1

Chapter two. Being-here.

In the previous chapter Hegel showed how we can always relate any situation to other situations,

that is, to find other situations from an arbitrary situation, whether it be empty or non-empty: if the

situation in question is non-empty, we can abstract everything from it and thus find a non-empty

situation, and if it is an empty situation, we can take the empty situation as object of a non-empty

situation. The aim of this chapter is then to show that such situations can be unified in a yet

stronger fashion than just being related to each other or being alternatives of one another, provided

that they are non-empty situations: we can always find a context according to which the objects in

those situations are identified, that is, in which the situations describe only parts or aspects of one

object. Note that Hegel’s argument doesn’t give a criterion of when we should look at things from

such a context of identity: to determine this we might need some further empirical knowledge.

Translating the term Dasein is problematic. Miller suggested determinate being which has

not been generally accepted because the determinateness in question is relative to the stage of the

development of Logic: what is determinate at this stage, might be quite indeterminate according to

later stages. Burbidge has suggested speaking of a being – suggesting thus a being among many

beings. Firstly, at least we should speak of a state of being, and secondly, it has been felt by many

that this is not sufficiently clear expression. Di Giovanni prefers existence, which is at least neutral

in its connotations, but might be confused with existence that occurs later in Logic. I have here

spoken of “being here” or of “state of being here”, which brings out the fact that Dasein is a state

among many states: when we are here, we are in a certain situation, differentiated from other

situations.

1./159. A state of being here [or in a certain situation] is a determinate state of being [or situation]. The way the state is

determined can be taken as an existing entity or a quality. Qualities differentiate objects from one another and limit thus

their existence to certain situations. Objects at this stage are finite and not just externally compared with other objects,

but they point through their qualities to situations where they do not exist. Objects with the quality of finity point to

infinite objects. The difference of finite and infinite objects can be integrated as aspects into states of being

independently.

The chapter begins familiarly with a preliminary statement of what can be expected and of the

primary stages on the way. That a state of being here or Dasein is a determinate state – that is, a

state among many other possible states and situations – is already familiar to us: this structure of

many determinate states of being was the result of the chapter on being. Now, Hegel continues,

every such a determinate situation has a unique determination: a list of situations differing from that

determinate situation suffices for such a determination or quality – note that Hegel does not say that

2

any cogniser should be able to differentiate between these qualities, although undoubtedly every

cogniser is potentially able to distinguish between some qualities, thus making it possible for her to

follow constructions of this chapter. Hegel points out also that these qualities can themselves be

taken as beings or independent objects – an important remark which provides us with plurality of

objects and non-empty situations to work with in this chapter.

Now, if we have in a particular situation something – i.e. some object – this object can be

differentiated from an object in any other situation – in Hegelian parlance, from other: their

qualities or their peculiar situations separate them from one another. If there just are such objects in

different situations – and there must be, because there is a plurality of qualities and situations – then

it makes sense to speak of these objects as finite and vanishing: both of these words refer to the fact

that there are some non-empty situations in which these objects do not exist. Furthermore, Hegel

wants to say, this finity is not just contextual in the sense that a finite object would be finite only in

comparison with other objects: beginning only with a situation with such an object we can always

find other objects in other situations – this might be done, for instance, by the already quite familiar

method of taking situations – like the situation with the objects in question – as new objects.

The main task of this chapter would be to show that beyond such finite objects there are also

infinite objects – or more accurately, objects that are infinite in some context. Hegel adds still a

long explanation how infinite and finite objects must not be understood as two species of objects,

but instead contextually: objects can be finite in some sense and infinite in another. Hegel tries not

just to show that from a situation with finite objects one could find or construct a situation with

infinite objects and vice versa, but that one could also find for finite objects in one situation another

context where these exactly same objects would be infinite also and vice versa: he tries to show that

objects different in one sense can be identical in another and vice versa.

2./160. The investigation of states of being here falls thus into three parts: investigations of A) states of being here

generally, B) states with differing objects or states of finity and C) states of qualitative infinity.

How natural is the division into three sections in this chapter? First of all, there are natural division

points at the places where one section is replaced by another: the chapter begins with a study of

determinate, but not necessarily non-empty situations and argues, firstly, for the existence of many

non-empty situations, then proceeds, secondly, to show how the different objects in different

situations can be seen as mere aspects of one infinite object, and finally, ends with a proof that an

infinite object can be seen as finite in some other context. Despite this naturalness, Hegel’s division

can be criticised for its superfluity. The main task of this chapter should be to show the possible

infinity of finite objects or to prove that we can identify things differentiated in one context: this

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covers the second section of chapter. Now, the first section and its argument are based on a method

already familiar from the first chapter, that is, the method of taking situations as objects: thus, the

first section seems like a mere appendix to the first chapter. Furthermore, the third section of this

chapter is more of an explication and almost an analysis than construction of something truly

original: we already know that we can always find for every situation new situations with differing

objects. Hence, the proper task of this chapter is hidden by the two secondary tasks, which are

raised to a place they are not worthy of.

A. Being here as such.

A state of being here or of determinate being is a situation related to alternative situations, for

instance, the cow is on the field, but it might be in the barn. The way Hegel has introduced the

determinate being was through the difference of empty and non-empty situations, but there is no

reason why all or even some states of determinate being should be non-empty. For instance,

feelings such as feelings of happiness and unhappiness might be seen as situations – determinate

situations, because e.g. a feeling of happiness would differ from a feeling of unhappiness, but also

empty, because in feeling happy we do not necessarily cognise any determinate objects. Feelings

belong undoubtedly more to a subject than to an objective world, but we don’t have to imagine a

subject in order to think of or model structures with many related and still empty situations: picture,

for instance, a world without any objects where time is still running. The aim of this section is to

show that whatever set of related situations we have to begin with, we can always find some related

non-empty situations in some context: the argument uses the familiar method of taking situations as

virtual objects. The division of this section is far from satisfactory: the movement from Dasein to

qualities is more an analysis than a true construction, whereas the transition to Etwas truly

requires a construction of new contexts.

1./161. a) We start from states of being here in general. It is possible to separate the general nature of a state as a state of

being from the particular way how it is determined or its quality.

Two situations share always some general characteristics: this particular moment of me writing an

article is on that account similar with other moments when I have been writing other articles,

although the weather would have been more pleasant. At the very least, every two states of being

share the characteristics of being states of being: they both belong to a special class of objects, that

of situations. We might thus say that there is a certain context in which all situations would be same.

In addition to this common characteristic, there must also be other characteristics differentiating the

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situations: at the very least, a situation A differs from a situation B by the obvious characteristic that

in one context A differs from B. Note that the separation of qualities may differ from one context to

another: two situations might be different according to one context and identical according to

another – for instance, a situation with a cow at the field and a situation with a cow in the barn

differ, if attention is focused on the place where the cow is, but they are identical in a context which

emphasises the similarity of the objects. Hence, the differentiating of situations and qualities

depends on the level of accuracy, on which the descriptions are made: qualitative differences are

relative, not absolute.

2./162. b) As situations or states of being hold in one context and do not hold in another, similarly qualities are

instantiated in some contexts – real – and not instantiated in others – negations. Holding and not-holding are contextual

aspects of one and the same state of being.

Suppose we have fixed some order of qualities according to which we classify different situations,

for instance, a structure consisting of the qualities of cow being at the field and the same cow being

in the barn. If the situation at present is qualified by a cow being at the field, then the corresponding

quality is a reality – according to the present situation, that is. Because we are now looking at

situations related to other situations and qualities are nothing but those things which differentiate

these situations, then there must be another situation, such as the situation tomorrow, in which the

other quality – that of cow being in the barn – is instantiated. Obviously, according to this other

situation the quality of cow being at the field is not a reality – instead, it is something that does not

hold or a negation of some reality. In a structure of many related situations, it is possible that a

quality is now either a reality or a negation – that is, it is possible that one of the situations is

currently the designated or the actual situation. It is equally possible that a situation is non-

designated. These two possibilities of a possible situation – holding or not-holding, on in the terms

of qualities of situations, being a reality or a negation – are merely two aspects of one and the same

situation: a possible situation in which a cow is at the field is a situation with the cow at the field,

no matter whether it is merely possible or also actual. A situation holding and the same situation not

holding are two further situations, both sharing the same object, that is, the situation of the first

level. Because of the identity of the objects within these different situations, we may separate this

particular object from the two situations of the second level: the object in question is reflected into

itself, as Hegel says, that is, the underlying identity is revealed behind the aspectual difference.

3./163. This state of being is then something that exists: an object in a determinate situation.

The final outcome is, of course, obvious already from the beginning: the situation we have

5

investigated is itself a possible object. What Hegel has also shown is that this object can also be in

some manner separated from situations in which it exists: the object in question is not confined

merely to one particular situation, but it has many aspects and exists hence in many situations. This

result is important not merely because it shows that an object can be independent of at least some

situation, but also because it already lays down a foundation for what becomes an argument for

transition to the next chapter: perhaps all different objects could be seen as aspects of one and the

same object.

a. Being here in general.

The reader could be first struck by the superfluity of the title: the general section on being here as

such has a first part carrying the title “being here in general”. This seems to be no more than a

nominal distinction, especially as Hegel himself spoke, in the general introduction to the being here

as such, of being here as such, when he should have, according to the distinction, spoken of being

here in general. If one wanted to find some role for the Dasein überhaupt, it would have to mean –

compared with the quality – the general aspect of all states of being, that is, their being situations

and thus identical according to some context. Not only is the title of this section superfluous, but a

feeling of redundancy flows over the whole section. Nothing particularly new is learned, especially

as the transition to the investigation of determinations – the main task of this section – is merely an

analysis of what is in front of us: a situation related to other situations must differ from these other

situations according to some context.

1./164. The result of a state of becoming is a state of being here, which unifies states of being and nothing in as simple

manner as possible. Because of its simplicity, it seems a given and the first state: the state [or method] of becoming has

been abstracted away. It is a state that holds, related to a previous empty state that does not hold.

The stage of Logic we have reached is already a result of construction: we began from an individual

situation and through a construction – something that could be called becoming – we found out a

context in which other situations were related to the original situation. Now, Hegel says, the result

should be taken as simple. There are two meanings this simplicity has. Firstly, the resulting state is

not a state of becoming – that is, it is not a state of mere possibility or a second order state

indicating a relation between two states: in analogy to a game of chess, it is a position and not a

move from a position to another. Secondly, its simplicity means that we should take it as abstractly

as possible. Logic began from the most abstract state of being possible, so that any subject of

cognition could have the means to reach it. Similarly, we must now find the most abstract state of

being here, in order that anyone who had knowledge of some determinate situation could

6

understand it. As I already indicated, the requirement for abstractness makes it necessary to once

more abstract from all objects there might be. Furthermore, we must abstract from the fact that the

state of being-here we have reached is a construction or a result of some previous state of being: we

have no guarantee that other subjects would know what it means to have a state resulting from some

other state. Hence, we must suppose that the determinate situation we are investigating is the first

situation we are acquainted with: we must suppose that it is a given. This sort of move is one Hegel

seems to make regularly at the beginning of every chapter: Hegel takes the result reached at the end

of the previous chapter and abstracts from it all unnecessary characteristics which are not yet to be

investigated.

The current position is a result of a move from a previous position in one sense, but in

another sense we can look at it as the first position – we can abstract from the fact that we have

moved to this position from another position. An interesting question is whether a position must

always be preceded by a move – whether the situations precede or succeed the construction of

situations. The first position of the Logic – the beginning with the state of pure being – can be seen

as preceded by a move, that is, by the move of abstracting from the common experience to the

empty situation. But in the context of the Logic the beginning is undoubtedly the first position, not

preceded by any move: otherwise it wouldn’t be the first position. Yet, this is not the whole truth.

We may say that the first stage of Logic is not yet a true position in the sense of being one among

many possible positions. Such a framework of positions – a space of situations, if we may use the

term – is found out only after the first move – the construction of becoming. This is the order in

which Logic must develop: moves of constructions precede the admittance of the existence of

positions, because in Logic one cannot accept any structure one couldn’t find an example of. In the

real philosophy, the order is just the opposite: we begin with a framework of given spatial positions

– in the philosophy of nature – or with a framework of given natural qualities – in the philosophy of

spirit – and only then proceed to discover that we can move through these positions or change those

qualities.

The state of being here that one actually chooses as her object here is irrelevant: one may

take “cow in the barn” as well as “me writing an article” or “revolutionaries storming at Bastille” as

the required situation. The content of the situation or state of being is not what interests us, but

merely the fact that it is some situation and related to another. What we do know of any state of

being here is that it is in some sense a unity of being and nothing. It is itself in some sense both a

state of being, in one context, and a state of nothing, in another context. In this section, Hegel

focuses on the first aspect of the Dasein. A state of being-here is a state of being, that is, it is some

situation, which according to the situation itself at least is the actual situation that occurs at the

moment. A state of nothingness or of pure being – if it even comes across here – is for now merely

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one of the other situations to which the situation in question is related: generally, there are other

possible situations which do not hold according to this situation.

2./165. State of being-here is not just state of being. Etymologically it is a state of being in a determinate place, although

one must beware of taking the place as necessarily spatial. According to its construction, a state of being-here is a unity

of being and non-being: the whole state of being is a situation like the others, but in another sense it can be

differentiated from other states. This possibility of difference is the determination of the state of being-here.

Hegel notes that Dasein taken literally – as da-sein – means being in some place or being here.

Furthermore, he notes that the place must not be understood here as a spatial determination. This

doesn’t mean that a spatial position would not be an example of Dasein. On the contrary, spatial

positions are one form of states of being-here: a spatial place is a situation related to many other

situations. Hegel is merely denying that space would be the only example of Dasein. Yet, we may

conjecture that frameworks of many determinate situations are somehow analogical to spatial

frameworks: for instance, we may speak of qualitative spaces, such as e.g. the space of colours.

This similarity with spatial frameworks justifies further my use of the word “situation” to describe

states of being: a situation, like a spatial place, is something in which there are or might be things.

Still, a situation might not be spatially determined: if I am in a situation where two dogs are running

behind me, no indication of my spatial position is yet given.

State of being-here is not just a state of being. As a state of being or situation it is identical

with every other situation: situations cannot be differentiated on the account of their being situations.

Yet, in another sense, a state of being-here differs from other states of being: otherwise it wouldn’t

be a determinate situation, that is, related to other situations. It is this differing from other situations

– the non-being of a situation, that is, the fact that according to other situations, the situation in

question is not the designated or actual situation – which determines it. Note that we need not

suppose that all different situations have determinations which we could be aware of: only that

those situations we know to be determinate have some determination by which we can differentiate

it from other situations. Apart from those situations we know to be determinate, other determinate

situations have also some determinations, but these determinations may only be the trivial facts that

the situations in question are precisely the situations they are and differ from certain other situations.

3./166. Already in becoming we could have seen that being [or holding] is merely an aspect of situations and that there

are other aspects. But this would have been only our reflection. Here the negative aspect is posited [or constructed] from

the very structure of a state of being here. Only what is explicitly posited at a certain stage is the proper content of that

stage: all else is part of a preliminary reflection. At first, we know a state of being only as an [actual] state of being; its

negative aspect has been constructed, when its quality is seen as a negation, when its objects are differentiated from

other objects etc. All reflection cannot be handled, but it must be clearly demarcated from the proper development of

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logic.

Wedged between rather unimportant paragraphs is a statement of utmost importance. On the outside,

it may seem to be like a familiar denial of all pre-reflections of issues not yet handled. On a closer

look, Hegel commits himself to a form of constructivism: at a particular stage of Logic one must

accept only what has been posited in it – in other words, one must accept the existence of only those

structures, instances of which have been constructed, and these structures must have only those

characteristics that one has found the structures to have in some context one has constructed. A

Hegelian proof is then not just proof of some fact or of existence of some object or even of a

possibility of such a fact or thing, but a guide book of how to find or construct examples of these

facts and things: for instance, Hegel does not just state that there are existing things, but sets out to

provide examples of them in the form of situations.

Hegel’s own example of his constructivism is the gradual revelation of the possible

negativity or non-existence hidden in any actual situation. Already at the stage of becoming, we

knew that we could find new situations from the given situation, but because we hadn’t actually

constructed any other situations, we did not yet have a full evidence for the existence of other

situations. After using the construction, we could be sure of the existence of other possible

situations. At the stage we have reached, they are still merely possible situations and the situation

we are investigating is the actual or designated one. When we see that other situations could also be

designated, we see that this current situation could be in some context only possible – a mere

negation of the reality. And when we after that take the situations finally as objects in situations of

their own, we see that as objects they are finite in the sense that they do not exist in situations where

other objects exist – a further proof of their negativity.

4./167. Being-here corresponds to the being of the first chapter. A state of pure being is indeterminate, but a state of

being-here is determinate: because of this determinateness, it has a more complex structure.

The section ends with some trivialities. A state of being-here corresponds to a state of being: such a

comment raises an interest in those scholars who are keen on the architectonic nature of Hegel’s

system – one part of the system should correspond with other similarly situated parts of the system,

that is, the first sections of every chapter should have something in common etc. At this particular

place, there is nothing mystical in the supposed correspondence: a state of being-here or a

determinate situation is a state of being or a situation. Yet, there is also an obvious difference,

because determinate situations form only a one species of situations. Determinate situation, as

determinate, differs from the empty and unrelated situation in the beginning: there is much more to

explicate or analyse in a situation related to other situations than in a situation not related to

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anything.

b. Quality

A determinate situation or state of being has two aspects. Firstly, it is a situation: in this respect it

does not differ from other situations and is practically identical with all of them. Secondly, as we

saw in the previous section, it is also a determinate situation, that is, it differs from other situations

in some respect. It is this second aspect which interests us in this section: we abstract from the fact

that all situations are situations and concentrate on their differing qualities. The primary purpose

of this section is to show the relativity of situations: while certain things are real from the viewpoint

of this situation, they might not be from the viewpoint of other situations with differing qualities.

1./168. The aspects of identifying with other situations and differentiating from them are only aspects of the same

situation: a state of being-here is always determined, or the situation as differentiated is not a particular species of the

same situation as identified, which would be a universal genus. These two aspects have not yet been separated – and

they are always connected, because of their unity – but we can investigate them as separated.

A state of being-here is not the actual state of being or reference point in all possible situations, or

more precisely, it is not the only possible situation: this is implied by the definition of a state of

being-here as one state among many others. Thus, whenever there is an arbitrary state of being-here,

investigated only in its general aspect of being a situation, it is always possible to find its

determination, that is, to view it from an aspect where it is separated from other situations. Hegel’s

comparison of the relationship between Dasein and its determination with the relationship of

general genus and particular species is enlightening. Hegel emphasises their difference, but there

must obviously be some similarity in order to make the comparison worthwhile. A genus in

Hegelian philosophy is also an aspect of identity – all flowers are identical when it comes to their

being flowers – and similarly, separation of species is an aspect of difference – a rose differs from a

daffodil, although both are flowers. Despite the similarity, these relationships differ also in some

sense, namely, in that a genus and species are more of two different sorts or levels of objects,

whereas a situation as situation in general and a situation as determinate are truly meant to be no

more than different aspects of the same object: a flower is an abstraction that has a potential to be a

rose as well as a daffodil, whereas a situation where a cow is on the field is always that particular

situation, even as a situation in general. Undoubtedly, we could separate these two aspects. For

instance, we could forget all the other possible situations and investigate only one situation as a

situation in general: we have seen in the first chapter that such an indeterminate situation is always

determinate in another sense, because it is always possible to find other situations to compare it

10

with. The purpose of this section is to look at the other aspect of a determinate situation, that is, the

aspect of it being determined or separated from other situations: thus, we abstract from the fact that

all these situations are actually same in some sense, namely, in being all situations.

2./169. The aspect of determinateness as separated from the aspect of identity – as independently existing

determinateness – is the quality of the state of being. Determinateness is a more general term than quality, because e.g.

quantities are also determinations. Because of their simplicity, there is nothing more to say of qualities in general.

We may abstract from the fact that all states of being are identical or similar as states of being and

concentrate only at the fact of their differing from one another. This aspect of difference of

determinate situation, separated from any reference to identity with other situations, Hegel calls the

quality of that situation. Note that although quality is here defined in relation with situations – for

instance, as “sheep being white” is a quality of a situation where a sheep is white – later, when the

interest is concentrated on non-empty situations and objects in them, the quality is used more often

in relation to objects – for instance, as “whiteness” is a quality of the sheep in the previous situation.

Note also that the separation of things or situations to qualities or the structure of a quality space

depends on the accuracy of the viewpoint of which we are looking things: all flowers agree on

differing from trees, but from another perspective, rose is quite different from a lily. Note finally

that there is no reason why a quality shouldn’t be complex: “raiding of the Bastille” is as fine a

quality as “being red”. The more complex cases merely distinguish themselves from what could be

called mere qualities by being also something else than qualities.

The relationship of quality (Qualität) and determinateness (Bestimmtheit) in Hegel is

complex. Firstly, quality and determinateness are indicated as at least near synonyms by Hegel’s

giving both as possible titles for the first division of being. Yet, in another sense, determinateness

refers to a wider class of determinations, including e.g. quantities in addition to qualities. The

seeming ambiguousness is easily solved. All determinations are qualities, at least from some

perspective or viewpoint. For instance, quantities are characterised by the fact that their difference

creates no true difference or that it is only a difference of an aspect: although I would gain few

grams I would still be the same person as yesterday. Yet, when we abstract from all such aspects of

identity – when we take the quantitative determination as being (seiende), that is, as independent

point of view – then the difference of few grams is truly a difference and thus a qualitative

difference.

Because of the simplicity of the concept, there is truly nothing else to say of qualities in

general: quality is a fact of situation or thing being separate from another. Hence, there is no need

that we should be capable to be aware of such qualities: we couldn’t say what would differentiate

one place in empty space from another, but that does not make these places identical. Yet, a feeling

11

of deception may arise: one may want some examples of qualities in order to believe Hegel has a

right to introduce the concept. But the demand produces no difficulties, because it is easy to give

already constructed examples of differences, although they are quite abstract. The main difference

is, of course, the difference between empty and non-empty situations, but there are also others,

more aspectual differences: for instance, difference of situation as a situation and situation as an

object, difference of first-order and second-order situations and difference of indeterminate and

determinate situations.

3./170. Because a state of being could also be non-designated, its quality could also not hold [in some situation].

Thus, a qualitative state of being as holding is differentiated from and related to another qualitative state of being, its

denial. Quality of a designated state of being is a reality; quality of its denial is a negation.

A determinate situation is one of many possible situations or a mere moment of a larger framework

of situations. Thus, its aspect of difference or quality is not completely independent, but also related

to another aspect of difference: if a situation A differs in some sense from another situation B, then

the situation B also differs in some sense from the situation A – for instance, if A differs from B in

being a warm situation, then B differs from A in being a not-warm situation, or if A differs from B

in being an empty situation, then B differs from A in being a non-empty situation. Thus, for every

quality we can find another quality which is instantiated somewhere and exactly in those situations

where the first quality isn’t – this construction of new qualities is actually more trivial than it

sounds, because quality itself was defined as a difference from another situation, that is, to know

that some characteristics of a situation is a quality is already to know that it differentiates that

situation from situation with other qualities.

All we need to do is to explain the terminology Hegel introduces in this paragraph. Reality is

a quality, as long as it is taken as holding and as separated from another possible quality: if a

determination “cow being at the field” holds in this situation, then it is a reality according to this

situation, compared to the possibility that cow would be in the barn. The relation between this real

quality and any other quality that is not currently holding is called denying or negating and the

quality that is not holding is denial or negation: actually Hegel does not use these classifications

consistently and he ambiguously refers by negation both to the relation between situations or

qualities and to the situation or quality related. Important to note is that the negation of Hegel is not

a relation between propositions or even between concepts, but a relation between situations, that is,

it is a modal relation: in fact, it is nothing more than another name for the accessibility relation or

transition, as Hegel calls it. Thus, a result of negation is always something possible – some possible

situation or state of being – but not necessarily unique – a situation may have many possible

alternatives, depending on the context and the qualitative space we are interested in: “being red” has

12

“being yellow”, “being blue” etc. as its alternatives.

4./171. Both reality and negation are determinate states of being. In reality, its role as designated situation is emphasised,

although in another context it is also non-designated. A complete negation of all determinateness would be a pure state

of nothing, whereas negation is always a determinate state of being.

Hegel continues with a theme familiar already from the paragraph 139, namely, that of positive and

negative characteristics. Because Hegel connects qualities more with situations than with objects,

the classification is almost meaningless for him: a cold or dark situation is as real situation as a

warm or light situation. Only meaning that it could have would be in terms of designation or

actuality: a quality of a designated or actual situation – cow being at the field – is real, while a

quality of a non-designated or merely possible situation – cow being in the barn – is a negation. As

one can easily see, such a difference is relative to the currently actual situation: what is real from

one situation, is a negation from another – while cow really is at the field in the morning, it will be

13

in the barn in the evening. The relativity of terms real and negated or positive and negative is

caused by the relativity of determinate situations: at this stage, we can only speak of how things are

according to some situation that is only one of many possible situations. Yet, the abstracting from

all connections between situations would not help either: as we saw in the previous chapter, we then

have no means to differentiate between positive and negative qualities of states of being, because

we have only one state of being to deal with.

Remark

This seemingly disjointed remark on qualities has one theme which connects it into a unity, namely,

the negativity of qualities or determinations in general and the resulting relativity of reality. If a

situation or a thing is separated from other situations or things – if it has some characteristic

nature, peculiar only to it – then it also isn’t the only situation or thing in the world – there are

other situations and things with their own peculiarities. The thought already implies the finity of

qualitative objects: an object with some quality cannot exist in a situation with other quality. Still, it

seems almost like a triviality. Undoubtedly it is possible that one thing – let us say, a red ball –

would form a universe of its own, but then its characteristics – redness and roundness – wouldn’t

be its qualities: they wouldn’t separate the object from any other object. The true interest in this

seeming triviality lies in how to apply it – in what sort of situations we are allowed to say that there

are qualities, that is, things and states of being differing from one another – and it is in such

questions of application where Hegel’s remarks are needed.

1./172. Reality seems an ambiguous word, because it is used of many different determinations. Philosopher may speak

of empirical reality as something worthless. Unreal thought or theory, on the other hand, is such that holds in the realm

of abstract concepts, but not in the realm of actuality. It is as one-sided to let external presence determine the truth of

ideas, as it is to make ideas indifferent to such presence.

Meaning of the word “reality” depends always on the context where we look at things: what is real

now, will not be real tomorrow, and what is real to me, might not be real to you. The first thing we

usually take as real is what our senses or experience presents to us as existing: the leaves of a tree,

the dog lying on the ground etc. Yet, a philosopher of a Platonist nature would not take such a

reality very seriously: an empirical fact is bound to change over time, the leaves shall fall and

wither, and the dog shall rise from the ground and walk away. Furthermore, a person sees only a

small portion of the reality, which is in addition coloured by her peculiar way of looking at things –

it is the reality as it appears to her. Against this empirical reality this Platonist philosopher raises

another reality – a reality beyond appearances, which is not open to mutability and variability of the

14

empirical reality.

Not all philosophers have such Platonist tendencies. A common sense philosopher would

attack the Platonist’s supersensible world, because of its lack of contact with the empirical reality.

A Platonist may say that in true reality things are such and such – for instance, that a true state

would be run by such wise people like the Platonist herself – that is, she may think that things are or

should be like this in reality. Yet, the mere thought of a Platonist does not make things real, that is,

real in the sense of empirically realisable. Why should we care of things beyond our realm, the

common sense philosopher asks, if they do not affect the world around us?

Hegel’s answer is that both sides are in some sense right, but also in another sense wrong.

The Platonist is right, when she demands a more stable reality than the ever-changing play of

sensations. Yet, such a more stable reality should not be a realm beyond sensuous reality, as the

common sense philosopher rightly acknowledges: a reality is no reality, if it cannot be a reality for

us. The situations most deserving of the name reality are such that could be found from any

situation: situations that would be stable in the sense of being connected to all possible situations

we might experience. But this stableness is not enough: these truly real situations should also not

just, as it were, be contained in or implied by every situation or sensory experience, but they should

also be able to explain these situations and experiences: they should be the laws governing the

sensuous reality.

2./173. The concept of reality was used in defining God for the ontological proof of his existence. God was supposed to

be the sum of all realities. Realities were all supposed to be affirmative and without any negation, and therefore their

sum would not contain a contradiction.

Hegel’s theory of qualities attaches them straightaway to the situations and things that have these

qualities: quality is an aspect of a situation or an object. Thus, a situation or thing with some quality

is always something positive: empty and non-empty situations are both real situations, just as cold

and warm objects are both real objects. Yet, there is a different way of understanding qualities,

namely, either as an existence or as a lack of something positive, which could or could not attach to

the situation or the object: a non-empty situation has something that an empty situation hasn’t –

objects – and a warm object has something that a cold object hasn’t – warmth. The followers of

such an interpretation could point out that an empty mug is not so positive thing as a mug filled

with coffee, while Hegel would point out that the mug itself is a real object no matter whether it is

full of coffee or empty. In such an interpretation it seems natural to define that some qualities are

more real or positive, whereas others are lacking of such reality: emptiness is a lack of objects and

coldness is a lack of warmth.

It is such an account of realities that was used in the Leibnizian and Wolffian version of the

15

ontological proof of God’s existence. God was supposed to be positive in all possible senses, that is,

he was supposed to have only real qualities: because existence was also thought as a real quality,

God could obviously not lack the quality of existence. The starting point of the ontological proof

required that such a sum of all realities should be at least possible: otherwise he would fail to exist

because of a contradiction. This was supposed to be guaranteed by the complete affirmativeness of

all real qualities. A real quality could not be a lack of anything. Yet, of any two incompatible

characteristics one must be a lack of the other: thus, there could be no incompatible real qualities

and no contradiction in uniting them all into a one entity.

3./174. In this definition, reality is supposed to be real even in separation from all negativity and determination.

Qualities of God should be eminent or infinite, because they do not contradict each other, but then they become

indeterminate. Reality that is taken from its realm of determinacy becomes an empty absolute.

The definition of God as the sum of positive or “real” qualities faces some serious problems when it

comes to actually deciding which properties are the real ones. God is supposed to be both just – he

should reward the good behaviour and punish the bad behaviour – and good – he should want best

for everyone. A just person would want to see all bad actions punished: an eye for an eye, goes the

old Mosaic saying. On the contrary, a truly good person would want good to happen to everyone

and would thus mercifully spare all from punishment. Hence, it seems that God cannot be both just

and good, although we consider both justice and goodness to be positive characteristics. Similarly,

both wisdom and power seem like two positive characteristics and we would expect God to have

them both: God knows and understands everything and has the omnipotent power to change

everything. Still, once again these two characteristics are on a collision course. As a wise person,

God undoubtedly should think before doing, if we may use such expression: thus, the wisdom of

God would limit his choices, that is, it would make him lose his omnipotence. As wise or thinking,

God is determined by the things around him – he knows them perfectly – but as omnipotent or

acting, God determines the things around him – he has the ability to change anything – and it seems

clear that these two characteristics cannot hold at the same time.

The solution of Leibniz and Wolff was to reject that these qualities could be contradictory

when applied to God: while there could be collisions of realities within finite beings, God was an

infinite being who had these characteristics in an eminent fashion. As Hegel notices, such a change

from finite to infinite or eminent characteristics changes the very nature of them. A finite

characteristic is determined by the qualities with which it is contrasted, whereas a loss of this

contrast makes it lose its determinacy: for instance, power loses its natural determinacy, when its

structure cannot be contrasted with the structure of wisdom. What Leibniz and Wolff have in effect

done is that they have abstracted qualitative situations and objects from their surroundings. We are

16

already familiar with the final result where such an abstraction could only end: it is the emptiness of

a state of nothing. Even if the abstraction was stopped before the ultimate result, it wouldn’t have

helped us to determine the God’s characteristics in any way: without anything to contrast with, such

a proposition as “God is that and that” tells us nothing, because we cannot imagine what it would

mean if God were of different nature.

4./175. If reality would be taken as determinate and thus negative, the sum of all realities would be a sum of all

contradictions: a power to absorb everything. If such a power would then be thought as completely actualised, the result

would be abstract state of nothingness: the situation within every determinate situation.

Supposing we should choose to model qualities in Hegel’s way, the sum of all realities would seem

to become even more problematic: all qualities would be real qualities and thus there would

inevitably be some incompatible realities. Hegel’s proposed solution is to take the different qualities

as aspects or potential characteristics of God: for instance, in one sense God is wise, in another he is

powerful. God would not be just, good, wise etc. by nature, but he would have – or more properly,

be – a power to act in a just, good or wise manner. God is the power to absorb everything

determinate, that is, we could identify any possible situation with God: note that God is not equated

with an object – that is, with something that is – but with states of being or situation – God is not a

totality of objects, but the place where objects are. Of course, if there is nothing determinate to

absorb into God, he would be very indeterminate situation without any content: God would in fact

be the state of nothing with which Logic began.

5./176. When Spinoza said that everything determinate is negative, he meant that determinacy is a positive expression

of negativity, when negation as such is a mere abstraction. Speculative philosophy does not take abstract state of

nothingness as the final phase, similarly as it does not take a reality as the whole truth.

Spinoza’s reason for equating determinateness and negativity was most likely to underplay the

importance of determinate things and situations: a determinate state of being or modus could not be

the whole truth of the one and only substance. This negativity of all determinations is a part of

Hegel’s agenda. All realities – that is, all determinate situations, in their aspect of determinateness –

are only part of a larger framework and thus they show only parts of the whole truth. To show this

finiteness of all situations is the dialectical aspect of Hegel’s philosophy: all states of being and

things point naturally to situations where they do not hold or exist. But this Spinozan result is not

the final truth of Hegelianism: a speculative philosophy does not end with abstracting from all

determinate situations into a state of nothingness. The positive end of Hegel’s methodological aim

is to show that the dialectical transitions are merely natural changes of one and the same thing or

17

situation: what exists after a transition is merely a new aspect of the original stage. Then the final

result would not be an abstraction out of all determinate situations, but a revelation that all

determinate situations are still aspects of the whole and thus in some context true.

6./177. Spinoza’s proposition implies unity and singularity of substance. Determinations like thought and extension

must be mere attributes or moments of the substance: they are something merely for human understanding. Similarly

individuals must be absorbed into the substance, because they are individuals only through limits, which both separate

these individuals from and unify them with other individuals. What more individuals might be is to be considered in

another area of logic.

At this stage of Logic the positive or speculative side is still hidden and we concentrate on the

negativity of all determinate situations and things, and the result is that because no determinate

situation or thing can be the whole truth, the ultimate truth can be only something indeterminate,

like Hegel thinks Spinoza’s substance is. All differences between situations can be merely aspectual:

if Descartes had spotted difference between matter or extension and thinking, such different

qualities must merely be different ways how the substance expresses itself in different viewpoints.

Even more, because Hegel thinks Spinoza’s substance cannot have even aspectual determinations,

the extension and thinking as attributes of substance must be merely something for us, that is, they

are merely ways in which a human understanding understands substance: Hegel weds Spinoza with

a form of Kantianism which does not create a convincing interpretation. As determinate situations

can hold no permanent and necessary truth, similarly determinate and single objects must be

incapable of being more than versions or parts of one underlying indeterminate object or substance.

A determinate object is differentiated from all other objects, because those others cannot exist in

exactly same situations as the object in question: the limits of an object define its nature. But just

because of these limits, we can see that the object is also finite: it cannot exist in all situations where

other objects exist. Thus, the viewpoint with different individuals filling the universe points to a

more informative viewpoint where there is but one individual which merely presents itself to us in

many shapes, sometimes as material object and at other times as thinking.

7./178. Reality is only implicitly related to negation. Later, as positivity in the stage of reflected determinations, it is

more explicitly related to negativity.

At first it seems like Hegel had made some grave error: realities or determinate situations are

already connected to their negations or other determinate situations – otherwise, they would not be

determinate – so what further relating to negativity the positivity could still imply that reality didn’t?

Here we must one again, as in paragraph 166, note the difference between things being something

18

according to an external viewpoint and things being posited in that way. The situation “this is red”

is a qualitative situation and thus connected with other situations, like “this is blue”. Yet, that the

situation of redness is related to any other situations seems contingent: we could well imagine that

there would be only one red thing in the world. Generally, it seems always possible to conjecture

that a qualitative situation might not be qualitative – that it would be the only true situation there is

and can be. Thus, the relation that such a situation has to other situations – the fact that it is a

quality – is external from the viewpoint of the situation or state of being.

Now, a state of positivity should be a situation that would, by nature, be related to other

situations: in fact, it wouldn't be a state, but more like a process or activity going through those

other situations. An example of such activity of positivity would be e.g. an activity of identifying

one thing, when compared to another thing, that is, a process for finding situation or context

according to which one thing could be identified with another thing: if A would be identical with

another, different object B, then, because of the difference of the two things, A and B would be

different according to another context. Thus, the activity of identification would be a positive

process of the object – the process which connected it with other things – compared with the

negative activity of differentiation – the process which separated it from other things.

8./179. If quality of a thing upholds it even when in connection with other things, then it is a property of that thing – like

properties of herbs are the potential effects it may have on other things. More static characteristics like figures and

shapes should not be called properties and perhaps not even qualities, because an object could change its figure or shape

without destroying itself.

The activity of differentiation mentioned in the previous paragraph is in some sense a potential

characteristic: a thing can be different only in comparison with other things, that is, if it is in a

situation or context with other things. Such potential characteristics that manifest themselves only

when in contact with other things – or in a suitable situation or context – Hegel calls properties:

example of such a property would be the healing characteristics of certain plants, because they are

manifested only in contact with living beings eating those plants. Properties are more stable than

other characteristics – although an object wouldn’t manifest its properties, it would still have them,

as potential characteristics. In fact, many of the qualities we experience could be seen also as

properties: for instance, a colour of a thing could be understood as property of exhibiting certain

sensations to a suitable viewer in a suitable lightning – thus, a thing wouldn’t change its colour,

although its visual appearance would become different in different environments. Almost all of the

characteristics of objects in our sense experience could be viewed as such properties, the only

exception being the spatial figures and shapes. Such shapes are more like quantities: change of

shape is indifferent for a piece of matter compared to a change of density or even colour.

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9./180. Jacob Boehme used words “qualirung” and “inqualirung” to express how qualities must act negatively and

battle for their appearance.

The remark ends with a historical note on the ideas of Boehme, whom Hegel admired, although he

thought Boehme’s way of expressing himself was too murky and infected with a representational

way of explaining things. Thus, we need not think that Hegel himself would have thought that

qualities literally battled with each other of the seat of existence: such images belong to the

religious viewpoint, which Boehme was still dedicated to. Yet, behind Boehme’s symbolism, there

is a simple logical truth Hegel wants to reveal, namely, the fact that, firstly, two qualities of same

space of qualities cannot be instantiated by same object in the same situation or context, but must be

divided among either different object or different aspects of the same object, and secondly, that

none of these qualities is more real than the others, but all of them are as determinate and therefore

in a sense negative characteristics.

c. Something

Hegel has discussed states of being-here in general, that is, regardless of whether they are empty or

non-empty. We have seen that apart from being states of being – and in this manner similar to all

situations – the states of being-here are also determinate, that is, they differ from other situations

according to some qualities. Furthermore, we have seen that the state of being-here is a designated

situation or a reality according to its own standpoint, whereas all the other states of being-here to

which it is related are negations: yet, because the difference of designated and non-designated

situations is purely contextual, a reality in one sense can be negation in another sense. Hegel’s next

task is to show that we could always construct examples of objects, if determinate situations are

given to us. The main argument is rather simple and familiar to us from the previous chapter:

situations or states of being are also objects in some sense. But Hegel attempts to tie this

construction more closely with what has gone before. He does not just construct examples of

objects, but also tries to show that these objects exist across different situations or contexts: the

situation as object has two aspects – similarity and difference towards other situations.

1./181. The aspect of quality has been separated from the state of being-here, and the qualities have been divided to

realities and negations. A state of reality is in some context negative and not a state of pure being; similarly a state of

negation is in some context a state of determinate being and not a state of pure nothingness. Furthermore, the aspect of

quality is not truly separated from a state of being-here, which in some sense is a qualitative situation. Thus, these

differences are in some sense merely aspectual.

20

We start by reminding ourselves of the progress so far. Any state of being-here – such as the

situation where cow is at the field – has two aspects. Firstly, it can be identified with all other states

of being or situations, but secondly, it can also be differentiated from them by some qualities: a

situation with a cow at the field differs from a situation with a cow in the barn. Furthermore, we

have seen that we can divide the qualities or situations as separated from each other into groups

according to which some of them are actual or designated, while others are not, the designated

qualities being called real and undesignated negations: if a cow really is now at the field, then its

being at the field is a reality. Yet, we noticed that the separation of qualities into realities and

negations happens only relative to a context, because the designated situation can be changed: the

cow might be in the barn at night. The relativity of the situations or qualities is caused by their

determinacy or relatedness to other situations: otherwise, they would be completely indeterminate

situations, like the state of pure nothingness from which we started. The connection between

realities and negations has thus been justified, and it is only the final step that we have not yet made.

A quality – situation as differentiated from other situations – shares some similarities with other

situations: for instance, all of them can be seen as negations, when viewed from some contexts.

Thus, although we have separated the different situations, we may still partly identify them: states

of being share some similarities. But from such an aspect of identity we separated the aspect of

difference or quality. Hence, we have made a full circle by showing that from an aspect of

difference of a state of being-here it is possible to find a context or aspect, according to which it is

identical with those different situations: all situations are identical according to some possible

context.

2./182. The result is not a mere abstraction out of the difference: states of being-here still have different aspects. Now

we see that one state of being has different aspects – because we have gone through them – and that this state of being is

something, an object, of which these aspects are possible determinations.

If a state of being-here is viewed merely as a state of being, then it can also be determined in

relation to other states of being; and if it is determined, then it can be viewed merely as a state of

being. The result of Hegel’s construction is not that the difference of two aspects would be

indifferent, but that it is only a difference of aspects, although still a difference. The two aspects are

aspects of the same situation: the situation is an object than can be described as a state of being-here

(Dasein) and as a quality, but both of these descriptions refer to the same object, although they

reveal different things from it. A situation where I am writing this article is both a situation in

general and a determinate situation differing e.g. from a situation where the article has been

completed.

21

Hegel’s argument has two points. Firstly, as we are already familiar from the previous

chapter, situations can be viewed as objects: the state of being-here (Dasein) is something that is

here, in a situation of its own (Daseiendes). Secondly, the situation as an object can be separated

from the different contexts in which it is seen: the situation has an aspect of identity and an aspect

of difference and still is the same situation, that is, it can exist in many situations or contexts.

Hegel speaks in this paragraph of a state of within-being (Insichsein), which is a rare

concept in Hegel’s writings. It sounds similar to the concept of in-itself-being (Ansichsein), but

should not be confused with the latter. The state or aspect of in-itself-being of an object is an

abstraction out of the larger context in which the object is present: for instance, in the case of

situations, the aspect of in-itself would consists merely of the aspect of identity, that is, of the fact

that the situation is a state of being. Within-being, on the other hand, seems to be a structure

consisting of all the aspects or situations in which an object exists and of the fact that it is the same

object existing in all of these situations: it is the fact that the different aspects can be integrated as

aspects of one object.

3./183. In constructing example of something, we for the first time have seen how differences – negations – can be

merely aspects of one object – that they have been negated. It is important to progress from mere situations to objects

within those situations. Objects or somethings are justifiably considered as real, although words like something, reality,

22

being-here etc. are still quite indeterminate. More concrete examples of negations of negations will be found later. They

can also be called negative unities, if one just carefully distinguishes between first or abstract and second or concrete

negations.

This is the first time such terms like negations of negation, negative unity and first and second

negation have appeared in the systematic discussion, and therefore it is the best opportunity to

explain how these concepts should be interpreted according to this analytical interpretation of Hegel.

We noticed in the paragraph 170 that by negation Hegel meant either the accessibility relation

between different situations and contexts or a situation which is merely possible according to

another situation: a transition or its conclusion. We later learned that all situations related to another

situation are negations in the second sense, because they all are non-actual or non-designated

according to that other situation. Now, although these situations are different and incompatible,

there may be something unifying them, namely a common object: like situation with a green leaf

and a red leaf could form a life of one single leaf. We could say that this is a case where objects in

different situations – in different models, as it were – were identified: in the language of alethic

modal logic, this is usually called transworld identity. Such a common object would exist in many

different situations – in negations – and could thus be called a negative unity. Furthermore, it could

be differentiated from all of the situations in which it happens to exist: a leaf need not be just green

or just red. Hence, it may be said to negate the independence of those situations by making them

mere aspects of itself. Yet, this negation is on a different level than the negation or transition

between situations themselves: it is a second or a negation of negations. This negation of negation –

object with different aspects in different situation – is more explicitly present in the next chapter –

after Hegel has argued that all determinate non-empty situations can be connected by such an object.

Connected with this idea of negation of a negation – which is essentially the second point of

Hegel’s argument in the previous paragraph – is once again the argument from a situation or a

quality to an object: from a state of life to a living being, from a state of thought to a thinking being

and from a state of godhood to God as an object. Hegel seems to suggest that when more than one

similar situation is connected to each other, we are more justified in supposing the existence of an

underlying object within these situations: we may think of this conglomeration of possible

situations as an object common to these situations. If we had merely a one sensation of e.g.

resistance to our movement, we could say that we merely felt a situation of hardness that could have

been empty: when this sensation is repeated on different occasions we may be more inclined to say

that it is a case of hard object causing these situations or sensations of hardness. Similarly regular

states of living or thinking give a reason for suspecting the existence of a living or thinking being.

Such an argument from separate, but regularly connected situations to a common ground will come

around explicitly later, when we are turning to the parts on essence and concept: in these chapters

23

negation of negation is not just a common object in many situations, but also a principle which

explains the existence of these aspects.

4./184. As a negation of negation, something is independent object compared to its aspects. Yet its existence also

demands or is mediated by the existence of aspects. This mediacy becomes more apparent later and it was already to be

seen in the structure of becoming, although it is posited in a clearly non-empty structure. Knowing something requires

knowing its aspects and therefore true knowledge must be mediated.

Something is something that is (seiende), because it is a negation of a negation: that is, an object is

an independent entity compared to its aspects or situations in which it exists and which have only a

limited and secondary existence. At the same time the object must be mediated in another sense,

that is, it is dependent on its aspects: the object wouldn’t be what it is if it didn’t have the aspects it

has, and furthermore, it always must be investigated according to some or all of its aspects. Hegel

describes the object’s mediation as mediation of object with itself. Thus, he underlines the fact that

the things of which the object in a sense depends on do not differ from the object itself, but instead,

are its own aspects. This so-called dependence on itself becomes a prominent theme later in Logic,

especially in the part on concepts – concept is defined by Hegel as a principle that explains or

determines its own aspects – but it is the structure of something with aspects that is the first

example of it. Mediation in general is already present in the structure of becoming, where a process

leads from one situation to another, which is thus dependent on the previous situation. Yet, there

could have been no dependence on itself, because at least one of the situations in becoming was

empty – the non-empty situation is constructed from an emptiness and hence there is no object, not

even itself, on which the becoming object could have depended.

Hegel returns briefly to the question of immediacy and mediacy of knowledge. The result is

already familiar to us: as all things are in some sense immediate and mediate, similarly all

knowledge is in some sense immediate and mediate. If we merely knew that there exists something,

we wouldn’t really know anything of that entity. It is only when we know what it is like or what

sort of aspects it shows to us that we can say truly to know this object. Such a knowledge requires,

firstly, knowledge of what these aspects are, and secondly, knowledge that they are aspects of this

one and same object. A complete knowledge of an object requires then a separation and

combination of our experiences of that object: hence, the knowledge of the object is obviously

dependent on a number of things.

5./185. We should first abstract from all concrete determinations that the aspects of something could have: then we are

left with a situation where that something is. The structure of becoming could already be interpreted as a relation

between objects. A state of being would be something, that is, an object in a determinate situation; a state of nothing

24

would be something other, that is, an object in a negation of the first situation; becoming would then be more concrete

structure of one object changing into another. This change is still only a possibility, and the other object is merely

something differing from the first object.

The object we have taken as an example – an arbitrary state of being-here – has some aspects – the

aspect of identity or the situation as a state of being in general and the aspect of difference or the

same situation as a determinate state of being. Yet, we have no guarantee that all objects could have

aspects in some context. Thus, we merely start from an arbitrary situation or state of being with an

object: an arbitrary object – e.g. a cow or a situation – must surely exist in some sense –otherwise it

wouldn’t be something that is (Etwas and Seiende). But this is not all that we can say of that object.

The object in question is undoubtedly a determinate object – an object in a determinate situation or

context – or we can at least construct a context in which it is determinate: we learned in the

previous chapter how to find a situation that differs from the situation with the object. Now, that

constructed situation either has objects or it can itself be taken as an object: whatever the case, we

can always find a context with another object, that is, we can find an example of an object being

other compared to another object. Because the example of something we have found is also a

determinate situation, we might put Hegel’s argument for the possible existence of many

determinate objects in the following simpler form: because we have many determinate situations,

we can take them as objects, and then we have a context with many determinate objects.

The relation between something and other can also be taken as an instance of becoming,

Hegel says. Hegel wants to indicate two things by this statement. Firstly, it refers to the possibility

or method of finding new things given one thing, which we have just investigated. Secondly, it

points out that the structure of becoming is itself an example of a relationship of two determinate

objects: if we take a state of being as something, then the state of nothing constructed from that

state of being is other object than the original state of being. Furthermore, both aspects of the

statement have a stronger interpretation that is connected with Hegel’s sense of the concept of

change (Veränderung). When we construct one thing from another thing – for instance, a state of

nothingness from an arbitrary state of being – then we can also assume that it is more of a question

of changing the original object than creating a new one: that the original object and the constructed

object are actually mere aspects of one object or one object in different situations. Of course, we

have not yet advanced to a stage where we can justify or posit such an assumption: for now, we can

merely assume that the different objects we are investigating are not aspects of same object or

transworld identical. Arguing for the possible existence of structures of becoming – for the fact that

in some sense or context all different things can be seen as aspects of one thing – shall be the task of

the section B on states of finity.

25

B. Finity.

If there are many possible determinate situations –whether they be non-empty like those described

by statements “cow is at the field” and “cow is in the barn” or empty like “it is cold” or “it is

warm” – it is always possible to find many determinate objects by taking the situations themselves

as objects. The existence of these determinate objects forms the beginning of this section, which

divides roughly into two different parts, although Hegel himself divided this section in his usual

manner to three subsections. First part analyses a structure with such determinate objects – in the

three-part division of Hegel it consists of the first and second subsection, which apply the first and

second subsection of the previous section to the special case of non-empty states of being here: first

we look at the situation with something as generally a situation with something, then we investigate

the same situation as determinate situation. The result of the analysis is that such determinate

objects are also finite, that is, there are situations in which they do not exist. The final part of this

section forms then a study of its own, its aim being to show that we can find a context in which

things that are in some sense finite would be infinite, that is, exist in all relevant situations.

1./186. a) It is indifferent which of two objects is taken as something and which as other: an object that is other in some

context [or compared to an object in a designated situation] is also something [or designated object] in another context.

Negativity [or relatedness to other objects in other situations] is thus an external relation to the objects. An aspect of

what object is in itself can be separated from an aspect of what the same object is in the viewpoint of or related to other

objects. Yet, in some sense objects are determinate also in themselves.

Before the actual exposition, Hegel presents the usual preliminary division of the subject. We begin

with a structure of two non-empty situations or with two things in different, but related situations,

for instance, in different spatial positions, but next to each other. At first we are in a position where

the two objects in question are indifferent: it wouldn’t matter if I took the other object – for instance,

a rock – away from the other object – say, a tree. The indifference of the two things implies that the

object we have called ”other” (background) could also be called ”something” (designated object): a

tree is as much an independent object as a rock is. In fact, the difference of something and other is,

like the difference of reality and negation, only a matter of reference point: it is arbitrary which of

the two non-empty situations is taken as actual or designated. Thus, the negativity – the aspect of

the objects that they differ from one another, that is, their determinacy – seems to be merely an

external observation. Hence, we may separate between the aspect of an object as determinate

differing from other objects – aspect or state of being-for-or-in-relation-with-other-objects – and the

aspect of an object as an object in general – aspect or state of being-in-itself – as we did generally

with all states of being here. But because the object in question is defined to be a determinate object

26

– differentiated from other objects, in some context at least – then it must have what could be called

an intrinsic determination: if nothing else, then at least the potentiality of being determined in some

specific manner.

2./187. b) From an intrinsic determination of the object it is possible to find extrinsic determinations of it. Together they

form the aspect of being-in-relation-to-other-objects or limit of the object, which is in some sense intrinsic to the object,

but in another sense only an aspect of it.

The previous paragraph presented a development from a viewpoint with all determinations of an

object as extrinsic to a viewpoint where the same object has also intrinsic determinations –

determinations that present, in some context, not just aspects or versions of an object, but are

relatively stable in all possible changes of an object. Next step should be to discover extrinsic

determinations of an object which has only intrinsic determinations. Furthermore, Hegel tries even

to show that a determination that is intrinsic in some context can also be extrinsic in another context:

we may always abstract from whatever determinations an object has as not belonging to its essence,

but we can always discover more determinations within it. The difference of extrinsic and intrinsic

determination is thus revealed to be merely relative, aspectual and dependent on viewpoint. What is

common to these aspects is what Hegel calls limit – an expression of where an object can exist and

where it cannot – which is both immanent in one sense – intrinsic to the object that it limits, because

without it the object couldn’t be separated from other objects – and also negative in another sense –

a mere aspect of the object, which doesn’t touch the state of being of the object.

3./188. c) Limit is in some sense an intrinsic determination of the object. Hence, the object is always finite in some

context.

Whatever the level of abstraction, it is always possible to find a determination which is intrinsic to

the object investigated. Hence, we can always find a context in which the object is separated from

other objects. Now, if an object is separated from another object – like rock from a tree – then there

is some situation where it cannot exist – a rock cannot exist at the same spot as a tree. Because such

a separation is intrinsic to the object, so must the possibility of non-existence – finiteness – be also

intrinsic. Thus, Hegel has argued that in some context a determinate object is always finite. Yet, this

is not the end of this section, although Hegel’s division ends here: the second phase of constructing

infinity from finity has been left unmentioned.

4./189. In the first division of this chapter, the state of being-here was regarded first as a state of being-in-general [– that

is, with no connection to other states of being –] and its aspects – state of being-here as qualified and as something –

27

were also seen as affirmative [or unrelated to other states and objects]. Thus, negativity [or relatedness to other states]

appeared only as first negation [or in the form of another state of being-here], whereas now it appears in the form of a

negation of a negation or an object with different aspects.

The paragraph seems to depend on Hegel’s need to find some architectonic similarities between

different sections of Logic: while first section of this chapter corresponded to the section on being

in the previous chapter, this section should correspond to the section on nothing. But the matter is

not so straightforward. The negativity that Hegel mentions is not the negativity of emptiness: on the

contrary, situations are now definitely non-empty. Instead, the negativity in question is the same as

in the paragraph 170, namely, that of having alternatives to a situation. When the state of being here

in general was regarded as being [Seiende], it wasn’t taken just as an object, but also as an

independent situation: as a state of being in general it didn’t differ from any other states of being.

Similarly quality – the aspect of difference or the state of being-here as determined – was first taken

as independent and with no connection to the aspect of identity or the state of being-here as a state

of being-in-general; finally, the previous section investigated something only in relation to its

aspects, but not in relation to other objects, that is, it was studied merely as an object in general.

Hegel’s explanation of why the second section is characterised by negativity, but first one

wasn’t, cannot still be judged as completely adequate, because the relation to other states of being-

here appeared already in the first section through the relationship of reality and negation. Hegel tries

to fix this inadequacy by pointing out that this was only an instance of first negation – of situation

having an alternative of the same level – while now it is a question of a second negation – of

relation between entities of two levels, namely, between situations and their objects – but as Hegel

just stated something (Etwas) to be also a topic of the first section, the argument falls apart. It is a

clear case of artificial division gaining the upper hand on the flow of the constructions: negativity in

the sense of having situations and objects of many different levels connected to each other may on

the whole be said to be growing, when new concepts are introduced or constructed, but it is

inappropriate to point out a certain stage and describe it as characterised by negativity, when such

relations are present already in the previous stages.

a. Something and other

We begin with two objects related to each other, although only in a seemingly external fashion –

examples of spatially separated things are helpful, but the investigations of this chapter are meant

to apply to all differences between objects. The aim of this section is to show that at least in some

context a thing compared with other objects has an intrinsic determination and is therefore

intrinsically separate from some objects in that context – of course, there is nothing to guarantee

28

that these intrinsic relations couldn’t be extrinsic in another context. Although the section consists

mainly of an analysis, instead of constructions moving things forward, it is still quite interesting,

especially as Hegel introduces concepts of being-in-itself and being-for-or-according-to-another,

which surface regularly in Hegel’s writings: when interpreting these concepts one should

remember that their reference point – although not their meaning – changes from one context to

another. The section introduces also Hegel’s habit of dividing section into parts with no names –

usually they come in triplets. While most of these divisions consist mainly of the familiar theme of

“introduction – analysis – transition”, the current example is a refreshing exception: first part

deals with something and other, second part introduces being-in-itself and being-for-another, and

finally, third part argues that being-in-itself and being-for-another are mere aspects of something.

1./190. 1. Of something and other. a) Things assigned as something and other in a situation are both determinate

objects and thus can be taken as something.

We begin with two objects. What sort of objects are we meant to imagine? The objects we have

constructed in the previous section are some situations, and if we have followed the construction of

Logic from the beginning, we should have empty and non-empty situations as our objects. But

situations are not all possible objects that we could use to exemplify this stage. In fact, any two

objects will do, as long as we can compare them with each other: a rock and tree next to it are fine

examples of something and other. Yet, we may want to have examples of objects which are merely

something and other, but do not have the characteristics of more complex objects, which occur in

the later parts of Logic: that is, we may want to have very simple objects, the structure of which

cannot be analysed into substructures. A popular example of merely daseiende objects are

sensations, especially colours: red is different than blue, but that is all that we can say about it. Still,

actually any objects – e.g. a rock and a tree – work also in this context, just as long as we take them

as simple and unanalysable: for instance, we should not think of a rock as an underlying substrate of

certain sensations and not even as a sensation complex, but as a singular experience, and

furthermore, we shouldn’t take “rock” as referring to a certain class or genus to which the rock in

question belongs, but as a singular name for a singular object.

2./191. b) Both are also other, in a certain context: if one is taken as something, the second is other, but the reference

point can be changed. One of the objects [or its situation] can be designated by the word “this”, but the designation can

be changed arbitrarily. Language expresses only generalities, except in singular names, use of which is contingent.

Two objects like a rock and a tree share the characteristics of being objects. Furthermore, we can

separate the two: tree is something else than a rock. Although the tree was given the epithet

29

“something else”, this is not necessary: I just happened to see the rock at first and I saw the tree

only after that. If I had come from opposite direction, I might have said that the rock was something

else than a tree. Hegel himself uses examples with two objects, but there is no reason why we

couldn’t speak of a greater number of objects: field of corns can be divided into some corns and

others.

The relativity of the words “other” and “something else” etc. reminds us of the relativity

between the words reality and negation: it depends on the viewpoint which quality is taken as the

reality and which as the negation or which situation is designated and which is non-designated. This

previous relativity could be described in terms of the relativity between something and other:

because qualities or determinate situations are a kind of objects, we might say that some quality is a

reality, while others are negations. Furthermore, we could describe the difference between

something and other through the difference between reality and negation or designated and non-

designated situation: picture that all relevant objects have a situation of their own – similarly as

every object has its own place in space; then the object in a designated situation is something,

whereas objects in non-designated situations are other. Note that Hegel takes something to be the

more general word – all things are somethings – while in the modal logic the designatedness is a

characteristic differentiating actual objects from the general group of possible objects. This is

perhaps caused by Hegel’s concentration on examples with two objects, because with more things it

is natural to separate the reference point from a group of other things: even Hegel speaks of fixing

the designated object with the word “this”.

The paragraph includes also an interesting piece of Hegel’s philosophy of language: all

naming is contingent, because words like ”Peter” and” Paul” have no meaning and Peter could have

been called Paul as well, provided that anyone familiar with him would know how he is generally

called. Although Hegel’s remark seems to concern merely singular names, it can be applied also to

general names: if we think of a genus as an object of its own – for instance, all elephants would be

identified with one “elephant in general” – then it would be natural to say that one genus could have

been named in a quite different manner, provided that the relations with other words would change

accordingly, i.e. if an elephant would have been called lion, then the word “lion” should refer to a

species of vegetarian animals etc.

3./192. The aspect of being other seems external to the presence of an object: it is caused merely by an external

comparison with another object outside its situation. Still, all determinate objects are related to objects in other

situations and they are hence others in some context.

The difference of being designated and being undesignated can be looked upon from two aspects:

the same aspects will later be applied to all differences of determinations. Firstly, the difference is

30

merely relative and thus extrinsic to the differing objects: a rock is “this” and a tree “that” only,

because someone happens to call them so. Thus, in order to call an object “other” or “undesignated”,

we need a second object which is taken as “something” or “designated” and a third something

which connects or compares the two objects – either a person who is conscious of both objects or

simply a situation comprising both of the individual situations as a second-order situation: e.g.

situation described by “this here is a rock and that there is a tree”. If we abstracted from the second

and the third object, we couldn’t call the remaining object “other”: there wouldn’t be anything to

compare it with nor anyone to compare it. Still, secondly, the object must be able to be compared to

other objects. After all, we are at the stage of determinate situations and objects – that is, at stage

where all objects are related to objects in other situations. Thus, there must be other objects and

viewpoints according to which this particular object is not the reference point.

4./193. Two objects can both be taken as designated and undesignated: thus, in this context, there is nothing to

differentiate them. The similarity is also only an external comparison. We should be able to call an object “other”

without any reference to another object.

A rock can be taken as a reference point to which the tree is compared, but also as the object which

is compared to the tree as a reference point; similar aspects are contained within the tree, when it is

31

compared to the rock. Generally, of any two objects, both of them can be taken as a reference point

and as an undesignated object: the characteristics of being something and being other are connected

within every object, when it is compared with another object. If we then compare these two objects

according to whether they have these potential aspects, they cannot be differentiated from each

other: all objects whatsoever agree on being potential reference points and potential background

objects.

Such a comparison undoubtedly leaves out many properties that could differentiate these

objects: the identity of objects is only an identity in a context. Furthermore, the similar

characteristics mentioned above are mere potentialities, which need an outside observer and another

object in order to actualise themselves: we may therefore suspect that the similarity of the two

objects and also the connection between being something and being other is as external

characteristic as the difference of designatedness and undesignatedness was. What Hegel wants to

show is that the structures or characteristics of “being something” and “being other” are truly

connected: if we are given something, we can construct an other, and if we are given a mere other,

we can construct something. Now, the first construction has already been indicated: if we are given

something or an arbitrary object, we can find another object. It is the second part of the problem that

needs still to be dealt with: how can one construct something, when she is given a mere other?

Before answering this problem, we must first decide what it means to be given a mere other.

5./194. c) The other must be abstracted from something, as Plato abstracted it from oneness. Then it cannot be other in

relation to some object, but only according to itself: it is an aspect separated from another aspect. An example of such

other is provided by the realm of physical nature. Natural objects differ from spiritual objects, but this is only relative

otherness. Yet, because only spirit is capable of true unities or totalities, all complexes of natural objects are

characterised by being always mere aspects of the nature (they are infinitely expandable in space, time and matter).

It is at first sight hard to see how anything could be “merely other”: “other” is a relational word, so

finding an other without any reference point seems almost as impossible as trying to find an entity

that doesn’t exist. Even the reference to Plato is not helpful: what Plato means by separating one

and other is that it is different matter when things are one and when they differ or are “others”. But

Hegel’s own explanation is more helpful. If an object cannot be differentiated from another object

and yet it must be other in some sense, then it clearly must be other to itself. A few examples

enlighten the matter. A green leaf changes into red, when the autumn comes: we can say that it is

now other than it was before. A landscape may look very different or “other” when it is viewed at

different angle: we can say it seems almost a completely other place. What these examples describe

is a structure of one and the same object existing in different situations or contexts: an identity of

objects across different worlds, in the terms of modal logic. Thus, by other in or of itself (das

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Andere) Hegel refers to an aspect of an object, which in some sense is separated from another

aspect – because it is a different aspect or belongs to different situation – but in some sense also

identical with it – they are aspects of the same object.

Now we are in a position to explicate Hegel’s statement that physical nature is a state of

being other. Of course, natural things are others, when the human or spiritual realm is taken as the

reference point: merely natural things are those that are not spiritual. Yet, this is not enough to

characterise nature as the state of otherness, because spiritual things are as much undesignated,

when nature is taken as a reference point. Problem is that of the two – of spirit and nature – only

spirit can be taken as a completed reference point. We may choose some part of nature – or more

precisely, some collection of natural objects – as a designated situation, but there is no whole of

nature to take as a referent point. Beyond every finite totality of space, time and matter, there could

be further instances of space, time and matter – they are out of the finite totality. – As we shall see,

Hegel is not convinced of quantitative infinities, so a gathering of all natural objects into one

situation is impossible. This impossibility Hegel indicates as the state of being out of itself: the

finite totality of nature has always something beyond it, which on the other hand cannot be

separated from the outside similar to itself.

6./195. Other in itself is other of itself: it changes into another form. But in another sense, it stays same: both of the

aspects are similar in being potentially differentiable. Thus, it is possible to find an underlying object to the two aspects.

Otherness is a moment of the object, but in another sense it can be abstracted from the object.

The idea of being other to itself has appeared earlier in a different guise. In paragraph 185 Hegel

talked of change, by which he meant a sequence of two aspects or versions of the same object,

change being the most familiar example of such a sequence. Now, the same relation has come

forward with the name of being other to itself, being dissimilar to itself or being negation of itself:

these descriptions are not blatant contradictions, if they are understood as describing relations

between aspects of the same object. What Hegel is supposed to do, is to construct an example of

something: that is, he is to construct an object, which would not be a mere aspect of something. But

we can obviously do that as the example of paragraph 182 shows: there we saw a state of being here,

which we revealed as an object distinguishable from its aspects of difference and identity. A similar

transition from aspects to an underlying object should be understandable in every case: if there are

many versions of the same object, surely there must be an object of which they are versions. Even

in nature – the realm of otherness – we can find such somethings or unities, although they are only

relative and always mere parts or aspects in another sense.

Hegel has thus shown that given something – an arbitrary object – one can construct another

– firstly, that one can find another object, and secondly, that one can see the original object as other

33

compared to the second object as the designated reference point – and given other – an aspect – one

can construct something – the object of which the aspect was given. An object can be taken always

as an other – it can be compared with other objects or some of its aspects can be compared to each

other. Now, this state of being other is a moment or aspect of the object in question – a rock is the

same rock, even if it is compared to a tree. Yet, the context or situation in which this aspect is

presented – or in which the object presents this particular aspect or version of itself – differs from

what could be called the proper context of the situation: the comparison with another object is

extrinsic to the object itself. It is this further aspectual difference within object that interests us in

the following paragraphs.

7./196. 2. Of states or aspects of being according to another and of being in itself. In one sense, an object remains

same, although in some context it would be taken as other or non-designated; in another sense, it differs from its state of

being non-designated. Thus, the state of non-designatedness is a situation to which the object as whole is related. The

aspect of otherness is what an object is from a viewpoint of something else.

We have seen that an arbitrary object can always be compared to another object and therefore it is,

in some context, an other or a non-actual, non-designated object: a rock does not exist, in a place

where a tree exists. Now appears the already familiar structure of two aspects being identical in

some sense – being aspects of the same object – and different in another – being aspects in different

situation. Something is one with its aspect of being other or non-actual: a rock that is in its own

place and a rock that is not in the place of a tree are meant to be the same rock. Yet, something is

also separable from its aspect of non-actuality: it is not necessary to look at rock from a viewpoint

of a tree nearby. The object as such is only related to its otherness, that is, it is not non-designated in

all situations, but merely in some contexts or according to some viewpoints. The object in question

is non-actual only when we take some other object as the actual reference point: e.g. when we look

at the rock from the place of the tree. Such a viewpoint or aspect is thus appropriately called state of

being according to another (Sein-für-Anderes).

8./197. State of being-here as such is not connected to other states of being; it is just a state of being. But because it is a

state of non-being in some sense – it is determined – and still it is the same state when it is not designated, it is a mere

state of being according to another.

This paragraph seems almost like a repetition of the previous, but there is a subtle difference. While

earlier Hegel spoke of something – an object within some determinate situation – and its aspect of

being according to another object, here Hegel speaks generally of any state of being-here, whether it

is empty or non-empty: this paragraph is a generalisation of the previous one. Or, it is a particular

34

instance of the previous: determinate situations are a sort of objects or somethings, and thus the

result of the previous paragraph applies to them also. Whatever the case, the argument itself is

simple. A determinate situation is as a mere situation with no connection to other situations: it is a

state of being in general. But as a determinate situation, it is a negation of some other situation: it

does not hold, when some other situation is holding. Thus, similarly like the object in the previous

paragraph, the situation has an aspect of being non-designated when another situation is chosen as

designated – the aspect of being according to another viewpoint.

The only examples of characteristics according to another given so far have been the

otherness of objects and non-designatedness of situations. Clearly all relational predicates can also

be understood as such characteristics: e.g. the rock is the left one only when compared with things

right from it. As we have seen, Hegel takes all true determinations to be relations towards other

things: determinations or qualities are aspects of an object or a situation as differing from others of

its kind. Thus, the meaning of quality is determined by its place in a certain qualitative space: red is

something that is not green, yellow etc. Hence, all qualities or determinations of an object or a

situation can be taken as belonging to the aspect of being according to another: e.g. something is red

only in comparison with green, yellow etc. In other words, all determinations can be taken as

extrinsic in some context: yet, we shall in a moment see, that in every context we can find also

intrinsic determinations.

9./198. A state of being-here has an aspect in which it doesn’t hold, but also an aspect of being. This aspect is not a state

of pure being, but a state of mere self-relatedness compared to a state of being related to others. Such a state of being is

a state of being-in-itself.

Hegel talks merely of “it” without specifying whether the it refers to a state of being or an object.

Because Hegel has just talked of situations, the former option seems plausible; whatever the case,

the argument can be easily applied to both situations and objects in general. A state of being-here

has an aspect of not-holding (situation is not actual according to a context in which it does not hold);

an object has an aspect of non-existence or otherness (object is something else or a mere

background in comparison to another object). On the other hand, the situation or the object must

have another aspect, in which the object or the situation is not determined or related to other objects

and situations. Such an aspect is an abstraction out of the relation with other situations and objects:

it is a state of being-in-general or an object as merely existing. Yet, on the whole we have not

abstracted from the relation to something other: the aspect of unrelatedness is not the completely

unrelated state of pure being in the beginning – at that stage we didn’t even know there could be

other situations or objects. Instead, it is related to the other aspect – the aspect of differing from

other objects or of being according to other viewpoints. Such an aspect is not the view of object or

35

situation from its own viewpoint, because according to that aspect, there are no other viewpoints

with which to compare it. More precisely, it is an aspect where all difference of viewpoints has been

taken away together with all the other situations and objects: it is not certain whether the Kantian

determination of “in itself” is fit to describe it.

10./199. The states of being-according-to-another and of being-in-itself are two aspects of an object. Being something

and being other are not originally related, but in a more informative context they are related. When being something and

being other are constructed as related, they are the aspects of being according-to-another and of being-in-itself for some

object. As aspects, they are connected and imply also the other aspect.

It is time to recollect what has gone before. We began by choosing two objects and taking one of

them as designated or central object – as something – and one as undesignated or mere background

– as other: this is a rock and that is a tree. At first sight the characteristics of something and other

were not interchangeable: what is taken as designated in this situation – the rock – cannot also be

the undesignated object – which then had to be the tree. The two characteristics “fell apart”, that is,

they had to be assigned to different objects. But we had been looking only at one possibility, while

we should have tried to gain more information by looking at other possibilities: the assignment of

characteristics was true for this situation, but not necessarily for all situations. Indeed, we could

change the reference point and take the tree instead as the designated object; then the previous

reference point or the rock became the undesignated other. Now, we have connected the two

characteristics of something and other: what is something, can be taken as the other, and vice versa.

The rock is other from the viewpoint of the tree – it is undesignated, when the tree is taken as

designated: the otherness of the rock is its aspect of being-according-to-another. On the other hand,

in itself – when we abstract from its relationship with the tree – the rock must be the designated

object. Thus, the characteristics of being something and being other have been revealed as moments

of one object – as the two aspects of being-in-itself and being-according-to-another, which as

aspects of the same object must imply themselves: if something has an aspect of being-according-

to-another, then we can find for it an aspect of being-in-itself, and vice versa.

The construction has undoubtedly not changed the basic separateness of the two objects,

although it has shown that the characteristics of designatedness and non-designatedness are

connected: the rock and the tree are still different and distinct objects. Indeed, the fact that an object

can be taken as related to another seems to imply that there must be two distinct objects in order to

make sense of Hegel’s distinction between the two aspects. Yet, as Hegel has also shown, the

existence of two distinct objects is not actually a precondition of having two aspects of being-in-

itself and being-according-to-another. Think of a leaf that has turned red. We may compare this red

aspect or version of the leaf with its earlier embodiment as a green leaf – then the leaf is taken from

36

a viewpoint of another, although the other is only another aspect of the leaf – but we can also

abstract from this difference of aspects and look at the leaf in itself – then it is neither a green nor a

red leaf.

11./200. Aspects of being and non-being are not what they were as independent: even in the structure of becoming they

were states of generation and corruption. The aspect of being in something is the state of being-in-itself: it is not an

independent state of being, but one related to a possible state of non-being. The aspect of non-being is not a pure state

of non-being, but a state of being undesignated or a state of being-according-to-another.

The idea that being and non-being or nothing are not the same when they have been connected has

been mentioned before, when we spoke of the structures of becoming, generation and corruption. A

non-empty state of being, as a state of possible corruption, was not an independent or pure state of

being anymore, because it contained as a possibility a state of nothingness – now there is something,

but there might not be anything; and a state of nothingness, as a state of possible generation, was

not anymore an independent situation, because it contained a non-empty state of being as a

possibility – now there isn’t anything, but there might be.

At this stage, being and non-being have been attached to an object. Object exists in some

sense and the situation with it is therefore non-empty or a state of being. Yet, this aspect of object as

existing – object’s state of being-in-itself – is not completely independent: it is only an abstraction

out of a larger context with other objects. Thus, object also does not exist or is an undesignated

object in another sense and therefore the situation with it is empty or a state of nothingness: it is like

when we say “there is nothing here” in a field full of rocks, when we are looking for trees instead of

rocks. Object undoubtedly exists in itself, but we have here chosen another reference point and we

are now looking at the object from this alien viewpoint: this is object’s state of being-according-to-

another.

12./201 In one sense, a state of being-in-itself is an abstraction out of otherness and non-being; when something is in

itself, it is not non-designated or viewed from an alien viewpoint. In another sense, a state of being-in-itself is a state of

non-being, compared to a state of being-according-to-another.

A state or aspect of being-in-itself is in some sense determinate: it is an alternative way to view an

object compared to an aspect of being-according-to-another. And like every determinate situation or

context considered as determinate, a state of being-in-itself can be taken either as a reality or as a

negation: it may be the “true”, actual or designated situation or it may be the “untrue”, non-actual or

non-designated situation. At first sight, it seems that primarily the aspect of reality should belong to

a state of being-in-itself. In the other aspect, the object in question is taken as non-actual – as a mere

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background – whereas in reality, as it seems, an object must undoubtedly exist: the otherness of the

object is an extrinsic characteristic arising only from an external comparison, while abstracted from

all relations the object would simply exist. On the other hand, a state of being-in-itself is still an

abstraction, because it leaves something out – the existence of other objects – and as an abstraction

it is a lacking of something: an aspect of being-in-itself denies matters that hold in the aspect of

being-according-to-another. Thus, if we have good reasons to accept that in some sense the other

aspect can also be taken as real, we must conclude that the aspect of being-in-itself might as well be

taken as negative.

13./202. Similarly, in one sense, a state of being-according-to-another is a negation of the state of being of an object:

when something is according to another, it doesn’t exist independently. In another sense, it is not a pure state of nothing,

but is related to a state of being-in-itself.

A similar relativity of being real or negative hold also of the aspect of being-according-to-another.

According to a first look, this aspect must be taken as negative: it is not an independent state of

being, but a state of being-related-to-another-state-of-being, and furthermore, the object which

exists in it is in that situation only undesignated, that is, it is not an actual entity, but only something

dependent and secondary. In this sense, the aspect of being-according-to-another is negation to the

reality of the aspect of being-in-itself: it is an external comparison which doesn’t touch the inner

core of the object. Yet, an aspect of being-according-to-another is not a pure state of nothingness.

The object in it is taken as non-existing or as a mere other, but it still exists actually or is designated

in another situation, to which this aspect is related as alternative. Thus, this aspect seems more

informative and therefore more real than the aspect of being-in-itself, which is a mere negative

abstraction out of the other aspect.

14./203. 3. Of the connection between a state of being in itself and a state of being according to another. Both

states are aspects of the same object. An object is in itself, when it has been abstracted from what it is only according to

another viewpoint. Yet, any characteristic or relation that an object has in some viewpoint must belong as a potentiality

to what the object is in itself.

A state of being-in-itself has been found by abstracting all extrinsic details from the way how an

object presents itself, that is, taking away all that the object is only according to another viewpoint.

At first sight, then, it may seem that nothing more is left for the object but its existence: as we saw

in the paragraph 197, all determinations of an object can be interpreted as belonging merely to its

aspect of being-according-to-another, because they serve to relate it to and differentiate it from

other objects. Yet, it seems that something can still be found within this being-in-itself after the

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abstraction has been made, thanks to the fact that the aspect before abstraction and the aspect after

the abstraction have something in common, namely, the object to which they are aspects. Suppose

we have abstracted some determination from a rock, for instance, its grey colour. Then, although

the rock in itself would not be grey, it would still be potentially grey: that is, in itself, the rock

would have the possibility of being grey. Generally, all determinations of an object according to any

viewpoint or context must be pictured in the object in itself in some form: as potentialities to be

determined in such a manner in some viewpoint or context.

The potentialities discovered within the object in itself are undoubtedly also determinations

in some sense: all objects are not determinable in a similar manner. Thus, it seems possible that we

could once again abstract from these determinations and find a new, even more pure object in itself

and from that object in itself we could still find more potentialities to be determined and thus more

determinations. Hence, we must conclude that an aspect of an object is an aspect of being-in-itself

only relative to another aspect that is the aspect of being-according-to-another. Every aspect of an

object can be seen as an extrinsic one, but through abstraction we can always find a more intrinsic

''aspect, and within that aspect, new determinations: the assignment of “being according to another”

and “being in itself” depends on the context.

15./204. Aspects of being-in-itself and being-according-to-another seem different at first, but they are connected by the

fact of belonging to the same object: what object is in itself, must be seen in it, and what the object is according to some

external viewpoint, must belong to the object in itself potentially. More explicitly this connection presents itself when

we look at essence, the relationship of the inner and the outer and finally the idea as a unity of a concept and a reality.

The object in itself should be something valuable, but what the object is merely in itself is an extrinsic determination:

the true value lies in what an object presents of itself.

The previous paragraph indicated that all aspects of an object – all ways how it is presented in

different viewpoints and contexts – must belong potentially to what the object is in itself: if this

wall looks red to our eyes, then it must have the ability or disposition to look red in a suitable

situation. In Hegelian terms, we have moved from a quality to a property behind it, and it is hence

no wonder when Hegel says that this connection of all viewpoints with the aspect of in itself is

presented more adequately in the part of Logic handling essence. In a simplified manner we may

say that Hegel means by an essence of an object the collection of all such potential characteristics of

it: the object would show such and such characteristics in this situation, others in that situation etc.

Essence is an inner core of the object – the combination of all dispositions an object has – where the

outer shell of the object consists of the ways these dispositions manifest themselves: the essence

explains the content of a particular manifestation of an object, although not necessarily why it has

been manifested in this manner now. This relationship is even further developed in a structure

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Hegel calls idea. Here the essence of an object – a concept – is not just a combination of

potentialities that require some external conditions in order to be manifested, but a principle that

determines itself when and where these conditions are actualised: it explains not merely the content

of the actual situations, but also why these particular situations are manifested.

Hegel mentions also another connection between the aspects of being-in-itself and being-

according-to-another: the determinations of an object in itself must be determinations of the same

object in some viewpoint according to another. Basically, Hegel is merely stating the quite obvious

fact that a determination of an object that is context-independent – in some sense, that is, relative to

some set of predetermined contexts – must be a determination of that object in every relevant

context: if being a philosopher is something intrinsic to my life from the sixteenth birthday onwards,

then I must truly be a philosopher every day after my sixteenth birthday. But Hegel has also in mind

something else. The main examples of determinations-in-itself – or intrinsic determinations – have

been certain dispositions. Now, Hegel says, such dispositions must be actualised in some possible

context: otherwise, it would be pointless to say that these dispositions belong to the object-in-itself.

Note that a context or choice of the aspect of being-in-itself determines what is taken as possible: a

monkey taken as a mere animal could be an elephant, but a monkey taken intrinsically as a monkey

could not be elephant. Hegel is usually most interested of the context of our actual space-time world,

which indicates that Hegel would have to ascribe to some form of the principle of plenitude – all

true possibilities will be actualised. Yet, these intricacies touch us only in the realm of essence,

whereas now we merely use these potentialities or dispositions as examples of intrinsic

determinations, but do not investigate them as potentialities.

16./205. Here belongs the idea of a thing in its aspect of being-in-itself, of which we should be able to know nothing.

Things are as they are in themselves, when we abstract from all extrinsic viewpoints, and thus, from all determinations:

then there undoubtedly is nothing to know in the thing as it is in itself, like there is nothing to separate in a situation

where everything is one. Thing in itself is a mere abstraction out of all concrete contexts, while a concept of an object

explains these contexts.

We have met Hegel’s criticism of Kantian thing in itself regularly since the beginning of Logic

(from the paragraph 13 onwards), but until now we haven’t had a proper idea of what Hegel meant

by something being in itself. Kant’s thing in itself – or more precisely, thing as it is in itself – is not

meant to be another thing beyond the things we experience, but refers to the thing or things of our

common experience in their aspect of being outside human experience: this is the so-called two-

aspect view in contrast to the more classical two-world view. Hegel does not make the obvious

mistake of ascribing the two-world view to Kant: state of being-in-itself is understood by him to be

an aspect of an object in contrast to its aspect of being-according-to-another-object. Yet, there is

40

another, almost as obvious difference between Hegel’s and Kant’s ideas, shown by the concepts

with which both philosophers contrast this aspect of in-itself. Kantian thing in itself is compared

with a thing conceived by human intelligence – that is, by human sensibility and categories

influenced by human sensibility – whereas Hegel’s being-in -itself is an abstraction out of all

contexts and viewpoints whatsoever. Thus, Hegel’s statement that one cannot know anything of a

thing in itself, because there is nothing to know in it, doesn’t strike Kant’s view, because Kant’s

thing in itself is not necessarily completely indeterminate: it is just unclear to us what

determinations it might have, because they are such that we might never know. Still, even this

difference is not crucial, because of the contextual nature of Hegel’s account: we may apply the

difference between aspects of in-itself and according-to-another to a case where the latter aspect

would coincide with Kant’s humanly knowable situations.

Suppose now that we have made the described application of Hegel’s terminology. What

kind of discussion could Kant and Hegel carry on now? Hegel would begin by saying that we do

know at least some properties or dispositions of things in themselves: they are such that they appear

in a determinate manner to human intelligence. Kant would agree with this – if he would just accept

the word “knowing” – because Hegel’s suggestion would remind him of his own idea of

transcendental affinity. Hegel would perhaps continue by saying that all the properties of a thing in

itself should also be properties of things as they are for us. After a fierce debate and a clarification

of definitions – Kant’s thing according to human consciousness consists only of properties we can

know, whereas Hegel’s thing according to some viewpoint contains always the properties of thing

in itself – Kant would agree that Hegel’s statement is quite trivial, but he would continue that we do

not know all the properties thing has in itself. Hegel would agree with this unknowability, which is

an empirical matter: as a consequence, we don’t know all properties of thing according to some

viewpoint. Yet, we can think of the properties a thing might have in addition to those we know,

Hegel would continue, and therefore we could possibly know of them, if we just had the empirical

means needed for it: and here Kant would finally disagree, because in his opinion, possible

cognition demands not just thinking, but also agreeability with forms of human sensibility or

intuition – we could never imagine how the world would be without these forms. Thus, the

difference between Kant and Hegel reduces to the difference already familiar to us: Kant

emphasises the need to picture what one is thinking, whereas Hegel attempts to minimise this need.

17./206. The first counteraspect of a state of being-in-itself was a state of being-according-to-another, but later it is set

against a state of being-posited-or-constructed. Being-posited already tells that there is something more positive to

which it related. Positing appears in the sphere of essence: ground explains the content of the grounded, cause explains

the existence of the effect. A structure with a determinate situation can be found or constructed from a structure of

becoming, but it is not the structure of becoming that does the construction. There is yet no explicit principle or method

41

which would determine the development, so we just make transitions from one possibility to another: all alternative

structures – like finity and infinity – point to each other as alternatives, but otherwise do not depend on each other,

whereas e.g. being a cause would be meaningless without an effect. In logic, we should always differentiate between

what is in itself – which is the only thing that interests ordinary metaphysics and critical philosophy – and what has

been posited – which only dialectical philosophy is interested of.

At this stage, the different contexts in which different aspects of an object are presented are merely

compared with the object in its aspect of being-in-itself – they are merely some arbitrary viewpoints,

which are extrinsic to the object itself – but no attempt to explain these contexts from the intrinsic

nature of the object is made. True, we have pointed out that the object has at least some dispositions

of appearing in certain contexts as intrinsic properties, but this was done merely to argue for the

existence of intrinsic properties. It is only the division on essence where such explanatory

relationships start to appear. A ground of a situation or an object explains why the situation or the

object is as it is – a ground is a general disposition that certain things happen in suitable conditions

– but it does not yet explain the occurrence of the situation, because it is still dependent on some

further conditions. A cause, then, constructs itself the object or the situation that it explains: it

explains the existence as well as the content of the situation. The grounded and the effect are

already explicitly constructed in part or in whole – they need some further aspect or state in order to

be as they are – whereas at the stage of being, all situations and objects seem to be causally and

explanatorily independent. When we construct something in this part of Logic, we only use some

method, but the method itself – the concept of Hegel – is not made an explicit object, which could

explain how the constructed structure has appeared. The structures from which the constructions

begin, on the other hand, can not be used as explanations for the existence of constructed structures:

although it is possible to construct other from something or infinite objects from finite objects and

vice versa, there is nothing' to say in a situation with something or a finite object, that a situation

with another object or an infinite object should or must be constructed. Thus, the constructions

seem at this stage sudden and unexpected: we discover possible alternatives, but do not understand

yet, why such alternatives exist.

The remark on the difference between what is true in principle and what has really been

constructed is already familiar to us from the paragraph 166: it is a clear expression of Hegel’s

constructivism. Interesting is the connection Hegel sees between his division and different styles of

philosophising. The metaphysics of past had always been interested of what there is in itself – that

is, what there exists when we abstract from all relative contexts. Although Kant had remarked that

we can never imagine what things would be like beyond all humanly achievable contexts and thus

the metaphysical criterion of truth was ridiculous for human purposes, even he seemed at times to

admit that the worth of cognition is determined by its capability of seeing things beyond all contexts,

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i.e. when we compare human cognition with divine. But it is only Hegel’s philosophy which

understands that the true worth of knowledge is measured by its capability to actually show how the

intrinsic properties of objects appear in actual life: that is, its capability to actually construct by the

methods it has discovered new situations from old ones. Nothing can be accepted as truth until it

can be proved, nothing can be accepted as existing until it can be constructed.

18./207. The determinations in the aspect of being-according-to-another belong as potentialities to the aspect of being-

in-itself, because they are both aspects of the same object. Thus, the determination in question is an independent quality

that is intrinsic to the object.

What is left for this section is merely to gather up what has been said before and show how the first

subject matter of the next section can be discovered. Hegel has just argued that determinations of an

object according to some context or viewpoint belong as potentialities or dispositions to what the

object is in itself, that is, as abstracted from all other contexts: if a thing looks red in this lightning,

green in that etc., then it has the disposition of looking red in this lightning etc. The determinations

of object have been reflected into the object itself: this is another Hegelian way of describing this

process from qualities to dispositions. Now, while the previous determinations could have been

taken as mere aspects of the object – although the object looks like red in this lightning, it might not

look red in some other lightning – the new determination is more stable, or as Hegel says, it simply

is: it is not a mere moment compared to the other determinations. This means that the determination

is more essential to the object: an object is capable of looking red, although it wouldn’t look red at

the moment. Thus, we have been able to find a determination (Bestimmung) that is intrinsic in some

context – that is, compared to certain aspects of the object – although it might be an extrinsic

determination in other contexts.

b. Intrinsic determination, extrinsic determination and limit

The previous section considered two objects, one of which was taken as designated, while the other

was supposed to be undesignated. Because of the arbitrariness of the choice, these characteristics

seemed extrinsic to the objects themselves: they depended only on a relation with other objects.

Because all determinations in Hegel’s Logic can be interpreted as ways to differentiate objects, it

seemed that all determinations could be taken as extrinsic. Still, in all contexts it was possible to

find some intrinsic determinations: the dispositions for showing certain external characteristics.

The first aim of this section is to investigate more closely the relationship between intrinsic and

extrinsic characteristics and to show that they are connected: hence, the quite natural division to

nameless subsections that investigate intrinsic determinations, extrinsic determinations and finally

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limits or complexes of the previous determinations. The argument for the connection between

intrinsic and extrinsic determinations is almost a repetition of the arguments in the previous section:

the connection between states of being-according-to-another and being-in-itself is applied to the

special case of determinations in those states. More interesting is the subsection on limits, which

has a separate aim of showing that all limited objects – that is, all objects in some determinate

situation – are finite, i.e. do not exist in all situations. This subsection has also its own three-part

division, which has a most peculiar form of introducing first the whole structure of limit and

discussing in the remaining two parts two ways to interpret it.

1./208. The aspect of in-itself that has the aspect of being-according-to-another as a possible alternative is not an

abstraction, because it has the possibility of the other as an aspect. It contains not just the identity of an object, but also

dispositions, relations to other viewpoints. Object has not merely an independent determination or quality and not only

an actual determination or reality, but an intrinsic determination.

Hegel begins with a comparison of the present stage of Logic with an earlier one: a comparison

which shows well the constructivist nature of Logic. Earlier the state of being-in-itself was a mere

abstraction of all given determinations and the object in that aspect had not other characteristics, but

self-identity. At that point it would have been untrue to say that the object in itself had some

properties, because those properties were not yet found. Then we saw that we can find a context in

which the object in itself is determined: the object in itself contains the determinations of this object

according to another viewpoint as an alternative viewpoint – object in itself is a negation of these

determinations in Hegelian terminology – so it must have a disposition of being able to be

determined in that manner. Such a disposition is not just a quality or a reality – it is not merely

being, that is, an actual determination in some situation – but a determination in itself – that is, it is

a determination which the object has in all relevant situations, i.e. it is an intrinsic determination.

Hegel has thus shown a method of finding intrinsic determinations: look at its extrinsic

determinations and the ability to be determined in that manner is intrinsic. Undoubtedly, this

strategy requires that we already can compare the object with other objects: possibility for that has

been shown by separating empty situations from non-empty situations and generally on separating

objects from situations in which they exist. Thus, an object has at least an intrinsic ability of being

separable from its situation.

2./209. 1. Intrinsic determinations. Quality that connects a state of being-in-itself with other aspects of the same object

can be called simply its determination, if determination is differentiated from determinateness. An intrinsic

determination is what keeps the nature of the object identical in all extrinsic contexts. An object fulfils its intrinsic

determination in a certain context when it actualises its potentiality in that context.

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After the terminological differentiation of determination (Bestimmung) – what I have called

intrinsic determination or characteristic – and determinateness (Bestimmtheit) – the general name

for both intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics – Hegel gives two accounts of intrinsic characteristics

that seem to contradict one another. Firstly, he describes intrinsic determinations as such

characteristics that keep an object similar with itself, although it would be looked from another

viewpoint. This is the familiar notion that intrinsic determinations do not vary in the relevant

contexts: if a plant is intrinsically strawberry, then it remains strawberry no matter in what stage of

its development it is. Secondly, Hegel mentions the possibility that an intrinsic determination is

fulfilled when further determinations of an object correspond with the intrinsic determinations.

Hegel’s statement seems to allow for the possibility that an object wouldn’t have its intrinsic

determination in some context – where it does not fulfil its determination – which is in blatant

contradiction with the previous statement. The seeming inconsistency is solved, when we remember

that Hegel’s examples of intrinsic determinations are dispositions or potentialities. If an object has

some potentiality as an intrinsic determination – like a metal rod could have electricity or power to

give electric shocks as its intrinsic characteristic – then it most certainly has this determination in all

contexts – an electrical rod can always give electrical shocks – and yet it may fail to fulfil its

determination – an electric rod won’t give a shock unless right conditions hold.

3./210. Rational thinking is the intrinsic determination of a human being. Thinking is a characteristic of humans,

because it separates them from other animals. A human being is thinking in itself, because thinking is separated from

other aspects, like sensibility, which connect it with other entities. Thinking is within a human being, because human

beings do actually think; as actually thinking, a human being fulfils its intrinsic determination. But compared to

sensibility, thinking is only something that should be.

Hegel himself also clarifies the seeming contradictoriness of the two statement in the previous

paragraph, with the classical definition of human as the thinking animal as his example. Thinking –

or more precisely, the ability to think – is a determination or characteristic of humans, when we

understand determination as something that separates humans from other objects, or here, from

other animals: all animals are embodied, living beings, most of them can sense things and move

around, many even can have some sort of representations quite likely, but only humans are able to

think, that is, use abstract concepts. This ability to think, which separates us from other animals, is

what Aristotle would have called first actuality: ability to think is something that animals don’t have,

but it implies another actuality – actual thinking – as we shall see. Ability to think is also separable

from all other aspects and abilities of humans, like eating, moving and sensing. These other abilities

connect human with other entities – we eat plants and animals, we move among trees and rocks and

45

we sense everything around us – but ability to think remains locked within the world of concepts,

especially if it resembles Logic: in this sense ability to think belongs to the human in itself, that is,

to the human as abstracted from her surroundings. But thinking – that is, actual thinking, or the

second actuality of thinking – is also something we do in our everyday lives – we are not just able

to think, but we truly think, and when we think, we think of some determinate object,

determinations it has etc., in other words, we think concrete matters and not mere abstractions,

although we use abstractions in our thinking: we fulfil our ability to think by making it concrete. In

other contexts or circumstances, our ability remains unfulfilled – it is something we could and even

should do, but which remains unused at the moment – i.e. when we use merely our senses to make

sense of the world. Thus, we get four characteristics or aspects of thinking: 1) thinking as ability

that separates humans from other animals – the characteristic trait; 2) thinking as ability among

other abilities – thinking in itself; 3) thinking as actual thinking – fulfilment of ability; 4) thinking

that doesn’t happen – thinking as a mere ought-to.

4./211. 2. Extrinsic determinations. Beside the intrinsic determination and its potential fulfilment, object has

determinations that hold merely in some context or for another viewpoint: although these determinations are moments

of the same object as intrinsic determinations, they still are independent of them. Thus, the object has in addition to

intrinsic, also extrinsic determinations.

Hegel seems to divide determinations into three groups: firstly, there are intrinsic determinations,

which are usually some form of dispositions – ability of thinking – the fulfilments or actualisations

of these dispositions – actual thinking – and finally, completely extrinsic determinations

(Beschaffenheit) – colour of eyes. But apart from this paragraph the division seems to be more to

intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics, actualisations becoming part of extrinsic characteristics,

although related to intrinsic determinations – a clear sign that Hegelian terminology allows for

much variability. Whatever the case, the genesis of the division is obvious: it is the application of

the notions of a state of being-in-itself and a state of being-according-to-others applied to

determinations an object has in those states. All of the determinations are integrated or sublated:

they are characteristics of one object. Still, the different sorts of determinations or aspects are

independent at least from each other. No indication has yet been given how the division has been

made, that is, how extrinsic determinations can be constructed from intrinsic determinations: the

division has just been accepted on the basis of object being at this stage related to other objects, that

is, having an aspect of being-according-to-another.

5./212. An extrinsic determination of an object arises from external connections. Such contacts with other objects seem

contingent, but it is characteristic for determinate object to have extrinsic determinations.

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While the previous paragraph introduced the idea of external characteristics, this paragraph explains

what sort of characteristics they are. External characteristics were defined as determinations object

has only in its aspect of being-according-to-another-viewpoint: characteristics which arise only in

comparison with other objects, or more generally, in relation to those other objects – a colour of

eyes, for instance, is not an intrinsic determination of my character, because it serves only to

distinguish me from other human beings, and furthermore, is caused by my genetic relationship to

my ancestors. Such external characteristics are – in the relevant context – merely contingent, that is,

the object might well have other characteristics: it wouldn’t affect my essence at all if my colours

were brown instead of being green. Although a single external characteristic is contingent, it is at

this stage necessary that an object has some external characteristic, Hegel says: although the colour

of my eyes would be integral to me in some context – for instance, during a passport control in

airports – other qualities of mine, like my favourite colour, would be indifferent in that context. For

now, the only argument Hegel has presented for this statement is the necessity of objects having an

aspect of being according to another: after few paragraphs Hegel gives a more strict explanation.

6./213. An object can change its external determinations, which become other, while its intrinsic determination do not

change and the object itself continues existing.

After introducing intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics separately, Hegel begins to compare them

through notion of change. We must remember that the change in Hegel does not refer only to

temporal changes, but to any relationship between situations which share the same object, although

in a different guise: change may also be spatial – colour of the rod changes to red at this point –

aspectual – the appearance of a round tower changes to square from this angle – and even alethic –

it is a possibility that the colour of my eyes were changed, that is, that I would have had differently

coloured eyes than I at the moment have. As the previous paragraph already explained, in all these

cases the change or difference falls into the extrinsic properties of an object – the colour of my eyes

could change without me becoming another man – while intrinsic determinations must remain same,

because, by definition, they are those properties which remain same no matter how the extrinsic

characteristics have been changed. The difference between the two sorts of characteristics has now

been indicated: it is the relative stability of the characteristic in the context in question. The next

task shall be to show that they are connected, that is, that from an example of an intrinsic

characteristic one can find an example of extrinsic characteristics and vice versa.

7./214. The difference of extrinsic and intrinsic determinations has been indicated: extrinsic determinations are

contingent compared to intrinsic determinations. The different sorts of determinations are connected by the object

47

which they determine, but they also separate into different aspects of the object. They are similar in being

determinations, but they also can be constructed from one another. An intrinsic determination is, as a determination, a

relation to another object, and it can therefore be abstracted from the object in itself and taken as an extrinsic

determination. If an object would, on the other hand, have merely extrinsic determinations – that is, would be a mere

collection of aspects – we could find an object in itself behind these aspects and from that object a disposition for these

aspects. Extrinsic determinations depend on the object in itself – the nature of the object limits how it can change – and

they affect the object – object can truly be changed.

The aim of this paragraph is to find out what sort of connection there can be between extrinsic and

intrinsic determinations. The first proposal Hegel states is that extrinsic and intrinsic determinations

would have something in common, namely, a third thing – mediating term (Mitte), as Hegel calls it

– to which both sorts of determinations would be connected. The first and obvious suggestion for

connecting extrinsic and intrinsic determinations would be the object which both determinations

characterise: colour of my eyes and my humanity are both determinations of me. Although the

suggestion is temptingly natural, it fails because of an unproven presupposition: we have no

guarantee that all objects would truly have both intrinsic and extrinsic determinations, e.g. one

could assume that colour of my eyes would not be contingent or that my humanity would be

contingent. The failure doesn’t mean that there wouldn’t be any connecting element, and indeed,

Hegel proceeds to introduce just such a mediator. But this time, it is not a question of a common

object, but of a common characteristic: both extrinsic and intrinsic characteristics are characteristics

or determinations, that is, they help one to distinguish the object from other objects. Thus, my

humanity helps to distinguish me from animals, whereas the colour of my eyes helps to distinguish

me from other people.

Hegel is not satisfied with a common characteristic between the sorts of determinations,

because such a connection wouldn’t help us to construct extrinsic determinations from intrinsic

determinations or vice versa. Hegel thus continues with such a construction. Let us begin with an

object that supposedly has only intrinsic determinations. Such a determination is a determination,

and hence, differentiates it from other objects and therefore relates it to them. An intrinsic

determination belongs in some context to the aspect of being according to another. We are then able

to abstract from such a determination and to find even further object in itself: one may abstract from

the fact that I am human and look at me as a mere animal. The status of intrinsic determination can

vary: it can be viewed as not essential to the object that it determines or it can be interpreted as an

extrinsic characteristic. Thus, it is possible to find an extrinsic characteristic from an example of an

intrinsic characteristic.

The construction to the other way is a bit terser, because the main steps have already been

gone through. Let us suppose that we have an object with merely extrinsic characteristics: this

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would be something that wouldn’t have any independent nature, but would be a mere

conglomeration of aspects and viewpoints. Now, we have already met an example of such a bunch

of aspects, namely, the so-called mere other with no relation with any objects. As we saw there, it is

possible always to find an object that is behind those aspects – the object as it is in itself compared

to the object as it is in some viewpoint. Because this object then contains the possibility of being

viewed according to its aspects – that is, a disposition – we have been able to find an intrinsic

determination from extrinsic determinations.

The constructions have proved at least that there is some connection between extrinsic and

intrinsic determinations. Extrinsic determinations are not completely variable, because they are

governed by the dispositions of the object in itself – the colour of my eyes is governed by my

human genetic nature, e.g. by preventing my eyes from being purple. Furthermore, the extrinsic

determinations are not mere illusion, but the object truly is determined by those determinations and

changes from one context and situation to another when its determinations change: for instance, my

eye colour truly is my property and I change – not into a different person, but – into a different

version of myself, when the colour of my eyes has changed.

8./215. When changes first appeared, they might have seemed to be a mere concern of aspects or they were not yet

constructed as changes, whereas now they have been. Negativity or consisting of many aspects has been constructed as

belonging to an object within itself.

As this is actually the third time when the notion of change has appeared, it needs a bit

interpretation to see what Hegel actually wants to say in this paragraph. The change was introduced

in the paragraph 185 as a possible way to interpret the connection between a state of being and a

state of nothingness: both could be taken as versions of the same object. But this was merely an

example of change and also dubious one, because there was no insurance that the two situations

were actually the same object. A more likely candidate for the first change is the one in paragraph

195, where it is a question of aspects being versions of the same object. There the change of aspects

was indeed only something affecting the surface of the object or its being-according-to-some-

external-viewpoint, whereas in the object in its state-of-being-in-itself there was no indication of

this change: the object in itself was at that stage a mere self-identity without any properties. At this

stage, on the other hand, the object in itself has gained properties: it has now a disposition that it

may have different versions or aspects. In Hegel’s own words, negation – the possibility of many

alternative aspects of the same object – is now constructed as immanent to the object – they are

contained in object in itself as potentialities.

9./216. Because intrinsic and extrinsic determinations are connected, they determine the same object or state-of-being-

49

here. As determined, the object is related to another object. This relatedness is not a mere external comparison anymore,

but immanent to the object. In one sense the objects are independent, but their independency presupposes that they are

intrinsically related to each other in another sense.

For every extrinsic determination it is possible to find an intrinsic determination and vice versa:

thus, for all determinate objects can be found both intrinsic and extrinsic determinations.

Furthermore, when two such determinations have been connected, we see that they are mere aspects

of one object or state of being, just as in the paragraph 182 we saw that the same state of being or

situation could be viewed under different aspects: at this stage, it is the case of seeing that both

colour of eyes and ability to think are determinations of the same person. Now, these aspects

contain a reference to another object from which they help to separate the object they determine:

hence, in some sense there must seem to be more than one object. At first sight nothing new has

been discovered: we have been in contact with a multitude of objects for quite some time. The step

forward is that now we know for sure that the difference is truly intrinsic or immanent in some

context, because the object in question has also some intrinsic determinations, while earlier we

could doubt that it was only a matter of comparison: the two apparently different objects could have

been, like temporal versions of a leaf, merely one object in different situations. This relatedness of

the two objects does not mean that they wouldn’t be independent: undoubtedly we can always

abstract from the other object and look at the remaining object without any connection to its

surroundings – a tree is not nailed to a rock and a human being is not logically dependent on

animals, although she differs from them. Yet, this abstraction is only an abstraction, that is, it can

always be related to a wider context where the object is differentiated from other objects: an object

has at least a disposition of being differentiated from other objects.

10./127. An object is intrinsically related to other objects, because its nature contains reference to other objects, from

which it separates itself: this aspect of separateness is the quality of the object. Previously the difference of objects

seemed extrinsic, because the one and the other could have changed their places, but now it is the nature of the object to

differentiate itself from other objects – in one sense object is an independent object in itself, in another sense it is related

to other objects. The single state combining independent existence, but also relatedness to and difference from other

objects is the limit of an object.

The paragraph seems quite complicated at first, but is mainly a mere repetition of what has

happened before. I shall still analyse it thoroughly, sentence by sentence, in order to show how to

analyse such difficult passages. “Something is related by itself to another, because a [state of] being

other has been posited as its own moment, its [state of] being within itself contains negation in itself,

and through that negation it generally has its affirmative presence.” The first sentence already

contains all that is essential in this paragraph. An object has an aspect of being undesignated or

50

mere background compared to another object, which is taken as designated or central: a rock is a

mere background when we are looking at trees, I am the wrong man when one is looking for a

person with brown eyes. Thus, the object is, in some context, related to another object – remember

that the negation meant simply relation of alternativeness or accessibility in modal logic – and thus

this relatedness is contained within the sum of all aspects of the object – its being within itself.

Furthermore, an object is the determinate object it is, only because it can be differentiated from

other objects.

The first object is qualitatively separated from another object, that is, because of the intrinsic

determinacy of the object, it is separated from another object – the objects are outside one another,

that is, they are not mere aspects or versions of the same object, but truly different objects,

according to the context. Of course, the intrinsic determination in question is determined by the

context – a colour of my eyes which otherwise is a relatively unimportant feature of me is very

important characteristic when identifying myself.

The aspect of differentiating an object from other objects constitutes its quality – quality is

here understood as intrinsic quality – because an object is the object that it is only when

differentiated from the objects it isn’t. For instance, if the colour of my eyes wouldn’t be green, but

e.g. blue, I couldn’t be identified – through the colour of eyes – from a group of blue-eyed people.

The contextuality of differentiating objects is once again apparent – although I would be different

compared to an object according to some context, in another context we could be completely similar

– and the objects in a situation are determined by what characteristics are taken as intrinsic in that

situation.

Earlier the state-of-being-here could make a transition to a state-of-being-other and

something could become another. The awkward phrase refers to the contingency of designating one

situation and object as actual: if an object or a situation is taken as actual or central in some context,

we can always easily find another sense or context in which this situation or object is non-actual or

mere background. Then the two objects seemed only externally opposed: one object could have as

well taken the place of the other object, because there was nothing to truly differentiate them. Now

we have a context in which two objects are intrinsically differentiated, so the externality of

opposition vanished.

A negation belongs to an object, because in one of its aspects an object is differentiated from

another object: a rock is not a tree and I am not the person with the blue eyes. Object in itself is a

negation of a negation – remember that a negation of a negation refers to the relationship that an

object has towards its different aspects or determinations – that is, it contains as a possibility or

dispositional characteristic that it could be related to another thing outside it and differentiated from

it in some manner. The object has a simple negation in it, because we can actualise this potentiality

51

and truly compare the object with some other object.

In summary, an object has three aspects. Firstly, it is an independent object, which has some

potential aspects in which it is related to other objects: it is in a state-of-being-within-itself or it is a

negation of a negation. Secondly, because of this potentiality, the object can be truly differentiated

from other objects: it is a simple negation. But thirdly, this negation means merely that the two

objects are related as alternatives: the objects can be compared within one context. Thus far nothing

new has been indicated, and only surprise would be to name the combination of all these aspects –

the combination that in some sense an object can be abstracted from its relations to other being, but

in another sense it can be related to other objects – and indeed, Hegel calls it limit.

We may justly ask whether anything truly new has been learned since we began the analysis

of two different objects in the paragraph 190. We began with the assumption of two objects being

different and then proceeded to show that in some context this differentiation must be immanent.

Yet, firstly, the first differentiation is also at least supposedly or in some sense immanent or

intrinsic – otherwise, it wouldn’t be a differentiation at all – and secondly, even the intrinsic

differentiation we now have reached is something from which we could abstract. Thus, no crucial

step has yet been made, but still the travel has been worthwhile: especially the idea of different

contexts having different intrinsic determinations is an interesting subject matter for analysis.

11./128. 3. Limits. When we for the first time approached a state of being-for-another, it was a peaceful coexistence of

objects; in the stage of limits the objects are considered as negated by one another. The limit is a combination of

contradictory aspects: the limit itself contains the objects as ideal differences, although in the realm of objects they are

really different.

A limit or a state-of-being-limited was introduced as a second order situation describing that an

object can be regarded independently, but also contains an intrinsic potentiality of being related to

and differentiated from other objects. In other words, the limit describes in what sort of situations an

object can exist – what can be regarded as mere aspects of the object in question – and in what

situations it does not exist – what must be regarded as different objects: similarly, limits of a circle

describe what belongs to the circle and what does not. Although such a limit would be a limit of one

object, Hegel speaks more often of a limit residing between two objects, as a second order situation

describing that one object exists in this situation and the other at that and no one can be where the

other is: a rock is here and a tree is there and neither can be at the place of the other. Still, the two

states of being limited can be connected: firstly, a limit separating an object from everything else

describes a relationship between two objects, namely, the object and all that is not the object,

understood as a unity; and secondly, a limit of two objects can be seen as an application of the

object’s limit to a context with only two objects. Note also that Hegel uses spatial examples quite

52

often, although they are not necessary: the colour blue is also limited by – separated from – the

colour red.

Although no true change has happened between the introduction of the state-of-being-

according-to-another and the introduction of the limit, there has been a modification in the attitudes

we have had towards the topic of two objects related to each other. At first, we looked at the

relationship in a more positive manner: the two objects share the same situation, like a rock and a

tree could share a hillside. Now, we are on the other hand looking at the objects as excluding each

other: a rock and a tree cannot share exactly same place, because they both take up space and repel

other material objects. The situation itself hasn’t changed, merely the aspect we are concentrating

our attention to. The aspect-or-state-of-being-limited of an object can itself be viewed from two

viewpoints. Firstly, the objects share some qualities, for instance, they can both be taken as

designated or undesignated object: in that sense, we might say that both can take the place of the

other object or their difference is merely ideal – a mere difference of versions of the same object.

On the other hand, in a more concrete context, the two objects are different and cannot share at least

some situations: in this second sense, the difference between the two objects is quite real. Although

Hegel calls the combination of these two objects contradiction, no logical contradiction is involved:

the aspects do not mix, but are merely viewpoints to the same topic.

12./129. α. The two aspects of a limit. An object has a limit that separates another object from it: the limit states that

the other object cannot exist in a situation where the first object does. But the other object is also an object and thus

limits the first object: the same limit states that the first object cannot exist where the second object does. A state of

limitedness thus implies non-being for all objects.

We begin with two objects, both in their own situations, and a third, second-order situation or

structure, consisting of the two situations and a relation of alternativeness between them and

indicating that the objects in the two situations are not mere versions or aspects of the same object.

We may take one of the objects as the designated – as the actual object – and the other is then a

non-actual object. The limit indicates that the other object does not exist, when the first object exists

– a tree cannot be here, because there is the rock: it limits in a sense the other object from the realm

of the first object, like a circumference cuts the rest of the world from the circle. But there is no

reason why we couldn’t take the other object also as designated or the actual: indeed, this

possibility is implicated by the alternativeness of the two situations or objects. Then, of course, the

roles of the two objects are reversed – a rock cannot be here, because the tree is already there, and

the circle is cut away from the rest of the world. Thus, the common limit of the two objects –

described by a circumference or a sentence “the rock is here and the tree is there” – implicates that

for both objects it is possible to find a context in which the object in question does not exist. This

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implicated non-existence of an object is the first aspect of the state-of-being-limited.

13./130. A state-of-being-limited implies also that the other object does not exist in some context, where the first object

exists: a limit of an object is its quality [or its aspect of being-determined-or-differentiated-from-other-objects]. A state

of being limited is a first negation, while another object is a negation of a negation [or an object].

Although the state of being limited does indicate that the object does not exist in some context, it

also shows that other objects do not exist in a situation where the object in question does.

Furthermore, it helps to determine what the object is. Suppose we would change the limit of the

colour blue, adding also shades of purple into the limits of blueness: then the resulting collection of

shades would be distinct from our blue, which does not include purple shades as instances of blue.

A limit thus helps us to identify the object; indeed, they work as its quality, which has been defined

as the aspect of a situation or an object by which it is differentiated from other situations or objects.

This determining of the nature of an object is the second aspect of a state of being limited.

Hegel’s indication that the limit is a first negation, while another object is a second negation,

seems a bit puzzling at first. We must remember that the first negation refers to a change from one

situation or aspect to another: a state of being-limited shows that the object here has an alternative,

namely, the other object there. The second negation, on the other hand, is a move to a completely

another level from the situations or aspects of the first level: while the second object has an aspect

of being limited by the first object, it has also other aspects, and to all of its aspects it is the unifying

object.

14./131. Limit differentiates an object from another object, but also is an intrinsic part of it: the state of being-limited

implies both being and non-being for both objects.

Hegel recollects the two aspects of a state of being limited. Firstly, the object exists, in some

situation or context, because of its being limited: it is separated from its environment by the fact that

it is limited or other objects point to it as an alternative to them. Secondly, the object does not exist,

in another situation or context, because of its being limited: the limit indicates another area where

the object is non-actual or non-designated. We are now ready to make the conclusion that we can

find an object that is finite – indeed, that all determinate objects are in some context finite – because

all determinate objects are intrinsically limited by surroundings where they do not exist. But Hegel

does not yet take this step, but turns to look at the two aspects more carefully and illustrate them

through examples: a remark with no indication of being a remark follows.

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15./132. β. Limit implies non-being of an object. According to its state of limitedness, an object is in some sense and

is not in another sense: these aspects of an object fall into different contexts. An object is actual in such situations where

its limit does not relate it to another object, or within those limits which its state of limitedness determines. Similarly,

the other object is actual when the limit does not relate it to the first object. The state of limitedness connects the two

objects and thus makes them non-actual: objects exist outside or abstracted from their limitedness. Hence, the state of

limitedness is in a sense foreign for both limited objects.

Hegel begins with the aspect of non-being: a state of limitedness implies that the limited object does

not exist in some context. Yet, it also exists in some context. Because the object cannot exist and

not exist at the same context or in the same situation, it must exist in a different context than where

it doesn’t exist: the being and non-being of an object fall apart – a tree exists here, but not there, or

there is a circle and here it has ended. Hegel uses two spatial metaphors to describe this relationship

of an object and its limit: an object is outside its limit – like a circle is, where its circumference and

the world beyond that are not – or it is within its limit – like a circle is within its circumference.

Although these are mere spatial metaphors, they at the same time point once again to the two

aspects of being limited: a state of being-limited connects an object with an outside where the object

does not exist, but also circumscribes a realm inside of which the object exists.

Now, the non-being in a context implied by a state of limitedness is not restricted to the

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object, but the other object, according to which the first object is non-actual, also must be non-

actual in some context because of the limitedness. Of course, they are not non-actual at the same

time or in the same context, but only separately, while the other object is actual or designated. Yet,

the state of limitedness is foreign to both of them and to their state of being here. Both objects have

a state of being-here – or they are in some determinate situation – which can be abstracted from its

relation to the other state of being: beyond these states of being or situations is another, second-

order situation – the state of being-limited – which connects the two situations as alternatives to

each other.

16./133. According to this aspect, a line is separable from its limiting points etc. Especially spatial limits are interpreted

according to this aspect by the common sense: relating objects to one another is extrinsic to them.

The spatial examples are the closest thing that comes in mind when one talks of limits: limit of a

line is a point, limit of a plane is a line, limit of a body is a plane, limit of a circle is its

circumference etc. Even my primary example, the relationship between a tree and a rock, is a spatial

one. Of course, Hegelian limit is not restricted to such spatial terms, but any relationship of two

different things is acceptable: it could be a temporal relationship, like the limit of the Middle and

the Modern Ages, or a conceptual limit, like the limit between a blue and a purple. Yet, the spatial

image is the one we most often use to picture such relationships: difference of eras is represented by

a point in a line, and colour differences can be presented by a tetrahedron. Even the word situation I

have used to describe different contexts or states or aspects of being betrays a spatial origin.

The preference of spatial examples causes easily a misapprehension that all relations

between objects are external. As we saw in the previous paragraph, it is possible to abstract from

the surroundings of an object. Because of the possibility of abstraction, the limitedness seems

external: objects in themselves are always actual, although they would be limited compared to other

objects. The possibility of abstracting strikes us most in the spatial cases: we can literally take an

object away from its surroundings and install it into a new environment. Thus, the pseudo-spatial

examples of a blue next to purple and Middle Ages before Modern Ages suggest that these relations

are as contingent as the relationship of a tree and a rock. This misapprehension is the primary

reason why Hegel has had to make such a long detour for the simple question of whether

differences and relations to other objects can be intrinsic in any context. The only thing left to do is

to attack the most extrinsic relations there seem to be, namely, spatial relations – by proving that

even spatial limits can be seen as intrinsic to the objects, Hegel aims to give a final answer to the

question of intrinsic characteristics.

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17./134. γ. Limit as an intrinsic determination. An object abstracted from its limit would have merely a state of

being-here as its aspect and would thus be identical with all other objects. A limit determines and differentiates objects,

but is also common to them both. An object is independently only through its limit, hence it has a potentiality of non-

being. A point is not just the end, but also the beginning of a line: even to an infinite line it is a principle, like a unit is

both a limit and a principle of a hundred.

Hegel's answer to those who would see limit as a mere extrinsic determination is to ask what an

object would be without its limits: it would be a mere existing object, because all determination

comes from relating object to other objects. But as merely existing, all objects coincide, and there

would thus seem to be only one object. As objects at this stage exist in some determinate situations,

on the other hand, they must differ in some sense, and therefore they must have an aspect of being

limited: a blue object is blue only in comparison with red objects. Undoubtedly we can always

abstract from all such determinations, because they in one sense can be seen as external: the

difference of e.g. blue and red depends on assigning blue and red to different situations – for

instance, taking blue as designated colour and red as differing from it – but all such designations or

assignations can always be changed. Yet, this capability of abstraction tells only that aspects of

merely being-here and of being-limited are connected, what is merely being-here can be seen as

limited and vice versa: objects are always intrinsically differentiated in some context.

Limit can thus be taken as an intrinsic determination of an object. Similarly a spatial limit

does not just end the object – object does not exist just outside the limit, but also inside it – that is, a

spatial object begins with its limit. Even if we think e.g. the lines indeterminate and limited by no

points – and all lines we can experience or construct are always finite and determinate – the point or

limit is found as the constituent of the line. This is a metaphorical expression, but it can readily be

interpreted more generally. A limit is in some sense an intrinsic determination of an object – the fact

that the object can exist in these situations, but does not exist in other situations – which recurs

throughout all aspects of the object: similarly a line can be seen as one point recurring in many

different situations and a set of hundred units can be seen as one unit recurring through different

positions – an interpretation Hegel continues to develop in the next paragraph.

18./135. Limit can also be seen as a restless development of the object it limits: similarly line can be seen as a

movement of a point. Such a movement is interpreted as contingent, but is necessitated by the idea of the point as the

principle of the line or the limit as immanent to the object. This is a spatial application of a more general principle: a

point is an abstract limit to a state of being-here – absolute space – which becomes a determinate limit of determinate

state by becoming a line.

Hegel speaks once again of contradiction when no formal contradiction actually takes place. A line

can be seen as movement of a point – idea prominent in ancient philosophy: a spatial and stable line

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is interpreted with temporal terms, perhaps through the experience of seeing a pen construct the line

by its movement. Of course, viewing a finished line in this fashion seem outlandish, but we may

purify Hegel's account by taking away the unnecessary temporal rigmarole. What is left is the

familiar tale of one object in different places: every point of a line is otherwise identical with other

points, except in its situation related to other points, so it is quite possible to say that there is only

point present in many places. This is undoubtedly an application of the idea of the limit as an

immanent principle instantiated in all aspects of the object it limits – an idea we mentioned in the

previous paragraph – but there is still another aspect of that idea we haven't considered: Hegel

thinks that such an immanent principle does not just recur in all aspects of an object, but also

explains why this object has such aspects. This idea can also be applied spatially. Hegel compares

an absolute space with a state of being-here-in-general: an absolute space is just any space when it

is not compared with any other space – in this case we may think of a one-dimensional absolute

space. When we combine a state of being-in-general with some arbitrary limit – the absolute one-

dimensional space with an arbitrary point – we get definite states of being-here – definite lines –

which are connected and differentiated by this limit or point.

19./136. An object that has an immanent limit, which points to an alternative situation where the object does not exist, is

finite.

The final paragraph is almost a triviality after the careful analysis of previous paragraphs. The

object is now proven to have an aspect in which it has intrinsic or immanent limits. Thus, it is

contradictory in the – not formally contradictory – sense that in one situation or context it exists, but

in another context – which is indicated as an alternative to the first context, or in Hegel's terms,

towards which the object is driven – it does not exist. This set of characteristics – an intrinsic

property of an object that it does not exist in some situation – is what Hegel calls its finity: a rock is

finite, because it cannot exist where a tree does. Note that the concept of finity is as contextual as all

the previous concepts have been: an object may be finite in some sense, while it is not finite in

another sense.

c. Finity

We began this section with the problem of two objects differentiated from one another and almost

immediately were lost on a sidetrack question whether such a differentiation or determination might

not be merely extrinsic. The conclusion was that all determinations could be seen as extrinsic,

because we could abstract from all determinations, but that it was still possible to find intrinsic

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determinations for determinate objects in all contexts. The conclusion from this analysis was that

all objects could be seen as finite, as not existing in some situation where there existed some other

object. Now we have finally reached the true subject matter of this section – the finity – and the

main problem of how to construct infinity from it: that is, how to see objects which are finite in one

sense – non-existent in some situation – as infinite in another sense – existent in all situations. The

easy answer would be to abstract from all situations and surroundings where the object in question

does not exist – then it would be trivially infinite – but this solution does not suffice for Hegel,

because it would replace an informative account of an object and its surroundings with more

abstract one.

The problem is not tackled straight away, because Hegel is once again lured by the call of

dividing the section into three subsections. This particular division is extremely artificial. It begins

with a mere introduction of the problem, continues with another sidetrack question – and one

requiring mere analysis, for that matter – of things as they should be compared to as they really are,

and only in the final section is the problem actually tackled with.

1./137. A state of being-here [of an object] is determinate: an object is qualified and is thus limited in some context –

the quality or the limit is intrinsic to the presence of the object. But the limit also connects it with a state where it does

not exist – the object points to it as an alternative – and hence, the object is finite.

The section begins with a short summary. We began this chapter with the study of states of being-

here, that is, of states of being-compared-to-other-states-of-being or determinate situations. We

quickly concentrated our attention to non-empty states of being-here – to states with an object. Such

an object is determinate, because it is in a determinate situation, and thus, it can be compared to and

differentiated from other objects – it can be limited from other objects in other situations. At first

we viewed this limit as positive to the existence of the object – it makes the object what it is – but it

also causes its non-existence in some context: the object is becoming – that is, it points to an

alternative situation in which it doesn’t exist – and therefore it is finite.

2./138. When an object is called finite, it is not merely determined in some extrinsic context, but its non-existence in

some context forms its intrinsic nature: even when abstracted from external surroundings, it points to an alternative of

its own state of being. A finite object does not just change, but vanishes: its state of being is its end.

The difference of a state of finity compared to a state of being-determined or being-determined-

intrinsically – a mere difference of a point of view – is already familiar to us: an object is

determined or limited, when it is merely differentiated from other object in some possibly extrinsic

context, an object is intrinsically determined, when it is differentiated from some other object in an

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intrinsic context, but emphasis is put on the existence of the object in a situation, whereas in a state

of finity the non-existence of the object in another situation is concentrated on. Hegel refers to the

finity of an object in temporal terms: it is not a mere change, but a true vanishing of the object.

Once again, we must remind that the finity is still not a temporal concept, although the German

word Endlich perhaps suggests that a finite object ends at some point of its history. The concept

could be applied spatially – a rock is finite compared to a tree, because the rock does not merely

exist in many places, but also is non-existent in the place of the tree or vanishes when we turn our

gaze from the rock towards the tree – or alethically – I can exist in many possible situations, but

there are also possible situations where I cannot exist, such as any situation with no humans.

Interesting is Hegel’s statement that a finite thing does not just possibly end, but that it must end.

This statement is undoubtedly not true without qualifications – because we just mentioned the

possibility of an alethic interpretation of finity – but still true in the sense that it is possible to find

other instances of finity than just alethic ones – because it is in general possible to construct

situations with more than one object.

α. Immediacy of finity

The title “immediacy of finity” is meant to convey the idea that we are looking at finity in its first

appearance. As the structure of finity has been amply explained in the previous paragraphs – an

object is finite, when it is intrinsically non-existent in some situation – the only task left for this

section is to analyse common ideas of finity. The main interest here is the introduction of the

problem of making a transition from finity to infinity – how could things finite in some sense be seen

as infinite in another sense. A moment of reflection reveals that this is actually a question of

reducing all dualisms or pluralisms – in some context – to a monism: in the beginning, we have at

least two objects related to one another, and we try to find a context in which they are mere aspects

of one object.

1./139. In a state of finity the affirmative state of being of an object cannot be abstracted from its relation to its state of

non-existence. Because of the simplicity of this concept, it is hard to see that it is valid only in a context: while other

negative concepts, such as negation, extrinsic determination, limit or nothingness, are seen either as related to an

independent state of being-here or as an abstraction, a state of finity is supposed to be fixed. A finite object indeed is

destroyed in some context, but it is not seen as infinite in any sense: finity is thus made an absolute and eternal state.

Although temporal application of finity is certainly not the only one, it undoubtedly is the most

frightening: all things will come to an end sooner or later and life of a human being is life towards

death. With finity the contrast between a state of being and a state of nothing and destruction

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becomes once more apparent. True, there is something else existing in all situations, but according

to the viewpoint of a finite object – when that object is taken as the only object worth to be

designated – there are inevitably some situations in which there is nothing at all: for instance, a

desert looks empty, when we are looking for living beings. In a state of finity, this relation to states

of non-being is intrinsic to the object in question: we cannot abstract from the states of non-being in

order to find an independent state of being, as we might do, if the relation to the other state would

be extrinsic. The state of finity seems even worse than the state of nothing from which we began: it

was quickly revealed to be a mere abstraction from a larger context with some entities.

All finite objects vanish or are non-existent in some context or situation. Yet, the finity does

not vanish because of this. Firstly, finity is not limited to one object, but can be property of many

objects in many different situations. Hence, if one finite object would vanish, we could simply find

a new finite object, which would be bound to perish in another context or situation. Furthermore,

the finity is eternal according to the viewpoint of a finite object. Finity is meant to be an intrinsic

characteristic of an object. Thus, although we could be able to replace a finite object with some

infinite object, the intrinsic finity of the original object and with it the original object itself would

have disappeared.

2./140. Eternity of finity is an unwanted result, because finity implies vanishing, but it is the result of making vanishing

the only possible end for a finite object: if a finite object cannot be made infinite, it will always remain finite beyond

infinite context or at most it will vanish into a mere state of nothingness, which has already been dealt with.

Finity is taken first as absolute, that is, it is thought that a finite object is intrinsically always finite

in the most informative context there is: we could perhaps see the finite object as infinite if we

abstracted from its surroundings, but this infinity would be only relative. Undoubtedly all finite

objects are one by one destroyed – that is, when we move to a context or situation where the finite

object in question does not exist – but even then it is possible that new finite objects could be

constantly found – this is even certain, when we remember that we have the ability to find ever

more objects by taking situations of the known objects into account. Even if it would be possible to

get rid of all those finite objects, we would have succeeded merely in abstracting a realm or

situation of nothing but infinite objects, and beyond that realm there would still be the possible

realm or situation of finite objects: there would be a wide cleft between objects that do not exist in

some relevant context and other objects – a familiar cleft from all religions and philosophies that

insist on a dualism of the present world and the world beyond. What Hegel would want would be to

see those finite objects identified with some infinite objects – an object finite in one context could

be infinite in another context – but this is precisely what the dualists can’t consider. If those dualists

were right, the only method reaching the required infinity would be the fore-mentioned destruction

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of all finite objects: in the viewpoint of the finite objects, the result would be an empty state,

because all determinate objects to which they could be related would be wiped out.

3./141. A state of nothingness is empty, but it can be seen as an object of a non-empty situation. This is a subjective

inconsistency, which recurs in an explicit form with the concept of finity: a finite object should in every context be

different compared to an infinite object, although it is intrinsically non-existent in some context. A development of this

inconsistency shows that the vanishing of finite objects can be get rid of.

The result of the previous paragraph was that finity could be get rid of only by destroying the finite

object, which would result, according to the viewpoint of the finite objects, in a state of emptiness.

Now, as we have seen, a state of emptiness or nothingness is itself an object in some context: thus,

the constructions of Logic could be gone over once again and finity would still appear. Now, one

could say that the move from a state of nothingness to a state with a state of nothingness as object is

already extrinsic, because it changes the context we are looking at: yet, no one can hardly deny that

the state of nothingness can be taken as an object, although perhaps only a virtual one. Still, one

could attack this move by saying that the virtual object “state of nothingness” is on a different level

compared to the finite objects of the common world: it is e.g. immaterial compared to the material

objects. But the counterargument forgets that we may also refer to this virtual object through some

material objects, such as signs on a paper, or at least via our thoughts or mental states: hence, we

can transcendentally argue that it is always possible for us to find new objects that can be compared

with previous objects and that therefore can be seen as finite.

The construction from a state of nothingness to a non-empty state of being is in a sense

subjective, Hegel says: in the state of nothingness itself there is no indication that we could

construct a state with objects. In the state of finity, on the other hand, the possibility of constructing

state with no finite objects is explicit: even if we in one context held that a finite object is always or

in every situation a finite object, it is intrinsically possible to get rid of this finite object and thus of

finity altogether. Hegel calls these two possibilities of constructing contradictions, but no formal

contradiction is involved: it is merely a question of one state or situation having as alternative a

state or situation incompatible with it. The second construction depends on destroying the finite

objects altogether, but Hegel attempts to argue that even this destruction of objects is not necessary:

the possibility to destroy finite objects or their finity can itself be destroyed.

β. Limitation and what ought to be

We can find states of finity, that is, states of being with finite objects, i.e. objects that do not exist in

some situation or context. From such a state of finity, the only possible step would at first seem to

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be a complete annihilation of all finite objects, the result of which would be the state of nothingness

from which we began Logic. But Hegel believes there is another route we can take, that is, we can

find a context in which the finite objects of this context are infinite, that is, not non-existent in any

relevant situation – a route in which we wouldn’t have to abstract from the surroundings of the

object and forget that there are other situations than the one with the finite object.

Before stepping onto that route Hegel provides us with yet another analysis, this time of

different aspects a finite object has. At first sight it seems like a mere application of the familiar

difference of the situation or object as abstracted from its surroundings and as related to other

situations or objects. This time Hegel emphasises a new feature of these aspects: while earlier the

content of the object as abstracted – the object in itself or intrinsically – were repeated in the

content of the object as related – the object according to other viewpoints or extrinsically – now we

see that some of this content might differ. An object in itself seems to be infinite – it merely exists,

and at that context there is no reference to its non-existence in some situation – although in a more

extensive context it is finite. Thus, the section is essentially an investigation of context where the

abstraction seems to be the only possibility of escaping finity.

1./142. A finite object as existing could be abstractly destroyed. But it has also aspects: it is intrinsically and

extrinsically determined and it has an immanent aspect of limitedness which makes it finite. We must look how the

aspects of an object are affected by its finity.

The section begins with a small introductory paragraph beginning with a sentence linking this

section to the previous: a finite object exists in some context, but because of its finity, it doesn’t

exist in another context: no literal contradiction, although Hegel calls it so. After this small

remainder of the theme of the previous section, Hegel leaps into a completely new question. The

object we are investigating is reflected in itself, that is, it is a common object for many aspects: it

has intrinsic and extrinsic determinations, and thus, it is also limited in relation to some other object.

Hegel suggests now a new theme of investigation: the two aspects of the object, when the object is

specifically finite.

2./143. Intrinsic and extrinsic determinations are determined by the external context: furthermore, an intrinsic

determination is object’s intrinsic relation to other objects, but such relations to outside can be abstracted from the

object in itself. Hence, the aspect of limitedness of an object is immanent to the object, but it can also be abstracted

from the object: the state of limitedness implies a state of non-being for the object, that is, it is a limitation for the object.

Because the state of limitedness is also a common factor for limited objects and belongs to the object in itself, we can

separate the state of limitedness as immanent – as what the object should be – from the same state as implying the non-

existence or as limitation.

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Although in this edition of The Science of Logic Hegel did not explicitly speak of the intrinsic and

extrinsic determinations as sides for an external reflection, the idea has been implicitly present: it

depends on the context whether we take some characteristic of an object as intrinsic or extrinsic,

because what is intrinsic in some sense can also be abstracted from and taken as extrinsic. A

consequence of this relativity of the two forms of determination is that a state of limitedness – the

aspect of object when it is compared to objects in other situations – can also be regarded from two

standpoints. Firstly, it is something that implies the intrinsic non-existence of an object in some

context: there is a situation where exists something differing from this object. This aspect of the

limit corresponds to the extrinsic determinations or generally to the aspect of being according to

another, but whereas in these previous aspects the object was merely related to another object, now

the imminent non-existence of the object is emphasised – a limit (Grenze) is a limitation (Schranke)

for the object, in the sense that it hinders the existence of the object and prevents it of being present

in some situation. Secondly, the state of limitedness does not merely separate the two objects, but

also unifies them: the difference of the two objects is merely relative, because we could as well

change their places or names. The two objects as objects in general cannot be differentiated: this

aspect of the limit corresponds to the intrinsic determinations or the aspect of being in itself.

While previously Hegel spoke as if the determinations of the object in itself would naturally

belong to the object according to another, at this stage a wider cleft between the two aspects is

revealed. An object as related to a different object is finite: it doesn’t exist in some situation. An

object as abstracted from all relations to different objects – an object as it agrees with all other

objects – is on the other hand not finite, but infinite: there is no other object with which it could be

compared with. Hegel compared this relationship of the two aspects to the difference between what

should be (Sollen) and what really obtains. Although the term Sollen has ethical connotations – and

these ethical connotations in the Kantian and Fichtian moral theory Hegel is willing to discuss,

especially in the following remark – the true emphasis of Sollen is in its contrafactuality: what

should be means something that obtains in an abstract sense or context, while a wider context

reveals that what should obtain does not truly obtain.

3./144. In order that a limit would be a limitation of an object, the object should intrinsically refer to a situation in which

it doesn’t exist, whereas a mere state of being here could be abstracted from its relation to a state of limitedness.

The main difference between the stage when we investigated the state of limitedness and the current

stage is the attitude we have towards the state of limitedness. In the previous stage, the state of

being limited was regarded neutrally: an object exists in this situation, but it doesn’t exist in other

situations – a tree exists here, but it isn’t there, where the rock stands, or I “exist in” or belong to the

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class or set of European people, but not to the class of American people. On the other hand, now we

compare this state of limitedness with a state of how things should be, which is a state abstracted

from the larger context: a tree as an object in general should be able to exist anywhere, and I as a

human being am no different compared to any other human being. Yet, this state of what should be

is only an abstraction, and furthermore, an abstraction out of something that is intrinsic to the object

in question, that is, that helps to separate the object from other objects: a tree cannot exist in places

where there are other objects, and my nationality is of great concern to people handling my passport.

Now, if the aspect of what the object should be suggests the possibility that an object could exist

beyond its limit and that limit is something intrinsic to the object, the aspect of should-be clearly

points to an alternative where the object has become something different than itself, that is, that it

has actually disappeared and been replaced by something else or “has gone over itself”, as Hegel

describes it: in other words, a state of should be points that in a wider context the object in fact is

limited and finite or doesn’t exist in some situation, although it explicitly contains only the opposite

of affirming existence.

4./145. A state of what-should-be is hence in one sense an intrinsic determination of an object abstracted from relations

with other objects, but on another sense, it is possible to construct from it another intrinsic determination which limits

the object.

An obvious conclusion of the discussion so far is that the state of what-should-be can be looked

from two aspects or contexts. Firstly, we can take the state of what-should-be as the reality or as the

designated situation: aspect of being-in-itself consists in abstracting from relations to other

situations, thus, an object as it should be – without any reference to its surroundings – is what the

object in itself is. In this sense, the state of limitation of an object seems like a negation or an

extrinsic determination of the object: a tree cannot be in the place where a rock is, but the place of

the rock is contingent, so the tree should be able to be in that particular place, or I cannot be

identified with an American person, but nationality is a contingent feature, so there shouldn’t be any

essential difference between me and Americans.

Secondly, the state of what should be can be taken as the negation or as the undesignated

state: an object actually is different from other objects, therefore the state of limitation is more

informative context – it takes into account the surroundings from which the state of what should be

abstracts. In this sense, it is the state of limitation that is taken as the intrinsic determination: a tree

is essentially different from a rock and thus cannot exist at the same place, and I am – at least

during a passport control – essentially a European and thus I cannot be mixed with Americans.

5./146. A finite object in its intrinsic determination is in the state of what-should-be, and as differentiated from another

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object it is in the state of limitation: because both states are aspects of a finite object, they both are finite. Only the

aspect of limitation is posited as finite, while the aspect of what-an-object-should-be is finite only from an external

viewpoint, because it is taken as an abstraction from all limitations.

A state of what-should-be and a state of limitation point to each other as alternatives, furthermore,

they point to each other as alternatives with same object, that is, as aspects of one object, which

must be finite because of its limitation: it is the old tale of intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of an object

surfacing in another form – true, Hegel speaks of Grenze instead of Beschaffenheit, but compared

with Bestimmung the former coincides with the latter. Because the two states describe aspects of a

finite object – an object that does not exist in some situation – the aspects must also separately taken

be able to be seen as finite – we must be able to construct from such a separate state a context in

which the object of that state can be seen as finite. The abstracted viewpoint of limitation is already

at the same time a state of finity: an object which is limited by another object does not exist in the

situation where that other object exists. Object according to the abstracted viewpoint of what-the-

object-should-be, on the other hand, is not yet posited or constructed as finite. The object in such a

state is finite only according to its other aspect. Yet, this aspect of finity is more adequate or

describes the object and its surroundings in a more detail, while the aspect of what-should-be is a

mere abstraction, in which the finity of the object has been left aside.

6./147. If an object should be something, it is that in one sense and is not in another sense. Furthermore, the limitation

or relation to other situation or object is intrinsic to what the object should be.

Until now we have spoken of the Sollen and Schranke as relating to the special case of supposed or

awaited infinity and actual finity, but Hegel intends these terms to cover all cases where thing is in

one sense something – in the sense of what it should be – but in another, more adequate sense it is

not, because it is intrinsically something else: e.g. human beings should be perfectly good, but they

are actually very far from being perfectly good. Yet, Hegel’s specific example covers also this

general case. We can picture the difference between the wanted ideal and the not so ideal object as a

difference of two objects in alternative situations – as a Hegelian Dasein. Now, when we abstract

from the differences between the ideal and the investigated object, both things coincide – abstractly

taken, a thing should be something, for instance, I should be an ideal moral person. Yet, in a wider

context, the ideal and the object fall apart, because there they are intrinsically different – I cannot be

an ideal moral person, although I should be. Concrete examples of this general “ought-to” are

presented in the remark for this section.

7./148. The value of what object is in itself has been diminished to what it should be, because in the whole collection of

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the aspects of the object, the aspect of being-in-itself has been connected with the aspect of limitation as alternative. The

limitation is not extrinsic, but intrinsic to object and contains reference to what the object should be as its constituent.

The state or aspect of being-in-itself was, like the aspect of what-should-be, an abstraction from a

more concrete situation, yet it was described in more positive terms than the state of what-should-be.

The obvious reason for this change is the change in the status of designatedness: while the state of

being-in-itself was taken as the actual state compared to what was only according to other

viewpoints, the state of what-should-be is taken as non-actual compared to what there really is. But

this change of the designatedness from one state to another is not the whole story: even when

talking of the being-in-itself and being-according-to-others we noticed that either of the states or

aspects could be taken as the actual. What has changed also is the status of the state of

determination or relation to other objects: while previously the determination of the object was

taken as extrinsic, it is now intrinsic to the object. It is because of this intrinsicity that the role of

being-in-itself has been diminished. The state of limitation already contains the state of what-

should-be in the sense that we could abstract that state from it, whereas the state of what-should-be

merely points to the wider situation as an alternative: as the wider situation, the state of limitation is

more naturally taken as the designated state.

8./149. In a state of what-should-be, the finite object overcomes its limitation: what is differentiated from it is only an

aspect of it.

I am not a morally perfect person, but I should be: when I look upon my abstract personhood I see

that there is nothing to stop me from being perfectly moral. When I speak of such should-bes I turn

my gaze away from the concrete situation – e.g. my incapability as a mere human being of being

morally perfect – and from the differences between the actual object and the ideal. Only thing that

matters for the viewpoint of what-should-be is the identity or similarity between the object and the

ideal: I and an ideally moral person share the characteristic of being moral persons. Thus, the

difference between the object and the ideal seems at most quantitative, a difference of degree rather

than of essence: if I should be morally perfect, then I could be morally perfect.

9./150. In one sense an object as it should be has overcome its aspect of limitation, in another sense it has an aspect of

limitation, because it merely should be.

The main objective of this section has been to present the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that an

object as it should be is beyond its limitation, but the same object must have a limitation, if it

merely should be something. Undoubtedly, no true paradox exists: an object as it should be has

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been abstracted from its wider surroundings and thus it seems not to be limited by the objects

abstracted, yet these abstracted objects must still exist in the actual environment of the object. Still,

this relation of two aspects reveals an incompleteness of all standpoints where should-be is taken as

a primary concept. If I merely should be something, but I truly cannot be it because of my

limitations, then this demand on me seems too harsh: it is not a contradiction per se, but still an

incoherency. It is this incoherency Hegel is about to reveal in the following remark.

Remark

This remark explains Hegel’s desire to intervene his account of finity with the study of the aspects

of what should be and of limitation: he wants to create tools by which to criticise other

philosophical schools, especially Kant’s and Fichte’s philosophy, particularly their epistemic and

moral theories. The lack of such theories in Hegel’s opinion is that they have not reached an

understanding of what a true infinity or perfectness consists of: the only infinite they accept is the

infinite of abstraction, that is, the infinite that is found by closing eyes from the actual surroundings.

While Hegel does not explicitly state his solution to the epistemic and moral problems of Kant and

Fichte – namely, that epistemic and moral infinity seem to be out of our reach – the answer can be

determined by the later development of Logic.

1./151. Should-be has been taken as the primary term in latest [Kantian and Fichtian] speculations of morality and

metaphysics.

2./152. If I should be something, I can be it, because a state of should-be is an abstraction out of all limitations; on the

other hand, if I merely should be, I cannot, because in the reality that has been set aside the limitations still remain.

Although Hegel speaks generally of the great role of the concept of should-be, it is quite clear that

Kant and Fichte are the targets he is pointing at. The concept occurs explicitly in their moral

philosophies. The form of categorical imperative is that a conscious subject should do something,

not because of some external reason, but because it is entailed in her being a free moral subject. Yet,

no such completely free and moral action is possible for us, because human beings are never

completely independent, but always determined by external impulses, emotions etc. Thus, when we

abstract from the general surroundings of a human being, she seems not to be morally limited in any

manner, yet, when we look at her whole concrete nature, we at once see that she cannot fulfil such a

moral ideal.

Although the concept of should-be is not so explicitly present in Kant’s and Fichte’s

epistemology, their ideas of thing in itself and check can be easily interpreted in light of this

concept. Both Kant and Fichte hold that there is a possible ideal sort of knowledge – an intellectual

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intuition – which would be perfect in knowing things as they are in themselves, or more likely, in

creating completely its own objects. Such a perfect cognition could comprehend structures which to

us are unreachable because of their infiniteness. Yet, no human being can ever know things in such

a manner – a human cognition knows things discursively, one by one, and cannot hence ever reach

such a true knowledge. In some sense even the human knowledge is undoubtedly perfect: it is the

most perfect knowledge any finite being could have. Still, the actual condition of human being – the

fact that it is surrounded by objects it cannot know totally – prevent her of knowing everything

there is to know.

3./153. What should be is an aspect of finite being, according to which it is infinite. Later this aspect will develop into

an infinite progression.

The strict construction of the infinite progression will be discussed later, but it is already clear from

the examples of Kant’s and Fichte’s philosophy that an infinite progression is involved: indeed, the

philosophers themselves admit as much. In Kant’s moral theory, a human being should aim at

becoming a perfect moral person, that is, she should make his sensuous impulses completely

governed by her rational will. Yet, no such moral perfection is possible for a human being: she can

only improve her morality, but not perfect. In order to make the demand relevant, Kant must

assume that a human being can progress towards perfect morality for an infinitely long time: a

moral should-be can be fulfilled only after an eternity. A similar point in epistemology is made by

Fichte. A human cognition cannot determine things it corresponds with completely: it should do

that in order to cognise the thing completely, but it is always limited to a finite or imperfect

cognition of the thing. Once again, only solution Fichte can see is an infinite progression of

cognition: our knowledge of things is becoming more and more adequate, but there always remains

something to be explained in the thing that is our object.

4./154. It is said that limitations cannot be overcome, e.g. reason cannot overstep its limits. Yet, if something is

determined as a limitation, it has already been compared with something unlimited. Thinking that should be something

separated from actuality is not true thinking. An inorganic object is not aware of its limitation – which is not a limitation

for it – so it cannot overcome its limits. Still, we can separate what the inorganic object is in itself and how it presents

itself: thus, even an inorganic object may overcome its limitations in some sense – unneutralised base has a disposition

of combining with acid and thus overcoming its limitation.

Either we haven’t yet experienced an ideal state – and then, by rules of constructivism, we aren’t

justified to say that there is a possible ideal state which we haven’t reached, because like a rock

which doesn’t know that it can’t think, we must be unaware of this limitation – or we have the right

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to speak of the ideal beyond the current state – and then we must already have some experience of

the ideal and it is not beyond our grasp. Kant’s possible answer that we could think such an ideal

state – e.g. a state of ideal cognition – flies straight to the face of Hegel’s constructivism, which

doesn’t allow any statements of possibilities that are not verified as actualities in some situation:

what lies beyond our possible knowledge cannot concern us. Furthermore, Hegel continues, we

have an ideal state of cognition, at least in some sense or context. This ideal state should be one in

which the cognition constructs its own objects. Now, although in all cognition based on sense

experience we truly must accept something as given, this is not true of all cognition: in Logic, we

construct our objects – the possible situations and the method of dealing with them – from any

given material, or even better, with no material at all. Thus, our knowledge can be of the ideal sort:

and because even Kant and Fichte admitted a perfectibility of human knowledge, it is only a

question of quantitative or external sort, in which contexts our knowledge equals to ideal cognition,

that is, how much of true cognition we have appropriated. Similarly, an acid can be a separate entity

from a base, but it has the potential of being unified with it or neutralised, and a completely acidic

compound without no water in it is a rare phenomenon, which can be preserved only with violence:

analogically, a knowledge or cognition which isn’t ideal in any sense – that is, which wouldn’t

describe its object truly in any fashion or according to any context – would be a mere abstraction.

5./155. If an object is also driven to fulfil its concept, it shall itself aim at overstepping its limitations, like plant is

driven to change its appearance or an animal to satisfy its hunger or heal its pain: similarly, reason as a universal

method is driven to appropriate every particular situation. True, some ways to deal with limitations, such as abstraction,

are not satisfactory: yet, even they are an example of winning a limitation in some context. Furthermore, a finity can be

changed into infinity, that is, limitation can be won.

An acid is driven to combine with a base only in suitable circumstances – one of them being the

presence of a base. Living beings, on the other hand, can even alter their circumstances in order to

get to the stage they are driving towards. This is true even of plants, which remold themselves in

new shapes and finally bring forth seeds in order to carry on the life of their genus in another spot.

Even truer it is of animals, which feel the drive as a pain or lack: they are, as it were, aware of the

ideal situation and of their current displacement from that ideal and can thus orientate themselves to

correcting their situation. Yet, both plants and animals could fail in actualising their ideal states: a

plant cannot live in too arid conditions and an animal cannot survive in an environment with no

food. The methods of changing situation are limited with both plants and animals.

The case is different with reason, Hegel continues. A reason or thinking is, firstly, a method

of describing all sorts of general situations, and secondly, a method of changing them: pure or

logical thinking is the familiar construction of ontological structures through modelling them with

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situations and other abstractions, and this pure thinking can be applied to other, more concrete areas,

by trying to fit the correct models with the objects investigated. Because the thinking should thus

cover all possible general structures a thing could have, it should be able to appropriate it fully in a

certain level of abstraction at least.

All possible ways to deal with limitations are not equally good: some merely abstract from

the limitation – they limit the context – and the limitation is still present when one decides to look

upon the wider surroundings. Still, the possibility of abstraction shows that the limitation is not

present in all contexts – that in some sense we are already infinite. In the case of limited cognition,

for instance, we can shut our eyes from the empirical knowledge and concentrate our attention on

the pure cognition of ontological structures modelled by other ontological structures and

abstractions. Yet, there is a more satisfying way of showing the existence of infinite, Hegel is

convinced, a way that does not abstract from the wider surroundings: we shall follow that way in a

moment. For now, I shall be satisfied in explaining what that way shall mean to the problem of

cognition. Although pure thinking is essentially complete, in a sense that we could always in

principle model any structure, the applied thinking is restricted e.g. by our empirical data. Thus, we

are aware of a possibility for more ideal manners of cognition – not of cognition of objects

essentially unknown to us or of aspects of any objects unreachable by us, but of objects and aspects

we might know, but do not – but these states of cognition are not qualitatively separated from us,

but merely quantitatively different, that is, stages in a progression of knowledge humanly attainable:

thus, there is no essential limitation for developing our cognition.

6./156. Leibniz thought that magnet that could think would take orientation to north as a determination of its will; more

correctly, it would be aware of space and other possible directions and would thus know that it is limited, like being

restricted to one place would be a limitation for a human being.

What makes the Leibnizian magnet unfree in Hegel’s opinion is not that it is currently pointing at

only one direction – even human beings can look at only one direction during one moment or stand

at only place. The lack of freedom consists in this case more of the incapability of changing

direction: a magnet cannot decide to change its direction, while a human being can usually face

another direction and even change her place. The case of reason or thinking should resemble more

the state of a human being than a magnet. A thinking subject is always in some particular state of

cognition: she cognises a particular area of the world. Yet, she is not restricted to cognising merely

that area, but she can change her state of cognition and cognise a wider area of information.

7./157. A state of should-be is free of limitation, but it is only a finite state. A duty is what should be against particular

interests. Some people think that moral would be destroyed if a state of should-be wouldn’t be highest – as Kant and

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Fichte do – and some use what should be as an argument against what is present. But reason and lawfulness are not

restricted to what merely should be.

The previous paragraphs talked of the presupposition that limitations cannot be overcome,

especially as it occurred in the theoretical philosophy of Kant and Fichte – human cognition can

never achieve the perfect, divine cognition. Hegel’s answer to that presupposition was that we are

not aware of any most perfect cognition, only of cognitions more perfect than other particular

cognitions – states of cognition are quantitatively and not qualitatively differentiated. Now we face

another presupposition that the state of what should-be would be the highest possible state of what

there is. An example of this presupposition is presented by the moral theory of Kant and Fichte.

Duties determine an ideal way of human life or the way how we should act, only by the nature of

our pure will. Yet, a concrete human being is not only a pure will, but has inclinations coming from

various external sources. Thus, actions of a concrete human being must inevitably fail to match the

moral ideal. Still, we must uphold the moral ideal and try to achieve it in the best manner we can,

for otherwise there would be no morality and not even approach to morality. Furthermore, because

the moral ideal is so high and lofty, the present human world with its human failings must on the

contrary be insignificant: it is only the beyond where or the distant future when the ideal has been

actualised that counts.

Hegel criticises Kant and Fichte for taking an empty abstraction as the best stage there is,

while they leave the concrete world as it already was and merely lowered its status to a second-class

state. It is not actually the ideal state in Kant’s and Fichte’s theory that is taken as the highest

possible state – at least for concrete human beings, which are the only sort of human beings we

know of – but the state of trying to reach the ideal or the state of moral struggle: indeed, if we ever

were in a position to truly actualise the ideal, the moral self-improvement and thus morality itself

would be over. It is not then the ideal world we should elevate – the ideal world is more of an empty

abstraction – but the concrete world of human actions, which in many cases undoubtedly could be

perfect, but just because of this possibility of being more perfect is methodologically the most

perfect world there is: we have always the possibility of improving ourselves and our world.

γ. Transition of a finite [object] into an infinite [object]

The subject matter of this section was finity or finite objects: an object is finite if it intrinsically

points to a situation or context in which it doesn’t exist. At first, only way to deal with finity seemed

to be to destroy the finite object: because this would only result into an empty model with which we

began, this option didn’t seem very fruitful. Another possibility was abstracting from the

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surroundings of the finite object: if we do not compare the object with the context or situation in

which it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t seem finite. Problem here was that such an abstraction presented

only what the object should be, while in the wider context the object still was limited or restricted

by the other situation and thus finite. After these preliminary studies only the true task of this

section is left: to show how we can construct a model where the object finite in this model or

situation would be infinite. As the section dealing with that question is quite short, consisting in fact

of only one paragraph –and ironically the shortest subsection of the more general section, although

one dealing with the most important subject – I shall leave further comments to the paragraph itself.

1./158. States of what-should-be and limitation point to each other as alternatives: they are both aspects of the same

finite object. The two aspects are incompatible, thus, the intrinsically finite object is instantiated in incompatible

situations or contexts and therefore it points to a situation in which there exists some other object in place of it. As a

negation of the first object, the new object is also intrinsically finite object. Because all finite objects could be destroyed,

we could find potentially infinite amount of new objects. Yet, from a viewpoint in which the finity is the only thing that

counts, these objects are all identical, because they are finite. Similarly, an aspect of what an object should be points to

another context in which this aspect is not differentiated from the aspect of limitation, but this new aspect is just the

aspect of limitation; and an aspect of limitation points to an ideal aspect of what should be, but this aspect is also as

limited. This aspect of being identical with itself in different contexts differs from the object as finite – it is the object as

infinite.

We begin with a repetition of what has just been investigated. From a state of what-should-be we

can construct a state of limitation, because the original state is a mere abstraction: and from a state

of a limitation we can construct a state of what should be by abstracting from the concrete

surroundings. But the two states are not merely alternative states of being, but states or situations

with same objects, that is, they are aspects of the same object that must be finite because of the

intrinsic limitation. Now, according to a state of what-should-be the object is not limited or finite,

whereas the state of limitation presents the object in a completely opposite light. While this is no

contradiction in a formal sense – the contradictory predicates have been closed into different

situations or contexts – it is a contradiction in a Hegelian sense, that is, one object has opposing

qualities in different situations.

Until now the progress of the paragraph has been simple, but the following move is more

complicated. The finite object should sublate or integrate itself. We could at first think that Hegel

refers merely to the fact that the finite object has many aspects, but the following sentence – that the

object is destroyed – reveals something else: we come to a situation or context in which the object

does not exist. The problem is how this change into another situation without the finite object

follows from the dual aspect of this object. The rationale seems to be something like the following.

Imagine someone thinking that an object should be something, for instance, that a particular person

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should be closer to the moral ideal: indeed, the case need not even be explicitly deontic, but only

such that one thing should be equal to another in an abstract context, e.g. I should be no different

from a blue-eyed man if one abstracted from the colour of our eyes. Imagine also that the same

person admits that the object in question in actuality does truly differ from what it should be, that is,

that the person differs from the moral ideal or that I differ from the man with the blue eyes. Now,

because of the demand or the admittance that the object should be something and on the assumption

that the demand is meaningful, the person should be able to imagine or “model” what it would be

like if what should be would exist – if the moral ideal were actualised or if I would be blue-eyed.

Thus, we can ask the person to imagine such a situation. Because of the wider context, in which the

object is separated from what it should be, the situation the person imagined is such that the object

in question couldn't exist in it – hence, we have shown her a possible situation in which the object

in question doesn't exist.

The previous argument is clearly based on the fact that the object is intrinsically separated

from some other object or sort of object. Indeed, it seems a bit roundabout way to express a fact

already known, but it falls into Hegel's constructivist demand of positing or constructing everything

before accepting it. What interests us more is the result: the object that differs from the original

object. Clearly, we may compare the new object with the old object: they both are objects that differ

from one another, indeed, both are finite objects. Hegel speaks as if we could always continue to

find more and more finite objects, perhaps into infinity: actually we do not have to suppose such a

potential infinity yet, because the new object is finite also when compared with the old object. Now,

suppose we would have taken the finity as the determining characteristic – as the intrinsic property

– of the original object. Then the new object – being also finite – would have been – in the

viewpoint of this finity – completely identical with the new object. Thus, the two objects can be

seen as mere aspects of the same object, that is, as not limited by each other and thus in that sense

infinite.

The idea of Hegel's argument is simple: the two objects have something in common, and if

we concentrate on what is common between the two objects and take it as the only intrinsic

determination, then the two objects can be seen as mere aspects of one “infinite” object. How does

the argument differ from abstracting from differences? The main difference – as we shall better see

in the next section – is that we should not completely forget the differences, but take them as

aspectual: the conclusion in both cases is monistic, but in the better version the monistic entity

reveals itself under different aspects, e.g. as the same thing in different places, times or possibilities.

It is a question of how to interpret our environment, that is, whether to say, for instance, that the line

consists of different points or that there is one point occurring in different places of this line.

Because the second interpretation involves an aspectual difference, it doesn't lose any relevant

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information: we can still see that the different aspects can be regarded as different objects. Indeed,

there is even more explicit information, because we can now clearly see that the differences can be

seen as aspects of the same object. The required presuppositions for changing our view from

“pluralistic” to “monistic with plural aspects” is clearly twofold: beside the similarity of the

different objects, Hegel also requires that the objects can be “changed into another” or that they are

alternatives. As this second demand is also a presupposition for even comparing the two objects, it

is mostly sufficient to look only at the first precondition.

Hegel gives also a construction of infinity which is restricted to the aspects of the finite

object: because the aspects of what should be and limitation are clearly alternatives and furthermore

aspects of the same object, the finite object itself is infinite compared to these its aspects. The

example shows that infinity is a relative concept: what is infinite in one context – such as the finite

object compared to its aspects – may be finite in another context – as the finite object naturally

should be – and vice versa. For instance, I as a enduring person am infinite when compared to the

parts of my life story, yet I am also finite if we compare my life with lives of other human beings.

C. Infinity

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The subject matter of this chapter was Dasein, a state of being that can be compared with other

states of being. Because such states of being can themselves be taken as objects in other situations,

we could restrict our attention to non-empty states of being-here. Now, objects in states of being-

here differed from objects in other states of being-here, and furthermore, in some contexts this

difference was bound to be intrinsic. An object intrinsically differing from another object was finite,

because it couldn't exist in some situation. Our aim in this chapter was then to show how such a

finite thing could be taken as infinite in another context. A mere destruction of such an object was

thus not an answer, but an abstraction out of the surroundings was also not a proper way to deal

with the problem, because the object remained finite when it was brought back to these

surroundings. The best way was then revealed to be the identification of the two differing objects as

aspects of the same infinite thing.

Basically, this is already a sufficient answer to the problem of this chapter. Yet, Hegel still

lingers awhile, because he is willing to explicate what such an infinity amounts to: it is not just an

abstraction, but an idealisation of the finite. Hegel's account of this “true infinite” is important, as

it emphasises the importance of methods of constructions against the results of those methods: the

former are in principle more knowable than the latter, because the latter form a potentially infinite

group. Although the section is thus not completely worthless, the division of it is quite artificial.

Especially the first subsection does not have anything new to say – it merely introduces once again

the idea of infinity – while the two other subsections present first the problem of this section – why

finity seems to recur in infinity – and then the solution to it.

1./160. Infinite could be taken as a definition of an absolute [or of that what is taken as the ultimate object of

investigation], which as indeterminate was only some state of being or a relation between states of being. Determinate

states of being or determinate objects cannot be ultimate objects, because of their determinacy and finitude. Infinite

object, on the other hand, is expressly something that is not restricted, while a state of being or becoming could yet be

finite in some context occurring during the investigation.

In the paragraph 90 I already remarked that absolute might simply refer to any thing whatsoever:

thus we need not suppose the existence of any particular object called absolute. Furthermore, we

must always remember the contextual nature of Logic: all concepts and discussions are meant to be

applied to a certain situation and not to the world in general, which in Hegelian philosophy is a

meaningless phrase. Hence, even the concept “absolute” must be taken as referring to an absolute in

a certain context: what is taken as absolute depends on what we are investigating. Abstractly, we

always investigate some state of being or situation – even if we seem to investigate an object, we

may say that we are investigating the situation of the object existing. As we noted at the beginning

of Logic, all states of being can actually be connected with other states of being – at least with a

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state of nothingness – and hence we may be said to investigate some state of becoming or a relation

between different states of being: indeed, in order that there would be some investigating to do,

there would have to be differing states of being which could be compared with one another.

Although a relation between states of being could be the absolute object of our investigation,

a state of being or an object related to other states of being or objects cannot be the absolute object:

beside that state of being or object we must at least study the other state of being or object with

which the first one is related, so such a finite object of investigation is only one of the objects we

would be investigating. It could be that we would have started our investigation with some singular

state of being or becoming, of course, and then only later discovered that there are also other states

of being and becoming that must also become under our investigation. This is just what has

happened to us: we began with investigating the empty situation, but soon found out there were

other situations to be discussed. Thus, although the being and the becoming are in some manner

definitions of the absolute object of discussion, they are still unsatisfying, because they do not

prevent the possibility that the seeming absolute could be revealed as a mere partial absolute. An

infinite object, on the other hand, is an object of which all apparently diverse objects in the frame of

discussion are mere aspects of. Thus, an infinite object cannot be finite in the current frame or

context of discussion, hence being a more suitable definition for the absolute.

2./161. In some context, even an infinite object can be seen as finite. It is important to separate bad infinite of the

understanding from the good infinite of the reason. The bad infinite can be seen as finite, just because it should not be

seen as finite.

Although an object of discourse could be infinite – that is, the ultimate object of discourse – in one

sense, it may, because of the contextuality of Logic, be finite in another sense: an object unlimited

in one context, could be limited in a wider context with more objects and situations. As we shall see

later on, the finity becomes even more marked if we try to abstract it from an infinite object: an

infinite object can then be separated from some finite object and it is then in this sense finite itself.

As understanding was the method of abstracting, such a “bad” infinite can well be called the infinite

of understanding. What the contrasting true infinite of reason means, we will see later.

3./162. a) A simple determination of an infinite object is that it is a truly actual object compared to an object in a state of

finity.

We begin this section by defining what infinity means and the only way we can do this is by

relating it to finity: infinity is a negation of finity. But the word “negation” can be taken in two

different senses. First of all, it refers to the fact that we have constructed an infinite object out of

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finite ones: we have in a sense “negated” the finite objects, when we have interpreted them as

aspects of the one infinite object. But at once we confuse this idea of negation as a construction

with another idea: negation as a relation between two incompatible objects. In this sense we have

not so much changed the finite objects as destroyed them: an infinite object cannot be identical with

an object that is finite in some context. Furthermore, we take the infinite object as the true,

designated object: only infinite objects are actual in the proper sense of the word, while a finite

object exists only in a relative way.

4./163. b) If we can compare infinite object with a finite object, then it is in some sense infinite and in another finite:

infinity is only one aspect of the whole object.

Although we say that only the infinite object is designated, we may still also take the finite object as

actual and the infinite object as non-actual, because of the contingency of designating situations.

Furthermore, the infinite object itself can be taken as finite in some sense: the object that is infinite

in this context differs from the supposedly finite object and thus cannot exist in the same situation

as it does, but such a limitedness implies finity in some context. Thus, if we see the object in

question as infinite, we may see it as finite in another context and vice versa, therefore infinity is

only half the truth of that object or only an aspect of it: in some sense the object is infinite and in

another finite.

5./164. c) The object in a state [or the method] of changing finite into infinite and vice versa is truly infinite.

The same duality that occurred with the state of becoming recurs here. The becoming could be

interpreted either as the second-order state of relating a state of being and a state of nothing to each

other; in another sense, it could be taken as a method by which to change states of being to states of

nothing and vice versa. Similarly, we are here acquainted with two connected aspects of one object,

which can be seen both as finite and infinite, but also with a general method of changing finite

objects into infinite objects and vice versa. As we already see from the word “process”, it is the

method which Hegel identifies more with the so-called true infinite: what is truly perennial is our

capability of finding ever new contexts and objects in them and then seeing them merely as aspects

in a larger totality.

a. The infinite in general

The way Hegel introduced the infinite was through finity: infinity is found by interpreting the

apparently different finite objects as mere aspects of one infinite object. Indeed, it is not so much

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the result just by itself that is important for Hegel, but the result with the foregoing construction –

the result could change if new contexts of finity were introduced, but the method of construction

stays same. This interpretation of infinity has not yet been explicated. Thus, we shall begin from the

completely opposite interpretation that the mere result or infinite object abstracted from all finity

would be the true infinite. The aim of this section is to justify this insufficient interpretation – we

can see infinite in this manner, although it shall be later seen that this interpretation is not the best.

1./165. A state of infinity is an affirmative state constructed by moving away from a state of limitedness; because of this

rising from restrictions the state of infinity is more truly positive than the first state of being. A subject cannot just

apprehend a state of infinity, but it must climb to this light of freedom.

We begin with the familiar definition of infinity as a movement away from a state of finity and

limitedness. Beside this definition and the already made remark that a state of infinity is more

“absolute” than a state of being – because a state of being could be just one among many different

situations in some context, while a state of infinity is already the most absolute state in that

particular context – there is one original addition in this paragraph: the remark on the relationship of

spirit and infinity. Such words as “heart” and “spirit” have clear religious connotations, and Hegel

is obviously referring to the proofs of God's existence, especially to one form of cosmological proof,

i.e., proof from finity to infinity. The “God” found by this Hegelian “proof” – or more likely, a

construction of or a change into a new viewpoint – differs obviously from the God of Christianity or

even of traditional metaphysics – it is not any theistic infinite person or even the pantheistic unity of

the whole world, but a unity or common object in some determinate context of situations and

objects and thus infinite only relative to that context. It is not the result of such a “proof” which is

important for Hegel – otherwise we could apprehend it in a single state of consciousness – but the

“proof” or method itself as a tool by which to see everything from the viewpoint of eternity. Note

that we must understand the word “everything” in a correct way: we can never use this method to

all objects at once, but only to a finite group of objects at time.

2./166. A state of being-here was intrinsically a state of finity and pointed to another situation beyond its limitations:

thus, a finite object is immanently integrated into an infinite object. An infinite object is not ready-made in a situation

beyond a situation with finite, and the construction of infinity is not extrinsic to the finite objects: otherwise, the finity

would remain actual even after the construction. Finity itself is the construction of infinity, or a state of infinity is more

informative than a state of finity.

Already in the fact that a finite object should in one aspect be something that it isn't is hidden the

implicit truth that this object could and even should be taken as infinite, that is, as not differing from

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its ideal: for instance, if a person should fulfil her moral ideal, then she should be in some sense in

the same level with this ideal – that is, the ideal should be possible for the person to fulfil – and if I

should be able to be identified with a blue-eyed person, then we must have something in common

already. Hegel tries to emphasise two points. Firstly, the infinite object is not confined to a realm of

its own separate from the realm of finite objects. On the contrary, it is the same realm or context,

just interpreted in a different manner: a morally inadequate person can be seen as a mere stage of

moral perfection, and me and the blue-eyed person next to me can be seen as different aspects or

embodiments of our common humanity. Secondly, it is not as if this interpretation would be only

our subjective viewpoint: infinity is the true determination of the finite object, that is, a

determination in a wider or more informative context. The interpretation does not lose any crucial

information, at least if the infinite is interpreted properly – the morally inadequate person still

differs from the moral ideal, but only as an aspect of the same object in different situation.

Furthermore, the interpretation indeed gives us new information, in that it tells us that there is

something identical behind the different aspects.

3./167. Finity has thus disappeared in a state of infinity, and there is only an infinite object.

The infinity should be understood together with its genesis or construction from finite objects. Yet,

it is quite tempting to forget these finite objects altogether. Isn't the idea of the construction just to

get rid of all finities and imperfections? If all is just aspect of one object, shouldn't we concentrate

our attention to that one object, instead of its aspects, from which we can well abstract, because they

are only something incomplete? This possibility does exist, but as we shall see, its results are not as

tempting as it would seem at first sight.

b. The alternating determinations of finity and infinity

The infinity was constructed from finity, by showing that different objects limiting one another

could be seen as parts or aspects of one object. Because the construction itself seemed to proceed

away from the finity, it was possible to abstract from this relationship with a state of finity: infinite

object was not identified with any finite object in another situation; in fact, the infinite object was

merely something that was not a finite object. Obviously, we may now differentiate between the

infinite object and the finite object of the previous stage – e.g. a stage in my life history differs from

that same stage understood as an independent temporal slice – and in that sense the infinite object

of one context appears to be finite. Undoubtedly, we then can once again take these new finite

objects as aspects of an infinite object – integrate them into a new object or idealise them – but then

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again we may find this new infinite object as finite in another sense etc. We have thus landed on a

potentially infinite progression: we may use two constructions to alternate between two sorts of

situations, a state of finity and a state of infinity. Hence, the name “alternating determination”

(Weschelbestimmung). Note that the determination in question is a determination of one object: it

is the same thing that is taken now as finite and then as infinite, only that it is gathering ever more

aspects to itself.

1./168. An infinite object is an object that has a finite object as its alternative. Furthermore, the infinite object can be

separated from its determinations – because it is an object behind differently determined aspects – and thus the infinite

itself can be separated from its relation to another object. This other object is the finite which still exists in another

context, although it seemed to disappear.

An infinite object is still an object: indeed, we may even presume it is merely an object given to us

and not something that we arrive only at through construction, that is, we may abstract from the

construction once we have done it. Furthermore, the infinite object can then be compared with finite

objects: we know that we can construct a context with some finite objects, or if we are not willing to

do that, we may compare it with the finite objects from which we constructed it in the first place.

Because of this possibility of comparison, the infinite object has a certain quality, being infinite in a

certain context: for instance, I as a subsisting object behind the temporal slices of my life am

infinite in the context of my life, while these slices are finite in that context.

The infinite we are familiar with was introduced through integrating some finite objects into

a unity: thus, the determinate finite objects could now be seen as a one infinite object in certain

aspects or states of determinacy which are contingent or external to the infinite object, just like any

singular stage of my life was not the only stage where I could have existed. Hence, it seems quite

possible that this new determinacy of the infinite object is merely an external determination also.

True, we can abstract from the relation between the infinite and the finite object and look at the

infinite object in itself, that is, with no relations to situations and contexts outside its state of infinity.

Still, it can also be taken as related to the finite object, even if this relation would be external. Now,

because of this possible relatedness, the finite object must also exist in some sense or situation: the

construction by which we got rid of the finite objects was not a permanent solution, because we can

always construct new finite objects or even take the infinite object in its stage before the

construction as an independent finite object: similarly, we can contrast me with the temporal slices

of my life.

2./169. But the relation of an infinite and a finite object is not external. A finite object points intrinsically to an infinite

object to which it can be changed: thus, in a state of infinity there can be no finite objects. If a finite object is taken as

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non-designated, because of its limitedness, the infinite object seems then actual or designated. Still, a state of infinity as

a state of being can be compared with the state of finity, which can as well be taken as actual: if the finite world or

context is the world of realities, then the infinite world or context is an empty world beyond.

In the previous paragraph it was suggested that a relationship between an infinite and a finite object

would always be external. Yet, this cannot be so always. A finite object of a certain context

intrinsically points to a certain infinite object, that is, to the object of which it could be seen as an

aspect: a slice of my life points to me as the unity. Furthermore, every infinite object is to some

finite objects what they should be – an object that is not limited, that is, that is not separated from

another object – and in this sense it seems to be intrinsically related to those finite objects. Still, we

may insist that the state of infinity is not a state of what merely should be or an abstraction out of

reality, but a state of what truly is. In fact, there is nothing finite in a state of infinity: it is “a nothing

for finity”, as Hegel puts it. Now, a finite object can be taken as non-designated, because of its

limitedness: therefore, a corresponding infinite object must be the designated or actual object. Yet,

this actuality of affirmativeness is merely one interpretation of the infinite or a one viewpoint to it.

A finite object could also be taken as the actual object – indeed, the objects we come across on our

ordinary life seem usually finite in some sense. Now the phrase “nothing for finity” gets an entirely

different meaning: there are literally no finite objects in a state of infinity, therefore, from a

viewpoint of finity there seems to be no objects in a state of infinity – a state of infinity is left as a

complete emptiness, without the truly real objects of our ordinary life.

3./170. This infinity separated from finity is a bad form of infinity, which an understanding [or abstract thinking] takes

as the highest concept. We must show that such an infinite object has different characteristics in different contexts

[which the understanding cannot accept].

What we did in the previous paragraph was abstracting infinity from finity: an infinite object is a

thing that cannot be finite. Thus, Hegel properly calls this sort of infinity an infinite of

understanding, which meant the method of abstracting – especially of abstracting from all identities

between objects in different situations, or of isolating those objects from one another. What we

must then do, is to show that while we can abstract from the fact that it is the same object that is

infinite in one context and finite in another, this same identity of objects in different contexts can be

constructed anew. Notice that once again Hegel speak as if he was going to show some

contradictions, but no formal contradiction is actually involved.

4./171. What is seen as infinite exists in a world [or situation] separate from the world of finity: thus, the infinite object

is limited by the finite object and is therefore in some context finite.

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I pointed out in the previous paragraph that the contradictions Hegel tries to find are no formal

contradictions, and yet Hegel seems at once to produce a clear formal contradiction: infinite is at the

same time finite. But this contradiction is once again no true contradiction, as a careful study will

show. Hegel speaks of two “worlds” or contexts: let us call them context 1 and 2. Now, in the

context 1 there should be only one object that is in that context infinite: apparently different objects

are merely aspects of the same object or that object as it is in different situations. On the other hand,

in the context 2, there should be more objects, all finite. From these two contexts we may construct

a second-order context or situation, described by a sentence of the form “in a context 1 … and in a

context 2 …”: let us call this new context A. The infinite object of context 1 is also an object in a

context A. Yet, it is not the sole object in this context, because the finite objects of context 2 are

also objects in A. Thus, it differs from those objects in context or situation 2 and there is then –

from the viewpoint A – a situation – the context 2 – where this infinite object of context 1 does not

exists: hence, this object is finite according to the context A. The same object can be finite and

infinite, if we are speaking of different situations or contexts. Furthermore, the context of its finity

is here more informative than its context of infinity: the context of finity contains the context of

infinity as a constituent. It is so appropriate to say – with this set of contexts – that the object in

question is more of a finite than an infinite object.

5./172. This double aspect of an infinite object can be further developed. A finite object can be seen as a reality,

although we would construct another realm of infinity beyond it: the state of infinity is a mere alternative for a state of

finity. When understanding rises to its highest concept, it leaves the finite world to its place and thus makes the infinity

into a shadowy beyond.

In the paragraph 158 we changed the interpretation of a certain context with finite objects and

suggested that it was instead a context with one infinite object in many different aspects. The

construction seemed at the time to be a closing statement for the finite interpretation, but as we have

seen in the course of this section, this interpretation remains in some sense still valid: we may still

see things as finite. What we have done is to double the amount of interpretations: what formerly

should have been seen as finite, can now be seen also as infinite, for instance, the slices of my life

can now be seen as aspects or stages of a unified person. The different interpretations, as it were,

form different worlds or contexts not touched by one another. Furthermore, there seems to be no

reason why we should choose one interpretation over the other: seeing objects as true objects might

be as true as taking them as aspects of one object. Indeed, only pragmatic reasons could decide

which interpretation to choose. Someone could say that the infinite interpretation is the only truth,

just because it describes everything as perfect and unified, but an antagonist of her could reply that

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the finite interpretation is closer to the way we truly see the objects.

6./173. States of finity and infinity are connected by the fact that they can be seen both separated from or limited by one

another. Furthermore, this relatedness is intrinsic to objects in those states: thus, both are finite in the context of their

being related. Undoubtedly both finite and infinite objects are naturally separated into different situations or contexts.

But finite objects can be replaced by an object that is infinite in some sense at least; and an infinite object seems finite

compared with finite objects. Thus, states of finity point to states of infinity and vice versa, and we can presume there is

a common object behind them, although it is not apparent.

The first remarks of this paragraph are familiar to us from the section on limits. A state of finity and

a state of infinity are two situations, and beside them there is a third situation, namely, the second-

order situation describing the fact that the objects of these situations limit each other, that is, that a

finite object cannot exist where an infinite object does and vice versa. This third situation or the

state of limitedness separates the two sorts of objects, but also connects them: it states that finity is

alternative to infinity and vice versa. Furthermore, this state of limitedness is not just an external

determination, but an intrinsic determination to the infinite and the finite objects.

Undoubtedly we can also abstract from the relationship of the finity and the infinity and take

either of the situations in isolation of the other. Problem is that we still have the opportunity to

connect the isolated situation with a corresponding situation by some construction. The

constructions themselves are already quite familiar to us. A situation with finite objects – objects

that do not exist in some context – can be interpreted to be filled with mere aspects of one infinite

object; a situation with an infinite object can be compared with a situation with finite objects – we

must be able to do that, because a state of infinity is a situation constructed from a state of finity –

and then the object itself seems finite in that context. From finity one can construct infinity and vice

versa. Even better, what is finite can be seen as infinite and what is infinite can be seen as finite:

isolation of finity and infinity lets us only connect them as alternatives to one another, although at

first sight it hides and even destroys such connection.

7./174. The connectedness of finity and infinity appears as an external construction of one alternative from another.

We can construct infinity from finity and finity from infinity; yet, on the surface, there is nothing to

suggest that a state of infinity would be necessarily connected with some state of finity or vice versa.

The connectedness or the “unity” of the two situations is hidden. Thus, the construction we have

achieved seems external. A group of finite objects – say, me and the blue-eyed fellow next to me –

could be seen as aspects of one infinite object – we could be interpreted as two embodiments of

humanity – but it would be easy to argue that the finity could in some case be intrinsic to the objects

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– I most certainly differ from any blue-eyed fellow. Similarly, an infinite object of some context –

say, I as the unifying person of my life – could be compared with its aspects taken as independent

objects – in this example, with the particular slices of my life line – but it seems possible that such a

division of one object according to its aspects could be a misinterpretation – certainly stages of my

life cannot be independent of myself.

8./175. It is possible to leave the finity behind –although externally – and arrive at an infinity. From this infinity it is

possible to find a new limit, although this limit would be external to the infinite object. Thus, we would be back with

finity, which we could then overcome only to arrive at a new limit. The process could be continued indefinitely.

Let us admit that the constructions from infinity to finity and vice versa are merely external. Still,

we have to answer which of the states is the more correct one, that is, whether the context we are

investigating is more of a state of finity or a state of infinity. Problem is there is no terminal point at

which we would surely have ended our constructions. A collection of finite objects can be seen as

one object in many aspects; and this infinite object can be compared with another object and thus it

can be seen as finite. We can alternate between using these two constructions indefinitely. What is

worse, the constructions do not just alternate between two states. After we have used the two

constructions in some order, we are not just back with the original state, but we have arrived into a

new situation: the collection of finite objects is different or the infinite object has gathered new

aspects. Thus, there is an inevitable progression of states going on, although the states are all of one

of two qualities.

9./176. States of finity and infinity alternate, because finity is finity only when compared with infinity and infinity is

infinity only when compared with finity: although the states differ, they both point to the other as a possible alternative.

The strange concept of Wechselbestimmung – alternating determination – is derived from Fichte

who had derived it from the more familiar Wechselwirkung – reciprocal causality. With Fichte, the

term referred to a situation in which quantities of two things – e.g. activities of subject and object –

could be determined from one another: if A would be determined as x, then B would determined as

the total quantity y – x. Hegel uses the term to describe such a relation between two determinations

that an object is determined in one way only when it can be compared with another object – or with

another aspect of the same object – with the other determination and vice versa. An object seems to

be finite only because it lacks something, that is, because it is possible to compare the current state

of the object with what it should be, e.g. because it cannot be in a situation where we know there

exists another object; and an object seems infinite only because it is perfect compared to another

object or aspect, e.g. because this object exists in situations where some of its aspects don’t exist.

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10./177. The alternating determination causes the possibility to progress indefinitely: although a state seems to be

independent, it is actually relative to another state which can be constructed from it.

Let us take a state of a certain kind that is supposedly independent, that is, that has no connection to

other states or situations. Let us also suppose that in a wider context any state of that kind is actually

related intrinsically to some other state or situation of a different kind via an accessibility or

alternativeness relation – this double aspect of the same state is a Hegelian contradiction. Now, it is

easy to see that we are clearly able to construct this other state from the original state. If we also

suppose that from a state of the second kind it is possible to construct a state of the first kind,

although it would be taken as non-related state, then it is obvious that we can continue the

construction indefinitely long. Although the first instance of such an indefinite progression has been

revealed while investigating finity and infinity, the connectedness of alternating determinations and

indefinite progression is a general result that shall be applied in all similar cases. Note that the

indefinite progression demands yet another condition, namely, that the constructed states or

situations should be different from situations so far: i.e. an alternation between a state of being and

a state of nothing should not generate an indefinite progression, if we interpret the constructed state

of nothingness as being always the same situation. Yet, the indefinite progression can happen

sometimes – as the current case shows – which is a proof of Hegel’s Logic being capable of

producing potentially infinite amount of situations or models for situations.

11./178. The abstract overcoming of limits remains imperfect, because the overcoming is not overcome, except by

introducing a new limit: the string of infinite objects is a continuous state of what ought to be, because the state of

infinity is always related to a state of finity.

In a Hegelian Logic, we can overcome only one limit at a time, or at most, some finite number of

limits: indeed, we can be aware of only a finite number of limits in a particular stage of the Logic.

Because we can always find new limits, the possibility of overcoming more limits is never absent.

Although the situation we are now in may be a state of infinity in one sense, it will also be a state of

finity in another sense, that is, there will always be something that merely ought to be. We seem

thus have landed once again to the endless circle of Kantian-Fichtian philosophy. We may

apprehend some information, but there always remains something essential for us to know and

therefore our knowledge will always be imperfect; and although we may succeed in particular moral

efforts, situations demanding moral behaviour and improvement will always come up, thus making

the striving for perfection into an infinite task.

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12./179. A state of infinity as connected with finity is itself limited and finite: thus, we have found a unity of infinity

and finity [that is, the fact that infinity can be seen as finite and vice versa]. Although this unity is not noticed, it causes

the indefinite alternation. A state of infinity beyond cannot and even should not be achieved through this progression,

because it is always related to a stable state of finity here.

When we are engaged in progressing indefinitely in the series of alternating states of finity and

infinity we notice objects that are in some sense infinite, but are revealed finite in a wider context:

thus, we must have a method by which to show that objects infinite in some sense are also finite in

another sense. Furthermore, although Hegel does not explicitly mention it at this place, we also

have a method of seeing finite objects as aspects of an infinite object. As we shall see in the next

section, this method is actually all the “infinity” we require: with it, we are able to construct more

and more “infinite” objects by adding more and more “finite” aspects. Of course, if we still want a

full actualisation of this method, that is, a state of having used the method infinite times, a mere

having of the method seems not sufficient: what would be required would be an “infinite”

construction consisting of infinite number of applications of the method. Yet, in a wider context it

seems that even such an “infinite construction” wouldn’t help: after using the infinite construction,

we could use it again – because we could still compare the state after the infinite construction with

the state before it – producing a sort of analogy for Cantor’s transfinite sets. Hence, even in this

case the Kantian fully actualised infinite would remain a mere beyond.

c. Affirmative infinity

Although a state of infinity was originally constructed as a new interpretation of some state of finity,

it could also be seen as a completely new situation or world beyond the finite. Problem was that

then the infinite world itself could be compared with the finite world and thus the infinite object in

that world seemed finite in some sense. Because the infinite object seen as finite could then be

interpreted as aspect of an even more truly infinite object, there appeared to be no reason why we

couldn’t continue constructing ever more infinite objects without reaching any final limit. Hegel

has no solution for the problem of indefinitely long progression: how could there be any way to end

a progression that clearly could be always continued? Instead he opts for a change of standpoint.

We do not need to go through all the infinite states, because 1) we have seen how the construction

is made in some exemplary cases and 2) we know that the same constructions will be possible in all

the further cases. The rule-bounded method of construction is the true infinite that will never be

completely emptied by the actual use of the method.

1./180. The alternation between the phases of finity and infinity is an actualisation of the method of constructing finity

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from infinity and vice versa or the unity of finity and infinity, which is in one sense a bad expression for the unity.

Construction of new contexts does not help in overcoming possibility for indefinitely long

progression alternating between states of finity and infinity: on the contrary, it only creates such a

progression. What is required is more of a change of standpoint: we must have a different attitude

towards the indefinite progression, that is, we must see it not as a persistent lack and imperfectness,

but as a perfect potentiality. The truth of infinity and finity – the fact that we can construct infinity

from finity and vice versa – is already apparent in the actual alternation between states of finity and

infinity, as we already noted at the end of the previous section. Indeed, when we have made the

change between the two sorts of states few times, we have actualised this possibility or we have

constructed an example of using such a method: note the constructivist requirement for accepting an

existence of a method.

In the paragraph 128 Hegel noted that it was not entirely correct to speak merely of identity

or unity of states of pure being and nothing: although a state of pure being or the most abstract

situation truly is an empty situation, the relation of the concept or term “state of pure being” to

states of being in general presented at least a nominal difference between states of pure being and

nothing. Even more inappropriate it is to speak of the unity of infinity and finity. True, a finite

object can be seen as infinite in some context and an infinite object can be seen as finite in another

context. Still, the aspects of infinity and finity are in some sense different: an object can be finite

and infinite only in different situations or contexts, not in one and the same context.

2./181. State of infinity is constructed by overcoming a state of finity, thus, an infinite object is an alternative

interpretation of a finite object, just as a finite object points to a context in which it is interpreted alternatively – as an

infinite object. Both are intrinsically related to the other: an infinite object as an alternative of a finite object contains a

reference to its aspect of being a finite object, and a finite object as pointing to a state in which it isn’t finite contains a

reference to its state of infinity. Here we already interpreted the states of infinity and finity as aspects related to each

other, but they can be intrinsically related even when they are taken as independent: an infinite object separated from all

finite objects is in some sense itself finite, and a state of finity abstracted from all relations to states of infinity contains

in some sense one independent or infinite object with many aspects.

Hegel uses a twofold strategy to construct a situation where an infinite object is finite or a finite

object infinite in some context. Firstly, he assumes that the object with a certain property already

has an aspect with the other property: that the aspects of infinity and finity are already related to

each other. Infinite object was constructed from finite objects: the apparently finite objects were

interpreted as aspects of an infinite object. The resulting state of infinity is a negation of a state of

finity – not just in the sense that it is related to some alternative state of finity, but in a sense that

same objects or aspects are interpreted in a different manner in both states, as independent objects

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or as aspects. Furthermore, a state of finity contains a reference to a state in which the finite objects

aren’t finite – where they are as they should be or where they have lost their finity or being limited

by each other and where they are aspects of the same object appearing in different situations.

In previous cases it was easy to see that what is finite in some sense is infinite in another

sense, and vice versa. But an opponent may argue that this is only because we already had related

the states of infinity and finity as aspects of one object: we should investigate an infinite or a finite

object without any reference to other possible aspects that the object may have in other contexts and

from that beginning try to construct a situation in which the infinite object is finite in some sense

and vice versa. This is just what Hegel has already done. Let us first take an infinite object which

should not be finite in any context. Such an infinite object could be opposed with a finite object: we

know how to construct finite objects or states of finity. Now such an infinite object could not exist

in a state of finity – otherwise, it would be finite in some context – thus it must be finite in a

second-order context or situation containing the states of finity and infinity as its constituents. Let

us then take a state of finity without any reference to a state of how the finite objects should be. The

different finite objects are finite compared to one another. Still, there is something similar in all of

them – if nothing else, then at least their finity. When we concentrate only on their similar

properties, all their differences vanish – that is, when we take only the similarities as intrinsic

properties, then the differences become extrinsic – and we are justified in saying that they are only

aspects of one and the same object.

3./182. Although both methods of construction begin from a different situation, they end up with the same result.

We may assume that an infinite object has a finite aspect or that a finite object has an infinite aspect:

in this case the required result is already presupposed and infinity and finity are both mere aspects

of the same object or they are intrinsically related to one another. On the other hand, we may also

assume that an infinite object is only an infinite object and that a finite object is only a finite object.

Even in this case we may still find or construct a context in which the infinite object is finite and the

finite object is infinite. Thus, the change of the presupposition does not remove our capability of

relating finity and infinity: it is always possible to see infinite object as finite and finite object as

infinite.

4./183. Both methods end up with a unity of infinite and finite, which itself can be taken as infinite, but in a different

sense than as separated from finity. Infinity and finity can be separated: then we get two unities [or methods]. In their

unity, finity and infinity have lost their appearance of independence.

An infinite object or a state of infinity we have investigated thus far is only relatively infinite: it is

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only infinite compared to some finite object or state of finity, but in another sense or in relation to

other objects or states it will be finite. The purpose of indefinite progression was to find the most

infinite state or object there is: a state beyond which there could be found no new objects or levels

of perfectness. As we have seen, such a most infinite state cannot be found just because the

progression can be indefinitely prolonged: we can always find a context in which the infinite state

of this context seems finite and then take these finite states as aspects of a new infinite object – for

instance, when gathering knowledge, we could obtain singular items of knowledge, but the whole

area of possible knowledge could not be apprehended at once. Now, it is the possibility of

constructing finity from infinity and vice versa – the method – which occasions the possibility of

indefinite progression: we may even say that it metaphorically contains all the states of that

progression potentially and is thus itself infinite in a more eminent way than any of these single

states. This unity of finity and infinity is, undoubtedly, not a state in the same sense as the relative

states of infinity are. It is either a method or at most a second-order state consisting of alternating

states of finity and infinity: this unity presents a similar double aspect as the state of becoming,

which we shall investigate later.

The unity of finity and infinity resembles the state of becoming also in other ways. Firstly,

in a state of becoming we could take either the state of being or the state of nothing as the

designated situation: similarly we can take either a state of finity or a state of infinity as the

designated or actual situation, thus constructing two new structures. This possibility will be studied

in the next paragraph. Secondly, the constituent states of a state of becoming are not taken as

independent or as “the whole truth”. Similarly, a state of finity and a state of infinity cannot be the

whole truth of what there is. In the case of becoming, at least one of the constituent states is an

empty situation: thus, the non-independence of the constituent states can mean only that the two

states both hold in some sense. The states of finity and infinity, on the other hand, contain objects:

hence, the two states are non-independent in another way, that is, they both are states of the same

object, one of them seeing the object as limited by other objects and the other presenting these

objects as mere aspects of one object.

5./184. The unity can be taken in two aspects: when the state of infinity is taken as assigned, it presents the intrinsic

nature of the object or what it should be, but the object can still be seen as limited – although extrinsically – and is thus

stained with finity; when the state of finity is taken as assigned, it presents the object as not what it should be and yet

being of a higher nature in another sense.

When we took one of the constituent situations in a state of becoming as designated – say, the state

of nothing – we constructed a new structure in which there was nothing, but there could be

something – a state of generation. Similarly, we can take either the state of infinity or the state of

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finity as the assigned situation, when they are connected to each other. Suppose first that we take

the state of infinity as the actual situation: this object is truly infinite or it is not limited by any other

object and is thus what it is supposed to be. We still have the possibility to see the object as limited,

but the limit is supposed to be something extrinsic or it shouldn’t touch the true nature of the object.

Still, even the possibility of seeing the object as limited downgrades its infinity: the object is only

relatively infinite.

Suppose then that we take the state of finity as the actual situation or aspect of the object:

this object is limited by other objects, and hence, is not what it is supposed to be. Even so, the

object can be seen as perfect in some sense and is thus in some context infinite: the state of finity is

something we can always leave behind. Which of the states should be taken as actual seems utterly

arbitrary: whichever one we choose, we could always change it. Indeed, the choice seems a

completely pragmatic matter, determined by external considerations: points of line may seem to be

best interpreted as finite objects, whereas stages of my life might seem to be best interpreted as

aspects of a larger whole.

6./185. An abstract standpoint of understanding couldn’t understand the unity of finity and infinity and it cannot

understand the two substructures of that unity: it tries to purify infinity from all limitations and to fix finity as an

alternative to infinity.

Understanding was the standpoint of investigating things within one situation or context: it couldn’t

understand how one and the same thing could have contradictory properties, although in different

contexts. Particularly understanding cannot by itself understand how one and the same object could

be infinite in one sense and finite in another. It is bound to interpret infinite and finite as not related

to each other. Understanding takes infinite objects as occupying a realm distinct from the realm of

finity: state of infinity is not an interpretation of some state of finity, but a completely different

situation. When the understanding separates infinity completely from finity, it must leave the finity

as it is, that is, as a separate realm, instead of interpreting it anew. Ironically, just when the

standpoint of understanding has done the separation, it has made it possible to once again relate

them to one another: an infinite object separated from all finite object can be taken as limited by

them, and a state of finity without any reference to a state of infinity can be interpreted as

containing only many aspects of one object.

7./186. Understanding makes a mistake when it takes the relation of two aspects as difference of two independent

objects, which are only externally related. But finite object contains a possibility to overcome it – thus a relation to its

infinite aspect – and an infinite object contains a reference to that from which it is constructed – the finite object.

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An upholder of a healthy understanding could accuse Hegel of a foul play: his constructions use

illegitimate means to connect infinity and finity or at least they concentrate on petty and inessential

details such as what infinite looks like in comparison to the finite world, although the infinite must

be judged only in itself or without comparing it with anything. Thus, it seems that we have only her

word against Hegel’s, while both blame the other of making mistakes. Yet, in some sense Hegel’s

account is more informative, or at least he can explain how the standpoint of healthy understanding

could be reached from his own standpoint: the understanding, on the other hand, just cannot see

how Hegel could have made the illegitimate move of identifying a finite and an infinite object. The

understanding has made an abstraction from the unity of finity and infinity: it has concentrated its

attention to the fact that the finite and infinite objects must belong to different situations or contexts,

but it has conveniently forgotten that the different objects are actually only aspects of one object,

that is, that we have constructed the infinite object by interpreting the finite object anew.

8./187. The integration of finity and infinity does not destroy any object: a finite object merely fulfilled its

determination of being potentially non-existent as finite, when it turned into an infinite object, and the construction of a

finite object from an infinite object merely returns determinateness to otherwise empty object.

When we notice that a finite and an infinite object are actually aspects of the same object, we are

not destroying any object nor even changing its essential nature: we merely interpret seemingly

different objects with different qualities as the same object with different aspects, while these

aspects still retain the qualities the objects had when they were interpreted as different. The

construction of infinity from finity was intrinsic to the finite object: the finite object itself contained

an intrinsic reference to a situation where it doesn’t exist – at least not as a finite object. Thus, the

infinite object is not something foreign to the finite object, devouring it while taking its place, but

only the same object seen under a different light: a singular stage of my life vanishes, when it is

replaced by another stage, but I whose aspects these stage are remain the same in this change.

Similarly, an infinite object is only a reinterpretation of some finite objects. Without such a

reference, it would be completely indeterminate, but because we can move to the finite level and

compare its aspects to one another, we can determine what it is like: I would be an empty person if I

hadn’t lived through different stages of life.

9./188. Both a state of finity and a state of infinity are implicit constructions out of states of negation. The result of such

a construction is a state of affirmation related to a state of negation. This structure is explicitly constructed in an

indefinite progression.

Hegel refers once again to the idea of a negation of negation. As we should remember, by simple or

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first negation Hegel referred to a relation between two alternative states or situations or to

construction or movement from one alternative to another: the situation is not anymore of this, but

of that sort. Second negation or negation of a negation referred then to a movement or construction

to a situation of a different order in which the states in the first negation were revealed to be aspects

of one object. An intrinsic movement from finity to infinity is easy to understand as a case of a

second negation. We begin with a series of situations or objects limited by one another: there is a

tree here and a rock there, or there are points lying side by side, or there are stages of my life. Then

we note that all these seemingly different objects are only aspects of one infinite object: the tree and

the rock are instantiations of a general “objecthood”, line is merely a movement of one point and

these stages are stages of one person. The intrinsic movement from infinity to finity is perhaps a bit

harder to understand as a negation of a negation. Yet, a state of infinity as abstracted from a state of

finity is a state of negation compared to the state of finity: it is the indeterminate beyond separated

from all finite contexts. The second negation consists this time of an acknowledgement that the state

of infinity cannot be differentiated from all states of finity or that an object seen as infinite is in

some other context an object that is finite: for instance, that the infinite object has aspects which can

be seen as independent objects.

10./189. In indefinite progression we move away from or negate states of both finity and infinity, but we also separate

the states and take them as independent: this is similar comparison of different aspects as taking finite and infinite both

as related and as independent. On the other hand, the progression implies also that the independent states are connected,

although yet only by a construction.

In the paragraph 184 Hegel suggested two standpoints from which states of finity and infinity could

be studied: as related and as independent. When we do few steps of an indefinite progression, we in

a sense construct examples of these imagined standpoints. In an infinite progression we “make a

negation”, that is, we begin e.g. from a state of finity and construct from it an alternative state of

infinity and thus reveal that the original state presented not the whole truth, but only a truth in a

context: the original state is revealed to be related to another state. On the other hand, while making

the few steps, we construct two states – finity and infinity – which we then can proceed to think as

independent states: the finite and the infinite are in some sense unrelated. But the indefinite

progression does even more than express these two standpoints: it also shows that they themselves

are related as alternative interpretations of the same phenomenon, that is, that the infinite and finite

object are in some sense different, but can also in another sense be identified as aspects of the same

object.

11./190. At first, there merely seems to be two separate constructions following one another, one from e.g. a state of

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finity to a state of infinity and other from the state of infinity to a new state of finity. Yet the two constructions are also

connected: we may take the two finite objects as aspects of the same finite object that moves through an aspect of

infinity.

An indefinite progression seems at first to consist of alternating states with different objects: first

we see a finite object, then we see an infinite object born out of this finite object and then we see

another finite object, different from the original one, come to be from the infinite object. Every

construction seems to create a new object – evidently, because the construction creates an object of

another kind, finite from infinite or infinite from finite – and no continuity exists. Yet the original

and the resulting state after two constructions are at least similar, that is, they can be taken as the

same object in different situations: the finite object which disappeared into the state of infinity has

come out again. In this interpretation the middle state of infinity is naturally taken as a mediating

state of one finite object – the finite object in another aspect. This is a tale of an eternally imperfect

object which is becoming more and more perfect: every new state of the object seems perfect in

comparison with the earlier state, but actually or in a more extensive context we at once see that

there is another more perfect possible state. An example of such could be drawing of a line

indefinitely long: while drawing we connect the line with points outside it and thus make it longer

and longer, yet the line is always incomplete, because there are more points to be found beyond the

existing line.

12./191. We may also take the progression as a progression of an infinite object, which moves through limits – and so is

forever connected with an aspect of finitude – but always returns to a state of infinity.

The previous paragraph interpreted the indefinite progression as a perennial finity that could never

fulfil its endeavour to find true infinity. On the other hand, we can as well emphasise the states of

infinity in the ongoing progression. We begin with an infinite object – an object limited by nothing

else. We undoubtedly find very soon a new object and thus a limit for the original object, but in

another sense, this new object is just another aspect of the original object and therefore the infinity

of the original object is not compromised. For instance, my life as to this point forms a totality –

every stage of my life is truly a stage of my life. Indeed, every second produces another such stage,

but as the new stages are still stages of my life, unity of my person is not broken.

13./192. Both finite and infinite object are moving through their alternatives and thus as a result they are not what they

were in the beginning: a finite object is not in a state of being-here and an infinite object is not something in a state of

being-beyond-or-in-itself. An understanding takes these beginnings as eternal and so misses the fact that the states are

moments in the progression.

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We are back on explaining what exactly is wrong with the way how abstract understanding sees

finity and infinity. A finite (or an infinite) object should be seen, according to Hegel, as one object

capable of existing across many different situations: a finite object could be more and more perfect

without still losing its finity, and an infinite object could be engaged in an indefinite progression

and still be infinite at every moment. Understanding, on the other hand, fixes on some particular

state of being or situation and insists that the particular finite object can exist only in this situation

or context, while all the other situations beyond it are reserved for infinite objects. According to

such an interpretation, the indefinite progression can only be a movement to new situation with

completely different objects: an imperfect object cannot truly become more perfect, because it is

stuck with its current state.

14./193. We seem to have two results, because we began from two different objects – a finite and an infinite one – but

in fact it is indifferent from which object we begin: similarly, in an indefinitely long line the beginning can be said to be

in any point. The finite and the infinite object can be separated from one another – then they are in some sense finite –

but they can also be seen as aspects of one infinite object. The finite object is in one sense different from the infinite

object, but in another sense the infinite object is also finite; on the other hand, the infinite object is in some sense

different from the finite object – not truly infinite – but in another sense the finite object is its mere moment. A true

infinity is the method by which one can contrast the infinite object with another object and then identify both.

We could interpret an indefinite progression as a progression of one object through different stages.

Yet, a complete unity may still seem to be out of our reach, because there seems to be actually two

objects going through different stages, one finite and the other infinite. But these two objects cannot

actually be different, because they go through stages of each other: the finite object becomes or is

interpreted occasionally as an infinite object and vice versa. It is thus more correct to say that the

finite and the infinite object are mere aspects of one object. The question of priority is natural: is the

finite or the infinite object the proper starting point? But we cannot answer this question, because

the progression could have begun from one or the other. It may seem that we began from a state of

finity and after then proceeded to a state of infinity; yet, we may as well say that the first state of

being without any reference to other states of being – our true beginning – was already a state of

infinity.

The finite and the infinite object occur as differing aspects of the one object and the states of

finity and infinity occur as different and comparable states in the progression. But both of the

aspects and states can be seen not just as mere aspects, but also as the intrinsic aspect of the

progression. When we compare two aspects of the progression, we take them as limiting each other,

thus, as finite: in some sense all the states and aspects in the progression are finite. In this sense, the

whole object is always compared to apparently different objects – objects in another sense or mere

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aspects of the same unity – and is therefore always finite. On the other hand, there is one and the

same object in all the infinite and finite states; hence, the object in question is infinite. This infinite

object cannot be taken apart from the progression: it is an object that can be seen as finite – which

we can always compare with a new object – but which then can always be seen as infinite again –

which we can see to be identical with the apparent new object.

15./193. A true state of infinity is not a mere unity behind the states of finity and infinity, but a state of becoming [or a

method by which the states can be produced]. An abstract state of becoming consisted of states of being and nothing, a

state of change consisted of two states of being here and this state from state of finity and infinity.

We noticed in the previous paragraph that the true infinite could not be separated from the potential

progression to infinity. Indeed, it seems ambiguous whether we should instead of the progressing

object take the indefinite progression or the method with which to produce the progression as the

true infinite. A similar ambiguity we faced in trying to interpret Hegel’s concept of becoming: a

state of becoming was either a second-order state concerning alternativeness of two first-order

situations or then a general method of showing how such states or situations could be constructed

from one another. The only difference is that the constituents of the state of becoming were a bit

more abstract – an empty situation and a non-empty situation. This state of true infinity is also a

species of change – a state or a method of constructing one kind of object or aspect from another –

where the two aspects in question have been determined as finite and infinite.

From the two possibilities of interpreting the state of true infinity, the one of seeing it as a

method is the more fruitful and indeed the one Hegel himself finally, after a long detour, accepts as

primary. No singular object or state could be perfect, even if it would lie behind states of finity and

infinity: such a state or object would always have only a finite number of aspects and could thus be

made more perfect. A method, on the other hand, contains potentially all the states that can be made

by it: there cannot be any most perfect state, but we have the capability of perfecting the state

arbitrarily.

It is this idea of true infinite as a method that Hegel could use against Tarskian doubt,

mentioned in the paragraph 11: Hegel’s Logic should be a self-reflective language, but such

languages were prohibited by Tarski in order to avoid contradictions. As we all know, language in

the Tarskian scheme – and following him, generally in modern logic – is interpreted as a certain

group of terms together with the so-called satisfying relation designed to show when sentences

made up of these terms are true or correspond with the way things stand. If then one adds a new

term or even just a new way to say when sentences are true, one makes a new sort of language, the

meta-language of the previous object-language. Hegel would say such a language could at most be

relatively or badly infinite. What would be truly perfect language – or truly perfect way of

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interpreting language – would be a method by which the new languages were produced. But there

clearly is a method of producing new meta-languages: Tarski himself showed that it could be done

even mathematically and thus certainly through human means. Hence, if we do not identify

language with any of these so-called languages – these object- and meta-languages are mere states

of one language – but with the general method of producing new states of language, then it makes

sense to say that a language could refer to itself: it just must do this referring one step behind, that is,

it can refer to its past states.

This idea has clear consequences on whether Logic itself is mathematically representable: if

the first state of Logic – the state of pure being – is representable as a formal model and we have

methods of producing new models from given models that reflect the constructions of Logic, then

all the states of Logic should be mathematically representable. Now, the first state of Logic can

obviously be modelled with an empty structure, so the question of mathematical representability of

Logic depends on the possibility to present its constructions mathematically. I shall next give a brief

list of constructions used by Hegel so far, in the order of their appearance, with a small explanation

of how they could be modelled. Yet, this is not yet a perfect proof of the mathematical

representability of Logic, because we have not yet met all constructions of Logic.

1. Abstraction of objects (appeared in the construction from any state of being to a state of

nothing). Easily represented as taking a smaller domain of objects.

2. Making objects out of situations or states of being (appeared in construction of a non-

empty state of being from a state of nothingness). Supposing the state of being has been modelled,

we merely have to create a new object having the property of “being a situation” and adding

relations of “belonging to a situation” and “fulfilling predicate P according to a situation”.

3. Adding transitions, the strong version (appeared in construction of a state of becoming). If

one state has been constructed from another, add an accessibility relation from an object naming the

beginning to an object naming the result of the construction.

4. Assigning designated objects and changing the designation (appeared in the investigation

of states of generation and corruption). Add a property of being designated or reference point to an

object naming some situation, if there is not yet such. If one object naming a situation has the

property of being designated and another object naming situation is accessible from it, then change

the property of designatedness from one object to another.

5. Weak version of adding transitions or adding relations between situations (appeared in

construction of a state of being-here). If two objects modelling situations appear in the same state,

add a (“weaker”) reflexive accessibility relation between them.

6. Introducing a quality (implied in the construction of qualities). If some group of objects

naming situations is related, add distinct qualities as predicates for each one. If the objects naming

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situations have objects, add one distinct quality to objects of one objects naming situation. Other

regular objects and objects naming situations in that relation distinctly do not have those qualities.

7. Abstracting from relations between situations and objects and from qualities (introduced

in constructing states of being-in-itself). Remove accessibility relations between objects naming

situations and state that it is undefined whether the regular objects and objects naming situations

have the qualities.

8. Adding intrinsic properties (introduced in construction of intrinsic properties). If an object

has some quality in an object naming situation, then the object has a property “possibly having the

quality” in all objects naming situations where it exists.

9. Adding identities across situations, strong version (implicit). Objects before and after

construction can be identified, when the states or situations they are in are modelled or named by an

object.

10. Adding identities across situations, weak version (introduced in construction of infinity).

All regular objects in related objects naming situations can be identified.

16./194. The state of infinity as related only to itself in some sense is a state of being, yet it contains as constituents

states of being-here or determinate situations: true infinity is here and not beyond, like a relative state of infinity that

shouldn’t even exist and is thus untrue. An indefinite progression is imagined as a straight line which never reaches a

totality, while a true infinity can be seen as a circle which forms a totality without any beginning or end.

For now, Hegel forgets the idea of a true infinite as a method – it will surface again when we reach

the transition to essence. What is left of the infinite then is infinite in some situation – infinite

according to some predetermined context of states or situations, that is, these situations interpreted

as aspects of a larger whole. We have different states of being related to each other, which

constitute the given reality in that context. What the previous investigations have revealed is that an

infinite according to that context cannot be yet another realm or situation separated from all the

different situations already present: otherwise we wouldn’t have overcome the finity of that context,

but merely created a new context with more situations. The image of the line and the circle is one

often quoted when trying to explain Hegel’s idea of infinite: yet, as we already know, we shouldn’t

take such analogies too seriously. A line and a circle are two different sorts of objects: a line is not a

circle. Yet, what is truly infinite in some context – according to the definition of the current

paragraph – might be only relatively infinite according to another, wider context.

17./195. A true state of infinity is more deserving of the designatedness than any finite state. Yet, it is futile to apply

such abstract concept as reality to more concrete structures.

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Particular states of being here are finite, that is, they do not apply to all given situations: here is a

rock, but there is a tree, and now I am writing, but a minute ago I was eating. We can take one of

them as the designated situation or the reference point, but the choice of such a reference point

seems contingent: all the other situations would as well deserve the honour. The state of infinity

holds, in comparison with states of finity, and the infinite object exists, in comparison with finite

objects, in all contexts of the finite realm: or more properly, these contexts can be interpreted as

modifications of the infinity behind them. Thus, Hegel is quite justified in insisting that infinity in

some context is more real or deserving of the honour of reference point than the finities of that

context. Still, the concept “reality” still has the same nature of contingency: although a state of

infinity is real in some sense, we could take the other interpretation or the context of finite objects

as designated or real. Thus, Hegel is also justified to speak against taking the infinite state or object

as merely real: it is much more than just designated in a particular sense, because it contains as

aspects the other possible realities in the context where it is infinite.

18./196. The state of infinity is interpreted as real, because it has been constructed by denying the independence of the

negatively related finite states: thus, the states of finity are taken as ideal or as moments or aspects – ideality expresses

this being as a moment better than negativity. Often states of infinity are taken as mere ideals compared to real states of

finity: this is a return to the relative infinity.

The previous paragraph repeated the message of the paragraph 165 at the beginning of the section

on infinite: a state of infinity is more real than the state of finity from which it has been constructed.

This final paragraph of the section reminds once again what the change from finity to infinity is all

about, but the true value of it is that it explains what Hegel means by ideal. We begin with a

determined set of finite states and objects – that is, states and objects which limit each other – and

we interpret them as ideal, not in the sense that they would somehow depend on us as knowing

subjects, but in the sense that they are not truly independent, but only aspects – or as Hegel says,

moments – of a larger whole: e.g. moments of my life are not separate entities, but there is one

person, me, going through all these stages. The end of the paragraph once again warns against

interpreting the infinity as something out of reach and beyond the states of finity: in such an

interpretation we take the finite realm as the actual world and the infinity as an abstraction, which

could be better than the real life, but still dependent on it and therefore merely ideal.

Transition

The outcome of this section has been clear: a state of infinity should not be an abstraction from real

states of finity, but a method of idealising or interpreting them as aspects of a larger whole. As the

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methods of construction have not yet been taken as primary objects of Logic, we must move our

interest from this method to the state resulting from the use of it – a state of having idealised all

differences. This small section serves as a quick link from the method to the result: the fact that it

doesn’t fit in with the general division of the section on infinity serves to remind us that Hegel

should not have tried to fit his text with the strict threefold schema he prefers.

1./197. Interpreting finite objects as ideal can be used as a quality to differentiates the state of infinity from the state of

finity, but the state of infinity is, like the state of becoming, actually a method of producing a new sort of structure. It is

the method of seeing finite and relatively infinite objects as aspects of one whole and thus it integrates all states into one

state of being; yet, this state of being can be determined through its aspects and seen as a collection of states of being-

here; but because these different states have been idealised it should be called a state of being-according-to-itself.

Ideality can be called quality of the infinite, Hegel says. Remember that quality meant for Hegel

anything that differentiated a situation or an object from another situation or object. Thus, the fact

that the finite states and objects are interpreted as aspects of a larger whole separates the state of

infinity from some other state – presumably from the state of finity where these objects and

situations are interpreted as independent. This way of looking at ideality leads quickly to the

familiar idea of a mere relative infinity separated from the world of actual finity. More important is

to see the infinity in our method to interpret things as ideal, and as a method, this infinity must point

towards some result, just as the method of connecting states or becoming lead to a system of states

of being-here or determinate situations. A result of such an idealisation – e.g. that we take stages of

life as belonging to one person, or more abstractly, that we see some state of finity and

corresponding state of relative infinity as aspects of one object – is definitely a state of being or a

situation. Furthermore, it is at least in the beginning apparently unrelated situation: all the other

states or situations there have been are now mere aspects of the one situation. Yet, we can

distinguish these idealised different situations as constituents of the resulting situation: in this sense,

we are still capable of constructing or finding states of being-here. Because in another sense all

these different situations are mere aspects of the one situation or object, the resulting situation is a

new form, which Hegel calls being-for-or-according-to-itself: it is a situation or object in one sense

related to other situations or objects, but in another sense these other situations or objects are mere

aspects of it.

Remark 1.

The amount of attention Hegel gives for the relation of infinity and finity may seem to be

exaggerated: the section on infinity is long and perhaps even repetitious and then Hegel adds even

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a remark on the subject. Yet, the remark shows why Hegel deems the subject to be so important.

Firstly, the idea of indefinite progression with alternating stages is a commonplace in Logic. It

appears in two main forms with many modifications: a) as the already familiar progression into

more and more perfect or more and more large structures or states of being and b) as a

progression from consequences to their explanations or causes. Secondly, the question of

constructing states of finity from a state of infinity has been important in the philosophy of history,

at least since the Neoplatonists and the problem of how the world emanates from the One, but

especially in Schelling’s philosophy and the problem of how the finite realities we are familiar with

appear from the undifferentiated Absolute.

1./198. The indefinite progression is the first manner of rising above senses and the finite world, but it reaches no

positive content. It contains states of identifying finite and infinite objects and states of separating them, but these states

are related only externally: finite object becomes infinite or unites with it, but then the two are separated into different

realms, and then infinite object is revealed to be finite and united with it, but then they are again separated. Similarly, a

cause is seen as an effect, but then it demands another cause etc.

Although the indefinite progression to a state of what-should-be is unfruitful, because it never

reaches what it aims for, it is still a useful endeavour in some ways: at least it wrenches our view

from the common day life and its sensuous realities and presents the possibility that there is

something more than individual situations and objects of the ordinary world – then later this

something more is revealed to be the method or rule which regulates the sensuous realities and our

rising above them. Even in indefinite progression we in some sense identify finite and infinite

objects and in another sense differentiate between them. Problem is that we perceive these two

possibilities as incombinable alternatives: thus, we can at best picture these two possibilities as

following one another. We begin perhaps with a finite object; then we notice that it is in some sense

infinite – we identify it with an infinite object; then we proceed to separate finite and infinite realms,

but after that we are bound to see that the infinite object is in one sense finite; finally, we imagine

that there is once again something infinite beyond this mere relative infinite and so we come back to

a state similar from which we began.

Hegel presents a similar progression from the alternation of causal relations: this is the

second primary species of indefinite progressions, which belongs to the realms of essence and

concept, while the familiar progression happens in the realm of mere being. We may suppose we

have some cause, but in some sense this cause is identifiable with some effect – or in other words,

the cause itself is an effect in some context. Now, the cause as an effect points to another cause, and

so we separate cause as an effect from its own cause. Yet, we may once again begin anew and take

the new cause as an effect etc. While the previous progression was a constant perfection or

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enlargement of the object, here it is the question of going back in levels of explanation: we might

analogically say that the first progression happens spatially, while the second progression happens

temporally.

2./199. The progression can be described in the following way: we assert that the finite and the infinite object are

identical, then we must also assert that they are different in some sense and then we must once again assert their identity.

A state of infinity is understood when we see that the unity and separation alternate, but are still inseparable.

Hegel speaks of assertions, but as in the paragraph 128 we may translate what he says into a

language of models: a similar recursion of models of models occurs here also. We begin with a

model where a finite and infinite object are identified as aspects of the same object. Yet, the model

itself must present two variables for the two aspects: the infinite and the finite object are separate in

some sense. We have now two models describing the relationship of a finite and an infinite object.

We still need another model to say that the two previous models described the same state of affairs

or situation and were in that sense aspects of the same thing. Hegel stops here, but obviously we

could continue by saying that another model describing the two models as different models etc.

3./200. We should not merely say that both assertions are equally correct, but to insist that they are ideal moments of

one whole: both aspects of finity and infinity move through the other aspect back to itself, and this speculative grasping

of both as a unity is their moving and infinite unity.

It almost seems like Hegel is recanting what he has previously said when he insists that the so-

called contradiction is not solved by taking both assertions or models – one stating the identity, the

other the difference of finity and infinity – as equally correct: this is what we apparently do when

we take them as describing one aspect of the whole situation. Hegel’s statement seems even more

puzzling when he continues that we should instead say that both assertions or models are ideal,

because ideality meant just that being-a-mere-aspect. Actually, there is one thing the ideality

implies and the equal correctness does not, namely, that there is some larger whole or context in

which the two models are unified. When we speak of mere equal correctness, we stop at the level of

what Hegel calls dialectical reasoning: we merely state that there are incompatible ways of seeing

the relation of an infinite and a finite object, but that there is no way to decide which one is correct.

On the other hand, when we talk about the ideality of the two models, we also admit that the two

models are necessary for each other, that is, that when we assume one model we have the ability to

construct the other model on basis of the first one and that the two models are therefore inevitable

aspects or descriptions of the whole: here we are already at the level of speculative reasoning.

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4./201. The task of philosophy has been said to be to solve how a state of finity could come out of a state of infinity or

how infinity could go over to finity: this is sometimes deemed as incomprehensible. Later we shall construct even more

determinate structures and thus answer the question: now we investigate what we can say at this stage.

The question of explaining how anything finite can come out of an infinity goes at least back to

Plotinus and perhaps even to Parmenides, if his One or Being is interpreted as somehow infinite.

The problem is clear: the true reality is supposed to be somehow perfect and complete, a state of

oneness and immobile, yet the world we are acquainted with is full of imperfection, multiplicity and

changes – how then can the one have produced the other? At modern times, this question was raised

especially by Jacobi – we have already met this question in the paragraph 127 in a form of how to

explain the generation of determinateness from an indeterminate beginning: how Kant could

produce multiplicity out of pure unity of subject and how Spinoza could produce concrete world

from his lifeless substance. The same problem occurs also in Schelling’s philosophy: the absolute

should be something indeterminate and indescribable, so how can the determinate objects be

produced out of it?

Hegel has actually already answered this problem when he showed how one can produce

determinate situations and objects out of a state of nothing: the state of nothing can be taken as an

object and the situation with that object can then be compared with the state of nothing. Indeed, the

whole Logic is a story of how more and more objects – categories or structures – can be found by

looking at the relations and properties of the structures found thus far. At this particular place, we

are not interested of these particular examples of producing determinate situations. Instead, Hegel

investigates the general question of how the finity can be constructed out of infinity. The answer is

actually already familiar: a true infinity contains states of finity as ideal constituents, and an infinity

not containing finity is itself only relative infinity and thus finite in some sense.

5./202. The question should be an invincible talisman against all philosophy, but in philosophy one should already

know what it is proper to ask. The question uses ideas from the common life and thus expects an answer provided by

senses.

The question as asked by Jacobi was meant to discredit philosophy and defend common sense and

religion against it: all consistent philosophy must drown the world into the one infinite object or the

deterministic God/nature of Spinoza, but as this contradicts the existence of the finite world we

experience, we must abandon mere rationalism and embrace faith both to the world of common

sense and to living God. Jacobi has thus already accepted the stance of the common sense and the

world of sensibility and the answer he expects should accordingly be clothed in terms of the

ordinary sense consciousness: we should e.g. show an example of an infinite object bringing forth

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finities. Actually, Hegel could quite easily indicate such examples. For instance, a human being as a

living person overreaches through the different stages of her life: she is infinite in comparison with

them. Furthermore, the human being in question produces continuously new and new stages of life,

which are finite in comparison with one another. Still, Jacobi would be unhappy with the answer. A

life of human being would not be infinite: firstly, a singular human being is yet finite in comparison

with other human beings; secondly and more importantly, a living being is not an undifferentiated,

undetermined and immobile object Jacobi thinks a true infinite object should be.

6./203. Determining a [unrelated] state of being is easier to conceive, because a state of being is not explicitly opposed

to being determined: a state of infinity, on the other hand, should be an alternative to a state of finity.

One of the first tasks in Logic was to show how a situation with no contact to other situations could

actually be seen in a context where it was related to other situations – how pure state of being could

become a determined state of being. Such a change was easy to accept, once we understood that we

were and could be speaking only of a situation unrelated in some context: a situation that is

unrelated in some sense might well be related in another sense or from another viewpoint. Now, a

similar change of meaning from finity to infinity seems more difficult to understand, because the

definition of infinity explicitly denies such contextuality: a state of infinity is a state that is not a

state of finity, so an infinite object cannot be finite according to any at least as adequate context as

the state of infinity. The solution of this problem is surprisingly easy: the finity that is denied in this

particular state of infinity is only finity in some context, thus, it is left open whether the infinite

object in question could actually be finite in yet another context with a wider content than either the

denied state of finity or the state of infinity.

7./204. Infinite separated completely from finity reveals itself as limited by something finite and is thus itself finite or

relatively infinite: finity is not externally added to infinity, but infinity truly is in some sense finite. It is the separation

of finite and infinite that is inconceivable and only contextual and the acceptance of the more adequate combination

means true conceiving: we must question the presuppositions of the question and therefore the question itself.

This long passage presents no surprises after the longer investigation in the previous sections: the

question presupposes a context in which a finite and an infinite object are separated from each other,

but it doesn’t see that there is another, in some sense more natural context in which the infinite

object is also finite. What is more interesting is the way Hegel uses words “true” and “concept”.

The separation of finity and infinity is untrue, while their connection is true: that is, we can separate

finity and infinity, but for every context where they are separated, there is a wider or more adequate

context in which they are combined. And this separation is unconceivable (unbegreiflich), while the

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combination or inseparability is their concept (Begriff) by which they are conceived – little play on

words which should not be overestimated, especially as it appears in a remark. On the other hand,

we can clearly see the connection between concept and truth or necessity, as we would perhaps call

it.

8./205. Another question is how one can separate infinity and finity when they should be united: this question

presupposes the difference of separation and uniting, while a true unity of different states contains these states as ideal

moments.

Right in the end of the remark Hegel introduces another question, seemingly opposite to the one

mainly investigated: if until now we have faced the problem of uniting finity and infinity, we now

must also explain how to separate them – this is a particular example of the problem of uniting

statements or models of identity and difference that we have met in paragraphs 128-131. The

answer is quite similar to the problem of uniting finity and infinity: what has been identified in one

context can be differentiated in another context. The reason for mentioning this problem again is

probably, because it lets Hegel refer once more to the concept of ideality: things are ideal or aspects

of one and the same object, if they are in some sense identical and in another sense different. Thus,

this paragraph works as a link to the next remark on idealism.

Remark 2

When Hegel calls something ideal, he means that it is not truly independent object, but only an

aspect of some larger whole: such a definition makes idealism – statement of ideality of everything

– something very different from what idealism usually means. Further complications are presented

by Hegel’s contextualism: what is ideal in one sense might not be ideal, but independent or self-

sufficient in another sense. Despite these differences, Hegel choice of the word “idealism” is not

merely arbitrary, but shows that Hegel aims to criticise what is usually called idealism: such

idealism prefers subjects over objects, but does not otherwise change the content of common-sense

view.

1./206. Idealism states that all finite states and objects are ideal. Indeed, this is what all philosophy and religion says and

therefore difference of realism and idealism is meaningless: atoms, matter and even water of Thales are meant as unities

of which singular objects are mere aspects. The word “ideal” may also refer to the concrete unity behind apparent

differences as well as to the mere aspects of the unity.

Idealism is represented by a statement that everything finite is ideal. If we remember that finite

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meant an object differing from another object and thus in one sense ending somewhere or being

non-existent in some context, while an object was called ideal if it was merely an aspect of a larger

whole, we get the following definition of idealism: all objects that are in some sense or according to

some context different are in another sense or according to another context actually mere aspects of

one object. Thus, it is quite clear that what Hegel calls idealism is actually a form of monism: all

apparently different objects are actually not different or they are merely different aspects of the

same whole.

It is yet unclear how strong monism Hegel’s idealism is supposed to be. At first sight Hegel

seems to entertain the strongest monism possible, where there literally exists only one object: after

all, all differences should be merely apparent. But such an interpretation forgets the essential

contextualism of all Hegel’s statements: although the identity of all things is true in some sense, the

existence of many different and dissimilar objects is still true in another sense, or Hegel is no

Parmenides. One should note how Hegel says that there is essentially no difference between realism

and idealism, that is, if they are understood properly: neither realist (that is, pluralist in Hegelian

sense of real) nor idealist (monist) would not deny that there must be differences in some sense –

even if idealist would insist that all differences are mere appearances, she would have to accept the

difference between appearance and actuality – but both would also have to admit that there is

something similar in all of these different objects – otherwise the realist would not be a philosopher,

that is, one seeking to give a unified account of what exists, nor even a properly religious person,

that is, a person believing that a single and separate individual could be independent of everything

and still govern the whole world.

The nature of Hegelian monism or idealism is further revealed by his examples of what

counts as idealism in different philosophies. Water, matter and atoms – or better, atomicity, being

an atom – are not single objects, but sorts of objects; even water of Thales is supposed to signify the

general nature of all natural objects. In other words, that what is supposed to be identical in

different objects is their general structure or all objects agree in being of similar nature: we could

call this structural monism. Still, even this is not the whole truth. There are different levels in which

objects could agree with each other. All objects – or actually all objects in a sufficiently general

context – agree merely in some quite abstract fashion with each other, but particular groups of

objects agree even more or are even more similarly structured. Thus, Hegelian idealism is not a

monism of one stuff, like e.g. abstract materialism might be, but admits a plurality of different

structures, provided that all of them can be found by a single method.

2./207. Usually by ideal is meant something belonging to subject, thus also unreal imaginations. True, consciousness

idealises differences, when it senses, represents and thinks them: it takes different objects as something for me, that is,

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representations. This unconscious subjective idealism could be stated consciously – all perceived things are actually my

representations, instead of objective things – but it wouldn’t be a true progression, because they would be left otherwise

finite or disunified.

At the end of the previous paragraph Hegel returned to the idea presented already in paragraph 196

that the word “ideal” can be used both of the unity and of the aspects or moments of that unity: we

may emphasise either the fact that we now know the object more completely when we know it is

ideal or the fact that the object as ideal is revealed as not truly an independent object. Another way

to speak of ideal emphasises only the second aspect that the ideal object is not completely real: in

this manner of speaking, an ideal object is only something within consciousness, perhaps even

something merely imagined and thus not truly real. Even here there must be some higher unity

behind these idealities that unites them, yet it cannot be any object of which the idealities are

aspects, but a subject whose aspects or representations these ideal objects should be. This is an

obvious reference to Kant’s idea of transcendental unity of consciousness: all representations must

be such that a thought “I think” could be united to them. A subject idealises a group of

representations of objects into a coherent unity or its own worldview and thus unconsciously

constructs infinities out of finities: thus, Hegel can say that spirit or subject is always a true idealist

– the nature of subject is to see the unity behind differences.

Hegel defines subjective idealism as a conscious upholding of the idealising tendency,

which works unconsciously in every subject: a subjective idealism states that all apparently

independent things are actually mere representations. It is difficult to find any pure subjective

idealist among philosophers. Some characteristics of such idealism can be seen in Berkeley –

existence equals being perceived – Kant interpreted in manner of Reinhold – everything we are

conscious of are representations – and Fichte – all things are posited by the I. Yet, all these

philosophers have also other factors than the subject in their philosophies: Berkely speaks of God,

Kant and Reinhold of a thing that the representations are of and even Fichte of an undetermined

check of human activities. Still, Hegel may be seen as criticising this particular tendency in their

philosophies, namely, the tendency to explain the unity of what we experience merely by saying

that we happen to experience it: at most, such a statement explains merely how we can apprehend

all that we experience, but it leaves unclear how in particular cases apparently different objects can

have something in common – independent things the common sense thinks it is perceiving are

changed into representations, but this doesn’t answer how these representations can then interact

with each other.

Glossary:

Dasein = state of being-here, determinate situation related to other situations or in a ”space” of

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many alternative situations; Examples: ”cow in the barn” is a determinate situation in a space of

possible places of a cow, ”feeling joy” is a determinate situation in a space of emotions

Bestimmtheit =a specific place of a determinate situation in some space of situations; the way in

which a situation is determined

Qualität = a specific place of a determinate situation in a space of situations of the simplest sort,

that is, a space where situations are really differentiated

Verneinung = a process by which one determinate situation is replaced by another; for instance, a

process in which I take a cow from a barn to a field; note that Hegel usually just uses word

Negation to indicate such a process

Negation (when not synonymic with Verneinung) = a possible result of a process of Verneinung; a

situation different from another, but still reachable from it; note that what is negation is dependent

on context

Realität = the reference situation for determining e.g. what is negation and what not; note that it is

context dependent what is Realität

Etwas = an individual entity existing in some determinate situation (”something”); examples

include situations, rocks, animals and humans; also, when compared to another individual entity,

the designated or reference entity or the center of attention

Insichsein = literally just ”being in itself”, but not to be confused with Ansichsein; the term

probably contains an allusion to the notion of Reflexion in sich and could very likely indicate a

result of such a ”reflection into itself”, that is, an entity understood as underlying various aspects,

states and situations it unifies

Zweite Negation =1) a process for moving from a system of alternative situations (”negations”) to

their common element (e.g. a thing common to the situations or a method for moving from one

situation to another); 2) the result of the process described in 1)

Andere = ”another”, an individual entity, just like Etwas, but considered as undesignated or as a

mere background in comparison with the center of attention

Anderssein = state or aspect of being-something-else; a viewpoint from which some entity can be

seen as differing from something and being not a central as that other entity (the supposed other

entity might be just another aspect of the first entity)

Sich-anders-sein = a state where an entity appears to differ from something, although it can also be

identified with what it differs from; for instance, spatio-temporal wholes differ necessarily from

other spatio-temporal wholes outside them, although both can be identified as spatio-temporal

wholes

Veränderung = change; a process or a sequence in which some aspect of an entity is replaced, but

the entity itself still exists, that is, the aspect that vanished was not essential to the identity of the

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entity

Sein für Anderes = state or aspect of being-to-or-according-to-an-other; what something is when

compared to something else

Ansichsein = state or aspect of being-in-itself; what something is when not compared to other

entities; the aspect is so abstract that from its viewpoint the entity might not be distinguishable from

other entities and in the most extreme case would merely exist

An ihm Etwas = ”being in something”; phrase that reminds us of the fact that both state of being-

according-to-an-other and a state of being-in-itself are mere aspects of one underlying object

Bestimmung = intrinsic determination or ”the quality of something in itself”; a permanent placing of

an entity to some classificatory space, which cannot be changed without destroying the entity; note

that it actually depends on context, what should be taken as an intrinsic determination

Beschaffenheit =extrinsic determination; classifications arising from mere comparison with other

entities; can be changed without changing the entity itself

Grenze = ”limit” or a state of being-limited; a fact that an entity is related to entity of another kind

and cannot thus exist in some situation or a capacity to find another entity, when one entity is given;

a classificatory system describing in what situations different entities can be put in without

destroying their essential identity; if limit is changed or removed, the entities change and even

vanish

Endlich = finite or something in a state of finity; entity which in its intrinsic determinations contains

a capacity for a process destroying the entity or replacing it with something else

Schranke = ”limitation” or a state of limitation; a state of being-limited understood negatively, as

something that should not occur; generally any state where an entity fails to fulfil expectations

Sollen = a state of what-should-be or what-ought-to-be; viewpoint in which we have abstracted

from a negatively interpreted limit between entities; more generally any viewpoint fulfilling some

idea, which from a more extensive viewpoint seems false or unreal

Unendlich = infinite; something that is more stable than what is finite according to some context

Wechselbestimmung = alternating determination; an entity is in one context determined in this

manner, in other context in another manner; more generally, from an entity A with determination X

it is possible to construct an entity B (or a different aspect of the same entity) with incompatible

determination Y

Schlect Unendlich = state of ”bad infinity”; any state of infinity, because it will always be just a

state of finity in another context

Wahrhaft Unendlich = process or method by which one can move see any finite entity as an aspect

of some infinite entity

Idealität = seemingly independent situations and entities revealed as mere dependent aspects in a

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more extensive context