Hegels_Logic_Identity_Difference_chapter2_part3.mp3

Double transition also is exhibited in the category of teleology. Hegel praises Kant’s distinction between external and internal purposiveness, because the latter opens up the concept of life and raises it “above the determinations of reflection and the relative world of metaphysics.” If mechanism consists in the externality of whole and parts, then Hegel sees this externality already beginning to break down in the “elective affinities” of chemism. Teleology extends the overcoming of externality that begins in chemism.The whole and the parts that, on the level of mechanism, are other to each other undergo a double transition that dissolves their mutual externality. The dissolution of externality becomes evident in the following account of teleological activity: It can therefore be said of teleological activity that in it the end is the beginning, the result is the ground, the effect is the cause, that it is a coming to be of what has already come to be, that in it only what already exists comes into existence, and so forth; which means that in general all the determinations of relationship belonging to the sphere of reflection or immediate being have lost their distinction, and that what was spoken of as an other, such as end, result, effect, etc. no longer have the determination of being an other in the end-relationship. The following passage articulates double transition and reciprocity in teleological self-actualization: Since the concept here in the sphere of objectivity . . . is in reciprocal action with itself, the exposition of its movement is itself double and a first is always a second also. In the concept taken by itself, that is in its subjectivity, its difference from itself appears as an immediate identical totality on its own account; but since its determinateness here is indifferent externality, its identity with itself in this externality is also immediately again self-repulsion so that what is determined as external and indifferent to the identity is the identity itself; and the identity, as identity, as reflected into itself, is rather its other. Only by keeping this firmly in mind can we grasp the objective return of the concept into itself, that is, the true objectification of the concept- grasp that each of the single moments through which this mediation runs its course is itself the entire syllogism of those moments . . . this reflection that the end is reached in the means, and that in the fulfilled end, means and mediation are preserved, is the last result of the external end-relation. Note that teleology here is described as the end-relation (Zweckbeziehung) that preserves means and mediation (to which end is contrasted in ordinary reflection) and breaks down not only these distinctions but also the distinction between the whole and the parts: The whole is present in the parts. What breaks down these distinctions is the double transition. The realization of the end involves the end’s having a negative relation to itself whereby its positing is an act that excludes itself from itself but equally presupposes what it excludes. Note this terminology. Positing is a term associated with idealism, which asserts the primacy of the subject, while presupposing is a term associated with empiricism or realism and denotes a passive acceptance of a given. Hegel sides with neither idealism nor empiricism but contends that both are sublated in teleology and organism. He regards both terms as occurring in relation, namely, in a double transition. Both terms have to be taken together; neither idealism per se nor empiricism per se can be regarded as the truth but only both taken together and as qualifying each other. In the negative self-relation of the end in its process of realization, what is posited also is presupposed, and what is presupposed also is either posited or capable of being posited. The latter is the principle of idealism, “which asserts that nothing whatever can have a positive relation to the living being if this latter is not in its own self the possibility of this relation.” The reciprocal relation of positing (idealism) and presupposing (realism) is further developed in Hegel’s mediation of analysis and synthesis: It is just as one-sided to represent analysis as though there were nothing in the subject matter that was not imported into it, as it is one-sided to suppose that the resulting determinations are merely extracted from it. The former view, as everyone knows, is enunciated by subjective idealism, which takes the activity of cognition in analysis to be merely a one-sided positing, beyond which the thing in itself remains concealed; the other view belongs to so-called realism which apprehends the subjective concept as an empty identity that receives the thought determinations into itself from outside. Analytic cognition, the transformation of the given material into logical determinations, has shown itself to be two things in one: a positing that no less immediately determines itself as a presupposing. Consequently, by virtue of the latter, the logical element may appear as something already complete in the object, just as by virtue of the former it may appear as the product of a merely subjective activity. But the two moments are not to be separated; the logical element in its abstract form into which analysis raises it, is of course only to be found in cognition, while conversely it is something not merely posited, but possessing being in itself. Here is a statement not only of the Aufhebung of idealism and realism and empiricism but also of the distinction between positing and presupposing. The logical element of idealism is not a separate ego cogito or transcendental subject in contrast to an empirical subject or to unknowable things in themselves; rather, the logical element of idealism is actual only in cognition. On the other hand, the presupposed content, when posited, is not reducible to the positing activity of the subject but possesses intrinsic being in itself. So what is presupposed has to be capable of being posited by the subject-the partial truth of idealism-while what is posited is not thereby reduced to or made wholly relative to the positing activity of the subject but possesses intrinsic being is an end in itself-the partial truth of empiricism and realism. Again, my concern here is not with the plausibility, success, or failure of Hegel’s bold attempt to mediate and correct the onesided alternatives of idealism and realism but rather to call attention to the double transition in this mediation. It is not an exaggeration to say that double transition is what is unique and distinctive about Hegel’s philosophy. The double transition sets Hegel’s thought apart from idealism in the usual one-sided sense of that term. With these examples of double transition drawn from the logic, I hope to have explicated and confirmed Hegel’s remark that “the double transition is of great importance throughout the whole compass of scientific method.” Double transition is the methodological principle that deconstructs the antinomies and oppositions generated by the analytical understanding (Verstand). I do not claim that every transition in the logic is a double transition. I do not pretend to have exhausted the topic of double transition or to have determined whether double transition is successful in all of these examples, or to have shown how it affects the details of particular logical transitions. For example, the ontological import of this methodological principle is not yet fully explicit. But I do claim that since “the double transition is of great importance throughout the whole compass of scientific method,” this undercuts any reading of the logic that regards the logical progression as proceeding by subordinating one term to another or as involving a reduction of double mediation to singular self-mediation. If such were the case, then Hegel would have violated his own standard and failed to meet his own systematic methodological requirement. He would be guilty of the “sin” of one-sidedness. I am convinced that double transition is crucial to understand and appreciate Hegel’s thought. That it is important is beyond question, if only because Hegel claims that his whole system can and should be understood as a syllogism of syllogisms. How double transition works out in detail in the matter of syllogisms is a topic for further inquiry and research. It would seem to have implications not only for the various levels and divisions of the logic but also for the relations between the logic and Realphilosophie or the empirical disciplines. The double transition holds not only for the relation of logical terms and categories but also for the relation between logic and Realphilosophie or between thought and being in the most comprehensive and basic sense. If the logic is related to empirical phenomena through double transition, then it would seem to follow that the logic is both open to and in some sense dependent on empirical phenomena. A discussion of this complex issue lies beyond our present task. I now turn to the question of double transition and syllogism in the concept of recognition. Recognition and Double Transition We have seen that for Hegel double transition is transition into an other irreducible to the first. It is a process that is double-sided, which is accomplished only jointly and reciprocally. Without the full double transition, one term, and with that, the difference, would be suppressed. The result would be a possibly forcible, one-sided union in which one term is subordinate to or reduced to another. This would further involve a reduction of mediation to singular self-mediation, and concrete mediated identity to abstract identity. Hegel argues that double transition is necessary if the difference is to be given its due, that is, treated as equal in importance with identity. The difference, which is expressed in the negative moment of the dialectic, is actually the more profound and important, because it discloses the contradiction inherent in existence that has to be overcome. Difference is contradiction implicit, but felt contradiction “is the root of all movement and vitality; it is only insofar as something has a contradiction within it that it moves, has a drive and activity.” Similarly, it is an experienced contradiction that propels the struggle for recognition. The contradiction of an immediate encounter-which Hegel expresses in the Phenomenology as “a self-consciousness exists for another self-consciousness”-has to be resolved, and the resolution of this contradiction is the process of mutual recognition. But the two parties do not begin in mutual recognition; rather, they engage in a struggle for recognition. In this process both sides have to work off their immediacy, that is, their brittle, exclusive identity. The contradiction in the original encounter can be resolved only if the process of recognition is mutually and jointly constituted-in short, only if recognition is fully reciprocal, for only then is the space of recognition a free space. On the other hand, if the process of recognition were arrested or halted short of reciprocity, such as occurs in master and slave, then the result would be a relationship based on coercion, on a denial of a free and plural space of the between. In master and slave, the original contradiction is displaced by another: “The one subjects himself, gives up the independence of his will; [this is] a resolution of the contradiction which is in itself a further contradiction.” My hypothesis is that mutual recognition is a syllogism of spirit, and that its reciprocity exhibits the double transition. Since I have already discussed Hegel’s treatment of recognition elsewhere, I shall offer only a brief sketch here. Hegel begins his analysis with the doubling [Verdoppelung] of self-consciousness. “The detailed exposition of the concept of this spiritual unity in its doubling [Verdoppelung] will present to us the movement of recognition.” Self-consciousness undergoes an “internal” doubling, or an immediate reflection, in which it is “for itself” and an “external” doubling, in which it is “for another.” These doublings are correlated and portrayed in an immediate encounter with another self-consciousness. “A self-consciousness confronts another self-consciousness.” These two doublings are correlative; this means that the external doubling should not be confused with or collapsed into the “inner.” And yet as the struggle for recognition unfolds, each discovers that the other it excludes turns out to be a condition of its own freedom and self-realization; conversely, the freedom that each asserts turns out to be present in and tied to the freedom and independence of the other.The other is capable of both resistance (nonrecognition) and cooperation. However, each can realize its freedom only if the other is allowed to realize its freedom also. As Hegel puts it in a rather dense, complex sentence: “Self-consciousness is in and for itself when and through the fact that it is in and for itself for an other; that is, it exists only as recognized.” Mutual recognition means that the self in its “internal” doubling for itself is nevertheless not simply “for itself” but its “for itself” is mediated by another. It is in and for itself for an other. Hegel outlines and analyzes the doubling of self-consciousness as a series of ambiguities, double meanings, and double significations. We can pass over the details of these, but we must note the central point: The doubling of self-consciousness means that what is done to the other may, by virtue of the doubling, also be done to oneself. As one gives, so shall one usually receive. Hence, doubling implies not merely plurality but two quite different sets of existence possibilities, a negative and an affirmative. There is double transition in both, but one is a self-contradictory double transition, while the other is reciprocal affirmation. On the one hand, to confirm one’s immediate, exclusive identity by negating and eliminating the other is to open oneself to the same risk of elimination. As Hegel observes, death is abstract negation; reciprocally carried out, elimination is self-contradictory. Master and slave stop the struggle for recognition short of death, but their unequal recognition merely propounds another contradiction, namely, a relation between free beings founded on coercion. In both of these cases, double transition sustains the contradiction rather than resolves it. Relations frozen in such contradictions are doomed to failure and will pass away. On the other hand, to recognize and affirm the other and to allow the other to be is not only to break with exclusive immediate identity it is also to create a new set of affirmative, noncoercive existential possibilities ranging from friendship and love to legal recognition and justice. These possibilities are founded in mutual recognition. In these possibilities there is an intersubjectively mediated identity, an enlarged mentality: “If we speak of right, ethical life and love, we know that when we recognize others we recognize their complete personal independence. We know that we don’t suffer because of this, but on the contrary that we too count as free and independent; we know that when others have rights, I also have rights. . . . [we know that] love is not the destruction of one’s personality.” From Doubling to Double Transition Doubling is present in the concept of recognition: Doubling is concretely experienced as an internal and external existential contradiction that has to be overcome. The original contradiction in this encounter is between individuals in their one-sided immediacy. The process of recognition is driven by the existential necessity, or need, to overcome this contradiction. Contradiction is here a form of relationship. Immediate individuals exclude each other but nevertheless confront each other, and in spite of their differences, or even because of their differences, they have to deal with and negotiate their relation to each other, hence the doubling of self-consciousness opens up the possibility of a double transition of each term into the other. Double transition is suggested at the outset in the correlation of being-for-itself and being-for-an-other: “Self-consciousness is in and for itself when and through the fact that it is in and for itself for an other; that is, it exists only as recognized.” Double transition is implicit throughout Hegel’s analysis of the concept of recognition. Hegel makes the double transition explicit when he reminds his reader of the following: This movement of self-consciousness in relation to another selfconsciousness has been represented as the doing of the one. But this action of the one has itself the doubled significance of being equally his action as well as the action of the other. The other is likewise independent, self-determining, and there is nothing in the other except what originates through the other. The first does not have a merely passive object before it as in the case of desire. Rather, the other is an independent being existing for itself. Consequently, the first may not use the other for its own ends, unless the other does for itself what the first does. The process [of recognition] is therefore absolutely the doubled action of both self-consciousnesses. Each sees the other do the same as it does; each does to itself what it demands of the other and therefore does what it does only insofar as the other does the same. A one-sided action would be useless, because what is supposed to occur can only come about through both acting together.The action is therefore double signifying [doppelsinnig], not only because it is an action directed towards oneself as well as towards another, but also because it is indivisible, the doing of the one as well as the other. This passage presents a clear and forceful statement that the “between” of mutual recognition has to be jointly and reciprocally constituted. A one-sided constitution of the between, the relation, would be useless and would end in failure. The space of mutual recognition is not only jointly constituted by both sides but its constitution is a plural intermediation. The space of mutual recognition is a space of communicative freedom in that a condition of mutual recognition is that both parties must respect each other’s freedom and allow each other to be. Each is then for itself through the mediation of the other, and thus at home with self in its other. From Double Transition to the Syllogism of Recognition Hegel shows that double transition exhibits a quasisyllogistic structure. In the Logic, Hegel maintains that the syllogism is the completely posited concept, and that everything rational is a syllogism. He distinguishes syllogism from the narrow, formal view of it as a collection of three judgments or propositions. He says, “Everything is a syllogism, a universal that through particularity is united with individuality; but it is certainly not a whole consisting of three propositions.” We need to keep in mind that Hegel intends a broad sense of syllogism as not only present in the natural world in unconscious living organisms but also present in spirit in the form of mutual recognition. In the Phenomenology, recognition mediates the transition from consciousness to self-consciousness; we could say that in recognition the syllogism first becomes explicit, that is, self-conscious. He describes the doubled yet indivisible action of mutual recognition as follows: In this movement we see a repetition of the same process exhibited in the interplay of forces, but repeated in consciousness. What in that interplay was for us the phenomenological observers, here holds true for the extremes themselves. The middle is the self-consciousness which disintegrates into the extremes. Each extreme is this exchange of its determinateness and absolute transition into its opposite. As consciousness it comes outside of itself. However in its self-externality it also retains itself, is for itself; its externality is present to it. It is for consciousness that it immediately is and is not another consciousness. Likewise this other is only for itself, when it cancels itself as being-foritself and is for itself only in the [independent] being-for-itself of the other [nur im Fürsichsein des andern für sich ist]. Each is the mediating term for the other, through which each mediates itself with itself and coincides with itself. Each is for itself and for the other an immediate self-existing being, which at the same time is for itself only through this mediation. They recognize themselves as reciprocally recognizing each other. For Hegel everything rational is a syllogism. The syllogism of recognition has a middle term, the self-consciousness, which in the original doubling disintegrates into the extremes, each an immediate exclusive self-consciousness. Each extreme must undergo a determinate negation of its immediate, exclusive identity as a condition of transition into its opposite, that is, of entering into relation with its other. When viewed by the self in its exclusive immediacy, such selfexternalization is seen and experienced as self-loss. Such self-externality (Aussersichsein) is not just there for an external observer, or something external to the selves themselves, as if each remained an invulnerable, abstract “I am I.” Rather, each self is conscious of its own selfexternality for the other. As Hegel expresses this: It both is and is not another consciousness. This is the existential contradiction that the process of recognition seeks to overcome and resolve. But a second transition also is evident-the other is likewise only for itself in the other’s recognition. It is, Hegel says, only for itself when it suspends its own immediate independent self-existence [Fürsichsein] and is for itself only in the independent self-existence of the other. This being-for-self in the other who is also for itself implies a union with other, a union in which each lets the other be (Freigabe). Hence, in this union, there is no loss of independence but only a “loss” of immediacy and of relations based on coercion. The free union with other comes about when each is the middle, or mediator, for the other. Each is the mediator for the other; each is the “syllogistic middle” “through which each mediates itself with itself and coincides with itself.” In such reciprocal mediation, self-externality acquires a different sense from simple loss of self before the other; selfexternality now comes to mean being recognized by the other. Selfexternality thus becomes equivalent to self-recognition in other. The double transition and double-sided process of recognition are starting to become clear: As extreme, each depends on the other to be mediator, to recognize him; conversely, each must play the mediating role for the other. The I that is a We can only arise out of such a double transition, or else there is only the unequal, coerced relation of one by the other, or master and slave. According to Hegel, the self is vulnerable and dependent on the recognition of others. It can be misrecognized, and when that happens, violation and injury are the result. But master and slave represent the failure to achieve mutual recognition. In master and slave there is a double transition, but of a quite different sort from the one that establishes mutual freedom and recognition; it is one in which the truth of mastery is exhibited in the slave who is allowed to think of himself only as a mere tool or commodity, while the coerced, deficient servile recognition of the slave deprives the master of an appreciation of his own dependence, vulnerability, and finitude. For these reasons Hegel believes that master and slave do not resolve the original contradiction but merely propound another contradiction, and are doomed to pass away. In the syllogism of mutual recognition the apparent contradiction between a one-sided being-for-self and an equally one-sided beingfor-other is overcome or reconciled. Each is for itself through the mediation of the other and thus at home with itself in its other. Such mutual recognition means that the contradiction between self-mediation and mediation by other is removed. Self-mediation presupposes and is coconstituted through mediation by other; intermediation presupposes and includes self-mediation. Consequently, the self of self-mediation is no longer an abstract singular, nor is its self-mediation a one-sided, singular self-mediation. They recognize themselves as reciprocally recognizing each other. In the syllogism of recognition, the concept of self-consciousness is completed and sublated in the intersubjective conception of spirit, the I that is We. Spirit names the result of the double transition; it is the overcoming and resolution of the contradiction that the understanding can neither understand nor resolve, the contradiction that generates and drives the process of recognition from desire through the life-and-death struggle, through master and slave, to reciprocal recognition.

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