On Hegel's Introduction

So Hegel says that there is truth and there is untruth. There is phenomenal knowledge, which itself is untrue and there is absolute, which is the truth. Consciousness is something in which everything happens, e.g. events, time, space, thinking, learning. Another thing that Hegel implies, I think, is that knowledge is a sort of automatic process, that comes out of necessity, it happens by itself in consiousness, and all we have to do is just sit back and watch. Consciousness examines itself. Concepts and terms are arbitrary according to Hegel. It's is not that they are completely invalid, it's just that they don't grasp the full essence of things in consciousness, and therefore should be approached with care and not taken to the absolute level. There is also the idea that things that we get to know appear to be "for us" as opposed to be "for themselves". Not sure if my interpretation is 100% valid here, but I think "common sense", common way of perceiving things, is the result of this process of identification with known. When phenomenal knowledge takes place, the observer of that knowledge takes it as his or her own, e.g. immediately relevant to one's existence. When I see that it's raining I know that rain is happening, and recognize the phenomena of rain in relation to me (maybe I got wet, or I saw a discovery channel tv program about rain, it was part of my experience one way or another), but not necesarily in relation to itself. The moment I formulate the idea of rain as it relates to my experience, I deny it it's own essence (being for itself). Objectively, as whole, as the thing in itself I don't know what rain is. Similarly we make sense of the world using this "rain is what I feel at the moment or what I have been told by meteorolgists" approach, as opposed to "rain is rain" approach. Accepting this knowledge to be for ourselves therefore hinders our ability to go beyond it. Dialectical movement in consiousness resolves this persisting problem of describing indescribable. Instead of going into endless arguments about what rain actually is (6.9 billion people on earth will each present you a different picture) one can simply say that rain is what rain is not. Since rain is one of the innumerable phenomena in consciousness, we don't need to know what rain really is, rather we simply need to know what is it in relation to the absolute.

I don't think Hegel believes that knowing absolute is possible, - the idea of "someone knowing something" is part of that phenomenal knowlege which needs to be transcended, however, I think, what Hegel implies is that consciousness, by examining itself, can somehow come to absolute. Consciousness, examining itself through dialectical movement, e.g. negating itself as a whole and as consisting of parts, sort of "thins itself out" and becomes transparent to the point where absolute can shine through it.