hegel_dialectic_ch02_part4.mp3

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.”

51. The passages from which most information on this point is to be expected will be those in the Greater and Smaller Logics, in which the transition to the world of Nature is described. These are quoted and abridged as follows by Professor Seth. “‘The Absolute Idea is still logical, still confined to the element of pure thoughts. . . . But inasmuch as the pure idea of knowledge is thus, so far, shut up in a species of subjectivity, it is impelled to remove this limitation; and thus the pure truth, the last result of the logic, becomes also the beginning of another sphere and science.’ The Idea, he recalls to us, has been defined as ‘the absolute unity of the pure notion and its reality’ - ‘the pure notion which is related only to itself;’ but if this is so, the two sides of this relation are one, and they collapse, as it were, ‘into the immediacy of Being.’ ‘The Idea as the totality in this form is Nature. This determining of itself, however, is not a process of becoming, or a transition’ such as we have from stage to stage in the Logic. ‘The passing over is rather to be understood thus - that the Idea freely lets itself go, being absolutely sure of itself and at rest in itself. On account of this freedom, the form of its determination is likewise absolutely free - namely, the externality of space and time existing absolutely for itself without subjectivity.’ A few lines lower he speaks of the ‘resolve (Entschluss) of the pure Idea to determine itself as external Idea.’ Turning to the Encyclopaedia we find, at the end of the smaller Logic, a more concise but substantially similar statement. ‘The Idea which exists for itself, looked at from the point of view of this unity with itself, is Perception; and the Idea as it exists for perception is Nature. . . . The absolute freedom of the Idea consists in this, that in the absolute truth of itself’ (i.e., according to Hegel’s usage, when it has attained the full perfection of the form which belongs to it) ‘it resolves to let the element of its particularity - the immediate Idea as its own reflection - go forth freely from itself as Nature.’ And in the lecture-note which follows we read, as in the larger Logic, ‘We have now returned to the notion of the Idea with which we began. This return to the beginning is also an advance. That with which we began was Being, abstract Being, and now we have the Idea as Being; but this existent Idea is Nature.’”

52. It is certainly possible at first sight to take these passages as supporting Professor Seth’s theory. But we must consider that, according to that theory, Hegel is made to occupy a position, not only paradoxical and untenable, but also inconsistent. If, as I have endeavoured to show above, and as is admitted by Professor Seth, Hegel fully recognises the fact that the whole dialectic movement of pure thought only takes place in that concrete whole in which sense data are a moment correlative with pure thought - because thought could not exist at all without immediate data - how can he suppose that the movement of pure thought produces the sensations which are the conditions of its own existence? Are we not bound to adopt any other explanation, rather than suppose him guilty of such a glaring contradiction? Such an explanation was offered in the last Chapter, where it was pointed out that, as the comparison of the abstract idea with the concrete idea was the origin of the dialectic movement within the Logic, so the comparison of the concrete idea with the full whole of reality, compared with which the concrete notion itself was an abstraction, was the origin of the transition from Logic to Nature and Spirit - a transition in which there was no attempt to construct the world out of abstract thought, because the foundation of the argument was the presence, implicit in all experience, of the concrete reality whose necessity was being demonstrated. Such a theory, at one time, Professor Seth was willing to accept as correct, and now considers as “the explanation which a conciliatory and soberminded Hegelian would give of Hegel’s remarkable tour de force.” His account is substantially the same as that given above. “Here, again, then, as throughout the Logic, it might be said we are merely undoing the work of abstraction and retracing our steps towards concrete fact. This, as we have seen, implies the admission that it is our experiential knowledge of actual fact which is the real motive-force impelling us onward - impelling us here from the abstract determinations of the Logic to the quasi-reality of Nature, and thence to the full reality of spirit. It is because we ourselves are spirits that we cannot stop short of that consummation. In this sense we can understand the feeling of ‘limitation’ or incompleteness of which Hegel speaks at the end of the Logic. The pure form craves, as it were, for its concrete realisation.” He subsequently, however, rejects this position, and indeed seems scarcely to see its full meaning. For his “soberminded Hegelian,” who accepts this reading, will, he informs us, “lay as little stress as possible upon the so- called deduction. Further reflection,” he continues, “has convinced me, however, that Hegel’s contention here is of more fundamental import to his system than such a representation allows. Perhaps it may even be said, that, when we surrender this deduction, though we may retain much that is valuable in Hegel’s thought, we surrender the system as a whole. For, however readily he may admit, when pressed, that in the ordo ad individuum experience is the quarry from which all the materials are derived, it must not be forgotten that he professes to offer us an absolute philosophy. And it is the characteristic of an absolute philosophy that everything must be deduced or constructed as a necessity of thought. Hegel’s system, accordingly, is so framed as to elude the necessity of resting anywhere on mere fact. It is not enough for him to take self-conscious intelligence as an existent fact, by reflection on whose action in his own conscious experience and in the history of the race certain categories are disclosed, reducible by philosophic insight to a system of mutually connected notions, which may then be viewed as constituting the essence or formal structure of reason. He apparently thinks it incumbent on 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 they cannot not be.”

53. Now in this passage there are two separate charges made against Hegel, which Professor Seth apparently thinks are identical. The one is that “thought of its own abstract nature gives birth to the reality of things,” that is, that, given thought, Nature and Spirit can be deduced. That they are deduced from thought in some way cannot be denied, but Professor Seth rejects the idea that the deduction is partly analytical, and declares that Hegel endeavoured to demonstrate the existence of the worlds of Nature and Spirit by pure synthesis from the world of Logic. But this is not all. Hegel is also accused of endeavouring to prove “the concrete existence of the categories from their essence.” This is properly a second charge. But Professor Seth appears to identify it with the first, by speaking of the concrete existence as “in nature and spirit,” and by making essence identical with the nature of thought. This identification is, I venture to think, unjustifiable. In the first place every proposition about Nature and Spirit is not one which involves real existence. We might say, for example, “Dragons must occupy space,” or “Angels must have some way of gaining immediate knowledge.” Both propositions might be perfectly correct, even if neither dragons nor angels existed, because our propositions would deal only with essence. They might be put in a hypothetical form, such as, “If there were dragons, they would occupy space.” (In this discussion I adopt Professor Seth’s use of the word essence to signify the nature of a thing, which remains the same, whether the thing exists or not. It must not, of course, be confounded with Hegel’s use of the same word to denote the second stage of the Logic, which merely describes one stage among others in what Professor Seth would call the essence of thought.) On the other hand, as we have seen above, a proposition relating to pure thought may refer to real existence. “Being is synthesised in Becoming” is such a proposition, for the category of Being is applicable, we know, to real existence. And as the essences of Being and Becoming are united, and as the existence of Being has been proved, we are able to state the proposition concerning the relation of Being and Becoming as one of real existence. The confusion of real existence with the worlds of Nature and Spirit is not inexplicable. For all real existence has its immediate side, and must therefore be presented by sense, outer or inner, while thought, again, is correlative to sense, and, so to speak opposed to it, both being complementary elements in experience. Thought consequently gets taken as if it was opposed to real existence. But the fact of the existence of thought can be presented to us by inner sense as something immediate, and we are then as sure of its real existence as we could be of anything in the world of Nature. The office of thought is to mediate; but it actually exists, or it could not mediate; and in virtue of its actual existence any instance of thought may be immediately known; in which case it is mediated by other thought. The existence of logic proves in itself that we can think about thought. Thought therefore can become a datum, and its real existence can be known. It is true that it is an abstraction, and that its real existence is only as an element of experience. But this is true also of the particulars of sense.

54. Since, then, propositions concerning Nature and Spirit may be really “essential and hypothetical” while propositions concerning pure thought may deal with real existence, it follows that the deduction of Nature and Spirit from Logic does not necessarily involve the fallacious attempt to argue from essence to existence. This is the case whether the deduction is both analytic and synthetic in its nature, as I have endeavoured to maintain, or is of a purely synthetic nature, as Professor Seth supposes. In the first of these suppositions the argument might have been merely from the essence of thought to the essence of Nature. In that case the final conclusion would have run, thought cannot exist without Nature, or, if there is thought there is Nature. Hegel, however, was not satisfied with such a meagre result, and his argument is from existence to existence. The course of the Logic, in the first place, may be summed up thus - we have an immediate certainty that something exists, consequently the category of Being is valid of reality. But the Absolute Idea is involved in the category of Being. Therefore the Absolute Idea is applicable to that which really exists, and we can predicate reality of that Idea. After this follows the transition to the world of Nature, which is of a similar character. The Absolute Idea really exists. But it (since it is of the nature of thought) can only exist in combination with data of sense. Therefore data of sense really exist. Thus the conclusion certainly deals with real existence, but that character has been given to the argument, not by any juggling with pure thought, but by a premise at the beginning relating to real existence - namely, that something must exist. The evidence for this proposition is immediate, for it rests on the impossibility of denying it without asserting at the same time the reality at least of the denial and of the thinker. And this assertion depends on the immediately given, for the existence of the words or ideas which form the denial is perceived by sense, outer or inner, while the existence of the thinker is an inference from, or rather an implication in, the fact that he has sensations or thoughts, of the existence of which - thoughts as well as sensations - he has immediate knowledge. The same would be the case if the deduction were purely synthetic, one which endeavoured to make the world of Nature and Spirit a mere consequence and result of the world of thought. The argument would be invalid for reasons which we shall presently notice, but not because it attempted to pass from essence to existence. For we have every right to believe that thought exists, and it is from this existent thought (the presence of which within the Logic passes unchallenged by Professor Seth), that Hegel passes on to Nature and Spirit. The two charges then - of deducing Nature and Spirit merely from thought, and of deducing existence from essence - are by no means identical, and must be taken separately. It will perhaps be more convenient to begin with the first, which is the less sweeping of the two.

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