The logic of Hegel

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, William Wallace

The logic of Hegel, translated from the Encyclopaedia of the philosophical sciences. This book, "The logic of Hegel," by William Wallace, is a replication of a book originally published before 1892. It has been restored by human beings, page by page, so that you may enjoy it in a form as close to the original as possible.

Genres: Philosophy

472 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2014

About the author

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was a German philosopher and one of the founding figures of German Idealism. Influenced by Kant's transcendental idealism and Rousseau's politics, Hegel formulated an elaborate system of historical development of ethics, government, and religion through the dialectical unfolding of the Absolute. Hegel was one of the most well-known historicist philosopher, and his thought presaged continental philosophy, including postmodernism. His system was inverted into a materialist ideology by Karl Marx, originally a member of the Young Hegelian faction.

Reviews

[Anthony Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote a very quick review when I first dipped into this book. I have decided to write at greater length, mainly for my own benefit. Russell says that Hegel is the most difficult to understand of all the great philosophers. He also says that the place to start is with his Logic. I should add that I have no knowledge of philosophy, and that I found this book very tough.

My belief, for what it is worth, is that Hegel is trying to construct a philosophy which embraces the Ancients – Aristotle, and no doubt the Scholastics – and also the Moderns, the Empiricists and Kantians. He also wants to embrace theology and the natural and human sciences. His goal is to produce a description of the Absolute – the world, the universe and everything – which he equates with God, and which includes both Nature and our understanding of Nature.

In short, he has bitten off quite a lot, and the result is difficult to chew.

A central idea is that all phenomena have both an outside and an inside. For example, the stars and planets have features visible to the senses which are outward and particular. However, in addition, they have “inner” universal features, invisible to the senses, which can be discovered only by “reflecting” on them. Importantly, everything we know both of outward and inward nature, is, in its own self, the same as it is in thought. Thought consequently expresses the truth about the objects of perception. Hegel therefore speaks of thought or “objective thought” as the kernel of the world. Nature itself is a system of unconscious thought, but in order to avoid seeming to claim that nature is itself conscious, he uses the terms “type” or ”category” for the ambiguous term thought as it is found in nature.

From this perspective, Hegel describes and criticises three attitudes of thought towards the objective world One is that of ancient philosophy which, he says, seeks truth in thought itself. The second attitude is empiricism which adopts quite a different attitude from the ancients, seeking the truth in sensuous experience. To this, Hegel also adds the “critical philosophy” of Kant. Both empiricism and critical philosophy, however, fail. The one finds truth merely in the external world, the other finds it in subjectivity. Hegel, however, wants to find the truth both in the external world and in thought (which is directed towards the external world). The third attitude which he criticises is “immediate or intuitive knowledge” (e.g. Schleiermacher?). This seeks to gain the truth about God from mere intuition or contemplation. Hegel condemns this third approach for neglecting both empiricism and criticism.

Hegel then presents his own philosophy, in three successive “doctrines”. These are the Doctrine of Being, the Doctrine of Essence, and the Doctrine of the Notion. These roughly correspond to the three “attitudes towards the objective world” discussed earlier, except that each of these is shown in turn to be a moment in Hegel’s whole philosophy.

“Being” starts as “Quality”, but on (human)reflection, Quality turns into “Quantity”, and finally “Measure” which Hegel describes as “qualitative quantity”.

Essence, for Hegel, is the “reflection” of Being in thought. It therefore consists of the interiority of Being. Everything, he says, has an Essence, that is, things really are not as they immediately present themselves. So through reflection, Being as originally conceived is discovered to be a sham. “Essence” starts as the “Ground of Existence”, for Being has to exist against a background, it developes into mere “Appearance”, and finally “Actuality”.

Finally, we come to the Notion, which unifies Being with Essence. The Notion begins as “Subjective Notion”, (which Hegel explores, showing it to embrace versions of the traditional syllogism). This turns into the “Object” (which again develops, via “Mechanism” and “Chemism” into “Teleology”). The Subjective and Objective Notions are then reconciled, finally in the “Idea” which is the unity of subject and object and which embraces both Being and Essence. In the Notion, therefore, Being, (as it at first presents itself) and the Essence (revealed though reflection) – the outside and the inside - are united in the Idea.

This recurrent threefold approach, found in the progression from Being to Essence and thence to Notion are found to exist in such other concepts as Quantity, Measure, Appearance etc – which arise in the course of the discussion. In each case, the third item in a triad is a unification of the other two opposed items.

It appears too that Hegel’s philosophy unites two other important and disparate elements, namely structure and process, not really discussed here, but apparently present. On the one hand, the Notion is a structured totality, but on the other the Notion is also the outcome of a process. He occasionally uses metaphors derived from biology (buds and plants)and also unravelling rope. This same dichotomy can be found in other thinkers, for example, in Aristotle’s Poetics, in which the theatrical drama is seen on the one hand as a “unity” or “organism”, in which the parts combine into a whole; but on the other hand in which he sees the play as a tangle of threads which become disentangled. Interestingly Crick and Watson see DNA in a similar manner as a skein of threads which become disentangled and entangled, thus producing a succession of discrete organisms. My understanding of the Tao is that it too (in this case, however, using images of flowing water rather than rope and plants)unites ideas of flux and structure.

I am dimly aware that other thinkers (Marx, famously, but also Kierkegaard and others?) have criticised or modified Hegel’s thought. I shall not, however, attempt to do any such thing here myself. Understanding this impossible book was difficult enough. Even yet, I’m not sure I understand it completely or properly. If is full of complicated nooks and crannies, which could take for ever to understand. All the same, it was an interesting exercise to write the review, even if posting it reveals me as an amateur.

[Nathaniel Jamal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feels impossible to rate such a dense work that I will certainly need to re-read, but nevertheless led to much productive thought and was of help to understanding other thinkers like Heidegger and Kierkegaard.

[Zack · Rating 4 out of 5]

I skim-read (or rather listened) to this, rather than studying it closely. Contraversial review below!

Lots of people say lots of positive things about him, or the importance of his ideas on influencing other things. It helped me to get a flavour, enough to make me think that a) I'd like to read more of his stuff, more closely, at some point, b) it isn't necessary to understand hegel to be a good Marxist.

It is difficult, in large part because it is badly written, and in significant part because of his spiritual stuff. I felt as though one quarter i understood and found interesting, one quarter i understood and disagreed with. Of the interesting stuff, much - but not all - could be picked up from more recent thinkers, or general understanding. Of the remaining half, perhaps one third i felt that I couldn't understand because I haven't studied closely enough and it is difficult, one third because its incredibly badly or vaguely written, and one third because he's just wrong.

I can see why there are such divergent opinions of him.

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A friend asked me to choose my favourite quotes. I struggled to find anything concise, but some:
(1) With the positive we return to identity, but in its higher truth as identical self-relation, and at the same time with the note that it is not the negative. The negative per se is the same as difference itself. The identical as such is primarily the yet uncharacterised: the positive on the other hand is what is self-identical, but with the mark of antithesis to an other. And the negative is difference as such, characterised as not identity. This is the difference of difference within its own self.

Positive and negative are supposed to express an absolute difference. The two however are at bottom the same: the name of either might be transferred to the other. Thus, for example, debts and assets are not two particular, self-subsisting species of property. What is negative to the debtor, is positive to the creditor. A way to the east is also a way to the west. Positive and negative are therefore intrinsically conditioned by one another, and are only in relation to each other. The north pole of the magnet cannot be without the south pole, and vice versâ. If we cut a magnet in two, we have not a north pole in one piece, and a south pole in the other. Similarly, in electricity, the positive and the negative are not two diverse and independent fluids. In opposition, the different is not confronted by any other, but by its other. Usually we regard different things as unaffected by each other. Thus we say: I am a human being, and around me are air, water, animals, and all sorts of things. Everything is thus put outside of every other. But the aim of philosophy is to banish indifference, and to ascertain the necessity of things. By that means the other is seen to stand over against its other. Thus, for example, inorganic nature is not to be considered merely something else than organic nature, but the necessary antithesis of it. Both are in essential relation to one another; and the one of the two is, only in so far as it excludes the other from it, and thus relates itself thereto. ...

(2) Instead of speaking by the maxim of Excluded Middle (which is the maxim of abstract understanding) we should rather say: Everything is opposite.
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Mechanism, the first form of objectivity, is also the category which primarily offers itself to reflection, as it examines the objective world. It is also the category beyond which reflection seldom goes. It is, however, a shallow and superficial mode of observation, one that cannot carry us through in connexion with Nature and still less in connexion with the world of Mind. In Nature it is only the veriest abstract relations of matter in its inert masses which obey the law of mechanism. On the contrary the phenomena and operations of the province to which the term 'physical' in its narrower sense is applied, such as the phenomena of light, heat, magnetism, and electricity, cannot be explained by any mere mechanical processes, such as pressure, impact, displacement of parts, and the like. Still less satisfactory is it to transfer these categories and apply them in the field of organic nature; at least if it be our aim to understand the specific features of that field, such as the growth and nourishment of plants, or, it may be, even animal sensation. It is at any rate a very deep-seated, and perhaps the main, defect of modern researches into nature, that, even where other and higher categories than those of mere mechanism are in operation, they still stick obstinately to the mechanical laws; although they thus conflict with the testimony of unbiassed perception, and foreclose the gate to an-adequate knowledge of nature. But even in considering the formations in the world of Mind, the mechanical theory has been repeatedly invested with an authority which it has no right to.

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Nothing, if it be thus immediate and equal to itself, is also conversely the same as Being is. The truth of Being and of Nothing is accordingly the unity of the two: and this unity is Becoming....

philosophical knowledge is undoubtedly distinct in kind from the mode of knowledge best known in common life, as well as from that which reigns in the other sciences. But if to have no notion merely means that we cannot represent in imagination the oneness of Being and Nought, the statement is far from being true; for every one has countless ways of envisaging this unity. To say that we have no such conception can only mean, that in none of these images do we recognise the notion in question, and that we are not aware that they exemplify it. The readiest example of it is Becoming.; Every one has a mental idea of Becoming, and will[Pg 166] even allow that it is one idea: he will further allow that, when it is analysed, it involves the attribute of Being, and also what is the very reverse of Being, viz. Nothing: and that these two attributes lie undivided in the one idea: so that Becoming is the unity of Being and Nothing.—Another tolerably plain example is a Beginning. In its beginning, the thing is not yet, but it is more than merely nothing, for its Being is already in the beginning. Beginning is itself a case of Becoming; only the former term is employed with an eye to the further advance.—If we were to adapt logic to the more usual method of the sciences, we might start with the representation of a Beginning as abstractly thought, or with Beginning as such, and then analyse this representation, and perhaps people would more readily admit, as a result of this analysis, that Being and Nothing present themselves as undivided in unity.
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But when the Dialectical principle is employed by the understanding separately and independently,—especially as seen in its application to philosophical theories, Dialectic becomes Scepticism; in which the result that ensues from its action is presented as a mere negation.... Dialectic is different from 'Reflection.' ...

We say, for instance, that man is mortal, and seem to think that the ground of his death is in external circumstances only; so that if this way of looking were correct, man would have two special properties, vitality and—also—mortality. But the true view of the matter is that life, as life, involves the germ of death, and that the finite, being radically self-contradictory, involves its own self-suppression.

Nor, again, is Dialectic to be confounded with mere Sophistry. The essence of Sophistry lies in giving authority to a partial and abstract principle, in its isolation, as may suit the interest and particular situation of the individual at the time. For example, a regard to my existence, and my having the means of existence, is a vital motive of conduct, but if I exclusively emphasise this consideration or motive of my welfare, and draw the conclusion that I may steal or betray my country, we have a case of Sophistry. ...

Take as an illustration the motion of the heavenly bodies. At this moment the planet stands in this spot, but implicitly it is the possibility of being in another spot; and that possibility of being otherwise the planet brings into existence by moving. Similarly the 'physical' elements prove to be Dialectical. The process of meteorological action is the exhibition of their Dialectic. It is the same dynamic that lies at the root of every other natural process, and, as it were, forces nature out of itself. ... Every one knows how the extremes of pain and pleasure pass into each other: the heart overflowing with joy seeks relief in tears, and the deepest melancholy will at times betray its presence by a smile.

(2) Scepticism should not be looked upon merely as a doctrine of doubt. It would be more correct to say that the Sceptic has no doubt of his point, which is the nothingness of all finite existence. He who only doubts still clings to the hope that his doubt may be resolved, and that one or other of the definite views, between which he wavers, will turn out solid and true. Scepticism properly so called is a very different thing: it is complete hopelessness about all which understanding counts stable, and the feeling to which it gives birth is one of unbroken calmness and inward repose... It is only the finite thought of abstract understanding which has to fear Scepticism, because unable to withstand it: philosophy includes the sceptical principle as a subordinate function of its own, in the shape of Dialectic... The sceptic mistakes the true value of his result, when he supposes it to be no more than a negation pure and simple. For the negative, which emerges as the result of dialectic, is, because a result, at the same time the positive: it contains what it results from, absorbed into itself, and made part of its own nature. Thus conceived, however, the dialectical stage has the features characterising the third grade of logical truth, the speculative form, or form of positive reason.
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In Empiricism lies the great principle that whatever is true must be in the actual world and present to sensation. This principle contradicts that 'ought to be' on the strength of which 'reflection' is vain enough to treat the actual present with scorn and to point to a scene beyond—a scene which is assumed to have place and being only in the understanding of those who talk of it. No less than Empiricism, philosophy (§ 7) recognises only what is, and has nothing to do with what merely ought to be and what is thus confessed not to exist. On the subjective side, too, it is right to notice the valuable principle of freedom involved in Empiricism. For the main lesson of Empiricism is that man must see for himself and feel that he is present in every fact of knowledge which he has to accept.

When it is carried out to its legitimate consequences, Empiricism—being in its facts limited to the finite sphere—denies the super-sensible in general, or at least any knowledge of it which would define its nature; it leaves thought no powers except abstraction and formal universality and identity. But there is a fundamental delusion in all scientific empiricism. It employs the metaphysical categories of matter, force, those of one, many, generality, infinity, &c.; following the clue given by these categories it proceeds to draw conclusions, and in so doing pre-supposes and applies the syllogistic form. And all the while it is unaware that it contains metaphysics—in wielding which, it makes use of those categories and their combinations in a style utterly thoughtless and uncritical….

In order to form experiences, Empiricism makes especial use of the form of Analysis. In the impression of sense we have a concrete of many elements, the several attributes of which we are expected to peel off one by one, like the coats of an onion. In thus dismembering the thing, it is understood that we disintegrate and take to pieces these attributes which have coalesced, and add nothing but our own act of disintegration. Yet analysis is the process from the immediacy of sensation to thought: those attributes, which the object analysed contains in union, acquire the form of universality by being separated. Empiricism therefore labours under a delusion, if it supposes that, while analysing the objects, it leaves them as they were: it really transforms the concrete into an abstract. And as a consequence of this change the living thing is killed: life can exist only in the concrete and one. Not that we can do without this division, if it be our intention to comprehend. Mind itself is an inherent division. The error lies in forgetting that this is only one-half of the process, and that the main point is the re-union of what has been parted.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who doesn’t understand or distrusts Hegelian philosophy needs to start here. The logic is as straight forward as can be. Everything else he achieves comes from this beginning. What keeps most from wanting to devote the time to understanding Hegel is his outlandish presumptions and a seemingly religious bias toward Christianity.

In regards to his dismantling of what’s been considered rational logic since at least the 1500s, you have to postpone both political and scientific orientations. It seems convoluted and confusing because it’s not teleological. It’s anti-teleological. Because everything about aesthetics, philosophy, and science, starts with the teleological, it’s hard to even know what the hell he’s talking about.

In terms of the Christianity, you have to realize this is pre-Kierkegaard era. Anything that will be published must consider God and Christianity to some extent. Metaphysics also required an entire system of thinking laid down. Hegel uses “religion” as an operationalized form of social evolution more than anything. A way that spirit, or emotional energy, manifests in matter politically. A great critique of monotheism I’d say when it’s hard to tell that he’s critiquing an entire paradigm of human rationality.

Schopenhauer who leans way too hard on Kant, sadly reprimands Hegel for ignorance and religiosity at vantage point later in time. Schopenhauer also wallows in his self-deprecating God and his pseudo-Buddhism of “suffering”. Schopenhauer’s cathartic rebellion against religion was half hearted and probably concealed his private atheism.

Acknowledging that “the will” could be looked at non-teleologically was off Schopenhauer’s radar altogether unfortunately. Schopenhauer may have been ahead of his time philosophically in questioning the need for religion with his metaphysics of evolving the “how”. But now that we live in a world that accepts evolution at face value we need Hegelian reconsideration to contextualize the specter of social Darwinism.

Mainly Schopenhauer missed the point of Hegel all together and focused on the peripheral imperfections of Hegel’s system compared to modern science. This is understandable considering that Schopenhauer’s contribution to modern physics was likely stifled by Hegel’s Nature. Hegel’s Nature being a laughing stock to most and had nothing to do with Newtonian physics or what could be considered next.

Hegel’s logic is an alternative perspective on thinking. It has held up like Aristotle’s Ethics for hundreds of years now, without at all contributing to the aesthetic paradigm we still live in. To me this means it is the greatest work of logic since Aristotle and maybe even greater since it can be compared to Aristotle outright. This is the only challenge in total logic to western teleology since Plato’s interpretation of Socrates.