'Hegel's Logic is all about the absolute.' Discuss.

Chris Bailey
Essentially, the whole of Hegel's philosophy, not just his Logic, is "all about the
absolute". He reiterated this continuously.
Hegel always referred to his philosophy as 'speculative', contrasting this with
'reflective' philosophy. The term 'speculative philosophy' has a long history and had a
clear meaning in the philosophical circles that Hegel was writing for. Basically, it
does mean "all about the absolute". It was used by scholastics and mystics to describe
attempts to go beyond the immediate appearance of things to know God. Nicholas of
Cusa (1401-1464) called his philosophy speculatio, describing it as an attempt to
know the absolutum - being that transcended finite determinations. Kant revived the
term negatively to describe rationalist attempts to go beyond appearance and know the
transcendent. He rejected such attempts, but the term was taken up by Fichte,
Schelling and Hegel in a positive sense, because they believed Kant's restriction of
knowledge to mere appearances could be overcome.
Kant established a dualism between two stems of human cognition, sensibility and
understanding. Objects were given to us through the first of these, but could only be
thought of through the second. He speculated that there might be a "common root" to
these two forms of cognition, but that this could never be known because it was
beyond human experience.
Philosophers following on from Kant inevitably speculated about such an 'absolute
reality'. Fichte posited the 'Absolute I', with the sensible world as the product of this
universal subject. A different approach was taken by the German Romantics who
reasoned that an adaptation of Spinoza's Substance could form the basis for an
Absolute that overcame Kantian dualism.
In his first published work, The Difference Between Fichte's and Schelling's System of
Philosophy, 1801, Hegel associated himself squarely with this second approach.
Despite his disagreement with Fichte, he nonetheless praises him for "reawakening
Reason to the lost concept of genuine speculation" (DFS 118). He attacks the
dominant tradition of 'reflective philosophy' that since the 17th century had
abandoned speculation concerning the Absolute in favour of a detailed consideration
of particularities. Hegel describes such philosophy as that of the Understanding only,
whilst speculative philosophy is that of Reason, which raises itself above the
limitations of Understanding:
For Reason, finding consciousness caught in particularities, only becomes
philosophical speculation by raising itself to itself, putting its trust only in itself
and the Absolute which at that moment becomes its object.(DFS 88)
He insists:
The task of philosophy is to construct the Absolute for consciousness.(DFS. 94)
Intellectual intuition
Both Fichte and Schelling based their claim that it was possible to know absolute
reality on 'intellectual intuition'. Schelling's own version of intellectual intuition had
been developed from that of the German Romantics. Reasoning that the Absolute
must constitute the identity of subject and object they concluded that it could never be
known by conceptual thought because this must inevitably divide this unity. They
believed that knowledge of the Absolute was only possible through "aesthetic
intuition". Schelling broadly supported this position, but still thought it possible to
develop this into a philosophical knowledge of the Absolute.
In the Difference essay Hegel pays lip service to the concept of intellectual intuition,
but in one striking passage he corrects the Romantics and seems to propose a way
forward whereby the Absolute can be known conceptually:
The separating activity is reflection; considered in isolation, reflection suspends
identity and the Absolute, and every cognition should strictly be considered an
error because there is a separating in it. This aspect of cognition - that it is a
separating and its product is something finite - turns all knowledge into
something limited and hence into a falsehood. But inasmuch as every knowledge
is at the same time an identity, there is no absolute error, - The claims of
separation must be admitted just as much as those of identity.... Hence, the
Absolute itself is the identity of identity and non-identity; being opposed and
being one are both together in it. (DFS 156)
The insistence of Schelling and the Romantics that the Absolute was only the identity
of subject and object meant that the Absolute was something transcendent beyond the
world of conceptual cognition, which could only know an appearance. But Hegel was
proposing that this appearance must itself be an aspect of the Absolute. The universe
as a whole was the Absolute in existence. The concepts of the Understanding
expressed the Absolute in finite human thought. As such they inevitably produced a
falsehood if kept in separation from the Absolute. But Understanding nonetheless had
its place and could not just be jumped over. To reach the truth it was necessary to
bring the finite concepts of the Understanding continually into their correct
relationship with the Absolute:
For speculation everything determinate has reality and truth only in the cognition
of its connection with the Absolute. (DFS 99)
This is the beginning of the path that soon led Hegel to reject the concept of
intellectual intuition in favour of a speculative method of discursive reasoning to
know the Absolute, the method he eventually used in his Logic.
In October 1802 Hegel began a new series of Lectures at Jena University on “Logic
and Metaphysics”. His proposed syllabus shows how he was developing this method.
Once more he confirms “philosophy as the science of truth has infinite cognition, or
the cognition of the Absolute, as its objective concern.” (FK 9) and repeats his view
that “Finite cognition, or reflection stands opposed to this [infinite] cognition, or
speculation.”(FK 9). Developing his earlier theme that this finite cognition can only
have reality and truth through its connection to the Absolute, he is now more explicit
about a way of doing this:
finite cognition abstracts only from the absolute identity of that which in rational
cognition is connected to another or posited as equal to another - and only
because of this abstraction is it finite cognition. So in rational cognition or
philosophy, the forms of finite cognition are posited as well, but at the same time
their finitude is nullified in virtue of the way they are connected with each other. -
Thus the objective concern of a true logic is this: to set up the forms of finitude
not just bundled together empirically, but just as they come forth from Reason.
(FK 9)
He makes clear that by these “forms of finitude” he means “The universal forms, or
laws, or Categories of finitude” and the task is “to set forth these forms as a reflection
of the Absolute, whether they be subjective or objective on their finite side.” (FK 10)
He believes that through such a logic “we shall make the transition to genuine
philosophy or metaphysics. ... the oldest of old things … freeing it from the
misunderstanding in which these recent times of unphilosophy have buried it.” (FK
10-11)
Essentially, the basic method of the Logic is already defined here. The connection of
the finite categories of cognition with the Absolute must be grasped through their
connection between each other.
But there is a problem yet to be overcome. In this syllabus Hegel speaks of the
Categories “in their objective aspect as well as their subjective one (i.e. in abstraction
from the difference)”. (FK 10) But it would seem that the Categories must either be
subjective thought forms as Kant insisted or objective properties of the universe as
Aristotle thought. Before he can proceed to knowing the Absolute through logic Hegel
must first show that they are both subjective and objective through establishing that
there is an identity of thinking and being. He attempts to do this in the
Phenomenology of Spirit, 1807, which he describes as providing a “ladder” to the
Logic.
The Logic
In the Encyclopedia Logic Hegel says the categories derived by speculative logic:
may be looked upon as definitions of the Absolute … at least the first and third
category in every triad may (EL. § 75)
The first category of the Logic, Being, corresponds with the definition of the Absolute
given by the Romantics. But whereas they believed conceptual thought could go no
further in defining the Absolute, Hegel now shows his way forward:
if in the intuition or thought of them [the Absolute or God], there is more than
there is in pure being, then this more should first emerge in a knowledge which is
discursive and not figurative; (SL 65)
In the chapter on “The absolute” Hegel explains more clearly what he means by this:
The task is indeed to demonstrate what the absolute is. But this demonstration
cannot be either a determining or an external reflection by virtue of which
determinations of the absolute would result, but is rather the exposition of the
absolute, more precisely the absolute's own exposition, and only a displaying of
what it is. (SL 466)
Further on in this chapter he accuses Spinoza of applying such a method of external
reflection in trying to determine the attributes of Substance. In doing so he explains
his own dialectical method:
“Determination is negation” is the absolute principle of Spinozist philosophy;
this true and simple insight is at the basis of the absolute unity of substance. But
Spinoza stops short at negation as determinateness or quality; he does not
advance to the cognition of it as absolute, that is, self-negating negation;
therefore his substance does not contain the absolute form, and the cognition of it
is not a cognition from within. (SL 472)
Every determination of the Absolute, starting with Being, must also be a negation, but
that which is negated is also something. Since there can be nothing outside the
Absolute this other something must also be brought within the Absolute, reconciling it
with its opposite and thus resulting in a new definition of the Absolute. The
reconciliation can take place either through developing a new term uniting the
opposites or by showing the fundamental identity of the supposedly opposed terms.
This is the dialectical method Hegel employs throughout the Logic to develop the
categories out of each other. It relies entirely on being “all about the Absolute”.
Bibliography
Beiser, Frederick C. German Idealism. The struggle against subjectivism, 1781-1801.
Harvard University Press. 2002.
Hegel. Routledge. 2005.
Hegel. (DFS) The Difference Between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy,
translated by H.S Harris and W. Cerf, State University of New York Press. 1977.
(EL) Hegel's Logic: Part One of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences,
translated by William Wallace. Oxford University Press 1975.
(FK) Faith & Knowledge, translated by W. Cerf and H.S Harris, State University
of New York Press. 1977.
(SL) The Science of Logic, translated by George di Giovanni, Cambridge
University Press 2010.
Magee, Glenn Alexander. The Hegel Dictionary. Continuum. 2010
Stern, Robert. Hegelian Metaphysics. Oxford University Press. 2009.