Hegel's Phenomenology Of Sprit

In sections 190-193 of Georg Wilhelm Fredrich Hegel’s Phenomenology of Sprit, Hegel looks into the relationship between the lord and the bondsman. In this examination of the relationship, Hegel makes the move to find out what both the lord and bondsman offer to each other in terms of existence and or identity. The formulation that Hegel made in the selected sections is that the bondsman had more to gain in terms of intellectual growth than his lord who becomes intellectually dormant due to the bondsman acting in the likeness of his lord.
In section 190, Hegel begins with the lord existing in so much to be dependent through another consciousness. Hegel writes, “is a consciousness [lord] existing for itself which is mediated with itself through another consciousness, i.e through a consciousness [bondsman] whose nature it is to be bound up” (Hegel 115). In this passage, Hegel shows why the lord is dependent on the bondsman. The lord exist only “for itself” through his need and mediation through the bondsman. With the bondsman being bounded as an object of desire to the lord, the bondsman has to submit to his lord due to the physical and monetary power he yields.
Although it may seem that the lord is at an advantage of using the bondsman for his own gain through the deterrence of power, Hegel shows how the more to gain. Hegel writes, “what desire failed to achieved, he succeeds in doing, viz to have done with the thing altogether, and to achieve satisfaction in the enjoyment of it. Desire failed to do this because of the thing’s [bondsman] independence” (Hegel 116). This passage shows why the lord has much more to lose because the bondsman acts as an independent consciousness of intentionally not wanting to submit to his lord. How...

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...rom the lord. In section 192, Hegel writes, “He [lord] is, therefore, not certain of being-for-self as the truth of himself” (Hegel 117). In this passage, the lord does not gain any intellectual growth because he hears what he wants to hear from the bondsman appealing to him since the bondsman is in the likeness of the lord.
In Section 193, Hegel shows why the bondsman gains. Hegel writes, “Servitude in its consummation will really turn into the opposite of what it immediately is... It will withdraw into itself and be transformed into a truly independent consciousness” (Hegel 117). In that passage, the bondsman being able to perceive this dialectical problem transforms him into an independent consciousness. With this gain of an independent consciousness through the dialectical problem, its gain outweighs that of the lord since the lord hears what he wants to hear.