A hard truth of reality: I can't magically put beer in my fridge merely by thinking that there is beer is my fridge. As for Hegel, I think that like all of us, he must have been capable of false consciousness about some aspect of himself at some time or other; I know I have.

Karl Pfeifer Thank you for your realistic answer, but I am speaking from the point of view that man is a being endowed with awareness and thinking. This means that from what is, whatever its way of being, it makes an existence for itself.

Frédéric Tremblay Thanks for your answer, but I think, things of nature exist only instantaneously and in one way, while man, being a spirit, has a double existence; It exists, on the one hand, in the same way as the things of nature exist, but on the other hand, it also exists for itself, it contemplates itself, it represents itself, it thinks of itself and has no soul except through this activity which constitutes itself.

Frederic,

The notion that human beings are self-absorbed may often be true psychologically but the notion that human beings separate their identity from others or the world, in general, contemplating it ignores all the apparatus around which discourages this view. We do not live in isolation, mental or otherwise. Through words alone, we converse with others, usually when alone. Is this idea perhaps more to do with 19th-century romanticism and the invention of SELF seen in that era but not necessarily in other eras.

Bishop Berkeley held that everything had no true physical qualities but all was simply the essence of god behind the physical world. In a world of goodness (sic) and horrors thereby we come back to all that happens being the responsibility of god. We merely receive impressions. Such a position takes all responsibility away from humankind and presents the original matrix-style reality where human beings are fed materiality by others. Again, I go back to the notion of the environment as constructing reality by reflecting it back and individual autonomy vastly overrated.

Frederic,

I think there are a number of ways to view this. The questions appears fairly open.

Frédéric Tremblay Exactly, I gave a view attributed to Hegel, but not necessarily this