Georg Hegel - The Science of Logic Pt. 2

chapter 3

Ground11.291

Essence determines itself as ground.Just as nothing is at first in simple immediate unity with being, so here

too the simple identity of essence is at first in simple unity with its absolutenegativity. Essence is only this negativity which is pure reflection. It is thispure reflection as the turning back of being into itself; hence it is determined,in itself or for us, as the ground into which being resolves itself. But thisdeterminateness is not posited by the essence itself; in other words, essence isnot ground precisely because it has not itself posited this determinatenessthat it possesses. Its reflection, however, consists in positing itself as whatit is in itself, as a negative, and in determining itself. The positive andthe negative constitute the essential determination in which essence is lostin its negation. These self-subsisting determinations of reflection sublatethemselves, and the determination that has foundered to the ground is thetrue determination of essence.

Consequently, ground is itself one of the reflected determinations of essence,but it is the last, or rather, it is determination determined as sublated deter-mination. In foundering to the ground, the determination of reflectionreceives its true meaning – that it is the absolute repelling of itself withinitself; or again, that the positedness that accrues to essence is such onlyas sublated, and conversely that only the self-sublating positedness is thepositedness of essence. In determining itself as ground, essence determinesitself as the not-determined, and only the sublating of its being determinedis its determining. – Essence, in thus being determined as self-sublating,does not proceed from an other but is, in its negativity, identical withitself.

Since the advance to the ground is made starting from determinationas an immediate first (is done by virtue of the nature of determinationitself that founders to the ground through itself ), the ground is at firstdetermined by that immediate first. But this determining is, on the one

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hand, as the sublating of the determining, the merely restored, purified ormanifested identity of essence which the determination of reflection is initself; on the other hand, this negating movement is, as determining, thefirst positing of that reflective determinateness that appeared as immediatedeterminateness, but which is posited only by the self-excluding reflectionof ground and therein is posited as only something posited or sublated. –Thus essence, in determining itself as ground, proceeds only from itself.As ground, therefore, it posits itself as essence, and its determining consistsin just this positing of itself as essence. This positing is the reflection ofessence that sublates itself in its determining; on that side is a positing, onthis side is the positing of essence, hence both in one act.

Reflection is pure mediation in general; ground, the real mediation ofessence with itself. The former, the movement of nothing through nothingback to itself, is the reflective shining of one in an other; but, because inthis reflection opposition does not yet have any self-subsistence, neither isthe one, that which shines, something positive, nor is the other in which itreflectively shines something negative. Both are substrates, actually of theimagination; they are still not self-referring. Pure mediation is only purereference, without anything being referred to. Determining reflection, forits part, does posit such terms as are identical with themselves; but theseare at the same time only determined references. Ground, on the contrary,is mediation that is real, since it contains reflection as sublated reflection;it is essence that turns back into itself through its non-being and posits itself.According to this moment of sublated reflection, what is posited receivesthe determination of immediacy, of an immediate which is self-identicaloutside its reference or its reflective shining. This immediacy is being asrestored by essence, the non-being of reflection through which essencemediates itself. Essence returns into itself as it negates; therefore, in itsturning back into itself, it gives itself the determinateness that preciselyfor this reason is the self-identical negative, is sublated positedness, andconsequently, as the self-identity of essence as ground, equally an existent.

The ground is, first, absolute ground – one in which the essence is firstof all the general substrate for the ground-connection. It then furtherdetermines itself as form and matter and gives itself a content.

Second, it is determinate ground, the ground of a determinate content.Because the ground-connection, in being realized, becomes as such exter-nal, it passes over into conditioning mediation.

Third, ground presupposes a condition; but the condition equally pre-supposes the ground; the unconditioned is the unity of the two, the fact

388 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

itself that, by virtue of the mediation of the conditioning reference, passesover into concrete existence.11.293

RemarkGround, like all the other determinations of reflection, is expressed in aprinciple: “Everything has a sufficient ground or reason.” – In general, thismeans nothing but this: Anything which is, is to be considered to existnot as an immediate, but as a posited; there is no stopping at immediateexistence but a return must rather be made from it back into its ground,and in this reflection it is a sublated being and is in and for itself. What isexpressed by the principle of sufficient reason is, therefore, the essentialityof immanent reflection as against mere being. – That the ground or reasonmust be sufficient is strictly speaking a totally superfluous addition, forit goes without saying; a thing without sufficient ground would have noground, yet everything ought to have a ground. But Leibniz, for whomthe principle of sufficient reason was especially dear to his heart and evenmade it the basic principle of his whole philosophy,10 associated a moreprofound meaning with “sufficient” than is normally the case when onesimply stops at its immediate expression – although, to be sure, even inthis ordinary sense the proposition is already to be regarded as important,for it says that being as such, in its immediacy, is an untruth, that it issomething essentially posited, and that it is the ground which is rather thetrue immediate. But Leibniz took the sufficiency of the ground above allin opposition to causality taken in its strict sense as mechanical efficiency.Since this mode of efficiency is as such an external activity restricted toa single determinateness according to content, the determinations thatit posits come associated together externally and accidentally; taken one byone, the determinations are comprehended through their causes; but theirconnection, which constitutes what is essential in a concrete existence,is not to be found in mechanical causes. That connection, the whole asessential unity, is to be found only in the concept, in the purpose. Mechanicalcauses are not sufficient for this unity, for they do not have as their groundthe purpose which is the unity of the determinations. Accordingly, by“sufficient ground” Leibniz understood one that sufficed also for this unityand comprehended, therefore, not just causes but final causes. But thisdefinition of “ground” is at this point still premature; to be a ground in ateleological sense is a property of the concept and of the mediation effectedthrough of it, and this mediation is reason.11.294

10 Monadology, §32.

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a. absolute ground

a. Form and essence

The determination of reflection, inasmuch as this determination returnsinto ground, is a first immediate existence in general from which thebeginning is made. But existence still has only the meaning of positednessand essentially presupposes a ground, in the sense that it does not reallyposit a ground; that the positing is a sublating of itself; that it is rather theimmediate that is posited, and the ground the non-posited. As we haveseen,11 this presupposing is the positing that rebounds on that which posits;as sublated determinate being, the ground is not an indeterminate but israther essence determined through itself, but determined as indeterminate oras sublated positedness. It is essence that in its negativity is identical with itself.

The determinateness of essence as ground is thus twofold: it is the deter-minateness of the ground and of the grounded. It is, first, essence as ground,essence determined to be essence as against positedness, as non-positedness.Second, it is that which is grounded, the immediate that, however, is notanything in and for itself: is positedness as positedness. Consequently, thispositedness is equally identical with itself, but in an identity which is thatof the negative with itself. The self-identical negative and the self-identicalpositive are now one and the same identity. For the ground is the self-identityof the positive or even also of positedness; the grounded is positedness aspositedness, but this its reflection-into-itself is the identity of the ground. –This simple identity, therefore, is not itself ground, for the ground is essenceposited as the non-posited as against positedness. As the unity of this deter-minate identity (the ground) and of the negative identity (the grounded),it is essence in general distinct from its mediation.

For one thing, this mediation, compared with the preceding reflectionsfrom which it derives, is not pure reflection, which is undistinguished fromessence and still does not have the negative in it, consequently also doesnot as yet contain the self-subsistence of the determinations. These havetheir subsistence, rather, in the ground understood as sublated reflection. –And it is also not the determining reflection whose determinations haveessential self-subsistence, for that reflection has foundered, has sunk to the 11.295ground, and in the unity of the latter the determinations are only posited

11 Cf. above, 11.252. To be kept in mind is that “presupposing” in German is “voraussetzen,” i.e. “pre-positing.” The connection between “presupposing” and “positing” is lost in English, unless oneremembers that the Latin root of “supposing,” “ponere,” means the same as the German “setzen.”


determinations. – This mediation of the ground is thus the unity of purereflection and determining reflection; their determinations or that whichis posited has self-subsistence, and conversely the self-subsistence of thedeterminations is a posited subsistence. Since this subsistence of the deter-minations is itself posited or has determinateness, the determinations areconsequently distinguished from their simple identity, and they constitutethe form as against essence.

Essence has a form and determinations of this form. Only as grounddoes it have a fixed immediacy or is substrate. Essence as such is one withits reflection, inseparable from its movement. It is not essence, therefore,through which this movement runs its reflective course; nor is essencethat from which the movement begins, as from a starting point. It is thiscircumstance that above all makes the exposition of reflection especiallydifficult, for strictly speaking one cannot say that essence returns into itself,that essence shines in itself, for essence is neither before its movement norin the movement: this movement has no substrate on which it runs itscourse. A term of reference arises in the ground only following upon themoment of sublated reflection. But essence as the referred-to term is deter-minate essence, and by virtue of this positedness it has form as essence. –The determinations of form, on the contrary, are now determinations inthe essence; the latter lies at their foundation as an indeterminate whichin its determination is indifferent to them; in it, they are reflected intothemselves. The determinations of reflection should have their subsistencein them and be self-subsistent. But their self-subsistence is their dissolu-tion, which they thus have in an other; but this dissolution is itself thisself-identity or the ground of the subsistence that they give to themselves.

Everything determinate belongs in general to form; it is a form deter-mination inasmuch as it is something posited and hence distinguishedfrom that of which it is the form. As quality, determinateness is one withits substrate, being; being is the immediate determinate, not yet distinctfrom its determinateness or, in this determinateness, still unreflected intoitself, just as the determinateness is, therefore, an existent determinate-ness, not yet one that is posited. – Moreover, the form determinationsof essence are, in their more specific determinateness, the previously con-sidered moments of reflections:12 identity and difference, the latter as bothdiversity and opposition. But also the ground-connection belongs amongthese form determinations of essence, because through it, though itself thesublated determination of reflection, essence is at the same time as posited.

12 Cf above, 11.258–290.

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By contrast, the identity that has the ground immanent in it does not per-tain to form, because positedness, as sublated and as such (as ground andgrounded), is one reflection, and this reflection constitutes essence as simplesubstrate which is the subsistence of form. But in ground this subsistence isposited, or this essence is itself essentially as determinate and, consequently,is in turn also the moment of the ground-connection and form. – This is 11.296the absolute reciprocal connecting reference of form and essence: essenceis the simple unity of ground and grounded but, in this unity, is itselfdetermined, or is a negative, and it distinguishes itself as substrate fromform, but at the same time it thereby becomes itself ground and momentof form.

Form is therefore the completed whole of reflection; it also contains thisdetermination of reflection, that it is sublated; just like reflection, therefore,it is one unity of its determining, and it is also referred to its sublatedness,to another that is not itself form but in which the form is. As essential self-referring negativity, in contrast with that simple negative, form is positingand determining; simple essence, on the contrary, is indeterminate andinert substrate in which the determinations of form have their subsistenceor their reflection into themselves. – External reflection normally halts atthis distinction of essence and form; the distinction is necessary, but thedistinguishing itself of the two is their unity, just as this unity of ground isessence repelling itself from itself and making itself into positedness. Formis absolute negativity itself or the negative absolute self-identity by virtueof which essence is indeed not being but essence. This identity, takenabstractly, is essence as against form, just as negativity, taken abstractlyas positedness, is the one determination of form. But this determinationhas shown itself to be in truth the whole self-referring negativity whichwithin, as this identity, thus is simple essence. Consequently, form hasessence in its own identity, just as essence has absolute form in its negativenature. One cannot therefore ask, how form comes to essence, for form isonly the internal reflective shining of essence, its own reflection inhabitingit. Form equally is, within it, the reflection turning back into itself or theidentical essence; in its determining, form makes the determination intopositedness as positedness. – Form, therefore, does not determine essence,as if it were truly presupposed, separate from essence, for it would then bethe unessential, constantly foundering determination of reflection; here itrather is itself the ground of its sublating or the identical reference of itsdeterminations. That the form determines the essence means, therefore,that in its distinguishing form sublates this very distinguishing and is theself-identity that essence is as the subsistence of the determinations; form


is the contradiction of being sublated in its positedness and yet havingsubsistence in this sublatedness; it is accordingly ground as essence whichis self-identical in being determined or negated.11.297

These distinctions, of form and of essence, are therefore only momentsof the simple reference of form itself. But they must be examined and fixedmore closely. Determining form refers itself to itself as sublated positedness;it thereby refers itself to its identity as to another. It posits itself as sublated;it therefore pre-supposes its identity; according to this moment, essence isthe indeterminate to which form is an other. It is not the essence which isabsolute reflection within, but essence determined as formless identity: itis matter.

b. Form and matter

Essence becomes matter in that its reflection is determined as relating itselfto essence as to the formless indeterminate. Matter, therefore, is the simpleidentity, void of distinction, that essence is, with the determination thatit is the other of form. Hence it is the proper base or substrate of form,since it constitutes the immanent reflection of the determinations of form,or the self-subsistent term, to which such determinations refer as to theirpositive subsistence.

If abstraction is made from every determination, from every form ofa something, matter is what is left over. Matter is the absolutely abstract.(One cannot see, feel, etc. matter; what one sees or feels is a determinatematter, that is, a unity of matter and form.) This abstraction from whichmatter derives is not, however, an external removal and sublation of form;it is rather the form itself which, as we have just seen, reduces itself byvirtue of itself to this simple identity.

Further, form presupposes a matter to which it refers. But for this reasonthe two do not find themselves confronting each other externally andaccidentally; neither matter nor form derives from itself, is a se, or, inother words, is eternal. Matter is indifferent with respect to form, but thisindifference is the determinateness of self-identity to which form returnsas to its substrate. Form pre-supposes matter for the very reason that itposits itself as a sublated, hence refers to this, its identity, as to somethingother. Contrariwise, form is presupposed by matter; for matter is notsimple essence, which immediately is itself absolute reflection, but is essencedetermined as something positive, that is to say, which only is as sublatednegation. – But, on the other hand, since form posits itself as matter only in11.298sublating itself, hence in presupposing matter, matter is also determined as

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groundless subsistence. Equally so, matter is not determined as the groundof form; but rather, inasmuch as matter posits itself as the abstract identityof the sublated determination of form, it is not that identity as ground,and form is therefore groundless with respect to it. Form and matter areconsequently alike determined as not to be posited each by the other, eachnot to be the ground of the other. Matter is rather the identity of theground and the grounded, as the substrate that stands over against thisreference of form. This determination of indifference that the two have incommon is the determination of matter as such and also constitutes theirreciprocal reference. The determination of form, that it is the connectionof the two as distinct, equally is also the other moment of the relating ofthe two to each other. – Matter, determined as indifferent, is the passive ascontrasted to form, which is determined as the active. This latter, as self-referring negative, is inherently contradiction, self-dissolving, self-repelling,and self-determining. It refers to matter, and it is posited to refer to thismatter, which is its subsistence, as to another. Matter is posited, on thecontrary, as referring only to itself and as indifferent to the other; but,implicitly, it does refer to the form, for it contains the sublated negativityand is matter only by virtue of this determination. It refers to it as an otheronly because form is not posited in it, because it is form only implicitly.It contains form locked up inside it, and it is an absolute receptivity forform only because it has the latter within it absolutely, because to be formis its implicit vocation.13 Hence matter must be informed, and form mustmaterialize itself; it must give itself self-identity or subsistence in matter.

2. Consequently, form determines matter, and matter is determined byform. – Because form is itself absolute self-identity and hence implicitlycontains matter; and equally because matter in its pure abstraction orabsolute negativity possesses form within it, the activity of the form on thematter and the reception by the latter of the form determination is onlythe sublating of the semblance of their indifference and distinctness. Thusthe determination referring each to the other is the self-mediation of eachthrough its own non-being. But the two mediations are one movement,and the restoration of their original identity is the inner recollection14 oftheir exteriorization.

First, form and matter pre-suppose each other. As we have seen,15 thisonly means that the one essential unity is negative self-reference, and thatit therefore splits, determined as an indifferent substrate in the essential

13 ihre an sich seyende Bestimmung. “Bestimmung” conveys here its other meaning of “vocation.”14 “inner recollection” = Erinnerung. 15 Cf. above, 11.296, 297.


identity, and as determining form in essential distinction or negativity.11.299That unity of essence and form, the two opposed to each other as formand matter, is the absolute self-determining ground. Inasmuch as this unitydifferentiates itself, the reference connecting the two diverse terms, becauseof the unity that underlies them, becomes a reference of reciprocal presup-position.

Second, the form already is, as self-subsisting, self-sublating contradic-tion; but it is also posited as in this way self-sublating, for it is self-subsistingand at the same time essentially referred to another, and consequently itsublates itself. Since it is itself two-sided, its sublating also has two sides. Forone, form sublates its self-subsistence and transforms itself into somethingposited, something that exists in an other, and this other is in its case matter.For the other, form sublates its determinateness vis-a-vis matter, sublatesits reference to it, consequently its positedness, and it thereby gives itselfsubsistence. Its reflection in thus sublating its positedness is its own identityinto which it passes over. But since form at the same time externalizes thisidentity and posits it over against itself as matter, that reflection of thepositedness into itself is a union with a matter in which it obtains subsis-tence. In this union, therefore, it is equally both: is united with matter aswith something other (in accordance with the first side, viz. in that it makesitself into a positedness), and, in this other, is united with its own identity.

The activity of form by which matter is determined consists, therefore,in a negative relating of the form to itself. But, conversely, form therebynegatively relates itself to matter also; the movement, however, by whichmatter becomes determined is just as much the form’s own movement.Form is free of matter, but it sublates its self-subsistence; but this, its self-subsistence, is matter itself, for it is in this matter that it has its essentialidentity. It makes itself into a positedness, but this is one and the sameas making matter into something determinate. – But, considered fromthe other side, the form’s own identity is at the same time externalized,and matter is its other; for this reason, because form sublates its ownself-subsistence, matter is also not determined. But matter only subsistsvis-a-vis form; as the negative sublates itself, so does the positive also. Andas the form sublates itself, the determinateness of matter that the latter hasvis-a-vis form also falls away – the determinateness, namely, of being theindeterminate subsistence.

What appears here as the activity of form is, moreover, just as much themovement that belongs to matter itself. The determination that implicitlyexists in matter, what matter is supposed to be, is its absolute negativity.Through it matter does not just refer to form simply as to an other, but this

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external other is the form rather that matter itself contains locked up withinitself. Matter is in itself the same contradiction that form contains, and this 11.300contradiction, like its resolution, is only one. But matter is thus in itselfself-contradictory because, as indeterminate self-identity, it is at the sametime absolute negativity; it sublates itself within: its identity disintegratesin its negativity while the latter obtains in it its subsistence. Since matter istherefore determined by form as by something external, it thereby attainsits determination, and the externality of the relating, for both form andmatter, consists in that each, or rather in that the original unity of each,in positing is at the same time presupposing: the result is that self-referenceis at the same time a reference to the self as sublated or is reference to itsother.

Third, through this movement of form and matter, the original unity ofthe two is, on the one hand, restored; on the other hand, it is henceforth aposited unity. Matter is just as much a self-determining as this determiningis for it an activity of form external to it; contrariwise, form determinesonly itself, or has the matter that it determines within it, just much as inits determining it relates itself to another; and both, the activity of formand the movement of matter, are one and the same thing, only that theformer is an activity, that is, it is the negativity as posited, while the latteris movement or becoming, the negativity as determination existing in itself.The result, therefore, is the unity of the in-itself and positedness. Matter isas such determined or necessarily has a form, and form is simply material,subsistent form.

Inasmuch as form presupposes a matter as its other, it is finite. It isnot a ground but only the active factor. Equally so, matter, inasmuch asit presupposes form as its non-being, is finite matter; it is not the groundof its unity with form but is for the latter only the substrate. But neitherthis finite matter nor the finite form have any truth; each refers to theother, or only their unity is their truth. The two determinations return tothis unity and there they sublate their self-subsistence; the unity therebyproves to be their ground. Consequently, matter is the ground of its formdetermination not as matter but only inasmuch as it is the absolute unityof essence and form; similarly, form is the ground of the subsistence ofits determinations only to the extent that it is that same one unity. Butthis one unity, as absolute negativity, and more specifically as exclusiveunity, is, in its reflection, a presupposing; or again, that unity is one act,of preserving itself as positedness in positing, and of repelling itself fromitself; of referring itself to itself as itself and to itself as to another. Or,the act by which matter is determined by form is the self-mediation of


essence as ground, in one unity: through itself and through the negation ofitself.11.301

Informed matter or form that possesses subsistence is now, not only thisabsolute unity of ground with itself, but also unity as posited. The move-ment just considered is the one in which the absolute ground has exhibitedits moments at once as self-sublating and consequently as posited. Or therestored unity, in withdrawing into itself, has repelled itself from itself andhas determined itself; for its unity has been established through negationand is, therefore, also negative unity. It is, therefore, the unity of formand matter, as the substrate of both, but a substrate which is determi-nate: it is formed matter, but matter at the same time indifferent to formand matter, indifferent to them because sublated and unessential. This iscontent.

c. Form and content

Form stands at first over against essence; it is then the ground-connectionin general, and its determinations are the ground and the grounded. It thenstands over against matter, and so it is determining reflection, and its deter-minations are the determination of reflection itself and the subsistence ofthe latter. Finally, it stands over against content, and then its determinationsare again itself and matter. What was previously the self-identical – at firstthe ground, then subsistence in general, and finally matter – now passesunder the dominion of form and is once more one of its determinations.

Content has, first, a form and a matter that belong to it essentially; itis their unity. But, because this unity is at the same time determinate orposited unity, content stands over against form; the latter constitutes thepositedness and is the unessential over against content. The latter is thereforeindifferent towards form; form embraces both the form as such as well asthe matter, and content therefore has a form and a matter, of which itconstitutes the substrate and which are to it mere positedness.

Content is, second, what is identical in form and matter, so that thesewould be only indifferent external determinations. They are positedness ingeneral, but a positedness that has returned in the content to its unity or itsground. The identity of the content with itself is, therefore, in one respectthat identity which is indifferent to form, but in another the identity ofground. The ground has at first disappeared into content; but content isat the same time the negative reflection of the form determinations intothemselves; its unity, at first only the unity indifferent to form, is thereforealso the formal unity or the ground-connection as such. Content, therefore,

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has this ground-connection as its essential form, and, contrariwise, theground has a content. 11.302

The content of the ground is therefore the ground that has returnedinto its unity with itself; the ground is at first the essence that in itspositedness is identical with itself; as diverse from and indifferent to itspositedness, the ground is indeterminate matter; but as content it is atthe same time informed identity, and this form becomes for this reason aground-connection, since the determinations of its oppositions are positedin the content also as negated. – Content is further determined within,not like matter as an indifferent in general, but like informed matter, sothat the determinations of form have a material, indifferent subsistence.On the one hand, content is the essential self-identity of the ground in itspositedness; on the other hand, it is posited identity as against the ground-connection; this positedness, which is in this identity as determination ofform, stands over against the free positedness, that is to say, over againstthe form as the whole connection of ground and grounded. This form isthe total positedness returning into itself; the other form, therefore, is onlythe positedness as immediate, the determinateness as such.

The ground has thus made itself into a determinate ground in general,and the determinateness is itself twofold: of form first, and of contentsecond. The former is its determinateness of being external to the contentas such, the content that remains indifferent to this external reference. Thelatter is the determinateness of the content that the ground has.

b. determinate ground

a. Formal ground

The ground has a determinate content. For the form, as we have seen,16 thedeterminateness of content is the substrate, the simple immediate as againstthe mediation of form. The ground is negatively self-referring identitywhich, for this reason, makes itself into a positedness; it negatively refers toitself because in its negativity it is identical with itself; this identity is thesubstrate or the content which thus constitutes the indifferent or positiveunity of the ground-connection and, in this connection, is the mediatingfactor.

In this content, the determinateness that the ground and the groundedhave over against one another has at first disappeared. The mediation,

16 Cf. just above, 11.301.


however, is also negative unity. The negative implicit in that indifferentsubstrate is this substrate’s immediate determinateness through which the11.303ground has a determinate content. But then, the negative is the negativereference of form to itself. What has been posited sublates itself on itsside and returns to its ground; the ground, however, the essential self-subsistence, refers negatively to itself and makes itself into a positedness.This negative mediation of ground and grounded is the mediation thatbelongs to form as such, formal mediation. Now both sides of form, becauseeach passes over into the other, thereby mutually posit themselves into oneidentity as sublated; in this, they pre-suppose the identity. The latter isthe determinate content to which the formal mediation thus refers itselfthrough itself as to the positive mediating factor. That content is theidentical element of both, and because the two are distinct, yet in theirdistinction each is the reference to the other, it is their subsistence, thesubsistence of each as the whole itself.

Accordingly, the result is that in the determinate ground we have thefollowing. First, a determinate content is considered from two sides, oncein so far as it is ground, then again in so far as it is grounded. The contentitself is indifferent to these forms; it is in each simply and solely onedetermination. Second, the ground is itself just as much a moment of formas what is posited by it; this is its identity according to form. It is a matter ofindifference which of the two determinations is made the first, whether thetransition is from the one as posited to the other as ground or from the oneas ground to the other as posited. The grounded, considered for itself, isthe sublating of itself; it thereby makes itself on the one side into a posited,and is at the same time the positing of the ground. The same movementis the ground as such; it makes itself into something posited, and therebybecomes the ground of something, that is to say, is present therein bothas a posited and also first as ground. That there be a ground, of that theposited is the ground, and, conversely, the ground is thereby the posited.The mediation begins just as much from the one as from the other; eachside is just as much ground as posited, and each is the whole mediationor the whole form. – Further, this whole form is itself, as self-identical,the substrate of the two determinations that constitute the two sides of theground and the grounded; form and content are thus themselves one andthe same identity.

Because of this identity of the ground and the grounded, according bothto content and form, the ground is sufficient (the sufficiency being limitedto this relation); there is nothing in the grounded which is not in the ground.Whenever one asks for a ground, one expects to see the same determination

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which is the content doubled, once in the form of that which is posited, andagain in the form of existence reflected into itself, of essentiality. 11.304

Now inasmuch as in the determined ground, the ground and thegrounded are each the whole form, and their content, though determi-nate, is nevertheless one and the same, the two sides of the ground donot as yet have a real determination, do not have a different content; thedeterminateness is only one simple determinateness that has yet to passover into the two sides; the determinate ground is present only in its pureform, as formal ground. – Because the content is only this simple determi-nateness, one that does not have in it the form of the ground-connection,the determinateness is a self-identical content indifferent to form, and theform is external to it; the content is other than the form.

RemarkWhen the search for determinate grounds does not go past the form ofground as we have just developed, then the assigning of a ground remains amere formalism, the empty tautology of repeating in the form of immanentreflection, of essentiality, the same content already present in the formof immediate existence considered as posited. This exercise of assigninggrounds is for this reason just as empty as any discourse only governed bythe principle of identity. The sciences, especially the physical sciences, arefull of tautologies of this kind which apparently constitute the prerogativeof science. – For instance, the ground for the planets moving around thesun is given to be the reciprocal attractive force of the sun and the earth.So far as content goes, this says no more than what is contained in thephenomenon, namely that the movements of the two bodies are correlated,except that it is expressed in the form of a determination reflected into itself,that of force. If it is asked what kind of force this attractive force mightbe, the answer is that it is the force that makes the earth move aroundthe sun, that is to say, it has exactly the same content as the existencefor which it is supposed to be the ground; the connection of the earthand sun with respect to motion is the identical substrate of ground andgrounded. – When a form of crystallization is explained in this way, namelythat it is grounded in the particular arrangement into which the moleculesenter with one another, the actual crystallization is this arrangement itself,except expressed as ground. These etiologies, which are the privilege of thesciences, are valued in ordinary life for what they are – tautological, emptytalk. If to the question why does this man travel to the city, one were to giveas ground that there is in the city an attractive force impelling him to it, 11.305this kind of answer would be deemed brainless – yet it is the kind of answer


which is sanctioned in the sciences. – Leibniz accused Newton’s force ofattraction of being precisely the kind of occult quality that the Scholasticsused for the purpose of explanation.17 One should rather accuse it of beingthe opposite of occult, that it is all too known a quality, for it has no othercontent than the phenomenon itself. – What recommends this manner ofexplanation is its great clarity and easy comprehension, for there is nothingclearer and more open to comprehension than that a plant, for instance,has its ground in a vegetative, that is, plant-producing, force. – Such a forcemay be called an occult quality only in the sense that a ground ought tohave another content than what is to be explained; but no such content isgiven, and in that sense, of course, the force appealed to for explanation isa hidden ground, the required but not given ground. Something is no moreexplained by this formalism than is the nature of a plant known when I saythat it is a plant; for all the clarity of the statement, or of the claim that theplant has its ground in a plant-producing force, and just because of thatclarity, one can indeed call this a very occult manner of explanation.

Secondly, as regards form, in this kind of explanation the two oppositedirections of the ground-connection are adduced without being appre-hended in their determinate relation. On the one hand, the ground isground as the immanently reflected content determination of the existencewhich it grounds; on the other hand, it is that which is posited. It is thaton the basis of which that existence is supposed to be understood; but,conversely, it is inferred from the latter and is understood from it. The mainbusiness of this reflection thus consists in gleaning the ground from anexistence, that is, in converting the immediate existence into the form ofreflected being; consequently the ground, instead of being self-subsistingin and for itself, is rather that which is posited and derived. And sinceon this procedure the ground is arranged to fit the phenomenon, and itsdeterminations depend on the latter, the phenomenon unhindered flowssmoothly out of the ground with full wind in its sails. But in this way,knowledge has not advanced an inch; it runs in circles, making formaldistinctions which the procedure itself overturns and sublates. One of themain difficulties in making progress in the study of the sciences in whichthis procedure is the rule is due precisely to this wrongheaded procedure,of premising as ground that which is in fact derived, and in fact produc-ing in what follows, once one gets there, the ground of this previously

17 Godfredi Gulielmi Leibnitii Opera Omnia, Tomus Secundus in duas Partes, Pars Altera: PhysicaGeneralis, Chymia, Medicina, Botanica, Historia Naturalis, ed. L. Duten (Geneva, 1768), EpistolaIII (Letter to J. G. Liebnecht), p. 95: “I consider such an attractive force to be either a miracle orno more than a scholastic occult quality.”

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supposed ground. The exposition begins with grounds that are floated asprinciples and original concepts. They are simple determinations lacking 11.306necessity in and for themselves; what follows is supposed to be based onthem. Therefore, anyone who would penetrate such sciences must begin byassimilating these grounds, and this is a business that reason finds unsavory,for it requires accepting as groundwork what is in fact groundless. Moreconducive to progress is to accept such principles as given without muchreflection, and then to use them as fundamental rules of one’s understand-ing. Without this method, one cannot make a start; nor without it can onemake any advance. But the advance is hindered the moment the methodshows its hand by reversing itself, and looks for the derived in the conse-quent when in fact it is the derived that alone contains the grounds of theabove presuppositions. Further, because the consequent proves to be thephenomenon from which the ground was derived, this relation into whichthe phenomenon is cast raises suspicion about the way it is presented, for thephenomenon is not in fact expressed in the immediacy of a phenomenonbut as evidence for the ground. But because the latter, though the ground,is derived from the phenomenon, all the more so would one wish to seethe phenomenon in its immediacy in order to be able to pass judgmenton how the ground is derived from it. In an exposition of this kind, wherethe true ground comes out as the derived, one never knows what to makeof either the ground or the phenomenon. And the uncertainty grows –particularly when the procedure is not rigorously consistent but is morehonest – when the phenomenon betrays traces and circumstances that pointto other things, and often entirely different things, than are containedin the principles alone. Lastly, the confusion grows even greater whenhypothetical determinations that are the product of reflection are blendedwith the immediate determinations of the phenomenon itself, and are thenspoken of as if they belonged to immediate experience. Many who come tothese sciences in good faith may well believe, from the way in which thesethings are spoken of in them as immediate determinations of existence,that molecules, empty interstices, centrifugal force, ether, the separate rayof light, electrical and magnetic matter, and an assortment of other likethings or relations, are actually to be found in perception. They serve as firstgrounds for other things; they are spoken of, and deliberately made use of,as actual things; in good faith one accepts them as such, before one realizesthat they are determinations inferred from that which they are supposedto ground, hypotheses and fictions derived by an uncritical reflection. Infact one finds oneself in a kind of witches’ circle in which determina-tions of existence and determinations of reflection, ground and grounded,


phenomena and phantoms, mix in promiscuous company enjoying equal11.307rank in common.

Along with the formal business of this method of explaining fromgrounds, one also hears it repeatedly said – in spite of all the explain-ing done on the basis of well-known forces and matters – that we do notknow the inner essence of these same forces and matters. This can only beseen as an admission that this method of explaining from grounds does notsatisfy its own expectations, that it itself demands something quite differentfrom such grounds. But it is then difficult to see why so much effort goesinto that explaining; why that different something is not sought for, or atleast why the explaining is not set aside and the facts are not taken as theysimply stand.

b. Real ground

The determinateness of ground is, as we have seen, on the one hand deter-minateness of the substrate or content determination; on the other hand,it is the otherness in the ground-connection itself, namely the distinctnessof its content and the form; the connection of ground and grounded straysin the content as an external form, and the content is indifferent to thesedeterminations. – But in fact the two are not external to each other; forthis is what the content is: to be the identity of the ground with itself inthe grounded, and of the grounded in the ground. The side of the groundhas shown itself to be itself a posited, and the side of the grounded to beitself ground; each side is this identity of the whole within it. But sincethey equally belong to form and constitute its determinate difference, eachis in its determinateness the identity of the whole with itself. Consequently,each has a diverse content as against the other. – Or, considering the matterfrom the side of the content, since the latter is the self-identity of theground-connection, it essentially possesses this difference of form within,and is as ground something other than what it is as grounded.

Now the moment ground and grounded have a diverse content, theground-connection has ceased to be a formal one; the turning back to theground and the procession forward from ground to posited is no longera tautology; the ground is realized. Henceforth, whenever we ask for aground, we actually demand another content determination for it than thedetermination of the content whose ground we are asking for.

This connection now determines itself further. For inasmuch as its twosides are of different content, they are indifferent to each other; each isan immediate, self-identical determination. Moreover, as referred to each

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other as ground and grounded, the ground reflects itself in the other, as 11.308in something posited by it, back to itself; the content on the side of theground, therefore, is equally in the grounded; the latter, as the posited, hasits self-identity and subsistence only in the ground. But besides this contentof the ground, the grounded also now possesses a content of its own andis accordingly the unity of a twofold content. Now this unity, as the unityof sides that are different, is indeed their negative unity; but since the twodeterminations of content are indifferent to each other, that unity is onlytheir empty reference to each other, in itself void of content, and not theirmediation; it is a one or a something externally holding them together.

In the real grounding connection there is present, therefore, a twofold.For one thing, the content determination which is ground extendscontinuously18 into the positedness, so that it constitutes the simple identityof the ground and the grounded; the grounded thus contains the groundfully within itself; their connection is one of undifferentiated essentialcompactness. Anything else in the grounded added to this simple essence is,therefore, only an unessential form, external determinations of the contentthat, as such, are free from the ground and constitute an immediate man-ifold. Of this unessential more, therefore, the essential is not the ground,nor is it the ground of any connection between it and the unessential inthe grounded. The unessential is a positively identical element that residesin the grounded but does not posit itself there in any distinctive form;as self-referring content, it is rather an indifferent positive substrate. – Foranother thing, that which in the something is linked with this substrate is anindifferent content, but as the unessential side. The main thing is the con-nection of the substrate and the unessential manifold. But this connection,since the determinations that it connects are an indifferent content, is alsonot a ground; true, one determination is determined as essential contentand the other as only unessential or as posited; but this form is to each,as a self-referring content, an external one. The one of the something thatconstitutes their connection is for this reason not a reference of form, butonly an external tie that does not hold the unessential manifold content asposited; it too is therefore likewise only a substrate.

Ground, in determining itself as real, because of the diversity of thecontent that constitutes its reality, thus breaks down into external deter-minations. The two connections of the essential reality – content, asthe simple immediate identity of ground and grounded; and then thesomething connecting distinct contents – are two different substrates. The

18 “extends continuously” = mit sich selbst kontinuirt.


self-identical form of ground, according to which one and the same thingis at one time the essential and at another the posited, has vanished. Theground-connection has thus become external to itself.

Consequently, it is an external ground that now holds together a diversi-fied content and determines what is ground and what is posited by it; this11.309determination is not to be found in the two-sided content itself. The realground is therefore the reference to another, on the one hand, of a contentto another content and, on the other, of the ground-connection itself (theform) to another, namely to an immediate, to something not posited by it.

RemarkThe formal ground-connection has only one content for the ground andthe grounded; its necessity rests on this identity, but so does its tautologicalnature. The real ground has a diversified content; with this content, how-ever, there also comes the contingency and the externality of the ground-connection. On the one hand, that which is considered as essential, andtherefore as the ground determination, is not the ground of other deter-minations that are linked to it. On the other hand, it is also undeterminedwhich of the several content determinations of a concrete thing should betaken as the essential and as ground; the choice between them is free. Forinstance, as regards the first point, the ground of a house is its foundation;this is so because of the gravity which is inherent in sensuous matter, andthis gravity is perfectly identical in both the ground of the house and thegrounded house. Now, that there is in heavy matter a distinction as thatof a foundation and a modification of it distinct from it through which itconstitutes a habitation, this is to gravity itself totally indifferent; the ref-erence connecting it to the other content determinations, the purpose, thefurnishings of the house, etc., is external to it; gravity, therefore, though it isthe common substrate of the determinations constituting the house, is notthe ground of it as house. Accordingly, gravity is just as much the groundfor a house standing up as for a stone falling down. The stone has thisground, gravity, in itself; but the fact that it has a further content determi-nation by which it is not just something heavy but a stone, this is externalto gravity. And one must look elsewhere than in gravity for the cause thatremoved the stone from the ground on which it then falls; similarly thetime and space of the fall and their correlation, the motion of falling, areof another content than gravity and can be conceived of without it (as iscommonly said), and therefore are not essentially posited by it. – Gravityis equally the ground that makes the upward trajectory of a projectile theopposite counterpart of the falling trajectory. – It is clear from the diversity

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of the determinations for which gravity is the ground, that something elseis required that will make it the ground of this determination or that. –

When it is said of nature that it is the ground of the world, then whatis called nature is, on the one hand, one with the world and the worldnothing but nature itself. On the other hand, the two are also different,nature being rather the indeterminate, or at least determinate only as theessence of the world, self-identical in the universal differences that are laws; 11.310to be a world, a manifold of determinations is still to be externally addedto it. But these determinations do not have their ground in nature as such,which is rather indifferent with respect to them as accidentalities. – Wehave the same relation when God is defined as the ground of nature. Asground, he is the essence of nature; nature contains him within it and isidentical with him; but nature has yet another manifold which is distinctfrom the ground itself; this manifold is a third in which these two diversesides, God and nature, are linked together; the side of the ground is neitherthe ground of this manifold, which is different from him, nor of his linkwith it. There is, therefore, no cognition of nature to be had from God asthe ground, for God would then be only nature’s universal essence and, assuch, would not contain it in its determinate essence or as nature.

Because of the diversity of content between the ground or, more appro-priately, the substrate, and that which in the grounded is linked to it, theassigning of real grounds is no less of a formalism than is the formal grounditself. In the latter, the self-identical content is indifferent to form, and thesame applies to the real ground. In its case, it further follows that the realground does not have specifically within it the wherewithal for determin-ing which in a manifold of determinations is to be taken as the essential.Something is a concrete something; its manifold determinations are to allappearances equally stable and permanent in it. Any of them, therefore,can be taken as ground no less than any other, that is to say, can be takenas the essential determination, and in comparison to it the others wouldthen be only something posited. We go back here to what we noted earlier,namely that from the fact that a determination is deemed in one case tobe the ground of another, it does not follow that this other is posited withit in another case or at all. – Punishment, for instance, has a variety ofdeterminations: that it is retribution; and also a deterrent example, a deter-ring threat made by the law; and also a contribution to the self-awarenessand betterment of the culprit. Each of these different determinations hasbeen regarded as the ground of punishment, on the ground that it is theessential determination, and by default the others, since they are differentfrom it, have been regarded as only accidental. But the one determination


which is assumed as ground does not amount to the whole punishment;the latter, as something concrete, also contains all of the rest, and in itthese are only linked to the first without having their ground in it. – Oragain a civil servant has a talent for his office, as an individual has familyrelations, has a number of acquaintances, a particular character, was calledupon to prove himself under such and such circumstances and on suchand such occasions, etc. Now each of these properties can be, or can beregarded to be, the ground of his being a civil servant; they are a diversifiedcontent held together in a third; the form, in which they are determined11.311relatively to each other as essential and posited, is external to this content.To the civil servant each of the properties is essential, for it is by virtue ofthem that he is the determinate individual that he is; since his office canbe regarded as a determination externally posited in him, each of the restcan be determined as a ground with respect to it, but conversely, they toocan be regarded as posited and the office as their ground. How they relateactually, that is, in this singular case, is a determination external to thegrounding connection and to the content itself; it is a third that confers onthem the form of ground and grounded.

So in general every existence can have several grounds; each of its contentdeterminations pervades the concrete whole while retaining its identity, andthus allows the possibility that it be regarded as essential; because of thecontingency of the link connecting them, the door is left wide open toa multitude of points of view, that is, determinations that lie outside thefact itself. – Whether a ground has this or that consequence is thereforeequally accidental. For instance, moral motives are essential determinationsof ethical nature, but what follows from them is at the same time anexternality distinct from them, one that may or may not follow fromthem but is attached to them only by virtue of a third factor. Or to bemore precise, if the moral determination is a ground, it is not accidentalto it that it should have a consequence or that something be groundedby it; but that it should be made into a ground in the first place, that isaccidental. But again, since the content which is its consequence has thenature of externality when the determination is made into a ground, it canbe immediately sublated by some other externality. From a moral motive,therefore, an action can proceed but can also not proceed. Conversely,an action can have several grounds; as something concrete, it contains amanifold of essential determinations, each of which can therefore be offeredas the ground. The search and the assigning of grounds which is the specialdomain of argumentation is for this reason an endless meandering withoutfinal destination; for each and every thing good grounds can be adduced,

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but so they can for its opposite just as well, and there can be a great manygrounds with nothing following from them. What Socrates and Plato callsophistry is nothing else than argumentation from grounds; Plato opposedto it the examination of the idea, that is, of a fact in and for itself or in itsconcept.19 Grounds are taken only from essential determinations of content,relations and points of view, of which each fact and also its opposite canhave several; in their form of essentiality, each is just as valid as the next;each is a one-sided ground, because none contains the whole compassof the fact for which other particular sides then provide other particular 11.312grounds, and none exhausts the fact that links them together and containsthem all; none is the sufficient ground or reason, that is, the concept.

c. Complete ground

1. In real ground, ground as content and ground as connection are onlysubstrates. The former is only posited as essential and as ground; the con-nection is what the grounded immediately is as the indeterminate substrateof a diversified content, a linking of this content which is not the content’sown reflection but is rather external and consequently a reflection whichis only posited. The real ground-connection is ground, therefore, rather assublated; consequently, it rather makes up the side of the grounded or ofthe positedness. As positedness, however, the ground itself has now returnedto its ground; it is now something grounded: it has another ground. Thisground will therefore be so determined that, first, it is identical with theground by which it is grounded; both sides have in this determination oneand the same content; the two content determinations and their linkage ina something are equally to be found in the new ground. But, second, thenew ground into which the previously merely posited and external link isnow sublated is the immanent reflection of this link: the absolute referenceof the two content determinations to each other.

Because real ground has itself thus returned to its ground, the identityof ground and grounded or the formality of ground reasserts itself in it.The newly arisen ground-connection is therefore the one which is complete,which contains the formal and real ground in itself at the same time andmediates the content determinations which in the real ground confrontedeach other immediately.

2. Thus the ground-connection has more precisely determined itself asfollows. First, something has a ground; it contains the content determination

19 The Sophist, 259c–e.


which is the ground and, in addition, a second determination as posited bythe ground. But, because of the indifference of content, the one determi-nation is not ground in itself, nor is the other in itself one that is groundedby the first; this connection of ground and grounded is rather sublated inthe immediacy of their content, is posited, and as such has its groundin another such connection. Since this second connection is distinguishedonly according to form, it has the same content as the first; it still has thesame two determinations of content but is now their immediate linkingtogether. This linking, however, is of a general nature, and the content,therefore, is diversified into determinations that are indifferent to eachother. The linking is not, therefore, their true absolute connection thatwould make one determination the element of self-identity in the posited-ness, and the other determination the positedness of this same self-identity;on the contrary, the two are supported by a something and this somethingis what connects them, but in a connection which is not reflected, is rather11.313only immediate and, therefore, only a relative ground as against the linkingin the other something. The two somethings are therefore the two distinctconnections of content that have transpired. They stand in the identi-cal ground-connection of form; they are one and the same whole content,namely the two content determinations and their connection; they are dis-tinct only by the kind of this connection, which in the one is an immediateand in the other a posited connection; through this, they are distinguishedone from another as ground and grounded only according to form. – Second,this ground-connection is not only formal, but also real. Formal groundpasses over into real ground, as has been shown; the moments of the formreflect themselves into themselves; they are a self-subsistent content, andthe ground-connection contains also one content with the character ofground and another with that of grounded. The content constitutes at firstthe immediate identity of both sides of the formal ground; so the two sideshave one and the same content. But the content also has the form in it, andso it is a twofold content that behaves as ground and grounded. One of thetwo content determinations of the two somethings is therefore determined,not merely as being common to them according to external comparison,but as their identical substrate and the foundation of their connection.As against the other determination of the content, this determination isessential and is the ground of the other which is posited, that is, positedin the something, the connection of which is the grounded. In the firstsomething, which is the ground-connection, this second determination ofthe content is also immediately and in itself linked with the first. But theother something only contains the one determination in itself as that in

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which it is immediately identical with the first something, but the otheras the one which is posited in it. The former content determination is itsground by virtue of its being originally linked in the first something withthe other content determination.

The ground-connection of the content determinations in the secondsomething is thus mediated through the connection present in the firstsomething. The inference is this: since determination B is implicitly linkedwith determination A in a something, in a second something to which onlythe one determination A immediately belongs, also B is linked with it. Inthe second something, not only is this second determination mediated;also mediated is that its immediate ground is mediated, namely by virtueof its original connection with B in the first something. This connectionis thus the ground of the ground A, and the whole ground-connection ispresent in the second something as posited or grounded.

3. Real ground shows itself to be the self-external reflection of ground;its complete mediation is the restoration of its identity with itself. But 11.314because this identity has in the process equally acquired the externality ofreal ground, the formal ground-connection in this unity of itself and realground is just as much self-positing as self-sublating ground; the ground-connection mediates itself with itself through its negation. The ground is atfirst, as the original connection, the connection of immediate content deter-minations. The ground-connection, being essential form, has for sides suchthat are sublated or are as moments. Consequently, as the form of imme-diate determinations, it connects itself with itself as self-identical while atthe same time connecting with their negation; accordingly, it is ground notin and for itself but as connected with the sublated ground-connection. –Second, the sublated connection or the immediate, which in the originaland in the posited connection is the identical substrate, is likewise realground not in and for itself; that it is ground is rather posited by virtue ofthat original link. –

Thus the ground-connection is in its totality essentially presupposingreflection; formal ground presupposes the immediate content determi-nation, and this content presupposes form as real ground. Ground istherefore form as an immediate linkage but in such a manner that itrepels itself from itself and rather presupposes immediacy, referring itselftherein as to another. This immediate is the content determination, thesimple ground; but as such, that is, as ground, it is equally repelledfrom itself and refers itself to itself equally as to an other. – Thus thetotal ground-connection has taken on the determination of conditioningmediation.


c. condition

a. The relatively unconditioned

1. Ground is the immediate, and the grounded the mediated. But groundis positing reflection; as such, it makes itself into positedness and is presup-posing reflection; as such it refers itself to itself as to something sublated,to an immediate through which it is itself mediated. This mediation, as anadvance from the immediate to the ground, is not an external reflectionbut, as we have seen, the ground’s own doing or, what is the same, theground-connection, as reflection into its self-identity, is just as essentiallyself-externalizing reflection. The immediate to which ground refers as to itsessential presupposition is condition; real ground is accordingly essentially11.315conditioned. The determinateness that it contains is the otherness of itself.

Condition is therefore, first, an immediate, manifold existence. Second,it is this existence referred to an other, to something which is ground, notof this existence but in some other respect, for existence itself is immediateand without ground. According to this reference, it is something posited;as condition, the immediate existence is supposed to be not for itselfbut for another. But this, that it thus is for another, is at the same timeitself only a positedness; that it is posited is sublated in its immediacy: anexistence is indifferent to being a condition. Third, condition is somethingimmediate in the sense that it constitutes the presupposition of ground. Inthis determination, it is the form-connection of ground withdrawn intoself-identity, hence the content of ground. But content is as such only theindifferent unity of ground, as in the form: without form, no content.It nevertheless frees itself from this indifferent unity in that the ground-connection, in the complete ground, becomes a connection external toits identity, whereby content acquires immediacy. In so far, therefore, ascondition is that in which the ground-connection has its identity with itself,it constitutes the content of ground; but since this content is indifferentto form, it is only implicitly the content of form, is something which hasyet to become content and hence constitutes the material for the ground.Posited as condition, and in accordance with the second moment, existenceis determined to lose its indifferent immediacy and to become the momentof another. By virtue of its immediacy, it is indifferent to this connection;inasmuch as it enters into it, however, it constitutes the in-itself of theground and is for it the unconditioned. In order to be condition, it has itspresupposition in the ground and is itself conditioned; but this conditionis external to it.

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2. Something is not through its condition; its condition is not its ground.Condition is for the ground the moment of unconditioned immediacy, butis not itself the movement and the positing that refers itself to itself neg-atively and that makes itself into a positedness. Over against conditionthere stands, therefore, the ground-connection. Something has, besides itscondition, also a ground. – This ground is the empty movement of reflec-tion, for the latter has the immediacy which is its presupposition outsideit. But it is the whole form and the self-subsistent process of mediation,for the condition is not its ground. Since this mediating refers itself toitself as positing, it equally is according to this side something immediateand unconditioned; it does indeed presuppose itself, but as an externalizedor sublated positing; whatever it is in accordance with its determination, 11.316that it is, on the contrary, in and for itself. – Inasmuch as the ground-connection is thus a self-subsisting self-reference and has within it theidentity of reflection, it has a content which is peculiarly its own as againstthe content of the condition. The one content is that of the ground and istherefore essentially informed; the other content, that of the condition, ison the contrary only an immediate material whose connecting reference tothe ground, while at the same time constituting the in-itself of the latter, isalso equally external to it; it is thus a mingling of a self-subsisting contentthat has no reference to the content of the ground determination and ofthe content that enters into the latter and, as its material, should becomea moment of it.

3. The two sides of the whole, condition and ground, are thus, on the onehand, indifferent and unconditioned with respect to each other: the one asthe non-referred-to side, to which the connecting reference in which it isthe condition is external; the other as the connecting reference, or form,for which the determinate existence of the condition is only a material,something passive whose form, such as it possesses on its own account, isunessential. On the other hand, the two sides are also mediated. Conditionis the in-itself of the ground; so much is it the essential moment of theground-connection, that it is the simple self-identity of the ground. But thisalso is sublated; this in-itself is only something posited; immediate existenceis indifferent to being a condition. The fact, therefore, that condition is thein-itself of the ground constitutes the side of it by which it is a mediatedcondition. Likewise, the ground-connection has in its self-subsistence alsoa presupposition; it has its in-itself outside itself. – Consequently, eachof the two sides is this contradiction, that they are indifferent immediacyand essential mediation, both in one reference – or the contradiction ofindependent subsistence and of being determined as only moments.


b. The absolutely unconditioned

At first, each of the two relatively unconditioned sides reflectively shines inthe other; condition, as an immediate, is reflected in the form connectionof the ground, and this form in the immediate existence as its positedness;but each, apart from this reflective shine of its other in it, stands out on itsown and has a content of its own.

Condition is at first immediate existence; its form has these two moments:that of positedness, according to which it is, as condition, material andmoment of the ground; and that of the in-itself, according to which itconstitutes the essentiality of ground or its simple reflection into itself.Both sides of the form are external to immediate existence, for the latter11.317is the sublated ground-connection. – But, first, existence is in it only this:to sublate itself in its immediacy and to founder, going to the ground.Being is as such only the becoming of essence; it is its essential nature tomake itself into a positedness and into an identity which is an immediacythrough the negation of itself. The form determinations of positedness andof self-identical in-itself, the form through which immediate existence iscondition, are not, therefore, external to that existence; the latter is, rather,this very reflection. Second, as condition, being is now posited as that whichit essentially is, namely as a moment and consequently as the being of another, and at the same time as the in-itself of an other; it is in itself but onlythrough the negation of itself, namely through the ground and throughits self-sublating and consequent presupposing reflection; the in-itself ofbeing is thus only something posited. This in-itself of the condition hastwo sides: one side is its essentiality as essentiality of the ground, while theother is the immediacy of its existence. Or rather, both sides are the samething. Existence is an immediate, but immediacy is essentially somethingmediated, namely through the self-sublating ground. Existence, as thisimmediacy mediated by a self-sublating mediating, is at the same timethe in-itself of the ground and its unconditioned side; but again, this in-itself is at the same time itself equally only moment or positedness, sinceit is mediated. – Condition is, therefore, the whole form of the ground-connection; it is the presupposed in-itself of the latter, but, consequently,is itself a positedness and its immediacy is this, to make itself into apositedness and thereby to repel itself from itself, in such as way that itboth founders to the ground and is ground, the ground that makes itselfinto a positedness and thereby into a grounded, and both are one and thesame.

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Likewise in the conditioned ground, the in-itself is not just as thereflective shining of an other in it. This ground is the self-subsistent,that is, self-referring reflection of the positing, and consequently the self-identical; or it is in it its in-itself and its content. But it is at the same timepresupposing reflection; it negatively refers to itself and posits its in-itselfas an other opposite to it, and condition, according to both its momentof in-itself and of immediate existence, is the ground-connection’s ownmoment; the immediate existence essentially is only through its groundand is a moment of itself as a presupposing. This ground, therefore, isequally the whole itself.

What we have here, therefore, is only one whole of form, but equally soonly one whole of content. For the proper content of condition is essential 11.318content only in so far as it is the self-identity of reflection in the form, or theground-connection is in it this immediate existence. Further, this existenceis condition only through the presupposing reflection of the ground; it isthe ground’s self-identity, or its content, to which the ground posits itselfas opposite. Therefore, the existence is not a merely formless material forthe ground-connection; on the contrary, because it has this form in it, it isinformed matter, and because in its identity with it it is at the same timeindifferent to it, it is content. Finally, it is the same content as that possessedby the ground, for it is precisely content as that which is self-identical inthe form connection.

The two sides of the whole, condition and ground, are therefore oneessential unity, as content as well as form. They pass into one another, or,since they are reflections, they posit themselves as sublated, refer themselvesto this their negation, and reciprocally presuppose each other. But this is atthe same time only one reflection of the two, and their presupposingis, therefore, one presupposing only; the reciprocity of this presupposingultimately amounts to this, that they both presuppose one identity for theirsubsistence and their substrate. This substrate, the one content and unityof form of both, is the truly unconditioned; the fact in itself. – Conditionis, as it was shown above,20 only the relatively unconditioned. It is usual,therefore, to consider it as itself something conditioned and to ask for a newcondition, whereby the customary progression ad infinitum from conditionto condition is set in motion. But now, why is it that at one conditiona new condition is asked for, that is, why is that condition assumed tobe something conditioned? Because it is some finite determinate existence

20 Cf. above, 11.316.


or other. But this is a further determination of condition that does notenter into its concept. Condition is as such conditioned solely becauseit is the posited in-itselfness; it is, therefore, sublated in the absolutelyunconditioned.

Now this contains within itself the two sides, condition and ground,as its moments; it is the unity to which they have returned. Together, thetwo constitute its form or its positedness. The unconditioned fact is thecondition of both, but the condition which is absolute, that is to say, onewhich is itself ground. – As ground, the fact is now the negative identitythat has repelled itself into those two moments: first, in the shape of thesublated ground-connection, the shape of an immediate manifold void ofunity and external to itself, one that refers to the ground as an other toit and at the same time constitutes its in-itself; second, in the shape of aninner, simple form which is ground, but which refers to the self-identicalimmediate as to an other, determining it as condition, that is, determiningthe in-itself of it as its own moment. – These two sides pre-suppose thetotality, presuppose that it is that which posits them. Contrariwise, becausethey presuppose the totality, the latter seems to be in turn also conditioned11.319by them, and the fact to spring forth from its condition and its ground. Butsince these two sides have shown themselves to be an identity, the relationof condition and ground has disappeared; the two are reduced to a merereflective shine; the absolutely unconditioned is in its movement of positingand presupposing only the movement in which this shine sublates itself. Itis the fact’s own doing that it conditions itself and places itself as groundover against its conditions; but in connecting conditions and ground, thefact is a reflection shining in itself; its relation to them is a rejoining itself.

c. Procession of the fact into concrete existence

The absolutely unconditioned is the absolute ground that is identical withits condition, the immediate fact as the truly essential. As ground, it refersnegatively to itself and makes itself into a positedness; but this positednessis a reflection that is complete in both its sides and is in them the self-identical form of connection, as has transpired from its concept. Thispositedness is therefore first the sublated ground, the fact as an immediacyvoid of reflection, the side of the conditions. This is the totality of thedeterminations of the fact, the fact itself, but the fact as thrown into theexternality of being, the restored circle of being. In condition, essence letsgo of the unity of its immanent reflection; but it lets it go as an immediacythat now carries the character of being a conditioning presupposition and of

Ground 415

essentially constituting only one of its sides. – For this reason the conditionsare the whole content of the fact, because they are the unconditioned inthe form of formless being. But because of this form, they also have yetanother shape besides the conditions of the content as this is in the factas such. They appear as a manifold without unity, mingled with extra-essential elements and other circumstances that do not belong to the circleof existence as constituting the conditions of this determinate fact. – Forthe absolute, unrestricted fact, the sphere of being itself is the condition.The ground, returning into itself, posits that sphere as the first immediacyto which it refers as to its unconditioned. This immediacy, as sublatedreflection, is reflection in the element of being, which thus forms itself assuch into a whole; form proliferates as determinateness of being and thusappears as a manifold distinct from the determination of reflection and asa content indifferent to it. The unessential, which is in the sphere of beingbut which the latter sheds in so far as it is condition, is the determinatenessof the immediacy into which the unity of form has sunk. This unity of 11.320form, as the connection of being, is in the latter at first as becoming – thepassing over of a determinateness of being into another. But the becomingof being is also the coming to be of essence and a return to the ground.The existence that constitutes the conditions, therefore, is in truth notdetermined as condition by an other and is not used by it as material; onthe contrary, it itself makes itself, through itself, into the moment of another. – Further, the becoming of this existence does not start off from itselfas if it were truly the first and immediate; on the contrary, its immediacyis something only presupposed, and the movement of its becoming is thedoing of reflection itself. The truth of existence is thus that it is condition;its immediacy is solely by virtue of the reflection of the ground-connectionthat posits itself as sublated. Consequently, like immediacy, becoming isonly the reflective shine of the unconditioned inasmuch as this presupposesitself and has its form in this presupposing, and hence the immediacy ofbeing is essentially only a moment of the form.

The other side of this reflective shining of the unconditioned is theground-connection as such, determined as form as against the immediacyof the conditions and the content. But this side is the form of the absolutefact that possesses the unity of its form with itself or its content withinit, and, in determining this content as condition, in this very positingsublates the diversity of the content and reduces it to a moment; justas, contrariwise, as a form void of essence, in this self-identity it givesitself the immediacy of subsistence. The reflection of the ground sublatesthe immediacy of the conditions, connecting them and making them


moments within the unity of the fact; but the conditions are that which theunconditioned fact itself presupposes and the latter, therefore, sublates itsown positing; consequently, its positing converts itself just as immediatelyinto a becoming. – The two, therefore, are one unity; the internal movementof the conditions is a becoming, the return into the ground and thepositing of the ground; but the ground as posited, and this means assublated, is the immediate. The ground refers negatively to itself, makesitself into a positedness and grounds the conditions; in this, however, in thatthe immediate existence is thus determined as a positedness, the groundsublates it and only then makes itself into a ground. – This reflection istherefore the self-mediation of the unconditioned fact through its negation.Or rather, the reflection of the unconditioned is at first a presupposing,but this sublating of itself is immediately a positing which determines;secondly, in this positing the reflection is immediately the sublating ofthe presupposed and a determining from within itself; this determining isthus in turn the sublating of the positing: it is a becoming within itself.In this, the mediation as a turning back to itself through negation hasdisappeared; mediation is simple reflection reflectively shining within itselfand groundless, absolute becoming. The fact’s movement of being posited,on the one hand through its conditions, and on the other hand throughits ground, now is the disappearing of the reflective shine of mediation. The11.321process by which the fact is posited is accordingly a coming forth, the simpleself-staging of the fact in concrete existence, the pure movement of the factto itself.

When all the conditions of a fact are at hand, the fact steps into concreteexistence. The fact is, before it exists concretely; it is, first, as essence oras unconditioned; second, it has immediate existence or is determined,and this in the twofold manner just considered, on the one hand in itsconditions and on the other in its ground. In the former case, it has givenitself the form of the external, groundless being, for as absolute reflectionthe fact is negative self-reference and makes itself into its presupposition.This presupposed unconditioned is, therefore, the groundless immediatewhose being is just to be there, without grounds. If, therefore, all theconditions of the fact are at hand, that is, if the totality of the fact isposited as a groundless immediate, then this scattered manifold internallyrecollects itself. – The whole fact must be there, within its conditions, orall the conditions belong to its concrete existence; for the all of themconstitutes the reflection of the fact. Or again, immediate existence, sinceit is condition, is determined by form; its determinations are thereforedeterminations of reflection and with the positing of one the rest also

Ground 417

are essentially posited. – The recollecting of the conditions is at first thefoundering to the ground of immediate existence and the coming to beof the ground. But the ground is thereby a posited ground, that is, tothe extent that it is ground, to that extent it is sublated as ground and isimmediate being. If, therefore, all the conditions of the fact are at hand, theysublate themselves as immediate existence and as presupposition, and theground is equally sublated. The latter proves to be only a reflective shinethat immediately disappears; this coming forth is thus the tautologicalmovement of the fact to itself: its mediation through the conditions andthrough the ground is the disappearing of both of these. The coming forthinto concrete existence is therefore so immediate, that it is mediated onlyby the disappearing of the mediation.

The fact proceeds from the ground. It is not grounded or posited by it insuch a manner that the ground would still stay underneath, as a substrate;on the contrary, the positing is the outward movement of ground to itselfand the simple disappearing of it. Through its union with the conditions, itobtains the external immediacy and the moment of being. But it does notobtain them as a something external, nor by referring to them externally;rather, as ground it makes itself into a positedness; its simple essentialityrejoins itself in the positedness and, in this sublating of itself, it is thedisappearing of its difference from its positedness, and is thus simpleessential immediacy. It does not, therefore, linger on as something distinctfrom the grounded; on the contrary, the truth of the grounding is that in 11.322grounding the ground unites with itself, and its reflection into another isconsequently its reflection into itself. The fact is thus the unconditionedand, as such, equally so the groundless; it arises from the ground only in sofar as the latter has foundered and is no longer ground: it rises up from thegroundless, that is, from its own essential negativity or pure form.

This immediacy, mediated by ground and condition and self-identicalthrough the sublating of mediation, is concrete existence.

section ii

Appearance

Essence must appear.Being is the absolute abstraction; this negativity is not something exter-

nal to it, but being is rather being, and nothing but being, only as thisabsolute negativity. Because of this negativity, being is only as self-sublatingbeing and is essence. But, conversely, essence as simple self-equality is like-wise being. The doctrine of being contains the first proposition, “being isessence.” The second proposition, “essence is being,” constitutes the con-tent of the first section of the doctrine of essence. But this being into whichessence makes itself is essential being, concrete existence,1 a being which hascome forth out of negativity and inwardness.

Thus essence appears. Reflection is the internal shining of essence. Thedeterminations of this reflection are included in the unity purely and simplyas posited, sublated; or reflection is essence immediately identical withitself in its positedness. But since this essence is ground, through its self-sublating reflection, or the reflection that which returns into itself, essencedetermines itself as something real; further, since this real determination,or the otherness, of the ground-connection sublates itself in the reflectionof the ground and becomes concrete existence, the form determinationsacquire therein an element of independent subsistence. Their reflective shinecomes to completion in appearance.

The essentiality that has advanced to immediacy is, first, concrete existence,and a concrete existent or thing – an undifferentiated unity of essence andits immediacy. The thing indeed contains reflection, but its negativity isat first dissolved in its immediacy; but, because its ground is essentiallyreflection, its immediacy is sublated and the thing makes itself into apositedness.

Second, then, it is appearance. Appearance is what the thing is in itself, orthe truth of it. But this concrete existence, only posited and reflected into1 die Existenz.

418

Appearance 419

otherness, is equally the surpassing of itself into its infinity; opposed to theworld of appearance there stands the world that exists in itself reflected intoitself. 11.324

But the being that appears and essential being stand referred to eachother absolutely. Thus concrete existence is, third, essential relation; whatappears shows the essential, and the essential is in its appearance. – Relationis the still incomplete union of reflection into otherness and reflection intoitself; the complete interpenetrating of the two is actuality.

chapter 1

Concrete existence

Just as the principle of sufficient reason says that whatever is has a ground,or is something posited, something mediated, so there would also have to be aprinciple of concrete existence saying that whatever is, exists concretely. Thetruth of being is to be, not an immediate something, but essence that hascome forth into immediacy.

But when it was further said that whatever exists concretely has a groundand is conditioned, it also would have had to be said that it has no groundand is unconditioned. For concrete existence is the immediacy that has comeforth from the sublating of the mediation that results from the connectionof ground and condition, and which, in coming forth, sublates this verycoming forth.

Inasmuch as mention may be made here of the proofs of the concreteexistence2 of God, it is first to be noted that besides immediate being thatcomes first, and concrete existence (or the being that proceeds from essence)that comes second, there is still a third being, one that proceeds from theconcept, and this is objectivity. – Proof is, in general, mediated cognition. Thevarious kinds of being require or contain each its own kind of mediation,and so will the nature of the proof also vary accordingly. The ontologicalproof wants to start from the concept; it lays down as its basis the sum totalof all realities, where under reality also concrete existence is subsumed. Itsmediation, therefore, is that of the syllogism, and syllogism is not yet underconsideration here. We have already commented above (Part 1, Section 1)3

on Kant’s objection to the ontological proof, and have remarked that byconcrete existence Kant understands the determinate immediate existencewith which something enters into the context of total experience, that is,11.325into the determination of being an other and of being in reference to another. As an existent concrete in this way, something is thus mediated by

2 Existenz.3 Hegel is referring to the 1812 edition (cf. 11.47ff.). For the corresponding comment in the 1832 edition,

cf. 21.73ff.

420

Concrete existence 421

an other, and concrete existence is in general the side of its mediation. Butin what Kant calls the concept, namely, something taken as only simplyself-referring, or in representation as such, this mediation is missing; inabstract self-identity, opposition is left out. Now the ontological proofwould have to demonstrate that the absolute concept, namely the conceptof God, attains to a determinate existence, to mediation, or to demonstratehow simple essence mediates itself with mediation. This is done by the justmentioned subsumption of concrete existence under its universal, namelyreality, which is assumed as the middle term between God in his concept,on the one hand, and concrete existence, on the other. – This mediation,inasmuch as it has the form of a syllogism, is not at issue here, as alreadysaid. However, how that mediation of essence and concrete existence trulycomes about, this is contained in the preceding exposition. The nature ofthe proof itself will be considered in the doctrine of cognition. Here wehave only to indicate what pertains to the nature of mediation in general.

The proofs of the existence of God adduce a ground for this existence. Itis not supposed to be an objective ground of the existence of God, for thisexistence is in and for itself. It is, therefore, solely a ground for cognition.It thereby presents itself as a ground that vanishes in the subject matterthat at first seems to be grounded by it. Now the ground which is derivedfrom the contingency of the world entails the regress of the latter intothe absolute essence, for the accidental is that which is in itself groundlessand self-sublating. In this way, therefore, the absolute essence does indeedproceed from that which has no ground, for the ground sublates itself andwith this there also vanishes the reflective shine of the relation that wasgiven to God, that it is grounded in an other. This mediation is thereforetrue mediation. But the reflection involved in that proof does not knowthe nature of the mediation that it performs. On the one hand, it takesitself to be something merely subjective, and it consequently distances itsmediation from God himself; on the other hand, for that same reason italso fails to recognize its mediating movement, that this movement is inthe essence itself and how it is there. The true relation of reflection consistsin being both in one: mediation as such but, of course, at the same timea subjective, external mediation, that is to say, a self-external mediationwhich in turn internally sublates itself. In that other presentation, however,concrete existence is given the false relation of appearing only as mediatedor posited.

So, on the other side, concrete existence also cannot be regarded merelyas an immediate. Taken in the determination of an immediacy, the compre-hension of God’s concrete existence has been declared to be beyond proof,


and the knowledge of it an immediate consciousness only, a faith. Knowl-11.326edge should arrive at the conclusion that it knows nothing, and this meansthat it gives up its mediating movement and the determinations themselvesthat have come up in the course of it. This is what has also occurred inthe foregoing; but it must be added that reflection, by ending up with thesublation of itself, does not thereby have nothing for result, so that thepositive knowledge of the essence would then be an immediate referenceto it, divorced from that result and self-originating, an act that starts onlyfrom itself; on the contrary, the end itself, the foundering of the mediation,is at the same time the ground from which the immediate proceeds. In “zuGrunde gehen,” the German language unites, as we remarked above,4 themeaning of foundering and of ground; the essence of God is said to be theabyss (Abgrund in German) for finite reason. This it is, indeed, in so far asreason surrenders its finitude therein, and sinks its mediating movement;but this abyss, the negative ground, is at the same time the positive groundof the emergence of the existent, of the essence immediate in itself; medi-ation is an essential moment. Mediation through ground sublates itself butdoes not leave the ground standing under it, so that what proceeds fromit would be a posited that has its essence elsewhere; on the contrary, thisground is, as an abyss, the vanished mediation, and, conversely, only thevanished mediation is at the same time the ground and, only through thisnegation, the self-equal and immediate.

Concrete existence, then, is not to be taken here as a predicate, or asa determination of essence, of which it could be said in a proposition,“essence exists concretely,” or “it has concrete existence.” On the contrary,essence has passed over into concrete existence; concrete existence is theabsolute self-emptying of essence, an emptying that leaves nothing of theessence behind. The proposition should therefore run: “Essence is concreteexistence; it is not distinct from its concrete existence.” – Essence haspassed over into concrete existence inasmuch as essence as ground no longerdistinguishes itself from itself as grounded, or inasmuch as the ground hassublated itself. But this negation is no less essentially its position, or thesimply positive continuity with itself; concrete existence is the reflection ofthe ground into itself, its self-identity as attained in its negation, thereforethe mediation that has posited itself as identical with itself and throughthat is immediacy.

Now because concrete existence is essentially self-identical mediation,it has the determinations of mediation in it, but in such a way that the

4 Cf. above, 11.283.


determinations are at the same time reflected into themselves and haveessential and immediate subsistence. As an immediacy which is positedthrough sublation, concrete existence is negative unity and being-within-itself; it therefore immediately determines itself as a concrete existent andas thing. 11.327

a. the thing and its properties

Concrete existence as a concrete existent is posited in the form of thenegative unity which it essentially is. But this negative unity is at first onlyimmediate determination, hence the oneness5 of the something in general.But the concretely existent something is different from the something thatexists immediately. The former is essentially an immediacy that has arisenthrough the reflection of mediation into itself. The concretely existentsomething is thus a thing.

The thing is distinct from its concrete existence just as the somethingcan be distinguished from its being. The thing and the concrete existentare immediately one and the same. But because concrete existence is notthe first immediacy of being but has the moment of mediation withinit, its further determination as thing and the distinguishing of the two isnot a transition but truly an analysis. Concrete existence as such containsthis very distinction in the moment of its mediation: the distinction ofthing-in-itself and external concrete existence.

a. The thing in itself and concrete existence

1. The thing in itself is the concrete existent as the essential immediate thathas resulted from the sublated mediation. Mediation is therefore equallyessential to it; but this distinction in this first or immediate concreteexistence falls apart into indifferent determinations. The one side, namelythe mediation of the thing, is its non-reflected immediacy, and hence itsbeing in general; and this being, since it is at the same time determinedas mediation, is an existence which is other to itself, manifold and externalwithin itself. But it is not just immediate existence; it also refers to thesublated mediation and the essential immediacy; it is therefore immediateexistence as unessential, as positedness. – (When the thing is differentiatedfrom its concrete existence, it is then the possible, the thing of representation,or the thing of thought, which as such is at the same time not supposed to

5 das Eins.


exist. However, the determination of possibility and of the opposition ofthe thing and its concrete existence comes later.) – But the thing-in-itselfand its mediated being are both contained in the concrete existence, andboth are themselves concrete existences; the thing-in-itself exists concretelyand is the essential concrete existence, but the mediated being is the thing’sunessential concrete existence.11.328

The thing in itself, as the simple reflectedness of the concrete existencewithin itself, is not the ground of unessential existence; it is the unmoved,indeterminate unity, for it has precisely the determination of being thesublated mediation, and is therefore the substrate of that existence. For thisreason reflection, too, as an immediate existence which is mediated throughsome other, falls outside the thing-in-itself. The latter is not supposed tohave any determinate manifold in it; for this reason it obtains it only whenexposed to external reflection, though it remains indifferent to it. (The thing-in-itself has color only when exposed to the eye, smell when exposed tothe nose, and so on.) Its diversity consists of aspects which an other picksout, specific points of reference which this other assumes with respect tothe thing-in-itself and which are not the thing’s own determinations.

2. Now this other is reflection which, determined as external, is, first,external to itself and determinate manifoldness. Second, it is external to theessential concrete existent and refers to it as to its absolute presupposition.These two moments of external reflection, its own manifoldness and itsreference to the thing-in-itself as its other, are however one and the same.For this concrete existence is external only in so far as it refers to theessential identity as to an other. The manifoldness, therefore, does not havean independent subsistence of its own besides the thing-in-itself but, overagainst it, it is rather only as reflective shine; in its necessary reference to it,it is like a reflex refracting itself in it. Diversity, therefore, is present as thereference of an other to the thing-in-itself; but this other is nothing thatsubsists on its own but is only as reference to the thing-in-itself; but at thesame time it only is in being repelled from it;6 thus it is the unsupportedrebound of itself within itself.7

Now since the thing-in-itself is the essential identity of the concreteexistence, this essenceless reflection does not accrue to it but collapseswithin itself externally to it. It founders to the ground and thus itselfcomes to be essential identity or thing-in-itself. – This can also be lookedat in this way: the essenceless concrete existence has in the thing-in-itself itsreflection into itself; it refers to it in the first place as to its other; but as the

6 als das Abstossen von diesem. 7 der haltlose Gegenstoß seiner in sich selbst.


other over against that which is in itself, it is only the sublation of its self,and its coming to be in the in-itself. The thing-in-itself is thus identicalwith external concrete existence.

This is exhibited in the thing-in-itself as follows. The thing-in-itself isself-referring essential concrete existence; it is self-identity only in so faras it holds negativity’s reflection in itself; that which appeared as concreteexistence external to it is, consequently, a moment in it. It is for this reasonalso self-repelling thing-in-itself which thus relates itself to itself as to another. Hence, there are now a plurality of things-in-themselves standingin the reciprocal reference of external reflection. This unessential concrete 11.329existence is their reciprocal relation as others; but it is, further, also essentialto them – or, in other words, this unessential concrete existence, in collaps-ing internally, is thing-in-itself, but a thing-in-itself which is other than thefirst, for that first is immediate essentiality whereas the present proceedsfrom the unessential concrete existence. But this other thing-in-itself isonly an other in general; for, as self-identical thing, it has no further deter-minateness vis-a-vis the first; like the first, it is the reflection within itselfof the unessential concrete existence. The determinateness of the variousthings-in-themselves over against one another falls therefore into externalreflection.

3. This external reflection is henceforth a relating of the things-in-themselves to one another, their reciprocal mediation as others. The things-in-themselves are thus the extreme terms of a syllogism, the middle term ofwhich is made up by their external concrete existence, the concrete existenceby virtue of which they are other to each other and distinct. This, theirdifference, falls only in their connecting reference; they send determinations,as it were, from their surface into the reference, while remaining themselvesindifferent to it. – This relation now constitutes the totality of the concreteexistence. The thing-in-itself is drawn into a reflection external to it inwhich it has a manifold of determinations; this is the repelling of itselffrom itself into another thing-in-itself, a repelling which is its reboundingback into itself, for each thing-in-itself is an other only as reflected backfrom the other; it has its supposition not in itself but in the other, isdetermined only through the determinateness of the other; this other isequally determined only through the determinateness of the first. But thetwo things-in-themselves, since each has its difference not in it but inthe other, are not therefore distinct things; the thing-in-itself, in relatingas it should to the other extreme as to another thing-in-itself, relates toit as to something non-distinguished from it, and the external reflectionthat should constitute the mediating reference between the extremes is a


relation of the thing-in-itself only to itself, or is essentially its reflectionwithin itself; the reflection is, therefore, determinateness existing in itself,or the determinateness of the thing-in-itself. The latter, therefore, doesnot have this determinateness in a reference, external to it, to anotherthing-in-itself, and of this other to it; the determinateness is not just itssurface but is rather the essential mediation of itself with itself as with another. – The two things-in-themselves that should constitute the extremesof the reference, since they are supposed not to have any contrastingdeterminateness, collapse in fact into one; it is only one thing-in-itself thatrelates itself to itself in the external reflection, and it is its own reference toitself as to another that constitutes its determinateness.

This determinateness of the thing-in-itself is the property of the thing.11.330

b. Property

Quality is the immediate determinateness of something; the negative itselfby virtue of which being is something. The property of the thing is, for itspart, the negativity of reflection, by virtue of which concrete existence ingeneral is a concrete existent and, as simple self-identity, is thing-in-itself.But the negativity of reflection, the sublated mediation, is itself essentiallymediation and reference, though not to an other in general like qualitywhich is not reflected determinateness; it is rather reference to itself as to another, or mediation which immediately is no less self-identity. The abstractthing-in-itself is itself this relation which turns from another back to itself;it is thereby determined in itself; but its determinateness is constitution,which is as such itself determination, and in relating to the other it does notpass over into otherness and is excluded from alteration.

A thing has properties; these are, first, its determinate references to some-thing other; the property is there only as a way of reciprocal relating; it is,therefore, the external reflection of the thing and the side of its positedness.But, second, in this positedness the thing is in itself; it maintains itself inits reference to the other and thus is admittedly only a surface where theconcrete existence is exposed to the becoming of being and to alteration;the property is not lost in this. A thing has the property to effect this or thatin an other, and in this connection to express itself in some characteristicway. It demonstrates this property only under the condition that anotherthing has a corresponding constitution, but at the same time the propertyis characteristically the thing’s own and its self-identical substrate; for thisreason this reflected quality is called property. The thing thereby passesover into an externality, but the property maintains itself in this transition.


Through its properties the thing becomes cause, and to be a cause is this,to preserve itself as effect. However, the thing is here still the static thingof many properties; it is not yet determined as actual cause; it is so far onlythe reflection of its determinations immediately existing in itself, not yetitself the reflection that posits them.

Essentially, therefore, the thing-in-itself has just shown itself to be thing-in-itself not only in such a way that its properties are the positednessof an external reflection; on the contrary, those properties are its owndeterminations by virtue of which it relates in some determinate manner;it is not an indeterminate substrate located on the other side of its externalconcrete existence but is present in its properties rather as ground, thatis to say, it is self-identity in its positedness; but, at the same time, itis conditioned ground, that is to say, its positedness is equally reflection 11.331external to itself; it is reflected into itself and in itself only to the extentthat it is external. – Through concrete existence the thing-in-itself entersinto external references, and the concrete existence consists precisely in thisexternality; it is the immediacy of being and because of that the thing issubjected to alteration; but it is also the reflected immediacy of the ground,hence the thing in itself in its alteration. – This mention of the ground-connection is not however to be taken here as if the thing in general weredetermined as the ground of its properties; thinghood itself is, as such,the ground-connection; the property is not distinguished from its ground,nor does it constitute just the positedness but is rather the ground that haspassed over into its externality and is consequently truly reflected into itself;the property is itself, as such, the ground, implicitly existent positedness;it is the ground, in other words, that constitutes the form of the property’sidentity, and the property’s determinateness is the self-external reflection ofthe ground; the whole is the ground which in its repelling and determining,in its external immediacy, refers itself to itself. – The thing-in-itself thusconcretely exists essentially, and that it concretely exists essentially means,conversely, that concrete existence, as external immediacy, is at the sametime in-itselfness.

RemarkMention was already made above (Section 1, p. 64)8 of the thing-in-itselfin connection with the moment of immediate existence,9 of being-in-itself, and it was then remarked that the thing-in-itself is as such nothing

8 Hegel is referring to the 1812 edition, as in GW 11, 59ff., especially 69ff. The parallel, but by nomeans identical, section in the 1832 edition is in 21.105ff.

9 i.e. Dasein.


but the empty abstraction of all determinateness, of which nothing can ofcourse be known just because it is supposed to be the abstraction of alldetermination. – Once the thing-in-itself has been presupposed in thisway, all determination falls outside it into an alien reflection to which it isindifferent. For transcendental idealism, this external reflection is conscious-ness. Now on this standpoint, because this philosophical system relegatesto consciousness every determinateness of things, both according to formand content, it falls in me, in the subject, whether I see the leaves of atree not as black but green, the sun as round and not square, whetherI taste sugar as sweet and not bitter; or again, whether I determine thatthe first and the second stroke of a clock are successive and not simulta-neous, or that the first is cause and not effect, etc. – This crude displayof subjective idealism is directly contradicted by the consciousness of thefreedom in accordance with which I know myself as rather the universal11.332and indeterminate, and I separate off from myself those manifold and nec-essary determinations, recognizing them to be something external to meand pertaining only to things. – In this consciousness of its freedom the“I” is to itself the true internally reflected identity which the thing-in-itselfwas supposed to be. – I have shown elsewhere10 that that transcendentalidealism does not escape from the restriction of the “I” by the object; ingeneral, that it does not escape from the finite world, but that it only altersthe form of the restriction, which remains absolute to it. This it does bysimply transposing it from an objective to a subjective shape; by turningit into determinacies of the “I,” into an unruly alternation of these thatoccurs within the “I” as if this were a thing, the kind of thing whichfor ordinary consciousness is a manifold of determinacies and alterationsonly pertaining to things outside it. – In the present treatment, only thething-in-itself and the reflection at first external to it stand opposed; thelatter has not yet determined itself as consciousness, nor the thing-in-itselfas “I.” What has resulted from the nature of the thing-in-itself and of theexternal reflection is that this same externality determines itself to be thething-in-itself, or, conversely, that it becomes the determination belongingto that first thing-in-itself. The inadequacy now of the standpoint at whichthat philosophy remains fixed consists essentially in its holding on to theabstract thing-in-itself as to an ultimate determination, or in opposing thedeterminateness and manifoldness of the properties to the thing-in-itself,whereas the latter in fact possesses that external reflection essentially withinit and determines itself as one endowed with determinations that are its

10 Hegel is referring to the 1812 edition. Cf. GW 11, 18. Cf. 21.31.


own, with properties, in this way demonstrating that the abstraction of thething as a pure thing-in-itself is an untrue determination.

c. The reciprocal action of things

The thing-in-itself exists in concreto by essence; external immediacy anddeterminateness belong to its being-in-itself, or to its immanent reflection.The thing in-itself is thus a thing that has properties, and hence there are anumber of things distinct from one another, not because of some viewpointalien to them but through themselves. These many diverse things stand inessential reciprocal action by virtue of their properties; the property isthis reciprocal connecting reference itself, apart from which the thing isnothing; the reciprocal determination, the middle term of the things-in-themselves that are taken as extreme terms indifferent to the reference 11.333connecting them, is itself the self-identical reflection and the thing-in-itselfwhich those extremes were supposed to be. Thinghood is thus reduced tothe form of indeterminate self-identity having its essentiality only in itsproperty. Thus, if one speaks of a thing or of things in general without adeterminate property, then their difference is merely indifferent, quantita-tive. What is considered as a thing can just as well be made into a pluralityof things or be considered as a plurality of things; their separation or theirunion is an external one. – A book is a thing, and each of its pages is also athing, and equally so every tiny piece of its pages, and so on to infinity. Thedeterminateness, in virtue of which a thing is this thing only, lies solely in itsproperties. It is through them that the thing differentiates itself from otherthings, for the property is the negative reflection and the differentiating;only in its property, therefore, does the thing possess in it the differenceof itself from others. This is the difference reflected into itself, by virtueof which the thing, in its positedness, that is, in its reference to others,is equally indifferent to the other and to its reference to it. Without itsproperties, therefore, there is nothing that remains to the thing except theunessential compass and the external gathering of an abstract in-itselfness.With this, thinghood has passed over into property.

The thing, as the extreme term that exists in itself, was supposed to relateto the property, and this property to constitute the middle term betweenthings that stand connected. But this connection is where the things meetas self-repelling reflection, where they are distinguished and connected. This,their distinction and their connecting reference, is one reflection and onecontinuity of both. Accordingly, the things themselves fall only within this


continuity which is the property; they vanish as would-be self-subsistingextremes that would have a concrete existence outside this property.

The property, which was supposed to connect the self-subsisting extremes,is therefore itself self-subsistent. The things are, on the contrary, the unessen-tial. They are something essential only as the self-differentiating and self-referring reflection; but this is the property. The latter is in the thing,therefore, not as something sublated, not just a moment of it; on the con-trary, the truth of the thing is that it is only an unessential compass whichis indeed a negative unity, but only like the one of the something, thatis to say, a one which is immediate. Whereas earlier the thing was deter-mined as an unessential compass because it was made such by an externalabstraction that omits the property, this abstraction now happens throughthe transition of the thing-in-itself into the property itself. But there isnow an inversion of values, for the earlier abstraction still envisaged the11.334abstract thing without its property as being the essential, and the propertyas an external determination, whereas it is the thing as such which is nowreduced, through itself, to the determination of an indifferent external formof the property. – The latter is henceforth thus freed of the indeterminateand impotent bond which is the unity of the thing; the property is whatconstitutes the subsistence of the thing; it is a self-subsisting matter. – Sincethis matter is simple continuity with itself, it only possesses at first the formof diversity. There is, therefore, a manifold of these self-subsisting matters,and the thing consists of them.

b. the constitution of the thing out of matters

The transition of property into a matter or into a self-subsistent stuff isthe familiar transition performed on sensible matter by chemistry whenit seeks to represent the properties of color, smell, etc., as luminous matter,coloring matter, odorific matter, sour, bitter matter and so on; or when itsimply assumes others, like calorific matter, electrical, magnetic matter, inthe conviction that it has thereby gotten hold of properties as they trulyare. – Equally current is the saying that things consist of various mattersor stuffs. One is careful about calling these matters or stuffs “things,” eventhough one will readily admit that, for example, a pigment is a thing; butI do not know whether luminous matter, for instance, or calorific matter,or electrical matter, etc., are called things. The distinction is made betweenthings and their components without any exact statement as to whetherthese components also, and to what extent, are things or perhaps justhalf-things; but they are at least concretes in general.


The necessity of making the transition from properties to matters, or ofassuming that the properties are truly matters, has resulted from the factthat they are what is the essential in things and consequently their trueself-subsistence. – At the same time, however, the reflection of the propertyinto itself constitutes only one side of the whole reflection, namely thesublation of the distinction and the continuity of the property (which wassupposed to be a concrete existence for an other) with itself. Thinghood,as immanent negative reflection and as a distinguishing that repels itselffrom the other, has consequently been reduced to an unessential moment;at the same time, however, it has further determined itself. First, thisnegative moment has preserved itself, for property has become a mattercontinuous with itself and self-subsisting only inasmuch as the differenceof things has sublated itself; thus the continuity of the property in the 11.335otherness itself contains the moment of the negative, and, as this negativeunity, its self-subsistence is at the same time the restored something ofthinghood, negative self-subsistence versus the positive self-subsistence ofthe stuff. Second, the thing has thereby progressed from its indeterminacyto full determinateness. As thing in itself, it is abstract identity, simplenegative concrete existence, or this concrete existence determined as theindeterminate; it is then determined through its properties, by virtue ofwhich it is supposed to be distinguished from other things; but, sincethrough the property the thing is rather continuous with other things, thisimperfect distinction is sublated; the thing has thereby returned into itselfand is now determined as determined; it is determined in itself or is thisthing. –

But, third, this turning back into itself, though a self-referring deter-mination, is at the same time an unessential determination; the self-continuous subsistence makes up the self-subsistent matter in which thedifference of things, their determinateness existing in and for itself, is sub-lated and is something external. Therefore, although the thing as this thingis complete determinateness, this determinateness is such in the element ofinessentiality.

Considered from the side of the movement of the property, this resultfollows in this way. The property is not only external determination butconcrete existence immediately existing in itself. This unity of externality andessentiality repels itself from itself, for it contains reflection-into-itself andreflection-into-other, and, on the one hand, it is determination as simple,self-identical and self-referring self-subsistent in which the negative unity,the one of the thing, is sublated; on the other hand, it is this determinationover against an other, but likewise as a one which is reflected into itself


and is determined in itself; it is, therefore, the matters and this thing. Theseare the two moments of self-identical externality, or of property reflectedinto itself. – The property was that by which things were supposed to bedistinguished. Since the thing has freed itself of its negative side of inheringin an other, it has thereby also become free from its being determined byother things and has returned into itself from the reference connectingit to the other. At the same time, however, it is only the thing-in-itselfnow become the other of itself, for the manifold properties on their parthave become self-subsistent and their negative connection in the one ofthe thing is now only a sublated connection. Consequently, the thingis self-identical negation only as against the positive continuity of thematerial.

The “this” thus constitutes the complete determinateness of the thing,a determinateness which is at the same time an external determinateness.The thing consists of self-subsistent matters indifferent to the connectionthey have in the thing. This connection is therefore only an unessential11.336linking of them, the difference of one thing from another depending onwhether there is in it a more or less of particular matters and in whatamount. These matters overrun this thing, continue into others, and thatthey belong to this thing is no restriction for them. Just as little are they,moreover, a restriction for one another, for their negative connection isonly the impotent “this.” Hence, in being linked together in it, they donot sublate themselves; they are as self-subsistent, impenetrable to eachother; in their determinateness they refer only to themselves and are amutually indifferent manifold of subsistence; the only limit of which theyare capable is a quantitative one. – The thing as this is just their merelyquantitative connection, a mere collection, their “also.” The thing consistsof some quantum or other of a matter, also of the quantum of another,and also of yet another; this combination, of not having any combinationalone constitutes the thing.

c. dissolution of the thing

This thing, in the manner it has determined itself as the merely quantitativecombination of free matters, is the absolutely alterable. Its alteration con-sists in one or more matters being dropped from the collection, or beingadded to this “also,” or in the rearrangement of the matters’ respectivequantitative ratio. The coming-to-be and the passing-away of this thing isthe external dissolution of such an external bond, or the binding of such forwhich it is indifferent whether they are bound or not. The stuffs circulate


unchecked in or out of “this” thing, and the thing itself is absolute porositywithout measure or form of its own.

So the thing, in the absolute determinateness through which it is a “this,”is the absolutely dissoluble thing. This dissolution is an external process ofbeing determined, just like the being of the thing; but its dissolution andthe externality of its being is the essential of this being; the thing is only the“also”; it consists only of this externality. But it consists also of its matters,and not just the abstract “this” as such but the “this” thing whole is thedissolution of itself. For the thing is determined as an external collectionof self-subsisting matters; such matters are not things, they lack negativeself-subsistence; it is the properties which are rather self-subsistent, that isto say, are determined with a being which, as such, is reflected into itself.Hence the matters are indeed simple, referring only to themselves; but it istheir content which is a determinateness; the immanent reflection is only theform of this content, a content which is not, as such, reflected-into-itself 11.337but refers to an other according to its determinateness. The thing, therefore,is not only their “also,” is not their reference to each other as indifferentbut is, on the contrary, equally so their negative reference; and on accountof their determinateness the matters are themselves this negative reflectionwhich is the puncticity11 of the thing. The one matter is not what the otheris according to the determinateness of its content as contrasted to that ofan other; and the one is not to the extent that the other is, in accordancewith their self-subsistence.

The thing is, therefore, the connecting reference of the matters of whichit consists to each other, in such a manner that the one matter, and the otheralso, subsist in it, and yet, at the same time, the one matter does not subsistin it in so far as the other does. To the extent, therefore, that the one matteris in the thing, the other is thereby sublated; but the thing is at the sametime the “also,” or the subsistence of the other matter. In the subsistenceof the one matter, therefore, the other matter does not subsist, and it alsono less subsists in it; and so with all these diverse matters in respect to eachother. Since it is thus in the same respect as the one matter subsists that theother subsists also, and this one subsistence of both is the puncticity orthe negative unity of the thing, the two interpenetrate absolutely; and sincethe thing is at the same time only the “also” of the matters, and these arereflected into their determinateness, they are indifferent to one another, andin interpenetrating they do not touch. The matters are, therefore, essentiallyporous, so that the one subsists in the pores or in the non-subsistence of

11 Punctualitat.


the others; but these others are themselves porous; in their pores or theirnon-subsistence the first and also all the rest subsist; their subsistence isat the same time their sublatedness and the subsistence of others; andthis subsistence of the others is just as much their sublatedness and thesubsisting of the first and equally so of all others. The thing is, therefore,the self-contradictory mediation of independent self-subsistence throughits opposite, that is to say, through its negation, or of one self-subsistingmatter through the subsisting and non-subsisting of an other. – In “this”thing, concrete existence has attained its completion, namely, that it is atonce being that exists in itself, or independent subsistence, and unessentialconcrete existence. The truth of concrete existence is thus this: that it hasits in-itself in unessentiality, or that it subsists in an other, indeed in theabsolute other, or that it has its own nothingness for substrate. It is, therefore,appearance.

RemarkIt is one of the commonest assumptions of ordinary thinking that a thingconsists of many self-subsisting matters. On the one hand, the thing is treatedas having properties; the thing is their substance. But, on the other hand,11.338these different determinations are regarded as matters, and their subsistenceis not the thing; on the contrary, the converse is the case; it is the thingrather that consists of them and is itself only their external bond andquantitative limit. Both the properties and the matters are the same contentdeterminations, except that in the former case these determinations aremoments reflected into their negative unity which is a substrate distinctfrom them, the thinghood; whereas in the latter case, they are a variety ofself-subsistent matters, each reflected into its own self-unity. These mattersare now further determined as independent subsistence; but they are alsotogether in a thing. This thing has the two determinations, first, of being a“this,” and, second, of being the “also.” The “also” is represented in externalintuition as spatial extension; the “this,” the negative unity, is instead thepuncticity of the thing. The matters are together in this puncticity, andtheir “also” or their extension is everywhere this puncticity; for the “also,”as thinghood, is essentially determined also as negative unity. Therefore,where one of these matters is, in that one and same point the other is; thething does not have its color in one place, its aroma in another, its heat in athird, and so forth, but at the point where it is warm, there it is also colored,sour, electric, and so forth. Now because these stuffs are not outside oneanother but are in one “this,” they are assumed as porous, so that one stuffconcretely exists in the interstices of an other. But the one that occupies


the interstices of the other is itself porous; conversely, therefore, the otherconcretely exists in its pores; and this applies not just to this second stuff,but to a third also, a tenth, and so forth. They are all porous, and in theinterstices of each all the others are present, just as each is present withthe rest in the pores of every other. They are, therefore, an aggregate ofmatters that interpenetrates one another in such a way that in penetratingthe others each is equally penetrated by them, so that each again penetratesits own penetratedness. Each is posited as its negation, and this negation isthe subsistence of an other; but this subsistence is just as much the negationof this other and the subsistence of the first.

The well-known common excuse by which ordinary thinking evades thecontradiction of an independent subsistence of many matters in one thing,or of the reciprocal indifference of these matter in their interpenetration, isthat the parts and the pores are very small. Where the difference-in-itself,the contradiction and the negation of negation, comes into play; whereit ought to be conceptualized as such, ordinary thinking falls back uponexternal, quantitative difference; where coming-to-be and passing-away areconcerned, it takes refuge in gradualness, and, where being is the issue, in asmallness in which disappearing is reduced to imperceptibility, contradiction 11.339to a matter of confusion, and true relation is played out in the medium ofvague representation, the obscurity of which rescues the self-sublation ofthe relation.

But when light is shone on this obscurity, it proves to be a contradiction(both subjective on the part of the representation and objective on the partof the subject matter), the elements of which are completely containedin pictorial representation itself. The latter runs into contradiction fromthe start for wanting, on the one hand, to hold on to perception and havebefore it things that have real being, and, on the other hand, for ascribingsensible existence to imperceptible things that are determined throughreflection; the minute parts and the pores are at the same time supposedto be a sensible existence and their positedness is spoken of as if it werethe same as the reality which belongs to color, heat, etc. If representationwere to consider this objective fog more closely, the pores and the minuteparts, it would discover in them not just a matter and also the negationof it – so that matter would be here and its negation next to it; the poreand next to it matter again, and so forth – but that in “this” thing it has,in one and the same point, (1) the self-subsistent matter, (2) its negation orporosity and the other self-subsistent matter, and that this porosity andthe independent subsistence of the matters in one another as in one singlepoint is a reciprocal negation and a penetration of the penetration. – Recent


accounts of physics regarding the expansion of steam in atmospheric airand of various kinds of gases in one another bring out with greater precisionone side of the concept concerning the nature of a thing that has here cometo view. They show, namely, that for example a certain volume holds just asmuch steam whether empty or full of atmospheric air; also that the variousgases expand into one another in such a way that each is for the other asgood as a vacuum, at least that they are not in any chemical bonding witheach other, each remains continuous with itself, uninterrupted by the other,and in penetrating the others it remains itself indifferent to them. – But thefurther moment in the concept of a thing is that in the “this” one matteris present where another matter is, and that the penetrating matter is alsopenetrated at the same point, or that the self-subsistent is immediately theself-subsistence of an other. This is contradictory. But the thing is nothingelse but this contradiction itself; that is why it is appearance.

We find in the spiritual realm a situation similar to that of these matters,in the conception of forces or faculties of the soul. Spirit is a “this,” thenegative unity in which its determinations interpenetrate, in a much moreprofound sense. But represented as soul, it is commonly taken as a thing.Just as the human being in general is made to consist of soul and body, each11.340of which is taken as something subsisting on its own, so also the soul is madeto consist of so-called soul-forces, each of which has a self-subsistence of itsown, or is an activity with direct effects specifically its own. The assumptionis that the understanding operates on its own here, the imagination there;that one can cultivate the understanding, the memory, etc., each for itself,leaving the others aside for the time being until, perhaps, their turn comesup, or perhaps not. Although the faculties, since they are transposed intoa materially simple soul-thing which as simple is allegedly immaterial, arenot portrayed as particular matters, as forces they are nevertheless equallyassumed to be indifferent to one another, just like those matters. But spirit isnot the contradiction that the thing is, which dissolves itself and passes overinto appearance. Rather, it already is within it the contradiction that hasreturned into its absolute unity, namely into the concept; the differencesare no longer to be thought in it as self-subsistent but only as particularmoments in the subject, the simple individuality.

chapter 2

Appearance 11.341

Concrete existence is the immediacy of being to which essence has againrestored itself. In itself this immediacy is the reflection of essence into itself.As concrete existence, essence has stepped out of its ground which has itselfpassed over into it. Concrete existence is this reflected immediacy in so faras, within, it is absolute negativity. It is now also posited as such, in that ithas determined itself as appearance.

At first, therefore, appearance is essence in its concrete existence; essenceis immediately present in it. That it is not immediate, but rather reflectedconcrete existence, constitutes the moment of essence in it; or concreteexistence, as essential concrete existence, is appearance.

Something is only appearance – in the sense that concrete existence isas such only a posited being, not something that is in- and for-itself. Thisis what constitutes its essentiality, to have the negativity of reflection, thenature of essence, within it. There is no question here of an alien, externalreflection to which essence would belong and which, by comparing thisessence with concrete existence, would declare the latter to be appearance.On the contrary, as we have seen,12 this essentiality of concrete existence,that it is appearance, is concrete existence’s own truth. The reflection byvirtue of which it is this is its own.

But if it is said that something is only appearance, meaning that ascontrasted with it immediate concrete existence is the truth, then the fact isthat appearance is the higher truth, for it is concrete existence as essential,whereas concrete existence is appearance that is still void of essence becauseit only contains in it the one moment of appearance, namely that of concreteexistence as immediate, not yet negative, reflection. When appearance issaid to be essenceless, one thinks of the moment of its negativity as if,by contrast with it, the immediate were the positive and the true; infact, however, this immediate does not yet contain essential truth in it.

12 Cf. above, 11.337.

437


Concrete existence rather ceases to be essenceless by passing over intoappearance.

Essence reflectively shines at first just within, in its simple identity; as such,it is abstract reflection, the pure movement of nothing through nothingback to itself. Essence appears, and so it now is real shine, since the moments11.342of the shine have concrete existence. Appearance, as we have seen,13 is thething as the negative mediation of itself with itself; the differences which itcontains are self-subsisting matters which are the contradiction of being animmediate subsistence, yet of obtaining their subsistence only in an alienself-subsistence, hence in the negation of their own, but then again, justbecause of that, also in the negation of that alien self-subsistence or in thenegation of their own negation. Reflective shine is this same mediation,but its fleeting moments obtain in appearance the shape of immediateself-subsistence. On the other hand, the immediate self-subsistence whichpertains to concrete existence is reduced to a moment. Appearance istherefore the unity of reflective shine and concrete existence.

Appearance now determines itself further. It is concrete existence asessential; as essential, concrete existence differs from the concrete existencewhich is unessential, and these two sides refer to each other. – Appearanceis, therefore, first, simple self-identity which also contains diverse con-tent determinations and, both as identity and as the connecting referenceof these determinations, is that which remains self-equal in the flux ofappearance; this is the law of appearance.

But, second, the law which is simple in its diversity passes over into oppo-sition; the essential moment of appearance becomes opposed to appearanceitself and, confronting the world of appearance, the world that exists in itselfcomes onto the scene.

Third, this opposition returns into its ground; that which is in itself is inthe appearance and, conversely, that which appears is determined as takenup into its being-in-itself. Appearance becomes relation.

a. the law of appearance

1. Appearance is the concrete existent mediated through its negation,which constitutes its subsistence. This, its negation, is indeed another self-subsistent; but the latter is just as essentially something sublated. The con-crete existent is consequently the turning back of itself into itself throughits negation and through the negation of this negation; it has, therefore,

13 Cf. above, 11.337.

Appearance 439

essential self-subsistence, just as it is equally immediately an absolute posited-ness that has a ground and an other for its subsistence. – In the first place,therefore, appearance is concrete existence along with its essentiality, thepositedness along with its ground; but this ground is the negation, and theother self-subsistent, the ground of the first, is equally only a positedness.Or the concrete existent is, as an appearance, reflected into an other and hasthis other for its ground, and this ground is itself only this, to be reflected 11.343into another. The essential self-subsistence that belongs to it because it is aturning back into itself is, for the sake of the negativity of the moments,the return of nothing through nothing back to itself; the self-subsistenceof the concrete existent is therefore only the reflective shine of essence. Thelinkage of the reciprocally grounding concrete existents consists, therefore,in this reciprocal negation, namely that the subsistence of the one is notthe subsistence of the other but is its positedness, where this connection ofpositedness alone constitutes their subsistence. The ground is present as itis in truth, namely as being a first which is only a presupposed.

This now constitutes the negative side of appearance. In this negativemediation, however, there is immediately contained the positive identity ofthe concrete existent with itself. For this concrete existent is not positednessvis-a-vis an essential ground, or is not the reflective shine in a self-subsistent, butis rather positedness that refers itself to a positedness, or a reflective shine only ina reflective shine. In this, its negation, or in its other which is itself somethingsublated, it refers to itself and is thus self-identical or positive essentiality. –This identity is not the immediacy that pertains to concrete existence assuch and only is its unessential moment of subsisting in an other. It israther the essential content of appearance which has two sides: first, to be inthe form of positedness or external immediacy; second, to be positedness asself-identical. According to the first side, it is as a determinate being, butone which in keeping with its immediacy is accidental, unessential, andsubject to transition, to coming-to-be and passing-away. According to theother side, it is the simple content determination exempted from that flux,the permanent element in it.

This content, besides being in general the simple element of the transient,is also a determined content, varied in itself. It is the reflection of appear-ance, of the negative determinate being, into itself, and therefore containsdeterminateness essentially. Appearance is however the multifarious diver-sity of immediately existing beings that revels in unessential manifoldness;its reflected content, on the other hand, is its manifoldness reduced tosimple difference. Or, more precisely, the determinate essential content isnot just determined in general but, as the essential element of appearance,


is complete determinateness; the one and its other. Each of these two hasin appearance its subsistence in the other, but in such a way that it is atthe same time only in the other’s non-subsistence. This contradiction sub-lates itself; and its reflection into itself is the identity of their two-sided11.344subsistence, namely that the positedness of the one is also the positedness ofthe other. The two constitute one subsistence, each at the same time as adifferent content indifferent to the other. In the essential side of appear-ance, the negativity of the unessential content, that it sublates itself, hasthus gone back into identity; it is an indifferent subsistence which is not thesublatedness of the other but rather its subsistence.

This unity is the law of appearance.2. The law is thus the positive element of the mediation of what appears.

Appearance is at first concrete existence as negative self-mediation, so thatthe concrete existent, through its own non-subsistence, through an otherand again through the non-subsistence of this other, is mediated with itself.In this there is contained, first, the merely reflective shining and the disap-pearing of both, the unessential appearance; second, also the persistence orthe law; for each of the two concretely exists in the sublation of the other,and their positedness is as their negativity at the same time the identicalpositive positedness of both.

This permanent subsistence which appearance obtains in the law isthus, as it has determined itself, first, opposed to the immediacy of thebeing which concrete existence has. This immediacy is indeed one which isin itself reflected, namely the ground that has gone back into itself; but inappearance this simple immediacy is now distinguished from the reflectedimmediacy that first began to separate itself in the “thing.” The concretelyexisting thing in its dissolution has become this opposition; the positive ele-ment of its dissolution is the said self-identity of what appears, a positednessin the positedness of its other. – Second, this reflected immediacy is itselfdetermined as positedness over against the immediate determinate being ofconcrete existence. This positedness is henceforth what is essential and thetrue positive. The German expression Gesetz [law] likewise contains thisnote of positedness or Gesetztsein. In this positedness there lies the essentialconnection of the two sides of the difference that the law contains; theyare a diverse content, each immediate with respect to the other, and theyare this as the reflection of the disappearing content belonging to appear-ance. As essential difference, the different sides are simple, self-referringdeterminations of content. But just as equally, neither is immediate, justfor itself, but is rather essential positedness, or is only to the extent that theother is.

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Third, appearance and law have one and the same content. The law isthe reflection of appearance into self-identity; appearance, as an immediatewhich is null, thus stands opposed to that which is immanently reflected,and the two are distinguished according to form. But the reflection ofappearance by virtue of which this difference is, is also the essential identity 11.345of appearance itself and its reflection, and this is in general the nature ofreflection; it is what in the positedness is self-identical and indifferent tothat difference, which is form or positedness – hence a content continuousfrom appearance to law, the content of the law and of the appearance.

This content thus constitutes the substrate of appearance; the law is thissubstrate itself, appearance is the same content but contains still more,namely the unessential content of its immediate being. And so is alsothe form determination by which appearance as such is distinguishedfrom the law, namely a content and equally a content distinguished fromthe content of the law. For concrete existence, as immediacy in general,is likewise a self-identity of matter and form which is indifferent to itsform determinations and is, therefore, a content; the concrete existenceis the thinghood with its properties and matters. But it is the contentwhose self-subsisting immediacy is at the same time also only a non-subsistence. But the self-identity of the content in this its non-subsistenceis the other, essential content. This identity, the substrate of appearance,which constitutes law, is appearances’s own moment; it is the positive sideof the essentiality by virtue of which concrete existence is appearance.

The law, therefore, is not beyond appearance but is immediately presentin it; the kingdom of laws is the restful copy of the concretely existingor appearing world. But, more to the point, the two are one totality, andthe concretely existing world is itself the kingdom of laws which, simpleidentity, is at the same time self-identical in the positedness or in the self-dissolving self-subsistence of concrete existence. In the law, concrete exis-tence returns to its ground; appearance contains both of these, the simpleground and the dissolving movement of the appearing universe, of whichthe law is the essentiality.

3. The law is therefore the essential appearance; it is the latter’s reflectioninto itself in its positedness, the identical content of itself and the unessentialconcrete existence. In the first place, this identity of the law with its concreteexistence is now, to start with, immediate, simple identity, and the lawis indifferent with respect to its concrete existence; appearance still hasanother content as contrasted with the content of the law. That contentis indeed the unessential one and the return into the latter; but for thelaw it is an original starting point not posited by it; as content, therefore,


it is externally bound up with the law. Appearance is an aggregate of moredetailed determinations that belong to the “this” or the concrete, and arenot contained in the law but are rather determined each by an other. –11.346Secondly, that which appearance contains distinct from the law determineditself as something positive or as another content; but it is essentially anegative; it is the form and its movement is a movement that belongs toappearance. The kingdom of laws is the restful content of appearance; thelatter is this same content but displayed in restless flux and as reflection-into-other. It is the law as negative, relentlessly self-mutating concrete existence,the movement of the passing over into the opposite, of self-sublation andreturn into unity. This side of the restless form or of the negativity doesnot contain the law; as against the law, therefore, appearance is the totality,for it contains the law but more yet, namely the moment of the self-moving form. – Thirdly, this shortcoming is manifested in the law inthe mere diversity at first, and the consequent internal indifference, of itscontent; the identity of its sides with one another is at first, therefore, onlyimmediate and hence inner, not yet necessary in other words. In a lawtwo content determinations are essentially bound together (for instance,spatial and temporal magnitudes in the law of falling bodies: the traversedspaces vary as the squares of the elapsed times); they are bound together;this connection is at first only an immediate one. At first, therefore, itis likewise only a posited connection, just as the immediate has obtainedin appearance the meaning of positedness in general. The essential unityof the two sides of the law would be their negativity, namely that eachcontains the other in it; but in the law this essential unity has not yet comethe fore. (Thus it is not contained in the concept of the space traversed bya falling body that time corresponds to it as a square. Because the falling isa sensible movement, it is the ratio of space and time; but first, that timerefers to space and space to time does not lie in the determination of timeitself, that is to say, in time as ordinarily represented; it is said that time canvery well be represented without space and space without time; the onethus comes to the other externally, and their external reference to eachother is movement. Second, the more particular determination of how themagnitudes further relate to each other in movement is indifferent. Therelevant law here is drawn from experience and is to this extent immediate;there is still required a proof, that is, a mediation, in order to know that thelaw not only occurs but is necessary; the law as such does not contain thisproof and its objective necessity.) The law is, therefore, only the positiveessentiality of appearance, not its negative essentiality according to whichthe content determinations are moments of the form, as such pass over

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into their other and are in their own selves not themselves but their other. 11.347In the law, therefore, although the positedness of the one side of it is thepositedness of the other side, the content of the two sides is indifferent tothis connection; it does not contain this positedness in it. Law, therefore,is indeed essential form, but not as yet real form which is reflected into itssides as content.

b. the world of appearance and the world-in-itself

1. The concrete existing world tranquilly raises itself to a kingdom of laws;the null content of its manifold determinate being has its subsistence inan other; its subsistence is therefore its dissolution. In this other, however,that which appears also comes to itself; thus appearance is in its changingalso an enduring, and its positedness is law. Law is this simple identity ofappearance with itself; it is, therefore, its substrate and not its ground, forit is not the negative unity of appearance but, as its simple identity, is itsimmediate unity – the abstract unity, alongside which, therefore, its othercontent also occurs. The content is this content; it holds together internally,or has its negative reflection inside itself. It is reflected into an other; thisother is itself a concrete existence of appearance; the appearing things havetheir grounds and conditions in other appearing things.

In fact, however, law is also the other of appearance as appearance, and itsnegative reflection as in its other. The content of appearance, which differsfrom the content of law, is the concrete existent which has negativity forits ground or is reflected into its non-being. But this other, which is also aconcrete existent, is such an existent as likewise reflected into its non-being;it is thus the same and that which appears in it is in fact reflected not intoan other but into itself; it is this very reflection of positedness into itselfwhich is law. But as something that appears it is essentially reflected into itsnon-being, or its identity is itself essentially just as much its negativity andits other. The immanent reflection of appearance, law, is therefore not onlythe identical substrate of appearance but the latter has in law its opposite,and law is its negative unity.

Now through this, the determination of law has been altered within thelaw itself. At first, law is only a diversified content and the formal reflectionof positedness into itself, so that the positedness of one of its sides is thepositedness of the other side. But because it is also the negative reflectioninto itself, its sides behave not only as different but as negatively referring 11.348to each other. – Or, if the law is considered just for itself, the sides of itscontent are indifferent to each other; but they are no less sublated through


their identity; the positedness of the one is the positedness of the other;consequently, the subsistence of each is also the non-subsistence of itself.This positedness of the one side in the other is their negative unity, andeach positedness is not only the positedness of that side but also of the other, oreach side is itself this negative unity. The positive identity which they havein the law as such is at first only their inner unity which stands in need ofproof and mediation, since this negative unity is not yet posited in them.But since the different sides of law are now determined as being differentin their negative unity, or as being such that each contains the other withinwhile at the same time repelling this otherness from itself, the identity oflaw is now also one which is posited and real.

Consequently, law has likewise obtained the missing moment of thenegative form of its sides, the moment that previously still belonged toappearance; concrete existence has thereby returned into itself fully andhas reflected itself into its absolute otherness which has determinate beingin- and for-itself. That which was previously law, therefore, is no longeronly one side of the whole. It is the essential totality of appearance, sothat it now obtains also the moment of unessentiality that belonged to thelatter – but as reflected unessentiality that has determinate being in itself,that is, as essential negativity. – As immediate content, law is determinedin general, distinguished from other laws, of which there is an indetermi-nate multitude. But because now it explicitly is essential negativity, it nolonger contains that merely indifferent, accidental content determination;its content is rather every determinateness in general, essentially connectedtogether in a totalizing connection. Thus appearance reflected-into-itself isnow a world that discloses itself above the world of appearance as one whichis in and for itself.

The kingdom of laws contains only the simple, unchanging but diver-sified content of the concretely existing world. But because it is now thetotal reflection of this world, it also contains the moment of its essencelessmanifoldness. This moment of alterability and alteration, reflected intoitself and essential, is the absolute negativity or the form in general as such:its moments, however, have the reality of self-subsisting but reflected con-crete existence in the world that has determinate being in- and for-itself,just as, conversely, this reflected self-subsistence has form in it, and its con-11.349tent is therefore not a mere manifold but a content holding itself togetheressentially.

– This world which is in and for itself is also called the suprasensibleworld, inasmuch as the concretely existing world is characterized as sensible,that is, as one intended for intuition, which is the immediate attitude of

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consciousness. – The suprasensible world likewise has immediate, con-crete existence, but reflected, essential concrete existence. Essence has noimmediate existence14 yet; but it is, and in a more profound sense thanbeing; the thing is the beginning of the reflected concrete existence; itis an immediacy which is not yet posited, not yet essential or reflected;but it is in truth not an immediate which is simply there.15 Things areposited only as the things of another, suprasensible, world – first astrue concrete existences, and, second, as the truth in contrast to thatwhich just is. What is recognized in them is that there is a being dis-tinguished from immediate being, and this being is true concrete exis-tence. On the one side, the sense-representation that ascribes concreteexistence only to the immediate being of feeling and intuition is in thisdetermination overcome; but, on the other side, also overcome is theunconscious reflection which, although it possesses the representation ofthings, forces, the inner, and so on, does not know that such determina-tions are not sensible or immediately existing beings, but reflected concreteexistences.

2. The world which is in and for itself is the totality of concrete existence;outside it there is nothing. But, within it, it is absolute negativity or form,and therefore its immanent reflection is negative self-reference. It containsopposition, and splits internally as the world of the senses and as theworld of otherness or the world of appearance. For this reason, since itis totality, it is also only one side of the totality and constitutes in thisdetermination a self-subsistence different from the world of appearance.The world of appearance has its negative unity in the essential world towhich it founders and into which it returns as to its ground. Further, theessential world is also the positing ground of the world of appearances; for,since it contains the absolute form essentially, it sublates its self-identity,makes itself into positedness and, as this posited immediacy, it is the worldof appearance.

Further, it is not only ground in general of the world of appearance butits determinate ground. Already as the kingdom of laws it is a manifoldof content, indeed the essential content of the world of appearance, and,as ground with content, it is the determinate ground of that other world.But it is such only according to that content, for the world of appearancestill had other and manifold content than the kingdom of laws, because 11.350the negative moment was still the one peculiarly its own. But becausethe kingdom of laws now has this moment likewise in it, it is the totality of

14 “immediate existence” = Dasein. 15 “which is simply there” = ein seiendes.


the content of the world of appearance and the ground of all its manifold-ness. But it is at the same time the negative of this manifoldness and thusa world opposed to it. – That is to say, in the identity of the two worlds,because the one world is determined according to form as the essential andthe other as the same world but posited and unessential, the connection ofground has indeed been restored. But it has been restored as the ground-connection of appearance, namely as the connection, not of the two sidesof an identical content, nor of a mere diversified content, like law, butas total connection, or as negative identity and essential connection of theopposed sides of the content. – The kingdom of laws is not only this, that thepositedness of a content is the positedness of an other, but rather that thisidentity, as we have seen,16 is essentially also negative unity, and in this neg-ative unity each of the two sides of law is in it, therefore, its other content;consequently, the other is not an other in general, indeterminedly, but is itsother, equally containing the content determination of that other; and thusthe two sides are opposed. Now, because the kingdom of laws now has in itthis negative moment, namely opposition, and thus, as totality, splits into aworld which exists in and for itself and a world of appearance, the identityof these two is the essential connection of opposition. – The connection ofground is, as such, the opposition which, in its contradiction, has founderedto the ground; and concrete existence is the ground that has come to itself.But concrete existence becomes appearance; ground is sublated in concreteexistence; it reinstates itself as the return of appearance into itself, butdoes so as sublated ground, that is to say, as the ground-connection ofopposite determinations; the identity of such determinations, however, isessentially a becoming and a transition, no longer the connection of groundas such.

The world that exists in and for itself is thus itself a world distinguishedwithin itself, in the total compass of a manifold content. That is to say,it is identical with the world of appearance or the posited world and tothis extent it is its ground. But its identity connection is at the same timedetermined as opposition, because the form of the world of appearance isreflection into its otherness and this world of appearance, therefore, in theworld that exists in and for itself has truly returned into itself, in such amanner that that other world is its opposite. Their connection is, therefore,specifically this, that the world that exists in and for itself is the inversionof the world of appearance.

16 Cf. above, 11.348.

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c. the dissolution of appearance11.351

The world that exists in and for itself is the determinate ground of theworld of appearance and is this only in so far as, within it, it is the negativemoment and hence the totality of the content determinations and theiralterations that correspond to that world of appearance, yet constitutes atthe same time its completely opposed side. The two worlds thus relate toeach other in such a way that what in the world of appearance is positive,in the world existing in and for itself is negative, and, conversely, what isnegative in the former is positive in the latter. The north pole in the worldof appearance is the south pole in and for itself, and vice-versa; positiveelectricity is in itself negative, and so forth. What is evil in the world ofappearance is in and for itself goodness and a piece of good luck.p

In fact it is precisely in this opposition of the two worlds that theirdifference has disappeared, and what was supposed to be the world existingin and for itself is itself the world of appearance and this last, conversely,the world essential within. – The world of appearance is in the first instancedetermined as reflection into otherness, so that its determinations and con-crete existences have their ground and subsistence in an other; but becausethis other, as other, is likewise reflected into an other, the other to which theyboth refer is one which sublates itself as other; the two consequently referto themselves; the world of appearance is within it, therefore, law equal toitself. – Conversely, the world existing in and for itself is in the first instanceself-identical content, exempt from otherness and change; but this content,as complete reflection of the world of appearance into itself, or because itsdiversity is difference reflected into itself and absolute, consequently con-tains negativity as a moment and self-reference as reference to otherness; itthereby becomes self-opposed, self-inverting, essenceless content. Further,this content of the world existing in and for itself has thereby also retainedthe form of immediate concrete existence. For it is at first the ground of theworld of appearance; but since it has opposition in it, it is equally sublatedground and immediate concrete existence.

Thus the world of appearance and the essential world are each, eachwithin it, the totality of self-identical reflection and of reflection-into-other, or of being-in-and-for-itself. They are both the self-subsisting wholes 11.352of concrete existence; the one is supposed to be only reflected concreteexistence, the other immediate concrete existence; but each continues intothe other and, within, is therefore the identity of these two moments.

p See Phenomenology of Spirit, pp. 96ff. GW 9, 96–98.


What we have, therefore, is this totality that splits into two totalities, theone reflected totality and the other immediate totality. Both, in the firstinstance, are self-subsistent; but they are this only as totalities, and thisthey are inasmuch as each essentially contains the moment of the other init. Hence the distinct self-subsistence of each, one determined as immediateand one as reflected, is now so posited as to be essentially the reference tothe other and to have its self-subsistence in this unity of the two.

We started off from the law of appearance; this law is the identity of acontent and another content different from it, so that the positedness ofthe one is the positedness of the other. Still present in law is this difference,that the identity of its sides is at first only an internal identity which thetwo sides do not yet have in them. Consequently the identity is, for its part,not realized; the content of law is not identical but indifferent, diversified.This content, therefore, is on its side only in itself so determined that thepositedness of the one is the positedness of the other; this determination isnot yet present in it. But now law is realized; its inner identity is existent atthe same time and, conversely, the content of law is raised to ideality; forit is sublated within, is reflected into itself, for each side has the other in it,and therefore is truly identical with it and with itself.

Thus is law essential relation. The truth of the unessential world is atfirst a world in and for itself and other to it; but this world is a totality, forit is itself and the first world; both are thus immediate concrete existencesand consequently reflections in their otherness, and therefore equally trulyreflected into themselves. “World” signifies in general the formless totalityof a manifoldness; this world has foundered both as essential world andas world of appearance; it is still a totality or a universe but as essentialrelation. Two totalities of content have arisen in appearance; at first theyare determined as indifferently self-subsisting vis-a-vis each other, eachhaving indeed form within it but not with respect to the other; this formhas however demonstrated itself to be their connecting reference, and theessential relation is the consummation of their unity of form.

chapter 3

The essential relation 11.353

The truth of appearance is the essential relation. Its content has immediateself-subsistence: the existent immediacy and the reflected immediacy orthe self-identical reflection. In this self-subsistence, however, it is at thesame time a relative content; it is simply and solely as a reflection intoits other, or as unity of the reference with its other. In this unity, theself-subsistent content is something posited, sublated; but precisely thisunity is what constitutes its essentiality and self-subsistence; this reflectioninto an other is reflection into itself. The relation has sides, since it isreflection into an other; so its difference is internal to it, and its sides areindependent subsistence, for in their mutually indifferent diversity they arethrown back into themselves, so that the subsistence of each equally hasits meaning only in its reference to the other or in the negative unity ofboth.

The essential relation is therefore not yet the true third to essence and toconcrete existence but already contains the determinate union of the two.Essence is realized in it in such a way that it has self-subsistent, concreteexistents for its subsistence, and these concrete existents have returnedfrom their indifference back into their essential unity so that they haveonly this unity as their subsistence. Also the reflective determinations ofpositive and negative are reflected into themselves only as each is reflectedinto its opposite; but they have no other determination besides this theirnegative unity, whereas the essential relation has sides that are posited asself-subsistent totalities. It is the same opposition as that of positive andnegative, but it is such as an inverted world. The side of the essential relationis a totality which, however, essentially has an opposite or a beyond; it is onlyappearance; its concrete existence, rather than being its own, is that of itsother. It is, therefore, something internally fractured; but this, its sublatedbeing, consists in its being the unity of itself and its other, therefore awhole, and precisely for this reason it has self-subsistent concrete existenceand is essential reflection into itself.

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This is the concept of relation. At first, however, the identity it contains isnot yet perfect; the totality which each relative is as relative, is only an inner11.354one; the side of the relation is posited at first in one of the determinations ofnegative unity; what constitutes the form of the relation is the specific self-subsistence of each of the two sides. The identity of the form is thereforeonly a reference, and the self-subsistence of the sides falls outside it, that isto say, it falls in the sides; we still do not have the reflected unity of theidentity of the relation and of the self-subsistent concrete existents; we stilldo not have substance. – It follows that the concept of relation has indeedshown itself to be the unity of reflected and immediate self-subsistence.But it is this concept still immediately at first; immediate are therefore itsmoments vis-a-vis each other, and immediate is the unity of the referenceconnecting them essentially – a unity this, which only then is the trueunity that conforms to the concept, when it has realized itself, that is tosay, through its movement has posited itself as this unity.

The essential relation is therefore immediately the relation of the wholeand the parts – the reference of reflected and immediate self-subsistence, sothat both are at the same time mutually conditioning and presupposing.

In this relation, neither of the sides is yet posited as moment of the other;their identity is therefore itself one side, or not their negative unity. Hence,secondly, the relation passes over into one in which one side is the momentof the other and is present there as in its ground, the true self-subsistentelement of both. This is the relation of force and its expression.

Third, the inequality still present in this reference sublates itself, and thefinal relation is that of inner and outer. – In this difference, which has nowbecome totally formal, relation itself founders, and substance or actualitycome on the stage as the absolute unity of immediate and reflected concreteexistence.

a. the relation of whole and parts

First, the essential relation contains the self-subsistence of concrete existencereflected into itself; it is then the simple form whose determinations are indeedalso concrete existences, but they are posited at the same time, momentsheld in the unity. This self-subsistence reflected into itself is at the sametime reflection into its opposite, namely the immediate self-subsistence, andits subsistence is this identity with its opposite no less than its own self-11.355subsistence. – Second, the other side is thereby also immediately posited.This is the immediate self-subsistence which, determined as the other, isin itself a multifarious manifold, but in such a way that this manifold also

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essentially has within it the reference of the other side, the unity of thereflected self-subsistence. That one side, the whole, is the self-subsistencethat constitutes the world existing in and for itself; the other side, the parts,is the immediate concrete existence which was the world of appearance.In the relation of whole and parts, the two sides are these self-subsistencesbut in such a way that each has the other reflectively shining in it and, atthe same time, only is as the identity of both. Now because the essentialrelation is at first only the first, immediate relation, the negative unity andthe positive self-subsistence are bound together by the “also”; the two sidesare indeed both posited as moments, but equally so as concretely existing self-subsistences. – Their being posited as moments is henceforth so distributedthat the whole, the reflected self-subsistence, is as concrete self-existent first,and the other, the immediate, is in it as a moment. – The whole constituteshere the unity of the two sides, the substrate, and the immediate concreteexistence is as positedness. – Conversely, on the other side which is the side ofthe parts, the immediate and internally manifold concrete existence is theself-subsistent substrate; the reflected unity, the whole, is on the contraryonly external reference.

2. This relation thus contains the self-subsistence of the sides, and theirsublatedness no less, and the two simply in one reference. The whole isthe self-subsistent; the parts are only moments of this unity, but they arealso equally self-subsistent and their reflected unity is only a moment;and each is, in its self-subsistence, simply the relative of an other. Thisrelation is within it, therefore, immediate contradiction, and it sublatesitself.

On closer inspection, the whole is the reflected unity that stands inde-pendently on its own; but this subsistence that belongs to it is equallyrepelled by it; it is thus self-externalized; it has its subsistence in its opposite,in the manifold immediacy, the parts. The whole thus consists of the parts,and apart from them it is not anything. It is therefore the whole relationand the self-subsistent totality, but, for precisely this reason, it is only arelative, for what makes it a totality is rather its other, the parts; it does nothave its subsistence within it but in its other.

The parts, too, are likewise the whole relation. They are the immediate as 11.356against the reflected self-subsistence, and do not subsist in the whole but arefor themselves. Further, they have this whole within them as their moment;the whole constitutes their connecting reference; without the whole thereare no parts. But because they are the self-subsistent, this connection is onlyan external moment with respect to which they are in and for themselvesindifferent. But at the same time the parts, as manifold concrete existence,


collapse together, for this concrete existence is reflectionless being; theyhave their self-subsistence only in the reflected unity which is this unityas well as the concrete existent manifoldness; this means that they haveself-subsistence only in the whole, but this whole is at the same time theself-subsistence which is the other to the parts.

The whole and the parts thus reciprocally condition each other; but therelation here considered is at the same time higher than the reference ofconditioned and condition to each other as earlier determined.17 Here thisreference is realized, that is to say, it is posited that the condition is theessential self-subsistence of the conditioned in such a manner that it ispresupposed by the latter. The condition as such is only the immediate,and it is only implicitly presupposed. But the whole, through the conditionof the parts, itself immediately entails that it, too, is only in so far as ithas the parts for presupposition. Thus, since both sides of the relationare posited as conditioning each other reciprocally, each is on its own animmediate self-subsistence, but their self-subsistence is equally mediated orposited through the other. The whole relation, because of this reciprocity,is the turning back of the conditioning into itself, the non-relative, theunconditioned.

Now inasmuch as each side of the relation has its self-subsistence not init but in its other, what we have is only one identity of the two in whichthey are both only moments; but inasmuch as each is self-subsistent on itsown, the two are two self-subsistent concrete existences indifferent to eachother.

In the first respect, that of the essential identity of the two sides, thewhole is equal to the parts and the parts are equal to the whole. Nothing isin the whole which is not in the parts, and nothing is in the parts whichis not in the whole. The whole is not an abstract unity but the unityof a diversified manifoldness; but this unity within which the manifold isheld together is the determinateness by virtue of which the latter is theparts. The relation has, therefore, an indivisible identity and only one self-subsistence.

But further, the whole is equal to the parts but not to them as parts; thewhole is the reflected unity whereas the parts constitute the determinatemoment or the otherness of the unity and are the diversified manifold.11.357The whole is not equal to them as this self-subsistent diversity but tothem together. But this, their “together,” is nothing else but their unity,the whole as such. In the parts, therefore, the whole is only equal to

17 Cf. above, 11.324–325.


itself, and the equality of it and the parts expresses only this tautol-ogy, namely that the whole as whole is equal not to the parts but to thewhole.

Conversely, the parts are equal to the whole; but because, as parts, theyare the moment of otherness, they are not equal to it as the unity, but insuch a way that one of the whole’s manifold determinations maps over apart, or that they are equal to the whole as manifold, and this is to say thatthey are equal to it as an apportioned whole, that is, as parts. Here we thushave the same tautology, that the parts as parts are equal not to the whole assuch but, in the whole, to themselves.

The whole and the parts thus fall indifferently apart; each side refersonly to itself. But, as so held apart, they destroy themselves. The wholewhich is indifferent towards the parts is abstract identity, undifferentiatedin itself. Identity is a whole only inasmuch as it is differentiated in itself,so differentiated indeed that the manifold determinations are reflectedinto themselves and have immediate self-subsistence. And the identity ofreflection has shown through its movement that it has this reflection intoits other for its truth. – In just the same way are the parts, as indifferentto the unity of the whole, only the unconnected manifold, the inherentlyother which, as such, is the other of itself and only sublates itself. – Thisself-reference of each of the two sides is their self-subsistence; but thisself-subsistence which each side has for itself is rather the negation of theirrespective selves. Each side has its self-subsistence, therefore, not withinbut in the other side; this other, which constitutes the subsistence, is itspresupposed immediate which is supposed to be the first and its startingpoint; but this first of each side is itself only a first which is not first buthas its beginning in its other.

The truth of the relation consists therefore in the mediation; its essence isthe negative unity in which both the reflected and the existent immediacyare equally sublated. The relation is the contradiction that returns to itsground, into the unity which, as turning back, is reflected unity but which,since it has equally posited itself as sublated, refers to itself negatively andmakes itself into existent immediacy. But this unity’s negative reference, inso far as it is a first and an immediate, only is as mediated by its other andequally as posited. This other, the existent immediacy, is equally only assublated; its self-subsistence is a first, but only in order to disappear, and it 11.358has an existence which is posited and mediated.

Determined in this way, the relation is no longer one of whole andparts. The previous immediacy of its sides has passed over into posited-ness and mediation. Each side is posited, in so far as it is immediate, as


self-sublating and as passing over into the other; and, in so far as it is itselfnegative reference, it is at the same time posited as conditioned throughthe other, as through its positive. And the same applies to the immediatetransition of each; it is equally a mediation, a sublating which is positedthrough the other. – Thus the relation of whole and parts has passed overinto the relation of force and its expressions.

RemarkThe antinomy of the infinite divisibility of matter was examined above(Section I, pp. 138ff.)18 in connection with the concepts of quantity.Quantity is the unity of continuity and discreteness; it contains in theself-subsistent one its confluence with others, and in this uninterrupted con-tinuing self-identity it equally contains the negation of it. Inasmuch as theimmediate connection of these moments of quantity finds expression inthe essential relation of whole and parts – the one of quantity being part,and its continuity the whole which is composed of parts – the antinomyconsists in the contradiction that was incurred, and was resolved, in con-junction with the relation of whole and parts. – For whole and parts arejust as essentially related to one another and constitute only one identityas they are indifferent to each other, having independent subsistence. Therelation, therefore, is this antinomy: that the one moment, in freeing itselffrom the other, immediately brings about this other.

The concrete existent, then, determined as a whole, has parts, and theseconstitute its subsistence; the unity of the whole is a posited connection,an external composition which is extraneous to the self-subsistent concreteexistent. Now if such a concrete existent is a part, then it is not the whole, isnot composed, hence is a simple. But the reference to the whole is externalto it and therefore extraneous. It follows that the self-subsistent, in itself, isalso not a part, for it is a part only by virtue of that connecting reference.But now, since it is not part, it is a whole, for this relation of whole and11.359parts is the only one that there is and the self-subsistent is one of thetwo. But as a whole, it is again composed; it again consists of parts andso on to infinity. – This infinity consists in nothing else but the perennialalternation of the two determinations of the relation, in each of which theother immediately arises, so that the positedness of one is the disappearingof itself. Determined as a whole, matter consists of parts and in these thewhole becomes an unessential connection; it disappears. But a part, thus

18 Hegel is referring to the 1812 edition (cf. GW 11, 113ff.). For the corresponding text in the 1832edition, cf. 21.179ff.


taken on its own, is also not a part but the whole. – The antinomy of thisinference, on close inspection, is really this: Since the whole is not whatsubsists on its own, the part is the self-subsistent; but since the latter is self-subsistent only without the whole, it is then self-subsistent not as a part butrather as a whole. The infinitude of the ensuing progress is the incapacityto bring together the two thoughts which this mediation entails, namelythat each of the two determinations, by virtue of its self-subsistence andseparation from the other, passes over into non-self-subsistence and into theother.

b. the relation of force and its expression

Force is the negative unity into which the contradiction of whole and partshas resolved itself; it is the truth of that first relation. That of whole andparts is the thoughtless relation which the understanding first happens tocome up with; or, objectively speaking, it is a dead mechanical aggregatethat indeed has form determinations and brings the manifoldness of itsself-subsisting matter together into one unity; but this unity is external tothe manifoldness. – But the relation of force is the higher immanent turningback in which the unity of the whole that made up the connection of theself-subsisting otherness ceases to be something external and indifferent tothis manifoldness.

In the essential relation as now determined, the immediate and thereflected self-subsistence are now posited in that manifoldness as sublatedor as moments, whereas in the preceding relation they were self-subsistingsides or extremes. In this there is contained, first, that the reflected unityand its immediate existence, in so far as they are both first and immediate,sublate themselves and pass over into their other: the former, force, passesover into its expression, and what is expressed is a disappearing somethingthat returns into force as its ground and only exists as supported and 11.360posited by it. Second, this transition is not only a becoming and a disap-pearing but is rather negative reference to itself; that is, that which alters itsdetermination is in this altering reflected-into-itself and preserves itself; themovement of force is not as much a transition as a translation, and in thisalteration posited through itself it remains what it is. – Third, this reflected,self-referring unity is itself also sublated and a moment; it is mediatedthrough its other and it has this as condition; its negative self-reference,which is a first and begins the movement of the transition out of itself, hasequally a presupposition by which it is solicited, and an other from whichit begins.


a. The conditionedness of force

Considered in its closer determinations, force contains, first, the momentof existing immediacy; it itself is determined over against this immediacyas negative unity. But this unity, in the determination of immediate being,is an existing something. This something appears as a first, since as animmediate it is negative unity; force, on the contrary, since it is a reflectedsomething, appears as positedness and to this extent as pertaining to theexisting thing or to a matter. Not that force is the form of this thing andthe thing is determined by it; on the contrary, the thing is as an immediateindifferent to it. – As so determined, there is no ground in the thing forhaving a force; force, on the other hand, since it is the side of positedness,presupposes the thing essentially. If it is therefore asked, how the thing ormatter happens to have a force, the latter appears as externally connectedto it and impressed upon the thing by some alien power.

As this immediate subsistence, force is a quiescent determinateness of thething in general; not anything that expresses itself but something imme-diately external. Hence force is also designated as matter, and instead ofa magnetic force, and an electric force, and other such forces, a magneticmatter, an electric matter, and so on, are assumed; or again, instead of therenowned force of attraction, a fine ether is assumed that holds everythingtogether. – These are the matters, which we considered above,19 into whichthe inert, powerless negative unity of the thing dissolved itself.

But force contains immediate concrete existence as a moment, onewhich, though a condition, is transient and self-sublating; it contains it,therefore, not as a concretely existing thing. Further, it is not negation asdeterminateness, but negative unity reflected into itself. Consequently, the11.361thing where the force was supposed to be no longer has any significancehere; the force itself is rather the positing of the externality that appearsas concrete existence. It also no longer is, therefore, merely a determinatematter; such self-subsistence has long since passed over into positednessand appearance.

Second, force is the unity of reflected and immediate subsistence, or ofform-unity and external self-subsistence. It is both in one; it is the contactof sides of which one is in so far as the other is not, self-identical positivereflection and negated reflection. Force is thus self-repelling contradiction;it is active; or it is self-referring negative unity in which the reflected imme-diacy or the essential in-itselfness is posited as being only as sublated or as

19 Cf. above, 11.334.


a moment, and consequently, in so far as it distinguishes itself from imme-diate concrete existence, as passing over into it. Force, as the determinationof the reflected unity of the whole, is thus posited as becoming concretelyexistent external manifoldness from out of itself.

But, third, force is activity at first only in principle and immediately; itis reflected unity, and just as essentially the negation of it; inasmuch as itdiffers from this unity, but is only the identity of itself and its negation,it essentially refers to this identity as an immediacy external to it and onewhich it has as presupposition and condition.

Now this presupposition is not a thing standing over against it; inforce any such indifferent self-subsistence is sublated; as the condition offorce, the thing is a self-subsistent other to it. But because it is not a thing,and the self-subsistent immediacy has on the contrary attained here thedetermination of self-referring negative unity, the self-subsistent other is itselfa force. – The activity of force is conditioned through itself as through another to itself, through a force.

Accordingly, force is a relation in which each side is the same as the other.They are forces that stand in relation, and refer to each other essentially. –Further, they are different at first only in general; the unity of their relationis at first one which is internal and exists only implicitly. The conditionednessof a force through another force is thus the doing of the force itself in itself;that is, the force is at first a positing act as pre-supposing, an act thatonly negatively refers to itself; the other force still lies beyond its positingactivity, namely the reflection that in its determining immediately returnsinto itself. 11.362

b. The solicitation of force

Force is conditioned because the moment of immediate concrete existencewhich it contains is something only posited, but, because it is at the sametime an immediate, is posited as something presupposed in which the forcenegates itself. Accordingly, the externality which is present to force is itsown activity of presupposing posited at first as another force.

This presupposing is moreover reciprocal. Each of the two forces containsthe unity reflected into itself as sublated and is therefore a presupposing; itposits itself as external; this moment of externality is its own; but since itis equally a unity reflected into itself, it posits that externality at the sametime not within itself but as another force.

But the external as such is self-sublating; further, the activity that reflectsitself into itself essentially refers to that externality as to its other, but


equally to it as to something which is null in itself and identical with it.Since the presupposing activity is equally immanent reflection, it sublatesthat external negation, and posits it as something external to it, or as itsexternality. Thus force, as conditioning, is reciprocally a stimulus for theother force against which it is active. The attitude of each force is not oneof passive determination, as if something other than it were thereby beingelicited in it; the stimulus rather only solicits it. The force is within it thenegativity of itself, the repelling of itself from itself is its own positing. Itsact, therefore, consists in sublating the externality of the stimulus, reducingit to just a stimulus and positing it as its own repelling of itself from itself,as its own expression.

The force that expresses itself is thus the same as what was at first apresupposing activity, that is, one which makes itself external; but, as self-expressive, force also negates externality and posits it as its own activity.Now in so far as in this examination we start from force as the negativeunity of itself, and consequently as presupposing reflection, this is the sameas when, in the expression of force, we start from the soliciting stimulus.Thus force is in its concept at first determined as self-sublating identity, andin its reality one of the two forces is determined as soliciting and the otheras being solicited. But the concept of force is as such the identity of positingand presupposing reflection, or of reflected and immediate unity, and eachof these determinations is simply a moment, in unity, and consequentlyis as mediated through the other. But, equally so, there is nothing in thetwo forces thus alternately referring to each other that determines which11.363would be the soliciting and which the solicited, or rather, both of theseform determinations belong to each in equal manner. And this identity isnot just one of external comparison but an essential unity of the two.

Thus one force is determined first as soliciting and the other as beingsolicited; these determinations of form appear in this guise as two differencespresent in the forces immediately. But they are essentially mediated. Theone force is solicited; this stimulus is a determination posited in it fromoutside. But the force is itself a presupposing; it essentially reflects intoitself and sublates the fact that the stimulus is something external. Thatit is solicited is thus its own doing, or, it is through its own determiningthat the other force is an other force in general and the one soliciting. Thesoliciting force refers to the other negatively and so sublates its externalityand is positing; but it is this positing only on the presupposition that it hasan other over against it; that is to say, it is itself soliciting only to the extentthat it has an externality in it, and hence to the extent that it is solicited.Or it is soliciting only to the extent that it is solicited to be soliciting. And


so, conversely, the first is solicited only to the extent that it itself solicits theother to solicit it, that is, the first force. Each thus receives the stimulus fromthe other; but the stimulus that each delivers as active consists in receivinga stimulus from the other; the stimulus which it receives is solicited byitself. Both, the given and the received stimulus, or the active expressionand the passive externality, are each, therefore, nothing immediate but aremediated: indeed, each force is itself the determinateness which the otherhas over against it, is mediated through this other, and this mediating otheris again its own determining positing.

This then – that a force happens to incur a stimulus through anotherforce; that it therefore behaves passively but then again passes over from thispassivity into activity – this is the turning back of force into itself. Forceexpresses itself. The external expression is a reaction in the sense that itposits the externality as its own moment and thus sublates its having beensolicited through an other force. The two are therefore one: the expressionof the force by virtue of which the latter, through its negative activity whichis directed at itself, imparts a determinate being-for-other to itself; and theinfinite turning in this externality back to itself, so that there it only refersto itself. The presupposing reflection, to which belong the conditionednessand the stimulus, is therefore immediately also the reflection that returns 11.364into itself, and the activity is essentially reactive, against itself. The positingof the stimulus or the external is itself the sublation of it, and, conversely,the sublation of the stimulus is the positing of the externality.

c. The infinity of force

Force is finite inasmuch as its moments still have the form of immediacy.In this determination its presupposing and its self-referring reflection aredifferent: the one appears as an external self-subsisting force and the otheras passively referring to it. Force is thus still conditioned according to form,and according to content likewise still restricted, for a determinateness ofform still entails a restriction of content. But the activity of force consistsin expressing itself; that is, as we have seen, in sublating the externality anddetermining it as that in which it is identical with itself. What force trulyexpresses, therefore, is that its reference to an other is its reference to itself;that its passivity consists in its activity. The stimulus by virtue of which itis solicited to activity is its own soliciting; the externality that comes to it isnothing immediate but something mediated by it, just as its own essentialself-identity is not immediate but is mediated by virtue of its negation. Inbrief, force expresses this, that its externality is identical with its inwardness.


c. relation of outer and inner

1. The relation of whole and parts is the immediate relation; in it, therefore,reflected and existent immediacy have a self-subsistence of their own. Butnow, since they stand in essential relation, their self-subsistence is theirnegative unity, and this is now posited in the expression of force; thereflected unity is essentially a becoming-other, the unity’s translation ofitself into externality; but this externality is just as immediately takenback into that unity; the difference of the self-subsisting forces sublatesitself; the expression of force is only a mediation of the reflected unitywith itself. What is present is only an empty and transparent difference,a reflective shine, but this shine is the mediation which is precisely theindependent subsistence. What we have is not just opposite determinationsopenly sublating themselves, and their movement is not only a transition;rather, what we have is both that the immediacy from which the start and11.365the transition into otherness were made is itself only posited, and that,consequently, each of the determinations is already in its immediacy theunity with its other, so that the transition equally is a self-positing turningback into itself.

The inner is determined as the form of reflected immediacy or of essenceover against the outer as the form of being; the two, however, are onlyone identity. – This identity is, first, the sustaining unity of the two assubstrate replete of content, or the absolute fact with respect to whichthe two determinations are indifferent, external moments. To this extent,it is content and totality, a totality which is an inner that has equallybecome an outer but, in this outer, is not something-that-has-become orsomething-that-has-been-left-behind but is self-equal. The outer, in thisdetermination, is not only equal to the inner according to content but thetwo are rather only one fact. – But this fact, as simple identity with itself, isdifferent from its form determinations, or these determinations are externalto it; it is itself, therefore, an inner which is different from its externality.But this externality consists in the two determinations, the inner and theouter, both constituting it. But the fact is itself nothing other than theunity of the two. Again, therefore, the two sides are the same according tocontent. But in the fact they are as self-penetrating identity, as substrate fullof content. But in the externality, as forms of the fact, they are indifferentto that identity and consequently each is indifferent to the other.

2. They are in this wise the different form determinations that have anidentical substrate, not in them but in an other. These are determinationsof reflection which are each for itself: the inner, as the form of immanent


reflection, the form of essentiality; the outer, as the form instead of imme-diacy reflected into an other, or the form of unessentiality. But the natureof relation has shown that these determinations constitute just one identityalone. In its expression force is a determining which is one and the sameas presupposing and as returning into itself. Inasmuch as the inner andthe outer are considered as determinations of form, they are, therefore,first, only the simple form itself, and, second, because in this form they areat the same time determined as opposite, their unity is the pure abstractdetermination in which the one is immediately the other, and is this otherbecause it is the one that it is. Thus the inner is immediately only the outer,and it is this determinateness of externality for the reason that it is the inner;conversely, the outer is only an inner because it is only an outer. – In otherwords, since the unity of form holds its two determinations as opposites,their identity is only this transition, and is in this transition only the otherof both, not their identity replete with content. Or this holding fast to formis in general the side of determinateness. What is determined according to 11.366this side is not the real totality of the whole but the totality or the fact itselfonly in the determinacy of form; since this unity is simply the coincidenceof two opposed determinations, then when one of them is taken first (it isindifferent which), it must be said of the substrate or the fact that it is forthis reason just as essentially in the other determinateness, but also only inthe other, just as it was first said that it is only in the first. –

Thus something which is at first only an inner, is for just that reason onlyan outer. Or conversely something which is only an outer, is for that reasononly an inner. Or if the inner is determined as essence but the outer as being,then inasmuch as a fact is only in its essence, it is for that very reason onlyan immediate being; or a fact which only is, is for that very reason as yetonly in its essence. – Outer and inner are determinateness so posited thateach, as a determination, not only presupposes the other and passes overinto it as its truth, but, in being this truth of the other, remains positedas determinateness and points to the totality of both. – The inner is thusthe completion of essence according to form. For in being determined asinner, essence implies that it is deficient and that it is only with referenceto its other, the outer; but this other is not just being, or even concreteexistence, but is the reference to essence or the inner. What we have here isnot just the reference of the two to each other, but the determining elementof absolute form, namely that each term is immediately its opposite, andeach is their common reference to a third or rather to their unity. Theirmediation, however, still misses this identical substrate that contains themboth; their reference is for this reason the immediate conversion of the one


into the other, and this negative unity tying them together is the simplepoint empty of content.

RemarkThe movement of essence is in general the coming to be of the concept. In therelation of inner and outer the essential moment of the concept comes onstage, namely that its determinations are so posited in negative unity thateach not only is its other immediately, but is also the totality of the whole.In the concept as such, however, this totality is the universal – a substratewhich is still absent in the relation of inner and outer. – Also missing in11.367the negative unity of inner and outer which is the immediate conversionof the one determination into the other is that substrate which we havecalled the “fact.”

The immediate identity of form as has been posited here, still without therich content of the movement of the fact itself, merits close attention. Itoccurs in the fact as the latter is at its beginning. Thus pure being is imme-diately nothing. Quite in general, everything real is at its beginning only animmediate identity of this sort, for at this stage it has not yet opposed anddeveloped its moments: on the one hand, it has not yet inwardly recollecteditself from externality; on the other, it has not yet relinquished its inward-ness, not yet produced itself out of it. It is, therefore, the inner only as deter-minateness against the outer, and the outer only as determinateness againstthe inner. Hence it is partly only an immediate being; and partly, since it isequally the negativity which will be the activity of development, is as suchstill essentially only an inner. – This is manifest, quite in general, in everynatural, scientific, and spiritual development, and it is essential to recognizethat because something is at first only an inner or also in its concept, as a firstit is for that reason only its immediate passive existence. Thus – just to takethe nearest example – the essential relation now under consideration, beforegoing through the mediation of the relation of force and thus realizing itself,is relation only in itself, is the concept of relation, or relation only implicitly.But for that reason it is only the external, immediate relation, the relation ofwhole and parts in which the sides have indifferent subsistence vis-a-vis eachother. Their identity is not yet explicit in them; it is implicit at first, and forthis reason they fall apart; they have an immediate, external subsistence. –Thus the sphere of being is in general only the absolutely still inner and forthis reason the sphere of existent immediacy or of externality. – Essence [orWesen in German] is only the inner at first; hence it is also taken for a totallyexternal and unsystematic common element; one speaks [in German] ofSchulwesen, Zeitungswesen, that is, of public instruction, of the press, and


understands by it a common something made up of existing objects exter-nally assembled together, with no essential bond or organization. – Or, withregard to concrete objects, the seed of a plant is at first only inner plant, orthe child only implicitly human. But this is why the plant or the humanbeing is, as germ, an immediate, something external which has not yet givenitself negative self-reference, is something passive, the prey to otherness. –Also God, in his immediate concept, is not spirit; spirit is not an immediate,is not opposed to mediation, but is essence eternally positing its immediacyand eternally returning from it back into itself. Immediately, therefore, Godis only nature. Or, nature is God only as the inner God, not the God who 11.368is actual as spirit, and hence is not the true God. – Or, as thought, as firstthought, God is only the pure being, or also essence, the abstract absolute;but not God as absolute spirit, which alone is the true nature of God.

3. The first of the identities considered, the identity of inner and outer, isthe substrate which is indifferent to the difference of these determinationsas to a form external to it, or the identity is as content. The second isthe unmediated identity of their difference, the immediate conversion ofeach into its opposite, or it is inner and outer as pure form. But boththese identities are only the sides of one totality, or the totality itself isonly the conversion of the one identity into the other. The totality, assubstrate and content, is this immediacy reflected into itself only throughthe presupposing reflection of form that sublates their difference and positsitself as indifferent identity, as reflected unity over against it. Or again, thecontent is the form itself in so far as the latter determines itself as differenceand makes itself into one side of this difference as externality, but into theother side as an immediacy which is reflected into itself, or into an inner.

It follows that, conversely, the differences of form, the inner and theouter, are each posited as the totality within it of itself and its other; theinner, as simple identity reflected into itself, is immediacy and hence, noless than essence, being and externality; and the external, as the manifoldand determined being, is only external, that is, is posited as unessentialand as having returned into its ground, therefore as inner. This transitionof each into the other is their immediate identity, as substrate, but alsotheir mediated identity, that is, each is what it is in itself, the totality of therelation, precisely through its other. Or, conversely, the determinateness ofeither side is mediated through the determinateness of the other becauseeach is in itself the totality; the totality thus mediates itself with itselfthrough the form or the determinateness, and the determinateness mediatesitself with itself through its simple identity.


Therefore, what something is, that it is entirely in its externality; itsexternality is its totality and equally so its unity reflected into itself. Itsappearance is not only reflection-into-other but immanent reflection, andits externality is therefore the expression of what it is in itself; and since itscontent and its form are thus absolutely identical, it is, in and for itself,nothing but this: to express itself. It is the revealing of its essence, and thisessence, accordingly, consists simply in being self-revealing.

The essential relation, in this identity of appearance with the inner orwith essence, has determined itself as actuality.

section iii

Actuality 11.369

Actuality is the unity of essence and concrete existence; in it, shapeless essenceand unstable appearance – or subsistence without determination and man-ifoldness without permanence – have their truth. Although concrete exis-tence is the immediacy that has proceeded from ground, it still does nothave form explicitly posited in it; inasmuch as it determines and informsitself, it is appearance; and in developing this subsistence that otherwiseonly is a reflection-into-other into an immanent reflection, it becomes twoworlds, two totalities of content, one determined as reflected into itself and theother as reflected into other. But the essential relation exposes the formalityof their connection, and the consummation of the latter is the relation ofthe inner and the outer in which the content of both is equally only oneidentical substrate and only one identity of form. – Because this identityhas come about also in regard to form, the form determination of theirdifference is sublated, and that they are one absolute totality is posited.

This unity of the inner and outer is absolute actuality. But this actualityis, first, the absolute as such – in so far as it is posited as a unity in which theform has sublated itself, making itself into the empty or external distinction ofan outer and inner. Reflection relates to this absolute as external to it; it onlycontemplates it rather than being its own movement. But it is essentiallythis movement and is, therefore, as the absolute’s negative turning backinto itself.

Second, it is actuality proper. Actuality, possibility, and necessity constitutethe formal moments of the absolute, or its reflection.

Third, the unity of the absolute and its reflection is the absolute relation,or rather the absolute as relation to itself, substance.

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chapter 1

The absolute11.370

The simple solid identity of the absolute is indeterminate, or rather, everydeterminateness of essence and concrete existence, or of being in general as wellas of reflection, has dissolved itself into it. Accordingly, the determining ofwhat is the absolute appears to be a negating, and the absolute itself appearsonly as the negation of all predicates, as the void. But since it must equallybe spoken of as the position of all predicates, it appears as the most formalof contradictions. In so far as that negating and this positing belong toexternal reflection, what we have is a formal, unsystematic dialectic that hasan easy time picking up a variety of determinations here and there, and isjust as at ease demonstrating, on the one hand, their finitude and relativity,as declaring, on the other, that the absolute, which it vaguely envisages astotality, is the dwelling place of all determinations, yet is incapable of raisingeither the positions or the negations to a true unity. – The task is indeed todemonstrate what the absolute is. But this demonstration cannot be eithera determining or an external reflection by virtue of which determinationsof the absolute would result, but is rather the exposition of the absolute,more precisely the absolute’s own exposition, and only a displaying of whatit is.

a. the exposition of the absolute

The absolute is not just being, nor even essence. The former is the firstunreflected immediacy; the latter, the reflected immediacy; further, eachis explicitly a totality, but a determinate totality. Being emerges in essenceas concrete existence, and the connection of being and essence developsinto the relation of inner and outer. The inner is essence, but as a totalitywhose essential determination is to be referred to being and to be beingimmediately. The outer is being, but with the essential determination ofbeing immediately connected with reflection and, equally, in a relationless

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identity with essence. The absolute itself is the absolute unity of the two; 11.371it is that which constitutes in general the ground of the essential relationwhich, as only relation, has yet to return into this its identity and whoseground is not yet posited.

It follows that the determination of the absolute is to be absolute form,but at the same time not as an identity whose moments only are simpledeterminacies, but, on the contrary, as an identity whose moments are eachexplicitly the totality and hence, indifferent with respect to the form, thecomplete content of the whole. But, conversely, the absolute is absolutecontent in such a way that this content, which is as such indifferentplurality, explicitly has the negative connection of form by virtue of whichits manifold is only one substantial identity.

Thus the identity of the absolute is for this reason absolute identity,because each of its parts is itself the whole or each determinateness is thetotality, that is, because determinateness has become as such a thoroughlytransparent reflective shine, a difference that has disappeared in its posited-ness. Essence, concrete existence, the world existing in itself, whole, parts, force –these reflected determinations appear to representation as true being validin and for itself; but against them the absolute is the ground into whichthey have foundered. – Because in the absolute the form is now only simpleself-identity, the absolute does not determine itself, for the determination isa difference of form which is valid as such from the start. But because theabsolute at the same time contains every difference and form determinationin general, or because it is itself absolute form and reflection, the differenceof content must also come into it. But the absolute itself is the absoluteidentity; to be this identity is its determination, for the manifoldness of theworld-in-itself and of the phenomenal world has all been sublated in it. –In the absolute itself there is no becoming, since the absolute is not being;nor does the absolute determine itself reflectively, for it is not the essencewhich determines itself only inwardly; and it also does not externalize itself,for it is the identity of inner and outer. – But in this way the movement ofreflection stands over against its absolute identity. The movement is sub-lated in this identity and is thus only its inner; but consequently its outer.– At first, therefore, the movement consists only in sublating its act in theabsolute. It is the beyond of the manifold differences and determinationsand of their movement, a beyond that lies at the back of the absolute.It is thus the negative exposition of the absolute earlier alluded to.1 – Inits true presentation, this exposition is the preceding whole of the logical

1 Cf. above, 11.370.


movement of the spheres of being and essence, the content of which hasnot been gathered in from outside as something given and contingent; norhas it been sunk into the abyss of the absolute by a reflection external to11.372it; on the contrary, it has determined itself within it by virtue of its innernecessity, and, as being’s own becoming and as the reflection of essence, hasreturned into the absolute as into its ground.

But this exposition has itself also a positive side, for in foundering tothe ground the finite demonstrates that its nature is to be referred to theabsolute, or to contain the absolute within. However, this side is not asmuch the positive exposition of the absolute as it is rather the expositionof the determinations, namely that these have the absolute for their abyss,but also for their ground,2 or that that which imparts subsistence to them,to their reflective shine, is the absolute itself. – Being as shine is not nothingbut reflection, reference to the absolute; or it is a shine inasmuch as thatwhich shines in it is the absolute. This positive exposition thus halts thefinite just before its disappearing: it considers it an expression and a copyof the absolute. But this transparency of the finite that lets only the absolutetranspire through it ends up in complete disappearance, for there is nothingin the finite which would retain for it a difference over against the absolute;as a medium, it is absorbed by that through which it shines.

This positive exposition of the absolute is therefore itself only a reflec-tive shine, for the true positive, that which contains the exposition and theexpounded content, is the absolute itself. Whatever the further determina-tions that may occur, the form in which the absolute reflectively shines is anullity which the exposition gathers up from outside and in which it gainsfor itself a starting point for its activity. Any such determination has in theabsolute, not its beginning but its end. This expository process, therefore,though it is an absolute act because of its reference to the absolute intowhich it returns, is not so at its starting point which is a determinationexternal to the absolute.

But in actual fact the exposition of the absolute is the absolute’s owndoing, an act that begins from itself and arrives at itself. The absolute, onlyas absolute identity, is absolute in a determined guise, that is, as identicalabsolute; it is posited as such by reflection over against opposition andmanifoldness; or it is only the negative of reflection and determination ingeneral. – It is not just the exposition of the absolute which is thereforesomething incomplete, but this absolute itself which is only arrived at. Oragain, the absolute which is only as absolute identity is only the absolute of

2 Hegel is playing on “Abgrund . . . Grund,” “abyss . . . ground.”

The absolute 469

an external reflection. It is, therefore, not the absolutely absolute but theabsolute in a determination, or it is attribute. 11.373

But the absolute is not attribute just because it is the subject matter ofan external reflection and is consequently something determined by it. –Or, reflection is not only external to it; but, precisely because it is externalto it, it is immediately internal to it. The absolute is absolute only becauseit is not abstract identity but is the identity of being and essence, or theidentity of the inner and the outer. It is therefore itself the absolute formthat makes it reflectively shine within itself and determines it as attribute.

b. the absolute attribute

The expression which we have used, “the absolute absolute,” denotes theabsolute which in its form has returned back into itself or whose form isequal to its content. The attribute is just the relative absolute, a combinationwhich only signifies the absolute in a form determination. For at first, beforeits complete exposition, the form is only internally or, which is the same,only externally; it is at first determinate form in general or negation ingeneral. But because form is at the same time as the form of the absolute,the attribute is the whole content of the absolute; it is the totality whichearlier appeared as a world, or as one of the sides of the essential relation,each of which is itself the whole. But both worlds, the phenomenal worldand the world that exists in and for itself, were supposed to be opposed toeach other in their essence. Each side of the essential relation was indeedequal to the other – the whole as much as the parts, the expression of forcethe same content as force itself, and the outer everywhere the same as theinner. But these sides were at the same time supposed each to have stillan immediate subsistence of its own, the one side as existent immediacyand the other as reflected immediacy. In the absolute, on the contrary,these different immediacies have been reduced to a reflective shine, and thetotality that the attribute is is posited as its true and single subsistence, whilethe determination in which it is is posited as unessential subsistence.

The absolute is attribute because, as simple absolute identity, it is inthe determination of identity; now to the determination as such otherdeterminations can be attached, for instance, also that there are severalattributes. But because absolute identity has only this meaning, that notonly all determinations have been sublated but that reflection itself hasalso sublated itself, all determinations are thus posited in it as sublated.Or the totality is posited as absolute totality. Or again, the attribute has


the absolute for its content and subsistence and, consequently, its form11.374determination by which it is attribute is also posited, posited immediatelyas mere reflective shine; the negative is posited as negative. The positivereflective shine that the exposition gives itself through the attribute – inthat it does not take the finite in its limitation as something that exists inand for itself but dissolves its subsistence into the absolute and expandsit into attribute – sublates precisely this, that the attribute is attribute; itsinks it and its differentiating act into the simple absolute.

But since reflection thus reverts from its differentiating act only to theidentity of the absolute, it has not at the same time left its externality behindand has not arrived at the true absolute. It has only reached the indetermi-nate, abstract identity, which is to say, the identity in the determinatenessof identity. – Or, since reflection determines the absolute into attribute asinner form, this determining is something still distinct from externality;the inner determination does not penetrate the absolute; the attribute’sexpression, as something merely posited, is to disappear into the absolute.

The form by virtue of which the absolute would be attribute, whetherit is taken as outer or inner, is therefore posited as something null in itself,an external reflective shine, or a mere way and manner.

c. the mode of the absolute

The attribute is first the absolute in simple self-identity. Second, it is nega-tion, a negation which is as such formal immanent reflection. These twosides constitute at first the two extremes of the attribute, the middle termof which is the attribute itself, since it is both the absolute and the deter-minateness. – The second of these extremes is the negative as negative, thereflection external to the absolute. – Or inasmuch as the negative is takenas the inner of the absolute and its own determination is to posit itselfas mode, it is then the self-externality of the absolute, the loss of itself inthe changeability and contingency of being, its having passed over into itsopposite without turning back into itself, the manifoldness of form andcontent determinations that lacks totality. –

But the mode, the externality of the absolute, is not just this. It israther externality posited as externality, a mere way and manner, hence thereflective shine as reflective shine, or the reflection of form into itself; hence,the self-identity which is the absolute. In actual fact, therefore, the absoluteis first posited as absolute identity only in the mode; it is what it is, namely11.375self-identity, only as self-referring negativity, as reflective shining which isposited as reflective shining.

The absolute 471

Hence, in so far as the exposition of the absolute begins from its absoluteidentity and passes over to the attribute and from there to the mode, ithas therein exhaustively run through its moments. But first, in this courseit does not just behave negatively towards these determinations; its act israther the reflective movement itself, and it is only as such a movementthat the absolute truly is absolute identity. – Second, the exposition doesnot thereby deal with mere externality, and the mode is not only the mostexternal externality. Rather, since the mode is reflective shine as shine, it isan immanent turning back, the self-dissolving reflection, and it is in beingthis reflection that the absolute is absolute being. – Third, the reflectiveact of exposition seems to begin from its own determinations and fromsomething external, to take up the modes or even the determinations ofthe attribute as if they were found outside the absolute and its contri-bution were only to reduce them to undifferentiated identity. But it hasin fact found the determinateness from which it begins in the absoluteitself. For as first undifferentiated identity, the absolute is itself only thedeterminate absolute, or attribute, because it is the unmoved, still unre-flected absolute. This determinateness, since it is determinateness, belongsto the reflective movement, and it is through this movement alone thatthe absolute is determined as the first identity; through it alone that ithas absolute form and does not just exist as self-equal but posits itself asself-equal.

Accordingly the true meaning of mode is that it is the absolute’s ownreflective movement; it is a determining by virtue of which the absolutewould become, not an other, but what it already is; a transparent externalitywhich is a pointing to itself; a movement out of itself, but in such a waythat being outwardly is just as much inwardness, and consequently equallya positing which is not mere positedness but absolute being.

When therefore one asks for a content of the exposition, for what theabsolute manifests, the reply is that the distinction of form and contentin the absolute has been dissolved; or that just this is the content of theabsolute, that it manifests itself. The absolute is the absolute form whichin its diremption of itself is utterly identical with itself, is the negativeas negative or the negative that rejoins itself and in this way alone is theabsolute self-identity which equally is indifferent towards its distinctions oris absolute content. The content is therefore only this exposition itself.

As this self-bearing movement of exposition, as a way and manner whichis its absolute identity with itself, the absolute is expression, not of an inner,nor over against an other, but simply as absolute manifestation of itself foritself. Thus it is actuality. 11.376


RemarkSpinoza’s concept of substance corresponds to the concept of the absolute,and to the relation of reflection to it, as presented here. Spinozism is adeficient philosophy because reflection and its manifold determining is init an external thinking. – The substance of this system is one substance,one indivisible totality; there is no determinateness which would not becontained in this absolute and be dissolved into it; and all that is importantis that anything that to the natural way of representing and to the deter-mining of the understanding appears vaguely to occur as self-subsistentis totally reduced in this necessary concept to a mere positedness. –“Determinateness is negation”3 is the absolute principle of Spinozist phi-losophy; this true and simple insight is at the basis of the absolute unity ofsubstance. But Spinoza stops short at negation as determinateness or quality;he does not advance to the cognition of it as absolute, that is, self-negatingnegation; therefore his substance does not contain the absolute form, and thecognition of it is not a cognition from within. Of course, substance isthe absolute unity of thought and being or extension; it therefore containsthought itself, but only in its unity with extension, that is to say, not asseparating itself from extension and hence, in general, not as determiningand informing, nor as a movement of return that begins from itself. Forthis reason, on the one hand substance lacks the principle of personality –a defect that has especially aroused indignation against Spinoza’s system4

– and, on the other hand, cognition is an external reflection that fails tocomprehend what appears as finite – that is, the determinateness of theattribute and the mode, and in general itself as well – by not deriving themfrom substance; it behaves like an external understanding, taking up thedeterminations as given and reducing them to the absolute but not takingtheir beginning from it.

The concepts that Spinoza gives of substance are that it is the cause ofitself, that its essence includes concrete existence within itself, that the conceptof the absolute is in no need of the concept of an other by which it wouldhave to be formed.5 These concepts, however profound and correct, are

3 See Spinoza, Opera, Vol. 4, ed. Carl Gebhardt (Heidelberg: Carl Winters, no year given), letter 50,240. For an English translation, see The Correspondence of Spinoza, trans., ed. A. Wolff (New York:Russell & Russell, 1966), p. 270.

4 Here Hegel probably has Jacobi primarily in mind. See Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Uber die Lehredes Spinoza in Briefen an den Herrn Moses Mendelssohn, 2nd edition (Breslau: Gottlieb Lowe, 1789),27, 31f. Beytrage IV: 335–341; The Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel Allwill, trans., ed.George di Giovanni (Montreal and Kingston: McGill Queen’s University Press, 1994), 27, 31f.,363–4.

5 Spinoza, Ethics, Part 1, Definition 1.

The absolute 473

definitions that are immediately assumed in the science from the start.Mathematics and other subordinate sciences must begin with somethingpresupposed that constitutes their element and positive substrate. But theabsolute cannot be a first, an immediate. Essentially the absolute is ratherits result. 11.377

The further definition of the attribute is introduced in Spinoza simplyfollowing that of the absolute. Spinoza defines the attribute as the mannerin which the understanding conceives the essence of the absolute.6 Leaving asidethe fact that the understanding is assumed to be by nature posterior to theattribute (for Spinoza defines it as mode),7 the attribute, or determinationas determination of the absolute, is made to depend on an other, namelythe understanding, which simply occurs over against substance externallyand immediately.

Spinoza further defines the attributes as infinite – infinite also in thesense of an infinite multiplicity.8 But only two are named in what follows,thought and extension, and no indication is given of how the infinite mul-tiplicity necessarily reduces to opposition, specifically this opposition ofthought and extension. – These two attributes are for this reason empiri-cally assumed. Thought and being display the absolute in a determination;the absolute itself is their absolute unity, so that the two are only unessen-tial forms; the order of things is the same as the order of representationsor thoughts, and the one absolute is viewed only in external reflection(by a mode) under both the two determinations, once as a totality ofrepresentations, and once again as a totality of things and their alter-ations. It is this external reflection that both generates the distinction ofrepresentation and being and reduces it to absolute identity, dissolvingit there. But this whole movement goes on outside the absolute. True,the absolute is itself also thought, and therefore the movement is only inthe absolute; but, as just remarked, it is in the absolute only as one withextension, and hence not as this movement, which is essentially also themoment of opposition. – Spinoza makes the sublime demand on thoughtthat it consider everything under the form of eternity, sub specie æterni,9 thatis, as it is in the absolute. But in an absolute which is only unmovedidentity, the attribute, like the mode, is only as disappearing, not as becom-ing, so that this disappearing also makes its positive beginning only fromwithout.

6 Spinoza, Ethics, Part 1, Definition 4. 7 Spinoza, Ethics, Part 1, Proposition 31, Proof.8 Spinoza, Ethics, Part 2, Propositions 1, 2. 9 Spinoza, Ethics, Part 2, Proposition 44, Corollary 2.


The third, the mode, is according to Spinoza an affection of substance,10

the determinate determinateness, that which is in an other and is compre-hended through this other. Strictly speaking, the only determination of theattributes is indeterminate difference; each is supposed to express the totalityof substance and be comprehended by itself; but since each is the absoluteas determined, it contains otherness and cannot be comprehended by itself.It is only in the mode, therefore, that the determination of the attribute istruly posited. Further, this third element remains mere mode; on the onehand, it is immediately given; on the other hand, its nothingness is notrecognized as reflection into itself. – Consequently, Spinoza’s exposition11.378of the absolute is indeed complete in so far as it begins with the absolute,lets the attribute follow therefrom, and ends with the mode. But thesethree are only enumerated one after the other, without the inner chain ofdevelopment, and the third is not negation as negation, not the negativelyself-referring negation by virtue of which it would explicitly be the turningback to the first identity and this identity be in turn truly identity. Whatis lacking, therefore, is the necessity of the progression of the absolute toinessentiality, as well as the dissolution in and for itself of the latter intoidentity; or again, missing are both the becoming of the identity and itsdeterminations.

Similarly in the oriental representation of emanation, the absolute is theself-illuminating light. But it does not just illumine itself; it also emanates.Its emanations are distancings from its unclouded clarity; whatever is gen-erated after is less perfect than that which precedes it and from which itarises. Emanation is taken only as a happening, becoming only as a progres-sive loss. Being thus becomes progressively obscured, and the night, thenegative, which is the final term in the progression, does not revert backto the original light.

The lack of immanent reflection that affects both the Spinozist exposi-tion of the absolute and the doctrine of emanation is remedied in Leibniz’sconcept of the monad.11 – It is common for the one-sidedness of a philo-sophical principle to be countered by the opposite one-sidedness of another,and for a totality to emerge in them, taken together, as a sort of scatteredcompleteness. – The monad is a one, a negative reflected into itself; it is thetotality of the content of the world; in it the differentiated manifold has notonly disappeared but is preserved in a negative manner. Spinoza’s substanceis the unity of the content; but this manifold content of the world is notas such in it but in external reflection. The monad is, therefore, essentially

10 Spinoza, Ethics, Part 1, Definition 5. 11 Leibniz, Principles of Nature and Grace, §1.

The absolute 475

representational; however, although indeed finite, it has no passivity but thealterations and the determinations in it are rather manifestations within itof itself. It is an entelechy; to manifest is its distinctive act. – The monad isthereby also determined, differentiated from others; the determinateness fallsin the particular content and in the way and manner of the manifestation.Consequently the monad is the totality in itself, according to its substanceand not in its manifestation. This limitation of the monad necessarily falls,not in the self-positing or representational monad, but in its in-itself; or itis absolute limit, a predestination which is posited through another beingthan itself. Moreover, since anything limited exists only with reference to 11.379other limited things, but the monad is at the same time a self-containedabsolute, the harmony of these limits, that is, the reciprocal references ofthe monads, falls outside them and is likewise pre-established by anotherbeing or in itself.

It is clear that although the principle of immanent reflection that con-stitutes the fundamental determination of the monad generally removesotherness and external influence, and by virtue of it the alterations of themonad are its own positing, the side of passivity due to an other is howeveronly transformed into an absolute limitation, into a limitation of the in-itself. Leibniz ascribes to the monads a certain completeness in themselves,a kind of self-subsistence; they are created beings.12 – When their limitationis more closely examined, the result of Leibniz’s account is that the self-manifestation which belongs to them is the totality of form. It is a conceptof the utmost importance that the alterations of the monad be representedas actions free of passivity, as self-manifestations, and that the principle ofimmanent reflection and of individuation stand out as essential. And it isnecessary to have finitude consist in the fact that the content or the sub-stance is distinguished from the form, and further, also that the one is limitedwhile the other is infinite. But then we should find in the concept of theabsolute monad not only that absolute unity of form and content but alsothe nature of reflection – which is, as self-referring negativity, to repel itselffrom itself – by which it posits and creates. And in the system of Leibniz wefind indeed also the further point, that God is the source of concrete existenceand of the essence of the monads,13 that is, that the absolute limitations inthe in-itself of the monads are not anything in and for themselves butvanish in the absolute. But in these determinations we still only find thecommon representations, left philosophically undeveloped without beingraised to the speculative concept. So the principle of individuation does

12 Leibniz, Monadology, §6. 13 Leibniz, Monadology, §43.


not receive the more profound elaboration which is its due. The conceptsconcerning the distinctions between the various finite monads and theirrelation to the absolute do not originate out of this being itself, do notoriginate absolutely, but belong rather to ratiocinative, dogmatic reflectionand have not therefore attained inner coherence.

chapter 2

Actuality 11.380

The absolute is the unity of inner and outer as a first implicitly existent unit.The exposition appeared as an external reflection which, for its part, has theimmediate as something it has found, but it equally is its movement andthe reference connecting it to the absolute and, as such, it leads it backto the latter, determining it as a mere “way and manner.” But this “wayand manner” is the determination of the absolute itself, namely its firstidentity or its mere implicitly existent unity. And through this reflection, notonly is that first in-itself posited as essenceless determination, but, since thereflection is negative self-reference, it is through it that the in-itself becomesa mode in the first place. It is this reflection that, in sublating itself in itsdeterminations and as a movement which as such turns back upon itself,is first truly absolute identity and, at the same time, the determining ofthe absolute or its modality. The mode, therefore, is the externality of theabsolute, but equally so only its reflection into itself; or again, it is theabsolute’s own manifestation, so that this externalization is its immanentreflection and therefore its being in-and-for-itself.

So, as the manifestation that it is nothing, that it has no content, saveto be the manifestation of itself, the absolute is absolute form. Actuality isto be taken as this reflected absoluteness. Being is not yet actual; it is thefirst immediacy; its reflection is therefore becoming and transition into another; or its immediacy is not being-in-and-for-itself. Actuality also standshigher than concrete existence. It is true that the latter is the immediacythat has proceeded from ground and conditions, or from essence andits reflection. In itself or implicitly, it is therefore what actuality is, realreflection; but it is still not the posited unity of reflection and immediacy.Hence concrete existence passes over into appearance as it develops thereflection contained within it. It is the ground that has foundered to theground; its determination, its vocation,14 is to restore this ground, and

14 Bestimmung, which can mean both “determination” and “vocation.”

477


therefore it becomes essential relation, and its final reflection is that itsimmediacy be posited as immanent reflection and conversely. This unity,in which concrete existence or immediacy and the in-itself, the ground orthe reflected, are simply moments, is now actuality. The actual is therefore11.381manifestation. It is not drawn into the sphere of alteration by its externality,nor is it the reflective shining of itself in an other. It just manifests itself, andthis means that in its externality, and only in it, it is itself, that is to say,only as a self-differentiating and self-determining movement.

Now in actuality as this absolute form, the moments only are as sublatedor formal, not yet realized; their differentiation thus belongs at first toexternal reflection and is not determined as content.

Actuality, as itself immediate form-unity of inner and outer, is thus inthe determination of immediacy as against the determination of immanentreflection; or it is an actuality as against a possibility. The connection of thetwo to each other is the third, the actual determined both as being reflectedinto itself and as this being immediately existing. This third is necessity.

But first, since the actual and the possible are formal distinctions, theirconnection is likewise only formal, and consists only in this, that the onejust like the other is a positedness, or in contingency.

Second, because in contingency the actual as well as the possible are apositedness, because they have retained their determination, real actualitynow arises, and with it also real possibility and relative necessity.

Third, the reflection of relative necessity into itself yields absolute neces-sity, which is absolute possibility and actuality.

a. contingency15

or formal actuality,

possibility, and necessity

1. Actuality is formal inasmuch as, as a first actuality, it is only immediate,unreflected actuality, and hence is only in this form determination but notas the totality of form. And so it is nothing more than a being, or concreteexistence in general. But because by essence it is not mere concrete existencebut is the form-unity of the in-itselfness or inwardness and externality, itimmediately contains in-itselfness or possibility. What is actual is possible.11.382

2. This possibility is actuality reflected into itself. But this reflected-ness, itself a first, is equally something formal and consequently only thedetermination of self-identity or of the in-itself in general.

15 Zufalligkeit, which can be translated as “contingency” and also as “accidentality,” which is the termthat I would prefer. But Hegel later shifts to the Latinate Accidentalitat, very likely to connect theterm with “accident” as contrasted to “substance.”

Actuality 479

But because the determination is here totality of form, this in-itself isdetermined as sublated or essentially only with reference to actuality; as thenegative of actuality, it is posited as negative. Possibility entails, therefore,two moments. It has first the positive moment of being a being-reflected-into-itself. But this being-reflected-into-itself, since in the absolute form itis reduced to a moment, no longer has the value of essence but has ratherthe negative meaning that possibility is (in a second moment) somethingdeficient, that it points to an other, to actuality, and is completed in thisother.

According to the first, merely positive side, possibility is therefore themere form determination of self-identity, or the form of essentiality. As suchit is the relationless, indeterminate receptacle of everything in general. –In this formal sense of possibility, everything is possible that does not contractitself; the realm of possibility is therefore limitless manifoldness. But everymanifold is determined in itself and as against an other: it possesses negationwithin. Indifferent diversity passes over as such into opposition; but opposi-tion is contradiction. Therefore, all things are just as much contradictoryand hence impossible.

– When we therefore say of something that “it is possible,” this purelyformal assertion is just as superficial and empty as the principle of contra-diction, and any content that we put into it, “A is possible,” says no morethan “A is A.” Left undeveloped, this content has the form of simplicity;only after being resolved into its determinations, does difference emergewithin it. To the extent that we stop at that simple form, the contentremains something self-identical and hence a possible. But we do not sayanything by it, just as we do not with the principle of identity.

Yet the possible amounts to more than just the principle of identity.The possible is reflected immanent reflectedness; or the identical simply as amoment of the totality, hence also as determined not to be in itself; it thereforehas the second determination of being only a possible and the ought-to-be ofthe totality of form. Without this ought-to-be, possibility is essentiality assuch; but the absolute form entails this, that essence itself is only a momentand that it has no truth without being. Possibility is this mere essentiality,but so posited as to be only a moment, to be disproportionate with respectto the absolute form. It is the in-itself, determined as only a posited or,equally, as not to be in itself. – 11.383

Internally, therefore, possibility is contradiction, or it is impossibility.This finds expression at first in this way, that possibility as form deter-

mination posited as sublated possesses a content in general. As possible, thiscontent is an in-itself which is at the same time something sublated or an


otherness. But because this content is only a possible, an other opposite to itis equally possible. “A is A”; then, too, “– A is – A.” These two statementseach express the possibility of its content determination. But, as identicalstatements, they are indifferent to each other; that the other is also added,is not posited in either. Possibility is the connection comparing the two; asa reflection of the totality, it implies that the opposite also is possible. It istherefore the ground for drawing the connection that, because A equals A, –A also equals – A; entailed in the possible A there is also the possible not-A,and it is this reference itself connecting them which determines both aspossible.

But this connection, in which the one possible also contains its other, isas such a contradiction that sublates itself. Now, since it is determined tobe reflective and, as we have just seen, reflectively self-sublating, it is alsotherefore an immediate and it consequently becomes actuality.

3. This actuality is not the first actuality but reflected actuality, positedas unity of itself and possibility. What is actual is as such possible; it is inimmediate positive identity with possibility; but the latter has determineditself as only possibility; consequently the actual is also determined as only apossible. And because possibility is immediately contained in actuality, it isimmediately in it as sublated, as only possibility. Conversely, actuality whichis in unity with possibility is only sublated immediacy; or again, becauseformal actuality is only immediate first actuality, it is only a moment, onlysublated actuality, or only possibility.

With this we also have a more precise expression of the extent to whichpossibility is actuality. Possibility is not yet all actuality; there has been notalk yet of real and absolute actuality. It is still only the possibility as it firstpresented itself, namely the formal possibility that has determined itselfas being only possibility and hence the formless actuality which is onlybeing or concrete existence in general. Everything possible has therefore ingeneral a being or a concrete existence.

This unity of possibility and actuality is contingency. – The contingentis an actual which is at the same time determined as only possible, anactual whose other or opposite equally is. This actuality is, therefore, mere11.384being or concrete existence, but posited in its truth as having the value ofa positedness or a possibility. Conversely, possibility is immanent reflectionor the in-itself posited as positedness; what is possible is an actual in thissense of actuality, that it has only as much value as contingent actuality; itis itself something contingent.

The contingent thus presents these two sides. First, in so far as it haspossibility immediately in it, or, what is the same, in so far as this possibility

Actuality 481

is sublated in it, it is not positedness, nor is it mediated, but is immediateactuality; it has no ground. – Because this immediate actuality pertains alsoto the possible, the latter is determined no less than the actual as contingentand is likewise groundless.

But, second, the contingent is the actual as what is only possible, or asa positedness; thus the possible also, as formal in-itself, is only positedness.Consequently, the two are both not in and for themselves but have theirimmanent reflection in an other, or they do have a ground.

The contingent thus has no ground because it is contingent; and forthat same reason it has a ground, because it is contingent.

It is the posited, immediate conversion of inner and outer, or ofimmanently-reflected-being and being, each into the other – posited,because possibility and actuality both have this determination in themby being moments of the absolute form. – So actuality, in its immedi-ate unity with possibility, is only concrete existence and is determined asgroundless, something only posited or only possible; or, as reflected and deter-mined over against possibility, it is separated from possibility, from imma-nent reflectedness, and then, too, is no less immediately only a possible. –Likewise possibility, as simple in-itself, is something immediate, only anexistent in general; or, opposed to actuality, it equally is an in-itself withoutactuality, only a possible, but, for that very reason, again only a concrete,not immanently reflected, existence in general.

This absolute restlessness of the becoming of these two determinations iscontingency. But for this reason, because each determination immediatelyturns into the opposite, in this opposite each equally rejoins itself, and thisidentity of the two, of each in the other, is necessity.

The necessary is an actual; as such it is immediate, groundless; but itequally has its actuality through an other or in its ground and is at thesame time the positedness of this ground and its reflection into itself; the 11.385possibility of the necessary is a sublated one. The contingent is thereforenecessary because the actual is determined as a possible; its immediacyis consequently sublated and is repelled into the ground or the in-itself,and into the grounded, equally because its possibility, this ground-grounded-connection, is simply sublated and posited as being. What is necessary is,and this existent is itself the necessary. At the same time it is in itself; thisimmanent reflection is an other than that immediacy of being, and thenecessity of the existent is an other. Thus the existent is not the necessary;but this in-itself is itself only positedness; it is sublated and itself immediate.And so actuality, in that from which it is distinguished, in possibility, isidentical with itself. As this identity, it is necessity.


b. relative necessity or real actuality,

possibility, and necessity

1. The necessity which has resulted is formal because its moments are formal,that is, simple determinations which are a totality only as an immediateunity, or as an immediate conversion of the one into the other, and thuslack the shape of self-subsistence. – The unity in this formal necessity istherefore simple at first, and indifferent to its differences. As the immediateunity of the form determinations, this necessity is actuality, but an actualitywhich, since its unity is now determined as indifferent to the difference ofthe form determinations, has a content. This content as an indifferentidentity contains the form also as indifferent, that is, as a mere variety ofdeterminations, and is a manifold content in general. This actuality is realactuality.

Real actuality is as such at first the thing of many properties, the con-cretely existing world; but it is not the concrete existence that dissolves intoappearance but, as actuality, it is at the same time an in-itself and immanentreflection; it preserves itself in the manifoldness of mere concrete existence;its externality is an inner relating only to itself. What is actual can act; some-thing announces its actuality by what it produces. Its relating to an other11.386is the manifestation of itself, and this manifestation is neither a transition(the immediate something refers to the other in this way) nor an appearing(in this way the thing only is in relation to an other); it is a self-subsistentwhich has its immanent reflection, its determinate essentiality, in anotherself-subsistent.

Now real actuality likewise has possibility immediately present in it. Itcontains the moment of the in-itself; but, since it is in the first instanceonly immediate unity, it is in one of the determinations of form and hencedistinguished, as immediate existent, from the in-itself or possibility.

2. This possibility, as the in-itself of real actuality, is itself real possibility, atfirst the in-itself full of content. – Formal possibility is immanent reflectiononly as abstract identity, the absence of contradiction in a something. Butwhen we delve into the determinations, the circumstances, the conditionsof a fact in order to discover its possibility, we do not stop at this formalpossibility but consider its real possibility.

This real possibility is itself immediate concrete existence, but no longerbecause possibility as such, as a formal moment, is immediately its opposite,a non-reflected actuality, but because this determination pertains to it bythe very fact of being real possibility. The real possibility of a fact is thereforethe immediately existent manifoldness of circumstances that refer to it.

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This manifoldness of existence is therefore indeed both possibility andactuality, but their identity is at first only the content which is indifferent tothese form determinations; they therefore constitute the form, determinedas against their identity. – Or the immediate real actuality, because it isimmediate, is determined as against its possibility; as this determinate andhence reflected actuality, it is real possibility. This real possibility is nowindeed the posited whole of the form, but of the form in the determinatenessof actuality as formal or immediate and equally of possibility as the abstractin-itself. This actuality, therefore, which constitutes the possibility of a fact,is not its own possibility but the in-itself of an other actual; itself, it is theactuality that ought to be sublated, the possibility as only possibility. – Realpossibility thus constitutes the totality of conditions, a dispersed actualitywhich is not reflected into itself but is determined to be the in-itself of another and intended in this determination to return to itself. 11.387

What is really possible is, therefore, something formally identical accord-ing to its in-itself, free of contradiction because of its simple content deter-mination; but, as self-identical, this something must also not contradictitself according to its developed and differentiated circumstances and allelse connected with it. But, secondly, because it is manifold in itself and inmanifold connection with others, and variety inherently passes over intoopposition, it is contradictory. Whenever a possibility is in question, andthe issue is to demonstrate its contradiction, one need only fasten on tothe multiplicity that it contains as content or as its conditioned concreteexistence, and from this the contradiction will easily be discovered. – Andthis contradiction is not just a function of comparing; on the contrary, themanifold of concrete existence is in itself this, to sublate itself and to founderto the ground: in this it explicitly has the determination of being only apossibility. – Whenever all the conditions of a fact are completely present,the fact is actually there; the completeness of the conditions is the totalityas in the content, and the fact is itself this content determined as beingequally actual as possible. In the sphere of the conditioned ground, theconditions have the form (that is, the ground or the reflection that standson its own) outside them, and it is this form that makes them momentsof the fact and elicits concrete existence in them.16 Here, on the contrary,the immediate actuality is not determined to be condition by virtue of apresupposing reflection, but the supposition is rather that the immediateactuality is itself the possibility.

16 Cf. above, 11.312ff.


In self-sublating real possibility, it is a twofold that is now sub-lated; for this possibility is itself the twofold of actuality and possibility.(1) The actuality is formal, or is a concrete existence which appeared tosubsist immediately, and through its sublating becomes reflected being, themoment of an other, and thus comes in possession of the in-itself. (2) Thatconcrete existence was also determined as possibility or as the in-itself, butof an other. As it sublates itself, this in-itself of the other is also sublatedand passes over into actuality. – This movement of self-sublating real pos-sibility thus produces the same moments that are already present, but each asit comes to be out of the other; in this negation, therefore, the possibilityis also not a transition but a self-rejoining. – In formal possibility, if some-thing was possible, then an other than it, not itself, was also possible. Realpossibility no longer has such an other over against it, for it is real in sofar as it is itself also actuality. Therefore, as its immediate concrete existence,the circle of conditions, sublates itself, it makes itself into the in-itselfnesswhich it already is, namely the in-itself of an other. And conversely, since11.388its moment of in-itselfness thereby sublates itself at the same time, itbecomes actuality, hence the moment which it likewise already is. – Whatdisappears is consequently this, that actuality was determined as the pos-sibility or the in-itself of an other, and, conversely, the possibility as anactuality which is not that of which it is the possibility.

3. The negation of real possibility is thus its self-identity; inasmuch as inits sublating it is thus within itself the recoiling of this sublating, it is realnecessity.

What is necessary cannot be otherwise; but what is only possible can be,for possibility is the in-itself which is only positedness and hence essentiallyotherness. Formal possibility is this identity as transition into the other assuch; but real possibility, since it has the other moment of actuality withinit, is already itself necessity. Hence what is really possible can no longerbe otherwise; under the given conditions and circumstances, nothing elsecan follow. Real possibility and necessity are, therefore, only apparentlydistinguished; theirs is an identity that does not first come to be but isalready presupposed at their base. Real possibility is therefore a connectionfull of content, for the content is that identity, existing in itself, which isindifferent to form.

But this necessity is at the same time relative. – For it has a presuppositionfrom which it begins; it takes its start from the contingent. For the realactual is as such the determinate actual, and first has its determinateness asimmediate being in that it is a multiplicity of concretely existing circum-stances; but this immediate being as determinateness is also the negative of

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itself, is an in-itself or possibility and so real possibility. As this unity of thetwo moments, it is the totality of form, but a totality which is still externalto itself; it is the unity of possibility and actuality in such a way that (1) themanifold concrete existence is possibility immediately or positively: it is apossible, something self-identical as such, because it is an actual; (2) inas-much as this possibility of concrete existence is posited, it is determined asonly possibility, as the immediate conversion of actuality into its opposite –or as contingency. Hence this possibility which immediate actuality haswithin in so far as it is condition, is only the in-itself or the possibility of another. Because this in-itself, as shown,17 sublates itself and this positednessis itself posited, real possibility becomes indeed necessity; but this necessitythus begins from that unity of the possible and the actual which is not yetreflected into itself – this presupposing and the movement which turns backunto itself are still separate – or necessity has not yet determined itself out of 11.389itself into contingency.

The relativity of real possibility is manifested in the content by the factthat the latter is at first only the identity indifferent to form, is thereforedistinct from it and a determinate content in general. A necessary reality isfor this reason any limited actuality which, because of its limitation, is insome other respect also only something contingent.

In actual fact, therefore, real necessity is in itself also contingency. – Thisfirst becomes apparent because real necessity, although something necessaryaccording to form, is still something limited according to content, andderives its contingency through the latter. But this contingency is to befound also in the form of real necessity because, as shown,18 real possibilityis the necessary only in itself, but as posited it is the mutual otherness ofactuality and possibility. Real necessity thus contains contingency; it is theturning back into itself from the restless being-the-other-of-each-other ofactuality and possibility, but not the turning back from itself to itself.

In itself, therefore, we have here the unity of necessity and contingency;this unity is to be called absolute actuality.

c. absolute necessity

Real necessity is determinate necessity; formal necessity does not yet haveany content and determinateness in it. The determinateness of necessityconsists in its having its negation, contingency, within it. This is how ithas shown itself to be.

17 Cf. above, 11.387. 18 Cf. above, 11.388.


But in its first simplicity this determinateness is actuality; determinatenecessity is therefore immediate actual necessity. This actuality which isitself as such necessary, since it contains necessity as its in-itself, is absoluteactuality – an actuality which can no longer be otherwise, for its in-itself isnot possibility but necessity itself.

But because this actuality is posited to be absolute, that is to say, tobe itself the unity of itself and possibility, it is consequently only an emptydetermination, or it is contingency. – This emptiness of its determinationmakes it into a mere possibility, one which can just as well be an other andis determined as possibility. But this possibility is itself absolute possibility,for it is precisely the possibility of being equally determined as possibilityand actuality. For this reason, because it is this indifference towards itself,11.390it is posited as empty, contingent determination.

Thus real necessity not only contains contingency implicitly, but thelatter also becomes in it; but this becoming, as externality, is itself only thein-itself of the necessity, because it is only an immediate determinateness. Butit is not only this but the necessity’s own becoming – or the presuppositionwhich it had is its own positing. For as real necessity, it is the sublatednessof actuality into possibility and of possibility into actuality; because it isthis simple conversion of one of these moments into the other, it is alsotheir positive unity, for in the other each rejoins itself. And so it is actuality,yet an actuality which is nothing but this rejoining of form with itself. Itsnegative positing of these moments is thereby itself the presupposing or thepositing of itself as sublated, or the positing of immediacy.

But it is precisely in this positing that this actuality is determined as thenegative; it rejoins itself from the actuality which was real possibility; thisnew actuality thus comes to be only out of its in-itself, out of the negationof itself. – Consequently, it is at the same time immediately determinedas possibility, as mediated by virtue of its negation. But accordingly, thispossibility is immediately nothing but this mediating in which the in-itself,namely the possibility itself and the mediating, both in the same manner,are positedness. – Thus it is necessity which is equally the sublating of thispositedness, or the positing of immediacy and of the in-itself, just as in thisvery sublating it is the determining of it as positedness. It is necessity itself,therefore, that determines itself as contingency: in its being it repels itselffrom itself, in this very repelling has only returned to itself, and in thisturning back which is its being has repelled itself from itself.

Thus has form pervaded in its realization all its distinctions; it has madeitself transparent and, as absolute necessity, is only this simple self-identity ofbeing in its negation, or in essence. – The distinction itself of content and

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form has thus equally vanished; for that unity of possibility in actualityand actuality in possibility is the form which in its determinateness orin positedness is indifferent towards itself: it is the fact full of content onwhich the form of necessity externally ran its course. But necessity is thusthis reflected identity of the two determinations as indifferent to them,and hence the form determination of the in-itself as against the positedness, 11.391and this possibility constitutes the limitation of the content which realnecessity had. The resolution of this difference is however the absolutenecessity whose content is this difference which in this necessity penetratesitself.

Absolute necessity is therefore the truth in which actuality and possibilityin general as well as formal and real necessity return. – As we have justseen,19 it is being which in its negation, in essence, refers itself to itself andis being. It is equally simple immediacy or pure being and simple immanentreflection or pure essence; it is this, that the two are one and the same. – Theabsolutely necessary only is because it is; it otherwise has neither conditionnor ground. – But it equally is pure essence, its being the simple immanentreflection; it is because it is. As reflection, it has a ground and a conditionbut has only itself for this ground and condition. It is in-itself, but itsin-itself is its immediacy, its possibility is its actuality. – It is, therefore,because it is; as the rejoining of being with itself, it is essence; but becausethis simple is equally immediate simplicity, it is being.

Absolute necessity is thus the reflection or form of the absolute, the unityof being and essence, simple immediacy which is absolute negativity. Onthe one hand, therefore, its differences are not like the determinationsof reflection but an existing manifoldness, a differentiated actuality in theshape of others independently subsisting over against each other. On theother hand, since its connection is that of absolute identity, it is the abso-lute conversion of its actuality into its possibility and its possibility intoits actuality. – Absolute necessity is therefore blind. On the one hand,the two different terms determined as actuality and possibility have theshape of immanent reflection as being; they are therefore free actualities,neither of which reflectively shines in the other, nor will either allow init a trace of its reference to the other; grounded in itself, each is inher-ently necessary. Necessity as essence is concealed in this being; the reciprocalcontact of these actualities appears, therefore, as an empty externality; theactuality of the one in the other is the possibility which is only possibility, con-tingency. For being is posited as absolutely necessary, as the self-mediation

19 In the preceding page, 11.390.


which is the absolute negation of mediation-through-other, or being whichis identical only with being; consequently, an other that has actualityin being, is therefore determined as something merely possible, as emptypositedness.

But this contingency is rather absolute necessity; it is the essence of thosefree, inherently necessary actualities. This essence is averse to light, because11.392there is no reflective shining in these actualities, no reflex – because theyare grounded purely in themselves, are shaped for themselves, manifestthemselves only to themselves – because they are only being. – But theiressence will break forth in them and will reveal what it is and what they are.The simplicity of their being, their resting just on themselves, is absolutenegativity; it is the freedom of their reflectionless20 immediacy. This negativebreaks forth in them because being, through this same negativity whichis its essence, is self-contradiction; it will break forth against this being inthe form of being, hence as the negation of those actualities, a negationabsolutely different from their being; it will break forth as their nothing, as anotherness which is just as free towards them as their being is free. – Yet thisnegative was not to be missed in them. In their self-based shape they areindifferent to form, are a content and consequently different actualities and adeterminate content. This content is the mark that necessity impressed uponthem by letting them go free as absolutely actual – for in its determinationit is an absolute turning back into itself. It is the mark to which necessityappeals as witness to its right, and, overcome by it, the actualities nowperish. This manifestation of what determinateness is in its truth, that it isnegative self-reference, is a blind collapse into otherness; in the sphere ofimmediate existence, the shining or the reflection that breaks out in it is abecoming, a transition of being into nothing. But, conversely, being is equallyessence, and becoming is reflection or a shining. Thus the externality is itsinwardness; their connection is one of absolute identity; and the transitionof the actual into the possible, of being into nothing, is a self-rejoining;contingency is absolute necessity; it is itself the presupposing of that firstabsolute actuality.

This identity of being with itself in its negation is now substance. It is thisunity as in its negation or as in contingency; and so, as relation to itself, itis substance. The blind transition of necessity is rather the absolute’s ownexposition, its movement in itself which, in its externalization, reveals itselfinstead.

20 scheinlos.

chapter 3

The absolute relation 11.393

Absolute necessity is not so much the necessary, even less a necessary, butnecessity – being simply as reflection. It is relation because it is a distin-guishing whose moments are themselves the whole totality of necessity, andtherefore subsist absolutely, but do so in such a way that their subsisting isone subsistence, and the difference only the reflective shine of the movementof exposition, and this reflective shine is the absolute itself. – Essence assuch is reflection or a shining; as absolute relation, however, essence is thereflective shine posited as reflective shine, one which, as such self-referring,is absolute actuality. – The absolute, first expounded by external reflection,as absolute form or as necessity now expounds itself; this self-exposition isits self-positing, and is only this self-positing. – Just as the light of natureis not a something, nor is it a thing, but its being is rather only its shining,so manifestation is self-identical absolute actuality.

The sides of the absolute relation are not, therefore, attributes. In theattribute the absolute reflectively shines only in one of its moments, asin a presupposition that external reflection has simply assumed. But theexpositor of the absolute is the absolute necessity which, as self-determining,is identical with itself. Since this necessity is the reflective shining positedas reflective shining, the sides of this relation, because they are as shine,are totalities; for as shine, the differences are themselves and their opposite,that is, they are the whole; and, conversely, they thus are only shine becausethey are totalities. Thus this distinguishing, this reflecting shining of theabsolute, is only the identical positing of itself.

This relation in its immediate concept is the relation of substance andaccidents, the immediate internal disappearing and becoming of the abso-lute reflective shine. If substance determines itself as a being-for-itself overagainst an other or is absolute relation as something real, then we havethe relation of causality. Finally, when this last relation passes over intoreciprocal causality by referring itself to itself, we then have the absoluterelation also posited in accordance with the determination it contains;

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this posited unity of itself in its determinations, which are posited asthe whole itself and consequently equally as determinations, is then theconcept.11.394

a. the relation of substantiality

Absolute necessity is absolute relation because it is not being as such butbeing that is because it is, being as the absolute mediation of itself withitself. This being is substance; as the final unity of essence and being,it is the being in all being. It is neither the unreflected immediate, norsomething abstract standing behind concrete existence and appearance,but the immediate actuality itself, and it is this actuality as being absolutelyreflected into itself, as a subsisting that exists in and for itself. – Substance,as this unity of being and reflection, is essentially the shining and thepositedness of itself. The shining is a self-referring shining, thus it is; thisbeing is substance as such. Conversely, this being is only the self-identicalpositedness, and as such it is shining totality, accidentality.

This shining is identity as identity of form – the unity of possibility andactuality. It is becoming at first, contingency as the sphere of coming-to-beand passing-away; for in the determination of immediacy the connectionof possibility and actuality is the immediate conversion of the two into eachother as existents, of each into its other as only an other to it. – But becausebeing is shine, their relation is also one of identical terms or of termsshining in one another, that is, reflection. The movement of accidentality,therefore, exhibits in each of its moments the mutual reflective shine ofthe categories of being and of the reflective determinations of essence. –The immediate something has a content; its immediacy is at the same timereflected indifference towards the form. This content is determinate, andbecause this determinateness is one of being, the something passes over intoan other. But quality is also a determinateness of reflection; as such, itis indifferent diversity. But this diversity is animated into opposition, andreturns to the ground which is the nothing, but also immanent reflection.This reflection sublates itself; but it is itself also reflected in-itselfness: soit is possibility, and this in-itselfness, in its transition which is equallyimmanent reflection, is necessary actuality.

This movement of accidentality is the actuosity of substance as the tran-quil coming forth of itself. It is not active against something, but only againstitself as a simple unresisting element. The sublating of a presupposition isthe disappearing shine; only in the act of sublating the immediate does this

The absolute relation 491

immediate itself come to be, or is that shining; the beginning that begins 11.395from itself is first of all the positing of this itself from which the beginningis made.

Substance, as this identity of the reflective shining, is the totality of thewhole and embraces accidentality in itself, and accidentality is the wholesubstance itself. Its differentiation into the simple identity of being and theflux of accidents within it is one form of its shining. That simple beingis the formless substance of the imagination for which the shine has notdetermined itself as shine, but which holds on, as on an absolute, to thisindeterminate identity that has no truth but only is the determinatenessof immediate actuality, or equally so of in-itselfness or possibility – formdeterminations that fall into accidentality. –

The other determination, the flux of accidents, is the absolute form-unityof accidentality, substance as absolute power. – The ceasing-to-be of theaccident is its return as actuality into itself, as into its in-itself or into itspossibility; but this, its in-itself, is itself only a positedness and therefore alsoactuality, and because these form determinations are equally determinationsof content, this possible is an actual differently determined also according tocontent. Substance manifests itself through the actuality, with the contentof the latter into which it translates the possible, as creative power, and,through the possibility to which it reduces the actual, as destructive power;the creating is destructive and the destructing creative, for the negative andthe positive, possibility and negativity are in substantial necessity absolutelyunited.

The accidents as such – and there are several of them, because plurality isone of the determinations of being – have no power over each other. Theyare the immediately existent something, or the something that immedi-ately exists for itself; concretely existing things of manifold properties; orwholes consisting of parts, self-subsisting parts; forces in need of reciprocalsolicitation and conditioning each other. In so far as such an accidentalbeing seems to exercise a power over an other, that power is that of sub-stance that encompasses them both within itself and, as negativity, positsan inequality of value: one it determines as ceasing-to-be and another ashaving a different content and as coming-to-be, the one as passing over intoits possibility and the other into actuality accordingly – ever dividing itselfinto this difference of form and content and ever purifying itself of thisone-sidedness, but in this purification ever falling back into determinationand division. – One accident thus drives out another only because its ownsubsisting is this very totality of form and content into which it, as well asits other, equally perishes.


Because of this immediate identity and presence of substance in theaccidents, there is still no real difference present. In this first determi-11.396nation, substance is not yet manifested according to its whole concept.When substance, as self-identical being-in-and-for-itself, is differentiatedfrom itself as a totality of accidents, it is substance itself, as power, thatmediates the difference. This power is necessity, the positive persistence ofthe accidents in their negativity and their mere positedness in their sub-sistence; this middle is thus the unity of substantiality and accidentalitythemselves, a middle whose extremes have no subsistence of their own.Substantiality is, therefore, only the relation as immediately vanishing; itrefers to itself not as a negative and, as the immediate unity of power withitself, is in the form only of its identity, not of its negative essence; onlyone of its moments, that of negativity or of difference, vanishes altogether;the other moment of identity does not. – Another way of considering thematter is this. The shine or the accidentality is indeed in itself substanceby virtue of the power, but is not thus posited as this self-identical shine;and therefore substance has only the accidentality, not itself, for its shapeor positedness; it is not substance as substance. The relation of substan-tiality is at first, therefore, only this, that substance manifests itself as aformal power whose differences are not substantial; in fact, substance onlyis as the inner of the accidents, and these only are in the substance. Orthis relation is only the shining of totality as becoming; but it is equallyreflection and, for this reason, the accidentality which substance is initself is also posited as such; it is thus determined as self-referring nega-tivity over against itself, determined as self-referring simple identity withitself; and it is substance that exists in and for itself, substance endowed withpower. Thus the relation of substantiality passes over into the relation ofcausality.

b. the relation of causality

Substance is power – power reflected into itself, not transitive power butpower that posits determinations and distinguishes them from itself. As self-referring in its determining, it is itself that which it posits as a negative ormakes into a positedness. This positedness is, as such, sublated substantiality,the merely posited, the effect; the substance that exists for itself is, however,cause.

This relation of causality is in the first place only this relation of causeand effect; as such, it is the formal relation of causality.11.397


a. Formal causality

1. Cause is originative as against the effect. – As power, substance is thereflective shining, or it has accidentality. But in this shining, as power, itequally is an immanent reflection; it thus expounds its transition, and thisreflective shine is determined as reflective shine, or the accident is positedas being just this, something posited. – But in its determining substancedoes not proceed from accidentality, as if the latter were an other before-hand and were determined as determinateness only then, but the two areone actuosity. Substance as power determines itself; but this determining isimmediately itself the sublation of the determining and a turning back.It determines itself: substance, that which determines, is thus the immediateand that which is itself already determined; in determining itself it thereforeposits the already determined as determined; and thus it has sublated thepositedness and has returned into itself. – Conversely, because this turningback is the negative reference of substance to itself, it is itself a determiningor the repelling of itself from itself; it is through this turning back that thedeterminate comes to be from which substance seems to begin and now toposit as something which it has found already determined. – Absolute actu-osity is thus cause – the power of substance in its truth as the manifestationby which that which is in itself, the accident or the positedness, is imme-diately expounded in its becoming, is posited as positedness, as effect. – Thiseffect is, therefore, first the same as what the accidentality of the relationof substance is, namely substance as positedness; but, second, an accidentis substantially such only by vanishing, only as transient; but as effect itis positedness as self-identical; in the effect the cause is manifested as thewhole substance, that is to say, as reflected into itself in the positednessitself as such.

2. Over against this positedness reflected into itself, this determined asdetermined, there stands substance as the non-posited original. Becausesubstance is as absolute power a turning back into itself, yet this turningback is itself a determining, it is no longer the mere in-itself of its accidentbut is also posited as this in-itself. Substance has actuality, therefore, onlyas cause. But this actuality in which its in-itself, its determinateness in therelation of substantiality, is now posited as determinateness, is effect; there-fore substance has the actuality which it has as cause only in its effect. –This is the necessity which is cause. – It is actual substance, because aspower substance determines itself; but it is at the same time cause, because 11.398it expounds this determinateness or posits it as positedness and thusposits its actuality as positedness or effect. This is the other of cause, the


positedness as against the original and as mediated through it. But cause,as necessity, equally sublates this mediating and, in determining itself asthe originally self-referring term, as against the mediated, turns back toitself; for positedness is determined as positedness, and consequently asself-identical; therefore, cause is truly actual and self-identical only in itseffect. – The effect is therefore necessary, because it is the manifestation ofthe cause or is this necessity which the cause is. – Only as this necessity iscause self-moving, self-initiating without being solicited by another, self-subsisting source of production out of itself; it must effect; its originariness isthis, that it is because its immanent reflection is a positing that determinesand conversely; the two are one unity.

Consequently, an effect contains nothing whatever that the cause does notcontain. Conversely, a cause contains nothing that is not in its effect. A causeis cause only to the extent that it produces an effect; to be cause is nothingbut this determination of having an effect, and to be effect is nothing but thisdetermination of having a cause. Cause as such entails its effect, and theeffect entails the cause; in so far as a cause has not acted yet or has ceasedto act, it is not a cause; and the effect, in so far as its cause is no longerpresent, is no longer an effect but an indifferent actuality.

3. Now in this identity of cause and effect the form distinguishing themrespectively, as that which exists in itself and that which is posited, issublated. The cause is extinguished in its effect and the effect too is therebyextinguished, for it only is the determinateness of the cause. Hence thiscausality which has been extinguished in the effect is an immediacy whichis indifferent to the relation of cause and effect and comes to it externally.

b. The determinate relation of causality

1. The self-identity of cause in its effect is the sublation of its power andnegativity, hence a unity which is indifferent to differences of form, thatis to say, content. – This content, therefore, refers to form (here causality)only implicitly. The two are thus posited as diverse, and with respect tocontent the form is itself a causality which is only immediately efficient, acontingent causality.11.399

Further, the content is as thus determined an internally diversified con-tent; and the cause is determined in accordance with its content, and sois therefore also the effect. – The content, since reflectedness here is alsoimmediate actuality, is to this extent actual, but finite, substance.

This is now the relation of causality in its reality and finitude. As formal,it is the infinite relation of absolute power, the content of which is pure


manifestation or necessity. As finite causality, on the contrary, it has a givencontent and, as an external difference, it runs its course here and there overit, this identical content which in its determination is one and the samesubstance.

Because of this identity of content, this causality is an analytic propo-sition. It is the same fact that comes up once as cause and then again aseffect, in one case as something subsisting on its own and in the otheras positedness or determination. Since these determinations of form arean external reflection, it is up to the essentially tautological considerationof a subjective understanding to determine an appearance as effect and torise from it to its cause in order to comprehend and explain it. The samecontent is being repeated; there is nothing else in the cause which is not inthe effect. – For instance, rain is the cause of wetness which is its effect; “therain makes wet,” this is an analytical proposition; the same water which israin is wetness; as rain, this water is only in the form of a subject by itself;as wetness or moisture, it is on the contrary in adjectival form, somethingposited no longer meant to have a subsistence on its own; and the onedetermination, just like the other, is external to water. – Again, the cause ofthis color is a coloring agent, a pigment which is one and the same actuality,once in the form of an agent external to it, that is, is externally linked toan agent different from it; but again in the determination, equally externalto it, of an effect. – The cause of an act is the inner intention of the subjectwho is the agent, and this intention is the same in content and value as theexistence which it attains through the action. If the movement of a bodyis considered as effect, the cause of this effect is then a propulsive force;but it is the same quantum of movement which is present before and afterthe propulsion, the same concrete existence which the propulsive bodycontained and which it communicated to the one propelled; and what itcommunicated, it lost in equal measure.

The cause, say the painter or the propulsive body, does have yet anothercontent than, in the case of the painter, the colors and the form combining 11.400these into a painting; and, in the other case, the movement of specificstrength and direction. But this further content is a contingent side-beingwhich has nothing to do with the cause; whatever other qualities the paintermight possess besides being the painter of this painting, this does not enterinto the painting; only those of his properties which are displayed in theeffect are present in him as cause; as for the rest, he is not a cause. Likewise,whether the propulsive body is of stone or wood, green, yellow, and soon, all this does not enter into its propulsion and, to this extent, is not acause.


It is worth noting in regard to this tautology of the relation of causalitythat the tautology does not seem to occur whenever it is not the proximate,but the remote cause which is at issue. The alteration of form which thebasic fact undergoes as it passes through several middle terms hides theidentity which it preserves across them. In this proliferation of causesintroduced between it and the last effect, that fact is linked to other thingsand circumstances, so that it is not that first term, which is declared thecause, but all these several causes together, that contain the complete effect. –For instance, if a man developed his talents in circumstances due to theloss of his father who was hit by a bullet in battle, then this shot (or stillfurther back, the war or some cause of the war, and on to infinity) couldbe adduced as the cause of the man’s skillfulness. But it is clear that theshot, for one, is not the cause by itself but only in conjunction with theother efficient determinations. Or more precisely, the shot is not the causeat all, but only a single moment that pertained to the circumstances of thepossibility.

But it is the inadmissible application of the relation of causality to therelations of physico-organic and spiritual life that must be noted above all.Here that which is called the cause does indeed show itself to be of a differentcontent than the effect, but this is because anything that has an effect on aliving thing is independently determined, altered, and transmuted by thelatter, for the living thing will not let the cause come to its effect, that is, itsublates it as cause. Thus it is inadmissible to say that nourishment is thecause of blood, or that such and such a dish, or chill and humidity, are thecauses of fever or of what have you; it is equally inadmissible to give the Ionicclimate as the cause of Homer’s works, or Caesar’s ambition as the cause ofthe fall of Rome’s republican constitution. In history in general there areindeed spiritual masses and individuals at play and influencing each other;but it is of the nature of spirit, in a much higher sense than it is of thecharacter of living things, that it will not admit another originative principle11.401within itself, or that it will not let a cause continue to work its causalityin it undisturbed but will rather interrupt and transmute it. – But theserelations belong to the idea, and will come up for discussion then. – Thismuch can still be noted here, namely that in so far as the relation of causeand effect is admitted, albeit in an inappropriate sense, the effect cannotbe greater than the cause. It has become a common witticism in historyto let great effects arise from small causes and to cite as the first cause of anevent of far-reaching and profound consequence an anecdote. Any such so-called first cause is to be regarded as no more than an occasion, an externalstimulus, of which the inner spirit of the event had no need, or could have


used a countless number of others, in order to make its first appearance,to give itself a first breath and announce itself. The converse is rather thecase. It is by the spirit that any such triviality and contingency is determinedin the first place to be the occasion of spirit. Historical arabesques that drawa full-blown figure out of a slender stalk are no doubt an ingenious, buthighly superficial, practice. It is true that in the rise of the great out ofthe small we witness everywhere the conversion that spirit works on theexternal; but precisely for this reason the external is not the cause withinspirit; rather, that conversion itself sublates the relation of causality.

2. But this determinateness of the relation of causality, that contentand form are different and indifferent to each other, extends further. Thedetermination of form is also content determination; cause and effect, thetwo sides of the relation, are therefore also another content. Or the content,because it is only as the content of a form, has the difference of this formwithin it and is essentially different. But this form of the content is therelation of causality, which is a content identical in cause and the effect,and consequently the different content is externally connected, on the onehand with the cause and on the other with the effect; hence the content itselfdoes not enter into the effective action and into the relation.

This external content is therefore relationless – an immediate concreteexistence, or because it is as content the implicit identity of cause and effect,it is also immediate, existent identity. This content is, therefore, anythingat all which has manifold determinations of its existence, among them alsothis, that it is in some respect or other cause or also effect. In it, the formdeterminations of cause and effect have their substrate, that is to say, theiressential subsistence – and each has a particular subsistence (since theiridentity is their subsistence); but it is a subsistence which is at the sametime immediate, not their subsistence as unity of form or as relation. 11.402

But this thing is not only substrate but also substance, for it is identicalsubsistence only as subsistence of the relation. Moreover, the substance isfinite substance, for it is determined as immediate over against its causality.But it has causality at the same time, for it is just as much an identity as thisrelation.21 – Now this substrate is, as cause, negative reference to itself. Butthis “itself” to which it refers is, first, a positedness because it is determinedas immediately actual; this positedness, as content, is any determinationwhatever. – Second, causality is external to the substrate and itself constitutes,therefore, its positedness. Now since it is causal substance, its causality consistsin negatively referring itself to itself, hence to its positedness and external

21 sie eben so sehr nur das Identische als dieses Verhaltnis ist.


causality. The effective action of this substance thus begins from somethingexternal, frees itself from this external determination, and its turning backinto itself is the preservation of its immediate concrete existence and thesublation of the one which is posited, and consequently of its causality assuch.

Take a stone that moves. It is a cause. Its movement is a determinationwhich it has. But, besides it, it contains yet many other determinations(color, shape, and so on) that do not enter into its causality. Becauseits immediate concrete existence is separated from its form-connection,namely the form of causality, the latter is something external; the stone’smovement and the causality attaching to it is in it only positedness. – Butthe causality of the stone is also the stone’s own causality, as follows fromthe fact that its substantial subsistence is the stone’s identical self-reference,but that this is now determined as positedness and is therefore at the sametime negative self-reference. – Its causality, which is directed against itself asa positedness or as an externality, consists therefore in sublating this andthrough its removal in returning to itself – to this extent, therefore, in notbeing self-identical in its positedness but only in restoring its originariness. –Or again, rain is the cause of wetness, which is the same water as the rain.This water has the determination of being rain and cause because thisdetermination has been posited in it by another; another force, or whathave you, has lifted it into the air and compressed it into a mass, the weightof which makes it fall. Its being removed from the earth is a determinationalien to its original self-identity, to its gravity; its causality consists inremoving such determination and in restoring its original identity; but thismeans also sublating its causality.

We now consider the second determinateness of causality which concernsform; this relation is causality external to itself, as the originariness which iswithin just as much positedness or effect. This union of opposite determi-nation in an existent substrate constitutes the infinite regress from cause tocause. – We start from an effect; the latter has as effect a cause; but this11.403cause has a cause in turn, and so on. Why does the cause have a cause inturn? That is to say, why is the same side which was previously determinedas cause now determined as effect and therefore demands a new cause? –Because the cause is something finite, a determinate in general; determinedas one moment of the form as against the effect; so it has its determinate-ness or negation outside it; but for this very reason it is itself finite, has itsdeterminateness within it and is thereby positedness or effect. Its identity asthis positedness is also posited, but it is a third term, the immediate sub-strate; causality is therefore external to itself, because its originariness is here


an immediacy. The difference of form is therefore a first determinateness,not yet determinateness posited as determinateness; it is existent otherness.Finite reflection, on the one hand, stops short at this immediate, removesthe unity of form from it and makes it be cause in one respect and effect inanother; on the other hand, it transfers the unity of form into the infinite,and through the endless progression expresses its impotence in attainingand holding fast to this unity.

Exactly the same is the case of the effect, or rather the endless progressionfrom effect to effect is one and the same as the regression from cause to cause.Just as in the latter a cause becomes an effect which has another causein turn, so too, conversely, the effect becomes a cause which has anothereffect in turn. – The determinate cause under consideration begins froman externality and returns in its effect back to itself, but not as cause;on the contrary, it loses its causality in that process. But, conversely, theeffect arrives at a substrate which is substance, an original self-referringsubsistence; in it, therefore, that positedness becomes a positedness, that isto say, this substance, as the effect is posited in it, behaves as cause. Butthat first effect, the positedness that accrues to the substance externally, isother than the second which the substance produces; for this second effect isdetermined as the immanent reflection of substance whereas the first is in itas an externality. – But because causality is here causality external to itself,it also equally fails to return in its effect back to itself but becomes thereinexternal to itself; its effect becomes again a positedness in a substrate – asin another substance which however equally makes this positedness into apositedness, in other words, manifests itself as cause, again repels its effectfrom itself, and so on, into bad infinity. 11.404

3. We now have to see what has resulted from the movement of deter-minate causality. – Formal causality expires in the effect and the elementof identity of these two moments emerges as a result, but it does so onlyas an implicit unity of cause and effect to which the form connection isexternal. – For this reason, the element of identity is immediate also withrespect to both of the two determinations of immediacy, first as in-itself,as a content on which causality is deployed externally; second, as a concreteexistent substrate in which cause and effect inhere as different determina-tions of form. In this substrate, the two determinations are implicitly one,but, on account of this implicitness or of the externality of form, each isexternal to itself and hence, in its unity with the other, is also determinedas other with respect to it. Consequently, the cause has indeed an effect andis at the same time itself effect; and the effect not only has a cause but is itselfalso cause. But the effect which the cause has, and the effect which it is, are


different – as are also the cause which the effect has and the cause which itis.

The outcome of the movement of the determinate relation of causalityis then this, that the cause does not just expire in the effect, and thereby theeffect as well, as in formal causality, but that by expiring in the effect thecause comes to be again; that the effect vanishes in the cause, but equallycomes to be again in it. Each of these determinations sublates itself in itspositing, and posits itself in its sublating; what we have is not an externaltransition of causality from one substrate to another, but its becoming-other is at the same time its own positing. Causality thus pre-supposes itselfor conditions itself. The previously only implicit identity, the substrate, istherefore now determined as presupposition or posited as against the efficientcausality, and the reflection hitherto only external to the identity is now inrelation to it.

c. Action and reaction

Causality is a presupposing activity. The cause is conditioned; it is a negativereference to itself as a presupposed, as an external other which in itself, butonly in itself, is causality itself. This other is, as we have seen,22 the substantialidentity into which formal causality passes over, which now has determineditself as against this causality as its negative. Or it is the same as the substanceof the causal relation, but a substance which is confronted by the powerof accidentality as itself substantial activity. – It is the passive substance. –11.405Passive is that which is immediate, or which exists-in-itself but is not alsofor itself – pure being or essence in just this determinateness of abstract self-identity. – Confronting the passive substance is the negatively self-referringsubstance, the efficient substance. It is cause inasmuch as in determinatecausality it has restored itself out of the effect through the negation of itself –a reflected being23 which in its otherness or as an immediate behavesessentially as a positing activity and through its negation mediates itself.Here, therefore, causality no longer has a substrate in which it inheres; it isnot a determination of form as against this identity but is itself substance,or in other words, causality alone is at the origin. – The substrate is thepassive substance which causality has presupposed for itself.

This cause now acts, for it is the negative power over itself; at the sametime it is its own presupposition; thus it acts upon itself as upon an other,

22 Cf. above, 11.398.23 “a reflected being” is added by Lasson. Hegel’s sentence does not otherwise parse.


upon the passive substance. – Hence, it first sublates the otherness of thissubstance and returns in it back to itself; second, it determines this samesubstance, posits this sublation of its otherness or the substance’s turningback into itself as a determinateness. This positedness, because it is at thesame time the substance’s turning back into itself, is at first its effect.But conversely, because as presupposing it determines itself as its other, itthen posits the effect in this other, in the passive substance. – Or again,because the passive substance is itself this double – namely a self-subsistentother, and at the same time something presupposed and already implicitlyidentical with the efficient cause – because of this, the action of the passivesubstance is therefore itself double. It is at once both the sublation ofits determinateness, namely of its condition, or the sublation of the self-subsistence of the passive substance; and also, in sublating its identity asit sublates this substance, the pre-supposing of itself, that is, the positingor supposing of itself as other. – Through this last moment, the passivesubstance is preserved; that first sublation of it appears in this respect atthe same time also in this way, namely that only some determinations aresublated in it, and its identity in the effect with the efficient cause occursin it externally.

To this extent it suffers violence. – Violence is the appearance of power,or power as external. But power is something external only in so far as in itsaction, that is, in the positing of itself, the causal substance is at the sametime a presupposing, that is, posits itself as sublated. Conversely, the act ofviolence is therefore equally an act of power. The violent cause acts only onan other which it presupposes; its effect on it is its negative self-reference,or the manifestation of itself. The passive is the self-subsistent which is onlya posited, something internally fractured – an actuality which is condition,though a condition that now is in its truth as an actuality that is only a 11.406possible, or, conversely, an in-itself that is only the determinateness of thein-itself, is only passive. To that which suffers violence, therefore, not onlyis it possible to do violence, but violence must be done to it; that whichhas dominion over an other, only has it because its power is that of theother, a power which in that dominion manifests both itself and the other.Through violence the passive substance is only posited as what it is in truth,namely, that because it is the simple positive or the immediate substance,for that very reason it is only something posited; the “pre-”24 that it has ascondition is the reflective shine of immediacy that the efficient causalitystrips off from it.

24 das Voraus.


Passive substance, therefore, is only given its due by the action on it ofanother power. What it loses is the immediacy it had, the substantiality aliento it. What comes to it as an alien something, namely that it is determinedas a positedness, is its own determination. – But now in being determinedin its positedness, or in its own determination, the result is that it is notsublated but rather that it only rejoins itself and in its being determinedis, therefore, an originariness. – On the one hand, therefore, the passivesubstance is preserved or posited by the active, namely in so far as the lattersublates itself; but, on the other hand, it is the act of the passive substanceitself to rejoin itself and thus to make itself into what is originary and acause. The being posited by an other and its own becoming are one and thesame.

Now, because the passive substance has been converted into a cause, itfollows, first, that the effect is sublated in it; therein consists its reaction ingeneral. As passive substance, it is in itself as positedness; also, positednesshas been posited in it by the other substance, namely in so far as it receivedits effect within it. Its reaction contains, therefore, a twofold aspect. Forone, what it is in itself is posited. And two, what it is as posited displays itselfas its in-itself; it is positedness in itself, hence through the other substance itreceives an effect within; but, conversely, this positedness is its own in-itself,it is thus its own effect, it itself displays itself as a cause.

Second, the reaction is directed at the first efficient cause. For the effectwhich the hitherto passive substance sublates within itself is precisely theeffect of that other cause. But a cause has its substantial actuality only inits effect; inasmuch as this effect is sublated, so is also the causal substan-tiality of the other cause. This happens first in itself through itself, in thatthe cause makes itself into an effect; its negative determination disappearsin this identity and the cause becomes passive; and, second, it happensthrough the hitherto passive, but now reacting substance, which sublates itseffect. – Now in determinate causality the substance acted upon becomes11.407a cause, for it acts against the positing of an effect in it. But it did notreact against the cause of that effect but posited its effect rather in anothersubstance, and thus there arose the progression to infinity of effects –for here the cause is only implicitly identical with itself in the effect, andhence, on the one hand, it expires into an immediate identity as it comesto rest, but, on the other hand, it revives in another substance. – In con-ditioned causality, on the contrary, the cause refers back to itself in theeffect, for the latter is as a condition, as a presupposition, its other, and itsact is therefore just as much a becoming as a positing and sublating of theother.


Further, causality behaves in all this as passive substance; but, as wehave seen,25 the latter becomes causal through the effect it incurs. That firstcause, the one which acts first and receives its effect back into itself as areaction, thus comes up again as a cause, whereby the activity which infinite causality runs into the bad infinite progression is bent around andbecomes an action that returns to itself, an infinite reciprocal action.

c. reciprocity of action

In finite causality it is substances that actively relate to each other. Mech-anism consists in this externality of causality, where the cause’s reflectionin its effect into itself is at the same time a repelling being, or where, inthe self-identity which the causal substance has in its effect, the substanceis equally immediately external to itself and the effect is transposed intoanother substance. In reciprocity of action this mechanism is now sublated,for it contains first the disappearing of that original persistence of immediatesubstantiality; second, the coming to be of the cause, and hence originarinessmediating itself with itself through its negation.

At first, the reciprocity of action takes on the form of a reciprocal causalityof substances that are presupposed and that condition each other; each is withrespect to the other both active and passive substance. Since the two are thuspassive and active at once, their difference is thereby already sublated; itis a totally transparent reflective shine; they are substances only in beingthe identity of the active and the passive. The reciprocity of action is itself,therefore, only a still empty way and manner, and all that is still neededis merely the external bringing together of what is already there, both in 11.408itself and as posited. First of all, it is no longer substrates that are referred toeach other but substances; in the movement of conditional causality, thestill left over presupposed immediacy has been sublated, and what conditionsthe causing activity is only an influence, or its own passivity. But thisinfluence, moreover, does not come from another substance originating itbut from precisely a causality which is conditioned by influence, or onewhich is mediated. This at first external factor that accrues to the causeand constitutes the side of its passivity is therefore mediated through thecausality itself, is produced through its own activity and is, consequently,a passivity posited by its own very activity. – Causality is conditioned andconditioning. As conditioning, it is passive; but it is equally so as conditioned.This conditioning or passivity is the negation of the cause through itself in

25 In the preceding page, 11.406.


that it makes itself essentially into an effect and is cause precisely for thatreason. Reciprocity of action is, therefore, only causality itself; the cause doesnot just have an effect but, in the effect, refers as cause back to itself.

Causality has thereby returned to its absolute concept and has at thesame time attained the concept itself. At first, it is real necessity, absoluteself-identity in which the difference between it and the determinationsreferring to each other within it are substances, free actualities, over againstone another. Necessity is in this way inner identity; causality is the mani-festation of it in which its reflective shine of substantial otherness has beensublated, and necessity is elevated to freedom. – In the reciprocity of action,originative causality displays itself as arising from its negation, from pas-sivity, and as passing away into it, as a becoming, but in such a way thatthis becoming is at the same time equally only shining; the transition intootherness is reflection-into-itself; negation, which is the ground of the cause,is its positive rejoining with itself.

In the reciprocity of action, therefore, necessity and causality have dis-appeared; they contain both the immediate identity as combination andreference and the absolute substantiality of the differences, consequently theircontingency, the original unity of substantial difference and therefore theabsolute contradiction. Necessity is being, because being is; it is the unityof being with itself that has itself as ground, but, conversely, because thisbeing has a ground, it is not being; it is simply and solely reflective shin-ing, reference or mediation. Causality is this posited transition of originalbeing, of cause, into reflective shine or mere positedness, and, conversely, of11.409positedness into originariness; but the identity itself of being and reflectiveshine still is the inner necessity. This inwardness or this in-itself sublatesthe movement of causality; the result is that the substantiality of the sidesthat stand in relation is lost, and necessity unveils itself. Necessity does notcome to be freedom by vanishing but in that its still only inner identity ismanifested, and this manifestation is the identical movement immanent tothe different sides, the immanent reflection of shine as shine. – Conversely,contingency thereby comes to be freedom at the same time, for the sidesof necessity, which have the shape of independent, free actualities that donot reflectively shine into each other, are now posited as an identity, so thatnow these totalities of immanent reflection, in their differences, also shineas identical, in other words, they are also posited as only one and the samereflection.

No longer, therefore, does absolute substance as self-differentiating abso-lute form repel itself as necessity from itself, nor does it fall apart ascontingency into indifferent, external substances, but, on the contrary, it


differentiates itself: on the one hand, into the totality (the heretofore passivesubstance) which is at the origin, as the reflection from internal deter-minateness, as simple whole that contains its positedness within itself andin this positedness is posited as self-identical – this is the universal –; on theother hand, into the totality (the hitherto causal substance) which is thereflection, equally from internal determinateness, into the negative deter-minateness which, just as the self-identical determinateness, equally is thewhole, but posited as the self-identical negativity – the singular. But, becausethe universal is self-identical only in that the determinateness that it holdswithin is sublated, hence it is the negative as negative, it immediately is thesame negativity that singularity is. And the singularity, because it equally isthe determinedly determined, the negative as negative, immediately is thesame identity that universality is. This, their simple identity, is the particular-ity that, from the singular, holds the moment of determinateness; from theuniversal, that of immanent reflection – the two in immediate unity. Thesethree totalities are therefore one and the same reflection that, as negativeself-reference, differentiates itself into the other two totalities – but as intoa perfectly transparent difference, namely into the determinate simplicity, orinto the simple determinateness, which is their one same identity. – This isthe concept, the realm of subjectivity or of freedom.

volume two

The Science of Subjective Logic or TheDoctrine of the Concept 12.5

foreword

This part of the Logic which contains the Doctrine of the Concept andconstitutes the third part of the whole is also issued under the particulartitle of System of Subjective Logic. This is for the convenience of thosefriends of this science who, of the materials covered by logic commonly socalled, normally take a greater interest in those treated here than in the firsttwo parts. – For these earlier parts I could claim the indulgence of the faircritic because of the dearth of previous work that could have afforded mesome support, the materials and a guide on how to proceed. In the case ofthe present part, I can rather claim this indulgence for the opposite reason;for there already exists for the logic of the concept a fully ready and well-entrenched, one may even say ossified, material, and the task is to make itfluid again, to revive the concept in such a dead matter. To build a new cityin a devastated land has its difficulties, even if there is no lack of materialat hand; but even greater are the obstacles, of a different kind, when thetask is to give a new layout to an ancient and solidly constructed city, withestablished rights of ownership and domicile; one must also decide, amongother things, not to make use of much otherwise valued stock. –

But above all, it is the greatness of the subject matter itself that may beadduced as an excuse for the imperfection in execution. For what subjectmatter is there for cognition more sublime than truth itself? – Yet there is noescaping the doubt that it is this very subject matter that needs excuse whenthe sense in which Pilate put the question, “What is truth?,” comes to mind,uttering it as he did, in the words of the poet, “ . . . with the courtier’s mienthat myopically yet smiling damns the cause of the earnest soul.”1 Pilate’s 12.6question then carries the meaning, which we may view as a moment ofpoliteness, together with its reminder, that the goal of discovering the truth

1 Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Der Messias, seventh canto (slightly modified by Hegel who very likelycited from memory).

507


is, as everyone knows, something that has been given up, long since setaside with a shrug; that the unattainableness of truth is recognized also byphilosophers and professional logicians. – But if in our times the questionraised in religion regarding the value of things, of insights and actions –a question that in content carries the same implication as Pilate’s – is oncemore reclaiming its rightful meaning, then philosophy can well hope thatit will no longer occur as so strange if it too once more begins to reassertits goal in its immediate domain, and that, after having lapsed into theways of other sciences in renouncing truth, once more strives to rise upto that goal. There is no excuse needed for this attempt; but as for theexecution of it, I may plead as excuse my official duties and other personalcircumstances that have allowed me to work but interruptedly at a sciencethat demands instead, and deserves, undistracted and undivided exertion.

Nurnberg, July 21, 181612.11

of the concept in general

What the nature of the concept is cannot be given right away, not any morethan can the concept of any other subject matter. It might perhaps seemthat, in order to state the concept of a subject matter, the logical elementcan be presupposed, and that this element would not therefore be precededby anything else, or be something deduced, just as in geometry logicalpropositions, when they occur applied to magnitudes and employed inthat science, are premised in the form of axioms, underived and underivabledeterminations of cognition. Now the concept is to be regarded indeed,not just as a subjective presupposition but as absolute foundation; but itcannot be the latter except to the extent that it has made itself into one.Anything abstractly immediate is indeed a first; but, as an abstraction, it israther something mediated, the foundation of which, if it is to be graspedin its truth, must therefore first be sought. And this foundation will indeedbe something immediate, but an immediate which has made itself such bythe sublation of mediation.

From this aspect the concept is at first to be regarded simply as the third tobeing and essence, to the immediate and to reflection. Being and essence aretherefore the moments of its becoming; but the concept is their foundationand truth as the identity into which they have sunk and in which they arecontained. They are contained in it because the concept is their result, butno longer as being and essence; these are determinations which they have

The Science of Subjective Logic or The Doctrine of the Concept 509

only in so far as they have not yet returned into the identity which is theirunity.

Hence the objective logic, which treats of being and essence, constitutes intruth the genetic exposition of the concept. More precisely, substance alreadyis real essence, or essence in so far as it is united with being and has steppedinto actuality. Consequently, the concept has substance for its immediatepresupposition; substance is implicitly what the concept is explicitly. Thedialectical movement of substance through causality and reciprocal affectionis thus the immediate genesis of the concept by virtue of which its becomingis displayed. But the meaning of its becoming, like that of all becoming, is 12.12that it is the reflection of something which passes over into its ground, andthat the at first apparent other into which this something has passed overconstitutes the truth of the latter. Thus the concept is the truth of substance,and since necessity is the determining relational mode of substance, freedomreveals itself to be the truth of necessity and the relational mode of the concept.

The necessary forward course of determination characteristic of sub-stance is the positing of that which is in and for itself. The concept is nowthis absolute unity of being and reflection whereby being-in-and-for-itselfonly is by being equally reflection or positedness, and positedness only is bybeing equally in-and-for-itself. – This abstract result is elucidated by theexposition of its concrete genesis which contains the nature of the conceptbut had to precede its treatment. We must briefly sum up here, therefore,the main moments of this exposition (which has been treated in detail inBook Two of the Objective Logic).

Substance is the absolute, the actual in-and-for-itself: in itself, because itis the simple identity of possibility and actuality; absolute, because it is theessence containing all actuality and possibility within itself; for itself, becauseit is this identity as absolute power or absolutely self-referring negativity. –The movement of substantiality posited by these moments consists in thefollowing stages:1. Substance, as absolute power or self-referring negativity, differentiates

itself into a relation in which what are at first only simple moments aresubstances and original presuppositions. – Their specific relation is thatof a passive substance, of the originariness of the simple in-itself which,powerless to posit itself, is only originary positedness, and of an activesubstance, the self-referring negativity which has as such posited itself asan other and refers to it. This other is precisely the passive substancewhich the active substance, as originative power, has presupposed for itselfas its condition. – This presupposing is to be understood in the sensethat the movement of substance is at first in the form of one moment of


its concept, that of the in-itself – that the determinateness of one of thesubstances standing in relation is itself also the determinateness of thisrelation.

2. The other moment is the being-for-itself or the power positing itself asself-referring negativity and thereby again sublating what it presupposes. –The active substance is cause; it acts; this means that it is now a positing,just as before it was a presupposing, that (a) power is also given the reflective12.13shine of power, positedness also the reflective shine of positedness. Whatin the presupposition was the originary becomes in causality, by virtueof the reference to an other, what it is in itself. The cause brings aboutan effect. But it does so in another substance and it is now power withreference to an other; it thus appears as cause but is cause only by virtueof this appearing. – (b)2 The effect enters the passive substance andby virtue of it the latter now also appears as positedness, but is passivesubstance only in this positedness.

3. But there is more still present here than just this appearance, namely:(a) the cause acts upon the passive substance, alters its determination;

but this determination is its positedness, for otherwise there is noth-ing else to alter; the other determination which it obtains is howeverthat of causality; the passive substance thus comes to be cause, power,and activity;

(b) the effect is posited in it by the cause; but that which is posited bythe cause is the cause itself which, in acting, is identical with itself;it is this cause that posits itself in the place of the passive substance.

Similarly, with respect to the active substance:(a) the action is the translation of the cause into the effect, into its other,

the positedness;(b) the cause reveals itself in the effect as what it is; the effect is identical

with the cause, is not an other; in acting the cause thus reveals thepositedness to be that which it (the cause) essentially is.

Each side, therefore, in accordance with how it refers to the other bothas identical with it and as the negative of it, becomes the opposite ofitself, but, in becoming this opposite, the other, and therefore also each,remains identical with itself. – But both, the identical and the negativereference, are one and the same; substance is self-identical only in itsopposite and this constitutes the absolute identity of the two substancesposited as two. It is by its act that active substance is manifested as causeor originary substantiality, that is, by positing itself as the opposite of

2 The (b) is added by Lasson.


itself, a positing which is at the same time the sublating of its presupposedotherness, of passive substance. Contrariwise, it is by being acted upon thatthe positedness is manifested as positedness, the negative as negative, andconsequently the passive substance as self-referring negativity, and in thisother the cause simply rejoins itself. Through this positing, therefore, whatis presupposed, that is, the implicit originariness, becomes explicit; but thisbeing, which is now in and for itself, is only by virtue of a positing whichis equally the sublation of what is presupposed, or because the absolutesubstance has returned to itself only out of, and in, its positedness and forthat reason is absolute. Hence this reciprocal action is appearance that 12.14again sublates itself – the revelation that the reflective shine of causality, inwhich the cause is as cause, is just that, that it is reflective shine. This infiniteimmanent reflection – that the being-in-and-for-itself is only such by beinga positedness – is the consummation of substance. But this consummationis no longer the substance itself but is something higher, the concept, thesubject. The transition of the relation of substantiality occurs throughits own immanent necessity and is nothing more than the manifestationof itself, that the concept is its truth, and that freedom is the truth ofnecessity.

Earlier, in Book Two of the Objective Logic (pp. 11.376ff., Remark), Ihave already called attention to the fact that the philosophy that assumesits position at the standpoint of substance and stops there is the system ofSpinoza. I have also indicated there the defect of this system, both withrespect to form and matter. Something else, however, is the refutation ofit. Elsewhere,3 in connection with the refutation of a philosophical system,I have also remarked quite in general that we must get over the distortedidea that that system has to be represented as if thoroughly false, and asif the true system stood to the false as only opposed to it. It is on the basisof the context within which the system of Spinoza is presented here thatwe can see its true standpoint and ask whether the system is true or false.The relation of substantiality was generated by the nature of essence; thisrelation and also its exposition as an expanded totality in the form of systemis, therefore, a necessary standpoint at which the absolute positions itself.Such a standpoint, therefore, is not to be regarded as just an opinion, anindividual’s subjective, arbitrary way of representing and thinking, as anaberration of speculation; on the contrary, speculation necessarily runs intoit and, to this extent, the system is perfectly true. – But it is not the higheststandpoint. By itself alone, therefore, the system cannot be regarded as false,

3 In the Phenomenology of Spirit, cf. GW 9, 10.


as either requiring or being capable of refutation. This alone is rather tobe considered false in it: that it would be the highest standpoint. It alsofollows that the true system cannot be related to it as just its opposite, foras so opposed it would itself be one-sided. Rather, as the higher system, itmust contain it within as its subordinate.

Further, any refutation would have to come not from outside, that is, notproceed from assumptions lying outside the system and irrelevant to it. Thesystem need only refuse to recognize those assumptions; the defect is suchonly for one who starts from such needs and requirements as are based onthem. For this reason it has been said that there cannot be any refutation of12.15Spinozism for anyone who does not presuppose a commitment to freedomand the independence of a self-conscious subject.4 Besides, a standpointso lofty and inherently so rich as that of the relation of substance does notignore those assumptions but even contains them: one of the attributes ofthe Spinozistic substance is thought. The system knows how to resolve andassimilate the determinations in which these assumptions conflict with it,so that they re-emerge in it, but duly modified accordingly. The nerve,therefore, of any external refutation consists solely in obstinately clingingto the opposite categories of these assumptions, for example, to the absoluteself-subsistence of the thinking individual as against the form of thoughtwhich in the absolute substance is posited as identical with extension.Effective refutation must infiltrate the opponent’s stronghold and meethim on his own ground; there is no point in attacking him outside histerritory and claiming jurisdiction where he is not. The only possiblerefutation of Spinozism can only consist, therefore, in first acknowledgingits standpoint as essential and necessary and then raising it to a higherstandpoint on the strength of its own resources. The relation of substantiality,considered simply on its own, leads to its opposite: it passes over into theconcept. The exposition in the preceding Book of substance as leading tothe concept is, therefore, the one and only true refutation of Spinozism. It isthe unveiling of substance, and this is the genesis of the concept the principalmoments of which we have documented above. – The unity of substance isits relation of necessity. But this unity is thus only inner necessity. By positingitself through the moment of absolute negativity, it becomes manifestedor posited identity, and also, therefore, the freedom which is the identityof the concept. This concept, the totality resulting from the relation ofreciprocity, is the unity of the two substances that stand in that relation,

4 The allusion is, among others, to Fichte. See the whole §5 of the (First) Introduction to theWissenschaftslehre, English trans., pp. 15ff. GA I.2.191ff.


but in such a way now that the two belong to freedom: they no longerpossess their identity blindly, that is to say, internally; on the contrary, thesubstances now explicitly have the determination that they are essentiallyreflective shine or moments of reflection, and for that reason that each hasimmediately rejoined its other or its positedness, that each contains thispositedness in itself and in its other, therefore, is posited simply and solelyas identical with itself.

In the concept, therefore, the kingdom of freedom is disclosed. Theconcept is free because the identity that exists in and for itself and constitutesthe necessity of substance exists at the same time as sublated or as positedness,and this positedness, as self-referring, is that very identity. Vanished is the 12.16obscurity which the causally related substances have for each other, for theoriginariness of their self-subsistence that makes them causes5 has passedover into positedness and has thereby become self-transparently clear; the“originary fact”6 is “originary” because it is a “self-causing fact,”7 and this isthe substance that has been let go freely into the concept.

The direct result for the concept is the following more detailed determi-nation. Because being which is in and for itself is immediately a positedness,the concept is in its simple self-reference an absolute determinateness which,by referring only to itself, is however no less immediately simple identity.But this self-reference of the determinateness in which the latter rejoins itselfis just as much the negation of determinateness,8 and thus the concept, asthis equality with itself, is the universal. But this identity equally has thedetermination of negativity; it is a negation or determinateness that refersto itself and as such the concept is the singular.9 Each, the universal and thesingular, is a totality; each contains the determination of the other withinit and therefore the two are just as absolutely one totality as their onenessis the diremption of its self into the free reflective shine of this duality.And this is a duality which in the differentiation of singular and universalappears to be perfect opposition, but an opposition which is so much of areflective shine that, in that the one is conceptualized and said, immediatelythe other is therein conceptualized and said.

5 I have glossed “that makes them causes” to bring out Hegel’s play on words which is otherwise lostin English. “Cause” in German is Ursache, where the ur- indicates originariness. “Originariness” isUrsprunglichkeit.

6 Die ursprungliche Sache. Cf. Ursache, i.e. “cause.” 7 Ursache ihrer selbst.8 The determinateness does not go past itself, even excludes the possibility of going past itself. In this

sense, because it precludes reference to anything else besides itself, it ceases to be a determinatenessand becomes a universal. It negates its own determinateness, i.e. itself as negation.

9 In precluding reference to anything besides itself, the universal regains negativity. It is just itself andnothing else. In this sense, it is a universe by itself, a singular.


The foregoing is to be regarded as the concept of the concept. To some itmay seem to depart from the common understanding of “concept,” andthey might require that we indicate how our result fits with other ways ofrepresenting or defining it. But, for one thing, this cannot be an issueof proof based on the authority of ordinary understanding. In the scienceof the concept, the content and determination of the latter can be provensolely on the basis of an immanent deduction which contains its genesis,and such a deduction lies behind us. And also, whereas the concept of theconcept as deduced here should in principle be recognized in whatever elseis otherwise adduced as such a concept, it is not as easy to ascertain whatothers have said about its nature. For in general they do not bother at allenquiring about it but presuppose that everyone already understands whatthe concept means when speaking of it. Of late especially one may indeedbelieve that it is not worth pursuing any such enquiry because, just as itwas for a while the fashion to say all things bad about the imagination,then about memory, it became in philosophy the habit some time ago, and12.17is still the habit now, to heap every kind of defamation on the concept, tohold it in contempt – the concept which is the highest form of thought –while the incomprehensible and the non-comprehended are regarded as thepinnacle of both science and morality.

I confine myself to one remark which may contribute to the compre-hension of the concept here developed and facilitate one’s way into it. Theconcept, when it has progressed to a concrete existence which is itself free,is none other than the “I” or pure self-consciousness. True, I have con-cepts, that is, determinate concepts; but the “I” is the pure concept itself,the concept that has come into determinate existence. It is fair to suppose,therefore, when we think of the fundamental determinations which con-stitute the nature of the “I,” that we are referring to something familiar,that is, a commonplace of ordinary thinking. But the “I” is in the first placepurely self-referring unity, and is this not immediately but by abstractingfrom all determinateness and content and withdrawing into the freedomof unrestricted equality with itself. As such it is universality, a unity thatis unity with itself only by virtue of its negative relating, which appears asabstraction, and because of it contains all determinateness within itself asdissolved. In second place, the “I” is just as immediately self-referring nega-tivity, singularity, absolute determinateness that stands opposed to anythingother and excludes it – individual personality. This absolute universalitywhich is just as immediately absolute singularization – a being-in-and-for-itself which is absolute positedness and being-in-and-for-itself only byvirtue of its unity with the positedness – this universality constitutes the


nature of the “I” and of the concept; neither the one nor the other canbe comprehended unless these two just given moments are grasped at thesame time, both in their abstraction and in their perfect unity.

When I say of the understanding that I have it, according to ordinaryways of speaking, what is being understood by it is a faculty or a propertythat stands in relation to my I in the same way as the property of a thingstands related to that thing – as to an indeterminate substrate which is notthe true ground or the determining factor of the property. In this view, Ihave concepts, and I have the concept, just as I also have a coat, complexion,and other external properties. – Kant went beyond this external relationof the understanding, as the faculty of concepts and of the concept, tothe “I.” It is one of the profoundest and truest insights to be found inthe Critique of Reason that the unity which constitutes the essence of theconcept is recognized as the original synthetic unity of apperception, the 12.18unity of the “I think,” or of self-consciousness.10 – This proposition isall that there is to the so-called transcendental deduction of the categorieswhich, from the beginning, has however been regarded as the most difficultpiece of Kantian philosophy – no doubt only because it demands that weshould transcend the mere representation of the relation of the “I” and theunderstanding, or of the concepts, to a thing and its properties or accidents,and advance to the thought of it. – The object, says Kant in the Critique ofPure Reason (2nd edn, p. 137), is that, in the concept of which the manifoldof a given intuition is unified. But every unification of representationsrequires a unity of consciousness in the synthesis of them. Consequently, thisunity of consciousness is alone that which constitutes the reference of therepresentations to an object, hence their objective validity, and that onwhich even the possibility of the understanding rests. Kant distinguishes thisobjective unity from the subjective unity of consciousness by which the“I” becomes conscious of a manifold, whether simultaneously or successivelydepending on empirical conditions.11 In contrast to this subjective unity,the principles of the objective determination of representations are only tobe derived from the principle of the transcendental unity of apperception. Itis by virtue of the categories, which are these objective determinations, thatthe manifold of given representations is so determined as to be broughtto the unity of consciousness.12 – On this explanation, the unity of theconcept is that by virtue of which something is not the determination ofmere feeling, is not intuition or even mere representation, but an object, andthis objective unity is the unity of the “I” with itself. – In point of fact,

10 B131ff. 11 B139. 12 B144.


the conceptual comprehension of a subject matter consists in nothing elsethan in the “I” making it its own, in pervading it and bringing it into itsown form, that is, into a universality which is immediately determinateness,or into a determinateness which is immediately universality. As intuitedor also as represented, the subject matter is still something external, alien.When it is conceptualized, the being-in-and-for-itself that it has in intuitionand representation is transformed into a positedness; in thinking it, the “I”pervades it. But it is only in thought that it is in and for itself; as itis in intuition or representation, it is appearance. Thought sublates theimmediacy with which it first comes before us and in this way transformsit into a positedness; but this, its positedness, is its being-in-and-for-itself orits objectivity. This is an objectivity which the subject matter consequentlyattains in the concept, and this concept is the unity of self-consciousness intowhich that subject matter has been assumed; consequently its objectivityor the concept is itself none other than the nature of self-consciousness,12.19has no other moments or determinations than the “I” itself.

Accordingly, we find in a fundamental principle of Kantian philosophythe justification for turning to the nature of the “I” in order to learnwhat the concept is. But conversely, it is necessary to this end that we havegrasped the concept of the “I” as stated. If we cling to the mere representationof the “I” as we commonly entertain it, then the “I” is only the simple thingalso known as the soul, a thing in which the concept inheres as a possessionor a property. This representation, which does not bother to comprehendeither the “I” or the concept, is of little use in facilitating or advancing theconceptual comprehension of the concept.

The position of Kant just cited contains two other points which concernthe concept and necessitate some further comments. First of all, precedingthe stage of understanding are the stages of feeling and of intuition.13 It isan essential proposition of Kant’s Transcendental Philosophy that conceptswithout intuition are empty, and that they have validity only as referencesconnecting the manifold given by intuition.14 Second, the concept is givenas the objective element of cognition, consequently as the truth. Yet it istaken to be something merely subjective, and we are not allowed to extractreality from it,15 for by reality objectivity is to be understood, since realityis contrasted with subjectivity. Moreover, the concept and anything logicalare declared to be something merely formal which, since it abstracts fromcontent, does not contain truth.

13 Hegel now has in mind the Transcendental Aesthetic section of the Critique of Pure Reason.14 Cf. B33, B143. 15 The allusion is to A603/B631.


Now, in the first place, as regards the relation of the understanding or conceptto the stages presupposed by it, the determination of the form of these stagesdepends on which science is being considered. In our science, which is pureLogic, they are being and essence. In Psychology, the stages preceding theunderstanding are feeling and intuition, and then representation generally.In the Phenomenology of Spirit, which is the doctrine of consciousness,the ascent to the understanding is made through the stages of sensuousconsciousness and then of perception. Kant places ahead of it only feelingand intuition. But, for a start, he himself betrays the incompleteness ofthis progression of stages by appending to the Transcendental Logic or theDoctrine of the Understanding a treatise on the concepts of reflection – asphere lying between intuition and understanding, or being and concept.16

And if we consider the substance itself of these stages, it must first besaid that such shapes as intuition, representation, and the like, belong to 12.20the self-conscious spirit which, as such, does not fall within the scope oflogical science. Of course, the pure determinations of being, essence, andthe concept, also constitute the substrate and the inner sustaining structureof the forms of spirit; spirit, as intuiting as well as sensuous consciousness, isin the form of immediate being, just as spirit as representational and alsoperceptual consciousness has risen from being to the stage of essence orreflection. But these concrete shapes are of as little interest to the scienceof logic as are the concrete forms that logical determinations assume innature. These last would be space and time, then space and time as assuminga content, as inorganic and then organic nature. Similarly, the concept is alsonot to be considered here as the act of the self-conscious understanding,not as subjective understanding, but as the concept in and for itself whichconstitutes a stage of nature as well as of spirit. Life, or organic nature, isthe stage of nature where the concept comes on the scene, but as a blindconcept that does not comprehend itself, that is, is not thought; only asself-aware and as thought does it belongs to spirit. Its logical form, however,is independent of such shapes, whether unspiritual or spiritual. This is apoint which was already duly adumbrated in the Introduction,17 and onethat one must be clear about before undertaking Logic, not when one isalready in it.

But, in second place, how the forms that precede the concept mightever be shaped depends on how the concept is thought in relation to them.This relation, as assumed in ordinary psychology as well as in Kant’sTranscendental Philosophy,18 is that the empirical material, the manifold

16 A260/B316ff. 17 Cf. GW 11, 22ff., i.e. 21.35ff. 18 Cf. B133ff.


of intuition and representation, is at first just there by itself, and that theunderstanding then comes into it, brings unity to it, and raises it throughabstraction to the form of universality. The understanding is in this wayan inherently empty form which, on the one hand, obtains reality only byvirtue of that given content, and, on the other, abstracts from it, that isto say, discards it as something useless, but useless only for the concept.In both operations, the concept is not the one which is independent, isnot what is essential and true about that presupposed material; rather, thismaterial is the reality in and for itself, a reality that cannot be extractedfrom the concept.

Now it must certainly be conceded that the concept is as such not yetcomplete, that it must rather be raised to the idea which alone is the unityof the concept and reality; and this is a result which will have to emergein what follows from the nature of the concept itself. For the reality thatthe concept gives itself cannot be picked up as it were from the outside12.21but must be derived from the concept itself in accordance with scientificrequirements. But the truth is that it is not the material given by intuitionand representation which must be validated as the real in contrast to theconcept. “It is only a concept,” people are wont to say, contrasting theconcept, as superior to it, not only with the idea, but with sensuous, spatialand temporal, palpable existence. For this reason the abstract is then held tobe of less significance than the concrete, because so much of this palpablematerial has been removed from it. In this view, to abstract means toselect from a concrete material this or that mark, but only for our subjectivepurposes, without in any way detracting from the value and the status ofthe many other properties and features that are left out; on the contrary,by retaining them as reality, but yonder on the other side, still as fullyvalid as ever. It is only because of its incapacity that the understandingthus does not draw from this wealth and is forced rather to make do withthe impoverished abstraction. But now, to regard the given material ofintuition and the manifold of representation as the real, in contrast to whatis thought and the concept, is precisely the view that must be given up ascondition of philosophizing, and that religion, moreover, presupposes ashaving already been given up. How could there be any need of religion, howcould religion have any meaning, if the fleeting and superficial appearanceof the sensuous and the singular were still regarded as the truth? But itis philosophy that yields the conceptually comprehended 19 insight into thestatus of the reality of sensuous being. Philosophy assumes indeed that the

19 “conceptually comprehended” = begriffene.


stages of feeling, intuition, sense consciousness, and so forth, are prior tothe understanding, for they are the conditions of the genesis of the latter,but they are conditions only in the sense that the concept results fromtheir dialectic and their nothingness and not because it is conditioned bytheir reality. Abstractive thought, therefore, is not to be regarded as themere discarding of a sensuous material which does not suffer in the processany impairment of reality; it is rather the sublation and reduction of thatmaterial as mere appearance to the essential, which is manifested only inthe concept. Of course, if what is to be taken up into the concept from theconcrete appearance is intended to serve only as a mark or sign, then it maywell be anything at all, any mere sensuous singular determination of thesubject matter will do, selected from the others because of some externalinterest but of like kind and nature as the rest.

In this conjunction, the prevailing fundamental misunderstanding isthat the natural principle, or the starting point in the natural development 12.22or the history of an individual in the process of self-formation, is regardedas the truth and conceptually the first. Intuition or being are no doubt firstin the order of nature, or are the condition for the concept, but theyare not for all that the unconditioned in and for itself; on the contrary,in the concept their reality is sublated and, consequently, so is also thereflective shine that they had of being the conditioning reality. If it is notthe truth which is at issue but only narration, as it is the case in pictorial andphenomenal thinking, then we might as well stay with the story that webegin with feelings and intuitions, and that the understanding then extractsa universal or an abstraction from their manifold, for which purpose it quiteunderstandably needs a substrate for these feelings and intuitions which,in the process of abstraction, retains for representation the same completereality with which it first presented itself. But philosophy ought not tobe a narrative of what happens, but a cognition of what is true in whathappens, in order further to comprehend on the basis of this truth what inthe narrative appears as a mere happening.

If on the superficial view of what the concept is all manifoldness fallsoutside it, and only the form of abstract universality or of empty reflectiveidentity stays with it, we can at once call attention to the fact that anystatement or definition of a concept expressly requires, besides the genuswhich in fact is already itself more than just abstract universality, also aspecific determinateness. And it does not take much thoughtful reflection onthe implication of this requirement to see that differentiation is an equallyessential moment of the concept. Kant introduced this line of reflectionwith the very important thought that there are synthetic judgments


a priori.20 His original synthesis of apperception is one of the most pro-found principles for speculative development; it contains the beginning ofa true apprehension of the nature of the concept and is fully opposed to anyempty identity or abstract universality which is not internally a synthesis. –The further development, however, did not live up to this beginning. Theterm itself, “synthesis,” easily conjures up again the picture of an externalunity, of a mere combination of terms that are intrinsically separate. Then,again, the Kantian philosophy has never got over the psychological reflexof the concept and has once more reverted to the claim that the concept ispermanently conditioned by the manifold of intuition. It has declared thecontent of the cognitions of the understanding, and of experience, to bephenomenal, not because of the finitude of the categories as such but, on theground of a psychological idealism, because they are only determinationsderived from self-consciousness. Here accordingly we have again the suppo-12.23sition that apart from the manifoldness of intuition the concept is withoutcontent, empty, despite the fact that the concept is said to be a synthesis apriori; as such, it surely contains determinateness and differentiation withinitself. And because this determinateness is the determinateness of the con-cept, and hence the absolute determinateness, singularity, the concept is theground and the source of all finite determinateness and manifoldness.

The formal position that the concept never abandons as understandingis completed in Kant’s exposition of what reason is. One should expect thatin reason, which is the highest stage of thought, the concept would losethe conditionality with which it still appears at the stage of understandingand would attain perfect truth. But this expectation is disappointed. ForKant defines the relation of reason to the categories as merely dialectical.Indeed, he even takes the result of this dialectic to be simply and solelyan infinite nothingness, the result being that the synthesis is again lost, lostalso to the infinite unity of reason, and lost with it is whatever beginningthere was of a speculative, truly infinite, concept; reason becomes the well-known, totally formal, merely regulative unity of the systematic employmentof the understanding. It is declared an abuse when Logic, which is supposedto be a mere canon of judgment, is considered instead as an organon forthe production of objective insights. The concepts of reason, in whichwe would have expected a higher power and a deeper content, no longerpossess anything constitutive as still do the categories; they are mere ideaswhich we are of course are quite at liberty to use, provided that by theseintelligible entities in which all truth was to be revealed we mean nothing

20 A8/B12.


more than hypotheses to which it would be the height of arbitrariness andrecklessness to ascribe absolute truth, for they – cannot be found in anyexperience.21 – Would anyone have ever thought that philosophy woulddeny truth to intelligible entities on the ground that they lack the spatialand temporal material of the senses?

Directly connected with this is the issue of how to view the conceptand the character of logic generally, the issue namely of the relation ofthe concept and its science to truth itself. This is an issue on which theKantian philosophy holds the same position as is commonly taken. Wecited earlier from Kant’s deduction of the categories to the effect that,according to it, the object in which the manifold of intuition is unified isthis unity only by virtue of the unity of self-consciousness.22 The objectivity ofthought is here, therefore, specifically defined: it is an identity of conceptand thing which is the truth. In the same way it is also commonly acceptedthat, as thought appropriates a given subject matter, this subject matterthereby undergoes an alteration and is made from something sensuous 12.24into something thought. But nothing is changed in this alteration in sofar as the essentiality of the object goes; on the contrary, it is accepted thatthe object is in its truth only in its concept, whereas in the immediacy inwhich it is given it is only appearance and accidentality; that the cognitionconceptualizing the subject matter is a cognition of it as it is in and for itself,and the concept is its very objectivity. But, on the other hand, it is alsoequally claimed that we cannot know things as they are in and for themselvesand that truth is inaccessible to rational cognition; that the aforesaid truththat would consist in the unity of the object and the concept is in factonly appearance, again on the ground now that the content is only themanifold of intuition. But we have just remarked, regarding this point,that it is precisely in the concept that the manifold is sublated inasmuchas it pertains to intuition as opposed to the concept, and that through theconcept the subject matter is reduced to its non-contingent essentiality;the latter does enter into appearance, and this is why appearance is notsomething merely essenceless but is the manifestation of essence. Whenthis manifestation of essence is set free, then we have the concept. – Thesepropositions that we are now recalling are not dogmatic assertions, forthey are results that obtained on their own out of the whole developmentof essence. The present position to which this development has led is thatthe form of the absolute which is higher than being and essence is theconcept. Viewed from this side, the concept has subjugated the spheres of

21 A324/B384–385. 22 Cf. above, 12.18 and note 10.


being and essence to which, from other starting points, feeling, intuition,and representation, which appeared to be its antecedent conditions, alsobelong; it has demonstrated itself to be their unconditional foundation. Butthis is one side alone. There is a second side left to which this third book ofthe Logic is devoted, namely the demonstration of how the concept formswithin and from itself the reality that has vanished in it. It is conceded, inother words, that the cognition that does not go past the concept, purelyas concept, is still incomplete, that it has only arrived at abstract truth. Butits incompleteness does not lie in its lack of that alleged reality as would begiven in feeling and intuition, but in the fact that the concept has yet to giveto itself its own reality, one that it generates out of itself. The demonstratedabsoluteness of the concept as against the material of experience and, moreexactly, the categorial and the reflective determinations of it, consists inthis, that as this material appears outside and before the concept, it has notruth but that it has it only in its ideality or in its identity with the concept.The derivation of the real from the concept, if “derivation” is what wewant to call it, consists at first essentially in this, that the concept in itsformal abstraction reveals itself to be incomplete and through a dialectic12.25immanently grounded in it passes over into reality: it passes over into it,however, as into something which it generates out of itself, not as if itwere falling back again onto a ready-made reality which it finds oppositeit, or as if it were taking refuge, because it sought for something betterbut found none, into something that has already been proven to be theunessential element of appearance. – It will always be a source of wonderhow the Kantian philosophy did acknowledge that the relation of thoughtto sensuous existence (the relation at which it stopped) is only a relation ofmere appearance, and also well recognized in the idea in general a higherunity of those two terms, even gave expression to it, as for example in theidea of an intuitive understanding, and yet stopped short at that relativerelation and at the claim that the concept remains utterly separate fromreality – thus asserting as truth what it declared to be finite cognition, andexplaining away as extravagant and illegitimate figments of thought whatit recognized as truth and had specifically defined as such.

Since it is logic above all and not science generally whose relation totruth is the issue here, it must be further conceded that logic as the formalscience cannot also contain, nor should contain, the kind of reality whichis the content of the other parts of philosophy, of the sciences of natureand of spirit. These concrete sciences do attain to a more real form of theidea than logic does, but not because they have turned back to the realitywhich consciousness abandoned as it rose above the appearance of it to


science, or because they have again resorted to the use of such forms asare the categories and the determinations of reflection, the finitude anduntruth of which were demonstrated in the logic. The logic rather exhibitsthe rise of the idea up to the level from which it becomes the creatorof nature and passes over into the form of a concrete immediacy whoseconcept, however, again shatters this shape also in order to realize itself asconcrete spirit. These sciences, just as they had the logic as their prototype,hold on to its logical principle or the concept as in them their formativefactor. As contrasted with them, the logic is of course the formal science,yet the science of the absolute form which is implicit totality and containsthe pure idea of truth itself. This absolute form has in it a content or realityof its own; the concept, since it is not a trivial, empty identity, obtains itsdifferentiated determinations in the moment of negativity or of absolutedetermining; and the content is only these determinations of the absoluteform and nothing else – a content posited by the form itself and thereforeadequate to it. – This form is for this reason of quite another nature thanlogical form is ordinarily taken to be. It is truth already on its own account, 12.26because this content is adequate to its form or this reality to its concept,and it is pure truth, because the determinations of the content do not yethave the form of an absolute otherness or of absolute immediacy. – WhenKant in the Critique of Pure Reason (p. 83),23 in connection with logiccomes to discuss the old and famous question: What is truth?, he starts bypassing off as a triviality the nominal definition that it is the agreement ofcognition with its subject matter – a definition which is of great, indeed ofsupreme value. If we recall this definition together with the fundamentalthesis of transcendental idealism, namely that rational cognition is incapableof comprehending things in themselves,24 that reality lies absolutely outsidethe concept, it is then at once evident that such a reason, one which isincapable of setting itself in agreement with its subject matter, and the thingsin themselves, such as are not in agreement with the rational concept – aconcept that does not agree with reality and a reality that does not agreewith the concept – that these are untrue conceptions. If Kant had measuredthe idea of an intuitive understanding against that first definition of truth,he would have treated that idea which expresses the required agreement,not as a figment of thought but rather as truth.

“What we would want to know,” Kant proceeds to say, “is a universaland certain criterion of truth of any cognition whatever, one that would bevalid for all cognitions without distinction of their subject matters; but since

23 In fact, A58/B82. 24 Bxxvi.


any such criterion would abstract from all content of cognition (the referenceto its object), and truth has to do precisely with this content, it would be quiteimpossible, even absurd, to ask for a mark of the truth of this content ofcognitions.”25 – Here we have, clearly expressed, the ordinary conceptionof the formal function of logic which gives to the adduced argument the airof convincing. But first of all it is to be noted what usually happens to thiskind of formal argumentation: it forgets as it speaks that on which it is basedand of which it speaks. It would be absurd, it says, to ask for a criterionof the truth of the content of cognition. But according to the definition onwhich it is based it is not the content that constitutes the truth, but theagreement of it with the concept. Such a content as is here spoken of, onewithout the concept, is something void of concept and therefore void ofessence; of course, we cannot ask of such a content for a criterion of truth,but for the opposite reason, namely, not because it cannot be the required12.27agreement on account of its being void of concept, but because it cannotbe anything more than just another truthless opinion. – Let us leave asideany talk about content, which is the cause of the confusion here – theconfusion in which formalism invariably falls, and which is responsible formaking it say, every time it tries to explain itself, the opposite of what itwants to say – and let us just stay with the abstract view that the logicis only formal, that it abstracts from all content. What we then have is aone-sided cognition which is not supposed to contain any subject matter,an empty form void of determination which is therefore just as little anagreement (for it necessarily takes two for an agreement) as it is truth. –In the a priori synthesis of the concept, Kant did have a higher principle inwhich it was possible to recognize a duality and therefore what is requiredfor truth; but the material of the senses, the manifoldness of intuition, wastoo strong for him to be able to wrest himself away from it and turn to aconsideration of the concept and the categories in and for themselves, andto a speculative form of philosophizing.

Since logic is the science of the absolute form, this formal discipline,26

in order to be true, must have a content in it which is adequate to itsform; all the more so, because logical form is pure form and logical truth,accordingly, the pure truth itself. This formal discipline must thereforebe thought of as inherently much richer in determinations and content,and also of infinitely greater efficacy over the concrete, than it is normallytaken to be. The laws of logic by themselves (extraneous elements aside,such as applied logic and the rest of the psychological and anthropological

25 Cf. A57–59/B82–83. 26 dieses Formelles.


material) are commonly restricted, apart from the law of contradiction, toa few meager propositions concerning the conversion of judgments and theforms of inference. And the forms, too, that come up in this context, as wellas their further specifications, are only taken up historically as it were, notsubjected to criticism to see whether they are in and for themselves true.For example, the form of the positive judgment is accepted as somethingperfectly correct in itself, and whether the judgment is true is made todepend solely on the content. No thought is given to investigating whetherthis form of judgment is a form of truth in and for itself; whether theproposition it enunciates, “the individual is a universal,” is not inherentlydialectical. It is at once assumed that the judgment is capable of possessingtruth on its own account, and that every proposition expressed in a positivejudgment is true, even though it is patently evident that the judgment lackswhat is required by the definition of truth, namely the agreement of theconcept with its subject matter; for if the predicate, which here is theuniversal, is taken as the concept, and the subject, which is the singular,as the subject matter, then the concept does not agree with it. But if the 12.28abstract universal which is the predicate does not yet amount to a concept(for surely there is more that belongs to it); or if the subject, for its part,still is not much more than a grammatical one, how should the judgmentpossibly contain truth seeing that its concept and the intended object donot agree, as also that the concept is missing and indeed the object as well? –This rather is then where the impossible and the absurd lie, in the attemptto grasp the truth in such forms as are the positive judgment or a judgmentin general. Just as the Kantian philosophy did not consider the categoriesin and for themselves, but declared them to be finite determinations unfitto hold the truth, on the only inappropriate ground that they are subjectiveforms of self-consciousness, still less did it subject to criticism the formsof the concepts that make up the content of ordinary logic. What it did,rather, is to pick a portion of them, namely the functions of judgments,for the determination of categories, and simply accepted them as validpresuppositions. Even if there were nothing more to the forms of logicthan these formal functions of judgment, for that reason alone they wouldalready be worthwhile investigating to see how far, by themselves, theycorrespond to the truth. A logic that does not perform this task can at mostclaim the value of a natural description of the phenomena of thought asthey simply occur. It is an infinite merit of Aristotle, one that must fill uswith the highest admiration for the power of his genius, that he was thefirst to undertake this description. But it is necessary to go further anddetermine both the systematic connection of these forms and their value.


division12.29

The concept, as considered so far, has demonstrated itself to be the unity ofbeing and essence. Essence is the first negation of being, which has therebybecome reflective shine; the concept is the second negation, or the negationof this negation, and is therefore being which has been restored once more,but as in itself the infinite mediation and negation of being. – In the con-cept, therefore, being and essence no longer have determination as being andessence, nor are they only in such a unity in which each would reflectivelyshine in the other. Consequently, the concept does not differentiate itselfinto these determinations. The concept is the truth of the substantial rela-tion in which being and essence attain their perfect self-subsistence anddetermination each through the other. The truth of substantiality provedto be the substantial identity, an identity that equally is, and only is, posited-ness. Positedness is determinate existence and differentiation; in the concept,therefore, being-in-and-for-itself has attained a true existence adequate toit, for that positedness is itself being-in-and-for-itself. This positednessconstitutes the difference of the concept in the concept itself; and becausethe concept is immediately being-in-and-for-itself, its differences are them-selves the whole concept – universal in their determinateness and identical intheir negation.

This is now the concept itself of the concept, but at first only the conceptof the concept or also itself only concept. Since the concept is being-in-and-for-itself by being a positedness, or is absolute substance, and substancemanifests the necessity of distinct substances as an identity, this identity mustitself posit what it is. The moments of the movement of the substantialrelation through which the concept came to be and the reality therebyexhibited are only in the transition to the concept; that reality is not yet theconcept’s own determination, one that has emerged out of it; it fell in thesphere of necessity whereas the reality of the concept can only be its freedetermination, a determinate existence in which the concept is identicalwith itself and whose moments are themselves concepts posited through theconcept itself.

At first, therefore, the concept is only implicitly the truth; because it isonly something inner, it is equally only something outer. It is at first simplyan immediate and in this shape its moments have the form of immediate,12.30fixed determinations. It appears as the determinate concept, as the sphere ofmere understanding. – Because this form of immediacy is an existence stillinadequate to the nature of the concept, for the concept is free and onlyrefers to itself, it is an external form in which the concept does not exist


in-and-for-itself, but can only count as something posited or subjective. –The shape of the immediate concept constitutes the standpoint that makesof the concept a subjective thinking, a reflection external to the subjectmatter. This stage constitutes, therefore, subjectivity, or the formal concept.Its externality is manifested in the fixed being of its determinations thatmakes them come up each by itself, isolated and qualitative, and each onlyexternally referred to the other. But the identity of the concept, which isprecisely their inner or subjective essence, sets them in dialectical movement,and through this movement their singleness is sublated and with it alsothe separation of the concept from the subject matter, and what emergesas their truth is the totality which is the objective concept.

Second, in its objectivity the concept is the fact itself as it exists in-and-for-itself. The formal concept makes itself into the fact by virtue of thenecessary determination of its form, and it thereby sheds the relationof subjectivity and externality that it had to that matter. Or, conversely,objectivity is the real concept that has emerged from its inwardness and haspassed over into existence. – In this identity with the fact, the conceptthus has an existence which is its own and free. But this existence is still afreedom which is immediate and not yet negative. Being at one with thesubject matter, the concept is submerged into it; its differences are objectivedeterminations of existence in which it is itself again the inner. As the soulof objective existence, the concept must give itself the form of subjectivitythat it immediately had as formal concept; and so, in the form of the freeconcept which in objectivity it still lacked, it steps forth over against thatobjectivity and, over against it, it makes therein the identity with it, whichas objective concept it has in and for itself, into an identity that is also posited.

In this consummation in which the concept has the form of freedomeven in its objectivity, the adequate27 concept is the idea. Reason, which isthe sphere of the idea, is the self-unveiled 28 truth in which the conceptattains the realization absolutely adequate to it, and is free inasmuch as inthis real world, in its objectivity, it recognizes its subjectivity, and in thissubjectivity recognizes that objective world.

27 Hegel uses the Latinate word “adaquate” to bring out the notion of truth, traditionally defined asadaequatio rei et intellectus.

28 Hegel is playing on the Greek word for “truth,” which literally means an “unveiling.”

section i

Subjectivity12.31

The concept is, to start with, formal, the concept in its beginning or asthe immediate concept. – In this immediate unity, its difference or itspositedness is, first, itself initially simple and only a reflective shine, so thatthe moments of the difference are immediately the totality of the conceptand only the concept as such.

But, second, because it is absolute negativity, the concept divides andposits itself as the negative or the other of itself; yet, because it is stillimmediate concept, this positing or this differentiation is characterized bythe reciprocal indifference of its moments, each of which comes to be onits own; in this division the unity of the concept is still only an externalconnection. Thus, as the connection of its moments posited as self-subsistingand indifferent, the concept is judgment.29

Third, although the judgment contains the unity of the concept thathas been lost in its self-subsisting moments, this unity is not posited. Itwill become posited by virtue of the dialectical movement of the judgmentwhich, through this movement, becomes syllogistic inference,30 and this isthe fully posited concept, for in the inference the moments of the conceptas self-subsisting extremes and their mediating unity are both equally posited.

But since this unity itself, as unifying middle, and the moments, as self-subsisting extremes, stand at first immediately opposite one another, thiscontradictory relation that occurs in the formal inference sublates itself, andthe completeness of the concept passes over into the unity of totality; thesubjectivity of the concept into its objectivity.

29 Note the play on words: “division” and “judgment” are in German “Teilung” and “Urteil.”30 “syllogistic inference” = Schluß.

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chapter 1

The concept 12.32

The faculty of concepts is normally associated with the understanding, andthe latter is accordingly distinguished from the faculty of judgment andfrom the faculty of syllogistic inferences which is formal reason. But it isparticularly with reason that the understanding is contrasted, and it signifiesthen, not the faculty of concepts in general, but the faculty of determinateconcepts, as if, as the prevailing opinion has it, the concept were only adeterminate. When distinguished in this meaning from the formal facultyof judgment and from formal reason, the understanding is accordingly tobe taken as the faculty of the single determinate concept. For the judgmentand the syllogism or reason, as formal, are themselves only a thing of theunderstanding,31 since they are subsumed under the form of the abstractdeterminateness of the concept. Here, however, we are definitely not takingthe concept as just abstractly determined; the understanding is thereforeto be distinguished from reason only in that it is the faculty of the conceptas such.

This universal concept that we now have to consider contains the threemoments of universality, particularity, and singularity. The difference andthe determinations which the concept gives itself in its process of distin-guishing constitute the sides formerly called positedness. Since this posit-edness is in the concept identical with being-in-and-for-itself, each of themoments is just as much the whole concept as it is determinate concept anda determination of the concept.

It is at first pure concept, or the determination of universality. But thepure or universal concept is also only a determinate or particular conceptthat takes its place alongside the other concepts. Because the concept isa totality, and therefore in its universality or pure identical self-referenceis essentially a determining and a distinguishing, it possesses in itself thenorm by which this form of its self-identity, in pervading all the moments

31 “a thing of the understanding” = ein Verstandiges.

529


and comprehending them within, equally determines itself immediately asbeing only the universal as against the distinctness of the moments.

Second, the concept is thereby posited as this particular or determinateconcept, distinct from others.

Third, singularity is the concept reflecting itself out of difference intoabsolute negativity. This is at the same time the moment at which it hasstepped out of its identity into its otherness and becomes judgment.12.33

a. the universal concept

The pure concept is the absolutely infinite, unconditioned and free. It ishere, as the content of our treatise begins to be the concept itself, that wemust look back once more at its genesis. Essence came to be out of being, andthe concept out of essence, therefore also from being. But this becominghas the meaning of a self-repulsion, so that what becomes is rather the uncon-ditional and the originative. In passing over into essence, being became areflective shine or a positedness, and becoming or the passing over into another became a positing; conversely, the positing or the reflection of essencesublated itself and restored itself to a non-posited, an original being. Theconcept is the mutual penetration of these moments, namely, the qualita-tive and the originative existent is only as positing and as immanent turn-ing back, and this pure immanent reflection simply is the becoming-otheror determinateness which is, consequently, no less infinite, self-referringdeterminateness.

Thus the concept is absolute self-identity by being first just this, thenegation of negation or the infinite unity of negativity with itself. Thispure self-reference of the concept, which is such by positing itself throughthe negativity, is the universality of the concept.

Universality seems incapable of explanation, because it is the simplestof determinations; explanation must rely on determinations and differen-tiations and must apply predicates to its subject matter, and this wouldalter rather than explain the simple. But it is precisely of the nature of theuniversal to be a simple that, by virtue of absolute negativity, contains dif-ference and determinateness in itself in the highest degree. Being is simpleas an immediate; for this reason we can only intend it without being ableto say what it is; therefore, it is immediately one with its other, non-being.The concept of being is just this, that it is so simple as to vanish into itsopposite immediately; it is becoming. The universal is, on the contrary, asimple that is at the same time all the richer in itself, for it is the concept.

The concept 531

First, therefore, it is simple self-reference; it is only in itself. But, second,this identity is in itself absolute mediation but not anything mediated. Ofthe universal which is mediated, that is to say, the abstract universal, the oneopposed to the particular and the singular, of that we shall have to speak 12.34only in connection with the determinate concept. – Yet, even the abstractuniversal entails this much, that in order to obtain it there is required theleaving aside of other determinations of the concrete. As determinations ingeneral, these determination are negations, and leaving them aside is a furthernegating. Even in the abstract universal, therefore, the negation of negationis already present. But this double negation comes to be represented as ifit were external to it, both as if the properties of the concrete that are leftout were different from the ones that are retained as the content of theabstraction, and as if this operation of leaving some aside while retainingthe rest went on outside them. With respect to this movement, the universalhas not yet acquired the determination of externality; it is still in itself thatabsolute negation which is, precisely, the negation of negation or absolutenegativity.

Accordingly, because of this original unity, the first negative, or thedetermination, is not, to begin with, a restriction for the universal; rather,the latter maintains itself in it and its self-identity is positive. The categoriesof being were, as concepts, essentially these identities of the determinationswith themselves in their restriction or their otherness; but this identity wasonly implicitly the concept, was not yet made manifest. Consequently, thequalitative determination perished as such in its other and had as its trutha determination diverse from it. The universal, on the contrary, even whenit posits itself in a determination, remains in it what it is. It is the soulof the concrete which it inhabits, unhindered and equal to itself in itsmanifoldness and diversity. It is not swept away in the becoming but persistsundisturbed through it, endowed with the power of unalterable, undyingself-preservation.

It also does not simply shine reflectively in its other, as does the deter-mination of reflection. This determination, as something relative, does notrefer only to itself but is a relating. It lets itself be known in its other, butat first it only shines reflectively in it, and this reflective shining of each inthe other, or their reciprocal determination, has the form of an externalactivity alongside their self-subsistence. – The universal is posited, on thecontrary, as the essence of its determination, as this determination’s ownpositive nature. For the determination that constitutes the negative of theuniversal is in the concept simply and solely a positedness; essentially, inother words, it is at the same time the negative of the negative, and only


is as this self-identity of the negative which is the universal. To this extent,the universal is also the substance of its determinations, but in such a waythat what for the substance as such was an accident, is the concept’s own12.35self mediation, its own immanent reflection. But this mediation, which firstraises the accidental to necessity, is the manifested reference; the concept isnot the abyss of formless substance, or the necessity which is the inner iden-tity of things or circumstances different from each other and reciprocallyconstricting; rather, as absolute negativity, it is the informing and creativeprinciple, and since the determination is not as limitation but is just asmuch simply sublated as determination, is positedness, so is the reflectiveshine the appearance as appearance of the identical.

The universal is therefore free power; it is itself while reaching out to itsother and embracing it, but without doing violence to it; on the contrary,it is at rest in its other as in its own. Just as it has been called free power, itcould also be called free love and boundless blessedness, for it relates to thatwhich is distinct from it as to itself; in it, it has returned to itself.

Mention has just been made of determinateness, even though the concepthas not yet progressed to it, being at first only as the universal and only self-identical. But one cannot speak of the universal apart from determinatenesswhich, to be more precise, is particularity and singularity. For in its absolutenegativity the universal contains determinateness in and for itself, so that,when speaking of determinateness in connection with the universal, thedeterminateness is not being imported into the latter from outside. Asnegativity in general, that is, according to the first immediate negation, theuniversal has determinateness in it above all as particularity; as a seconduniversal, as the negation of negation, it is absolute determinateness, thatis, singularity and concreteness. – The universal is thus the totality of theconcept; it is what is concrete, is not empty but, on the contrary, has contentby virtue of its concept – a content in which the universal does not justpreserve itself but is rather the universal’s own, immanent to it. It is ofcourse possible to abstract from this content, but what we have then is notthe universal element of the concept but the abstract universal, which is anisolated and imperfect moment of the concept, void of truth.

More precisely, the universal shows itself to be this totality as follows.In so far as the universal possesses determinateness, this determinatenessis not only the first negation but also the reflection of this negation intoitself. According to that first negation, taken by itself, the universal is aparticular, and in this guise we shall consider it in a moment. In the otherdeterminateness, however, the universal is still essentially universal, andthis side we have here still to consider. – For this determinateness, as it

The concept 533

is in the concept, is the total reflection – a doubly reflective shine, bothoutwards, as reflection into the other, and inwards, as reflection into itself.The outward shining establishes a distinction with respect to an other; theuniversal accordingly takes on a particularity which is resolved in a higher 12.36universality. Inasmuch as it now is also only a relative universal, it does notlose its character of universality; it preserves itself in its determinateness,not just because it remains indifferent to it – for then it would be onlyposited together with it – but because of what has just been called the inwardshining. The determinateness, as determinate concept, is bent back into itself;it is the concept’s own immanent character, a character made essential bybeing taken up into the universality and by being pervaded by it, just asit pervades it in turn, equal in extension and identical with it. This isthe character that belongs to the genus as the determinateness which isnot separated from the universal. To this extent, it is not an outwardlydirected limitation, but is positive, for by virtue of the universality it standsin free self-reference. Thus even the determinate concept remains in itselfinfinitely free concept.

But in regard to the other side in which the genus is limited because ofits determinate character, we have just said that, as a lower genus, it hasits resolution in a higher universal. This universal can also be grasped asa genus but as a more abstract one; it always pertains, however, only tothe side of the determinate concept which is outwardly directed. The trulyhigher universal is the one in which this outwardly directed side is redirectedinwardly; this is the second negation in which the determinateness is presentsimply and solely as something posited, or as reflective shine. Life, the “I,”spirit, absolute concept, are not universals only as higher genera, but arerather concretes whose determinacies are also not mere species or lowergenera but determinacies which, in their reality, are self-contained and self-complete. Of course, life, the “I,” finite spirit, are also only determinateconcepts. To this extent, however, their resolution is in a universal which,as the truly absolute concept, is to be grasped as the idea of infinite spirit –the spirit whose posited being is the infinite, transparent reality in which itcontemplates its creation and, in this creation, itself.

The true, infinite universal, the one which, immediately in itself, is justas much particularity as singularity, is now to be more closely examinedas particularity. It determines itself freely; the process by which it becomesfinite is not a transition, the kind that occurs only in the sphere of being;it is creative power as self-referring absolute negativity. As such, it differen-tiates itself internally, and this is a determining, because the differentiatingis one with the universality. Accordingly, it is a positing of differences


that are themselves universals, self-referring. They become thereby fixed,isolated differences. The isolated subsistence of the finite that was earlierdetermined32 as its being-for-itself, also as thinghood, as substance, is in12.37its truth universality, the form with which the infinite concept clothes itsdifferences – a form which is equally itself one of its differences. Hereinconsists the creativity of the concept, a creativity which is to be compre-hended only in the concept’s innermost core.

b. the particular concept

Determinateness as such belongs to being and the qualitative; as the deter-minateness of the concept, it is particularity. It is not a limit, as if it wererelated to an other beyond it, but is rather, as just shown, the universal’sown immanent moment; in particularity, therefore, the universal is not inan other but simply and solely with itself.

The particular contains the universality that constitutes its substance;the genus is unaltered in its species; these do not differ from the uni-versal but only from each other. The particular has one and the sameuniversality as the other particulars to which it is related. The diversityof these particulars, because of their identity with the universal, is assuch at the same time universal; it is totality. – The particular, there-fore, does not only contain the universal but exhibits it also through itsdeterminateness; accordingly the universal constitutes a sphere that the par-ticular must exhaust. This totality, inasmuch as the determinateness ofthe particular is taken as mere diversity, appears as completeness. In thisrespect, the species are complete simply in so far as there are no moreof them. There is no inner standard or principle available for them, fortheir diversity is just the dispersed33 difference for which the universality,which is for itself absolute unity, is a merely external reflex and an uncon-strained, contingent completeness. But diversity passes over into opposition,into an immanent connection of diverse moments. Particularity, however,because it is universality, is this immanent connection, not by virtue ofa transition, but in and for itself. It is totality intrinsically, and simpledeterminateness, essential principle. It has no other determinateness thanthat posited by the universal itself and resulting from it in the followingmanner.

The particular is the universal itself, but it is its difference or reference12.38to an other, its outwardly reflecting shine; but there is no other at hand from

32 Cf. above, 11.327ff., the various shapes of “appearance.” 33 Einheitslose.

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which the particular would be differentiated than the universal itself. – Theuniversal determines itself, and so is itself the particular; the determinatenessis its difference; it is only differentiated from itself. Its species are thereforeonly (a) the universal itself and (b) the particular. The universal is as conceptitself and its opposite, and this opposite is in turn the universal itself asits posited determinateness; the universal overreaches it and, in it, it iswith itself. Thus it is the totality and the principle of its diversity, which isdetermined wholly and solely through itself.

There is, therefore, no other true logical division than this, that theconcept sets itself on one side as the immediate, indeterminate universality;it is this very indeterminateness that makes its determinateness, or that itis a particular. The two are both a particular and are therefore coordinated.Both, as particular, are also determinate as against the universal, and inthis sense they are subordinated to it. But even this universal, as againstwhich the particular is determined, is for that reason itself also just oneof the opposing sides. When we speak of two opposing sides, we mustrepeat that the two constitute the particular, not just together, as if theywere alike in being particular only for external reflection, but becausetheir determinateness over against each other is at the same time essentiallyonly one determinateness; it is the negativity which in the universal issimple.

Difference, as it presents itself here, is in its concept and therefore inits truth. All previous difference has this unity in the concept. As it ispresent immediately in being, difference is the limit of an other; as presentin reflection, it is relative, posited as referring essentially to its other; here iswhere the unity of the concept thus begins to be posited; at first, however,the unity is only a reflective shine in an other. – The true significance of thetransitoriness and the dissolution of these determinations is just this, thatthey attain to their concept, to their truth; being, existence, something, orwhole and part, and so on, substance and accidents, cause and effect, arethought determinations on their own; as determinate concepts, however,they are grasped in so far as each is cognized in unity with its others orin opposition to them. – Whole and parts, for example, or cause andeffect, and so on, are not yet diverse terms that are determined as particularrelatively to each other, for although they implicitly constitute one concept,their unity has not yet attained the form of universality; thus the differenceas well which is in these relations, does not yet have the form of beingone determinateness. Cause and effect, for example, are not two diverseconcepts but only one determinate concept, and causality is, like everyconcept, a simple concept. 12.39


With respect to completeness, we have just seen that the determinatemoment34 of particularity is complete in the difference of the universal andthe particular, and that only these two make up the particular species. Tobe sure, there are more than two species to be found in any genus in nature,and these many species cannot stand in the same relation to each other aswe have shown. This is the impotence of nature, that it cannot abide byand exhibit the rigor of the concept and loses itself in a blind manifoldnessvoid of concept. We can wonder at nature, at the manifoldness of its generaand species, in the infinite diversity of its shapes, for wonder is withoutconcept and its object is the irrational. It is allowed to nature, since natureis the self-externality of the concept, to indulge in this diversity, just asspirit, even though it possesses the concept in the shape of concept, letsitself go into pictorial representation and runs wild in the infinite mani-foldness of the latter. The manifold genera and species of nature must notbe esteemed to be anything more than arbitrary notions of spirit engagedin pictorial representations. Both indeed show traces and intimations ofthe concept, but they do not exhibit it in trustworthy copy, for they are thesides of its free self-externality; the concept is the absolute power preciselybecause it can let its difference go free in the shape of self-subsistent diver-sity, external necessity, accidentality, arbitrariness, opinion – all of which,however, must not be taken as anything more than the abstract side ofnothingness.

As we have just seen, the determinateness of the particular is simple asprinciple, but it is also simple as a moment of the totality, determinatenessas against the other determinateness. The concept, in determining or dif-ferentiating itself, behaves negatively towards its unity and gives itself theform of one of its ideal moments of being; as a determinate concept, it hasa determinate existence in general. But this being no longer has the signifi-cance of mere immediacy, but has the significance rather of an immediacywhich is equal to itself by virtue of absolute mediation, an immediacy thatequally contains in itself the other moment of essence or of reflection. Thisuniversality, with which the determinate clothes itself, is abstract univer-sality. The particular has this universality in it as its essence; but in so faras the determinateness of the difference is posited and thereby has being,the universality is form in it, and the determinateness as such is its con-tent. Universality becomes form inasmuch as the difference is somethingessential, just as in the pure universal it is, on the contrary, only absolutenegativity and not a difference posited as such.

34 das Bestimmte.

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Now the determinateness is indeed an abstraction, as against the otherdeterminateness; but the other determinateness is only universality itself,and this too is therefore abstract universality; and the determinateness 12.40of the concept, or particularity, is again nothing more than determinateuniversality. In this universality, the concept is outside itself, and because it isit, the concept, which is there outside itself, the abstract-universal contains allthe moments of the concept. It is (�) universality, (�) determinateness, (�)the simple unity of the two; but this unity is immediate, and the particularityis not therefore as totality. Implicitly it is this totality also, and mediation;it is essentially a reference to the other excluding it, or the sublation ofnegation, namely of the other determinateness – an other that lingers ononly as an intention, for it vanishes immediately revealing itself to be thesame as its other is supposed to be. Therefore, what makes this universalityan abstraction is that the mediation is only a condition, or is not positedin it. Because it is not posited, the unity of the abstraction has the form ofimmediacy, and the content has the form of indifference to its universality,for the content is nothing but this totality which is the universality ofabsolute negativity. Hence the abstract universal is indeed the concept, butthe unconceptualized concept, the concept not posited as such.

When we speak of the determinate concept, what we ordinarily mean isprecisely just this abstract universal. Even by concept as such, what is gener-ally understood is only this unconceptualized concept, and the understand-ing is designated as its faculty. Demonstration belongs to this understandinginasmuch as it proceeds by way of concepts, that is to say, only in deter-minations. This progression by way of concepts does not therefore reachpast finitude and necessity; the highest it reaches is the negative infinite,the abstraction of the highest essence which is itself the determinatenessof the indeterminateness. Absolute substance, too, although not this emptyabstraction but on the contrary a totality according to content, is stillabstract, for since it is without absolute form, its innermost truth is notconstituted by the concept; although it is the identity of universality andparticularity, or of thought and externality, this identity is not the deter-minateness of the concept; there is rather an understanding outside it – anunderstanding which is contingent precisely because it is outside it – inwhich and for which substance exists in diverse attributes and modes.

Moreover, abstraction is not as empty as it is usually said to be; it is thedeterminate concept; it has some determinateness or other for its content;the highest essence also, the pure abstraction, has the determinateness ofindeterminateness, as just mentioned; but indeterminateness is a determi-nateness because it is supposed to stand opposite the determinate. But the 12.41


moment one says what it is, its intended meaning sublates itself by itself;for it is spoken of on a par with determinateness, and from this abstractionthe concept and its truth are brought out. – To be sure, any determinateconcept is empty in so far as it does not contain the totality, but only aone-sided determinateness. Even when it has otherwise concrete contentsuch as, for instance, humankind, the state, animal, etc., it remains anempty concept inasmuch as its determinateness is not the principle of itsdifferentiation; the principle contains the beginning and the essence of itsdevelopment and realization; any other determinateness of the concept ishowever otiose. To reproach the concept as such for being empty is toignore its absolute determinateness which is the difference of the conceptand the only true content in the element of the concept.

Here we have the circumstance that explains why the understandingis nowadays held in such a low repute and is so much discredited whenmeasured against reason;35 it is the fixity which it imparts to determinaciesand consequently to anything finite. This fixity consists in the form ofthe abstract universality just considered that makes them unalterable. Forqualitative determinateness, and also the determination of reflection, areessentially limited, and because of their limitation they entail a referenceto their other; hence the necessity of their transition and passing away. Butthe universality which they possess in the understanding gives them theform of immanent reflection and, because this form removes from themthe reference to the other, they have become unalterable. Now althoughthis eternity belongs to the pure concept by nature, the determinationsof the concept are eternal essentialities only according to form; but theircontent is not proportionate to this form and, therefore, they are not truth,or imperishable. Their content is not proportionate to the form because itis not the determinateness itself as universal, that is, not as totality of thedifference of the concept, or is not itself the whole form; the form of thelimited understanding is for this reason itself imperfect universality, that isto say, abstract universality. – But further, we must pay due respect to theinfinite force of the understanding in splitting the concrete into abstract

35 This is the position that Jacobi forcefully defended in 1815, in the Preface to the second edition of hisdialogue David Hume which was intended to serve also as the Introduction to his collected works.Here is one representative passage: “We assert that the faculty of feelings is the one that is exaltedabove all others in man. It is this faculty alone that distinguishes him from all animals in species,and incomparably elevates him above them, i.e. in kind, and not just in degree. We assert thatthis faculty is one and the same as reason . . . As the senses direct the understanding to sensation,so reason directs it to feeling. The representations of what we are directed to only in feeling wecall ideas.” Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s Werke, Vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1815), p. 61. English trans., The MainPhilosophical Works, p. 564.

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determinacies and plumbing the depth of the difference – this force whichalone is at the same time the mighty power causing the transition ofthe determinacies. The concrete of intuition is a totality, but a sensuoustotality, a real material that subsists in space and time, part outside part,each indifferent to the other; surely this lack of unity in a manifold thatmakes it the content of intuition ought not to be credited as privileging itover the universal of the understanding. The mutability that the manifoldexhibits in intuition already points to the universal; but all of the manifoldthat comes to intuition is just more of the same, an equally alterable other –not the universal that one would expect to appear and take its place. But 12.42least of all should we reckon to the credit of such sciences as for exampleGeometry and Arithmetic that their material carries an intuitive elementwith it, or imagine that their propositions are grounded by it. On thecontrary, the presence of that element renders the material of these sciencesof an inferior nature; the intuition of figures or numbers is of no help tothe science of figures and numbers; only the thought of them produces thisscience. – But if by intuition we understand not merely a sensuous materialbut the objective totality, then the intuition is an intellectual one, that is,its subject matter is not existence in its externalization but that elementin existence which is unalterable reality and truth – the reality only in sofar as it is essentially in the concept and is determined by it; the idea, ofwhose more precise nature more will be said later. What intuition as suchis supposed to have over the concept is external reality, the reality that lacksthe concept and receives value only through the concept.

Consequently, since the understanding exhibits the infinite force thatdetermines the universal, or conversely, since it is the understanding thatthrough the form of universality imparts stable subsistence to the otherwiseinherent instability of determinateness, then it is not the fault of theunderstanding if there is no further advance. It is a subjective impotence ofreason that allows these determinacies to remain so dispersed, and is unableto bring them back to their unity through the dialectical force opposedto that abstract universality, that is to say, through the determinacies’ ownnature which is their concept. To be sure, the understanding does givethem through the form of abstract universality a rigidity of being, so tospeak, which they do not otherwise possess in the qualitative sphere and inthe sphere of reflection; but by thus simplifying them, the understandingat the same time quickens them with spirit, and it so sharpens them thatonly at that point, only there, do they also obtain the capacity to dissolvethemselves and to pass over into their opposite. The ripest maturity, thehighest stage, that anything can attain is the one at which its fall begins.


The fixity of the determinacies which the understanding appears to run upagainst, the form of the imperishable, is that of self-referring universality.But this universality belongs to the concept as its own, and for this reasonwhat is found expressed in it, infinitely close at hand, is the dissolution ofthe finite. This universality directly contradicts the determinateness of thefinite and makes explicit its disproportion with respect to it. – Or rather,that disproportion is already at hand; the abstract determinate is posited asone with universality and, for this reason, not for itself (for it would thenbe only a determinate) but, on the contrary, only as the unity of itself andthe universal, that is, as concept.

Therefore the common practice of separating understanding and reasonis to be rejected on all counts. On the contrary, to consider the conceptas void of reason should itself be considered as an incapacity of reason to12.43recognize itself in the concept. The determinate and abstract concept isthe condition, or rather an essential moment, of reason; it is form quickenedby spirit in which the finite, through the universality in which it refersto itself, is internally kindled, is posited as dialectical and thereby is thebeginning of the appearance of reason.

Since in the foregoing the determinate concept has been presented in itstruth, it is only left to indicate what, as so presented, it has already beenposited as. – Difference, which is an essential moment of the concept butin the pure universal is not yet posited as such, receives its due in the deter-minate concept. Determinateness in the form of universality is united withthe latter to form a simple; determinate universality is self-referring deter-minateness, determinate determinateness or absolute negativity posited foritself. But self-referring determinateness is singularity. Just as universalityimmediately is particularity in and for itself, no less immediately is par-ticularity also singularity in and for itself; this singularity is at first to beregarded as the third moment of the concept, inasmuch as it is held fastin opposition to the other two, but also as the absolute turning back of theconcept into itself, and at the same time as the posited loss of itself.

RemarkUniversality, particularity, and singularity are, according to the forego-ing, the three determinate concepts, that is, if one wants to count them.We have already shown that number is a form unsuited to conceptualdeterminations,36 but for the determination of the concept itself it isunsuited the most; number, since the unit is its principle, turns the counted

36 Cf. GW 11, 129–130; above 21.203ff.

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into totally separated units indifferent to each other. We have seen from theforegoing that the diverse determinate concepts, rather than falling apartas they do when counted, are only one and the same concept.

In the customary treatment of logic, a variety of classifications and speciesof concepts are adduced. It immediately strikes one as inconsequentialthat the species are introduced in this way: “There are, as regards quality,quantity, etc., the following concepts.” The “there are” conveys no otherjustification than that we find the named species and that they show upin experience. What we have in this manner is an empirical logic – an oddscience indeed, an irrational cognition of the rational. In this the logic sets avery bad precedent for compliance to its own teaching; it allows itself to dothe opposite of what it prescribes as a rule, namely, that concepts should be 12.44derived, and scientific propositions (therefore also the proposition: “Thereare such and such species of concepts”) demonstrated. – In this context,the Kantian philosophy incurs a further inconsequence by borrowing thecategories for the transcendental logic, as so-called root concepts, from thesubjective logic where they were assumed empirically.37 Since the Kantianphilosophy admits the latter fact, it is hard to see why transcendental logicresorts to borrowing from such a science rather than directly helping itselffrom experience.

By way of example, concepts are normally classified according to theirclarity, namely, as clear and obscure, distinct and indistinct, adequate andinadequate. We can also add to the list perfect and redundant and othersuchlike superfluities. – Now as regards this classification according toclarity, it immediately transpires that this standpoint and its connected dis-tinctions are taken from psychological and not logical determinations. Theso-called clear concept is supposed to be one that suffices to differentiateone intended object from another. But this cannot be called a concept yet;it is nothing more than a subjective representation. What an obscure conceptmight be must be left to itself, for otherwise it would not be obscure buta distinct concept. – The distinct concept is supposed to be one whosemark can be given. But then it is, strictly speaking, the determinate concept.The mark, when taken in its strict signification, is nothing else than thedeterminateness or the simple content of the concept in so far as the latter isdistinguished from the form of universality. But the mark does not quitehave at first this more precise meaning; it is generally taken as only a deter-mination by which a third party takes note of a subject matter or of theconcept; it can therefore be a very contingent circumstance. It expresses in

37 Cf. A80–81/B106–107.


general not so much the immanence and essentiality of a determination asits reference to an external understanding. If the latter really is an under-standing, then it has the concept before it and makes a note of it by nothingelse than by what is in the concept itself. In case the mark is different from theconcept, then the mark is a sign or some other determination that belongsto the representation of the matter at hand, not to its concept. – What anindistinct concept might be, this can be passed over as superfluous.

But the adequate concept is something higher; it properly denotes theagreement of the concept with reality, and this is not the concept as suchbut the idea.12.45

If the mark of a distinct concept were really to be the determinationitself of the concept, then logic would have trouble with the simple conceptwhich, according to another classification, is opposed to the composite.For if for a simple concept a true, that is, immanent mark is given, thenthe concept is no longer regarded as simple; and if no mark is given forit, then the concept is not distinct. But the clear concept now comes tothe rescue. Unity, reality, and suchlike determinations, are supposed to besimple concepts, perhaps because logicians were unable to come up with adetermination for them and had to be content, therefore, with just a clearconcept of them, that is to say, with no concept at all. A definition, thatis, the statement of a concept, requires as a general rule the statement ofgenus and specific difference. It thus presents the concept, not as somethingsimple, but in two enumerable components. Yet surely nobody will supposethat the concept is for that reason a composite. – There is an allusion in themention of the simple concept to abstract simplicity, to a unity that doesnot entail difference and determinateness – a unity, therefore, that does notpertain to the concept. Inasmuch as an object is present in representation,especially in memory, or is also an abstract thought determination, it canbe quite simple. Even the object that is richest in content, as for examplespirit, nature, world, even God, when non-conceptually apprehended ina simple representation of the equally simple expression: spirit, nature,world, God, is of course something simple at which consciousness can stopshort without proceeding to extract the proper determination or a definingmark. But the objects of consciousness ought not to remain so simple,ought not to remain representations or abstract thought determinations,but should rather become conceptualized, that is, their simplicity shouldbe determined together with their inner difference. – A composite concept,however, is but the equivalent of a wooden iron. We can of course have theconcept of a composition; but a composite concept would be somethingworse than materialism, which assumes only the substance of the soul to be

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a composite, yet takes thought to be simple. The uneducated reflection firststumbles upon the notion of composition because it is the most completelyexternal connection, the worst form in which things can be considered; eventhe lowest of natures must be an inner unity. That, to top it off, this formof untruest existence would be extended to the “I,” to the concept, is morethan one should have expected and it must be regarded as an inept formof barbarism.

Concepts are further divided into contrary and contradictory, a principaldivision. – If the task of a treatise on the concept were to give all the 12.46determinate concepts that there are, then we would have to cite all possibledeterminations – for all determinations are concepts, hence determinateconcepts – and we would have to list as species of concepts all the categoriesof being as well as all the determinations of essence. And this is what is donein the textbooks on logic, where we are told – in greater or lesser detail,according to the whim of the author – that there are affirmative, negative,identical, conditional, necessary concepts. But these determinations havealready been left behind by the nature of the concept itself and are thereforemisplaced when applied to the concept itself, thus admitting only the kindof superficial nominal definitions that are of no interest here. – The under-lying basis of the distinction between contrary and contradictory conceptswith which we are specifically dealing here is the reflective determinationof diversity and opposition. They are viewed as two particular species, eachfixed for itself and indifferent towards the other, without any thought beinggiven to the dialectic and the inner nothingness of these differences, as ifthat which is contrary would not equally have to be determined as contra-dictory. The nature and the transition essential to the forms of reflectionwhich they express have been considered in their proper place.38 In theconcept, identity has developed into universality, difference into particu-larity, opposition (which returns to the ground) into singularity. In theseforms, those determinations of reflection are present as they are in theirconcept. The universal has proved itself to be not only the identical, butat the same time the diverse or contrary as against the particular and thesingular, and then also to be opposed to them, or contradictory; but in thisopposition it is identical with them, and it is their true ground in whichthey are sublated. The same applies to particularity and singularity, whichare likewise the totality of the determinations of reflection.

Concepts are further divided into subordinate and coordinate – a distinc-tion that comes closer to a determination of the concept, namely that of

38 Cf. above, 11.267–278.


the relation of universality and particularity, in the context of which we didmention them albeit incidentally.39 But it is customary to consider themlike the rest as rigidly fixed relations, and then to produce several otiosepropositions regarding them. The most long-winded disquisition in thisregard has to do again with the connection of contrariety and contradictionwith subordination and coordination. Since judgment is the connection ofdeterminate concepts, the true relation will have to come first into view onlywith reference to it. That fashion of comparing these determinations with-out a thought to their dialectic and to the continuing alteration of theirdetermination, or rather to the conjunction in them of opposite determina-tions, makes the whole disquisition of what may or may not be consonant in12.47them – as if this consonance or dissonance were something separate by itselfand permanent – into an otiose exercise void of content. – The great Euler,infinitely fertile and sharp of mind in detecting and arranging the deeprelations of algebraic quantities,40 the dry, prosaic Lambert in particular,41

and others, have attempted to construct a notation for this class of relationsbetween determinations of the concept based on lines, figures, and the like,the general intention being to elevate – or in fact rather to debase – thelogical modes of relation to the status of a calculus. One need only comparethe nature of a sign with what the sign ought to indicate immediately tosee that even the project of a logical notation is unworkable. The determi-nations of the concept, universality, particularity, and singularity, certainlyare, like lines or the letters of algebra, diverse; and they are also opposedand allow, therefore, the signs of plus and minus. But they themselves andespecially their connections, even if we stop short at just subsumption andinherence, are in their essential nature entirely different from algebraic let-ters, from lines and their connections, from the equality and diversity ofmagnitudes, the plus and minus, or the superimposition of lines, or thejoining of them in angles and the resulting disposition of space that theyenclose. It is characteristic of objects of this kind, as contrasted with thedeterminations of the concept, that they are mutually external, that theyhave a fixed determination. Now when concepts are made to conform tosuch signs, they cease to be concepts. Their determinations are not inertthings, like numbers and lines whose connections lie outside them; they

39 Cf above, 12.38.40 See Leonhard Euler, Lettres a une princesse allemande sur divers sujets de physique et de philosophie

(Leipzig: Dyck, 1792–4), Letters 52–55.41 See Johann Heinrich Lambert, Neues Organon oder Gedanken uber die Erforschung und Bezeichnung

des Wahren und dessen Unterscheidung vom Irrtum und Schein, Vol. 1 (Berlin: Akademie, 1990),§229f.

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are living movements; the distinguished determinateness of the one side isimmediately also internal to the other side; what would be a completecontradiction for numbers and lines is essential to the nature of theconcept. – The higher mathematics, which also proceeds to the infiniteand allows itself contradictions, can no longer employ its customary signsfor representing such determinations. In order to indicate the still concep-tually uncomprehended representation of the infinite approximation of twoordinates, or when it equates a curve to an infinite number of infinitelysmall straight lines, all it does is to design two straight lines outside eachother or to draw straight lines inside but still distinct from a curve; for theinfinite, which is the point at issue here, higher mathematics falls back onpictorial representation.

What first led to this wayward attempt is above all the quantitativerelation in which universality, particularity, and singularity are supposedto stand to one another: universal means, more extensive than particular 12.48and singular; and particular, more extensive than singular. The conceptis concrete and the richest in determination, because it is the ground andthe totality of the previous determinations, of the categories of being andthe determinations of reflection; these, therefore, are certain also to comeup in it. But its nature is totally misunderstood if such determinations areretained in it in their former abstraction – if the wider extent of the universalis understood to mean that the universal is a more, or a greater quantum,than the particular and the singular. As absolute ground, it is the possibilityof quantity, but no less so of quality, that is, its determinations are no lessqualitatively distinct; therefore they are already viewed in contravention totheir truth when they are posited in the form of quantity alone. So, too,a reflective determination is a relative, something in which the oppositeshines reflectively; unlike a quantum, its relation is not external. But theconcept is more than all this; its determinations are determinate concepts,themselves essentially the totality of all determinations. It is, therefore,entirely inappropriate, in order to grasp such an inner totality, to want toapply numerical and spatial relations in which the terms fall apart; suchrelations are rather the last and the worst medium that could be used.Natural relations, as for instance “magnetism” or “color tonality” wouldmake infinitely higher and truer symbols for the purpose. Since the humanbeing has in language a means of designation that is appropriate to reason,it is otiose to look for a less perfect means of representation to bother oneselfwith. It is essentially only spirit that can grasp the concept as concept, forthe latter is not just the property of spirit but its pure self. It is futile towant to fix it by means of spatial figures and algebraic signs for the sake


of the outer eye and a non-conceptual, mechanical manipulation, such as acalculus. Also anything else that might be supposed to serve as symbol, likethe symbols for the nature of God, can at best elicit only intimations andechoes of the concept; if, however, one insists on employing such symbolsfor expressing and cognizing the concept, then it is not their external naturewhich is fit for the task; the reverse relation applies, namely that what in thesymbols is the echo of a higher determination is recognized to be such onlyby virtue of the concept, and it is only by shedding the sensuous standbysthat were supposed to express it that one comes closer to the concept.12.49

c. the singular

Singularity, as we have seen,42 is already posited through particularity; thisis determinate universality and hence self-referring determinateness, thedeterminate determinate.

1. At first, therefore, singularity appears as the reflection of the concept outof its determinateness into itself. It is the concept’s self-mediation by virtue ofwhich, since its otherness has once more been made into an other, it restoresitself as self-equal, but in the determination of absolute negativity. – Thenegative in the universal, by virtue of which this universal is a particular,was earlier determined as a doubly reflective shine.43 In so far as the reflectiveshining is inward, the particular remains a universal; through the outwardshining, it is a determinate particular; the turning back of this side into theuniversal is twofold, either by virtue of an abstraction that lets the particularfall away and climbs to a higher and the highest genus, or by virtue of thesingularity to which the universality in the determinateness itself descends. –Here is where the false start is made that makes abstraction stray awayfrom the way of the concept, abandoning the truth. Its higher and highestuniversal to which it rises is only a surface that becomes progressively morevoid of content; the singularity which it scorns is the depth in which theconcept grasps itself and where it is posited as concept.

Universality and particularity appeared, on the one hand, as moments ofthe becoming of singularity. But it has already been shown that the two arein themselves the total concept; consequently, that in singularity they donot pass over into an other but that, on the contrary, what is posited in it iswhat they are in and for themselves.44 The universal is for itself because itis absolute mediation in itself, self-reference only as absolute negativity. Itis an abstract universal inasmuch as this sublating is an external act and so

42 Cf. above, 12.43. 43 Cf. above, 12.35. 44 Cf. above, 12.35, 37.

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a dropping off of the determinateness. This negativity, therefore, attachesindeed to the abstract universal, but it remains outside it, as a mere conditionof it; it is the abstraction itself that holds its universal opposite it, and so theuniversal does not have singularity in itself and remains void of concept. –Life, spirit, God, as well as the pure concept, are for this reason beyondthe grasp of abstraction, for abstraction keeps singularity away from itsproducts, and singularity is the principle of individuality and personality.And so it comes to nothing but lifeless universalities, void of spirit, color,and content.

But the unity of the concept is so indissoluble that these products ofabstraction also, though they are supposed to drop singularity, are rather 12.50themselves singulars. For in elevating the concrete to universality, abstrac-tion grasps the universal as only a determinate universality, and this isprecisely the singularity that presented itself as self-referring determinate-ness. Thus abstraction is a partitioning of the concrete and an isolating of itsdeterminations; only singular properties or moments are picked out by it,for its product must contain what it itself is. But the difference between thissingularity of its products and the singularity of the concept is that in theformer the singular and the universal differ from each other as content andform respectively, precisely because the content is not the absolute form, isnot the concept itself, or this form is not the totality of form. – However,this closer consideration shows that the product of abstraction is itself theunity of the singular content and of abstract universality, therefore that itis something concrete, the opposite of what it is supposed to be.

The particular, for the same reason that makes it only a determinate uni-versal, is also a singular, and conversely, because the singular is a determinateuniversal, it is equally a particular. If we stay at this abstract determinate-ness, then the concept has the three particular determinations of universal,particular, and singular, whereas earlier we gave only the universal and theparticular as species of the particular. Because singularity is the turning ofthe concept as a negative back to itself, this turning back from abstraction,which in the turning is truly sublated, can itself be placed as an indifferentmoment alongside the others and be counted with them.

If singularity is listed as one of the particular determinations of theconcept, then particularity is the totality which embraces them all and,precisely as this totality, it is the concretion of the determinations or singu-larity itself. But it is a concrete also according to the previously mentionedside, as determinate universality; and then it is the immediate unity inwhich none of these moments is posited as distinct or as the determinant,and in this form it will constitute the middle term of the formal syllogism.


It follows that each of the determinations established in the precedingexposition of the concept has immediately dissolved itself and has lostitself in its other. Each distinction is confounded in the course of the veryreflection that should isolate it and hold it fixed. Only a way of thinking thatis merely representational, for which abstraction has isolated them, is capableof holding the universal, the particular, and the singular rigidly apart. Thenthey can be counted; and for a further distinction this representation relieson one which is entirely external to being, on their quantity, and nowhereis such a distinction as inappropriate as here. – In singularity, the earliertrue relation, the inseparability of the determinations of the concept, isposited; for as the negation of negation, singularity contains the opposition12.51of those determinations and this opposition itself at its ground or the unitywhere the determinations have come together, each in the other. Becausein this reflection universality is in and for itself, singularity is essentiallythe negativity of the determinations of the concept, but not merely as if itstood as a third something distinct from them, but because what is nowposited is that positedness is being-in-and-for-itself; that is, what is posited isthat each of the distinct determinations is the totality. The turning back ofthe determinate concept into itself means that its determination is to be inits determinateness the whole concept.

2. Singularity is not, however, only the turning back of the concept intoitself, but the immediate loss of it. Through singularity, where it is inter-nal to itself, the concept becomes external to itself and steps into actuality.Abstraction, which is the soul of singularity and so the self-reference of thenegative, is, as we have seen,45 nothing external to the universal and the par-ticular but is immanent in them, and these are concreted through it, theybecome a content, a singular. But, as this negativity, singularity is the deter-minate determinateness, differentiation as such, and through this reflectionof the difference into itself, the difference becomes fixed; the determiningof the particular occurs only by virtue of singularity, for singularity is thatabstraction which, precisely as singularity, is now posited abstraction.

The singular, therefore, is as self-referring negativity the immediate iden-tity of the negative with itself; it exists for itself. Or it is the abstractiondetermining the concept as an immediate, according to its ideal moment ofbeing. – Thus the singular is a one which is qualitative, or a this. In accor-dance with this qualitative character, it is, first, the repulsion of itself fromitself by virtue of which many other ones are presupposed; second, it is nowa negative reference with respect to these presupposed others, and to this

45 i.e., just above, 12.49–50.

The concept 549

extent the singular is exclusive. Universality, when referred to these singularsas indifferent ones – and it must be referred to them, for they are a momentof the concept of singularity – is only their commonality. If by the universalone understands that which is common to several singulars, the indifferentsubsistence of these singulars is then taken as the starting point, thus mixingin the immediacy of being into the determination of the concept. The low-est conception one can have of the universal as connected with the singularis this external relation that it has to the latter as a mere commonality.

The singular, which in the reflective sphere of concrete existence is as athis, does not have the excluding reference to the other that is characteristic 12.52of qualitative being-for-itself. A this is a one reflected into itself, withoutrepulsion; or the repulsion is in this reflection one with abstraction, areflective mediation present in the this that makes it a posited immediacypointed at by someone external to it. The this is; it is immediate, it is athis, however, only in so far as it is pointed at. This “pointing at” is thereflective movement that takes hold of itself and posits the immediacy, butas something external to itself. – Now the singular surely is also a this,as an immediate which is the result of mediation, but does not have thismediation outside it; it is itself repelling separation, posited abstraction, yetis, precisely in its separation, a positive connection.

This act of abstraction by the singular is, as the immanent reflectionof difference, the first positing of the differences as self-subsisting, reflectedinto themselves. They exist immediately; but, further, this separating isreflection in general, the reflective shining of one in the other; the differencesthus stand in essential relation. They are, moreover, not singulars thatjust exist next to each other; a plurality of this kind belongs to being; thesingularity that posits itself as determinate does not posit itself in an externaldifference but in a difference of the concept; singularity thus excludes theuniversal from itself, but since this universal is a moment of it, it refers toit just as essentially.

The concept, as this connection of its self-subsistent determinations, haslost itself, for the concept itself is no longer the posited unity of these deter-minations, and these no longer are moments, the reflective shining of theconcept, but subsist rather in and for themselves. – As singularity, the con-cept returns in determinateness into itself, and therewith the determinatehas itself become totality. The concept’s turning back into itself is thus theabsolute, originative partition of itself, that is, as singularity it is posited asjudgment.46

46 There is a play on words here: “partition” = Teilung; “judgment” = Urteil.

chapter 2

Judgment12.53

Judgment is the determinateness of the concept posited in the concept itself.The determinations of the concept, or, what amounts to the same thingas shown,47 the determinate concepts, have already been considered ontheir own; but this consideration was rather a subjective reflection or asubjective abstraction. But the concept is itself this act of abstracting;the positioning of its determinations over against each other is its owndetermining. Judgment is this positing of the determinate concepts throughthe concept itself.

Judging is therefore another function than conceiving; or rather, it is theother function of the concept, for it is the determining of the concept throughitself. The further progress of judgment into a diversity of judgments isthis progressive determination of the concept. What kind of determinateconcepts there are, and how they prove to be necessary determinations ofit – this has to be exhibited in judgment.

Judgment can therefore be called the first realization of the concept,for reality denotes in general the entry into existence as determinate being.More precisely, the nature of this realization has presented itself in sucha way that the moments of the concept are totalities which, on the onehand, subsist on their own through the concept’s immanent reflection orthrough its singularity; on the other hand, however, the unity of the conceptis their connection.48 The immanently reflected determinations are determi-nate totalities that exist just as essentially disconnected, indifferent to eachother, as mediated through each other. The determining itself is a totalityonly as containing these totalities and their connections. This totality is thejudgment. – The latter contains, therefore, the two self-subsistents whichgo under the name of subject and predicate. What each is cannot yet be said;they are still indeterminate, for they are to be determined only through thejudgment. Inasmuch as judgment is the concept as determinate, the only

47 Cf. above, 12.46. 48 Cf. above, 12.51.

550

Judgment 551

determination at hand is the difference that it contains between determinateand still indeterminate concept. As contrasted to the predicate, the subjectcan at first be taken, therefore, as the singular over against the universal, oralso as the particular over against the universal, or the singular over againstthe particular; so far, they stand to each other only as the more determinateand the more universal in general. 12.54

It is therefore fitting and unavoidable to have these names, “subject”and “predicate,” for the determinations of the judgment; as names, theyare something indeterminate, still in need of determination, and thereforenothing but names. It is partly for this reason that the determinationsthemselves of the concept could not be used for the two sides of judgment;but a still stronger reason is because of the nature of a concept determinationwhich is nothing abstract, nothing fixed, but contains its opposite in it,explicitly posited there; since the sides of the judgment are themselvesconcepts and therefore the totality of the determinations of the concept,each side must run through all these determinations, exhibiting themwithin whether in abstract or concrete form. But now, if in this altering ofdetermination we want to fix the two sides in some general way, names willbe the most useful means, for they can be kept the same throughout theprocess. – But a name remains distinct from the fact or the concept, and thisis a distinction that transpires within the judgment as such; since the subjectis in general the determinate term and more, therefore, of an immediateexistent, whereas the predicate expresses the universal, the essence or theconcept, the subject as such is at first only a kind of name; what it is, is firstenunciated only by the predicate which contains being in the sense of theconcept. When we ask, “What is this?,” or “What kind of plant is this?,”the being we are enquiring about is often just a name, and once we learnthis name, we are satisfied that we now know what the fact is. This is beingin the sense of the subject. The concept, however, or at least the essence andthe universal in general, is only given by the predicate, and when we ask forit, we do it in the sense of the judgment. – God, therefore, or spirit, nature,or what have you, is as the subject of a judgment only a name at first; whatany such subject is in accordance with the concept, is first found only inthe predicate. When we ask for the predicate that belongs to such subjects,the required judgment must be based on a concept that is presupposed; yetit is the predicate that first gives this concept. It is, therefore, the mererepresentation that in fact makes up the presupposed meaning, and thisyields only a nominal definition whereby it is a mere accident, a historicalfact, what is understood by a name. So many disputes about whether apredicate does or does not belong to a subject are, therefore, nothing more


than verbal disputes, for they proceed from this form; what lies at the base(subjectum, �� ) is still nothing more than a name.

Secondly, we now have to examine more closely how the connection ofsubject and predicate in judgment is determined, and how the two arethemselves thereby determined. Judgment has in general totalities for itssides, totalities that are at first essentially self-subsistent. The unity of the12.55concept is at first, therefore, only a connection of self-subsistent terms; it isnot yet the concrete, the fulfilled unity that has returned into itself from thisreality but is a unity rather outside which the two terms persist as extremesyet unsublated in it. – Now any consideration of the judgment can starteither from the originative unity of the concept or from the self-subsistenceof the extremes. Judgment is the self-diremption of the concept; therefore,it is by starting from the unity of the concept as ground that the judgment isconsidered in accordance with its true objectivity. In this respect, judgmentis the originative division (or Teilung, in German) of an originative unity; theGerman word for judgment, Urteil (or “primordial division”), thus refersto what judgment is in and for itself. But the concept is present in thejudgment as appearance, since its moments have attained self-subsistencethere, and it is to this side of externality that ordinary representation is morelikely to fasten.

From this subjective standpoint, the subject and the predicate are there-fore treated as ready-made, each for itself outside the other – the subject asa subject matter that would exist even if it did not have that predicate, andthe predicate as a universal determination that would exist even withoutaccruing to this subject. The act of judgment accordingly brings with itthe further reflection whether this or that predicate which is in someone’shead can and should be attached to the subject matter that exists outside iton its own; the judgment itself is simply the act that combines the predicatewith the subject, so that, if this combination did not occur, the subjectand predicate would still each remain what it is, the one concretely existingas thing in itself, the other as a representation in someone’s head. – Butthe predicate which is combined with the subject should also pertain to it,which is to say, should be in and for itself identical with it. The significanceof their being combined is that the subjective sense of judgment, and theindifferent external persistence of the subject and predicate, are again sub-lated. Thus in “this action is good,” the copula indicates that the predicatebelongs to the being of the subject and is not merely externally combinedwith it. Of course, grammatically speaking this kind of subjective relationthat proceeds from the indifferent externality of subject and predicate isperfectly valid, for it is words that are here externally combined. – It can also

Judgment 553

be mentioned in this context that a proposition can indeed have a subjectand predicate in a grammatical sense without however being a judgmentfor that. The latter requires that the predicate behave with respect to thesubject in a relation of conceptual determination, hence as a universal withrespect to a particular or singular. And if what is said of a singular sub-ject is itself only something singular, as for instance, “Aristotle died at theage of 73 in the fourth year of the 115th Olympiad,” then this is a mereproposition, not a judgment. There would be in it an element of judgmentonly if one of the circumstances, say, the date of death or the age of the 12.56philosopher, came into doubt even though the stated figures were assertedon the strength of some ground or other. In that case, the figures would betaken as something universal, as a time that, even without the determinatecontent of Aristotle’s death, would still stand on its own filled with someother content or simply empty. Likewise would the news that my friendN. has died be a proposition, and a judgment only if there were a questionas to whether he is actually dead and not just apparently dead.

In the usual definition of judgment, that it is the combination of twoconcepts, we may indeed accept the vague expression of “combination” forthe external copula, and also accept that the terms combined are at leastmeant to be concepts. But the definition is otherwise a highly superficialone. It is not just that in the disjunctive judgment, for instance, there aremore than two so-called concepts that are combined; more to the point israther that the definition is much better than the matter defined, for it is notdeterminations of concepts, but determinations of representation that are infact meant; it was remarked in connection with the concept in general, andwith the concept as determinate, that what usually goes under this nameof concept does not deserve the name at all;49 where should concepts thencome from in the case of judgment? – Above all this definition of judgmentignores what is essential to it, namely the difference of its determinations;still less does it take into account its relation to the concept.

As regards the further determination of the subject and predicate, wehave remarked above50 that it is in judgment that they must first receivetheir determination. But since judgment is the posited determinatenessof the concept, this determinateness possesses the given differences imme-diately and abstractly as singularity and universality. – But inasmuch asjudgment is in general the immediate existence or the otherness of the con-cept that has not yet restored itself to the unity through which it exists asconcept, there also emerges the determinateness that is void of concept,

49 Cf. above, 12.40. 50 Cf. above, 12.53, 54.


the opposition of being and reflection or the in-itself. But since the conceptconstitutes the essential ground of judgment, these determinacies are at leastindifferent in the sense that, when one accrues to the subject and the otherto the predicate, the converse relation equally holds. The subject, beingthe singular, appears at first as the existent or as the one that exists for itselfwith the determinate determinateness of a singular on which judgment ispassed – as an actual object even when it is such in representation only –as for instance in the case of bravery, right, agreement, etc. The predicate,which is the universal, appears on the contrary as the reflection of thisjudgment on that object, or rather as the object’s immanent reflection that12.57transcends the immediacy of the judgment and sublates its determinaciesas mere existents – appears, that is, as the object’s in-itselfness. – In this way,the start is made from the singular as the first, the immediate, and throughthe judgment this singular is raised to universality, just as, conversely, theuniversal that exists only in itself descends in the singular into existence orbecomes a being that exists for itself.

This significance of the judgment is to be taken as its objective meaningand at the same time as the true significance of the previous forms oftransition. The existent comes to be and becomes another, the finite passesover into the infinite and in it passes away; the existent comes forth intoappearance out of its ground and to this ground it founders; the accidentsmanifest the wealth of substance as well as its might; in being, there istransition into an other; in essence, there is the reflective shining in another that manifests the necessity of a connection. This transition and thisreflective shining have now passed over into the originative division of theconcept in judgment, and this division, in bringing the singular back to thein-itselfness of its universality, equally determines the universal as somethingactual. These two are one and the same – the positing of singularity in itsimmanent reflection and of the universal as determinate.

But equally pertaining to this objective meaning is that the said differ-ences, as they re-occur in the determinateness of the concept, are at thesame time posited as only appearing, that is to say, that they are nothingfixed but accrue rather just as much to one determination of the concept asto the other. The subject is therefore equally to be taken as the in-itself, andthe predicate as determinate existence in contrast to it. The subject withoutthe predicate is what the thing without properties, the thing-in-itself, is inthe sphere of appearance, an empty indeterminate ground; it is then theimplicit concept that receives a difference and a determinateness only inthe predicate; the predicate thus constitutes the side of the determinateexistence of the subject. Through this determinate universality the subject

Judgment 555

refers to the outside, is open to the influence of other things and therebyconfronts them actively. What is there comes forth from its in-itselfness intothe universal element of combination and relations, into negative referencesand into the interplay of actuality which is a continuation of the singularinto other singulars and is, therefore, universality.

Yet the identity just indicated, the fact that the determination of thesubject accrues equally to the predicate and vice versa, is not just a matterfor our consideration; it is not only in itself but is also posited in thejudgment; for the judgment is the reference connecting the two; the copulaexpresses that the subject is the predicate. The subject is the determinate 12.58determinateness, and the predicate is this determinateness of the subject asposited; the subject is determined only in its predicate, or is subject only init; in the predicate, it is turned back into itself and is therein the universal. –Now in so far as the subject is the self-subsistent term, this identity has therelation that the predicate does not possess a self-subsistence of its own buthas its subsistence only in the subject; it inheres in the subject. Accordingly,since the predicate is distinguished from the subject, it is only a singularizeddeterminateness of the subject, only one of its properties; the subject itselfis however the concrete, the totality of manifold determinacies, just as thepredicate contains one of them; the subject is the universal. – But, on theother hand, the predicate also is self-subsistent universality, and the subjectconversely only one determination of it. The predicate thus subsumes thesubject; the singularity and the particularity are not for themselves buthave their essence and their substance in the universal. The predicateexpresses the subject in its concept; the singular and the particular are to thesubject accidental determinations; the subject is their absolute possibility.When by “subsumption” an external connection of subject and predicateis thought, and the subject is represented as something self-subsistent,then subsumption refers to the subjective act of judging mentioned above,namely the judging that starts off from the self-subsistence of both subjectand predicate.51 Subsumption is then only the application of the universal toa particular or singular posited under it in accordance with an indeterminaterepresentation, one of lesser quantity.

When we treat the identity of subject and predicate as meaning that atone time one determination of the concept belongs to the subject and theother to the predicate, and at another time the converse equally applies,then the identity is as yet still implicit; on account of the self-subsistentdiversity of the two sides of judgment, their posited connection also has

51 Cf. above, 12.55.


the two at first as diverse. But it is the identity void of difference that in factconstitutes the true connection of the subject and predicate. The determi-nation of the concept is itself essentially a connection, for it is a universal; thesame determinations, therefore, which the subject and the predicate eachhave, are also had by their connection. The connection is universal, for itis the positive identity of both, of the subject and predicate; but it is alsodeterminate, for the determinateness of the predicate is the determinatenessof the subject; it is singular as well, for in it the self-subsisting extremes aresublated as in their negative unity. – In judgment, however, this identityis not posited yet; the copula is as the still indeterminate connection ofbeing in general, “A is B,” for the self-subsistence of the concept’s deter-minacies, or the extremes, is in judgment the reality that the concept haswithin. If the “is” of the copula were already posited as the determinate12.59and fulfilled unity of subject and predicate earlier mentioned,52 wereposited as their concept, it would then already be the conclusion of syllogisticinference.53

To restore again this identity of the concept, or rather to posit it – thisis the goal of the movement of the judgment. What is already present inthe judgment is, on the one hand, the self-subsistence but also reciprocaldeterminateness of the subject and predicate, and, on the other hand,their still abstract connection. “The subject is the predicate” – this is whatthe judgment says at first. But since the predicate is not supposed to bewhat the subject is, a contradiction is at hand that must resolve itself, mustpass over into a result. Or rather, since the subject and predicate are inand for themselves the totality of the concept, and judgment is the realityof the concept, the judgment’s forward movement is only development;what comes forth from it is already present in it, and to this extent thedemonstration is a display,54 a reflection as the positing of that which is alreadyat hand in the extreme terms of the judgment; but even this positing isalready present; it is the connection of the extremes.

First, as immediate, judgment is the judgment of existence; its subject isimmediately an abstract, existent singular, and the predicate is an immediatedeterminateness or property of it, an abstract universal.

Second, as this qualitative character of the subject and predicate is sub-lated, the determination of the one begins to shine reflectively in the other;the judgment is now the judgement of reflection.

52 Cf. above, 12.55. 53 “syllogistic inference” = Schluß.54 “display” = Monstration. Hegel is playing on the Latinate words Demonstration and Monstration,

the Latin root of which means “displaying” or “exhibiting.”

Judgment 557

But this external combination passes over into the essential identity of asubstantial, necessary combination; and so we have, third, the judgment ofnecessity.

Fourth, since in this essential identity the difference of subject andpredicate has become a form, the judgment becomes subjective; it entailsthe opposition of the concept and its reality and the comparison of the two;it is the judgment of the concept.

This emergence of the concept grounds the transition of judgment intosyllogistic inference.

a. the judgment of existence

In the subjective judgment we expect to see one and the same object double,once in its singular actuality, and again in its essential identity or in itsconcept: the singular raised into its universality or, what is the same thing, 12.60the universal made singular into its actuality. The judgment is thus truth,for it is the agreement of the concept and reality. But it is not at firstconstituted in this way, for at first the judgment is immediate, since as yetno reflection and no movement of the determinations has been foundin it. This immediacy renders the first judgment a judgment of immediateexistence; we can also call it a qualitative judgment, but only in so far asquality does not apply to the determinateness of being alone but also extendsto the universality which, because of its simplicity, likewise has the form ofimmediacy.

The judgment of existence is also the judgment of inherence because,though immediacy is its determination, it is the subject that in the distinc-tion between subject and predicate is the immediate and hence the firstand the essential term in the judgment, and the predicate consequentlytakes on the form of something that does not subsist on its own but has itsfoundation in the subject.

a. The positive judgment

1. The subject and predicate, as we have just said,55 are names at first thatreceive their actual determination only as the judgment runs its course.However, as sides of the judgment – the judgment being the posited deter-minate concept – they have the determination of moments of the concept,but, on account of their immediacy, this determination is as yet quite

55 Cf. above, 12.54.


simple, still not enriched by mediation and also still caught up in theabstract opposition of abstract singularity and abstract universality. – Thepredicate, to speak of it first, is the abstract universal; this abstract is con-ditioned by mediation, by the sublation of singularity and particularity,but so far such a mediation is here only a presupposition. In the sphere ofthe concept there can be no other immediacy than the one that containsmediation in and for itself and has arisen only through its sublation; this isthe immediacy of the universal. Thus qualitative being also is in its concepta universal; as being, however, the immediacy is not yet posited as such;it is only as universality that immediacy is the concept determination inwhich it is posited that negativity essentially belongs to it. This connectionis given in the judgment in which universality is the predicate of a subject. –Similarly the subject is an abstract singular, or the immediate which is sup-posed to be such and therefore the singular as a something in general. Thesubject constitutes, therefore, the abstract side of the judgment, the sidein it according to which the concept has passed over into externality. – Asthese two concept determinations are determined, so is also their connec-12.61tion, the “is” or the copula; it too can have no other meaning than that ofan immediate, abstract being. It is because of this connection, which stilldoes not contain any mediation or negation, that this judgment is called“positive.”

2. The first pure expression of the positive judgment is, therefore, theproposition: the singular is universal. This expression must not be put inthe form of “A is B,” for A and B are totally formless and hence meaninglessnames, whereas judgment in general, and therefore already the judgmentof existence, has determinations of the concept for its extremes. “A is B”can stand just as well for any mere proposition as for a judgment. But whatis asserted in every judgment, even one more richly determined in form,is the proposition that has this determined content, namely, “the singularis universal,” for every judgment is in principle also an abstract judgment.(Regarding the negative judgment, how far it likewise comes under thisexpression, of this we shall speak presently.)56 – However, if no thoughtis given to the fact that with every judgment, the positive at least, theassertion is made that the singular is universal, this happens either becauseno attention is given to the determinate form differentiating subject andobject – for it is taken for granted that the judgment is nothing but theconnecting of two concepts – or also likely because the further content ofthe judgment, “Gaius is learned,” or “the rose is red,” comes drifting in

56 Cf. below, 12.65.

Judgment 559

before the mind, and the latter, busy with the picture of Gaius etc., fails toreflect on the form – even though, at least, such a content as “Gaius,” whichis the one that usually has to be dragged in as an example, is much lessinteresting than the form, and is indeed chosen because it is uninteresting,not to divert attention from the form to itself.

The objective meaning of the proposition stating that the singular isuniversal conveys, as already incidentally noted,57 both the perishableness ofsingular things and their positive subsistence in the concept in general. Theconcept itself is imperishable, but that which emerges from it in its divisionis subjected to alteration and to falling back into its universal nature. Butthe universal, conversely, gives itself a determinate existence. Just as essencegoes out into reflective shine in its determinations; or ground into concreteexistence in appearance; and substance into manifestation in its accidents, sodoes the universal resolve itself into the singular; judgment is this resolutionof the universal, the development of the negativity which, implicitly, italready is. – This last circumstance is expressed by the converse proposition,“the universal is singular,” which is also equally spoken in the positivejudgment. The subject, the immediate singular at first, is in the judgmentitself referred to its other, namely the universal; it is thereby posited asthe concrete – according to the category of being, as a something of many 12.62qualities; or as the concrete of reflection, a thing of manifold properties, anactual of manifold possibilities, a substance of precisely such accidents. Becausethese manifolds here belong to the subject of the judgment, the something,the thing, etc., is in its qualities, properties, or accidents, reflected intoitself, or continues across them, maintaining itself in them and them initself. Positedness or determinateness belongs to being which is in andfor itself. The subject is therefore inherently the universal. – The predicate,on the contrary, being this universality not as real or concrete, but asabstract, is in contrast to the subject the determinateness; it contains onlyone moment of the subject’s totality to the exclusion of the others. Onaccount of this negativity, which as an extreme of the judgment is at thesame time self-referring, the predicate is an abstract singular. – For instance,in the proposition, “the rose is fragrant,” the predicate expresses only oneof the many properties of the rose; it isolates it, whereas in the subjectthe property is joined with the others; likewise in the dissolution of thething, the manifold properties that inhere in it become isolated in acquiringself-subsistence as materials. From this side, then, the proposition of thejudgment says: the universal is singular.

57 Cf. above, 12.57.


By juxtaposing this reciprocal determination of subject and predicate inthe judgment, we thus obtain this twofold result. (1) Immediately, thesubject is indeed an existent or the singular, while the predicate is theuniversal. But because the judgment connects the two, and the subject isdetermined as universal by the predicate, the subject is then the universal.(2) The predicate is determined in the subject, for it is not a determinationin general but the determination rather of the subject. “The rose is fragrant.”This fragrance is not some indeterminate fragrance or other, but the fra-grance of the rose. The predicate is therefore a singular. – Now since thesubject and predicate stand related in the judgment, they should retainthe opposition of concept determinations; likewise, in the reciprocity ofcausality, before the latter attains its truth, the two sides are still supposedto remain self-subsistent and mutually opposed as against the equality oftheir determination. Therefore, when the subject is determined as universal,the predicate should not also be taken in its determination of universality,for then we would have no judgment; it must rather be taken only in itsdetermination of singularity. And if the subject is determined as singular,then the predicate is to be taken as universal. – If we reflect on the mereidentity above, then we have these two identical propositions, “the singularis singular,” “the universal is universal,” in which the sides of the judg-ment would have completely fallen apart; only the self-reference of each isexpressed while the reference connecting them to each other is dissolved;12.63and thus the judgment would be sublated. – Of the two propositions wedrew, the first, “the universal is singular,” expresses the judgment accordingto its content, as an isolated determination in the predicate and as the total-ity of determinations in the subject. The other, “the singular is universal,”expresses it according to form as immediately given through the judgmentitself. – In the immediate positive judgment, the extremes are still simple:form and content are therefore still united. Or, in other words, it does notconsist of two propositions; the twofold connection that it yielded imme-diately constitutes the one positive judgment. For its extremes are (a) theself-subsisting abstract determinations of judgment, and (b) each side ofthe determination is determined through the other by virtue of the copulaconnecting them. Implicitly, however, the difference of form and contentis for this reason present in it, as we have seen; and indeed, what the firstproposition contains, that the singular is universal, belongs to form, for theproposition expresses the immediate determinateness of the judgment. Therelation, on the contrary, which the other proposition expresses, that theuniversal is singular or that the subject is determined as universal whereasthe predicate is determined as particular or singular, concerns the content;

Judgment 561

for its determinations are only the result of an immanent reflection byvirtue of which the immediate determinacies of the judgment are sublatedand the form is thereby converted into an identity that has withdrawn intoitself and persists over against the distinction of form: it converts itself intocontent.

3. If now the two propositions, the one of form and the other of content,

(Subject) (Predicate)The singular is universalThe universal is singular,

were to be united because they are contained in the one positive judgment,so that both, the subject as well as the predicate, were determined as theunity of singularity and universality, then both the subject and predicatewould be the particular, and this must be recognized as implicitly theirinner determination. However, this combination would be arrived at onlythrough an external reflection; moreover, the proposition that results fromit, “the particular is the particular,” would no longer be a judgment butan empty identical proposition as were the two propositions already foundin the positive judgment, “the singular is singular,” and “the universalis universal.” – Singularity and universality cannot yet be united intoparticularity, because in the positive judgment they are still posited asimmediate. – Or again, the judgment must still be distinguished accordingto its form and its content, because the subject and predicate are themselvesstill distinguished as immediacy and mediated, or because the judgment,according to its connection, is both the self-subsistence of the connected 12.64terms and their reciprocal determination or mediation.

In first place, then, the meaning of the judgment when considered accord-ing to its form is that the singular is universal. But in fact such an immediatesingular is definitely not universal; its predicate is of wider extension, doesnot correspond to it. The subject is a being existing immediately for itself, andhence the opposite of that abstraction, of that universality posited throughmediation that was supposed to be predicated of it.

In second place, if the judgment is considered according to its content,or as the proposition, “the universal is singular,” then the subject is auniverse of qualities, an infinitely determined concrete universe, and sinceits determinacies are as yet qualitites, properties, or accidents, its totalityis the bad infinite plurality of them. Such a subject, therefore, is not atall the one single property that its predicate declares. Consequently, bothpropositions must be united, and the positive judgment must be posited asnegative instead.


b. The negative judgment

1. We spoke earlier of the common notion that whether the content ofa judgment is true or false depends solely on the content itself, sincelogical truth concerns only the form and its only requirement is that suchcontent shall not contradict itself.58 Nothing else is reckoned as the formof judgment except that the latter is a connection of two concepts. But wehave seen that these two concepts are not just the relationless determinationof a sum, but that they relate to each other as singular and universal.59 Theseare the determinations that constitute the truly logical content and also,abstracted in that way, the content of the positive judgment; whateverother content is in a judgment (“the sun is round,” “Cicero was a greatRoman orator,” “it is daytime now,” etc.) does not concern the judgmentas such; the judgment only says that the subject is predicate, or, since theseare only names, that the singular is universal and vice versa. – It is becauseof this purely logical content that the positive judgment is not true buthas its truth in the negative judgment. – In judgment, so it is required,the content simply ought not to contradict itself; but it does contradictitself in the positive judgment, as we have just seen. – At any rate, itmakes absolutely no difference if that logical content is called form, andby content is understood only the remaining empirical filling, for eventhen the form would not contain a mere empty identity outside which thecontent determination would then lie. The positive judgment has in fact12.65no truth through its form as positive judgment; whoever calls truth thecorrectness of an intuition or a perception, the agreement of representationwith the subject matter, has for a minimum no expression left for thatwhich is the subject matter and the aim of philosophy. We should at leastsay of these that they are the truth of reason, and it will surely be grantedthat such judgments as “Cicero was a great orator,” that “it is daytimenow,” are definitely not truths of reason. But they are not such truths, notbecause they have an empirical content as it were contingently, but becausethey are only positive judgments that can have, and ought to have, no othercontent than an immediate singular and an abstract determinateness.

The positive judgment first attains its truth in the negative judgment:the singular is not abstractly universal – but rather, the predicate of thesingular, because it is such a predicate, or because, if considered by itselfwithout reference to the subject, it is an abstract universal, is for that veryreason itself something determinate; from the start, therefore, the singular

58 Cf. above, 12.27. 59 Cf. above, 12.61.

Judgment 563

is a particular. Furthermore, with respect to the other proposition that thepositive judgment contains, the meaning of the negative judgment is thatthe universal is not abstractly singular but that this predicate, “singular,” bythe very fact that it is a predicate, or because it refers to a universal subject,is more than just mere singularity, and the universal, accordingly, is fromthe start equally a particular. – Since this universal, as subject, is itself in thejudgment determination of singularity, the two propositions both reduceto one: “the singular is a particular.”

We may remark that (a) the particularity that here comes to the predi-cate has already come up for consideration before;60 here, however, it is notposited by external reflection but has arisen rather as mediated by the neg-ative connection indicated in the judgment. (b) This determination resultshere only for the predicate. In the immediate judgment, the judgment ofexistence, the subject is the underlying basis; the determination seems atfirst, therefore, to occur in the predicate. But in fact this first negation cannotas yet be a determination, or cannot truly be the positing of the singular, forsuch a positing is only a second moment, the negative of the negative.

The singular is a particular: this is the positive expression of the negativejudgment. This expression, therefore, is not the positive judgment itself, forthe latter, because of its immediacy, has an abstraction for its extremes, whilethe particular, precisely through the positing of the judgment connection,results as the first mediated determination. – But this determination is notto be taken only as a moment of the extremes, but also as the determination 12.66of the connection, as it truly is from the start; in other words, the judgmentis also to be considered as negative.

This transition is founded on the relation of the extremes and on theirconnection in the judgment as such. The positive judgment is the connec-tion of the singular and the universal which are such immediately and each,therefore, is not at the same time what the other is. The connection is there-fore just as essentially separation, or negative; for this reason the positivejudgment was to be posited as negative. There was no need, therefore, forthe logicians to make such a fuss about the not of the negative judgmentbeing attached to the copula. In the judgment, the determination of theextremes is equally a determinate connection. The judgment determination,or the extreme, is not the purely qualitative one of immediate being thatonly stands over against an other outside it. Nor is it the determination ofreflection, which, in accordance with its general form, behaves positivelyand negatively, posited in either case as exclusive, only implicitly identical

60 Cf. above, 12.63.


with the other. The judgment determination, as the determination of theconcept, is a universal within, posited as extending continuously in its other.Conversely, the judgment connection is the same determination as theextremes have; for it is precisely this universality and continuous extensionof each into the other; in so far as these are distinguished, the connectionalso has negativity in it.

The just stated transition from the form of the connection to the form ofthe determination has the immediate consequence that the not of the copulamust just as equally be attached to the predicate and that the latter must bedetermined as the not-universal. But, through a no less immediate conse-quence, the not-universal is the particular. – If the focus is on the negativeaccording to the totally abstract determination of immediate non-being,then the predicate is the totally indeterminate not-universal. This is thedetermination which is normally treated in logic in connection with thecontradictory concepts, and the further point is made – a point consideredimportant – that in the negative of a concept one should only focus on thenegative, taking it as the mere indeterminate extent of the other of the pos-itive concept. Thus the mere not-white would be just as much red, yellow,blue, etc. as black. White, however, is an unconceptualized determinationof intuition; the not of white is equally, then, unconceptualized not-being,the abstraction that came in for consideration at the very beginning of theLogic where becoming was recognized to be its closest truth. To use as anexample, in the consideration of judgment determinations, an unconcep-tualized content of this sort, drawn from intuition and the imagination,and to take the determinations of being, and of reflection, as such judgment12.67determinations, is the same uncritical practice as when Kant applies theconcepts of the understanding to the infinite idea of reason, the so-calledthing-in-itself;61 the concept, to which the judgment proceeding from it alsobelongs, is the true thing-in-itself or the rational; those other determina-tions belong to being and essence; they are not yet forms developed into theshape where they are in their truth, in the concept. – If we stop at white,red, as representations of the senses, then we call concept what is only adetermination of pictorial representation. This is common practice. Butthen, surely, the not-white, the not-red, will be nothing positive, just as thenot-triangular will be something totally indeterminate, for a determinationbased as such on number and quantum is essentially something indifferent,void of concept. Yet, like non-being itself, such a sensuous content ought tobe conceptualized; ought to shed that indifference and abstract immediacy

61 Cf. B166, note.

Judgment 565

with which it is affected in the blind immobility of pictorial representa-tion. Already in the sphere of immediate existence, the non-being which isotherwise void of thought becomes limit, and by virtue of this limit thesomething refers to an other despite itself. In the sphere of reflection, on theother hand, it is the negative that refers essentially to a positive, and is therebydetermined; a negative is no longer that indeterminate non-being, for it isposited to be only to the extent that the positive stands over against it, andas third comes their ground; the negative is thus held circumscribed in asphere within which the non-being of one is something determinate. – Butit is all the more in the absolutely fluid continuity of the concept that thenot is immediately a positive, and the negation is not just determinatenessbut is taken up into universality and is posited as identical with it. Thenon-universal is therefore directly the particular.

2. Since negation has to do with the connection of judgment, and we areconsidering the negative judgment still as such, the latter is in the first instancestill a judgment; we thus have the relation of subject and predicate, or ofsingularity and universality, and their connection, the form of the judgment.The subject, as the immediate underlying basis, remains untouched by thenegation; it retains, therefore, its determination of having a predicate, or itsreference to the universality. Consequently, what is negated in the predicateis not the universality as such, but the abstraction or the determinatenessof the predicate that appeared as content in contrast to that universality. –The negative judgment is not, therefore, total negation; the universalsphere which contains the predicate remains standing; the connectionof subject and the predicate is therefore still essentially positive; the yetremaining determination of the predicate is no less connection. – When 12.68it is said that, for instance, the rose is not red, only the determinatenessof the predicate is thereby denied and thus separated from the universal-ity which equally attaches to it; the universal sphere, color, is retained; ifthe rose is not red, it is nonetheless assumed that it has a color, thoughanother color. From the side of this universal sphere, the judgment is stillpositive.

“The singular is a particular.” This positive form of the negative judgmentimmediately expresses that the particular contains universality. In addition,it also expresses that the predicate is not just a universal but also one whichis still determinate. The negative form contains the same, for althoughthe rose, for instance, is not red, it is supposed, nevertheless, not onlystill to retain the universal sphere of color as predicate, but to have someother determinate color as well; the singularity of determinateness of therose is therefore only sublated; and not only is the universal sphere left


standing but determinateness too is retained, although transformed intoan indeterminate determinateness, a universal determinateness, that is tosay, into particularity.

3. The particularity that has resulted as the positive determination of thenegative judgment is the term mediating singularity and universality; sothe negative judgment is now that which provides in general the mediationfor the third step, that of the reflection of the judgment of existence into itself.This judgment is according to its objective meaning only the moment ofthe alteration of accidents, or, in the sphere of existence, of the singularizedproperties of the concrete. Through this alteration, the full determinatenessof the predicate, or the concrete, emerges as posited.

“The singular is particular” is what the positive expression of the negativejudgment says. But the singular is also not particular, for particularity is ofwider extension than singularity; it is a predicate, therefore, that does notcorrespond to the subject, one in which the latter, therefore, does not as yethave its truth. “The singular is only a singular”: this is a negativity that refersto nothing else, be it positive or negative, except itself. – The rose is not athing of some color or other, but one that only has the one determinate colorwhich is the rose-color. The singular is not an indeterminate determinatebut the determinate determinate.

This negation of the negative judgment appears, when one starts fromits positive form, to be again a first negation. But this is not what it is. Thenegative judgment is again, in and for itself, already the second negationor the negation of negation, and this, what it is in and for itself, is to beposited. To wit: the judgment negates the determinateness of the predicateof the positive judgment, its abstract universality, or, considered as content,the singular quality that it possesses of the subject. But the negation of thedeterminateness is already the second negation, hence the infinite turningback of the singularity into itself. With this, therefore, the restoration of12.69the concrete totality of the subject has taken place, or rather, the subjectis now for the first time posited as singular, for through the negation andthe sublation of that negation it is mediated with itself. The predicate,for its part, has thereby passed over from the first universality to absolutedeterminateness and made itself equal to the subject. Thus the judgmentsays: “the singular is singular.” – From the other side, since the subjectwas equally to be taken as a universal, and since in the negative judgmentthe predicate, which as against that subject is the singular, expanded intoparticularity; moreover, since now the negation of this determinateness isequally the purification of the universality contained in the predicate, thisjudgment also says: “the universal is the universal.”

Judgment 567

In these two judgments, which were earlier obtained through externalreflection,62 the predicate is already expressed in its positivity. But thenegation of the negative judgment must itself first appear in the form of anegative judgment. It has just been shown that there still remained in thisjudgment a positive connection of subject and predicate as well the universalsphere of the latter.63 From this side, the negative judgment thus containsa universality which is more purified of limitation than was contained bythe positive judgment and is for this reason all the more to be negated ofthe subject as a singular. In this manner, the whole extent of the predicateis negated, and there is no longer any positive connection between it andthe subject. This is the infinite judgment.

c. The infinite judgment

The negative judgment is as little of a true judgment as the positive. Butthe infinite judgment which is supposed to be its truth is, according toits negative expression, the negative infinite, a judgment in which eventhe form of judgment is sublated. – But this is a nonsensical judgment.It ought to be a judgment, and hence contains a connection of subjectand predicate; but any such connection ought not at the same time to bethere. – The name of the infinite judgment does indeed occur in the com-mon textbooks of logic, but without any clarification as to its meaning. –Examples of negatively infinite judgments are easy to come by. It is amatter of picking determinations, one of which does not contain not justthe determinateness of the other but its universal sphere as well, and ofcombining them negatively as subject and predicate, as when we say, forexample, that spirit is not red, yellow, etc., is not acid, not alkali, etc., or that 12.70the rose is not an elephant, the understanding is not a table, and the like. –These judgments are correct or true, as it is said, and yet, any such truthnotwithstanding, nonsensical and fatuous. – Or, more to the point, they arenot judgments at all. – A more realistic example of the infinite judgment isthe evil action. In civil litigation, when a thing is negated as the property ofanother party, it is still conceded that the same thing would indeed belongto that party if the latter had a right to it. It is only under the title of rightthat the possession of it is challenged; in the negative judgment, therefore,the universal sphere, “right,” is still acknowledged and maintained. Butcrime is the infinite judgment that negates, not only the particular right, butthe universal sphere, the right as right. It has correctness, in the sense that it

62 Cf. above, 12.63. 63 In the preceding page.


is an effective action, but since it stands in a thoroughly negative fashionwith respect to the morality that constitutes its sphere, it is nonsensical.

The positive element of the infinite judgment, the negation of the nega-tion, is the reflection of singularity into itself by virtue of which the sin-gularity is first posited as the determinate determinate. “The singular issingular” is what the infinite judgment said according to that reflection. Inthe judgment of existence, the subject is as the immediate singular, hencemore of just a something in general. Through the mediation of the negativeand infinite judgment, it is posited as singular for the first time.

The singular is thus posited as expanding into its predicate, which isidentical with it; to the same extent, therefore, universality is also no longeranything immediate but a summing of distincts. The positively infinitejudgment equally says, “the universal is universal,” and in this the universalis posited also as a turning back into itself.

Now through the reflection of the judgment determinations into them-selves, the judgment has sublated itself; in the negatively infinite judgment,the difference is, so to speak, too great for it still to remain a judgment; sub-ject and predicate have no positive connection whatsoever to each other; inthe positively infinite judgment, on the contrary, only identity is present,and because of this total lack of difference there is no longer a judgment.

More precisely, it is the judgment of existence that has sublated itself and,consequently, there is posited what the copula of the judgment contains,namely that in its identity the qualitative extremes are sublated. But sincethis unity is the concept, it is immediately torn apart and is a judgment, butone whose terms are no longer immediately determined but are reflectedinto themselves. The judgment of existence has passed over into the judgmentof reflection.12.71

b. the judgment of reflection

In the judgment that has now arisen, the subject is a singular as such;and similarly, the universal is no longer an abstract universality, or a singu-lar property, but is posited as a universal that has collected itself togetherinto a unity through the connection of different terms, or, regarded fromthe standpoint of the content of diverse determinations in general, as thecoalescing of manifold properties and concrete existences. – If examplesof predicates of judgments of reflection are to be given, they must be ofanother kind than for the judgments of existence. It is only in the judgmentof reflection that we first have a determinate content strictly speaking, that is,a content as such; for the content is the form determination reflected into

Judgment 569

identity as distinct from the form in so far as this is a distinct determinate-ness – as it still is as judgment. In the judgment of existence, the contentis merely an immediate, or abstract, indeterminate content. – These maytherefore serve as examples of judgments of reflection: the human beingis mortal, things are perishable, this thing is useful, harmful; hardness, elas-ticity of bodies, happiness, etc., are predicates of this particular kind. Theyexpress an essentiality which is however a relational determination, or acomprehensive universality. This universality, which will further determineitself in the movement of the judgment of reflection, is still distinct fromthe universality of the concept as such; although it is no longer the abstractuniversality of the qualitative judgment, it still has a connection to theimmediate from which it proceeds and has the latter at the basis of its neg-ativity. – The concept determines immediate existence, in the first instance,to relational determinations that extend across the diverse multiplicity ofconcrete existence, so that the true universal is indeed the inner essence ofthat multiplicity, but is such in the sphere of appearance, and this relativenature or even its mark is not as yet the element of the multiplicity thatexists in and for itself.

It may seem fitting to define the judgment of reflection as a judgment ofquantity, just as the judgment of existence was defined also as qualitativejudgment. But just as the immediacy in the latter was not just there, but wasan immediacy which is also essentially mediated and abstract, so, here also,that same immediacy which is now sublated is not just sublated quality, 12.72and therefore not merely quantity; on the contrary, just as quality is themost external immediacy, so is quantity, in the same way, the most externaldetermination belonging to mediation.

Also to be noted concerning the determination as it appears in the move-ment of the judgment of reflection is that, in the judgment of immediateexistence, the movement of the determination showed itself in the predi-cate, for this kind of judgment was in the determination of immediacy andits subject, therefore, appeared as the underlying basis. For a similar reason,in the judgment of reflection the onward movement of determination runsits course in the subject, for this judgment has the reflected in-itselfness forits determination. Hence the essential is here the universal or the predicate,and it is the latter, therefore, that constitutes the basis against which thesubject is to be measured and determined accordingly. – Yet the predicatealso receives a further determination through the further development ofthe form of the subject, but it receives it indirectly, whereas the progressionof the subject manifests itself, for the reason just given, as a direct advancein determination.


As regards the objective signification of the judgment, the singular entersinto existence by virtue of its universality, but it does so in an essentialdetermination which is relational, in an essentiality that maintains itselfacross the manifold of appearance; the subject is supposed to be that whichis determined in and for itself; this is the determinateness which it has in itspredicate. The singular, for its part, is reflected into this predicate which isits universal essence; to this extent, the subject is a concrete existence and aphenomenal something.64 In this judgment, the predicate no longer inheresin the subject, for it is rather the implicit being under which the singularsubject is subsumed as an accidental. If the judgments of existence can alsobe defined as judgments of inherence, then the judgments of reflection areby contrast judgments of subsumption.

a. The singular judgment

Now the immediate judgment of reflection is again, “the singular is univer-sal,” but with the subject and predicate in the signification just explained.More accurately, therefore, it can also be expressed thus, “this is an essentialuniversal.”

But a “this” is not an essential universal. That positive judgment – positiveaccording to form – must as judgment be taken negatively. But inasmuchas the judgment of reflection is not merely something positive, the negationdoes not directly affect the predicate – a predicate which does not inhere inthe subject but is rather its implicit being. On the contrary, it is the subjectthat is alterable and needs determination. The negative judgment is there-fore to be understood as saying: “‘not a this’ is a universal of reflection”;6512.73such an in-itself has a more universal concrete existence than it would havein a “this.” Accordingly, the singular judgment has its proximate truth inthe particular judgment.

b. The particular judgment

The non-singularity of the subject that must be posited in the first judg-ment of reflection instead of the subject’s singularity is particularity. Butparticularity is determined in the judgment of reflection as essential singu-larity; particularity cannot be, therefore, a simple, abstract determination inwhich the singular would be sublated and the concrete existent dissolved,but is rather only an extension of this singular in external reflection. Thusthe subject is: “these ones,” or “a particular number of singulars.”

64 “phenomenal something” = Erscheinende. 65 “Nicht ein Dieses” ist ein Allgemeines der Reflexion.

Judgment 571

The judgment, “some singulars are a universal of reflection,” appears atfirst to be a positive judgment, but it is just as well also negative; for “some”contains universality and may, accordingly, be regarded as comprehensive;but since it is particularity, it is equally disproportionate with respect touniversality. The negative determination which the subject has obtainedthrough the transition of the singular judgment also is, as we have shownabove, the determination of the connection, the copula.66 – Implicatedin the judgment, “some humans are happy,” is the immediate consequence:“some humans are not happy.” When some things are useful, then, pre-cisely for that reason, there also are some that are not useful. The positiveand the negative judgment no longer fall outside one another, but theparticular immediately contains both at the same time, precisely becauseit is a judgment of reflection. – But the particular judgment is thereforeindeterminate.

If, in the example of such a judgment, we consider further the subject,“some humans,” “some animals,” etc., we find that it contains, besides theparticular form determination of “some,” also the content determinationof “humans,” etc. By the subject of the singular judgment one could mean,“this human,” a singularity that properly pertains to external pointing; itwould best be expressed, therefore, by something like “Gaius.” But thesubject of the particular judgment can no longer be “some Gaiuses,” forGaius is supposed to be a singular as singular. To the “some,” therefore,there is added a more universal content, say “humans,” “animals,” etc. Thisis not a mere empirical content, but one which is determined by the form ofthe judgment; it is universal, that is, because “some” contains universality,and the latter must at the same time be separated from the singulars whichthe reflected singularity has as a basis. More precisely, this universality isalso the universal nature or species “human,” “animal” – the universalitywhich is the result of the judgment of reflection, but anticipated; just as 12.74the positive judgment, since it has the singular for subject, also anticipatesthe determination which is the result of the judgment of existence.

Thus the subject that contains the singulars, their connection to par-ticularity, and the universal nature, is already posited as the totality of thedeterminations of the concept. But, to be precise, this consideration is anexternal one. What is at first already posited in the subject by virtue of itsform, in reciprocal connection, is the extension of the “this” to particularity;but this generalization is not commensurate to the “this”; the latter is per-fectly determinate, but “some” is indeterminate. The extension ought to

66 i.e. in section a. immediately preceding: “But a ‘this’ is not an essential universal.”


be appropriate to the “this” and therefore, in conformity with it, it oughtto be completely determined; such an extension is totality, or, in the firstinstance, universality in general.

This universality has the “this” for its basis, for the singular is here thesingular reflected into itself; its further determinations run their course,therefore, outside it, and just as for this reason particularity determined itselfas a “some,” so the universality which the subject has attained is an “allness,”and thus the particular judgment has passed over into the universal.

c. The universal judgment

The universality of the subject of the universal judgment is the externaluniversality of reflection, “allness”; the “all” is the all of all the singulars inwhich the singular remains unchanged. This universality is therefore onlya commonality of self-subsisting singulars, an association of such singularsas comes about only by way of comparison. – This is the association thatfirst comes to mind at a subjective level of representation when there is talkof universality. The most obvious reason given for viewing a determinationas universal is because it fits many. – Also in analysis is this conception ofuniversality the one most prevalent, as when, for instance, the developmentof a function in a polynomial is taken to have greater universal value thanits development in a binomial, because the polynomial displays more singleterms than the binomial. The demand that the function should be resolvedin its full universality would require, strictly speaking, a pantonomial, theexhausted infinity. But here is where the limitation of that demand becomesapparent, and where the display of the infinite number of terms must restsatisfied with the ought it commands, and therefore also with a polynomial.But in fact the binomial is already the pantonomial in those cases wherethe method or the rule concerns only the dependence of one member on12.75another, and the dependence of several terms on those that precede themdoes not particularize itself but remains one and the same underlyingfunction. It is the method or the rule which is to be regarded as the trueuniversal; in the progress of the development or in the development of apolynomial, the rule is only repeated, so that it gains nothing in universalitythrough the increased number of terms. We have already spoken earlier ofthe bad infinity and its deception;67 the universality of the concept is theachieved beyond, whereas that bad infinity remains afflicted with a beyondwhich is unattainable but remains a mere progression to infinity. If it is allness

67 Cf. GW 11, 79–81; above 21.127ff.

Judgment 573

that universality brings to mind, a universality that ought to be exhaustedin singulars as singulars, then there has been a relapse into that bad infinity;or else it is mere plurality which is taken for allness. But plurality, howevergreat it might be, remains inescapably only particularity: it is not allness. –Yet there is in all this an obscure intimation of the universality of the conceptas it exists in and for itself; it is the concept that violently strives to reachbeyond the stubborn singularity to which pictorial representation clingsand beyond the externality of its reflection, passing off allness as totality orrather as the category of the in-and-for-itself.

This is apparent in other ways as well in the allness which is above allempirical universality. Inasmuch as the singular is presupposed as somethingimmediate and is therefore pre-given and externally picked, the reflectionwhich collects it into an allness is equally external to it. But because thesingular, as a “this,” is absolutely indifferent to such a reflection, the uni-versality and the collected singularity cannot combine to form a unity.The empirical allness thus remains a task; it is an ought which, as such,cannot be represented in the form of being. Now an empirically universalproposition – for nevertheless such are advanced – rests on the tacit agree-ment that, if no instance of the contrary can be adduced, a plurality of casesought to count for an allness; or that a subjective allness, namely the knowncases, may be taken for an objective allness.

Now a closer examination of the universal judgment before us showsthat the subject, as we have just noted, contains the achieved universality aspresupposed; it even contains it as posited in it. “All humans” expresses, first,the species “human”; second, this species in its singularization, but in sucha way that the singulars are at the same time expanded to the universality 12.76of the species; conversely, through this conjunction with singularity, theuniversality is just as perfectly determined as singularity, and the positeduniversality has thereby become equal to what was presupposed.

But, strictly speaking, we should not anticipate the presupposed butshould rather consider the result for itself in the form determination. –The singularity, inasmuch as it is expanded to allness, is posited as negativ-ity, and this is identical self-reference. It has not remained, therefore, thatfirst singularity (of Gaius, for instance) but is a determination identicalwith universality, or the absolute determinateness of the universal. – Thatfirst singularity of the singular judgment was not the immediate singularityof the positive judgment, but came about through the dialectical move-ment of the judgment of existence in general;68 it was already determined

68 Cf. above, 12.71.


to be the negative identity of the determinations of that judgment. This isthe true presupposition in the judgment of reflection; as contrasted to thepositing that runs its course in that judgment, that first determinatenessof singularity was the latter’s in-itself; consequently, what singularity is initself, through the movement of the judgment of reflection is now posited –posited, that is, as the identical self-reference of the determinate. Thereforethe reflection that expanded the singularity to allness is not external to it;on the contrary, it only makes explicit what was before implicit. – Hencethe result is in truth the objective universality. The subject has thus shed theform determination of the judgment of reflection that made its way fromthe “this” to the “allness” through the “some.” Instead of “all humans,” wenow have to say “the human being.”69

The universality that has thereby arisen is the genus, or the universalitywhich is concrete in its universality. The genus does not inhere in the subject;it is not one property of it or a property at all; it contains all singulardeterminacies dissolved into its substantial purity. – Because it is thusposited as this negative self-identity, it is for that reason essentially subject,but one that is no longer subsumed under its predicate. Consequently thenature of the judgment of reflection is now altogether altered.

This judgment was essentially a judgment of subsumption. The predi-cate was determined, in contrast to its subject, as the implicit universal;according to its content, it could be taken as an essentially relational deter-mination or also as a mark – a determination which makes the subjectessentially only an appearance. But when determined to objective universal-ity, the subject ceases to be subsumed under such a relational determinationor the collecting grasp of reflection; with respect to this objective univer-sality, a predicate of this sort is rather a particular. The relation of subjectand predicate has thus reversed itself, and to this extent the judgment hasat this point sublated itself.12.77

This sublation of the judgment coincides with what the determinationof the copula becomes, as we still have to consider;70 the sublation of thedeterminations of judgment and their transition into the copula are oneand same. – For inasmuch as the subject has raised itself to universality,it has become in this determination equal to the predicate which, as thereflected universality, also contains particularity within itself; subject andpredicate are therefore identical, that is, in the copula they have come tocoincide. This identity is the genus or the nature of a thing in and for itself.Inasmuch as this identity, therefore, again divides, it is the inner nature by

69 der Mensch. 70 Cf. below, 12.89.

Judgment 575

virtue of which a subject and predicate are connected to each other. Thisis a connection of necessity wherein the two terms of the judgment are onlyunessential distinctions. – That what belongs to all the singulars of a genusbelongs to the genus by nature, is an immediate consequence. It expresseswhat we have just seen – that the subject, e.g. “all humans,” sheds its formdetermination and “the human being” is what it should say instead. –This combination, implicit and explicit, constitutes the basis of a newjudgment – the judgment of necessity.

c. the judgment of necessity

The determination to which universality has advanced is, as we have seen,the universality that exists in and for itself or the objective universality thatin the sphere of essence corresponds to substantiality. It is distinguishedfrom the latter because it belongs to the concept and for this reason is notonly the inner but also the posited necessity of its determinations, or inother words, the distinction is immanent to it, whereas substance has itsdistinction only in its accidents, does not have it as a principle within it.

In the judgment now, this objective universality is posited – first, positedwith this determinateness as essential to it, immanent to it; second, positedwith it as diverse from it, a particularity for which the said universalityconstitutes the substantial basis. In this way the universality is determinedas genus and species.

a. The categorical judgment

The genus essentially divides or repels itself into species; it is genus onlyin so far as it comprehends the species under it; the species is a speciesonly in so far as, on the one side, it exists in singulars, and, on the other 12.78side, it possesses in the genus a higher universality. – Now the categoricaljudgment has for predicate such a universality as in it the subject possessesits immanent nature. But the categorical judgment is itself the first orthe immediate judgment of necessity; consequently, the determinatenessof the subject, by virtue of which the latter is a singular as contrasted tothe genus or the species, belongs to the immediacy of external concreteexistence. – But objective universality also has here only its first immediateparticularization; on the one hand, therefore, it is itself a determinate genuswith respect to which there are higher genera; on the other hand, it is notthe most proximate genus, that is, its determinateness is not directly theprinciple of the specific particularity of the subject. But what is necessary in


it is the substantial identity of subject and predicate, in view of which thedistinguishing mark of each is only an unessential positedness or even onlya name; in its predicate, the subject is reflected into its being-in-and-for-itself. Such a predicate ought not to be classed with the predicates of thepreceding judgments. For example, to throw together into one class thesejudgments:

The rose is red,The rose is a plant,or This ring is yellow,It is gold,

and thus to take such an external property as the color of a flower as apredicate equal to its vegetable nature, is to overlook a difference whichthe dullest mind would not miss. – The categorical judgment, therefore, isdefinitely to be distinguished from the positive and the negative judgment;in these, what is said of the subject is a singular accidental content; in theformer, the content is the totality of the form reflected into itself. In thiscontent, therefore, the copula has the meaning of necessity, whereas in thatof the other two it has only the meaning of abstract, immediate being.

The determinateness of the subject, which makes it a particular withrespect to the predicate, is at first still something contingent; subject andpredicate are not connected with necessity by the form or the determinateness;the necessity is therefore still an inner one. – The subject is subject, however,only as a particular, and to the extent that it possesses objective universality,it has to possess it essentially in accordance with that at first immediatedeterminateness. The objective universal, in determining itself, that is, inpositing itself in a judgment, is in a connection of identity with this repelleddeterminateness as such – essentially, that is, this determinateness is not tobe posited as merely accidental. Only through this necessity of its immediatebeing does the categorical judgment conform to its objective universalityand, in this way, has passed over into the hypothetical judgment.12.79

b. The hypothetical judgment

“If A is, then B is”; or “The being of A is not its own being but the beingof an other, of B.” – What is posited in this judgment is the necessaryconnectedness of immediate determinacies, a connectedness which in thecategorical judgment is not yet posited. – There are here two immediate,or externally contingent concrete existences, of which in the categoricaljudgment there is at first only one, the subject; but since one is external

Judgment 577

to the other, this other is immediately also external with respect to thefirst. – On account of this immediacy, the contents of both sides are stillindifferent to each other; at first, therefore, this judgment is a propositionof empty form. Now, first, the immediacy is as such indeed self-subsistent,a concrete being; but, second, what is essential is its connection; this beingis therefore just as much mere possibility; the hypothetical judgment doesnot say either that A is, or that B is, but only that if the one is, then theother is; only the connectedness of the extremes is posited as existing, notthe extremes themselves. Indeed, each extreme is posited in this necessityas equally the being of an other. – The principle of identity asserts that A isonly A, not B; and B is only B, not A. In the hypothetical judgment, onthe contrary, the being of finite things is posited through the concept inaccordance with their formal truth, namely that the finite is its own being,but equally is not its own being but is the being of an other. In the sphereof being, the finite alters and comes to be an other. In the sphere of essence,it is appearance; its being is posited to consist in the reflective shining of another in it, and the necessity is the inner connection not yet posited as such.But the concept is this: that this identity is posited; that the existent is notabstract self-identity but concrete self-identity and is, immediately within it,the being of an other.

The hypothetical judgment can be more closely determined in terms ofthe relations of reflection as a relation of ground and consequence, condi-tion and conditioned, causality etc. Just as substantiality is present in thecategorical judgment in the form of its concept, so is the connectednessof causality in the hypothetical judgment. This and the other relations allrecur in it, but they are there essentially only as moments of one and thesame identity. – However, in it they are as yet not opposed as singular orparticular and universal according to the determinations of the concept,but are only as moments in general at first. The hypothetical judgment,therefore, has a shape which is more that of a proposition; just as the 12.80particular judgment is of indeterminate content, so is the hypothetical ofindeterminate form, for the determination of its content does not conformto the relation of subject and predicate. – Yet the being, since it is thebeing of the other, is for that very reason in itself the unity of itself andthe other, and therefore universality; by the same token it is in fact only aparticular, for it is a determinate being and does not refer in its determi-nateness merely to itself. But it is not the simple, abstract particularity thatis posited; on the contrary, through the immediacy which the determinaciespossess, the moments of particularity are differentiated; at the same time,through the unity of these moments as constituted by their connection,


the particularity is also their totality. – In truth, therefore, what is positedin this judgment is universality as the concrete identity of the conceptwhose determinations do not have any subsistence of their own but areonly particularities posited in that identity. So it is the disjunctive judgment.

c. The disjunctive judgment

In the categorical judgment, the concept is objective universality and anexternal singularity. In the hypothetical, the concept manifests its presencein this externality, in its negative identity. Through this identity, the objec-tive universality and the external singularity obtain the determinateness,now posited in the disjunctive judgment, which in the hypothetical theypossess immediately. Hence the disjunctive judgment is objective univer-sality at the same time posited in union with the form. It thus contains,first, the concrete universality or the genus in simple form, as the subject;second, the same universality but as the totality of its differentiated determi-nations. “A is either B or C.” This is the necessity of the concept in which,first, the self-identity of the two extremes is of the same extent, content,and universality. Second, they are differentiated according to the form ofconceptual determination, but, because of that identity, this determinationis a mere form. Third, the identical objective universality appears for thatreason reflected into itself as against the non-essential form, as a contentwhich however has the determinateness of form in it – once as the sim-ple determination of genus; then again, as this determinateness developedin its difference, and in this way it is the particularity of the species andtheir totality, the universality of the genus. – The particularity constitutes inits development the predicate, because, in containing the whole universalsphere of the subject, and in containing it, however, also in the articulationof particularity, it is to that extent the greater universal.

Upon closer consideration of this particularization, it is the genus thatconstitutes first of all the substantial universality of the species; the subjectis thus B as well as C; this “as well as” indicates the positive identity of the12.81particular with the universal; this objective universal maintains itself fullyin its particularity. Secondly, the species mutually exclude one another; “A iseither B or C”; for they are the specific difference of the universal sphere.This “either or” is their negative connection. In this negative connectionthey are just as identical as in the positive; the genus is their unity as a unityof determinate particulars. – If the genus were an abstract universality,as in the judgments of existence, then the species would also have tobe taken as diverse and mutually indifferent; this universality, however, is

Judgment 579

not the external one that arises only through comparison and abstractionbut is, on the contrary, the universality which is immanent to the genusand concrete. – An empirical disjunctive judgment is without necessity;A is either B or C or D, etc., because the species B, C, D, etc., arefound beforehand; strictly speaking, therefore, there is no question here ofan “either or,” for the completeness of these species is only a subjectiveone; of course, one species excludes the other, but the “either or” excludesevery other species and excludes within itself an entire sphere. This totalityhas its necessity in the negative unity of the objective universal whichhas dissolved singularity within itself and possesses, immanent in it, thesimple principle of differentiation by which the species are determined andconnected. The empirical species, on the contrary, have their differencesin some accidentality or other which is a principle external to them andis not, therefore, their principle, and consequently also not the immanentdeterminateness of the genus; for this reason, they are also not reciprocallyconnected according to their determinateness. – Yet it is by virtue oftheir determinateness that the species constitute the universality of thepredicate. – Here is where the so-called contrary and contradictory conceptsshould find their proper place, for the disjunctive judgment is where theessential difference of the concept is posited; but here they also equally findtheir truth, namely that contrariness and contradictoriness are themselvesdifferentiated both as contraries and as contradictory. Species are contraryinasmuch as they are merely diverse, that is to say, inasmuch as they possessan immediate existence as subsisting in and for themselves by virtue ofthe genus which is their nature. They are contradictory, inasmuch as theyexclude one another. But each of these determinations is by itself one-sidedand void of truth. In the “either or” of the disjunctive judgment, theirunity is posited as their truth, which is that the independent subsistence ofthe species as concrete universality is itself also the principle of the negativeunity by which they mutually exclude one another.

Through the identity just demonstrated of subject and predicate inaccordance with the negative unity, the genus is determined in the dis- 12.82junctive judgment as the proximate genus. This expression indicates at firstthe mere quantitative difference of the more or less determinations whicha universal contains as contrasted to a particularity coming under it. Onthis account, which is the truly proximate genus remains contingent. Butthen, if the genus is taken as a universal arrived at by the mere abstractionof determinations, it cannot strictly speaking form a disjunctive judgment;for it is contingent whether, as it were, there is still left in it the determi-nateness that constitutes the principle of the “either or”; the genus would


not be displayed in the species according to its determinateness, and thesewould only be capable of contingent completeness. In the categorical judg-ment, the genus stands at first over against the subject only in this abstractform – is not, therefore, necessarily its proximate genus and, to this extent,is external to it. But when the genus is a concrete, essentially determineduniversality, then, as simple determinateness, it is the unity of the momentsof the concept – moments that, only sublated in that simplicity, have theirreal difference in the species. Hence the genus is the proximate genus of aspecies, for the latter possesses its specific difference in the essential deter-minateness of the genus, and the species have as such the determinationdifferentiating them in the nature of the genus.

What we have just considered constitutes the identity of subject andpredicate from the aspect of determinateness in general. This is an aspectthat was posited by the hypothetical judgment, the necessity of which isan identity of immediate and diverse things and is, therefore, essentially anegative unity. It is this negative unity that in principle separates subjectand predicate but is now posited as itself differentiated – in the subject,as simple determinateness; in the predicate, as totality. That parting ofsubject and predicate is the difference of the concept; the totality of thespecies in the predicate can then be none other than this difference. – Thereciprocal determination of the disjunctive terms is therefore hereby given.It reduces to the difference of the concept, for it is the concept alonethat disjoins itself and manifests in its determination its negative unity.Of course, the species comes up for consideration here only under theaspect of its simple conceptual determinateness, not according to the shapein which, proceeding from the idea, it steps into a further self-subsistentreality. This reality is of course dropped in the simple principle of the genus;but the essential differentiation must be a moment of the concept. In thejudgment here considered, it is really now the concept’s own progressivedetermination that itself posits its disjunction, just as was the case for theconcept itself, as we saw when it was determined in and for itself and wasdifferentiated into determinate concepts.71 – Now because the concept isthe universal, the positive as well as the negative totality of the particulars,12.83for that reason it is immediately itself also one of its disjunctive members; theother member, however, is this universality resolved into its particularity, orthe determinateness of the concept as determinateness, in which the veryuniversality displays itself as totality. – If the disjunction of a genus intospecies has not yet attained this form, this is proof that the disjunction has

71 Cf. above, 12.38–39.

Judgment 581

not risen to the determinateness of the concept and has not proceeded fromit. – Color is either violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, or red; evenempirically, the confusion and impurity of such a disjunction are at onceapparent; it is a barbarism even from this standpoint. If color is conceivedas the concrete unity of light and darkness, then this genus has within it thedeterminateness that constitutes the principle of its particularization intospecies. Of these, however, one must be the utterly simple color that holdsthe opposition in balance, contained and negated in the color’s intensity;the relation of the opposition of light and darkness must then take itsplace over against it, and, since this relation is a natural phenomenon,the indifferent neutrality of the opposition must be further added to it. –Taking for genus such mixtures as violet, and orange, or shades of differencelike indigo blue and light blue, betrays a totally inconsiderate procedurethat shows too little reflection even for empiricism.72 – But this is notthe place to discuss the different and more finely determined forms thatdisjunction may indeed assume in the element of nature or spirit.

In the first instance, the disjunctive judgment has the members of thedisjunction in the predicate. But the judgment is itself equally disjoined;its subject and predicate are the members of the disjunction; they are themoments of the concept posited in their determinateness but at the sametime as identical – identical, (�) in the objective universality which is inthe subject as the simple genus, and in the predicate as the universal sphereand totality of the moments of the concept; and (�) in the negative unity,the developed connectedness of necessity, in accordance with which thesimple determinateness in the subject has fallen apart into the difference ofthe species and these, in this very difference, have their essential connectionand self-identity.

This unity, the copula of this judgment in which the extremes havecome together through their identity, is thus the concept itself, indeed theconcept as posited; the mere judgment of necessity has thereby risen to thejudgment of the concept. 12.84

d. the judgment of the concept

To know how to form judgments of existence, such as “the rose is red,” “thesnow is white,” etc., hardly counts as a sign of great power of judgment.The judgments of reflection are more in the nature of propositions; to be sure,

72 The criticism is directed at Goethe’s theory of colors. See Goethe, Zur Farbenlehre: DidaktischerTeil in Goethes Werke, Vol. 13 (Hamburg: Christian Wegner, 1966), §175.


in the judgment of necessity the subject matter is present in its objectiveuniversality, but it is only in the judgment now to be considered that itsconnection with the concept is to be found. The concept is at the basis of thisjudgment, and it is there with reference to the subject matter, as an ought towhich reality may or may not conform. – This is the judgment, therefore,that first contains true adjudication; the predicates, “good,” “bad,” “true,”“right,” etc., express that the fact is measured against the concept as anought which is simply presupposed, and is, or is not, in agreement with it.

The judgment of the concept has been called the judgment of modality,and has been regarded as containing the form of the connection of subjectand predicate as this obtains in an external understanding, and as concernedwith the value of the copula only in connection with thought.73 Accordingly,judgment is said to be problematic when the affirmation or negation istaken as optional or possible; assertoric, when it is taken as true, that is,actual, and apodictic when it is taken as necessary. – It is easy to see why itwould be an easy step in this judgment to go outside the judgment itselfand to regard its determination as something merely subjective. For it is theconcept here, the subjective, that comes into play again in judgment andrelates to an immediate actuality. But this subjectivity is not to be confusedwith external reflection, which is of course also something subjective but ina different sense than the concept itself; on the contrary, the concept thathas again emerged out of the disjunctive judgment is the very opposite ofa mere mode or manner. The earlier judgments are subjective in this sense,for they rest on an abstract one-sidedness in which the concept is lost.But the judgment of the concept is instead objective and, as contrastedwith the others, it is the truth, for it rests on the concept precisely in itsdeterminateness as concept, not in some external reflection or with referenceto some subjective, that is, accidental, thought.

In the disjunctive judgment, the concept was posited as the identity ofuniversal nature and its particularization, and with that the relation of thejudgment was sublated. This concretion of universality and particularizationis at first a simple result; it must now further develop itself into totality,for its moments have at first collapsed into it and do not as yet stand over12.85against each other in determinate self-subsistence. – The shortcoming ofthat result may also be stated more incisively by saying that although inthe disjunctive judgment the objective universality has attained completionin its particularization, the negative unity of the latter has only retreatedinto it and has not as yet determined itself as the third moment, that of

73 Cf. A74/B99ff.

Judgment 583

singularity. – But to the extent that the result is itself negative unity, it isalready this singularity; it is then this one determinateness alone that mustnow posit its negativity, that must part itself into extremes and in this wayconcludes its development in the syllogistic conclusion.74

The proximate diremption of this unity is the judgment in which theunity is posited first as subject, as an immediate singular, and then aspredicate, as the determinate connection of its moments.

a. The assertoric judgment

The judgment of the concept is at first immediate; as such, it is the assertoricjudgment. The subject is a concrete singular in general, and the predicateexpresses this same singular as the connection of its actuality, its determi-nateness or constitution, to its concept. (“This house is bad,” “this actionis good.”) More closely considered, it contains, therefore, (a) that the sub-ject ought to be something; its universal nature has posited itself as theself-subsistent concept; (b) that particularity is something constituted or anexternal concrete existence, not only because of its immediacy, but because itexpressly differs from its self-subsisting universal nature; its external con-crete existence, for its part, because of this self-subsistence of the concept, isalso indifferent with respect to the universal and may or may not conformto it. – This constitution is the singularity which in the disjunctive judg-ment escapes the necessary determination of the universal, a determinationthat exists only as the particularization of the species and as the negativeprinciple of the genus. Thus the concrete universality that has come outof the disjunctive judgment divides in the assertoric judgment into theform of extremes to which the concept itself, as the posited unity connectingthem, is still lacking.

For this reason the judgment is so far only assertoric; its credential is onlya subjective assurance. That something is good or bad, right, suitable ornot, hangs on an external third. But to say that the connectedness is thusexternally posited is the same as saying that it is still only in itself or internal. –When we say that something is good or bad, etc., we certainly do not meanto say that it is good only in a subjective consciousness but may perhaps 12.86be bad in itself, or that “good and bad,” “right,” “suitable,” etc. may notbe predicates of the object itself. The merely subjective character of theassertion of this judgment consists, therefore, in the fact that the implicitlypresent connectedness of subject and predicate has not been posited yet, or,

74 There is in German a play on words here. Schluß means both “conclusion” and “syllogism.”


what amounts to the same thing, that it is only external; the copula still isan immediate abstract being.

Thus the assurance of the assertoric judgment can with right be con-fronted by an opposing one. When the assurance is given that “this actionis good,” the opposite, “this action is bad,” has equal justification. – Or,considering the judgment in itself, since its subject is an immediate singular,in this abstraction it still does not have, posited in it, the determinatenessthat would contain its connection with the universal concept; it still is acontingent matter, therefore, whether there is or there is not conformity tothe concept. Essentially, therefore, the judgment is problematic.

b. The problematic judgment

The problematic judgment is the assertoric judgment in so far as the lattermust be taken positively as well as negatively. – According to this qualitativeside, the particular judgment is likewise a problematic one, for it haspositive just as much as negative value (equally problematic is also thebeing of the subject and predicate in the hypothetical judgment), and alsoposited through this side is that the singular judgment and the categoricalare still something merely subjective. In the problematic judgment as such,however, this positing is more immanent than it is in these others, for init the content of the predicate is the connection of the subject to the concept –here, therefore, the determination of the immediate as something contingentis itself present.

Whether the predicate ought to be or not to be coupled with a cer-tain subject appears at first only as problematic, and to this extent theindeterminateness falls on the side of the copula. The predicate has nodetermination to gain from this coupling, since it is already the objec-tive, concrete universality. The problematic element falls, therefore, on theimmediacy of the subject, which is thereby determined as a contingency. –But further, we must not for that reason abstract from the singularity ofthe subject; purified of such a singularity, the subject would be only auniversal, whereas the predicate entails precisely this, that the concept ofthe subject ought to be posited with reference to its singularity. – We maynot say, “the house or a house is good,” but, “so indeed it is in the wayit is made.” – The problematic element in the subject itself constitutes itsmoment of contingency, the subjectivity of the fact it expresses as contrasted12.87with its objective nature or its concept, its mere mode and manner or itsconstitution.

Judgment 585

Consequently the subject is itself differentiated into its universality orobjective nature, that is, its ought, and the particularized constitutionof immediate existence. It thereby contains the ground for being or notbeing what it ought to be. In this way, it is equated with the predicate. –Accordingly, the negativity of the problematic character of the judgment,inasmuch as it implicates the immediacy of the subject, only amounts tothis original partition of the latter into its moments of universal and partic-ular of which it is already the unity – a partition which is the judgmentitself.

One more comment that can be made is that both sides of the subject, itsconcept and the way it is constituted, could each be called its subjectivity.The concept is the universal essence of a fact, withdrawn into itself, thefact’s negative self-unity; this unity constitutes the fact’s subjectivity. But afact is also essentially contingent and has an external constitution; this lastmay also be called its mere subjectivity, as contrasted with the objectivity ofthe concept. The fact consists just in this, that its concept, as self-negatingunity, negates its universality and projects itself into the externality ofsingularity. – As this duplicity, the subject of the judgment is here posited;the truth of those two opposite meanings of subjectivity is that they are inone. – The meaning of subjective has itself become problematic by havinglost the immediate determinateness that it had in the immediate judgmentand its determinate opposition to the predicate. – These opposite meaningsof subjectivity that surface even in the ratiocination of ordinary reflectionshould by themselves at least call attention to the fact that subjectivity hasno truth in one of them alone. The duplicity of meaning is the manifestationof the one-sidedness of each when taken by itself.

When this problematic character of the judgment is thus posited as thecharacter of the fact, the fact with its constitution, the judgment itself is nolonger problematic but apodictic.

c. The apodictic judgment

The subject of the apodictic judgment (“the house, as so and so constituted,is good,” “the action, as so and so constituted, is right”) includes, first, theuniversal, or what it ought to be; second, its constitution; the latter containsthe ground why a predicate of the judgment of the concept does or does 12.88not pertain to it, that is, whether the subject corresponds to its concept ornot. This judgment is now truly objective; or it is the truth of the judgmentin general. Subject and predicate correspond to each other, and have thesame concept, and this content is itself posited concrete universality; that is


to say, it contains the two moments, the objective universal or the genusand the singularized universal. Here we have, therefore, the universal thatis itself and continues through its opposite, and is a universal only in unitywith the latter. – Such a universal, like “good,” “fitting,” “right,” etc., hasan ought for its ground, and contains at the same time the correspondenceof existence; it is not the ought or the genus by itself, but this correspondencewhich is the universality that constitutes the predicate of the apodicticjudgment.

The subject likewise contains these two moments in immediate unity asfact. The truth of the latter, however, is that it is internally fractured intoits ought and its being; this is the absolute judgment on all actuality.75 – Thatthis original partition, which is the omnipotence of the concept, is equallya turning back into the concept’s unity and the absolute connection of“ought” and “being” to each other, is what makes the actual into a fact; thefact’s inner connection, this concrete identity, constitutes its soul.

The transition from the immediate simplicity of the fact to the correspon-dence which is the determinate connection of its ought and its being – thecopula – now shows itself upon closer examination to lie in the particulardeterminateness of the fact. The genus is the universal existing in and foritself which, to that extent, appears as unconnected; the determinateness,however, is that which in that universality is reflected into itself but at thesame time into an other. The judgment, therefore, has its ground in theconstitution of the subject and is thereby apodictic. Consequently, we nowhave the determinate and accomplished copula which hitherto consisted inthe abstract “is” but has now further developed into ground in general. Itfirst attaches to the subject as immediate determinateness, but it is equallythe connection to the predicate – a predicate that has no other content thanthis correspondence itself, or the connection of the subject to the universality.

Thus the form of judgment has passed away, first, because subject andpredicate are in themselves the same content; but, second, because throughits determinateness the subject points beyond itself and connects itself tothe predicate; but again, third, this connecting has equally passed over intothe predicate, only constitutes the content of it, and so it is the connectingas posited or the judgment itself. – The concrete identity of the concept12.89that was the result of the disjunctive judgment and constitutes the innerfoundation of the judgment of the concept – the identity that was positedat first only in the predicate – is thus recovered in the whole.

75 Like the Greek �� (cf. crisis), the German Urteil (judgment) connotes “partition.”

Judgment 587

On closer examination, the positive factor in this result which is respon-sible for the transition of the judgment into another form is that, as wehave just seen,76 the subject and predicate are in the apodictic judgmenteach the whole concept. – The unity of the concept, as the determinatenessconstituting the copula that connects them, is at the same time distinctfrom them. At first, it stands only on the other side of the subject as thelatter’s immediate constitution. But since its essence is to connect, it is notonly that immediate constitution but the universal that runs through thesubject and predicate. – While subject and predicate have the same con-tent, it is the form of their connection that is instead posited through thedeterminateness of the copula, the determinateness as a universal or the par-ticularity. – Thus it contains in itself both the form determinations of theextremes and is the determinate connection of the subject and predicate:the accomplished copula of the judgment, the copula replete of content, theunity of the concept that re-emerges from the judgment wherein it was lostin the extremes. – By virtue of this repletion of the copula, the judgment hasbecome syllogism.

76 In the preceding section 12.88.

chapter 3

The syllogism12.90

The syllogism is the result of the restoration of the concept in the judgment,and consequently the unity and the truth of the two. The concept as suchholds its moments sublated in this unity; in judgment, the unity is aninternal or, what amounts to the same, an external one, and although themoments are connected, they are posited as self-subsisting extremes. In thesyllogism, the determinations of the concept are like the extremes ofthe judgment, and at the same time their determinate unity is posited.

Thus the syllogism is the completely posited concept; it is, therefore, therational. – The understanding is taken to be the faculty of the determinateconcept which is held fixed for itself by virtue of abstraction and the formof universality. But in reason the determinate concepts are posited in theirtotality and unity. Therefore, it is not just that the syllogism is rational butthat everything rational is a syllogism. Syllogistic inference has long sincebeen ascribed to reason; but, on the other hand, reason in and for itself,and rational principles and laws, are so spoken of that no light is thrownon why the one reason that syllogizes, and the other which is the sourceof laws and otherwise eternal truths and absolute thoughts, hang together.If the former is supposed to be only a formal reason while the latter issupposed to be the one that generates content, then one would expect onthis distinction that precisely the form of reason, the inference, would notbe missing in the latter. And yet, the two are commonly held so far apart,the one without mention of the other, that it seems as though the reasonof absolute thoughts were ashamed, so to speak, of inferential reason, andthe syllogism were listed as also an activity of reason merely as matter oftradition. But surely, as we have just remarked, logical reason must beessentially recognizable, when regarded as formal, also in the reason thatis concerned with a content; indeed, no content can be rational exceptby virtue of the rational form. In this matter we cannot rely on what iscommonly said about reason, for common views fail to tell us what we areto understand by reason; this would-be rational wisdom is so busy with its

588

The syllogism 589

objects that it forgets to pay attention to reason itself but only identifies it 12.91by characterizing it through the objects that it is said to have. If reason issupposed to be a cognition that would know about God, freedom, right andduty, the infinite, the unconditional, the suprasensible, or even gives onlyrepresentations and feelings of such objects, then for one thing these objectsare only negative, and for another the original question still stands, whatis there in all these objects that makes them rational? – The answer is thatthe infinitude in them is not the empty abstraction from the finite, is not auniversality which is void of content and determination, but is the fulfilleduniversality, the concept which is determined and is truly in possession of itsdeterminateness, namely, in that it differentiates itself internally and is theunity of its thus intelligible and determined differences. Only in this waydoes reason rise above the finite, the conditioned, the sensuous, or howeverone might define it, and is in this negativity essentially replete with content,for as unity it is the unity of determinate extremes. And so the rational isnothing but the syllogism.

Now the syllogism, like judgment, is at first immediate; as such, itsdeterminations (termini) are simple, abstract determinacies; it is then thesyllogism of the understanding. If one stays at this configuration of thesyllogism, then its rationality, though present there and posited, is notapparent. The essential element of the syllogism is the unity of the extremes,the middle term that unites them and the ground that supports them.Abstraction, by holding fast to the self-subsistence of the extremes, posits thisunity opposite them, as a determinateness with just as fixed an existence of itsown, thus grasping it more as a non-unity than as a unity. The expression,“middle term” (medius terminus), is derived from spatial representation,and has its share of responsibility for why we stop short at the externalityof the terms. Now if the syllogism consists in the positing in it of the unityof the extremes, but if this unity is simply taken on the one hand as aparticular by itself, and on the other hand as only an external connection,and non-unity is made the essential relation of syllogism, then the reasonof the syllogism is of no help to rationality.

First, the syllogism of existence, in which the terms are thus immediatelyand abstractly determined, demonstrates internally that, since like judg-ment it is the connection of those terms, these are not in fact abstract buteach contains in it the reference connecting it to the others, and the deter-mination of the middle term is not just a determinateness opposed to thedeterminations of the extremes but contains these extremes posited in it. 12.92

Through this dialectic, the syllogism of existence becomes the syllogismof reflection, the second syllogism. Its terms are such that in each the other


shines essentially reflected in it, or are posited as mediated, as they are indeedsupposed to be in accordance with the nature of syllogistic inference ingeneral.

Third, inasmuch as this reflective shining or this mediatedness is reflectedinto itself, syllogism is determined as the syllogism of necessity, one in whichthe mediating factor is the objective nature of the fact. As this syllogismdetermines the extremes of the concept also as totalities, it has attained thecorrespondence of its concept (or the middle term) and its existence (orthe difference of the extremes). It has attained its truth – and with that ithas stepped forth out of subjectivity into objectivity.

a. the syllogism of existence

1. The syllogism in its immediate form has for its moments the determi-nations of the concept as immediate. Accordingly, these are the abstractdeterminacies of form, such as have not yet been developed by mediationinto concretion but are only singular determinacies. The first syllogism is thusthe one which is strictly formal. The formalism of syllogistic inference con-sists in stopping short at the form of this first syllogism. The concept, whenpartitioned into its abstract moments, has singularity and universality for itsextremes, and itself appears as the particularity that stands between them.Because of their immediacy, these determinacies only refer to themselves,one and all a single content. Particularity constitutes at first the middle termby uniting within itself, immediately, the two moments of singularity anduniversality. Because of its determinateness, on the one hand it is subsumedunder the universal; on the other hand, the singular with respect to which itpossesses universality is subsumed under it. This concretion is at first, how-ever, only a double-sidedness; the middle term, because of the immediacythat affects it in the immediate syllogism, is a simple determinateness, andthe mediation which it constitutes is not as yet posited. Now the dialecticalmovement of the syllogism of existence consists in positing the momentsof the mediation that alone constitutes the syllogism.12.93

a. First figure of the syllogism

S-P-U is the general schema of the determinate syllogism. Singularity con-nects with77 universality through particularity; the singular is not universalimmediately but by means of particularity; and conversely, universality is

77 schliesst . . . zusammen: note the schliessen which is connected with Schluss, “syllogism,” “conclusion,”“inference.” There is a constant play on words in this section which is difficult to render in Englishwithout departing from the text too far.

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likewise not singular immediately but lowers itself to it through particular-ity. – These determinations stand over against each other as extremes and areone in a third term which is diverse from them. The two are both determi-nateness; in this they are identical; this, their universal determinateness, isparticularity. But they are no less extremes with respect to this particularitythan they are to each other, for each is in its immediate determinateness.

The general meaning of this syllogism is that the singular, which as suchis infinite self-reference and consequently would be only an inwardness,emerges through the medium of particularity into existence, into a uni-versality wherein it no longer belongs just to itself but stands in externalconjunction; conversely, since in its determinateness the singular sets itselfapart as particularity, in this separation it is a concreted term and, becauseof the self-reference of the determinateness, it is a self-referring universal,and consequently also a true singular; in the extreme of universality thesingular has gone from externality into itself. – The objective significanceof the syllogism is in this first figure only superficially present at first, for thedeterminations are not as yet posited in it as the unity which constitutesthe essence of the syllogistic inference. The syllogism is still somethingsubjective inasmuch as the abstract meaning which its terms have has nobeing in and for itself but is rather only in a subjective consciousness, andis thus isolated. – Moreover, as we have seen,78 the relation of singularity,particularity, and universality is the necessary and essential form-relation ofthe determinations of the syllogism; the deficiency does not rest in thedeterminateness of the form but in that each single determination is notat the same time richer under it. – Aristotle confined himself rather tothe mere relation of inherence by defining the nature of the syllogism asfollows: When three terms are so related to each other that the one extremeis in the entire middle term, and this middle term is in the entire otherextreme, then these two extremes are necessarily united in the conclusion.79

What is here expressed is the repetition of the equal relation of inherenceof the one extreme to the middle term, and then again of this last to theother extreme, rather than the determinateness of the three terms to eachother. – Now since the syllogistic inference rests on this determinateness ofthe terms to each other, it is immediately apparent that the other relations 12.94of terms as are given by the other figures can have validity as inferences ofthe understanding only to the extent that they let themselves be reduced tothat original relation; these other are not diverse species of figures that standalongside the first but, on the one hand, to the extent that they are assumed

78 In section 12.92. 79 Prior Analytics, 25b32–35.


to be correct inferences, they rest on the form of syllogistic inference ingeneral; and, on the other hand, to the extent that they deviate from it,they are variant forms into which the first abstract form necessarily passesover and thereby further determines itself and becomes totality. How thisoccurs, we must now see in greater detail.

S-P-U is thus the general schema of the syllogism in its determinateness.The singular is subsumed under the particular and the particular under theuniversal; therefore, the singular is also subsumed under the universal. Orthe particular inheres in the singular and the universal in the particular;therefore, the universal also inheres in the singular. With respect to the sideof the universal, the particular is the subject; with respect to that of thesingular, it is predicate; or as against the one it is singular, as against theother it is universal. Since both these determinations are united in it, byvirtue of this unity of determinations the extremes are joined together. The“therefore” appears as an inference that has taken place in the subject andderives from the subjective insight into the relation of the two immediatepremises. Since subjective reflection expresses the two connections of themiddle to the extremes as particular and indeed immediate judgments orpropositions, the conclusion as the mediated connection is of course also aparticular proposition, and the “hence” or the “therefore,” is the expressionthat it is the one which is mediated. But this “therefore” is not to beregarded as a determination which is external to this proposition, one thatwould have its ground and seat in subjective reflection, but as groundedrather in the nature of the extremes themselves whose connection is againenunciated as a mere judgment or proposition only for the sake of, and byvirtue of, abstractive reflection, but whose true connection is posited as themiddle term. – “Therefore S is A”: that this is a judgment is a merelysubjective circumstance; that it is not a merely subjective judgment, that is,not a connection drawn through the mere copula or the empty “is” but onedrawn rather through a determinate middle which is replete with content,that is precisely the meaning of the syllogistic inference.

For this reason, to regard the syllogism as merely consisting of three judg-ments is a formalistic view that ignores the relation of the determinationswhich alone is at issue in the inference. It is altogether a merely subjectivereflection that splits the connection of the terms into isolated premises anda conclusion distinct from them:12.95

All humans are mortal,Gaius is a humanTherefore Gaius is mortal.

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One is immediately seized by boredom the moment one hears this infer-ence being trotted out, a boredom brought on by the futility of a form thatby means of separate propositions gives the illusion of a diversity whichis immediately dissolved in the fact itself. It is mostly because of this sub-jective attire that the inference appears as a subjective expedient in whichreason or understanding take refuge when they are incapable of immediatecognition. – The nature of things, the rational, certainly does not operatein this way, first by drawing up a major premise for itself, the connection ofsome particularity to a subsistent universal; then by discovering in a secondmoment the separate connection of a singularity to the particularity, outof which in a third and final moment a new proportion comes to light. –This syllogistic inference from one separate proposition to another is noth-ing but a subjective form; the nature of the fact is that its various determi-nations are united in a unity of essence. This rationality is not an expedient;on the contrary, in contrast to the immediacy of the connection that stillobtains in judgment, it is the objective element; it is the prior immediacyof cognition that rather is mere subjectivity, in contrast to the syllogisticinference which is the truth of the judgment. – All things are a syllogism, auniversal united through particularity with singularity; surely not a wholemade up of three propositions.

2. In the immediate syllogism of the understanding, the terms have theform of immediate determinations; we must now consider that syllogismfrom this side, according to which the terms are content. We may thenregard it as qualitative, just as we did the judgment of existence80 whichhas the same side of qualitative determination. The terms of this syllogism,just like the terms of that judgment, are accordingly singular determinacies,for the determinateness is posited because of its self-reference as indifferentto form and hence as content. The singular is some immediate concretesubject matter or other; particularity, one of its determinacies, propertiesor relations; universality, a yet more abstract, more singularized determi-nateness in the particular. – Since the subject, as something immediatelydetermined, is as yet not posited in its concept, its concretion is not reducedto its essential determinacies; its self-referring determinateness is thereforeindeterminate, an infinite manifoldness. In this immediacy, the singularhas an infinite multitude of determinacies that belong to its particularity 12.96and any may serve in a syllogism as the middle term for it. Through eachmiddle term, however, the singular attaches to another universal; througheach of its properties it enters into a different arrangement and context of

80 Cf. above, 12.60.


existence. – Moreover, in comparison with the universal, the middle termis also a concreted term; it itself contains several predicates, and throughthe same middle term the singular can again attach to several universals.In general, therefore, it is entirely accidental and arbitrary which of themany properties of a thing is taken for the purpose of connecting it with apredicate; other middle terms are transitions to other predicates, and eventhe same middle term may by itself be the transition to different predicates,for as a particular against the universal it contains several determinations.

But not only is an indeterminate number of syllogisms equally possiblefor a subject and not only is any single syllogism contingent as regardscontent, but these syllogisms that concern the same subject must also runinto contradiction. For difference as such, which is at first an indifferentdiversity, is in essence equally opposition. The concrete is no longer merelyphenomenal but is concrete through the unity in the concept of oppositesthat have determined themselves as moments of the latter. Now inasmuchas in the formal syllogism, in keeping with the qualitative nature of theterms, the concrete is taken according to one of the single determinationsthat pertain to it, the syllogistic inference assigns to it the predicate cor-responding to this middle term; but inasmuch as from another side theopposite determinateness is inferred, the previous conclusion turns out tobe false, even though its premises and equally so its consequences are bythemselves quite correct. – If from the middle term that a wall was paintedblue it is concluded that it is blue, this is a correct inference. But, this con-clusion notwithstanding, the wall can be green if it was also covered overwith a yellow color, a circumstance from which alone it would follow thatthe wall is yellow. – If from the senses as middle term it is concluded thatthe human being is neither good nor bad, for neither the one nor the othercan be predicated of the senses, the inference is correct; yet the conclusionis wrong, because to the human being, taken concretely, spirituality alsoapplies as the middle term. – From the middle term of the gravitation ofthe planets, the satellites and comets towards the sun, it follows correctlythat these bodies fall into the sun; but they do not fall into it, because theyare equally their own center of gravity or, as it is said, are driven bythe centrifugal force. Likewise, from sociability as the middle term, thecommunity of goods among citizens can be inferred; however, from indi-12.97viduality as the middle term, if the term is pressed with equal abstractness,there follows the dissolution of the state, as for example it did follow forthe German Empire from adhering to that middle term.– It is only fairto hold that nothing is as unsatisfactory as such a formal syllogism, sincewhich middle term is employed is a matter of chance or arbitrariness. No

The syllogism 595

matter how elegantly a deduction is run through inferences of this kind,however fully its correctness is to be conceded, all this still amounts tonothing, for the possibility is still there that other middle terms may befound from which the opposite can be deduced with equal correctness. –Kant’s antinomies of reason amount to nothing more than that from aconcept one of its determinations is laid down as ground at one time, andanother determination at another time, both with equal necessity.81 – Theinsufficiency and contingency of an inference must not be blamed in thesecases on the content, as if they were independent of the form and the latteralone were the concern of logic. On the contrary, it lies in the form of theformal syllogism that the content is such a one-sided quality; the contentis destined to this one-sidedness because of the form’s abstractness. It is,namely, one single quality of the many qualities or determinations of aconcrete subject matter, or of a concept, because according to the form itis not supposed to be anything more than just such an immediate, singledeterminateness. The extreme of singularity is, as abstract singularity, theimmediate concrete, consequently an infinite or indeterminate manifold;the middle term is the equally abstract particularity, consequently a sin-gle one of these manifold qualities, and likewise the other extreme is theabstract universal. It is therefore because of its form that the formal syllo-gism is totally contingent as regards its content, not indeed because to thesyllogism it is accidental whether this or that subject matter is subject to it(logic abstracts from content), but because, in so far as a subject is laid atits basis, it is contingent which content determinations it will infer from it.

3. The determinations of the syllogism are determinations of contentinasmuch as they are immediate and abstract determinations reflectedinto themselves. But their essence is to be, not immanently reflected andmutually indifferent determinations, but determinations of form, and to thisextent they are essentially connections. These connections are, first, thoseof the extremes to the middle term. These are immediate connections, thepropositiones præmissæ – namely, the connection of the particular to theuniversal, the propositio major, and that of the singular to the particular,the propositio minor. Second, there is the connection of the extremes to one 12.98another, and this is the mediated connection, the conclusio. The immediateconnections, the premises, are propositions or judgments in general, andthey contradict the nature of the syllogism, for according to the latter thedifferent concept determinations should not be immediately connectedbut also their unity should be posited; the truth of the judgment is the

81 For the antinomies, cf. A426/B454ff.


syllogistic conclusion. And there is all the more reason why the premisescannot remain immediate connections as their content is made up ofimmediately differentiated determinations which, as such, are not in andfor themselves identical – unless the premises are identical propositions,that is, empty tautologies that lead to nothing.

Accordingly, the normal expectation is that the premises will be proved,that is, that they ought likewise to be exhibited as conclusions. The twopremises, therefore, yield two further syllogisms. But these two new syllo-gisms together yield four premises that require four new syllogisms; thesehave eight premises whose eight conclusions yield in turn sixteen conclusionsfor their sixteen premises, and so on in a geometrical progression to infinity.

Thus we have again the progress to infinity that occurred in the lowersphere of being but we would not expect now in the domain of the concept,the domain of the absolute reflection from the finite to the self, the region offree infinity and truth. It was shown in the sphere of being82 that wheneverthe bad infinity that runs away into a progression raises its head, what wehave is the contradiction of a qualitative being and of an impotent oughtthat would transcend it; the progression itself is the repeated demand thatthere be unity that intervenes to confront the qualitative, and the constantfall back into the limitation which is inadequate to the demand. Now inthe formal syllogism the immediate connection or the qualitative judgmentis the basis, and the mediation of the syllogism is the higher truth positedover against it. The infinite progression of the proof of the premises doesnot resolve this contradiction but only perpetually renews it and is therepetition of one and the same original deficiency. – The truth of theinfinite progression is rather the sublation of it and of the form which theprogression itself has already determined as deficient. – This form is thatof the mediation S-P-U. The two connections, S-P and P-U are supposedto be mediated; if this is done in the same manner, only the deficient formS-P-U is replicated, and so on to infinity. With respect to S, P also has theform determination of a universal; and with respect to U that of a singular,for these connections are as such judgments. As such, they are in needof mediation; but in that form of mediation, only the relation that wassupposed to be sublated comes up again.12.99

The mediation must therefore occur in some other way. For the medi-ation of P-U, there is S available; hence the mediation must be given theshape of P-S-U. To mediate S-P, there is U available; accordingly, thismediation becomes S-U-P.

82 Cf. GW 11.79; above 21.127ff.

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If this transition is examined more closely in light of its concept, then,as was shown earlier,83 the mediation of the formal syllogism is in the firstinstance contingent according to content. The immediate singular has inits determinacies an indeterminate number of middle terms, and thesehave in general equally as many determinacies in turn; it is, therefore,entirely a matter of external arbitrary choice, or in general of an externalcircumstance and accidental determination, as to which universal the subjectof the syllogism should be annexed. As regards its content, therefore, themediation is not anything necessary, nor universal; it is not grounded inthe concept of the fact but the basis of the inference is something externalto it, that is, the immediate; but of the determinations of the concept, it isthe singular which is the immediate.

With respect to form, the mediation likewise presupposes the immediacyof connection; the mediation itself is thus mediated – mediated indeedby means of the immediate, that is, the singular. – More precisely, thesingular has become a mediating term through the conclusion of the firstsyllogism. That conclusion is S-U; the singular is thereby posited as auniversal. In one premise, that is, the minor S-P, it is already as a particular;consequently, the singular is that in which these two determinations areunited. – Or the conclusion expresses in and for itself the singular as auniversal, and it does it, not in any immediate manner, but mediatedly,hence as a necessary connection. The simple particularity was the middleterm; in the conclusion, this particularity is posited as developed as theconnection of singular and universality. But the universal is still a qualitativedeterminateness, the predicate of the singular; in being determined asuniversal, the singular is posited as the universality of the extremes or asthe middle; it is for itself the extreme of singularity, but since it is nowdetermined as a universal, it is at the same time the unity of the twoextremes.

b. The second figure: P-S-U

1. The truth of the first qualitative syllogism is that something is not inand for itself united to a qualitative determinateness which is a universal,but is united to it by means of a contingency or in a singularity. The subject 12.100of the syllogism has not returned in such a quality to its concept but isconceived only in its externality; the immediacy constitutes the basis of theconnection and hence the mediation; to this extent, the singular is in truththe middle.

83 Cf. above, 12.97.


But further, the syllogistic connection is the sublation of the immediacy;the conclusion is a connection drawn not immediately but through a thirdterm; therefore, it contains a negative unity; therefore, the mediation isnow determined as containing a negative moment within it.

In this second syllogism, the premises are: P-S and S-U; only the firstof these premises is still an immediate one; the second, S-U, is alreadymediated, namely through the first syllogism; the second syllogism thuspresupposes the first just as, conversely, the first presupposes the second. –The two extremes are here determined, the one as against the other, asparticular and universal. The latter thus retains its place; it is predicate.But the particular has exchanged places; it is subject or is posited in thedetermination of the extreme of singularity, just as the singular is positedwith the determination of the middle term or of particularity. The two nolonger are, therefore, the abstract immediacies which they were in the firstsyllogism. However, they are not yet posited as concrete somethings; instanding in the place of the other, each is thereby posited – in its owndetermination and at the same time, although only externally – into thatof the other.

The determinate and objective meaning of this syllogism is that theuniversal is not in and for itself a determinate particular (it is rather thetotality of its particulars) but that it is one of its species through the mediationof singularity; the rest of its species are excluded from it by the immediacyof externality. Likewise the particular is not for its part immediately, andin and for itself, the universal; the negative unity is rather what removesthe determinateness from it and thereby raises it to universality. – Thesingularity thus relates to the particular negatively in so far as it is supposedto be its predicate; it is not the predicate of the particular.

2. But the terms are at first still immediate determinacies; they have notadvanced of their own to any objective signification; the positions whichtwo of them have exchanged and now occupy is the form, and this is as yetonly external to them. Therefore they are still, as in the first syllogism, eacha content indifferent as such to the other – two qualities linked together,not in and for themselves, but through the mediation of an accidentalsingularity.12.101

The syllogism of the first figure was the immediate syllogism, or again,the syllogism in so far as its concept is an abstract form that has not yetrealized itself in all its determinations. The transition of this pure form intoanother figure is on the one hand the beginning of the realization of theconcept, in that the negative moment of the mediation, and thereby onefurther determinateness of the form, is posited in the originally immediate,

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qualitative determinateness of the terms. – But, on the other hand, thisis at the same time an alteration of the pure form of the syllogism; thelatter no longer conforms to it fully, and the determinateness posited in itsterms is at variance with that original form determination. – In so far asit is regarded as only a subjective syllogism that runs its course in externalreflection, we can then take it as a species of syllogistic inference that shouldconform to the genus, namely the general schema S-P-U. But it does notat the moment conform to it; its two premises are P-S or S-P and S-U; themiddle term is in both cases the one which is subsumed or is the subjectin which the two other terms thus inhere – is not therefore a middleterm that in one case would subsume or be predicate, and in the otherwould be subsumed or be subject, or a middle in which one of the termswould inhere but would itself inhere in the other. – The true meaningof this syllogism’s lack of conformity to the general form of the syllogismis that the latter has passed over into it, for its truth consists in being asubjective, contingent conjoining of terms. If the conclusion in this secondfigure is correct (that is, without recurring to the restriction, to which weshall presently turn, that makes of it something indeterminate), then it iscorrect because it is so on its own, not because it is the conclusion of thissyllogism. But the same is the case for the conclusion of the first figure;it is this, the truth of that first figure, which is posited by the second. –On the view that the second figure is only one species, we overlook thenecessary transition of the first figure into this second and stop short at thefirst as the true form. Hence, if in the second figure (which from ancientcustom is referred to, without further ground, as the third) we are equallysupposed to find a correct syllogism in this subjective sense, this syllogismwould have to be commensurate with the first; consequently, since the onepremise S-U has the relation of the subsumption of the middle term underone extreme, then it would have to be possible for the other premise S-P toreceive the opposite relation to that which it has, and for P to be subsumedunder S. But such a relation would be the sublation of the determinatejudgment S is P, and could only occur in an indeterminate judgment, aparticular judgment; consequently, the conclusion in this figure can onlybe particular. But the particular judgment, as we remarked above,84 ispositive as well as negative – a conclusion, therefore, to which no great 12.102value can be ascribed. – Since the particular and universal are also theextremes, and are immediate determinacies indifferent to each other, theirrelation itself is indifferent; each can be the major or the minor term,

84 Cf. above, 12.73.


indifferently the one or the other, and consequently either premise can alsobe taken as major or minor.

3. Since the conclusion is positive as well as negative, it is a connec-tion which for that reason is indifferent to these determinacies, hence auniversal connection. More precisely, the mediation of the first syllogismwas implicitly a contingent one; in the second syllogism, this contingency isposited. Consequently, the mediation is self-sublating; it has the determina-tion of singularity and immediacy; what this syllogism joins together must,on the contrary, be in itself and immediately identical, for that mediatingmiddle, the immediate singularity, is an infinitely manifold and externaldetermining. Posited in it, therefore, is rather the self-external mediation.The externality of singularity, however, is universality; that mediation bymeans of the immediate singular points beyond itself to the mediationwhich is the other than it, one which therefore occurs by means of theuniversal. – In other words, what is supposed to be united by means ofthe second syllogism, must be immediately conjoined; the immediacy onwhich it is based does not allow any definite conclusion. The immediacyto which this syllogism points is the opposite of its own: it is the sublatedfirst immediacy of being, therefore the immediacy reflected into itself orthe abstract universal existing in itself.

From the standpoint of the present consideration, the transition ofthis syllogism was like the transition of being an alteration, for its baseis qualitative; it is the immediacy of singularity. But according to theconcept, singularity conjoins the particular and the universal by sublatingthe determinateness of the particular – and this is what presents itself as thecontingency of this syllogistic inference. The extremes are not conjoinedby the specific connective which they have in the middle term; this termis not, therefore, their determinate unity, and the positive unity that yetpertains to it is abstract universality. But inasmuch as the middle term isposited in this determination which is its truth, we have another form ofthe syllogism.

c. The third figure: S-U-P

1. This third syllogism no longer has any single immediate premise; theconnection S-U has been mediated by the first syllogism; the connectionP-U by the second. It thus presupposes both these syllogisms; but conversely12.103it is presupposed by them, just as in general each presupposes the othertwo. In this third figure, therefore, it is the determination of the syllogismas such that is brought to completion. – This reciprocal mediation means

The syllogism 601

just this, that each syllogism, although for itself a mediation, does notpossess the totality of mediation but is affected by an immediacy whosemediation lies outside it.

Considered in itself, the syllogism S-U-P is the truth of the formalsyllogism; it expresses the fact that its mediating middle is the abstractuniversal and that the extremes are not contained in it according to theiressential determinateness but only according to their universality – thatprecisely that is not conjoined in it, which was supposed to be mediated.Posited here, therefore, is that wherein the formalism of the syllogismconsists – that its terms have an immediate content which is indifferenttowards the form, or, what amounts to the same, that they are such formdeterminations as have not yet reflected themselves into determinations ofcontent.

2. The middle of this syllogism is indeed the unity of the extremes,but a unity in which abstraction is made from their determinateness, theindeterminate universal. But in so far as this universal is at the same timedistinguished from the extremes as the abstract from the determinate, it isitself also a determinate as against them, and the whole is a syllogism whoserelation to its concept needs examining. As the universal, the middle term iswith respect to both its extremes the term that subsumes or the predicate –not a term for once also subsumed or the subject. Now as a species ofsyllogism, it ought to conform to the latter, and this can only happenon condition that, inasmuch as the one connection S-U already possessesthe appropriate relation, the other connection P-U contains it too. Thisoccurs in a judgment in which the relation of subject and predicate is anindifferent one, in a negative judgment. Thus does the syllogism becomelegitimate, but the conclusion is necessarily negative.

Consequently, also indifferent is now which of the two determinationsof this proposition is taken as predicate or subject, and whether the deter-mination is taken in the syllogism as the extreme of singularity or theextreme of particularity, hence as the minor or major term. Since on theusual assumption which of the premises is supposed to be the major orthe minor depends on this distinction, this too has now become a matterof indifference. – This is the ground of the customary fourth figure of thesyllogism which was unknown to Aristotle and has to do with an entirelyvoid and uninteresting distinction. In it the immediate position of theterms is the reverse of their position in the first figure; since from the pointof view of the formal treatment of judgment the subject and predicate ofthe negative conclusion do not have the determinate relation of subjectand predicate, but each can take the place of the other, it is a matter of 12.104


indifference which term is taken as subject and which as predicate; and justas indifferent is therefore which premise is taken as the major and which asthe minor. – This indifference, to which the determination of particularityalso contributes (especially if it is noted that this particularity can be takenin a comprehensive sense), makes of this fourth figure something totallyidle.

3. The objective significance of the syllogism in which the universal isthe middle is that the mediating term, as the unity of the extremes, isessentially a universal. But since the universality is at first only qualitative orabstract, the determinateness of the extremes is not contained in it; theirbeing conjoined in the conclusion, if the conjunction is to take place, mustlikewise have its ground in a mediation that lies outside this syllogism andis, with respect to the latter, just as contingent as it is in the preceding formsof the syllogism. But now, since the universal is determined as the middleterm, and since the determinateness of the extremes is not contained inthis middle, the latter is posited as one which is wholly indifferent andexternal. – It is here, by virtue indeed of a bare abstraction, that a fourthfigure of the syllogism arose in the first place, namely the figure of therelationless syllogism, U-U-U, which abstracts from the qualitative differ-entiation of the terms and therefore has their merely external unity, theirequality, for its determination.

d. The fourth figure: U-U-U, or the mathematical syllogism

1. The mathematical syllogism goes like this: if two things or two determi-nations are equal to a third, then they are equal to each other. – The relationof inherence or subsumption of terms is done away with.

A “third” is in general the mediating term; but this third has absolutelyno determination as against the extremes. Each of the three terms cantherefore be the mediating term just as well as any other. Which is neededfor the job, which of the three connections are therefore to be taken asimmediate, and which as mediated, depends on external circumstancesand other conditions, namely which two of the three are immediatelygiven. But this determination does not concern the syllogism and is whollyexternal.

2. The mathematical syllogism ranks in mathematics as an axiom, as a firstself-explanatory proposition which is neither capable nor in need of proof,i.e of any mediation – which neither presupposes anything else nor can bederived from anything else. – If we take a closer look at this prerogative thatthe proposition claims, of being immediately self-evident, we find that it lies12.105

The syllogism 603

in its formalism, in the fact that it abstracts from every qualitative diversityof determinations and only admits their quantitative equality or inequal-ity. But for this very reason it is not without presupposition or mediation;the quantitative determination, which alone comes into consideration init, is only by virtue of the abstraction from qualitative differentiation andfrom the concept determinations. – Lines, figures, posited as equal to eachother, are understood only according to their magnitude. A triangle isposited as equal to a square, not however as triangle to square but onlyaccording to magnitude, etc. Nor does the concept and its determinationsenter into this syllogism; there is in it, therefore, no conceptual comprehen-sion at all; the understanding is also not faced here by even the formal,abstract determinations of the concept. The self-evidence of this syllogismrests, therefore, solely on the indigence and abstractness of its mode ofthought.

3. But the result of the syllogism of existence is not just this abstractionfrom all determinateness of the concept; the negativity of the immediateand abstract determinations that emerged from it has yet another positiveside, namely that in the abstract determinateness its other has been positedand the determinateness has thereby become concrete.

In the first place, the syllogisms of existence all have one another forpresupposition, and the extremes conjoined in the conclusion are trulyconjoined, in and for themselves, only inasmuch as they are otherwiseunited by an identity grounded elsewhere; the middle term, as constitutedin the syllogisms we have examined, ought to be the conceptual unity ofthese syllogisms but is in fact only a formal determinateness that is notposited as their concrete unity. But what is thus presupposed by each andevery of these mediations is not merely a given immediacy in general, as isthe case for the mathematical syllogism, but is itself a mediation, namelyof each of the other two syllogisms. Therefore, what is truly present hereis not a mediation based on a given immediacy, but a mediation based onmediation. And this mediation is not quantitative, not one that abstractsfrom the form of mediation, but is rather a self-referring mediation, or themediation of reflection. The circle of reciprocal presupposing which thesesyllogisms bring to closure is the turning back of this presupposing intoitself – a presupposing that in this turning back forms a totality, and hasthe other to which every single syllogism refers, not outside by virtue ofabstraction, but included within the circle.

Further, from the side of the single determinations of form it has beenshown that in this whole of formal syllogisms each single determinationhas in turn occupied the place of the middle term. As immediate, this term 12.106


was determined as particularity; thereupon, through dialectical movementit determined itself as singularity and universality. Likewise did each ofthese determinations occupy the places of both of the two extremes. Themerely negative result is the dissolution of the qualitative determinationsof form into the merely quantitative, mathematical syllogism. But whatwe truly have here is the positive result, namely that mediation occurs, notthrough any single qualitative determinateness of form, but through theconcrete identity of the determinacies. The deficiency and formalism of thethree figures of the syllogism just considered consists precisely in this, thatone such single determinateness was supposed to constitute the middleterm in it. – Mediation has thus determined itself as the indifference of theimmediate or abstract determinations of form and the positive reflectionof one into the other. The immediate syllogism of existence has therebypassed over into the syllogism of reflection.

RemarkIn the account here given of the nature of the syllogism and its variousforms, passing reference was also made to what constitutes in the ordinaryexamination and treatment of the syllogisms the main object of interest,namely how the right conclusion may be drawn in each figure; but onlythe main point came in for consideration, and no mention was made ofthe cases and the intricacies that arise when the distinction of positiveand negative judgment is also brought in alongside the determinationof quantity, of particularity especially. – A few comments on how thesyllogism is ordinarily viewed and treated in logic have their place here. –This doctrine was famously elaborated to such precision of detail that itshair-splittings, as they came to be called, have been the object of universalaversion and disgust. The natural understanding85 in asserting itself overthe unsubstantial forms of reflection in all areas of humanistic culture alsoturned against this artificial knowledge of the forms of reason, believingthat it could dispense with the science of such forms on the ground thatit performed the individual operations of thought treated there naturallyand spontaneously, without specialized training. Indeed, with respect torational thinking, if its pre-condition were the laborious study of syllogisticformulas, humankind would be in just as sorry a state as they would (as wealready remarked in the Preface)86 if they could not walk or digest withoutthe previous study of anatomy and physiology. But if we admit that theremight be some use to the study of these sciences for dietary purposes,

85 The reference here is to common-sense philosophy. 86 Cf. GW 11, 6; above, 21.6.

The syllogism 605

surely we must credit the study of the forms of reason with an even more 12.107important influence on the correctness of thinking. But without goinghere into this aspect of the study that concerns the education of subjectivethinking and hence, strictly speaking, pedagogics, it must be granted thata study that has for its subject matter the modes of operation and the lawsof reason must be of the greatest interest in and of itself – an interest atleast not inferior to the knowledge of the laws and the particular shapesof nature. If it is not reputed a small matter to have discovered some sixtyspecies of parrots, one hundred and thirty-seven species of veronica, andso on, much less ought it to be reputed a small matter to have discoveredthe forms of reason. Is not the figure of a syllogism something infinitelyhigher than a species of parrot or veronica?

Yet, although contempt for the knowledge of the forms of reason mustbe viewed as nothing short of barbarism, it must equally be granted that thecustomary exposition of the syllogism and of its particular configurationsis not a rational cognition, not an exposition of them as forms of reason,and that syllogistic wisdom has by its own unworthiness brought uponitself the disparagement that it has experienced. Its deficiency consists inthe fact that it simply stops short at the form which the understandinggives to the syllogism and in which the determinations of the concept aretaken as abstract formal determinations. It is all the more inconsequentto cling to them as abstract qualities, since in the syllogism it is theirconnections that constitute the essential element, and the inherence and thesubsumption already imply that the singular, since the universal inheres init, is itself universal, and the universal, since it subsumes the singular, isitself singular; more to the point, the syllogism expressly posits this veryunity as the middle term, and its determination is mediation itself, thatis, the concept determinations no longer have, as they did in judgment,their reciprocal externality for their basis, but rather their unity. – It isthus the concept of the syllogism that gives away the imperfection of theformal syllogism in which the middle is supposed to be held fixed, notas the unity of the extremes, but as a formal and abstract determination,qualitatively at variance with them. – The treatment is made even morevacuous by the fact that such connections or judgments in which theformal determinations become indifferent, as in negative and particularjudgments, and which therefore approximate propositions, are also stillregarded as perfect relations. – Now since the qualitative form S-P-U isgenerally accepted as ultimate and absolute, the dialectical treatment of thesyllogism falls entirely by the wayside, and the rest of the syllogisms arethereby treated, not as necessary alterations of that form, but as species. – It is


then indifferent whether the first formal syllogism is regarded as itself onlyone species alongside the others or as rather genus and species at the same12.108time. This last is the case when the rest of the syllogisms are reduced to thefirst. But even when this reduction is not explicitly carried out, the basis isyet always the same formal relation of external subsumption expressed bythe first figure.

This formal syllogism is the contradiction that the middle term oughtto be the determinate unity of the extremes – not, however, as this unitybut as a determination qualitatively distinct from the terms whose unityit ought to be. Because the syllogism is this contradiction, it is inherentlydialectical. Its dialectical movement displays it in the full range of themoments of the concept, so that not only the said relation of subsumptionor particularity, but just as essentially the negative unity and the universality,are moments in the process of closing this unity. In so far as each of theseequally is by itself only a one-sided moment of particularity, they arelikewise imperfect middle terms, but at the same time they constitute thedeveloped determinations of the middle term; the entire course across thethree figures displays this middle in each of these determinations, one afterthe other, and the true result that emerges from it is that the middle is notany single one of them but the totality of them all.

The deficiency of the formal syllogism does not rest, therefore, in theform of the syllogism (which is, on the contrary, the form of rationality) butin that the form is only an abstract one, and hence void of the concept. Itwas shown that the abstract determination, on account of its abstract self-reference, can equally be regarded as content.87 But then, all that the formalsyllogism achieves is that a connection of subject and predicate follows ordoes not follow from only this middle term. It does not help to prove aproposition by means of it; on account of the abstract determinateness ofthe middle term which is a quality without concept, there can just as well beother middle terms from which the opposite would follow; even from thesame middle term opposite predicates can also be deduced in turn throughfurther middle terms. – Besides being of little use, the formal syllogism isalso something very simple; the many rules that have been fabricated arealready tiresome because they contrast so strongly with the simplicity ofthe fact at issue, but then also because they apply to cases where the formalworth of the syllogism is especially diminished by the externality of theform determination, notably that of particularity (especially because for

87 Hegel is very likely referring to the classical “atoms” which, as empty self-references, acquire animmediate, external, existence. Cf. the Remark above, 21.153ff.; GW 11, 93.

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this purpose the latter must be taken in a comprehensive sense), and whereeven with respect to the form only totally empty results are produced. –But the most justified and important aspect of the disfavor into whichsyllogistic theory has fallen is that, as such a long-drawn-out occupationwith a subject matter whose single content is none other than the concept, 12.109it is itself without concept. – The many syllogistic rules remind one of theprocedure of the arithmeticians who also give a great many rules aboutarithmetical operations, all of which presuppose that one has not theconcept of operation. – But numbers are a material with no concept andthe operations of arithmetic are an external combining or separating, amechanical procedure – indeed, calculating machines have been inventedthat execute these operations perfectly well. The form determinations ofthe syllogism are on the contrary concepts, and it is the most glaring ofscandals when they are treated as a material with no concept.

The extreme example of this mechanical treatment of the concept deter-minations of the syllogism is surely that of Leibniz.q He subjected thesyllogism to a combinatory calculus, thereby reckoning the number ofpossible positions of the syllogism – that is, with respect to the distinc-tion of positive and negative, then of universal, particular, indeterminateand singular judgments. He found that there are 2,048 such possible com-binations, of which, after the exclusion of the useless figures, 24 usefulones remain. – Leibniz makes much of the usefulness of this combina-tory analysis, not only in order to discover the forms of the syllogism butalso the combinations of other concepts. The operation by which this isaccomplished is the same as calculating how many combinations of let-ters an alphabet allows, how many throws are possible in a game of dice,how many plays with an ombre card, etc. We see here the determina-tions of the syllogism thus placed in the same class as the points of thedice and the ombre card; we see the rational treated as something deadand empty of concept, the neglect of that which characterizes the conceptand its determinations most, namely that these, as spiritual essences, enterinto connections and thereby sublate their immediate determination. – ThisLeibnizian application of combinatory calculus to the syllogism and to thecombination of other concepts differs from the disreputable Art of Lully89

solely because it is more methodical on the numerical side, but for the restit equals it in meaninglessness. – Connected with this was an idea dear to

q Opp. Tom. II, P. I.88

88 Leibniz, Dissertatio de arte combinatoria, Opera (ed. Dutens), Tomus II, Pars I, 352–361.89 Raymond Lully, c. 1232–1315. His calculation tables were reproduced in the Ars magna sciendi (1669)

by the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher.


Leibniz, one which he conceived in his youth and, despite its immaturityand shallowness, never abandoned even in later life.90 This was the idea ofa characteristica universalis of concepts – a standard language in which eachconcept is presented as a connection of other concepts or as connectingwith others – as if in a rational combination, which is essentially dialectical,a content would still retain the same determinations that it has when fixedin isolation.12.110

Ploucquet’s calculus has undoubtedly hit upon the most consequentmethod for preparing the syllogistic relation to be subjected to calculus.91

It is based on abstracting in a judgment from the difference of relation,the difference of singularity, particularity, and universality, and restrictingoneself to the abstract identity of subject and predicate whereby the twoare in mathematical equality – a connection that makes of the syllogisticinference a totally empty and tautological construal of propositions. – Inthe proposition, “the rose is red,” the predicate is taken to mean not theuniversal red but only the determinate red of the rose; in the proposition, “allChristians are human beings,” the predicate is taken to mean only thosehumans who are Christian, from which proposition and the proposition,“the Jews are not Christian,” there follows the conclusion (which did notrecommend this syllogistic calculus to Mendelssohn) that “therefore theJews are not humans” (namely, not those humans that the Christiansare). – Ploucquet states as a consequence of his invention: posse etiam rudesmechanice totam logicam doceri, uti pueri arithmeticam docentur, ita quidem,ut nulla formidine in ratiociniis suis errandi torqueri, vel fallaciis circumveniripossint, si in calculo non errant.92 – This recommendation, that by meansof calculus the whole of logic can mechanically be made available to theuneducated, is surely the worst that can be said of an invention that bearson the presentation of the science of logic.

90 See Leibniz, Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement par l’auteur du systeme de l’harmonie preestablie, inDie philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Vol. 5, ed. C. J. Gerhardt (Hildesheim:Georg Olms, 1960), pp. 365f.; New Essays on Human Understanding, trans., ed. Peter Remnant andJonathan Bennett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 384f.

91 Gottfried Plouquet (1716–1790), Expositiones Philosophiæ Theoreticæ, Logik (1782), ed., trans. intoGerman (original Latin text included), Michael Franz, Studien und Materialen zur Geschichte derPhilosophie (Hildesheim: Olms, 2006).

92 “I can teach the whole logic mechanically even to the uneducated, just as children are taughtarithmetic, so that, if there is no error of calculation, it would be possible not to be tormented bythe fear of erring in reasoning or of being deceived by falsities.” According to the editors of thecritical edition, this quote is not taken directly from Plouquet. GW 12, 347 (to page 110.14–18). In§70 of the 1782 edition (see previous note 91), Plouquet only says that “by means of this [following]theory, the whole business of syllogistic discovery and judgment . . . can be taken care of with thegreatest facility and be reduced without fear of error to a logical calculus.”

The syllogism 609

b. the syllogism of reflection

The course of the qualitative syllogism has sublated the abstractness ofits terms; the syllogistic term has thus posited itself as a determinate-ness in which also the other determinateness shines reflectively. Besidesthe abstract terms, there is also present in the syllogism the connection ofthe terms, and in the conclusion this connection is posited as one whichis mediated and necessary; in truth, therefore, each determinateness isposited, not singly by itself, but with reference to the others, as concretedeterminateness.

The middle term was the abstract particularity, an isolated simple deter-minateness, and was a middle only externally and relative to the self-subsisting extremes. This term is now posited as the totality of the deter-minations; thus it is the posited unity of the extremes; but this unityis at first that of a reflection embracing the extremes within itself –an embracing which, as a first sublating of immediacy and a first con-necting of the determinations, is not yet the absolute identity of theconcept. 12.111

The extremes are the determinations of the judgment of reflection,singularity proper, and universality as a determination of relation, or areflection that embraces a manifold within itself. But, as was shown inconnection with the judgment of reflection,93 the singular subject alsocontains, besides the mere singularity that belongs to form, determinatenessas universality absolutely reflected into itself, as presupposed, that is, herestill immediately assumed, genus.

From this determinateness of the extremes, which belongs to thecourse of the determination of the judgment, there results the more pre-cise content of the middle, which is what counts most in the syllogism,for it is the middle that distinguishes the syllogism from judgment. Themiddle contains (1) singularity; (2) but singularity expanded into uni-versality, as an “all”; (3) the universality that lies at the basis, unitingsingularity and abstract universality in itself, the genus. – The syllogismof reflection is thus the first to possess genuine determinateness of form,for the middle is posited as the totality of determinations; the immedi-ate syllogism is by contrast indeterminate because the middle is still onlyabstract particularity in which the moments of its concept are not yetposited. – This first syllogism of reflection may be called the syllogism ofallness.

93 Cf. above, 12.73–74.


a. The syllogism of allness

1. The syllogism of allness is the syllogism of the understanding in itsperfection, but more than that it is not yet. That the middle in it is notabstract particularity but is developed into its moments and is thereforeconcrete, is indeed an essential requirement of the concept. But at first theform of the allness gathers the singular into universality only externally, andconversely the singular behaves in the universality still as an immediate thatsubsists on its own. The negation of the immediacy of the determinationswhich was the result of the syllogism of existence is only the first negation,not yet the negation of the negation, or absolute immanent reflection. Thesingular determinations that the universality of reflection holds within stilllie, therefore, at the basis of that universality – in other words, allness isnot yet the universality of the concept, but the external universality ofreflection.

The syllogism of existence was contingent because its middle term wasone single determinateness of the concrete subject and as such admittedof a multitude of other such middle terms, and consequently the subjectcould be conjoined in conclusion with an indeterminate number of otherpredicates, with opposite predicates as well. But since the middle termnow contains singularity and is thereby itself concrete, only a predicate that12.112concretely belongs to the subject can be attached to the latter by means ofit. – For instance, if from the middle term “green” the conclusion is made tofollow that a painting is pleasing, because green is pleasing to the eye, or if apoem, a building, etc., is said to be beautiful because it possesses regularity,the painting, the poem, the building, etc., may nonetheless still be ugly onaccount of other determinations from which this predicate “ugly” mightbe deduced. By contrast, when the middle term has the determination ofallness, it contains the green, the regularity, as a concreted term which forthat very reason is not the abstraction of a mere green, a mere regular, etc.;only predicates commensurate with concrete totality may now be attached tothis concreted term. – In the judgment, “what is green or regular is pleasing,”the subject is only the abstraction of green, regularity; in the proposition,“all things green or regular are pleasing,” the subject is on the contrary allactual concrete things that are green or regular – things, therefore, that areintended as concreted with all the properties that they may also have besidesthe green or the regularity.

2. However, this very reflective perfection of the syllogism makes ofit a mere illusion. The middle term has the determinateness of “all,” towhich there is immediately attached in the major the predicate which in the

The syllogism 611

conclusion is then conjoined with the subject. But the “all” is “all singulars”;in it, therefore, the subject already possesses that predicate immediately –it does not first obtain it by means of the syllogistic inference. – Or again,the subject obtains a predicate as a consequence through the conclusion;but the major premise already contains this conclusion in it; therefore themajor premise is not correct on its own account, or is not an immediatelypresupposed judgment, but itself already presupposes the conclusion of whichit should be the ground. – In the much cited syllogism:

All humans are mortal,Now Gaius is a human,Therefore Gaius is mortal,

the major premise is correct only because and to the extent that the conclu-sion is correct; were Gaius by chance not mortal, the major premise wouldnot be correct. The proposition which was supposed to be the conclusionmust be correct on its own, immediately, for otherwise the major premisewould not include all singulars; before the major premise can be acceptedas correct, the antecedent question is whether the conclusion may not be acounter-instance of it.

3. It followed from the concept of the syllogism, with regard to thesyllogism of existence, that the premises, as immediate, contradicted theconclusion, that is to say, contradicted the mediation that the conceptof the syllogism requires; that the first syllogism thus presupposed other 12.113syllogisms, and conversely these presupposed the first.94 In the syllogismof reflection this result is posited in the syllogism itself: the major premisepresupposes its conclusion, for it contains the union of the singular with apredicate that would have to be a conclusion first.

What we have here in fact can therefore be expressed by saying thatthe syllogism of reflection is only an external, empty reflective semblanceof syllogistic inference; that therefore the essence of the inference rests onsubjective singularity; this singularity thus constitutes the middle term andis to be posited as such: singularity which is singularity as such and pos-sesses universality only externally. – Or what has been shown on closerinspection of the content of the syllogism of reflection is that the sin-gular stands connected to its predicate immediately, not by way of aninference, and that the major premise, the union of a particular with auniversal, or more precisely of a formal universal with a universal in itself,is mediated through the connection of the singularity that is present in

94 Cf. above, 12.97–98.


the formal universal, of singularity as allness. But this is the syllogism ofinduction.

b. The syllogism of induction

1. The syllogism of allness comes under the schema of the first figure, S-P-U;the syllogism of induction under that of the second, U-S-P, because it againhas singularity for its middle term, not abstract singularity but singularityas completed, that is to say, posited with its opposite determination, that ofuniversality. – The one extreme is some predicate or other which is commonto all these singulars; its connection with them makes up the kind ofimmediate premises, of which one was supposed to be the conclusion inthe preceding syllogism. – The other extreme may be the immediate genus,as it is in the middle term of the preceding syllogism, or in the subjectof the universal judgment, and which is exhausted in the collection ofsingulars or also species of the middle term. Accordingly, the syllogism hasthis configuration:

ss

U – – Pss

adinfinitum.

2. The second figure of the formal syllogism, U-S-P, does not correspondto this schema, because the S that constitutes the middle term did notsubsume or was not a predicate. In induction this deficiency is eliminated;12.114here the middle term is “all singulars”; the proposition, U-S, which containsas the subject the objective universal or the genus set apart as an extreme,has a predicate which is of at least equal extension as the subject and isconsequently identical with it for external reflection. Lion, elephant, etc.,constitute the genus of quadruped; the difference, that the same contentis posited once in singularity and again in universality, is thus just anindifferent determination of form – an indifference which in the syllogismof reflection is the posited result of the formal syllogism and is posited herethrough the equality of extension.

Induction, therefore, is not the syllogism of mere perception or of contin-gent existence, like the second figure corresponding to it, but the syllogismof experience – of the subjective gathering together of singulars in the genus,

The syllogism 613

and of the conjoining of the genus with a universal determinateness onthe ground that the latter is found in all singulars. It also has the objectivesignificance that the immediate genus has determined itself through thetotality of singularity as a universal property and possesses its existencein a universal relation or mark. – But the objective significance of thissyllogism, as it was of the others, is at first only its inner concept, and isnot as yet posited in it.

3. On the contrary, induction is essentially still a subjective syllogism.The middle terms are the singulars in their immediacy, the collecting ofthem into a genus through the allness is an external reflection. Because ofthe persisting immediacy of the singulars and because of the externality thatderives from it, the universality is only completeness, or rather, it remainsa task. – In induction, therefore, there recurs the progression into the badinfinity; singularity ought to be posited as identical with universality, butsince the singulars are equally posited as immediate, the intended unityremains only a perpetual ought; it is a unity of likeness; the terms which aresupposed to be identical are at the same time supposed not to be identical.The a, b, c, d, e, constitute the genus only further on, in the infinite;they do not yield a complete experience. The conclusion of induction thusremains problematic.

But induction, by expressing that perception, in order to become expe-rience, ought to be carried on to infinity, presupposes that the genus is inand for itself conjoined with its determinateness. In this, it in fact ratherpresupposes its conclusion as something immediate, just as the syllogismof allness presupposes the conclusion for one of its premises. – An experi-ence that rests on induction is assumed as valid even though the perceptionis admittedly not complete; it may be assumed, however, that there is no 12.115counter-instance to the experience only if the latter is true in and for itself.Inference by induction, therefore, is based indeed on an immediacy, butnot on the immediacy on which it is supposed to be based, not on asingularity that exists immediately, but on one that exists in and for itself,on the universal. – The fundamental character of induction is that it is asyllogistic inference; if singularity is taken as the essential determination ofthe middle term, but universality as only the external determination, thenthe middle term would fall apart into two disjoined parts, and there wouldbe no inference; this externality belongs rather to the extremes. Singularitycan only be a middle term if immediately identical with the universality;such a universality is in truth objective universality, the genus. – The mattercan also be viewed in this way: universality is external but essential to thedetermination of the singularity which is at the basis of the middle term of


induction; such an external is just as much immediately its opposite, theinternal. – The truth of the syllogism of induction is therefore a syllogismthat has for its middle term a singularity which is immediately in itselfuniversality. This is the syllogism of analogy.

c. The syllogism of analogy

1. This syllogism has the third figure of the immediate syllogism, S-U-P, forits abstract schema. But its middle term is no longer some single quality orother but a universality which is the immanent reflection of a concreted termand is therefore its nature; and conversely, since it is thus the universality ofa concreted term, it is at the same time in itself this concreted term. – Here,therefore, a singular is the middle term, but a singular taken in its universalnature; there is moreover another singular, an extreme term, which has thesame universal nature as the other which is the middle term. For example:

The earth has inhabitants,The moon is an earth,Therefore the moon has inhabitants.95

2. Analogy is all the more superficial, the more the universal in which thetwo extremes are united, and in accordance with which the one extremebecomes the predicate of the other, is a mere quality or, since quality is amatter of subjectivity, is some distinctive mark or other and the identity ofthe extremes is therein taken as just a similarity. But this kind of superfi-ciality to which a form of understanding or of reason is reduced by beingdebased to the sphere of mere representation should have no place in logic. –Also unacceptable is to present the major premise of this syllogism as though12.116it should run: “That which is similar to an object in one distinctive markis similar to it in other such marks as well.” On this formulation, the formof the syllogism is expressed in the shape of a content while the empiricalcontent, the content properly so called, is together relegated to the minorpremise. So, for example, could also the whole form of the first syllogismbe expressed as its major premise: “That which is subsumed under anotherthing in which a third thing inheres has that third thing inhering in ittoo; but now . . . etc.” But what matters in the syllogism as such is not the

95 This example is not original with Hegel and very likely was a common trope at the time. One canfind it, for instance, in Antonio Genovesi, Elementa artis logico-criticæ, Liber V (Venice, 1749), p. 179,and also, by the same author, Gli elementi dell’arte logico-critica, 2nd edn (Venice, 1783), p. 148.In Genovesi’s treatise, syllogism of analogy follows immediately upon the treatment of probability,exactly as it does in Hegel.

The syllogism 615

empirical content, and to make its own form the content of a major premisemakes just as little difference as to take any other empirical content for thatpurpose. Nothing of consequence follows for the syllogism of analogy froma content that contains nothing but the form peculiar to that syllogism,just as nothing of consequence would have followed for the first syllogismfrom having as its content the form that makes the syllogism a syllogism. –What counts is always the form of the syllogism, whether the latter hasitself or something else for its empirical content. So the syllogism of anal-ogy is a form peculiarly its own, and it is vacuous not to want to regard itas such on the ground that that form could be made into the content ormatter of a major premise whereas matter is no concern in logic. – Whatmight tempt one to this view in regard to the syllogism of analogy, andperhaps in regard to the syllogism of induction too, is that the middle termin them, and also the extremes, are more determined than they are in themerely formal syllogism, and therefore the determinations of form, sincethey are no longer simple and abstract, must also take on the appearanceof a content determination. But that the form determines itself to content isfirst of all a necessary advance on the part of the formal side, and thereforean advance that touches the nature of the syllogism essentially; secondly,such a content determination cannot, therefore, be regarded as any otherempirical content, and abstraction cannot be made from it.

When we consider the syllogism of analogy with its major premiseexpressed as above, namely, “if two subject matters agree in one or moreproperties, then a further property of one also belongs to the other,” it mayseem that this syllogism contains four terms, the quaternio terminorum –a circumstance that brings with it the difficulty of how to bring analogyinto the form of a formal syllogism. – There are two singulars; for a third,a property immediately assumed as common, and, for a fourth, the otherproperties that one singular possesses immediately but the other first comes 12.117to possess only by means of the syllogism. – This is so because, as we haveseen, in the syllogism of analogy the middle term is posited as singularity butimmediately also as the true universality of the singularity. – In induction,the middle term is, apart from the extremes, an indeterminate number ofsingulars; this syllogism, therefore, required the enumeration of an infinitenumber of terms. – In the syllogism of allness the universality in themiddle term is still only the external form determination of the allness;in the syllogism of analogy, on the contrary, it is as essential universality.In the above example, the middle term, “the earth,” is taken as somethingconcrete which, in truth, is just as much a universal nature or genus as it isa singular.


From this aspect, the quaternio terminorum would not make analogyan imperfect syllogism. But it would make it so from another aspect; foralthough the one subject has the same universal nature as the other, it isundetermined whether the determinateness, which is inferred to pertainalso to the second subject, pertains to the first because of its nature ingeneral or because of its particularity; for example, whether the earth hasinhabitants as a heavenly body in general or only as this particular heavenlybody. – Analogy is still a syllogism of reflection inasmuch as singularityand universality are united in its middle term immediately. Because of thisimmediacy, the externality of the unity of reflection is still there; the singularis the genus only in itself, implicitly; it is not posited in this negativity bywhich its determinateness would be the genus’s own determinateness. Forthis reason the predicate that belongs to the singular of the middle termis not already the predicate of the other singular, even though the twosingulars both belong to the one genus.

3. S-P (“the moon is inhabited”) is the conclusion; but the one premise(“the earth is inhabited”) is likewise S-P; in so far as S-P is supposed tobe a conclusion, it entails the requirement that that premise also be S-P.This syllogism is thus in itself the demand to counter the immediacy that itcontains; or again, it presupposes its conclusion. One syllogism of existencehas its presupposition in the other syllogism of existence. In the syllogismsjust considered, the presupposition has been moved into them, becausethey are syllogisms of reflection. Since the syllogism of analogy is thereforethe demand that it be mediated as against the immediacy with which itsmediation is burdened, what it demands is the sublation of the moment ofsingularity. Thus there remains for the middle term the objective universal,the genus purified of immediacy. – In the syllogism of analogy the genuswas a moment of the middle term only as immediate presupposition; sincethe syllogism itself demands the sublation of the presupposed immediacy,the negation of singularity and hence the universal is no longer immediatebut posited. – The syllogism of reflection contained the first negation of12.118immediacy; the second has now come on the scene, and with it the exter-nal universality of reflection is determined as existing in and for itself. –Regarded from the positive side, the conclusion shows itself to be identicalwith the premises, the mediation to have rejoined its presupposition, andwhat we have is thus an identity of the universality of reflection by virtueof which it becomes a higher universality.

Reviewing the course of the syllogism of reflection, we find that media-tion is in general the posited or concrete unity of the form determinations ofthe extremes; reflection consists in this positing of the one determination

The syllogism 617

in the other; the mediating middle is thus allness. But it is singularity thatproves to be the essential ground of mediation while universality is only asan external determination in it, as completeness. But universality is essentialto the singular if the latter is to be the conjoining middle term; the singularis therefore to be taken as an implicitly existing universal. But the singularis not united with it in just this positive manner but is sublated in it andis a negative moment; thus the universal is the genus posited as existing inand for itself, and the singular as immediate is rather the externality of thegenus, or it is an extreme. – The syllogism of reflection, taken in general,comes under the schema P-S-U in which the singular is still as such theessential determination of the middle term; but since its immediacy hasbeen sublated, the syllogism has entered under the formal schema S-U-P,and the syllogism of reflection has thus passed over into the syllogism ofnecessity.

c. the syllogism of necessity

The mediating middle has now determined itself (1) as simple determinateuniversality, like the particularity in the syllogism of existence, but (2) asobjective universality, that is to say, one that, like the allness of the syllogismof reflection, contains the whole determinateness of the different extremes;this is a completed but simple universality, the universal nature of the fact,the genus.

This syllogism is full of content, because the abstract middle term ofthe syllogism of existence has posited itself to be determinate difference, inthe way it is as the middle term of the syllogism of reflection, but thisdifference has again reflected itself into simple identity. – This syllogismis for this reason the syllogism of necessity, because its middle term is notany adventitious immediate content but is the immanent reflection of the 12.119determinateness of the extremes. These have their inner identity in themiddle term, whose content determinations are the form determinationsof the extremes. – Consequently, what differentiates the terms is a formwhich is external and unessential and the terms themselves are as momentsof a necessary existence.

This syllogism is at first immediate and formal in the sense that whatholds the terms together is the essential nature, as content, and this contentis in the distinguished terms only in different form, and the extremes areby themselves only an unessential subsistence. – The realization of thissyllogism is a matter of determining it in such a way that the extremes areequally posited as this totality which initially the middle term is, and the


necessity of the connection, which is at first only the substantial content,shall be a connection of the posited form.

a. The categorical syllogism

1. The categorical syllogism has the categorical judgment for one or forboth of its premises. – Associated with this syllogism, just as with thatjudgment, is the more specific signification that its middle term is theobjective universality. Superficially, the categorical syllogism is also takenfor nothing more than a mere syllogism of inherence.

Taken in its full import, the categorical syllogism is the first syllogismof necessity, one in which a subject is conjoined with a predicate throughits substance. But when elevated to the sphere of the concept, substanceis the universal, so posited to be in and for itself that it has for its formor mode of being, not accidentality, as it has in the relation specific toit, but the determination of the concept. Its differences are therefore theextremes of the syllogism, specifically universality and singularity. Thisuniversality, as contrasted with the genus that more closely defines themiddle term, is abstract or is a universal determinateness: it is the acci-dentality of substance summed up in a simple determinateness whichis, however, the substance’s essential difference, its specific difference. –Singularity, for its part, is the actual, in itself the concrete unity of genusand determinateness – though here, in the immediate syllogism, it isimmediate singularity at first, accidentality summed up in the form ofa subsistence existing for itself. – The connection of this extreme termto the middle term constitutes a categorical judgment; but since theother extreme term also, as just determined, expresses the specific dif-ference of the genus or its determinate principle, this other premise is alsocategorical.12.120

2. This syllogism, as the first and therefore immediate syllogism of neces-sity, comes in the first instance under the schema of the formal syllogism,S-P-U. – But since the middle term is the essential nature of the singularand not just one or other of its determinacies or properties, and likewise theextreme of universality is not any abstract universal, nor just any singularquality either, but is rather the universal determinateness of the genus, itsspecific difference, we no longer have the contingency of a subject being con-joined with just any quality through just any middle term. – Consequently,since the connections of the extremes with the middle term also do nothave the external immediacy that they have in the syllogism of existence,we do not have coming into play the demand for proof in the sense in

The syllogism 619

which it occurred in the case of that other syllogism and led to an infiniteprogression.

Further, this syllogism does not presuppose its conclusion for itspremises, as in the syllogism of reflection. The terms, in keeping withthe substantial content, stand to one another in a connection of identitythat exists in and for itself; we have here one essence running throughthe three terms – an essence in which the determinations of singularity,particularity, and universality are only formal moments.

To this extent, therefore, the categorical syllogism is no longer subjective;in that connection of identity, objectivity begins; the middle term is theidentity, full of content, of its extremes, and these are contained in it in theirself-subsistence, for their self-subsistence is the said substantial universalitywhich is the genus. The subjective element of the syllogism consists in theindifferent subsistence of the extremes with respect to the concept or themiddle term.

3. But there is still a subjective element in this syllogism, for that identityis still the substantial identity or content but is not yet identity of form at thesame time. The identity of the concept still is an inner bond and therefore,as connection, still necessity; the universality of the middle term is solid,positive identity, but is not equally the negativity of its extremes.

The immediacy of this syllogism, which is not yet posited as what it is initself, is more precisely present in this way. The truly immediate elementof the syllogism is the singular. This singular is subsumed under its genusas middle term; but subsumed under the same genus are also an indeter-minate number of many other singulars; it is therefore contingent that onlythis singular is posited as subsumed under it. – But further, this contin-gency does not belong only to an external reflection that finds the singularposited in the syllogism to be contingent by comparison with others; onthe contrary, it is because the singular is itself connected to the middleterm as its objectivity universality that it is posited as contingent, as a sub-jective actuality. From the other side, because the subject is an immediatesingular, it contains determinations that are not contained in the middle 12.121term as the universal nature; it also has, therefore, a concrete existencewhich is indifferent to the middle term, determined for itself and with acontent of its own. Therefore, conversely, this other term also has an indif-ferent immediacy and a concrete existence distinct from the former. –The same relation also obtains between the middle term and theother extreme; for this too likewise has the determination of immedi-acy, hence of a being which is contingent with respect to the middleterm.


Accordingly, what is posited in the categorical syllogism are, on theone hand, extremes that are so related to the middle term that they haveobjective universality or self-subsistent nature in themselves, and are at thesame time immediate actualities, hence indifferent to one another. On theother hand, they are equally contingent, or their immediacy is as sublated intheir identity. But this identity, because of the self-subsistence and totalityof the actuality, is only formal, inner identity, and the syllogism of necessityhas thereby determined itself to the hypothetical syllogism.

b. The hypothetical syllogism

1. The hypothetical judgment contains only the necessary connection with-out the immediacy of the connected terms. “If A is, so is B”; or, the beingof A is also just as much the being of an other, of the B; with this, it is notas yet said either that A is, or that B is. The hypothetical syllogism addsthis immediacy of being:

If A is, so is B,But A is,Therefore B is.

The minor premise expresses by itself the immediate being of the A.But it is not only this that is added to the judgment. The conclusion

contains the connection of subject and predicate, not as the abstract copula,but as the accomplished mediating unity. The being of the A is to betaken, therefore, not as mere immediacy but essentially as middle term of thesyllogism. This needs closer examination.

2. In the first place, the connection of the hypothetical judgment isthe necessity or the inner substantial identity associated with the externaldiversity of concrete existence – an identical content lying internally as itsbasis. The two sides of the judgment are both, therefore, not an immediatebeing, but a being held in necessity, hence one which is at the same timesublated or only being as appearance. The two behave, moreover, as sides12.122of the judgment, as universality and singularity; the one, therefore, is theabove content as totality of determinations, the other as actuality. Yet it isa matter of indifference which side is taken as universality and which assingularity. That is to say, inasmuch as the conditions are still the inner,abstract element of an actuality, they are the universal, and it is by beingheld together in one singularity that they step into actuality. Conversely, theconditions are a dismembered and dispersed appearance that gains unity andmeaning, and a universally valid existence, only in actuality.

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The relation that is here being assumed between the two sides of con-dition and conditioned may however also be taken to be one of cause andeffect, ground and consequence. This is a matter of indifference here. Therelation of condition, however, corresponds more closely to the one thatobtains in the hypothetical judgment and syllogism inasmuch as condi-tion is essentially an indifferent concrete existence, whereas ground andcause are inherently a transition; moreover, condition is a more universalcondition in that it comprehends both sides of the relation, since effect,consequence, etc., are just as much the condition of cause and ground asthese are the condition of them. –

Now A is the mediating being in so far as it is, first, an immediate being,an indifferent actuality, but, second, in so far as it is equally inherently contin-gent, self-sublating being. What translates the conditions into the actualityof the new shape of which they are the conditions is the fact that theyare not being as an abstract immediacy, but being according to its concept –becoming in the first instance, but more determinedly (since the conceptis no longer transition) singularity as self-referring negative unity. – Theconditions are a dispersed material awaiting and requiring application; thisnegativity is the mediating means, the free unity of the concept. It deter-mines itself as activity, for this middle term is the contradiction of objectiveuniversality, or of the totality of the identical content and the indifferentimmediacy. – This middle term is no longer, therefore, merely inner butexistent necessity; the objective universality contains its self-reference as sim-ple immediacy, as being. In the categorical syllogism this moment is at firsta determination of the extremes; but as against the objective universalityof the middle term, it determines itself as contingency, hence as somethingwhich is only posited and also sublated, something that has returned intothe concept or into the middle terms as unity, a unity which is now in itsobjectivity also being. 12.123

The conclusion, “therefore B is,” expresses the same contradiction – thatB exists immediately but at the same time through an other or as mediated.According to its form, it is therefore the same concept that the middle termis, distinguished from necessity only as the necessary, in the totally superficialform of singularity as contrasted with universality. The absolute content ofA and B is the same; for ordinary representation, they are two differentnames for the same basic thing, since representation fixes the appearancesof the diversified shape of existence and distinguishes the necessary fromits necessity; but to the extent that necessity were to be separated from B,the latter would not be the necessary. What we have here, therefore, is theidentity of the mediating term and the mediated.


3. The hypothetical syllogism is the first to display the necessary connectionas a connectedness through form or negative unity, just as the categoricalsyllogism displays it through positive unity, the solid content, the objectiveuniversality. But necessity merges with the necessary; the form-activity of trans-lating the conditioning actuality into the conditioned is in itself the unityinto which the determinacies of the oppositions previously let free intoindifferent existence are sublated, and where the difference of A and B is anempty name. The unity is therefore a unity reflected into itself, and hence anidentical content, and is this content not only implicitly in itself but, throughthis syllogism, it is also posited, for the being of A is also not its own beingbut that of B and vice versa, and in general the being of the one is the beingof the other and, as determined in the conclusion, their immediate being orindifferent determinateness is a mediated one – therefore, their externalityhas been sublated, and what is posited is their unity withdrawn into itself.

The mediation of the syllogism has thereby determined itself as singular-ity, immediacy, and self-referring negativity, or as a differentiating identitythat retrieves itself into itself out of this differentiation – as absolute form,and for that very reason as objective universality, self-identical existentcontent. In this determination, the syllogism is the disjunctive syllogism.

c. The disjunctive syllogism

As the hypothetical syllogism comes in general under the schema of thesecond figure of the formal syllogism, U-S-P, so the disjunctive comesunder the schema of the third, S-U-P. The middle term, however, is auniversality replete with form; it has determined itself as totality, as developedobjective universality. The middle term, therefore, is universality as well as12.124particularity and singularity. As that universality, it is in the first place thesubstantial identity of the genus, but this identity is secondly one in whichparticularity is included, but again, included as equal to it – therefore as auniversal sphere that contains its total particularity, the genus sorted outin its species, an A which is B as well as C and D. But particularization isdifferentiation and as such equally the either-or of B, C, D – negative unity,the reciprocal exclusion of the determinations. – This excluding, moreover,is now not just reciprocal, the determination not merely relative, but is alsojust as much self-referring determination, the particular as singularity to theexclusion of the others.

A is either B or C or D,But A is B,Therefore A is neither C nor D.

The syllogism 623

Or also:

A is either B or C or D,But A is neither C nor D,Therefore A is B.

A is subject not only in the two premises but also in the conclusion. Itis a universal in the first premise and in its predicate the universal sphereparticularized in the totality of its species; in the second premise, it is as adeterminate, or as a species; in the conclusion it is posited as the excluding,singular determinateness. – Or again, in the minor it is already exclusivesingularity, and in the conclusion it is positively posited as the determinatethat it is.

Consequently, what as such appears to be meditated is the universality ofA with the singularity. But the mediating means is this A which is the uni-versal sphere of its particularizations and is determined as a singular. Whatis posited in the disjunctive syllogism is thus the truth of the hypotheticalsyllogism, the unity of the mediator and the mediated, and for that reasonthe disjunctive syllogism is equally no longer a syllogism at all. For themiddle term which is posited in it as the totality of the concept itself con-tains the two extremes in their complete determinateness. The extremes,as distinct from this middle term, are only a positedness to which there nolonger accrues any proper determinateness of its own as against the middleterm.

If we consider the matter with narrower reference to the hypotheticalsyllogism, we find that there was in the latter a substantial identity as theinner bond of necessity, and a negative unity distinct from it, namely theactivity or the form that translated one existence into another. The disjunc-tive syllogism is in general in the determination of universality, its middle 12.125term is the A as genus and as perfectly determined; also posited through thisunity is the earlier inner content and, conversely, the positedness or theform is not the external negative unity over against an indifferent existencebut is identical with that solid content. The whole form determination ofthe concept is posited in its determinate difference and at the same time inthe simple identity of the concept.

In this way the formalism of the syllogistic inference, and consequentlythe subjectivity of the syllogism and of the concept in general, has sub-lated itself. This formal or subjective factor consisted in that the middlemediating the extremes is the concept as an abstract determination and istherefore distinct from the terms whose unity it is. In the completion of thesyllogism, where the objective universality is equally posited as the totality


of the form determinations, the distinction of mediating and mediated hason the contrary fallen away. That which is mediated is itself an essentialmoment of what mediates it, and each moment is the totality of what ismediated.

The figures of the syllogism exhibit each determinateness of the con-cept singly as the middle term, a middle term which is at the same timethe concept as an ought, the requirement that the mediating factor be theconcept’s totality. The different genera of the syllogism exhibit instead thestages in the repletion or concretion of the middle term. In the formal syl-logism the middle is posited as totality only through all the determinacies,but each singly, discharging the function of mediation. In the syllogism ofreflection, the middle term is the unity gathering together externally thedeterminations of the extremes. In the syllogism of necessity the middlehas determined itself as a unity which is just as developed and total as it issimple, and the form of the syllogism, which consisted in the difference ofthe middle term over against its extremes, has thereby sublated itself.

With this the concept in general has been realized; more precisely, ithas gained the kind of reality which is objectivity. The first reality was thatthe concept, in itself negative unity, partitions itself and as judgment positsits determinations in determinate and indifferent difference, and in thesyllogism it then sets itself over against them. Since it is still in this way theinwardness of this now acquired externality, in the course of the syllogismsthis externality is equated with the inner unity; the different determinationsreturn into the latter through the mediation that unites them at first ina third term, and as a result the externality exhibits, in itself, the conceptwhich, for its part, is no longer distinct from it as inner unity.

Conversely, however, that determinateness of the concept which wasconsidered as reality is equally a positedness. For the identity of the con-12.126cept’s inwardness and externality has been exhibited as the truth of theconcept not only in this result; on the contrary, already in the judgmentthe moments of the concept remain, even in their reciprocal indifference,determinations that have significance only in their connection. The syllo-gism is mediation, the complete concept in its positedness. Its movement isthe sublation of this mediation in which nothing is in and for itself, buteach thing is only through the meditation of an other. The result is there-fore an immediacy that has emerged through the sublation of the mediation,a being which is equally identical with mediation and is the concept thathas restored itself out of, and in, its otherness. This being is therefore a factwhich is in and for itself – objectivity.

section ii

Objectivity 12.127

In Book One of the Objective Logic, abstract being was presented as passingover into existence, but at the same time as retreating into essence. In BookTwo, essence shows itself as determining itself as ground, thereby steppinginto concrete existence and realizing itself as substance, but at the sametime retreating into the concept. Of the concept, we have now first shownthat it determines itself as objectivity. It should be obvious that this lattertransition is essentially the same as the proof from the concept, that is tosay, from the concept of God to his existence, that was formerly found inMetaphysics, or the so-called ontological proof. – Equally well known is thatDescartes’s sublimest thought, that God is that whose concept includes hisbeing within itself,1 after having degenerated into the bad form of the formalsyllogism, namely into the form of the said proof, finally succumbed tothe Critique of Reason and to the thought that existence cannot be extractedfrom the concept.2 Some elucidations concerning this proof have alreadybeen made earlier. In Volume I, pp. 47 ff.,3 where being has vanished intoits closest opposite, non-being, and becoming has shown itself to be thetruth of both, attention was called to the confusion that arises in the caseof a determinate existence when we concentrate, not on its being, but onits determinate content, and then imagine – if we compare this determinatecontent (e.g. one hundred dollars) with another determinate content (e.g.the context of my perception, of my financial situation) and discover thatit makes indeed a difference whether the one content is added to the otheror not – that we are dealing with the distinction of being and non-being, oreven the distinction of being and the concept. Further, in the same Volume

1 See Rene Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia in Oeuvres de Descartes, Vol. 7, ed. CharlesAdam and Paul Tannery (Paris: J. Vrin, 1964), pp. 66, 69; Meditations on First Philosophy in ThePhilosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol. 2, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and DugaldMurdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 46, 47 (this English edition also uses thepagination of Adam and Tannery).

2 A599/B627. 3 Cf. GW 11, 46ff.; above, 21.70ff.

625


on pp. 64ff. and on p. 289 of Volume II, the definition of a sum-total ofall reality which occurs in the ontological proof was elucidated.4 – Butthe essential subject matter of that proof, the connectedness of concept andexistence, is the concern of the treatment of the concept just concluded and ofthe entire course that the latter traverses in determining itself to objectivity.12.128The concept, as absolutely self-identical negativity, is self-determining; itwas noted that the concept, in resolving itself into judgment in singularity,already posits itself as something real, an existent; this still abstract realitycompletes itself in objectivity.

Now it might appear that the transition from the concept into objectivityis quite another thing than the transition from the concept of God toGod’s existence. But, on the one hand, it must be borne in mind that thedeterminate content, God, makes no difference in a logical progression, andthat the ontological proof is only one application of this logical progressionto that particular content. On the other hand, it is essential to be remindedof the remark made above5 that the subject obtains determinateness andcontent only in its predicate; that prior to the predicate, whatever thatcontent might otherwise be for feeling, intuition, and representation, sofar as conceptual cognition is concerned it is only a name; but in thepredicate, with determinateness, there begins at the same time the processof realization in general. – The predicates, however, must be grasped asthemselves still confined within the concept, hence as something subjectivewith which no move to existence has yet been made; even for this reason,in judgment the realization of the concept is certainly not completed yet.But there is the further reason that the mere determination of a subjectmatter through predicates, without this determination being at the sametime the realization and objectification of the concept, remains somethingso subjective that it is not even a true cognition and determination of theconcept of the subject matter – “subjective” in the sense of abstract reflectionand non-conceptual representation. – God as living God, and better still asabsolute spirit, is only recognized in what he does. Humankind were directedearly to recognize God in his works; only from these can the determinationsproceed that can be called his properties, and in which his being is alsocontained. It is thus the conceptual comprehension of God’s activity, thatis to say, of God himself, that recognizes the concept of God in his being andhis being in his concept. Being by itself, or even existence, are such a poor andrestricted determination, that the difficulty of finding them in the conceptmay well be due to not having considered what being or existence themselves

4 Cf. GW 11, 64–65, and above, 11.289, 21.74ff. 5 Cf. above, 12.54.

Objectivity 627

are. – Being as entirely abstract, immediate self-reference, is nothing but theabstract moment of the concept; it is its moment of abstract universalitythat also provides what is required of being, namely that it be outside theconcept, for inasmuch as universality is a moment of the concept, it isalso its difference or the abstract judgment wherein the concept opposesitself to itself. The concept, even as formal, already immediately containsbeing in a truer and richer form, in that, as self-referring negativity, it issingularity. 12.129

But of course the difficulty of finding being in the concept in general, andequally so in the concept of God, becomes insuperable if we expect being tobe something that we find in the context of external experience or in the formof sense-perception, like the one hundred dollars in the context of my finances,as something graspable only by hand, not by spirit, essentially visible tothe external and not the internal eye; in other words, if the name of being,reality, truth, is given to that which things possess as sensuous, temporal,and perishable. – The consequence of a philosophizing that in regard tobeing fails to rise above the senses is that, in regard to the concept, it alsofails to let go of merely abstract thought; such thought stands opposed tobeing.

The customary practice of regarding the concept as something just asone-sided as abstract thought will already stand in the way of accepting whathas just been suggested, namely, that we regard the transition of the conceptof God to his being as an application of the logical course of objectificationof the concept presented above. Yet if it is granted, as it commonly is,that the logical element, as the formal element, constitutes the form forthe cognition of every determinate content, then that application at leastwould have to be conceded, unless even at the opposition of concept andobjectivity in general one stops short at the untrue concept and an equallyuntrue reality as an ultimate. – But in the exposition of the pure concept itwas further indicated that the latter is the absolute divine concept itself.6

In truth, therefore, what takes place is not a relation of application butthe immediate display in the logical course of God’s self-determination asbeing. But on this point it is to be remarked that inasmuch as the conceptis to be presented as the concept of God, it ought be apprehended as it iswhen already taken up in the idea. The said pure concept passes throughthe finite forms of the judgment and the syllogism precisely because it isnot yet posited in and for itself as one with objectivity, but is conceivedrather only in the process of becoming that objectivity. The latter, too, is

6 Cf. above, 12.24.


not yet the divine concrete existence, not yet the reality reflectively shiningin the idea. And yet objectivity is just that much richer and higher than thebeing or existence of the ontological proof, as the pure concept is richer andhigher than that metaphysical vacuum of the sum-total of all reality. – ButI reserve for another occasion the task of elucidating in greater detail themanifold misunderstanding brought upon the ontological proof of God’sexistence, and also on the rest of the other so-called proofs, by logicalformalism. We shall also elucidate Kant’s critique of such proofs in orderto establish their true meaning and thus restore the thoughts on whichthey are based to their worth and dignity.712.130

We have previously called attention to the several forms of immediacythat have already come on the scene, but in different determinations.8 Inthe sphere of being, immediacy is being itself and existence; in the sphere ofessence, it is concrete existence and then actuality and substantiality; in thesphere of the concept, besides being immediacy as abstract universality, it isnow objectivity. – These expressions, when the exactitude of philosophicalconceptual distinctions is not at stake, may be used as synonymous; butthe determinations are derived from the necessity of the concept. Beingis as such the first immediacy, and existence is the same immediacy witha first determinateness. Concrete existence, along with the thing, is theimmediacy that proceeds from ground, from the self-sublating mediationof the simple reflection of essence. But actuality and substantiality are theimmediacy that proceeds from the sublated difference of the still unessentialconcrete existence as appearance and its essentiality. Finally, objectivity is theimmediacy as which the concept has determined itself by the sublation of itsabstraction and mediation. – It is the privilege of philosophy to choose suchexpressions from the language of ordinary life, which is made for the worldof imaginary representations, as seem to approximate the determinationsof the concept. There is no question of demonstrating for a word chosenfrom ordinary life that in ordinary life too the same concept is associatedwith that for which philosophy uses it, for ordinary life has no concepts,only representations of the imagination, and to recognize the concept inwhat is otherwise mere representation is philosophy itself. It must thereforesuffice if representation, for those of its expressions that philosophy usesfor its definitions, has only some rough approximation of their distinctivedifference; it may also be the case that in these expressions one recognizespictorial adumbrations which, as approximations, are close indeed to thecorresponding concepts. – One will be hard pressed, perhaps, to concede

7 Cf. Encyclopedia (1830), §51. 8 Cf. above, 11.324.

Objectivity 629

that something can be without actually existing; but at least nobody willmistake, for instance, being as the copula of the judgment for the expression“to exist actually,” and nobody will say that “this article exists dear, suitable,etc.,” “gold exists a metal or metallic,” instead of “this article is dear, suitable,etc.,” “gold is a metal.”r And surely it is common to distinguish being fromappearing, appearance from actuality, as also being as contrasted to actuality, 12.131and still more all these expressions from objectivity. – But even if suchexpressions were used synonymously, philosophy would in any case havethe freedom to take advantage of such empty superfluity of language forthe purpose of its distinctions.

Mention was made in connection with the apodictic judgment – wherejudgment attains completion and the subject thus loses its determinatenessas against the predicate – of the double meaning of subjectivity originatingfrom it, namely the subjectivity of the concept and equally so of the exter-nality and contingency confronting the concept.9 A similar objectivity alsoappears for the double meaning, of standing opposed to the self-subsistentconcept yet of also existing in and for itself.10 In the former sense, the objectstands opposed to the “I = I” which in subjective idealism is declared to bethe absolute truth. It is then the manifold world in its immediate existencewith which the “I” or the concept is engaged in endless struggle, in order,by the negation of the inherently nullity of this other, to give to its firstcertainty of being a self the actual truth of its equality with itself. – In abroader sense, it means a subject matter in general for whatever interest oractivity of the subject.

In the opposite sense, however, the objective signifies that which existsin and for itself, without restriction and opposition. Rational principles,perfect works of art, etc., are said to be objective to the extent that they arefree and above every accidentality. Although rational principles, whethertheoretical or ethical, only belong to the sphere of the subjective, to con-sciousness, this aspect of the latter of existing in and for itself is nonethelesscalled objective; the cognition of truth is made to rest on the cognition ofthe object as free of any addition by subjective reflection, and right conducton the adherence to objective laws, such as are not of subjective origin and

r In a French report in which the officer in command states that before making for land he wouldwait for the wind, which in the region of the island usually arose towards morning, we find theexpression: “le vent ayant ete longtemps sans exister”; here the distinction simply arises from theother common idiom as, for example, in “il a ete longtemps sans m’ecrire.”

9 Cf. above, 12.87.10 The allusion is to Fichte. Cf. Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre (1794/95). English trans.,

pp. 95–96. GA I.2257–258, see especially point (5) in § 1.


are immune to arbitrariness and to treatment that would compromise theirnecessity.

At the present standpoint of our treatise, objectivity has the meaningfirst of all of the being in and for itself of the concept that has sublatedthe mediation posited in its self-determination, raising it to immediateself-reference. This immediacy is therefore itself immediately and entirelypervaded by the concept, just as its totality is immediately identical withits being. But further, since the concept equally has to restore the freebeing-for-itself of its subjectivity, it enters with respect to objectivity intoa relation of purpose in which the immediacy of the objectivity becomesa negative for it, something to be determined through its activity. Thisimmediacy thus acquires the other significance, namely that in and foritself, in so far as it stands opposed to the concept, it is a nullity.12.132

First, then, objectivity is in its immediacy. Its moments, on account ofthe totality of all moments, stand in self-subsistent indifference as objectseach outside the other, and as so related they possess the subjective unity ofthe concept only as inner or as outer. This is mechanism.

But, second, inasmuch as in mechanism that unity reveals itself to bethe immanent law of the objects, their relation becomes one of non-indifference, each specifically different according to law; a connection inwhich the objects’ determinate self-subsistence is sublated. This is chemism.

Third, this essential unity of the objects is thereby posited as distinctfrom their self-subsistence. It is the subjective concept, but posited asreferring in and for itself to the objectivity, as purpose. This is teleology.

Since purpose is the concept posited as within it referring to objectivity,and through itself sublating its defect of being subjective, the at first externalpurposiveness becomes, through the realization of the purpose, internal. Itbecomes idea.

chapter 1

Mechanism 12.133

Since objectivity is the totality of the concept that has returned into itsunity, an immediate is thereby posited which is in and for itself thattotality, and is also posited as such, but in it the negativity of the concepthas as yet not detached itself from the immediacy of the totality; in otherwords, the objectivity is not yet posited as judgment. In so far as it hasthe concept immanent in it, the difference of the concept is present in it;but on account of the objective totality, the differentiated moments arecomplete and self-subsistent objects that, consequently, even in connectionrelate to one another as each standing on its own, each maintaining itselfin every combination as external. – This is what constitutes the characterof mechanism, namely, that whatever the connection that obtains betweenthe things combined, the connection remains one that is alien to them,that does not affect their nature, and even when a reflective semblanceof unity is associated with it, the connection remains nothing more thancomposition, mixture, aggregate, etc. Spiritual mechanism, like its materialcounterpart, also consists in the things connected in the spirit remainingexternal to one another and to spirit. A mechanical mode of representation,a mechanical memory, a habit, a mechanical mode of acting, mean that thepervasive presence that is proper to spirit is lacking in what spirit graspsor does. Although its theoretical or practical mechanism cannot take placewithout its spontaneous activity, without an impulse and consciousness,the freedom of individuality is still lacking in it, and since this freedomdoes not appear in it, the mechanical act appears as a merely externalone.

a. the mechanical object

The object is, as we have seen, the syllogism whose mediation has attainedequilibrium and has therefore come to be immediate identity. It is thereforein and for itself a universal – universality, not in the sense of a commonality 12.134

631


of properties, but a universality that pervades particularity and in it isimmediate singularity.

1. To begin with, therefore, the object does not differentiate itself intomatter and form, matter being its presumed self-subsistent universal aspectand form the particular and singular instead; according to its concept,any such abstract differentiation of singularity and universality has no placein the object; if regarded as matter, the object must then be taken to be initself informed matter. One can just as well take it as a thing with properties,as a whole consisting of parts, as substance with accidents, or as determinedby the other relations of reflection. But these are all past relations that in theconcept have come to an end. The object, therefore, has neither propertiesnor accidents, for these are separable from the thing or the substance,whereas in the object particularity is absolutely reflected into the totality.In the parts of a whole, there is indeed present that self-subsistence thatpertains to the differences of the object, but these differences are at oncethemselves essentially objects, totalities which, unlike parts, are not suchas against the whole.

At first, therefore, the object is indeterminate, for it has no determi-nate opposition within, because it is the mediation that has collapsed intoimmediate identity. Inasmuch as the concept is essentially determined, theobject has in it the determinateness of a manifold which, although com-plete, is otherwise indeterminate, that is, relationless, one that constitutesa totality also not further determined at first; sides or parts that may bedistinguished within it belong to an external reflection. This totally inde-terminate difference thus amounts just to this, that there are several objects,each of which only contains its determinateness reflected into its universal-ity and does not reflectively shine outwardly. – Because this indeterminatedeterminateness is essential to the object, the object is in itself a plurality,and must therefore be regarded as a composite, an aggregate. – Yet it does notconsist of atoms, for atoms are not objects because they are not totalities.Leibniz’s monad would be more of an object. It is a total representationof the world which, shut up within its intensive subjectivity, in essence atleast is supposed to be a one. Yet the monad, determined as an exclusiveone, is a principle only assumed by reflection. It is an object, however, bothbecause the ground of its manifold representations – of the developed, thatis, the posited determinations of its merely implicit totality – lies outsideit, and because it is equally a matter of indifference for the monad that itconstitutes an object together with other objects; in fact, therefore, it is notexclusive, not self-determined for itself.12.135

2. Since the object is now a totality of determinateness, yet, because ofits indeterminateness and immediacy, it is not the totality’s negative unity,

Mechanism 633

it is indifferent towards the determinations as singulars, determined in andfor themselves, just as these are themselves indifferent to each other. These,therefore, are not comprehensible from it nor from one another; the object’stotality is the form of the overall reflectedness of its manifoldness into asingularity in general which is not in itself determinate. The determinacies,therefore, which are in it do indeed pertain to it; but the form that consti-tutes their difference and combines them into a unity is an external one,indifferent to them; whether it be a mixture, or again an order, a certainarrangement of parts and sides, these are combinations that are indifferentto what they connect.

Consequently, like an existence in general, the object has the determi-nateness of its totality outside it, in other objects, and these again outsidethem, and so forth to infinity. The immanent turning back of this pro-gression in infinitum must indeed be likewise assumed, and it must berepresented as a totality, as a world, but one which is nothing but a univer-sality brought to closure through a singularity that remains indeterminate,a universe.

Since the object is thus determinate yet indifferent to its determinateness,through itself it points for its determinateness outside and beyond itself,constantly to objects for which it is however likewise a matter of indifferencethat they do the determining. Consequently, nowhere is a principle of self-determination to be found. Determinism, which is the standpoint thatcognition adopts when it assumes as truth the object as we first have ithere, assigns for each determination of the object that of another object;but this other object is likewise indifferent both to its determinateness andits determining. – For this reason determinism is itself so indeterminate asto be bound to an infinite progression; it can halt at will anywhere, and besatisfied there, because the object to which it has progressed, being a formaltotality, is shut up within itself and indifferent to its being determined byanother. For this reason to explain the determination of an object, andto this end to extend the representation of it beyond it, is only an emptyword, for there is no self-determination in the other object to which theexplanation has been extended.

3. Now since the determinateness of an object lies in an other, there isno determinate diversity separating the two; the determinateness is merelydoubled, once in the one object and then again in the other; it is somethingutterly identical and the explanation or comprehension is, therefore, atautology. This tautology is an external back and forth movement; sincethe determinateness fails to obtain from objects that are indifferent to itany proper differentiation and is therefore only identical, there is onlyone determinateness at hand, and that it should be doubled only expresses 12.136


precisely the externality and vacuity of a difference. But the objects areat the same time self-subsistent in regard to one another; in that identity,therefore, they remain utterly external. – Thus there arises the contradictionof a perfect indifference of objects to one another and of an identity ofdeterminateness of such objects, or of the objects’ perfect externality in theidentity of their determinateness. This contradiction is consequently thenegative unity of a plurality of objects reciprocally repelling each other inthe unity. This is the mechanical process.

b. the mechanical process

If objects are regarded only as self-enclosed totalities, they cannot act onone another. Regarded in this way, they are the same as the monads which,precisely for that reason, were thought of as having no influence on eachother. But the concept of a monad is for just this reason a deficient reflec-tion. For, in the first place, the monad is a determinate representation of itsonly implicit totality; as a certain degree of development and positedness of itsrepresentation of the world, it is determinate; but since it is a self-enclosedtotality, it is also indifferent to this determinateness and is, therefore, not itsown determinateness but a determinateness posited through another object.In second place, it is an immediate in general, for it is supposed to be just amirroring;11 its self-reference is therefore abstract universality and hence anexistence open to others. – It does not suffice, in order to gain the freedom ofsubstance, to represent the latter as a totality that, complete in itself, wouldhave nothing to receive from the outside. On the contrary, a self-referencethat grasps nothing conceptually but is only a mirroring11 is precisely apassivity towards the other. – Likewise the determinateness, whether we nowtake it as the determinateness of a being that exists or that mirrors,11 as adegree of the monad’s own internally generated development, is somethingexternal; the degree that the development achieves has its limit in an other.To project the reciprocal influence of substances into a predetermined har-mony means nothing more than to make it a presupposition, in effect toremove it from the scope of the concept. – The need to avoid the interac-tion of substances was founded on the moment of absolute self-subsistenceand originariness which was made a fundamental assumption. But sincethe positedness, the degree of development, does not correspond to this12.137assumed in-itselfness, it has for this reason its ground in an other.

11 vorstellendes.

Mechanism 635

In connection with the relation of substantiality, we showed that it passesover into the relation of causality.12 But now the existent no longer has thedetermination of a substance but that of an object; the causal relation hascome to an end in the concept; the originariness of one substance vis-a-visanother has shown itself to be a reflective shine, the substance’s action atransition into the opposite substance. This relation has therefore no objec-tivity. Hence in so far as one object is posited in the form of subjectiveunity, as efficient cause, this no longer counts as an originary determinationbut as something mediated; the active object has this determination onlyby means of another object. – Mechanism, since it belongs to the sphere ofthe concept, has that posited within it which proved to be the truth of therelation of causality, namely, that the cause which is supposed to be some-thing existing in and for itself is in fact effect just as well, positedness. Inmechanism, therefore, the originary causality of the object is immediately anon-originariness; the object is indifferent to this determination attributedto it; that it is a cause is therefore something accidental to it. – To thisextent, it can be said that the causality of substances is only the productof representation. But precisely this causality as product of representationis what mechanism is; for mechanism is this, that causality, as identicaldeterminateness of a diversity of substances and hence as the founderinginto this identity of their self-subsistence, is mere positedness; the objectsare indifferent to this unity and maintain themselves in the face of it. Butthis also, their indifferent self-subsistence, is a mere positedness, and for thisreason they are capable of mixing and aggregating, and as an aggregate ofbecoming one object. Through this indifference both to their transition andto their self-subsistence, the substances are objects.

a. The formal mechanical process

The mechanical process is the positing of that which is contained inthe concept of mechanism, hence the positing in the first place of acontradiction.

1. It follows from the just indicated concept that the interaction of objectsis the positing of their identical connection. This positing consists simply ingiving to the determinateness which is generated the form of universality –and this is communication, which occurs without transition into theopposite. – Spiritual communication, which however takes place in anelement of universality in the form of universality, is an idealized connec- 12.138tion for itself, one in which a determinateness continues undisturbed from

12 Cf. above, 11.396.


one person to another, generalizing itself unaltered – like a scent freelyspreading in the unresisting atmosphere. But also in the communicationbetween material objects does their determinateness widen, so to speak,in an equally idealizing manner; personality is an infinitely more intensivehardness than objects possess. The formal totality of an object in general – atotality indifferent to determinateness and hence not a self-determination –renders the object indistinct from another object and thus makes interac-tion at first an unimpeded continuing of the determinateness of the oneinto the other.

Now in the region of the spirit there is an infinitely manifold contentcapable of communication, for by being taken up into intelligence thecontent receives this form of universality in which it becomes communica-ble. But that which is a universal not only by virtue of form, but in andfor itself, is the objective as such, both in the region of the spirit and ofthe body, and as against it the singularity of external objects, as of personsalso, is an unessential factor unable to offer any resistance to it. Laws,morals, rational conceptions in general, are in the region of the spirit com-municable entities of this kind; they pervade individuals unconsciouslyimposing themselves on them. In the region of the body, such entitiesare motion, heat, magnetism, electricity, and the like, all of which, evenwhen one wants to imagine them as stuffs or materials, must be termed asimponderable agents, for they lack that aspect of materiality that groundsits singularization.

2. Now although in the interaction of objects their identical universalityis posited first, it is equally necessary to posit the other moment of theconcept, that of particularity; the objects thus also demonstrate their self-subsistence; they hold themselves outside each other, and in that universalitythey produce singularity. This production is reaction in general. To beginwith, this reaction is not to be conceived of as a mere sublation of actionand of the communicated determinateness; what is communicated is asuniversal positively present in the particular objects and particularizes itselfonly in their diversity. To this extent, therefore, what is communicatedremains what it is, only distributed among the objects or determined bytheir particularity. – The cause gets lost in its other, in the effect; the activityof the causal substance in its action; but the active object only becomes auniversal; its action is from the start not a loss of its determinateness buta particularization by virtue of which the object, which was at first thatwhole determinateness present in it as single, now becomes a species of it, and12.139the determinateness is thereby posited for the first time as a universal. Thetwo – the raising in communication of the singular determinateness into

Mechanism 637

universality; and the particularization of it in distribution, the reductionof what was only a one to a species – are one and the same.

Now reaction is equal to action. – First, this is manifested by the otherobject taking over the entire universal; and so it is now active against thefirst. Thus its reaction is the same as the action, a reciprocal repulsion ofthe impulse. Second, what is communicated is the objective; it thereforeremains the substantial determination of the object on the presupposi-tion of their diversity; the universal thus at the same time specifies itselfin them, and consequently each object does not simply give back thewhole action but possesses its specific share. But, third, reaction is a whollynegative action in so far as each object, because of the elasticity of its self-subsistence, repels within it the positedness of an other and retains its self-reference. The specific particularity of the determinateness communicatedin the objects, what was before called species, returns to singularity, andthe object asserts its externality as against the communicated universality.The action thereby passes over into rest. It proves to be only a superfi-cial, transient alteration within the self-enclosed indifferent totality of theobject.

3. This return constitutes the product of the mechanical process. Imme-diately, the object is presupposed as a singular; then as a particular as againstanother particular; but finally as indifferent towards its particularity, asuniversal. The product is the totality of the concept previously presupposedbut now posited. It is the conclusion in which the communicated universalis united with singularity through the particularity of the object. In rest,however, the mediation is posited at the same time as sublated; or again,what is posited is that the product is indifferent to this determining of itand that the received determinateness is external in it.

Accordingly the product is the same as the object that first enters theprocess. But at the same time that object is first determined through thismovement; the mechanical object is, as such, an object only as product,for what it is, is only by virtue of the mediation of an other in it. It is asproduct that it thus is what it was supposed to be in and for itself, acomposite, a mixture, a certain arrangement of parts, in general such that itsdeterminateness is not self-determination but something posited.

Yet the result of the mechanical process is not already there ahead of thatprocess itself; its end is not in its beginning, as in the case of purpose. Theproduct is in the object a determinateness which is externally posited in 12.140it. Hence this product is indeed according to its concept the same as whatthe object already is at the beginning. But at the beginning the externaldeterminateness is not yet there as posited. The result is therefore something


quite other than the first existence of the object, and is something utterlyaccidental for it.

b. The real mechanical process

The mechanical process passes over into rest. That is to say, the determi-nateness that the object obtains through that process is only an externalone. Just as external to it is this rest, for although the latter is a determi-nateness opposed to the activity of the object, the two are each indifferentto the object. Rest can also be viewed, therefore, as brought about by anexternal cause, just as much as it was indifferent to the object to be active.

Now further, since the determinateness is a posited one, and the conceptof the object has gone back to itself through the process of mediation, theobject contains the determinateness as one that is reflected into itself.Hence in the mechanical process the objects and the process itself nowhave a more closely determined relation. They are not merely diverse, butare determinedly differentiated as against one another. Consequently theresult of the formal process, on the one hand a determinationless rest, is,on the other hand, through the immanently reflected determinateness, thedistribution among several objects mechanically relating to one another ofthe opposition which is in the object as such. The object that on the onehand lacks all determination, showing no elasticity and no self-subsistencein its relations, has, on the other hand, a self-subsistence impenetrable toother objects. Objects now have also as against one another this moredetermined opposition of the self-subsistent singularity and the non-self-subsistent universality. – The precise difference between any two may behad merely quantitatively as a difference in a body of diverse magnitudes ofmass, or of intensity, or in various other ways. But in general the differencecannot be fixed at just this abstract level; also as objects, both are positivelyself-subsistent.

Now the first moment of this real process is, as before, communication.The weaker can be seized and invaded by the stronger only in so far asit accepts the stronger and constitutes one sphere with it. Just as in thematerial realm the weaker is secured against the disproportionately strong(as a sheet hanging freely in the air is not penetrated by a musket ball; aweak organic receptivity is not as vulnerable to strong stimuli as it is toweak), so is the wholly feeble spirit safer facing the strong than one who12.141stands closer to the strong. Imagine, if you will, someone dull-witted andignoble; lofty intelligence will make no impression on such a one, norwill nobility. The one single effective defense against reason is not to get

Mechanism 639

involved with it at all. – To the extent that an object that has no standingof its own is unable to make contact with one which is self-subsistent, andno communication can take place between them, the latter is also unableto offer resistance, that is, cannot specify the communicated universal foritself. – If they were not in the same sphere, their mutual connection wouldbe an infinite judgment and no process would be possible between them.

Resistance is the precise moment of the overpowering of the one objectby the other, for it is the initial moment in the distribution of the com-municated universal and in the positing of the self-referring negativity, ofthe singularity to be established. Resistance is overpowered when its deter-minateness is not commensurate to the communicated universal which theobject has accepted and which is supposed to be singularized in the latter.The object’s relative lack of self-subsistence is manifested in the fact that itssingularity lacks the capacity for what is communicated to it and is thereforeshattered by it, for it is unable to constitute itself as subject in this universal,cannot make the latter its predicate. – Violence against an object is for thelatter something alien only according to this second aspect. Power becomesviolence when power, an objective universality, is identical with the natureof the object, yet its determinateness or negativity is not the object’s ownimmanent negative reflection according to which the object is a singular.In so far as the negativity of the object is not reflected back into itself inthe power, and the latter is not the object’s own self-reference, the negativ-ity, as against the power, is only abstract negativity whose manifestation isextinction.

Power, as objective universality and as violence against the object is what iscalled fate – a concept that falls within mechanism in so far as fate is calledblind, that is, its objective universality is not recognized by the subject inits own specific sphere. – To add a few more remarks on the subject, thefate of a living thing is in general the genus, for the genus manifests itselfthrough the fleetingness of the living individuals that do not possess it asgenus in their actual singularity. Merely animate natures, as mere objects,like other things at lower levels on the scale of being, do not have fate.What befalls them is a contingency; however, in their concept as objectsthey are self-external; hence the alien power of fate is simply and solelytheir own immediate nature, externality and contingency itself. Only self-consciousness has fate in a strict sense, because it is free, and therefore in thesingularity of its “I” it absolutely exists in and for itself and can oppose itself 12.142to its objective universality and alienate itself from it. By this separation,however, it excites against itself the mechanical relation of a fate. Hence,for the latter to have violent power over it, it must have given itself some


determinateness or other over against the essential universality; it musthave committed a deed. Self-consciousness has thereby made itself into aparticular, and this existence, like abstract universality, is at the same timethe side open to the communication of its alienated essence; it is from thisside that it is drawn into the process. A people without deeds is withoutblame; it is wrapped up in objective, ethical universality, is dissolved intoit, is without the individuality that moves the unmoved, that gives itselfa determinateness on the outside and an abstract universality separatedfrom the objective universality; yet in this individuality the subject is alsodivested of its essence, becomes an object and enters into the relation ofexternality towards its nature, into that of mechanism.

c. The product of the mechanical process

The product of formal mechanism is the object in general, an indifferenttotality in which determinateness is as posited. The object has hereby enteredthe process as a determinate thing, and, in the extinction of this process,the result is, on the one hand, rest, the original formalism of the object, thenegativity of its determinateness-for-itself. But, on the other hand, it is thesublation of the determinateness, the positive reflection of it into itself, thedeterminateness that has withdrawn into itself, or the posited totality of theconcept, the true singularity of the object. The object, determined at first inits indeterminate universality, then as particular, is now determined as anobjective singular, so that in it that reflective semblance of singularity, whichis only a self-subsistence opposing itself to the substantial universality, issublated.

This resulting immanent reflection, the objective oneness of the objects,is now a oneness which is an individual self-subsistence – the center.Secondly, the reflection of negativity is the universality which is not afate standing over against determinateness, but a rational fate, immanentlydetermined – a universality that particularizes itself from within, the differ-ence that remains at rest and fixed in the unstable particularity of the objectsand their process; it is the law. This result is the truth, and consequentlyalso the foundation, of the mechanical process.12.143

c. absolute mechanism

a. The center

The empty manifoldness of the object is now gathered first into objec-tive singularity, into the simple self-determining middle point. Secondly,

Mechanism 641

in so far as the object retains as an immediate totality its indifferenceto determinateness, the latter too is present in it as unessential or as anoutside-one-another of many objects. As against this immediate totality,the prior or the essential determinateness constitutes the real middle termbetween the many interacting objects; it unites them in and for them-selves and is their objective universality. Universality exhibited itself first inthe relation of communication, as present only through positing; as objec-tive universality, however, it is the pervading immanent essence of theobjects.

In the material world it is the central body which is the genus or ratherthe individualized universality of the single objects and their mechanicalprocess. The unessential single bodies relate to one another by impactand pressure; this kind of relation does not hold between the central bodyand the objects of which it is the essence; for their externality no longerconstitutes their fundamental determination. Hence their identity with thecentral body is rather rest, namely the being at their center; this unity is theirconcept existing in and for itself. It nevertheless remains only an ought, sincethe objects’ externality, still posited at the same time, does not conformto that unity. The striving which the objects consequently have towardsthe center is their absolute universality, one which is not posited throughcommunication; it constitutes the true rest, itself concrete and not posited fromthe outside, into which the process of instability must find its way back. – Itis for this reason an empty abstraction to assume in mechanics that a bodyset in motion would go on moving in a straight line to infinity if it did notlose movement because of external resistance. Friction, or whatever otherform resistance takes, is only a phenomenon of centrality; it is the latterthat in principle brings the body back to itself, since that against whichthe body rubs and incurs friction has its power of resistance only becauseit is united with the center. – In things spiritual the center, and the unionwith it, assume higher forms; but the unity of the concept and the realityof that unity, which is here in a first instance mechanical centrality, must 12.144there too constitute the fundamental determination.

The central body has therefore ceased to be a mere object, for in the latterthe determinateness is something unessential, whereas now the central bodyno longer has only being-in-itself, in-itselfness, but also has the being-for-itselfof the objective totality. For this reason it can be regarded as an individual.Its determinateness is essentially different from a mere order or arrangementand external combination of diverse parts; as a determinateness that existsin and for itself it is an immanent form, a self-determining principle towhich the objects inhere and in virtue of which they are bound togetherin a true One.


But this central individual is at first only a middle term that as yet has notrue extremes; as the negative unity of the total concept it dirempts itselfrather into such extremes. Or again: the previously non-self-subsistent,self-external objects become likewise determined as individuals by theretreat of the concept; the self-identity of the central body, still a striving,is burdened by an externality to which, in being taken up into the body’sobjective singularity, the latter is communicated. The objects, through thiscentrality of their own, are positioned outside the original center and arethemselves centers for the non-self-subsistent objects. These second centersand the non-self-subsistent objects are brought into unity by the absolutemiddle term.

But the relative individual centers themselves also constitute the middleterm of a second syllogism. This middle term is on the one hand subsumedunder a higher extreme, the objective universality and power of the absolutecenter; on the other hand, it subsumes under it the non-self-subsistentobjects whose superficiality and formal singularization it supports. – Thesenon-self-subsistent objects are in turn the middle term of a third syllogism,the formal syllogism, for since the central individuality obtains throughthem the externality by virtue of which, in referring to itself, is also strivestowards an absolute middle point, those non-self-subsistent objects are thelink between absolute and relative central individuality. The formal objectshave for their essence the identical gravity of their immediate central bodyin which they inhere as in their subject and the extreme of singularity;through the externality which they constitute, this immediate central bodyis subsumed under the absolute central body; they therefore are the formalmiddle term of particularity. – But the absolute individual is the objectivelyuniversal middle term that brings into unity and holds firm the inwardnessof the relative individual and its externality. – Similarly, the government, theindividual citizens, and the needs or the external life of these, are also three12.145terms, of which each is the middle term of the other two. The government isthe absolute center in which the extreme of the singulars is united with theirexternal existence; the singulars are likewise the middle term that incitesthat universal individual into external concrete existence and transposestheir ethical essence into the extreme of actuality. The third syllogism isthe formal syllogism, the syllogism of reflective shine in which the singularcitizens are tied by their needs and external existence to this universalabsolute individuality; this is a syllogism that, as merely subjective, passesover into the others and has its truth in them.

This totality, whose moments are themselves the completed relations ofthe concept, the syllogisms in which each of the three different objects runs

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through the determination of the middle term and the extreme, consti-tutes free mechanism. In it the different objects have objective universalityfor their fundamental determination, the pervasive gravity that persistsself-identical in the particularization. The connections of pressure, impact,attraction, and the like, as also of aggregations or mixtures, belong to therelation of externality which is at the basis of the third of the three syllo-gisms. Order, which is the merely external determinateness of the objects,has passed over into immanent and objective determination. This is thelaw.

b. The law

In law, the more specific difference of the idealized reality of objectivityversus the external reality comes into view. The object, as the immediatetotality of the concept, does not yet possess an externality differentiatedfrom the concept, and the latter is not posited for itself. Now that throughthe mediation of the process the object has withdrawn into itself, therehas arisen the opposition of simple centrality as against an externality nowdetermined as externality, that is, one posited as not existing in and for itself.That moment of identity or idealization of individuality is, on accountof the reference to externality, an ought; it is the unity of the concept,determined in-and-for-itself and self-determining, to which that externalreality does not correspond, and therefore does not go past the mere strivingtowards it. But individuality is, in and for itself, the concrete principle ofnegative unity, and as such is itself totality; it is a unity that dirempts itselfinto the specific differences of the concept while abiding within its self-equaluniversality; it is thus the central point expanded inside its pure ideality by 12.146difference. – This reality that corresponds to the concept is the idealizedreality, distinct from the reality that is only a striving; it is difference, earliera plurality of objects but now in its essential nature, and taken up into pureuniversality. This real ideality is the soul of the hitherto developed objectivetotality, the identity of the system which is now determined in and for itself.

The objective being-in-and-for-itself thus manifests itself more preciselyin its totality as the negative unity of the center, a unity that divides intosubjective individuality and external objectivity, maintains the former in thelatter and determines it in an idealized difference. This self-determiningunity that absolutely reduces external objectivity to ideality is a principleof self-movement; the determinateness of this animating principle, whichis the difference of the concept itself, is the law. – Dead mechanismwas the mechanical process of objects above considered that immediately


appeared as self-subsisting, but precisely for that reason are in truth non-self-subsistent and have their center outside them; this process that passesover into rest exhibits either contingency and indeterminate difference orformal uniformity. This uniformity is indeed a rule, but not law. Onlyfree mechanism has a law, the determination proper to pure individualityor to the concept existing for itself. As difference, the law is in itself theinexhaustible source of a self-igniting fire and, since in the ideality of itsdifference it refers only to itself, it is free necessity.

c. Transition of mechanism

This soul is however still immersed in its body. The now determined butinner concept of objective totality is free necessity in the sense that thelaw has not yet stepped in opposite its object; it is concrete centrality asa universality immediately diffused in its objectivity. Such an ideality doesnot have, therefore, the objects themselves for its determinate difference;these are self-subsistent individuals of the totality, or also, if we look backat the formal stage, non-individual, external objects. The law is indeedimmanent in them and it does constitute their nature and power; butits difference is shut up in its ideality and the objects are not themselvesdifferentiated in the idealized non-indifference of the law. But the objectpossesses its essential self-subsistence solely in the idealized centrality and its12.147laws; it has no power, therefore, to put up resistance to the judgment of theconcept and to maintain itself in abstract, indeterminate self-subsistenceand remoteness. Because of the idealized difference which is immanent init, its existence is a determinateness posited by the concept. Its lack of self-subsistence is thus no longer just a striving towards a middle point, withrespect to which, precisely because its connection with it is only that of astriving, it still has the appearance of a self-subsistent external object; it israther a striving towards the object determinedly opposed to it; and likewisethe center has itself for that reason fallen apart and its negativity has passedover into objectified opposition. Centrality, therefore, is now the reciprocallynegative and tense connection of these objectivities. Thus free mechanismdetermines itself to chemism.

chapter 2

Chemism 12.148

In objectivity as a whole chemism constitutes the moment of judgment, ofthe difference that has become objective, and of process. Since it alreadybegins with determinateness and positedness, and the chemical object isat the same time objective totality, the course it follows next is simple andperfectly determined by its presupposition.

a. the chemical object

The chemical object is distinguished from the mechanical in that the latteris a totality indifferent to determinateness, whereas in the chemical objectthe determinateness, and hence the reference to other, and the mode andmanner of this reference, belong to its nature. – This determinateness isat the same time essentially a particularization, that is, it is taken up intouniversality; thus it is a principle – a determinateness which is universal, notonly the determinateness of the one singular object but also of the other.In the chemical object there is now, therefore, a distinction in its concept,between the inner totality of the two determinacies and the determinatenessthat constitutes the nature of the singular object in its externality andconcrete existence. Since in this way the object is implicitly the whole concept,it has within it the necessity and the impulse to sublate its opposed, one-sided subsistence, and to bring itself in existence to the real whole which itis according to its concept.

Regarding the expression “chemism” for the said relation of the non-indifference of objectivity, it may be further remarked that the expressionis not to be understood here as though the relation were only to be foundin that form of elemental nature that strictly goes by that name. Alreadythe meteorological relation must be regarded as a process whose parts havemore the nature of physical than chemical elements.13 In animate things,13 This is a strange sentence. One would expect Hegel to say the opposite, namely that the meteoro-

logical relation already is more chemical than physical.

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the sex relation falls under this schema, and the schema also constitutes the12.149formal basis for the spiritual relations of love, friendship, and the like.

On closer examination, the chemical object is at first a self-subsistenttotality in general, one reflected into itself and therefore distinct fromits reflectedness outwards – an indifferent basis, the individual not yetdetermined as non-indifferent; the person, too, is in the first instance a basisof this kind, one that refers only to itself. But the immanent determinatenessthat constitutes the object’s non-indifference is, first, reflected into itself insuch a manner that this retraction of the reference outwards is only a formalabstract universality; the outwards reference is thus a determination of theobject’s immediacy and concrete existence. From this side the object doesnot return, within it, to individual totality: the negative unity has its twomoments of opposition in two particular objects. Accordingly, a chemicalobject is not comprehensible from itself, and the being of one object is thebeing of another. – But, second, the determinateness is absolutely reflectedinto itself and is the concrete moment of the individual concept of thewhole which is the universal essence, the real genus of the particular objects.The chemical object, which is thus the contradiction of its immediatepositedness and its immanent individual concept, is a striving to sublate theimmediate determinateness of its existence and to give concrete existenceto the objective totality of the concept. Hence it does still remain a non-self-subsistent object, but in such a way that it is by nature in tension withthis lack of self-subsistence and initiates the process as a self-determining.

b. the process

1. It begins with the presupposition that the objects in tension, as much asthey are tensed against themselves, just as much are they by that very factat first tensed against each other – a relation which is called their affinity.Each stands through its concept in contradiction to its concrete existence’sown one-sidedness and each consequently strives to sublate it, and in thisthere is immediately posited the striving to sublate the one-sidedness ofthe other and, through this reciprocal balancing and combining, to posit areality conformable to the concept that contains both moments.

Since each is posited within it as self-contradictory and self-sublating,they are held apart from each other and from their reciprocal complementa-tion only by external violent force. The middle term whereby these extremesare now concluded into a unity is, first, the implicitly existent nature of both,the whole concept containing both within. But, second, since in concreteexistence the two stand over against each other, their absolute unity is also a12.150

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still formal element that concretely exists distinct from them – the elementof communication wherein they enter into external community with eachother. Since the real difference belongs to the extremes, this middle termis only the abstract neutrality, the real possibility of those extremes – thetheoretical element, as it were, of the concrete existence of the chemicalobjects, of their process and its result. In the realm of bodies, water fulfillsthe function of this medium; in that of spirit, inasmuch as there is in it ananalog of such a relation, the sign in general, and language more specifically,can be regarded as fulfilling it.

The relation of the objects, as mere communication in this element, ison the one hand a tranquil coming-together, but on the other it is equallya negative relating, for in communication the concrete concept which istheir nature is posited in reality, and the real differences of the object arethereby reduced to its unity. Their prior self-subsistent determinatenessis thus sublated in the union that conforms to the concept, which is oneand the same in both; their opposition and tension are thereby blunted,with the result that in this reciprocal complementation the striving attainsits tranquil neutrality.

The process is in this way dissolved; since the contradiction betweenconcept and reality has been resolved, the extremes of the syllogism haveconsequently lost their opposition and have ceased to be extremes as againsteach other and the middle term. The product is something neutral, thatis, something in which the ingredients, which can no longer be calledobjects, are no longer in tension and therefore no longer have the propertiesthat accrued to them in tension, though in the product the capacity fortheir prior self-subsistence and tension is retained. For the negative unityof the neutral product proceeds from a presupposed non-indifference; thedeterminateness of the chemical object is identical with its objectivity; itis original. Through the process just considered, this non-indifference isonly immediately sublated; the determinateness, therefore, is not as yetabsolutely reflected into itself, and consequently the product of the processis only a formal unity.

2. In this product the tension of opposition, and the negative unitywhich is the activity of the process, are now indeed dissolved. But sincethis unity is essential to the concept and has also itself come into concreteexistence, it is still present but has stepped outside the neutral object. Theprocess does not spontaneously re-start itself, for it had non-indifferenceonly as its presupposition – it did not posit it. – This self-subsistent negativityoutside the object, the concrete existence of the abstract singularity whosebeing-for-itself has its reality in the non-indifferent object, is in itself now in


tension with its abstraction, an inherently restless activity outwardly bent12.151on consuming. It connects immediately with the object whose tranquilneutrality is the real possibility of an opposition to this neutrality; the sameobject is now the middle term of the prior formal neutrality, now concretein itself and determined.

The more precise immediate connection of the extreme of negative unitywith the object is in that the latter is determined by it and is therebydisrupted. This disruption may at first be regarded as the restoration ofthe opposition of the objects in tension with which chemism began. Butthis determination does not constitute the other extreme of the syllogismbut belongs to the immediate connection of the differentiating principlewith the middle in which this principle gives itself its immediate reality;it is the determinateness which the middle term, besides at the same timebeing the universal nature of the subject matter, possesses in the disjunctivesyllogism, whereby that object is both objective universality and determi-nate particularity. The other extreme of the syllogism stands opposed to theexternal self-subsistent extreme of singularity; it is, therefore, the equally self-subsisting extreme of universality; hence the disruption that the real neu-trality of the middle term undergoes in it is that it breaks up into momentsthat are not non-indifferent but, on the contrary, neutral.14 Accordinglythese moments are, on the one side, the abstract and indifferent15 base,and, on the other, this base’s activating principle which, separated from it,equally attains the form of indifferent objectivity.

This disjunctive syllogism is the totality of chemism in which the sameobjective whole is exhibited as self-standing negative unity; then, in themiddle term, as real unity; and finally as the chemical reality resolvedinto its abstract moments. In these moments the determinateness hasnot reached its immanent reflection in an other as in the neutral prod-uct, but has in itself returned into its abstraction, an originally determinedelement.

3. These elemental objects are therefore liberated from chemical tension;in them, the original basis of that presupposition with which chemism beganhas been posited through the real process. Now further, their inner deter-minateness is as such essentially the contradiction of their simple indifferentsubsistence and themselves as determinateness, and is the outward impulsethat disrupts itself and posits tension in its determined object and in another, in order that the object may have something to which it can relate asnon-indifferent, with which it can neutralize itself and give to its simple

14 indifferente. 15 gleichgultige.

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determinateness an existent reality. Consequently, on the one handchemism has gone back to its beginning in which objects in a state of 12.152reciprocal tension seek one another and then combine in a neutral productby means of a formal and external middle term; and, on the other hand,by thus going back to its concept, chemism sublates itself and has gone overinto a higher sphere.

c. transition of chemism

Even ordinary chemistry shows examples of chemical alterations in whicha body, for example, imparts a higher oxidation to one part of its mass andthereby reduces another part to a lower degree of the same, at which degreealone it can enter into a neutral combination with another differing bodybrought into contact with it, a combination to which it would not havebeen receptive at that other first immediate degree. What happens hereis that the object does not connect with another in accordance with animmediate, one-sided determinateness, but, in accordance with the innertotality of an original relation, posits the presupposition which it needs for areal connection and thereby gives itself a middle term by virtue of which itunites its concept with its reality in conclusion; it is a singularity determinedin and for itself, the concrete concept as the principle of the disjunctioninto extremes whose re-union is the activity of that same negative principlethat thereby returns to its first determination, but returns to it objectified.

Chemism is itself the first negation of the indifferent objectivity andof the externality of determinateness; it is still burdened, therefore, by theimmediate self-subsistence of the object and with externality. Consequentlyit is not yet for itself that totality of self-determination that proceeds from itand in which it is rather sublated. – The three syllogisms that have resultedconstitute its totality. The first has formal neutrality for its middle term andfor extremes the objects in tension. The second has for its middle term theproduct of the first, real neutrality; and for extremes the disrupting activityand its product, the indifferent element. But the third is the self-realizingconcept that posits for itself the presupposition by virtue of which theprocess of its realization is conditioned – a syllogism that has the universalfor its essence. Yet, on account of the immediacy and externality by whichthe chemical objectivity is still determined, these three syllogisms fall apart.The first process whose product is the neutrality of the tensed objects isextinguished in this product and is re-activated only by a differentiationthat comes to it from outside; conditioned by an immediate presupposition, 12.153the process is exhausted in it. – The excretion out of the neutral product


of the non-indifferent extremes, as also their decomposition into theirabstract elements, must likewise proceed from conditions and stimulationsof activity brought in from the outside. But the two essential moments ofthe process, neutralization on the one hand and dissolution and reductionon the other, since they too are bound together in one and the same processand the union blunting the tension of the extremes is also a separation intothese, constitute on account of the still underlying externality two diversesides; the extremes that are separated in that same process are other than theobjects or matters uniting in it; in so far as the former proceed from it againas non-indifferent, they must turn outwards; their renewed neutralizationis a process other than the one that took place in the first.

But these various processes, which have demonstrated themselves to benecessary, are equally so many stages by which externality and conditionalityare sublated, and from which the concept emerges as determined in andfor itself, a totality unconditioned by externality. In the first process, whatis sublated is the externality of the mutually non-indifferent extremes thatconstitute the whole reality, or the distinction between the implicitly deter-minate concept and its existing determinateness. Sublated in the secondprocess is the externality of the real unity, union as merely neutral. Ormore precisely, the formal activity sublates itself in bases that are equallyformal, neutral16 determinacies whose inner concept is now the absoluteactivity that has withdrawn into itself and now realizes itself internally, thatis, posits the determinate difference within itself and through this media-tion constitutes itself as real unity; this is a mediation which is thus theconcept’s own mediation, its self-determination and, considering that in itthe concept reflects itself back into itself, an immanent presupposing. Thethird syllogism, which on the one hand is the restoration of the precedingprocesses, sublates on the other hand the last remaining moment of indif-ferent bases: it sublates the whole abstract external immediacy that becomesin this way the concept’s own moment of self-mediation. The concept thathas thus sublated as external all the moments of its objective existence, andhas posited them in its simple unity, is thereby completely liberated fromthe objective externality to which it refers only as an unessential reality.This objective free concept is purpose.

16 indifferente.

chapter 3

Teleology 12.154

Where there is the perception of a purposiveness, an intelligence is assumedas its author; required for purpose is thus the concept’s own free concreteexistence. Teleology is above all contrasted with mechanism, in which thedeterminateness posited in the object, being external, is one that givesno sign of self-determination. The opposition between causæ efficientes andcausæ finales, between merely efficient and final causes, refers to this distinc-tion, just as, at a more concrete level, the enquiry whether the absoluteessence of the world is to be conceived as blind mechanism or as an intelli-gence that determines itself in accordance with purposes also comes downto it. The antinomy of fatalism, along with determinism, and freedom isequally concerned with the opposition of mechanism and teleology; forthe free is the concept in its concrete existence.

Earlier metaphysics has dealt with these concepts as it dealt with others.It presupposed a certain picture of the world and strived to show thatone or the other concept of causality was adequate to it, and the oppositedefective because not explainable from the presupposed picture, all the whilenot examining the concept of mechanical cause and that of purpose to seewhich possesses truth in and for itself. If this is established independently, itmay turn out that the objective world exhibits mechanical and final causes;its actual existence is not the norm of what is true, but what is true is ratherthe criterion for deciding which of these concrete existences is its true one.Just as the subjective understanding exhibits also errors in it, so the objectiveworld exhibits also aspects and stages of truth that by themselves are stillone-sided, incomplete, and only relations of appearances. If mechanismand purposiveness stand opposed to each other, then by that very fact theycannot be taken as indifferent concepts, as if each were by itself a correctconcept and had as much validity as the other, the only question beingwhere the one or the other may apply. This equal validity of the two restsonly on the fact that they are, that is to say, that we have them both. Butsince they do stand opposed, the necessary first question is, which of the

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two concepts is the true one; and the higher and truly telling question is,whether there is a third which is their truth, or whether one of them is the12.155truth of the other. – But purposive connection has proved to be the truth ofmechanism. – Regarding chemism, what came under it can be taken togetherwith mechanism, for purpose is the concept in free concrete existence, andthe concept’s state of unfreedom, its being sunk into externality, standsopposed to it in any form. Both, mechanism as well as chemism, aretherefore included under natural necessity: mechanism, because in it theconcept does not exist in the object concretely, for as mechanical the latterlacks self-determination; chemism, either because the concept has in it aone-sided concrete existence in a state of tension, or because, emergingas the unity that creates in the neutral object a tension of extremes, it isexternal to itself in so far as it sublates this divide.

The closer the teleological principle is associated with the concept of anextra-mundane intelligence, and the more it has therefore enjoyed the favorof piety, all the more it has seemed to depart from the true investigationof nature, which aims at a cognition of the properties of nature not asextraneous, but as immanent determinacies, and accepts only such cognitionas a valid conceptual comprehension. Since purpose is the concept itselfin its concrete existence, it may seem strange that a cognition of objectsbased on their concept rather appears as an unjustified trespass into aheterogeneous element, whereas mechanism, for which the determinatenessof an object is posited in it externally and by an other, is accepted as a moreimmanent view of things than teleology. Of course mechanism, at least theordinary unfree mechanism, and chemism as well, must be regarded as animmanent principle in so far as the externally determining object is itselfagain just another such object, externally determined and indifferent to itsbeing determined, or, in the case of chemism, in so far as the other objectmust likewise be one that is chemically determined; in general, in so faras an essential moment of the totality always lies in something external.These principles remain confined, therefore, within the same natural formof finitude; but although they do not wish to transcend the finite and,as regards appearances, lead only to finite causes that themselves demandfurther causes, they nonetheless equally expand themselves, partly into aformal totality in the concept of force, cause, or of such determinations ofreflection that are supposed to signify originariness, and partly, through themedium of abstract universality, also into a sum total of forces, a whole ofreciprocal causes. Mechanism thus reveals itself to be a striving for totalityby the very fact that it seeks to comprehend nature by itself as a whole that

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has no need of an other for its concept – a totality that is not found in 12.156purpose and the extra-mundane intelligence associated with it.

Now purposiveness presents itself from the first as something of a gen-erally higher nature, as an intelligence that externally determines the man-ifoldness of objects through a unity that exists in and for itself, so that theindifferent determinacies of the objects become essential by virtue of thisconnection. In mechanism they become so through the mere form of neces-sity that leaves their content indifferent, for they are supposed to remainexternal and only the understanding as such is expected to find satisfactionby recognizing its principle of union, the abstract identity. In teleology,on the contrary, the content becomes important, for teleology presupposesa concept, something determined in and for itself and consequently self-determining, and has therefore extracted from the connection of differencesand their reciprocal determinateness, from the form, a unity that is reflectedinto itself, something that is determined in and for itself and is consequentlya content. But if this content is otherwise finite and insignificant, then itcontradicts what it is supposed to be, for according to its form purpose isa totality infinite within itself – especially when the activity operating inaccordance with it is assumed to be an absolute will and intelligence. Forthis reason has teleology drawn the reproach of triviality so much uponitself, for the purposes that it has espoused are, as the case may be, moreimportant or more trivial [than the content], and it was inevitable thatthe connection of purposiveness in objects would so often appear just afrivolity, since it appears external and therefore contingent. Mechanism,on the contrary, leaves to the determinacies of the objects, as regards theircontent, their status as accidents indifferent to the object, and these deter-minacies are not supposed to have, whether for the objects or the subjectiveunderstanding, any value higher than that. This principle, combined withexternal necessity, yields therefore a consciousness of infinite freedom thatcontrasts with teleology, which sets up as something absolute bits of itscontent that are trivial and even contemptible, where the more universalthought can only find itself infinitely constricted, even to the point offeeling disgust.

The formal disadvantage from which this teleology immediately suffersis that it only goes as far as external purposiveness. The content of concept,since the latter is thereby posited as something formal, is for teleology alsoexternally given to it in the manifoldness of the objective world – in thosevery determinacies that are also the content of mechanism, but are there assomething external and accidental. Because of this commonality of content,


only the form of purposiveness constitutes by itself the essential element of12.157the teleological. In this respect, without as yet considering the distinctionbetween external and internal purposiveness, the connection of purpose ingeneral has proven itself to be the truth of mechanism. – Teleology possessesin general the higher principle, the concept in its concrete existence, whichis in and for itself the infinite and absolute – a principle of freedom which,utterly certain of its self-determination, is absolutely withdrawn from theexternal determining of mechanism.

One of Kant’s greatest services to philosophy was in drawing the distinc-tion between relative or external purposiveness and internal purposiveness;in the latter he opened up the concept of life, the idea, and with that hepositively raised philosophy above the determinations of reflection and therelative world of metaphysics, something that the Critique of Reason doesonly imperfectly, ambiguously, and only negatively. – We have remarkedthat the opposition of teleology and mechanism is first of all the generalopposition of freedom and necessity.17 Kant treated the opposition in thisform, among the antinomies of reason, namely, as the third conflict of thetranscendental ideas.18 – I cite his exposition, to which reference was madeearlier,19 very briefly because its essential point is so simple that it doesnot need extensive explanation – and moreover, the peculiarities of Kant’santinomies have been elucidated in greater detail elsewhere.

The thesis of the antinomy now in question runs thus: Causality accord-ing to the laws of nature is not the only one from which the appearance ofthe world can exhaustively be derived. For their explanation, it is necessaryto assume yet another causality through freedom.

The antithesis: There is no freedom, but everything in the world happenssolely according to laws of nature.

As in the other antinomies, the proof starts off apagogically by assumingthe opposite of each thesis; secondly, in order to show the contradiction ofthis assumption, its opposite – which is then the proposition to be proved –is assumed in turn and presupposed as valid. This whole roundabout proofcould therefore be spared, for the proof consists in nothing but the assertoricassertion of the two opposite propositions.

Thus to prove the thesis we should first assume that there is no othercausality than that according to the laws of nature, that is, according tothe necessity of mechanism in general, chemism being included. Thisproposition contradicts itself, because the law of nature consists just in12.158this, that nothing happens without a cause sufficiently determined a priori, a

17 Cf. above, 12.154. 18 A472/B472ff. 19 Cf. GW 11, 114–120; above, 21.179–189.

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cause that would have to contain an absolute spontaneity within it, that is,the assumption opposed to the thesis is contradictory, for the reason thatit contradicts the thesis.

In support of the proof of the antithesis we should assume that there is afreedom as a particular kind of causality for absolutely initiating a situation,and together with it also a series of consequences following upon it. Butnow, since such a beginning presupposes a situation that has no causal linkwith the one preceding it, it contradicts the law of causality that alonemakes the unity of experience and experience in general possible – that is,the assumption of the freedom that is opposed to the antithesis cannot bemade, for the reason that it contradicts the antithesis.

We find in essence the same antinomy in the Critique of the TeleologicalJudgement as the opposition between the proposition that every generationof material things happens according to merely mechanical laws, and theproposition that some cases of generation of material things are not possibleaccording to such laws.20 – Kant’s resolution of this antinomy is the sameas the general resolution of the rest, namely that reason cannot proveeither the one or the other proposition because we cannot have a prioriany determining principle of the possibility of things according to merelyempirical laws of nature; further, that therefore the two propositions mustbe regarded not as objective propositions but as subjective maxims; thatI ought to reflect on the events of nature every time according to theprinciple of the mechanism of nature alone, but that this does not prevent,when occasion permits, following up certain natural forms in accordancewith another maxim, namely in accordance with the principal of finalcauses – as if now these two maxims, which moreover are supposed to benecessary only for human reason, did not stand in the same opposition asthe two propositions in antinomy. – Missing in all this, as we remarkedabove,21 is the one thing that alone is of philosophical interest, namelythe investigation of which of the two principles has truth in and foritself. On this standpoint, it makes no difference whether the principlesshould be regarded as objective, which means here, as externally existingdeterminations of nature, or as mere maxims of a subjective cognition; whatis subjective here is rather the contingent cognition that applies one or theother maxim as occasion demands, indeed, according to whether it deemsthem fitting for given objects, but for the rest does not ask about the truthof these determinations themselves, whether they both are determinationsof the objects or of cognition. 12.159

20 Critique of Judgement, §70. 21 Cf. above, 12.154.


However unsatisfactory is for this reason Kant’s discussion of the teleo-logical principle with respect to its essential viewpoint, still worthy of noteis the place that Kant assigns to it. Since he ascribes it to a reflective faculty ofjudgment, he makes it into a mediating link between the universal of reasonand the singular of intuition;22 further, he distinguishes this reflective judg-ment from the determining judgment, the latter one that merely subsumesthe particular under the universal.23 Such a universal that only subsumesis an abstraction that becomes concrete only in an other, in the particular.Purpose, on the contrary, is the concrete universal containing within itselfthe moment of particularity and of externality; it is therefore active andthe impulse to repel itself from itself. The concept, as purpose, is of coursean objective judgment in which one determination, the subject, namely theconcrete concept, is self-determined, while the other is not only a predicatebut external objectivity. But for that reason the connection of purpose isnot a reflective judgment that considers external objects only according toa unity, as though an intelligence had given them to us for the convenienceof our faculty of cognition; on the contrary, it is the truth that exists inand for itself and judges objectively, determining the external objectivityabsolutely. The connection of purpose is therefore more than judgment; itis the syllogism of the self-subsistent free concept that through objectivityunites itself with itself in conclusion.

Purpose has resulted as the third to mechanism and chemism; it is theirtruth. Inasmuch as it still stands inside the sphere of objectivity or of theimmediacy of the total concept, it is still affected by externality as such andhas an objective world over against it to which it refers. From this side,mechanical causality, to which chemism is also in general to be added,still makes its appearance in this purposive connection which is the externalone, but as subordinated to it and as sublated in and for itself. As regardsthe more precise relation, the mechanical object is, as immediate totality,indifferent to its being determined and consequently, conversely, to itsbeing a determinant. This external determinateness has now progressed toself-determination and accordingly the concept that in the object was onlyinner or, which amounts to the same, only outer, is now posited; purposeis, in the first instance, precisely this concept which is external to themechanical object. And so for chemism also, purpose is the self-determiningwhich brings the external determinateness conditioning it back to the unityof the concept. – We have here the nature of the subordination of the twopreceding forms of the objective process. The other, which in those forms

22 Critique of Judgement, §61, AK 5.360. 23 Critique of Judgement, AK 5.179.

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lies in the infinite progress, is the concept posited at first as external to them,and this is purpose; not only is the concept their substance but externality 12.160is for them also an essential moment constituting their determinateness.Thus mechanical or chemical technique, because of its character of beingexternally determined, naturally offers itself to the connection of purpose,which we must now examine more closely.

a. the subjective purpose

In the centrality of the objective sphere, which is an indifference to deter-minateness, the subjective concept has first rediscovered and posited thenegative point of unity, and in chemism it has first rediscovered and positedthe objectivity of the determinations of the concept by which it is first positedas concrete objective concept. Its determinateness or its simple difference nowhas the determinateness of externality within it, and its simple unity is there-fore the unity that repels itself from itself and in this repelling maintainsitself. Purpose, therefore, is the subjective concept as an essential strivingand impulse to posit itself externally. In this, it is exempt from transition.It is neither a force expressing itself, nor a substance or a cause manifestingitself in its accidents or effects. To the extent that force has not expresseditself, it is only an abstract inner; or again, it first has existence in an exter-nalization to which it has to be solicited. The same applies to cause and tosubstance. Since they have actuality only in the accidents and in the effects,their activity is a transition against which they do not maintain themselvesin freedom. Purpose can of course also be defined as a force or a cause, butthese expressions cover only an incomplete side of its signification; if theyare to be said of purpose according to its truth, this can be done only in away that sublates their concept – as a cause that solicits itself to expression,or a cause that is a cause of itself or whose effect is immediately the cause.

When purposiveness is attributed to an intelligence, as was said above,24

this is done with specific reference to a certain content. But, as such,purpose is to be taken as the rational in its concrete existence. It manifestsrationality by being the concrete concept that holds the objective differencein its absolute unity. Within, therefore, it is essentially syllogism. It is theself-equal universal; more precisely, inasmuch as it contains self-repellingnegativity, it is universal though at first still indeterminate activity. But sincethis activity is negative self-reference, it determines itself immediately and 12.161gives itself the moment of particularity, and this particularity, as likewise

24 Cf. above, 12.154, 155.


the totality of the form reflected into itself, is content as against the positeddifferences of the form. The same negativity, through its self-reference, isjust as immediately the reflection of the form into itself and singularity.From the one side, this reflection is the inner universality of the subject;from the other side, however, it is outwards reflection; and to this extentpurpose is still something subjective, its activity still directed to an externalobjectivity.

For purpose is the concept that has come to itself in objectivity; thedeterminateness that it has given itself there is that of objective indifferenceand externality of determinateness; its self-repelling negativity is thereforeone whose moments, being only determinations of the concept itself, alsohave the form of objective indifference to one another. – Already in theformal judgment are subject and predicate determined as self-subsistent overagainst each other; but their self-subsistence is still only abstract universality.It has now attained the determination of objectivity, but, as a moment ofthe concept, this complete difference is enclosed within the simple unityof the concept. Now in so far as purpose is this total reflection of objectivityinto itself and is such immediately, in the first place, the self-determinationor the particularity as simple reflection into itself is distinguished from theconcrete form, and is a determinate content. Accordingly, purpose is finite,even though according to form it is equally infinite subjectivity. Secondly,since its determinateness has the form of objective indifference, it has theshape of a presupposition, and from this side its finitude consists in itshaving before it an objective, mechanical and chemical world to whichits activity is directed as to something already there; its self-determiningactivity is in its identity thus immediately external to itself, reflection intoitself just as much as reflection outwards. To this extent purpose still hasa truly extra-mundane concrete existence – to the extent, namely, that thisobjectivity stands opposed to it, just as the latter, as a mechanical andchemical whole still not determined and not pervaded by purpose, standson its side opposed to it.

Consequently, the movement of purpose can now be expressed as beingdirected at sublating its presupposition, that is, the immediacy of the object,and at positing it as determined by the concept. This negative relating tothe object is equally a negative attitude towards itself, a sublating of thesubjectivity of purpose. Positively, this is the realization of purpose, namely12.162the unification of the objective being with it, so that this being, which as amoment of purpose is immediately the determinateness identical with it,shall be as external determinateness, and conversely the objective, as presup-position, shall be posited rather as determined by the concept. – Purpose

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is in it the impulse to its realization; the determinateness of the moments ofthe concept is externality; the simplicity of these moments within the unityof the concept is however incommensurable with what this unity is, and theconcept therefore repels itself from itself. This repulsion is in general theresolution25 of the self-reference of the negative unity by virtue of whichthe latter is exclusive26 singularity; but by this excluding27 the unity resolvesitself, that is to say, it discloses itself,28 for it is self-determination, the posit-ing of itself. On the one hand, in determining itself, subjectivity makesitself into particularity, gives itself a content which, enclosed within theunity of the concept, is still an inner content; but this positing, the simplereflection into itself, is, as we have seen,29 at the same time immediatelya presupposing; and at the same moment in which the subject of purposedetermines itself, it is referred to an indifferent, external objectivity whichis to be made equal by it with the determinateness of that inner content,that is to say, posited as something determined by the concept – first of all asmeans.

b. the means

The first immediate positing in purpose is equally the positing of some-thing internally determined, that is, determined as posited, and, at thesame time, the presupposing of an objective world, one indifferent to thedetermination of purpose. But the subjectivity of purpose is the absolutelynegative unity; its second determining is, therefore, the sublation of this pre-supposition as such; this sublation is an immanent turning back inasmuchas that moment of the first negation which is the positing of the negativeover against the subject, the external object, is sublated by it. But as againstthe presupposition or the immediacy of the determining, as against theobjective world, it is as yet only the first, itself immediate and hence exter-nal negation. This positing is therefore not yet the realized purpose itselfbut only the beginning of this realization. The object so determined is nowthe means.

Through a means the purpose unites with objectivity and in objectivityunites with itself. This means is the middle term of the syllogism. Purpose is 12.163in need of a means for its realization, because it is finite – in need of a means,that is to say, of a middle term that has at the same time the shape of anexternal existence indifferent towards the purpose itself and its realization.The absolute concept has mediation within itself in such a manner that the

25 Entschluß. 26 auschliessende. 27 Ausschliessen. 28 schließt auf. 29 Cf. above, 11.251.


first positing of it is not a presupposition in whose object the fundamentaldetermination would be an indifferent externality; on the contrary, theworld as creation has only the form of such an externality; it is its negativityand the positedness that rather constitute its fundamental determination. –Accordingly, the finitude of purpose consists in this, that its determiningis as such external to itself; accordingly, its first determining, as we haveseen,30 falls apart into a supposing and a presupposing; the negation ofthis determining is therefore only according to one side already immanentreflection; according to the other side, it is rather only first negation. Oragain, the immanent reflection is itself also self-external and a reflectionoutwards.

The means is therefore the formal middle term of a formal syllogism;it is something external to the extreme of the subjective purpose as also,therefore, to the extreme of the objective purpose; just as particularity inthe formal syllogism is an indifferent medius terminus that can be replacedby others. Moreover, just as this particularity is a middle term by virtueof being determinateness with reference to one extreme but universalitywith reference to the other extreme, and therefore obtains its mediatingdetermination by being related to an other, so too the means is a mediatingmiddle term only because it is, first, an immediate object, and, second,because it is a means by virtue of a reference connecting it with the extremeof purpose external to it – a reference which is for it a form to which it isindifferent.

Concept and objectivity, therefore, are in the means only externallylinked; hence the means is only a merely mechanical object. The referenceof the object to purpose is a premise or the immediate reference which,as we have seen,31 is with respect to purpose an immanent reflection; themeans is an inhering predicate; its objectivity is subsumed under the deter-mination of purpose which, on account of its concreteness, is universality.Through this purposive determination present in it, the means is nowalso subsumptive with respect to the other extreme, the at the momentstill indeterminate objectivity. – Conversely, as contrasted with the sub-jective purpose, the means has as immediate objectivity a universality ofexistence which the subjective singularity of purpose still misses. – Thus,since purpose is in the means as only an external determinateness at first, itis itself, as the negative unity, outside the means; the means, for its part, isa mechanical object that possesses purpose only as a determinateness, notas the simple concretion of totality. But as the unifying means, the middle

30 Cf. above, 12.161. 31 Cf. above, 12.161.

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term must itself be the totality of the purpose. It has been shown that thedetermination of purpose is in the middle term at the same time immanent 12.164reflection;32 as this reflection, it is a formal self-reference, since the determi-nateness is posited as real indifference, as the objectivity of the middle term.But precisely for this reason this subjectivity, which is in one respect puresubjectivity, is at the same time also activity. – In the subjective purpose thenegative self-reference is still identical with determinateness as such, withthe content and the externality. However, in the initial objectification ofpurpose which is a becoming-other of the simple concept, those momentscome apart, each outside the other, or, conversely, the becoming-other orthe externality itself consists in this coming apart.

This whole middle term is thus the totality of the syllogism in whichthe abstract activity and the external means constitute the extremes, whilethe determinateness of the object through the purpose, by virtue of whichit is a means, constitutes the middle term. – But further, universality is theconnection of purposiveness and the means. This means is object, in itselfthe totality of the concept; it does not have with respect to purpose anyof the power of resistance that it initially has against another immediateobject. To the purpose, therefore, which is the posited concept, it is utterlypenetrable, and it is receptive to this communication because it is in itselfidentical with it. But it is now also posited that it is penetrable by theconcept, for in centrality it is an object striving towards negative unity;in chemism, too, whether as neutral or non-indifferent, it is no longerself-subsistent. – Its non-self-subsistence consists precisely in its being thetotality of the concept only implicitly; but the concept is being-for-itself.Consequently, with respect to purpose the object has the character of beingpowerless and of serving it; purpose is the subjectivity or soul of the objectthat has in the latter its external side.

The object, immediately subjected to purpose in this way, is not anextreme of the syllogism; on the contrary, this connection between the twoconstitutes a premise of it. But the means has also one side from whichit still has self-subsistence as against the purpose. The objectivity whichin the means is bound with the purpose is still external to it, becauseit is only immediately so connected; and therefore the presupposition stillpersists. The activity of the purpose through the means is for that reasonstill directed against this presupposition, and the purpose is activity, nolonger mere impulse and striving, because in the means the moment of

32 Cf. above, 12.162.


objectivity is posited in its determinateness as something external, and thesimple unity of the concept now has this objectivity as such within it.12.165

c. the realized purpose33

1. Purpose is in its connection to the means already reflected into itself,but its objective immanent turning back is not yet posited. The activity ofpurpose through its means is still directed against objectivity as an initialpresupposition; this is precisely what that activity is, to be indifferent todeterminateness. If it were again to consist in determining the immediateobjectivity, the product would again be only a means, and so forth intoinfinity; only a purposeful means would result, but not the objectivity ofthe purpose itself. In being active in its means, therefore, purpose must notdetermine the immediate object as something external to it, and the object,accordingly, must merge with it in the unity of the concept through itself;or again, the otherwise external activity of purpose through its means mustdetermine itself as mediation and thus sublate itself as external.

The connection of the activity of purpose with the external objectthrough the means is first of all the second premise of the syllogism –an immediate connection of the middle term with the other extreme. It isimmediate because the middle term has within it an external object andthe other extreme is likewise an external object. The means is effective andpotent against this latter object because its own is linked with the self-determining activity, whereas for the other the immediate determinatenessthat it possesses is an indifferent one. Their process in this connection isnone other than the mechanical or chemical one; the previous relationscome up again in this objective externality, but under the dominance ofpurpose. – But these processes, as they themselves showed, return intopurpose on their own.34 If, therefore, the connection of the means to theexternal object which it has to work upon is at first an immediate one, thatconnection has earlier exhibited itself already as a syllogism, for purposeproved to be their true middle term and unity. Since the means is thereforethe object that stands on the side of purpose and has the latter’s activitywithin it, the mechanism that occurs here is at the same time the turningback of objectivity into itself, into the concept which, however, is alreadypresupposed as purpose; the negative attitude of the purposeful activity

33 Der ausgefuhrte Zwecke: the purpose as carried out or executed. I use “realized” for the sake ofsimplicity, and Hegel occasionally also uses realisiert.

34 Cf. above, 12.153.

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towards the object is therefore not an external attitude but, on the contrary,the objectivity’s own alteration and internal transition into it.

That the purpose immediately refers to an object and makes it intoa means, as also that through this means it determines another object,may be regarded as violence inasmuch as purpose appears of an entirelydifferent nature than the object, and the two objects are in like matter 12.166mutually independent totalities. But that the purpose posits itself in amediate connection with the object, and between itself and this object insertsanother object, may be regarded as the cunning of reason. As remarked,the finitude of rationality has this side, that purpose relates to the objectas a presupposition, that is, as external. In an immediate connection withthat object, purpose would itself enter into the sphere of mechanism andchemism and would therefore be subject to accidentality and to the lossof its determining vocation35 to be the concept that exists in and for itself.But in this way, by sending an object as a means ahead of it, it lets it dothe slavish work of externality in its stead, abandons it to the wear and tearwhile preserving itself behind it against mechanical violence.

Since it is finite, the purpose further has a finite content; accordingly, itis not rational absolutely, or simply in and for itself. But the means is theexternal middle term of the syllogism which is the realization of purpose;in the means, therefore, the rationality in the purpose manifests itself assuch by maintaining itself in this external other, and precisely through thisexternality. To this extent the means is higher than the finite purposes ofexternal purposiveness: the plough is more honorable than are immediatelythe enjoyments which it procures and which are the purposes. The toollasts while the immediate enjoyments pass away and are forgotten. It isin their tools that human beings possess power over external nature, eventhough with respect to their purposes they are subjected to it.

But the purpose does not just keep outside the mechanical process; onthe contrary, it keeps itself in it and is its determination. For purpose –as the concept that concretely exists freely over against the object and itsprocess, and is self-determining activity – since it is equally the truth ofmechanism existing in and for itself, in the latter only rejoins itself. Thepower of purpose over the object is this identity existing for itself, andits activity is the manifestation of this identity. The purpose as content isthe determinateness as it exists in and for itself, present in the object asindifferent and external; but the activity of the purpose is the truth of theprocess on the one side, and, as negative unity, the sublation of the reflective

35 Bestimmung.


shine of externality. The indifferent determinateness of the object is onethat can abstractly be replaced by another just as externally; but the truth ofthe simple abstraction of the determinateness is the totality of the negative,the concrete concept that posits the externality within itself.

The content of the purpose is its negativity as simple determinatenessreflected into itself, distinguished from its totality as form. On account ofthis simplicity, the determinateness of which is in and for itself the totalityof the concept, the content appears as that which remains identical in therealization of the purpose. The teleological process is the translation of12.167the concept that concretely exists distinctly as concept into objectivity;as we see, this translation into a presupposed other is the rejoining ofthe concept through itself with itself. The content of the purpose is nowthis identity concretely existing in the form of the identical. In everytransition the concept maintains itself; for instance, when the cause comesto effect, it is the cause that in the effect only comes to itself. But inthe teleological transition, what maintains itself is the concept that assuch already concretely exists as cause, as the free concrete unity as againstobjectivity and its external determinateness. The externality into whichthe purpose translates itself is, as we have seen,36 itself already posited asa moment of the concept, as the form of its inner differentiation. In theexternality, therefore, the purpose has its own moment; and the content, asthe content of the concrete unity, is its simple form that does not remainin its different moments only implicitly equal with itself (as subjectivepurpose, as means and mediating activity, and as objective purpose) butalso exists concretely as abidingly self-equal.

Of the teleological activity one can say, therefore, that in it the endis the beginning, the consequence the ground, the effect the cause; thatit is a becoming of what has become; that in it only that which alreadyconcretely exists comes into existence, and so on; that is to say, that quitein general all the relation determinations that belong to the sphere ofreflection or of immediate being have lost their distinction, and what, likeend, consequence, effect, and so on, is spoken of as an other, no longer hasin purpose this determination of other, but is rather posited as identicalwith the simple concept.

2. If we now examine the product of teleological activity more closely,we see that purpose comes to it only externally if we take it as an absolutepresupposition over against a purpose which is subjective, that is to say,in so far as we stop short at a purposive activity that relates to the object

36 Cf. above, 12.165.

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through its means only mechanically, positing in place of one indifferentdeterminateness of the object an other which is just as external to it. Adeterminateness such as an object possesses through purpose differs ingeneral from one which is merely mechanical in that it is a moment ofa unity and consequently, although external to the object, is yet not initself something merely external. The object that exhibits such a unity is awhole with respect to which its parts, its own externality, are indifferent;it is a determinate, concrete unity that unites different connections anddeterminacies within itself. This unity, which cannot be comprehendedfrom the specific nature of the object and, as regards determinate content,is of another content than the object’s own, is for itself not a mechanical 12.168determinateness, yet still is in the object mechanically. Just as in this productof purposive activity the content of the purpose and the content of theobject are external to each other, so too do the determinations in the othermoments of the syllogism relate to each other externally – in the connectingmiddle, the purposive activity and the object which is the means; and in thesubjective purpose, which is the other extreme, the infinite form as totalityof the concept and the content of the concept. According to the connectionby which the subjective purpose is syllogistically united with objectivity,both premises are an immediate connection – namely the connection ofthe object determined as middle term with the still external object, and theconnection of the subjective purpose with the object made into means. Thesyllogism is therefore affected by the deficiency of the formal syllogism ingeneral, namely that the connections in which it consists are not themselvesconclusions or mediations but already presuppose the conclusion for theproduction of which they are supposed to serve as means.

If we consider the one premise, that of the immediate connection of thesubjective purpose and the object that thereby becomes a means, then thepurpose cannot connect with the object immediately, for the latter is justas immediate as the object of the other extreme in which the purpose isto be realized through mediation. Since the two are thus posited as diverse,a means for their connection must be interjected between this objectivityand the subjective purpose; but such a means is equally an object alreadydetermined by purpose, and between this objectivity and the teleologicaldetermination a new means is to be interjected, and so on to infinity. Theinfinite progress of mediation is thereby set in motion. – The same happensas regards the other premise, the connection of the means with the yetindeterminate object. Since the two terms are utterly self-subsistent, theycan be united only in a third, and so on to infinity. – Or conversely,since the premises already presuppose the conclusion, the latter can only be


imperfect, for it is based on those only immediate premises. The conclusionor the product of the purposive activity is nothing but an object determinedby a purpose that is external to it; thus it is the same as what the means is.In such a product itself, therefore, only a means has been derived, not arealized purpose; or again: purpose has not truly attained any objectivity init. – It is therefore entirely a matter of indifference whether we consideran object determined by external purpose as realized purpose or only asmeans; what we have is not an objective determination but a relative one,external to the object itself. All objects in which an external purpose isrealized equally are, therefore, only a means of purpose. Anything which12.169is intended for the realization of a purpose and is taken essentially as ameans, is such a means by virtue of its vocation37 that it be used up. Butalso the object that is supposed to contain the realized purpose and showitself to be its objectivity is perishable; it likewise fulfills its purpose not bya tranquil, self-preserving existence, but only to the extent that it is wornout, for only to this extent does it conform to the unity of the concept,namely in so far as its externality, that is, its objectivity, sublates itself inthat unity. – A house, a clock, may appear as purposes with respect tothe instruments employed in their production; but the stones, the cross-beams, or the wheels, the axles, and the rest that make up the actualityof the purpose, fulfill this purpose only through the pressure which theysuffer, through the chemical processes to which they are exposed with air,light, and water, and from which they shield the human being; throughtheir friction, and so on. They fulfill their vocation, therefore, only throughtheir being used up and worn out, and only by virtue of their negation dothey correspond to what they are supposed to be. They are not united withpurpose positively, because they possess self-determination only externallyand are only relative purposes, or essentially only means.

These purposes thus in general have a restricted content; their form isthe infinite self-determination of the concept, which through that contenthas restricted itself to external singularity. The restricted content rendersthese purposes inadequate to the infinity of the concept, relegating them tountruth; such a determinateness is through the sphere of necessity, throughbeing, already at the mercy of becoming and alteration and passes away.

3. The result now is that external purposiveness, which only has so farthe form of teleology, only goes so far as to be a means, not to be an objec-tive purpose, because subjective purpose remains an external, subjectivedetermination. Or in so far as purpose is active and attains completion,

37 Bestimmung.

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albeit only in a means, it is still bound up with objectivity immediately; itis sunk into it. Purpose is itself an object and, as one may say, it does notattain a means because its realization is needed before such a realizationcan be brought about through a means.

But the result is in fact not only an external purposive connection, butthe truth of such a connection, inner purposive connection and an objectivepurpose. The self-subsistence of the object over against the concept thatpurpose presupposes is posited in this presupposition as an unessentialreflective shine and as already sublated in and for itself; the activity of thepurpose truly is, therefore, only the exposure of this reflective shine and thesublation of it. – As the concept has demonstrated,38 the first object becomesby virtue of communication a means, for it implicitly is the totality of theconcept, and its determinateness, which is none other than the externalityitself, is posited as something only external and unessential – is posited 12.170in purpose itself, therefore, as the latter’s own moment, not as anythingthat stands on its own over against it. As a result, the determination of theobject as a means is altogether immediate. There is no need, therefore, forthe subjective purpose to exercise any violence to make the object into ameans, no need of extra reinforcement; the resolution,39 the resolve,40 thisdetermination of itself, is the only posited externality of the object, which istherein immediately subjected to purpose, and has no other determinationas against it than that of the nothingness of the being-in-and-for-itself.

The second sublating of objectivity through objectivity differs fromthis first sublation in that the latter, being the first, is the purpose inobjective immediacy; the second, therefore, is not only the sublating of afirst immediacy but of both, of the objective as something merely positedand of the immediate. The negativity thus returns to itself in such a waythat it is equally the restoration of objectivity, but of an objectivity whichis identical with it, and in this it is at the same time also the positing of itas an external objectivity which is only determined by purpose. Because ofthis positing, the product remains as before also a means; because of theidentity with negativity, the product is an objectivity which is identical withthe concept, is the realized purpose in which the side of being a means isthe reality itself of purpose. In the completed purpose the means disappearsbecause it would be simply and solely the objectivity immediately subsumedunder that purpose, an objectivity which in the realized purpose is theturning back of the purpose into itself; further, there also disappears withit mediation itself, as the relating of an external; it disappears into both

38 Cf. above, 12.164. 39 Entschluß. 40 Aufschluß.


the concrete identity of objective purpose, and into the same identity asabstract identity and immediacy of existence.

Herein is also contained the mediation that was required for the firstpremise, the immediate connection of the purpose with the object. Therealized purpose is also a means; conversely, the truth of the means is justthis, to be the real purpose itself, and the first sublation of objectivityis already also the second, just as the second proved to contain the firstalso.41 For the concept determines itself, its determinateness is the externalindifference which is immediately determined in the resolution as sublated,that is to say, as inner, subjective indifference and at the same time as pre-supposed object. Its further procession out of itself that appeared – namelyas the immediate communication and subsumption of the presupposedobject under it – is at one and the same time the sublating of that deter-minateness of externality which was internal, shut up in the concept, that is,posited as sublated, and the sublating of the presupposition of an object;consequently, this apparently first sublating of the indifferent objectivity is12.171already the second as well, an immanent reflection that has gone throughmediation, and the realized purpose.

Since the concept is here, in the sphere of objectivity where its deter-minateness has the form of indifferent externality, in reciprocal action withitself, the exposition of its movement becomes doubly difficult and intri-cate, for such a movement is itself immediately doubled and a first is alwaysalso a second. In the concept taken for itself, that is, in its subjectivity, thedifference of itself from itself is as an immediate identical totality on itsown; but since its determinateness here is indifferent externality, its self-identity is in this externality immediately also self-repulsion again, so thatwhat is determined as external and indifferent to the identity is rather thisidentity itself, and the identity as identity, as self-reflected, is rather itsother. Only by firmly attending to this shall we comprehend the objectiveturning back of the concept into itself, that is, its true objectification; onlythen shall we see that every one of the single moments through which thismediation runs its course is itself the whole syllogism of the mediation.Thus the original inner externality of the concept, by virtue of which theconcept is self-repelling unity, purpose and the striving of purpose towardsobjectivity, is the immediate positing or the presupposition of an exter-nal object; the self-determination is also the determination of an externalobject not determined by the concept; and conversely this determinationis self-determination, that is, the sublated externality posited as inner, or

41 Cf. above, 12.168.

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the certainty of the unessentiality of the external object. – Of the secondconnection, that of the determination of the object as a means, we havejust shown42 how it is within itself the self-mediation of purpose in theobject. – Likewise the third mode of connection, mechanism, which pro-ceeds under the dominance of purpose and sublates the object by virtueof the object, is on the one hand the sublating of the means, of theobject already posited as sublated, and consequently a second sublationand immanent reflection, and on the other hand a first determining ofthe external object. This last, as we remarked,43 is in the realized purposeagain the production of only a means; the subjectivity of the finite concept,by contemptuously rejecting the means, has attained nothing better in itsgoal. But this reflection, namely that purpose is attained in the means andthat the means and the mediation are preserved in the fulfilled purpose, isthe final result of the external connection of purpose – a result in which thisconnection has sublated itself and which it has exhibited as its truth. – Thelast considered third syllogism differs from the rest in that it is in the firstinstance the subjective purposive activity of the preceding syllogism, butalso the sublation of external objectivity and consequently of externality in 12.172general; it is this through itself, and is, therefore, the totality in its positedness.

We have now seen subjectivity, the being-for-itself of the concept, pass overinto the concept’s being-in-itself, into objectivity, and then the negativity ofthat being-for-itself reassert itself in objectivity; the concept has so deter-mined itself in that negativity that its particularity is an external objectivity,or has determined itself as the simple concrete unity whose externality is itsself-determination. The movement of purpose has now attained this much,namely that the moment of externality is not just posited in the concept,the purpose is not just an ought and a striving, but as a concrete totality isidentical with immediate objectivity. This identity is on the one hand thesimple concept, and the equally immediate objectivity, but, on the otherhand, it is just as essentially mediation, and it is that simple immediacy onlythrough this mediation sublating itself as mediation. Thus the concept isessentially this: to be distinguished, as an identity existing for itself, fromits implicitly existent objectivity,44 and thereby to obtain externality, but inthis external totality to be the totality’s self-determining identity. So theconcept is now the idea.

42 i.e., in the preceding page. 43 Cf. above, 12.168. 44 ansichseiende Objectivitat.

section iii

The idea12.173

The idea is the adequate1 concept, the objectively true, or the true as such.If anything has truth, it has it by virtue of its idea, or something has truthonly in so far as it is idea. – The expression “idea” has otherwise alsooften been used in philosophy as well as in ordinary life for “concept,”or even for just a “representation.” To say that I still have no idea of thislawsuit, this building, this region, means nothing more than I still haveno representation of it. It is Kant who reclaimed the expression “idea”for the “concept of reason.”2 – Now according to Kant the concept ofreason should be the concept of the unconditional, but a concept which istranscendent with respect to appearances, that is, one for which no adequateempirical use can be made. The concepts of reason are supposed to servefor the comprehension of perceptions, those of the understanding for theunderstanding of them.3 – In fact, however, if these last concepts of theunderstanding are truly concepts, then they are comprehensions, which meansconcepts;4 they will make comprehending5 possible, and an understanding ofperceptions through concepts of the understanding will be a comprehending.But if understanding is only the determining of perceptions by categoriessuch as whole and parts, force, cause, and the like, then it signifies onlya determining by means of reflection, just as by understanding one maymean only the determinate representation of a fully determined sensuouscontent; as when someone is being shown the way, that at the end of thewood he must turn left, and he replies “I understand,” understanding meansnothing more than a grasp in pictorial representation and in memory. –“Concept of reason,” too, is a somewhat clumsy expression; for the conceptis in general something rational, and in so far as reason is distinguishedfrom the understanding and the concept as such, it is the totality of the

1 Hegel uses adaquate, a Latinate word obviously intended to bring to mind the traditional definitionof truth as adequatio rei et intellectus. It is in the “idea” that this conformity of objectivity andsubjectivity is achieved.

2 A310ff./B366ff. 3 A310/B367. 4 Begriffe. 5 begreifen.

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concept and objectivity. – The idea is the rational in this sense; it is theunconditioned, because only that has conditions which essentially refers toan objectivity that it does not determine itself but which still stands overagainst it in the form of indifference and externality, just as the externalpurpose had conditions. 12.174

If we now reserve the expression “idea” for the objective or real conceptand we distinguish it from the concept itself and still more from mererepresentation, then we must also even more definitely reject that estimateof it according to which the idea is something with no actuality, and truethoughts are accordingly said to be only ideas. If thoughts are somethingmerely subjective and contingent, then they certainly have no further value;but in this they do not stand lower than the temporal and contingentactualities which likewise have no further value than that of accidentalitiesand appearances. But if, on the contrary, the idea is supposed not to have thevalue of truth because in regard to appearances it is transcendent, because nocongruent object can be given for it in the world of the senses, then this isindeed an odd misunderstanding, for objective validity is being denied to iton the ground that it lacks precisely what makes of appearances the untruebeing of the objective world. In regard to the practical ideas, Kant recognizesthat “nothing can be more harmful and unworthy of a philosopher thanthe vulgar appeal to experience, which supposedly contradicts the idea.Any such alleged contradiction would not be there at all if, for example,political institutions were set up at the right time in accordance with ideas,and if crude concepts, crude just because they are drawn from experience, hadnot usurped the place of ideas thus thwarting all good intentions.”6 Kantregards the idea as something necessary, the goal which, as the archetype, wemust strive to set up as a maximum and to which we must bring actualityas it presently stands ever closer.

But since the result now is that the idea is the unity of the concept andobjectivity, the true, we must not regard it as just a goal which is to beapproximated but itself remains always a kind of beyond; we must ratherregard everything as being actual only to the extent that it has the idea init and expresses it. It is not just that the subject matter, the objective andthe subjective world, ought to be in principle congruent with the idea; thetwo are themselves rather the congruence of concept and reality; a realitythat does not correspond to the concept is mere appearance, somethingsubjective, accidental, arbitrary, something which is not the truth. Whenit is said that there is no subject matter to be found in experience which

6 Cf. A316–317/B373.


is perfectly congruent with the idea, the latter is opposed to the actual asa subjective standard; but there is no saying what anything actual mightpossibly be in truth, if its concept is not in it and its objectivity doesnot measure up to this concept; it would then be a nothing. Indeed, themechanical and the chemical object, like a subject devoid of spirit and aspirit conscious only of finitude and not of its essence, do not, according12.175to their various natures, have their concept concretely existing in them inits own free form. But they can be something at all true only in so far asthey are the union of their concept and reality, of their soul and their body.Wholes like the state and the church cease to exist in concreto when theunity of their concept and their reality is dissolved; the human being, theliving thing, is dead when soul and body are parted in it; dead nature, themechanical and the chemical world – that is, when “the dead” is takento mean the inorganic world, for the expression would otherwise have nopositive meaning at all – this dead nature, then, if it is separated into itsconcept and its reality, is nothing but the subjective abstraction of a thoughtform and a formless matter. Spirit that were not idea, not the unity of theconcept with itself, not the concept that has the concept itself as its reality,would be dead spirit, spiritless spirit, a material object.

Since the idea is the unity of the concept and reality, being has attained thesignificance of truth; it now is, therefore, only what the idea is. Finite thingsare finite because, and to the extent that, they do not possess the reality oftheir concept completely within them but are in need of other things for it –or, conversely, because they are presupposed as objects and consequentlythe concept is in them as an external determination. The highest to whichthey attain on the side of this finitude is external purposiveness. That actualthings are not congruent with the idea constitutes the side of their finitude,of their untruth, and it is according to this side that they are objects, eachin accordance with its specific sphere, and, in the relations of objectivity,determined as mechanical, chemical, or by an external purpose. That theidea has not perfectly fashioned their reality, that it has not completelysubjugated it to the concept, the possibility of that rests on the fact thatthe idea itself has a restricted content; that, as essentially as it is the unityof the concept and reality, just as essentially it is also their difference; foronly the object is the immediate unity, that is, the unity that only exists initself. But if a subject matter, say the state, did not at all conform to its idea,that is to say, if it were not rather the idea of the state; if its reality, which isthe self-conscious individuals, did not correspond at all to the concept, itssoul and body would have come apart; the soul would have taken refugein the secluded regions of thought, the body been dispersed into singular

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individualities. But because the concept of the state is essential to the natureof these individualities, it is present in them as so mighty an impulse thatthey are driven to translate it into reality, be it only in the form of externalpurposiveness, or to to put up with it as it is, or else they must needs perish.The worst state, one whose reality least corresponds to the concept, in so 12.176far as it still has concrete existence, is yet idea; the individuals still obey thepower of a concept.

But the idea has not only the general meaning of true being, of the unity ofconcept and reality, but also the more particular one of the unity of subjectiveconcept and objectivity. For the concept is as such itself already the identity ofitself and reality; for the indeterminate expression “reality” means nothingbut determinate being, and this the concept possesses in its particularityand singularity. Objectivity, moreover, is likewise the total concept thathas withdrawn into identity with itself out of its determinateness. In thesubjectivity of the concept, the determinateness or the difference of thelatter is a reflective shine which is immediately sublated, withdrawn intobeing-for-itself or into negative unity, an inhering predicate. But in thisobjectivity the determinateness is posited as immediate totality, as externalwhole. Now the idea has shown itself to be the concept liberated againinto its subjectivity from the immediacy into which it has sunk in theobject; it is the concept that distinguishes itself from its objectivity –but an objectivity which is no less determined by it and possesses itssubstantiality only in that concept. This identity has therefore rightly beendesignated as a subject-object, for it is just as well the formal or subjectiveconcept as it is the object as such.7 But this is a point that needs furtherprecision. The concept, inasmuch as it has truly attained its reality, isthis absolute judgment whose subject distinguishes itself as self-referringnegative unity from its objectivity and is the latter’s being-in-and-for-itself;but it refers to it essentially through itself and is, therefore, self-directedpurpose and impulse. For this very reason, however, the subject does notpossess objectivity immediately in it (it would then be only the totality ofthe object as such, a totality lost in the objectivity) but is the realizationof the purpose – an objectivity posited by virtue of the activity of thepurpose, one which, as positedness, has its subsistence and its form only as

7 Cf. Fichte, according to whom “ideas are problems or tasks for thinking.” The fundamental task isto think of a reciprocal determination of the subjective and the objective, a reciprocity which wefind already realized in the thought of a “drive” (Trieb). Cf. Das System der Sittenlehre nach denPrinzipien der Wissenschaftslehre (1798); English trans., Daniel Breazeale and Gunter Zoller, JohannGottlieb Fichte: The System of Ethics. According to the Principles of the Wissenschaftslehre (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2005); see pp. 67, 50–51, 46–47.


permeated by its subject. As objectivity, it has the moment of the externalityof the concept in it and is in general, therefore, the side of finitude, ofalteration and appearance; but this side retreats into the negative unity ofthe concept and there it perishes; the negativity whereby its indifferentexternality of being8 manifests itself as unessential and as a positedness isthe concept itself. Despite this objectivity, the idea is therefore absolutelysimple and immaterial, for the externality has being only as determinedby the concept and as taken up into its negativity; in so far as it exists asindifferent externality, it is not only abandoned to mechanism in generalbut exists only as the transitory and untrue. – Thus although the ideahas its reality in a materiality,9 the latter is not an abstract being standing12.177over against the concept but, on the contrary, it exists only as becoming,as simple determinateness of the concept by virtue of the negativity of theindifferent being.

This yields the following closer determinations of the idea. – First,the idea is the simple truth, the identity of concept and objectivity as auniversal in which the opposition, the presence of the particular, is dissolvedin its self-identical negativity and is equality with itself. Second, it is theconnection of the subjectivity of the simple concept, existing for itself, andof the concept’s objectivity which is distinguished from it; the former isessentially the impulse to sublate this separation, and the latter is indifferentpositedness, subsistence which in and for itself is null. As this connection,the idea is the process of disrupting itself into individuality and into thelatter’s inorganic nature, and of then bringing this inorganic nature againunder the controlling power of the subject and back to the first simpleuniversality. The identity of the idea with itself is one with the process; thethought that liberates actuality from the seeming of purposeless mutabilityand transfigures it into idea must not represent this truth of actuality asdead repose, as a mere picture, numb, without impulse and movement, asa genius or number, or as an abstract thought; the idea, because of thefreedom which the concept has attained in it, also has the most stubbornopposition within it; its repose consists in the assurance and the certaintywith which it eternally generates that opposition and eternally overcomesit, and in it rejoins itself.

But the idea is at first again only immediate or only in its concept; theobjective reality is indeed conformable to the concept but has not yet beenliberated into the concept, and it does not concretely exist explicitly asthe concept. Thus the concept is indeed the soul, but the soul is in the

8 ihr gleichgultiges Aussereinandersein. 9 Materiatur.

The idea 675

guise of an immediate, that is, it is not determined as soul itself, has notcomprehended itself as soul, does not have its objective reality within itself;the concept is as a soul that is not yet fully animated.10

Thus the idea is, first of all, life. It is the concept which, distinct from itsobjectivity, simple in itself, permeates that objectivity and, as self-directedpurpose, has its means within it and posits it as its means, yet is immanentin this means and is therein the realized purpose identical with itself. –The idea, on account of its immediacy, has singularity for the form of itsconcrete existence. But the reflection within it of its absolute process isthe sublating of this immediate singularity; thereby the concept, whichas universality is in this singularity the inner, transforms externality intouniversality, or posits its objectivity as a self-equality.

Thus is the idea, in second place, the idea of the true and the good, ascognition and will. It is at first finite cognition and finite will, where the 12.178true and the good are still distinguished and the two are at first only as agoal. The concept has first liberated itself into itself, giving itself only a stillabstract objectivity for its reality. But the process of this finite cognition andthis finite action transforms the initially abstract universality into totality,whereby it becomes complete objectivity. – Or considered from the otherside, finite, that is, subjective spirit, makes for itself the presupposition of anobjective world, such a presupposition as life only has; but its activity isthe sublating of this presupposition and the turning of it into somethingposited. Thus its reality is for it the objective world, or conversely theobjective world is the ideality in which it knows itself.

Third, spirit recognizes11 the idea as its absolute truth, as the truth thatis in and for itself: the infinite idea in which cognizing12 and doing areequalized, and which is the absolute knowledge13 of itself.

10 seelenvoll. 11 erkennt. 12 erkennen. 13 wissen.

chapter 1

Life12.179

The idea of life has to do with a subject matter so concrete, and if you will soreal, that in dealing with it one may seem according to the common notionof logic to have overstepped its boundaries. Needless to say, if the logic wereto contain nothing but empty, dead forms of thought, then there could beno talk in it at all of such a content as the idea, or life, are. But if the subjectmatter of logic is the absolute truth, and truth as such lies essentially incognition, then cognition at least would have to come in for consideration. –It is common practice to have the so-called pure logic be followed by anapplied logic – a logic that has to do with concrete cognition, quite apart fromall the psychology and anthropology that is commonly deemed necessary tointerpolate into logic. But the anthropological and psychological side ofcognition is concerned with the form in which cognition appears when theconcept does not as yet have an objectivity equal to it, that is, when itdoes not have itself as object. The part of the logic that deals with thisconcrete cognition does not belong to applied logic as such; if it did, thenevery science would have to be dragged into logic, for each is an appliedlogic in so far as it consists in apprehending its subject matter in forms ofthought and of concepts. – The subjective concept has presuppositions thatare exhibited in psychological, anthropological, and other forms. But thepresuppositions of the pure concept belong in logic only to the extent thatthey have the form of pure thoughts, of abstract essentialities, such as are thedeterminations of being and essence. The same goes for cognition, which isthe concept’s comprehension of itself: no other shape of its presuppositionbut the one which is itself idea is to be dealt with in the logic; this, however,is a presupposition which is necessarily treated in logic. This presuppositionis now the immediate idea; for while cognition is the concept, in so far asthe latter exists for itself but as a subjectivity referring to an objectivity,then the concept refers to the idea as presupposed or as immediate. But theimmediate idea is life.

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To this extent the necessity of considering the idea of life in logic wouldbe based on the necessity, itself recognized in other ways, of treating theconcrete concept. But this idea has arisen through the concept’s own 12.180necessity; the idea, that which is true in and for itself, is essentially thesubject matter of the logic; since it is first to be considered in its immediacy,so that this treatment be not an empty affair devoid of determination, it isto be apprehended and cognized in this determinateness in which it is life.A comment may be in order here to differentiate the logical view of lifefrom any other scientific view of it, though this is not the place to concernourselves with how life is treated in non-philosophical sciences but onlywith how to differentiate logical life as idea from natural life as treated inthe philosophy of nature, and from life in so far as it is bound to spirit. – Astreated in the philosophy of nature, as the life of nature and to that extentexposed to the externality of existence, life is conditioned by inorganic natureand its moments as idea are a manifold of actual shapes. Life in the idea iswithout such presuppositions, which are in shapes of actuality; its presuppo-sition is the concept as we have considered it, on the one hand as subjective,and on the other hand as objective. In nature life appears as the highest stagethat nature’s externality can attain by withdrawing into itself and sublatingitself in subjectivity. It is in logic the simple in-itselfness which in the ideaof life has attained the externality truly corresponding to it; the conceptthat came on the scene earlier as a subjective concept is the soul of life itself;it is the impulse that gives itself reality through a process of objectification.Nature, as it reaches this idea starting from its externality, transcends itself;its end is not its beginning but is for it as a limit in which it sublates itself. –Similarly, in the idea of life the moments of life’s reality do not receive theshape of external actuality but remain enveloped in conceptual form.

In spirit, however, life appears both as opposed to it and as posited as atone with it, in a unity reborn as the pure product of spirit. For life is hereto be taken generally in its proper sense as natural life, for what is calledthe life of spirit as spirit, is spirit’s own peculiar nature that stands opposedto mere life; just as we speak of the nature of spirit, even though spirit isnothing natural but stands rather in opposition to nature. Thus life as suchis for spirit in one respect a means, and then spirit holds it over againstitself; in another respect, spirit is an individual, and then life is its body; inyet another respect, this unity of spirit and its living corporeality is bornof spirit into ideality. None of these connections of life to spirit concernslogical life, and life is to be considered here neither as the instrument of 12.181a spirit, nor as a living body, nor again as a moment of the ideal and ofbeauty. – In both cases, as natural life and as referring to spirit, life obtains a


determinateness from its externality, in one case through its presuppositions,such as are other formations of nature, and in the other case through thepurposes and the activity of spirit. The idea of life by itself is free from boththe conditioning objectivity presupposed in the first case and the referenceto subjectivity of the second case.

Life, considered now more closely in its idea, is in and for itself absoluteuniversality; the objectivity which it possesses is throughout permeated bythe concept, and this concept alone it has as substance. Whatever is dis-tinguished as part, or by some otherwise external reflection, has the wholeconcept within it; the concept is the soul omnipresent in it, a soul which issimple self-reference and remains one in the manifoldness that accrues tothe objective being. This manifoldness, as self-external objectivity, has anindifferent subsistence which in space and time, if these could already bementioned here, is a mutual externality of entirely diverse and atomisticmatters. But externality is in life at the same time as the simple determi-nateness of its concept; thus the soul flows omnipresently in this manifoldbut remains at the same time the simple oneness of the concrete conceptwith itself. – That way of thinking that clings to the determinations ofreflective relations and of the formal concept, when it comes to considerlife, the unity of its concept in the externality of objectivity, the absolutemultiplicity of atomistic matter, finds that all its thoughts are absolutely ofno avail; the omnipresence of the simple in the manifold externality is forreflection an absolute contradiction and also, since it cannot at the sametime avoid witnessing this omnipresence in the perception of life and musttherefore grant the actuality of this idea, an incomprehensible mystery – forreflection does not grasp the concept, nor does it grasp it as the substanceof life. – But this simple life is not only omnipresent; it is the one andonly subsistence and immanent substance of its objectivity; but as subjectivesubstance it is impulse, more precisely the specific impulse of particular dif-ference, and no less essentially the one and universal impulse of the specificthat leads its particularization back to unity and holds it there. Only as thisnegative unity of its objectivity and particularization is life self-referring, lifethat exists for itself, a soul. As such, it is essentially a singular that refers toobjectivity as to an other, an inanimate nature. The originative judgment oflife consists therefore in this, that it separates itself off as individual subjectfrom the objective and, since it constitutes itself as the negative unity ofthe concept, makes the presupposition of an immediate objectivity.12.182

First, life is therefore to be considered as a living individual that is for itselfthe subjective totality and is presupposed as indifferent to an objectivitythat stands indifferent over against it.

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Second, it is the life-process of sublating its presupposition, of positingas negative the objectivity indifferent to it, and of actualizing itself as thepower and negative unity of this objectivity. By so doing, it makes itselfinto the universal which is the unity of itself and its other.

Third, consequently life is the genus-process, the process of sublatingits singularization and relating itself to its objective existence as to itself.Accordingly, this process is on the one hand the turning back to its conceptand the repetition of the first forcible separation, the coming to be of anew individuality and the death of the immediate first; but, on the otherhand, the withdrawing into itself of the concept of life is the becoming ofthe concept that relates itself to itself, of the concept that exists for itself,universal and free, the transition into cognition.

a. the living individual

1. The concept of life or universal life is the immediate idea, the concept thathas an objectivity corresponding to it; but the objectivity corresponds to itonly to the extent that the concept is the negative unity of this externality,that is to say, posits it as corresponding to it. The infinite reference ofthe concept to itself is as negativity a self-determining, the diremption ofitself within itself as subjective singularity and itself as indifferent universality.The idea of life in its immediacy is as yet only the creative universal soul.Because of this immediacy, the first internal negative reference of the ideais the self-determination of itself as concept – an implicit positing which isexplicit only as a turning back into itself; this is the creative presupposing.By virtue of this self-determining, universal life is particularized; it hasthus split itself into the two extremes of the judgment which immediatelybecomes syllogism.

The determinations of the opposition are the universal determinationsof the concept, for the splitting into two is the affair of the concept; thefilling of them, however, is the idea. One determination is the unity ofthe concept and of reality, which is the idea as the immediate unity thatearlier assumed the form of objectivity. Here, however, it is in anotherdetermination. There, it was the unity of the concept and of reality in 12.183so far as the concept has gone over into reality and is lost in it; it didnot stand opposite to it, or, since it is for the reality only an inner, it isitself for it only an external reflection. That earlier objectivity is thereforethe immediate itself in immediate mode. Here, on the contrary, it hasproceeded only from the concept, so that its essence is positedness, or thatit exists as negative. – It is to be regarded as the side of the universality of


the concept, hence as an abstract universality, essentially only inhering inthe subject and in the form of immediate being which, posited for itself, isindifferent to the subject. Hence the totality of the concept that attachesto the objectivity is, as it were, only lent to it; the last self-subsistence thatobjectivity has over against the subject is this being whose truth is onlythat moment of the concept in which the latter, as a presupposing, is in thefirst determinateness of a positing that exists implicitly and is not yet aspositing, as immanently reflected unity. Having proceeded from the idea,self-subsisting objectivity is therefore immediate being only as the predicateof the judgment of the concept’s self-determination – a being that is indeeddistinct from the subject but is at the same time essentially posited as amoment of the concept.

According to content, this objectivity is the totality of the concept – atotality, however, that has the subjectivity of the concept, or its negativeunity, standing over against it, and this subjectivity or negativity is whatconstitutes the true centrality, that is to say, the concept’s free unity withitself. This subject is the idea in the form of singularity, as simple butnegative self-identity – the living individual.

This individual is in the first place life as soul, as the concept of itself,fully determined within itself, the initiating self-moving principle. In itssimplicity the concept contains determinate externality, as a simple momentenclosed within itself. – But, further, this soul is in its immediacy imme-diately external, and has an objective being within it – a reality which issubjugated to purpose, the immediate means, at first the objectivity whichis predicated of the subject, but then also the middle term of the syllogism,for the corporeity of the soul is that whereby the soul links itself to exter-nal objectivity. – The living being has this corporeity at first as a realityimmediately identical with the concept; to this extent, the corporeity hasthis reality in general by nature.

Now because this objectivity is the predicate of the individual and istaken up in the subjective unity, the earlier determinations of the objectsdo not attach to it, not the relation of mechanism or of chemism, andeven less so the reflective relations of whole and part, and the like. Asexternality, it is indeed capable of such relations, but to that extent it is nolonger a living being; when a living thing is taken to be a whole consistingof parts, something exposed to the action of mechanical or chemical causes,12.184itself a mechanical or chemical product (whether merely as such or as alsodetermined by some external purpose), then the concept is taken as externalto it, the individual itself as something dead. Since the concept is immanentin it, the purposiveness of the living being is to be grasped as inner; it is

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present in it as a determinate concept, distinguished from its externalitybut, in thus distinguishing itself from it, pervading it thoroughly and self-identical. This objectivity of the living being is the organism; it is the meansand instrument of purpose, fully purposive, for the concept constitutesits substance; but precisely for this reason this means and instrumentis itself the accomplished purpose in which the subjective purpose thusimmediately closes in upon itself.14 As for its externality, the organism isa manifold, not of parts but of members. (a) These members exist as suchonly in the individuality; they are separable inasmuch as they are externaland can be grasped in this externality, but as thus separated they revert tothe mechanical and chemical relations of common objectivity. (b) Theirexternality is opposed to the negative unity of the living individuality. Thisindividuality is therefore the impulse to posit as a concretely real15 differencethe otherwise abstract moment of the determinateness of the concept; andsince this concretely real difference exists as immediate, it is the impulseof each singular, specific moment to produce itself and equally to raise itsparticularity to universality, to sublate the other moments external to itand promote itself at their cost, but no less to sublate itself and make itselfa means for the other.

2. This process of the living individuality is restricted to itself and stillfalls entirely within the individuality. – The first premise of the syllogismof external purposiveness, where the purpose immediately refers to objec-tivity and makes it a means, was earlier16 taken in the sense that althoughin it the purpose remains self-equal and has gone back into itself, theobjectivity has not yet sublated itself within, and consequently the purposeis not in it in and for itself but becomes such only in the conclusion.The process of the living being with itself is this same premise, but inso far as the premise is also the conclusion, in so far as the immediatereference of the subject to the objectivity, by virtue of which the latterbecomes means and instrument, is at the same time the negative unity ofthe concept within itself, the purpose realizes itself in this externality bybeing the subjective power over it and the process in which the external-ity displays its self-dissolution and its return into this negative unity ofthe purpose. The unrest and the mutability of the external side of theliving being is the manifestation in it of the concept, and the concept, 12.185as in itself negativity, has objectivity in so far as this objectivity’s indif-ferent subsistence shows itself to be self-sublating. Thus the concept pro-duces itself through its impulse in such a way that the product, being its

14 mit sich selbst zusammen geschlossen ist. 15 concretely real = reell. 16 Cf. above, 12.168.


essence, is itself the producing factor: is product, in other words, onlyas an externality that equally posits itself negatively, or as the process ofproduction.

3. Now the idea as just considered is the concept of the living subject andof its process; the determinations that stand in relation to one another arethe self-referring negative unity of the concept and the objectivity which isthe concept’s means but also where the concept has returned into itself.But since these moments of the idea of life do not go past the conceptof life, they are not the determinate conceptual moments of the livingindividual in its reality. This individual’s objectivity or its corporeity isa concrete totality; those moments are the sides out of which the livingreality17 constitutes itself; they are not, therefore, the moments of thisreality as already constituted by the idea. But the living objectivity of theindividual, since as objectivity it is ensouled by the concept and has thelatter for its substance, has also in it, for its essential difference, suchdeterminations as pertain to the concept, universality, particularity, andsingularity; hence the shape in which the determinations in it are exter-nally differentiated is divided or incised (insectum) in accordance withthese.

Thus that shape is in this instance universality, the purely internal pul-sating of living reality, sensibility. The concept of universality, as we saw itearlier, is the simple immediacy which is such, however, only as inherentlyabsolute negativity. This concept of absolute difference with its negativitydissolved into simplicity and self-equal, is brought to intuition in sensibility.It is the in-itselfness not as abstract simplicity, but as an infinite deter-minable receptivity that does not become in its determinateness anythingmanifold and external but is absolutely reflected into itself. Determinate-ness is present in this universality as simple principle; the singular externaldeterminateness, the so-called impression, goes back from its external andmanifold determination into this simplicity of self-feeling. Sensibility maytherefore be regarded as the external existence of the inward soul, for ittakes in all externality but reduces it to the complete simplicity of self-equaluniversality.

The second determination of the concept is particularity. This is themoment of posited difference, the opening up of the negativity otherwiselocked up in simple self-feeling or present in it as abstractly ideal, not yetconcretely real determinateness. It is irritability. Because of the abstraction

17 living reality = Lebendigkeit.

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of its negativity, feeling is impulse; it determines itself; the self-determination 12.186of the living being is its judgment or the self-limiting whereby it refers tothe outside as to a presupposed objectivity with which it is in reciprocalactivity. – The living being, as a particular, now stands on one side as onespecies next to other species; the formal reflection of this indifferent diversityinto itself is the formal genus and its systematization; but the individualreflection is this, that as outwardly directed the particularity, the negativityof the living being’s determinateness, is the self-referring negativity of theconcept.

According to this third determination, the living being is a singular. Thisimmanent reflection further determines itself in such a way that in irritabil-ity the living being is the externality of itself as against itself, as against theobjectivity that it possesses immediately as its means and instrument andwhich is externally determinable. The immanent reflection sublates thisimmediacy: on the one side as theoretical reflection, that is, in so far as thenegativity is the simple moment of sensibility as was considered in the lat-ter, and which constitutes feeling; on the other side as real reflection, in thatthe unity of the concept posits itself in its externality as negative unity, andthis is reproduction. – The two first moments, sensibility and irritability, areabstract determinations; in reproduction life is something concrete and vital;in it alone does it also have feeling and power of resistance. Reproductionis the negativity as simple moment of sensibility, and irritability is only avital power of resistance, so that the relation to the external is reproductionand identity of the individual with itself. Each singular moment is essen-tially the totality of all; their difference constitutes the ideal determinationof form which is posited in reproduction as the concrete totality of thewhole. On the one hand, therefore, this whole is opposed to the previousdeterminate totalities as a third, namely as a concretely real totality; on theother hand, however, it is their implicit essentiality and also that in whichthey are comprehended as moments and where they have their subject andsubsistence.

With reproduction as a moment of singularity, the living being positsitself as actual individuality, a self-referring being-for-itself; but it is at thesame time a real outward reference, the reflection of particularity or irri-tability as against an other, as against the objective world. The life-processenclosed within the individual passes over into a reference to the presup-posed objectivity as such, by virtue of the fact that, as the individual positsitself as subjective totality, the moment of its determinateness, its reference toexternality, also becomes a totality.


b. the life-process12.187

In shaping itself inwardly, the living individual comes into tension withits original presupposing and, as a subject existing in and for itself, setsitself in opposition to the presupposed objective world. The subject is apurpose unto itself, the concept that has its means and subjective realityin the objectivity subjugated to it. As such, it is constituted as the ideaexisting in and for itself and as an essentially self-subsistent being, as againstwhich the presupposed external world has the value only of somethingnegative and without self-subsistence. In its self-feeling the living beinghas the certainty of the intrinsic nullity of the otherness confronting it. Itsimpulse is the need to sublate this otherness and to give itself the truthof this certainty. At first the individual is, as subject, only the conceptof the idea of life; its inner subjective process in which it feeds uponitself, and the immediate objectivity which it posits as a natural meansin conformity with its concept, are mediated by the process that refers tothe fully posited externality, to the objective totality standing indifferentlyalongside it.

This process begins with need, that is, the twofold moment of self-determination of the living being by which the latter posits itself as negatedand thereby refers itself to an other than it, to the indifferent objectivity, butin this self-loss it is equally not lost, preserves itself in it and remains theidentity of the self-equal concept. The living being is thereby the impulseto posit as its own this world which is other than it, to posit itself as equalto it, to sublate the world and objectify itself. Its self-determination hastherefore the form of objective externality, and since it is at the same timeself-identical, it is the absolute contradiction. The immediate shape of theliving being is the idea in its simple concept, the objectivity conformingto the concept; as such the shape is good by nature. But since its negativemoment realizes itself as an objective particularity, that is, since the essentialmoments of its unity are each realized as a totality for itself, the conceptsplits into two, becoming an absolute inequality with itself; and since evenin this rupture the concept remains absolute identity, the living being is foritself this rupture, has the feeling of this contradiction which is pain. Painis therefore the prerogative of living natures; since they are the concretelyexisting concept, they are an actuality of infinite power, so that they are12.188in themselves the negativity of themselves, that this their negativity existsfor them, that in their otherness they preserve themselves. – It is said thatcontradiction cannot be thought; but in the pain of the living being it iseven an actual, concrete existence.

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This internal rupture of the living being, when taken up into the simpleuniversality of the concept, in sensibility, is feeling. From pain begin theneed and the impulse that constitute the transition by which the individual,in being for itself the negation of itself, also becomes for itself identity – anidentity which only is as the negation of that negation. – The identity whichis in the impulse as such is the individual’s subjective certainty of itself,in accordance with which it relates to the indifferent, concrete existenceof its external world as to an appearance, to an actuality intrinsically voidof concept and unessential. This actuality is to obtain its concept onlythrough the subject, which is the immanent purpose. The indifferenceof the objective world to determinateness and hence to purpose is whatconstitutes its external aptitude to conform to the subject; whatever otherspecifications there might be in it, its mechanical determinability, the lackof the freedom of the immanent concept, constitute its impotence inpreserving itself against the living being. – In so far as the object confrontsthe living being at first as something external and indifferent, it can affectit mechanically, but without in this way affecting it as a living thing; andin so far as it does relate to it as a living thing, it does not affect it as a causebut it rather excites it. Because the living being is an impulse, externalityimpinges upon it and penetrates it only to the extent that in principle itis already in it; hence the effect on the subject consists only in that thelatter finds that the externality at its disposal accords with it. And shouldthis externality not accord with it as a totality, then it must at least accordwith a particular side of it – a possibility lodged in the very fact that, in itsrelation to the outside, the subject is a particular.

Now the subject, in so far as in being determined in its need it connectswith the outside and consequently is itself something external or an instru-ment, exercises violence over the object. Its particular character, its finitudein general, falls into the more determinate appearance of this relation. – Theexternal factor in this is the process of objectivity in general, mechanismand chemism. But this same process is immediately interrupted and theexternality transformed into interiority. The external purposiveness whichis at first elicited in the indifferent object by the activity of the subject isthereby sublated, for as against the concept the object is not a substance:the concept, therefore, cannot become for it just an external form but mustrather posit itself as its essence and as the determinateness immanently per-vading it through and through in conformity with the concept’s originalidentity. 12.189

By seizing hold of the object, the mechanical process passes over intoan internal process by which the individual appropriates the object in such


a manner that it takes away from it its distinctive make-up, makes it intoa means, and confers upon it its own subjectivity as its substance. Thisassimilation thus coincides with the individual’s process of reproductionconsidered above;18 in this process the individual feeds on itself, in the sensethat it makes its own objectivity its object; the mechanical and chemicalconflict of its members with external things is an objective moment ofitself. The mechanical and chemical factor in the process is a beginning ofthe dissolution of the living thing. Since life is the truth of these processes,and as a living being it is therefore the concrete existence of this truth andthe power over the processes, it infringes upon the latter, permeates themas their universality, and their product is entirely determined by it. Thistransformation of them into the living individual constitutes the turningback of this individual into itself, with the result that the production thatas such would be the transition into an other becomes reproduction, areproduction in which the living being posits itself as self-identical foritself.

The immediate idea is also the immediate identity of concept and realitybut one that does not exist for itself; through the objective process, theliving being gives itself its feeling of self; for in that process it posits itselfas it is in and for itself, namely, as self-identical in an otherness posited asindifferent to it, as the negative unity of the negative. The individual, in thusrejoining the objectivity at first presupposed as indifferent to it, has equallyconstituted itself as actual singularity and has sublated its particularity,raising it to universality. Its particularity consisted in the disruption wherebylife posited the individual life and the objectivity external to it as its species.Through the external life-process, it has consequently posited itself as realuniversal life, as genus.

c. the genus

The living individual, at first cut off from the universal concept of life,is a presupposition yet unproven through itself. Through its process withthe simultaneously presupposed world, it has posited itself for itself as thenegative unity of its otherness, as the foundation of itself; thus it is theactuality of the idea, so that the individual now brings itself forth outof actuality, whereas before it proceeded only from the concept, and its12.190coming to be, which was a presupposing, now becomes its production.

18 Cf. above, 12.186.

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But the further determination that it has attained by the sublationof the opposition is that it is genus, identity of itself with its hithertoindifferent otherness. This idea of the individual, since it is this essentialidentity, is essentially the particularization of itself. This particularization,its disruption, in keeping with the totality from which it proceeds, is theduplication of the individual – the presupposing of an objectivity whichis identical with it, and a relating of the living being to itself as to anotherliving being.

This universal is the third stage, the truth of life in so far as life is stillshut up within itself. This stage is the process of the individual as it refersto itself, where the externality is the individual’s immanent moment andis, besides, itself a living totality, an objectivity which for the individual isthe individual itself – an externality in which the individual has certaintyof itself not as being sublated, but as subsisting.

Now because the relation of genus is the identity of individual self-feelingin such a one who is at the same time another self-subsistent individual,it is a contradiction; accordingly, the living being is once more impulse. –The genus is indeed now the completion of the idea of life, but at first it isstill within the sphere of immediacy; this universality is therefore actual ina singular shape; it is the concept whose reality has the form of immediateobjectivity. And consequently the individual, although it is the genus, it isthe genus in itself rather than for itself; what is for it is as yet only anotherliving individual; the concept distinguished from itself has for object, withwhich it is identical, not itself as concept, but a concept rather that as aliving being has at the same time external objectivity for it, a form whichis therefore immediately reciprocal.

The identity with the other individual, the universality of the individual,is thus still only inner or subjective; it therefore has the longing to positthis identity and to realize itself as universal. But this impulse of the genuscan realize itself only through the sublation of the singular individualitieswhich are still particular to each other. At first, in so far as it is theseindividualities which, in themselves universal, themselves satisfy the tensionof their longing and dissolve themselves into the universality of their genus,their realized identity is the negative unity of the genus reflecting itself intoitself out of its rupture. To this extent, it is the individuality of life itself,no longer generated out of its concept but out of the actual idea. At first, itis itself only the concept that still has to objectify itself, but a concept whichis actual – the germ of a living individual. To ordinary perception what theconcept is, and that the subjective concept has external actuality, are visibly 12.191present in it. For the germ of the living being is the complete concretion


of individuality: it is where all the living being’s diverse sides, its propertiesand articulated differences, are contained in their entire determinateness;where the at first immaterial, subjective totality is present undeveloped,simple and non-sensuous. Thus the germ is the whole living being in theinner form of the concept.

From this side the genus obtains actuality through its reflection intoitself, for the moment of negative unity and individuality is thereby positedin it – the propagation of the living species. The idea, which as life is stillin the form of immediacy, thus falls back into actuality, and its reflectionis now only the repetition and the infinite process in which it does notstep outside the finitude of its immediacy. But this going back to its firstconcept also has the higher side that the idea has not only run through themediation of its processes inside immediacy, but, just because it has runthrough them, has sublated this immediacy and has thereby elevated itselfto a higher form of its existence.

That is to say, the process of the genus in which the single individualssublate in one another their indifferent, immediate, concrete existence,and in this negative unity die away, has further the realized genus that hasposited itself as identical with the concept for the other side of its product. –In the process of the genus, the isolated singularities of individual life perish;the negative identity in which the genus turns back into itself is on theone side the generation of singularity just as it is also, on the other side,the sublation of it – is thus the genus rejoining itself, the universality of theidea as it comes to be explicitly for itself. In copulation,19 the immediacy ofliving individuality perishes; the death of this life is the coming to be ofspirit. The idea, implicit as genus, becomes explicit in that it has sublated itsparticularity that constituted the living species, and has thereby given itselfa reality which is itself simple universality; thus it is the idea that relates itselfto itself as idea, the universal that has universality for its determinatenessand existence. This is the idea of cognition.

19 Begattung; cf. Gattung, which means “genus.”

chapter 2

The idea of cognition 12.192

Life is the immediate idea, or the idea as its still internally unrealizedconcept. In its judgment, the idea is cognition in general.

The concept is for itself as concept inasmuch as it freely and concretelyexists as abstract universality or a genus. As such, it is its pure self-identitythat internally differentiates itself in such a way that the differentiated isnot an objectivity but is rather equally liberated into subjectivity or into theform of simple self-equality; consequently, the object facing the concept isthe concept itself. Its reality in general is the form of its existence; all dependson the determination of this form; on it rests the difference between whatthe concept is in itself, or as subjective, and what it is when immersed inobjectivity, and then in the idea of life. In this last, the concept is indeeddistinguished from its external reality and posited for itself; however, thisbeing-for-itself which it now has, it has only as an identity that refers to itselfas immersed in the objectivity subjugated to it, or to itself as indwelling,substantial form. The elevation of the concept above life consists in this,that its reality is the concept-form liberated into universality. Through thisjudgment the idea is doubled, into the subjective concept whose reality isthe concept itself, and the objective concept which is as life. – Thought,spirit, self-consciousness, are determinations of the idea inasmuch as the latterhas itself as the subject matter, and its existence, that is, the determinatenessof its being, is its own difference from itself.

The metaphysics of the spirit or, as was more commonly said in the past,of the soul, revolved around the determinations of substance, simplicity,immateriality. These were determinations for which spirit was supposed tobe the ground, but as a subject drawn from empirical consciousness, andthe question then was which predicates agreed with the perceived facts.But this was a procedure that could go no further than the procedureof physics, which reduces the world of appearance to general laws anddeterminations of reflection, for it is spirit still as phenomenal that is takenas the foundation. In fact, in so far as scientific stringency goes, it also

689


had to fall short of physics. For not only is spirit infinitely richer thannature; since its essence is constituted by the absolute unity in the conceptof opposites, and in its appearance, therefore, and in its connection with12.193externality, it exhibits contradiction at its most extreme form, it must bepossible to adduce an experience in support of each of the opposite deter-minations of reflection, or, starting from experiences, to proceed by wayof formal inference to the opposite determinations. Since the predicatesimmediately drawn from the appearances still belong to empirical psychol-ogy, so far as metaphysical consideration goes, all that is in truth left arethe entirely inadequate determinations of reflection. – In his critique ofrational psychology,20 Kant insists that, since this metaphysics is supposedto be a rational science, the least addition of anything drawn from per-ception to the universal representation of self-consciousness would alter itinto an empirical science, thus compromising its rational purity and itsindependence from all experience. – Accordingly, all that is left on thisview is the simple representation “I,” a representation entirely devoid ofcontent, of which one cannot even say that it is a concept, but must say thatit is a mere consciousness, one that accompanies every concept. Now, as Kantargues further, this “I,” or, if you prefer, this “it” (the thing) that thinks,takes us no further than the representation of a transcendental subject ofthoughts = x, a subject which is known only through the thoughts thatare its predicates, and of which, taken in isolation, we cannot ever havethe least concept. This “I” has the associated inconvenience that, as Kantexpresses it, in order to judge anything about it, we must every time alreadymake use of it, for it is not so much one representation by which a particularobject is distinguished, as it is rather a form of representation in general, inso far as representation can be said to be cognition. – Now the paralogismthat rational psychology incurs, as Kant expresses it, consists in this: thatmodes of self-consciousness in thinking are converted into concepts of theunderstanding, as if they were the concepts of an object; that that “I think”is taken to be a thinking being, a thing-in-itself; that in this way, because Iam present in consciousness always as a subject, am indeed as a singular sub-ject, identical in all the manifoldness of representation, and distinguishingmyself from this manifoldness as external to it, the illegitimate inferenceis thereby drawn that I am a substance, and a qualitatively simple being ontop of that, and a one, and a being that concretely exists independently of thethings of space and time.21

20 A343/B401ff. 21 B406–409.

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I have cited this position in some detail because one can clearly recognizein it both the nature of the former metaphysics of the soul and also, more tothe point, of the Critique that put an end to it. – The former was intent ondetermining the abstract essence of the soul; it went about this starting fromobservation, and then converting the latter’s empirical generalizations, andthe determination of purely external reflection attaching to the singularity 12.194of the actual, into the form of the determinations of essence just cited. –What Kant generally has in mind here is the state of the metaphysics ofhis time which, as a rule, stayed at these one-sided determinations with nohint of dialectic; he neither paid attention to, nor examined, the genuinelyspeculative ideas of older philosophers on the concept of spirit. In hiscritique of those determinations he then simply abided by the Humeanstyle of skepticism; that is to say, he fixes on how the “I” appears inself-consciousness, but from this “I,” since it is its essence (the thing initself ) that we want to cognize, he removes everything empirical; nothingthen remains but this appearance of the “I think” that accompanies allrepresentations and of which we do not have the slightest concept. – It mustof course be conceded that, as long as we are not engaged in comprehendingbut confine ourselves to a simple, fixed representation or to a name, wedo not have the slightest concept of the “I,” or of anything whatever, noteven of the concept itself. – Peculiar indeed is the thought (if one can callit a thought at all) that I must make use of the “I” in order to judge the“I.” The “I” that makes use of self-consciousness as a means in order tojudge: this is indeed an x of which, and also of the relation involved in this“making use,” we cannot possibly have the slightest concept. But surely it islaughable to label the nature of this self-consciousness, namely that the “I”thinks itself, that the “I” cannot be thought without the “I” thinking it, anawkwardness and, as if it were a fallacy, a circle. The awkwardness, the circle,is in fact the relation by which the eternal nature of self-consciousness andof the concept is revealed in immediate, empirical self-consciousness – isrevealed because self-consciousness is precisely the existent and thereforeempirically perceivable pure concept; because it is the absolute self-referencethat, as parting judgment, makes itself into an intended object and consistsin simply making itself thereby into a circle. – This is an awkwardness thata stone does not have. When it is a matter of thinking or judging, the stonedoes not stand in its own way; it is dispensed from the burden of makinguse of itself for the task; something else outside it must shoulder that effort.

The defect, which these surely barbarous notions place in the fact thatin thinking the “I” the latter cannot be left out as a subject, then alsoappears the other way around, in that the “I” occurs only as the subject of


consciousness, or in that I can use myself only as a subject, and no intuitionis available by which the “I” would be given as an object; but the conceptof a thing capable of existence only as a subject does not as yet carry anyobjective reality with it. – Now if external intuition as determined in timeand space is required for objectivity, and it is this objectivity that is missed,12.195it is then clear that by objectivity is meant only sensuous reality. But tohave risen above such a reality is precisely the condition of thinking and oftruth. Of course, if the “I” is not grasped conceptually but is taken as a mererepresentation, in the way we talk about it in everyday consciousness, thenit is an abstract self-determination, and not the self-reference that has itselffor its subject matter. Then it is only one of the extremes, a one-sided subjectwithout its objectivity; or else just an object without subjectivity, which itwould be were it not for the awkwardness just touched upon, namely thatthe thinking subject will not be left out of the “I” as object. But as a matterof fact this awkwardness is already found in the other determination, that ofthe “I” as subject; the “I” does think something, whether itself or somethingelse. This inseparability of the two forms in which the “I” opposes itself toitself belongs to the most intimate nature of its concept and of the conceptas such; it is precisely what Kant wants to keep away in order to retainwhat is only a representation that does not internally differentiate itself andconsequently, of course, is void of concept. Now this kind of conceptualvoid may well oppose itself to the abstract determinations of reflection orto the categories of the previous metaphysics, for in one-sidedness it standsat the same level with them, though these are in fact on a higher level ofthought; but it appears all the more lame and empty when compared withthe profounder ideas of ancient philosophy concerning the concept of thesoul or of thinking, as for instance the truly speculative ideas of Aristotle.22

If the Kantian philosophy subjected the categories of reflection to criticalinvestigation, all the more should it have investigated the abstraction of theempty “I” that he retained, the supposed idea of the thing-in-itself. Theexperience of the awkwardness complained of is itself the empirical fact inwhich the untruth of that abstraction finds expression.

The Kantian critique of rational psychology only refers to Mendelssohn’sproof of the persistence of the soul,23 and I now also cite its refutation of thatproof because of the oddness of what it adduces against it. Mendelssohn’sproof is based on the simplicity of the soul, by virtue of which it is supposed

22 De anima, 402a–435b.23 Cf. B413ff. Mendelssohn’s proof is in the Phadon: oder Uber die Unsterblichkeit der Seele. In drei

Gesprachen (1767 and 1784). See Moses Mendelssohn, Gesammelte Werke, Jubilaumsausgabe, Schriftenzur Philosopie und Asthetik, Vol.III.1 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1932).


to be incapable of alteration in time, of transition into an other. Qualitativesimplicity is in general the form of abstraction earlier considered; as quali-tative determinateness, it was investigated in the sphere of being and it wasthen proved that the qualitative, which is as such abstractly self-referringdeterminateness, is precisely for that reason dialectical, mere transition intoan other.24 In the case of the concept, however, it was shown that, whenconsidered in connection with persistence, indestructibility, imperishable-ness, it is that which exists for itself, which is eternal, just because it is notabstract but concrete simplicity – because it is not a determinateness that 12.196refers to itself abstractly but is the unity of itself and its other, and it cannottherefore pass over into this other as if it thereby altered in it; it cannotprecisely because it is itself the other, the determinateness, and hence in thispassing over it only comes to itself.25 – Now the Kantian critique opposesto this qualitative determination of the unity of the concept a quantitativeone. As it says, although the soul is not a manifold of reciprocally externalparts and contains no extensive magnitude, yet consciousness has a degree,and the soul, like every concretely existing being, is an intensive magnitude;with this magnitude, however, there is posited the possibility of a transitioninto nothing through gradual vanishing.26 – Now what is this refutationbut the application to spirit of a category of being, of intensive magnitude –a determination that has no truth in itself but on the contrary is sublatedin the concept?

Metaphysics – even one that restricted itself to the fixed concepts of theunderstanding without rising to speculation, to the nature of the conceptand of the idea – did have for its aim the cognition of truth; it did probe itssubject matter to ascertain whether they were something true or not, whethersubstances or phenomena. The triumph of the Kantian critique over thismetaphysics consists, on the contrary, in side-lining any investigation thatwould have truth for its aim and this aim itself; it simply does not pose theone question which is of interest, namely whether a determinate subject,in this case the abstract “I” of representation, has truth in and for itself.But to stay at appearances and at the mere representations of ordinaryconsciousness is to give up on the concept and on philosophy. Anythingbeyond that is branded by the Kantian critique as high-flown, somethingto which reason has no claim. As a matter of fact, the concept does flyhigh, rising above what has no concept, and the immediate justificationfor going beyond it is, for one thing, the concept itself, and, for another,

24 Cf. GW 11, 72; above 21.111(bottom of page)–112. But this is a place where the 1832 edition variesconsiderably from that of 1812.

25 Cf. above, 12.34. 26 B414.


on the negative side, the untruth of appearance and of representation, andalso of such abstractions as the thing-in-itself and the said “I” which is notsupposed to be an object to itself.

In the context of this logical exposition, it is from the idea of life that theidea of spirit has emerged, or what is the same thing, that has demonstrateditself to be the truth of the idea of life. As this result, the idea possessesits truth in and for itself, with which one may then also compare theempirical reality or the appearance of spirit to see how far it accords withit. We have seen regarding life that it is the idea,27 but at the same timeit has shown itself not to be as yet the true presentation or the true modeof its existence. For in life, the reality of the idea is singularity; universalityor the genus is the inwardness. The truth of life as absolute negative unityconsists, therefore, in this: to sublate the abstract or, what is the same, the12.197immediate singularity, and as identical to be self-identical, as genus, to beself-equal. Now this idea is spirit. – In this connection, we may furtherremark that spirit is here considered in the form that pertains to this ideaas logical. For the idea also has other shapes which we may now mentionin passing; in these it falls to the concrete sciences of spirit to consider it,namely as soul, consciousness, and spirit as such.

The name “soul” was used formerly to mean singular finite spirit ingeneral, and rational or empirical psychology was supposed to be synony-mous with doctrine of spirit. The expression, “soul,” evokes an image of itas if it were a thing like other things. One enquires regarding its seat, thespatial location from which its forces operate; still more, how this thingcan be imperishable, subjected to the conditions of temporality yet exemptfrom alteration in it. The system of monads elevates matter by making allof it in principle a soul;28 on this way of representing it, the soul is anatom like the atoms of matter; the atom that rises from a cup of coffee asvapor is capable in favorable circumstances of developing into a soul; onlythe greater obscurity of its ideation distinguishes it from the kind of thingthat is manifestly soul. – The concept that is for itself is necessarily alsoin immediate existence; in this substantial identity with life, immersed inits externality, the concept is the subject matter of anthropology. But evenanthropology would find alien a metaphysics in which this form of imme-diacy is made into a soul-thing, into an atom like the atoms of matter. –To anthropology must be left only that obscure region where spirit,under influences which were once called sidereal and terrestrial, lives as anatural spirit in sympathy with nature and has presentiments of the latter’s

27 Cf. above, 12.191. 28 zur Seelenhaftigkeit.


alterations in dreams and presentiments, and indwells the brain, the heart,the liver, and so forth. To the liver, according to Plato, God gave the giftof prophesy above which the self-conscious human is exalted, so that eventhe irrational part of the soul would be provided for by his bounty andmade to share in higher things.29 To this irrational side belongs further thebehavior of figurative representation, and of higher spiritual activity in sofar as the latter is subject to the play of an entirely corporeal constitution,of external influences and particular circumstances.

This lowest of the concrete shapes in which spirit is sunk intomateriality30 has the one immediately superior to it in consciousness. Inthis form the free concept, as the “I” existing for itself, is withdrawn fromobjectivity, but it refers to the latter as its other, a subject matter that con-fronts it. Since spirit is here no longer as soul, but, in the certainty that it 12.198has of itself, the immediacy of being has for it the significance rather of anegative, its identity with itself in the objectivity confronting it is at thesame time still only a reflective shining, for that objectivity still also has theform of a being that exists in itself. This stage is the subject matter of thephenomenology of spirit – a science that stands midway between the scienceof the natural spirit and of the spirit as such. It considers spirit as it existsfor itself, but at the same time as referring to its other – an other which, as wehave just said, is thereby determined both as an object existing in itself andas a negative. The science thus considers spirit as appearing, as exhibitingitself in its contrary.

But the higher truth of this form is spirit for itself. For this spirit, thesubject matter31 which for consciousness exists in itself has the form of itsown determination, the form of representation in general; this spirit, whichacts on the subject matter’s determinations as on its own, on feelings, onrepresentations and thought, is thus infinite in itself and in its form. Theconsideration of this stage belongs to the doctrine of spirit proper, whichwould embrace the subject matter of ordinary empirical psychology butwhich, in order to be the science of spirit, must not go about its workempirically but must be conceived scientifically. – At this stage spirit isfinite spirit in so far as the content of its determinateness is an immediatelygiven content; the science of this finite spirit has to display the course alongwhich it liberates itself from this determinateness and goes on to grasp itstruth, the infinite spirit.

The idea of spirit which is the subject matter of logic already stands,on the contrary, inside pure science; it has no need, therefore, to observe

29 Timaeus, 71d–e. 30 Materiatur. 31 Gegenstand.


spirit’s tracing that course, to see how it gets entangled with nature, withimmediate determinateness, with matter, or in other words with pictorialrepresentation; this is what the other three sciences investigate. The idea ofspirit has this course already behind it, or what is the same, it has it ratherahead of it – behind in so far as logic is taken as the final science; aheadin so far as it is taken as the first science from which the idea first passesover into nature. In the logical idea of spirit, therefore, the “I” is from thestart in the way it has emerged from the concept of nature as the truth ofnature, the free concept which in its judgment is itself the subject matterconfronting it, the concept as its idea. Also in this shape, however, the ideais still not consummated.

Although the idea is indeed the free concept that has itself as its subjectmatter, it is nonetheless immediate, and just because it is immediate, it isstill the idea in its subjectivity, and hence in its finitude in general. It isthe purpose that ought to realize itself, or the absolute idea itself still in itsappearance. What the idea seeks is the truth, this identity of the concept12.199itself and reality; but at first it only seeks it; for it is here as it is at first, stillsomething subjective. Consequently, although the subject matter that is forthe concept is here also a given subject matter, it does not enter into thesubject as affecting it, or as confronting it with a constitution of its own assubject matter, or as a pictorial representation; on the contrary, the subjecttransforms it into a conceptual determination; it is the concept which is theactive principle in it – which therein refers itself to itself, and, by thusgiving itself its reality in the object, finds truth.

Initially, therefore, the idea is one extreme of a syllogism, the conceptthat as purpose has itself at first for its subjective reality; the other extreme isthe restriction of the subjective, the objective world. The two extremes areidentical in that they are the idea. Their unity is, first, that of the concept,a unity which in the one extreme is only for itself and in the other only initself. Second, it is reality, abstract in the one extreme and in the other inits concrete externality. – This unity is now posited through cognition, and,because the latter is the subjective idea which as purpose proceeds fromitself, it is at first only a middle term. – The knowing subject, through thedeterminateness of its concept which is the abstract being-for-itself, refersto an external world; nevertheless, it does this in the absolute certaintyof itself, in order to elevate its implicit reality, this formal truth, to realtruth. It has the entire essentiality of the objective world in its concept; itsprocess consists in positing for itself the concrete reality of that world asidentical with the concept, and conversely in positing the latter as identicalwith objectivity.


Immediately, the idea of appearance is the theoretical idea, cognition assuch. For to the concept that exists for itself, the objective world immedi-ately has the form of immediacy or of being, just as that concept is to itselfat first only the abstract concept of itself, is still shut up within itself. Theconcept is therefore only as form, of which only its simple determinationsof universality and particularity are the reality that it possesses within, whilethe singularity or the determinate determinateness, the content, is receivedby it from the outside.

a. the idea of the true

At first the subjective idea is impulse. For it is the contradiction of theconcept that it has itself for the subject matter and is to itself the realitywithout, however, the subject matter being an other that subsists on itsown over against it, or without the differentiation of itself from itselfhaving at the same time the essential determination of diversity and of 12.200indifferent existence. The specific nature of this impulse is therefore tosublate its own subjectivity, to make that first abstract reality a concreteone, filling it with the content of the world presupposed by its subjectivity. –From the other side, the impulse is determined in this way: the conceptis indeed the absolute certainty of itself; however, opposite its being-for-itself there stands its presupposition of a world that exists in itself, but onewhose indifferent otherness has for the concept’s certainty of itself the statusof something merely unessential; the concept is therefore the impulse tosublate this otherness and, in the object, to intuit its identity with itself.This immanent reflection is the sublated opposition and the singularitythat originally makes its appearance as the presupposed being-in-itself butis now posited and made actual for the subject; accordingly, this being-in-itself is the self-identity of the form as it has issued from the opposition –an identity which is therefore determined as indifferent towards the formin its differentiation. It is content.

Consequently this impulse is the impulse of truth in so far as the truthis in cognition, and therefore of truth in its strict sense as theoretical idea. –Although objective truth is the idea itself as the reality that corresponds tothe concept, and to this extent a subject matter may or may not possesstruth, nevertheless the more precise meaning of truth is that it is such foror in the subjective concept, in knowledge.32 Truth is the relation of thejudgment of the concept, the concept that proved to be the formal judgment

32 Wissen.


of truth;33 for the predicate in this judgment is not only the objectivityof the concept, but the comparison connecting the concept of the fact withthe actuality of it. – This realization of the concept is theoretical in so far asthe concept still has, as form, the determination of subjectivity, or in so faras it has for the subject the determination of being its own determination.Because cognition is the idea as purpose or as subjective idea, the negationof the world, presupposed as existing in itself, is the first negation; theconclusion in which the objective is posited in the subjective has at first,therefore, only the meaning that what exists in itself is posited only assomething subjective, only in conceptual determination, and consequentlydoes not exist as so posited in and for itself. Thus the conclusion onlyattains to a neutral unity, or a synthesis, that is, to a unity of terms thatare originally separate, only externally conjoined. – Hence, since in thiscognition the concept posits the object as its own, the idea gives itself at firstonly a content of which the foundation is given, in which only the formof externality has been sublated. To this extent, this cognition still retainsits finitude in its realized purpose; in the realized purpose, it has at thesame time not attained its purpose, and in its truth it has not arrived at thetruth. For in so far as in the result the content still has the determinationof a given, the presupposed being-in-itself confronting the concept is not12.201sublated; the unity of concept and reality, the truth, is thereby equally notcontained in it. – Remarkable is that this side of finitude is the one that oflate has been clung to and accepted as the absolute relation of cognition –as if the finite as such were to be the absolute! On this view, an unknownthinghood-in-itself is attributed to the object, behind cognition, and thisthinghood, and the truth also along with it, are regarded for cognition asan absolute beyond. Thought determinations in general, the categories, thedeterminations of reflection, as well as the formal concept and its moments,acquire on this view the status of determinations that are finite, not in andfor themselves, but in the sense of being something subjective as againstthis empty thinghood-in-itself; the fallacy of taking this untrue relation ofcognition as the true relation has become the universal opinion of moderntimes.

It is immediately clear from this definition of finite cognition that it isa contradiction that sublates itself; it is the contradiction of a truth thatis supposed at the same time not to be truth, of a cognition of what isthat at the same time does not know the thing-in-itself. In the collapse ofthis contradiction, its content, subjective cognition and the thing-in-itself,

33 Cf. above, 12.88.


collapses, that is, proves itself to be an untruth. But it is incumbent uponcognition itself to resolve its finitude by its own forward movement andalong with it its contradiction. What we have said is a consideration whichwe bring to it and remains a reflection external to it. But cognition isitself the concept which is a purpose unto itself and, therefore, through itsrealization fulfills itself, and precisely in this fulfillment sublates its subjec-tivity and the presupposed being-in-itself. – We must examine cognition,therefore, in its positive activity within it. Because this idea, as we haveshown,34 is the concept’s impulse to realize itself for itself, its activity con-sists in determining the object, and by virtue of this determining to referitself to itself in it as identical. The object is simply the determinable assuch, and in the idea it has this essential side of not being in and for itselfopposed to the concept. Because this cognition is still finite, not speculativecognition, the presupposed objectivity does not as yet have for it the shapeof something which is inherently the concept simply and solely and doesnot hold anything particular for itself as against the cognition. But by thushaving the status of a beyond that exists in itself, the determination of beingdeterminable through the concept is essential to it; for the idea is the conceptthat exists for itself, is that which is absolutely infinite in itself, in which theobject is implicitly sublated, and the aim is still to sublate it explicitly. Theobject, therefore, is indeed presupposed by the idea of cognition as existingin itself, but as so essentially related to the idea that the latter, certain ofitself and of the nothingness of this opposition, arrives in the object at therealization of its concept. 12.202

In the syllogism whereby the subjective idea now rejoins objectivity, thefirst premise is the same form of immediate seizure and connection of theconcept with respect to the object as we see in the purposive connection.35

The determining activity of the concept upon the object is an immediatecommunication of itself to the object, an unresisted invasion of it. In all thisthe concept remains in pure self-identity; but this immediate immanentreflection equally has the determination of objective immediacy; that whichfor the concept is its own determination, is equally a being, for it is thefirst negation of the presupposition. The posited determination equallyhas the status, therefore, of a presupposition which is merely found, theapprehension of a given wherein the activity of the concept consists ratherin being negative towards itself, in holding itself back away from what isfound and passive towards it, in order that the latter be allowed to showitself, not as determined by the subject, but as it is in itself.

34 Cf. above, 12.199. 35 Cf. above, 12.164.


In this premise, therefore, this cognition does not in any way appear as anapplication of logical determinations, but as a reception and apprehensionof such determinations as already found, and its activity appears restrictedsimply to the removing from the subject matter of a subjective obstacle, anexternal veil. This cognition is analytic cognition.

a. Analytic cognition

The difference between analytic and synthetic cognition is sometimes saidto be that the one proceeds from the known to the unknown and the otherfrom the unknown to the known. On closer examination, however, it isdifficult to find any definite thought behind this difference, even less aconcept. It may be said that in general cognition begins with ignorance,for one does not learn to know something with which one is alreadyacquainted. Conversely, it also begins with the known, for it is a tautologicalproposition that that with which cognition begins, what it therefore actuallyknows, is for that reason a known; what is as yet not known, and is expectedto be known only later, is still an unknown. In this respect it must be saidthat cognition, once it has begun, always proceeds from the known to theunknown.

The specific difference of analytic cognition is already established by thefact that, since it is the first premise of the whole syllogism, mediationdoes not as yet belong to it; analytic cognition is rather the immediatecommunication of the concept, a communication that does not as yetcontain otherness and in which activity divests itself of its negativity. Yet12.203this immediacy of the connection is for that reason itself mediation, for itis a negative reference of the concept to the object that annuls itself andthereby makes itself simple and identical. This immanent reflection is onlysubjective, because in its mediation the difference is present still in theform of a presupposition existing in itself, as the object’s difference36 withinitself. The determination that results through this connection, therefore,is the form of simple identity, of abstract universality. Accordingly, analyticcognition has in general this identity for its principle, and the transitioninto an other, the linking of different terms is excluded from it and fromits activity.

If we look now more closely at analytic cognition, we see that it startsfrom a presupposition, hence from some singular, concrete subject matter,whether for representation this subject matter is already completed or in

36 Verschiedenheit.


the form of a task, that is, given to it only under certain circumstancesand conditions rather than disengaged from these on its own and pre-sented in simple independence. Now the analysis of this subject mattercannot consist just in resolving it into the particular representations possiblycontained within it; such a resolution and the apprehension of the partic-ular representations is an affair that would not belong to cognition, butwould rather be a matter of closer acquaintance, a determination withinthe sphere of representing. Analysis, since it is based on the concept, has forits products determinations that are essentially conceptual, though suchas are contained in the subject matter immediately. We have seen from thenature of the idea of cognition that the activity of the subjective conceptmust be regarded from one side only as the explication of what is already inthe object,37 for the object itself is nothing but the totality of the concept.It is just as one-sided to portray analysis as though there were nothingin the subject matter that is not imported into it, as it is to suppose thatthe resulting determinations are only extracted from it. The former wayof stating the case corresponds, as is well known, to subjective idealism,which takes the activity of cognition in analysis to be only a one-sidedpositing, beyond which the thing-in-itself remains hidden. The other waybelongs to the so-called realism, for which the subjective concept is anempty identity that imports the thought determinations from outside. –Since analytical cognition, the transformation of the given material intological determinations, has shown itself to be a positing that immediatelydetermines itself to be equally a presupposing, to be both in one, the logicalelement can appear on account of this presupposing to be in the subjectmatter as something already completed, just as because of the positing it canappear as the product of a merely subjective activity. But the two moments 12.204are not to be separated. In the abstract form to which analysis raises it,the logical element is of course only to be found in cognition, just as con-versely it is not only something posited but something that rather exists initself.

Now in so far as analytical cognition is the indicated transformation, itdoes not go through further middle terms; on the contrary, the determina-tion is to that extent immediate and has precisely the meaning of being thesubject matter’s own determination, of belonging to it in itself, and there-fore of being apprehended directly from it without subjective mediation.But further, cognition is also supposed to be a progress, an explication ofdifferences. But because, according to the determination that it has here,

37 Cf. above, 12.199.


it is void of concept and undialectical, it only possesses a given difference,and its progression happens solely in the determinations of the material. Itseems to have an immanent progress only in so far as the derived thoughtdeterminations can in turn be analyzed, in so far as they are still some-thing concrete; the highest and final term of this analyzing is the abstracthighest essence – or the abstract subjective identity and, over against it,the difference. This progress, however, is nothing but just the repetitionof the one original activity of analysis, namely, the re-determination as aconcretion of what has already been taken up in abstract conceptual form,and following upon that the analysis of this concretion, and then againthe renewed determination of the resulting abstraction as concrete, and soforth. – But the thought determinations also seem to contain a transitionin themselves. If the subject matter is defined as a whole, then of courseone advances from it to the other determination of part; from cause to theother determination of effect, and so forth. But this is no progress, for partand whole, cause and effect, are relations – indeed, in the context of thisformal cognition they are such consummate relations that the one determi-nation is already found essentially linked to the other. The subject matterthat has been determined whether as cause or as part is thus determinedby the whole relation, already by both sides of it. Although this relationis in itself something synthetic, this connection is for analytical cognitionjust as much of a mere given as is any other connection in its material,and therefore outside its sphere of competence. Whether this connectionis otherwise determined as a priori or a posteriori is here indifferent, for itis apprehended as already given, or, as it has also been called, as a fact ofconsciousness – namely the fact that with the determination of whole thereis linked the determination of part, and so on. Kant made the profound12.205observation that there are synthetic principles a priori, and he recognizedas their root the unity of self-consciousness, hence the self-identity of theconcept.38 However, he takes the specific connection, the relational con-cepts, and the synthetic principles, from formal logic as given; the deductionof these should have been the exposition of the transition of that sim-ple unity of self-consciousness into these determinations and distinctions;but Kant spared himself the effort of demonstrating this truly syntheticprogression, that of the self-producing concept.

It is well known that “analytical science” and “analysis” are the namesof preference of arithmetic and the sciences of discrete magnitude in gen-eral. And in fact their typical method of cognition is most immanently

38 A154–155, 158/B194, 197.


analytical and we must now briefly consider why this is so. – Any otheranalytical cognition begins from a concrete material that has an accidentalmanifoldness within; every distinction of content and every advance tofurther content depend on this material. The material of arithmetic andof algebra is, on the contrary, an already totally abstract and indeterminateproduct from which every peculiarity of relation has been eliminated, andto which, therefore, every determination and every joining is somethingexternal. This product is the principle of discrete magnitude, the one. Thisrelationless atom can be increased to a plurality and externally determinedand unified into a sum; the increasing and the limiting are an empty pro-gression and an empty determining that never gets past the same principleof the abstract one. How the numbers are further combined and separateddepends solely on the positing activity of the knowing subject. Magnitudeis in general the category within which these determinations are conducted;it is the determinateness that has become indifferent, so that the subjectmatter has no determinateness which is immanent to it and is thereforegiven to cognition. Since cognition has from the start provided itself withan accidental assortment of numbers, these now constitute the materialfor further elaboration and manifold relations. Such relations, their dis-covery and elaboration, do not seem, it is true, to be anything immanentin analytical cognition, but seem rather something accidental and given;moreover, these same relations and the operations connected with themare also routinely conducted one after the other, as diverse, with no noticeof any internal connectedness. But it is easy to recognize the presence of aguiding principle; it is none other than the immanent principle of analyt-ical identity, an identity that in diversity appears as equality; progression isthe reduction of the unequal to ever greater equality. To give an example 12.206from the first elementary operations, addition is the combining of quiteaccidentally unequal numbers; multiplication, on the contrary, is the com-bination of equal numbers, upon which there then follows the relation ofequality of number of times and unit, and the relation of powers then comesin.

Now because the determinateness of the subject matter and of therelations is a posited one, any further operation with them is also whollyanalytic; accordingly, analytical science has not so much theorems as it hasproblems. The analytical theorem contains the problem as already resolvedon its own terms; the wholly external distinction that attaches to the twosides which it equates is so unessential that, as theorem, it would appear tobe a trivial identity. To be sure, Kant has declared the proposition 5 + 7 =12 to be synthetic, because the same is exhibited on the one side in the form


of a plurality, 5 + 7, and on the other in the form of a unity, 12.39 But, if theanalytic proposition is to mean more than just the totally abstract identityand tautology of 12 = 12 and is to contain any progression within it atall, then there must be present some sort of distinction, though not onebased on a quality, on a reflective and still less conceptual determinateness.5 + 7 and 12 are absolutely the very same content; but the first side alsoexpresses the demand that 5 and 7 be combined into one expression, thatis to say, that just as 5 is the product of a process of counting that wasarbitrarily interrupted but might just as well have been carried farther, sonow the counting is to be resumed as before with the stipulation that theones to be added should be seven. The 12 is therefore the result of 5 and7 and of a pre-set operation which is by nature also a completely externaland thoughtless act, one that a machine can also therefore perform. Herethere is not the slightest transition to an other; what there is, is the merecontinuation, that is, the repetition, of the same operation that produced 5and 7.

The proof of a theorem of this kind – and it would require a proof ifit were a synthetic proposition – would consist simply in the operation ofcontinuing counting, starting from 5, up to 7 as the pre-determined limit,and in the recognition of the agreement of the product of this countingwith what is otherwise called 12, a figure which is again nothing morethan that same counting up to a determined limit. For this reason we statethe proof in the form of a problem rather than a theorem as a matter ofcourse. We demand to perform an operation, that is to say, we state onlyone side of the equation that would constitute the theorem and whoseother side is now to be found. The problem contains the content andassigns the specific operation to be performed with it. The operation is notconstrained by any recalcitrant material endowed with specifying relations,but is rather an external subjective act, the determinations of which arereceived with indifference by the material where they are posited. The12.207whole difference between the conditions stipulated in the problem and theresult in the solution is only this, that the union or separation as stipulatedin the problem is actual in the solution

It is, therefore, a supremely superfluous piece of scaffolding to apply herethe form of geometrical method that goes with synthetic propositions, andto add to the problem, over and above the solution, a proof as well. Such aproof can express no more than the tautology that the solution is correctbecause the prescribed operation has been performed. If the problem is to

39 B15ff.; A164/B205.


add several numbers, then the solution is to add them; the proof showsthat the solution is correct because addition was prescribed and additionwas performed. If the problem involves more complex expressions andoperations, as for instance the multiplication of decimal numbers, and thesolution only states the mechanical procedure, a proof will then indeedbe necessary; but it can consist in nothing more than the analysis of theexpressions and of the operation from which the solution proceeds ofitself. By this separation of the solution as a mechanical procedure, and ofthe proof as a reminder of the nature of the subject matter to be treatedand of the operation itself, we lose precisely the advantage of the analyticproblem, namely that the construction can be derived directly from theproblem and presented, therefore, as intelligible in and for itself; in theother way, the construction is expressly given a defect which is typical ofthe synthetic method. – In higher analysis, especially in connection withthe relations of powers, where qualitative relations of discrete magnitudesdependent on conceptual determinacies come into play, the problems andthe theorems do of course contain synthetic determinations; in these cases,other expressions and relations than are given by the problem or theoremmust be taken as intermediary links. But here also, the determinationsenlisted as an aid must be such as to be based on recalling or developingone side or other of the problem or theorem; the look of synthesis comessolely from the fact that the problem or theorem has not as yet alreadyidentified that side. – For instance, the problem of finding the sum of thepowers of the roots of an equation is solved through the examination andthen the joining of the functions that are the coefficients of the equationof the roots. The determination of the functions of these coefficients andtheir link here enlisted as an aid is not already expressed in the problem, butfor the rest the development is totally analytical. The same applies to thesolution of the equation xm – 1 = 0 with the aid of the sine, and also to itsimmanent algebraic solution, famously discovered by Gauß, which takes 12.208into consideration as an aid the residuum of xm –1 – 1 divided by 1, and theso-called primitive roots – one of the most important extensions of analysisin modern times.40 These solutions are synthetic, for the determinationsenlisted in their aid, the sine or the examination of the residua, are not adetermination of the problem itself.

We gave in the first part of this Logic a detailed account of the natureof the analysis which is dedicated to the so-called infinite differentiations

40 Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855), a German mathematician and scientist who is widely regardedas one of the greatest figures in the history of mathematics. His most important work was theDisquisitiones arithmeticæ.


of variable magnitudes, the analysis of differential and integral calculus.41

It was shown there that underlying this analysis there is a fundamentalqualitative determination of magnitude that can be comprehended onlyby the concept.42 The transition to this determination from magnitudeas such is no longer analytic; to this day, therefore, mathematics has beenincapable of justifying internally, that is, mathematically, the operationsbased on it, for the transition is not of a mathematical nature. We said inthe same place that Leibniz, famed for having rendered the calculation ofinfinitesimals into a calculus, executed that transition in a way which isutterly deficient, just as totally void of concept as unmathematical.43 Butof course, once the transition is presupposed – and in the present state ofthe science it is no more than a presupposition – the further course is onlya series of ordinary analytical operations.

We have said that analysis becomes synthetic when it comes to deter-minations that are no longer posited by the problems themselves. But thegeneral transition from analytic to synthetic cognition lies in the necessarytransition from the form of immediacy to mediation, from abstract identityto difference. Analysis in general restricts its activity to determinations inso far as these are self-referential; yet by virtue of their determinateness theyalso essentially refer to an other by nature. We have already remarked thatanalytic cognition remains such even when it advances to relations thatare not an externally given material but are rather thought determinations,since for it these relations are also given. But because the abstract identitywhich this cognition knows to be solely its own is essentially an identityin difference,44 even as such it must be cognition’s own identity, and theconnection as well must become for the concept one which is posited by itand is identical with it.12.209

b. Synthetic cognition

Analytic cognition is the first premise of the whole syllogism – the imme-diate reference of the concept to the object. Identity is, therefore, thedetermination which analytic cognition recognizes as its own, and analyticcognition is the apprehension of what is. Synthetic cognition aims at the

41 Hegel is referring to Volume One of Part One, “The Doctrine of Being” in its 1812 edition, cf. GW11, the Remark on pp. 153–178. He gave an even more extensive treatment in the 1832 edition. Cf.above, the three Remarks in 21.236–309.

42 GW 11, 157; cf. above 21.241. 43 Cf. GW 11, 168; cf. above 21.256, 260.44 Identitat des Unterschiedenen.


comprehension of what is, that is, at grasping the manifoldness of determi-nations in their unity. It is, therefore, the second premise of the syllogism,the one in which the diverse as such is connected. Its aim, therefore, isnecessity in general. – The diverse terms that are combined stand, on theone hand, in a relation in which they are both connected yet mutually indif-ferent and self-subsistent; but, on the other hand, they are linked togetherin the concept which is their simple yet determinate unity. Now inasmuchas in a first moment synthetic cognition passes over from abstract identityto relation, or from being to reflection, it is not the absolute reflectionof the concept that the latter recognizes in its subject matter; the realitythat the concept gives itself is the next stage,45 namely the said identityin diversity as such, an identity that equally is, therefore, still inner, andonly necessity; it is not the subjective identity existing for itself, hence notas yet the concept as such. Synthetic cognition, therefore, does also havefor its content the determinations of the concept, the object is posited inthem; but they stand only in relation to one another or in immediate unity,and for that very reason not in the unity by which the concept exists assubject.

This is what constitutes the finitude of this cognition. Because the iden-tity which this real side of the idea has in it is still an inner one, thedeterminations of that identity are still external to themselves; and becausethe identity is not as subjectivity, the concept’s own specific presence inthe subject matter still lacks singularity; although what in the object corre-sponds to the concept is no longer the abstract but the determinate form ofthe concept and hence the concept’s particularity; the singularizing elementin the object is nevertheless still a given content. Consequently, althoughthis cognition transforms the objective world into concepts, what it givesto it in accordance with conceptual determinations is only the form; as forthe object in its singularity, in its determinate determinateness, this it mustfind; the cognition is not yet self-determining. It likewise finds propositionsand laws, and proves their necessity; but it proves the latter not as a necessityinherent in a fact in and for itself, that is to say, it does not demonstrate itfrom the concept; it proves it rather as the necessity inherent to a cognitionthat delves into given determinations, into phenomenal differences, andcognizes for itself the proposition as a unity and relation, or cognizes the 12.210ground of appearance from the appearance itself.

We must now examine the detailed moments of synthetic cognition.

45 die nachste Stufe.


1. DefinitionTo start with, the still given objectivity is transformed into simple form, asthe first form and therefore as the form of the concept; the moments of thisapprehension are none other, therefore, than the moments of the concept;universality, particularity, and singularity. – The singular is the object itself asan immediate representation; it is that which is to be defined. The universalof this singular object took the form of genus in the determination ofthe objective judgment, or the judgment of necessity;46 more precisely,it took the form of the proximate genus, that is to say, of the universalwith the determinateness which is at the same time the principle for thedifferentiation of the particular. This is a difference that the subject matterreceives in its specific non-indifference,47 the one that makes it a determinatespecies and is the basis of its disjunction from the remaining species.

Definition, in thus reducing the subject matter to its concept, gets rid ofthe externalities that are requisite for its concrete existence; it abstracts fromwhat is added to the concept in its realization, whereby the concept issuesfirst into idea and secondly into external concrete existence. Description isfor representation; it collects this extra content that belongs to reality. Butdefinition reduces this wealth of manifold determinations of the intuitedexistence to its simplest moments; what is contained in the concepts are theform of these simple elements and how they are determined with respectto one another. The subject matter is thus apprehended, as we just said,as a universal which is determined at the same time. The subject matter isthe third, the singular in which genus and particularization are posited inone – an immediate which is posited outside the concept, for it is not yetself-determining.

In these determinations, in the difference of form of the definition, theconcept finds itself; there it finds the reality that corresponds to it. Butsince the reflection of the moments of the concept into themselves whichis singularity is not as yet contained in this reality, and since the object, in sofar as it is in cognition, is consequently not as yet determined as subjective,it is cognition which, on the contrary, is subjective and has an externalbeginning; that is to say, because of its external beginning in a singular itis subjective. The content of the concept is therefore something given and12.211contingent. The concrete concept itself is thus contingent in two respects:once because its content is contingent; and again because it is a matterof accident which content determinations, from the many qualities which

46 Cf. above, 12.82. 47 Differenz (see the explanation of the term in the Introduction).


the intended object has in external existence, are chosen for the concept asconstituting its moments.

This last respect requires closer consideration. Since singularity is adeterminate way of existing in and for itself, it escapes the conceptualdetermination proper of synthetic cognition. There is in fact no principle,therefore, for determining which aspects of the subject matter are to beregarded as belonging to its conceptual determination and which only toits external reality. In the case of definitions, this constitutes a difficultywhich for synthetic cognition cannot be eliminated. A distinction mustnonetheless be made here. – In the first place, so far as the products of self-conscious purposiveness are concerned, it is easy enough to discover theirdefinition, for the purpose which they should serve is a determination thatis generated by a subjective resolution and constitutes the essential partic-ularization, the form of the concrete existent, on which alone everythingdepends here. The further nature of the material of the existent thing orits other external properties, in so far as they correspond to the purpose,are contained in the thing’s determination; the rest are unessential for it.

Secondly, geometrical objects are abstract determinations of space; theunderlying abstraction, the so-called absolute space, has lost all otherconcrete determinations and now possesses no further shapes and con-figurations than are posited in it; essentially, therefore, such shapes andconfigurations are only what they are intended to be; their conceptual deter-mination in general, and more proximately their specific difference, haveunfettered reality in them; in this respect, therefore, they are the same asthe products of external purposiveness, and in this they also agree withthe objects of arithmetic in which the underlying determination is alsoonly one that has been posited in them. – Of course, space has yet furtherdeterminations: its tri-dimensionality, its continuity and divisibility whichare not first posited in it by external determination. But these belong tothe material under consideration and are immediate presuppositions; syn-thetic relations and laws are produced only through the combination andthe interweaving of these subjective determinations with this distinctivenature of their field into which they have been imported. – In the case ofnumber determinations, since they are based on the simple principle ofthe one, their combination and further determination is only an entirelyposited product; on the other hand, determinations in space, which for itspart is a continuous externality,48 run a further course of their own and

48 Aussereinander.


have a reality that exceeds their concept, but it no longer belongs to theimmediate definition.12.212

But, thirdly, in the case of the definitions of concrete objects, of nature aswell as of spirit, the situation is quite different. For representation, such sub-ject matters are in general things of many properties. In their case all dependson apprehending what is their proximate genus, and then what is theirspecific difference. We have to determine, therefore, which of the manyproperties pertains to the subject matter as genus, which as species, andwhich among these properties is the essential one; this further involves rec-ognizing how the properties hang together, whether one is already positedwith the other. For this, however, no other criterion is yet available thanexistence itself. – For the definition, in which the property is to be positedas simple undeveloped determinateness, the essentiality of the property isits universality. But in existence this universality is empirical; it is a univer-sality in time (whether the property persists while the rest ostensibly comeand go within the permanence of the whole), or a universality resultingfrom comparison with other concrete wholes, in which case it does not getbeyond commonality. Now if comparison gives as a common foundationthe total habitus, such as is empirically given, then reflection must gatherit together into one simple thought determination and grasp the simplecharacter of the resulting totality. But the only possible attestation thata thought determination, or any single one of the immediate properties,constitutes the simple and determinate essence of the subject matter isits derivation from the concrete constitution of the latter. But this wouldrequire an analysis that transforms the immediate elements of this consti-tution into thoughts and reduces their concreteness to a simple thoughtdetermination; and this is an analysis of a higher order than the one justconsidered, for it would not be abstractive; on the contrary, in the universalit should still retain the singular character of the concrete, should unify itand show that it is dependent on the simple thought determination.

The connections of the manifold determinations of immediate exis-tence to the simple concept would however require theorems, and theseneed proof. But definition is the first, still undeveloped concept, and inthat it has to apprehend the simple determinateness of the subject matter,and this apprehension is to be something simple, it can employ for thepurpose only one of the subject’s immediate so-called properties, a deter-mination of sensuous existence or of representation; the singling out, then,of this property through abstraction is what constitutes the simplicity, andfor universality and essentiality the concept must resort to empirical uni-versality, to persistence under altered circumstances and to the reflection


that seeks the determination of the concept in external existence and inpictorial representation – seeks it, that is, where it is not to be found. –Defining, therefore, by its own doing also forfeits the true concept deter-minations that would by essence be the principles of the subject matter, 12.213and contents itself with marks, that is, determinations in which that theyare essential to the subject matter is a matter of indifference and whoseonly purpose is rather to be markers for external reflection. – Any suchsingle, external determinateness is too disproportionate with respect to theconcrete totality and to the nature of its concept to justify its being singledout or to assume that a concrete whole would find in it its true expressionand determination. – For example, as Blumenbach observes, the lobe ofthe ear is something lacking to all other animals and is therefore perfectlyentitled, in accordance with ordinary ways of speaking about common anddistinguishing markers, to be used as the distinctive characteristic in thedefinition of the physical human being.49 But how disproportionate such atotally external determination at once appears when measured against therepresentation of the total habitus of the physical human being, and againstthe demand that the concept determination shall be something essential!It is entirely accidental whether the markers taken up into the definitionare pure makeshifts like this one or approximate the nature of a principleinstead. From their externality one can also see that the cognition basedon concepts did not begin with them; it was rather an obscure feeling,an indeterminate but profound sense, an intimation of the essential thatpreceded the discovery of genera in nature and spirit, and only afterwardswas a specific externality sought for the understanding. – Since in existencethe concept has entered into externality, it has unfolded into its differencesand cannot be absolutely attached to any single one of such properties. Theproperties, as the externality of the thing, are external to themselves; for thisreason, as we demonstrated in the sphere of appearance in connection withthe thing of many properties,50 do the properties essentially become evenself-subsistent matters; spirit, regarded from the standpoint of appearance,turns into an aggregate of many independent forces. Regarded in this way,the single property or force, even where it is posited as indifferent to theother properties, ceases to be a characterizing principle, with the resultthat the determinateness, as the determinateness of the concept, vanishescompletely.

49 See J. F. Blumenbach, De Generis Humani Varietate Nativa, 3rd edn (Gottingen, 1795), §12, p. 27,in Concepts of Race in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Robert Bernascone, Vol. 4 (Bristol: Thoemmes,2001).

50 Cf. above 11.334–339.


In the concrete things, together with the diversity of the propertiesamong themselves, there also enters the difference between the concept andits realization. The concept has an external presentation in nature andspirit wherein its determinateness manifests itself as dependence on theexternal, as transitoriness and inadequacy. Therefore, although an actualthing will indeed manifest in itself what it ought to be, yet, in accordancewith the negative judgment of the concept, it may equally also show thatits actuality only imperfectly corresponds with this concept, that it is bad.12.214Now the definition is supposed to indicate the determinateness of theconcept in an immediate property; yet there is no property against whichan instance could not be adduced where the whole habitus indeed allowsthe recognition of the concrete thing to be defined, yet the property takenfor its character shows itself to be immature and stunted. In a bad plant, abad animal type, a contemptible human individual, a bad state, there areaspects of their concrete existence that are defective or entirely missing butthat might otherwise be picked out for the definition as the distinctive markand essential determinateness in the existence of any such concrete entity.A bad plant, a bad animal, etc., remains a plant, an animal just the same.If, therefore, the bad specimens are also to be covered by the definition,then the empirical search for essential properties is ultimately frustrated,because of the instances of malformation in which they are missing; forinstance, in the case of the physical human being, the essentiality of thebrain is missing in the instance of acephalous individuals; or, in the caseof the state, the essentiality of the protection of life and of property ismissing in the instance of despotic states and tyrannical governments. –If the concept is maintained despite the contradicting instance and thelatter is declared, as measured by the concept, to be a bad specimen, thenthe attestation of the concept is no longer based on appearance. But thatthe concept stands on its own goes against the meaning of definition;for definition is supposed to be the immediate concept, and can thereforederive its determinations of the subject matter only from the immediacy ofexistence and justify itself only in what it already finds there. – Whether itscontent is in and for itself truth or contingency, this lies outside the sphereof definition; but for this reason, because the singular subject matter underconsideration may well be a bad specimen, formal truth, or the agreementof the concept subjectively posited in the definition and the actual subjectmatter outside it, cannot be established.

The content of a definition is taken in general from immediate existence,and because it is immediate, it has no justification; the question regardingits necessity is precluded by its origination; by the very fact that the


definition voices the concept as something merely immediate, it renouncescomprehending it conceptually. What it exhibits, therefore, is nothing butthe form determination of the concept in a given content, without thereflection of the concept within itself, that is, without its being-for-itself.

But immediacy proceeds as such only from mediation, and must there-fore pass over into it. Or the determinateness of the content contained inthe definition is, for the very reason that it is determinateness, not onlyimmediate but something mediated by its other. Consequently definitioncan apprehend its subject matter only by virtue of the opposite determina-tion and must therefore pass over into division. 12.215

2. DivisionThe universal must particularize itself; to this extent, the necessity of divi-sion lies in the universal. But because definition itself already begins withthe particular, its necessity for passing over into division lies in the particu-lar that points, as particular, to an other. Conversely, the particular separatesitself off from the universal precisely by holding on to its determinatenessfor the sake of keeping it distinct from an other than it; the universal istherefore presupposed for division. The way to proceed is therefore this: thesingular content of definition is raised through particularity to the extremeof universality; but universality must from now on be assumed as the objec-tive foundation and, with it as the starting point, division presents itself asthe disjunction of the universal, the latter being the first.

A transition is now introduced which, since it takes place from theuniversal to the particular, is determined by the form of the concept.Definition is as such something singular; a greater number of definitionspertains to a greater number of subject matters. The advance from theuniversal to the particular characteristic of the concept constitutes thebasis and the possibility of a synthetic science, of a system, and of systematiccognition.

The first requirement for this is that, as indicated, the beginning be madewith the subject matter in the form of a universal. In the realm of actuality,whether of nature or spirit, it is the concrete singularity that is given tosubjective, natural cognition as first. But in a cognition which is a concep-tual comprehension, at least inasmuch as it has the form of the conceptfor its basis, it is the simple, abstracted from the concrete, that on thecontrary comes first, for only in this form does the subject matter havethe form of a self-referring universality and of an immediacy that accordswith the concept. It may perhaps be objected to this way of proceedingin matters scientific that, since intuition is easier than cognition, what can


be intuited, that is, concrete actuality, should be made the starting pointof science; that this way of proceeding would be more natural than onethat starts from an abstract subject matter and then proceeds from it to itsparticularization and concrete singularization. – But inasmuch as cognitionis the issue, any comparison with intuition has already been decided anddismissed; the only question allowed here is what should be the first insidecognition, and how one should then go from there; what is required is nota method appropriate to nature but one appropriate to cognition. – If theissue is merely one of easiness, then it goes without saying that it is easier12.216for cognition to grasp the abstract simple thought determination than tograsp a concrete subject matter which is a complex web of such thoughtdeterminations and relations; and it is in this manner, no longer as it isgiven in intuition, that the matter should be grasped. The universal is inand for itself the first moment of the concept, because it is the simple,and the particular only comes after it, because it is the mediated; andconversely the simple is the more universal, and the concrete, since it isinternally differentiated and hence mediated, is what already presupposesthe transition from a first. – This remark applies not only to the orderingof the whole into the specific forms of definitions, divisions, and propo-sitions, but also to the ordering of cognition as a whole and simply withrespect to the difference of abstract and concrete in general. – Thus inlearning to read for example, the more rational way to begin is also notwith reading whole words or even syllables, but with the elements of wordsand syllables and with the signs of abstract sound inflections; in alphabeticscript the analysis of concrete words into their abstract sound inflectionsand their signs is already accomplished, and for this reason learning to readis a primary occupation with abstractions. In geometry, the beginning hasto be made not with a concrete space configuration but with point and lineand then with plane figures, and among the latter not with polygons butwith the triangle, and among curves with the circle. In physics, the singularnatural properties or matters must be freed from the manifold entangle-ments in which they are found in concrete actuality, and presented withtheir simple, necessary conditions; they too, like space configurations, areaccessible to intuition, but this intuition has to be prepared for, in such away that they finally appear and are held free of all the modifications dueto circumstances which are extraneous to their specific nature. Magnetism,electricity, various kinds of gases, etc., are such subject matters as cometo be known in their specificity only by being apprehended as removedfrom the concrete conditions under which they appear in actuality. Ofcourse, an experiment will exhibit them to intuition in some concrete case;


but, in order for the experiment to be scientific, it must admit only suchconditions as are necessary to it, and it must be repeated in various formsin order to demonstrate that the concrete cluster of conditions that cannotbe separated from the matters under consideration are inessential, for thesecan appear in one concrete configuration and then again in another, so thatonly their abstract form is left for cognition. – To mention yet one moreexample, it might appear natural and reasonable to regard colors, first, in 12.217the concrete appearance of the animal subjective sense; next, as a spectralphenomenon hovering outside the subject, and finally fixed in objects inexternal actuality. But for cognition, the universal and consequently trulyprimary form is the middle one of the three mentioned, color as it hoversbetween subjectivity and objectivity in the well-known form of the spec-trum, still unentangled with subjective and objective circumstances. Forthe pure consideration of the nature of this object such circumstances areat first only a source of interference, because they behave as efficient causesand therefore make it uncertain whether specific alterations of colors, spe-cific transitions and relations, are based on their own specific nature as coloror are rather to be attributed to the specific pathology of the circumstancesthemselves, to the healthy and sick particular affections and effects of theorgans of the subject, or to the chemical, vegetable, and animal forces of theobjects. – Numerous other examples could be adduced from the cognitionof organic nature and of the world of spirit; everywhere the abstract mustconstitute the starting point and the element in which and from which theparticularities and rich shapes of the concrete spread out.

Now, although with division or with the particular the distinction ofuniversal and particular is duly introduced, this universal is neverthelessitself already something determinate and therefore itself only a memberof a division. Hence there is a higher universal for it, and a higher yetfor this other universal, and the same for the next all the way to infinity.There is no immanent limit to the cognition under consideration here,because it proceeds from a given and it is the form of abstract universalitythat defines its “first.” Any object, therefore, that seems to possess anelementary universality is made the subject matter of a specific science:it makes an absolute beginning because ordinary acquaintance with it ispresupposed, and the assumption made is that it stands on its own with noneed of derivation. Definition takes it as an immediate.

Division is the immediately next step after this starting point. For thisadvance, only an immanent principle would be required, that is, a begin-ning from the universal and the concept; but the cognition under consid-eration here lacks any such principle, for it follows only upon the form


determination of the concept without that form’s immanent reflection,and therefore takes the determinateness of the content from what is given.There is no specific reason for the particular that enters into the divi-sion, whether with respect to what constitutes the basis of the division, orwith respect to the specific relation that the members of the disjunctionare supposed to have to one another. Consequently, in this respect the12.218business of cognition can only consist partly in orderly arranging the par-ticularities found in the empirical material, and partly also in discoveringuniversal determinations of this material by means of comparison. Suchdeterminations then count as grounds of division, of which there can bea variety, just as there can be an equal variety of divisions based on them.The relation of the members of a division to one another, the relationof the species, has only this one universal determination, namely that themembers, the species, are determined relative to one another in accordancewith the assumed ground of division; if their differentiation were to rest onsome other consideration, their order would be arranged along differentlines accordingly.

Because of the lack of a principle of self-determination, the only possiblelaws for this business of division consist in formal, empty rules that leadnowhere. – Thus we see laid down as a rule that division should exhaust theconcept; but in fact each single member of the division must exhaust theconcept. Actually, what is meant is that the determinateness of the conceptshould be exhausted; but there is nothing in an empirical manifold ofspecies, internally void of determination, that contributes to this exhaustionwhether few or many of them have been discovered; it is indifferent, forexample, to the exhaustion of the concept whether in addition to thesixty-seven species of parrots another dozen are discovered. The demandfor exhaustion can only mean this tautological proposition, that all thespecies should be listed in their completeness. – Now as empirical cognitionexpands, it can well happen that species are discovered that do not fit theassumed determination of the genus, for the genus is usually adopted morein accordance with some obscure representation of the whole habitus thanin accordance with the more or less singular mark that should expresslyserve to determine it. – In such a case, the genus would have to be alteredand a justification would have to be given for regarding another group ofspecies as the species of the one new genus; that is to say, the genus wouldreceive its determination from what we group together on the basis ofsome standpoint or other that we choose to assume as a principle of unity;this standpoint thus becomes itself the ground of division. Conversely,should we hold on to the determinateness originally assumed to define the


genus, then the material that we wanted to bring as species in unity with theearlier ones, would have to be excluded. This way of carrying on without theconcept – at one time by assuming a certain determinateness as the essentialmoment of the genus, subordinating the particulars to it or excluding themfrom it accordingly; at another time by starting with the particulars andletting oneself be guided in grouping them by some other determinateness – 12.219this way gives the appearance of a game in which it is left up to chance todecide which part or which side of the concrete to fix on in order then tobring order in accordance with it. – It is physical nature itself that presentssuch a contingency in the principles of division; because of the externaldependency of its actuality, it stands in a manifold of connectedness whichfor it is likewise given; there is, therefore, an assortment of principles towhich it has to adapt itself, following one principle in one series of itsforms but another in another series, while also producing hybrids that goin different directions at once. Thus it happens that in one series of naturalthings certain marks come to the fore as especially significant and essentialthat in another series become inconspicuous and purposeless, the resultbeing that it is impossible to abide by any such principle of division.

The general determinateness of empirical species can only consist in this:that they are simply diverse from one another without being opposed. Thedisjunction of the concept was presented earlier in a determinate form;51

if particularity is taken without the negative unity of the concept, as aparticularity which is immediate and given, then difference stays at onlythe reflective form of diversity considered earlier. The externality in whichthe concept is pre-eminently to be found in nature brings with it the totalindifference of difference; for this reason it is common to take from numberthe determination for division.

Such is the contingency here of the particular with respect to the uni-versal, and therefore of division in general, that it may be attributed toan instinct of reason when we discover in this cognition bases of divisionand divisions which, to the extent that sensuous properties allow it, showthemselves to be more adequate to the concept. For example, in the caseof animals, the instruments for eating, the teeth and the claws, are usedin the systems as a far-reaching criterion of division. They may be takenat first only as features in which it is easier, for the subjective purpose ofcognition, to detect distinguishing marks. But in fact the differentiationembodied in those organs is not one that pertains just to external reflection;such organs are rather the vital point of animal individuality, where the

51 Cf. above, 12.37–38.


latter posits itself as self-referring singularity by cutting itself loose fromthe otherness of its external nature and from continuity with the other. –In the case of the plant, it is the reproductive parts that constitute thehighest point of vegetable life, the point at which the plant points to thetransition into sexual difference and thereby into individual singularity. Forthis reason the system has rightly turned to this point for a base of divisionwhich, though not sufficient, is nonetheless far-reaching, and has thereby12.220laid down for foundation a determinateness which is such not merely forexternal reflection, for the purpose of comparison, but is in and for itselfthe highest of which the plant is capable.

3. The theorem1. The third stage in this advance of cognition based on concept determi-nations is the transition of particularity to singularity; this stage constitutesthe content of the theorem. To be considered here, therefore, is the self-referring determinateness, the internal differentiation of the subject matterand the connection of the differentiated determinacies to one another. Defi-nition contains only one determinateness, division contains determinatenessas against the other; in singularization the subject matter has parted inter-nally. Whereas definition stops at the universal concept, in theorems thesubject matter is known in its reality, in the conditions and the forms of itsreal existence. Together with the definition, therefore, the subject matterexhibits the idea, which is the unity of the concept and reality. But thecognition being considered here, a cognition that is still a seeking, does notattain this presentation, for in it reality does not proceed from the concept,and therefore the dependency of reality on the concept and consequentlythe unity itself is not cognized.

Now according to the definition just given, the theorem is the properlysynthetic element of a subject matter, because the relations of its determina-cies are necessary, that is, are grounded in the inner identity of the concept.In definition and division the synthetic element is a connectedness heldtogether externally; what is found given is brought into the form of theconcept, but, as given, the entire content is only displayed; in the theorem,on the contrary, it ought to be demonstratively displayed. Since this cogni-tion does not deduce the content of its definitions and of the principles ofdivision, it seems that it might also spare itself the proof of the relationsexpressed by the theorem and be satisfied here too just with perception. Butwhat distinguishes cognition from mere perception and representation isthe form of the concept in general that it imparts to the content; this is donein definition and division; but since the content of the theorem proceeds


from the concept’s moment of singularity, it consists in determinations ofreality that no longer have as their relation just the simple and immediatedeterminations of the concept; in singularity the concept has gone over tootherness, to reality, thereby becoming idea. The synthesis contained in the 12.221theorem no longer has, therefore, the form of the concept to justify it; itis a joining together of such as are diverse; consequently, the unity not yetthereby posited still remains to be demonstrated; here proof thus becomesnecessary to this cognition itself.

Now the first difficulty that we encounter here is of distinctly distin-guishing between which of the determinations of the subject matter can beadmitted into the definitions, and which must rather be relegated to thetheorems. In this matter, there is no principle readily available. There mightseem to be one in assuming, perhaps, that what pertains to a subject matterimmediately also belongs to the definition, while for the rest, since it issomething mediated, the mediation must first be demonstrated. But thecontent of the definition is as such determined and therefore itself essen-tially mediated; its immediacy is only a subjective one, that is to say, thesubject makes an arbitrary beginning letting a subject matter count as apresupposition. Now since this subject matter is as such in itself concrete,and must also be divided, the result is a number of determinations thatare mediated by nature and are taken as immediate and unproved, not onthe basis of any principle, but only subjectively. – Even in Euclid, who hasalways been justly recognized to be the master of this synthetic kind ofcognition, we find under the name of axiom a presupposition about parallellines that some have held to be in need of proof, and various attempts havebeen made to fill this lack. And there are several other theorems in whichpeople have thought to have discovered presuppositions that should nothave been immediately assumed but ought to have been proved. So faras the axiom of parallel lines is concerned, it may be noted that preciselythere is where Euclid gives evidence of his good sense; he had duly appre-ciated the nature of his science. The proof of that axiom would have to bederived from the concept of parallel lines; any such proof, however, has noplace in his science, no more than does the deduction of his definitions,of his axioms and his subject matter in general, of space itself and its firstdeterminations, the dimensions. For any such deduction would have to becarried out on the basis of the concept, and this lies outside the properdomain of Euclidean science; these must remain for it, therefore, necessarypresuppositions, relative firsts.

Axioms, to take this opportunity of mentioning them, belong to thesame class. They are commonly but wrongly taken to be absolute firsts, as


if they were not in need of proof in and for themselves. If such were infact the case, they would then be mere tautologies, for it is only in abstractidentity that there is no diversity and that therefore also no mediation is12.222needed. But if the axioms are more than just tautologies, then they arepropositions drawn from another science, since within the science for whichthey serve as axioms they are meant as presuppositions. Strictly speaking,therefore, they are theorems, and are indeed mostly drawn from logic. Theaxioms of geometry are lemmas of this kind, logical propositions, and theycome close, moreover, to being tautologies because they are concerned withquantity alone and every qualitative difference has therefore been purgedfrom it. Of the principal axiom, the purely quantitative syllogism, we spokeearlier.52 – Axioms, therefore, when considered in and for themselves, arejust as much in need of proof as are definitions and divisions, and theyare not made into theorems only for the reason that, since they are relativefirsts, they are assumed for a certain standpoint as presuppositions.

As regards the content of theorems, there is one further precision to bemade. Because this content consists in a connection of determinacies ofthe concept’s reality, such connections may be more or less incompleteand single relations of the subject matter, or, on the contrary, they maybe one such relation that encompasses the whole content of reality andexpresses the content’s determinate connection. But the unity of all thecontent determinacies is equivalent to the concept; a proposition that containsthem is therefore itself a definition again – not one, however, that expressesthe concept only as immediately assumed, but one that expresses it ratheras developed into its determinate, real differences, or one that expressesthe concept’s complete existence. The two together, therefore, present theidea.

If we closely compare the theorems of a synthetic science, of geometryin particular, we find this distinction, namely that some of the science’stheorems contain only singular relations of the subject matter, whereasothers contain relations in which its full determinateness is expressed. Itis a very superficial view that attributes equal value to all propositions, onthe ground that each generally contains a truth, and in the formal progres-sion from step to step of a proof each is equally essential.53 The differencewith respect to the content of theorems is most intimately connected withthis progression itself, and some further remarks concerning the latter willserve to clarify that difference further, as well as the nature of synthetic

52 Cf. above, 12.104–105.53 For the background of Hegel’s polemical remark, see the note in the critical edition. GW 12, 353,

note to 222.33–36.


cognition. To start with, Euclidean geometry (which, as the representa-tive of the synthetic method of which it delivers the most accomplishedexemplar, shall serve as an example) has from ancient times been renownedfor the order in the progression of its theorems, whereby for each theo-rem the propositions required for its construction and proof are alwaysfound already proved. This circumstance concerns the formal sequenceof inference; yet, important as it is, it still has primarily to do with theexternal ordering of purposiveness, and bears on its own no connection 12.223to the essential difference of the concept and the idea in which there liesa higher principle of the necessity of the progression. – That is to say,the definitions with which the beginning is made apprehend the sensuoussubject matter as immediately given, and they determine it according to itsproximate genus and specific difference;54 these are equally the simple andimmediate determinacies of the concept, the universality and particularitywhose relation is developed no further. Now the initial theorems themselveshave nothing at their disposal except such immediate determinations as arefound in the definitions; similarly their reciprocal dependence can only bea matter at first of each being in general determined through the other.Thus Euclid’s first propositions regarding the triangle have to do only withcongruence, that is, how many parts must be determined in a triangle in orderthat the remaining parts of the one and same triangle, or the whole of it, bedetermined in full.55 That two triangles are compared with one another andtheir congruence posited in the fact that they coincide is a detour neededby a method that must rely on sensuous coincidence instead of the thoughtof determinateness. Otherwise considered for themselves, these theoremsthemselves contain two parts, one of which can be regarded as the concept,and the other as the reality that completes the concept by realizing it. For theunderstanding, whatever suffices for a full determination, that is to say, thetwo sides and the enclosed angle in this case, is already the entire triangle;nothing further is needed for its complete determinateness; the remainingtwo angles and the third side are the superfluity of reality over and abovethe determinateness of the concept. Thus all that those theorems in factdo is to reduce the sensuous triangle, which of course requires three sidesand three angles, to its simplest conditions. The definition had mentioned,quite in general, only the three lines that enclose the plane figure andmake it a triangle; it is a theorem that first expresses the determinateness ofthe angles through the determinateness of the sides, just as the remainingtheorems express the dependence of three other parts on three others. –

54 Differenz. 55 See Euclid, Elements, Book 1, Props. 4, 5, 6, 8.


But the complete determinateness of the magnitude of a triangle in termsof its sides is contained in the Pythagorean theorem; it is in this theoremthat we first have the equation of the sides of the triangle, for the precedingsides56 bring the triangle to a reciprocal determinateness of part to part onlyin general, not to an equation. This proposition is therefore the perfect,real definition of the triangle – of the right-angled triangle in the first place,the simplest in its differences and hence the most regular. – Euclid bringsthe first book to a close with this proposition, for it does in fact attain aperfect determinateness. And after he has reduced to a uniform type thosetriangles which are not right-angles and are affected by greater inequality,12.224he concludes the second book with the reduction of the rectangle to thesquare, with an equation between the self-equal, or the square, and theinternally unequal, or the rectangle; similarly, in the Pythagorean theorem,the hypotenuse that corresponds to the right-angle, the self-equal, con-stitutes one side of the equation, while the other side is made up by theself-unequal, the two perpendicular sides. The equation between the squareand the rectangle is at the basis of the second definition of the circle, andthis is again the Pythagorean theorem, except that the two perpendicularsides of the right-angle are assumed to be alterable; the first equation of thecircle is in precisely the relationship of sensuous determinateness to equationas holds between the two different definitions of conic sections in general.

This truly synthetic progression is a transition from universal to singu-larity, namely to that which is determined in and for itself, or to the unity ofthe subject matter in itself inasmuch as this has come apart, differentiatedinto its essential real determinacies. In other science, however, the commonand quite imperfect way of advancing from universality to singularity isindeed to start from a universal, but then to singularize and concretize itby applying it to a material brought in from elsewhere; in this way, thesingularity of the idea is strictly speaking an empirical addition.

Now whatever the content of the theorem, whether imperfect or perfect,it must be proved. It is a relation of real determinations that do not havethe relation of concept determinations; when they do have this relation,as it can be shown to be the case for the propositions we have calledsecond or real definitions, such definitions are for that very reason in onerespect definitions; but since their content consists at the same time ofrelations of real determinations, not just of the relation of universal andsimple determinateness, in comparison with such a first definition they

56 All the editions, including the critical, read Seiten, i.e “sides.” I am inclined to agree with Moni andCesa that one should read Satze instead, i.e. “propositions.” “Sides” does not seem to make muchsense. Hegel refers to the Pythagorean equation as “proposition” immediately after.


are also in need and capable of proof. As real determinacies, they have theform of indifferent subsistence and indifferent diversity; hence they are notimmediately one and therefore their mediation is to be demonstrated. Theimmediate unity in the first definition is the one in accordance with whichthe particular is in the universal.

2. Now the mediation which we must now consider more closely may besimple or may go through several mediations. The mediating members arejoined together with those to be mediated; but since it is not on the basis ofthe concept, to which the transition into an opposite is altogether alien, thatthe mediation and the theorem are retraced in this cognition, in the absenceof any concept of connectedness, the mediating determinations must beimported from somewhere as a provisory material for the scaffolding of the 12.225proof. This preparation is the construction.

Now among the connections of the content of the theorem, of whichthere can be a great number, only those must be adduced and madeto work that are of service to the proof. The supply of material onlyacquires meaning in this context; in itself it appears blind and meaningless.In retrospect it will of course become apparent in the proof that therewas a purpose to drawing, for example, such or such additional lines toa geometrical figure as the construction specifies; in the course of theconstruction itself, however, this must be done blindly; by itself, therefore,this operation is without understanding, since the purpose motivating it isyet to be declared. – It is a matter of indifference whether the operation isundertaken for the purpose of a theorem in the strict sense or a problem;as it first appears before the proof, the operation is not anything derivedfrom the given specification of the theorem or the problem – a meaninglessact, therefore, for anyone as yet not acquainted with its purpose, and thenalways only directed by an external purpose.

This hidden purpose becomes apparent in the proof. This contains, asstated,57 the mediation of what the theorem declares as bound together, andit is only by virtue of this mediation that this connectedness first appearsas necessary. Just as the construction lacks on its own the subjectivity of theconcept, so is the proof a subjective act lacking in objectivity. For since thecontent determinations of the theorem are not posited at the same time asdeterminations of the concept, but are posited instead as indifferent partsstanding in a multitude of external relations to one another, it is only inthe formal, external concept that the necessity manifests itself. The proofis not a genesis of the relation that constitutes the content of the theorem;

57 i.e. in the preceding page.


the necessity is present only to insight, and the whole proof is only forthe subjective interest of cognition. It is for this reason a thoroughly externalreflection that proceeds from the outside to the inside, that is, arrives inconclusion at the inner constitution of the relation on the basis of externalcircumstances. These circumstances, which the construction has presented,are a consequence of the nature of the subject matter; here they are convertedinstead into the ground and the mediating relations. The middle term, thethird term in which the terms linked in the theorem present themselvesin their unity and that provides the nerve of the proof, is therefore onlysomething in which the connectedness appears and is external. Because thesequence which the proof goes through is rather the reverse of the nature ofthe fact, what is considered in the proof as ground is a subjective ground,one that brings out the nature of the fact only for cognition.

The foregoing considerations make clear the necessary limit of this cog-nition, a limit that usually goes unrecognized. The science of geometry is the12.226most illustrious example of the synthetic method – but it has been inappro-priately applied to other sciences as well, even to philosophy. Geometry isa science of magnitude; hence formal inference is the one most appropriateto it; since it treats the quantitative determination alone, abstracting fromanything qualitative, it can confine itself to formal identity, to the unity voidof concept which is equality and belongs to external, abstractive reflection.The determinations of space that are its subject matter are already abstractobjects, suitably prepared for the purpose of obtaining a perfectly finite,external determinateness. This science, because of its abstract subject mat-ter, on the one hand has an aura of sublimity about it, for in these emptysilent spaces color is extinguished and the other sensuous properties haveequally vanished, and further, every other interest that would appeal to aliving individuality is silenced. On the other hand, this abstract subjectmatter is still space, a non-sensuous sensuous. To be sure, intuition is raisedto a higher level in this abstraction; space is now a form of intuition,but it is still intuition – sensuous intuition, the externality58 of the sensesthemselves,59 their pure absence of concept. – Enough has been heard latelyof the pre-eminence of geometry in this respect. There are those who saythat geometry’s foremost advantage is that it is based on the intuition ofthe senses, even believe that its scientific pre-eminence depends on thiscircumstance and that its proofs rest on intuition. This shallow view mustbe countered with the plain reminder that no science can be brought aboutby intuition, but only by thought. The intuitive character that geometry

58 Aussereinander 59 A24–25/B39–40; A33/B50.


possesses because of its still sensuous material only gives to it that level ofevidence that the senses generally provide to thoughtless spirit. It is thereforeregrettable that the same sensuousness of material which is a sign of theinferiority of its standpoint has been reckoned instead to its advantage. It issolely to the abstraction of its sensuous subject matter that geometry owesits aptitude for a higher scientific reach and the advantage that it has overthe collections of information that people are also want to call sciences buthave for content only the concrete perceptible material of the senses, andonly because of the order that they seek to bring to it do they give any signof a remote inkling and hint of the requirements of the concept.

It is only because the space of geometry is the abstract emptiness ofexternality that it is possible for figures to be drawn in its indeterminatenessin such a way that their determinations remain perfectly at rest outside oneanother with no immanent transition to the opposite. The science of thesefigures is therefore plainly and simply the science of the finite which is 12.227compared according to magnitude and has for its unity the external one ofequality. But now, since with these figures the start is made from a variety ofsides and points at once, and the various figures fall into place of themselves,in comparing them their qualitative unlikeness and incommensurability alsocome into view. Geometry is thus driven, beyond the finitude within whichit advanced step by step orderly and securely, to infinity – to the positingas equal of such as are qualitatively diverse. Here it loses the evidence thatit derived from being otherwise based on fixed finitude without havingto deal with the concept and the transition to the opposite which is itsmanifestation. As a finite science, geometry reaches its limit at this point,for the necessity and the mediation of the synthetic realm is no longergrounded in merely positive identity, but in negative identity.

If geometry, like algebra, quickly runs up against its limit with its abstractsubject matter, suited as this is only to the understanding, it is evident fromthe start that the synthetic method is all the more insufficient for other sci-ences, and most insufficient of all for philosophy. Regarding definition anddivision, we have already made the relevant points, and we should be lefthere to speak only of theorems and proofs. But, besides the presupposi-tion of definition and division that itself requires proof and presupposesit, also problematic is the very position of definition and division withrespect to the theorems. This position is especially noteworthy in theempirical sciences, as for example physics, whenever they want to givethemselves the form of synthetic sciences. This is how they go about it.The reflective determinations of particular forces, or of otherwise inner andessential forms, which are the results of an analysis of experience and can be


justified only as such results, must be placed at the top, in order to obtainfrom them a general foundation that can then be applied to the singularand be instantiated there. Since these general foundations have no hold oftheir own, we must simply grant them in the meantime; it is only in thederived consequences that we notice that the latter are in fact the groundof those presuppositions. The so-called explanation, and the proof of theconcrete brought into theorems, turn out to be partly a tautology, partlyan obfuscation of the true relation, and partly also an obfuscation thatserves to hide the deception of cognition. For cognition has collected expe-riences tendentiously, only so that it could attain its simple definitions andprinciples; and it has pre-empted the possibility of empirical refutationby taking experiences and accepting them as valid, not in their concretetotality but selectively, as examples that can then be used on behalf of itshypotheses and theories. In this subordination of concrete experience topresupposed determinations, the foundation of the theory is obscured and12.228is only indicated according to the side that suits the theory; and, quite ingeneral, the unprejudiced examination of concrete perceptions for theirown sake is thereby much impeded. Only by turning the whole procedureupside down does the whole thing acquire the right relation in which thelink of ground and consequence can come into view. One of the principalobstacles in the study of these sciences is thus the way we enter into them,which we can only do by blindly taking the presuppositions for granted and,without being able to form any further concept of them, often not evenan exact representation, at best by conjuring up in phantasy a confusedpicture of them, we right there impress in our memory the determinationsof the forces and matters that we have assumed, their hypothetical shapes,their directions and rotations. If we are asked to produce the necessity andthe concept of these assumptions in order to justify assuming their validity,we discover that we are incapable of making a step beyond the startingpoint.

We had occasion above to speak of the inappropriateness of applying thesynthetic method to strictly analytic science.60 Wolff extended this applica-tion to every kind of bits of knowledge that he dragged into philosophy andmathematics – cognitions which were partly of a wholly analytical nature,and partly also devoted to practical matters of an incidental kind. Theincongruity between this material, easy to grasp and by nature incapable ofrigorous and scientific treatment, and the pompous scientific roundaboutsicing it, has alone demonstrated the clumsiness of such an application,

60 Cf. above, 12.206–207.


finally discrediting it.s Yet, this misuse has not sufficed to shake the belief 12.229that this method is both suited and essential to attaining scientific rigorin philosophy. Spinoza’s example, the way he presented his philosophy, haslong served as model in this regard. But the fact is that Kant and Jacobidid do away with this whole style of the previous metaphysics and itsmethod along with it. As for the content of that metaphysics, Kant hasin his own fashion shown that it leads by strict demonstration to anti-nomies, the same whose nature we have in other respects elucidated at theappropriate places.63 But Kant did not reflect on the nature of the demon-stration associated with them, on the fact that such a demonstration isinextricably bound to a finite content. In his Principles of Natural Science,he gave himself an example of how to deal with a science of reflection onits own methodological terms, in a way that he thought would vindicateit for philosophy.64 – While Kant attacked previous metaphysics for themost part from the side of its content, Jacobi did it especially from the sideof its method of demonstration and, with great clarity and profundity, heput his finger on precisely the point at issue, namely that such a methodof demonstration is strictly bound to the cycle of rigid necessity of finitereality, and that freedom, that is, the concept and with it everything that trulyexists, lies beyond it and is unattainable by it.65 – According to Kant’s result,

s For example, Wolff’s First Principles of Architecture, the Eighth Theorem, runs as follows: Theorem:A window must be wide enough that two persons can comfortably stand at it side by side.

Proof: For it is common for one to stand at a window with somebody else to view the outside.Now since the fabric architect should in every respect satisfy the main intentions of the owner of thefabric (§1), he must also construct the window in such a manner that two persons can comfortablystand at it side by side. Q.E.D.61

From the same author’s Principles of Fortification, the Second Theorem:Theorem: If the enemy encamps in the vicinity, and the attempt at a rush to relieve the siege

is expected, a line of circumvallation must be drawn around the whole siege. Proof: Lines ofcircumvallation prevent anyone from penetrating into an area from outside (§311). But those whowish to relieve the area of siege will attempt to penetrate the area from outside. If, therefore, onewants to keep them out, a line of circumvallation must be drawn around the area. Therefore, if theenemy encamps in the vicinity and the attempt at a rush to relieve the siege is expected, the areamust be enclosed in lines of circumvallation. Q.E.D.62

61 See Christian Wolff, Anfangs-Grunde aller mathematischen Wissenschaften I, Anfangs-Grunde derBau-Kunst, in Gesammelte Werke, erste Abteilung, Vol. 12 (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1973), p. 440.

62 See Christian Wolff, Anfangs-Grunde aller mathematischen Wissenschaften II, Anfangs-Grunde derFortification, in Gesammelte Werke, erste Abteilung, Vol. 13 (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1973), p. 724.

63 GW 11, 114–120, 147; cf. above, 21.179ff., 228ff.64 Kant, Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Naturwissenschaft (1786), English trans., Metaphysical Foun-

dations of Natural Sciences, trans. Michael Friedman, in Immanuel Kant: Theoretical Philosophyafter 1781, ed. Henry Allison and Peter Heath (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).Cf. “Preface,” AK 4.467–479.

65 See, for instance, Supplement VII to the 1789 edition of Concerning the Doctrine of Spinoza,Werke: Gesamtausgabe, Series 1, Vol. 1, pp. 247–265. English trans., The Main Philosophical Works,pp. 370–373.


it is the peculiar content of metaphysics that leads it into contradictions;the inadequacy of cognition is due to its subjectivity. Jacobi’s result is thatthe inadequacy is due instead to the method and the whole nature of cog-nition itself that only grasps a concatenation of conditions and dependencyand therefore proves itself inadequate to what exists in and for itself, towhat is absolutely true. And in fact, since the principle of philosophy isthe infinite free concept and all its content rests on that alone, the methodsuited to a finitude empty of concept is inadequate to it. The synthesis andthe mediation of this method, the process of proving, goes no further than anecessity which is opposed to freedom, that is, an identity of the dependent12.230which is only implicit, whether it is apprehended as internal or as external,and in which that which in it constitutes reality, the differentiation thathas emerged in concrete existence, remains simply self-subsistent diversityand therefore something finite.66 In this reality, therefore, this identity doesnot itself attain concrete existence but remains only internal, or again, is onlyexternal, because its determinate content is given to it. Either way, whetherinternal or external, the identity is something abstract that does not possesswithin it the side of reality, is not posited as determinate identity in and foritself; therefore the concept, which alone is the issue here and which is theinfinite in and for itself, is precluded from this cognition.

In synthetic cognition, therefore, the idea achieves its purpose only to theextent that the concept becomes for the concept according to its moments ofidentity and real determinations, or of universal and particular differences –further also as an identity which is connectedness and dependence in diversity.But this, its subject matter, is not adequate to the concept; for in it, in thissubject matter or in its reality, the concept does not come to be the unityof itself with itself; in necessity its identity is for it, but in this identity thenecessity is not itself the determinateness but is on the contrary a materialexternal to it, that is to say, is not determined by the concept and theconcept, therefore, does not recognize itself in it. Thus in general theconcept is not for itself, is not at the same time determined in and for itselfaccording to its unity. For this reason the idea does not as yet attain thetruth in this cognition: it does not because of the disproportion betweensubject matter and subjective concept. – But the sphere of necessity is thehighest point of being and reflection; of itself, in and for itself, it passesover into the freedom of the concept, inner identity passes over into itsmanifestation which is the concept as concept. How this transition fromthe sphere of necessity to the concept occurs in itself has been shown

66 Cf. “absolute necessity,” above 11.389ff.


when considering necessity,67 and we saw it also at the beginning of thisBook as the genesis of the concept.68 In the present context, necessity has theposition of being the reality or the subject matter of the concept, just as theconcept into which it passes is now the concept’s subject matter. But thetransition itself is the same. Here, too, it is at first only in itself, still lyingin our reflection outside cognition, that is, itself still the inner necessityof cognition. Only the result is for cognition. The idea, in so far as theconcept is now for itself determined in and for itself, is the practical idea,action. 12.231

b. the idea of the good

Inasmuch as the concept, which is its own subject matter, is determined inand for itself, the subject is determined as singular. As subjective it again hasan implicit otherness for its presupposition; it is the impulse to realize itself,the purpose that on its own wants to give itself objectivity in the objectiveworld and realize itself. In the theoretical idea the subjective concept, as auniversal that in and for itself lacks determination, stands opposed to theobjective world from which it derives determinate content and filling. Butin the practical idea it is as actual that it stands over against the actual;but the certainty of itself that the subject possesses in being determinedin and for itself is a certainty of its actuality and of the non-actuality ofthe world; it is the singularity of this world, and the determinateness of itssingularity, not just its otherness as abstract universality, which is a nullityfor the subject. The subject has here vindicated objectivity for itself; itsinner determinateness is the objective, for it is the universality which is justas much absolutely determined; the previously objective world is on thecontrary only something still posited, an immediate which is determined ina multitude of ways but which, because it is only immediately determined,in itself eludes the unity of the concept and is of itself a nullity.

This determinateness which is in the concept, is equal to the concept,and entails a demand for singular external actuality, is the good. It comeson the scene with the dignity of being absolute, because it is intrinsicallythe totality of the concept, the objective which is at the same time in theform of free unity and subjectivity. This idea is superior to the idea ofcognition just considered, for it has not only the value of the universal butalso of the absolutely actual. – It is impulse, in so far as this actual is stillsubjective, self-positing, without at the same time the form of immediate

67 Cf. above, 11.408–409. 68 Cf. above, 12.11.


presupposition; its impulse to realize itself is not, strictly speaking, to giveitself objectivity, for this it possesses within itself, but to give itself onlythis empty form of immediacy. – The activity of purpose, therefore, isnot directed at itself, is not a matter of letting in a given determinationand making it its own, but of positing rather its own determination and,by means of sublating the determinations of the external world, givingitself reality in the form of external actuality. – The idea of the will as aself-determining explicitly possesses content within itself. Now this contentis indeed a determinate content, and to this extent finite and restricted;self-determination is essentially particularization, since the reflection ofthe will is in itself, as negative unity as such, also singularity in the sense12.232that it excludes an other while presupposing it. Yet the particularity of thecontent is at first infinite by virtue of the form of the concept, of whichit is the proper determinateness, and which in that content possesses itsnegative self-identity, and consequently not only a particularity but itsinfinite singularity. The mentioned finitude of the content in the practicalidea only means, therefore, that the idea is at first not yet realized; theconcept is for the content that which exists in and for itself; it is here theidea in the form of objectivity existing for itself; on the one hand, thesubjective is for this reason no longer just something posited, arbitrary oraccidental, but is an absolute; but, on the other hand, this form of concreteexistence, this being-for-itself, does not as yet have the form of the being-in-itself. Thus what from the side of the form as such appears as opposition,appears in the form of the concept reflected into simple identity, that is,appears in the content as its simple determinateness; the good, althoughvalid in and for itself, is thereby a certain particular purpose, but not onethat first receives its truth by being realized; on the contrary, it is for itselfalready the true.

The syllogism of immediate realization does not itself require closerexposition here; it is none other than the previously considered syllogismof external purposiveness;69 only the content constitutes the difference. Inexternal as in formal purposiveness it was an indeterminate finite contentin general; here, though also finite, it is as such at the same time absolutelyvalid. But in regard to the conclusion, the realized purpose, a further dif-ference enters in. In being realized the finite purpose still attains only thestatus of a means; since it is not a purpose determined in and for itselfalready from the beginning, as realized it also remains something that doesnot exist in and for itself. If the good is again also fixed as something finite,

69 Cf. above, 12.160–162.


and is essentially such, then, notwithstanding its inner infinity, it too can-not escape the fate of finitude – a fate that manifests itself in several forms.The realized good is good by virtue of what it already is in the subjectivepurpose, in its idea; the realization gives it an external existence, but sincethis existence has only the status of an externality which is in and for itselfnull, what is good in it has attained only an accidental, fragile existence,not a realization corresponding to the idea. – Further, since this good isrestricted in content, there are several kinds of it; in concrete existence agood is subject to destruction not only due to external contingency andto evil, but also because of collision and conflict in the good itself. Fromthe side of the objective world presupposed for it (in the presuppositionof which consists the subjectivity and the finitude of the good, and whichas a distinct world runs its own course), the realization itself of the good 12.233is exposed to obstacles, indeed, might even be made impossible. The goodthus remains an ought; it exists in and for itself, but being, as the ultimateabstract immediacy, remains over against it also determined as a non-being.The idea of the fulfilled good is indeed an absolute postulate, but no morethan a postulate, that is, the absolute encumbered with the determinate-ness of subjectivity. There still are two worlds in opposition, one a realm ofsubjectivity in the pure spaces of transparent thought, the other a realm ofobjectivity in the element of an externally manifold actuality, an imperviousrealm of darkness. The complete development of this unresolved contra-diction, between that absolute purpose and the restriction of this reality thatstands opposed to it, has been examined in detail in the Phenomenologyof Spirit (pp. 323ff.).70 – Inasmuch as the idea has within it the momentof complete determinateness, the other concept to which the concept init relates possesses in its subjectivity at the same time the moment of anobject; consequently the idea enters here into the shape of self-consciousness,and in this one respect coincides with its exposition.

But what the practical idea still lacks is the moment of real consciousnessitself, namely that the moment of actuality in the concept would haveattained for itself the determination of external being. – This lack can alsobe regarded in this way, namely that the practical idea still lacks the momentof the theoretical idea. That is to say, in the latter there stands on the sideof the subjective concept – the concept that is in process of being intuitedin itself by the concept – only the determination of universality; cognitiononly knows itself as apprehension, as the identity of the concept withitself which, for itself, is indeterminate; the filling, that is, the objectivity

70 The reference is to the 1807 edition. Cf. GW 9, 210ff.


determined in and for itself, is for this identity a given; what truly exists is forit the actuality present there independently of any subjective positing. Forthe practical idea, on the contrary, this actuality constantly confronting itas an insuperable restriction is in and for itself a nullity that ought to receiveits true determination and intrinsic value only through the purposes of thegood. It is the will, therefore, that alone stands in the way of attaining itsgoal, because it separates itself from cognition and because for it externalactuality does not receive the form of a true existence. The idea of the goodcan therefore find its completion only in the idea of the true.

But it makes this transition through itself. In the syllogism of action, onepremise is the immediate reference of the good purpose to the actuality whichit appropriates and which, in the second premise, it directs as external12.234means against the external actuality. The good is for the subjective conceptthe objective; actuality confronts it in existence as an insuperable restrictiononly in so far as it still has the determination of immediate existence, notof something objective in the sense that it is being in and for itself; it israther either the evil or the indifferent, the merely determinable, whoseworth does not lie within it. But this abstract being that confronts thegood in the second premise has already been sublated by the practical ideaitself; the first premise of this idea’s action is the immediate objectivity ofthe concept, according to which purpose is communicated to actualitywithout any resistance and is in the simple connection of identity with it.To this extent, therefore, what remains is to bring together the thoughts ofthe two premises of the practical idea. All that is added to what is alreadyaccomplished in the first premise by the objective concept is that in thesecond it is posited by way of mediation, hence for it. Just as in purposiveconnection in general, where the realized purpose is again only a meansbut the means is conversely also the realized purpose, so too now in thesyllogism of the good the second premise is already immediately present inthe first in itself, except that this immediacy is not sufficient and the secondpremise is for the first already postulated – the realization of the good in theface of another actuality confronting it is the mediation which is essentiallynecessary for the immediate connection and consummation of the good.For the first premise is only the first negation or the otherness of the concept,an objectivity that would be a state of immersion of the concept intoexternality; the second premise is the sublation of this otherness, wherebythe immediate realization of the purpose first becomes the actuality ofthe good as concept existing for itself, for in that actuality the concept isposited as identical with itself, not with an other, and in this way alone asfree concept. If it is now claimed that the purpose of the good is thereby


still not realized, what we have is a relapse of the concept to the standpointthat it assumes prior to its activity, when the actual is determined asworthless and yet presupposed as real. This is a relapse that gives rise to theprogression to bad infinity. Its sole ground is that in the sublating of thatabstract reality the sublating itself is just as immediately forgotten, or whatis forgotten is that this reality is rather already presupposed as an actualitywhich is in and for itself worthless, nothing objective. This repetition ofthe presupposition of the unrealized purpose after the actual realization ofthe purpose also means that the subjective attitude of the objective concept 12.235is reproduced and perpetuated, with the result that the finitude of the good,with respect to both content and form, appears as the abiding truth, andits actualization always as only a singular, never universal, act. – As a matterof fact this state has already sublated itself in the realization of the good;what still limits the objective concept is its own view of itself, and this viewvanishes in the reflection on what its realization is in itself. By this view theconcept only stands in its own way, and all that it has to do about it is toturn, not against an external actuality, but against itself.

That is to say, the activity in the second premise produces only a one-sided being-for-itself, and its product therefore appears as something subjec-tive and singular, and the first presupposition is consequently repeated in it.But this activity is in truth just as much the positing of the implicit identityof the objective concept and the immediate actuality. This actuality is bypresupposition determined to have only the reality of an appearance, to bein and for itself a nullity, entirely open to determination by the objectiveconcept. As the external actuality is altered by the activity of the objectiveconcept and its determination is consequently sublated, the merely appar-ent reality, the external determinability and worthlessness, are by that veryfact removed from it and it is thereby posited as having existence in and foritself. In this the presupposition itself is sublated, namely the determina-tion of the good as a merely subjective purpose restricted in content, thenecessity of first realizing it by subjective activity, and this activity itself.In the result the mediation itself sublates itself; the result is an immedi-acy which is not the restoration of the presupposition, but is rather thepresupposition as sublated. The idea of the concept that is determined inand for itself is thereby posited, no longer just in the active subject butequally as an immediate actuality; and conversely, this actuality is positedas it is in cognition, as an objectivity that truly exists. The singularity ofthe subject with which the subject was burdened by its presupposition hasvanished together with the presupposition. Thus the subject now existsas free, universal self-identity for which the objectivity of the concept is a


given, just as immediately present to the subject as the subject immediatelyknows itself to be the concept determined in and for itself. Accordingly,in this result cognition is restored and united with the practical idea; thepreviously discovered reality is at the same time determined as the realizedabsolute purpose, no longer an object of investigation, a merely objectiveworld without the subjectivity of the concept, but as an objective worldwhose inner ground and actual subsistence is rather the concept. This isthe absolute idea.

chapter 3

The absolute idea 12.236

The absolute idea has shown itself to be the identity of the theoretical andthe practical idea, each of which, of itself still one-sided, possesses the ideaonly as a sought-for beyond and unattained goal; each is therefore a synthesisof striving, each possessing as well as not possessing the idea within it, passingover from one thought to the other without bringing the two together butremaining fixed in the contradiction of the two. The absolute idea, as therational concept that in its reality only rejoins itself, is by virtue of thisimmediacy of its objective identity, on the one hand, a turning back to life;on the other hand, it has equally sublated this form of its immediacy andharbors the most extreme opposition within. The concept is not only soul,but free subjective concept that exists for itself and therefore has personality –the practical objective concept that is determined in and for itself andis as person impenetrable, atomic subjectivity – but which is not, just thesame, exclusive singularity; it is rather explicitly universality and cognition,and in its other has its own objectivity for its subject matter. All the restis error, confusion, opinion, striving, arbitrariness, and transitoriness; theabsolute idea alone is being, imperishable life, self-knowing truth, and is alltruth.

It is the sole subject matter and content of philosophy. Since it containsall determinateness within it, and its essence consists in returning throughits self-determination and particularization back to itself, it has variousshapes, and the business of philosophy is to recognize it in these. Natureand spirit are in general different modes of exhibiting its existence, artand religion its different modes of apprehending itself and giving itselfappropriate existence. Philosophy has the same content and the samepurpose as art and religion, but it is the highest mode of apprehending theabsolute idea, because its mode, that of the concept, is the highest. Henceit seizes those shapes of real and ideal finitude, as well of infinity andholiness, and comprehends them and itself. The derivation and cognitionof these particular modes are now the further business of the particular

735


philosophical sciences. Also the logicality of the absolute idea can be called12.237a mode of it; but mode signifies a particular kind, a determinateness ofform, whereas the logicality of the idea is the universal mode in whichall particular modes are sublated and enveloped. The logical idea is theidea itself in its pure essence, the idea which is enclosed in simple identitywithin its concept and in reflective shining has as yet to step into a form-determinateness. The Logic thus exhibits the self-movement of the absoluteidea only as the original word, a word which is an utterance, but one thatin being externally uttered has immediately vanished again. The idea is,therefore, only in this self-determination of apprehending itself; it is in purethought, where difference is not yet otherness, but is and remains perfectlytransparent to itself. – The logical idea thus has itself, as the infinite form,for its content – form that constitutes the opposite of content inasmuch asthe latter is the form determination that has withdrawn into itself and hasbeen so sublated in identity that this concrete identity stands over againstthe identity developed as form; the content has the shape of an other and ofsomething given as against the form that as such stands simply in reference,and whose determinateness is posited at the same time as reflective shine. –More exactly, the absolute idea itself has only this for its content, namelythat the form determination is its own completed totality, the pure content.Now the determinateness of the idea and the entire course traversed by thisdeterminateness has constituted the subject matter of the science of logic,and out of this course the absolute idea has come forth for itself; thus tobe for itself, however, has shown itself to amount to this, namely thatdeterminateness does not have the shape of a content, but that it is simplyas form, and that accordingly the idea is the absolutely universal idea. Whatis left to be considered here, therefore, is thus not a content as such, butthe universal character of its form – that is, method.

Method may appear at first to be just the manner in which cognitionproceeds, and this is in fact its nature. But as method this manner ofproceeding is not only a modality of being determined in and for itself; it is amodality of cognition, and as such is posited as determined by the conceptand as form, since form is the soul of all objectivity and all otherwisedetermined content has its truth in form alone. If the content is againassumed as given to the method and of a nature of its own, then method,so understood, is just like the logical realm in general a merely externalform. But against this assumption appeal can be made, not only to thefundamental concept of what constitutes logic, but to the entire logicalcourse in which all the shapes of a given content and of objects came up forconsideration. This course has shown the transitoriness and the untruth of

The absolute idea 737

all such shapes; also that no given object is capable of being the foundationto which the absolute form would relate as only an external and accidentaldetermination; that, on the contrary, it is the absolute form that has proved 12.238itself to be the absolute foundation and the ultimate truth. For this coursethe method has resulted as the absolutely self-knowing concept, as the conceptthat has the absolute, both as subjective and objective, as its subject matter,and consequently as the pure correspondence of the concept and its reality,a concrete existence that is the concept itself.

Accordingly, what is to be considered as method here is only the move-ment of the concept itself. We already know the nature of this movement,but it now has, first, the added significance that the concept is all, andthat its movement is the universal absolute activity, the self-determiningand self-realizing movement. The method is therefore to be acknowledgedas the universal, internal and external mode, free of restrictions, and asthe absolutely infinite force to which no object that may present itself assomething external, removed from reason and independent of it, couldoffer resistance, or be of a particular nature opposite to it, and could not bepenetrated by it. It is therefore soul and substance, and nothing is conceivedand known in its truth unless completely subjugated to the method; it is themethod proper to each and every fact because its activity is the concept.This is also the truer meaning of its universality; according to the universal-ity of reflection, it is taken only as the method for all things; but accordingto the universality of the idea, it is both the manner of cognition, of theconcept subjectively aware of itself, and the objective manner, or rather thesubstantiality of things – that is, of concepts as they first appear as othersto representation and reflection. It is therefore not only the highest force ofreason, or rather its sole and absolute force, but also reason’s highest andsole impulse to find and recognize itself through itself in all things. – Second,here we also have the distinction of the method from the concept as such, theparticularization of the method. As the concept was considered for itself,it appeared in its immediacy; the reflection, or the concept considering it,fell on the side of our knowledge. The method is this knowledge itself, forwhich the concept is not only as subject matter but is as its own subjec-tive act, the instrument and the means of cognitive activity, distinct fromthis activity and yet the activity’s own essentiality. In cognition as enquiry,the method likewise occupies the position of an instrument, as a meansthat stands on the side of the subject, connecting it with the object. Thesubject in this syllogism is one extreme, the object is the other, and inconclusion the subject unites through its method with the object withouthowever uniting with itself there. The extremes remain diverse, because


subject, method, and object are not posited as the one identical concept; thesyllogism is therefore always the formal syllogism; the premise in which12.239the subject posits the form on its side as its method is an immediate deter-mination and contains therefore the determinations of the form – as wehave seen, of definition, division, and so forth71 – as matters of fact foundready-made in the subject. In true cognition, on the contrary, method isnot only an aggregate of certain determinations, but the determinatenessin-and-for-itself of the concept, and the concept is the middle term onlybecause it equally has the significance of the objective; in the conclusion,therefore, the objective does not attain only an external determinateness byvirtue of the method, but is posited rather in its identity with the subjectiveconcept.

1. Accordingly, what constitutes the method are the determinations ofthe concept itself and their connections, and these we must now examinein the significance that they have as determinations of the method. – Inthis, we must begin from the beginning. We spoke of this beginning atthe very beginning of the Logic,72 and also in connection with subjectivecognition,73 and we showed that, when not performed arbitrarily and inthe absence of categorial sensitivity, though it may seem to present manydifficulties, it is nevertheless of an extremely simple nature. Because it is thebeginning, its content is an immediate, but one that has the meaning andthe form of abstract universality. Or be it a content of being, or of essence orof the concept, inasmuch as it is something immediate, it is assumed, found inadvance, assertoric. But first of all it is not an immediate of sense-intuition orof representation, but of thought, which because of its immediacy can also becalled a supersensuous, inner intuiting. The immediate of sense-intuitionis a manifold and a singular. Cognition, on the contrary, is a thinking thatconceptualizes; its beginning, therefore, is also only in the element of thought,a simple and a universal. – We spoke of this form earlier, in connection withdefinition.74 At the beginning of finite cognition universality is likewiserecognized as an essential determination, but only as thought – and conceptdetermination in opposition to being. In fact this first universality is animmediate universality, and for that reason it has equally the significance ofbeing, for being is precisely this abstract self-reference. Being has no needof further derivation, as if it came to the abstract element of definitiononly because taken from the intuition of the senses or elsewhere, andin so far as it can be pointed at. This pointing and deriving involve a

71 Cf. above, 12.209.72 GW 11.34ff., which is the edition to which Hegel is referring; but cf. above, 21.53ff.73 Cf. above, 12.215. 74 Cf. above, 12.210.


mediation that is more than a mere beginning, and is a mediation of a kindthat does not belong to the comprehension of thought, but is rather theelevation of representation, of empirical and ratiocinative consciousness, to 12.240the standpoint of thinking. According to the currently accepted oppositionof thought, or concept, and being, it passes as a very important truth thatno being belongs as yet to thought as thought, and that being has a groundof its own independent of thought. But the simple determination of beingis in itself so poor that, if for that reason alone, not much fuss ought to bemade about it; the universal is immediately itself this immediate because,as abstract, it is also the abstract self-reference which is being. In fact, thedemand that being should be exhibited has a further, inner meaning inwhich more is at issue than just this abstract determination; implied in itis the demand for the realization of the concept, a realization that is missingat the beginning itself but is rather the goal and the business of the entiresubsequent development of cognition. Further, inasmuch as the contentof the beginning is to be justified and authenticated as something true orcorrect by being exhibited in inner or outer perception, it is no longerthe form of universality as such that is meant, but its determinateness,about which more in a moment. The authentication of the determinatecontent with which the beginning is made seems to lie behind it, but is infact to be regarded as an advance, in so far as it is a matter of conceptualcognition.

The beginning, therefore, has for the method no other determinatenessthan that of being the simple and universal; this is precisely the determinate-ness that makes it deficient. Universality is the pure, simple concept, andthe method, as the consciousness of this concept, is aware that universalityis only a moment and that in it the concept is still not determined in and foritself. But with this consciousness that would want to carry the beginningfurther only for the sake of method, the method is only a formal procedureposited in external reflection. Where the method, however, is the objectiveand immanent form, the immediate character of the beginning must bea lack inherent in the beginning itself, which must be endowed with theimpulse to carry itself further. But in the absolute method the universalhas the value not of a mere abstraction but of the objective universal, thatis, the universal that is in itself the concrete totality, but a totality as yet notposited, not yet for itself. Even the abstract universal is as such, when con-sidered conceptually, that is, in its truth, not just anything simple, but is,as abstract, already posited afflicted by a negation. For this reason also thereis nothing so simple and so abstract, be it in actuality or in thought, as iscommonly imagined. Anything as simple as that is a mere presumption that


has its ground solely in the lack of awareness of what is actually there. – Wesaid earlier that the beginning is made with the immediate;75 the immediacyof the universal is the same as what is here expressed as the in-itself that is12.241without being-for-itself. – One may well say, therefore, that every beginningmust be made with the absolute, just as every advance is only the expositionof it, in so far as implicit in existence is the concept.76 But because theabsolute exists at first only implicitly, in itself, it equally is not the absolutenor the posited concept, and also not the idea, for the in-itself is only anabstract, one-sided moment, and this is what they are. The advance is not,therefore, a kind of superfluity; this is what it would be if that which isat the beginning were already the absolute; the advance consists rather inthis, that the universal determines itself and is the universal for itself, thatis, equally a singular and a subject. Only in its consummation is it theabsolute.

It may also be mentioned that a beginning which is in itself a concretetotality may as such also be free and its immediacy have the determinationof an external existence; the germ of anything living, and subjective purposein general, have shown themselves to be such beginnings; hence both arethemselves impulses. The non-spiritual and inanimate, on the contrary, arethe concrete concept only as real possibility; cause is the highest stage inwhich the concrete concept has, as the beginning in the sphere of necessity,an immediate existence; but it is not yet a subject that maintains itselfas such in the course of its effective realization. The sun, for instance,and in general all things inanimate, are determinate concrete existencesin which real possibility remains an inner totality; the moments of thelatter are not posited in them in subjective form and therefore, in so faras they are realized, they attain concrete existence through other corporealindividuals.

2. The concrete totality which makes the beginning possesses as such,within it, the beginning of the advance and development. As concrete,it is differentiated in itself, but because of its initial immediacy, this firstdifferentiation is to start with a diversity. However, as self-referring univer-sality, as subject, the immediate is also the unity of this diversity. – Thisreflection is the first stage of the forward movement – the emergence ofnon-indifference, judgment, and determining in general. Essential is that themethod find, and recognize, the determination of the universal within it.Whatever in this abstractive generation of the universal is left out of theconcrete is then picked up, still externally, by the finite cognition of the

75 Cf. above, 12.210. 76 das Ansichseiende ist der Begriff.


understanding. This is how the latter operates. The absolute method, onthe contrary, does not behave in this manner of external reflection buttakes the determinate from its subject matter, for it is itself its immanentprinciple and its soul. – This is what Plato demanded of cognition, that it 12.242should consider things in and for themselves; on the one hand, that it shouldconsider them in their universality; on the other hand, that it should notstray away from them while it grasps at circumstances, examples, and com-parisons, but, on the contrary, should keep only them in view before itand bring to consciousness what is immanent in them. – To this extent themethod of absolute cognition is analytic. That the method finds the furtherdeterminations of its initial universal simply and solely in this universal,constitutes the concept’s absolute objectivity, of which the method is thecertainty. – Equally so, however, is the method synthetic, for its subjectmatter, while immediately determined as the simple universal, through thedeterminateness which it has in its very immediacy and universality, provesto be an other. Yet this connection in diversity that the subject matter isthus in itself, is no longer a synthesis as understood in finite cognition; theno less thoroughly analytic determination of the subject matter, the factthat the connection is within the concept, already distinguishes it fully fromthe latter synthesis.

This no less synthetic than analytic moment of the judgment throughwhich the initial universal determines itself from within itself as the otherof itself is to be called the dialectical moment. Dialectic is one of thoseancient sciences that have been the most misjudged in the metaphysics ofthe moderns, and in general also by popular philosophy, both ancient andrecent. Diogenes Laertius said of Plato that, just as Thales was the founderof natural philosophy and Socrates of moral philosophy, so Plato was thefounder of the third of the sciences that belong to philosophy, of dialectic –a contribution for which he was highly esteemed by the ancients but thatoften goes quite unnoticed by those who have the most to say about him.77

Dialectic has often been regarded as an art, as if it rested on a subjectivetalent and did not belong to the objectivity of the concept. What shapeit received in Kantian philosophy, and with what result, has already beenindicated in representative examples of that philosophy’s view.78 It must beregarded as an infinitely important step that dialectic is once more being

77 See Diogenes Laertius, Vitae philosophorum, Vol. 1, ed. Miroslav Marcovich (Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner,1999), Book 3, §56; Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Vol. 1, trans. R. D. Hicks (Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 1965).

78 i.e. Hegel’s discussion of Kant’s Dialectic of Pure Reason. Cf. above, 12.157–158; 21.180ff.


recognized as necessary to reason, although the result that must be drawnfrom it is the opposite than Kant drew.

When dialectic is not presented, as it generally is, as something inci-dental, it usually assumes the following more precise form. It is shown ofa subject matter or other (for instance: world, movement, point, and soon) that a certain determination accrues to it (for instance, in the order ofthe just mentioned examples: finitude in space or time, being at this place,absolute negation of space), also the opposite determinations can then justas necessarily be shown to accrue to it (for example: infinity in space andtime, not-being at this place, reference to space and hence spatiality). Theolder Eleatic school directed its dialectic especially against motion; Platocommonly did it against accepted notions and concepts of his time, in par-12.243ticular those of the Sophists, but also against the pure categories and thedeterminations of reflection; the later and more sophisticated form of skep-ticism extended it not only to the immediate so-called facts of consciousnessand the maxims of ordinary life, but also to all scientific concepts. Now theconclusion drawn from this kind of dialectic is in general the contradictionand nullity of the asserted claims. But this can happen in two ways – eitherin the objective sense, that the subject matter that thus contradicts itselfinternally cancels itself and is a non-thing (this was, for instance, the con-clusion of the Eleatics, who denied the truth of the world, of movement,of the point); or in the subjective sense, that cognition is deficient. Nowunderstood in this last subjective sense, the conclusion may be taken intwo further ways. It may mean that it is this dialectic itself that generatesthe artifice of an illusion. This is the common view of the so-called healthycommon sense that takes its stand on the evidence of the senses and on cus-tomary notions and claims, at times quietly, like Diogenes the cynic did, whodemonstrated the vacuity of the dialectic of motion by silently walking upand down; but often by getting itself all worked up, declaring that dialecticis mere foolery or, when important ethical matters are at issue, the criminalattempt at unsettling essentially solid norms and providing excuses for thewicked – a view we see directed in the Socratic dialectic against that ofthe Sophists, with an ire that, turned into the opposite direction, even costSocrates his life. As for the vulgar refutation that opposes to thinking, asDiogenes did, sensuous consciousness and in this latter believes that it findsthe truth, this we must leave to itself; but in so far as dialectic sublatesethical determinations, we must have confidence in reason that it willknow how to reinstate them, but reinstate them in their truth and in theconsciousness of their right, though also of their limitations. – Yet anotherview is that the result of subjective nullity has nothing to do with dialectic


itself, but that it affects the cognition against which it is directed and, inthe view of skepticism and likewise of the Kantian philosophy, cognition ingeneral.

The fundamental prejudice here is that dialectic has only a negativeresult – a point about which more in a moment. First, regarding the saidform in which dialectic usually makes its appearance, it is to be observedthat according to that form the dialectic and its result affect a subject matterwhich is previously assumed or also the subjective cognition of it, anddeclare either the latter or the subject matter to be null and void, while,on the contrary, no attention is given to the determinations which areexhibited in the subject matter as in a third thing and presupposed as validfor themselves. To have called attention to this uncritical procedure hasbeen the infinite merit of the Kantian philosophy, and in so doing to have 12.244given the impetus to the restoration of logic and dialectic understood as theexamination of thought determinations in and for themselves. The subjectmatter, as it is apart from thought and conceptualization, is a picturerepresentation or also a name; it is in the determinations of thought and ofthe concept that it is what it is. In fact, therefore, everything rests on thesedeterminations; they are the true subject matter and content of reason,and anything else that might be understood by subject matter and contentin distinction from them has meaning only through them and in them.It must not therefore be taken as the fault of a subject matter or of thecognition that these determinations, because of what they are and the waythey are externally joined, prove to be dialectical. On this assumption,the subject matter and the cognition are imagined to be a subject onwhich the determinations are brought to bear, in the form of predicates,properties, or self-subsistent universals, as fixed and independently correct,so that these determinations are brought into dialectical relations and incurcontradiction only by extraneous and contingent conjunction in and by athird thing. But this kind of external and fixed subject of imagination andunderstanding, and also these abstract determinations, cannot be regardedas ultimates, as secure and permanent substrates. On the contrary, they are tobe regarded as themselves immediate, precisely the kind of presuppositionsand starting points which, as we have shown above,79 must succumb todialectic in and for themselves, because they are to be taken as in themselvesthe concept. The same applies to all oppositions that are assumed as fixed,as for example the finite and the infinite, the singular and the universal.These are not in contradiction through some external conjoining; on the

79 Cf. above, 12.240–241.


contrary, as an examination of their nature shows, they are a transition inand for themselves; the synthesis and the subject in which they appear isthe product of their concept’s own reflection. If a consideration that avoidsthe concept stops short at their external relation, isolates them and leavesthem as fixed presuppositions, it is the concept that, on the contrary, willfix its sight on them, move them as their soul and bring out their dialectic.

Now this is the very standpoint indicated above80 from which a universalprius, considered in and for itself, proves to be the other of itself. Taken quitegenerally, this determination can be taken to mean that what is at firstimmediate is therewith posited as mediated, as referred to an other, orthat the universal is posited as a particular. The second universal that hasthereby arisen is thus the negative of that first and, in view of subsequentdevelopments, the first negative. From this negative side, the immediate hasperished in the other; but the other is essentially not an empty negative, thenothing which is normally taken to be the result of dialectic, but is rather12.245the other of the first, the negative of the immediate; it is therefore determinedas the mediated – contains as such the determination of the first in it. Thefirst is thus essentially preserved and contained also in the other. – To holdfast to the positive in its negative, to the content of the presupposition inthe result, this is the most important factor in rational cognition; whatis more, it takes only the simplest of reflections to be convinced of theabsolute truth and necessity of this requirement, and as for examples ofproofs that testify to this, the whole Logic consists of such proofs.

So what we now have, taken first or also immediately, is the mediated,also a simple determination, for the first has perished in it, and only thesecond is therefore at hand. Now since the first is contained in the second,and this second is the truth of the first, this unity of the two can be expressedin the form of a proposition in which the immediate is placed as the subjectbut the mediated as its predicate; for example, “the finite is infinite,” “oneis many,” “the singular is the universal.” The inadequacy of the formof such propositions and judgments is however obvious. In connectionwith judgment it was shown that its form in general, and most of all theimmediate form of the positive judgment, is incapable of holding within itsgrasp the speculative content and the truth.81 Its closest complement, thenegative judgment, would have to be brought in at least in equal measure.In judgment the first, as subject, conveys the reflective semblance of anindependent subsistence, whereas it is in fact sublated in the predicate asin its other; this negation is indeed contained in the content of the above

80 Cf. above, 12.242. 81 Cf. above, 12.64.


propositions, but their positive form contradicts the content; consequently,what is contained in them is not posited – whereas this was precisely theintent behind the use of a proposition.

The second determination, the negative or mediated determination, ismoreover at the same time the one that mediates. At first it may be taken asa simple determination, but its truth is that it is a reference or relation; forit is the negative, but the negative of the positive, and it includes this positivewithin itself. It is the other, therefore, not of a one to which it is indifferent;in that case it would not be an other, nor a reference or relation. It is ratherthe other in itself, the other of an other; hence it includes its own other withinitself and is consequently the contradiction, the posited dialectic, of itself. –Because the first or the immediate is the concept in itself or implicitly,and therefore is the negative also only implicitly, the dialectical momentin it consists in the positing of the difference that is implicitly containedin it. The second is on the contrary itself the determinate, the difference or 12.246relation; hence the dialectical moment consists in its case in the positingof the unity contained within it. – For this reason, if the negative, thedeterminate, relation, judgment, and all the determinations falling underthis second moment, do not appear by themselves already as contradiction,as dialectical, this is solely a defect on the part of thinking that fails to bringits thoughts together. For the material, the opposed determinations in oneconnection, are already posited, already present for thought. But formalthinking makes identity its law, lets the contradictory content that it hasbefore it fall into the sphere of representation, in space and time, wherethe contradictory is held in external moments, next to and following eachother, parading before consciousness without reciprocal contact. The firmprinciple that formal thinking lays down for itself here is that contradictioncannot be thought. But in fact the thought of contradiction is the essentialmoment of the concept. Formal thought does in fact think it, only it atonce looks away from it and stating its principle it only passes over from itinto abstract negation.

Now the negativity just considered constitutes the turning point of themovement of the concept. It is the simple point of the negative self-reference,the innermost source of all activity, of living and spiritual self-movement;it is the dialectical soul which everything true possesses and through whichalone it is true; for on this subjectivity alone rests the sublation of theopposition between concept and reality, and the unity which is truth. –The second negative at which we have arrived, the negative of the negative,is this sublating of contradiction, and it too, just like contradiction, isnot an act of external reflection; for it is on the contrary the innermost,


objective moment of the life of spirit by virtue of which a subject is a person,is free. – The self-reference of the negative is to be regarded as the secondpremise of the entire syllogism. If the terms analytic and synthetic are usedas opposites, the first premise may be regarded as the analytic moment, forin it the immediate relates to its other immediately and therefore passesover, or rather has passed over, into it – though this connection, as alreadyremarked, is for this very reason also synthetic, for it is its other that it passesover into. The second premise considered here may be defined as synthetic,because it is the connection of the differentiated, as differentiated, to thatfrom which it is differentiated. – Just as the first premise is the moment ofuniversality and communication, so is the second determined by singularity –a singularity which in referring to the other is at first exclusive, for itself,and different. The negative appears as the mediating factor, because it holds12.247itself and the immediate of which it is the negation within itself. In so faras these two determinations are taken as referring to each other externallyin some relation or other, the negative is only the formal mediating factor;but, as absolute negativity, the negative moment of absolute mediation isthe unity which is subjectivity and soul.

In this turning point of the method, the course of cognition returns at thesame time back into itself. This negativity is as self-sublating contradictionthe restoration of the first immediacy, of simple universality; for the otherof the other, the negative of the negative, is immediately the positive, theidentical, the universal. In the whole course, if one at all cares to count, thissecond immediate is third to the first immediate and the mediated. But itis also third to the first or formal negative and to the absolute negativity orsecond negative; now in so far as that first negative is already the secondterm, the term counted as third can also be counted as fourth, and insteadof a triplicity, the abstract form may also be taken to be a quadruplicity; inthis way the negative or the difference is counted as a duality. – The third orthe fourth is in general the unity of the first and the second moment, of theimmediate and the mediated. – That it is this unity, or that the entire formof the method is a triplicity, is indeed nothing but the merely superficial,external side of cognition; but to have also demonstrated this superficiality,and to have done it in the context of a specific application (for the abstractform of number has been around for a long time, as is well known, butwithout conceptual comprehension and therefore without any result) isagain to be regarded as an infinite merit of the Kantian philosophy.82 Thesyllogism, or the threefold, has always been recognized to be the universal

82 B110.


form of reason; but it has had in general the value of a wholly external formthat does not determine the nature of the content; moreover, since in itsformalism it gets caught up in the understanding’s determination of mereidentity, it lacks the essential dialectical moment of negativity; and yet thismoment enters into the triplicity of the determinations, because the thirdterm is the unity of the two first determinations and these, since they arediverse, can be in unity only as sublated. – Formalism, it is true, has alsoseized hold of triplicity, attending to its empty schema; the shallow nonsenseand the barrenness of the so-called construction of modern philosophy, thatconsists in nothing but fastening that formal schema everywhere for thesake of external order, with no concept or immanent determination, has 12.248rendered that form tedious and has given it a bad name. Yet the insipidityof this use cannot rob it of its inner worth, and the fact that the shape ofreason was discovered, albeit without conceptual comprehension at first, isalways to be highly valued.

Now, on closer examination, the third is the immediate, but the imme-diate through sublation of mediation, the simple through the sublating ofdifference, the positive through the sublating of the negative; it is theconcept that has realized itself through its otherness, and through the sub-lating of this reality has rejoined itself and has restored its absolute reality,its simple self-reference. This result is therefore the truth. It is just as muchimmediacy as mediation – though these forms of judgments, that the thirdis immediacy and mediation, or that it is the unity of the two, are notcapable of grasping it, for it is not a dormant third but, exactly like thisunity, self-mediating movement and activity. – Just as that with which webegan was the universal, so the result is the singular, the concrete, the subject;what the former is in itself, the latter is now equally for itself: the universalis posited in the subject. The two first moments of triplicity are abstract,untrue moments that are dialectical for that very reason, and through thistheir negativity make themselves into the subject. For us at first, the con-cept itself is both the universal that exists in itself and the negative thatexists for itself, and also the third term that exists in and for itself, theuniversal that runs through all the moments of the syllogism; but this thirdis the conclusion in which the concept mediates itself with itself throughits negativity and is thereby posited for itself as the universal and the identityof its moments.

Now this result, as the whole that has withdrawn into itself and is identi-cal with itself, has given itself again the form of immediacy. Consequently,it is now itself all that the starting point had determined itself to be. As sim-ple self-reference it is a universal, and in this universal the negativity that


constituted its dialectic and mediation has likewise withdrawn into simpledeterminateness, which can again be a beginning. It may seem at first thatthis cognition of the result is an analysis of it and would therefore have todissect these determinations again, and the course that it went through inorder to come to be – the course that we have examined. But if the subjectmatter were in fact treated analytically in this manner, it would belong tothat stage of the idea considered above,83 a mode of cognition that searchesfor its subject matter and only states of it what it is, without the necessityof its concrete identity and of its concept. But the method of truth thatcomprehends the subject matter, though analytic as we have seen, sinceit remains strictly within the concept, is however equally synthetic, forthrough the concept the subject matter is determined as dialectical and as12.249other.84 On the new foundation that the result has now constituted as thesubject matter, the method remains the same as in the preceding subjectmatter. The difference concerns solely the status of the foundation as such;although it is certainly still a foundation, its immediacy is only form, sinceit was a result as well; hence its determinateness as content is no longersomething merely taken up but is deduced and proved.

It is here that the content of cognition first enters as such into the circleof consideration, because as deduced it now belongs to the method. Themethod itself expands with this moment into a system. – With respect tocontent, the beginning has to be for the method at first wholly indeter-minate; to this extent the method appears as the merely formal soul, forwhich and by which the beginning was determined simply and solely onlyaccording to form, that is to say, as the immediate and universal. In thecourse of the movement we have indicated, the subject matter has receiveda determinateness for itself – and this determinateness is a content, for thenegativity that has withdrawn into simplicity is the sublated form, andstands as simple determinateness over against its development, and in thefirst instance against its very opposition to universality.

Now since this determinateness is the proximate truth of the indetermi-nate beginning, it denounces the incompleteness of the latter, and it alsodenounces the method itself which, starting from that beginning, was onlyformal. This can now be expressed as the henceforth determinate demandthat the beginning, since as against the determinateness of the result itis itself something determinate, ought to be taken not as immediate, butas mediated and deduced. This may appear as the demand for an infi-nite retrogression in proof and deduction; just as from the newly obtained

83 Cf. above, 12.209. 84 Cf. above, 12.242.


beginning a result likewise emerges as the method runs its course, so thatthe movement would roll on forwards to infinity as well.

It has been repeatedly shown that the infinite progression as such belongsto a reflection void of concept; the absolute method, which has the con-cept for its soul and content, cannot lead into it. Even such beginnings asbeing, essence, universality, may seem at first to be of the kind that possessthe full universality and complete absence of content that is required foran entirely formal beginning, such as the beginning is supposed to be,and therefore not to require or allow, as absolutely first beginnings, fur-ther regress. Since they refer purely to themselves, they are immediate andindeterminate, and so they do not of course have in them the differencewhich is straightaway posited in some other beginning between the uni-versality of its form and its content. But the very indeterminacy whichthese logical beginnings have as their sole content is what constitutes their 12.250determinateness; this determinateness consists in their negativity, as sub-lated mediation; the particularity of this negativity gives a particularityalso to their indeterminacy, and it is by virtue of it that being, essence, anduniversality, are differentiated. Now the determinateness that accrues tothem when taken for themselves is their immediate determinateness, andthis is just as immediate as that of any content and in need, therefore,of derivation; for the method it is a matter of indifference whether thedeterminateness is taken as determinateness of form or of content. That itgives itself a determination by the first of its results does not mean that,in fact, it is thereby set on a new footing; it remains neither more nor lessformal than before. For since the method is the absolute form, the con-cept that knows itself and everything as concept, there is no content thatwould stand out over against it and determine it as a one-sided externalform. Hence, just as the lack of content of the said beginnings does notmake them absolute beginnings, so too it is not the content that wouldas such lead the method into the infinite progress forwards or backwards.In one respect, the determinateness that the method generates for itself inits result is the moment through which it is self-mediation and convertsthe immediate into a mediated beginning. But conversely, it is through thatdeterminateness that this mediation of the method runs its course; it goesthrough a content, as through a seeming other of itself, back to its begin-ning, in such a way that it does not merely restore that beginning, albeit asdeterminate, but that the result is equally the sublated determinateness, andhence also the restoration of the first immediacy in which it began. Thisit accomplishes as a system of totality. We now have to consider it in thisdetermination.


The determinateness which was the result is, as we have shown,85 itselfa new beginning because of the form of simplicity into which it haswithdrawn; since this beginning is distinguished from the one precedingit by this very determinateness, cognition rolls onwards from content tocontent. First of all, this forward movement determines itself in that itbegins from simple determinacies, and the following become ever richerand more concrete. For the result contains its beginning and its coursehas enriched it with a new determinateness. The universal constitutes thefoundation; the advance is not to be taken, therefore, as a flowing fromother to other. In the absolute method, the concept maintains itself in itsotherness, the universal in its particularization, in judgment and reality; ateach stage of further determination, the universal elevates the whole mass ofits preceding content, not only not losing anything through its dialecticaladvance, or leaving it behind, but, on the contrary, carrying with itself allthat it has gained, inwardly enriched and compressed.12.251

This expansion may be regarded as the moment of content, and in thewhole as the first premise; the universal is communicated to the wealth ofcontent, is immediately received in it. But the relation has also a second,negative or dialectical side. The enrichment proceeds in the necessity of theconcept, it is contained by it, and every determination is a reflection intoitself. Each new stage of exteriorization, that is, of further determination, isalso a withdrawing into itself, and the greater the extension, just as denseis the intensity. The richest is therefore the most concrete and the mostsubjective, and that which retreats to the simplest depth is the mightiestand the most all-encompassing. The highest and most intense point is thepure personality that, solely by virtue of the absolute dialectic which is itsnature, equally embraces and holds everything within itself, for it makesitself into the supremely free – the simplicity which is the first immediacyand universality.

It is in this manner that each step of the advance in the process of furtherdetermination, while getting away from the indeterminate beginning, isalso a getting back closer to it; consequently, that what may at first appearto be different, the retrogressive grounding of the beginning and the pro-gressive further determination of it, run into one another and are the same.The method, which thus coils in a circle, cannot however anticipate ina temporal development that the beginning is as such already somethingderived; sufficient for an immediate beginning is that it be simple uni-versality. Inasmuch as this is what it is, it has its complete condition; and

85 Cf. above, 12.248, 249.


there is no need to deprecate the fact that it may be accepted only provi-sionally and hypothetically. Whatever might be adduced against it – aboutthe limitations of human cognition; about the need to reflect criticallyon the instrument of cognition before getting to the fact itself – all theseare themselves presuppositions, concrete determinations that as such carrywith them the demand for mediation and grounding. Therefore, sincethey formally have no advantage over beginning with the fact itself as theyprotest against, and, because of their more concrete content, are on thecontrary all the more in need of derivation, singling them out for specialattention is to be considered as empty presumption. They have an untruecontent, for they make into something incontestable and absolute what isknown to be finite and untrue, namely a restricted cognition determined asform and instrument in opposition to its content; this untrue cognition is itselfalso the form, the retroactive search for grounds. – The method of truth alsoknows that the beginning is incomplete, because it is a beginning; but atthe same time it knows that this incompleteness is necessary, because truthis but the coming-to-oneself through the negativity of immediacy. Theimpatience that would merely transcend the determinate – be it called begin- 12.252ning, object, the finite, or in whatever other form it is otherwise taken –in order that one would find oneself immediately in the absolute, hasnothing before it as cognition but the empty negative, the abstract infinite.Or what it has before it is a presumed absolute, presumed because notposited, not comprehended; comprehended it will be only through the medi-ation of cognition, of which the universal and immediate are a moment,and as for the truth itself, it resides only in the extended course of media-tion and at the end. – To meet the subjective need and the impatience thatcome with not knowing, one may well provide an overview of the whole inadvance – by means of a division for reflection that, in the manner of finitecognition, gives the particular of the universal as already there, to be waitedfor as the science progresses. Yet this affords nothing more than a picturefor representation; for the true transition from the universal to the particularand to the whole which is determined in and for itself and in which thatfirst universal is in truth itself again a moment – this transition is alien tothe division of reflection and is the exclusive mediation of science itself.

By virtue of the nature of the method just indicated, the science presentsitself as a circle that winds around itself, where the mediation winds theend back to the beginning which is the simple ground; the circle is thus acircle of circles, for each single member ensouled by the method is reflectedinto itself so that, in returning to the beginning it is at the same time thebeginning of a new member. Fragments of this chain are the single sciences,


each of which has a before and an after – or, more accurately said, has inpossession only the before and in its conclusion points to its after.

So the logic also has returned in the absolute idea to this simple unitywhich is its beginning; the pure immediacy of being, in which all deter-mination appears at first as extinguished or removed by abstraction, is theidea that through mediation, that is, the sublation of mediation, has cometo the likeness corresponding to it. The method is the pure concept thatonly relates to itself; it is, therefore, the simple self-reference which is being.But it now is also the fulfilled concept, the concept that comprehends itselfconceptually, being as the concrete and just as absolutely intensive totality. –In conclusion, there remains only this to be said of this idea, that in it, inthe first place, the science of logic has apprehended its own concept. In thesphere of being, at the beginning of its content, its concept appears as aknowledge external to that content in subjective reflection. But in the ideaof absolute cognition, the concept has become the idea’s own content. Theidea is itself the pure concept that has itself as its subject matter and which,as it runs itself as subject matter through the totality of its determinations,builds itself up to the entirety of its reality, to the system of science, and12.253concludes by apprehending this conceptual comprehension of itself, henceby sublating its position as content and subject matter and cognizing theconcept of science. – In second place, this idea is still logical; it is shutup in pure thought, the science only of the divine concept. Its systematicexposition is of course itself a realization, but one confined within the samesphere. Because the pure idea of cognition is to this extent shut up withinsubjectivity, it is the impulse to sublate it, and pure truth becomes as finalresult also the beginning of another sphere and science. It only remains hereto indicate this transition.

The idea, namely, in positing itself as the absolute unity of the pureconcept and its reality and thus collecting itself in the immediacy of being,is in this form as totality – nature. – This determination, however, isnothing that has become, is not a transition, as was the case above when thesubjective concept in its totality becomes objectivity, or the subjective purposebecomes life.86 The pure idea into which the determinateness or reality of theconcept is itself raised into concept is rather an absolute liberation for whichthere is no longer an immediate determination which is not equally positedand is not concept; in this freedom, therefore, there is no transition thattakes place; the simple being to which the idea determines itself remainsperfectly transparent to it: it is the idea that in its determination remains

86 Cf. above, 12.125–126; 160–181.


with itself. The transition is to be grasped, therefore, in the sense that theidea freely discharges87 itself, absolutely certain of itself and internally atrest. On account of this freedom, the form of its determinateness is just asabsolutely free: the externality of space and time absolutely existing for itselfwithout subjectivity. – Inasmuch as this externality is only in the abstractdeterminateness of being and is apprehended by consciousness, it is as mereobjectivity and external life; within the idea, however, it remains in andfor itself the totality of the concept, and science in the relation of divinecognition to nature. But what is posited by this first resolve of the pure ideato determine itself as external idea is only the mediation out of which theconcept, as free concrete existence that from externality has come to itself,raises itself up, completes this self-liberation in the science of spirit, and inthe science of logic finds the highest concept of itself, the pure conceptconceptually comprehending itself.

87 entlaßt.

appendix

Hegel’s Logic in its revised and unrevised parts

It is a matter of speculation how Hegel would have revised Part Two ofVolume One (Book Two in the Lasson edition) and Volume Two (BookThree in the Lasson edition) of the Logic if he had lived to complete theplanned work of revision. Some clues may, however, be derived from thechanges that Hegel brought to the 1817 Encyclopedia Logic in its newedition of 1830. In this last edition, Hegel rearranged the ordering of thecategories of “essence.” He replaced the title of the first grouping, whichin 1817 was “The Pure Determinacies of Reflection,” with “Essence asthe Ground of Existenz”; moved the category of “Existenz,” which in 1817was in the second grouping under the general heading of “Appearance,”to the first grouping, and replaced it in the second grouping of 1830,still entitled “Appearance,” with “The World of Appearances.” As used byHegel in all the texts of the Logic that we have, “Existenz” is an ontologicalterm. Like the Scholastic existentia which is the counterpart of essentia, itsignifies the being of a thing inasmuch as it is internally grounded by thething’s essence. Within the Logic, Existenz stands reflectively to “essence” as“Dasein” stands immediately to “being.” On the face of it, the 1830 groupingof the categories of essence thus seems to be the more natural one, for itmore clearly brings out the close conceptual connection between “essence”and “Existenz.” This connection eventually develops into the idea of aninternally cohesive world of variegated appearances, that is, “The World ofAppearances” of the 1830 Encyclopedia Logic. One should think, therefore,that a new edition of the “Doctrine of Essence” of the Greater Logic wouldhave followed more closely the headings and groupings of categories of the1830 Encyclopedia. However, whether these changes would have amountedto a truly substantial conceptual reorientation of the Logic is of course opento question.

Also to be kept in mind is that the Encyclopedia Logic differs fromthe Greater Logic in sheer size: according to the pagination of the criticaledition, there are 168 pages in the 1813 “Doctrine of Essence” as opposed

754

Hegel’s Logic in its revised and unrevised parts 755

to 30 pages in the equivalent section of the 1830 Encyclopedia. And italso differs in scope. The one was intended as a textbook for universityinstruction; the other, as a theoretical treatise. Any contrast between thetwo can only be of limited value. Perhaps a more reliable indicator of anyconceptual progression from the Nurnberg to the Berlin period might bethe one part of the earlier Greater Logic which Hegel did in fact revisein Berlin, namely the “Doctrine of Being.”1 Here are the most significantchanges:(1) In 1832, Hegel added, in connection with “measure,” some comments

regarding the modal categories and critical of Spinoza’s and Kant’streatment of these categories.2 We have already commented on themin the main body of the Introduction, bringing out the conceptualimportance of these comments.

(2) The 1832 text is considerably enlarged in comparison with that of 1812,by about one third, the extra material the result of a more detailed treat-ment of some of the categories and the addition of more “Remarks.”These are notes that expand on historical and conceptual points con-nected with the subjects under consideration. Notable among them arethe two extra Remarks on the nature and the foundations of calculusthat Hegel added in 1832 to the one Remark (GW 11, 153ff.) of the 1812edition.3 The conceptual importance of these three additions has alsobeen discussed in the main body of the Introduction.

(3) The 1832 edition has a more streamlined version of the conceptuallyawkward 1812 ordering of the categories of “Dasein” (or “immedi-ate existence”) in Chapter 2, and of “being-for-itself” in Chapter 3.“Reality” and “negation,” which in 1812 are treated as independentheadings, are not so treated in 1832 but reappear under “quality” as thetwo shifting moments that define the peculiarly immediate determinacyof Dasein.4 It is possible that in a revised edition of the “Doctrine ofEssence,” “Schein” (“reflective shine”), which is the reflective counter-part of “reality,” would have been dropped as an independent category(as it also is in the 1827/30 Encyclopedia)5 but would be reintroducedinstead as a moment of the first reflective determinacies of “essence,”namely “identity,” “difference,” “diversity,” and “contradiction.” Each

1 The changes are documented in the critical apparatus of GW 21.2 See above, Introduction, note 86. 3 See above, Introduction, note 82. 4 Cf. GW 21.98–99.5 So it was also in the lecture course on Logic of the 1831 summer term. Determinacies such as

“identity” and “difference” are the by-products of the internal reflection of “essence” which acquirethe “reflective shine” of having independent being. It’s as if they were an external “shine” of essence.Cf. G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen uber die Logik, Vol. 10 (Hamburg: Meiner, 2001), pp. 137–138.

756 Appendix

of these re-enacts in “essence” – but reflectively, and each in its ownway – the shifting relation which “reality” and “negation” play out in“Dasein.” “Schein” would appear in them as the lingering immediacy(“all that remains of the sphere of being,”6 as Hegel puts it) that stillaffects them and makes them seem to have a reality independent of“essence.” But it is also possible (and perhaps even more likely) thatHegel would have wanted to treat this lingering immediacy on its own,directly in connection with “essence,” exactly as he did in 1812.

(4) In 1832, in connection with the transitions from one category of “being”to another, Hegel is more precise in his use of language. He avoids thelanguage of reflectivity, which is more appropriate to the transitions of“essence,” apparently in order to stress precisely the immediacy of suchtransitions.7

These are the main changes. To what extent, if any, they make for asubstantial change in the orientation of Hegel’s thought is of course amatter of interpretation.

6 GW 11.241.7 Cf. John Burbidge’s review of GW 11, The Owl of Minerva, 10.4 (1979), 5–7, where this difference in

language is documented.

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Uber die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an den Herrn Moses Mendelssohn. 2nd edn.Breslau, 1789. Translated in part by George di Giovanni in Friedrich HeinrichJacobi: The Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel Allwill. Montreal andKingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994.

Werke: Gesamtausgabe. Edited by Klaus Hammacher and Walter Jaeschke.Stuttgart and Bad-Canstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1988–.

Kant, Immanuel. Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1788). In Kant’s GesammelteSchriften. Vol. 5. Edited by the Royal Prussian Academy of the Sciences.Berlin: Reimer, 1913. Translated and edited by Mary Gregor as Critique ofPractical Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Kritik der reinen Vernunft. 2nd edn (1787). In Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften.Vol. 3. Edited by the Royal Prussian Academy of the Sciences. Berlin: Reimer,1911. Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood as Critique of PureReason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

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Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb. Der Messias. Leipzig, 1844.Laertius, Diogenes. Vitae philosophorum. Edited by Miroslav Marcovich. 2 vols.

Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1999. Translated by R. D. Hicks in Lives ofEminent Philosophers. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,1965.

Lagrange, Joseph Louis. Theorie des fonctions analytiques, contenant les principesdu calcul differentiel, degages de toute consideration d’infiniment petits,d’evanouissans, de limites et de fluxions, et reduits a l’analyse algebrique desquantites finies. 3rd edn. Paris, 1847.

Traite de la resolution des equations numeriques de tous les degres, avec des notessur plusieurs points de la theorie des equations algebriques. 3rd edn. Paris, 1826.

Lambert, Johann Heinrich. Neues Organon oder Gedanken uber die Erforschung undBezeichnung des Wahren und dessen Unterscheidung vom Irrtum und Schein(1764). Vol. 1. Edited by Gunter Schenk. Berlin: Akademie, 1990.

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Disputatio metaphysica de principio individui (1663).In Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Series 2,Vol. 4. Edited by C. J. Gerhardt. Berlin, 1880.

Dissertatio de arte combinatoria (1666). In Opera omnia. Vol. 2: 1. Edited byLudovici Dutens. Geneva, 1768.

Essais de Theodicee (1710). In Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried WilhelmLeibniz. Vol. 6. Edited by C. J. Gerhardt. Berlin, 1885. Translated by E. M.Huggard in Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man andthe Origin of Evil. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1985.

Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement par l’auteur du systeme de l’harmonie preestablie(1704). In Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Vol. 5.Edited by C. J. Gerhardt. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1960. Translated andedited by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett in New Essays on HumanUnderstanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

“Ohne Uberschrift, enthaltend die sogenannte Monadologie.” In Diephilosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Vol. 6. Edited byC. J. Gerhardt. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1961. Translated by Daniel Garberand Roger Ariew as The Principles of Philosophy, or, the Monadology (1714). InPhilosophical Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1989.

Opera omnia, nunc primum collecta. Edited by Ludovici Dutens. 6 vols. Geneva,1768.

Principes de la nature et de la grace, fondes en raison (1714). In Die philosophischenSchriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Vol. 6. Edited by C. J. Gerhardt.Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1961. Translated by Daniel Garber and RogerAriew as The Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason. In PhilosophicalEssays. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1989.

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Mendelssohn, Moses. Phadon: oder Uber die Unsterblichkeit der Seele: In dreiGesprachen (1767 and 1784). In Gesammelte Werke, Jubilaumsausgabe:Schriften zur Philosophie und Asthetik. Vol. 3: 1. Berlin: Akademie, 1932.

Newton, Isaac. Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica. Amsterdam, 1714.Translated by I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman in The Principia: Math-ematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1999.

Plato. Sophista. In Platonis et quae vel Platonis esse feruntur vel Platonica solentcomitari . . . Vol. 4. Edited by Immanuel Bekker. London, 1827. Translatedby Nicholas P. White as Sophist. In Complete Works. Edited by John M.Cooper. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1997.

Timaeus. In Platonis et quae vel Platonis esse feruntur vel Platonica solentcomitari . . . Vol. 7. Edited by Immanuel Bekker. London, 1827. Translated byDonald J. Zeyl as Timaeus. In Complete Works. Edited by John M. Cooper.Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1997.

Plouquet, Gottfried. Expositiones Philosophiæ Theoreticæ Logik (1782). Edited andtranslated into German by Michael Franz. Studien und Materialen zurGeschichte der Philosophie. Hildesheim: Olms, 2006. Original Latin textincluded.

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Schelling, F. W. J. Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie (1801). In SchellingsWerke. Vol. 3. Edited by Manfred Schroter. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1927.

Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur (1797). Reprinted in Schellings Werke.Erganzungsband 1. Munich: Beck, 1956. Translated by E. H. Harris and PeterHeath as Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1988.

Schubert, Friedrich Theodor. Theoretische Astronomie. Vol. 3, Physische Astronomie.St. Petersburg, 1798.

Spehr, Friedrich Wilhelm. Vollstandiger Lehrbegriff der reinen Kombinationslehre.Braunschweig, 1824.

Spinoza, Benedictus. The Chief Works of Benedict of Spinoza. Translated byR. H. M. Elwes. 2 vols. New York: Dover, 1951.

The Correspondence of Spinoza. Translated and edited by A. Wolf. New York:Russell & Russell, 1966.

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Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1750. Reprinted in Gesammelte Werke. 1st series,Vol. 12. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1973.

Anfangs-Grunde aller mathematischen Wissenschaften II. Halle, 1757. Reprintedin Gesammelte Werke. 1st series, Vol. 13. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1973.

Elementa matheseos universæ. Halle and Magdeburg, 1742. Reprinted in Gesam-melte Werke. 2nd series, vol. 29. Edited by J. E. Hofmann. Hildesheim: GeorgOlms, 1968. Translated by John Hanna in A Treatise of Algebra, with an Appli-cation of it to a Variety of Problems in Arithmetic, to Trigonometry, and ConicSections. Three Preliminary Treatises. London, 1739.

Philosophia prima, sive ontologia, methodo scientifica pertractata. 2nd edn.Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1736. Reprinted in Gesammelte Werke. 2nd series,Vol. 3. Edited by Jean Ecole. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1962.

Philosophia rationalis sive logica, methodo scientifica pertractata et ad usum scien-tiarum atque vitae aptata. Praemittitur discursus praeliminaris de philosophiain genere. Frankfurt, 1740. Reprinted in Gesammelte Werke. 2nd series,Vol. 1: 2. Edited by Jean Ecole. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1983.

Theologia naturalis methodo scientifica pertracta: pars posterior. Frankfurt andLeipzig, 1741. Reprinted in Gesammelte Werke. 2nd series, Vol. 8. Edited byJean Ecole. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1981.

WORKS OF HEGEL CITED

Hegel, G. W. F. Differenz des Fichte’schen und Schelling’schen System der Philosophie.Kritisches Journal der Philosophie (1801). Reprinted in Gesammelte Werke.Vol. 4, Jenaer Kritische Schriften. Edited by Hartmut Buchner and OttoPoggeler. Hamburg: Meiner, 1968. Translated by H. S. Harris and W. Cerf asThe Difference Between Fichte’s and Schelling’s System of Philosophy. Albany:State University of New York Press, 1977.

“Verhaltniß des Skepticismus zur Philosophie, Darstellung seiner verschiede-nen Modificationen, und Vergleichung des neuesten mit dem alten.” Kritis-ches Journal der Philosophie (1802). Reprinted in Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 4,Jenaer Kritische Schriften. Edited by Hartmut Buchner and Otto Poggeler.Hamburg: Meiner, 1968. Translated with introductory studies by George diGiovanni and H. S. Harris as “On the Relationship of Skepticism to Philoso-phy, Exposition of its Different Modifications and Comparison of the LatestForm with the Ancient One.” In Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Devel-opment of Post-Kantian Idealism. Revised edn. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett,2000.

“Wie der gemeine Menschenverstand die Philosophie nehme – dargestelletan den Werken des Herrn Krug.” Kritisches Journal der Philosophie (1802).Reprinted in Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 4, Jenaer Kritische Schriften. Edited byHartmut Buchner and Otto Poggeler. Hamburg: Meiner, 1968. Translatedand edited by George di Giovanni and H. S. Harris as “How the Ordinary

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Human Understanding Takes Philosophy (as displayed in the works of Mr.Krug).” In Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development of Post-KantianIdealism. Revised edn. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000.

G. W. F. Hegel: “System of Ethical Life” (1802/3) and “First Philosophy of Spirit”(1803/4): Part III of the System of Speculative Philosophy 1803/4. Edited andtranslated by H. S. Harris and T. M. Knox. Albany: State University of NewYork Press, 1979. Critical German Text: Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 5, Schriftenund Entwurfe (1799–1808). Edited by T. Ebert, M. Baum, and K. R. Meist.Hamburg: Meiner, 1998.

Phanomenologie des Geistes. Bamberg and Wurzburg, 1807. Reprinted in Gesam-melte Werke. Vol. 9. Edited by Wolfgang Bonsiepen and Reinhard Heede.Hamburg: Meiner, 1980. Translated by A. V. Miller as Hegel’s Phenomenologyof Spirit. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Wissenschaft der Logik. Vol. 1, Die objektive Logik. Nurnberg, 1812. Reprintedin Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 11, Wissenschaft der Logik, Erster Band: Die objek-tive Logik (1812/1813). Edited by Friedrich Hogemann and Walter Jaeschke.Hamburg: Meiner, 1978.

Wissenschaft der Logik. Vol. 1, Die objektive Logik. Book 2, “Die Lehre vomWesen.” Nurnberg, 1813. Reprinted in Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 11, Wissenschaftder Logik, Erster Band: Die objektive Logik (1812/1813). Edited by FriedrichHogemann and Walter Jaeschke. Hamburg: Meiner, 1978.

Wissenschaft der Logik oder die Lehre vom Begriff. Nurnberg, 1816. Reprintedin Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 12, Wissenschaft der Logik, Zweiter Band: Diesubjektive Logik (1816). Edited by Friedrich Hogemann and Walter Jaeschke.Hamburg: Meiner, 1981.

Wissenschaft der Logik. 2nd edn. Edited by Leopold von Henning. 2 vols. Berlin:Duncker and Humblot, 1841.

Encyclopedia Logic, as Hegel’s Logic or The Logic of Hegel. Translated byW. Wallace. London: Oxford University Press, 1873. Reprint, 1963.

Encyclopadie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse: Zum Gebrauchseiner Vorlesungen. 1st edn. Heidelberg, 1817. Reprinted in Gesammelte Werke.Vol. 13. Edited by Wolfgang Bonsiepen and Klaus Grotsch. Hamburg:Meiner, 2000.

Encyclopadie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse: Zum Gebrauchseiner Vorlesungen. 3rd edn. Heidelberg, 1830. Reprinted in Gesammelte Werke.Vol. 20. Edited by Wolfgang Bonsiepen and Hans-Christian Lucas. Ham-burg: Meiner, 1992.

Wissenschaft der Logik, erster Teil, Die objektive Logik. Vol. 1, Die Lehre vomSein. Stuttgart and Tubingen, 1832. Reprinted in Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 21,Wissenschaft der Logik, Teil I: Die objective Logik; Band I: Die Lehre vomSein (1832). Edited by Friedrich Hogemann and Walter Jaeschke. Hamburg:Meiner, 1985.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke: Vollstandige Ausgabe durch einen Vereinvon Freunden des Verewigten. Vols. 3–5, Wissenschaft der Logic. Edited byLeopold von Henning. Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1833.

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“Hegels ursprungliches System 1798–1806: Aus Hegels Nachlass.” Literarhis-torisches Taschenbuch. Edited by Robert Prutz. Leipzig, ii (1844).

The Logic of Hegel, Translated from the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences.Translated by William Wallace. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1873. 2ndedn, 1892.

Hegel’s Logic, Being Part One of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences(1830). Translated by William Wallace, with a Foreword by J. N. Findlay.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.

Theologische Jugendschriften. Edited by Hermann Nohl. Tubingen: Mohr, 1907.Reprint, Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1966.

Hegel’s Doctrine of Formal Logic, Being a Translation of the First Sectionof the Subjective Logic. Translated by H. S. Macran. Oxford: Clarendon,1912.

G. W. F. Hegel: Hegels erstes System. Edited by H. Eherenberg and H. Link.Heidelberg, 1915.

Jenenser Logik, Metaphysik und Naturphilosophie. Edited by Georg Lasson.Leipzig: Meiner, 1923.

Hegel’s Logic of World and Idea, Being a Translation of the Second and ThirdParts of the Subjective Logic. Translated by H. S. Macran. Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1929.

Hegel’s Science of Logic. Translated by W. H. Johnston and L. G. Struthers.2 vols. London: Allen & Unwin; New York: Macmillan, 1929.

Jenenser Realphilosophie I. Edited by Johannes Hoffmeister. Leipzig: Meiner,1932.

Wissenschaft der Logik. 2nd edn. Edited by Georg Lasson. Leipzig: Meiner,1932–1934.

Hegel’s Science of Logic. Translated by A. V. Miller. London: Allen & Unwin;New York: Humanities Press, 1969.

Science de la logique. Translated by S. Jankelevich after the Lasson edition. Paris:Aubier, 1969.

Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 7, Jenaer Systementwurfe II, Logik, Metaphysik, Natur-philosophie (1804/05). Edited by Rolf-Peter Horstmann and Johann HeinrichTrede. Hamburg: Meiner, 1982. Translation of the Logic and Metaphysicsedited by John Burbidge and George di Giovanni as The Jena System 1804–5:Logic and Metaphysics. Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UniversityPress, 1986.

Encyclopedia Logic: Part 1 of the “Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences” withthe Zusatze. Translated by T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting, and H. S. Harris.Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1991.

Vorlesungen, Ausgewahlte Nachschriften und Manuskripten. Vol. 11, Vorlesun-gen uber Logik und Metaphysik. Edited by Karen Gloy. Hamburg: Meiner,1992.

G. W. F. Hegel: Scienza della logica, Vols. 1 and 2. Translated by Arturo Moni.1924–25. Revised by Claudio Cesa. Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2001.

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Vorlesungen, Ausgewahlte Nachschriften und Manuskripten. Vol. 10, Vorlesungenuber die Logik. Edited by Udo Rameil and H.-Christian Lucas. Hamburg:Meiner, 2001.

Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 8, Jenaer Systementwurfe III. Edited by Rolf-PeterHorstmann. Hamburg: Meiner, 1976. Translated in part by Leo Rauch asHegel and the Human Spirit: A Translation of the Jena Lectures on the Phi-losophy of Spirit (1805–6) with Commentary. Detroit: Wayne State UniversityPress, 1983.

WORKS CITED BY THE EDITOR AND SELECTED READINGS

Baillie, James Black. The Origin and Significance of Hegel’s Logic. London: Mac-millan, 1901. Reprint, New York: Garland, 1984.

Balaban, Oded. “Circularity of Thought in Hegel’s Logic.” Review of Metaphysics,44.1 (September 1990): 95–109.

Baptist, Gabriella. Il problema della modalita nelle logiche di Hegel. Genoa: Pan-tograf, 1993.

Beiser, Frederick. Hegel. New York: Routledge, 2005.Bencivenga, Ermanno. Hegel’s Dialectical Logic. New York: Oxford University

Press, 2000.Berto, Francesco. “Modus tollens: Kant, Hegel e la critica della nozione logica di

sostanza.” Giornale di metafisica, 25.2 (May–August 2003): 287–304.Biard, J., D. Buvet, J. F. Kervegan, J. F. Kling, A. Lacmix, A. Lecrivain, and

M. Slubicki. Introduction a la lecture de la Science de la Logique de Hegel. 3vols. Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1981–1987.

Bole, T. “Contradiction in Hegel’s Science of Logic.” Review of Metaphysics, 40(March 1987): 515–534.

“The Dialectic of Hegel’s Logic as the Logic of Ontology.” Hegel-Jahrbuch, 19.4(1975): 152–159.

“The Success of the Project of Hegel’s Science of Logic.” Southwest PhilosophyReview: The Journal of The Southwestern Philosophical Society, 18.1 (January2002): 155–163.

“Taking Hegel’s Logic Seriously.” Southwest Philosophy Review: The Journal ofThe Southwestern Philosophical Society, 9.1 (January 1993): 51–61.

Bormann, Marco. “On the Deconstruction of Hegel’s Logic.” Prima Philosophia,13.4 (October–December 2000): 333–340.

Brandom, Robert. “The Structure of Desire and Recognition: Self-Consciousnessand Self-Constitution.” In Von der Logik zur Sprache. Stuttgarter Hegel-Kongress 2005. Edited by R. Bubner and G. Hindrichs. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2007.

Tales of the Mighty Dead. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.Bubner, Rudiger. “Zur Struktur dialektischer Logik.” In Hegel-Jahrbuch 1974.

Edited by Wilhelm R. Beyer. Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1974.Burbidge, John W. “The First Chapter of Hegel’s Larger Logic.” The Owl of

Minerva, 21.2 (Spring 1990): 177–183.

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Hegel on Logic and Religion: The Reasonableness of Christianity. Albany, NY:State University of New York Press, 1992.

“Hegel’s Conception of Logic.” In The Cambridge Companion to Hegel. Editedby Frederick C. Beiser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

“Hegel’s Logic.” In Handbook of the History of Logic. Vol. 3, The Rise of ModernLogic: From Leibniz to Frege. Edited by Dov. M. Gabbay and John Woods.Amsterdam: Elsevier/North Holland, 2004.

On Hegel’s Logic: Fragments of a Commentary. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Human-ities, 1981.

The Logic of Hegel’s “Logic”: An Introduction. Peterborough: Broadview, 2006.Review of Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 11, Wissenschaft der Logik, Erster Band: Die

objektive Logik (1812/13), by G. W. F. Hegel. The Owl of Minerva, 10.4 (1979):5–7.

Burkhardt, Bernd. Hegels “Wissenschaft der Logik” im Spannungsfeld der Kritik.New York: Olms, 1993.

Butler, Clark. Hegel’s Logic: Between Dialectic and History. Evanston, IL: North-western University Press, 1996.

Carlson, David Gray. A Commentary to Hegel’s “Science of Logic.” Basingstoke andNew York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

“Hegel’s Theory of Measure.” Cardozo Law Review, 25.1 (2003): 129–213.“Hegel’s Theory of Quantity.” Cardozo Law Review, 23.6 (2002): 2027–2155.ed. Hegel’s Theory of the Subject. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan,

2005.Cave, George P. “The Dialectic of Becoming in Hegel’s Logic.” The Owl of Minerva,

16.2 (Spring 1985): 147–160.Centrone, Stefania. “Infinito matematico e soggettivita: Notazioni sulla sezione

quantita della Scienza della Logica di Hegel.” Giornale Critico della FilosofiaItaliana, 22.3 (September–December 2002): 430–448.

Cirulli, F. Hegel’s Critique of Essence: A Reading of the Wesenslogik. New York:Routledge, 2006.

Cutrofello, Andrew. “Hegel’s Science of Logic and Idea of Truth.” Idealistic Studies:An International Philosophical Journal, 13.1 (1983): 33–49.

Damerow, P. and W. Lefevre. “Die wissenschaftliche Problemlage fur Hegels‘Logik.’” In Hegel-Jahrbuch 1979. Edited by W. R. Beyer. Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1980.

De Boer, Karin. “The Dissolving Force of the Concept: Hegel’s OntologicalLogic.” Review of Metaphysics, 57.4 (June 2004): 787–822.

Deligiorgi, Katerina. “Kant, Hegel, and the Bounds of Thought.” Bulletin of theHegel Society of Great Britain, 45–46 (2002): 56–71.

De Vos, Ludovicus. Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik: Die absolute Idee. Einleitung undKommentar. Bonn: Bouvier, 1983.

De Vries, W. A. “Hegel’s Logic and Philosophy of Mind.” In Routledge History ofPhilosophy. Vol. 6, The Age of German Idealism. Edited by R. C. Solomonand K. M. Higgins. London: Routledge, 1993.

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Di Carlo, Leonardo. “Dal concetto alla natura nella Scienza della logica di Hegel.”Teoria: Rivista di Filosofia, 24.2 (2004): 79–91.

Di Giovanni, George. “The Category of Contingency in the Hegelian Logic”(1980). Reprinted in Selected Essays on G. W. F. Hegel. Edited by L. Stepelevich.New York: Humanities Press, 1992.

ed. Essays on Hegel’s Logic. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.Freedom and Religion in Kant and His Immediate Successors: The Vocation of

Humankind, 1774–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.“Hegel’s Anti-Spinozism: The Transition to Subjective Logic and the End of

Classical Metaphysics.” The Cardozo Public Law, Policy, and Ethics Journal,3 (2005): 45–60.

“Reflection and Contradiction: A Commentary on Some Passages of Hegel’sScience of Logic” (1973). Reprinted in G. W. F. Hegel: Critical Assessments.Vol. 3. Edited by Robert Stern. London: Routledge, 1993.

“Sacramentalizing the World: On Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre of 1810.” InGrund- und Methodenfragen in Fichtes Spatwerk. Fichte-Studien 31. Editedby Gunter Zoller and Hans Georg von Mainz. Amsterdam and New York:Rodopi, 2007.

Doz, Andre. La logique de Hegel et les problemes traditionnels de l’ontologie. Paris:Vrin, 1987.

“L’entree dans la Logique de Hegel.” Bulletin de la societe francaise de philosophie,89.1 (January–March 1995): 1–27.

Dubarle, Dominique and Andre Doz. Logique et dialectique. Paris: Larousse, 1972.Dusing, Klaus. Das Problem der Subjektivitat in Hegels Logik. Bonn: Bouvier, 1976.Eley, Lothar. Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik. Leitfaden und Kommentar. Munich:

Wilhelm Fink, 1976.Erdmann, J. E. Grundriß der Logik und der Metaphysik. 4th edn. Halle: Schmid,

1864. Translated by B. C. Burt, as Outlines of Logic and Metaphysics. London:Swan Sonnenschein, 1896.

Falk, Hans-Peter. Das Wissen in Hegels “Wissenschaft der Logik.” Symposiumno. 83. Freiburg: Alber, 1983.

Falkenburg, Brigitte. “How to Save the Phenomena.” In Hegel and the Philosophyof Nature. Edited by Stephen Houlgate. Albany, NY: State University of NewYork Press, 1998.

Ferrara, Vincent J. “Hegel’s Logic: A Dialectical Substantiation of Anselm’s Onto-logical Argument.” Analecta Anselmiana, 4.1 (1975): 261–274.

Ferrer, Diogo Falcao. “La function systematique de l’idee de la vie dans la ‘Sciencede la logique’ de Hegel.” In Das Leben Denken, Erster Teil (Hegel-Jahrbuch2006). Edited by Andreas Arndt. Berlin: Akademie, 2006.

Ferrini, Cinzia. Dai primi hegeliani a Hegel. Naples: Citta del Sole, 2003.“Logica e filosofia della natura nella dottrina dell’essere hegeliana I.” Rivista di

storia della filosofia, 4 (1991): 701–735.“Logica e filosofia della natura nella dottrina dell’essere hegeliana II.” Rivista di

storia della filosofia, 1 (1992): 104–124.

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“On the Relation between ‘Mode’ and ‘Measure’ in Hegel’s Science of Logic:Some Introductory Remarks.” The Owl of Minerva, 20.1 (Fall 1988): 21–49.

Fichera, Giuseppe. Il problema del cominciamento logico e la categoria del divenirein Hegel e nei suoi critici. Catania: Istituto universitario di magistero, 1956.

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Index

abscissa and ordinate, 223, 231absolute, the: and absolute necessity, 487; and

beginning, 740; as the concept, 339, 521;determinate, 471; as emanation, 474; asessence, 337; exposition of, 466–468, 471,477; and the finite, 385; as ground, 467, 468;as indifference, 328; life of, xvi; mode of,470–471, 477; nature of, 466, 477; presumed751; as totality, 469

abstraction, 69–70, 537–538, 546, 548, 549accidentality, 490–492acids and bases, 310–311action, 17, 407, 637, 729, 732–733, 734activity, 362, 661, 664actuality, 339, 419, 450, 465; absolute, 465, 485,

486, 489; the absolute as, 471, 477–478; andthe concept, 30, 548; essential relation as,464; as a fact, 586; formal, 478; asimmediacy, 628; as manifestation, 478;moments of, 465, 478; necessary, 490; real,478, 482; reflected, 480; as singularity, 713

addition, 172–173, 703Aenesidemus, see Schulze, G. E.affinity, 646; chemical, 308, 310–317, 318;

elective, 303, 308–310, 311–312, 314allness, 572–573alteration, 90, 290amount, 169, 170, 171, 182, 183, 272, 278an ihm (ihr), lxv–lxviian ihm (ihr) selbst, lxv–lxviian sich (selbst), lxv–lxviianalysis, 746, 748Anaxagoras, 29animal, 717Ansichsein, lxviianthropology, 676, 694appearance, 339, 418, 437–438, 521; concrete

existence as, 434, 437–438, 441; moments of,418, 438; the thing as 436; untruth of, 671

Archimedes: on the circle, 261, 269; on the cone,269; on curves, 257, 258; on the line, 174

argumentation, 407Aristotle: on the categories, 355; and elenchi,

290–291; and logic, 30, 525; on number, 178;and the potentia, 280; and pure thought, 14;on the soul, 692; on space and time,164–165; and the syllogism, 591, 601; and theunderstanding, 165

arithmetic: and analysis, 702–705; analyticcharacter, 173, 178, 373, 704; calculation in,171–173, 175–177, 236, 607; and the concept,178; and intuition, 539; and machines,181–182, 607, 704; and number, 170, 171–173;and the positive and negative, 371–374; seealso addition, division, multiplication, powersand roots, and subtraction

art, xxi, 735astronomy, 194, 333atom, 313, 632atomism, 134–135, 137, 155attraction, 154, 643attribute, 469–470, 489aufheben, Aufhebung, lxviiaxiom, 602, 719–720

Bacon, Francis, 297bad, the, 712Bardili, C. G., 32Barrow, Isaac, 223, 244–245, 268, 269Bayle, Pierre, 165becoming, 80–81; dialectic against, 79; in

essence, 346; and the fact, 416; meaning of,509; privileging of, xxxviii; as synthesis ofbeing and nothing, 72, 80; as the truth ofbeing and nothing, 60, 67, 68, 69, 216

beginning of philosophy, 45–48, 51–52; theabsolute as, 55; a definition as, 29; God as,55; grounding of, 750; the “I” as, 53; asimmanent in philosophical development, 49;as immediate, 48; intellectual intuition as,54–55; as mediated, 46–47; and method,738–740, 748–750; nothing as, 75–76;

777

778 Index

beginning of philosophy (cont.)as provisional, 751; and subjective cognition,713–715

beginning of the world, 78–79being: as abstraction, 73, 74; and actuality, 477;

and becoming, 69, 80, 81; as beginning, 47,48, 50, 52–55, 749; and the concept, 508, 519,522, 526, 626, 739, 752; difference in, 535; andessence, 334–335, 337–338, 413, 418, 420; andthe fact, 415; as immediacy, 47, 50, 58, 59,462, 530, 628; as indeterminate,xxxvii–xxxviii, 84; as indifference, 326, 328,334; logic of, 39; as a logical determination,355; and measure, 328; as mediated, 50; as amoment, 82, 145; and movement, 337; andnecessity, 487, 490, 504; and nothing, 59,61–69, 70, 74, 78, 80, 82, 216; and objectivity,628; self-equality of, 356; and senseperception, 627; as shine, 342–344; as such,282; and thought, 739; as totality, 466; andtruth, 672; and the universal, 530, 531, 558

being-for-itself: completion of, 144, 145; asexistence, 55; the infinite as, 120; in measure,300, 301; as a moment of quality, 145; as such,126–132

being-for-one, 128being-for-other, 98being-in-itself, 92–93, 94; see also AnsichseinBerthollet, Claude, 311–312, 313, 314Berzelius, Jons Jakob, 312–314, 315–317Bestimmung, xxxviii, 95, 663, 666Beziehung, sich beziehen, lxviiibirth, 321blessedness, 532Blumenbach, J. F., 711body, 641–642Boehme, Jacob, 88Brandom, Robert, lvBrahma, 73, 283, 284Brockmeyer, Henry C., xvi, lxiiiBuddhism, 60, 75, 284Burt, B. C., lxviiButler, Joseph, lxxii

Cajetanus, Thomas, xxxvicalculus: and analysis, 706; application of, 235,

242–243; approximation in, 230, 231; attackon, 215; and the concept, 544, 546; andconcrete existence, 233; differential, 251, 253,254, 259; equations of, 237–238, 239; and theinfinitely small, 232–234, 261–262; integral,251, 253, 259; and mathematical procedure,205; and mechanics, 225, 251–252; method of,235–236; omission of terms, 235; and powers,236; principles of, 237; Remarks on, xli–xlv;

semblance of arbitrariness, 243; semblance ofinexactitude, 220; subject matter of, 244;and the syllogism, 607, 608; see also abscissaand ordinate, coefficient, differential,function, increment, infinitesimal, series

capital, 372Carnot, Lazare, 218, 227categories: of being, xlvi, 354; of the concept,

xlix–liii; of essence, xlv–xlviii; as knots, 17;in language, 12; modal, xliii–xlv; truecritique of, 66

causality, relation of: 489, 510–511; action andreaction in, 500–503; and the concept, 504,635; conditioned, 502; determinate,494–500, 502; formal, 492–494, 499, 500;and the hypothetical judgment, 577; and thehypothetical syllogism, 621; and the infinite,121, 498–499, 502; as reciprocity of action,504; and spirit, 281, 496–497; and teleology,664; and the thing, 427

cause: and the concept, 740; efficient and final,651; etymology, 513; and freedom, 657;proximate and remote, 496

Cavalieri, Francesco Bonaventura, 217, 258, 265,266–267, 268

center, the, 640Cesa, Claudio, lxiv, lxxivchemism: as the concept, 657; as an immanent

principle, 652; and the judgment, 645; andlife, 686; meaning of, 645; and necessity,652; and neutrality, 647; objectivity as, 630,640–644; and process, 646; and purpose,656, 662

chemistry, 321, 430, 649China, 75circle, 261, 264, 750, 751coefficient, 242cognition: absolute, 752; analytic, 700–706,

710; content of, 748; as contrasted withperception, 718; as enquiry, 737; finite,698–699, 738, 740; the idea as, 675, 679, 688,689, 697, 698; and intuition, 738; and logic,13, 46, 676; and method, 737–738; rational,744; synthetic, 700, 706; systematic, 713; seealso erkennen, Erkenntnis

cold, 77–78color, 188, 252, 430, 581, 715coming-to-be and passing-away, 322common sense, 61; on being and nothing, 62;

and the categories, 18; confusions of,62–63; on dialectic, 742; and theunderstanding, 25; see also ordinarythinking, thinking of external reflection,thinking of the understanding, uneducatedthought

Index 779

communication: and chemism, 647; andcognition, 699; material, 636; and realmechanical process, 638; spiritual, 635–636;and universality, 641

concept(s): classification of, 541–544; clear andobscure, 541; contrary and contradictory,543, 579; distinct and indistinct, 541–542; andordinary life, 628; subordinate andcoordinate, 543–544

concept, the: 206, 505, 508, 512; absolute, 339,533; as absolute ground, 545; as the absolutejudgment, 673; and the absolute relation,490; adequate, 542; and algebra, 544–545; asbeing, 752; categories of, xlix–liii; andcausality, 504; and chemism, 649, 650; theconcept of, li, 514, 526; and concepts, 19; asconcrete, 654; contempt for, 514; andcontradiction, 745; creativity of, 534;cunning of, 291; and definition, 708–709;determinate, 526, 537–538, 540; the differenceof, 580; division of, 526–527, 554; andessence, 462; exhaustion of, 716; andexistence, 626; as the fact, 19; faculty of,529; as for-itself, 693; formal, 527, 528; free,325; fulfilled, 752; genesis of, 509, 517, 530; asgenus, 689; and God, 627; and ground, 389,408; and identity, 577; as impulse, 673; andintuition, xviii–xix, xxiii; and life, 689; logicof, 39, 42; in logic, 39–40; as the logos, 19;and method, 737–738, 752; moments of,529–530; movement of, 10, 737, 745; andnature, 536, 717; and objectivity, 668–669;omnipotence of, 586; particular, 534–540;and personality, 735; and pictorialrepresentation, 536; and the predicate, 551;pure, 529–530, 547, 627; as purpose, 673; andquantity, 545–546, 548; real, 527; and reality,518, 522, 673; realization of, 550, 624; andreason, 19, 540; as soul, 735; as spirit, 436;subjectivity of, 673; and substance, 16, 509,511; and synthetic cognition, 728; andteleology, 664; as the thing-in-itself, 564; andunity, 158, 588; universal, 530–534

concrete existence, 69; and actuality, 477–478;as appearance, 465; as being, 418; as essence,422, 437; and essential relation, 449; and thefact, 417, 418; as immediacy, 628; andmediation, 420–422; true, 445; truth of,434; see also Existenz

condition, 411–418, 577, 620–621congruence of figures, 265, 267connection, 556, 563–564; see also Beziehungconsciousness, 41; as being-for-itself, 127; as

contrasted with thought, 41; as determinate,74; in Hegel’s early lectures, xix, xx;

immediate, 47; modern, 20; opposition of,39; pure, 74; spirit as, 10, 694, 695; andtranscendental idealism, 428

constants, 238, 250–251constitution, 426constitution, political, 287, 323construction, 146, 723content: absolute, 467, 471; and the absolute,

471; and causality, 494–495, 497; andcondition, 414; and form, 397–398; logical,562; and the subject, 697

contingency, 480–481; and absolute necessity,487–488; actuality as, 478, 486; and thejudgment, 584; and real necessity, 485, 486

continuity, 154, 155, 164, 165–166contradiction: absolute, 684; and the categories

of essence, xlvi; and the concept, 745;essence as, 354, 374–378; and formalthinking, 745; objective and subjective sensesof, 742–743; as pain, 684; principle of,360–361, 381, 384–385; and reason, 26; andthe syllogism, 594–595

copula: as ground, 586; in the judgment, 555,556, 568, 574; repletion of, 587

corpuscular theory, 313, 316creation, xlix, 9, 29, 533crime, 567critical philosophy, 16, 27, 30Croce, Benedetto, lvcrystallization, 400

Dasein, lxviii–lxix, 69death, 321deed, 640definition: of a concept, 542; preliminary, 34;

second, 722; as singular, 713; syntheticcognition as, 708–713; and the theorem, 718,725

degree, 183–185, 187–188, 202, 307demonstration, 366density, 332Descartes, Rene, li; on God, 625; his tangential

method, 223, 248–249, 250determinateness: absolute, 532; and being, 85,

352, 355; and form, 391, 461; in general, 85,580; as negation, 78; as particularity, 534,536–537; as quality, 391; as such, 84, 96; andthe universal, 532–533

determination, 95–96; of being, 351; of theconcept, 538, 545, 548; conflict of, 26; ascontrasted with constitution, 96–97; ascontrasted with determinateness, 95–96;form-, 460–461; of the judgment, 563–564;and otherness, 103; of reflection, 351, 352–353,354–356, 374, 380; thought, 15–18, 35

780 Index

determinism, 633, 651development, 556dialectic, 80; and discourse, xxxix; in the early

lectures, xx; and the ethical, 742; in logic,34–35; science of, 741–744

dialogue, xxxixdifference, 374; absolute, 357, 361–362; and the

concept, 540; as contradiction, 374;determinate, 364, 366; essence as, 354,361–374; and form, 391; moments of, 362,367; and particularity, 543; in its truth, 535;see also Unterschied

differential, 224–227Diogenes the Cynic, 742Diogenes Laertius, 164, 525Dirksen, Enno Heeren, 230discourse: and dialectic, xxxix; and dialogue,

xxxix; in the Logic, xxxiv, xxxvii; asmeaning-generating performances, xxxiv;progression of, l–li; and the transition tosubjectivity, xlix

discreteness, 154, 165–166diversity, 374; essence as, 362–365; and form,

391; law of, 365–367; and method, 740; andself-subsisting matter, 430; see alsoVerschiedenheit

division(s), 713–718, 725division (arithmetical), 175, 373division, preliminary, 34, 38drive, 382duplicity, 746duty, 107dynamism, 186

Einzeln, lxxEleatics, the: and dialectic, 742; and idealism,

129; and pantheism, 61; on pure being, 60;and pure thought, 65; and quantity, 164

electricity, 310, 315–317, 430, 636ellipse, 264empiricism, 581Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in

Outline, xiii, lxiv, 11, 754–755ens, 42Erdmann, Johann Eduard, li, lv, lxviierkennen, Erkenntnis, lxxerror, 380essence, 390; and absolute necessity, 487; as a

beginning, 749; and being, 337–339, 340,341, 342, 418; between being and concept,339; as being-in-and-for-itself, 338, 339;categories of, xlv–xlviii; and the concept,462, 508, 522, 526; doctrine of, 40; asessentiality, 354; etymology of, 337, 462; asan existent, 387; and form, 391, 392–393; as

immediate, 345; and the inner, 461, 462; asmatter, 393; and measure, 285; moments of,339; and movement, 391; simple, 382; as thetotality, 338, 466; ubiquity of, 382

essential and unessential, the, xlv, 341–342ether, 402ethical, the, 742Euclid: his geometry, 721–722; and the line,

174, 719; and the parallelogram, 266; on thetriangle, 721–722

Euler, Leonhard, 220–222, 223, 241, 544evil, 140, 379, 567, 732Ex nihilo, nihil fit, 61existence, 83–84, 90; and becoming, 81; and the

concept, 626; as determinate being, 84; andessence, 341, 351; and finitude, 126; andground, 413–414; as indifference, 328; as alogical determination, 355; as poor, 626; andpossibility, 69; and quality, 145; truth of,416; see also Dasein

Existenz, lxviii–lxix, 69, 754experience, 358–359

fact, the: 324; absolute, 460; dual nature of,585; essence as, 414–418; and logic, 19;originary, 513; and the relation of inner andouter, 460, 462; universality of, 617; see alsoSache

facticity, xxxii, xxxiii–xxxiv, xxxv, xlvfaith, 422falling bodies, 286, 297, 299–300, 301, 442fatalism, 651fate, 284, 639, 640feeling: as independent, 15; of the living being,

683, 685; philosophy on, 519; of self, 686Fermat, Pierre de, 223, 245Fichte, J. G.: his account of experience,

xxix–xxxi; and conceptualization, xxxii; andfacticity, xxxii, lii; on freedom, xxv, xxxi,xxxiii; Hegel’s debt to, xxiii–xxiv, lviii; andthe “I”, xxxiii, 132; and idealism, 131–132,343; on the infinite, 196–197; and Kant,xxix–xxxii; and nature, xxxii, xlvii, lvii, lix; onthe object (Gegenstand), xxxiv; and theought, 107; and philosophical advance, 71; asa post-modernist, xxxiii; and pragmatichistory, xxxiii; and reason, xxv, xxxii; andSchelling, xxv; on the subject, xxiv–xxv; onthe subjective and objective, li; on substance,xlix; and truth, xxvi, lii; on theunderstanding, xxxii; Wissenschaftslehre,xxxii–xxxiii

Findlay, J. N., lxivfinitude (the finite): and the absolute, 468;

etymology, 101; existence as, 101–105; and the

Index 781

infinite, lxxi, 108, 109–110, 115; and perishing,101; and perishing of the perishing, 102, 103;and things, 66, 385, 672; and universality,534, 540

first practical demand, 65Fischer, Ernst Gottfried, 311, 314force(s): of attraction and repulsion, 145–150,

332, 400; centripetal and centrifugal, 150–151,330–332, 402; the conditionedness of,456–457; and contradiction, 382; expressionof, 458, 459, 460, 461; and the infinite, 459,737; and intensive magnitude, 186–187; inphysics, 13; of reason, 737; the solicitation of,457–459; and the spiritual, 281, 436; of theunderstanding, 538; see also relation,essential

form: absolute, 460, 461, 467, 471, 477; and theabsolute, 471; and the absolute idea,736–737; as absolute necessity, 486; activityof, 395, 396; and causality, 497, 498; andcondition, 414; and content, 397–398; andessence, 391–393; and ground, 398–400; theinfinite, 42; and matter, 393–397; andobjectivity, 736; and reflection, 392; of thesyllogism, 614–615

fraction, 208–210freedom: abstract, 140; and beginning, 740;

categories of, lii; and the concept, 505, 509,512–513, 526, 527, 651, 654; consciousness of,428; and contingency, 504; and fatalism, 651;of the “I”, 514; of the idea, 752–753; and theinfinite, 589; and necessity, 488, 504, 509,511; and the negative, 746; in thought, 16

friction, 641friendship, 646Fries, Jakob Friedrich, 31function, 215fur ihm (ihr) selbst, lxv–lxviifur sich (selbst), lxv–lxvii

Galilei, Galileo, 297Gauss, Carl Friedrich, 705Gegenstand, gegenstandlich, Gegenstandlichkeit,

xxxiv, xxxvi, lxx–lxxiGentile, Giovanni, lvgenus: and division, 716, 717; and fate, 639; and

the judgment, 708; process, 679, 686–688;proximate, 579–580; real, 646; and species,578–580; and universality, 533, 574, 617

geometry: analytic character of, 173–174; axiomsof, 720; beginning in, 714; the fundamentalproposition of, 247; and intuition, 539, 724;and number, 170–171; preeminence of,724–725; as a science of the finite, 725; andspatial objects, 260, 709; theorems of,

720–722; see also circle, ellipse, parallel lines,parallelogram, trapezium, and triangle

Geraets, T. F., lxiv, lxv, lxvii, lxxiGerman Empire, 594Gesammelte Werke, xiv, xv, lxxivGod: abstract definition of, 66; and abstraction,

547; as being, 285; and creation, xlix; as theground of nature, 406; as an idealization,128, 129; as immediate, 463; and the infinite,547; and logic, 29; as measure, 285; as nature,463; and the negative, 62; properties of, 626;and reason, 422; as spirit, 463, 626; asthought, 463; see also proof of God’sexistence

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, xxvi, 303good, the, 684, 729, 731Good, F. A., xiiigovernment, 642gradualness, 290, 320, 322grammar, 36gravity, 300, 314, 318, 405–406Greeks, the, 284ground: as abyss, 422; and appearance, 446;

complete, 408–410; as condition, 411–415;-connection, 408–410; and content,397–400; determinate, 398–410; essence as,377–378, 386–388, 390; etymology, 422;formal, 400, 405, 406; and the hypotheticaljudgment, 577; and the hypotheticalsyllogism, 621; moments of, 387–388;principle of, 388;real, 403–408; retreat to, 49; sufficient, 408;and teleology, 388, 664; see also zu Grundegehen

habit, 15Haller, Albrecht, Baron von, 194Harris, H. S., lxiv, lxv, lxvii, lxxiHarris, William T., lxiiiheat, 636Hegel, Karl, xiiiHenning, Leopold von, xivHeraclitus, 60, 164–165history, xxvi–xxvii, xxxiii, lx–lxi, 496–497Houlgate, Stephen, lxivhuman being, 12, 15, 96, 463Hume, David, 691

“I”, the: 53; and composition, 543; theconcept as, 514–516; as an idealization, 128;as infinite, 195; and the object, 629; andpure quantity, 156; as singularity, 514; assubject and object, 691–692; andtranscendental idealism, 428; as universality,514, 533

782 Index

idea, the: absolute, 732–733, 734, 735, 736, 752;actuality of, 671–672; and the concept, 518,527, 542, 669, 670–675, 696, 699, 720, 752; ascontrasted with representation, 670; andGod, 627; of the good, 732; immediate,676, 686; as logical, 736, 752; moments of,675; practical, 729–734, 735; and purpose,630, 654; as rational, 671; repose of, 674; therise of, 523; as subject-object, 673; assubjective, 696, 697; summary of, lii; andthe syllogism, 696, 699; theoretical, 697,729, 731, 735; of the true, 732

ideal, the, 119idealism, 124; and appearance, 342–343; and

scepticism, 343; subjective, 125, 157, 428, 629,701; transcendental, 27, 30, 282, 428; versionsof, 129–132

idealized, the, 119, 124, 128, 129; see also Ideelle,das

Ideelle, das, lxxiidentity: absolute, 467, 469, 471; abstract, 356;

and difference, 361–362, 367; essence as, 354,356–361; and external reflection, 67; andform, 391; in the judgment, 555–556; law of,18; and separation, 358; and universality, 543

ignorance, 380immediacy: abstract, 508; and the concept, xlix,

536; and facticity, xxxiv, xxxv; and mediation,46, 61, 744; reflection as, 347–348; of theuniversal, 558

impact, 643impulse, 15, 656, 657, 697, 737, 740in ihm (ihr), lxv–lxviiin ihm (ihr) selbst, lxv–lxviiin sich (selbst), lxv–lxviiincrement, 235, 241–242indeterminateness, 74, 749indifference: absolute, 326, 333–334; duty of, 65;

and essence, 333–334; inverse ratio of, 327;and measure, 333; moment of, 383; positingof, 327–330; and Spinoza, 333

individual, 87, 687; see also Individuumindividuality, 547, 594, 643Individuum, lxxIndia, 73, 283induction, see syllogism, theinfinite, the: as the absolute, 108–109; bad, 111,

113, 119, 120–121, 192, 211–213, 572, 596; asbecoming, 118; as being, 118; asbeing-for-itself, xxxix; as a circle, 119; andcontradiction, 382; as existence, 118; andexternal reflection, 349; and the finite, 27,109, 110–111, 112, 113, 114, 115–116, 118, 123–124,743; finitized, 115; and force, 459; in general,

109; in Hegel’s early lectures, xxi; of measure,323–324; metaphysical, 204; and negation,112; and the one, 137; progression, 113,116–118, 120–121, 749; true, xli, xlii, 86, 109,118–119, 123, 204

infinite, the quantitative (mathematical):190–191, 204, 206, 207; approximation to,192; bad, 192–194, 210, 276; definitions of,217–222; incorrect representations of, 215;process, 191–192, 202–203; and quality,190–191, 280, 323; relative and absolute, 212;and the true infinite, 207, 213–216, 218–219,222; two kinds of, 210, 211

infinitesimal, 215, 216, 219–221, 222, 223–224,236, 259, 260, 269

inherence, 591innocence, 379–380intention, 68“Introduction to Philosophy”, xviintuition, 162; and cognition, 714, 738; and the

concept, xviii–xix, xxiii, 519; intellectual, 55,539; material of, 518; philosophy on, 519; andthe universal, 539

irritability, 682, 683

Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich: on abstraction, 72;his critique of Kant, xxx–xxxi, 71–73; andmetaphysics, 727–728; and philosophicaladvance, 71–74; on space, 72, 73; onSpinoza, xlviii

John of St. Thomas, xxxviJohnston, W. H., lxivjudgment, the: 544, 549, 552, 558; absolute, 586;

apodictic, 582, 629; assertoric, 582, 583–584,585; categorical 575–576, 578, 584; the conceptas, 528, 530, 550, 553–554; of the concept, 557;as contrasted with conceiving, 550; ascontrasted with the proposition, 355, 553;disjunctive, 578–581, 582; and the division ofthe logic, 38, 39; etymology, 552; of existence,556, 557–568, 569, 581, 593, 658; faculty of,529; hypothetical, 576–578, 584, 620; infinite,567–568; of inherence, 557; of life, 678; andmethod, 740, 741; of modality, 582;moments of, 556; movement of, 556; ofnecessity, 557, 575–581, 582, 708; negative,562–567, 576, 601, 604, 744; as objective, 554,585; and objectivity, 631; particular, 570–572,584; positive, 525, 557, 562–563, 576, 604,744; problematic, 582, 584–585; qualitative,557; and quantity, 569; of reflection, 556,568–575, 581, 609; of the singular, 570, 584;and subjectivity, 582; subsumption, 570, 574;and truth, 67, 525, 697, 744; the truth of,

Index 783

585; and unity, 588; universal, 572–575; usualdefinition of, 553

Kant, Immanuel: on the antinomies, 157–164,165, 198, 454, 595, 654, 727; on appearance,343; on arithmetic, 172–173, 703; on bodies,163; on the categories, xxviii, 40, 41, 56, 525,541; on composition, 159–163; on theconcept, 63, 64–65, 421, 516, 520; on theconcepts of reason, 670–671; on concreteexistence, 420; on contradiction, 35; hiscritical project, xxvii–xxix; Critique of Reason,654; and dialectic, xx, 35, 741, 743; onfreedom and necessity, 654–655; on geometry,173–174; and the “I”, xxxiii, 132, 515–516, 690,691, 692, 693; on the idea, 670, 671; andidealism, 131–132, 343, 523; on the infinite,193–195, 206–207; on judgment, 350; onlogic, 30, 40, 520, 525; on matter, 146–150;his merit, 40; and metaphysics, 693, 727;and method, liii, 727; on modality, xliii–xlv,57, 282–283; on the moral law, xxxiii; on theobject (Gegenstand), xxxiv; on the object(Objekt), 515; and the ought, 107; and theproofs of God’s existence, 63–65, 66, 420,628; on purposiveness, 654–656; on rationalpsychology, 690–691, 692–694; and reality,517, 522, 523; on reason, 520–521, 693; andreflection, 350; on relation, 57; on repulsionand attraction, 146–150; on the soul,188–189; on space, 149–150, 161–163, 198,200–201; on the subjective and objective, li;and subjectivism, xxx; on the sublime, 193,195; and the synthetic a priori, 173–175, 519,520, 524, 702; on the thing-in-itself, xxix, xxx,xlix, 41, 564, 692; on thought, 522; on time,198–200; and the transcendental deduction,515; and the transcendental ideality ofperception, 158; and Transcendental Logic,xxxiv, 40–41; and triplicity, 746; on truth,521, 523–524, 525; on the understanding, 7;and the unity of apperception, xxiii, 515, 520

Kepler, Johannes: and measure, 297; andmotion, 252, 263; and Newton, 234, 298; andspatial objects, 261; and stereometric objects,257

Kierkegaard, Søren, livknowledge, absolute, 29, 675Krishna, 283Krug, Wilhelm Traugott, lvii

Lagrange, Joseph-Louis, 222, 225; and calculus,227–229, 239; on final ratios, 221; onincrements, 241; and the infinite, 223; and

mechanics, 223, 252; and Newton, 227;and the rectification of curves, 256–257, 258;and series, 259, 260; and tangents, 246–248

Lambert, Johann Heinrich, 544Landen, John, 223language: and chemism, 647; Chinese, 12;

German, 12; and grammar, 36; in Hegel’searly lectures, xix; Latin, 82; and logic, 12,19; in the Logic, xxxiv–xxxv; and spirit, 36;and thought, 12; and the universal, 91

Lasson, Georg, xiv, lxxivlaw(s): of appearance, 438, 440–444, 448; and

change, 323; and communication, 636; ofcontinuity, 218; etymology, 440; kingdom of,441, 442, 444, 445–446; mechanism as, 640,643–644

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm: on concepts, 608;on consciousness, 107, 131; and difference,366; on God, 475; and idealism, 130–131, 137,343; on infinitesimals, 220, 223; onmagnitude, 706; his method, 245; on themonad, 130–131, 137, 343, 474–476, 632; andNewton, 401; and plurality, 137; and theprinciple of sufficient reason, 388; onquantity, 156; on the syllogism, 607;terminology of, xliii; on triangles, 268

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, lxxiilever, 82life: and abstraction, 547; and causality, 496;

and the concept, 517; and contradiction, 382,384; and genus, 687; the idea as, 675, 689,694; the logical as contrasted with thescientific view of, 677–678; moments of,678–679; natural, 677; process, 679,684–686; and purposiveness, 654; asuniversality, 533, 678; see also livingindividual

light: and absolute necessity, 488; and calculus,252; and color, 581; and darkness, 69, 379; ofnature, 489; and perception 402; andpolarity, 13; and quantity, 156

likeness and unlikeness, 363–365, 367limit, 98–101, 169; and determination, 103; of

discrete magnitude, 167; and essence, 338; ofnumber, 169–170; qualitative as contrastedwith quantitative, 153; of the ratio, 228–229;and the something, 565; and spatial objects,99, 100

living individual, 678, 680, 683logic: and the absolute idea, 736; analogy in,

614; the beginning of, 23; of the concept,507; and content 18–19, 23, 24, 27, 29;current state of, 31–32; definition of, 28, 38;development of 19–20; disfigurations of, 31;

784 Index

logic: and the absolute idea (cont.)division of, 38–43; and education, 36–38;empirical, 541; the fate of, 8; as formal, 24,27, 522, 523, 524; formalism in, 524, 628; andGod, 29; and grammar, 36; and humannature, 12; importance of, 605; and thein-itself, 94; and the judgment, 563, 564,567; and mathematics, 19; as means, 14; andmetaphysics, xiv, xvii, 313; and method, 32,33; natural, 15, 16, 37; and notation, 544;objective, 39, 40, 42, 509; parts of, 43; andphenomenology, xxii–xxiv; previoustreatment of, 11–12; pure and applied, 676;pure essentialities of, 10; as pure knowledge,47; and reality, 522–523; as the realm ofshadows, 37; and reason, 29; and reckoning,32; reformation of, 31; and science, 23;science of, 9, 752, 753; subject matter of, 14,676; subjective, 39, 42; as supernatural, 12;task of, 17, 19; transcendental, 40; and truth,24, 523–525, 676; and youth, 14

Logic, the: beginning of, xxxiv, xxxvii–xxxix;end of, lii; first adumbration of, xxi; as aform of life, liii; genesis of, xxvii;hermeneutic reading of, lix–lx; influence of,liv; and Kant, xxvii; and metaphysics, xxvii,liii–liv; and nature, xliv–xlv; ontologicalreading of, lv–lix; the parts of, xxxvii;progression in, xxxv; publication of, xii–xiv;and pure reason, lxi–lxii; readings of, xii;revisions to, 754–756; and the system, xiv;textual exegesis of, lv; and TranscendentalLogic, xi, xxii; translations of, lxiii–lxiv

“Logic and Metaphysics”, xii, xv–xvi, xvii, xxiilove, 532, 646Lully, Raymond, 607

Macran, H. S., lxiiimagnetism, 310, 430, 636magnitude, 56, 153, 190, 196, 206; alterability of,

214; continuous, 166–167, 182, 230, 266, 269;discrete, 166, 167, 182, 269, 703; extensive,182; final, 218; generated, 219; indivisible,266; intensive, 182, 183–189, 693; opposite,371–373; and powers, 236; as proportion,264–265; sciences of, 702; spatial, 170;vanishing, 218, 298; variable, 295

Malebranche, Nicolas, 129–130mark, 541–542, 711Marx, Karl, lvmass, 187materialism, 542mathematics: and composition, 155; and the

empirical, 220; formalism in, 179, 215, 230;and the infinite, 204, 216, 545; and logic, 19,

32; and metaphysics, 204–205, 215–216; andmethod, 32; and physics, 234; andpresupposition, 473; and proof, 206; andself-justification, 706; and syllogism,602–603; and the understanding, 80;universality in, 240, 572; see also arithmetic,calculus, constants, geometry, polynomials,variables

matter: continuity of, 166; electrical, 402;eternity of, 79; and force(s), 146–150, 456;and form, 393–397; infinite divisibility of,157, 159–164, 454–455; and logic, 28;magnetic, 402; and movement, 395–396;penetration of, 147, 149; and property,430–432; and pure quantity, 156;self-subsisting, 430; the veritable, 29

McTaggart, John M. E., xii, lvi–lvii, lviiimeans, 659–662, 666, 669measure, 57, 282, 288, 292; difficulty of,

286–287; and essence, 285; exclusive,318–319, 323; immediate, 289, 295, 318; andmodality, xliv, 284; moments of, 285–286; asnecessity, 284–285; nodal lines of 319–320,323; and quality, xl–xli, xlii; real, 302;realized, 295; self-reference of, 319; and thesomething, 288; specifying, 291–293, 298; asa standard, 289; summary of, 325

mechanical process, 634–640mechanics, 225, 232–233, 251–252mechanism, 503, 631, 652; absolute, 640–644;

and causality, 635; free, 643, 644; and life,686; and matter, 148; and measure 286; andnecessity, 653; and the object, 669;objectivity as, 630, 631; and purpose, 656,662, 663; spiritual, 631; and teleology,651–654, 655

mediation, 89, 421; and essential relation, 453;of ground, 390–391; pure, 387; self-referring,603

Mendelssohn, Moses, lxxii, 608, 692–693mental space, xxviii–xxixmetaphysics: on being and becoming, xxxviii;

Christian, 61; as contrasted with speculativephilosophy, 95; disappearance of, 7–8;earlier, 651; and essence, xlv–xlvi; and logic,xiv, xvii, 42; and the Logic, xxvii, liii–liv;spurious, xvi; on thought, 25; and truth, 693

meteorology, 645method: the absolute, 10, 739, 741; and the

absolute idea, 736; as a circle, 750; as the endof the Logic, liii; foundation of, 748

middle term, 589Miller, Arthur V., lxivmixture, 643modality, xliii–xlv, lviii, 282–284

Index 785

Moderatus of Gades, 179molecule, 402moment, 82; evanescent, xliiimonad, 137, 382, 634, 694Moni, Arturo, lxiv, lxxivmorality, 195–196, 322–323, 407, 636motion: in calculus, 243, 251–252; and

communication, 636; and contradiction,382; free, 263; infinite, 641; and matter, 148;and measure, 287, 296–297; of the point,262

movement: and content, 33; and contradiction,382; as progression and regression, xxxvii; inscience, 9; self-, 362, 382, 384, 643; ofspeculative thinking, 67; and thought, xx

multiplication, 175, 262–264, 373, 703music, 308–309, 321

name, 271, 551nature: and God, 406; as ground, 406; and the

idea, 735, 752–753; impotence of, xlix, lvii,536; investigation of, 652; and life, 677; andthe Logic, xliv–xlv, lix–lx; and the modalcategories, xlvii; objects of, 710–713; andspirit, xxi–xxii, xxvi, 91–92

necessity: absolute, 478, 486–489, 490; as blind,488; as cause, 493–494; of the concept, 578,750; and essence, 554; formal, 481–482; andfreedom, 644, 728; in philosophy, 12; aspower, 492; real, 484–486, 504; and syntheticcognition, 707; and synthetic unity, 52

need, 684negation, 33, 34, 89, 119; see also realitynegativity, 426, 470, 745–746Newton, Isaac: and bad categories, 317; cited,

233; criticism of, 234; and differentials,224–226; and the force of attraction, 401; ongenerative magnitudes, 219; and indivisibles,217, 218; on the infinite, 217–218, 219; andmeasure, 297; his method, 245; and optics,234; his terminology, xliii; on triangles, 268;his true merit, 298

Nohl, Hermann, xvnon-being, 60nosology, 332nothing: as an absence of being, 77; and

becoming, 69, 80, 81; as being, 59, 61–69; asdeterminate, 60; as existing, 76–77; asindeterminate, xxxvii–xxxviii, 60; as amoment, 82; self-equality of, 356

null, the, 376number(s), 32, 169, 170, 171, 175, 607; and

calculation, 171–173; and the concept, 540;and definition, 709; equality of, 175; andextensive quantum, 182, 187; externality of,

171, 178; indifference of, 170; as intensivemagnitude, 187; and nodal line, 320–321;and pedagogy, 181–182; and rational relations,177–181; system, 172; and thoughts, 179–180;and the understanding, 177; and theuniversal, 280–281

object: the chemical, 645–646, 672; andcognition, 699; the mechanical, 631–634,637, 645, 660, 672; see also Objekt,Objektivitat

objectivity: the concept as, 624, 625–630, 673;of the concept, 527; as immediacy, 628;meaning of, 629; moments of, 630; sublatingof, 667–668; as such, 636; summary of,li–lii; and the syllogism, 619; transition to,l–li; see also Objekt, Objektivitat

Objekt, Objektivitat, lxx–lxxione(s), the: attraction of, 139, 141–144;

being-for-itself as, 132; connection of, 142,144–145; and continuity, 155; and discretemagnitude, 703; exclusion of, 138–139; aslimit, 167; and the many, 132–137, 140; andquantum, 168; repulsion of, 136–137, 138,141–144; the singular as, 548; as unalterable,133; and the void, 133–136

ontology, 42opposition, 365, 367, 374; and determinateness,

378; essence as, 367–370; fixed, 743; andform, 391; objectified, 644; quantitative,197; and singularity, 543

order, 643ordinary thinking: on the concept, 514, 518, 537;

on contradiction, 381–384; on diversity, 366,367; on the “I”, 516, 692; on the idea, 670;and the infinite, 206; on judgment, 562; onlogic, 24–25, 27, 524, 562; on opposites, 383;on reason, 588; on subjectivity, 585; on thesyllogism, 604–607, 621; on the thing,434–435; on thought, 24–25; on truth, 24,521; see also common sense, representation,thinking of external reflection, thinking of theunderstanding, uneducated thought

organic, the, 286organism, 681ought, the, 104–108, 190, 586

pain, 106–107, 684pantheism, 61, 283–284, 285parallel lines, 719parallelogram, 265, 267–268Parmenides, on being, xxxviii, 60, 70–71; his

dialectic, 164; and the finite, 71; andmeasure, 284; and pure thought, 65; andsemblance, 74

786 Index

particularity: of the concept, 505, 530; anddeterminateness, 532; as principle, 534;and singularity, 546, 547; the universal as,532

passion, 15passivity, 500pedagogy, 8Peirce, Charles S., lvpeople, xviii, xixperson, 646personality, 514, 547, 636, 735, 750phenomenology of spirit, xxii–xxiv, xxv, 517,

695Phenomenology of Spirit: consciousness in, 10,

28; and the good, 731; and history,xxvi–xxvii; as an introduction to philosophy,xvi, xxvi–xxvii; and language, xxxiv; legacyof, lx; and the Logic, xxii, 11, 46–47; andmathematics, 32; and method, 33; andSchelling, xxiv; and the Wissenschaftslehre,xxiii

philosophemata, 177, 178philosophy: and the absolute idea, 735; as a

circle, 49; and the concept, 177; dynamic,314; and geometry, 724; as hypotheticallytrue, 48–50; as idealism, 124; introductionto, xvi; and leisure, 14; and logic, 181, 508;and mathematics, 9, 32, 181; and method, 9,33; natural, 298; nature of, 519; andpreliminary reflection, 34, 38, 84; progressionin, 48, 49; purpose of, xxii; the quantitativein, 280–281; on reality, 518; as the refutationof errors, 25; requirement of, 380, 518; asscience, 9, 10; and the senses, 627; andsymbols, 281; and the synthetic method, 725,726; and terminology, 12, 628–629; see alsobeginning of philosophy, science

Photius, 179physics: and atomism, 135; beginning in,

714–715; foundation of, 146; and gases, 436;and mathematics, 234; nature of, 689; andpolarity, 13; and the synthetic method,725–726; see also mechanics

physiology, 332Pilate, Pontius, 507planets, the: 286, 287; gravitation of, 594; and

measure, 297, 318; movement of, 330–332,400

plant, 106, 463, 718Plato: and cognition, 741; and dialectic, 34,

741, 742; on number, 178; on the One, 76,140; on the other, 91; and pure thought, 14;and sophistry, 408; on the soul, 695; ontruth, 30

Ploucquet, Gottfried, 608

plurality, 136, 137, 154, 183, 573polarity, 13, 317polynomials, 572popular philosophy, 741porosity, 433, 434–435positedness, 526; appearance as, 439; and the

concept, 526; and determination, 352; andexistence, 351–352; and likeness andunlikeness, 365; as negation, 352, 353; andopposition, 368; as reflection, 363

positing, 94positive and negative, 61, 368–374, 375–380, 565possibility: absolute, 486; formal, 478–480,

482, 484; and impossibility, 479; real,482–485, 740

power: absolute, 491; creative and destructive,491; substance as, 492, 493; the universal as,532, 533; as violence, 501–502, 639

powers and roots, 176–177, 214, 215, 236–237,239, 240–241, 260–269, 705

predetermined harmony, 634pre-Romantics, xlixpressure, 643principle(s), 645; of analytical identity, 703; of

concrete existence, 420; of contradiction, 18,479; ethical, 629; of the excluded middle,380–381; of immanent reflection, 475; ofself-movement, 643; of sufficient reason, 388,420

product, 637progress, 701–702proof, 420, 514, 704–705, 722, 723proof of God’s existence, 7, 420–421;

cosmological, 75, 385; ontological, liv, 86–87,384, 420–421, 625–628

propagation of the species, 688property: of concrete objects, 710; immediate,

710; and matter, 430–432, 711–712; and thething, 426–427, 429–430

proposition, 355, 360psychology: empirical, 695; laws of, 287; and

logic, 676; rational, 188, 690; and reality,517; stages of, 517

puncticity, 433, 434punishment, 406–407purpose: as activity, 661, 662; the concept as,

650, 652, 656, 658; finitude of, 660; and thejudgment, 656; the movement of, 658, 669;and objectivity, 630, 656–657; as rational,657, 663; realized, 662–669, 730; thesubjective, 657–659; and syllogism, 656, 657,660–661, 665, 669

purposiveness: external, 653, 730; andintelligence, 651, 653, 657; of the living being,680; products of, 709

Index 787

Pythagoras, 177, 179, 280Pythagorean theorem, 176, 722

quadruplicity, 746quality, 152, 216; as contrasted with the

determination of reflection, 353; developmentof, 145; as dialectical, 693; existence as,84–85, 88; extensive and intensive, 296; inmeasure, xl–xli; occult, 401; primacy of,56–57; and property, 88, 426; truth of, 278;and universality, 557; see also quantity

quantity, 56, 152, 154, 282, 454; categories of,xxxix–xl; and indifference, 326; and limit,339; and the modal categories, xliv; pure, 152,153, 154–157; and quality, xli, 288, 290,319–320, 322–323; and the relation of wholeand parts, 454; transition to, 145

quantum, 152, 191, 216, 278; alteration in, 153,154–157; and the concept, 280; extensive, 182,184, 185–188, 189; finite, 190; immediate,299; infinite, 189–190, 201–204, 207–208;and infinitesimal differences, 215; momentsof, 168; qualitative determination of, 203,206, 215, 230, 260, 262, 263–264, 269,279–280, 288; and quantity, 168; and ratio,271, 275–276, 278–279; restoration of, 203,205; specific, 288–291

ratio, 152, 204; as calculation, 177; and calculus,244; and chemistry, 311; determinations of,209; direct, 272–273, 274, 279, 300; theexponent of, 272–274, 276, 277, 278,292–293, 307; final, 230; and indifference,327; and the infinite, 209–210, 211, 276;inverse, 274–277, 279, 286, 332; and measure,xl, 292–294, 304; moments of, 271–272; ofpowers, xl, 278–279, 280–281; and quality,236, 271, 551; see also Verhaltnis

reaction, 636–637reading, 714realism, 701reality, 550; and actuality, 85; affirmative,

86–87; and ideality, 462; idealized ascontrasted with external, 643; and identity,462; as the infinite, 119; meaning of, 673; andnegation, 85, 88, 89; as reelle and reale, 119

Realphilosophie, xxi–xxiireason: as connective activity, 26; and

contradiction, 26; cunning of, 663; defenseagainst, 638; and dialectic, 10, 158, 742; forceof, 737; formal, 529; and the idea, 527;impotence of, xlix, 539; impulse of, 737;instinct of, 717; and logic, 28, 29; andobjectivity, 629; and the ought, 107;sharpening function, 384; as spirit, 10; and

the syllogism, 588–589, 592, 604–606, 747;and thought, 520; true content of, 743

reciprocity of action, 489, 503–504, 511reconciliation, 140reference, l, 450, 745reflection, 285, 339, 340, 362, 441; absolute, 346,

348, 350, 370; determining, 350, 351, 387;difference in, 535; in diversity, 363; essenceas, 345–353, 418, 554; external, 348–351, 363;and ground, 386; immanent, 363, 370, 661;as immediacy, 347–348, 349; infinite, 511; asjudgment, 350; as mediation, 387; momentsof, 346; movement of, 346–348; as positing,347, 348; as presupposing, 347, 348; real, 477;self-excluding, 376–377; self-repelling, 429;and shine, 345; of the understanding, 25–26;and universality, 531; see also thinking ofexternal reflection

Reinhold, K. L., 32, 48relation, absolute, 465, 489–490relation, essential: 419; and the absolute, 467;

and actuality, 465; essence as, 449–450; offorce, 450, 454, 455–459; and identity, 462,463; law as, 448; moments of, 450; of outerand inner, 450, 460–463, 466, 467; of wholeand parts, 450–455, 460

relation of series, 306–307religion, xxi, 124, 508, 518, 735representation, 63, 124; see also Vorstellungreproduction, 683repulsion, 154resistance, 639rest, 637, 638, 640, 641restriction, 103, 104–105, 108, 131–132Richter, Jeremiah Benjamin, 311, 314, 316right, 567, 589Ritter, Johann Wilhelm, 316Roberval, Gilles Personne de, 245Rosenkranz, Karl, xiv–xv, xviii, xxii, xxiv, xxviirule, 288, 291–292, 644

Sache, lxxi–lxxiiSartre, Jean-Paul, xxvsaturation, 312, 313, 317Schein, lxxii–lxxiiiSchelling, F. W. J., and the Absolute, xvi; and

experience, xviii; and facticity, xxxiv; andFichte, xxv; Hegel’s distancing from, xviii,xxiii, lviii; and nature, xxvi, lix; and Schulze,xxiv

Schubert, Friedrich Theodor, 233Schulze, G. E. (Aenesidemus), xxiii–xxiv, xxxscience: as a circle, 49, 751; concept of 23, 28;

the concern of, 54; content of, 29; definitionof, 28–29; double transition in, 279;

788 Index

science: as a circle (cont.)first demand of, 68; and intuition, 724;method of, 32; of nature, 522–523;philosophy as, 9, 10; pure, 29; of spirit,522–523; starting point of, 713–715; synthetic,713

Science of Logic, xiii–xivsciences, the, 9, 36, 52, 400–403, 473selbststandig, lxxiiiself-consciousness: awkwardness of, 691; as

being-for-itself, 127; as the concept, 691; andfate, 639–640; and the idea, 689, 731; as anidealization, 129; as infinity, 127

self-presupposing, 144self-subsistence, 140, 377, 439Sellars, Wilfrid, lvsense consciousness, 47, 519sensibility, 332, 682sentience, 106series, 209–213, 240, 259–260, 269sex relation, 646shine: and the absolute, 468; and appearance,

418; being as, 342–344; and determiningreflection, 352; and essence, 340, 344–345,346; and the fact, 415; the moments of, 344;real, 438; reflective, 35, 438, 439, 549;substance as, 490–491; see also Schein

Shiva, 283, 284sign, 647singularity: of the concept, 505, 513, 530, 540,

546–549; and judgment, 553–554, 574;natural, 604; as totality, 513; see also Einzeln

skepticism, 158, 342–343, 742space: absolute, 709; in calculus, 243;

conceptualized, 162; in geometry, 724;ideality of, 305; and matter, 149–150; ofreason, xxviii; and time, 73, 156, 157, 166,201, 302, 442

Spalding, Johann Joachim, lxxiispecies, 534, 717speculative, the: 35, 122; and contradiction, 383;

misunderstanding of, 67; and negation, 87;and the non-identity of subject and predicate,67

Spehr, Friedrich Wilhelm, 260Spinoza, Benedictus: on the absolute, xlviii,

472–474; on attribute, 87, 473; on being,xxxviii; and causa sui, xlvi, l; on cognition,472; and the finite, 71, 74; Hegel’s relation to,xlvi–xlix, lviii–lix; and idealism, 129; oninfinity, xli–xlii, 87, 129, 212–213; andmethod, 32, 727; and the mode, xliv, 283,284, 474; his monistic ontology, xlvii; onnegation, 472; “omnis determinatio estnegatio”, 87, 472; on pantheism, 61; and

pure quantity, 155; refutation of, 512; onsubstance, 87, 129, 212, 283, 284, 333, 472,474; his system, 511–512; and TranscendentalIdealism, 282

spirit: absolute, 49; and abstraction, 547; andcausality, 496–497; and the concept, 545;concrete, 523; and contradiction, 201, 436;doctrine of, 695; emergence from life, 694;for-itself, 695; in Hegel’s early lectures, xx;and the idea, 672, 689, 735; the idea of,695–696; as an idealist, 125; as anidealization, 128, 129; infinite, 533, 695; andintensive quantum, 189; and life, 677–678;and measure, 287; and mechanism, 631;metaphysics of, 689; and nature, xxi–xxii,xxvi, 690; objects of, 710–713; philosophy of,lx, 11; science of, 753; and self-knowledge, 17;as a thing, 436; as universality, 533

Socrates, 408, 741, 742something, 60, 88–90; as becoming, 90; as

finite, 103–105; and limit, 98–100, 565; andmeasure, 301, 303–304, 305; and other,90–95; and quantum, 185–186; andsomething, 97–98

sophistry, 80, 408soul, the: and the concept, 17, 674, 678, 735;

of the fact, 586; faculties of, 436; theindividual as, 680; irrational part of, 695;and life, 678, 679; metaphysics of, 689–690,691; method as 737; spirit as, 694–695; as athing, 694

sound, 302St. Louis Hegelians, lvstate, 325, 326state, political, 323, 594, 672–673Stirling, J. Hutchison, lv, lxiii, lxvii, lxviiiStruthers, L. G., lxivsubject, 42; and the concept, 40; as historical,

xxv; and predicate, 550–553, 554–556, 557–558,626; self-differentiating, 333; and substance,511; and world, 684–686, 696

subjectivity: of the concept, 505, 527; ascontrasted with objectivity, li; and externalreflection, 582; logic of, xlviii; meaning of,xlix, 42, 585, 626, 629; moments of, 528;summary of, l–li; and the syllogism, 619;transition to, xlix

sublation, 81–82; see also aufheben, Aufhebungsubsistence, 438, 440substance(s), 450, 465, 490, 509; absolute, 537;

and accidents, 489, 490–492; as cause, 493;and the concept, 509, 532; consummation of,511; and freedom, 657; interaction of, 634;method as, 737; and necessity, 488, 512; theuniversal as, 532, 534

Index 789

substantiality, relation of: 489, 490–492; andthe concept, 526; as immediacy, 628;movement of, 509–510, 511; and objectiveuniversality, 575; and the spiritual,281

substrate, 327, 334, 404, 441subsumption, 555subtraction, 175, 373Suchting, W. A., lxiv, lxv, lxvii, lxix, lxxi,

lxxiiisuprasensible, the, 589syllogism, the: of allness, 610–612, 615; of

analogy, 614–616; and arithmetic, 607; thecategorical, 618–620, 621, 622; and chemism,647, 649–650; the concept as, 528, 588–589;conclusion of, 556; as dialectical, 606; thedisjunctive, 622–623, 648; of existence, 589,590, 603–604, 610, 611, 618; of experience,612; external reflection as, 349; first figure of,590–597, 598, 600; formal, 547, 605–607,615, 624, 665; and formalism, 590, 592, 601,623; fourth figure of, 601–603; hypothetical,620–622, 623; of induction, 612–614, 615;and infinite progression, 596; and thejudgment, 593; mathematical, 602–603; themeaning of, 592; and mechanism, 642;moments of, 589; of necessity, 590, 617–618,624; and the ontological proof, 420; asqualitative, 593; and the quaternioterminorum, 615, 616; and reason, 588, 746;of reflection, 589, 604, 609, 611–612,616–617, 619, 624; relationless, 602; secondfigure of, 597–600; and things-in-themselves,425; third figure of, 600–602; and the trinity,284; of the understanding, 589, 610

symbol, 180–181, 281, 546synthesis, 72, 74, 741, 746, 748system: basis of, 713; Hegel’s first outline of,

xvi, xxi; the method as, 748; refutation of,511; of totality, 749; truth or falsity of,511–512

Taquet, Andrew, 268–269Tatsache, lxxitautology, 633Taylor, Charles, lixteleology: and the concept, 654; and

extra-mundane intelligence, 652; in history,lxi; objectivity as, 630, 651–657; process of,664

temperature, 293–294Thales, 124, 741theology, 8theorem, 703, 718–728thesis and antithesis, 71

thing, the: as “also”, 432–433, 434; concreteexistence as, 423–426, 445; as contradiction,436; as dissoluble, 433; essence as, 418; andmatter, 431–435; as “this”, 432–433, 434

thing-in-itself, the: 41, 93–94; abstract, 426;and concrete existence, 423–426; andconsciousness, 427–428; and criticalphilosophy, 30; and properties, 427,429–430; as the rational, 42; and shine, 343;taken as the absolute, 698; andtranscendental idealism, 30, 428; true, 564;and the understanding, 26

thinking of external reflection: on causality,499; as contrasted with subjectivity, 582; onessence, 338, 356, 392; on identity, 356–357;on the positive and negative, 378–379; onreason, 357; and the thing-in-itself, 424,425–426; see also common sense, ordinarythinking, thinking of the understanding,uneducated thought

thinking of the understanding, 472; on beingand nothing, 69–70, 76–78; on continuity,155, 165; on the finite and infinite, 102,115–116, 117–118, 211; and the how, 72; on life,678; on the one and the many, 140; andplanetary motion, 330; on the Trinity, 180;see also common sense, ordinary thinking,thinking of external reflection, uneducatedthought

“this”, the, 91, 432–433, 434, 436, 549thought: and abstraction, 35–36, 519; as

contrasted with consciousness, 41; formal,745; free, 17; and the idea, 689; laws of, 354,355, 356, 358; and logic, 29; objectivity of, 30;pure, 13–14, 29; as such, 41; and things, 16;as transcendence of restriction, 105–107

time, 199; see also spacetone, 188tool, 663totality, 279transition, 69, 74, 279, 554trapezium, 263–264Trendelenburg, F. A., livtriangle, 267Trinity, the, 180, 283–284triplicity, 283, 746, 747truth, 380, 523, 525, 751; absolute, 675; the

absolute idea as, 735, 747; and the concept,19, 521; condition of, 692; as correspondence,562; formal, 358; and the idea, 670, 671;and the judgment, 557, 562, 697; knowledgeof, 46; and logic, 18, 29; objective, 697;reason as, 527; as science, 29; sublimity of,507; as tangible, 29; unattainableness of,508

790 Index

unconditional, the, 589understanding, the: 10; and the concept, 526,

588; forms of, 26–27; meaning of, 670;and reason, 25, 529, 538–540; reflection of,25–26; and the thing-in-itself, 26; see alsothinking of the understanding

uneducated thought, 119, 122, 543unit, 169, 171, 272, 278unity, 67–68universal, the: 530, 543; abstract, 536, 537, 538,

739; as beginning, 749; and the concept, 505,513, 529–530, 569, 573, 714; and the concrete,531, 585; empirical, 573; the greater, 578;immediacy of, 740; the infinite, 533; and thejudgment, 553–554; objective, 574, 575, 617,641; as particular, 535; of reflection, 572–573,616; and singularity, 546–547, 549; as totality,513

universe, 633Unterschied, lxxiii

Valerius, Lucas, 258variables, 209, 214–215, 238–239Verhaltnis, sich verhalten, l, lxviiiVerschiedenheit, lxxiiiviolence, 501, 532, 639, 646, 663, 685

virtue, 379Vishnu, 283visibility, 77–78vocation, 666void, the, see the one(s)Vorstellung, lxxiii

Wallace, William, lxivwas fur ein Ding, 128–129water, 647will, 675, 730wissen, Wissen, lxxWolff, Christian, xliii, 32, 220,

726–727wonder, 536world, (the): the absolute attribute as, 469;

absolute essence of, 651; of appearances, 444,445–448, 469; and contradiction, 201; ascreation, 577; ground of 406; in and foritself, 444–448, 469; indifference of, 685;meaning of, 448; objective, 659;suprasensible, 444; as universe, 633; as auniverse of meaning, xlix

zoology, 332zu Grunde gehen, lxxiii–lxxiv

Documents

Georg Hegel - The Science of Logic Pt. 2