ABSTRACT
Reason is the certainty of being all reality. It's inherent nature, this reality, is still, however, through and through a universal, the pure abstraction of reality. It is the first positive character which self-consciousness per se is aware of being, and ego is, therefore, merely the pure, inner essence of existence, in other words, is the Category bare and simple. Consciousness determines its relation to otherness or its object in various ways, according as it is at one or other stage in the development of the world-spirit into self-consciousness. The kind of Idealism which does not trace the path to that result, but starts off with the bare assertion of this truth, is consequently a mere assurance, which does not understand its own nature, and cannot make itself intelligible to any one else. From the fact that self-consciousness is Reason, its hitherto negative attitude towards otherness turns round into a positive attitude.
