to itself as the being-other to the other. This manifold united differentiatedness of consciousness in itself, the being-itself in the manner of the absolute being-other, is the essential ground of the tearing that appears at every stage of consciousness so long as it is not absolute in an absolute sense. By turning around toward externalization and then back from it, experience goes through the tearing of consciousness; since experience is the knowledge of this tearing, it is this pain itself. (On tearing, pain, and the labor of negativity, cf. “Preface” p.29 [§32], especially p.20 [§19] about the essence of the absolute— “Pain” cf. also the end of Faith and Knowledge, p.190.[33]—experience as boldness—mindful courage.)
Every experience as experience is painful, because as experience it is a “bad experience,” i.e., one in which the badness (not the moral wickedness) of the violence of the negative manifests itself. Even the seemingly “good” and “pleasant” experience is, essentially understood, a “bad” one.
That is the abyssal essence of experience. If Hegel indeed understood the appearance of consciousness as a course of the essential disillusionment, he must have encountered this essence of experience that is the essence of life itself.
In comparison to this fulfilled concept of experience, the empirical concept of experience of the empirical and of the empiricists is only the insipid and dried-up sediment of a formerly lively drink.
But Hegel still let the title Science of the Experience of Consciousness disappear. Was the full essence of “experience” not sufficiently present to him in its unity and for that reason does not figure as the guiding word of the title? Why was the title dropped?
We do not know.
It is enough that it has remained preserved for us as the strange impetus for a reflection that thereby sees itself pushed into a confrontation with absolute metaphysics and thus becomes prepared for the pain of the diremption from it.