Comments on: 63

By: Hegel (Simple)

Hegel (Simple) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:37:44 +0000

§ 63: Value

Every thing serves a particular need. Bread stills hunger. A coat keeps you warm. Bread and coat are quite different.

And yet you can compare them. For hunger and cold are both needs. And every thing is useful to a certain degree. So you can say: A coat is worth as much as twenty loaves of bread. What makes the things different steps back. What remains is a more or a less.

We call this common element value. Value shows what a thing is at its core: a possibility to satisfy needs.

A comparison from mathematics:

Circle, ellipse and parabola look quite different. In the formula they differ only by numbers. In a similar way, with value, the kind turns into a mere measure.

And money?

If you have understood value, you also understand money. You cannot eat a banknote or wear it. It is only a sign for value. If you have money, you can exchange it for any things you like.

What does this mean for property?

If you own a thing fully, its value belongs to you too. It was different with the fief. The peasant was allowed to use the land. He was not allowed to sell it. The use belonged to him, but not the value.

Summary: Value makes different things comparable. It is the universal element in a thing. The value too belongs to the full owner.

By: Eduard Gans (Additions)

Eduard Gans (Additions) — Wed, 29 May 1833 13:14:11 +0000

The qualitative here disappears into the form of the quantitative. For when I speak of need, this is the heading under which the most manifold things can be brought together, and it is their commonality that enables me to measure them. The progress of thought here thus runs from the specific quality of the thing to the indifference of this determinacy, that is, to quantity. Something similar occurs in mathematics. If, for example, I define what the circle is, what the ellipse and the parabola are, we see that they are found to be specifically different. Nevertheless the difference between these various curves is determined merely quantitatively, in that it comes down only to a quantitative difference bearing solely on the coefficient, on the merely empirical magnitude. In property, the quantitative determinacy that emerges from the qualitative is value. Here the qualitative supplies the quantum for the quantity, and as such is just as much preserved as it is sublated. If one considers the concept of value, the thing itself is regarded only as a sign, and it counts not as itself but as what it is worth. A bill of exchange, for example, does not present its paper-nature, but is only a sign of another universal, of value. The value of a thing can be very diverse in relation to need; but if one wishes to express not the specific but the abstract [aspect] of value, then this is money. Money represents all things, but since it does not present the need itself, but is only a sign for it, it is itself in turn governed by the specific value that, as something abstract, it merely expresses. One can in general be the owner of a thing without at the same time being the owner of its value. A family that cannot sell or pledge its estate is not master of the value. But since this form of property is inadequate to its concept, such restrictions (fiefs, fideicommissa) are for the most part disappearing

By: Hegel (Notes)

Hegel (Notes) — Thu, 28 Nov 1822 08:06:32 +0000

[zu § 63] Progress of thought – the raising-out of the universal –
immediate takings of possession – in the sign, distinction of immediate singularity and substance.
What is for me – in use – is the specific immediate quality of the thing – the universal – the possibility of use –
α) Use distinguishes transient singularity and substance, the universal of the thing.
β) Another distinction. Use is relation to a determinate, specific need – this relation itself represented in a universal manner – as usefulness – and the specific qualitative determinacy converted into a quantitative one – (circle, ellipse, parabola – algebraic expression such that the specific difference falls into the merely quantitative difference of a coefficient). – The specific thing is here too a sign, represents value – wealth in money or in fields.
– a mere difference of more or less – What money is can only be understood if one knows what value is –
Much becomes clear once one has a firm determination of what value is.
Value, the self-preserving possibility of satisfying a need.
Value – expressed in money – represented for itself. Money cannot be used immediately for itself, but must be converted – into specific things.
What the determinate value is composed of is another matter.
α) necessary need – but this at its cheapest – because its means of satisfaction [are] plentiful – only in times of want.
Quantity, rarity – time, the talent required to produce a thing – i.e. the quantity, the amount of means it represents –
Pretium affectionis – a particular need, an intuition that I have in it – not the abstract [need] of needs in general
§ 63. Remark. Possession of the family in perpetuity, but not to be sold – no credit upon it – these fiefs turned into allodia nowadays, already under Frederick William I. – restriction of property, such that the free concept was not real, not in accordance with reason, that is, not free – restriction neither rational nor irrational.