On Hegel's 'Science of Logic' : A Realm of Shadows - part nine.

'Forever'

by Charles-Jean?Grandmougin?(1850 – 1930)

You ask me to be silent,

To flee far from you for ever

And to go my way alone,

Forgetting whom I loved!

Rather ask the stars

To fall into infinity,

The night to lose its veils,

The day to lose its light!

Ask the boundless sea

To drain its mighty waves,

And the raging winds

To calm their dismal sobbing!

But do not expect my soul

To tear itself from bitter sorrow,

Nor to shed its passion

As springtime sheds its flowers!

'Toujours'

Vous me demandez de me taire,

De fuir loin de vous pour jamais

Et de m’en aller, solitaire,

Sans me rappeler qui j’aimais!

Demandez plut?t aux étoiles

De tomber dans l’immensité,

à la nuit de perdre ses voiles,

Au jour de perdre sa clarté!

Demandez à la mer immense

De dessécher ses vastes flots

Et quand les vents sont en démence,

D’apaiser ses sombres sanglots!

Mais n’espérez pas que mon ame

S’arrache à ses apres douleurs

Et se dépouille de sa flamme

Comme le printemps de ses fleurs!

'Consequently, since the understanding exhibits the infinite force that determines the universal, or conversely, since it is the understanding that through the form of universality imparts stable subsistence to the otherwise inherent instability of determinateness, then it is not the fault of the understanding if there is no further advance. It is a subjective impotence of reason that allows these determinacies to remain so dispersed, and is unable to bring them back to their unity through the dialectical force opposed to that abstract universality, that is to say, through the determinacies’ own nature which is their concept. To be sure, the understanding does give them through the form of abstract universality a rigidity of being, so to speak, which they do not otherwise possess in the qualitative sphere and in the sphere of reflection; but by thus simplifying them, the understanding at the same time quickens them with spirit, and it so sharpens them that only at that point, only there, do they also obtain the capacity to dissolve themselves and to pass over into their opposite. The ripest maturity, the highest stage, that anything can attain is the one at which its fall begins'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

The highest maturity, the highest stage, which anything can attain is that in which its downfall begins and so let us get this done and over with then as we approach Being-for-self in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich?Hegel's, (1770 - 1831), 'Science of Logic'. Qualitative Being discovers its consummation in Being-for-self and while chapter one broadly represents Being and chapter two for the negation of Being, chapter three constitutes a middle term between the two. It is the negation of the negation, 'the primary definition of the Concept as such', as Errol Harris, (1908 – 2009), elucidates. 'Being-for-self# is a somewhat ironically detached section of the Logic whereby the chapter is preoccupied with a positivization of the True Infinite that is self-erasure as such. Being ought to erase itself and when it does the in-itself is for-itself and Being is for-itself when it erases itself and as a consequence Being-for-self is form and without content or rather its content is completely outside itself. Being has cracked into two and there is the empty oneness of Being and there is its externalized content.

Albeit it is itself a central chapter with regard to Being being diagrammatically represented on the left and Nothing on the right this chapter incorporates a left and a right and a centre inclination. To begin with there is Being-for-self or the One and the One repulses itself from itself, a - b, while staying within itself in a, b. Then it becomes the One and the Many, from which Repulsion and Attraction ensues. These collapse into equilibrium, which is to say, a middle term:

'In being-for-itself, qualitative being is brought to completion; it is infinite being; the being of the beginning is void of determination; existence is sublated but only immediately sublated being; it thus contains, to begin with, only the first negation, itself immediate; being is of course retained as well, and the two are united in existence in simple unity; for this reason, however, each is in itself still unlike the other, and their unity is still not posited. Existence is therefore the sphere of differentiation, of dualism, the domain of finitude. Determinateness is determinateness as such; being which is relatively, not absolutely, determined. In being-for-itself, the distinction between being and determinateness, or negation, is posited and equalized. Quality, otherness, limit, as well as reality, in-itselfness, ought, and so forth, are the incomplete configurations of negation in being which are still based on the differentiation of the two. But since in finitude negation has passed over into infinity, in the posited negation of negation, negation is simple self-reference and in it, therefore, the equalization with being – absolutely determinate being'.

'First, being-for-itself is immediately an existent-for-itself, the one'.

'Second, the one passes over into a multiplicity of ones – repulsion or the otherness of the one which sublates itself into its ideality, attraction'.

'Third, we have the alternating determination of repulsion and attraction in which the two sink into a state of equilibrium; and quality, driven to a head in being-for-itself, passes over into quantity'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

The middle term is to be designated Quantity and will prove to be a being as meagrely dispersed so to speak as Quality. Quantity is Being with all content outside of itself, it is a dialectic concept, Quantity is the negation of Quality. Which brings us to Being-for-self as such and determinate Being and Being-for-self. Something is for itself in so far as it transcends otherness:

'The general concept of being-for-itself has come to light. The justification for using the expression 'being-for-itself' for that concept would depend on showing that the representation associated with the expression corresponds to the concept. So indeed it appears to do.We say that something is for itself inasmuch as it sublates otherness, sublates its connection and community with other, has rejected them by abstracting from them. The other is in it only as something sublated, as its moment; being-for-itself consists in having thus transcended limitation, its otherness; it consists in being, as this negation, the infinite turning back into itself'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

In Being-for-self, otherness is only a moment, historically significant, but now transcended. The Finite once was, but it has ceased to be but it is idealized, preserved in memory and the Understanding apprehends Being-for-self as Infinity which has collapsed into simple Being.

'As already mentioned, being-for-itself is infinity that has sunk into simple being; it is existence in so far as in the now posited form of the immediacy of being the negative nature of infinity, which is the negation of negation, is only as negation in general, as infinite qualitative determinateness. But in such a determinateness, wherein it is existence, being is at once also distinguished from this very being-for-itself which is such only as infinite qualitative determinateness; nevertheless, existence is at the same time a moment of being-for-itself, for the latter certainly contains being affected by negation. So the determinateness which in existence as such is an other, and a being-for-other, is bent back into the infinite unity of being-for-itself, and the moment of existence is present in the being-for-itself as being-for-one'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

In the Being-for-self diagram the Understanding sees the whole, the positive and the negative, the Finite and the True Infinite and the whole is a ceasing-to-be, now the very essence of being. In the Being-for-self we observe a shift in the Understanding's focus. Back in the determinate Being diagram (see previous article), g → a and this pattern represented the Understanding's focus upon the immediacy present in the middle term g. In Something and an Other, (d, e, f) - a, representing the Understanding's focus upon the mediation within the middle term. Now, in Being-for-self, the Understanding focuses upon the unity of immediacy and mediation, (d- g) - a. The Understanding has developed in, well, in understanding, given its progression from the Understanding as such in determinate Being to dialectical Reason in Something and an Other and, now, to speculative Reason in Being-for-self. The Understanding now recognises that the Absolute is a True Infinity, a thing that remains what it is while becoming something else.

The True Infinite's dual nature implies that Being-for-self is the infinite return into itself which raises the question of how that might be, well, at the end of chapter two it was seen that the True Infinite was comprised of two Finites, the Spurious Infinite and its Other and the Being-in-itself of each was ceasing-to-be. The very act of ceasing-to-be was the unity of the two otherwise incommensurable entities. The two Finites self-combusted so to speak and self erasing movement is the middle term and it is called True Infinity and True Infinity is itself and returns to itself when it becomes something Other.

Being-for-self

Furthermore it is an infinite return in that this movement transcends Limitation and the return is infinite in the sense of having no borders, no Limitation. 'Each being remains for-itself in this movement of becoming an other, in that it relates (ver-h?lt)) itself to others but remains self-same (verh?lt). It bends itself back in to itself out of the given multiplicity facing it, in such a way that it does not lose itself in this movement does not go beyond itself but remains precisely by itself', portends Herbert Marcuse, (1898 – 1979). Being-for-self is determinate Being in so far as the negative nature of Infinity is from now on in the explicit form of the immediacy of Being as merely negation in general, as simple qualitative determinateness. Such a formulation exudes a whiff of paradox for is it not the case that the True Infinite is negative in nature? It was nothing but Finitude erasing itself from within and yet this negative process is now presented in the form of an immediacy and this is what is shown by a in the Being-for-self diagram. And yet how can a, an immediacy, be a negativity, which is a doubled figure? Well, because this is how it is through the law of sublation whereby a is always presented as a simple immediacy and there is no other way for the Understanding to perceive things but a has a history in determinateness and negation of which the Understanding now has knowledge.

True Infinity represents the self-erasure of Finitude, transcendence above Limit and Limit in turn splits all determinatenesses in twain and with Limit transcended Determinateness erased is now present in immediate Being-for-self and the negative nature of Infinity bears in the explicit form of the immediacy of Being as only negation in general. Which brings us to Consciousness. Hegel likens Being-for-self with consciousness and self-consciousness whereby mere consciousness represents to itself the object it senses, which is to say it renders the object ideal.

'In representing to itself an intended object which it feels, or intuits, and so forth, consciousness already contains in itself as consciousness the determination of being-for-itself; that is, it has in it the content of that object, which is thus an idealization; even as it intuits, or in general becomes involved in the negative of itself, in the other, it abides with itself. Being-for-itself is the polemical, negative relating to the limiting other and, through this negation of the other, is being-reflected-within-itself – even though, side by side with this immanent turning back of consciousness and the ideality of its object, the reality of this object is also retained, for the object is at the same time known as an external existence. Consciousness is thus phenomenal, or it is this dualism: on the one side, it knows an external object which is other than it; on the other side, it is for-itself, has this intended object in it as idealized, abides not only by this other but therein abides also with itself. Self-consciousness, on the contrary, is being-for-itself brought to completion and posited; the side of reference to another, to an external object, is removed. Self-consciousness is thus the nearest example of the presence of infinity – granted, of a still abstract infinity, but one which is of a totally different, concrete determination than the being-for-itself in general, whose infinity still has only qualitative determinateness'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

In its entanglement with the negative of itself, with its Other that is, the idealized object, consciousness is still only in the presence of its own self. That is, if consciousness is a, the idealized object, that is knowledge, is b. The self of consciousness is a, b. Hence in knowledge of the object b, a simply confronts its own self and in light of this structure consciousness is the dualism of knowing b an alien object external to it c, and of being for its own self a, b, having the object ideally present in it, of being a not only in the presence of the other b, c, but therein being in the presence of its own self a, b. In comparison self-consciousness is Being-for-self as consummated and posited and self-consciousness contemplates only itself, the side of connection with an other, with an external object, is removed and self-consciousness is thereby the closest instance of the presence of Infinity.

Nonetheless self-consciousness is too advanced to be officially brought in at this time, Being-for-self is still qualitative but self-consciousness is not, it is derived only at the end of the 'Doctrine of Essence'. But consciousness is implicitly at stake in chapter three of the Logic as the silent fourth, which, Hegel declares, is the True Infinite in the realm of Being. Which brings us to Being-for-one. Dialectical Reason always brings to the fore the negative voice that the Understanding suppresses and it recollects that determinate Being is present in Being-for-self. Hegel designates this negative recollection Being-for-one and this moment gives expression to the manner in which the Finite is present in its unity with the Infinite. The sublated Finite is now an ideal being, a moment that is not self-subsistent.

'This moment gives expression to how the finite is in its unity with the infinite or as an idealization. Being-for-itself does not have negation in it as a determinateness or limit, and consequently also not as reference to an existence other than it. Although this moment is now being designated as being-for-one, there is yet nothing at hand for which it would be –there is not the one of which it would be the moment. There is in fact nothing of the sort yet fixed in being-for-itself; that for which something (and there is no something here) would be, what the other side in general should be, is likewise a moment, itself only being-for-one, not yet a one. – What we have before us, therefore, is still an undistinguishedness of two sides that may suggest themselves in the being-for-one; there is only one being-for-another, and since this is only one being-for-another, it is also only being-for-one; there is only the one ideality, of that for which or in which there should be a determination as moment, and of that which should be the moment in it'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

By referring to Being-for-one a moment it is possible to say that it was present but is not any longer. Caesar was in Gaul, but neither he nor Gaul is here now. Hence, to say Caesar was in Gaul merely denies the immediacy of the event but not his sojourn in Gaul altogether:

'Now, when we say further that all things have an essence, what we mean is that they are not truly what they immediately show themselves to be. A mere rushing about from one quality to another, and a mere advance from the qualitative to the quantitative and back again, is not the last word; on the contrary, there is something that abides in things, and this is, in the first instance, their essence. As for the further significance and use of the category of essence, we can recall first at this point how the term 'Wesen' is employed to designate the past for the German auxiliary verb 'sein' [to be]; for we designate the being that is past as 'gewesen'. This irregularity in linguistic usage rests upon a correct view of the relation of being and essence, because we can certainly consider essence to be being that has gone by, whilst still remarking that what is past is not for that reason abstractly negated, but only sublated and so at the same time conserved. If we say in German, e. g., 'Casar ist in Gallien gewesen' ['Caesar was in Gaul'] , what is negated by that is just the immediacy of what is asserted about Caesar, but not his sojourn in Gaul altogether, for indeed it is just that which forms the content of this assertion--only it is here represented as having been sublated'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Only the memory is present, inside Being-for-self. Being-for-One contains an insistence that a, b is really one. Such an insistence implies that c is not even before us. Charles?Margrave?Taylor, (1931 -), however, is not happy about Hegel's transition from Being-for-self to Quantity. According to Taylor when Being-for-self expels its content Logic should regress to the beginning, pure Being and hence pure Nothing. Instead Hegel without due warrant presses on to Quantity. 'In this of course', Taylor complains, 'Hegel seems to be having his cake and eating it, retaining those prerogatives of the subject he needs for his argument while remaining in the sphere of Being; but let us waive this objection in order to follow his argument'. Taylor thereby takes Being-for-self as a prerogative of the subject, out of place in the objective transition to Quantity. But this is a mistake, yes? Being-for-self is a necessary predicate of consciousness and not a prerogative that is derived from consciousness. The logic of Being-for-self is to expel all its content and in doing so, Being-for-self does not retrogress. It retains its Being and becomes Quantity and Taylor is overlooking the difference between Quantity and pure Being. Pure Being stands over against nothing at all and Quantity stands over against all its content. Quantity is a determinate indeterminacy that is more advanced than pure Being.

Being-for-One

Accordingly David Gray Carlson represents b and c as faded presences compared to the bolder assertion of Being-for-self's immediacy for Hegel declines to grant that Being-for-one is a determinateness because in the left-leaning inclination of Being-for-self as Such determinateness is sublated and cannot be referred to without regression and for this reason Being-for-one and Being-for-self are hence not genuinely opposed determinatenesses.

'Being-for-one and being-for-itself do not therefore constitute two genuine determinacies, each as against the other. Inasmuch as the distinction is momentarily assumed and we speak of a being-for-itself, it is this very being-for-itself, as the sublated being of otherness, that refers itself to itself as to the sublated other, is therefore for-one; in its other it refers itself only to itself. An idealization is necessarily for-one, but it is not for an other; the one, for which it is, is only itself. – The 'I', therefore, spirit in general, or God, are idealizations, because they are infinite; as existents which are for-themselves, however, they are not ideationally different from that which is for-one. For if they were different, they would be only immediate, or, more precisely, they would only be existence and a being-for-another; for if the moment of being for-one did not attach to them, it is not they themselves but an other that would be that which is for them. God is therefore for himself, in so far he is himself that which is for him'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Nonetheless such a subdued presence appears inconsistent with the dialectic spirit that stresses the history of the concept in mediatedness. Dialectical Reason charges the Understanding with suppression of Otherness and now it appears to conspire with the Understanding to repress the other. Such a peculiar stance of dialectical Reason can be explained as dialectical Reason recollecting the history of the process which the Understanding suppresses in the name of promoting immediacy but the Finite is now sublated and so when dialectical Reason stresses the history of Being-for-self it can only assert a sublated negativity that properly speaking is not equal in status to the affirmativity that the Understanding promotes.

Hegel provides another justification for Dialectical Reason's subdued nature. Being-for-self is negativity and, therefore, is precisely not a universal Something. Here there is not something, Hegel says. Rather, Being-for-self is not yet a one. The One must await The One. Rather, Being-for-self is mere indeterminate being for the One that is to come. It is the prehistoric, merely implicit One. Because it is pre-One, what we have before us is still an undistinguishedness of the two sides. For this reason, Being-for-one and Being-for-self are not genuinely opposed determinatenesses. Hegel denies that we can even acknowledge that Being-for-One is a determinateness, there is only one being-for-other, and because there is only one, this too is only a Being-for-one, there is only the one ideality of that, for which or in which here is supposed to be a determination as moment.

Ideal Being is subordinated in Being-for-one. Yet, by the law of sublation, we can equally affirm that Limit is present in Being-for-One, because everything in chapters one and two is canceled and preserved. Hegel permits us hypothetically to assume a difference between Being-for-self and Being-for-one, as we are sorely tempted to do as we gaze upon the concreteness of Being-for-One. In such a case, we speak of a being-for-self. That is, a exists separately from b and is the sublatedness of otherness. As such, it relates itself a to itself b as the sublated other c, and so is for one. It is not for an other. Thus, we simply cannot admit that b is Being-for-other, that is, b, c, it is only Being-for-one, the in-itself b of Being-for-self.

Was für ein Ding?

Hegel takes satisfaction in the speculative ambiguity of the German language. In a Remark following Being-for-one he lauds the German phrase was für ein Ding, which means what kind of a thing is that? But literally translated it means what for a thing? Hegel believes that this phrase illustrates Being-for-one whereby the question is not asking what is A for B? or what is A for me? It is asking what is A for A? In this question Being-for-one returns to the thing, that which is, and that for which it is, are one and the same.

'The German expression for querying the quality of a thing, 'Was für ein Ding etwas sey', [or, 'What for a thing is this or that'], though strange at first, reflectively brings out the moment here considered. This expression is idealistic in origin, since it does not ask what this thing A might be for another thing B, not what this human being might be for another human being; it asks, rather, what this is for a thing, for a human being, so that this 'being-for-one' is at the same time taken back into this thing, into this human being; or that which is and that for which it is are one and the same – an identity, such as ideality must also be considered to be'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Ideal entities enjoy infinite self-relation:

'Other forms of idealism, as for example the idealism of Kant and Fichte, do not go beyond the ought and the infinite progress but remain in the dualism of existence and being-for-itself. It is true that in these systems the thing-in-itself or the principle of infinite resistance immediately enters into the 'I' and becomes something only for-it; but it proceeds from a free otherness which perpetuates itself as negative being-in-itself. The 'I' is therefore indeed determined as idealization, as a-being-for-itself, as infinite reference to itself; but the being-for-one is not completed to the point where the beyond of that in-itself, or the direction to the beyond, vanishes.'

- 'The Science of logic'

Ego is for ego, both are the same, the ego is twice named, but so that each of the two is only a for-one, the ego is ideal.

'Ideality at first attaches to the sublated determinations as distinguished from that in which they are sublated, which by contrast can be taken as the real. The result is that the idealization is again one of the moments and the real the other; ideality, however, consists in both determinations being equally only for one and having only the value of a one, and this one ideality, thus undifferentiated, is reality. In this sense, self-consciousness, spirit,God, are each, as an infinite reference purely to itself, an idealization – the 'I' is for the 'I', both are the same thing, the 'I' is named twice, but in such a way that each of the two is for-one, ideally; spirit is only for spirit, God only for God, and this unity alone is God, God as spirit. – Self-consciousness, however, as consciousness, incurs the difference of itself and an other – or of its ideality (in which it is representational) and of its reality, since its representation has a determinate content which, as non-sublated negativity, as existence, still has the side of being known. However, to call thought, spirit, God, only an idealization, presupposes the standpoint according to which finite existence counts as the real, and idealization or the being-for-one has only a one-sided meaning'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

The infinite Ding referred to in was für ein Ding, whether it be ego or any other Infinite, is both an identity and an ideality. That is to say, a, b in Being-for-One is to be taken as an immediacy, but any otherness is ideal. Ideal, in general, designates Being as it exists after what it has learnt from True Infinity, being reduced to a mere moment or memory. As Hegel explains elsewhere ideality is the reduction of the idea's otherness to a moment the process of returning, and the accomplished return, into itself of the Idea from its Other:

'As the distinguishing determinacy of the concept of mind we must designate ideality, that is, the sublation of the otherness of the Idea, the Idea's returning, and its having returned, into itself from its Other; whereas the distinctive feature of the logical Idea is immediate, simple being-within-itself, while for nature it is the self-externality of the Idea'.

- 'The Philosophy of Mind'

In True Infinity reality erases itself and becomes the deeper negative substance that lies beneath. 'Everything that was alleged to be real ('itself and not another thing') has been turned into an ideal moment (itself and another - indeed every other - thing)', explains Ermanno Bencivenga, (1950 - ). The phrase indeed every other is surplus to requirements for ideality is by no means metonymy replacing the thing meant by an attribute of the thing, the notion that a thing is simply the empty space left by the context of all other things, ideality is rather the memory of what once was but is now not and that which is other to a thing is its own self not other things.

Ideality adheres to the sublated determinations or reality as distinguished from that in which that is to say from which they are sublated. To put it another way reality is in the logical past and is now only remembered by dialectical Reason as a by-gone moment, of a, b in Being-for-One, Hegel declares that the ideal is one moment and reality is another and both moments are equally only for one and count only for one. The ideality is also one reality, a reality without distinction and for that very reason an ideality, that is yo say, it is a reality on the laws of sublation but not otherwise. Nonetheless reality is a definite moment in the ideality or to express it somewhat differently in chapter two reality implied a linkage of Being with Nothing and therefore a reality without distinction suggests that reality is sublated and hence is now only a memory, an ideality.

To return to the too-advanced instance of consciousness, it encounters reality, but it idealizes what it encounters and it is therefore implicated in a difference between itself and Other and this is equally true for self-consciousness which has itself as object against which it nevertheless stands as observer. Hegel suggests that observing consciousness produces conceptions that are idealities taken as realities. Nonetheless, Hegel warns against thinking of thought only as ideal Being for this would presuppose the standpoint from which finite Being counts as the real and the ideal Being or Being-for-other has only a one-sided meaning. To put it another way an empiricist who counts only finite Being as real would view ideality as merely subjective but for Hegel wants the real requires the Ideal and what is ideal is part of the definition of objectivity itself. Indeed the history of the ideality is marinated in reality, ideality has been generated in the course of analyzing Being, what is said about ideality thus far very much in the object, indeed we are only at chapter three of the Objective Logic and there is a long way to go you will be pleased to hear and as of yet subjectivity has not been derived albeit as the silent fourth it is implicitly present and therefore there can be no question of isolating reality from ideality or of identifying the Ideal as subjective.

'Suprematism', 1917, Kazimir Severinovich Malevic

Which brings us to the One which has nothing to do with Keanu Reeves, (1964 - ), in 'The Matrix', 1999. In Being-for-One, Being-for-self abstains from recognising c. and even dialectical Reason with its sceptical bent allows that the relation between self and other is ideal transpiring completely on the being side of the account and this fits in with the inclination towards the left in the diagrams of which the first third of Hegel's 'Quality' chapters will prove to be culpable. And it is because of this inclination that there is now merely a single determination, the self-relation of the sublating.

'Being-for-itself is the simple unity of itself and its moments, of the being for-one. There is only one determination present, the self-reference itself of the sublating. The moments of being-for-itself have sunk into an indifferentiation which is immediacy or being, but an immediacy that is based on the negating posited as its determination. Being-for-itself is thus an existent-for-itself, and, since in this immediacy its inner meaning vanishes, it is the totally abstract limit of itself – the one'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Hegel explains that the moments of Being-for-self have collapsed into the undifferentiatedness which is immediacy or being yet an immediacy grounded upon the negating that is posited as its determination. To put it another way, speculative Reason interprets Being-for-self and Being-for-one as inherently negative and in this negativity, c was not recognised as present and a refusal of recognition towards the Other is now the middle term. Abstention from recognising is now posited as the One albeit one may wonder why given this that c has just altogether been disregarded.

Which is to say why maintain that Being-for-one is c when c has been eradicated? For what reason did Being-for-One show c as Being-for-one if the purpose was to eradicate c? The answer is that refusing to recognize something is the most assured way of recognizing it, hence c was never eradicated. Imagine purposively declining, because of some wrong they have done you, to give someone the recognition we all need as self-conscious human beings and that someone can easily become a strange obsession as The One diagrammatically represents and they end up living in your head. Similarly the One stands for the ongoing act of refusing to recognize otherness c, and c is very much recognized and hence the One becomes the pure notion of refusal to recognize. Or, as Hegel puts it, the One is an immediacy based upon the negating which is posited as its determination. With regard to The One, Hegel explains:

'Attention may be drawn in advance to the difficulties that lie ahead in the exposition of the development of the one, and to the source of these difficulties. The moments that constitute the concept of the one as being-for-itself occur in it one outside the other; they are (1) negation in general; (2) two negations that are, therefore, (3) the same, (4) absolutely opposed; (5) self-reference, identity as such; (6) negative reference which is nonetheless self-reference. These moments occur here apart because the form of immediacy, of being, enters into the being-for-itself as existent-for-itself; because of this immediacy, each moment is posited as a determination existent on its own, and yet they are just as inseparable. Hence, of each determination the opposite must equally be said; it is this contradiction that causes the difficulty that goes with the abstract nature of the moments'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Attention may be drawn in advance to the difficulty involved in the following exposition of the development of the one and to this difficulty's cause. The moments which constitute the Notion of the one as a being-for-self fall asunder in the development. They are negation in general c, b two negations b, c, d, e, f-h, two that are therefore the same a = c, sheer opposites a, c, e self-relation, identity as such a, b, and, b, c, d, e, d relation which is negative and yet to its own self. Hegel states that the reason for separating these moments is to draw attention to the fact that the One is not just Being-for-self as such but a Being-for-self that, in effect, recognizes other Beings-for-themselves by refusing to recognize them - a plurality that will be expressly recognized in the next section. Hence each moment is posited as a distinct affirmative determination albeit they are no less inseparable. Which is to say that the pretense of the One is that it has no relation with the other Ones to which it is unconnected. And yet nothing is always something, and no relation is very much a species of relation. By not recognizing c, the One recognizes c, and so it becomes a One, rather than One as such and in virtue of it merely being a One there is inevitably another One, indeed there will come to be Many.

The One

In the above account the One is the name given to the pure refusal of Being to recognize the other as its constituent part but Charles Taylor, (1931 - ), interprets it somewhat differently and somewhat removed from what he sees as Hegel stretching things a bit in the manner of his derivation of the One:

'[A] being of this kind can only be picked out, that is, distinguished from others, by some numeration-like procedure. In other words, we can only identify a particular being of this kind by attributing to it some number in a series, or some ordinal position. For all beings of this kind are identical in being without determinate quality, they can only be distinguished numerically. Of course, in this argument I am taking for granted that identifying "the one" is the same as distinguishing it from others, that a being of this kind is only conceivable as one among many. How else can a being without internal differentiation by identified, except in contrast with others?'

- Charles Taylor, 'Hegel'

Taylor helps himself to considerations concerning Number and Degree as he questions identifying One from some other One but one needs to attend to the approaching derivation of the Many from the One that is a necessary precondition to ordinal numbers and this derivation will depend upon the One's status as a True Infinite.

Which brings us to the One and the Many. In The One and its Own Self, the Understanding shifts the empty space of the middle term over to the left. Whereas, in Being-for-self the middle term as such was shifted now we the place where the middle term ought to have been is shifted. Hegel describes that shift as being one that is the simple self-relation of Being-for-self in which its moments have collapsed in themselves and in which, consequently, being-for-self has the form of immediacy, and its moments therefore now have a determinate being.

'The one is the simple reference of being-for-itself to itself in which its moments have fallen together – in which, therefore, being-for-itself has the form of immediacy and its moments, therefore, are now there as existents'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

The One and its Own Self, then, represents a seizure of the collapsed moments by the Understanding. 'Here the one is in its own self ... abstractly posited as the being-in-itself . . . wherein all difference and multiplicity ... have disappeared', explains Andrew Haas. The end result is the immediacy that Hegel names the One in its own self. It does have determinate Being, but only as its moment, there is only the recollection of that moment and not determinate Being as such, which has been sublated.

The One in Its Own Self

'Four Square', 1915, Kazimir Malevi?

The One of the One and its own Self is self-relation of the negative.

'As the self-reference of the negative, the one is a determining – and, as self-reference, it is infinite self-determining. However, because of the present immediacy, these distinctions are no longer only moments of one and the same self-determination but are at the same time posited as existents. The ideality of the being-for-itself as a totality thus turns at first into reality – a reality, moreover, of the most fixed and abstract kind, as a one. In the one, the being-for-itself is the posited unity of being and existence, as the absolute union of the reference to another and the reference to itself; but also the determinateness of being then enters into opposition to the determination of the infinite negation, to self-determination, so that what the one is in itself, it is that now only in it, and the negative consequently is an other distinct from it. What shows itself to be present as distinct from the one is the one’s own self-determining; its unity with itself, as thus distinct from itself, is demoted to reference, and, as negative unity, it is negation of itself as other, the excluding of the one as an other from itself, from the one'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Furthermore it is a process of determining. Determining what? I hear you ask. The very Other c it has been refusing to recognize, and non-recognition is always a recognition and this process of determining the Other is a self-determining, it is self-determining in virtue of it intending to be the process of recognizing only itself and not the excluded Other. It is in addition a self-determination in virtue of its Other being itself though only implicitly. One's duality is portrayed in The One and the Void, where ideality a, b is presented and Otherness b is within the One as a mere moment, a recollection of the past. Yet a also determines b as not the one, and hence c comes into existence. This unrecognized entity is the Void (das Leere) and in the Void, sublated reality or Limit reasserts itself. Of this reappearance of reality at the expense of ideality, Hegel explains that the ideality of Being-for-self as a totality thus reverts to reality and that too in its most fixed, abstract form, as the One. The One stands over against the Void but is the Void, The One and the Void just as much a One as the One was. Hegel describes 'The One and the Void' as the epitome of dialectical Reason which always brings forth b as the voice of a while b is the In-itself of the One. What the one a, b is in itself b is now only ideally present in it and the negative b, c as a consequence is an other distinct from it a. What demonstrates itself to be present as distinct from the one c is its, a, own self-determining. The unity of the one with itself a, b as thus distinguished from itself, a, is reduced to a relation b, and as a negative unity it, a, is a negation of its own self as other b, exclusion of the one b, c as other from itself a. In other words, dialectical Reason focuses upon b, which implies c. But since b is the authentic voice of the One the One itself has produced the Void.

The One and the Void

Which brings us to the One in its own self. The One is unalterable.

'Within it, the one just is; this, its being, is not an existence, not a determination as reference to an other, not a constitution; it is rather its having negated this circle of categories. The one is not capable, therefore, of becoming any other; it is unalterable'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

In its own self the one simply is, this its being is neither a determinate Being, nor a determinateness as a relation to an other, nor is it a constitution, what it is, in fact, is the accomplished negation of this circle of categories. As a consequence the One is incapable of becoming an other, it is unalterable. The One is not determinate Being, determinateness, or Constitution, as these have been reduced to idealities, mere moments. The One of The One in its Own Self is merely the bare refusal to recognize the Other and nothing else besides yet wherefore unalterable? This is important to understand what is to come for the One is a True Infinite. It remains what it is, that is, is unalterable while becoming something else and unalterability will be important for generating the many Ones.

The One is indeterminate albeit it is not the same indeterminacy that pure Being was. The One's indeterminateness is a determinateness, as The One and the Void shows. The One is related negatively to its self b, it is a self-related negation.

'It is indeterminate, yet no longer like being; its indeterminateness is the determinateness of self-reference, absolutely determined being; posited in-itselfness. As negation which, in accordance with its concept, is self-referring, it has distinction in it: it directs away from itself towards another, but this direction is immediately reversed, because, according to this moment of self-determining, there is no other to which it would be addressed, and the directing reverts back to itself'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

That is, a is the negation of b yet b is a's own voice. Difference is therefore in the One. The One a negates itself b. It absconds from its Other - b, but this movement is immediately turned back on itself, in virtue of it it following from this moment of self-determining that there is no other to which the One can go. The premise of the One is that it absolutely refuses to recognize the Other and hence a absconds from b yet it cannot, consistent with its principle, move to c. It must retreat back to a and be unalterable and in light of this retreat the mediation of determinate Being and of ideality itself, and with it all difference and manifoldness, has vanished and here is nothing in it.

'In this simple immediacy, even the mediation of existence and ideality, and with it all diversity and manifoldness, have vanished. In the one there is nothing; this nothing, the abstraction of self-reference, is here distinguished from the in-itselfness of the one; it is a posited nothing, for this in-itselfness no longer has the simplicity of the something, but, as mediation, has rather the determination of being concrete; taken in abstraction, it is indeed identical with the one, but different from its determination. So this nothing, posited as in the one, is the nothing as the void. – The void is thus the quality of the one in its immediacy'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Harris suggests that Being-for-self is simply one not one among many but one differentiating itself into and as many internal moments and Being-for-self is a differentiated whole. Yet the One expels its many moments into the Void and remains an empty shell without internal moments and that at the very least is what Being-for-self is for itself. In effect the One has taken refuge in a and refuses even to recognize its own content, b. As a the One has distinguished itself from its own Being-within-self b hence the One is without content and this condition of being without content renders the One unalterable in virtue of things altering only as a consequence of a dynamic that depends upon dialectical Reason recollecting that b exists. But the One has now expelled b, and with it any hope of alteration and so the One is indeterminate but not for all that like Being, its indeterminateness is the determinateness which is a relation to its own self, an absolute determinateness, posited Being-within-self. Absolute determinateness connotes relation as such, separate and apart from the parts it relates and relation isolated from its parts is an being that is all form and no content.

'Suprematism with Blue Triangle and Black Square', 1915, Kazimir Malevich

If the One as a is this absolute determinateness, a relation without parts, then why is it in addition posited Being-within-self that is associated with d, part of b in The One and the Void? Because Being-within-self is the suppressed negative voice of the Understanding. Dialectical Reason through recollection brings b to the forefront but b was for all that always that which unified a and c. Yet if b is to be considered as a relation but without any reference to its parts then b would be relation as such but that is what a is. a = b and both are posited as Being-within-self as such, relation without any content to unify.

The One a has isolated itself from its Being-within-self. The One, a nothing, is the abstraction of self-relation, a relation isolated from its parts:

'In this simple immediacy, even the mediation of existence and ideality, and with it all diversity and manifoldness, have vanished. In the one there is nothing; this nothing, the abstraction of self-reference, is here distinguished from the in-itselfness of the one; it is a posited nothing, for this in-itselfness no longer has the simplicity of the something, but, as mediation, has rather the determination of being concrete; taken in abstraction, it is indeed identical with the one, but different from its determination. So this nothing, posited as in the one, is the nothing as the void. – The void is thus the quality of the one in its immediacy'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Yet it is to be distinguished nonetheless. The One posits itself as nothing and hence it in addition posits Being-within-self as its absolute Other. This Being-within-self no longer has the simple character of Something but, as a mediation, has a concrete determination. That is to say Being-within-self is b, c in The One and the Void, concrete and mediating. One may well say that b which implies b, c, has Being-for-self, yet if b is indifferent to a this approaches Harris's observation: 'This being for itself of its other [b], this grasp of the relation between self and other, as for one and for itself, is the essence of ideality'. Harris is right that a's other is b and that b has Being-for-self but besides having Being-for-self, b is the essence of ideality because b stands for a recollected moment of a, b's history in reality. Hence, contrary to its Being-for-self, b has sublated Being-for-other and upn the basis of this paradox Harris's formulation can be endorsed.

The One has expelled its own Being-within-self and this implies that its being is entirely outside of itself. But the expelled material b, c is actually the One's own self. b continues to be the One, but, as expelled, and as mediation, it must attach itself to c which is disclosed to be just as much in a as not in a. In brief, a = c. This is the very mark of the True Infinite, which becomes something else while remaining what it is.

Hegel has already named c as the Void and by virtue of the equality just expressed, the Void is posited as in the One. The Void is hence the quality of the One in its immediacy. 'The Void is not external to One, it dwells in its very heart - the One is itself is 'Void': the Void is its only 'content',' romanticizes Slavoj??i?ek,?(1949 -).

And so to the One and the Void. In this section Hegel explicitly discusses The One and the Void, where the One confronts the Void but in fact a = c and therefore the One is the Void as the abstract relation of the negation to itself.

'The one is the void as the abstract self-reference of negation. But the void, as nothing, is absolutely diverse from the simple immediacy of the one, from the being of the latter which is also affirmative, and because the two stand in one single reference, namely to the one, their diversity is posited; however, as distinct from the affirmative being, the nothing stands as void outside the one as existent'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

To put it another way the One and also the Void are relation as such, without reference to any parts, they are negatives through and through. Even though a = c, a and c are also different. The One has affirmative being and the Void does not. Their difference is posited by dialectical Reason. And what is the difference? I hear you ask. Nothing more than that distinct from the affirmative Being of the One, the Nothing as the Void is outside it. Hence, the One has content, it is simply not the Void, and of course the Void has content, it is not the One. In light of this difference The One and the Void is once again infiltrated by determinate Being and the one a and the void c have negative relation to self b for their common, simple base and the moments of Being-for-self emerge from this unity, become external to themselves.

'Being-for-itself, determined in this way as the one and the void, has again acquired an existence. – The one and the void have their negative self-reference as their common and simple terrain. The moments of being-for-itself come out of this unity, become external to themselves; for through the simple unity of the moments the determination of being comes into play, and the unity itself thus withdraws to one side, is therefore lowered to existence, and there it is confronted by its other determination standing over against it, negation as such and likewise as the existence of the nothing, as the void'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Therefore considered by themselves the One and the Void are isolated and have relinquished their connection with Being-within-self and speculative Reason will see the truth the relinquishing is conducted in bad faith and the One and the Void are retrogressive determinate Beings. Harris owns up to being somewhat perplexed by the transition from the One to the Void. 'But Hegel makes a very complex and obscure transition from the One to the Void, by drawing a distinction within the One between abstract self-relation as empty . . . and its concrete affirmative being', he laments. Perhaps there is a misunderstanding here for the One, a, expels the Void b,c, at least at the level of The One and the Void, and the distinction is not within the One. Neither is the affirmative Being of a concrete following the expulsion of the Void, it is ironically the Void that is concrete and affirmative self-relation is empty (I won't say void) the very antithesis of what Harris asserts and who suggests that according to Hegel a reverts to determinateness but more precisely when a expels b, b automatically implies b, c - a determinateness. And yet c is likewise the One and as such it expels b which automatically implies a, b. Therefore, a does in a manner of speaking become a determinateness albeit indirectly in virtue of c's action yet it assuredly does not revert to a determinateness. a, b, the product of c's act of repulsion is as a matter of fact a different entity than the a that expelled c and created b, c. The One is about to become the Many in the very next section at which stage it will become apparent why reversion is inappropriately invoked.

Which brings us to the subject of atomism. By now it should be evident enough that Hegel opposed any philosophy that presupposes the self-identity of objects because at the very depths of the heart of the object is a modulating unity of Being and Nothing and consequently atomism presents us with anomalies. 'Hegel's main criticism of [atomism] is that it permits of no inner of self-determination', explains Murray Greene. Hegel designates it an instance of figurate conception or picture thinking.

'In this form of existence, the one is the stage of the category that made its appearance among the ancients as the principle of atomism, according to which the essence of things is the atom and the void (το ?τομο ? το ?τομο και το κεν?). When developed in this form, abstraction has gained a greater determinateness than the being of Parmenides and the becoming of Heraclitus. As high as this abstraction rises in making this simple determinateness of the one and the void the principle of all things, by reducing the manifold of the world to this simple opposition and daring to derive knowledge of it from the latter, just as easy is it for figurative reflection to picture atoms here and the void next to them'.

- The Science of Logic'

Picture thinking, figurative reflection, (Vorstellende Reflektieren), is ever viewed by Hegel with disfavour and Hegel claims that the atomism of the ancient Greeks was the exaltation of the One and the Void. Admittedly atomism was an advance over Parmenides's Being or Heraclitus's Becoming but when all is said and done it is equally easy for figurate conception to picture here atoms and alongside them the void hence unsurprisingly the atomistic principle has at all times been maintained and the equally trivial and external relation of composition which must be added to achieve a semblance of concreteness and variety is no less popular than the atoms themselves and the Void. The one and the Void is Being-for-self, the highest qualitative Being-within-self, sunk back into complete externality, the immediacy of the One, is posited as Being no longer, alterable, such therefore is its absolute, unyielding rigidity that all determination, variety, conjunction remains for it an utterly external relation.

'It is no wonder, therefore, that the atomistic principle has at all times held its own; the equally trivial and external relation of composition that must be added to it to attain the semblance of concreteness and multiplicity, is just as popular as the atoms themselves and the void. The one and the void are being-for-itself, the highest qualitative in-itselfness that has sunk to the most complete externality; immediacy, or the being of the one, since it is the negation of all otherness, is posited as no longer determinable and alterable; and in the presence of its absolute obduracy all determination, every manifold and every conjunction, therefore remains irreducibly external reference'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

To put it another wa atomism declares the utter indifference of one atom and another and it has no theory other than subjective composition to account for why atoms must be joined together. Atomic thinkers, Hegel maintains, did not remain wedded to the brute externality of the One and the Void. The Void was recognized as the source of movement, which means that the One and the Void did not have a purely external relation, the One can move only into unoccupied space and not into space already occupied by a One. But this not a trivial matter:

'With the earliest thinkers, however, the atomistic principle did not remain in this externality but also had, besides its abstraction, a speculative determination inasmuch as the void was recognized as the source of movement, and this entails quite a different connection of atom and void than the mere juxtaposition and mutual indifference of these two determinations. That the void is the source of movement does not have the trivial meaning that something can only move into an empty space and not into an already occupied one, for in the latter it would find no room still left open; understood in this way, the void would be only the presupposition or the condition of movement, not its ground, and the movement itself would be presupposed as already there while the essential point, its ground, is forgotten. The view that the void constitutes the ground of movement contains the more profound thought that the ground of becoming, of unrest and self-movement, lies in the negative in general, which, in this sense, is however to be taken as the true negativity of the infinite. – The void is the ground of movement only as the negative reference of the one to its negative, to the one, that is, to its own self posited, however, as determinate existent'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Observation means only that the Void is the presupposition or condition of movement and not its explanation. Indeed, the notion idea that atoms move is presupposed and presupposition signifies that no logical connection between the One and the Void is yet recognized although a deeper take on the matter would be that the Void constitutes the ground of movement. In the negative as such there lies the ground of Becoming, of the unrest of self-movement but we must take heed that Hegel shifts the ground of movement in that Hegelian atoms do not move about the Void, movement consists in dialectics of self-erasure. And Hegel concludes by remonstrating with physics that its molecules and particles suffer from the atom which is a principle of extreme externality which is thereby utterly devoid if I may use that word of the Notion, just as much as does that theory of the State that begins from the particular will of individuals.

'For the rest, the other determinations of the ancients concerning the shape of the atoms, their position, the direction of their movement, are arbitrary and external enough; they therefore stand in direct contradiction to the fundamental determination of the atom. Physics, with its molecules and particles, suffers from its use of the atom, the principle of extreme externality, and therefore from an extreme lack of the concept, as does also the theory of state that starts from the singular will of individuals'.

Elsewhere Hegel takes issue with the atomists for presuming to think that they are not being metaphysical:

'The philosophy of Atomism forms an essential stage in the historical development of the Idea, and the overall principle of this philosophy is being-for-itself in the shape of what is many. b Since Atomism is still held in high esteem nowadays among those natural scientists who do not want anything to do with metaphysics, it should be remembered in this connection that we do not escape metaphysics (or, more precisely, the tracing back of nature to thoughts) by throwing ourselves into the arms of Atomism, because, of course, the atom is itself a thought, and so the interpretation of matter as consisting of atoms is a metaphysical one. It is true that Newton expressly warned physics to beware of metaphysics; but, to his honour, let it be said that he did not conduct himself in accordance with this warning at all. Only the animals are true blue physicists by this standard, since they do not think; whereas humans, in contrast, are thinking beings, and born metaphysicians. All that matters here is whether the metaphysics that is employed is of the right kind; and specifically whether, instead of the concrete logical Idea, we hold on to one-sided thought-determinations fixed by the understanding, so that they form the basis both of our theoretical and of our practical action. This is the reproach that strikes down the philosophy of Atomism'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Physics has of course moved on since Hegel's day and although it is not my area of expertise it is my understanding that nowadays physicists divide the indivisible atom into electrons, nucleons, quarks, and so on. Nonetheless (and incidentally I eschew the current in vogue terms of wokeness or snowflakes and so on as being rather unhelpful as well as an inclination of not really looking into the matter for oneself but rather just drifting along with the current) but liberal (by which is now meant regressive) political philosophy which has never broken free from its dependence upon the self-identity of the free individual or what is taken for freedom (identity politics I am talking about here which is certainly no new phenomenon, politics grounded upon arbitrary characteristics, skin colour, age, gender) for whom the state is merely useful (in getting oneself privileges because of such arbitrary characteristics), and any kind of utilitarian or contractarian philosophy is atomistic in its outlook at a fundamental level and such philosophies do not get past the One and the Void. As Hegel explains:

'In modern times, the atomistic view has become even more important in the political [realm] than in the physical [one]. According to this view, the will of the single [individuals] as such is the principle of the State; what produces the attraction is the particularity of needs [and] inclinations; and the universal, the State itself, is the external relationship of a contract'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

I dedicate this article to 'the One':

No New Year's Day to celebrate

No chocolate covered candy hearts to give away

No first of spring, no song to sing

In fact, here's just another ordinary day

No April rain, no flowers bloom

No wedding Saturday within the month of June

But what it is, is something true

Made up of these three words that I must say to you

I just called to say I love you

I just called to say how much I care

I just called to say I love you

And I mean it from the bottom of my heart

TOUCHSTONE:

Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?

CORIN:

No more but that I know the more one sickens the worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money, means and content is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.

TOUCHSTONE:

Such a one is a natural philosopher.

- William Shakespeare, 'As You Like It', Act 3, Scene 2.

(Note: natural philosopher:?1) born philosopher.?2) foolish philosopher).

Coming up next:

Repulsion and attraction.

To be continued. ...