History of Philosophy II

From our recognition that values are not universal we move towards a cultural relativism. This brings us to Hegel's generation. They accepted Kant's philosophy except they rejected the apparently contradictory notion that we could know that the ego must exist, things in themselves must exist, and God must exist, without knowing them! Instead, as cultural artifacts - spirit - they exist in our minds much as our conceptions of all phenomena do. But what is the nature of spirit as cultural artifacts? Reading the excerpt in the text we see a new kind of philosophical literature. Instead of describing the way things are, Hegel describes a dialectical process between the in itself and the for itself. That is, the subject of experience reacts to the object of experience. This dialectical interplay of forces happens at multiple levels so describes what is going on in my mind as I decide what choices I will make, or between two people, or between a person and a group, or groups with other groups, and even the world all together - the Weltgeist. We also have the conception of the Zeitgeist - the spirit of the times. All of these concepts are made to show the dynamic interplay that occurs that is very real even though it is only social interaction. But this social interaction creates real things - from buildings and nations to egos and fiction. The quiz question today was, how would Hegel's view of self-consciousness explain individuals with multiple personalities?