On Hegel’s ‘Science of Logic’ : A Realm of Shadows — part forty nine.
‘What have they done to you’
by David Herbert Lawrence (1885–1930)
What have they done to you, men of the masses
creeping back and forth to work?
What have they done to you, the saviours of the people?
Oh what have they saved you from?
Alas, they have saved you from yourself,
from your own body, saved you from living your own life.
And given you this jig-jig-jig
tick-tick-ticking of machines,
this life which is no-man’s-life.
Oh a no-man’s-life in a no-man’s-land
this is what they’ve given you
in place of your own life.
‘Linear Construction in Space’, Naum Gabo, (1890–1977)
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1770–1831), ‘The Science of Logic’.
The Real Mechanical Process.
Mechanical Process has passed over to rest.
‘The mechanical process passes over into rest. That is to say, the determinateness that the object obtains through that process is only an external one. Just as external to it is this rest, for although the latter is a determinateness opposed to the activity of the object, the two are each indifferent to the object. Rest can also be viewed, therefore, as brought about by an external cause, just as much as it was indifferent to the object to be active’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
But Rest is external to the active and reactive objects. It can be regarded as produced by an external cause. Mechanical Objects appear to be stable to some external intelligence, but in truth they are in ceaseless turmoil, pointing to a beyond for their quietude. Yet the active objects have posited Rest. In Rest e and f — the Mechanical Objects — announce they are not the Mechanical Process, an activity that points to some beyond for determinacy. This activity can be viewed as d. And g = d represents the static side of the Process as a beyond. In the Mechanical Process, as captured in Rest, one object e is distinguishable from another f. An external reflection makes any distinction. Opposition, Hegel says, has now been distributed among the objects. The objects are not merely diverse, but are now specifically distinguished as against one another.
‘Now further, since the determinateness is a posited one, and the concept of the object has gone back to itself through the process of mediation, the object contains the determinateness as one that is reflected into itself. Hence in the mechanical process the objects and the process itself now have a more closely determined relation. They are not merely diverse, but are determinedly differentiated as against one another. Consequently the result of the formal process, on the one hand a determinationless rest, is, on the other hand, through the immanently reflected determinateness, the distribution among several objects mechanically relating to one another of the opposition which is in the object as such. The object that on the one hand lacks all determination, showing no elasticity and no self-subsistence in its relations, has, on the other hand, a self-subsistence impenetrable to other objects. Objects now have also as against one another this more determined opposition of the self-subsistent singularity and the non-self-subsistent universality. — The precise difference between any two may be had merely quantitatively as a difference in a body of diverse magnitudes of mass, or of intensity, or in various other ways. But in general the difference cannot be fixed at just this abstract level; also as objects, both are positively self-subsistent’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
In other words, in the Mechanical Process, objects are determined externally. Real Mechanical Process is the dialectical segment of Mechanism. Accordingly, the Understanding proposes that the object is what it is because of Communication. Hegel suggests that the Individuality of the objects could be conceived as quantitative — as a difference of the magnitude of mass in the bodies, or as a difference of intensity. But this must not be permitted to obscure the point that the objects acting on each other are also positively self-subsistent.
Dialectical Reason asserts that the obverse is true: Communication functions only because it has objects to work on. It depends on the resistance of the listening object to the speaking object. The weaker can be seized and penetrated by the stronger only in so far as it accepts the latter and constitutes one sphere with it. When the listening object goes limp, Communication fails. Hegel gives as an example a musket ball which cannot penetrate a sheet hanging free in the air. The sheet is so weak that the musket ball cannot communicate with it. In human affairs, the wholly feeble spirit is safer from the strong spirit than one that stands nearer to the strong.
‘Now the first moment of this real process is, as before, communication. The weaker can be seized and invaded by the stronger only in so far as it accepts the stronger and constitutes one sphere with it. Just as in the material realm the weaker is secured against the disproportionately strong (as a sheet hanging freely in the air is not penetrated by a musket ball; a weak organic receptivity is not as vulnerable to strong stimuli as it is to weak), so is the wholly feeble spirit safer facing the strong than one who stands closer to the strong. Imagine, if you will, someone dull-witted and ignoble; lofty intelligence will make no impression on such a one, nor will nobility. The one single effective defense against reason is not to get involved with it at all. — To the extent that an object that has no standing of its own is unable to make contact with one which is self-subsistent, and no communication can take place between them, the latter is also unable to offer resistance, that is, cannot specify the communicated universal for itself. — If they were not in the same sphere, their mutual connection would be an infinite judgment and no process would be possible between them’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
Self-Subsistence in the Face of Communication
Imagine, Hegel says, if you like someone quite dull-witted and ignoble, then on such a person lofty intelligence and nobility can make no impression. The only consistent defence against reason is to have no dealings with it at all. Communication requires two objects in the same sphere. Two objects in different spheres constitute an Infinite Judgment — reason is not an elephant. Recall:
‘The name of the infinite judgment does indeed occur in the common textbooks of logic, but without any clarification as to its meaning. — Examples of negatively infinite judgments are easy to come by. It is a matter of picking determinations, one of which does not contain not just the determinateness of the other but its universal sphere as well, and of combining them negatively as subject and predicate, as when we say, for example, that spirit is not red, yellow, etc., is not acid, not alkali, etc., or that the rose is not an elephant, the understanding is not a table, and the like. — These judgments are correct or true, as it is said, and yet, any such truth notwithstanding, nonsensical and fatuous. –Or, more to the point, they are not judgments at all. — A more realistic example of the infinite judgment is the evil action’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
The Non-Self-Subsistence of Communication
Resistance is the precise moment when the aggressor succeeds; it is the incipient moment of the distribution of the communicated universal and of the positing of the self-related negativity, of the individuality to be established.
‘Resistance is the precise moment of the overpowering of the one object by the other, for it is the initial moment in the distribution of the communicated universal and in the positing of the self-referring negativity, of the singularity to be established. Resistance is overpowered when its determinateness is not commensurate to the communicated universal which the object has accepted and which is supposed to be singularized in the latter. The object’s relative lack of self-subsistence is manifested in the fact that its singularity lacks the capacity for what is communicated to it and is therefore shattered by it, for it is unable to constitute itself as subject in this universal, cannot make the latter its predicate. — Violence against an object is for the latter something alien only according to this second aspect. Power becomes violence when power, an objective universality, is identical with the nature of the object, yet its determinateness or negativity is not the object’s own immanent negative reflection according to which the object is a singular. In so far as the negativity of the object is not reflected back into itself in the power, and the latter is not the object’s own self-reference, the negativity, as against the power, is only abstract negativity whose manifestation is extinction’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
Resistance is overcome when the determinateness of the listening object is inadequate to the communicated universal. The listening object succumbs because it lacks the capacity to absorb what is communicated and is disrupted by it. It cannot integrate the communication as its own predicate. The Lacanians would call this disruption trauma. The listening object is, at this point, the victim of violence. What turns power into violence is this, that though power, an objective universality, is identical with the nature of the object, power’s determinateness or negativity is not the listening object’s own negative reflection into itself by which it is an individual. Violence is alien power inflicted by another object. And, since Rest is external and alien, mechanistic determinism is violence upon the objects it purports to describe.
When violence is objective, it is fate — a conception that falls within mechanism in so far as it is called blind, that is, its objective universality is not recognized by the subject in its specific peculiarity.
‘Power, as objective universality and as violence against the object is what is called fate — a concept that falls within mechanism in so far as fate is called blind, that is, its objective universality is not recognized by the subject in its own specific sphere. — To add a few more remarks on the subject, the fate of a living thing is in general the genus, for the genus manifests itself through the fleetingness of the living individuals that do not possess it as genus in their actual singularity. Merely animate natures, as mere objects, like other things at lower levels on the scale of being, do not have fate. What befalls them is a contingency; however, in their concept as objects they are self-external; hence the alien power of fate is simply and solely their own immediate nature, externality and contingency itself. Only self-consciousness has fate in a strict sense, because it is free, and therefore in the singularity of its ‘I’ it absolutely exists in and for itself and can oppose itself to its objective universality and alienate itself from it. By this separation, however, it excites against itself the mechanical relation of a fate. Hence, for the latter to have violent power over it, it must have given itself some determinateness or other over against the essential universality; it must have committed a deed. Self-consciousness has thereby made itself into a particular, and this existence, like abstract universality, is at the same time the side open to the communication of its alienated essence; it is from this side that it is drawn into the process. A people without deeds is without blame; it is wrapped up in objective, ethical universality, is dissolved into it, is without the individuality that moves the unmoved, that gives itself a determinateness on the outside and an abstract universality separated from the objective universality; yet in this individuality the subject is also divested of its essence, becomes an object and enters into the relation of externality towards its nature, into that of mechanism’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
Animate beings other than man have no fate; what befalls them is a contingency. Only self-consciousness has a proper fate, because it can resist and estrange itself from external power. But to be capable of resisting, self-consciousness must have given itself some determinateness which alien fate can disrupt. To make itself determinate, the self-conscious ego must have committed some sort of deed. The deed renders the subject visible and Particular. Only when the self-consciousness is existent is it open to the communication of its estranged essence. Here one recalls Hegel’s praise of Infinite Judgment (i.e., crime), since it is an actual deed. When self-consciousness is estranged from its essence, it enters into a relationship of mechanism between itself and alien power.
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The Product of the Mechanical Process. The object at Rest is the product of Communication; determinateness of objects seems posited by external reflection. Rest is the original formalism of the object and the negation of the object’s ^//-determination. But Real Mechanical Process proves that Communication absolutely requires self-subsistent objects. As a result mere semblance of individuality has been sublated. Genuinely notional Individuality — the unity of the Universal and the abstract Universal (or Particular) — is reinstated. This is the final result of Mechanism’s reflective segment.
‘The product of formal mechanism is the object in general, an indifferent totality in which determinateness is as posited. The object has hereby entered the process as a determinate thing, and, in the extinction of this process, the result is, on the one hand, rest, the original formalism of the object, the negativity of its determinateness-for-itself. But, on the other hand, it is the sublation of the determinateness, the positive reflection of it into itself, the determinateness that has withdrawn into itself, or the posited totality of the concept, the true singularity of the object. The object, determined at first in its indeterminate universality, then as particular, is now determined as an objective singular, so that in it that reflective semblance of singularity, which is only a self-subsistence opposing itself to the substantial universality, is sublated’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
The object now depends on Communication and Communication depends on it. The object is this very unity. This unity is not a proper fate. Rather than facing an alien power, the object encounters its own power and is therefore a fate immanently determined and rational — a universality that particularizes itself from within. Furthermore, the object is established as active difference and Rest — a constant in the unstable particularity of objects.
‘This resulting immanent reflection, the objective oneness of the objects, is now a oneness which is an individual self-subsistence — the centre. Secondly, the reflection of negativity is the universality which is not a fate standing over against determinateness, but a rational fate, immanently determined — a universality that particularizes itself from within, the difference that remains at rest and fixed in the unstable particularity of the objects and their process; it is the law. This result is the truth, and consequently also the foundation, of the mechanical process’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
This Hegel identifies as Law — the truth, and therefore also the foundation, of the mechanical process. We will revisit Law two sections hence.
Oneness of the Object
Absolute Mechanism. The Centre.
The object now depends on Communication, which in turn depends on objects. The empty manifold of objects is gathered into objective individuality.
‘The empty manifoldness of the object is now gathered first into objective singularity, into the simple self-determining middle point. Secondly, in so far as the object retains as an immediate totality its indifference to determinateness, the latter too is present in it as unessential or as an outside-one-another of many objects. As against this immediate totality, the prior or the essential determinateness constitutes the real middle term between the many interacting objects; it unites them in and for themselves and is their objective universality. Universality exhibited itself first in the relation of communication, as present only through positing; as objective universality, however, it is the pervading immanent essence of the objects’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
The Understanding names this the Centre, or central body.
‘In the material world it is the central body which is the genus or rather the individualized universality of the single objects and their mechanical process. The unessential single bodies relate to one another by impact and pressure; this kind of relation does not hold between the central body and the objects of which it is the essence; for their externality no longer constitutes their fundamental determination. Hence their identity with the central body is rather rest, namely the being at their centre; this unity is their concept existing in and for itself. It nevertheless remains only an ought, since the objects’ externality, still posited at the same time, does not conform to that unity. The striving which the objects consequently have towards the centre is their absolute universality, one which is not posited through communication; it constitutes the true rest, itself concrete and not posited from the outside, into which the process of instability must find its way back. — It is for this reason an empty abstraction to assume in mechanics that a body set in motion would go on moving in a straight line to infinity if it did not lose movement because of external resistance. Friction, or whatever other form resistance takes, is only a phenomenon of centrality; it is the latter that in principle brings the body back to itself, since that against which the body rubs and incurs friction has its power of resistance only because it is united with the centre. — In things spiritual the centre and the union with it, assume higher forms; but the unity of the concept and the reality of that unity, which is here in a first instance mechanical centrality, must there too constitute the fundamental determination’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
Oddly, it stands for the mutual externality of many objects. The Centre is the negative point of unity for all objects.
‘In the centrality of the objective sphere, which is an indifference to determinateness, the subjective concept has first rediscovered and posited the negative point of unity, and in chemism it has first rediscovered and posited the objectivity of the determinations of the concept by which it is first posited as concrete objective concept. Its determinateness or its simple difference now has the determinateness of externality within it, and its simple unity is therefore the unity that repels itself from itself and in this repelling maintains itself. Purpose, therefore, is the subjective concept as an essential striving and impulse to posit itself externally. In this, it is exempt from transition. It is neither a force expressing itself, nor a substance or a cause manifesting itself in its accidents or effects. To the extent that force has not expressed itself, it is only an abstract inner; or again, it first has existence in an externalization to which it has to be solicited. The same applies to cause and to substance. Since they have actuality only in the accidents and in the effects, their activity is a transition against which they do not maintain themselves in freedom. Purpose can of course also be defined as a force or a cause, but these expressions cover only an incomplete side of its signification; if they are to be said of purpose according to its truth, this can be done only in a way that sublates their concept — as a cause that solicits itself to expression, or a cause that is a cause of itself or whose effect is immediately the cause’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
It is the Notion, which appeared to be external to the objects but is now revealed as posited by them.
The Centre
In so far as this Center is concerned, Mechanical Objects are unessential single bodies whose relation to one another is one of mutual thrust and pressure. Objects are truly what they are because of their relation to a universal Notion. For this reason, Hegel finds empty the Newtonian assumption that a body set in motion would continue to move in a straight line to infinity if external resistance did not rob it of its motion. External resistance is in truth internal to the object; what is called external resistance is the workings of Centrality itself. The Centre is no longer external to the single objects. The single objects are not at Rest in their unity with the notional Centre. John Burbidge errs in thinking that the dynamic in question is about a hierarchy of self-sufficient objects: ‘The mechanical perspective of independent objects can be maintained as a permanent way of viewing the objective realm if the weaker objects revolve around the stronger objects at their centre; at the same time, each of the weaker objects, as itself an equilibrium, becomes a secondary centre. A mechanical system of this sort has a persistent pattern, the principles of which can be conceptually identified, and understood as laws’. Rather, the Centre is no material object but is the very determinacy of alt material objects.
This unity, however, is still an ought-to-be. The externality of objects does not correspond with the unity the objects enjoy with the Centre. The objects merely strive toward their Centre. This active, desperate striving is what Rest has become. It is nevertheless the true rest that is itself concrete and not posited from outside. The Centre is therefore no mere object. For an object, determinateness is unessential. The Center is the determinateness of objects — explicitly an objective totality, not a composition, as Mechanical Objects are. In the Centre, objects are bound together into a genuine One.
‘The central body has therefore ceased to be a mere object, for in the latter the determinateness is something unessential, whereas now the central body no longer has only being-in-itself, in-itselfness, but also has the being-for-itself of the objective totality. For this reason it can be regarded as an individual. Its determinateness is essentially different from a mere order or arrangement and external combination of diverse parts; as a determinateness that exists in and for itself it is an immanent form, a self-determining principle to which the objects inhere and in virtue of which they are bound together in a true One’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
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Dialectical Reason complains that the Centre in The Centre has no extremes and so is no Centre. It must sunder itself so that the extremes are visible. In The Extremes, the previously non-self-subsistent, self-external objects are by the regress of the Notion determined into individuals.
‘But this central individual is at first only a middle term that as yet has no true extremes; as the negative unity of the total concept it dirempts itself rather into such extremes. Or again: the previously non-self-subsistent, self-external objects become likewise determined as individuals by the retreat of the concept; the self-identity of the central body, still a striving, is burdened by an externality to which, in being taken up into the body’s objective singularity, the latter is communicated. The objects, through this centrality of their own, are positioned outside the original centre and are themselves centres for the non-self-subsistent objects. These second centres and the non-self-subsistent objects are brought into unity by the absolute middle term’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
The self-identity of the Centre, then, is only an ought-to-be. It is still infected with externality. But in sundering itself in this way, the Centre communicates objective Individuality to the extremes. The extremes are now just as central as the Centre. Speculative Reason draws from the two preceding steps a trio of syllogisms which are named Free Mechanism. The Centre is PUI. Here, the Centre (U) gives way to the Individuals who are the true Centre of the system. The Centre in turn subsumes the more primitive objects whose determinateness is communicated to it and whose significance is external to themselves.
The Extremes is PIU (the Syllogism of Reflection). Here the Universal Centre subsumes the Individual. But the Individual in turn subsumes those objects that are less than Individuals — the earlier non-self-subsistent objects. Finally, the non-self-subsistent objects (P) become the middle term in a Syllogism of Existence, in that they are the link between the absolute and the relative central individuality.In IPU, the Individuals of The Extremes require externality, and their very relation-to-self is a striving toward an absolute centre.
‘But the relative individual centres themselves also constitute the middle term of a second syllogism. This middle term is on the one hand subsumed under a higher extreme, the objective universality and power of the absolute centre; on the other hand, it subsumes under it the non-self-subsistent objects whose superficiality and formal singularization it supports. — These non-self-subsistent objects are in turn the middle term of a third syllogism, the formal syllogism, for since the central individuality obtains through them the externality by virtue of which, in referring to itself, is also strives towards an absolute middle point, those non-self-subsistent objects are the link between absolute and relative central individuality. The formal objects have for their essence the identical gravity of their immediate central body in which they inhere as in their subject and the extreme of singularity; through the externality which they constitute, this immediate central body is subsumed under the absolute central body; they therefore are the formal middle term of particularity. — But the absolute individual is the objectively universal middle term that brings into unity and holds firm the inwardness of the relative individual and its externality. — Similarly, the government, the individual citizens, and the needs or the external life of these, are also three terms, of which each is the middle term of the other two. The government is the absolute centre in which the extreme of the singulars is united with their external existence; the singulars are likewise the middle term that incites that universal individual into external concrete existence and transposes their ethical essence into the extreme of actuality. The third syllogism is the formal syllogism, the syllogism of reflective shine in which the singular citizens are tied by their needs and external existence to this universal absolute individuality; this is a syllogism that, as merely subjective, passes over into the others and has its truth in them’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
The primitive formal objects are said to be the gravity that pulls together the Centre and the notional Individual objects.
The Extremes
Hegel draws similar syllogisms with regard to government. Individuals and their needs are the extremes. “The government is the absolute centre in which the extreme of the individuals is united with their external existence.” (724) But Individuals are just as much the middle term, who activate governmental officials to convert their moral essence into actuality (by providing for the need of the individual). In a third syllogism, need is the middle term, linking government and individuals. But this is “formal syllogism, that of an illusory show.” (724)
Free Mechanism
Such a syllogism is merely subjective and passes into the other two. The three syllogisms applicable to objects and also to government is Free Mechanism. In it the different objects have objective universality, the pervasive gravity that maintains its identity [following its] particularization.
‘This totality, whose moments are themselves the completed relations of the concept, the syllogisms in which each of the three different objects runs through the determination of the middle term and the extreme, constitutes free mechanism. In it the different objects have objective universality for their fundamental determination, the pervasive gravity that persists self-identical in the particularization. The connections of pressure, impact, attraction, and the like, as also of aggregations or mixtures, belong to the relation of externality which is at the basis of the third of the three syllogisms. Order, which is the merely external determinateness of the objects, has passed over into immanent and objective determination. This is the law’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
Law. The Understanding sees Free Mechanism as Law. Law is not to be confounded with the imposition of rules. External theorizing about objects is the imposition of order. The theorizing scientist who imposes order establishes rules. Dead mechanism traffics in objects that ought to be self-subsistent but are not. This uniformity is indeed a rule, but not a law. Only free mechanism has a law.
‘The objective being-in-and-for-itself thus manifests itself more precisely in its totality as the negative unity of the centre, a unity that divides into subjective individuality and external objectivity, maintains the former in the latter and determines it in an idealized difference. This self-determining unity that absolutely reduces external objectivity to ideality is a principle of self-movement; the determinateness of this animating principle, which is the difference of the concept itself, is the law. — Dead mechanism was the mechanical process of objects above considered that immediately appeared as self-subsisting, but precisely for that reason are in truth non-self-subsistent and have their center outside them; this process that passes over into rest exhibits either contingency and indeterminate difference or formal uniformity. This uniformity is indeed a rule, but not law. Only free mechanism has a law, the determination proper to pure individuality or to the concept existing for itself. As difference, the law is in itself the inexhaustible source of a self-igniting fire and, since in the ideality of its difference it refers only to itself, it is free necessity’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
As non-self-subsistent, objects have their centre outside themselves. This process of pointing to others for their being passes over to Rest and is marked by contingency. This contingency — formal uniformity — is the Law external reflection which organizes the objects into mere rules. The Law, then, is that there must be rules. The difference between ideality and External Reality now becomes prominent. This is the dialectic moment of Law. Law must have an external reality to work on. The object has withdrawn into itself and has become Law, but there now arises the opposition of Law — simple centrality — to the externality governed by Law. Law posits this externality as that which is not in and for itself — the opposite of Law.
Law
External reality ought to exhibit the unity of the Notion. But, so far, external reality only strives for and cannot correspond to this. Meanwhile, Law’s individuality is in and for itself the concrete principle of negative unity. It is a totality. But being negative and concrete, it must exhibit difference. Law is therefore a unity that sunders itself into the specific differences of the Notion.
‘In law, the more specific difference of the idealized reality of objectivity versus the external reality comes into view. The object, as the immediate totality of the concept, does not yet possess an externality differentiated from the concept, and the latter is not posited for itself. Now that through the mediation of the process the object has withdrawn into itself, there has arisen the opposition of simple centrality as against an externality now determined as externality, that is, one posited as not existing in and for itself. That moment of identity or idealization of individuality is, on account of the reference to externality, an ought; it is the unity of the concept, determined in-and-for-itself and self-determining, to which that external reality does not correspond, and therefore does not go past the mere striving towards it. But individuality is, in and for itself, the concrete principle of negative unity, and as such is itself totality; it is a unity that dirempts itself into the specific differences of the concept while abiding within its self-equal universality; it is thus the central point expanded inside its pure ideality by difference. — This reality that corresponds to the concept is the idealized reality, distinct from the reality that is only a striving; it is difference, earlier a plurality of objects but now in its essential nature, and taken up into pure universality. This real ideality is the soul of the hitherto developed objective totality, the identity of the system which is now determined in and for itself’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
This externality is, however, internal externality. The totality Law and External Reality continues to abide within itself. It is thus the centre expanded within its pure ideality by difference. Law therefore reduces objectivity to ideality and renders subjective Individuality into an external objectivity. Law is indeed the very animating principle by which this is accomplished. It is precisely the spontaneous determination of pure individuality or of the explicated Notion. The ideality of Law is nevertheless to be distinguished from the external reality that is merely a striving. Ideality takes difference up into pure Universality. This real ideality is the soul of the previously developed objective totality, the absolutely determined identity of the system.
Transition of Mechanism. The soul of Law is still submerged. The Notion is determinate but inner. Law has not yet confronted its object. When it does, we have reached the level of Chemism. In Chemism, objects include both the self-subsistent Individuals of the totality, and also the more primitive non-Individual objects. Both types of objects face the Law, and Law is immanent in them. Solely in ideal Centrality and its laws do objects possess self-subsistence. The object has repeatedly proved powerless to resist the judgment of the Notion and to maintain itself abstractly. By virtue of the ideal difference immanent in [the other], its externality is a determinateness posited by the Notion.
Law and External Reality
‘This soul is however still immersed in its body. The now determined but inner concept of objective totality is free necessity in the sense that the law has not yet stepped in opposite its object; it is concrete centrality as a universality immediately diffused in its objectivity. Such an ideality does not have, therefore, the objects themselves for its determinate difference; these are self-subsistent individuals of the totality, or also, if we look back at the formal stage, non-individual, external objects. The law is indeed immanent in them and it does constitute their nature and power; but its difference is shut up in its ideality and the objects are not themselves differentiated in the idealized non-indifference of the law. But the object possesses its essential self-subsistence solely in the idealized centrality and its laws; it has no power, therefore, to put up resistance to the judgment of the concept and to maintain itself in abstract, indeterminate self-subsistence and remoteness. Because of the idealized difference which is immanent in it, its existence is a determinateness posited by the concept. Its lack of self-subsistence is thus no longer just a striving towards a middle point, with respect to which, precisely because its connection with it is only that of a striving, it still has the appearance of a self-subsistent external object; it is rather a striving towards the object determinedly opposed to it; and likewise the center has itself for that reason fallen apart and its negativity has passed over into objectified opposition. Centrality, therefore, is now the reciprocally negative and tense connection of these objectivities. Thus free mechanism determines itself to chemism’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
The Centre has fallen asunder. Its unity has passed over to objectified opposition. The external object now strives, not toward the internal object (Law) specifically opposed to it, but to a higher reality. A new centrality is now established as a relation of these negative objectivities in a state of mutual tension. Free Mechanism is now Chemism. According to Burbidge, ‘A mechanical object is complete in itself and indifferent to whatever happens to it. Any movement of change intervenes from outside. In contrast, a chemical object is to be oriented towards another’. One may question, however, whether indifferent objects are more complete than chemical objects. What should not be missed in Mechanism is the fact that Mechanical Objects were indifferent to being determined and equally indifferent to be a determinant. External determinedness, posited by Mechanical Objects, has itself become a self-determining notional object. Hegel emphasizes that the indifference of Mechanical Objects is absolutely essential to the very existence of subjectivity, which needs objects to become subject: The indifference of the objective world to the determinateness, and consequently to the end, constitutes its external capability of being conformable to the subject.
‘This internal rupture of the living being, when taken up into the simple universality of the concept, in sensibility, is feeling. From pain begin the need and the impulse that constitute the transition by which the individual, in being for itself the negation of itself, also becomes for itself identity — an identity which only is as the negation of that negation. — The identity which is in the impulse as such is the individual’s subjective certainty of itself, in accordance with which it relates to the indifferent, concrete existence of its external world as to an appearance, to an actuality intrinsically void of concept and unessential. This actuality is to obtain its concept only through the subject, which is the immanent purpose. The indifference of the objective world to determinateness and hence to purpose is what constitutes its external aptitude to conform to the subject; whatever other specifications there might be in it, its mechanical determinability, the lack of the freedom of the immanent concept, constitute its impotence in preserving itself against the living being. — In so far as the object confronts the living being at first as something external and indifferent, it can affect it mechanically, but without in this way affecting it as a living thing; and in so far as it does relate to it as a living thing, it does not affect it as a cause but it rather excites it. Because the living being is an impulse, externality impinges upon it and penetrates it only to the extent that in principle it is already in it; hence the effect on the subject consists only in that the latter finds that the externality at its disposal accords with it. And should this externality not accord with it as a totality, then it must at least accord with a particular side of it — a possibility lodged in the very fact that, in its relation to the outside, the subject is a particular’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
This Notion is at first merely the in-itself of the objects. When it becomes for-itself, we will have reached the End — prelude to the Idea.
Chemism
‘Construction in Space with Crystalline Centre’, 1940, Naum Gabo
Some further thoughts on Mechanism.
In the Logic, the account of the subjective concept or Subjectivity (i.e. Concept, Judgement and Inference) is followed by an account of Objectivity or the Object. (Subjectivity and objectivity are later united in the Idea.) Objectivity takes three successively higher forms: (1) Mechanismus; (2) Chemismus; and (3) Teleologie or Zweckmässigkeit (‘Purposiveness’).
1. Mechanismus derives from the Greek mechane (device, means, machine, instrument) and means (a) an/the arrangement and interaction of objects on mechanical principles, i.e. the type of principles on which machines operated (at least in Hegel’s day), and (b) the doctrine that apparently nonmechanical entities, especially living creatures, operate on mechanical principles. Hegel uses the term in sense (a), and rejects the mechanistic interpretation of Life and Mind. The briefer account of mechanism at in the ‘Encyclopaedia’ opens with an account of Leibniz’s monads or atoms, whose internal states conform to each other owing to a harmony pre-established by the monad of monads, . This, on Hegel’s view, is not a mechanical system, since the monads do not interact at all: it is bare objectivity.
‘The definition: ‘The Absolute is the object’, is contained in its most determinate form in the Monad of Leibniz, which is supposed to be an object, but one which in-itself represents-and which is indeed-the totality of the representation of the world; in the simple unity of this Monad all distinction is [present] only as something-ideal, or as dependent. Nothing enters into the Monad from outside, it is within itself the whole Concept. and only distinct from it in virtue of the greater or lesser development of the Concept [in it] . This simple totality also falls apart into the absolute plurality of distinctions, in such a way that the distinctions are independent monads. But in the Monad of monads and in the preestablished harmony of their inner development these substances are also again reduced to nonindependence and ideality. Thus the philosophy of Leibniz is the completely developed contradiction’.
- ‘The Encyclopaedia Logic’
Mechanism proper has three phases:
(a) Formeller Mechanismus: Objects or bodies affect and propel each other by pressure and impact. No single body is dominant over the others, so the movements of the bodies have no central focus. The bodies are externally related only: their relations do not affect their essential nature. This corresponds to the first sections of ‘Matter and Motion: Finite Mechanics [Mechanik]’ in the ‘Encyclopaedia’.
‘Matter maintains itself against its self-identity and in a state of extrinsicality, through its moment of negativity, its abstract singularization, and it is this that constitutes the repulsion of matter. As these different singularities are one and the same however, the negative unity of the juxtaposed being of this being-for-self is just as essential, and constitutes their attraction, or the continuity of matter. Matter is inseparable from both these moments, and constitutes their negative unity, i.e. singularity. This is however still distinct from the immediate extrinsicality of matter, and is therefore not yet posited as being a centre, a material singularity of an ideal nature, i.e. gravity’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
b) Differenter (i.e. non-indifferent or biased) Mechanismus: One body is central and the others gravitate towards it. This corresponds to ‘Fall’ in the ‘Encyclopaedia’.
‘Fall is relatively free motion: free, in that it is posited through the Notion of the body and is the manifestation of the body’s own gravity; within the body it is therefore immanent. At the same time, it is however only the primary negation of externality, and is therefore conditioned. Separation from the connection with the centre is therefore still a contingent determination, posited externally’.
- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’
© Absoluter Mechanismus: Bodies (planets) are related to a central body (the sun); they are themselves centres for lesser bodies that revolve around them (moons). This corresponds to ‘Absolute Mechanics’ in the Encyclopaedia.
‘Gravitation is the true and determinate Notion of material corporeality realized as the Idea. Universal corporeality divides itself essentially into particular bodies, and links itself together in the moment of individuality or subjectivity, as determinate being appearing in motion; this, in its immediacy, is thus a system of many bodies’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
Hegel conceives the sun, planets and moons to form a system of inferences in which each term in turn unites the other two. The category of mechanism applies primarily to inorganic nature. But mechanism essentially consists not in the relations of physical or material bodies, but in the external relations of persistent, independent objects. Thus the mind is viewed mechanically not only if it is seen as a physical mechanism, reducible to the interrelations of material particles, but if it is seen as a psychical analogue of a physical mechanism, as, e.g., a collection of mental Forces (faculties), or of ideas related by laws of association analogous to the laws governing the relations of physical bodies.
‘The so-called laws of the association of Ideas have commanded great interest, especially during the blossoming of empirical psychology that coincided with the decline of philosophy. For one thing, it is not Ideas that are associated. For another, these modes of relation are not laws, just for the reason that there are so many laws about the same thing, making way rather for wilfulness and contingency, the opposite of a law; it is a contingent matter whether the connecting link is something pictorial, or an intellectual category, likeness and unlikeness, ground and consequent, etc. Progression through images and representations in the wake of the associative imagination is in general the play of a thoughtless representing, where the determination of intelligence is still formal universality in general, but the content is the content given in the images.-Image and representation, if we ignore the more precise determination we have given in terms of their form, are distinguished in their content by the fact that the image is the more sensorily concrete representation; representation (whether the content be something pictorial or concept and Idea) has in general the character, though belonging to intelligence, of being in respect of its content something given and immediate. The being, the finding-itself-determined, of intelligence still adheres to representation, and the universality which representing confers on that material is still abstract universality. The representation is the middle term in the syllogism of the ascent of intelligence, the link between the two meanings of relation-to-self, namely being and universality, which in consciousness are determined as object and subject. Intelligence supplements what is found with the meaning of universality, and supplements what is its own, the inner, with the meaning of being, but a being posited by itself’.
- ‘Philosophy of Mind’
The mind and life in general are not mechanisms. But the category can apply to certain aspects of organic nature and of mind, especially when their functions are impaired, e.g., while normal digestive processes cannot be understood mechanically, indigestion is a reversion to mechanism; memory, reading, etc., need to become mechanical; and so on. Non-indifferent mechanism is exemplified not only by bodies falling to the earth, but also by desire and by sociability.
‘The object only has the dependence according to which it suffers violence, inasmuch as it is independent (see the preceding paragraph); and as posited Concept-in-itself neither of these determinations sublates itself in its other, but the Object con-eludes itself with itself through its own negation-or its dependence-and only in this way is it independent. This [independence of the object] (in distinction from the externality which it negates in its independence) is negative unity with itself, centrality, subjectivity-in which the object is itself directed at and related to what is external [to it] . The latter is centered on itself in the same way, and therein it is only related to the other centre likewise; it also has its centrality in the other. [This is] (2) differentiated mechanism (fall, desire, urge to socialise, etc. )’
- ‘The Encyclopaedia Logic’.
Absolute mechanism applies to the State, whose three elements, the individual, his needs and the government, form a social solar system.
‘The syllogism we have now reached (S-P-U) is a triad of syllogisms. Qua dependence, the spurious singularity of the dependent objects among which formal mechanism is at home, is just as much external universality. These objects, therefore, are also the middle term between the absolute and the relative centre (the form of the syllogism U-S-P); for it is through this dependence that the absolute and relative centres are sundered into extremes, as well as related to each other. Similarly, absolute centrality is what mediates between the relative centre and the independent objects (the form of the syllogism P-U-S) . It is the substantial universal-the gravity that remains identical-which (as pure negativity), includes singularity within itself equally; and, of course, it mediates just as essentially in its sundering action (according to its immanent singularity) as it does in its identical cohesion and undisturbed being-within-self (according to its universality)’.
‘In the practical sphere, for instance, the State is a system of three syllogisms just like the solar system. (1) The singular (the person) concludes himself through his particularity (the physical and spiritual needs, which when further developed on their own account give rise to civil society) with the universal (society, right, law, government) . (2) The will or the activity of the individuals is the mediating [term] that gives satisfaction to their needs in the context of society,- right, etc., and provides fulfilment and actualisation to society, right, etc. (3) But it is the universal (State, government, right) that is the substantial middle term within which the individuals and their satisfaction have and preserve their full reality, mediation, and subsistence. Precisely because the mediation concludes each of these determinations with the other extreme, each of them con-eludes itself with itself in this way or produces itself; and this production is its self-preservation.-It is only through the nature of this concluding, or through this triad of syllogisms with the same terms, that a whole is truly understood in its organisation’.
- ‘The Encyclopaedia Logic’
The limited applicability of mechanism to organic and spiritual phenomena explains in part its inclusion in the Logic.
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Dedicated to my lovely One, my true, my genuine One, my life’s centre.
Dam üstədir damımız de,
Gülüm nanay ay narinay…
Qoşadır eyvanımız yar,
Qoşadır eyvanımız.
Qoşadır eyvanımız yar,
Qoşadır eyvanımız.
Sən ordan çıx mən buradan
hey hey hey hey …..
Çatlasın düşmanımız yar,
Çatlasın düşmanımız!
Qız belin incədir ay incə,
Ləblərin qönçədir ay qönçə.
Qız belin incədir incə.
Ləblərin qönçədir qönçə
На плече кувшин с водой,
А кругом шумят камыши.
Ах, постой, ханум, постой,
Жар души моей потуши!
Qoşadır eyvanımız yar,
Qoşadır eyvanımız.
Qoşadır eyvanımız yar,
Qoşadır eyvanımız.
Sən ordan çıx mən buradan
hey hey hey hey …..
Çatlasın düşmanımız yar,
Çatlasın düşmanımız!
Qız belin incədir ay incə,
Ləblərin qönçədir ay qönçə.
Видишь — домик впереди?
Будь невестою: заходи!
Будь, что будет: ай, болам!
Все разделим (честное слово!) пополам.
There is a pitcher with water on your shoulder,
We are surrounded by rustling reeds.
Hey, wait, my dear lady, wait!
Put the fire out of my soul
Give me some water, only one sip!
[ — Why cannot you bend over the spring at your feet?
— This is not the water I need, my lady;
But your water is sweet like rahat lakoum
My soul is flying after you
Like a fluffy seed of reed…
He-e-e-ey…
Every day that forest spring
Sees the stars of your eyes.
Oh, why, my lady, why
Do you visit me only in dreams?
When leaves rustle in my garden –
That is your voice,
When flowers rustle –
That sound is also yours]
Can you see the small house straight ahead?
Be my bride — please, enter it!
Here goes, ay bolam!
We’ll share everything (my parole of honour!) together
Azerbaijan Love Song versión Cathy Berberian:
Coming up next:
Chemism.
To be continued…
