Toward The Idea of the Absolute: A Critical Assessment of Hegel’s Relationship to

Spinoza.

In giving a critical assessment of Hegel’s relationship to Spinoza it is to be remembered that

Hegel was not so much concerned with refuting another philosopher’s ideas, for ‘each

[philosophy] in turn… [is] the one true philosophy’, and ‘philosophy is the totality of [its]

forms,…where all principles are preserved’ and contribute to the ‘one truth’1 But then a

question arises. Is Hegel interpreting Spinoza’s system to suit his own purposes? For Hegel

claimed that ‘in every other science the subject matter and the scientific method are

distinguished from each other’,2 and the purpose of his philosophical system is that they

should coincide, the subject matter of philosophy being thought or reason. But Spinoza’s

ultimate aim with his philosophy was to ascertain whether there is some real good, whether

there is ‘anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable [him] to enjoy

continuous, supreme, and unending happiness’,3 his concern primarily being with whatever

leads us ‘to the knowledge of the human mind and its highest blessedness’.4 That is, he was

not solely concerned with understanding, he also wanted to know how to act.

However, for Spinoza knowledge of how to act depends on knowledge of the way things

are, so both he and Hegel are ultimately concerned with the same thing, the structure of

reality. I propose, in order to find my way through Hegel’s relationship to Spinoza, to engage

with two areas of accord between them with regard to this concern that they shared, and to

consider Hegel’s positive response to the problem to which, in his view, Spinoza only gave

partially adequate solutions. These are, firstly, Spinoza’s formulation of the principle

1 Georg Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy Vol. 1(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1968), pp. 17 – 18.2 Georg Hegel, The Science of Logic (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969), §33, p. 43.3 Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1955), p. 3.4 Ibid., p. 82.

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determinatio negatio est: ‘determination is negation’,5 which, in its converse form, ‘negation

is determination’,6 is as a fundamental principle for Hegel, for negation as a process of

creation underlies his entire system. Secondly, and related to the first, Spinoza’s fundamental

conception of infinity influenced Hegel, whereby the infinite is not merely determined in a

negative way as the undetermined, but is determined in a positive way as the self-determined.

This critical assessment of Hegel’s relationship to Spinoza is structured as follows. 1.

Methodology: Analysis and Synthesis, a discussion of their different philosophical

methods, that is, 1.i. Spinoza’s Philosophical Method, between analysis and synthesis

Spinoza chooses the synthetic method, but, 1.ii. Hegel’s Philosophical Method, Hegel

rejects synthesis and analysis on their own as unsuitable for philosophy, but combines them

in the dialectic method. And once the method has been established, a philosophical enquiry,

2. First Principles: Monism and Dualism, must begin with first principles. 2.i. Spinoza’s

First Principle. Spinoza’s first principle is monism, that is, reality has an underlying unity,

but, 2.ii. Hegel’s First Principle, for Hegel reason is the first principle, which finds identity

in opposition. Whereas Spinoza’s monism excludes the many, in particular the many in one,

(the absolute), the differences between the one and the many can be reconciled through the

first principle of reason, in the form of the Hegelian principle that all negation is

determination, a reversal of Spinoza’s principle that all determination is negation. Spinoza’s

first principle identifies, 3. On Infinity: Substance and Accident, 3.i. Spinoza’s Infinity,

infinite substance as the absolute principle of his system, whereas, 3.ii. Hegel’s Infinity,

Hegel’s first principle, which owes much to Spinoza, identifies the finite with the infinite.

Therefore, 4. On the Absolute: Being and Knowing, 4.i Spinoza’s Absolute, Spinoza’s

absolute is infinite in virtue of its own nature, but for Hegel, 4.ii. Hegel’s Absolute, thought

emerges out of this infinite/finite substance, that is, substance is subject. 5. Conclusion. But

5 Ibid., p. 370.6 Georg Hegel, The Logic of Hegel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892), §91, p. 171.

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both Spinoza and Hegel exemplify an understanding of necessity whereby, whatever view of

the individual subject emerges therefrom, the implication is that the world is there only to be

understood, and that it is pointless to lament that it is the way it is and not otherwise.

1. Methodology: Analysis and Synthesis

1.i. Spinoza’s Philosophical Method

Hegel and Spinoza differed with regard to the correct method for the demonstration of the

truth of propositions, but to understand how they differed we need to distinguish two

different kinds of proof, proof by analysis, and proof by synthesis. The Greek mathematician

Pappus defined analysis thus: ‘In analysis, we assume as a fact that which we seek [to prove]

and we consider what arises out of this assumption; then we consider what that follows from,

and so on until, proceeding in this way, we come upon something which is already known, or

is one of our principles’.7 Analytical proof starts with the proposition that has to be proved

and works back to first principles, from which that which has to be proved follows. But the

synthetic proof that Spinoza employs begins with first principles and shows the way in which

consequences follow from them, as in a geometry that begins with axioms, postulates, and

definitions, and proceeds to demonstrate theorems.

Spinoza may want to prove the truth of proposition x, because x is not self-evidently true,

that is, it is not so clear and distinct that only an understanding of the language in which it is

expressed is needed to accept its truth. To prove the truth of x Spinoza needs to demonstrate

that x follows logically from other propositions that do not themselves follow logically from

other propositions and whose truth is self-evident; and these basic propositions Spinoza calls

axioms.

7 Hintikka and Remes, The Method of Analysis (New York: Springer Publishing Company, 1974), p. 8.

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Spinoza’s method also contains postulates, logically primitive propositions that are not

known to be true, but are assumed to be true;8 propositions for which we have convincing

but not absolute evidence concerning their truth, and there is no evidence against them.9 And

to derive conclusions from axioms and postulates, Spinoza uses definitions, by employment

of a rule of derivation, whereby one proposition may be derived from another; this is the rule

of definitional substitution, whereby ‘any expression may be replaced by one which is

definitionally equivalent to it, in any axiom or proved theorem’.10

And here there is certainly a problem with Spinoza’s method. Concerning his definitions

he will say ‘by x I mean y’.11 But Russell and Whitehead, who developed their own

deductive system, said of a definition that it ‘is a declaration that a certain newly-introduced

symbol or combination of symbols is to mean the same as certain other combination of

symbols of which the meaning is already known’.12 A definition ‘is not true or false, being an

expression of a volition, not of a proposition’. To say that x is to mean such and such is to

say I propose to use x in such and such a way;13 this is an expression of a decision, not a

statement of truth or falsehood. I may choose to define the words Spinoza uses differently,

thereby deriving different conclusions from them.

But Spinoza certainly considered his definitions to be true.14 He would perhaps offer the

retort to Russell and Whitehead that he is not concerned with dictionary definitions that are

only true in the sense that the word is actually used as expressed in the definition. His

8 Russell said that postulation has ‘the advantages of theft over honest toil’. (Bertrand Russell, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1919), p. 71).9 ‘Assumptions are based on postulates which rest … on experience’, (Ibid. 3, p. 99). I.e., we cannot just postulate anything. 10 Ambrose & Lazerowitz, Fundamentals of Symbolic Logic (London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), p. 153.11 For example: ‘By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself’. (Ibid. 3, p. 45).12 Bertrand Russell, and A. N. Whitehead, A. N., Principia Mathematica Vol. 1 (Cambridge University Press, 1927), p.11.13 Ibid.14 According to Spinoza, a definition ‘explains a thing, as it is conceived or can be conceived by us’. (Ibid. 3, p. 314).

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purpose ‘is to explain, not the meaning of words, but the nature of things’,15 and his

definitions are true to the extent in which they give a true account of the way things are.

Which is to say, his definitions explain the ‘inmost essence of a thing’.16

But what is the ‘inmost essence of a thing’? What is the inmost essence of being human?

An Aristotelian may reply, being a rational animal.17 This would seem to be a necessary

feature of being human, but Spinoza explicitly says that it is not of the essence of being

human to be a rational animal.18 He did, however, believe that there is a connection between

definition, essence and understanding. And it is primarily for this reason, that it is a method

of the understanding, as well as for its reliance on presuppositions, that Hegel rejected

Spinoza’s geometrical method for philosophy.

1.ii. Hegel’s Philosophical Method

Hegel did agree with Spinoza, however, that a philosophical method must be systematic,

wherein nothing is assumed and everything is deduced, and every stage is governed by

necessity. He followed Spinoza in thinking that a proper explanation explains why things

must be the way they are, unlike, say a causal explanation; for though we know from

experience that a punch in the face causes a pain in the face of the one punched, ceteris

paribus, there is no logical connection between the two occurrences; however much you

analyse the former you will never derive the latter. And the geometric method is certainly

governed by necessity, for there can be no divergence of opinion as to whether the square of

the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two

sides. Starting from necessary truths, and admitting nothing that does not follow of necessity

15 Ibid., p. 178.16 Ibid., p. 35.17 More strictly, a human soul has ‘a rational principle’. (Aristotle, Works Vol ix (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), Book 1.13, p. 1102a).18 Ibid. 3, p. 112.

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from them, the geometric method derives that particular theorem. In similar manner, Spinoza

supposedly derives his philosophical theorems.

Hegel also concurs with Spinoza in the need to replace opinion with certainty, the latter to

be established through a rigorous logical method. But for Hegel the geometrical method is

not suitable: ‘That these methods, however indispensable and brilliantly successful in their

own province,19 are unserviceable for philosophical cognition, is self-evident. They have pre-

suppositions; and their style of cognition is that of understanding, proceeding under the canon

of formal identity’.20

Hegel’s first objection concerns the presuppositions, or assumptions, that is, the axioms, the

definitions, or any other propositions with which Spinoza’s geometric method begins.

Spinoza may regard axioms as self-evident, but it is in itself a presupposition that what is

self-evident is also true. And even if it be admitted that the axioms are true, they have not

been deduced from anything else, that is, they are unexplained, and whatever is deduced from

an unexplained fact is itself unexplained.

Hegel believed the analytic method also involved presuppositions, and presuppositions

implicate a lack of necessity; unlike proper explanations that provide the reason or reasons as

to why something must be the case. Hegel’s dialectical method, on the other hand, combines

both analysis and synthesis, and supposedly has no presuppositions, but shares with Spinoza

a confidence in logic, in which to give a reason why something follows from something else

is self-explanatory. The first principle underlying the structure of reality is therefore reason

itself.

Hegel’s dialectical method answers his second objection to Spinoza, concerning the

understanding. The understanding proceeds in accordance with the Aristotelian law of

identity, (that is, ∀x (x = x)), it ‘sticks to fixity of characters and their distinctness from one

19 That is, mathematics.20 Ibid. 6, §231, p. 369.

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another’.21 The assumption is that opposites absolutely exclude each other; that is, always x =

x, never x = ¬x. Mathematics, of course, proceeds quite happily on the basis of this principle,

but Spinoza, in supposing that it would be suitable to philosophy, was in error, according to

Hegel.

2. First Principles: Monism and Dualism

2.i. Spinoza’s First Principle

What emerges from both Spinoza’s and Hegel’s accounts of explanation, however, is that

explanation necessarily implicates monism, or at least the monistic principle is a regulatory

idea for explanation, for Spinoza recognized that the first principle of all things has to be a

unity, given that ultimate reality is real in virtue of the fact that it is dependent on nothing

outside of itself. There can only be one ultimate reality. So monism is a necessity in

thinking, as Hegel saw;22 but Spinoza’s monistic principle is abstract; the one substance23 that

excludes the many and thereby is unable to explain how the many are present in the one, as

they must be if they are to emerge from the one.

It may be objected that there is a distinction to be made between structural monism (there is

only one thing) and type monism (there is only one type of thing); a type monist may believe

there are many instances of the one type. But although Spinoza did argue for one thing,

substance, all other forms of reality being modes24 of this one thing, for Hegel the important

21 Ibid., §80, p. 143.22 The monistic principle, that is, for the philosophies of Spinoza and Hegel are perhaps holistic. Robert Stern has said that for Hegel ‘the unity we find in our experience of the world is not constructed by us out of a plurality of intuitions’. (Robert Stern, Hegel, Kant and the Structure of the Object (London: Routledge, 1990), p. 40). But the monistic principle itself is a regulative idea even for the empirical sciences that seek to explain facts by causes; that is, they aspire to subsume a multitude of particulars under a single law. 23 See note 11.24 By ‘mode’ Spinoza means ‘the modifications of substance, or that which exists in, and is conceived through, something other than itself’. (Ibid. 3, p. 45).

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point concerning a first principle, like Spinoza’s substance, was that it needed to explain

itself. The first principle of the universe has to be a single principle, a principle that is itself a

unity, because ultimate reality (the explanation of which is the goal of Spinoza’s and Hegel’s

respective systems) can only be real in virtue of the fact that it is dependent on nothing

outside itself. There is only one ultimate reality, for another ultimate reality would limit and

determine the other; but that which is not dependent on anything else (ultimate reality) must

be self-determined, and that which is self-determined must be a unified whole.25

2.ii. Hegel’s First Principle

But then how does the many emerge from the one?

Spinoza had formulated a principle, determination is negation; to determine something, or

to define it, is to limit it. To say of a woman that she is alluring cuts her off from all things

repulsive. Such limiting is negating, for to affirm of something that it is within certain limits

is to deny that it is outside those limits. Whatever is said of something denies something else

of it. But then (by this very principle) ultimate reality would contain negativity within it,

unless whatever is constitutionally determined by negation exists outside of ultimate reality,

which is impossible.

Hegel, however, reversed Spinoza’s principle into the form that all negation is

determination. This may seem a violation of formal logic; from ∀x(Dx → Nx) we cannot

derive ∀x(Nx → Dx).26 But when Hegel talks about ‘the tremendous power of the

negative’,27 he is referring to negation as a creative process. For there has to be a creative

25 A whole that is a singularity; though it may be composed of elements, it is one, (the infinite).26 For all things x, if x is a determination, then x is a negation. And for all things x, if x is a negation, then x is a determination. However, Hegel has added the universal qualifier, so it may be objected that for Spinoza not all determination is negation, his substance thereby not completely indeterminate. 27 Georg Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), Preface, §32, p. 19.

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process at work somewhere in the system, to account for ultimate reality generating a

multitude of phenomena.

(Structural) monism has to be rejected, therefore, for if determination involves negation

Spinoza’s substance would be indeterminate. But there is another problem with Spinoza’s

substance that Hegel also recognized. Spinoza’s substance is one thing, but with two

attributes,28 mind and matter; it thereby inherits the peculiar problems that beset dualism.

How is a dualist philosopher to gain cognitive access to both types of being? Either mind has

to cognitively extend over matter, and is then no longer correlative to it, or matter has to

cognitively extend over mind, which is nonsensical; or the dualist philosopher must herself be

a third type of being appended to the other two, for a being that knows both beings cannot

herself be one of them.

This is where the understanding leads us, and the resolution lies with reason, speculative

logic29 governed by the principle that ultimate reality is intelligible from within pure

conceptual thought, for logic can only deal with statements that express thoughts that are

grounded in concepts.30 Spinoza’s system, operating at the level of the understanding, sharply

defines concepts, and any deduction from one to another is unattainable. But Hegel

speculates upon such concepts dialectically, to discern their contradictions, for ‘by Dialectic

is meant the indwelling tendency outwards by which the one-sidedness and limitation of the

predicates of understanding is seen in its true light, and shown to be the negation of them’.31

And from dialectical reasoning emerges another principle, the principle of the identity of

opposites,32 with which we may speculate upon apparently distinct and opposed thoughts and

28 Actually, infinite attributes, but as finite beings we can only know two of them.29 Hegel acknowledges Spinoza’s ideas ‘were speculative in spirit’, (Ibid.). Speculation for Hegel is the resolving of contradictions. 30 As Stace explains: ‘It is indisputable that all knowledge is conceptual, and the ability to apply suitable concepts to a thing constitutes knowledge of that thing’. (W. T. Stace, The Philosophy of Hegel (U.S.A: Dover Publications Inc.., 1955), p. 46). Hegel defined logic as ‘the science of pure thought, the principle of which is pure knowing’. (Georg Hegel, The Science of Logic (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969), §77, p. 60).31 Ibid., 147.32 Reason ‘does not oppose, but includes the principles of the understanding’, as Stace says, ‘it only opposes the one-sidedness of the understanding. Each category contains, and in fact is, its own opposite and reason cannot

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things, and unify them; for speculation ‘apprehends the unity of terms (propositions) in their

opposition – the affirmative, which is involved in their disintegration and in their transition’.33

Speculation is Spinozist in that it aspires to explain not only that certain things are but that

they must be so, but in Spinoza’s system no adequate explanation is forthcoming as to how

the one substance has a multitude of properties, or attributes.34 The incoherence in the notion

of the one substance is to be accounted for in terms of its infinite attributes, but the question

remains, how is the finite world of a multitude of phenomena produced by the one infinite

substance?

3. On Infinity: Substance and Accident

3.i. Spinoza’s Infinity

Hegel’s answer to that question has its source in Spinoza’s understanding of infinity. The

finite understanding apprehends as real a universe of things and forces, distinct from and

often opposed to one another, and with their own peculiar properties. ‘This realm of laws is

indeed the truth for the Understanding’, Hegel explains, ‘…however, this realm is only the

initial truth for the Understanding and does not fill out the world of appearance’.35 And given

that Spinoza’s system only operates at this level, once an infinite substance has been posited

the finite cannot be deduced from the infinite, for the law of the understanding is the law of

identity, by which ¬x cannot emerge from x; the finite cannot emerge from the infinite.

Spinoza, through unifying the world’s multiplicity, of necessity had to assimilate the unity

of opposites (given that he was unifying everything), and Hegel develops this idea into a

rest in a contradiction’. (Ibid. 28, p.88). 33 Ibid. 6, §82, p. 152.34 ‘By attribute’, Spinoza said, ‘I mean that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance’ (Ibid. 3, Def. IV, p. 45). 35 Ibid. 26, 149, pp. 90 – 91.

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principle of logic. But Spinoza’s definition36 of substance rules out the possibility of more

than one substance; therefore there is one substance with an infinity of attributes; whereby the

attributes are the very things that describe the distinctive features of a substance; and as the

latter has an infinite number of them it may be conceptualized in an infinite number of ways.

But as our minds are finite, we can only conceptualize substance in two ways; as mind, the

attribute of thought, or as body, the attribute of extension.

And here we encounter a problem in Hegel’s engagement with Spinoza. The latter defines

an attribute as ‘that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance’,37

and Hegel understands this to mean that substance only has attributes in so far as they appear

to a mind. This he took to be ‘acosmism… defining the world to be an appearance lacking in

true reality’.38 Substance is real, whereas the things of the world are appearances. But

appearances can only be appearances to a mind, and such a mind cannot be a substance,

because there is only one substance; this mind would therefore be apart from substance, in

some inexplicable manner.

Hegel cannot, therefore, entirely succeed in incorporating Spinoza’s system into his own,

given that he has misunderstood Spinoza on the matter of attributes. Spinoza does not think

they are appearances, but rather they are the essential nature of substance as conceived by the

understanding; they are what we attribute to substance when we intellectualize it.39 But it is

apparent enough that Spinoza’s system offers no explanation as to how substance subdivides

into attributes. That there is only one substance in a world in which we experience

multitudes Spinoza explains in terms of the infinite attributes of one infinite substance. For

existing things are finite and can only be conceived through the conception of something else.

36 See note 14.37 Ibid.38 Ibid. 6, §50, p. 106.39 ‘It is called attribute with respect to the understanding, which attributes to substance the particular nature aforesaid’. (Ibid. 3, p. 316).

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There can thus only be one ultimate infinite substance, but how can this infinite substance

produce a finite world?

3.ii. Hegel’s Infinity

Spinoza’s ostensibly monistic system, operating at the level of the understanding, becomes

undone in its encounter with an insurmountable dualism.

But from Hegel’s monistic first principle of the world, reason, the finite and the infinite are

not opposed but are identical, or rather, it is reason that discerns their identity in difference.

Spinoza distinguished two ways to conceive of infinity; ‘by abstraction or superficially, as we

imagine40 it by the aid of the senses’, or ‘as substance, which can only be accomplished

through the understanding’41 42 But Hegel prefers to distinguish between the bad infinite of

the understanding and the true infinite of reason; this latter does not oppose, but rather

incorporates, the finite; it is not to be understood it terms of an endless progression.

For Spinoza there is one infinite substance, and as it is infinite it includes everything; it

cannot be conceived in terms of an exhaustive list of attributes; these latter are therefore

infinite. But the essential nature of substance is infinite, there is therefore an infinite number

of ways it may be conceived by the understanding; therefore there must be an infinite number

of attributes. But an attribute is the essential nature of an infinite substance as it presents

itself to the understanding, and so must itself be infinite. We thus have an infinite number of

attributes, each of which is itself infinite.

The question then arises as to whether Hegel manages to resolve these obscurities, or

whether the obscurities are only apparent anyway. We are concerned here with how the one

40 This is the easiest way to conceive of it; for instance, infinitely divisible, that is, with infinite parts. The imagined infinity is limitless.41 Though this is not so easy, apprehending an indivisible and unique thing as it is in itself. The understood infinity is self-contained, but we, who wish to understand this infinity, are not.42 Ibid. 3, p. 319.

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substance is conceived; to conceive of this substance is to conceive of it as possessing some

attribute; in similar manner propositions may be said to attribute a predicate to a subject; and

any proposition concerning the unique infinite substance is either self-contradictory, or its

denial is self-contradictory. We cannot therefore deny that this substance possesses a

particular attribute, unless the possession of the attribute would be incompatible with the

possession of another attribute; but to deny an attribute to this substance would be to limit

that which is infinite.

But then two opposed attributes, mind and matter, for instance, (opposed because our

conception of mind is not reducible to our conception of matter), do permeate the world as it

presents itself to the understanding, and are complete in themselves. Mind cannot be

conceived of as modified matter; matter cannot be conceived of as modified mind. The

understanding flounders here, but there is yet another difficult thought present in Spinoza’s

notion of substance which was particularly influential on Hegel. Substance is causa sui, the

cause of itself; and infinity (substance) is not the undetermined but the self-determined. This

follows logically from the self-enclosed infinity of the understanding; its determinations

cannot arise from a source outside of itself.

But it seems inescapable that by opposing the infinite and the finite the understanding will

reduce the former to the latter (as indeed the infinite becomes finite if it is opposed by

anything at all). But at the level of reason the finite is absorbed into the infinite without

contradiction. And this is no mere abstract unification, for the distinction between infinite

and finite is not just abolished but also retained. The infinite can thereby generate the

multitudes of phenomena in a finite world, for ‘there is no such thing as an infinite, that is

first of all infinite, and which is afterwards under a necessity to become finite,… [the]

opposition between finite and infinite…is false, and…the infinite eternally proceeds out of

itself, and yet does not proceed out of itself’.43

43 Ibid. 6, §94, pp. 175 – 176.

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The infinite proceeds out of itself inasmuch as it produces the finite, but it does not proceed

out of itself inasmuch as the finite is the infinite; the infinite remains what it is. But what

could be truly infinite, that is, self-determining, in this sense? Only one thing, the system of

reason itself that resolves the opposition between the infinite and the finite; pure thought

alone44 is self-determined, and therefore infinite.

4. On the Absolute: Being and Knowing

4.i Spinoza’s Absolute

But then how can Hegel claim to be incorporating Spinoza’s system into his own if Spinoza’s

infinite substance is not thought itself; rather, thought is only one of its attributes?

Spinoza was perhaps misled by an erroneous view concerning the nature of knowledge,

derived from Descartes,45 in which thoughts and things are thought to be separate things. But

what if substance and the thought of substance are one and the same; that is, substance is real,

but also an abstraction? For Spinoza there are things outside the mind, and concepts inside

the mind, and knowledge comes about if the concept fits the thing, in some way. Similarly,

there is substance, and there is the concept of substance external to the substance, and the

concept of substance fits the substance, in some way. Or there are the concepts on the one

hand, and there is substance on the other, and if the concepts fit appropriately on to the

substance, they define the substance. The principle of the identity of knowing and being is

thus forsworn, and subject and object are maintained in absolute separation.

44 As opposed to space or time, which may be infinitely extended in the bad sense of infinite.45 ‘Even if the external objects of sense and imagination should be nonentities, yet the modes of consciousness that I call sensations and images (in so far as they are merely modes of consciousness) do, I am certain, exist in me’. (René Descartes, Philosophical Writings (London: Nelson’s University Paperbacks, 1954), p. 76.

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For Hegel, though, the one substance (the absolute, that which is self-determined), is a

thing, (everything is a thing), but it is also a universal; the universal, the complete set of

concepts, including that of substance, but also negation, etc. ‘Being itself’, as Hegel puts it,

‘and the special sub-categories of it which follow, as well as those of logic in general, may be

looked upon as definitions of the Absolute’.46 The concepts (categories) are the absolute; that

is, they define the absolute.

4.ii. Hegel’s Absolute

But Hegel also said that ‘everything turns on grasping and expressing the True, not only as

Substance, but equally as Subject’.47 Spinoza’s absolute turns out to be an indifferent oneness

governing the subject (mind) and the object (matter, or nature). Such an ultimate,

unconditioned reality may, or may not, have the characteristics customarily associated with a

subject. Hegel’s response to Spinoza was not to deny that the absolute exists; he could not do

that, given his commitment to the belief that not everything is dependent on something else. 48

And he also believed in God.49 So the issue for Hegel, to sidestep the accusation that an

existential claim on behalf of the absolute is empty,50 was to provide an account of what the

absolute is.

The question presents us with at least three separate kinds of thing. The absolute, whatever

it may be; the world of phenomena (ducks, roses, poets, women, myself, etc.); an

understanding of these two and of how they relate to each other. Spinoza’s system cannot

account for how the world’s phenomena are produced by the absolute, other than through a

46 Ibid. 6, §85, p. 156.47 Ibid. 25, §17, p. 10.48 ‘Hence we say of what is necessary, ‘It is’. We thus hold it to be simple, self-relation, in which all dependence on something else is removed’. (Ibid. 6, §147, p. 268).49 In defining the absolute we are providing ‘a metaphysical definition of God… the expression of his nature in thoughts as such’. (Ibid., §85, p. 156).50 Schelling’s absolute is the ‘night in which… all cows are black’. (Ibid. 25, §16, p. 9).

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conjectural all-seeing observer capable of assuming diverse viewpoints upon the absolute; the

latter thereby appearing in diverse aspects to said observer. But then a problem arises as to

whether said observer is herself responsible for the absolute’s appearance of itself, or is

another of the absolute’s appearances (which she must be as the absolute is everything). But

one thing is clear, for the absolute to be absolute there has to be phenomena of the absolute.

But the absolute, to be absolute, not only has to develop into this world of phenomena, but

itself has to develop our understanding of the absolute. But such knowledge cannot be

immediately intuitive; as we know from both Spinoza and Hegel arriving at knowledge of the

absolute comprises a lengthy procedure of investigation. Therefore, the absolute cannot be

stagnant and passive but must rather reflect the development of our cognition of the absolute,

together with our understanding of how the absolute as cognized relates to the absolute itself;

this relation being part of the absolute (the absolute being everything). But then the absolute

as originally conceived is rendered surplus to requirements, for to say the absolute is

substance is to state a proposition the subject of which is only intelligible because of that

which is predicated of it.

So then we can dispense with the absolute as substance51 and stick with the concepts,

including that of substance, by which we comprehend the world of phenomena, and by which

we comprehend our own understanding of the phenomena. Such concepts constitute the

world (the world not of mere brute stuff or matter but of ducks, roses, etc.), and their

application is therefore essential (in a manner more readily understood than that of Spinoza’s

attributes) for the world of phenomena to exist. For Hegel, therefore, the absolute is not a

mysterious substratum giving support to the phenomena, but is the system of concepts itself

that is ingrained within the world of phenomena. And this system of concepts as absolute is

51 ‘If anyone will examine himself concerning his notion of pure substance in general’, said Locke, ‘he will find he has no other idea of it at all’, other than it is ‘something, he knew not what’. (John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Vol. 1 (New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1959), pp. 391 – 392).

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not stagnant; for instance, it develops in the advancement of knowledge and understanding of

substance from Spinoza’s system to that of Hegel’s.

And I may doubt all of this, as I may doubt the existence of ducks, roses, etc. I may think

abstractly in the manner demonstrated through the long chains of reasoning in Spinoza and

Hegel. I may conceptualize in a peculiar manner my world, a world that would not exist

without conceptualization. Which is to say, the very world upon which I depend for my

cognitive activities may be both preserved and changed because of such activities; and

because of this, and because of the conceptual system implicated by a mind that fabricates the

world, the absolute is mind; substance is subject.

5. Conclusion

But then, it is the respective systems of Spinoza and Hegel themselves that depend on a world

that has universal and eternal aspects (Spinoza’s geometrical proofs, for instance), and upon

this presupposition of a necessity that has to derive from something a necessary being is the

inevitable endpoint. And as for myself, the philosophizing subject, whereas Spinoza’s

geometrical truths are infinite modes,52 ‘individual things [like me] are nothing but the

modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of God are expressed

in a fixed and definite manner’.53 I am no more than a finite mode54 of substance.

And though from an Hegelian perspective the cognitive activities that have gone into

producing this essay are the absolute (as concept) reflecting on itself, a perspective that has

52 ‘Every mode, which exists both necessarily and as infinite, must necessarily follow either from the absolute nature of some attribute of God, or from an attribute modified by a modification which exists necessarily, and as infinite’. (Ibid.3, Prop. XXIII, p. 65).53 Ibid., Prop. XXV, Corollary, p. 66.54 Unless I misunderstand Spinoza’s mode, as Morfino accuses Hegel of misunderstanding it ‘as pure negativity in which the limit which determines substance remains something external to it…[but it] is not an exteriority but…the after-effect of a complex weave of relations’. (Vittorio Morfino, ‘The Misunderstanding of the Mode’, in Between Hegel and Spinoza (New York: Continuum, 2012), p.40). But aside from the peculiarity of infinite modes (the laws on nature etc.) considered as after-effects, I too, as a finite mode, am an after-effect.

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its source in Spinoza’s doctrine of the ‘intellectual love of God… the love of God; not so far

as we imagine him as present, but in so far as we understand him to be eternal’,55 I fare no

better; for the Hegelian doctrine ‘what is rational is actual and what is actual is rational’, 56

expressing as it does the Spinozism deeply ingrained in Hegel’s thinking, discloses a

particular understanding of necessity in both thinkers that suggest that the philosopher’s task

is to reflect upon and understand the nature of things, and not to lament over the way things

are, for the way things are could be no different.57

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