International Phenomenological Society

Heidegger's Critique of Hegel's Notion of Time

Author(s): Jere Paul Surber
Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Mar., 1979), pp. 358-377
Published by: International Phenomenological Society
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 HEIDEGGER'S CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S NOTION OF TIME
There is a subterranean feud running through the works of
Heidegger, both before and after the Kehre, which only occasionally
erupts into a direct attack. Heidegger's opponent in this feud is
Hegel. That Heidegger should reject, in a radical manner, the
Hegelian way of philosophizing is not surprising to anyone who has
followed Heidegger's efforts at a "destructive recovery" of the tradi-
tion. After all, it has become almost a platitude that Hegel represents
the conclusion and thus the most radical form of western
metaphysics, that tradition which Heidegger believes has covered
over the ontological import of the question of Being and thus has
denied to itself the possibility for any authentic reflection upon Be-
ing. For Heidegger, both Hegel's assumption that philosophy must be
"'scientific" and his introduction of the notion of an allegedly
historical but transhuman Geist into philosophy are manifestations of
the degree to which man has become alienated in the course of the
western tradition from his own ground and the mode of his own Being
as Dasein. What is surprising, however, is the fact that, with two
notable exceptions, Heidegger has not confronted Hegel directly nor
tried to come to grips with the full significance of a dialectical-
speculative philosophy. The two exceptions which I have in mind are
Heidegger's essay "Hegel und die Griechen" in Wegmarken, and his
earliest skirmish with Hegel in the concluding pages of Sein und Zeit.'
(Though he has also written an essay on Hegel's Phenomenology in
Holzwege, it amounts hot to a confrontation but to an interpretation
of this work in Heidegger's own terms.)
In this essay, I will concentrate on the earliest of these works, on
Heidegger's explicit critique of Hegel's conception of time in Being
and Time. This discussion will have three parts. First, we must deter-
mine what Heidegger's criticism involves, both with reference to its
argument and to the underlying interpretation of Hegel upon which
it rests. Second, we will suggest that Hegel's conception of time is
much more complex than Heidegger's account suggests, a fact which
points toward certain similarities and differences between these two
thinkers which Heidegger fails to mention. Finally, we must raise the
question concerning the light which such a discussion can shed upon

' Throughout this essay, references will. be made to Being and Time (B T), tr.
by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962).
Though in discussing the works of Heidegger it is always advisable to consult the
original German, the translation will be adequate for my present purposes.
358
 HEIDEGGER'S CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S 359
NOTION OF TIME

our own attempts to come to grips with these issues, thus gaining ac-
cess to a point of view from which the limitations of both can be seen
in contrast with one another.

To Heidegger, Hegel represents the most extreme intensification

of the ordinary understanding of time, that conception of time which
Heidegger's own analysis of "temporality" is intended to overcome.
"Because Hegel's conception of time presents the most radical way in
which the ordinary understanding of time has been given form con-
ceptually, and one which has received too little attention, a com-
parison of this conception with the idea of temporality which we have
expounded is one that especially suggests itself."2
What, then, is involved in this "ordinary understanding of
time"? Heidegger describes this view of time as one characterized by a
process of "levelling off' (nivellieren).3 In this process, the
significance and meaning with which our immediate experience as
temporal beings is infused become abstracted, lifted off from their
true locus of ontological import. What we experience authentically as
the various modes in which we stand apart from our facticity and
givenness (ekstases) in our concernful involvement in the world
becomes broken into an abstract succession of indifferent and empty
"nows" and a realm of equally abstract "meaning-structures"whose
significance is to be found only outside the succession of "nows." In
the ordinary mode of experience, these "nows"appear not as an im-
mediate and concernful involvement with the world, as "ready-at-
hand," but rather as constituting an objective "flow" which is indif-
ferent over against our own projects and concerns: as Heidegger puts
it, they appear merely as "present-at-hand," as objects which stand
indifferently over against us. "Thus for the ordinary understanding of
time, time shows itself as a sequence of 'nows' which are constantly
'present-at-hand,' simultaneously passing away and coming along.
Time is understood as a succession, as a 'flowing stream' of 'nows,' as
the 'course of time.' "4
If time, on its side, becomes "levelled off' and viewed as con-
stituting an "objective medium" in which events merely occur, mean-
ing and significance, which are grounded and experienced in tem-
porality as the horizon of the meaning of Dasein, become seen as
something "subjective,"as concerns which are merely my own private
2
BT, p. 480.
BT, p. 474 if.
' BT, p. 474.
360 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

interests as opposed to the public flow of an indifferent temporal

medium. A rift, that is, occurs between the abstract succession of
"nows"constituting a public and "objective"time and the meanings
which I "subjectively"interject into it. History too becomes seen, not
as something experienced as immediately meaningful and significant
to my mode of being as Dasein, but simply as a collection of "objec-
tive facts."
On the other hand, if the succession of "nows" is seen as
somehow dependent upon my own consciousness, if, that is, time is
understood as a "flow of consciousness," a past, present, and future
constituted by my own consciousness as reference point, then mean-
ing becomes seen as something existing "objectively"apart from and
independent of my own consciousness, and must be brought into my
own "subjective" time by some act of synthesis. In either case, the
ground of meaning in authentic temporality becomes covered over,
and one stands as a subject over against an objective realm. For
Heidegger, "World-time is 'more Objective' than any possible Object
because, with the disclosedness of the world, it already becomes 'Ob-
jectified' in an ecstatico-horizontal manner as the condition for the
possibility of entities within-the-world." "World-time, moreover, is
also 'more subjective' than any possible subject; for it is what first
makes possible the Being of the tactically existing self - that Being
which, as is now well understood, is the meaning of care."5
In general, then, we can say that, for Heidegger, the ordinary
conception of time is that which first gives rise to the dichotomy of
subject and object, and the attendant problems of how the one relates
itself to the other. Such problems, moreover, must appear as issues to
be decided not by an authentic reflection upon the being of Dasein
but in purely "theoretical" and abstract terms. Indeed, for Heideg-
ger, the covering over of temporality as the existential horizon of
Dasein and the substitution of an indifferent flow of "nows"in its
place lies at the very basis of the failure of the western tradition to
raise authentically the question of Being. "Ever since Aristotle all
discussions of the concept of time have clung in principle to the
Aristotelian definition; that is, in taking time as their theme, they
have taken it as it shows itself in circumspective concern. Time is
what is 'counted'; that is to say, it is what is expressed and what we
have in view, even if unthematically, when the travelling pointer (or
the shadow) is made present."6

5 BT, pp. 471-72.

6
BT, p. 473.
 HEIDEGGER'S CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S 361
NOTION OF TIME

What is of particular relevance to Heidegger's critique of Hegel,

however, is the notion of infinity to- which this conception of time
leads. Once time becomes understood as a continuum of "nows," it
must in principle have no beginning and no end. The abstract and in-
different character of the "nows"allows us to, at any point, go on pro-
jecting additional "nows"into the future and "thens" into the past.
"Hence time is endless 'on both sides'. This thesis becomes possible only
on the basis of an orientation towards a free-floating 'in-itself of a
course of nowss'which is present-at-hand - an orientation in which the
full phenomenon of the 'now' has been covered up with regard to its
datability, its worldhood, its spannedness, and its character of having a
location of the same kind as Dasein's, so that it has dwindled to an
unrecognizable fragment. If one directs one's glance toward Being-
present-at-hand and not-Being-present-at-hand, and thus 'thinks' the
sequence of 'nows' through 'to the end', then an end can never be found.
In this way of thinking time through to the end, one must always think
more time; from this one infers that time is infinite."'
This point has far-reaching repercussions both for the way in
which we understand our Being-in-the-world and for the orientation
of reflection. In particular, this way of understanding time obscures
the radical finitude of Dasein which Heidegger wants to emphasize.
Dasein, in its authentic mode of Being, must understand itself as be-
ing in a finite world circumscribed by Dasein's own temporal ekstases.
Most fundamentally, Dasein is characterized as a Being-toward-
death, as a radically finite being which, through its apprehension of
the meaning of its own death, acknowledges its radical finitude. The
conception of time as a continuity of "nows," however, covers up the
possibility for a genuine apprehension of this radical finitude, and
leads Dasein to think of death as something which will occur in the
distant, and, in principle, infinite future. "To the very end 'it always
has more time.' "8 "The inauthentic temporality of everyday Dasein
as it falls, must, as such a looking-away from finitude, fail to
recognize authentic futurity and therewith temporality in general."9
Thus, the ordinary understanding of time not only empties Dasein of
its significance in its situation but extends this meaninglessness into
an indefinite future with which it never authentically comes to grips.
Out of this inauthentic experience of futurity arises a mode of
reflection which takes its bearings from the empty infinity which
arises from our ordinary conception of time. Reflection regards itself
as having to do with what is itself infinite and eternal as opposed to
what is passing and unstable. This turn from the temporal and finite
7IBT, p. 476.
8BT, p. 477.
Ibid.
362 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

horizon of experience to the transtemporal and infinite is likewise a

turn away from the authentic structure of finite Dasein as it is in the
world. The question for reflection thus becomes not the ground of
Being-human understood as Dasein in its radical finitude, but a
search for eternal "essences,"God, etc. In short, the ordinary concep-
tion of time leads to that conception of metaphysics which has
dominated our tradition, according to Heidegger, since the time of
Plato. "Thus even Plato, who directed his glance in this manner at
time as a sequence of 'nows' arising and passing away, had to call time
'the image of eternity.' 9910
For Heidegger, Hegel, we have claimed, represents the most
radical intensification of this tendency inherent in western
metaphysics. Heidegger's criticism of Hegel can be formulated in the
following three assertions:
1) Hegel, beginning from the ordinary conception of time,
analyzes time in terms of a "running-through" of the copre-
sent externality of spatial points. Time, that is, is explicated
as "intuited becoming," a continuous sequence of discrete
''now-points."
2) If Spirit is to manifest itself in time, Hegel must claim that
Spirit shares a common structure with time as he explicates it.
Spirit, that is, must be understood as the abstract relation of
an "I" to a "not-I," of a subject to an object.
3) On the basis of this assimilation of Spirit to the ordinary con-
ception of time, the concreteness of tactically existing Dasein
and its ground in authentic temporality becomes replaced by
an abstract construction, which views Spirit not as constituted
by temporalityfrom which it falls, but as "falling into time,"
conceived as an infinite succession of "nows."
Heidegger's first assertion is based upon an interpetation of the
first section of Hegel's Philosophy of Nature. According to Heideg-
ger, this location is in itself significant, since the "objectification"im-
plicit in the attempt to give an account of nature is the same process
which is at work in our ordinary understanding of time." For Hegel,
as for Aristotle, the "objectification" necessary in order to speak
about nature as an autonomous realm is grounded, first, in a notion
of space. Space, conceived simply in itself and without any more con-
crete content, is simply the multiplicity of points distinguishable in it.
However, inasmuch as the points are likewise spatial, that is, specify
the field which is their unity, what they serve to distinguish is iden-
tical with what they are in themselves. As differentiating space, the
10
BT, p. 475.
" BT, pp. 480-81.
 HEIDEGGER'S CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S 363
NOTION OF TIME

point must be viewed as the negation of space; however, inasmuch as

the point is itself spatial, it negates its own capacity to differentiate:
space, that is, is a "negation of a negation." This character, however,
does not reveal itself in space as immediately intuited, since even the
indifferent "side-by-sideness"of the points in space cannot maintain
itself as long as the points are themselves spatial. As Heidegger puts
it, "If space gets represented - that is, if it gets intuited immediately
in the indifferent subsistence of its differences - then the negations
are, as it were, simply given. But by such a representation, space does
not get grasped in its Being."12

In order for the "negation of the negation" to become explicit,

the mere cosubsistence of the points must be overcome: space must
become "posited" as a "for itself," a field which is apprehended in its
negational character. This can occur, however, only if a "point" can
posit itself as a genuine negation, only if a spatial point can be lifted
outside its merely indifferent "side-by-sideness"and can affirm itself
as the "negation of a negation," as a cancellation of the negative and
indifferent character of spatial coexistence. "Only in thinking is it
possible for this to be done - in thinking as the synthesis which has
gone through thesis and antithesis and transmuted them. Only if the
negations do not simply remain subsisting in their indifference but
get transmuted - that is, only if they themselves get negated - does
space get thought and thus grasped in its Being."1'3Thought, that is,
infuses the "tranquility" of the spatial field with movement, stands
outside the indifference of space, and affirms the truth of space as the
process by which the point sets itself off from its spatial field. This ex-
plicit "negation of the negation," which introduces a fixed reference
point to the negative indifference of the spatial field, is time.

Because the spatial point can be a negation by positing itself as a

"now-here"over against all other "theres"can it explicitly become, in
truth, a "negation of the negation." It is the concept of time which
thus arises when the point is thought as a true negation. Time adds
the qualifications of the "now" to the point as reflection ranges over
the indifferent field, and thus simultaneously constitutes space as, in
its truth, a "negation of a negation," and itself as determined by the
"now."1

12 BT, p. 482.
13
Ibid.
364 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

The "now"thus represents the form in general of the "negation

of the negation." Because time is movement, constant flux, the "now"
is forever elusive. If I attempt to refer to the "now," it is passed with
the very utterance of the word, and though I can decide that in five
seconds I will refer to the "now"that is to come, it is not yet. In short,
time is "intuited becoming," abstract change fixed by a "now"which
can never be what it is.

The spatial point, we have said, indicates the immediate nega-

tion of the unbroken continuity of space. Since, however, the point
itself is spatial in its immediacy, that is, is itself part of the continuity
of space, it cannot be this negation unless there is a further manner in
which it can be held to be privileged over against all other spatial
points. Its negational character can be maintained only if its own im-
mediately spatial being is overcome, only if the point itself as purely
spatial is negated. This can occur because thought interjects itself in-
to the spatial continuum on behalf of the point and preserves the
point over against all others. The point, thus preserved, is the now
which persists through every effort to negate it. The immediate nega-
tion, which is the spatial point, can thus be a genuine and continuing
negation only if its own character as spatial is negated: the "negation
of the negation," that is, the negation of the immediate negation
which is the spatial point, is the temporal "now." And the persistence
of the "now" throughout the process of the differentiation of the in-
different continuum is time, understood as "intuited becoming."

According to Heidegger, this analysis provides Hegel with the

basis to account for the fact that Spirit manifests itself in time. Spirit,
that is, must share the formal structure of time in order that it can be
manifest in time - Spirit must likewise be understood as a "negation
of the negation." We have seen that time arises as the negation of the
indifferent externality of space through the mediation of thought.
Thought cancels the undifferentiated continuity of space by preserv-
ing the point as a now over against all other points, and thus ap-
propriates the externality of space for itself. According to Heidegger,
Spirit is understood according to the same formal structure. Heideg-
ger claims that Hegel understands Spirit as the activity of thinking by
virtue of which the thinking self is grasped in the apprehension of the
indifferent externality of the not-I. Thinking, as the essence of Spirit,
is understood as the temporal process of appropriating the not-I to
the self, the process of grasping, as Hegel puts it, that substance must
 HEIDEGGER'S CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S 365
NOTION OF TIME
likewise be subject. Thus, just as time was conceived as the negation
of the immediate negation of the spatial point, so Spirit is understood
as the negation of the externality of the not-I, which initially presents
itself as the immediate negation of the thinking self.'4
Because of this isomorphic structure, that is, because both time
and Spirit are understood as "the negation -of the negation," can
Hegel claim, according to Heidegger, that Spiritfalls into time. Only
because Spirit manifests itself as the temporal process of mediating
the opposition between the I and the not-I, can it reveal itself in the
"intuited becoming" of time. Time, understood as the abstract suc-
cession of "now-points," is thus the pure form of Spirit as it reveals
itself. This means, however, that Spirit, in turn, is understood only as
the developing universal content of thought, conceived as a process
occuring in time. The time in which Spirit is manifested, however, is,
for Heidegger, a time which has been levelled off to an abstract suc-
cession of "nows." If we, then, take this succession of "nows" as an
objective field for the manifestation of Spirit, we can further conclude
that Spirit reveals itself as essentially historical. History thus becomes
viewed as the interpenetration of the universal process of Spirit in
appropriating its other to itself with the abstract and "levelled off'
succession of "nows" as the basis of time.5
Heidegger concludes his argument by contrasting his own notion
of the relation of Dasein and Temporality with Hegel's account of the
relation of Spirit and Time. For Hegel, Heidegger emphasizes, Spirit
is conceived as 'falling into time. " The universality of Spirit becomes
concrete and enters into the finite realm of human concern only when
it reveals itself as a process in time. The time in which Spirit reveals
itself, however, is understood as the abstract and objective succession
of "world-time," a conception of time which is severed from the con-
crete concern and experiential involvement of Dasein. Dasein thus
becomes assimilated, for Hegel, into an objective historical process to
which its own concrete concerns are indifferent and of which it has no
authentic experience. In contrast to his interpretation of Hegel, who
is held to view Spirit as "falling into time," Heidegger claims that only
because of the primordial temporality of Dasein is such a thing and
history in Hegel's sense possible. Only because Dasein exists
primordially as temporal in its concrete concerns can it become
alienated from itself in an objective view of history and time as over
against it and determining for it. For Heidegger, it is not that Spirit
falls into time and thus determines the concreteness of the experience
of Dasein, but that Dasein as concrete can itself fall from its own
14
Bt, p. 485.
15 Ibid.
366 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

authentic mode of temporality into an objective and indifferent

history and "public time." " 'Spirit' does not fall into time; but fac-
tical existence 'falls' as falling from primordial, authentic tem-
porality."'6 For Heidegger, the alleged Hegelian claim that Spirit
falls into time can only be elucidated by an existential analytic of the
temporality of Dasein as the ground of the possibility of the fallenness
implicit in history and its foundation in an objective, public time.
II.
The attempt to interpret and criticize a dialectical thinker such as
Hegel is always inherently precarious. Hegel claimed to have set forth
the truth in the form of a system, a dialectically developed form of
knowledge in which the full meaning and significance of any specific
moment is revealed only in its connection with the whole. Every mo-
ment of the system is both a synthesis of the tensions implicit in the
preceding stage, and, at the same time, a pole of a further opposition
which must be reconciled at a more developed level. Thus, to isolate
any moment from its place in the whole system and view it as in itself
autonomous must immediately cancel its true nature as a stage of a
more comprehensive process. This problem reveals itself in the fact
that any claim which one can make about Hegel's system on the basis
of a particular moment must prove to be inevitably one-sided. That
is, such a claim must fail to reveal the full significance for the system
as a whole of that particular stage to which it addresses itself.
On the other hand, the temptation to such an approach to
Hegel's thought has its ground in Hegel's own procedure. Hegel insists
that philosophy can become Wissenschaft only when every fun-
damental determination of thought is taken up in its proper order
and reflected upon. To reflect upon a determination means to take it
as an object of reflection, to "stand apart" from it and analyze it as it
appears in itself. To "stand apart," however, does not mean for
Hegel, to adopt an external and neutral stance; rather, such an
analysis is possible because, at every point, the whole is operative in
the process of thematizing and articulating any moment of itself.
Every moment. then, is articulated as a determinate self-reflection of
the systematic whole upon its own content. Though on the basis of
Hegel's own procedure, one is tempted to repeat this process of "ob-
jectification" and isolate a particular moment from the whole, this
would require the adoption of an extrasystematic standpoint which
would bar the way for a reintegration of the moment into the system
as a whole and would thus falsify the true nature of the moment in the
form of a one-sided claim.
16 BT, p. 486.
 HEIDEGGER'S CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S 367
NOTION OF TIME

Therefore, in order to suggest the inadequacy of an interpreta-

tion of Hegel based upon a particular moment of the system, it is not
sufficient merely to claim that a particular moment has been
"misread." Rather, the particular inadequacy may result instead
from a failure to take account of the function of the particular deter-
mination within the whole system. Thus, the approach to such a criti-
que as Heidegger's must be to indicate the role of the moment in
question as it functions in the entire system, in order to demonstrate
the limitation of an interpretation which does not take into account
the holistic character of the system and the place of the particular
moment within it. Our objection, then, will be that Heidegger fails to
take sufficient account of the location of the discussion of time in the
system and of the operative character of time throughout the system;
it will not be that Heidegger simply misreads Hegel.
Though Heidegger rightly notes that Hegel's discussion of time
occurs at the beginning of the Philosophy of Nature, appearing as the
overcoming of the inert spatiality of Nature as it immediately presents
itself as an external realm, he does not mention the manner in which
Nature itself appears as a moment of the system. Systematically con-
sidered, The Philosophy of Nature forms the second moment of the
system proper, following the Logic and preceding the Philosophy of
Spirit. Further, the three major moments of the system are themselves
preceded by a "scientific propadeutic": the Phenomenology of Spirit.
Our first task, then, must be to clarify briefly the distinctive role of
each moment in the system as a whole.
Hegel claims that the ultimate aim of any science is knowledge of
the universal principles of its particular sphere. If, however, we seek
to know the ultimate principles of the most universal sphere, of all
that is, we are engaged in the enterprise of philosophy. Conversely,
according to Hegel, anything that can be rightly regarded as
knowledge must have a scientific character; "the inner necessity that
knowledge should be science lies in its very nature."'7 Science, for its
part, requires that its own universal principles stand in determinate
relationships to one another and form a unitary whole - and this is
no less true of the natural sciences than it is of the science of
philosophy. The manner in which the universal principles form a uni-
ty Hegel calls system. "The systematic development of truth in scien-
tific form can alone be the true shape in which truth exists."' Thus
Hegel sets for himself the project of explicating philosophy in the true
17 G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind, tr. Sir James Baillie (Lon-

don: Allen & Unwin, 1949), p. 70.

18 Ibid.
368 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

scientific form of system. System must therefore comprise a unitary

whole of the principles of all that is in their relationships with one
another.
An immediate problem, however, arises for such an enterprise.
If science is understood as the systematic knowledge of universalprin-
ciples, it seems to stand in direct opposition to our own experience,
shot through as it is by the contingent and the particular. In our im-
mediate experience we encounter not a well-ordered set of universal
principles, but a melange of physical objects, individual persons,
historical events, and various modes of apprehending each of these
contents. Thus, before an account can commence which directs itself
to universal principles, the question of access to these principles must
first be settled from within the immediate and fragmentary character
of experience itself. It must be demonstrated that we do, in fact, have
access to such principles from within experience, and that such prin-
ciples form the truth of experience itself.
It is to this question that Hegel addresses himself in the
Phenomenology. Here he attempts to show how our most immediate
experience transforms itself into the standpoint from which science as
system becomes accessible, how from within experience itself the
possibility of science (as Hegel conceives it) arises. This involves the
demonstration that any particular- and partial mode of knowledge
must ultimately transform itself into a more comprehensive mode of
apprehension until the point is reached at which the ultimate object
of knowledge is likewise the truth of the process of knowing itself. At
this point, there can be no further characteristic of the object of
knowledge which eludes our ability to know it, as there is in sensation,
perception, the particular foci of the individual sciences, etc. In
short, experience must discover that it contains in itself and is
permeated through and through by the universality of the true con-
tent of science. The point at which consciousness realizes that the par-
ticularity of any of its limited modes of experience are only partial
truths and depend upon the self-completing character of knowledge
for their comprehensibility is just the point at which Hegelian science
can commence.
It is from this point that a consideration of the ultimate universal
principles of all that it departs. Once consciousness is purged of its
elements of partiality and particularity, the way is open to discover
the universal determinations which, taken as a whole, make ex-
perience comprehensible. This is the task of logic as Hegel conceives
it. If logic is to lay claim to truth, that is, if it is to be scientific, it
must appear as a systematically developed whole of the universal
 HEIDEGGER'S CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S 369
NOTION OF TIME

determinations of thought in their relations to one another. In the

Logic, Hegel attempts to reveal these systematic relationships by mov-
ing from the emptiest and least developed of our thought determina-
tions to the richest and most developed concepts. The Logic thus con-
cludes with that determination which includes all other universal con-
cepts as moments of itself and which is reflected, though partially, in
each universal, though less fully developed, determination.
Systematic science cannot, however, terminate at this point.
Though the Logic presents the totality of all the universal determina-
tions of thought, the fact that they are thought-determinations still
gives the Logic the appearance of being something "subjective."
"Because the pure Idea of cognition is so far confined within subjec-
tivity, it is the urge to sublate this, and pure truth as the last result
becomes also the beginning of another sphere and science. "19 In par-
ticular, what is lacking is an account of the universal determinations
which we employ in encountering Nature as a realm which is given to
us by virtue of the particularizing conditions of space and time.
Nature, that is, is the totality of external objects which are com-
prehended by means of universal scientific laws. Through the pure
concepts of thought are a precondition for comprehending the
universal laws of nature, they are not in themselves sufficient to
define and explain that sphere which presents itself as external to
thought. In particular, the logical structures of our pure concepts
bear no relation to the determinate conditions of space and time
under which natural objects are presented to us. Though the deter-
minations of nature are likewise universals in the sense that they oc-
cur in laws which are universally valid for nature, they are more "con-
crete" than the pure determinations of logic in that they bear within
themselves a determinate reference to the spatial and temporal condi-
tions of nature as a realm of externality. They are, that is, the condi-
tions for there being such a thing as science in its ordinary sense.
Finally, even within the realm of externality itself we encounter
objects which cannot be accounted for simply in terms of physical and
chemical processes: we encounter other conscious beings, acts of these
beings which involve meaningful contexts, cultural products, and
higher-level structures of human interaction. In Hegel's terms, we en-
counter the realm of Spirit. The determinations with which science is
involved in this realm are even more complex than those of nature,
since, although each may be taken to form a realm of scientific in-
19 Hegel's Science of Logic, tr. A. V. Miller (London: Allen & Unwin, 1969),
p. 834.
370 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

vestigation, they also involve a dimension in the object itself which is

shared by the observer which confronts it, namely, consciousness.
From this brief description of the moments of Hegel's system, we
can now return to the problem of time as it is criticized by Heidegger.
It is certainly the case that time, taken as a specific determination, is
discussed by Hegel at the beginning of the Philosophy of Nature.
What must be emphasized here, however, are the presuppositions
which this systematic location of time carries with it. First, the discus-
sion of time occurs only after a consideration of immediate and par-
ticular experience, and is possible only on the basis of the standpoint
achieved by the Phenomenology. Though time as a dimension of ex-
perience enters into the Phenomenology, both explicitly in relation to
particular modes of experience (especially Sense-Certainty and more
developed modes of historical consciousness) and implicitly, in that
each mode of experience must occur within its own temporal horizon,
it cannot arise as an objective determination there precisely because,
for Hegel, it is a thought-determination which does not enter in a
determining way into the concreteness of immediate experience. This
is not to deny that Hegel would affirm a temporal dimension to any
particular experience, but only that this dimension is not an indepen-
dent aspect which consciousness distinguishes from the concreteness
of the experience itself.
We can put this point in different terms if we recall the point in
the history of philosophy at which this distinction was made. It was
Kant who first called attention to the form of time as the fundamen-
tal condition of any particular experience. However, this distinction
could be made only from the point of view of a transcendental
philosophy whose method categorically demanded that one abstract
from the empirical content of experience in order to discover the a
priori grounds for any possible experience. Only on the basis of such
an abstraction or "step back" from immediate experience could time
appear as a fundamental determination of experience. Immersed in
the immediacy of experience, such a problem did not arise, or arose
only as a function of the content itself.
Second, however, the determination of time arises in Hegel's
philosophy only when the Logic is included. For Hegel, as we have
seen, immediate experience leads to that point at which the question
can be raised concerning the universal thought-determinations by
which experience is penetrated and through which it can be made in-
telligible. Once this standpoint has been reached, to immediately
make a "transcendental turn" in Kant's sense in order to discover the
formal grounds of intuition would be to reinvoke a conception of the
 HEIDEGGERS CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S 371
NOTION OF TIME

relation of consciousness to its object which experience itself proves to

be abstract and formal. Much more at issue are the universal grounds
by which experience can be intelligible, and not the transcendental
conditions for a possible empirical object which themselves in turn re-
quire universal determinations in order to be explicated.
The externality of Nature and its formal conditions become pro-
blematic only when our universal thought-determinations have
proved themselves to form a unitary whole. For Hegel, the course of
experience itself first raises the question concerning how it can be
made intelligible, and only when this is answered does the question
arise concerning the externality of Nature to thought and the formal
conditions for its externality. Time, that is, appears as a further con-
ceptual development of the totality of pure logical thQught-
determinations. It specifies, along with space, the concrete conditions
on the basis of which the externality of Nature is constituted and
determined. Only because of its spatial and temporal foundations can
Nature be approached as an objective sphere for scientific investiga-
tion. Thus, the determination of the concept of time as a
mathematical-like series of "now-points" is both a presupposition of
natural science and the result of reflection from within the scientific
mode of thought itself, which presupposes nature as an objective
realm to be investigated.
It is crucial to notice that Hegel and Heidegger agree on this
point. Natural science is possible, according to Heidegger, only
because time (and space) can be taken as something "present-at-
hand," as objective and existing apart from our own concernful mode
of being. Indeed, for Heidegger, science is simply the extension and
intensification of the "fallen everydayness" which is an inherent
dimension of the being of Dasein. On the other hand, neither "every-
dayness"nor the "scientific attitude" is the primordial way of being of
Dasein but a "fallenness" from Dasein's own authentic and primor-
dial temporality.20 Likewise, the position at which Hegel's explicit
discussion of time occurs in the system indicates that he, too, sees the
mathematical notion of time as the ground for the "externality" of
Nature presupposed by science. Further, the concept of time arises
only out of concrete experience and its drive to ground its own
wholeness and intelligibility. Just as the ordinary notion of time arises
for Heidegger only out of the primordial temporality of concrete Da-
sein, so Hegel's discussion of time occurs only by virtue of the activity
of Geist as it manifests itself in concrete and immediate experience.
20
See, for example, Being and Time, p. 408 ff.
372 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

What is thus at stake in the quarrel between Hegel and Heideg-

ger rests not so much upon the results of their respective analyses, as it
does upon the relationship between the ordinary notion of time and
what each takes to be the most fundamental nature of Being as we en-
counter it. Further, since the latter determines the starting point and
touchstone of their respective methods of reflection, this question
opens out upon the more general issue of the relationship between a
dialectical-speculative system and a hermeneutic phenomenology of
existence. Heidegger himself affirms this conclusion when he writes:
"We seem to be in accord with Hegel in the results of the Interpreta-
tion we have given for Dasein's temporality and for the way world-
time belongs to it. [However] Our analysis differs in principle from
his in its approach, and its orientation is precisely the opposite of his
in that it aims at fundamental ontology."'

III.
Underlying the somewhat abstract sounding question of the
understanding of time is, for both Hegel and Heidegger, a much
more concrete and immediate concern: how is it possible for the finite
and limited individual to discover a wholeness within the finitude of
his experience? How is it possible, that is, for particular and finite
human experience to have in and of itself an ultimate significance?
For Heidegger, as we have seen, such a wholeness and ultimacy is im-
possible as long as the fundamental temporal condition of experience
is conceived as an infinite mathematical succession extending both in-
to the past and the future. The limitedness of my life, when com-
pared with the coprojected infinity of past and future upon a small
portion of which my life is "mapped," must make my experience ap-
pear as insignificant and "fallen" into processes over which I had no
control before my birth and for which I can have no responsibility
after my death. For Heidegger, only when we understand that Dasein
is constituted by its own temporality and that its own radical finitude
is the ground for the "ordinary"conception of time as infinite does
the possibility for "Being-a-whole"first open. Conversely, "temporali-
ty gets experienced in a phenomenally primordial way in Dasein's
authentic Being-a-whole."22 It is only when I confront the absolute
limitations placed upon my possibilities for experience by my past
"thrownness"in the world and the absolute limit of my being-toward-
the-future in death that I first come to experience the authentic
wholeness of my own existence.
21 BT, p. 451.
22
BT, p. 451.
 HEIDEGGER'SCRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S 373
NOTION OF TIME
Though for Hegel, the roots of the problem are differently con-
ceived, the basic existential problem is the same. Just as for Heideg-
ger, the western philosophical tradition is characterized by the cover-
ing up of the question of Being and thus the concealing of the ground
for the possibility of the ultimate significance of experience, so, for
Hegel, traditional philosophical reflection has barred the possibility
for a finite wholeness of human experience. It is in the manner in
which Hegel analyzes the roots of this problem, however, that his dif-
ferences with Heidegger begin to stand out in boldest relief. For
Hegel, experience can never possess an ultimate significance of its
own so long as it is beset by the opposition of a subject over against an
object. This opposition can assume a manifold of forms, from the
abstract relation of an observing subject to a "given" world to the
relationship of a self-abasing religious consciousness to a transcendent
God. In every case, however, the ultimate significance of con-
sciousness is objectified and set over against consciousness itself, thus
denying to concretely existing consciousness its own internal
significance.
On the other hand, and this constitutes Hegel's distinctive
positive claim, the very fact that consciousness can so transcend itself
in the direction of ultimate meaning involves also a decidedly positive
aspect. As Hegel puts it, "Consciousness, however, is to itself its own
notion; thereby it immediately transcends what is limited, and, since
this latter belongs to it, consciousness transcends its own self."23This
self-transcendence of consciousness, however, does not mean that its
finitude becomes cancelled in the process. Rather, because of the very
fact that consciousness isfinite does it make sense to say that it can
transcend itself, since for Hegel, transcendence is a relation obtaining
between the finitude of consciousness and the transcendent ultimacy
which it discovers and participates in via reflection.
Thus, for Hegel, the question of the possibility of the finite
wholeness of experience can be answered only when consciousness has
come to the realization that the ultimacy which it formerly took itself
to be confronting as an object has its basis in the finitude of con-
sciousness itself. Once this realization has occurred, it further
becomes clear that neither consciousness nor its objects are absolutely
fixed "entities"; instead, consciousness realizes that its own most
authentic being is the process of apprehending itself in its own objec-
tifying activities. However, since this process permeates all realms of
experience and is constituting for all modes of Being-human, con-
sciousness is, while finite in relation to any particular object which it
23 Phenomenology, p. 138.
374 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

takes to be defining for itself, likewise ultimate and whole in the pro-
cess of relating itself to and discovering its own activity in its objects.
Hegel refers to this process as Geist, which he describes as "the move-
ment of the self which empties (externalizes) itself of self and sinks
itself within its own substance, and qua subject, both has gone out of
that substance into itself, making its substance an object and a con-
tent, and also supersedes this distinction of objectivity and content."24
Because Geist is the process of the reconciliation of finite con-
sciousness with the products of its own activity in transcending itself,
it must be inherently complete and whole. There can, that is, be
nothing opposing consciousness which does not derive its significance
from consciousness' own activity, and it is upon this basis that finite
human consciousness can apprehend its own experience as forming a
whole which is genuinely ultimate and yet founded in consciousness'
own finitude.
It is only upon this basis that we can understand Hegel's concep-
tion of the relation of time and Geist. For Hegel, time does not repre-
sent a "given" transcendental structure of experience which con-
stitutes the finitude of existence. Rather, time itself, as such an
abstract determination, is discovered in the dialectical process of
reflection by which consciousness apprehends itself as the source of its
significance. When time is removed from the concreteness of ex-
perience and established as a "condition for all possible experiences,"
it must necessarily appear as abstract and infinite. Indeed, Hegel
describes time as "the pure self in external form, apprehended in in-
tuition, and not grasped and understood by the self.""2 Time, that is,
appears as an objectified other, though as a pure "abstractum"
awaiting a determination by the meaning-bestowing activity of the
self. Only when the self does not recognize its own wholeness as involv-
ed in the activity of Geist does Geist appear as "fallen" into the
"mathematical infinity" of time as Heidegger claims. "Time therefore
appears as spirit's destiny and necessity, where spirit is not yet com-
plete within itself; it is the necessity compelling spirit to enrich the
share self-consciousness has in consciousness, to put into motion the
immediacy of the inherent nature (which is the form in which the
substance is present in consciousness); or conversely, to realize and
make manifest what is inherent, regarded as inward and immanent,
to make manifest that which is at first within -i.e., to vindicate it for
spirit's certainty of self."26
24
Phenomenology, p. 804.
25 Phenomenology, p. 800.
26 Ibid.
 HEIDEGGER'S CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S 375
NOTION OF TIME

It should by now be clear, however, that in no sense is Hegel's

conception of Geistfounded upon the "ordinaryconception" of time,
as Heidegger claims. Rather, the conception of time as an infinite
series is, for Hegel, also an abstraction out of the fullness of
something more fundamental, namely, the self-completing activity of
Geist. Simply to say, with Heidegger, that, for Hegel, Geist or Spirit
"falls into time" is to fail to realize the role which the reflective activi-
ty of Geist plays in the philosophy of Hegel. For such an objection
assumes that time is conceived as somehow existing over against and
in the face of Geist; it ignores the fact that the "ordinary conception
of time" likewise itself "falls out of Geist" in the process of reflection.
Heidegger thus fails to come to grips with Hegel at a sufficiently
fundamental level. Rather, his criticism of Hegel is based upon a
limited interpretation of the nature of Hegel's thought, namely, upon
the mutual objectification and subsequent opposition of both time in
the ordinary sense and Geist. This does not mean, however, that there
does not remain a fundamental quarrel between the philosophies of
Hegel and Heidegger, only that Heidegger's own discussion fails to il-
luminate the grounds of this feud.
In conclusion, I want briefly to indicate what is the fundamental
ground for this quarrel and suggest the problem which this poses for
our present philosophical reflection. We have already indicated that
Hegel and Heidegger agree on at least one crucial issue: the demand
that the "bad infinite" of a mathematical-like succession be overcome
as the basis for the way in which experience is understood. Only when
this is accomplished can man's temporally finite existence be seen as
somehow ultimately meaningful and whole. However, as Heidegger
himself indicates, though his results seem to agree with those of
Hegel, the two thinkers differ radically in the respective approaches
taken to these issues.
For Heidegger, there seems to be a constant ambiguity in the
role which the fundamental ontology of Being and Time is supposed
to play with reference to our authentic possibility for Being-a-whole.
On the one hand, Heideg er seems to insist that his philosophical pro-
ject is absolutely essential in order to raise again the question of Being
which the western philosophical tradition has covered over. Heideg-
ger, indeed, characterizes his project as a necessary destruction of the
history of western metaphysics, in order to recover the primordial
meaning of the question of Being. On the other hand, his preparatory
analysis of the existential structure of Dasein is possible only if Dasein
can already exist in the mode of authenticity and Being-a-whole.
Heidegger writes: "Because Dasein is in each case essentially its own
376 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

possibility, it can, in its very Being, 'choose' itself and win itself."27
Though Heidegger's fundamental ontology may be able to reveal the
structure of what it means to exist authentically, it can neither, simp-
ly of itself, bring this about nor is it necessary to the existential
possibility of Being-a-whole. Thus, put in more general terms, we can
say that, for Heidegger, philosophical reflection, even conceived as
authentic fundamental ontology, is not essential to the existential
possibility of Being-a-whole, no matter how much it may be the case
that inauthentic reflection can bar us from this mode of Being.
For Hegel, by contrast, Being-a-whole is only possible through a
philosophically reflective comprehension of existence. It is in the act
of reflection itself that we first come to the awareness that the finite
individual can participate in the reflective process of Geist and ap-
propriate its wholeness to his own Being. For any other mode of Being
short of participation in the reflective activity of Geist is beset by fun-
damental dichotomies which ab initio bar the way to the realization
of ultimacy in finite Being. Unless reflection is forced beyond any
such dichotomies to the point at which it becomes self-reflection, ex-
perience will appear as an infinite vacillation between subject and ob-
ject, occurring in the mathematical-like series of infinite time. Thus,
for Hegel, it is only through a reflection which enters into the
wholeness of the self-reflection of Geist that the "ordinary notion of
time" can be broken through and true ultimacy can manifest itself in
the midst of finite experience.
Such a difference, however, poses a radical problem for the
philosopher. On the one hand, if reflection is merely a particular
mode of experience with no necessary connection to the authentic
possibilities of experience, the value of reflection itself becomes pro-
blematic and one may be inclined to claim, as Heidegger sometimes
appears to do in his later works, that poetry or some sort of religion,
rather than philosophical reflection, must be taken as the genuine
place in which Being reveals itself. On the other hand, if reflection is
the privileged process in which we first come to acknowledge
something 'ultimate in experience, one is led, as was Hegel, to make
absolute claims on behalf of a philosophical system -of dialectical
reflection which seem to undermine the necessity that I, as an in-
dividual, must participate in the process of this reflection. In the
former case, philosophy is made subservient to the more "individual"
experiences of poetic or religious modes of consciousness. In the lat-
ter, the absoluteness of reflection itself seems to absorb the individual

27
BT, p. 68.
 HEIDEGGER'S CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S 377
NOTION OF TIME

into itself. It is this which, I believe, lies at the basis of the quarrel
between Hegel and Heidegger, and it is a battle the outcome of which
is not yet clear.
JERE PAUL SURBER.
UNIVERSITY OF DENVER.