The two passages of the Science of Logic to which Hegel refers in the Groundlines: § 48 (“that to be free for the other is possible only as being free in existence is an identical proposition”) to the doctrine of existence; § 95 (crime as the negatively infinite judgement) to the infinite judgement.
On the text. For § 48 Hegel cites “my Science of Logic, vol. I, p. 49 ff.” — that is the first edition of the Doctrine of Being of 1812, not the second version of 1832 which every collected edition prints. Both are therefore given here, the first edition first: first the text Hegel is pointing to (GW 11, 59–66; his “p. 49” begins precisely at a) Being-other), then the revision of 1832, from which one can read off what he later altered. The letter-spacing of the first edition is rendered as italics. Its spelling and punctuation stand unaltered in the German; the 1812 text still writes Daseyn, Seyn, diß, forms for which English has no counterpart, so the translation cannot reproduce them — the difference between the two versions lies in the argument, not only in the orthography. — § 95 refers to “vol. II, p. 99”, the Subjective Logic of 1816 (GW 12, 70). Hegel never revised it; the text of the collected edition given here is therefore the edition he means.
Contents
- Existence (The Doctrine of Being) — Groundlines § 48
- The Infinite Judgement (The Doctrine of the Concept) — Groundlines § 95
Existence — first edition of 1812
→ Groundlines § 48 · Science of Logic, vol. I: The Objective Logic, Nuremberg 1812, pp. 47–60 = GW 11, 59–66
Second Chapter. Existence
Existence is determinate being. Existence itself is at the same time distinguished from its determinateness. In determinateness the concept of quality enters. But determinateness passes over into constitution and alteration, and then into the opposition of the finite and the infinite, which resolves itself in being-for-self.
The treatment of existence therefore has the three divisions: A) of existence as such; B) of determinateness; C) of qualitative infinity.
A. Existence as such
Existence as such determines itself in its own self to the difference of the moments of being-for-other and of being-in-itself; or, in that it is their unity, it determines itself as reality, and further as an existent or something.
1. Existence in general
Existence is the simple oneness of being and nothing. On account of this simplicity it has the form of something immediate. Its mediation, becoming, lies behind it; that mediation has sublated itself, and existence therefore appears as a first, as that from which one sets out.
It is not mere being, but existence. Taken etymologically, being at a certain place; but the representation of space does not belong here. Existence is, according to its having become, in general being with a non-being, yet in such a way that this non-being is taken up into simple unity with being; existence is determinate being in general.
On account of the immediacy in which, within existence, being and nothing are one, they do not go beyond one another; rather, so far as what exists is a being, so far is it a non-being, so far is it something determinate. Being is not the universal, determinateness not the particular. Determinateness has not yet detached itself from being; or rather it will no longer detach itself from it, for the true which now lies at the ground is this unity of non-being with being; upon it as ground all further determinations arise. The being which henceforth confronts determinateness is no longer the first, immediate being.
2. Reality
Existence is being with a non-being. But as the immediate unity of being and nothing it stands rather in the determination of being, and the positedness of this unity is therefore incomplete; for it contains not only being but also nothing.
a) Being-other
Existence is therefore, first, that unity not only as being but just as essentially as non-being. Or that unity is not only an existence that is, but also an existence that is not; non-existence.
It was recalled, in the transition of being into nothing, in what respect that transition is immediate. Nothing is not yet posited within being, although being is essentially nothing. Existence, by contrast, contains nothing already posited within itself, and is thereby the measure of its own incompleteness, and with that has within itself the necessity of being posited as non-existence.
Secondly, non-existence is not pure nothing; for it is a nothing of existence. And this negation is taken from existence itself; but within existence the negation is united with being. Non-existence is therefore itself a being; it is a non-existence that is. But a non-existence that is, is itself existence. This second existence is, however, at the same time not existence in the same way as the first; for it is just as much non-existence; existence as non-existence; existence as the nothing of itself, so that this nothing of itself is likewise existence. — Or existence is essentially being-other.
Or, briefly, compared with itself: existence is the immediate simple unity of being and nothing; but because it is the unity of being and nothing, it is rather not a unity equal to itself, but is utterly unequal to itself, or is being-other.
Being-other is at first being-other in and for itself, not the other of something, such that existence would still have remained standing over against the other, and we should have one existence and another existence. For existence has passed over into being-other altogether. Being-other is itself existence; but existence as such is the immediate; and this immediacy has not remained, but existence is only existence as non-existence, or it is being-other.
As being passed over into nothing, so existence into being-other; being-other is nothing, but as relation. An other is not-this; but this is likewise an other, and so also not-this. There is no existence that is not at the same time determined as an other, or that does not have a negative relation.
Ordinary thinking concedes this too. If we call one existence A and the other B, then B is at first determined as the other. But A is just as much the other of B. Both are others.
Here, however, being-other appears as a determination alien to the existence so determined, or the other appears outside the one existence; partly in such a way that an existence is determined as other only through the comparison of a third, while for itself it is not an other; partly in such a way that it is determined as other only for the sake of the other which is outside it, and not in and for itself. But in fact every existence determines itself, even for ordinary thinking, just as much as another existence, so that for such thinking there remains no existence that is determined only as an existence and not as an other; or no existence that is not outside some existence, and therefore not itself an other. — Ordinary thinking does indeed reach the universality of a determination, but not the necessity of it in and for itself. This necessity lies in the fact that it has shown itself, in the concept of existence, that existence as such is in and for itself the other, that it contains its being-other within itself. — But being-other is nothing essentially as relation, or is the separating, the distancing from itself, and hence this determination of being-other sets existence over against itself; and it is this side alone that floats before ordinary thinking.
Thirdly: existence itself is essentially being-other; it has passed over into it. The other is thus immediate, not a relation to something situated outside it, but an other in and for itself. But as such it is the other of itself. — As the other of itself it is also existence in general, or immediate. Existence therefore does not vanish in its non-existence, in its other; for this other is the other of itself, and non-existence is itself existence.
Existence preserves itself in its non-existence; it is essentially one with it and essentially not one with it. Existence therefore stands in relation to its being-other; it is not purely its being-other; being-other is at once essentially contained in it and at the same time still separated from it; it is being-for-other.
b) Being-for-other and being-in-itself
1. Being-for-other constitutes the true determination of existence. Existence as such is immediate, without relation; or it stands in the determination of being. But existence, as enclosing non-being within itself, is essentially determinate being, negated being, an other — yet because it also preserves itself in its negation, only being-for-other.
2. As pure being-for-other, existence is properly only passing over into being-other. But it also preserves itself in its non-existence, and is being. It is, however, not merely being in general, but being in opposition to its non-existence; a being as relation to itself over against its relation to an other, as equality with itself over against its inequality. Such a being is being-in-itself.
3. Being-for-other and being-in-itself constitute the two moments of existence. There are two pairs of determinations that occur here: 1) existence and an other; 2) being-for-other and being-in-itself. The former contain the indifferent, relationless determination; existence and an other fall apart. But their truth is their relation; being-for-other and being-in-itself are therefore those determinations as moments; as determinations which are relations and which remain in their unity, in the unity of existence; or each itself contains within it at the same time its own moment distinct from it.
It was recalled above that being and nothing, in their unity, which is existence, are no longer being and nothing — for this they are only outside their unity; thus being and nothing, in their restless unity, in becoming, are coming-to-be and passing away. — Being within existence is being-in-itself. For being is the relation to itself, the equality with itself, which however is now no longer immediate, but is a relation to itself only as the non-being of non-existence (as existence reflected into itself). — Likewise non-being, as a moment of existence, in this unity of being and non-being, is not non-existence in general, but immediately an other, and, more determinately, relation to non-existence, or being-for-other.
Thus being-in-itself is, in the first place, a negative relation to non-existence; it has being-other outside it and stands opposed to it; in so far as something is in itself, it is withdrawn from being-other and from being-for-other. But, secondly, it also has non-being within it; for it is itself the non-being of being-for-other.
Being-for-other, however, is in the first place the negation of being within existence; in so far as something is within an other or for an other, it is deprived of its own being. But, secondly, it is not non-existence as pure nothing; it is a non-existence that points to being-in-itself, just as conversely being-in-itself points to being-for-other.
c) Reality
Being-in-itself and being-for-other are the moments, or the inner differences, of existence. They are being and nothing distinguished within existence. Or, through this difference existence is not dissolved; rather these moments are essentially held within the unity which is existence, for they are themselves, as has just been shown, these unities.
Existence itself is at first the immediate, simple unity of being and nothing. In so far as being and nothing have determined themselves more closely within it as the moments just considered, existence is no longer in the first form of immediacy, but is reflected existence; it is existence in so far as it has determined itself as being-in-itself and as being-for-other, and is the unity of these as its moments. As this reflected existence it is reality.
Remark
Reality may seem to be an ambiguous word, because it is used of very different, indeed opposed, determinations. When it is said of thoughts, concepts, theories that they have no reality, what is meant here is that no external existence, no actuality, belongs to them; in itself or in its concept the Idea of a Platonic republic, for example, might well be true. — Conversely, if, say, only the semblance of wealth is present in lavish expenditure, it is likewise said that reality is wanting, meaning that such expenditure is only an external existence which has no inner ground. Of certain occupations it is said that they are no real occupations, namely none that have worth in themselves; or of reasons, that they are not real in so far as they are not drawn from the essence of the matter.
In the one case, then, by reality is understood external existence, in the other being-in-itself. But this is not a different or opposed meaning of reality; rather it is only one meaning, because reality essentially encloses both those determinations within itself. If, then, only being-in-itself, or only being-for-other, is present, reality is for that reason found wanting, because each of these determinations is for itself one-sided, whereas reality is the totality which requires both.
The in-itself too has in part this double meaning. In-itself is something in so far as it has returned into itself out of being-for-other. But something also has a determination or a circumstance in itself (here the accent falls on in) or at it, in so far as this circumstance is external at it, a being-for-other.
These two are united in existence or in reality. Existence is both in itself and such that it has something at it, or is being-for-other. But that existence has at it what it is in itself, and conversely that what it is as being-for-other it also is in itself — this concerns the identity of being-in-itself and being-for-other, chiefly as regards a content, and it shows itself formally in part already in the sphere of existence, in so far as determination passes over into constitution, but more expressly in the consideration of essence and of the relation of inwardness and outwardness, and then most determinately in the consideration of the Idea as the unity of concept and actuality.
Here, too, there already shows itself provisionally the sense of the thing-in-itself, which is a very simple abstraction, but was for a time a very important determination, just as the proposition that we do not know what things are in themselves was a widely current piece of wisdom. — Things are called in-themselves in so far as abstraction is made from all being-for-other, that is to say, in general, in so far as they are thought without any determination, as nullities. In this sense one can of course not know what the thing-in-itself is. For the question what? demands that determinations be given; but since at the same time they are to be things-in-themselves, that is, precisely without determination, the impossibility of an answer has been thoughtlessly built into the question, or else one gives a self-contradictory answer. The thing-in-itself is the same as that absolute of which one knows nothing except that all is one within it. But what the thing-in-itself is in truth, or rather what is in itself at all, of this the Logic itself is the exposition. If it is asked of a determinate thing what it is in itself, the simple logical answer is that it is in itself what it is in its concept.
Here the former metaphysical concept of God may be mentioned, which was above all laid at the ground of the so-called ontological proof of the existence of God. God was determined as the sum-total of all realities, and of this sum-total it was said that it contains no contradiction within itself, that none of the realities sublates another; for reality is to be taken only as a perfection, as something positive which contains no negation. Hence the realities are not opposed to one another and do not contradict one another.
In this concept of reality it is therefore assumed that reality would still remain if all negation, and with it all determinateness of reality, were sublated. But reality is existence in general; it contains non-being as being-for-other, and more closely as limit or determinateness. Reality which is to be taken in the so-called eminent sense, or as infinite — in the ordinary meaning of the word — is expanded into the determinationless and loses its meaning. The goodness of God is said to be goodness not in the ordinary but in the eminent sense, not different from justice but tempered by it, as conversely justice is tempered by goodness; but then goodness is no longer goodness, nor justice justice. — Power is said to be tempered by wisdom, but then it is not absolute power; wisdom is said to be expanded into power, but then it vanishes as the wisdom that determines purpose and measure. The true concept of the infinite will emerge later, just as the absolute unity will determine itself ever more closely, a unity which does not consist in a tempering, a mutual limiting or mixing — which is a most superficial relation, held in indeterminate fog, with which only conceptless representation can be satisfied. — Reality, as it is taken in that definition of God as a determinate quality, ceases, when carried beyond its determinateness, to be reality; it becomes the one-sided in-itself, which is empty; and God as the purely real in all that is real, or as the sum-total of all realities, is the same determinationless and contentless thing as the empty absolute mentioned above, in which all is one.
3. Something
Existence is, as reality, the distinguishing of itself into being-in-itself and being-for-other. Herein being-in-itself is as distinguished from being-for-other; but it is thereby only as related to it, and in unity with it. Likewise being-for-other is not being-other itself, but contains within it the relation to itself, being-in-itself. These two unities therefore constitute, in their very difference, one unity, and are the passing over into one another.
Existence, at first as such, is only the immediate unity of being and nothing. Reality is this unity in the determinate difference of its moments, which constitute at it different sides, determinations of reflection which are indifferent towards one another. But because each is only as related to the other, and each encloses the other within itself, reality ceases to be such a unity in which both subsist indifferently. It is a unity which does not let them subsist, their sublating simple unity. Existence is being-within-self, and as being-within-self it is an existent or something.
The being-within-self of existence is thus the simple relation of existence to itself, like being-in-itself. But being-in-itself is this equality with itself rather in an immediate manner; in being-in-itself the moment of being is what lies at the ground, and being-for-other stands over against it. This may be expressed thus: being-in-itself is the relation of existence to itself not as the own reflection of existence into itself, but as an external one; or only through the fact that being-for-other is separated off from the relation to self. — Being-within-self, by contrast, is now the own being-in-itself of existence; it is its own reflection into itself. Existence is the unity which is reality in so far as reality has different sides, that is to say, reality is the immediate unity, but related to that external reflection which distinguishes different sides. Being-within-self, on the contrary, is the relation of existence to itself in so far as the sublating of being-for-other is its own; being-for-other passes over in its own self into being-in-itself, and this is thereby no longer immediate being-in-itself, but that which has likewise united itself with its other moment, and in which being-for-other is sublated, or being-within-self.
Something determines itself further, more closely, as being-for-self, or thing, substance, subject and so forth. At the ground of all these determinations lies the negative unity, the relation to self through the negation of being-other. Something is this negative unity of being-within-self, as yet wholly indeterminate.
Existence passes over within its own self into an existent through the fact that, as the sublating of being-for-other, it gains this point of negative unity. Existence as something is therefore not the immediate, existing unity of being and nothing; rather, as being-within-self, it has relation to itself in so far as it is negation. The being of something therefore does not consist in its immediacy, but in the non-being of being-other; existence has thus, in something, passed over into the negative in such a way that this negative now lies at the ground. Something is existence only in so far as it has a determinateness.
Existence — collected edition, version of 1832
→ Groundlines § 48 · Science of Logic, vol. I: The Doctrine of Being, second version 1832
The most striking changes: in 1812 the first step is called being-other and leads by way of being-for-other and being-in-itself to reality; in 1832 quality comes first, and the other appears only under finitude, as something and an other. The Remark on reality is considerably expanded in 1832 — Spinoza’s omnis determinatio est negatio and Jacob Böhme’s qualifying do not yet stand at this place in 1812.
A. Existence as such
In existence
a) as such, its determinateness is first of all
b) to be distinguished as quality. Quality, however, is to be taken in the one as well as in the other determination of existence, as reality and as negation. But in these determinatenesses existence is just as much reflected into itself; and posited as such it is
c) something, an existent.
a. Existence in general
Out of becoming existence proceeds. Existence is the simple oneness of being and nothing. On account of this simplicity it has the form of something immediate. Its mediation, becoming, lies behind it; that mediation has sublated itself, and existence therefore appears as a first, as that from which one sets out. It is at first in the one-sided determination of being; the other determination which it contains, nothing, will likewise come forth in it, over against being.
It is not mere being, but existence; taken etymologically, being at a certain place; but the representation of space does not belong here. Existence is, according to its having become, in general being with a non-being, such that this non-being is taken up into simple unity with being. What constitutes determinateness as such is non-being so taken up into being that the concrete whole stands in the form of being, of immediacy.
The whole is likewise in the form, that is, the determinateness, of being — for in becoming being has likewise shown itself to be only one moment — as something sublated, negatively determined; but so it is for us in our reflection, not yet posited in its own self. But the determinateness of existence as such is that which is posited, and this lies too in the expression “existence”. — The two are always well to be distinguished from one another; only what is posited in a concept belongs to the developing consideration of it, to its content. The determinateness not yet posited in the concept itself, however, belongs to our reflection, whether it concerns the nature of the concept itself or is an external comparison; to call attention to a determinateness of the latter kind can serve only to elucidate or to indicate in advance the course which will present itself in the development itself. That the whole, the unity of being and nothing, stands in the one-sided determinateness of being, is an external reflection; but in negation, in something and in an other, and so forth, that reflection will come to be posited. — It was intended here to draw attention to the difference indicated; but to give an account of everything that reflection may permit itself to observe would lead into the prolixity of anticipating what must emerge from the matter itself. If such reflections can serve to ease the survey and with it the understanding, they also bring with them the disadvantage of looking like unwarranted assertions, grounds and foundations for what follows. They are therefore to be taken for nothing more than what they are meant to be, and to be distinguished from what is a moment in the advance of the matter itself.
Existence corresponds to the being of the preceding sphere; but being is the indeterminate, and therefore no determinations arise in it. Existence, however, is a determinate being, a concrete being; hence several determinations, distinct relations of its moments, at once come forth in it.
b. Quality
On account of the immediacy in which, within existence, being and nothing are one, they do not go beyond one another; so far as existence is a being, so far is it non-being, so far is it determinate. Being is not the universal, determinateness not the particular. Determinateness has not yet detached itself from being; and indeed it will no longer detach itself from it, for the true which now lies at the ground is the unity of non-being with being; upon this as ground all further determinations arise. But the relation in which determinateness here stands to being is the immediate unity of the two, so that no distinction between them is yet posited.
Determinateness thus isolated for itself, as determinateness that is, is quality — something wholly simple, immediate. Determinateness in general is the more universal, which can equally be the quantitative as well as the further determined. On account of this simplicity there is nothing further to be said of quality as such.
But existence, in which nothing is contained just as much as being, is itself the measure of the one-sidedness of quality as a merely immediate or existing determinateness. Quality is to be posited just as much in the determination of nothing, whereby the immediate or existing determinateness is posited as a distinct, reflected one; nothing, thus taken as the determinate element of a determinateness, is likewise something reflected, a negating. Quality, in so far as it counts as distinguished, as existing, is reality; quality as burdened with a negating, as negation in general, is likewise a quality, but one that counts as a defect and determines itself further as limit, limitation.
Both are an existence; but in reality, as quality with the accent of being something that is, it is concealed that reality contains determinateness and therefore also negation; reality therefore counts only as something positive, from which negation, limitedness and defect are excluded. Negation taken as mere defect would be what nothing is; but it is an existence, a quality, only determined with a non-being.
Remark
Reality may seem to be an ambiguous word, because it is used of different, indeed opposed, determinations. In the philosophical sense one speaks, for instance, of merely empirical reality as a worthless existence. But when it is said of thoughts, concepts, theories that they have no reality, this means that no actuality belongs to them; in itself or in its concept the Idea of a Platonic republic, for example, might well be true. Here the Idea is not denied its worth, and it is left standing alongside reality. But against so-called mere ideas, against mere concepts, the real counts as alone the true. — The sense in which the decision about the truth of a content is on the one occasion ascribed to external existence is just as one-sided as when the Idea, the essence, or even inner feeling is represented as indifferent towards external existence and is held to be all the more excellent the further it is removed from reality.
In connection with the expression “reality” the former metaphysical concept of God is to be mentioned, which was above all laid at the ground of the so-called ontological proof of the existence of God. God was determined as the sum-total of all realities, and of this sum-total it was said that it contains no contradiction within itself, that none of the realities sublates another; for a reality is to be taken only as a perfection, as something affirmative that contains no negation. Hence the realities are not opposed to one another and do not contradict one another.
In this concept of reality it is assumed that reality still remains when all negation is thought away; but with that all its determinateness is sublated. Reality is quality, existence; hence it contains the moment of the negative and is only through this the determinate thing that it is. In the so-called eminent sense, or as infinite — in the ordinary meaning of the word — in which reality is supposed to be taken, it is expanded into the determinationless and loses its meaning. The goodness of God is supposed to be goodness not in the ordinary but in the eminent sense, not different from justice but tempered by it (a Leibnizian expression of mediation), just as conversely justice is tempered by goodness; but then goodness is no longer goodness, nor justice justice. Power is supposed to be tempered by wisdom, but then it is not power as such, for it would be subjected to wisdom; wisdom is supposed to be expanded into power, but then it vanishes as the wisdom that determines purpose and measure. The true concept of the infinite and its absolute unity, which will emerge later, is not to be grasped as a tempering, a mutual limiting or mixing, which is a superficial relation held in indeterminate fog, with which only conceptless representation can be satisfied. — Reality, as it is taken in that definition of God as a determinate quality, ceases, when carried beyond its determinateness, to be reality; it becomes abstract being; God as the purely real in all that is real, or as the sum-total of all realities, is the same determinationless and contentless thing as the empty absolute in which all is one.
If, on the contrary, reality is taken in its determinateness, then, since it essentially contains the moment of the negative, the sum-total of all realities becomes just as much a sum-total of all negations, the sum-total of all contradictions, in the first instance perhaps absolute power, in which everything determinate is absorbed; but since power itself only is in so far as it still has over against it something not sublated by it, it becomes, when thought as expanded into carried-out, limitless power, abstract nothing. That real element in all that is real, the being in all existence, which is supposed to express the concept of God, is nothing other than abstract being, the same as what nothing is.
Determinateness is negation posited as affirmative; this is Spinoza’s proposition: Omnis determinatio est negatio. This proposition is of infinite importance; only, negation as such is formless abstraction; speculative philosophy, however, must not be charged with taking negation or nothing to be something ultimate; nothing is as little ultimate for it as reality is the true.
From this proposition, that determinateness is negation, follows necessarily the unity of the Spinozistic substance — or that there is only one substance. Thought and being or extension, the two determinations that Spinoza has before him, he had to set as one in this unity; for as determinate realities they are negations whose infinity is their unity; according to Spinoza’s definition, of which more below, the infinity of something is its affirmation. He therefore grasped them as attributes, that is, as such as do not have a particular subsistence, a being in and for itself, but are only as sublated, as moments; or rather they are not even moments for him, for substance is in its own self wholly devoid of determination, and the attributes, like the modes, are distinctions made by an external understanding. — Likewise the substantiality of individuals cannot stand against that proposition. The individual is relation to itself through the fact that it sets limits to everything else; but these limits are thereby also limits of itself, relations to an other, and it does not have its existence within itself. The individual is indeed more than what is merely limited on every side, but this more belongs to another sphere of the concept; in the metaphysics of being it is something simply determinate; and against the claim that such a thing, that the finite as such, is in and for itself, determinateness asserts itself essentially as negation and draws the finite into that same negative movement of the understanding which lets everything vanish in the abstract unity, in substance.
Negation stands immediately opposed to reality; later, in the sphere proper to the determinations of reflection, it is opposed to the positive, which is reality reflecting upon negation — reality in which the negative shows, the negative that in reality as such is still concealed.
Quality is chiefly property only in the respect that it shows itself as an immanent determination in an external relation. By properties, of herbs for instance, one understands determinations which are not merely proper to a something in general, but such that through them it maintains itself in a distinctive manner in relation to others, does not let alien influences posited within it prevail there, but makes its own determinations tell in the other, even though it does not keep that other off from itself. The more reposeful determinatenesses, figure or shape for instance, are by contrast not readily called properties, nor indeed qualities, in so far as they are represented as alterable, as not identical with being.
Qualifying or inqualifying, an expression of Jacob Böhme’s philosophy, which goes into the depths, but into a turbid depth, signifies the movement of a quality (of the sour, the astringent, the fiery and so forth) within itself, in so far as in its negative nature (in its torment) it posits and consolidates itself out of an other; in general, the unrest of a quality within its own self, according to which it brings itself forth and maintains itself only in struggle.
c. Something
In existence its determinateness has been distinguished as quality; in quality, as existing, there is the difference of reality and negation. But however much these differences are present in existence, they are just as much null and sublated. Reality itself contains negation, is existence, not indeterminate, abstract being. Likewise negation is existence, not the abstract nothing it is supposed to be, but here posited as it is in itself, as a being, as belonging to existence. Thus quality in general is not separated from existence, which is only determinate, qualitative being.
This sublating of the distinction is more than a mere taking back and external dropping of it, or than a simple return to the simple beginning, to existence as such. The distinction cannot be dropped; for it is. What is factually present, then, is existence in general, a distinction within it, and the sublating of this distinction; existence not as devoid of distinction, as at the outset, but as again equal to itself, through the sublating of the distinction, the simplicity of existence mediated through this sublating. This being-sublated of the distinction is the proper determinateness of existence; existence is thus being-within-self; existence is an existent, something.
Something is the first negation of negation, as simple existing relation to itself. Existence, life, thought and so forth determine themselves essentially into an existent, a living being, a thinking being (I) and so forth. This determination is of the highest importance, so as not to remain standing at existence, life, thought and so forth, nor indeed at deity (instead of God), as universalities. To ordinary thinking something rightly counts as something real. Yet something is still a very superficial determination, just as reality and negation, existence and its determinateness, though no longer the empty ones of being and nothing, are still wholly abstract determinations. For this reason they are also the most current expressions, and philosophically uncultivated reflection uses them most, pours its distinctions into them, and supposes it has in them something quite well and firmly determined. — The negative of the negative is, as something, only the beginning of the subject; being-within-self is as yet wholly indeterminate. It determines itself further, first as being-for-self, and so on, until in the concept it first attains the concrete intensity of the subject. At the ground of all these determinations lies the negative unity with itself. But in this the negation as first, as negation in general, is well to be distinguished from the second, the negation of negation, which is the concrete, absolute negativity, whereas the first is by contrast only abstract negativity.
Something is an existent as the negation of negation; for this negation is the restoring of the simple relation to itself; — but equally, with that, something is the mediation of itself with itself. Already in the simplicity of something, and then still more determinately in being-for-self, in the subject and so forth, the mediation of itself with itself is present; already in becoming too, though there only as the wholly abstract mediation; the mediation with itself is posited in something in so far as something is determined as a simple identical. — Attention may be drawn to the presence of mediation in general against the principle of the alleged mere immediacy of knowing, from which mediation is supposed to be excluded; but there is no further need to draw special attention to the moment of mediation, for it is to be found everywhere and on all sides, in every concept.
This mediation with itself, which something is in itself, taken merely as the negation of negation, has no concrete determinations for its sides; thus it collapses into the simple unity which is being. Something is, and is then also an existent; it is in itself further also becoming, which however no longer has being and nothing for its moments. The one of them, being, is now existence, and further an existent. The second is likewise an existent, but determined as the negative of something — an other. Something as becoming is a passing over whose moments are themselves somethings, and which is therefore alteration — a becoming that has already become concrete. — At first, however, something alters only in its concept; it is not yet posited as mediating and mediated; at first only as simply maintaining itself in its relation to itself, and the negative of it as something likewise qualitative, only an other in general.
B. Finitude
a) Something and an other; at first they are indifferent towards one another; an other is likewise an immediate existent, a something; negation thus falls outside both. Something is in itself over against its being-for-other. But determinateness belongs also to its in-itself and is
b) its determination, which just as much passes over into constitution, which, being identical with determination, constitutes the immanent and at the same time negated being-for-other, the limit of something, which
c) is the immanent determination of something itself, and something is thus the finite.
In the first division, in which existence in general was considered, existence, as first taken up, had the determination of a being. The moments of its development, quality and something, are therefore likewise of affirmative determination. In this division, by contrast, the negative determination which lies in existence develops itself, a determination which there was as yet only negation in general, the first negation, but which is now determined to the point of the being-within-self of something, to the negation of negation.
a. Something and an other
1. Something and an other are both, first, existents or somethings.
Secondly, each is equally an other. It is indifferent which is named first and, merely on that account, called something (in Latin, when they occur in one sentence, both are called aliud, or “the one the other” alius alium; where there is reciprocity the expression alter alterum is analogous). If we call one existence A and the other B, then B is at first determined as the other. But A is just as much the other of B. Both are in like manner others. To fix the difference and the something that is to be taken as affirmative, the word this serves. But this expresses precisely that this distinguishing and singling out of the one something is a subjective designating that falls outside the something itself. Into this external pointing out the whole determinateness falls; even the expression this contains no difference; all and every something are just as much these as they are others. One means to express something perfectly determinate by “this”; it is overlooked that language, as the work of the understanding, expresses only what is universal, except in the name of a single object; but the individual name is something meaningless in the sense that it does not express a universal, and appears as something merely posited, arbitrary, for the same reason, just as proper names can be arbitrarily assumed, given, or likewise altered.
Being-other thus appears as a determination alien to the existence so determined, or the other appears outside the one existence; partly in that an existence is determined as other only through the comparison of a third, partly in that it is so determined only for the sake of the other which is outside it, and is not so for itself. At the same time, as has been remarked, every existence determines itself, even for ordinary thinking, just as much as another existence, so that there remains no existence determined only as an existence, none that is not outside some existence, and therefore not itself an other.
Both are determined as something as well as an other, and are hence the same, and no difference between them is yet present. But this sameness of the determinations likewise falls only into external reflection, into the comparison of the two; as the other is at first posited, it is indeed for itself in relation to something, but also for itself outside it.
Thirdly, the other is therefore to be taken as isolated, in relation to itself; abstractly as the other; the τὸ ἕτεϱον of Plato, who opposes it as one of the moments of totality to the one, and in this way ascribes to the other a nature of its own. Thus the other, grasped solely as such, is not the other of something, but the other in its own self, that is, the other of itself. — Such an other, other by its very determination, is physical nature; it is the other of spirit; this determination of it is thus at first a mere relativity, by which no quality of nature itself but only a relation external to it is expressed. But since spirit is the true something and nature is therefore in its own self only what it is over against spirit, so, in so far as nature is taken for itself, its quality is just this: to be the other in its own self, that which is outside itself (in the determinations of space, of time, of matter).
The other for itself is the other in its own self, and hence the other of itself, and so the other of the other — therefore that which is utterly unequal within itself, which negates itself, which alters itself. But it likewise remains identical with itself, for that into which it altered itself is the other, which otherwise has no further determination; but that which alters itself is determined in no different manner, but in the same manner, namely to be an other; it therefore goes together only with itself in that other. Thus it is posited as reflected into itself with the sublating of being-other, as something identical with itself, from which being-other, which is at the same time a moment of it, is therefore something distinct, something that does not belong to it as something itself.
2. Something preserves itself in its non-existence; it is essentially one with it and essentially not one with it. It therefore stands in relation to its being-other; it is not purely its being-other. Being-other is at once contained in it and at the same time still separated from it; it is being-for-other.
Existence as such is something immediate, without relation; or it stands in the determination of being. But existence, as enclosing non-being within itself, is determinate being, being negated within itself, and then at first an other — but because it also preserves itself in its negation, only being-for-other.
It preserves itself in its non-existence and is being, yet not being in general, but as relation to itself over against its relation to an other, as equality with itself over against its inequality. Such a being is being-in-itself.
Being-for-other and being-in-itself constitute the two moments of something. There are two pairs of determinations that occur here: 1. something and an other; 2. being-for-other and being-in-itself. The former contain the relationlessness of their determinateness; something and an other fall apart. But their truth is their relation; being-for-other and being-in-itself are therefore those determinations posited as moments of one and the same thing, as determinations which are relations and which remain in their unity, in the unity of existence. Each therefore itself contains within it at the same time its own moment distinct from it.
Being and nothing in their unity, which is existence, are no longer being and nothing — this they are only outside their unity; thus in their restless unity, in becoming, they are coming-to-be and passing away. — Being within something is being-in-itself. Being, the relation to itself, the equality with itself, is now no longer immediate, but a relation to itself only as the non-being of being-other (as existence reflected into itself). — Likewise non-being, as a moment of something, is in this unity of being and non-being not non-existence in general, but an other, and, more determinately, according to the distinction of being from it, at the same time relation to its non-existence, being-for-other.
Thus being-in-itself is, first, a negative relation to non-existence; it has being-other outside it and stands opposed to it; in so far as something is in itself, it is withdrawn from being-other and from being-for-other. But, secondly, it also has non-being in its own self; for it is itself the non-being of being-for-other.
Being-for-other, however, is first the negation of the simple relation of being to itself, which is at first supposed to be existence and something; in so far as something is in an other or for an other, it is deprived of its own being. But, secondly, it is not non-existence as pure nothing; it is a non-existence that points to being-in-itself as to its being reflected into itself, just as conversely being-in-itself points to being-for-other.
3. Both moments are determinations of one and the same, namely of something. In itself something is in so far as it has returned into itself out of being-for-other. But something also has a determination or a circumstance in itself (here the accent falls on in) or at it, in so far as this circumstance is external at it, a being-for-other.
This leads to a further determination. Being-in-itself and being-for-other are at first different; but that something has at it the same as what it is in itself, and conversely that what it is as being-for-other it also is in itself — this is the identity of being-in-itself and being-for-other, according to the determination that something itself is one and the same in both moments, which are therefore undivided within it. — This identity results formally already in the sphere of existence, but more expressly in the consideration of essence and then of the relation of inwardness and outwardness, and most determinately of all in the consideration of the Idea as the unity of concept and actuality. — One supposes that with the in-itself one is saying something lofty, as with the inner; but what something is only in itself is also only at it; “in itself” is a merely abstract and therefore itself external determination. The expressions “there is nothing at it” or “there is something in it” contain, though somewhat obscurely, the thought that what is at something belongs also to its being-in-itself, to its inner, true worth.
It may be remarked that here the sense of the thing-in-itself results, which is a very simple abstraction, but was for a time a very important determination, something distinguished as it were, just as the proposition that we do not know what things are in themselves was a widely current piece of wisdom. — Things are called in-themselves in so far as abstraction is made from all being-for-other, that is to say, in general, in so far as they are thought without any determination, as nullities. In this sense one can of course not know what the thing in-itself is. For the question what? demands that determinations be given; but since the things of which those determinations are demanded are at the same time to be things-in-themselves, that is, precisely without determination, the impossibility of an answer has been thoughtlessly built into the question, or else one gives only a nonsensical answer. — The thing-in-itself is the same as that absolute of which one knows nothing except that all is one within it. One therefore knows very well what is at these things-in-themselves; as such they are nothing but truthless, empty abstractions. What the thing-in-itself is in truth, however, what is truly in itself, of this the Logic is the exposition, though there by in-itself something better than abstraction is understood, namely what something is in its concept; but this concept is concrete within itself, comprehensible as concept in general, and knowable as determinate and as the connection of its determinations within itself.
Being-in-itself has at first being-for-other as the moment standing over against it; but positedness is also opposed to it; in this expression being-for-other is indeed also contained, but it contains determinately the already accomplished bending back of what is not in itself into that which is its being-in-itself, in which it is positive. Being-in-itself is commonly to be taken as an abstract way of expressing the concept; positing properly falls only in the sphere of essence, of objective reflection; the ground posits what is grounded by it; the cause still more brings forth an effect, an existence whose self-subsistence is immediately negated and which has the sense of having its matter, its being, in an other. In the sphere of being, existence only proceeds from becoming, or with something an other is posited, with the finite the infinite, but the finite does not bring forth the infinite, does not posit it. In the sphere of being the self-determining of the concept is itself as yet only in itself — it is then called a passing over; and the reflecting determinations of being, too, such as something and an other, or the finite and the infinite, although they essentially point to one another or are as being-for-other, count as qualitative, as subsisting for themselves; the other is, the finite counts just as much as an immediate being and as standing firm for itself, as does the infinite; their sense appears as complete even without their other. The positive and the negative, by contrast, cause and effect, however much they too are taken as isolated beings, have at the same time no sense without one another; their showing within one another, the showing of its other within each, is present in their own selves. — In the different circles of determination, and especially in the advance of the exposition, or, more closely, in the advance of the concept to its exposition, it is a chief matter always to distinguish well what is still in itself and what is posited, how the determinations are as they are in the concept and how they are as posited or as existing-for-other. This is a distinction that belongs only to dialectical development, and one that metaphysical philosophizing, under which the critical sort too belongs, does not know; the definitions of metaphysics, like its presuppositions, distinctions and inferences, aim only to assert and to bring forth what is, and indeed what is in itself.
Being-for-other is, in the unity of something with itself, identical with its in-itself; being-for-other is thus at something. The determinateness thus reflected into itself is therefore again a simple determinateness that is, and hence again a quality — determination.
The Infinite Judgement (The Doctrine of the Concept)
b. The negative judgement
1. Mention has already been made above of the ordinary notion that it depends only on the content of the judgement whether it is true or not, since logical truth concerns nothing but the form and demands nothing but that the content should not contradict itself. Nothing is reckoned to belong to the form of the judgement itself except that it is the relation of two concepts. But it has emerged that these two concepts do not merely have the relationless determination of a number, but stand to one another as singular and universal. These determinations constitute the truly logical content, and indeed, in this abstraction, the content of the positive judgement; what other content (“the sun is round”, “Cicero was a great orator in Rome”, “it is day now” and so forth) occurs in a judgement is no concern of the judgement as such; it expresses only this: the subject is predicate, or, since these are only names, more determinately: the singular is universal, and conversely. — On account of this purely logical content the positive judgement is not true, but has its truth in the negative judgement. — The content, one demands, should only not contradict itself in the judgement; but it does contradict itself in that judgement, as has been shown. — It is, however, entirely a matter of indifference whether one calls that logical content form as well, and understands by content only the remaining empirical filling; the form then does not contain the empty identity alone, outside which the determination of content would lie. The positive judgement then has, through its form as positive judgement, no truth; whoever were to call the correctness of an intuition or a perception, the agreement of the representation with its object, truth, would at least have no expression left for what is the object and the aim of philosophy. One would have at least to call the latter truth of reason, and it will readily be granted that judgements such as that Cicero was a great orator, that it is day now, and so forth, are not truths of reason. But they are not such, not because they have, as it were contingently, an empirical content, but because they are only positive judgements, which can and are meant to have no other content than an immediate singular and an abstract determinateness.
The positive judgement has its truth in the first instance in the negative one: the singular is not abstractly universal, — but rather the predicate of the singular is, precisely because it is such a predicate, or, considered for itself without the relation to the subject, because it is an abstract universal, itself something determinate; the singular is therefore at first a particular. Further, according to the other proposition contained in the positive judgement, the negative judgement runs: the universal is not abstractly singular, but rather this predicate, already because it is a predicate, or because it stands in relation to a universal subject, is something wider than mere singularity, and the universal is therefore likewise at first a particular. — Since this universal, as subject, stands itself in the judgement-determination of singularity, both propositions reduce to the one: “the singular is a particular”.
It may be remarked, a) that particularity here results for the predicate, of which there was already mention above; but here it is not posited through external reflection, but has arisen by way of the negative relation exhibited in the judgement. b) This determination results here only for the predicate. In the immediate judgement, the judgement of existence, the subject is what lies at the ground; the determination therefore seems at first to run its course at the predicate. In fact, however, this first negation cannot yet be a determination, or properly not yet a positing of the singular, since the latter is only the second, the negative of the negative.
“The singular is a particular” is the positive expression of the negative judgement. This expression is not itself positive judgement, in so far as the latter, on account of its immediacy, has only the abstract for its extremes, whereas the particular results precisely through the positing of the relation of the judgement as the first mediated determination. — This determination, however, is to be taken not only as a moment of the extreme, but also, as it properly is in the first instance, as the determination of the relation; or the judgement is to be considered as negative as well.
This transition is grounded in the relation of the extremes and of their relation in the judgement in general. The positive judgement is the relation of the immediate singular and universal, that is, of terms of which the one at the same time is not what the other is; the relation is therefore just as essentially separation, or negative; hence the positive judgement had to be posited as negative. There was therefore no reason for logicians to make such a fuss about the not of the negative judgement having been drawn to the copula. What in the judgement is a determination of the extreme is just as much a determinate relation. The judgement-determination, or the extreme, is not the purely qualitative determination of immediate being, which is supposed only to stand opposed to an other outside it; nor is it a determination of reflection, which in its universal form comports itself as positive and negative, each of which is posited as excluding and is only in itself identical with the other. The judgement-determination, as a determination of the concept, is in its own self a universal, posited as continuing itself into its other. Conversely, the relation of the judgement is the same determination as the extremes have; for it is just this universality and continuation of them into one another; in so far as they are distinct, it has negativity in it as well.
The transition indicated above from the form of the relation to the form of the determination constitutes the immediate consequence that the not of the copula must just as much be drawn to the predicate, and the latter be determined as the not-universal. But the not-universal is, by an equally immediate consequence, the particular. — If the negative is held fast according to the wholly abstract determination of immediate non-being, then the predicate is only the wholly indeterminate not-universal. This determination is otherwise dealt with in logic under the heading of contradictory concepts, and it is impressed upon us as something important that in the negative of a concept one must hold fast only to the negative and take it as the merely indeterminate compass of the other of the positive concept. Thus the mere not-white would be the red, yellow, blue and so forth just as much as the black. But the white as such is the conceptless determination of intuition; the not of white is then the equally conceptless non-being, an abstraction considered at the very beginning of the Logic, whose nearest truth was recognized to be becoming. If, in considering the judgement-determinations, such a conceptless content from intuition and representation is used as an example, and the determinations of being and those of reflection are taken for judgement-determinations, then this is the same uncritical procedure as when, according to Kant, the categories of the understanding are applied to the infinite Idea of reason or to the so-called thing-in-itself; the concept, to which the judgement proceeding from it also belongs, is the true thing-in-itself or the rational; but those determinations belong to being or to essence and are not yet forms developed into the manner in which they are in their truth, in the concept. — If one remains standing at the white, the red, as sensuous representations, then, as usually happens, something is called a concept which is only a determination of representation, and then of course the not-white, the not-red is nothing positive, just as the not-triangular is something wholly indeterminate, since the determination that rests on number and on quantum in general is the essentially indifferent, conceptless one. But like non-being itself, such sensuous content too is to be comprehended and to lose that indifference and abstract immediacy which it has in blind, motionless representation. Already in existence the thoughtless nothing becomes a limit, through which something nevertheless relates to an other outside it. In reflection, however, it is the negative, which essentially relates to a positive and is thereby determinate; a negative is already no longer that indeterminate non-being; it is posited as being only in so far as the positive stands over against it; the third is their ground; the negative is thus held within an enclosed sphere in which what the one is not is something determinate. — Still more, however, in the absolutely fluid continuity of the concept and its determinations the not is immediately something positive, and negation is not only determinateness but is taken up into universality and posited as identical with it. The not-universal is therefore at once the particular.
2. Since the negation concerns the relation of the judgement, and the negative judgement is still considered as such, it is for the first still a judgement; the relation of subject and predicate, or of singularity and universality, is thus present, together with their relation, the form of the judgement. The subject, as the immediate lying at the ground, remains untouched by the negation; it therefore retains its determination of having a predicate, or its relation to universality. What is negated, therefore, is not universality in general in the predicate, but the abstraction or determinateness of the predicate, which appeared over against that universality as content. — The negative judgement is therefore not total negation; the universal sphere which the predicate contains still subsists; the relation of the subject to the predicate is therefore essentially still positive; the determination of the predicate that still remains is just as much relation. — When it is said, for example, that the rose is not red, only the determinateness of the predicate is thereby negated and severed from the universality which likewise belongs to it; the universal sphere, colour, is preserved; if the rose is not red, it is thereby assumed that it has a colour, and another colour; according to this universal sphere the judgement is still positive.
“The singular is a particular” — this positive form of the negative judgement expresses this immediately; the particular contains universality. It expresses, besides, that the predicate is not only a universal but also something determinate. The negative form contains the same; for since, for example, the rose is indeed not red, it is supposed not only to retain the universal sphere of colour as its predicate, but also to have some other determinate colour; the single determinateness of red is thus only sublated, and not only is the universal sphere left standing, but the determinateness too is preserved, though made into an indeterminate, a universal determinateness, and hence into particularity.
3. The particularity which has resulted as the positive determination of the negative judgement is what mediates between singularity and universality; thus the negative judgement is now in general the mediating term towards the third step, the reflection of the judgement of existence into itself. According to its objective significance it is only the moment of the alteration of the accidents, or, in existence, of the isolated properties of the concrete. Through this alteration the complete determinateness of the predicate, or the concrete, comes forth as posited.
The singular is a particular, according to the positive expression of the negative judgement. But the singular is also not a particular; for particularity is of wider compass than singularity; it is therefore a predicate which does not correspond to the subject, and in which the subject does not yet have its truth. The singular is only singular, the negativity which relates not to an other, be it positively or negatively, but only to itself. The rose is not some coloured thing, but has only the determinate colour which is the colour of a rose. The singular is not an indeterminately determinate, but the determinately determinate.
Starting from this positive form of the negative judgement, this negation of it appears only as a first negation again. But it is not this. Rather, the negative judgement is already in and for itself the second, or the negation of negation, and what it is in and for itself is to be posited. Namely, it negates the determinateness of the predicate of the positive judgement, its abstract universality, or, considered as content, the single quality which it contains of the subject. But the negation of determinateness is already the second, and therefore the infinite return of singularity into itself. With this, then, the restoration of the concrete totality of the subject has taken place, or rather it is only now posited as singular, in that it has mediated itself with itself through the negation and the sublating of that negation. The predicate, for its part, has thereby passed over from the first universality into absolute determinateness and has equalized itself with the subject. The judgement accordingly runs: “the singular is singular”. — From the other side, since the subject was just as much to be taken as universal, and since to that extent, in the negative judgement, the predicate, which over against that determination of the subject is the singular, expanded into particularity, and since now further the negation of this determinateness is just as much the purification of the universality which it contains, this judgement also runs: “the universal is the universal”.
In these two judgements, which resulted earlier through external reflection, the predicate is already expressed in its positivity. First, however, the negation of the negative judgement must itself appear in the form of a negative judgement. It had been shown that in it there still remained a positive relation of the subject to the predicate and to the universal sphere of the latter. From this side it therefore contained a universality more purified of limitedness than the positive judgement did, and is for that reason all the more to be negated of the subject as singular. In this way the whole compass of the predicate is negated and there is no longer any positive relation between it and the subject. This is the infinite judgement.
c. The infinite judgement
The negative judgement is as little a true judgement as the positive one. But the infinite judgement, which is supposed to be its truth, is, according to its negative expression, the negatively infinite, a judgement in which the form of the judgement too is sublated. — But this is a nonsensical judgement. It is supposed to be a judgement, and hence to contain a relation of subject and predicate; but at the same time such a relation is supposed not to be in it. — The name of the infinite judgement is indeed usually listed in the ordinary logics, but without its becoming at all clear what is to be made of it. — Examples of negatively infinite judgements are easy to come by: one has only to connect negatively determinations as subject and predicate of which the one contains not only not the determinateness of the other but also not its universal sphere; thus, for example, spirit is not red, yellow and so forth, not sour, not alkaline and so forth; the rose is not an elephant; the understanding is not a table, and the like. — These judgements are correct or true, as one says, but notwithstanding such truth they are nonsensical and insipid. — Or rather they are no judgements at all. — A more real example of the infinite judgement is the evil deed. In a civil suit at law something is negated only as the property of the other party, in such a way, however, that it is conceded that it ought to be theirs if they had the right to it, and it is claimed only under the title of right; the universal sphere, right, is thus acknowledged and preserved in that negative judgement. Crime, however, is the infinite judgement which negates not only the particular right but the universal sphere along with it, which negates right as right. It has indeed the correctness of being an actual deed, but because it relates itself wholly negatively to ethical life, which constitutes its universal sphere, it is nonsensical.
The positive element of the infinite judgement, of the negation of negation, is the reflection of singularity into itself, whereby singularity is for the first time posited as the determinate determinateness. “The singular is singular” was the expression of this according to that reflection. In the judgement of existence the subject is an immediate singular, and to that extent more only a something in general. Through the mediation of the negative and the infinite judgement it is first posited as singular.
The singular is herewith posited as continuing itself into its predicate, which is identical with it; hence universality too is no longer the immediate universality, but a gathering together of distinct terms. The positively infinite judgement runs just as well: “the universal is universal”, and so it is likewise posited as the return into itself.
Through this reflection of the judgement-determinations into themselves the judgement has now sublated itself; in the negatively infinite judgement the difference is, so to speak, too great for it still to remain a judgement; subject and predicate have no positive relation to one another at all; in the positively infinite, on the contrary, only identity is present, and on account of the wholly missing difference it is no longer a judgement.
More closely, it is the judgement of existence that has sublated itself; with this there is posited what the copula of the judgement contains, namely that the qualitative extremes are sublated in this their identity. But since this unity is the concept, it is immediately divided again into its extremes and is as judgement, whose determinations, however, are no longer immediate but reflected into themselves. The judgement of existence has passed over into the judgement of reflection.