Sensation is the first stage through which substance awakens into subjectivity

Evidence

From its original state, elementary, simple, and indivisible, substance becomes the basis and support for individual subjectivity. Thus the soul of nature becomes the nature of the soul. And it is sensation which marks the first stage in this process. In the sensations which arise from the individual’s encounter with external objects, the soul begins to awaken to itself. ‘On waking we find ourselves at first only quite vaguely distinguished from the outer world generally. It is only when we start to have sensations that this difference becomes a determinate distinction.’ — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 349

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the transition from substance to subject as passing through sensation — the pivotal move of Hegel’s Anthropology.
• XREF: connects to: Sensation involves a magical inherence of lived and living rather than spatial belonging — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 844; Sensory alteration is an achievement enabling sensation’s actualization; Sensation requires an object other than the sense acting on it (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Sensory alteration is an achievement enabling sensation’s actualization #expands (0.82)
• Knowledge’s transformative power arises retrospectively from achieved substance-subject. #expands (0.80)
• Substance becomes subject by self-negating into its own content #expands (0.80) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 240
• The soul, unlike wax, assimilates sensory forms into its own substance #expands (0.76)
• Sensation requires an object other than the sense acting on it #expands (0.75)
• Sensation anchors awareness in immediate present presence #expands (0.75) — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 242
• Thought is self-initiated while sensation requires an external object #expands (0.74) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 456