent and the immanent. My photo series endeavors to capture both Hegel’s expansive concept of Absolute Spirit and Nagel’s insight into the irreducible “what-is-it-like-ness” of individual creatures. By juxtaposing these views, I aim to show how “thisness,” far from being simply subjective or purely universal, comes alive in the overlapping space between the two perspectives.
[1] G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 66
[2] Ibid., 77
[3]Paul, Redding, "Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition)
[4] Thomas, Nagel, The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 7.
[5] Ibid, 5.