hegel_dialectic_ch02_part3.mp3

43. To this we may add the following extract from the Philosophy of Spirit (Encyclopaedia, Section 447, lecture note), “In sensation there is present the whole Reason – the collected material of Spirit. All our images, thoughts, and ideas, of external nature, of justice, of ethics, and of the content of religion, develop themselves from our intelligence as used in sensation; as they themselves, on the other hand, when they have received their complete explanation are again concentrated in the simple form of sensation. . . . This development of Spirit out of sensation, however, has commonly been understood as if the intelligence was originally completely empty, and therefore received all content from outside as something quite strange to it. This is a mistake. For that which the intelligence appears to take in from outside is in reality nothing else than the reasonable, which is therefore identical with spirit, and immanent in it. The activity of spirit has therefore no other goal, except, by the removal of the apparent externality to self of the implicitly reasonable object, to remove also the apparent externality of the object to spirit.” Here we learn that the reasonable, with which the Logic deals, is first given to us in sensation, and as apparently external to self, and that it is by starting from that which is given in sensation that we learn the nature of spirit. To act in this way is a fundamental characteristic of spirit – "the activity of spirit has no other goal" – and therefore it must be in this way that our minds act when they are engaged on the dialectic process.

44. I have endeavoured to show, by the consideration of these passages from Hegel’s writings, that his method possesses two characteristics. These are, first, that it is a process of pure thought, but only possible in the presence of matter of intuition; second, that the motive force of the whole process is involved in the relation between the incomplete form of the notion, which at any moment may be explicitly before us, and the complete form which is present implicitly in all our thought as in all other reality. We must now pass to another question. The validity of each stage of the dialectic, as we have seen, depended on the one before, and all of them ultimately on the first stage – the category of Being. The validity of this again we found to depend on the fact that its denial would be suicidal. Now it must be admitted that this is a mere inference, and not explicitly stated by Hegel. Such a statement would be most natural at the beginning of the whole dialectic process, but it is neither there nor elsewhere. No justification whatever is given of the idea of Being. It is merely assumed and all the consequences that follow from it, however cogent in themselves, are left, so to speak, suspended in the air with no explicit argument anywhere to attach them to reality. The explanation of this strange peculiarity is, I think, largely to be found in the state of philosophy at the time when Hegel wrote.

45. The argument of the dialectic could, if the theory in the previous chapter is correct, have been so arranged as to be obviously transcendental. The basis of the whole would be the existence of the world of experience, which no sceptic can wholly deny, since denial itself always implies the existence of something. The barest admission that could be made, however, with regard to this world of experience, would involve that it should be brought under the category of Being whose validity would be therefore granted. But as, in the process of the dialectic, the category of Being developed contradictions which led up to fresh categories, and so on, the validity of these categories also, as applied to reality, must be granted, since they follow from the validity of the category of Being. Kant, who had to establish his system in the face of sceptical criticism, naturally emphasised the transcendental character of the argument, and the cogency with which his conclusions could be applied to the world of reality, involved as they were in propositions which his adversaries were not prepared to dispute. But Hegel’s position was different. He lived in an age of Idealism, when the pure scepticism of Hume had ceased to be a living force, and when it was a generally accepted view that the mind was adequate to the knowledge of reality. Under such circumstances Hegel would naturally lay stress on the conclusions of his system, in which he more or less differed from his contemporaries, rather than on the original premises, in which he chiefly agreed with them, and would point out how far the end was from the beginning, rather than how clearly it might be derived from it. To this must be added Hegel’s marked preference for a constructive, rather than a polemical treatment, which appears so strongly in all his works. Transcendental arguments, as Mr Balfour remarks in the Defence of Philosophic Doubt, convince by threats, and are not the form into which an exposition addressed, as Hegel’s was, to a friendly audience, would naturally fall. But this has exposed his system to severe disadvantages in the reaction against all Idealism which has taken place since his death. For the transcendental form becomes necessary when the attacks of scepticism have to be met, and its absence, though due chiefly to the special character of the audience to whom the philosophy was first addressed, has led to the reproaches which have been so freely directed against Absolute Idealism, as a mere fairy tale, or as a theory with internal consistency, but without any relation to facts. The same causes may perhaps account for the prominence of the synthetic over the analytic aspect of the dialectic, which may be noticed occasionally throughout the Logic. The criticism of idealists would naturally be devoted more to the internal consistency of the system than to its right to exist at all, on which point they would probably have no objection to raise. To meet such criticisms it would be necessary to lay emphasis on the synthetic side of the process, while to us, who in most cases approach the whole question from a comparatively negative stand-point, it would seem more natural to bring forward the analytic side, and to show that the whole system was involved in any admission of the existence of reality.

46. Hegel speaks of his logic as without any pre-supposition. This is taken by Trendelenburg as equivalent to an assertion that it has no basis in experience. But we have seen that the only postulate which Hegel assumed was the validity of the category of Being – that is, the existence of something. Now this, though not directly proved, can scarcely be said to be assumed, if it is involved in all other assertions. And a system which requires no other postulate than this might fairly be said to have no pre-supposition. The very fact that the argument exists proves that it was entitled to its assumption, for if the argument exists, then the category of Being has validity, at any rate, of one thing – the argument itself. And this is compatible with all the relation to experience which the dialectic needs, or will admit. A parallel case will be found in Hegel’s criticism of Kant’s refutation of the ontological argument. He then treats the actual existence of God, who for him is equivalent to the Absolute Reality, as a matter which can be passed over in silence, since its denial – the denial of any reality in the universe – is suicidal. It is really the same fact – the existence of some reality – which, under another aspect, is assumed at the beginning of the Logic. We may reasonably suppose that Hegel treated it in the same way, holding that a postulate which could not be denied without self- contradiction need not be considered as a pre-supposition at all. From all more particular presuppositions he doubtless claims that his logic is free. But this claim is not incompatible with the relation of the dialectic to experience, which was suggested in the last chapter. It must also be noted that Hegel says of the proofs of the existence of God which are derived from the finite world “the process of exaltation might thus appear to be transition, and to involve a means, but it is not a whit less true that every trace of transition and means is absorbed, since the world, which might have seemed to be the means of reaching God, is explained to be a nullity.” And in section 12, in the passage quoted above, he tells us that philosophy is unfairly said to be the child of experience, since it “involves a negative attitude to the initial acts of the senses.” Now in the Logic the result certainly stands in a negative relation to the beginning, for the inadequacy of the category of Being to express reality has been demonstrated in the course of the dialectic. The category of Being would then, in Hegel’s language, have been absorbed, and it would be unfair to say that the dialectic depended on it. Under these circumstances it is only natural that he should not call its validity a presupposition.

47. There is, then, a constant relation to experience throughout the course of the dialectic. But, even if this is so, does that relation remain at the end of the process? It has been asserted that, although throughout the Logic Hegel may treat thought as mediate, and as only existing as an element in a whole of which the other element is an immediate datum, yet, when we reach the Absolute Idea, that Idea is held to be self-centred and capable of existing by itself in abstraction from everything else. It must be admitted that such a transition would be unjustifiable, but I am unable to see any reason to suppose that Hegel held any such belief. We must discriminate between those characteristics of the immediate element of experience which are indispensable if experience is to be constituted at all, and those which are not indispensable. The essential characteristics may all be summed up in immediacy. All thought that we know, or that we can conceive, has its action only in mediation, and its existence without something immediate on which it may act would be a contradiction. On the other hand it is not essential that this immediate should be also contingent. “The contingent may be described as what has the ground of its being, not in itself, but in somewhat else.” Now it is quite possible that, in a more advanced state of knowledge, we might be able to trace back all the data immediately given in experience till we had referred them to an individuality or organic whole from the nature of which they could all be deduced. Contingency would be here eliminated, for all experience would be referred to a single unity and determined by its notion. The only question which could then arise would be, “Why was the ultimate nature of reality thus and not otherwise?” The question would, no doubt, be one to which no answer could be given. This would not, however, render the nature of reality in any way contingent. For such a question would be meaningless. Enquiries as to the reasons of things have their place only within the universe, whose existence they presuppose. We have no right to make them with regard to the universe itself. Thus in the case we have supposed contingency would be entirely eliminated, yet immediacy would remain untouched. We should still know reality, not by thought alone, but because it was given to us.

48. It seems probable that Hegel did suppose that the Absolute Idea, when completely realised, involved the elimination of the contingent, which indeed he treats as part of a lower category, which is, of course, transcended in the highest. It may certainly be doubted whether human knowledge could ever attain, as a matter of fact, to this height of perfection. In particular, it may be asked whether such a state of knowledge would not require other means than our present senses for the perception of reality outside ourselves. But whether the elimination of Contingency is or is not possible, the point which is important to us here is that, should it take place, it does not involve the elimination of the immediate, and therefore does not prove that Hegel had any intention of declaring thought to be self- sufficing, even when it reached the Absolute Idea. In the stage immediately before the Absolute Idea – that of ordinary cognition and volition – it is evident that the idea is not self-sufficing, since it is certain that we can neither think nor resolve in every-day life without some immediate data. Now the point of transition between this category and the Absolute Idea is stated to be “the unity of the theoretical and practical idea, and thus at the same time the unity of the idea of life with that of cognition. In cognition we had the idea in the shape of differentiation. The process of cognition has issued in the overthrow of this differentiation, and the restoration of that unity which, as unity, and in its immediacy, is in the first instance the Idea of Life.” In this there is nothing which tends to the elimination of immediacy, or to the selfsufficiency of thought, but only the complete discovery in the outside world of the pure thought which is also in us. Again, in the idea of Life, thought is certainly not self-sufficing, since one of the essential characteristics of this category is that the soul is in relation to a body, which involves, of course, sensation. Now the Absolute Idea is a synthesis of this category and the category of Cognition. Thought is mediate in both of these. How then can it be immediate in the synthesis? The correction of inadequacies in the Hegelian logic comes by the emphasis of one side in the thesis and of the other in the antithesis, the synthesis reconciling the two. The synthesis, throughout the entire dialectic, can only advance on the thesis and antithesis on points in which they disagree with one another. On points in which they agree it can make no change. And when, in Absolute Spirit, Hegel reaches that which he unquestionably believes to be self-mediated and self-sufficing, he only does so because it is a synthesis of the mediating logic and the element of immediacy or “givenness” which first occurs in nature. But within the logic there is no immediacy to balance the admitted mere mediacy of the finite categories, and the distinction of mediacy and immediacy cannot therefore, within the logic, be transcended.

49. We find no sign again of transcended mediation in the direct definition of the Absolute Idea. “Dieses aus der Differenz und Endlichkeit des Erkennens zu sich zuruckgekommene und durch die Thätigkeit des Begriffs mit ihm identisch gewordene Leben ist die speculative oder absolute Idee. Die Idee als Einheit der subjectiven und der objectiven Idee ist der Begriff der Idee, dem die Idee als solche der Gegenstand, dem das Objekt sie ist; ein Objekt, in welches alle Bestimmungen zusammen gegangen sind.” The second sentence of the definition asserts that the idea is the “Gegenstand und Objekt” to the notion of the idea. This cannot, it appears to me, be taken as equivalent to a statement that thought here becomes self- subsistent and self-mediating. It seems rather to signify that that which is immediately given to thought to mediate, is now known to be itself thought, although still immediately given. In other words, the Absolute Idea is realised when the thinker sees in the whole world round him nothing but the realisation of the same idea which forms his own essential nature – is at once conscious of the existence of the other, and of its fundamental similarity to himself. The expression that the idea as such is the object to the notion of the idea seems rather to support this view by indicating that the idea as object is viewed in a different aspect from the idea as subject. If immediacy was here gained by thought, so that it required no object given from outside, it would have been more natural to say that the idea was its own object, or indeed that the distinction of subject and object had vanished altogether. If this is the correct interpretation of this passage, then thought remains, for Hegel, in the Absolute Idea, what it has been in all the finite categories. Although the content of all experience contains, in such a case, nothing which is not a manifestation of the pure Absolute Idea, yet to every subject in whom that idea is realised, the idea is presented in the form of immediate data, which are mediated by the subject’s own action. The fundamental nature of subject and object is the same, but the distinction between them remains in their relation to one another. No doubt Hegel regards as the highest ideal of the dialectic process something which shall be self-mediated, and in which mediation as an external process vanishes. But this he finds in Absolute Spirit, which is a synthesis of the Absolute Idea with the element of immediate presentation. The Absolute Idea is still an abstraction, as compared with the whole of Absolute Spirit, and is not self-mediated.

50. We have now to consider the third objection which has been raised to the theory of Hegel’s meaning explained in the first chapter. This objection is that Hegel has ascribed ontological validity to his dialectic to a greater extent than this theory admits, and that he has attempted to account by pure thought, not only for the rationality, but also for the entire existence of the universe. This is maintained by Professor Seth, who objects to the system chiefly, it would seem, on this ground. He says, for example, “Hegel apparently says, on one occasion, that his own elaborate phraseology means no more than the ancient position that  rules the world, or the modern phrase, there is Reason in the world. If the system is reducible to this very general proposition, our objections would certainly fall to the ground.” Somewhat earlier he expresses the position, which he believes Hegel to hold, with great force and clearness. Hegel “apparently thinks it incumbent upon him to prove that spirit exists by a necessity of thought. The concrete existence of the categories (in Nature and Spirit) is to be deduced from their essence or thought-nature; it is to be shown that they cannot not be. When we have mounted to the Absolute Idea, it is contended, we cannot help going further. The nisus of thought itself projects thought out of the sphere of thought altogether into that of actual existence. In fact, strive against the idea as we may, it seems indubitable that there is here once more repeated in Hegel the extraordinary but apparently fascinating attempt to construct the world out of abstract thought or mere universals.”

Disclaimer: This article was obtained from Internet and intended for private and personal use only to study Hegel's philosophy. The original auhers and publishers own its copyright, and if this post invokes any copyright infringement, I will take the article off Inernet immediately.