On the Necessity of Dialectic to All Sciences: An Introduction to German Idealism and a Commentary on the Logic

Everyone wants to analyze. Everyone wants a solution. Everyone wants to give his opinion. Everyone presents their theories. But is everyone consistent? Does everyone have a method? Most have adopted a “pick and choose” manner of investigating, creating a patchwork of an “ideology” and inscribing it proudly as their banner.

Everyone wants to get to heaven but no one wants to die to get there.

Contrary to what you might think, there are not many methods to differentiate yourself from. All the methods of contemporary science can be traced back to the history of philosophy. Their most recent peak was German idealism. Contemporary currents of thought, whether it be positivism, logicism, linguistic analysis, the analytical school or the continental school can all be traced back to the debates between various German philosophers at the start of the 19th century.

Comment on method: ”Think of what got you into Hegel. Did you start from a pure standpoint and then get into Hegel? I.e, did you investigate the paradox of Being before getting into Hegel and then found the solution in Hegel? I am almost certain that is not what happened and you alluded to it last time we spoke. Knowledge and the learning process are always retroactive, you posit something too advanced and then you come back on your own words and retrace your steps. Therefore, all the people you see with all their modes of investigation are actually going through a necessary positing of their own development. You do not encounter a "pure" mode of investigation before you actually make the mistake of being un-pure, and make it multiple times in fact”

On the Practical and Scientific Necessity of Method

Present conundrums, paradoxes and impossibilities

Some problems (in Marxism):

-The transformation problem
How are the costs of production subtracted from previously a non-existent totality of labor? What does that mean concretely?

-Verificationism (Popper)
Can class struggle be verified empirically? Can the bourgeoisie be counted as a conglomeration of empirical individuals?

-Methodological individualism (libertarianism)
Why is totality a category of analysis at all? Isn’t only the empirical individual the real thing that can be proved and tested?

-Class collaboration (Bernstein)
Why can we not convince the bourgeoisie to the better system if socialism is universally better for humanity?

-The proper scientific method (deduction vs induction)

-Eternal truths vs progression of truth
How can the Good both seem as an eternal reality of History but also as a fleeting fact?

-Base vs superstructure (why not be a gradualist or a stagist?)
Why shouldn’t we concede to capitalism nationally or internationally and hope for a simultaneous global revolution?

-Historical investigation example
Is history a process, inert, absolutely determined or in constant change? What are true and proper historical explanations?

-Scientific investigation example
What is the status of scientific totalities or pure forms such as atoms, prices, genes, psychological individuals, institutions, “technics” and the state?

Why German idealism and why Hegel?

The main questions of German Idealism:
1) How are judgements possible (a priori or otherwise)?
2) How is the unity of consciousness and reality formed?
3) How are the universal categories derived?
4) What is metaphysical error?

Kant’s answers:
1) There are universal conditions for all judgment. These are the a priori conditions for all cognition.
2) The transcendental unity of apperception is what makes cognition possible and what links intuition, understanding and reason.
3) The universal categories are derived from the different forms judgment can take.
4) Metaphysical error is applying concepts outside the bounds of their respective content of experience. Kant calls this the antinomies of reason.

The substrate of Kant’s answer: The thing-in-itself. The reality behind appearance is forever elusive since cognition is always already mediated by the subject. The primacy of theoretical reason.

Fichte’s answers:
1) Judgements presuppose both a priori and a posteriori form and content. Thus, we can not refer to either side as absolutely constitutive.
2) The Absolute I posits itself as the necessary first principle of all cognition.
3) The categories are derived from the obstacle of absolute positing (named the Anstoss); the tension between I and not-I. The categories must be derived with respect to form and content. They mustn’t merely be assumed from the forms of judgment.
4) Metaphysical error is applying concepts outside the Absolute positing of the I and its consequent I and not-I, thus creating a pre-critical Absolute (as Spinoza did with his substance).

The substrate of Fichte’s answer: The obstacle (Anstoss) felt by the I. The primacy of practical reason. Thus, there is no thing-in-itself since there is only striving towards a resolvable synthesis, even with regards to the categories of consciousness themselves (they keep getting redefined, developed, changed in structure, etc). In Kantian terms, the unity of apperception was in the realm of the thing-in-itself, thus our understanding of it through transcendental deduction depends on the very content we abstract from (the not-I). Fichte was mostly a Kantian but he wanted to find a mechanism that would allow him to derive the categories and not merely borrow them from the Aristotelian table as Kant did. This mechanism would also allow him to engage with new and emerging concepts, especially practical/political concepts.

A passage from the Science of Knowledge to understand this:

”The thing-in-itself is something for the self, and consequently in the self, though it ought not to be in the self: it is thus a contradiction, though as the object of a necessary idea it must be set at the foundation of all our philosophizing, and has always lain at the root of all philosophy and all acts of the finite mind, save only that no one has been clearly aware of it, or of the contradiction contained therein. This relation of the thing-in-itself to the self forms the basis for the entire mechanism of the human and all other finite minds.”

Thus, the thing-in-itself is itself the antinomy it is trying to flee. It is not outside but inside. This is Fichte’s conclusion.

To summarise the issues of German idealism up until now, let’s outline under what circumstances Hegel was forming his answer:

-First, Kant did not derive the categories (quality, quantity, being, etc) from principle. He assumed them from judgment, which Hegel sees as a remnant of pre-critical consciousness and a metaphysical primacy of the understanding.
-Second, Kant could not discover the content of the categories, which are the connections between the categories themselves. For example, this led him to the uncritical predication of causality to the thing-in-itself (reason), even as an epistemological principle, the predication of subjectivity to universal form (morality) and mechanism to content (nature).

Hegel’s answers:
1) Judgements are possible as the synthetic unity of the universal conception and its particular instantiation, a unity that precedes either of its terms.
2) The unity of consciousness stems from the unity of the concept in general. A unity which comprises opposites (universal & particular) and thus makes synthetic analysis possible a priori. All of Hegel’s derivations are hence a priori, the only difference is that the space of the a priori is constantly redefined at each concept:

"It is the aspect of infinity which constitutes the principle of that apriorism which sets itself against the empirical." -Hegel, On the Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law

3) Categories can only be derived from their own immanent development in critique. There can be no third-person perspective on the categories of consciousness as consciousness is its own object.

4) Metaphysical error is applying categories outside their own concept, i.e. their immanent development discovered in critique. It is restricting the immanent development of the categories themselves and being stuck in a primitive form of the concept under new conditions.

The substrate of Hegel’s answer: The antinomy is not merely the thing-in-itself but constitutive of every category of reason. Thus, the Absolute itself is antinomic. The difference between this conception of the Absolute and Kant’s is that it allows Hegel to think of concepts in general as actually contradictory and thus be properly critical as regard to their use. For example, with regards to the scientific investigation of space and time, Kant could only say that space and time were neither absolutely discontinuous nor absolutely continuous. He could not analyze the movements of both space and time in their *transition* out of continuity and back to discontinuity and vice-versa.

The issue with the Kantian conception is that it doesn’t merely stop at applying concepts outside possible experience but indirectly halts at the analysis of the most intimate particular. For example, if we are to predicate temporality to any given reality, such as the classical political-economic example of labor-time as value, we are immediately faced with the issue of: in what sense is labor said to be temporal in this example? Would it be in the discrete sense (labor-time is constituted of labor-moments which build value incrementally into each product) or would it be continuous (labor-time is one continual process independent of labor-moments)? Both of these answers raise questions. In the first case, labor-time as value becomes absolutely calculable with increments, which creates issues when analyzing productive versus unproductive labor. In the second case, labor-time as value becomes absolutely incalculable (as everything is a continuous process), which obstructs applying any law to the economy.

(Note: It is "incalculable" only in the sense that it produces a subject-oriented result in the sense that its only parameter that would establish its absolute continuity would be the continuity of broad subjective statements of value, establishing an identity between its continuity and the continuity of supply/demand (in an absolute manner). A better qualification would be that it produces a false result, what it "calculates" is effectively null with regards to its subject-matter (it is a mere formal ground/analytic explanation instead of a complete ground/synthetic explanation).)

Even the relative assertion of continuity and discreteness is not enough for scientific analysis since scientific analysis always requires the discovery of laws, which pushes concepts to their absolute boundaries. In the case of the economy, the absolute boundary would be the absolute center of gravity of said economy in a given historical epoch. The solution to this issue (which Ilyenkov calls the problem of the abstract and the concrete) is not the absolute assertion of one of them (seen in modern empiricists or modern rationalists) but the absolute (and thus truly relative) assertion of both. By asserting both, consciousness can then move into the concrete investigation of both moments as constitutive: an ascent from the abstract to the concrete. E.g, Parameters of market relations also pertain to units of necessary labor-time (discrete aspects) which mediates supply and demand (continuous aspects). Further, this conception of the Absolute allows for absolute novelty in the sense that when the concrete conditions of the abstraction develop and change, the abstraction itself transforms. Thus, Logic also becomes historical. This was implicit in Kant (with the necessity of dogmatism prior to critical philosophy) but made fully explicit in Hegel. Hence, dialectical and historical analysis become the same thing.

"The Kantian philosophy could not have any effect on the treatment of the sciences. It left the categories and methods of ordinary knowledge quite undisturbed." -Hegel

Another example would be the classical examples of causality in nature which Kant deals with in his third Critique.

-Rejecting absolute and unconditioned judgement forms of investigation (implementations of conclusions in the question).
-All antinomies are dual demands for completeness inherent in judgment. First, for explainers. Second, for substrata.
”Kant holds that the problem in the Antinomy stems from the application of a legitimate way of conceiving of the unconditioned to a specific domain that it cannot fit”. Hegel argues that from the start it is not legitimate.

For example, Kant’s conception of space is thoroughly Newtonian. Hegel’s critique of Kant’s transcendental aesthetic and its culmination in the antinomies of pure of reason is not the “resolution” of Kant’s antinomy but his radical affirmation of the antinonomy, more so than Kant who thinks it is an illusion. The antinomy is itself *space*. Thus, a new space of analysis for science is created; the space of the analysis of the transition from space moments to temporal moments and back.

The moment reality becomes antinomic is the moment reality is already resolved. There is no further step to take with regards to the antinomy’s conception. The moment the Gordion Knot appears is the moment it is easiest to cut (thus “solve”). This is the real meaning of sublation.

Further, we can see the difference between the Kantian and Hegelian methods in their conceptions of the world. For Kant, the totalities produced by the developments of science are necessary but subjective totalities. In other words, they do not exist in themselves but persist because of the subject’s limitations. Thus, giving up the “fiction” frees the subject. Hegel responds that the fiction is an objective fiction of the thing itself. In other words, the specific way in which the “real things” become “fictions” and return back to transform “real things” is the movement of the “real thing” itself. The problem with the Kantian conception is that it ironically retains a metaphysical understanding of the “real things”; “real things”, such as the concept-intuition unity of any object or the a priori itself, is nothing but the dissolution and movement of the “fiction”. The fiction itself directly affects reality and vice-versa.

Hence, Hegel will say that affirming the “fiction” is actually what frees the subject and delivers him to the point of absolute contingency. For in affirming the fiction the whole network of the objective fiction’s relations to itself are revealed and thus only the new can arise.

Why is the dialectical method necessary for political-economic and historical analysis?

A concrete example would be comparing the Kantian and Hegelian (Marxist) conceptions of Capital. For Marx, Capital is a “concrete abstract” in that it abstracts itself in an objective manner from its own concreteness. Thus, Capital is a true and objective determination of reality and not merely a “subjective fiction”; it is just that reality *itself* is split and divided, the fiction itself is divided into reality and itself. In that sense, it is the objective power of humanity within definite given relations to nature and to itself. The “subjective fiction” is only when you ignore this reality and try to construct and pursue a “pure” totality (which is what Kant advises against but also ironically endorses in his view of the “real things”).

However, for Kant, Capital would be a subjective totality without “intuition”. Thus, to escape this subjective fiction, one should retain to the objects united with “intuition” such as profits, commodities, prices, etc and focus on their pure analysis or in their pursuit of totality. This is where the whole Austrian school begins. The abandonement of the antinomy is the issue with the Kantian conception since it removes the antinomic reality of the concept-intuition unities themselves. Thus, it leads to a different type of metaphysical error: the “purity” of the particular. The particular is never united with the universal in their reciprocal antinomy or dialectic.

But then the question arises: what is transformation if not the abandonment of the total worldview as Kant suggests? For Kant, once we abandon pure “universality” of “pure reason”, we can properly locate the conditions of possibility of all given particulars. But Hegel would respond that giving up on totality is the same as giving up on particularity; it is impossible to abandon the purity of the universal but assert the purity of the particular “in its movement towards” universal purity. The particular is always already total and not merely in the approachement of totality. Overcoming the particular is not approaching it towards totality but completely reconceptualising it while preserving its previous determination.

Hegel would conceive of transformation as the rendering explicit of the implicit. The Absolute is constant. Hence, the proper conception of it is always true throughout time since it always includes the wealth of the implicit. Every human throughout history has access to absolute truth. There are specific instances of “revelation” which simultanuously link past, present and future and thus *shifts* the totality. These “shifts” do not cancel the previous totality or abandon it, rather, they completely preserve it but also show how the “new” was always already implicit in the previous totality “working from behind the scenes” or even from the future. It has only now come to be understood by consciousness and to be disclosed by reality.

Thus, Capital is indeed the objective determination of mankind’s complete power for a given historical era but to *repeat* this totality is already to transform it into socialism since the implicit conditions which made Capital the summum of humanity have been made explicit. Hence, the previous totality is not cancelled or abandonned as a “subjective fiction” but fully redeemed as an implicit totality within the new and the old. One falls into error once he tries to make Capital into a “pure totality”. The reality is that Capital, and every single totality, was and will always be always already split and bound up within its own impossibility, an impossibility which makes possible its own fleshing out, transformation and communication.

The justification for this view is the fundamental unity of what Hegel calls the “concept”. The fundamental unity of the concept provides the ontological ground for an “absolute” method. Let’s give an example to think of transformation as more concrete. Let us think of scientific investigation. An empiricist or a transcendental idealist could point towards science as a sphere of knowledge where “fundamentals” are constantly overturned and redefined, which could provide reasoning for doubting any kind of absolute method as Hegel defends. For a Kantian for example, science is always doomed to misapprehend its own use of the transcendental concepts (causality, quantity, substance) until it gets proper intuition of them. Thus, the process of science is the process of the constant destruction of all that was known previously on the basis of the synthetic a priori which defines the ground of such a destruction. Hence, a Kantian would reproach Hegel for thinking he has established necessary links between given realities (such as Marx’s analysis of Capital).

However, Hegel would respond that by understanding the true “concept” of a given reality and limiting one’s self to that concept, one can never fall into absolute error as contingency itself is inscribed in the method of analysis. Let us take the classical example of evolution. Certain given animal functions can be misunderstood by analysis and only later discovered to be functions which actually lead to an adaptation of the species instead of its mere negative self-regulation. This seems to point towards a scientific skepticism of absolute explanation. However, if we understand functions only as those factors which explain themselves in the circularity of the organism, then excesses are rejected as outside absolute explanation. Thus, functions can only be defined as the immanent development of their own effects.

Ex: When we analyze the functions of a species, such as a specific pattern of nutrition, we must establish the immanent link between the pattern and the species’s self-reproduction. We must not try to reduce new patterns to a posited reality of self-production but leave all that is outside absolute explanation open.

Hence, ironically, Hegel’s scientific method leads to the true “absolute” hypothesis whereas Kant’s scientific method only leads to a “relative” hypothesis. Kantians will always work within given parameters and try to critically approach them to totality. Hegelians will analyze the parameters’ own approach to totality and return to itself as constitutive of their own reality. What I mean by this is that Hegel rejects any attempt to make an analysis of the mere “approachement” of the infinite as Kant talks about. This is way too naively metaphysical in Hegel’s view. Kant’s method is actually the one that produces a totalising tyranny of rationality while Hegel accumulates irrationality as the base of his system and the sphere of absolute contingency. Thus, reversals of Hegel’s system such as Marx’s, Kierkeegaard’s and Bataille’s are to be expected and are indeed a true component of his method. The true conservatism of Hegel is the exact same as his true revolutionary spirit. A true revolutionary is at the same time a true conservative and vice-versa.

Finally, what is the difference between the “thing-in-itself” of Kant and the “point of impossibility” of Hegel? The difference proper is the “space” of investigation. For Kant, even if doomed to relative failure, we must attempt to investigate "in" the thing-in-itself to hope and acquire proper intuition. For Hegel, we must investigate "through" the impossibility for scientific development. Thus, Hegel never hopes to extend the old investigations linearly but always to shift the parameters, to ascend to a new level of a more intense impossibility. Hegel’s strategy is to run so fast until you hit a wall and once you hit a wall, you switch directions whereas Kant would try to break the wall in vain (the power of empirical research!). The problem proper is never merely “resolved” but redefined, intensified and shifted. Once you hit the wall, you need to ask yourself: what question is the wall asking me?

"The relationship of philosophy to what is empirical was dis¬ cussed in the general introduction. It is not only that philosophy must accord with the experience nature gives rise to; in its for¬ mation and in its development, philosophic science presupposes and is conditioned by empirical physics"

This is seen at the very start at the Logic; the being-demand is not merely “resolved” but substantially re-defined. The definition of being itself (retroactively) changes with the encounter with its impossible wall. From purity, it changes to movement, infinity, measure, mediation, appearance and finally self-mediation. Thus, sublation is the addition of a new dimension to the “contradiction” and not merely its naive dissolution. Each development contains all of the previous dimensions. This “dimension-shifting” of Hegel’s spiral-like circularity is what is missed in Kantian linearity; the synthetic shift of the transcendental frame itself through the proper judgement.

"The upshot is the following. At the very least, the task ahead of Hegel is to show that Reflection as a mediation between universal and particular can be accounted for as a genuine unity (Being), without relapsing into the Jacobian thoughtlessness of sense-certainty. Hegel must show that exhibiting the constitutive mediation of the object will not lead us to sacrifice the object’s immediacy—although, as we will see, the task will reinvolve a crucial redescription of the key notions of universality, particularity and ground, within the framework of a theory of ‘absolute subjectivity" -Franco Cirulli

"The first moment is the immediate positivity of the starting point. The second moment, its mediation, is not simply its immediate contrary, its external opposite - it comes forth precisely when we endeavour to grasp the first moment, the immediate in and for itself, as such. In this way, we already mediatise it and, imperceptibly, it turns into its own opposite. The second moment is thus not the negative of the first, its otherness. It is the first moment itself as its own other, as the negative of itself: as soon as we conceive the abstract-immediate starting point (as soon as we determine the concrete network of its presuppositions and implications, explicate its content), it changes into its own opposite. Already, on the most abstract level, 'nothingness' is not the external opposite of 'being': we arrive at 'nothingness' by simply trying to specify, to determine the content of the notion of 'being'. Herein consists the fundamental dialectical idea of' inner negativity': an entity is negated, passes over into its opposite, as a result of the development of its own potential. This is the reason why negativity must be counted twice: to negate the starting point effectively, we must negate its own 'inner negation' in which its content comes to its 'truth. This second, self-relating negation, this (as Hegel would put it) otherness reflected into itself, is the vanishing point of absolute negativity, of 'pure difference' - the paradoxical moment which is third since it is already the first moment which 'passes over' into its own other. What we have here could also be conceptualised as a case of retroactive determination: when opposed to its radical Negative, the first moment itself changes retroactively into its opposite. We can now see how the supplementary element emerges: as soon as we add to the immediate its negation, this negation retroactively changes the meaning of immediacy, so we must count to three, although what we effectively have are just two elements. Or, if we envisage the complete cycle of the dialectical process, there are just three 'positive' moments to count over (the immediacy, its mediation and the final return to the mediated immediacy). What we lose is the unfathomable surplus of the pure difference which 'counts for nothing' although it makes the entire process go, this 'void of the substance' which is at the same time the' receptacle (Rezeptakulum) for all and everything' , as Hegel put it" -Zizek, Why Should a Dialectician Learn to Count to Four

The Logical Moves: The Essence of Dialectical Thought

-Why does Hegel talk the way he does? (the autonomy of the Word - speculation - some words on possession & Socrates)

Hegel speaks in the manner he does to let the words he is using flow into each other seemlessly and necessarily. He wants to showcase how qualitatively different concepts turn into each other with enough investigation. This “autonomy” of language or the Word is seen early on in philosophy in the Socratic method and Socrates’ “erratic” visions. These “visions” are the revelation of the continuous flow of every qualitative difference precisely because of their actual unity. Thus, the subject of speech becomes “possessed” by the speech he is utilizing - he becomes its neutral object, the subject-object relation is reversed within the speculative process.

-Speculative investigation

Hence, speculative investigation is nothing but the “letting-go” of language by way of asking specific questions to “open up” the concept at hand as far as possible.

-What is the dialectic? (process of speculation)

Dialectic then is the process of speculative investigation, specifically the reciprocal link this process establishes between concepts.

-”What is in it?”

The initial speculative question is to ask what is “in” a given abstract concept. The start of any investigation is necessarily abstract. This questionement elevates this abstraction upon its true basis and hence opens the way to establishing its concrete link with the totality.

-”How does it vanish?” (Socrates vs Plato, leaving traces)

The question of “form” soons follows the previous question of “content”. The specific way the previous reality transforms, changes and moves defines its “form”. Hence, through the process of speculative investigation, concepts leave “traces”. This is the fundamental difference between Socrates' “I know nothing” and Plato’s theory of Forms. Plato *accepts* that we know nothing, only that this negative knowledge itself has varying forms (seen in Parminides).

-Abstraction & Immanence

This process then divides our method into two: the abstraction and the immanence of the concept. At first, the concept is fully immanent; it simply psychologically appears in the mind. Then, with the speculative question, the concept is “abstracted”. Finally, by establishing its dialectical relationships, the concept is once again immanent - but now in a concrete manner. A concrete “abstraction”.

-Determinacy, Indeterminacy, Mediation, Immediation

Initially, the concept which is investigated is indeterminate (hence its abstract nature). By its link with other concepts which it derives out of itself, it acquires a certain determinacy and hence also a mediation, i.e, a manner in which it only appears within other concepts.

-Moments

A “moment” in Hegel is simply a step within the development of a specific concept and which falls within the grasp of its abstraction. The most explicit moments of the universal concept are universality, particularity and individuality (later seen in the Doctrine of the Concept).

-Determinate Negation (a process of intellectual intuition - intrusion of being through thinking and their subsequent unification - behind the back as Brassier says).

Determinate negation in Hegel is simply a “negation” of a concept which is contained within that very concept as a defining element. Hence, it can be said to be “negation” as a “moment” of a concept.

Hegel can be understood as discovering the conditions of possibility (Kant) at every single object of thought - he does not assume any condition of subjective consciousness because he believes in illusion (remember Descartes?). This makes him an extremely contingent thinker as every category retroactively changes the very structure of intelligibility of these said conditions of possibility. This also places beyond the humanist vs anti-humanist debate - in this sense he is a post-humanist. A humanist recognizing inhumanity as tearing apart the human but the human as defining the condition of its tearing. The human inhuman and the inhuman human.

What do each of the Doctrines in the Logic mean for science?

-Immediacy (Being) - the myriad of forms (introduces sublation).
-Mediation (Essence) - the subsistence of the myriad (introduces contradiction).
-Mediated immediacy (Concept) - the self-causation and generation of thought (introduces Truth).

The Beginning

The Doctrine of Being

Being
-Immanence
Being is the simplest reality - the simple concept of immanence. It is the reality of thinking and the thinking of reality.

For example, what if we ask the speculative question: what is in pure Being? This necessarily elevates us to another plane of abstraction. Being as immediate and phenomenal, even though its phenomenological reality is full and cognized, its conceptual reality is void - reducing it conceptually to nothing, since it is the lowest of conscious immanence - the only other conceptual step being abstraction (Nothing). We can not define Being in any manner. Thus, Being vanishes before our very eyes by our very act of thinking about it and turns into Nothing.

Nothing
-Abstraction|
Nothing is the first result of abstraction and thinking proper.

For example, if we ask the speculative question: what is in Nothing? We take Nothing as such, outside of the conceptual, looking for a basis of experience, we find it is *not*, thus it necessarily exists only as abstraction *of* immanence, returning to Being. Its only possible determination is Being. Thus, Nothing also vanishes before our very eyes by our very act of thinking and turns into Being.

Becoming
-The general rule of all thought/being example
Becoming is the movement from being to nothing and back ad infinitum. It is the restlessness of thinking and also of reality (the multiplicity and repetition of phenomena). It is the fleeting moments of fixation, as if thought can never define multiple objects in the same manner at the same time; for one is necessarily an object of thinking and the other an object of reality. Becoming is thus the general rule of all thinking and reality.

For example, here comes the speculative question: what is in Becoming? What if we take Becoming itself as our object? What happens here is that the restlessness itself is taking to be a constant, thus a determination, of the new category now discovered. Thus, if it is a constant - it necessarily vanishes. We now have the vanishing of the vanishing, repetition necessarily makes Becoming a determinate reality. Thus, Becoming becomes Dasein (determinate Being).

Being-there (Dasein)
-Forms of existence example
-Relation to destruction
Dasein is being that has risen out of the restlessness of thinking and that has pronounced it to be its reality. It thus contains negation in it for it defines itself as a step above the chaos - it necessarily negates the chaos. Thus, it contains two moments.

Quality
-Reality and Negation
-Necessity of determination example
These two moments of Dasein are reality and negation. Together they form the quality of Dasein. This new category of negation will propel Dasein into its next form. For if we again ask the speculative question: what is in Dasein? What happens if we take the determination of Dasein itself as our object of investigation? What we find in the negation contained within Dasein is also a determinate negation. Both the reality and negation of Dasein are found to be determinate and that is so, retroactively. They are determinate only by way of referring to each other as unities.

For example, a chair exists by means of it being fixated on a specific form. It has a certain consistency that is attributed to it. This consistency contains within it also the negation of all that would be inconsistent with the thing’s existence. Those negations also refer to consistent inconsistencies, from the perspective of the chair. They refer for example to its destruction, assemblage, etc. The first category of quality here would be what immediately differentiates a determinate reality (one can speak of the immediate intuition Kant would refer to).

The chaos from before had no form - but now with the rise of Dasein it also acquires a determinate way of destroying. In this determinateness of the negation, Dasein only finds itself. Thus, it proves to be self-relating. It has the logical form of a circle. It starts from itself, extends itself to its negation and again finds only itself in the negation. The pure chaos was lost to give way to self-relation. This leads us to the next category.

Something & Other
-Self-relation of determination through negation
-*Determinate* negation appears
-Spectrums example
The self-relation of Dasein is the something. In the something, self-relation is recognised as necessarily arising out of the previous categories - most explicitly the restlessness of Becoming and the fixation of Dasein. Out of restlessness arises fixation and out of the negation of fixation arises the fixation of the fixation. The fixation of the fixation defines the object proper.

For example, we can say of a thing that it is something only once it goes out of itself (some) and back to itself (thing). A something is only among other things. It is singled out of the multiplicities of existence and made to relate to itself as independent. A chair is something not merely because it has wood, legs, etc but because it relates to itself as chair. That is the meaning of something.

But it is not only reality that is self-relating, but also negation. The negation mediates the self-relation of the something, but the something also mediates the self-relation of the negation. For when we say that a thing is not this, it logically follows that it is other than. Once we take the something as our object of investigation, we find that what is not-something also acquires self-relation through its quality of being the not-of-non-negation. Once a first something appears, other also follows. Once an other follows, the something and other form another something. This quickly turns into an infinite process of self-relating destruction - the return of Becoming but now acting upon fully determinate objects.

Being-for-other and Being-in-itself

Being-for-other is the first qualitative aspect of something that arises after change. It is the something’s other relatedness. Being-for-itself is the second aspect of something arising after change. It is the something’s in-itselfness and the first attempt of the something to distinguish itself and to stay self-relating. However, through the infinite quality of alteration, further qualification can be noted: being-in-itself logically extends itself towards the other and posits it as part of it. It determines the other in the manner it itself is. The other thus also integrates it in itself and acts as a basis for Being-in-itself. It becomes its constitution.

For example, a certain object always positions itself in a qualitative spectrum. Thus, the being-in-itself of some given color like red would be the quality of redness itself and its Being-for-other would be colorness - relating to others in general. However, because of the infinite movement of Becoming - even being-in-itself is not enough - as we know empirically color is corruptible because of its constitution. Thus, a further category is on the horizon.

Limit

The limit is the explicit negation in the heart of something that explicitly rejects the other so as to prevent its absolute vanishing. For if we ask the speculative question and take something itself as our object, we find that it vanishes before our very eyes because of the infinite relation with the Other (as shown before). The very reality of its vanishing causes us to think that there is something there - at the very least in a fleeting moment. A negation appears in the vanishing - a negation of its own vanishing. Thus, the limit is the return to unification of negation after the self-relation of something. But the limit is peculiar since it the relation to negation is no longer external (as in quality) but internal to the object itself. This is due to the way determination and constitution removed any borders for the previous external negation.

The Finite

The limit is both the end and the beginning of something. The limit is also both the end and the beginning of the other. The limit is the integrated not-other so as to give space to being-in-itself. It proves to be a directly contradictory category. Thus, finite things explicitely end their own reign with limit - it defines itself as taking a restricted space in representation. As Hegel says “the hour of their birth is the hour of their death.” What is left of the something once this limit is determined? One the one hand, it seems as if there is a determination outside its limit (being-in-itself). But on the other, it seems as if limit takes over every place in something for it can not define itself in any manner except through it.

For example, Hegel gives the good examples of the point, the line and the plane…

The Limitation & the Ought

This contradiction, between the something’s being and its non-being in the limit propels it to the next category, which is an elucidation on the relation the being has to its own end. Something’s being can only define itself by asserting itself against the limit - thus entering into conflict with it. The limit now appears as a defect of the being’s something at the same time that it defines it. Thus, we can say that what something should be is in conflict with what it is.

For example,

This “should” indicates the further development of what something is - a something that extends beyond itself since it always already negates itself. Thus comes the next category.

Bad Infinity and True Infinity

Infinity arose many times, in less explicit form, before appearing fully out of the finite. Infinity first fully appears once the finite proves to be beyond itself in negating itself. What if we ask the speculative question: what is truly in the finite? We find that the finite is composed of the moment of its death (limit) and the moment of going beyond itself (intrinsic in-itself). Thus, in its death, it again finds itself as the beyond of itself, constituting a new finite thing. For as soon as the beyond is reached, it becomes determinate (in relation to its previous state) and thus subject to another negation that would make it the beyond of the beyond. This process continues ad infinitum. It is very similar to the process of change encountered first when something & other appeared. Only now, because of limit, the finite leaves the mark of its death (making it quantifiable) - whereas the something did not (it simply vanished).

For example, how many points are in a line?…

However, this is only the first form of infinity. For this infinity only viewed as other-than finitude necessarily limits itself as only being the limit of the finite - the limit of the limit. They are again bound together with a common limit. Where the finite stops, only there can the infinite begin to make sense. Thus, the infinite vanishes into finitude. But the finite also can only be said to be the transcendance of itself into its explicit negation and thus also vanishes into infinity. This new process is qualitatively different from the previous one since finitude and infinity are now moments of a whole, instead of a mere repetition of the finite. This process is an infinite process of going out of itself and returning to itself - it is the true infinite. A visual representation would be the difference between an infinite line (bad infinity) and a circle (true infinity).

For example, consciousness works in a curious manner. It is said to be true infinity since…

Being-for-self

Being-for-self is the infinite process understood as determinate and thus a being. It is infinitely self-relating being. It has no other since all that can be other is contained within it as moment.

For example, Being-for-self would be the simple Idea (Idea as Idea and not Idea-of). To trace back our derivation: the Idea of red can be said to be quite qualitatively different from redness or colorness itself. The Idea of red has went out of redness and occupied a universal position in consciousness. Within the Idea of red, all the moments of red are contained (quality, color, presence, existence, attribution, dilution). It can be said to be an infinite relation since redness went out of itself, then towards infinity (an exhaustion of its determinations) and then back to itself (through consciousness) as Idea. This process of going-out-of-itself and back qualifies is Being-for-self.

However, looking closely at this, Being-for-self becomes itself a moment in relation to its respective moments since it is nothing but the moments as process. It has no reality outside that and thus no reality outside itself. This split in Being-for-self (which can be understood as a split in consciousness), which causes it to be a moment of itself (a reflection which only occurs once infinity is determinate - after-the-fact), propels it to the next category.

Being-for-one

Being-for-one is the quality of being a moment since being a moment is always being a moment of a certain unity. Being-for-one seems to be incomplete since it is the being-for a bigger idealised and unified process. It seems as if being-for-self has completely disappeared from before for now we only have two (or more) processes that are for one.

For example, in consciousness, multiple ideas work in tandem to form a single consciousness for us. These ideas can be said to be the moments or the being-for-one of consciousness. The objects at hand are all idealised and presented for-consciousness. They have went out of their immediacy, into determinacy and then into consciousness. Therefore, consciousness can be said to be an amalgamate of being-for-ones.

But these two moments are found to be identical being-for-one and thus found to be relating to itself only through itself. Being-for-self reappears now as the mediation of itself, the moment of the moment, which wasn’t its determination before. This new determination has no internal *moments* - just as it had rejected others and negation before, it now also explicitely rejects being a moment. Taking this as pure, we find that it is the One.

The One

The One is the purely self-relating object with no internal moments. It is its own limit. Thus, it loses some (if not all) of its determinacy. There is nothing to be found in it, it is only the affirmation of itself as One. However, that nothing is determinate and existing. The One produces it. It thus takes the form of the void.

For example, another way to approach the paradoxical derivation of the One is to think of the relation between whole and parts. Parts have their truth not in-themselves but in the Whole. They can be said to be being-for-ones or moments of that greater Whole. However, the Whole itself can be said to be merely a part of itself. For if you remove every single part, the Whole vanishes. Thus, the Whole itself does not possess the Truth in-itself. Then, what is the Whole part of? The Whole seems to be part of itself. What this means is that the Whole only appears when parts reject themselves and limit their own selves as parts. Thus, the condition of Wholeness is abstract self-limitation. Consciousness can only think of the Whole once it chooses such object to be for-itself as the limit of itself absolutely. What willingly negates everything to truly limit itself to such a degree that it can only be said to be the limit of itself is the One. For what is the One if not this seemingly arbitary limitation of a thing within itself? Thus, within the Whole is hidden the One.

Because of this purity of the One, it produces an abstract nothingness that serves as its proper background to make it stand out as the One. The void is the excess of the One’s own abstraction from all processes and moments. A way to reach this insight from ordinary consciousness is to try and think what makes a certain object One. Not red, not tall, not round but merely One. It is One by not being any other and unrelated to any other. Thus, it is One by standing out from nothingness (non-relation). This creates a tension between the One and nothingness, the One inherently tries to remove that nothingness which is caught up in relation with it. This tension is repulsion.

The Many

But since the One is precisely the exhaustion of all determinations to establish itself as its own abstract limit, the void can not simply be void. Since the void is now determined through the One, it will be said to be another One. It divides itself into two moments. For as soon as the hole of the One is marked through the space of reality and consciousness, all that is outside the One is delimited as One also, only negatively. The void occupies a delimited and specific external place after being contrasted with the One - which it didn’t when it was looked upon immediately (when it first appeared in consciousness from the negation of all others and determinations). As soon as the One becomes the One-that-is-not-the-void, the transformation of the void has already occurred. The void is no longer abstract since it enters into explicit relation with the One which makes it relate to itself through it. But further, since the One recognizes no other for-it, this something must not be for the first One but for itself (as abstractly the limit of itself from the other) as not in-here but out-here purely. It thus stands alone and cut-off. This process of going-out-of-itself and back-to-itself, absolutely, is the very process of the One. Thus, the void becomes a One.

The same happens with the new One ad infinitum and thus the Many are generated. This process is very similar to the dialectic between the something and the other except that now the Ones produced persist whereas the something disappeared after its relation with the other. The unity of the Many is attraction. Their repulsion and their attraction pressupose each other. They are precisely unified in their distinguishing.

For example, a thing can be said to be One only once it is abstracted from all others. Thus, within the One is contained the sphere and space of multiplicity itself. The possibility of others being abstracted is contained. This is the force which generates the tension in the One in the first place. The reason the One operates like this is that, through its dialectic, the One is found to be a process rather than an entity. It is constituted of two moments found from previous derivation; going-out and going-back. These movements come from the logic of infinity. These moments are mirrored to each other to form the One in the first place. But once going-out shifts with its relation to the other, going-back can no longer occur in the same manner. Going-back then can only occur by self-externalising itself from itself; a going-back to purity.

Imagine a given spatial determination; an apple or anything you would like. Think of its quality as One thing. First, it can be said to be absolutely One. It has no difference within itself. It differentiates itself (from all) only by referring to itself. But thinking of it this way makes its determinacy vanish. It can no longer be said to be simply an apple. It is just One vague thing. If you insist and wish to return to its quality as One apple - you must start and negate this vagueness. But once you start negating this vagueness, you necessarily refer to what is other than the pure apple in the apple. You say: it is also One red thing - One redness. But then that also disappears once you purely focus on its redness as One thing. Thus, the original One lead to a second One by relating to its nothingness. The One is found to be a unstable category. Once it is pure, it disappears. Once it is determinate, it is no longer One (thus it rejects itself from itself and leaves behind the previous One). The One can be said to be the purity of determination. It is stuck between being immediately affirmative and being determinate. Thus, Within the One, the Many is generated. The Many inherently comes from the infinity of determinations, but now from the standpoint of absolute self-relation (One thing).

Quantity

Quantity is the standpoint of absolute self-externality. It logically comes out of the Many as the constant self-externalization of the One. It is the recognition of the opening of a new sphere outside the qualitative; the sphere of self-externality absolutely and for no immediate determination. Quantity was mentioned quickly when finitude appeared for it also deals with limits. When we ask the speculative question: what is in quantity? We find two processes that relate to its self-externality; continuity and discreteness. Both of these moments are aspects of self-externality that are observed if we take the Many as our object of investigation.; the Many is continuous but also discrete. Only at absolute self-relation did we find absolute self-externalisation.

Quantum

The immediate determination of quantity is the quantum - the definite break from the self-externalisation and in fact the truth of such self-externality. Quantity is both continuous and discrete. It is first absolutely indeterminate & continuous because of its self-externalisation but it proves to become discrete and determinate because of its inherent negation. The quantum seems *arbitary* for it is again One discreteness among Many. But it proves to be a necessary arbitariness here to even speak of quantity in the first place (the question of how do you divide infinity/the Many?). The specific quantum here is the number - defined as a unity related to a certain amount. The next determinations arise out of this break from the Many.

Note: Quantity has universalised and absolutised its division of reality and consciousness here. Everything has thus become quantitative (everything is a unit of consciousness, space, time, etc).

Extensive and Intensive
-Number (unit & amount)

Extensive magnitude is the first determinacy that appears after the quantum for it is the quantum’s relation to quantity. If it is said to be quantum - it must contain the commonality of quantity itself and thus must be extensive. It is the unity of the *some* as opposed to the abstract Many. A quantum contains *Many* (internally and externally) but also is *some*. But analyzing the determinacy of this *some* closer, we also notice that the quantum can only be said to be quantum if it is a specific *some* within the *some*. It is also intensive.

For example, this is seen when we analyze the move from three as a number to three being a multitude of the sum that it is (i.e, a degree). This is the intensive aspect of a quantum. Thus, the quantum now explicitely enters into relation with others outside it. The number three is only three as a third, etc. But once we say it is *third*, the same exact quantum can also become a *fourth* if we simple make explicit the Many that in it, i.e, if we divide it. This gives rise to a new dynamic.

Quantitative Infinite

The quantum as a specific discreteness among the Many proves to be ever-shifting into other quantums because of the relation it has to what is other than it in the degree. Thus, this infinite re-discovery of Becoming is the quantitative infinite - the impossibility to make any quantum absolute as quantum alone. However, the quantum still continues to be itself in its change - it is still quantum and the same determination only in higher form and not another thing. Thus, it proves also to be self-relating in its change and thus qualitative.

For example, the third becomes a fourth but it also preserves itself in the form of a third *within* the fourth (3/4). This fraction eludes to the next determination of the quantum.

Ratio
-Direct ratio
-Ratio of powers

The quantum can only relate back to itself once it takes the form of a *ratio*, which is the form of its existence and persistence in another quantum. It gains a quality by specifically relating to one plane among the infinite planes of the other; 3/4 is different from 3/5, etc. Thus, this fraction as fraction itself or as the newly found ratio can be said to exhibit a particular quality; it increases in definite self-relating fragments. 3/4 → 6/8 → 12/16, etc. In each new increase in quantum, it finds itself again in it (as a multiplier). But here, it is still too other-related for its other is truly another quantum. It can only become truly and fully qualitative once its other becomes itself.

For example, continuing with the previous example, three is found to be three among another three, thus resulting in the ratio of powers (3 → 9). Now, both the quantum and its increase (unit and amount) are determined by the quantum - it is only multiplied by itself. Thus, it becomes fully three. Three has proven to exist in all spheres and planes of quantity as itself truly three; it is being-for-self (quality).

Measure
-Unity of quality and quantity
-Nodal lines & Jumps

Measure is at first quantity that has turned into quality. It is a specific quantum that relates to itself by defining itself in all the infinite spheres of quantity - it can thus be said to be a true infinite. It is qualitative since it relates purely to itself - which means its content is open to the determinations of quality (one space, one time unit, etc).

For example, if we take the naive atomist view - we can use quantity itself to make quality surge out. For if we say; a thing A is what it is because it contains X atoms as opposed to Y atoms, we have both quantitatively and qualitatively delimited it at the same time. Thus, the “X” and “Y” here would be the measures.

However, since measure still deals with other quantums (the ones that constitute it), it thus must give a rule to those quantums themselves. This means that if the measure of A is 3 atoms, then the atoms themselves need to be of a certain unit & amount to constitute this measure (here it is simply 1). This is the direct ratio. If atoms could be divided, this would be seen in more explicitely where A would have to be 6 half-atoms, etc.

The quantum the measure specifies is found to be itself a measure (a unit which is purely for itself - like the atom). Thus, the measure of the thing A, which is three atoms, is found to be completely different from the measure that makes the atom (unity for itself). If there was no qualitative difference between three atoms and one atom, the three atoms would just be one atom again. The one is necessarily qualitatively different and not a mere quantity so it could even form the 3 atoms in the first place. The one’s quality necessarily presupposes the one’s infinite repetition and self-relation through the infinite spheres of quantity (1→2→3 to infinity) to truly find itself - or else is simply collapses (as with the example given above). Hence, we are dealing with 2 different measures.

Indifference
-Substrate

This creation of a difference between the qualities of the One and the Three here creates what Hegel calls the nodal line or the jumps observed in reality and consciousness. This is a mark from the logic of Quality. Observing this difference closer, we find that it necessarily involves a space of indifference since each of the measures continues beyond their relation to each other. The One atom can be reproduced to be two or four atoms - it is not restricted to the three. The Three can be reproduced as Six, Twelve, etc. Each of these reproductions involve some form of new qualities - or else they collapse their quantum. Thus, they have meaning outside the relation One-Three. The creation of this space involves the assumption of a substrate (here the One-Three relation) and of indifferent changes with respect to the substrate (1 → 2 or 3 → 4). Everything becomes confusing. Changes do not involve immediate meaning. Nothing is immediately certain anymore. This rings the end of the logic of Being. Not even the immediacy of Being can be posited.

The Doctrine of Essence

Essence
-self-negating being

Essence is at first simple self-negating being. It is being that contains within itself a negativity which points to what is outside itself, i.e, which mediates it.

For example, Think of any object in general. To be scientific about the exposition of the object, one has to take into consideration the potential negativity of its determination, i.e, that the object can refer to more than its simple immediacy. For example, an apple contains within itself the negativity of its simple red being, it is more than red and that is revealed once it is bitten.

Seeming (essential vs inessential)
-Immediate non-being
-Thus, can only be the seeming of essence (moment)
-Essence is seeming of itself within itself (a larger object containing seeming, call it the necessary form of seeming). This process = reflection; from nothing to nothing.

Through the appearance of this negativity in the object itself, all the positivity of the object, or its immediacy, itself is tainted by this mediacy. Thus, immediacy becomes absolutely and arbitarily mediated, it becomes illusion. This creation of illusion through which the essential is contrasted marks the movement towards reflection. The relation of the essential and inessential creates the movement (back and forth) of reflection.

For example, In all possible objects, the lack positivizes itself as tangible. The lack is felt in the shell of the object itself and defines that very shell as inessential.

Reflection
-Immediate Seeming, seeming in-itself
-Self-relating negativity
”essence always posits something and reflects itself in the positedness of what it posits”
”what is mediated reflects essence.”
-A division in being

Positing Reflection

For reflection to begin its movement, it needs to posit the unessential. Essence is only seen through the reflection of this positing in its relation to mediation and the essential in general. Reflection only exists after positing itself as existing before/after. It creates its own impact. Thus, it is negativity indeed but negativity which relates to itself as positive. Its content is that very negativity, i.e, the determination it takes.

For example, In all possible mediated objects, a reality must be posited as the minimal seeming of essence. In the case of the apple, an unessential periphery is posited by the essential center. But since the unessential has something about it which lets it be mediated, essence presupposes the content of the periphery as its starting point. Thus, the essence (the center) is only reflected in its positing of the seeming (the periphery).

Hence, it is the movement from nothing (the mere negative of the apple - the periphery’s pointing/reflection) to nothing (the mere reflection of that negative - the center) and back (the periphery as posited by the center itself, it can only be immediate through that). This turning back is reflection in itself: the full determination and movement of essence. Reflection is the multiple forms that negativity within the object takes, negativity is not pure.

Positedness & Presupposition
-Positing is the process of perceiving seeming, perceiving the illusion
-Thus, it is the process of perceiving immediacy
-Not simple immediacy, but mediated immediacy
-But the illusion responds and covers its mediation - it creates presupposition (a simple negative beginning) for it to truly become im-mediate (thus external).

External Reflection

However, in this process of positing, the illusion also makes itself into a pure disattachement from essence since its presupposition can be nothing but another illusion. It creates another presupposition of a pure essence untainted by its own positedness and pure seeming untainted by essence. This is necessary so it itself does not become mediated. Thus, the process of reflection externalizes itself and creates an absolute separation. The essence has nothing to do with the seeming of its context and the context has nothing to do with the essence. The reason for this is the negative character of reflection, it eludes even its own moments.

For example, in every object, one can envision the reflective moment of positing as repeating itself infinitely to always posit a new essence. The apple isn’t merely its center but more; it is its seed, its chemicals, its substance, its taste, its atoms, ad infinitum. Or again, it is an unknown object X which is pure of mediation. Thus, the seeming of apple is merely that and the essence is absolutely different from what this seeming points to as beyond itself.

Ex: Nationalism, True meaning is impossible, etc.

"I used to be this (presupposition), but I am really this (positedness)."

Determining Reflection

External reflection is reflection that absolutely rejects the immediate outside itself, makes it free-standing. It posits a purity of seeming and a purity of essence. But this makes reflection inherent in immediacy, one can only be immediate after reflection and positioning one outside this self-negativity. One can only be purifying after having been unpure through the process of positing and presupposing. Thus, the pure seeming is in fact the final product of positing itself - its externality collapses. This moves its concept towards determining reflection.

Determining reflection is when essence obtains its determining character because of what it determines. It is immanent in the immediate purity itself. Thus immediate purity is objective and is itself essence. This is a new type of immediacy - a mediated immediacy, the unity of positing and external reflection. Essence gives itself its own presupposition.

For example, the immediacy of the apple is itself posited by the presupposition of overcoming its immediacy, i.e, the periphery is always already posited by the center. Periphery and center become one identical object.

Note: Here we notice explicitly that essence presupposes the movements of Being as its starting point that it chooses to focus on the negativity of that very movement. Thus, it ignores the initial standpoint of immediacy in the Doctrine of Being to return to the objects left behind. It can manage to ignore such immediacy since Being itself has proven to negate immediacy at the outset of quantitative repetition, where immediate quality is lost in the quantitative infinite.

Identity & Difference
-These are the forms of determinate reflection
-Immediacy of reflection: Identity (it knows that mediacy exists/mediates it but chooses to stay immediate, i.e only reflects back to itself as identical)
-Thus, it can be said to be reflection since it is also a self-relating negativity (it is not mediation) but in a new sense; an immediate sense.
-But in this manner, identity is different from the rest - not merely a negation of it but a complete withdrawal outside it. This is the emergence of difference as a category.
-Difference is the absolute…
-Gives diversity

Why is identity necessary in the development of essence? Identity is simply the recognition of the self-reference of any mediated immediacy. Thus, the essence of being is that it persists in abstraction throughout mediation and makes itself intelligible in this very movement. Its purity can be said to be its essence and this purity is only intelligible as a fact of identity.

For example, the movement of reflection in our previous example between center and periphery transforms into the identity of the circle itself. The circle is the identity of the movement of reflection between the center and the periphery.

Determinate reflection becomes identity when the movement of reflection is understood to be being’s own self-relating negativity, i.e, that there is nothing outside this self-negativity. It is purely identical to itself in this manner. The identity can be seen in the movement from immediacy to mediation and back to mediated immediacy - this movement proper defines the character of identity. This is also the appearance of *form* proper into the Logic (the circle is an ideal essence-form).

For example, the identity of the apple, or the object in general, is what confers upon it its first essence; the fact that it can return to itself after the connection with the whole network of determinations of the Doctrine of Being is what makes it possible to analyze as a determination in the first place. All the positedness of the apple which was taken to be its seeming before (periphery, center, taste, etc) is absolutely dependent upon the apple’s identity. Thus the identity is the true essence.

However, identity is soon to be revealed to be distinction from otherness and a turning back in general. Thus, identity itself is a difference. The identity differentiates itself, the abstract “circle” enters into a new network of determinations or its “outside” as shape, plane, point, etc.

Now, why is difference necessary in the development of essence? It is because the only way to further determine a pure “form” or an “identity” is to refer to its complete inner mediated self-differentiations.

For example, the only way to refer to the pure essence of “man” is to draw out the inner difference within man, i.e, man as father, man as son, man as worker, man as living, etc and only after such a concrete determining does the abstract appear as the true product of difference. Thus, in one case, “man” is merely the excess remaining out of the father-son relationship. If there is no father, there is no “man” yet “man” is still outside this determination as a determinate nothingness.

In the same manner, “circle” is only the excess of the differentiation of the periphery, the center, the line, the point, etc. The difference with the sphere of being is that this “form of identity” or “One” persists in its relation to differentiation and does not split into the mere Many. It reflects the whole of the differentiations within itself. Thus, it is a determinate mediated One instead of the abstract indeterminate One of the sphere of being.

E.g;
1) The essence of a thing is that it is identical to itself.
2) The essence of a thing is that it is different from all.
→ “I am this because I stayed identical/different through my seeming.” → collapses the division between identity and difference.

Diversity

The sublation of identity and difference is their repetition in every single object of cognition side by side. All objects are at the same time identical, in the sense that they negatively relate to themselves, and different, in the sense that they distinguish themselves, from given determinations. This double-character constitutes a diversity of objects. Diversity is judged by likeness and unlikeness.

This double-character within the same object also constitutes their positive and their negative aspects. Each is itself and its other.

Likeness & Unlikeness
-Determinations of diversity
-The immediacy of the Doctrine of Being returns with this

-Positive and Negative
-"Hegel concedes that A’s determinate difference from ~A does not seem in any way to entail the outrageous claim of a determinate difference of A from itself (ibid). But he points out that this relationship of unlikeness-to-the-other is A’s “own determination”
-Positive and negative collapse, both sides are the same.
-A is opposed to itself → Contradiction appears

Positive and negative are essentialities that are immediately mediated by each other, as opposed to something and other for example, which are merely mediated. The unity of mediation and immediacy is present in these essentialities. But because of that mediated immediacy, both sides become arbitrary and can be changed at will. Thus, their opposition collapses.

Contradiction

Ground
-The identity of identity and difference
-Unity of essence with negativity - thus essence with itself. Essence that has positedness in it. Unity of the self-relating positive (ground) and the self-relating negative (grounded). This gives Form.

The collapse of the distinction between positive and negative leads to the proper identity of the movement of essence; it no longer needs to posit itself in another to turn back upon itself but since essence is *only* this movement, it creates the movement out of itself. This is the “ground” proper which determines the “grounded”. Thus, essence has started from a simple negative and undermining movement to a complete positive creative movement. Not only is everything identical, different and diverse but everything also has a proper ground since it is the creation of a given mediation. Essence is absolutely self-determining. It has become both reflection-into-self and reflection-into-other.

For example, the difference between ground and a previous similar category, determining reflection, is that ground is a *specific* determinate reflection. It is a determinate reflection that isn’t a mere identity of an immediate determination to itself (pure self-identity) or a differentiation of a determination from all (difference) but an identity of the indeterminate identical purity (man) and its self-differentiations (father-worker-husband relations) in the form of a complete self-repelling movement (the ground of man is his activity). Further, man’s movement and activity has a specific (not merely ideal) form, a form which reproduces the whole of the “ground-connection”. As for our example of the apple, the ground of the apple proper would be the movement of the “fruit”.

Another way to understand ground is to ask the question: how does identity move out of itself and relate to its own difference? How does it deal with its own specific contradiction? This movement presupposes and creates a certain space, a (paradoxical) space which reveals itself to be the primary and the defining factor of both identity and difference (the excluded middle). This space is the ground proper.

"I am this because of the first thing.”

Formal, Real and Complete Ground
-Formal = tautology

The formal ground is the first manner in which things are explained in their mediation, an explanation that appears to be a mere change of words. Why does the chair stand? Because it has four legs. This form of explanation still relates to the immediate form of the unity between identity (chair) and its difference (legs, wood, etc) without seeing it is speaking only a tautology. This tautology annuls itself in its intent and gives way to real mediation; the real ground.

-Real = relates more than one content

The real ground relates to more than the immediate identical forms of the object and thus creates a “difference of difference”. Instead of being the abstract identical tautology of the formal ground, it is the ground rather on the side of difference. Why does a chair stand? Because it is falling. The introduction of differential content here is the difference in the determination of this ground.

-Complete = all contents are identical to their own ground

Finally, the complete ground is the unity between the formal and the real ground. We again arrive at a moment of tautology, but a new full and “concrete” tautology instead of the abstract one in the formal ground. The chair stands because of gravity and gravity exerts itself because of the chair.

Form & Matter

Analyzing the specific determinations of ground further, form can be said to be the difference between ground and grounded properly introduced in formal ground. Matter is the commonality of ground and grounded, the pure formless substance that constitutes them.

Form & Content
-Informed Matter after the collapse of matter
-Form’s own positing

However, once matter is conceived as a passive and formless substance, it paradoxically loses its status as “matter” since its determinacy loses its relation to its other. When matter re-asserts itself in its other, it is said to be “formed matter” or “content”. Hence, here, we see that every “matter” contains within itself the potential for disclosing a specific form. Matter defines the transcendental range of any possible form and hence is itself a “form” or the form of multiple possible forms. This distinction between potential and actual hints to the last section of the Doctrine of Essence; the analysis of the different forms of indeterminacy in their perspectives, ordering and moments. These are possibility, actuality and necessity. But with this indeterminacy also comes the necessity of defining what any “thing” in general must be; its in-itselfness, its other-relation and its property acquisition.

Condition
-One among the series. The ground relates to it as being its form.

"The return to external conditions (to antiquity) had to coincide with the return to the foundation, to the "thing itself," to the ground. (This is precisely how the Renaissance conceived itself: as the return to the Greek and Roman foundations of our Western civilization.) We do not thus have an inner ground the actualization of which depends on external circumstances; the external relation of presupposing (ground presupposes conditions and vice versa) is surpassed in a pure tautological gesture by means of which the thing presupposes itself"

Unconditioned
-Ground and Condition sublate as they transform into each other, becoming the unconditioned.
-The Fact

"This X, this irrepresentable surplus which adds itself to the series of sensible features, is precisely the "thing-of-thoughf' (Gedankending): it bears witness to the fact that the object unity does not reside within it, but is the result of the subjecfs synthetic activity. (As with Hegel, where the act of formal conversion inverts the chain of conditions into the unconditional Thing, founded in itself.)"

The Thing
-The thing in itself
-The contradiction of it
-Property

"The "in-itself" in its opposition to "for-self" means at one and the same time (I) what exists only potentially, as an inner possibility, contrary to the actuality wherein a possibility has externalized and realized itself, and (2) actuality itself in the sense of external, immediate, "raw" objectivity which is still opposed to subjective mediation, which is not yet internalized, rendered-conscious; in this sense, the "in-itself" is actuality insofar as it has not yet reached its Notion"

"For Hegel, external circumstances are not an impediment to realizing inner potentials, but on the contrary the very arena in which the true nature of these inner potentials is to be tested: are such potentials true potentials or just vain illusions about what might have happened?"

The contradictions of the quality of in-itselfness is precisely that there is nothing really “in-itself” since everything which truly determines itself is always already “for-itself”. Before that, in the realm of indeterminacy, everything is “in-itself” yet it is nothing. Only after the fact of determination can a sphere of “in-itselfness” be redeemed. Hence, the “in-itselfness” is an absolute void which is not *even* beyond appearance (that is still too metaphysical) but immanently within appearance.

Appearance
-Concrete Existence
-World of Appearance
-World in itself

"Therein consists the Hegelian inversion of external into absolute reflection: in external reflection, appearance is the elusive surface concealing its hidden necessity, whereas in absolute reflection, appearance is the appearance of this very (unknown) Necessity behind contingency. Or, to make use of an even more "Hegelian" speculative formulation, if contingency is an appearance concealing some hidden necessity, then this necessity is stricto sensu an appearance of itself"

Actuality
-Actuality
-Possibility
-Necessity
-Contingency

"Actuality arises by way of an identification of inward and outward. Inward and outward arise from force and its expression insofar as force and its expression end up having the same content, becoming something that has both an inward and outward dimension, which is just a difference in form. A distinction is being drawn in inner and outer, but one has to ask to what degree that distinction can sustain itself. Hegel presents actuality as arising when we have a unity of inward and outward"

"In challenging this claim, Hegel again and again points out how the true nature ofa possibility (is it a true possibility or a mere empty presumption?) is confirmed only by way ofits actualization: the only effective proof that you really can do something is simply to do it"

"Hegel’s position with regard to the relationship of possibility and actuality is thus very refined and precise: possibility is simultaneously less and more than what its notion implies; conceived in its abstract opposition to actuality, it is a Hmere possibility" and, as such, it coincides with its opposite, with impossibility. On another level, however, possibility already possesses a certain actuality in its very capacity of possibility, which is why any further demand for its actualization is superfluous. In this sense, Hegel points out that the idea offreedom realizes itselfthrough a series offailures: every particular attempt to realize freedom may fail; from its point ofview, freedom remains an empty possibility; but the very continuous striving of freedom to realize itselfbears witness to its actuality"

The Absolute

The Doctrine of the Concept

The Necessary Forms of Any Exposition:
-The Concept & The Syllogism
-Universal, Particular, Singular

"What remains hidden to Kant, what he renders invisible by way of his logic of the Ought (Sollen), i.e., of the infinite, asymptotic process ofrealizing the moral Ideal, is that it is this very stain of uncertainty which sustains the dimension of ethical universality: the Kantian subject desperately clings to his doubt, to his uncertainty, in order to retain his ethical status. What we have in mind here is not the commonplace according to which, once the Ideal is realized, all life-tension is lost and there is nothing but lethargic boredom in store for us. Something far more precise is at stake: once the "pathological" stain is missing, the universal collapses into the particular. This, precisely, is what occurs in Sadeian perversion, which, for that very reason, reverses the Kantian compulsive uncertainty into absolute certainty: a pervert knows perfectly what he is doing"

The necessary form of all and any possible exposition goes through their universal, particular and singular aspects. These three aspects can be considered to be three different but co-existant transcendental planes of the object of investigation. The reason for this is immanent. Immediately, a concept is abstract and formally universal. Then, within its very formality it acquires particular aspects and “negation”. Finally, as a self-generating unit, it acquires absolute “individuality”.

The Evolution of Thought:
Mechanism & Teleology
-Problem of mechanism: no difference between explanation and description
-Purpose and realized purpose
-Objective purpose

The abstract seperation of the categories of the concept lead to mechanism. The universal is seen as post-humous, the particular is seen as fleeting and the individual is seen as the only real. However, mechanism does not explain its own beginning. A mere “descriptive” position does not explain fundamental difference and the existence of the specific and present form as above others. In short, it does not grasp the reality of “totality” in a Lukacsian sense or “Being” in a Heideggerian sense. If every form is deconstructed to “smaller parts” and the “smaller parts” are then made to interact with each other randomly or as part of a blind “force” then the unity of such a “force” for it to lead to this specific unified form is never explained. A world of chaos can never give rise to logos under this worldview. On the other hand, the teleological view, which is the Hegelian view, posits that form is fundamental to “chaos” in that it defines the parameters of what even *is* chaotic. Hence, every conception of the chaotic is overdetermined by a formal conception - which makes teleology necessary. Here teleology takes the sense that a present or existing form determines the past.

Ex: The anatomy of man is the key to the anatomy of the ape. The reason for this is that a previous form was simply the highest determination and reification of previous chaotic relations - from the perspective of the future, it is “incomplete” since under new conditions, the same form must re-assert itself and hence transform itself.

The True Conclusion:
The Idea & the Absolute Idea
-The Idea
-The Idea of Cognition; definition, divisions, theorems
-The Absolute Idea; theoretical and practical

Teleological thinking necessarily leads to the positing of an “actually existing ideal” or an “actually existing abstraction”. This is the ultimate conclusion of the Logic and the one foreshadowed by every logical movement. Hence, truth is this very ideal for Hegel.

Conclusion: The Answer to the Original Paradoxes

-The transformation problem
How are the costs of production subtracted from previously a non-existent totality of labor? What does that mean concretely?

Labor is not merely an empirical conglomeration. Labor is an objective totality of given social relations that is reified by the law and the ruling class. Hence, it is possible to subtract from a non-empirical reality since the content of labor is more than empirical; it is social. It refers to the entire social power of labor ever possible in human society. *This* is what is substracted in the costs of production.

-Verificationism (Popper)
Can class struggle be verified empirically? Can the bourgeoisie be counted as a conglomeration of empirical individuals?

Class struggle has empirical impacts yet it is also not reducible to empirical reality. Class struggle is a fundamental antagonism in the form of organization of society because of the developments in the division of labor and its consolidation.

-Methodological individualism (libertarianism)
Why is totality a category of analysis at all? Isn’t only the empirical individual the real thing that can be proved and tested?

The individual is itself a division of a (mystified) totality. Totality is a category that pervades everything.

-Eternal truths vs progression of truth
How can the Good both seem as an eternal reality of History but also as a fleeting fact?

There is an original Good - which asserts the proper totality - and there is a “reified” Good, which asserts the repetition of the old form until exhaustion.

-Base vs superstructure (why not be a gradualist or a stagist?)
Why shouldn’t we concede to capitalism nationally or internationally and hope for a simultaneous global revolution?

The (absolute, i.e. at the level of sovereignty) distinction between national and international capitalism itself involves a relative breakdown of capitalism - at least at the national level. This is what imperialism signifies. We must take advantage of this.

-Scientific investigation example
What is the status of scientific totalities or pure forms such as atoms, prices, genes, psychological individuals, institutions, “technics” and the state?

These are all fleeting and undeterminate forms which must be investigated in their concrete reality and not their “regulative” abstraction for the sake of repeating a certain bourgeois scientific experiment.