Abstract

This work develops a systematic Hegelian critique of Advaita Vedānta’s doctrine of pure consciousness (śuddha-caitanya), diagnosing its central non-dual claim as a case of hypostatized abstraction—treating the conceptual product of reflection as though it were the primordial ground of reality. Through five interconnected problems (immediacy, identity, totality, negation, and temporality), the analysis shows how Vedānta abstracts “consciousness-in-general” from determinate acts of consciousness and then reverses the logical order by claiming that concrete particulars derive from this abstract universal. The error functions like the “missing dollar” puzzle: a miscount produced by treating what is already included as though it were an additional remainder. Drawing on Hegel’s Science of Logic and Lacanian signifier theory, the work argues that this is not Vedānta’s isolated mistake but a recurrent temptation of reflective thought—one that reappears in contemporary philosophy of mind. The same structure animates debates about AI consciousness, panpsychism, and the hard problem, where abstractions (“phenomenal character,” “proto-consciousness,” “what-it’s-like”) are then reified into metaphysical substances. The constructive alternative reconceives consciousness as self-relating activity: the temporal movement through which living beings differentiate themselves, return to themselves, and thereby achieve self-awareness. This framework preserves the genuine insights of contemplative practice while dissolving the metaphysical confusions that absolutize them. Consciousness requires no transcendent substrate; properly understood, finitude is its only possible concrete unity.