A Commentary to Hegel's Science of Also by David Gray Carlson

HEGEL'S THEORY OF THE SUBJECT A Commentary to Hegel's Science of Logic

David Gray Carlson

palgrave macmiUan © David Gray Carlson 2007 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007978-1-4039-8628-3 All rights reserved. No reproduction. copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced. copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence * permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WlT 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills. Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan of St. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-54073-0 ISBN 978-0-230-59890-4 (eBook) DOll 0.1 057/9780230598904 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Carlson, David (David Gray) A commentary to Hegel's Science of logic I David Gray Carlson. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-349-54073-0 1. Hegel. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. Wissenschaft der Logik. 2. Logic. I. Title. B2942.Z7C372006 160-dc22 2006046893

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 For Jeanne, my inspiration.

Contents

Acknowledgements xiii Introduction 1

Part I Quality 7

Chapter 1. -- 9 A. Pure Being 9 B. Pure Nothing 14 C. Becoming 15 (a) The Unity of Being and Nothing 15 With What Must Science Begin? 26 The Opposition of Being and Nothing in Ordinary Thinking 39 Defectiveness of the Expression: Unity, Identity of Being and Nothing 42 Incomprehensibility of the Beginning 44 (b) Moments of Becoming: Coming-to-Be and Ceasing-to-Be 46 (c) Sublation of Becoming 47 The Nature of HegeVs Logic 48

Chapter 2. Determinate Being 54 A. Determinate Being as Such 55 (a) Determinate Being in General 55 (b) Quality 57 (c) Something 63 B. Finitude 69 (a) Something and an Other 70 (b) Determination, Constitution and Limit 77 (c) Finitude 85 (a) The Immediacy of Finitude 86 (fi) Limitation and the Ought 86 The Ought 89 (y) Transition of the Finite into the Infinite 91 C. 93 (a) The Infinite in General 94 (b) Alternating Determination of the Finite and the Infinite 94 (c) Affirmative Infinity 97 Idealism 101

Chapter 3. Being-For-Self 103 A. Being-For-Self as Such 104 (a) Determinate Being and Being-For-Self 104

Vll viii Contents

(b) Being-For-One 106 Was fur ein Ding? 108 (c) The One 109 B. The One and the Many 111 (a) The One in Its Own Self 112 (b) The One and the Void 115 115 (c) Many Ones: Repulsion 117 C. Repulsion and Attraction 120 (a) Exclusion of the One 120 The Unity of the One and the Many 125 (b) The One One of Attraction 127 (c) The Relation of Repulsion and Attraction 129 Conclusion 134

Part II Quantity 137

Chapter 4. Pure Quantity 139 A. Pure Quantity 142 Quantitative Limit 145 Kanfs Second Antinomy 149 B. Continuous and Discrete Magnitude 153 C. Limitation of Quantity 155

Chapter 5. Quantum 157 A. Number 157 Geometry and 160 B. Extensive and Intensive Quantum 166 (a) Their Difference 166 (b) Identity of Extensive and Intensive Magnitude 169 (c) Alteration of Quantum 171 C. Quantitative Infinity 172 (a) Its 172 (b) The Quantitative Infinite Progress 174 The High Repute of the Progress to Infinity 175 Kant's Antinomy of the Limitation of and 111 (c) The Infinity of Quantum 179 181

Chapter 6. Quantitative Relation 183 A. The Direct Ratio 185 B. Inverse Ratio 186 C. The Ratio of Powers 189 Conclusion 192

Part III Measure 195

Chapter 7. Measure and Specific Quantity 197 A. The Specific Quantum 204 Contents ix

B. Specifying Measure 208 (a) Rule 208 (b) Specifying Measure 210 (c) Relation of the two Sides as Qualities 212 C. Being-For-Self in Measure 215

Chapter 8. Real Measure 218 A. The Relation of Self-Subsistent Measures 220 (a) Combination of Two Measures 220 (b) Measure as a Series of Measure Relations 225 (c) Elective Affinity 228 B. Nodal Line of Measure-Relations 230 C. The Measureless 234

Chapter 9. The Becoming of 239 A. Absolute Indifference 239 B. Indifference as Inverse Ratio of Its Factors 240 C. Transition into Essence 246 Conclusion 248

Part IV Reflection 249

Chapter 10. Illusory Being 251 A. The Essential and the Unessential 258 B. Illusory Being 261 C. Reflection 266 (a) Positing Reflection 268 (b) External Reflection 273 (c) Determining Reflection 274

Chapter 11. Determinations of Reflection 278 A. Identity 279 The First Original 281 B. Difference 284 (a) Absolute Difference 284 (b) Diversity 285 The Law of Diversity 289 (c) Opposition 290 Opposite Magnitudes in Arithmetic and Ethics 294 C. Contradiction 297 The Law of the Excluded Middle 302 The Law of Contradiction 303

Chapter 12 Ground 306 A. Absolute Ground 309 (a) Form and Essence 309 (b) Form and Matter 314 (c) Form and Content 317 B. Determinate Ground 318 x Contents

(a) Formal Ground 318 (b) Real Ground 322 (c) The Complete Ground 325 C. Condition 328 (a) The Relatively Unconditioned 328 (b) The Absolutely Unconditioned 331 (c) Emergence of the Fact [Sache] into 334 Conclusion 337

Part V Appearance 339

Chapter 13. Existence 341 A. The Thing and Its Properties 346 (a) The Thing-in-Itself and Existence 346 (b) Property 349 (c) The Reciprocal Action of Things 351 B. The Constitution of the Thing Out of Matters 354 C. Dissolution of the Thing 357

Chapter 14. Appearance 360 A. The Law of Appearance 361 B. The World of Appearance and the World-in-Itself 368 C. Dissolution of Appearance 372

Chapter 15. Essential Relation 375 A. Relation of Whole and Parts 376 B. Relation of Force and Its Expression 381 (a) The Conditionedness of Force 383 (b) The Solicitation of Force 384 (c) The Infinity of Force 386 C. The Relation of Outer and Inner 387

Part VI Actuality 391

Chapter 16. The Absolute 393 A. The Exposition of the Absolute 394 B. The Absolute Attribute 397 C. The Mode of the Absolute 398

Chapter 17. Actuality 402 A. Contingency 403 B. Real Actuality, Possibility, and Necessity 407 C. Absolute Necessity 410

Chapter 18. The Absolute Relation 414 A. The Relation of Substantiality 415 B. The Relation of Causality 418 (a) Formal Causality 419 (b) The Determinate Relation of Causality 420 Contents xi

(c) Action and Reaction 424 C. Reciprocity 426 Conclusion 431

Part VII Subjectivity 433

Chapter 19. The Notion 435 A. The Universal Notion 445 B. The Particular Notion 449 C. The Individual 454

Chapter 20. Judgment 459 A. The Judgment of Existence (Inherence) 464 (a) The Positive Judgment 466 (b) The Negative Judgment 469 (c) The Infinite Judgment 473 B. The Judgment of Reflection 477 (a) The Singular Judgment 478 (b) The Particular Judgment 479 (c) The Universal Judgment 480 C. The Judgment of Necessity 482 (a) The Categorical Judgment 483 (b) The Hypothetical Judgment 484 (c) The Disjunctive Judgment 486 D. The Judgment of the Notion 488 (a) The Assertoric Judgment 488 (b) The Problematic Judgment 490 (c) The Apodeictic Judgment 491

Chapter 21. Syllogism 495 A. The Syllogism of Existence 497 (a) IPU 498 (b) PIU 500 (c) IUP 502 (d) Mathematical Syllogism 503 B. The Syllogism of Reflection 505 (a) The Syllogism of Allness 505 (b) The Syllogism of Induction 507 (c) The Syllogism of Analogy 508 C. The Syllogism of Necessity 512 (a) The Categorical Syllogism 512 (b) The Hypothetical Syllogism 514 (c) The Disjunctive Syllogism 517

Part VIII Objectivity 521

Chapter 22. Mechanism 523 A. The Mechanical Object 526 B. The Mechanical Process 529 xii Contents

(a) The Formal Mechanical Process 530 (b) The Real Mechanical Process 532 (c) The Product of the Mechanical Process 535 C. Absolute Mechanism 536 (a) The Center 536 (b) Law 538 (c) Transition of Mechanism 539

Chapter 23. Chemism 541 A. The Chemical Object 542 B. The Chemical Process 543 C. Transition of Chemism 546

Chapter 24. Teleology 547 A. Subjective End 550 B. Means 552 C. The Realized End 553

Part IX Idea 561

Chapter 25. Life 563 A. The Living Individual 564 B. The Life-Process 567 C. Genus 569

Chapter 26. Cognition 572 A. The Idea of the True 576 (a) Analytic Cognition 579 (b) Synthetic Cognition 582 1. Definition 583 2. Division 587 3. Theorem 587 B. The Idea of the Good 588

Chapter 27. Absolute Idea 593

Chapter 28. Conclusion 604

Bibliography 608 Index 617 Appendix: The Steps of the Logic 629 Acknowledgements

I have incurred countless debts in producing this work. I owe much to eight years worth of students at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York who have suffered through a seminar on the Science of Logic and who never failed to teach me something about the subject. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the Cardozo Law School itself for allowing the course to be taught in the first place and for a research professorship that helped me finish this work in 2005. Thanks go to the editors of the Cardozo Law Review, who worked diligently to improve the preliminary versions of first nine chapters of this book, to my beloved partner Jeanne Schroeder, whose expertise in Hegel and Jacques Lacan (Hegel's modern disciple) have been a sine qua non of this project, to Arthur Jacobson, without whose patience and prodigious knowledge of Hegel and I could never have fathomed Hegel's seemingly endless commentary on the calculus, to Jon Heiner, who skeptically read this manuscript from an empiricist perspective, to Drucilla Cornell, who first convinced me that Hegel was worth the considerable investment in learning his vocabulary, to Cyn Gabriel, who worked diligently and faithfully for years on the artwork for this project, to John Burbidge, , Jean Hyppolyte, Herbert Marcuse, Robert Pippen, Stanley Rosen, Richard Dien Winfield, and Slavoj £i2ek (to mention just a few), whose works have been essential in expanding my understanding of the Science of Logic.

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