The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things (43 page)

Very well; what are the moves with which Hegel begins his logic? He starts with the concept of being, that is to say pure undetermined being. This is the appropriate concept with which to start, not only because it is the one concept that must apply to everything, but also because any other proposed starting point, say the concept of the self, would involve something determinate, as it may be the idea of that whose existence cannot be doubted, and would therefore presuppose other concepts which should have preceded it (
Encyclopedia
I, §86).

But pure undetermined being, as such, without the modification of any other concept, is nothing, where by nothing is meant ‘complete emptiness, absence of all determination and content – undifferentiatedness in itself’ (
Science of Logic
, I.i.i.1.B, p. 82). The concept of being thus passes over into the concept of nothing, to which, on the one hand, it is opposed and with which, on the other hand, it is to be identified. The same is true in reverse: the concept of nothing likewise passes over into the concept of being, to which it is opposed and with which it is to be identified. This is because, if there is
nothing
, then
there is
nothing: that is then the nature of being. Nothing can be ‘thought of, imagined, spoken of, and therefore it
is
’ (
Science of Logic
, I.i.i.1.C.1, Remark 3, p. 101, emphasis in original). Each concept issues in and gives way to the other, then. That is, each concept ‘vanishes in its opposite’ (
Science of Logic
, I.i.i.1.C.1, p. 83, emphasis removed).

But this means that, in order for being to make sense, the opposition between it and nothing must somehow be resolved. It is resolved by being
aufgehoben
. And this in turn is achieved by the two concepts themselves being
aufgehoben
in passing over into a third, that of becoming. In becoming, both being and nothing are both preserved and annulled, each passing over into the other, being in ceasing-to-be and nothing in coming-to-be (
Science of Logic
, I.i.i.1.C.2, p. 106).

Is Hegel saying that it is a matter of conceptual necessity that there is such a thing as time, then? No. Becoming is not the same as time. Time is one form of becoming. Time is becoming as given in a certain way. In time, ‘contradictories are held asunder in juxtaposition and temporal succession and so come before consciousness without reciprocal contact’ (
Science of Logic
, II.iii.3, p. 835). The
Aufhebung
of the opposition between being and nothing, with respect to light, say, is given in the fact that there
was no
light but there
is now
light. That is, the absence or non-being of light and the presence or being of light, though opposed to each other, are united in the coming-to-be of light by being placed alongside each other in time.
³⁰
It does not follow that such coming-to-be could not have taken some other form.
³¹

It is worth adding in this connection that it is compatible with everything that has been said so far that the existence of becoming is itself a deep contingency, a feature of reality which, however pervasive it may be, admits, at some level, of alternatives.
³²
It is just that, if it is, then there must also be a
contingency further up in Hegel’s account, say in the very idea that there are concepts, or in the idea that the opposition between being and nothing is resolved in the way it is, or even in the idea that it is resolved at all, that being does indeed
make sense
. (An alternative in each case would be for there to be nothing. Quite what this would involve, in Hegelian terms, would depend on where the contingency lay. Perhaps it would involve being’s and nothing’s acquiescing in their mutual opposition. Perhaps it would involve being’s failing to make sense.) If there
is
such a contingency further up in Hegel’s account, then the contingency of becoming can be thought of as a manifestation of it, the means whereby the opposition in question is resolved.

Still, be any of that as it may, and be the exegesis of Hegel as it may – I pass no judgment on whether he does think it a contingency that there is such a thing as becoming
³³
– he certainly thinks that it is through becoming that the opposition in question is resolved. And that is what matters for current purposes. These, in essence, are the opening moves in his logic.
³⁴

The dialectical structure here, whereby one thing passes over into its opposite and the two together then pass over into a third thing in which their opposition is
aufgehoben
, is not just a feature of the interrelation of concepts in the absolute idea. It is a structure which Hegel claims to be ‘the law of things’, instantiated ‘wherever there is movement, wherever there is life, wherever anything is carried into effect in the natural world’ (
Encyclopedia
I, §81
Z
, p. 116). It is often described in terms of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis – though this is not a Hegelian way of speaking.
³⁵
Hegel himself sometimes describes it in terms of negation and negation of the negation (e.g.
Science of Logic
, I.i.i.2.C(
c
), pp. 148–150, and
Encyclopedia
I, §95; cf.
Encyclopedia
I, §93). These two ways of speaking are not so very different,
however. For the negation that Hegel intends here is the negation that is characteristic of
Aufhebung
. It is the negation in which the original lives on in a superseded form (see e.g.
Encyclopedia
I, §§91 and 119). In the negation of the negation the original still lives on, but doubly transformed. And likewise for any further iteration.
³⁶

This living on in negation is highly pertinent to Hegel’s logic. The starting point of his logic, as we have seen, is the concept of being. The end point is the entire infinite system of interrelated concepts, the absolute idea. But each of these is implicated in the other. Each, in a sense,
is
the other. For the starting point leads inexorably to the end point, and lives on in it. (The child becomes the man.) And only in the light of the end point, that is only in the context of the absolute idea, can the starting point, that is the concept of being, properly be grasped. Only in the context of the absolute idea can
any
of its concepts properly be grasped. Only at the end does anything make sense. (See
Science of Logic
, I.i, ‘With What Must the Science Begin?’, pp. 71–72, and II.iii.3; and
Encyclopedia
I, §§236ff.) This is part of what Hegel means by his famous remark that ‘the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk’ (
Philosophy of Right
, Preface, p. 13).
³⁷

5. Three Concerns

Hegel believes that the process whereby reality achieves full self-consciousness has reached its final stage, then, and that this is manifest in the fact that he himself has grasped the system of concepts that constitute the absolute idea. Even someone broadly sympathetic to his vision is liable to have
concerns about these specific conceits. There are three questions in particular that seem pressing. Why think that the process in question
has
a final stage? Why think that, even if it has, there is scope for a finite individual such as Hegel, never mind for the time being what credentials Hegel himself has, to grasp how all those concepts are interrelated – as opposed to contributing in some unwitting way to reality’s grasp of how they are? And why think that, even if there is scope for a finite individual to do this, Hegel himself has done it?
³⁸

There is a sense in which a satisfactory answer to the third question would obviate the other two. Hegel, if confronted with these three questions, could always present his logic and say, ‘See for yourselves.’ But even those impressed by what they saw might still seek reassurances concerning the other two questions, to remove lingering doubts about what they were looking at.

Consider the first question. The concern here is reinforced by the thought that the entire system of concepts is after all supposed to be infinite. Perhaps the most that we can expect is an endless progression toward grasp of it, a progression whereby reality, which is to say the infinite, becomes more and more self-conscious but never reaches that limit of self-consciousness in which knower and known completely coincide.

But this, Hegel will say, is to cast the truly infinite in a role more suited to what he would call the spuriously infinite (
Encyclopedia
I, §94);
³⁹
or rather, it is at best to do that; at worst, it is to confuse the two. The truly infinite is the infinite as characterized in §2: the complete self-contained unified whole, which is not opposed to the finite but embraces it. The spuriously infinite, by contrast, is the infinite as it tends to be characterized in mathematics. It is the infinite which finds paradigmatic expression in the sequence of positive integers 1, 2, 3, …. The spuriously infinite is a mere succession of finite elements, each succeeded by another, never complete, never self-contained, never unified. It is a pale inadequate reflection of the truly infinite. And, unlike the truly infinite, it
is
opposed to the finite. This is precisely what propels it along from one element to the next, in its never-ending attempt to escape the finite.
⁴⁰
In Hegel’s view it would be unthinkable for insight into the truly infinite, the prerogative of the truly infinite itself, to be some asymptotic ideal that is only ever approached by a spuriously infinite progression of successively better approximations.
⁴¹

There is in any case a further important strain in Hegel’s thinking, which I shall mention but to which I cannot begin to do justice, whereby reality, or the infinite, must not only exist

• ‘in itself’, that is as a self-identical but as yet undeveloped concept,
⁴²

but also

• ‘for itself’, that is by being projected in a succession of natural events in which it maintains a progression towards self-knowledge,

and also

•
‘in and for itself’
, that is through its eventual attainment of that self-knowledge. (
Phenomenology
, Preface, ¶¶20–25)
⁴³

To develop the musical analogy that I used in the previous section, a piece of music, if it is to achieve full being, must not only exist

• in conception, that is as an idea in the composer’s mind,

but also

• in performance, that is by being projected in a succession of sounds in which the composer’s idea is realized,

and also

•
in consummation
, that is through the eventual completion of the performance.

If its performance went on for ever, it would scarcely count as ‘a piece of music’, but would be some kind of license for endless improvisation or else a blueprint for endless repetition.
⁴⁴

But now the second question is urgent. Even if reality must eventually achieve full self-consciousness, and has in fact already done so, and even if human beings are the principal vehicle whereby it has managed to do so,
⁴⁵
why should this involve any one human being’s grasping the entire system
of concepts? Why not, to continue with the musical analogy, an orchestrated effort?
⁴⁶
This question is exacerbated by Hegel’s own insistence that much in the process has happened without direction from any individual.
⁴⁷
Even those ‘world-historical individuals’ who were
en route
to this final stage, ‘who had an insight into the requirements of the time –
what was right for development …
[ – who knew] the necessary, directly sequent step in progress, which their world was to take; [and who] must, therefore, be recognized as its clear-sighted ones …’: even these ‘had no consciousness of the general idea they were unfolding’ and ‘when their object [was] attained they [fell] off like empty hulls from the kernel’ (
Reason in History
, pp. 29–31, emphasis in original).
⁴⁸

It seems to me that Hegel has no satisfactory answer to the second question beyond whatever answer he may have to the third. In other words, I think his only reason for holding that there is scope for an individual human being to grasp the entire system of concepts is that he takes himself to have done so. And that
is
largely a matter of his having a logic of which he is prepared to say, ‘See for yourselves.’
⁴⁹
Seeing for ourselves, if he is right, means not only making sense of all the moves in his logic, but also realizing, at a higher level of reflection, that we could not make such sense of them, nay that such sense would not be available to be made, unless the logic were complete. For – again, if Hegel is right – it is only in the context of the whole that any of the moves can have the particular significance that now, in retrospect, we can see them as having (cf.
Phenomenology
, Preface, ¶1, and Introduction, ¶89; and
Encyclopedia
I, §§14 and 17). So we must simply look and see, and try to decide whether Hegel is indeed right.