On Hegel’s ‘Science of Logic’ : A Realm of Shadows — part thirty two.

David Proud

39 min readMar 31, 2023

‘The Oasis’

by Heinrich Wilhelm August Stieglitz (1801–1849)

How the palm tree’s green roof beckons,

How brightly trickles the quiet brook,

When out in the sun’s glow

The sea of sand surges, tide by tide!

A colourful woven dress of blossoms

Is strewn on the ground,

And from the blossoms, pure and bright,

The murmuring fresh spring jumps up.

‘Die Oasis’

Wie lockt der Palmen grünes Dach,

Wie rieselt hell der stille Bach,

Wenn draußen in der Sonne Glut

Das Sandmeer aufwogt, Flut bei Flut!

Ein buntdurchwebtes Blütenkleid

Ist auf den Boden hingestreut,

Und aus den Blüten, rein und hell,

Springt murmelnd auf der frische Quell.

Stieglitz, philologist as well as poet, influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1730–1831), plagued by chronic illness, psychologically and physically, married to Charlotte Willhöfft, (1806–1834), who suffered the same and came to believe that her death could bring about her husband’s spiritual rebirth and stabbed herself with a dagger that she had given her husband as a bride when he came home from a concert … to free him from his increasing dullness of spirit through a terrible pain, an enormous shock… that is most truly inverted (see below) … were I Stieglitz (already suffering chronically remember) it would have destroyed me …

The ‘Science of Logic’: Dissolution of Appearance

The World In and For Self is a unity between the World of Appearance and the World-in-itself but at the same time the World In and For Self is merely a side of its own self and the two worlds are therefore in such a relationship that what is positive in the world of Appearance is negative in the world in and for self. What is negative in the world of Appearance is the positive in the world in and for self. The north pole of one world is the south pole of the other. What is evil in the world of Appearance is in and for itself good. This is the topsy-turvy world.

‘The world that exists in and for itself is the determinate ground of the world of appearance and is this only in so far as, within it, it is the negative moment and hence the totality of the content determinations and their alterations that correspond to that world of appearance, yet constitutes at the same time its completely opposed side. The two worlds thus relate to each other in such a way that what in the world of appearance is positive, in the world existing in and for itself is negative, and, conversely, what is negative in the former is positive in the latter. The north pole in the world of appearance is the south pole in and for itself, and vice-versa; positive electricity is in itself negative, and so forth. What is evil in the world of appearance is in and for itself goodness and a piece of good luck’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

A decade before the Logic Hegel would identify the inverted world with the world of philosophy. ‘On the Nature of Philosophical Criticism in General and Its Relation to the Present Condition of Philosophy in Particular’, 1802. ‘In order to become aware of its task, philosophy must first have experienced the dissolution of the intelligible world. In contrast to the ‘upright’ world, the world of philosophy is an ‘upside down’ (verkehrte) world; in contrast to total appeasement, it is one of total restlessness’, explains Herbert Marcuse.

With regard to Hegel’s discovery of an inverted world, where the north pole is the south pole, Gadamer remarks, ‘Hegel is a Schwabian and startling people is his passion, just as it is the passion of all Schwabians. But ultimately Gadamer proclaims the polar illustration or the good-evil point unhelpful. These are mere oppositions, not inverted worlds. What inversion implies is that the world contains both law and the inversion of law. The topsy-turvy world is the world of satire, where opposites stand in for what should be, showing that things are not what they seem. Law is a possibility, but its inverse is also present in the world. As Hegel writes in the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’, what is despised in the former world] is honoured, and what in the former is honoured, meets with contempt in the inverted world. What is noble is smeared with what is ignoble. The evil is also the good because the world is both the World of Appearance and the World In and For Itself. The two worlds are not opposed but each is actually the other world in addition to being itself. That appearance does not always comply with law is why genera have species. Genera refer to species and species refer to individuals. But genera do not contain the principle of difference between the species. The world simply does not conform to the law. Inversion stands for the proposition that change, caprice and evolution are the law, as Gadamer explains. Ultimately, in the Phenomenology, the inverted world is what consciousness finds when it peers into the supposedly unknowable beyond. It finds a supersensible world that is no different from the World of Appearance. Such a world is self-moving. In short the beyond of consciousness is consciousness, and so the inverted world stands for the transition to self-consciousness.

In the opposition of the worlds, their difference has vanished. Each world is unable to sustain itself without the other world. Hence, the World of Appearance is determined as Reflection into otherness. The World In and For Self is likewise reflected into its other. This is the enduring fact of both worlds, and to this extent the worlds are exempt from otherness and change.

‘In fact it is precisely in this opposition of the two worlds that their difference has disappeared, and what was supposed to be the world existing in and for itself is itself the world of appearance and this last, conversely, the world essential within. — The world of appearance is in the first instance determined as reflection into otherness, so that its determinations and concrete existences have their ground and subsistence in an other; but because this other, as other, is likewise reflected into an other, the other to which they both refer is one which sublates itself as other; the two consequently refer to themselves; the world of appearance is within it, therefore, law equal to itself. — Conversely, the world existing in and for itself is in the first instance self-identical content, exempt from otherness and change; but this content, as complete reflection of the world of appearance into itself, or because its diversity is difference reflected into itself and absolute, consequently contains negativity as a moment and self-reference as reference to otherness; it thereby becomes self-opposed, self-inverting, essenceless content. Further, this content of the world existing in and for itself has thereby also retained the form of immediate concrete existence. For it is at first the ground of the world of appearance; but since it has opposition in it, it is equally sublated ground and immediate concrete existence’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

Each world becomes essenceless content, self-opposed and self-inverting. Each world is Ground to the other. The World of Appearance withdraws into the World In and For Self as to its Ground. But the Ground self-erases. The World In and For Self withdraws back into Appearance which is equally Ground. The two worlds engage in the modulation that typifies the dialectic relation. Yet each side is as much a totality as it is a mere side. A totality repels itself from itself and reveals itself to be two totalities — reflected and immediate. The self-subsistence of each is now so posited that each is only as essential relation to the other and has its self-subsistence in this unity of both.

‘Thus the world of appearance and the essential world are each, each within it, the totality of self-identical reflection and of reflection-into-other, or of being-in-and-for-itself. They are both the self-subsisting wholes of concrete existence; the one is supposed to be only reflected concrete existence, the other immediate concrete existence; but each continues into the other and, within, is therefore the identity of these two moments. What we have, therefore, is this totality that splits into two totalities, the one reflected totality and the other immediate totality. Both, in the first instance, are self-subsistent; but they are this only as totalities, and this they are inasmuch as each essentially contains the moment of the other in it. Hence the distinct self-subsistence of each, one determined as immediate and one as reflected, is now so posited as to be essentially the reference to the other and to have its self-subsistence in this unity of the two’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

In the Law of Appearance, two contents were related to one another — that of Appearance and that of Law. At the level of Puncticity, the identity of the two sides was only an inner identity, Hegel says. These two sides do not yet have the relation within themselves. This relation is the content of each world, and this content is so far only implicitly determined. In Essential Relation, however, the content of each world is determinately present in the centre. Now the sides must expressly capture this idea within themselves. World expresses in general formless totality of manifoldness. The diverse worlds, however, have fallen to their ground — Essential Relation. There have arisen two totalities of the content in the world of Appearance. Each one is only a self-erasing Form. The essential relation is the consummation of their unity of form.

‘Thus is law essential relation. The truth of the unessential world is at first a world in and for itself and other to it; but this world is a totality, for it is itself and the first world; both are thus immediate concrete existences and consequently reflections in their otherness, and therefore equally truly reflected into themselves. “World” signifies in general the formless totality of a manifoldness; this world has foundered both as essential world and as world of appearance; it is still a totality or a universe but as essential relation. Two totalities of content have arisen in appearance; at first they are determined as indifferently self-subsisting vis-`a-vis each other, each having indeed form within it but not with respect to the other; this form has however demonstrated itself to be their connecting reference, and the essential relation is the consummation of their unity of form’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

The truth of Appearance is its Essential Relation with a supersensible world. The self-subsistent truth is that neither world can endure on its own without the other. ‘If [Hegel’s] holism is correct, if things are what they are only through their contrast with and causal relations to other things, then there can be no epistemologically opaque metaphysical distinction between appearance and reality’, explains Kenneth R. Westphal. Furthermore, Logic cannot determine which world is Appearance and which world is in and for self. The predominance of one over the other is a simply affirmative immediacy.

‘The truth of appearance is the essential relation. Its content has immediate self-subsistence: the existent immediacy and the reflected immediacy or the self-identical reflection. In this self-subsistence, however, it is at the same time a relative content; it is simply and solely as a reflection into its other, or as unity of the reference with its other. In this unity, the self-subsistent content is something posited, sublated; but precisely this unity is what constitutes its essentiality and self-subsistence; this reflection into an other is reflection into itself. The relation has sides, since it is reflection into an other; so its difference is internal to it, and its sides are independent subsistence, for in their mutually indifferent diversity they are thrown back into themselves, so that the subsistence of each equally has its meaning only in its reference to the other or in the negative unity of both’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

Any such predominance is simply assigned by external reflection. Yet, since the Essential Relation represents worldly self-erasure, and since reflection is self-erasure, the relation is a self-identical reflection. The Essential Relation is not yet the true third to Reflection and Existence. This will be Actuality, which arises at the end of this chapter. Nevertheless, the Essential Relation already represents a union of Reflection and Existence — erasure and endurance. Both of these have withdrawn from their indifference into their essential unity, so that they have this alone for their subsistence.

‘The essential relation is therefore not yet the true third to essence and to concrete existence but already contains the determinate union of the two. Essence is realized in it in such a way that it has self-subsistent, concrete existents for its subsistence, and these concrete existents have returned from their indifference back into their essential unity so that they have only this unity as their subsistence. Also the reflective determinations of positive and negative are reflected into themselves only as each is reflected into its opposite; but they have no other determination besides this their negative unity, whereas the essential relation has sides that are posited as self-subsistent totalities. It is the same opposition as that of positive and negative, but it is such as an inverted world. The side of the essential relation is a totality which, however, essentially has an opposite or a beyond; it is only appearance; its concrete existence, rather than being its own, is that of its other. It is, therefore, something internally fractured; but this, its sublated being, consists in its being the unity of itself and its other, therefore a whole, and precisely for this reason it has self-subsistent concrete existence and is essential reflection into itself’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

What Actuality will require is the unfolding of the middle term within the extremes of the syllogism. For now the sides of the relation coincide with the totality of the relation itself. Each side is at once itself, the other, and the whole. This feature has been present in the extremes since the Positive and Negative in chapter 10, but these mere opposites were impoverished, compared to the World of Appearance and the World In and For Self in Essential Relation. In Positive and Negative, the sides had no other determination but this their negative unity. The sides of Essential Relation, in contrast, are entire worlds, each the inversion of the other. As the unity of itself and its other, therefore a whole, each of the worlds is self-subsistent Existence.

Because of the inversion, however, each side of the Essential Relation is disrupted within itself. The worlds erased themselves in chapter 14 and sent their being into the Essential Relation. Consequently, each world has its self-subsistence falling outside of itself and in the relation. To this extent these worlds are not yet Actual. When the relation erases itself, we have achieved Actuality. In this chapter, the Understanding proclaims the Essential Relation to be the Relation of Whole and Parts. This Hegel identifies as a relation between reflected and immediate self-subsistence. Each side in the relation conditions and presupposes the other. The Relation of Whole and Parts has this fault: neither side is posited as moment of the other, their identity is not their negative unity.

‘In this relation, neither of the sides is yet posited as moment of the other; their identity is therefore itself one side, or not their negative unity. Hence, secondly, the relation passes over into one in which one side is the moment of the other and is present there as in its ground, the true self-subsistent element of both. This is the relation of force and its expression’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

When this fault is addressed — when one side is moment and also ground of the other — then we have before us the Relation of Force and Its Expression. Yet such a relation will suffer from inequality. When that inequality is overcome, we have the Relation of Inner and Outer, the threshold of Actuality.

Relation of Whole and Parts. The Essential Relation is simultaneously immediate and reflected. Being a relation, it is a thing separate from its parts. As such, it is the whole. But any relation depends on and hence posits its parts. Hence, the Essential Relation is as much this identity With Its Opposite as Relation of Whole and Parts it is its own self-subsistence.

‘First, the essential relation contains the self-subsistence of concrete existence reflected into itself; it is then the simple form whose determinations are indeed also concrete existences, but they are posited at the same time, moments held in the unity. This self-subsistence reflected into itself is at the same time reflection into its opposite, namely the immediate self-subsistence, and its subsistence is this identity with its opposite no less than its own self-subsistence. — Second, the other side is thereby also immediately posited. This is the immediate self-subsistence which, determined as the other, is in itself a multifarious manifold, but in such a way that this manifold also essentially has within it the reference of the other side, the unity of the reflected self-subsistence. That one side, the whole, is the self-subsistence that constitutes the world existing in and for itself; the other side, the parts, is the immediate concrete existence which was the world of appearance. In the relation of whole and parts, the two sides are these self-subsistences but in such a way that each has the other reflectively shining in it and, at the same time, only is as the identity of both. Now because the essential relation is at first only the first, immediate relation, the negative unity and the positive self-subsistence are bound together by the ‘also’; the two sides are indeed both posited as moments, but equally so as concretely existing self-subsistences. — Their being posited as moments is henceforth so distributed that the whole, the reflected self-subsistence, is as concrete self-existent first, and the other, the immediate, is in it as a moment. — The whole constitutes here the unity of the two sides, the substrate, and the immediate concrete existence is as positedness. — Conversely, on the other side which is the side of the parts, the immediate and internally manifold concrete existence is the self-subsistent substrate; the reflected unity, the whole, is on the contrary only external reference’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

Relation of Whole and Parts

At first, the Understanding perceives the immediacy of the unity of Whole and Parts. The unity a, is such that the Whole immediately posits the Parts, and vice versa. Hegel associates the Whole with the World In and For Self from World of appearance, World In and For Self. The World of Appearance is associated with the Parts.

Earlier, Positive and Negative were said to have no self-subsistence on their own. But, by now, the sides of the relation are self-subsistent, but in such a manner that each has the other reflected in it and at the same time only is as this identity of both. Whole and Parts are simultaneously self-subsistent and not self-subsistent. Indeed, Hegel sounded this theme way back in chapter 1, where he announced that one cannot think the Whole and the Parts at the same time. One can think them in sequence only.

‘This form of argumentation that falsely presupposes the absolute separation of being and nothing, and insists on it, should be called not dialectic but sophistry. For sophistry is an argumentation derived from a baseless presupposition rashly accepted without critique; but we call dialectic the higher rational movement in which these, being and nothing, apparently utterly separated, pass over into each other on their own, by virtue of what they are, and the presupposition sublates itself. It is the dialectical immanent nature of being and nothing themselves to manifest their unity, which is becoming, as their truth’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

This is the same as saying that each side of the unity subsists and does not subsist. The unity between them is simultaneously immanent and externally imposed. This is so on the law of sublation. In Essential Relation, Essential Relation was the unity between immanence and external reflection. Dialectical Reason seizes upon the negative unity inherent in the Relation of Whole and Parts. When the negative unity is emphasized, Whole and Parts are seen as diverse. From this perspective, the Whole is mere substrate — not Ground to the Parts. Michael Inwood finds Hegel wrong on this score and points out that refrigerators can be dismantled and reassembled, in which case they are Wholes once again. ‘Hegel’s categories seem insufficiently refined to handle such cases as this’, he says. But Hegel’s point is that Whole and Parts are not immune from outside determination and therefore do not suffice as a definition of the absolute. Hegel could respond to Inwood by pointing out that the disassembled refrigerator does not reassemble itself. It requires otherness and is therefore no totality.

Also from this perspective, the Whole is merely reflected self-subsistence — merely a moment, or a positedness. In the dialectic moment, the whole is the and Parts reflected unity which has an independent subsistence of its own.

‘On closer inspection, the whole is the reflected unity that stands independently on its own; but this subsistence that belongs to it is equally repelled by it; it is thus self-externalized; it has its subsistence in its opposite, in the manifold immediacy, the parts. The whole thus consists of the parts, and apart from them it is not anything. It is therefore the whole relation and the self-subsistent totality, but, for precisely this reason, it is only a relative, for what makes it a totality is rather its other, the parts; it does not have its subsistence within it but in its other’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

But its subsistence is equally repelled from it. The Whole is a merely negative unity of the Parts. The Whole is alienated from itself. It subsists only in the other. The whole accordingly consists of parts. It is not anything without them. What holds the whole together is External Reflection. Like the Whole, the Parts exist on their own account.

Negative Unity of Whole and Parts

At one moment, the relation of Parts to Whole is only an external moment, to which the Parts are indifferent. Yet they have this whole as their moment within themselves for without a whole there are not parts.

‘The parts, too, are likewise the whole relation. They are the immediate as against the reflected self-subsistence, and do not subsist in the whole but are for themselves. Further, they have this whole within them as their moment; the whole constitutes their connecting reference; without the whole there are no parts. But because they are the self-subsistent, this connection is only an external moment with respect to which they are in and for themselves indifferent. But at the same time the parts, as manifold concrete existence, collapse together, for this concrete existence is reflectionless being; they have their self-subsistence only in the reflected unity which is this unity as well as the concrete existent manifoldness; this means that they have self-subsistence only in the whole, but this whole is at the same time the self-subsistence which is the other to the parts’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

Dialectical Reason, then, proves that, if the relation contains the self-subsistence of the sides, it also contains their sublatedness. Errol Harris calls this dialectic relation of Whole and Parts ‘a mechanical correlation — the whole is the mere togetherness of the parts, yet if and so far as it is divided it ceased to be a whole; and if the parts are amalgamated they cease to be parts’. Speculative Reason intervenes to describe the unity between the position of the Understanding and that of Dialectical Reason. The truth is that the Essential Relation is both selfsubsistent and diverse (i.e., not self-subsistent).

The relation is therefore conditioned — each cannot do without the other. As always, Diversity is untenable. The Parts collapse within themselves. Their Existence (apart from the Whole) is reflectionless being. The Parts have self-subsistence only in the Whole. The Whole is self-subsistent without the Parts. But the opposite is just as true. The Parts conditioned Relation are subsistent without the Whole, and the Whole has its self-subsistence in the Parts.

The Whole and Parts therefore condition each other. But the relation is higher than that of Ground (i.e., conditioned) and Condition in The Relatively Unconditioned. There, Condition was only the immediate and only implicitly presupposed. The Whole is admittedly Condition to the Parts, but it contains more. It, too, only is in so far as it has the parts for presupposition.

‘The whole and the parts thus reciprocally condition each other; but the relation here considered is at the same time higher than the reference of conditioned and condition to each other as earlier determined. Here this reference is realized, that is to say, it is posited that the condition is the essential self-subsistence of the conditioned in such a manner that it is presupposed by the latter. The condition as such is only the immediate, and it is only implicitly presupposed. But the whole, through the condition of the parts, itself immediately entails that it, too, is only in so far as it has the parts for presupposition. Thus, since both sides of the relation are posited as conditioning each other reciprocally, each is on its own an immediate self-subsistence, but their self-subsistence is equally mediated or posited through the other. The whole relation, because of this reciprocity, is the turning back of the conditioning into itself, the non-relative, the unconditioned’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

Thus, the dependence of Condition on the conditioned was merely implicit. Now it is realized, that is, it is posited that condition is the essential self-subsistence of the conditioned in such a manner that it is presupposed by the latter. Both sides of the relation are posited as conditioning each other. Each is an immediate self-subsistence within itself. But its self-subsistence is equally mediated or posited by the other. Each side of the relation therefore has its self-subsistence in the other — as well as its own self-subsistence. What is present is only a single identity in which both sides are mere moments (and more than mere moments; each side is also self-subsistent and indifferent).

Conditioned Relation

When unity is before us, the whole is equal to the parts and the parts to the whole. There is nothing in the whole which is not in the parts, and vice versa.

‘In the first respect, that of the essential identity of the two sides, the whole is equal to the parts and the parts are equal to the whole. Nothing is in the whole which is not in the parts, and nothing is in the parts which is not in the whole. The whole is not an abstract unity but the unity of a diversified manifoldness; but this unity within which the manifold is held together is the determinateness by virtue of which the latter is the parts. The relation has, therefore, an indivisible identity and only one self-subsistence’.

- The Science of Logic.

The relation has an inseparable identity and one self-subsistence only. The two infuse each other and cannot be considered apart. Nonetheless, the two sides are distinguishable. Whole as Sum of Parts. According to common sense, the Whole is equal to the sum of the Parts. What is Hegel’s position on this ancient nugget of wisdom? Naturally, he thinks common sense is confused: although the whole is equal to the parts it is not equal to them as parts.

But further, the whole is equal to the parts but not to them as parts; the whole is the reflected unity whereas the parts constitute the determinate moment or the otherness of the unity and are the diversified manifold. The whole is not equal to them as this self-subsistent diversity but to them together. But this, their ‘together’, is nothing else but their unity, the whole as such. In the parts, therefore, the whole is only equal to itself, and the equality of it and the parts expresses only this tautology, namely that the whole as whole is equal not to the parts but to the whole’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

The Whole is a reflected unity — the Parts announce that they are not the Whole. The Whole is therefore a surplus that exceeds the Parts — as shown by g in Conditioned Relation. Properly analysed, the equality of the whole and the Parts expresses only the tautology that the whole as whole is equal not to the parts but to the whole.

‘Conversely, the parts are equal to the whole; but because, as parts, they are the moment of otherness, they are not equal to it as the unity, but in such a way that one of the whole’s manifold determinations maps over a part, or that they are equal to the whole as manifold, and this is to say that they are equal to it as an apportioned whole, that is, as parts. Here we thus have the same tautology, that the parts as parts are equal not to the whole as such but, in the whole, to themselves’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

That is to say, since it is wedded to the error of self-equality (or internal differentiation, as Hegel calls it), common sense should see that the Whole is not equal to the Parts but is different from them. Yet, given self-equality, the Whole and Parts fall indifferently apart. Held apart, they necessarily destroy themselves. Nevertheless, self-subsistence is present in Whole and Parts, just as common sense insists, but only as a moment. Reflection into other and hence into self is their other moment. Indeed, the truth of the relation is in mediation — not in self-sufficient immediacy. In the Conditioned Relation both reflected and simply affirmative immediacy are sublated. The relation is the contradiction which withdraws into its ground, into the unity which, as returning, is reflected unity.

‘The truth of the relation consists therefore in the mediation; its essence is the negative unity in which both the reflected and the existent immediacy are equally sublated. The relation is the contradiction that returns to its ground, into the unity which, as turning back, is reflected unity but which, since it has equally posited itself as sublated, refers to itself negatively and makes itself into existent immediacy. But this unity’s negative reference, in so far as it is a first and an immediate, only is as mediated by its other and equally as posited. This other, the existent immediacy, is equally only as sublated; its self-subsistence is a first, but only in order to disappear, and it has an existence which is posited and mediated. Determined in this way, the relation is no longer one of whole and parts. The previous immediacy of its sides has passed over into positedness and mediation. Each side is posited, in so far as it is immediate, as self-sublating and as passing over into the other; and, in so far as it is itself negative reference, it is at the same time posited as conditioned through the other, as through its positive. And the same applies to the immediate transition of each; it is equally a mediation, a sublating which is posited through the other. — Thus the relation of whole and parts has passed over into the relation of force and its expressions’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

Whole and Parts have withdrawn into a simple immediacy g, but within the immediacy is a negative relation, mediated through its other d, e, f. This immediacy g is equally posited by d, e, f. When we focus on the positedness, immediacy vanishes. Simple immediacy is only as sublated. Likewise, when we focus on the immediacy, positedness vanishes. Yet each moment is essentially related to the other.4 Infinite Divisibility. Hegel returns to the subject of Kant’s second antinomy, which states, alternatively, that (1) everything is divisible, and (2) there are indivisible atoms. Hegel’s critique was that this antinomy represented Discreteness and Continuity. Discreteness presupposes the atom. Continuity insists upon divisibility. The antinomy thus consisted of taking a one-sided, isolated view of these contradictory concepts. Hegel now suggests that Continuity and Discreteness were implicitly Whole and Parts. Continuity implies the whole of the number line. Discreteness is the Parts into which the number line is divided. Accordingly, Kant’s second antinomy can be reinterpreted as being an attempt to isolate a whole (a divisible thing) and Parts (indivisible things). The one moment in freeing itself from the other immediate introduces the other.

‘The antinomy of the infinite divisibility of matter was examined above in connection with the concepts of quantity. Quantity is the unity of continuity and discreteness; it contains in the self-subsistent one its confluence with others, and in this uninterrupted continuing self-identity it equally contains the negation of it. Inasmuch as the immediate connection of these moments of quantity finds expression in the essential relation of whole and parts — the one of quantity being part, and its continuity the whole which is composed of parts — the antinomy consists in the contradiction that was incurred, and was resolved, in conjunction with the relation of whole and parts. — For whole and parts are just as essentially related to one another and constitute only one identity as they are indifferent to each other, having independent subsistence. The relation, therefore, is this antinomy: that the one moment, in freeing itself from the other, immediately brings about this other’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

Inwood complains: ‘The concept of a whole containing parts is not very obviously applied by Hegel either to itself or to its immediate predecessor, appearance . . . [I]t is hard to find any regular, systematic relationship between the object-thoughts and the meta-thoughts’. The idea of a concept applying itself to itself, however, belongs to Actuality — too advanced for Essential Relation. But it should be easy to see that the Relation of Whole and Parts is related to Appearance, which culminated in the insight that Existence and Appearance are in an Essential Relation. Existence is the Whole and Appearance is the Parts.

Kant’s simplex, however, cannot be a Whole, because then it would have Parts and would not be simple. Furthermore, as a simple, it excludes any relation with the Whole. Hence, the indivisible atom is not even a part. We have before us a part only if we also have before us a whole. These terms are strictly correlative. If, however, the simplex is not a part, it must be a Whole. Yet, if a Whole, it must have parts and not be a simplex so on to infinity.

‘The concrete existent, then, determined as a whole, has parts, and these constitute its subsistence; the unity of the whole is a posited connection, an external composition which is extraneous to the self-subsistent concrete existent. Now if such a concrete existent is a part, then it is not the whole, is not composed, hence is a simple. But the reference to the whole is external to it and therefore extraneous. It follows that the self-subsistent, in itself, is also not a part, for it is a part only by virtue of that connecting reference. But now, since it is not part, it is a whole, for this relation of whole and parts is the only one that there is and the self-subsistent is one of the two. But as a whole, it is again composed; it again consists of parts and so on to infinity. — This infinity consists in nothing else but the perennial alternation of the two determinations of the relation, in each of which the other immediately arises, so that the positedness of one is the disappearing of itself. Determined as a whole, matter consists of parts and in these the whole becomes an unessential connection; it disappears. But a part, thus taken on its own, is also not a part but the whole. — The antinomy of this inference, on close inspection, is really this: Since the whole is not what subsists on its own, the part is the self-subsistent; but since the latter is self-subsistent only without the whole, it is then self-subsistent not as a part but rather as a whole. The infinitude of the ensuing progress is the incapacity to bring together the two thoughts which this mediation entails, namely that each of the two determinations, by virtue of its self-subsistence and separation from the other, passes over into non-self-subsistence and into the other’.

- ‘The Science of Logic’

This is a qualitative “spurious” infinity, as shown in Spurious Infinity and its Other. Such infinities are the dismal reward for those who insist on self-equality of concepts.

The true meaning of Kant’s antinomy is this: because the whole is not the self-subsistent, therefore the part is self-subsistent; but because the part is self-subsistent only without the whole, it is self-subsistent not as part, but rather as whole. The infinitude of the progress which arises is the inability to bring together the two thoughts which the mediation contains, namely, that each of the two determinations through its self-subsistence and separation from the other passes over into non-self-subsistence and into the other. In other words, ‘M[a]ny effort to consider one moment in abstraction is defeated by the re-emergence in it of the other moment’, explains G. R. G. Mure. The Essential Relation is an advanced version of Spurious Infinity. ‘The contradictions … that we see by looking at part and whole show that it is in movement, that it is constantly going over from unity to multiplicity and back again’, elucidates Charles Taylor. Michael Rosen faults Hegel for insufficiently dealing with the antinomies. Since only immanent critique has bite, Hegel should have accepted Kant’s standpoint as to the following: (a) Empirically, a thing either has or has not a property — the law of the excluded middle, (b) With regard to cosmical properties, a thing can have and not have a cosmic property, © There is a fixed border between empirical and cosmic properties. Cosmical conceptions for Kant were ideas that relate phenomena to the absolute totality — the stuff of the four antinomies. By now it should be apparent that Hegel has dealt at length with the antinomies, and the entire Logic is aimed at denying the law of the excluded middle for any entity — whether cosmic or empirical.

Some further thoughts on Whole and Parts, Totality and Moments:

The adjective ganz means ‘whole, entire’. It gives rise to the adjectival noun, (das) Ganze (‘(the) whole’). Often das Ganze is correlative to (die) Teile (‘(the) parts’, and, in the singular, ‘share, portion’), which is associated with teilen (‘to divide, share’) and thus suggests that the whole can be divided into parts. Hegel uses das Ganze in two senses:

1. In the Logic, the correlation of whole and parts is the first category of Relation (Verhältnis):

‘The immediate relationship is that of the whole and the parts; the content is the whole and consists of its opposite, i. e., of the parts (of the form). The parts are diverse from each other and they are what is independent. But they are parts only in their identical relation to each other, or insofar as, taken together, they constitute the whole. But the ensemble is the opposite and negation of the part. Addition: Essential relationship is the determinate, quite universal mode of appearing. Everything that exists stands in a relationship, and this relationship is what is genuine in every existence. Consequently, what exists does not do so abstractly, on its own account, but only within an other; within this other, however, it is relation to self, and relationship is the unity of relation to self and relation to another. The relationship of the whole and its parts is untrue inasmuch as its concept and reality do not correspond to one another. It is the very concept of a whole to contain parts; but if the whole is posited as what it is according to its concept, then, when it is divided, it ceases at once to be a whole. There certainly are things that answer to this part-whole relationship, but, just for that reason, they are only inferior and untrue existences. In this connection we should recollect the general point that when we speak of something’s being ‘untrue’ in a philosophical discussion, that should not to be understood to mean that the sort of thing spoken of does not exist; a bad State or a sick body may exist all the same, but they are ‘untrue’ be cause their concept and their reality do not correspond to one another. The relationship of whole and parts, being relationship in its immediacy, is in any case one that easily recommends itself to the reflective understanding; hence the understanding is frequently content with it where deeper relationships are in fact involved. For instance, the members and organs of a living body should not be considered merely as parts of it, for they are what they are only in their unity and are not indifferent to that unity at all. The members and organs become mere ‘parts’ only under the hands of the anatomist; but for that reason he is dealing with corpses rather than with living bodies. This is not to say that this kind of dissection should not happen at all, but only that the external and mechanical relationship of whole and parts does not suffice for the cognition of organic life in its truth’.

- ‘The Encyclopaedia Logic’

A whole essentially consists of parts, but this gives rise to a problem: the relation of whole and parts is untrue, in so far as its concept and reality do not correspond to each other. The concept of the whole is to contain parts; but if the whole is posited as what it is according to its concept, if it is divided or parted, it ceases to be a whole’. Thus a whole and its parts are both essentially related to each other and independent of each other. In the Logic Hegel regards this contradiction as the source of Kant’s second antinomy, that the world can be proved both to be divisible to infinity and to consist of indivisible parts. But Hegel attempts to resolve it, and Kant’s antinomy, by turning to the concept of a force and its externalization. It does not follow, Hegel argues, that there are no wholes consisting of parts in the world. For Things can be untrue, as well as categories. Thus things that correspond to this relation are ipso facto low and untrue existences. They do not include higher entities such as living organisms, minds or philosophical systems. He often refers to a whole consisting of parts as an Aggregat or as zusammengesetzt (‘put together, composite’). The parts of such a whole are prior to the whole itself, and the whole is fully understood if we understand each of its parts.

2. Das Ganze is also used for a whole such as a mind, an organism or SYSTEM, whose parts can either not be removed at all or can be removed only with damage to the part removed and to the remaining parts. (Some wholes can replace parts removed, as a lizard grows a new tail.) Such a whole is not formed by composition (Zusammensetzung), but by development out of its concept. The whole is prior to the parts, and the parts can only be understood in terms of the whole. Each part serves the purpose of the whole. Hegel has a whole of this type in mind, when he says: The true is the whole. But the whole is only the essence or entity’: Wesen, perfecting itself through its development.

‘The True is the whole. But the whole is nothing other than the essence consummating itself through its development. Of the Absolute it must be said that it is essentially a result, that only in the end is it what it truly is; and that precisely in this consists its nature, viz. to be actual, subject, the spontaneous becoming of itself. Though it may seem contradictory that the Absolute should be conceived essentially as a result, it needs little pondering to set this show of contradiction in its true light. The beginning, the principle, or the Absolute, as at first immediately enunciated, is only the universal. Just as when I say ‘all animals’, this expression cannot pass for a zoology, so it is equally plain that the words, ‘the Divine” ‘the Absolute’, ‘the Eternal’, etc., do not express what is contained in them; and only such words, in fact, do express the intuition as something immediate. Whatever is more than such a word, even the transition to a mere proposition, contains a becoming-other that has to be taken back, or is a mediation. But it is just this that is rejected with horror, as if absolute cognition were being surrendered when more is made of mediation than in simply saying that it is nothing absolute, and is completely absent in the Absolute’.

- ‘The Phenomenology of Spirit’

He often speaks of the Teile of such a whole, but often prefers some other word, such as Glieder (‘limbs, members’), Organe (‘organs’) or Momente (‘moments’), which does not suggest that the parts can be separated. This concept of a whole appears in Aristotle, mystics such as Böhme, and Kant, especially CJ. The distinction between 1 and 2 is similar to the distinction, in Plato’s Theaetetus and Aristotle’s Metaphysics, between to pan (‘the all, total(ity)’) of the parts and to holon (‘the whole’). A holon, for Aristotle, is not just the total of its parts, even when they are in position, but has an inner cause of unity, viz. a Form. The Latin for ganz is totus, and this gave rise, in scholastic Latin, to total is (‘total’) and totalitas (‘totality’). In the sixteenth century German, these became total and Totalität. Totalität means ‘totality’, both in the sense of ‘completeness, entirety, wholeness’ and in that of ‘(a) totality, whole’. It differs from Ganzheit (‘wholeness’) and das Ganze in two respects:

1. It need not suggest the internal articulation characteristic of a whole (at least in sense 2 above), but may amount only to Allheit (or to pan). Thus Kant speaks of the absolute Totalität of the conditions of conditioned entities, which, he argues, underlies transcendental Idea and the Speculative use of Reason. Here the stress is on the (unattainable) completeness, the Allheit, of the conditions, not on their systematic interrelations.

‘Hence, in the conclusion of a syllogism we restrict a predicate to a certain object, after having thought it in the major in its whole extent under a certain condition. This complete quantity of the extent in relation to such a condition is called universality (universalitas). To this corresponds totality (universitas) of conditions in the synthesis of intuitions. The transcendental conception of reason is therefore nothing else than the conception of the totality of the conditions of a given conditioned. Now as the unconditioned alone renders possible totality of conditions, and, conversely, the totality of conditions is itself always unconditioned; a pure rational conception in general can be defined and explained by means of the conception of the unconditioned, in so far as it contains a basis for the synthesis of the conditioned’.

- ‘Critique of Pure Reason’

2. Totalität often stresses more emphatically than das Ganze the completeness of the whole, the fact that nothing is left out. A whole must be relatively self-contained and independent of its environment, but it is not difficult to suppose that a whole (e.g. a man) is a part of a larger whole (e.g. a State). It is more difficult to suppose that a totality is, in the ordinary sense, a part of a larger totality. A lyric or a tragedy is a whole. But it is not, Hegel argues in his ‘Aesthetics’, a totality, since it presents only a fragment of the Greek world. An epic, by contrast, is an einheitsvolle Totalität (‘fully unified totality’), since it presents the Homeric world in its entirety, as well as the particular actions that take place against that background. But elsewhere he is ready to call any good work of Art a Totalität, especially a Totalität in sich (‘within itself).

Hegel’s use of Totalität varies. Sometimes it is little more than an aggregate: the totality of the reactions of a chemical to other chemicals is present only as a sum total [Summe], not as infinite return to itself:

‘We now have to make the transition from inorganic to organic nature, from the prose of nature to its poetry. In the chemical process bodies do not change superficially, all aspects of them change, and every property of cohesion, colour, lustre, opacity, ring, transparency etc. is effaced. Even specific gravity, which appears to be the profoundest and simplest determination, fails to hold out. It is precisely in this flux of accidents within the chemical process, that the relativity of the apparently indifferent determinations of individuality is realized as essence; the body displays the transience of its existence, and this its relativity is its being. If one wants to say what a body is, one’s description of it will only be complete once the whole cycle of its changes has been presented; for the true individuality of the body does not exist in anyone of its states, and is only exhausted and displayed by the full cycle. It is precisely because totality of shape is merely particular, that it is unable to survive, and as the individual body is finite, it receives its due and fails to endure. Thus, there are metals which run through the whole series of colours when they are oxidized or neutralized by acids, and which are also able to form neutral + transparent salts, for salts in general are the annihilation of colour. Brittleness, compactness, smell, and taste also disappear; this is the ideality of the particularity which displays itself in this sphere. The bodies traverse the whole cycle of such possible determinations. For example, as a reguline metal, copper is red; copper sulphate is a blue crystal however, the precipitate of copper hydrate is mountain blue, and there is a muriatic copper 15 oxide which is white. Other copper oxides are green, dark grey, and reddish brown etc., and azurite is yet another colour etc. The reaction varies according to the agent, and the chemical body is merely the sum of its reactions. Consequently, the totality of reactions is merely present as a sum, not as an infinite return of the body into itself’.

- ‘Philosophy of Nature’

But often a totality is an all-embracing whole: totalities are entities that belong essentially to reason, to the thinking of the intrinsically Concrete, Universal, Soul, World, God.

‘… the objects of this metaphysics were, it is true, totalities that belong in and for themselves to reason, to the thinking of the inwardly concrete universal: the soul, the world, God. But this metaphysics took them from representation, and when it applied the determinations-of-the understanding to them, it grounded itself upon them, as ready-made or given subjects, and its only criterion of whether the predicates fitted, and were satisfactory or not, was that representation’.

- ‘The Encyclopaedia Logic’

The ‘principle of totality’ forbids us to apply to such an entity one of a pair of opposite predicates, to the exclusion of the other.

‘… metaphysics became dogmatism because, given the nature of finite determinations, it had to assume that of two opposed assertions (of the kind that those propositions were) one must be true, and the other false’.

- ‘The Encyclopaedia Logic’

Each part of such a totality is itself the whole: thus each person of the deity is implicitly the whole deity, and each part of Hegel’s system is implicitly the whole system:

‘Each of the parts of philosophy is a philosophical whole, a circle that closes upon itself; but in each of them the philosophical Idea is in a particular determinacy or element. Every single circle also breaks through the restriction of its element as well, precisely because it is inwardly [the] totality, and it grounds a further sphere. The whole presents itself therefore as a circle of circles, each of which is a necessary moment, so that the system of its peculiar elements constitutes the whole Idea-which equally appears in each single one of them’.

- ‘The Encyclopaedia Logic’

A simple model of this is the magnet, which, if sawn in half, becomes two complete magnets, each pole having generated its own opposite.

‘Magnetism is one of the determinations which inevitably became prominent when the Notion began to be aware of itself in determinate nature, and grasped the Idea of a philosophy of nature. This came about because the magnet 15 exhibits the nature of the Notion, both in a simple straightforward way, and in its developed form as syllogism. Its pol e s are the sensibly existent ends of a real line such as a rod, or a dimensionally more fully extended body. Their reality as poles is of an ideal nature however; it is not sensibly mechanistic, for the poles are simply indivisible. The point of indifference, which constitutes their substantial existence, is their unity as determinations of the Notion, and consequently it is from this unity alone that they derive their significance and their existence. Polarity is the relation between mere moments of this kind. Apart from the determination posited here, magnetism has no further particular property. The phenomenon of an individual magnetic needle swinging sometimes north and sometimes south, is an aspect of the general magnetism of the Earth’.

- ‘The Philosophy of Nature’

A totality usually involves three moments, those of universality, particularity and and individuality. For example, princely power:

‘The power of the crown contains in itself the three moments of the whole, viz. [a] the universality of the constitution and the laws; [b] counsel, which refers the particular to the universal; and [c] the moment of ultimate decision, as the self-determination to which everything else reverts and from which everything else derives the beginning of its actuality. This absolute self-determination constitutes the distinctive principle of the power of the crown as such, and with this principle our exposition is to begin. Addition: We begin with the power of the crown, i.e. with the moment of individuality, since this includes the state’s three moments as a totality in itself. The ego, that is to say, is at once the most individual thing and the most universal. Prima facie, individuality occurs in nature too, but reality, the opposite of ideality, and reciprocal externality are not the same as self-enclosed existence. On the contrary, in nature the various individual things subsist alongside one another. In mind, on the other hand, variety exists only as something ideal and as a unity. The state, then, as something mental, is the exhibition of all its moments, but individuality is at the same time the bearer of its soul and its life-giving principle, i.e. the sovereignty which contains all differences in itself’.

- ‘Philosophy of Right’

The tendency of each part to become the whole is seen terms of the logical interrelations of universality, particularity and individuality. Since each part of a totality is itself the totality, several (especially three) totalities (e.g. the three parts of Hegel’s system) often form a single totality. This coheres with Hegel’s idea that the universal is a genus whose species are the universal, the particular and the individual: a totality such as the logical Idea, whose three parts are respectively universal, particular and individual, can be seen as a particular specification of a higher universal (which is just itself in a different guise), and then it is the universal as such, alongside the particular (Nature) and the individual (Spirit).

When Hegel stresses the reciprocal entailment and inseparability of the parts of a whole or totality, he often calls them Moment(e) (‘moment(s), aspect(s), element(s)’). Moment was borrowed in the seventeenth century from the Latin momentum, which comes from movere (‘to move’) and means ‘moving Force, impetus’. It then came to mean: (1) ‘Instant, moment (of time)’. In this sense Moment is masculine (der Moment). Hegel does not use the word in this sense: he prefers Augenblick (literally an ‘eye-glance’) or das Jetzt (‘the now’). (2) ‘Motive force, decisive factor, essential circumstance’. In this sense Moment is neuter (das Moment) Hegel’s use of Moment derives from this.

When Hegel argues, in the Logic, that Being and Nothing are moments of Determinate Being, he connects this use of Moment with the lever: In the case of the lever, weight and distance from a point are called its mechanical moments owing to the sameness of their effect, despite the fact that they are otherwise very different, since one, the weight, is real, while the other, as a mere spatial determination, the line, is ideal.

‘Initially, the place which is thus the posited identity of space and time is also the posited contradiction set up by the mutual exclusiveness of space and time. place is spatial and therefore indifferent singularity, and is this only as the spatial now, or time. As this place, it is therefore in a condition of immediate indifference to itself; it is external to itself, the negation of itself, and constitutes another place. This passing away and self-regeneration of space in time and time in space, in which time posits itself spatially as place, while this indifferent spatiality is likewise posited immediately in a temporal manner, constitutes motion. To an equal extent however, this becoming is itself the internal collapse of its contradiction, it is therefore the immediately identical and existent unity of place and motion, i.e. matter’. — ‘Philosophy of Nature’

Moment is what is Sublated (das Aufgehobene) or ‘Ideal’ (das Ideelle). Universality, particularity and individuality are moments of a whole or totality. But more generally, a moment is an essential feature or aspect of a whole conceived as a static system, and an essential phase in a whole conceived as a dialectical movement or process.