{"id":903052,"date":"2026-09-17T09:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T07:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/?page_id=903052"},"modified":"2026-09-17T16:30:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:30:33","slug":"how-to-think-substance-also-as-subject","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/how-to-think-substance-also-as-subject\/","title":{"rendered":"How is one to think \u201esubstance\u201c also \u201eas subject\u201c?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In brief:<\/strong> Substance means the bearing element, what underlies everything. Subject in Hegel does not mean \u201eperson\u201c but: something that brings itself forth. The demand is therefore to think what bears not as a resting ground but as a movement that makes itself into what it is. The sentence is the programme of the whole system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sentence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It stands in the Preface to the Phenomenology<\/a> and is Hegel\u2019s own short version of what he wants:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Everything turns, on my view \u2014 which must justify itself only through the exposition of the system itself \u2014 on grasping and expressing the true not as substance but just as much as subject.<\/p>\nPhenomenology of Spirit, Preface<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Note the \u201ejust as much\u201c: substance is not abolished. It is not to be replaced but to be thought also<\/em> as subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What it is directed against<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Against Spinoza \u2014 and against Schelling. Spinoza\u2019s substance is the One that bears everything; every singular thing is only a mode of it. Hegel does not hold this to be false but unfinished: in a mere substance everything determinate disappears without its being said why it appears at all. That is why he calls such systems not pantheisms but \u201eacosmisms\u201c \u2014 the world is lost in them (Encyclopaedia \u00a7 573 Remark; see Was Hegel a Christian, a pantheist or an atheist?<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sharpest formulation is aimed at a contemporary. Whoever passes off his absolute as the simply undifferentiated passes it off<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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for the night [\u2026] in which, as one is wont to say, all cows are black \u2014 [this] is the naivety of emptiness in cognition.<\/p>\nPhenomenology of Spirit, Preface<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What \u201esubject\u201c means<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Not: an I that contemplates the substance. Rather: that the substance is<\/em> the movement of distinguishing itself, of remaining with itself in what is distinguished, and of thereby first becoming what it is. Subject in Hegel is a relation, not a thing \u2014 the reason why he determines spirit<\/a> as \u201ebeing with itself\u201c and not as a substance that has something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How this looks in the philosophy of right<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here the sentence becomes testable. Ethical substance<\/a> is what underlies a society and precedes the individual: custom, institutions, the law in force. \u00a7 151<\/a> expressly calls habit \u201ea second nature<\/em>\u201c. Were that all, ethical life would be a compulsion to which one is subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decisive addition stands in \u00a7 257<\/a>: the state is the actuality of the ethical Idea as<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ethical spirit \u2014 as the revealed<\/em>, self-transparent, substantial will, which thinks and knows itself and accomplishes what it knows, and insofar as it knows it.<\/p>\nGroundlines, \u00a7 257<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Substance that thinks and knows itself \u2014 that is substance as subject, literally. And \u00a7 260<\/a> draws the practical consequence: the universal does not hold without the \u201eparticular interest, knowledge and willing\u201c of individuals. An order that is borne without being known is, in Hegel, not yet actual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why this is not mere terminology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From the distinction follows the standard of the whole book. An institution is not justified by the fact that it exists and bears \u2014 then it would be mere substance. It is justified only when those who live in it can recognize themselves in it. That is why Hegel demands the publicity of the laws (\u00a7 215<\/a>), the publicity of the administration of justice (\u00a7 224<\/a>), the publicity of the debates of the estates (\u00a7 314<\/a> f.) and freedom of the press<\/a> \u2014 not as concessions, but as that which first makes substance into subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources.<\/strong> Phenomenology of Spirit, Preface. \u2013 Encyclopaedia (1830) \u00a7\u00a7 151\u2013159 (relation of substantiality, transition to the concept), \u00a7\u00a7 381\u2013384, \u00a7 573 Remark. \u2013 Science of Logic II, Third Book, First Section. \u2013 Groundlines \u00a7 144<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 157<\/a>, \u00a7 215<\/a>, \u00a7 224<\/a>, \u00a7 257<\/a>, \u00a7 260<\/a>, \u00a7 314<\/a> f. \u2013 Literature.<\/strong> Klaus D\u00fcsing, Das Problem der Subjektivit\u00e4t in Hegels Logik<\/em>, Bonn 1976; Robert B. Pippin, Hegel\u2019s Idealism. The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness<\/em>, Cambridge 1989. \u2013 In the glossary: ethical substance<\/a>, spirit<\/a>, concept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n