SSC Selection Post (Phase XIV) 2025 · Question 265 of 284

. What central paradox is conveyed through the master–slave relation in the passage? Read the passage and answer the questions: The certainty of a self-aware individual does not rest in immediate assurance, but in the dialectical process through which it becomes what it is. In seeking knowledge, consciousness first treats its object as something outside itself—independent and self-standing. Yet, through the work of experience, it realizes that the object is not genuinely separate; it is structured and shaped through consciousness itself. The supposed split between subject and object is therefore aufgehoben within the dialectic, showing that knowledge is not a passive intake of external truth but an active undertaking in which consciousness forms and re-forms its own world. This development proceeds through repeated tensions: at each stage, believing it has reached certainty, consciousness later confronts the limits of that claim. The master–slave relation illustrates the point: self-consciousness seeks recognition from another, but when it asserts mastery over the other, it ironically weakens its own freedom. The master, by turning the slave into a mere tool, loses the possibility of full recognition. The slave, however, through labour and self-formation, arrives at a stronger sense of autonomy, revealing that freedom is not granted but won through negation and surpassing.

trigonometry

1. ATrue knowledge is achieved only by controlling others
2. BThe slave remains permanently lesser in self-awareness
3. CThe master weakens recognition by denying the other’s autonomyCorrect
4. DConsciousness can exist only through subjugation