'Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám'
translated by Edward Fitzgerald (1809 – 1883)
Ah, fill the Cup:—what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet!
One Moment in Annihilation’s Waste,
One Moment, of the Well of Life to taste—
The Stars are setting and the Caravan
Starts for the Dawn of Nothing—Oh, make haste!
How long, how long, in definite Pursuit
Of This and That endeavour and dispute?
Better be merry with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.
You know, my Friends, how long since in my House
For a new Marriage I did make Carouse:
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.
For 'Is' and 'Is-not' though with Rule and Line,
And 'Up-and-down' without, I could define,
I yet in all I only cared to know,
Was never deep in anything but—Wine.
And lately by the Tavern Door agape,
Came stealing through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and ’twas—the Grape!
The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The subtle Alchemist that in a Trice
Life’s leaden Metal into Gold transmute.
======
Amphictyonis, Greek goddess of wine and friendship between nations. 1960s. Orig. Italy.
It is resolved by the Amphictyons and the hieromnemones and the agoratroi, to grant to the [artists at Athens] inviolability and freedom from taxes for all time; neither [they] nor [their possessions] may be brought to trial [in any place], either during war or during peacetime; but they shall retain freedom from taxes and security [in perpetuity, as] agreed by all the Greeks; the artists shall not be forced to serve as [foot-soldiers] or sailors, so that the worship [and sacrifices] to the gods, which have been assigned to the artists, shall be performed at the prescribed times, because the artists are free from other duties and dedicated to the [service] of the gods; no-one shall be allowed to prosecute an artist at any time either during peacetime or during war, and no-one shall be allowed to despoil him, unless the artist is in debt and owes the debt to a city, or if he owes the debt arising from a private [contract]. If anyone acts [in contravention of these provisions ], he may be brought to trial before the Amphictyons, [both himself and the] city in which the crime against the artist was [committed]; the artists [at Athens] are granted freedom from taxes and [security] by the Amphictyons for ever, and they shall be [free from all other duties]; the secretaries shall inscribe [this decree] on a stone stele and set it up in [Delphi]; and they shall [send] a sealed copy of the decree to the Athenians, so that the [artists] may know that the Amphictyons take great account of piety towards the gods, and agree with the requests of the artists; for the future, they will [endeavour] to maintain these rights for all time and to add whatever other [benefits] they can provide to the artists of Dionysos'.
- 'Decrees of the Amphyctyonic Council', Syll 399, 4th century BC
---------------------------
I like how the Amphyctyonians think.
As it happens engaging with Hegelian philosophy is intoxicating, for me, and is much kinder on my liver. Though whether or not it damages me in other ways ...
Anyway, on with the logic absolute ...
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1771 - 1831). 'The Science of Logic'.
Absolute Idea.
'The result is the process - its perpetual re-enactment' said Emil L. Fackenheim emphasising the religious dimension in Hegel's thought. Absolute Idea, the 'speculative nucleus' as Giacomo Rinaldi calls it, of Hegelianism is what remains after thinking (Truth) and doing (Good) abolish themselves. The Truth is that self-identical things pass away. The Good is the obliteration of all obstacles to the creation of a reality in which the subject is at home. The True Good is the realization that Absolute Idea has only itself as its obstacle. Idea has given up the knowledge of itself as of something confronting the object of which it is only the annihilation as Hegel explained right at the beginning:
'A beginning is logical in that it is to be made in the element of a free, self-contained thought, in pure knowledge; it is thereby mediated, for pure knowledge is the ultimate and absolute truth of consciousness. We said in the Introduction that the Phenomenology of Spirit is the science of consciousness, its exposition; that consciousness has the concept of science, that is, pure knowledge, for its result. To this extent, logic has for its presupposition the science of spirit in its appearance, a science which contains the necessity, and therefore demonstrates the truth, of the standpoint which is pure knowledge and of its mediation. In this science of spirit in its appearance the beginning is made from empirical, sensuous consciousness, and it is this consciousness which is immediate knowledge in the strict sense; there, in this science, is where its nature is discussed. Any other consciousness, such as faith in divine truths, inner experience, knowledge through inner revelation, etc., proves upon cursory reflection to be very ill-suited as an instance of immediate knowledge. In the said treatise, immediate consciousness is also that which in the science comes first and immediately and is therefore a presupposition; but in logic the presupposition is what has proved itself to be the result of that preceding consideration, namely the idea as pure knowledge. Logic is the pure science, that is, pure knowledge in the full compass of its development. But in that result the idea has the determination of a certainty that has become truth; it is a certainty which, on the one hand, no longer stands over and against a subject matter confronting it externally but has interiorized it, is knowingly aware that the subject matter is itself; and, on the other hand, has relinquished any knowledge of itself that would oppose it to objectivity and would reduce the latter to a nothing; it has externalized this subjectivity and is at one with its externalization'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
'Knowing, then, will not be a representation ... but a presentation ... and consequently the negation of every and all given presence, be it that of an 'object' or of a subject' explains Jean-Luc Nancy. In short, exposition is the subject matter. The two coincide. For this reason, 'Hegel resolutely turns his back on every kind of nostalgia, that is on every kind of comfort drawn from the image of a given but past sense. But inversely, this is not in order to place his trust in a new given ... Neither past nor future present, but naked present: that is, stripped down to the point of its coming, in the instability of becoming', Nancy continued.
When this point is established, we have Idea in this self-determination of apprehending itself.
'The absolute idea has shown itself to be the identity of the theoretical and the practical idea, each of which, of itself still one-sided, possesses the idea only as a sought-for beyond and unattained goal; each is therefore a synthesis f striving, each possessing as well as not possessing the idea within it, passing over from one thought to the other without bringing the two together but remaining fixed in the contradiction of the two. The absolute idea, as the rational concept that in its reality only rejoins itself, is by virtue of this immediacy of its objective identity, on the one hand, a turning back to life; on the other hand, it has equally sublated this form of its immediacy and harbors the most extreme opposition within. The concept is not only soul, but free subjective concept that exists for itself and therefore has personality – the practical objective concept that is determined in and for itself and is as person impenetrable, atomic subjectivity – but which is not, just the same, exclusive singularity; it is rather explicitly universality and cognition, and in its other has its own objectivity for its subject matter. All the rest is error, confusion, opinion, striving, arbitrariness, and transitoriness; the absolute idea alone is being, imperishable life, self-knowing truth, and is all truth'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
'It is the sole subject matter and content of philosophy. Since it contains all determinateness within it, and its essence consists in returning through its self-determination and particularization back to itself, it has various shapes, and the business of philosophy is to recognize it in these. Nature and spirit are in general different modes of exhibiting its existence, art and religion its different modes of apprehending itself and giving itself appropriate existence. Philosophy has the same content and the same purpose as art and religion, but it is the highest mode of apprehending the absolute idea, because its mode, that of the concept, is the highest. Hence it seizes those shapes of real and ideal finitude, as well of infinity and holiness, and comprehends them and itself. The derivation and cognition of these particular modes are now the further business of the particular philosophical sciences. Also the logicality of the absolute idea can be called a mode of it; but mode signifies a particular kind, a determinateness of form, whereas the logicality of the idea is the universal mode in which all particular modes are sublated and enveloped. The logical idea is the idea itself in its pure essence, the idea which is enclosed in simple identity within its concept and in reflective shining has as yet to step into a form determinateness. The Logic thus exhibits the self-movement of the absolute idea only as the original word, a word which is an utterance, but one that in being externally uttered has immediately vanished again. The idea is, therefore, only in this self-determination of apprehending itself; it is in pure thought, where difference is not yet otherness, but is and remains perfectly transparent to itself. – The logical idea thus has itself, as the infinite form, for its content – form that constitutes the opposite of content inasmuch as the latter is the form determination that has withdrawn into itself and has been so sublated in identity that this concrete identity stands over against the identity developed as form; the content has the shape of an other and of something given as against the form that as such stands simply in reference, and whose determinateness is posited at the same time as reflective shine. – More exactly, the absolute idea itself has only this for its content, namely that the form determination is its own completed totality, the pure content. Now the determinateness of the idea and the entire course traversed by this determinateness has constituted the subject matter of the science of logic, and out of this course the absolute idea has come forth for itself; thus to be for itself, however, has shown itself to amount to this, namely that determinateness does not have the shape of a content, but that it is simply as form, and that accordingly the idea is the absolutely universal idea. What is left to be considered here, therefore, is thus not a content as such, but the universal character of its form – that is, method'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
'In its most authentic sense, being is comprehended and comprehending being - the concept' said Herbert Marcuse. Yet Absolute Idea is not the final step of the Logic. Absolute Idea must develop its moments of immediacy and mediation. When this is accomplished, we reach Absolute Knowing - the phrase that terminates the 'Phenomenology of Spirit' and that initiates the introductory materials as the very last step (and presupposition) of the entire Logic.
'But the other side of its Becoming, History, is a conscious, self-mediating process-Spirit emptied out into Time; but this externalization, this kenosis, is equally an externalization of itself; the negative is the negative of itself. This Becoming presents a slow-moving succession of Spirits, a gallery of images, each of which , endowed with all the riches of Spirit, moves thus slowly Just because the Self has to penetrate and digest this en tire wealth of its substance. As its fulfilment consists in perfectly knowing what it is, in knowing its substance, this knowing is its withdrawal into itself in which it abandons its outer existence and gives its existential shape over to recollection. Thus absorbed in itself, it is sunk in the nigh t of its self-consciousness; but in that night its vanished outer existence is preserved, and this transformed existence-the former one, but now reborn of the Spirit's knowledge-is the new existence, a new world and a new shape of Spirit. In the immediacy of this new existence the Spirit has to start afresh to bring itself to maturity as if, for it, all that preceded were lost and it had learned nothing from the experience of the earlier Spirits. But recollection, the inwardizing, or that experience, has preserved it and is the inner being, and in fact the higher form of the substance. So although this Spirit starts afresh and apparently from its own resources to bring itself to maturity, it is none the less on a higher level that it starts. The realm of Spirits which is formed in this way in the outer world constitutes a succession in Time in which one Spirit relieved another of its charge and each took over the empire of the world from its predecessor. Their goal is the revelation of the depth of Spirit, and this is the absolute Notion. This revelation is, therefore, the raising-up of its depth, or its extension, the negativity of this withdrawn 'I', a negativity which is its externalization or its substance; and this revelation is also the Notion's Time, in that this externalization is in its own self externalized, and just as it is in its extension, so it is equally in its depth, in the Self. The goal, Absolute Knowing, or Spirit that knows itself as Spirit, has for its path the recollection of the Spirits as they are in themselves and as they accomplish the organization of their realm. Their preservation, regarded from the side of their free existence appearing in the form of contingency is History; but regarded from the side of their [philosophically] comprehended organization, it is the Science of Knowing in the sphere of appearance: the two together, comprehended History, form alike the inwardizing and the Calvary of absolute Spirit, the actuality, truth, and certainty of his throne, without which he would be lifeless and alone. Only
from the chalice of this realm of spirits
foams forth for Him his own infinitude.
- 'Phenomenology of Spirit'
---------------------------
'Time song'
by Otto Julius Bierbaum (1865 - 1910)
Dreamers and prophets
give advice and preach a lot about eternity.
So come on, anyone who can, fly to it!
We climb the stairs
carefully, step by step. That's how we serve time.
We stay on earth;
here it is a matter of getting ready in strength and joy.
That is the blessing of life:
to move in the light.
We judge our powers by the measure of our time.
It gives us a lot, we give
it our whole life in childlike gratitude;
it is a matter of increasing the inheritance,
so that we, respecting it,
can happily withstand a rich time.
It should be beautiful, and strength
should be a feature of its effect; it should have energy devoted to it;
the soul, spirit and desire
should embrace with similar love
what we with pride acknowledge: we serve this time!
'Zeitlied'
Die Träumer und Propheten,
die raten und die reden viel von der Ewigkeit.
Wohlan, wer's kann, der fliege!
Wir steigen auf der Stiege
bescheiden, stufenweise; so dienen wir die Zeit.
Wir bleiben auf der Erden,
hier gilt es, reif zu werden in Kraft und Fröhlichkeit.
Das ist des Lebens Segen:
im Lichte sich zu regen;
wir messen unsre Kräfte am Kraftmaß unsrer Zeit.
Sie gibt uns viel, wir geben
ihr unser ganzes Leben in Kindesdankbarkeit;
das Erbe gilt's zu mehren,
dass wir mit ihr in Ehren
vor uns bestehen können froh einer reichen Zeit.
Schön soll sie sein, und Stärke
das Merkmall ihrer Werke; der Kraft sei sie geweiht,
die Seele, Geist und Triebe
umfasst mit gleicher Liebe,
dass wir mit Stolz bekennen: wir dienen dieser Zeit!
=====
=====
'The Goddess Ceres and the Symbols of Fertility', Abraham Janssens (1575 - 1632)
---------------------------
Hegel does not use the phrase as such in his final chapter, but he does refer to the self-knowing Notion that has itself for its subject matter. Self-knowing Notion is also generally referred to as Method.
'Method may appear at first to be just the manner in which cognition proceeds, and this is in fact its nature. But as method this manner of proceeding is not only a modality of being determined in and for itself; it is a modality of cognition, and as such is posited as determined by the concept and as form, since form is the soul of all objectivity and all otherwise determined content has its truth in form alone. If the content is again assumed as given to the method and of a nature of its own, then method, so understood, is just like the logical realm in general a merely external form. But against this assumption appeal can be made, not only to the fundamental concept of what constitutes logic, but to the entire logical course in which all the shapes of a given content and of objects came up for consideration. This course has shown the transitoriness and the untruth of all such shapes; also that no given object is capable of being the foundation to which the absolute form would relate as only an external and accidental determination; that, on the contrary, it is the absolute form that has proved itself to be the absolute foundation and the ultimate truth. For this course the method has resulted as the absolutely self-knowing concept, as the concept that has the absolute, both as subjective and objective, as its subject matter, and consequently as the pure correspondence of the concept and its reality, a concrete existence that is the concept itself'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
Hegel distinguishes Method (or free Notion) from merely formal Notion, which is the particular aspect of method.
'Accordingly, what is to be considered as method here is only the movement of the concept itself. We already know the nature of this movement, but it now has, first, the added significance that the concept is all, and that its movement is the universal absolute activity, the self-determining and self-realizing movement. The method is therefore to be acknowledged as the universal, internal and external mode, free of restrictions, and as the absolutely infinite force to which no object that may present itself as something external, removed from reason and independent of it, could offer resistance, or be of a particular nature opposite to it, and could not be penetrated by it. It is therefore soul and substance, and nothing is conceived and known in its truth unless completely subjugated to the method; it is the method proper to each and every fact because its activity is the concept. This is also the truer meaning of its universality; according to the universality of reflection, it is taken only as the method for all things; but according to the universality of the idea, it is both the manner of cognition, of the concept subjectively aware of itself, and the objective manner, or rather the substantiality of things – that is, of concepts as they first appear as others to representation and reflection. It is therefore not only the highest force of reason, or rather its sole and absolute force, but also reason’s highest and sole impulse to find and recognize itself through itself in all things. – Second, here we also have the distinction of the method from the concept as such, the particularization of the method. As the concept was considered for itself, it appeared in its immediacy; the reflection, or the concept considering it, fell on the side of our knowledge. The method is this knowledge itself, for which the concept is not only as subject matter but is as its own subjective act, the instrument and the means of cognitive activity, distinct from this activity and yet the activity’s own essentiality. In cognition as enquiry, the method likewise occupies the position of an instrument, as a means that stands on the side of the subject, connecting it with the object. The subject in this syllogism is one extreme, the object is the other, and in conclusion the subject unites through its method with the object without however uniting with itself there. The extremes remain diverse, because subject, method, and object are not posited as the one identical concept; the syllogism is therefore always the formal syllogism; the premise in which the subject posits the form on its side as its method is an immediate determination and contains therefore the determinations of the form – as we have seen, of definition, division, and so forth – as matters of fact found ready-made in the subject. In true cognition, on the contrary, method is not only an aggregate of certain determinations, but the determinateness in-and-for-itself of the concept, and the concept is the middle term only because it equally has the significance of the objective; in the conclusion, therefore, the objective does not attain only an external determinateness by virtue of the method, but is posited rather in its identity with the subjective concept'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
It represents human subjectivity - our participation in Absolute Idea. Formal Notion is knowing's own subjective act, the instrument and means of Method - distinguished from and yet essential to Method. Method, in contrast, is free Notion - the Notion that is determined in and for itself as Hegel explained in the previous section.
'The singularity of the subject with which the subject was burdened by its presupposition has vanished together with the presupposition. Thus the subject now exists as free, universal self-identity for which the objectivity of the concept is a given, just as immediately present to the subject as the subject immediately knows itself to be the concept determined in and for itself. Accordingly, in this result cognition is restored and united with the practical idea; the previously discovered reality is at the same time determined as the realized absolute purpose, no longer an object of investigation, a merely objective world without the subjectivity of the concept, but as an objective world whose inner ground and actual subsistence is rather the concept. This is the absolute idea'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
Free Notion is the middle term of the syllogism of which subject and object are the extremes. In Absolute Knowing, form and content are united. That is to say, Absolute Idea thinks itself - this thought of itself is its form. But there is nothing beyond this form. Hence, by default, form is also content. The true content of Appearance is its own self. 'The unity of topic and method ... precludes the difference between knowing and its object on which the representational cognition of consciousness depends', says Richard Dien Winfield. As predicted, it's appearance all the way down. Appearance is reality. Form is the soul of all objectivity and all otherwise determined content has its truth in the form alone. The very use of the word content is now outmoded. 'There is for [Hegel] nothing to which spiritual movement 'happens' (however ineluctably) - spiritual movement is the whole' explains Ermanno Bencivenga. Giacomo Rinaldi puts it this way: abstraction is thought itself. I can abstract from experience. But I cannot abstract from abstraction. Since pure thought is before us, there is no further place to go beyond thought. Content is the form-determination withdrawn into itself in such a manner that this concrete identity stands opposed to the identity explicated as form. Content, as that term was used in Content (Inwardization of Outward Form, has the shape of an other and a datum. Indeed, throughout the Logic, all the possible shapes of content have been displayed and shown to be untrue. In chapter 12 content as such was defined as the process of sublation.
It is now impossible for any given object to be some inner essence to which absolute form is merely external and contingent. For this reason, 'method identifies its own internal conditions, making no reference to anything external' explains John W. Burbidge. But has not the Logic been replete with references to that which is external to thought? Indeed, was not nature precisely that which is external to thought? See chapter 2. Burbidge comments, 'even though some of those concepts refer to particularity, contrast externality to internality, and emphasize difference, their connotation remains strictly intellectual'. The external is strictly internal to thought. For this reason, there is nothing natural or unidealized in the Logic according to William Maker.
The point is that method cannot stand apart from content. Otherwise, method is dogma, and so are its products. What must occur is a complete merger of substance and procedure - of content and method. Absolute Idea exhibits all the moments there are - (1) immediacy, (2) mediation and (3) the mediation of immediacy and mediation. First, Absolute Idea is Immediate. Immediacy - not Absolute Knowing - is the very first step of the Logic. It stands for the Understanding itself and for immediate Pure Being. This is what the Understanding abstracts in its attempt to express Absolute Idea. Its attempt, however, is a failure. Pure Being is Pure Nothing. The name of this immediacy collapse is Becoming.
Immediacy
'Ceres with torch in search of Proserpina'. Medallion. Martial Reymond, d.1599
The immediate of the beginning must be in its own self deficient and endowed with the urge to carry itself further. Such an immediacy is already posited as infected with a negation. For this reason too there is nothing, whether in actuality or thought, that is as simple and as abstract as is commonly imagined. In different words, method by its nature 'generates its own incompleteness in the process of its elaboration' explains Burbidge. Because immediacy is destined to fail, Logic must advance on to a more adequate definition of the absolute. Hence the advance is not a kind of superfluity; this it would be if that with which the beginning is made were in truth already the absolute. In this sense, Absolute Knowing (the last step) is broader and more comprehensive than Immediacy. In effect, Immediacy must grow into Absolute Knowing. In effect, all of the Logic is encompassed between Immediacy and Absolute Knowing (Method).
'The beginning, therefore, has for the method no other determinateness than that of being the simple and universal; this is precisely the determinateness that makes it deficient. Universality is the pure, simple concept, and the method, as the consciousness of this concept, is aware that universality is only a moment and that in it the concept is still not determined in and for itself. But with this consciousness that would want to carry the beginning further only for the sake of method, the method is only a formal procedure posited in external reflection. Where the method, however, is the objective and immanent form, the immediate character of the beginning must be a lack inherent in the beginning itself, which must be endowed with the impulse to carry itself further. But in the absolute method the universal has the value not of a mere abstraction but of the objective universal, that is, the universal that is in itself the concrete totality, but a totality as yet not posited, not yet for itself. Even the abstract universal is as such, when considered conceptually, that is, in its truth, not just anything simple, but is, as abstract, already posited afflicted by a negation. For this reason also there is nothing so simple and so abstract, be it in actuality or in thought, as is commonly imagined. Anything as simple as that is a mere presumption that has its ground solely in the lack of awareness of what is actually there. –We said earlier that the beginning is made with the immediate; the immediacy of the universal is the same as what is here expressed as the in-itself that is without being-for-itself. –One may well say, therefore, that every beginning must be made with the absolute, just as every advance is only the exposition of it, in so far as implicit in existence is the concept. But because the absolute exists at first only implicitly, in itself, it equally is not the absolute nor the posited concept, and also not the idea, for the in-itself is only an abstract, one-sided moment, and this is what they are. The advance is not, therefore, a kind of superfluity; this is what it would be if that which is at the beginning were already the absolute; the advance consists rather in this, that the universal determines itself and is the universal for itself, that is, equally a singular and a subject. Only in its consummation is it the absolute'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
Immediacy - the antepenultimate step in the Logic - is Hegel's true beginning. This means that the beginning, as compared to Absolute Knowing, is a reduction or retraction: this result, as a whole that has withdrawn into and is identical with itself, has given itself again the form of immediacy. Hence it is now itself the same thing as the starting point had determined itself to be. This result refers to the last step of Absolute Knowing. Nevertheless, it is Absolute Knowing that gives itself the form of immediacy. Such a form is not the Absolute Form. Such an immediacy is a one-sided, failed view of Absolute Knowing. In the beginning of the Logic, Hegel told us that the essential requirement for the science of logic is not so much that the beginning be a pure immediacy, but rather that the whole of the science be within itself a circle in which the first is also the last and the last is also the first. This might seem to indicate that the last step of the Logic is also the first step. But this remark directly follows a description of spiritual diremption. At the end of the development [spirit] is known as freely externalizing itself, abandoning itself to the shape of an immediate being - opening or unfolding itself into the creation of a world which contains all that fell into the development which preceded that result and which through this reversal of its position relatively to its beginning is transformed into something dependent on the result as principle.
'It must be admitted that it is an essential consideration – one which will be found elaborated again within the logic itself – that progression is a retreat to the ground, to the origin and the truth on which that with which the beginning was made, and from which it is in fact produced, depends. – Thus consciousness, on its forward path from the immediacy with which it began, is led back to the absolute knowledge which is its innermost truth. This truth, the ground, is then also that from which the original first proceeds, the same first which at the beginning came on the scene as something immediate. – It is most of all in this way that absolute spirit (which is revealed as the concrete and supreme truth of all being) comes to be known, as at the end of the development it freely externalizes itself, letting itself go into the shape of an immediate being – resolving itself into the creation of a world which contains all that fell within the development preceding that result and which, through this reversal of position with its beginning, is converted into something dependent on the result as principle. Essential to science is not so much that a pure immediacy should be the beginning, but that the whole of science is in itself a circle in which the first becomes also the last, and the last also the first'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
So Absolute Knowing creates the world by reducing itself to immediacy - an original sin which must of necessity lead to the development of all the forms described throughout the Logic. Pure being is the unity into which pure knowing withdraws.
'So we have just given, right within science itself, the reason why in pure science the beginning is made with pure being. This pure being is the unity into which pure knowledge returns, or if this knowledge, as form, is itself still to be kept distinct from its unity, then pure being is also its content. It is in this respect that this pure being, this absolute immediate, is just as absolutely mediated. However, just because it is here as the beginning, it is just as essential that it should be taken in the one-sidedness of being purely immediate. If it were not this pure indeterminacy, if it were determined, it would be taken as something mediated, would already be carried further than itself: a determinate something has the character of an other with respect to a first. It thus lies in the nature of a beginning itself that it should be being and nothing else. There is no need, therefore, of other preparations to enter philosophy, no need of further reflections or access points'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
But reduction of Absolute Knowing to Pure Being is only one way of viewing the process. Why does this reduction occur? Because there must be a deficiency in Absolute Knowing to which the Understanding responds. Pure Being is therefore both a reduction of and an expansion of Absolute Knowing. In short, Absolute Knowing is not Absolute without this necessary, erroneous, one-sided Immediacy. Mure is therefore mistaken when he writes, 'In Absolute Idea sublation is perfect, and there is no further onward movement of pure thought save in the sense that the dialectic of the categories is a return of spirit upon itself and may be metaphorically called circular'. Angelica Nuzzo observes: 'Being, pure being with which the logic begins (or has begun) is, in a sense, a more comprehensive concept than that of the absolute idea at the beginning of the last chapter of the logic. And yet the absolute idea also comprehends and at the same time exceeds what has been developed so far as to put itself in the position of uniqueness that allows it to bring the logic to an end'. Absolute Knowing is not the first step of the Logic. Rather, it is left behind then the Logic commences, recalling Hegel's earlier dictum that what is thus found only comes to be through being left behind.
'It is only by virtue of the sublating of its equality with itself that essence is equality with itself. Essence presupposes itself, and the sublating of this presupposing is essence itself; contrariwise, this sublating of its presupposition is the presupposition itself. – Reflection thus finds an immediate before it which it transcends and from which it is the turning back. But this turning back is only the presupposing of what was antecedently found. This antecedent comes to be only by being left behind; its immediacy is sublated immediacy. – The sublated immediacy is, contrariwise, the turning back into itself, essence that arrives at itself, simple being equal to itself. This arriving at itself is thus the sublating of itself and self-repelling, presupposing reflection, and its repelling of itself from itself is the arriving at itself'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
Like a wise parent begetting a headstrong child, Absolute Knowing, in its absolute self-assurance and inner poise, stands back from its content, allowing it to have free play. Simple immediacy - not mediation or the unity of immediacy and mediation - commences the Logic and must grow into Absolute Idea over its course.Relevant here is Burbidge's observation that method 'is not simply an atemporal logical idea. It equally characterizes the temporal process - the negative dialectic of passing away... But these two processes - the one logical, the other temporal - do not stand outside each other, simply sharing a common structure. They are conjoined by a double movement from logic to time and from time to logic'. In other words, logic enters into history when the Understanding tries (and fails) to understand. The finite immediacies of the Understanding are history itself. Absolute Knowing is a totality, no doubt, but one that includes an absence which the Understanding seeks to plug up with its one-sided proposition. Slavoj Zizek proclaims this the ultimate ambiguity if Hegel. According to the standard doxa, the telos of the dialectical process is the absolute form that abolishes any material surplus. If, however, this is truly the case with Hegel, how are we to account for the fact that the Result effectively throws us back into the whirlpool, that it is nothing but the totality of the route we had to travel in order to arrive at the Result? In other words, is not a kind of leap from not-yet to always-already constitutive of the Hegelian dialectics: we endeavour to approach the Goal (the absolute devoid of any matter), when, all of a sudden, we establish that all the time we were already there? Is not the crucial shift in a dialectical process the reversal of anticipation - not into its fulfillment, but - into retraction? If, therefore, the fulfilment never occurs in the Present, does this not testify to the irreducible status of objet a? The objet a (Lacan's little other) represents a negativity in the centre of subjectivity. The subject desires to fill the void of the objet a - an impossible task.
'Ceres', 1516, Raphael
Method is, therefore, a totality that is never complete, and this is why the circle always turns. 'The understanding being reached in the Logic thus turns out ... to be an underdetermination of what being is in truth: it tells us merely what being must first be understood to be' explains Stephen Houlgate. Absolute Knowing requires that there be a one-sided, unspiritual proposition to fill the gap that Method implies. Is Method analytical or synthetic in quality? Obviously it is both. Absolute Idea deals only with its own product - not with anything from the outside. It does not catch at circumstances, examples and comparisons, but [keeps] before it solely the things themselves and brings before consciousness what is immanent in them. The method of absolute cognition is to this extent analytic.
'The concrete totality which makes the beginning possesses as such, within it, the beginning of the advance and development. As concrete, it is differentiated in itself, but because of its initial immediacy, this first differentiation is to start with a diversity. However, as self-referring universality, as subject, the immediate is also the unity of this diversity. – This reflection is the first stage of the forward movement – the emergence of non-indifference, judgment, and determining in general. Essential is that the method find, and recognize, the determination of the universal within it. Whatever in this abstractive generation of the universal is left out of the concrete is then picked up, still externally, by the finite cognition of the understanding. This is how the latter operates. The absolute method, on the contrary, does not behave in this manner of external reflection but takes the determinate from its subject matter, for it is itself its immanent principle and its soul. – This is what Plato demanded of cognition, that it should consider things in and for themselves; on the one hand, that it should consider them in their universality; on the other hand, that it should not stray away from them while it grasps at circumstances, examples, and comparisons, but, on the contrary, should keep only them in view before it and bring to consciousness what is immanent in them. – To this extent the method of absolute cognition is analytic. That the method finds the further determinations of its initial universal simply and solely in this universal, constitutes the concept’s absolute objectivity, of which the method is the certainty. – Equally so, however, is the method synthetic, for its subject matter, while immediately determined as the simple universal, through the determinateness which it has in its very immediacy and universality, proves to be an other. Yet this connection in diversity that the subject matter is thus in itself, is no longer a synthesis as understood in finite cognition; the no less thoroughly analytic determination of the subject matter, the fact that the connection is within the concept, already distinguishes it fully from the latter synthesis'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
But within Absolute Idea is difference. Within its scope, its product appears as other, and it relates this other to itself. Such a synthesis, however, is no longer the same thing as is meant by synthetic in finite cognition; the mere fact of the subject matter's no less analytic determination in general, that the relation is relation within the Notion, completely distinguishes it from finite synthesis. A simple way to understand this is to consider Absolute Knowing as the negation of the negation. Immediacy is positive proposition.
Mediation is the first negation. The negation of the negation. Mediation cannot merely restore one-sided proposition. In a sense, it is something more - a synthesis of new material. In a sense, it is something less. Something more is needed to describe the absolute than the negation of the negation. There is a hole in the whole, which the Understanding tries to fill. This hole is none other than d - being-within-self. This d ends up being a negativity that motivates the never ending circular process of the Logic. It is the silent fourth that disturbs the unity of Absolute Idea, guaranteeing that the process never comes to rest. 'In the abstract element of logic, the Idea, which has developed from Pure Being, lacks being as the moment of external reality. This other of pure thought in which the Idea now freely puts itself forth is therefore sheer self-externality, sheer other-being' explains Mure.
Mediation
'Ceres', Théophile "Théo" van Rysselberghe (1862 – 1926)
Some further thoughts on Mediation and Immediacy The German for (the) middle is (die) Mitte. This generates an adjective mittel (middle) and another noun (das) Mittel (originally (the) middle, the thing in the middle, but now means, what serves the attainment of a purpose). It also generates several verbs, especially mitteln (to help someone to, to settle, mediate, e.g. a quarrel), which is now obsolete but has left mittelbar (mediate, indirect) and unmittelbar (immediate, direct), and vermitteln (to achieve union, mediate; to bring about, etc.). The past participle of vermitteln, vermittelt (mediated, indirect) is used in contrast to unmittelbar. Both give rise to abstract nouns, Vermittlung (mediation) and Unmittelbarkeit ('immediacy'). In non-Hegelian philosophy, unmittelbar is primarily an epistemological term. Immediate certainty is a certainty that is not mediated by inference or proof, or perhaps even by symbols or concepts. The main representative, for Hegel, of the doctrine of immediate certainty is not Descartes, but F. H. Jacobi, for whom knowledge of, or faith in, the reality of the phenomenal and supersensible worlds involved a certainty that neither needs nor admits of proof. This doctrine was opposed by Goethe ('The true is godlike; it does not appear immediately, we must ascertain it from its manifestations') and Hölderlin ('The immediate in the strict sense is impossible for mortals and immortals alike'), as well as by Hegel.
Immediacy also has a religious significance: God may reveal himself mediately, i.e. through the workings of nature, or immediately, i.e. by miracles or direct revelation (Offenbarung). But the religious significance of Vermittlung is more prominent: man cannot approach the divine without an intermediary, whether this be the symbols supplied by the Bible (John Scotus Erigena), a lengthy education (Lessing) or Christ himself (especially Nicholas of Cusa). In the Phenomenology, the mediator (der Vermittler) for Unhappy Consciousness is the priest, but in revealed (offenbare) religion it is Christ. The mediator forms the middle term of an inference uniting God and man. But any stark opposition between disparate terms is felt, especially by Hegel, to require mediation: not only God and man, but Mind and body, State and individual, etc. Thus in Hegel Vermittlung often refers to the uniting of two terms by a third term, e.g. the uniting of the Universal and the Individual in an inference by the Particular. But Vermittlung and Unmittelbarkeit are often used more widely. The immediate is unrelated to other things; simple; given; elementary; and/or initial. The mediated, by contrast, is related to other things; complex; explained; developed; and/or resultant. The mediation may be (1) physical (e.g. an acorn is immediate, but the oak tree is mediated by a process of growth); (2) epistemic (e.g. my knowledge of my own existence is immediate or direct, but my knowledge of God's is mediated or inferential); or (3) logical (e.g. pure Being is immediate, but Essence is mediated by a logical process).
The contrast between mediation and immediacy is itself an opposition that requires mediation, and the result of this, Hegel argues, is that nothing is purely immediate or purely mediated: everything is both at once. For example: 1. An acorn is mediated, as well as immediate, since it is the result of a previous cycle of growth, and the oak is immediate, as well as mediated, since it has a definite present character that can be seen and described without explicit reference to its relations with other things or to the process that led up to it. Something that lacked all immediacy would be nothing but a cross-section of a process or the intersection of a set of relations, with no intrinsic nature of its own. Something that lacked all mediation would have nothing but an intrinsic nature, with no relations to anything else and no process leading up to it; it would not even have an intrinsic nature, since all Determinancy depends on mediation.
2. My knowledge of my own existence is mediated by an education that makes me a Self-conscious being, a philosophical tradition that induces me to focus on my pure 'I', my relations with others that enable me to distinguish 'I' from 'you' and 'he', etc. My knowledge of God's existence or of any other inferred information is also immediate, since it is, e.g., knowledge of a definite piece of information, not just a cross-section of a process of inference, and the knowledge can subsequently be recalled and employed without constant recourse to the inference by which it originally arose.
3. Pure being is mediated, since our thinking of it is the culmination of the (non-logical) education described in the Phenomenology, and presupposes a special effort of Abstraction from empirical details. Conversely, essence is also immediate, since not only is it a definite stage of the logical Idea, it also involves a withdrawal into inner simplicity from the external complexity of Quality, Quantity and measure. Although mediate and immediate both apply to everything, Hegel nevertheless draws a distinction between things that are at least relatively immediate, such as the seed and being, and things that are relatively mediated, such as the tree and becoming. Something can be immediate in one of two ways: (1) It may be simply immediate, lacking the relevant type of mediation (e.g. being, the acorn). (2) It may be mediated, but sublate its mediation into immediacy: (a) The acorn from which the oak emerged, the process of its growth, and nutrition that fostered its growth are sublated in the immediacy of the oak tree; the butterfly newly emerged from its chrysalis has sublated its mediation.
(b) Descartes abstractedfrom his education and sublated it into the immediate awareness of his own existence. (From this standpoint he could even doubt that he had had such an education.) (c) Essence sublates its logical mediation into simple self-identity. The sublation of mediation into immediacy is similar to an entity's sublation of its own conditions. Both processes occur, on Hegel's view, in our knowledge of God. God Jacobi has argued is unmediated and unconditioned, while our knowledge of him is mediated and conditioned; thus either our cognition falls short of God or it degrades him to a mediated entity. The solution, Hegel replies, is that while both God and our cognition of him are mediated, they sublate their mediation into immediacy. Thus mediation and immediacy form not a dyadic opposition, but a triad: (1) Bare (but still relative) immediacy; (2) mediation; (3) mediated immediacy, in which an entity's mediation is taken up into it. This pattern is repeated: the mediated immediacy that concludes one triad is the bare immediacy that opens the next. The triads are also nested within each other: the largest triad, the universe as a whole, forms a circle of three terms (the logical Idea, Nature and Spirit, each of which in turn serves as bare immediacy, as mediating the other two terms, and as mediated immediacy. Hegel constantly attacks the doctrine that we have immediate access to the truth, whether by knowledge, feeling or faith: (a) All knowledge, like anything else, is mediated, as well as immediate, at least by education, etc. (b) Relatively immediate knowledge, etc., such as sensory certainty (see the Phenomenology) or Jacobi's immediate knowledge is defective: it leads to the impoverishment of the object of knowledge (since determinacy and complexity require mediation) and it implicitly contradicts itself, since its access to objects is intrinsically mediated by, e.g., universal terms such as 'this'. (c) The supposed defects of mediated cognition are dispelled by the sublation of mediation into immediacy.
'In the Critical Philosophy, thinking is interpreted as being subjective, and its ultimate, un surpassable determination is abstract universality, or formal identity; thus, thinking is set in opposition to the truth, which is inwardly concrete universality. In this highest determination of thinking, which is reason, the categories are left out of account. - From the opposed standpoint thinking is interpreted as an activity of the particular, and in that way, too, it is declared to be incapable of grasping truth'.
- 'The Encyclopaedia Logic'
Hegel's arguments are often obscured by the different levels of mediation and immediacy that come into play: e.g. absolute, wholly unmediated, immediacy (which never occurs), relatively bare immediacy, and mediated immediacy, in which mediation is internalized by the mediated entity. They also seem vitiated by his conflation of apparently distinct types of mediation and immediacy: e.g. physical or causal, epistemic and logical. (The fact that knowledge of my own existence presupposes various biological and educational mediations may not be thought to impair its status as immediate knowledge.) But the coincidence of physical, cognitive and logical processes is essential to Hegel's Idealism: absolute knowledge must accurately mirror the structure of the Object known.
'Ceres and Stellio', Adam Elsheimer (1578 – 1610). During her long, torch-lit search for her daughter, Proserpina, Ceres drinks water given her by Hecuba, and is mocked by the boy, Askalabos, for spilling some of it. She will transform him into a lowly star-lizard or newt (Latin; stellio) as punishment. See Ovid's 'Metamorphosis'. V. l 449-450. A bit harsh. But engaging in a long drawn out search for something so precious while elusive through a realm of shadows with merely a pitiful torch to lighten our way can make us somewhat touchy on being mocked.
Dedicated to my beautiful One my gorgeous mediator my priestess my Oracle who has escorted me thus far to reach the Absolute ....
Only you can make all this world seem right
Only you can make the darkness bright
Only you and you alone can thrill me like you do
And fill my heart with love for only you
Oh, only you can do make all this change in me
For it's true, you are my destiny
When you hold my hand I understand the magic that you do
You're my dream come true, my one and only you
Oh oh, only you can do make this change in me
For it's true, you are my destiny
When you hold my hand I understand the magic that you do
You're my dream come true, my one and only you
Coming up next:
Absolute Idea (continued)
To be continued ....