TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0001
[logic, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Science of Logic, rationalism, dialectical ontology, analytical philosophy, metaphilosophy, nihilism, monism, dualism]
This book offers a new interpretation of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Science of Logic in order to elucidate the problem that underlies Hegel’s critique of traditional rationalism. It examines issues such as Hegelian dialectical ontology and its relation to the broader theoretical doctrines of post-Tractarian analytical philosophy, or whether modern science is itself dialectical. It analyzes Hegel’s dialectico-speculative logic and his rejection of formalism, along with his attitude towards metaphilosophy in the context of philosophy. It discusses three main problems, central to the history of Western philosophy, which Hegel claims to solve without resorting to traditional or nondialectical thinking: the problem of analysis, the problem of reference, and whether there is a logic that is appropriate to the conceptualization of the unity of the process of life. These three problems can be reformulated into one general problem: how to overcome the nihilism resulting from Eleatic monism on one hand, and of Platonic-Aristotelian dualism on the other. (pages 1 - 10)
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The Historical Context - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0002
[logic, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, history, philosophy, rationalism, nihilism, Plato, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, religion]
This chapter examines Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s understanding of the history of European philosophy in order to elucidate the spirit or inner dynamic of his solution to the problem of traditional rationalism. More specifically, it analyzes Hegel’s doctrine of the coincidence of history and logic as part of his attempt to overcome modern nihilism. It looks at Hegel’s view of Plato and Aristotle, his reference to Immanuel Kant in his presentation of logic, and his argument that the crucial feature of the Cartesian revolution is the doctrine of subjectivity. The chapter discusses René Descartes’s account of the dualism of mind and body, as well as Hegel’s adaptation of the Kantian doctrine of pure reason and asymptotic development toward an infinitely distant historical resolution of human suffering. Finally, it considers the role of religion, particularly the Christian interpretation of divine and human history, in Hegel’s account of human experience. (pages 11 - 28)
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The Prefaces - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0003
[logic, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Science of Logic, truth, rationalism, French Revolution, reason, deductive thinking, language, philosophy]
This chapter examines the two prefaces of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Science of Logic dated March 1812 and November 1831, respectively. It first considers the Hegelian notions of truth, rationalism, and logic, as well as the Hegelian standpoint between the French Revolution of 1789 and the revolution of 1968. It then turns to a discussion of Hegel’s distinction between two different types of reason: dialectical reason and positive reason. It also discusses the laws of deductive thinking, which it argues are “violated” because they cannot themselves be grasped conceptually except as developing dialectically. Finally, the chapter analyzes Hegel’s arguments about language, unification, and the history of philosophy. (pages 29 - 52)
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The Introduction - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0004
[logic, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Science of Logic, natural experience, Parmenides, Aristotle, philosophy, truth, validity, science]
This chapter examines the ideas put forward by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in the Introduction to his Science of Logic. First, it discusses the argument that the ancients were in direct contact with natural experience owing to the absence of a philosophical tradition that would separate or mediate the two. Second, it considers the ancients’ conceptualization of natural experience within the context of dialectico-speculative logic. Third, it cites the Platonic dialogue Parmenides as an example of what Hegel has in mind, along with Aristotle’s first philosophy (prote philosophia) or metaphysics. It also looks at Hegel’s distinction between his logic and that of the tradition, which he does by repudiating the distinction between truth and validity. Finally, the chapter explores Hegel’s claim that the content of pure science—that is, of logic—is “objective thinking” rather than something purely formal in the traditional sense of the term. (pages 53 - 68)
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The Beginning of Logical Science - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0005
[logic, science, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Science of Logic, cognition, experience, rationalism, essence, appearance, being]
This chapter examines the difference between subjective and objective logic, as well as the notion that the science of logic is devoid of presupposition. To this end, the details of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s logic as he explains in detail in his Science of Logic are discussed. It first considers Hegel’s claim that to speak of beings that are cognized as they exist independently of cognition is to contradict oneself, and how this contradiction of the natural consciousness leads to the development of dialectical logic. The chapter then restates the development leading up to the science of logic, the concept of experience in the context of traditional rationalism, and Hegel’s view of essence as appearance and vice versa. The chapter concludes by analyzing Hegel’s preliminary sketch of the universal division of the treatment of being. (pages 69 - 100)
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From Being to Existence - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0006
[logic, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Science of Logic, science, Martin Heidegger, being, Immanuel Kant, quality, nothing, pure thinking]
This chapter focuses on section 1, “Determinateness (Quality),” of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Science of Logic. It first considers logic in the Hegelian sense as the science of science, given that the literal meaning of “science” is “knowing.” It then turns to a discussion of Martin Heidegger’s criticism of the universal concept of being and compares it to Hegel and Immanuel Kant’s theses. It also examines Hegel’s priority for quality over quantity and his argument that being and nothing are both qualities—that is, they are logical determinations. Furthermore, the chapter analyzes the expression “pure thinking” in relation to being, as well as being in the context of the science of logic, the emptiness of pure being as opposed to the emptiness of pure nothing, and the Hegelian explanation of becoming in terms of space and time. (pages 101 - 122)
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Transitional Remarks - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0007
[logic, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, being, nothing, Science of Logic, existence, becoming, emergence, departure, Dasein]
This chapter summarizes Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s argument on being and nothing which he explains in detail in his Science of Logic. It examines the logic of Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell with regards to the distinction between “being” and “existence,” the absence of all content of a concept as opposed to the absence of the concept itself, and Hegel’s analysis of becoming. In particular, it considers the Hegelian account of the two moments of becoming, emergence and departure, and their reciprocal transformation into each other as well as the logical transition to the sublation of becoming in Dasein (that is, determinate being). The chapter concludes with a discussion of Das Fürsichsein or being for itself. (pages 123 - 160)
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Quantity - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0008
[logic, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, quantity, Science of Logic, being, continuum, quality, form, Immanuel Kant, quantum]
This chapter summarizes Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s concept of quantity which he explains in detail in his Science of Logic. It first provides an overview of the general structure of book 1 of the Science of Logic and its discussion of the three levels of the structure of being, namely, determinateness or quality, magnitude or quantity, and measure. It ten examines Hegel’s account of the infinitesimal in early nineteenth-century versions of the calculus, the distinction between human time and the so-called transcendental activity of the absolute, quantity as a moment of the continuum, and the Hegelian notion of form. The chapter also considers Immanuel Kant’s understanding of the antinomies and Hegel’s insistence that Kant has not attained to dialectical logic. Finally, it analyzes quantum, “how much,” as a moment of quantity. (pages 161 - 190)
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Quantitative Relation - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0009
[reflection, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, quantitative relation, Science of Logic, quantity, quality, essence, substance, John Locke, Johann Gottlieb Fichte]
This chapter examines Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s concept of quantitative relation which he explains in detail in his Science of Logic. It begins with an overview of Hegel’s treatment of quantity in relation to quality, as well as his account of essence or substance. Drawing on the earlier work of John Locke and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, it discusses Hegel’s analysis of reflection. It considers Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre or Doctrine of Science (1794), with emphasis on his interpretation of the three laws of thought: identity, difference, and the ground—his version of the law of noncontradiction. The chapter concludes by citing defects in the Fichtean formulation of reflection from a Hegelian perspective. (pages 191 - 206)
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Transition to Book Two - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0010
[monism, dualism, essence, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Science of Logic, logic, philosophy, property, quantity, quality]
Whereas book 1 of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Science of Logic can be understood as the analysis of Greek ontology prior to Plato, book 2 deals with the notion of essence and like book 1, is dubbed the objective logic by Hegel. This chapter begins with a discussion of monism and dualism before turning to the Hegelian interpretation of the history of philosophy with respect to the traditional doctrine of essence and attributes. It considers Aristotle’s account of essence and property and the case of points on the logical continuum. It also discusses Hegel’s argument that it is impossible to conceive of pure quantity and restates the central theoretical flaw of pre-Socratic philosophy—that is, quality and quantity can be neither distinguished nor unified. Finally, the chapter interprets the transition from book 1 to book 2 as a shift from being to essence. (pages 207 - 230)
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The Fichtean Background - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0011
[logic, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Science of Logic, being, essence, concept, reflection, law of noncontradiction, Immanuel Kant]
This chapter focuses on Johann Gottlieb Fichte as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s immediate predecessor and the second volume of Science of Logic, in which Hegel introduces book 2 on Wesen. It first analyzes Hegel’s general doctrine of the shift from being to essence on the one hand, and from essence to the concept on the other, before turning to Fichte’s account of reflection in his Wissenschaftslehre or Doctrine of Science (1794). In particular, it examines Fichte’s attempts to correct the defect of Immanuel Kant’s version of Kantianism through an intellectual intuition of the working transcendental ego. The chapter then considers Fichte’s notion of the human being before concluding with a discussion of Fichte and Hegel’s search for a version of the law of noncontradiction based on both identity and difference. (pages 231 - 254)
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The Nature of Essence - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0012
[essence, predication, properties, discursive intelligence, intuitive intelligence, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, reflection, John Locke, becoming, ego]
This chapter explores the nature of essence and the linguistic activity known as predication to designate the properties of something. It first considers the notion that rational discourse depends upon the arrangement of properties into patterns that make up internally structured unities before turning to an analysis of discursive intelligence as opposed to intuitive intelligence. It then examines Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s account of essence and reflection, John Locke’s argument on the consequences of the failure of intellectual intuition, and the traditional rationalist philosophy that treats essence as both separate from and defined via its attributes. Finally, the chapter looks at the Hegelian claim that the laws of reflection are derived from the continuous inner development of becoming, rather than expressed in terms of the activity of the ego. (pages 255 - 282)
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Contradiction - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0013
[logic, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, contradiction, identity, difference, rationalism, positivity, negativity, reflection, arbitrariness]
This chapter examines Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s doctrine of contradiction, first by reconsidering the concepts of identity and difference and Hegel’s acknowledgement of the validity of the laws or principles of formal reasoning within ordinary discourse. It makes a distinction between the laws of the understanding and the laws of reason, referring to the Hegelian situation as dialectical and to traditional rationalism as ordinary. It then turns to a discussion of functional logic as well as the Hegelian account of moments of identity and difference, or positivity and negativity, in relation to reflection. The chapter also analyzes the notions of arbitrariness and negativity and whether they should be treated as the source or the ground for the absolute. (pages 283 - 306)
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Absolute Ground - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0014
[essence, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, ground, Science of Logic, identity, difference, contradiction, appearance, form, matter]
This chapter examines the first of the three subsections devoted by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to the analysis of the ground in his Science of Logic in order to obtain a general understanding of the structure of ground and grounded. It considers the structure of every existing entity in the context of identity and difference and their assimilation within contradiction, as well as contradiction as the sublation of identity and difference in relation to the process of becoming. It also discusses the continuum of moments, the dialectic of essence and appearance, and the transformation of “something” and “another” into appearances (and hence into forms). In addition, the chapter explores the argument that essence is the unity of ground and grounded before concluding with an analysis of the Hegelian doctrine of form and matter. (pages 307 - 324)
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Foundationalism and Antifoundationalism - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0015
[foundationalism, antifoundationalism, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, essence, ground, being, thinking, world, Science of Logic]
This chapter examines Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s argument about foundationalism and antifoundationalism in his Science of Logic, especially his insistence that the former is equivalent to the external reflection by which essence is distinguished in non-dialectical logics from its appearances or properties. After offering some general remarks about the ground, the chapter discusses Hegel’s repudiation of the two standard philosophical procedures of attempting to explain the world from the outside: first by means of a transcendent first principle or foundation, and second from the inside. It also expounds on Hegel’s acceptance of the traditional Parmenidean claim that being and thinking are the same. Finally, the chapter looks at the structure of the ground from two perspectives: as origin or process and as demonstrated within its product. (pages 325 - 348)
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Appearance - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0016
[existence, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, essence, Science of Logic, being, subjectivity, thinking, God, appearance]
This chapter examines Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s argument that existence is the totality of the categorial determinations of essence, based on his initial statement in section 2 of book 2 of the Science of Logic that “essence must appear.” It also discusses Hegel’s implicit claim that the development of being as essence is the same as the development of subjectivity, as well as his fundamental thesis that being cannot be separated from thinking. For Hegel, essence and existence are distinct logical categories, although the former “goes over” into the latter. The chapter analyzes the debate over the proof of God’s existence based on the Hegelian doctrine before concluding with comments on the idea that existence is the dialectic of appearance. (pages 349 - 364)
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Actuality - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0017
[actuality, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Science of Logic, essence, existence, Sache, absolute, Baruch Spinoza, attribute, contingency]
This chapter examines Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s remark in his Science of Logic that “actuality is the unity of essence and existence,” and that essence is “shapeless” because it is the inner unity of genesis. For Hegel, the shapes or forms inhere in the products of genesis, in the grounded Sache, rather than in the ground as the unity of formation process. This chapter discusses Hegel’s conception of the whole and its striking similarity to Aristotle’s idea of intellect (nous), along with his use of the term “absolute” in section 3 of book 2 as opposed to the expression “the absolute idea.” It also analyzes the Hegelian interpretation of Baruch Spinoza’s definition of attribute as the manner in which understanding grasps essence. The chapter concludes with a section on contingency as a logical category. (pages 365 - 390)
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Introduction to Book Three - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0018
[logic, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Science of Logic, concept, being, thinking, absolute, substance, actuality, cognition]
This chapter examines Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s claim at the end of book 2 of the Science of Logic that the particular, as the identity of universality and individuality, is the concept, “the domain of subjectivity or of freedom.” It analyzes what Hegel means by this statement in terms of conceptual thinking, specifically his argument that being and thinking are the same from the outset with respect to their form or structure of intelligibility. It also considers the Hegelian conception of the absolute and substance as subject before turning to an overview of book 3 of the Science of Logic. In particular, it discusses Hegel’s “objective” logic and its relation to the categorial structure of actuality, his assertion that the Concept is the absolute foundation or subjective presupposition, and the distinction between cognition and sensation. The chapter concludes by commenting on Hegel’s distinction of unity from difference or determination. (pages 391 - 408)
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Subjectivity - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0019
[subjectivity, objectivity, idea, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Science of Logic, philosophy, concept, judgment, syllogism, individuality]
This chapter examines book 3 of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Science of Logic and its division into three sections: subjectivity, objectivity, and the idea. It first expresses this division in terms of the history of philosophy before turning to a discussion of concept, judgment, and syllogism. More specifically, it considers the problem faced by Hegel: how to distinguish between true and false perceptual judgments. It then analyzes the Concept as the universality of totality, with reference to Hegel’s assertion that clarity and obscurity are in the eye of the beholder, rather than in the structure of the Concept. The chapter also looks at individuality, the third of the three united aspects of the Concept, before concluding with a discussion of the assignment of the universal to the predicate position and the individual to the subject position. (pages 409 - 422)
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Judgment - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0020
[judgment, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, existence, reflection, necessity, concept, Science of Logic, individuality, universality, syllogism]
This chapter examines the distinction among four kinds of judgment according to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: those of existence, reflection, necessity, and the concept. Hegel devotes one major subsection to each of these judgments in the Science of Logic, with the chapter on judgment deviating significantly from the norm. This chapter begins by revisiting the central point about contradiction, particularly Hegel’s distinction between identity and predication in the formalist or nondialectical senses of those terms. It then moves to a discussion of the Hegelian perspective on the relation between subject and predicate as a judgment that links individuality and universality and concludes by considering Hegel’s argument that “conclusion” and “syllogism” are equivalent. (pages 423 - 450)
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Objectivity - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0021
[logic, Science of Logic, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, subjectivity, objectivity, existence, God, immediacy, mechanism, chemism]
In the Science of Logic, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel relates the transition from subjectivity to objectivity to the ontological proof for the existence of God. The traditional ontological argument neither views man as God nor equates human thought with the thinking of God, an assumption made by Hegel about the Science of Logic. This chapter examines Hegel’s logic on objectivity, particularly his assertion that the shift from the concept of God to his existence does not appear to be the same as that from the concept into objectivity, but that the logical process is indifferent to the content. It also discusses the Hegelian perspective about immediacy, the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity, and mechanism and chemism. (pages 451 - 464)
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The Idea - Stanley Rosen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226065915.003.0022
[becoming, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Science of Logic, essence, appearance, idea, reason, truth, life, soul]
This book has articulated the structure of becoming based on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s arguments in his Science of Logic. It has also looked at Hegel’s explanation about the contradiction between essence and accident, appearance and reality, phenomenon and noumenon, law and instance, or form and content, in the context of becoming. In this chapter, Hegel’s notion of the idea is discussed. In particular, the chapter examines the idea as the actualization of reason understood as both subject and object. It also considers Hegel’s three definitions of the idea: the idea as the simple truth and life as the universal medium of the idea, the idea as soul, and the idea as absolute truth. (pages 465 - 486)
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