The Role of the "We" in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

This article will explain that the difficulty in understanding the role of the "We" in the Phenomenology arises from the confusion between the two distinct ways that consciousness appears in its basic nature, where "consciousness is, on the one hand, consciousness of the object, and on the other, consciousness of itself" (PhdG §85). Firstly, there is consciousness of an object, let's call it C(O), which also holds that there is a distinction between itself, C(O), and the object in-itself, "O." Thus we have C(O) + O. Here, "consciousness simultaneously distinguishes itself from something, and at the same time relates itself to it" (PhdG §82). Secondly we have a consciousness of C(O) + O, which can be written as C[C(O)+O]. The first "C" in this formula is called observing consciousness, and the second "C" is the observed consciousness. The observed consciousness may also be called natural or ordinary consciousness. However, both observing and observed consciousness are essentially one and the same consciousness, "C," merely differing in form, at one and the same time both subject and object to itself.