Note: Quoted text and page numbers—i.e., (25)—indicate links to passages in Hegel’s Science of Logic.
|
Bern: Log. I. 175
Hegel’s Werke
Bd. I. Philosophische Abhandlungen ” II. The Phenomenology of Mind ” III-V. The Science of Logic ” VI-VII. (1 and 2) The Encyclopaedia ” VIII. The Philosophy of Law ” IX. The Philosophy of History ” X. (3 parts) Aesthetics ” XI-XII. The History of Religion ” XIII-XV. The History of Philosophy ” XVI-XVII. Miscellaneous Writings ” XVIII. Philosophical Propaedeutic ” XIX. (1 and 2) Hegel’s Correspondence |
|
Full Title of Collected Works G. W. Fr. Hegel[1] |
|
|
Collected Works of G. W. Fr. Hegel, Vol. III (Berlin, 1833) (468 pages) |
“Complete edition by circle of friends of the deceased: Marheineke, Schulze, Gans, Hen- nin, Hotho, Michelet, Förster.” |
|
“The Science of Logic.”[2] Part 1. Objective Logic. |
|
|
Section 1. The Doctrine of Being.
|
|
| (Bern: Log I. 175 |
|
Vol. III,[3] p. 5 — a shrewd statement
about logic: it is a “prejudice” that it ”teach- es how to think” (just as physiology ”teaches ... to digest”??)
... “logical science, which is the true con-
tent of genuine metaphysics or pure spec- ulative philosophy.... ” (6)
...“Philosophy cannot borrow its method
froma subordinate science, such as mathe- matics....” (6-7)
...“But it can be only the nature of the
content which stirs in scientific cognition, while at the same time it is this very reflection of the content which itself ini- tially posits and produces its determina- tion.” (7)
(The movement of scientific
cognition — that is the essential thing.) “Understanding (Verstand) makes deter- minations” (bestimmt), Reason (Ver- nunft) is negative and dialectical because it dissolves into nothing (“in Nichts auflöst”) the determinations of Understanding. (7) The combination of these two—“Reason which understands or Understanding which reasons” (7) = the positive.
Negation of “the simple” ... “movement
of Mind ...” (7)
(The “path of self-construction” = the
path (this is the crux, in my opinion) of real cognition, of the process of cognising, of movement from ignorance to knowledge.[4] |
||
|
The movement of consciousness, “like
the development of all natural and spiri- tual life,” rests on “the nature of the pure |
This is char- acteristic! |
|
|
essentialities which make up the content
of Logic” (Natur der reinen Wessenheiten[5]). |
||
|
Turn it round: Logic and the theory
of knowledge must be derived from “the development of all natural and spiritual life”. |
||
|
Up to here: preface to the First Edition.
|
||
|
“To present the realm of thought in its
philosophical aspect—that is, in its own |
||||||
|
(NB) immanent activity, or (which comes
|
excellent! | |||||
|
to the same thing) in its necessary (NB)
development....” (10)
“The familiar forms of thought”—an im-
portant beginning, “die leblosen Knochen eines Skeletts.”[6] (11)
The connection between thought
and language (the Chinese language, inciden- tally, and its lack of development: (11), |
||||||
|
the formation of nouns and verbs. (11)
In the German language words sometimes have “entgegengesetzte Bedeutung”[7] (12) (not simply “different” but opposed mean- ings)—“a joy to thought....” |
the history of thought = the history of language?? |
|||||
|
[NB also p. 11.... “But if Nature in
general is opposed, as physical, to what is mental, then it must be said that Logic is rather something supernatural....”] |
nature and “das Geistige”[9] |
|||||
|
“Infinite progress”—“liberation” of “forms
of thought” from the matter (von dem Stoffe), ideas, desires, etc., elaboration of the general (Plato, Aristotle): the beginning of Knowledge....
“It was only after nearly everything that
was necessary ... was available, that people began to trouble themselves about philo- sophic knowledge,” says Aristotle (13-14); and the selfsame: the leisure of the Egyp- tian priests, the beginning of the mathe- matical sciences. (14) Preoccupation with “pure thought” presupposes “a long stretch of road already traversed by the mind |
||||||
|
of man.” In this kind of thought
“those interests are hushed which move the lives of peoples and individuals.” (14) |
interests “move the lives of peoples” |
|||||
|
The categories of Logic are Abbrevi-
aturen[12] (“epitomiert”[13] in another pas- age) for the “endless multitude” of “par- ticulars of external existence and of ac- tion....” (15) In turn, these categories die- nen[14] people in practice (“in the intellectual exercise of living content, in production and interchange”). (15) |
||||||
|
the relation of thought to interests and impulses... |
||||||
|
And concerning forms of thought (Denk-
formen) it cannot be said that they serve us, for they permeate “all our ideas” (16), they are “the Universal as such.”
of “subjective thinking” and “the objec-
tive concept of the very essence of things”. We cannot “get beyond the nature of things”. |
||||||
|
“Also the remark against the "Critical
Philosophy.” (17) It conceives the relation between “three terms” (We, Thought, Things) so that thoughts stand “in the mid- dle” between things and us, and so that this middle term “separates” (abschließt) “rather than... connects” (zusammenschli- eBen) us. This view may be met, says Hegel, by the “simple observation” that “these very things which are supposed to stand beyond (jenseits) our thoughts ... are themselves thought entities (Gedanken- dinge)” ... and “the so-called Thing-in-it- self is only ein Gedankendingder leeren Abstraktion.[15]” |
against Kantianism |
|||||
|
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
It is also incorrect to say that they are
“äußere Formen,”[21] “Formen die nur |
||||||
|
an dem Gehalt, nicht der Gehalt selbst
seien,” (forms which are merely forms at- tached to the content, and not the content itself). (17)... |
NB | |||||
And Hegel draws attention to “thoughts
of all natural and spiritual things”, to the “substantial content....” (18)
—“To bring into clear consciousness this
logical character, which gives soul to mind and drives and operates in it, this is our problem.” (18)
“Instinctive action” (instinktartiges
Tun) “is broken up ... into an infinitely di- verse matter.” On the other hand, “intelligent and conscious action” brings out “the con- tent of that which motivates” (den Inhalt des Treibenden) “out of its immediate unity with the subject” and makes it “an object for it” (for the subject).
“In this web strong knots are formed
now and then, which are foci of the arrest and direction of its” [the spirit’s, or the subject’s] “life and consciousness ....” (18)
“Truth is infinite” (19) —its finiteness
is its denial, “its end”. The forms (Denk- formen[23]), if one regards them as forms, “distinct from the substance and merely at- tached to it” are incapable of embrac- ing truth. The inaneness of these forms of [formal logic] makes them deserving of “contempt” (19) and “derision.” (20) The Law of identity, A = A, —vacuousness, “unerträglich.”[24]. (19)
It is unfair to forget that these categories
“have their place and validity in cognition.” (20) But as “indifferent forms” they can be “instruments of error and sophistry” (20), not of truth. |
||||||
|
“With this introduction of Content into
logical consideration,” the subject becomes not Dinge but die Sache, der Begriff der Dinge.[26] |
NB NB |
|||||
...”the logos, the reason of that which
is." (21) |
||||||
|
...“Entwicklung des Denkens in seiner
Notwendigkeit.” |
|
|||||
|
The categories have to be derived (and
not taken arbitrarily or mechanically) (not by “exposition”, not by “assurances,” but with proofs) proceeding from the simplest, most fundamental (Being, Noth- ing, Becoming (das Werden)) (without taking others)—here, in them, “in this germ, the whole development.” (23) |
||||||
|
Logic is usually understood as being the
“science of thinking,” the “bare form of cognition.” (27) Hegel refutes this view. He is against Ding an sich[28] as “something beyond thought.” (29)
Forms of thinking apparently “have no
applicability to Things-in-themselves.” (31) Ungereimt wahre Erkenntnis,[29] which does not cognise the Thing-in-itself. But is not Verstand[30] also a Thing-in-itself? (31)
“Transcendental idealism, carried
more consistently to its logical conclusion, has perceived the nullity of the spectre of the Thing-in-itself left over from the critical philosophy—that abstract shadow detached from all content—and has had the aim of demolishing it altogether. Also, this phi- losophy (Ficthe?) made a beginning of mak- inf reason develop its own determinations out of itself. But the subjective attitude of this attempt did not admit of its being carried to completion.” (32)
Logical forms are tote Formen[31]—
for they are not regarded as an “organic unity,” (33) as “their living concrete unity” (ibidem). |
||||||
|
In the Phenomenology of Mind
I have examined “the movement of con- sciousness, from the first direct contradiction (Gegensatz) between itself and the object, up to absolute knowledge. (34) This path goes through all the forms of the relation of con- sciousness to the object....” |
||||||
|
“Truth, as science, is pure self-conscious-
ness unfolding itself...” (35) “objective think- ing“ ... ”the concept, as such, is that which exists in and for itself.” (35) (36: clerical- ism, God, the realm of truth, etc., etc.) |
||||||
| 37: |
Kant imparted “an essentially subjec-
tive signification” to “logical determi- nations”. But “thought determinations” have “an objective value and exist- ence”. (37) The old logic has fallen into Verachtung.[32] (38) It requires trans- formation... |
|||||
| 39— |
The old, formal logic is exactly like
a child’s game, making pictures out of jig-saw pieces (in Verachtung ge- kommen[33]: (38)) |
|||||
| 40 |
Philosophy must have its own method
(not that of mathematics, contra Spi- noza, Wolff und Andere[34]). |
|||||
| 40-41: |
“For method is the conscious-
ness of the form taken by the inner spontaneous movement of its content,” |
NB | ||||
|
and the rest of page 41 gives
a good explanation of dialectics “es ist der Inhalt in sich, die Dia- lektik, die er an ihm selbst hat, welche ihn fortbewegt.” (42) “The given sphere of phenomena is moved forward by the content itself of this sphere, the dialectic, which it (this content) has in (an) itself” (i.e., the dialectic of its own movement). |
||||||
|
“The negative is to an equal extent pos-
itive” (41)—negation is something defi- nite, has a definite content, the inner con- tradictions lead to the replacement of the old content by a new, higher one. |
||||||
|
In the old logic there is no transition, de-
velopment (of concept and thought), there |
||||||
| NB | ||||||
|
And Hegel puts forward two basic require-
ments: 1) “The necessity of connection” and 2) “the immanent emergence of distinctions”. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
“Dialectic is generally regarded as an
external and negative procedure, that does not belong to the subject-matter itself, that is based on pure vanity, as a subjec- tive craving to shake and break down what is fixed and true,—or that at best leads to nothing but the inaneness of the dialec- tically treated matter.” (43) |
||||||
| 44 | ||||||
| Two | important things: | |||||
|
(NB: unclear, return to it!!) |
||||||
|
(2) die Notwendigkeit des Wilderspruchs[40]
selbstbewegende Seele[41] ... (“inher-
The dialectical =
= “comprehending the antithesis in its unity....” |
||||||
|
45 Logic resembles grammar, being one
thing for the beginner and another thing for one who knows the language (and lan- guages) and the spirit of language. “It is one thing for him who approaches Logic and the Sciences in general for the first time and another thing for him who comes back from the sciences to Logic.” |
subtle and profound! |
|||||
|
Then logic gives “the essential character
of this wealth” (des Reichtums der Welt- vorstellung[43]), “the inner nature of spir- it and of the world....” (46) |
||||||
|
“Not merely an abstract universal, but
a universal which comprises in itself the wealth of the particular” (47) |
c.f. Capital | |||||
|
||||||
|
“—Just as one and the same moral
maxim in the mouth of a youth who understands it quite accurately does not have the significance and scope which it has in the mind of a man of years and experience, for whom it expresses the full force of its con- tent. |
a good comparison (materialist) |
|||||
|
Thus, the value of logic only receives due
appreciation when it is the result of ex- perience of the sciences; then it presents itself to the mind as universal truth, not as a particular department of knowledge alongside other departments and realities, but as the essence of all this other con- tent....” (47) |
“sum-total of experience of the sciences” NB (“Essence”) the “essential content of all other knowledge” |
|||||
|
“The system of logic is the realm of
shades" (47), free from "all sensuous con- creteness....” |
||||||
| (50)— |
...“not abstract, dead and immo-
bile, but concrete....” [This is characteristic! The spirit and essence of dialectics!] |
|||||
| (52) |
Note ... the results of Kant’s philos-
ophy ...: “that reason can cognise no valid content, and with regard to absolute truth must be referred to faith....” |
Kant: to res- trict “reason” and strength- en faith[44] |
||||
|
||||||
[1] The first edition of Hegel’s works in German consists of 18 volumes (1832-45) and an additional volume in two parts (1887).
[2] Wissenschaft der Logik (The Science of Logic) consists of two parts (three books).
[3] Hegel, Werke, Bd. III, Berlin, 1833.—Ed.
[4] In the manuscript the words “from ignorance to knowledge” are struck out with a horizontal line, apparently instead of being underlined.—Ed.
[5] In the nature of pure essentialities—Ed.
[6] “the lifeless bones of a skeleton”—Ed.
[7] “opposed meanings”—Ed.
[8] “relations of thought”—Ed.
[9] “the mental”—Ed.
[10] “are familiar to all”—Ed.
[11] “what is familiar is not on that account necessarily known”—Ed.
[12] abbreviations—Ed.
[13] optimised—Ed.
[14] serve—Ed.
[15] a thought entity of empty abstraction—Ed.
[16] progress, the movement—Ed.
[17] the Thing-in-itself—Ed.
[19] “the objective concept of things constitutes their very essence”—Ed.
[20] a “means,” “for use”—Ed.
[21] “external forms”—Ed.
[22] forms with content—Ed.
[23] forms of thought—Ed.
[24] “insufferable"—Ed.
[25] “content”—Ed.
[26] things, but the essence, the concept of things—Ed.
[27] The word “laws” is linked by an arrow with the word “logos” in the next paragraph—Ed.
[28] Thing-in-itself—Ed.
[29] True cognition is absurd—Ed.
[30] understanding—Ed.
[31] dead forms—Ed.
[32] disrepute—Ed.
[33] It has fallen into disrepute.—Ed.
[34] and others—Ed.
[35] “an inner, necessary connection”—Ed.
[36] “transition”—Ed.
[37] Parmenides—the name of one of Plato’s dialogues, in which the philosophical views of Parmenides, the ancient Greek Eleatic philosopher, are discussed.
[38] “the semblance of arbitrariness”—Ed.
[39] the objectivity of semblance—Ed.
[40] the necessity of contradiction—Ed.
[41] self-moving soul—Ed.
[42] essence—Ed.
[43] the wealth of the world view—Ed.
[44] Lenin is apparently referring to the following well-known statement by Kant in the preface to the second edition of Critique of Pure Reason: “I would have to restrict the field of knowledge to make place for faith.”
| | | Chapter One | |
| Document Index | ||
| < Backwards | Forwards > | |||||
| Works Index | | | Volume 38 | | | Collected Works | | | L.I.A. Index |