Notes on Hegel s Shorter Logic Introduction [T]hought will be satisfied with nothing short of showing the necessity of its

facts, of demonstrating the existence of its objects, as well as their nature and qualities (3). Thought first appears in the guise of its opposite, feeling.: [T]he strictly human and thought-induced phenomena of consciousness do not originally appear in the form of a thought, but as a feeling, a perception, or mental image all of which aspects must be distinguished from the form of thought proper (4). Feeling is the opposite of thought, but it is still thought. Some miss this, Hegel tells us, and associate thought only with what Hegel calls after-thought, reflective thinking, which has

to deal with thoughts as thoughts, and bring them into consciousness (4). But this a moment of thinking; feeling is also a moment of thinking. Hegel says of law, religion, and morality, for instance, that thinking is present therein under the guise of feeling, faith, or generalized image (5). [P]hilosophy should understand that its content is no other than actuality, that core of truth which, originally produced and producing itself within the precincts of the mental life, has become the world, the inward and outward world, of consciousness . [I]t may be held the highest and final aim of philosophic science to bring about, through the ascertainment of this harmony, a reconciliation of the selfconscious reason with the reason which is in the world actuality (8). in other words, with

The object of philosophy is the Idea: and the Idea is not so impotent as merely to have a right to exist without actually existing. The object of philosophy is an actuality of which those objects, social regulations and conditions, are only the superficial outside (10). reflection, reflective spirit began in Greece and came back with Luther (10)

The moment of truth of experience: The principle of Experience carries with it the unspeakably important condition that, in order to accept and believe any fact, we must be in contact with it; or, in more exact terms, that we must find the fact united and combined with the certainty of our own selves. We must be in touch with out subject-matter, whether it be by means of our external senses, or, else, by our profounder mind and our intimate self-consciousness (11). [I]n point of form the subjective reason desires a further satisfaction than empirical knowledge gives; and this form is, in the widest sense of the term, Necessity (11). Philosophy negates experience: Its point of departure is Experience; including under that name both our immediate consciousness and the inductions from it. Awakened, as it were, by this stimulus, thought is vitally characterized by raising itself above the natural state of mind, above the senses and inferences from the senses into its own unadulterated element, and by assuming, accordingly, at first a stand-aloof and negative attitude towards the point from which it started. Through this state of antagonism to the phenomena of sense its first satisfaction is found in itself, in the Idea of the universal essence of these phenomena: an Idea (the Absolute, or God) which may be more or less abstract (16). Philosophy begins by

negating experience towards the universal, towards the Idea but this involves abstraction. The whole of philosophy in this way resembles a circle of circles. The Idea appears in each single circle, but, at the same time, the whole is constituted by the system of these peculiar phases, and each is a necessary member of the organization (20). Hegel gives empirical, physics (quantum physics?), and history their due: It may happen, however, that empirical is an epithet applicable only to the form of scientific exposition, while intuitive sagacity has arranged what are mere phenomena, according to the essential sequence of the notion. In such a case the contrasts between the varied and numerous phenomena brought together serve to eliminate the external and accidental circumstances of their conditions, and the universal thus comes clearly into view. Guided by such an intuition, experimental physics will present the rational science of Nature as history will present the science of human of human affairs and actions in an external picture, which mirrors the philosophic notion (22).

Doctrine of Being Being, in itself, is nothing. At the same time, nothing is being. The thought of being yields the thought of sheer lack of determination. Sheer lack of determination is the same as nothing. At the same time, nothing, as the thought of sheer lack of

determination, is being. Being is nothing; nothing is being. Being and nothing collapse into unity. Becoming is the name for the passing-into-each-other of being and nothing. For becoming is just this: that what is not should be, and that what is should pass into not-being. The passing-into-each-other of being and nothing that is, becoming is utter restlessness. The utter restlessness of becoming is inconceivable, however, without the category of determinate being, specific being with specific qualities. For becoming is inconceivable if there is not something that becomes. In the explanation of becoming above, I said: becoming is just this: that what is not should be, and that what is should pass into not-being. Determinate being is the what in this sentence. It is clear that becoming needs determinate being because becoming makes so little sense without it. One might consider Schelling s account of God s creation of the world. See: The Indivisible Remainder: On Schelling and Related Matters, Slavoj Zizek. Being Determinate is (1) the unity of Being and Nothing, in which we get rid of the immediacy in these determinations, and their contradiction vanishes in their mutual connection the unity in which they are only constituent elements. And (2) since

the result is the abolition of the contradiction, it comes in the shape of a simple unity with itself: that is to say, it also is Being, but Being with negation or determinateness: it is Becoming expressly put in the form of one of its elements, viz. Being (133-134).

Thus Becoming stands before us in utter restlessness unable however to maintain itself in this abstract restlessness: for since Being and Nothing vanish in Becoming(and that is the very notion of Becoming), the latter must vanish also, Becoming is as it were a fire, which dies out in itself, when it consumes its material. The result of this process however is not an empty Nothing, but Being identical with the negation what we call Being Determinate (being then and there):the primary

import of which evidently is that it has become (134). Determinate being is identical with its negation because determination is negation: determination means saying at once what something is and what it is not. Until one knows what something is not, one does not know what something is, and vice versa. Determinate Being is Being with a character or mode which simply is; and such unmediated character is Quality (134). Quality may be described as the determinate mode immediate and identical with Being as distinguished from Quantity which, although a mode of Being, is no

longer immediately identical with Being, but a mode indifferent and external to it. How is quality the determinate mode immediate and identical with Being ? A something is what it is in virtue of its quality, and losing its quality it ceases to be what it is (134). Reality is mentioned, but little is said about it. Quality, as determinateness which is, as contrasted with the Negation [Hegel bolds this; I think it is the same as determinate negation, except opposed to quality rather than determinate being] which is involved in it but distinguished from it, is Reality (135). I see little use for

the category of reality. Another quote: If we go on to consider determinate Being as a determinateness which is, we get in this way what is called Reality (135). The somewhat s qualities are determined by the qualities it does not possess; its possession of certain qualities is simply the non-possession of the opposite of those qualities. Quality is thus being-for-another that is, being through another which is not the somewhat. The simple inherence of the qualities in the somewhat, without regard for the otherness that determines them, is being-by-self. This may be a typo. Hegel by hypertext has being-for-self written instead. But being-for-self is a category introduced later in the Doctrine of Being. I am not sure whether this is its introduction, or whether being-by-self is a different category than being-for-self. The foundation of all determination is negation (135). Determinate being internalizes negation with determinate negation insofar as the negation of a thing is part of its structure. Life is nothing other than the constant effort to push away death; the death of the thing is ultimately part of its life through this negative relation; this negative relation is ultimately a negative self-relation because life, by negating death, maintains a relationship with itself. Determinate being is identical with determinate negation because determination means establishing the difference between (the) being and not-being (of a somewhat). The difference between determinate being and determinate negation the difference which determines determinate being and determinate negation is a limit. It is the limit of the somewhat that is, of the determinate being. The limit of a

somewhat s being is its not-being, that is, its negation, which, as the negation that belongs to the somewhat, is determinate negation. In Being (determinate there and then), the determinateness is one with Being; yet at the same time, when explicitly made a negation, it is a Limit, a Barrier. Hence the otherness is not something indifferent and outside it, but a function proper to it (136). Somewhat is by its quality, firstly finite, secondly alterable; so that finitude and variability [alterability] appertain to its being (136). Concerning alterability, Hegel has simply this to say: that any change that happens to the somewhat is not external to it but internal to it. A somewhat s negation is inside it. Change is internal to the somewhat because change implies negation negation of some parts of the somewhat, and therefore of the somewhat as the somewhat that it is. Hegel pairs finitude with alterability. It seems that finitude means undergoing alteration upon meeting the other. A living thing dies, and this is because death is inherent to life as the latter s other. Yet death changes life; life does not subsist in death, its other. Thus, it is finite. All things with limits, and therefore all determinate beings, are finite. All determinate beings change upon meeting the other. The relationship to the other is for determinate beings determined by their determinate being, that is, by their determinate being, that is, by the limit that establishes the difference between a thing s being and its not-being. Thus, to be a determinate being is to be limited; to be limited is to be finite.

Plato says: God made the world out of the nature of the one and the other : having brought these together, he formed from them a third, which is of the nature of the one and the other. In these words we have in general terms a statement of the nature of the finite, which, as something, does not meet the nature of the other as if it had no affinity to it, but, being implicitly the other of itself, thus undergoes alteration. Alteration thus exhibits the inherent contradiction which originally attaches to determinate being, and wich forces it out of its own bounds. To materialized conception existence stands in the character of something solely positive, and quietly abiding within its own limits: thought we also know, it is true, that everything finite (such as existence) is subject to change. Such changeableness in existence is to the superficial eye a mere possibility, the realization of which is not a consequence of its own nature. But the fact is, mutability lies in the notion of existence, and change is only the manifestation of what it implicitly is. The living die, simply because as living they bear in themselves the germ of death (136-137). I said above: A living thing dies, and this is because death is inherent to life as the latter s other. Yet death changes life; life does not subsist in death, its other. Thus, it is finite. The change life undergoes when meeting its other, death, might be understood in a different way than just the death of the living thing. It might be understood as being-towards-death: life changes when it realizes that death is its other, when it establishes a relationship to death as its other. This suggests that life and death are originally out-of-sync, even though they are each other s others. Life may not know consciously; it may know unconsciously that death is its own other, its limit, its negation. This makes sense: it would only be possible for a

somewhat to meet its other if they had not already met, if their meeting were only implicit, as Hegel said above ( change is only the manifestation of what implicitly is ). The implicit nature of the relationship between a thing and its other is crucial, for if a thing were explicitly its other than there would be a simple immediacy, and no change would be possible. Something becomes an other; this other is itself somewhat; therefore it likewise becomes an other, and so on ad infinitum (137). There is a something. But the something is what it is by virtue of not being something else. It contains this something else, its other, inside itself, and its relationship to the other is a negative self-relation. What is this other that is inside the something and which makes the something what it is by virtue of the something not being the other? This other is itself a somewhat. Rinse, lather, repeat. For reasons explained above, this process can only be done with finite things. What, then, is infinite? One might suggest that infinite is the going-through of this process with every finite thing. But this is impossible because every finite thing leads onto another finite thing, forever. Since it would be impossible to go through every finite thing to every other finite thing, this infinite would be a mere ideal the idea of going through every finite thing, even though that would be absurd. This infinite is an empty idea, an ideal; this infinite marks an ought: one ought to be able to go through every finite thing, but one cannot the idea of doing that, the ought that cannot be followed through with, is this infinite. Thus, this infinite is the bad infinite, or spurious infinite. [T]his infinite only expresses the ought-to-be

elimination of the finite. The progression to infinity never gets further than a statement of the contradiction involved in the finite, viz. that it is somewhat as well as somewhat else (137(. What we now in point of fact have before us, is that somewhat comes to be an other, and that the other generally comes to be an other. Thus essentially relative to another, somewhat is virtually an other against it: and since what is passed into is quite the same as what passes over, since both have one and the same attribute, viz. to be an other, it follows that something in its passage into other only joins with itself. To be thus self related in the passage, and in the other, is the genuine Infinity. Or, under a negative aspect: what is altered is the other, it becomes the other of the other, Thus Being, but as negation of the negation, is restored again: it is now Beingfor-self (138-139). Infinity and being-for-self are related this lets us see the importance of

immanence to Hegel s thought. We get at the category of the infinite when the finite is understood as containing the infinite within it; that is, when the finite is understood as an essential part of the Absolute that is, the infinite. When the finite accepts its finitude, its limit, as its own self, as necessary; when the something regards it other as its own self, and its own self as its own other then the infinite manifests (in the finite). The infinite is the necessity of the finite, the hard fact that the finite is finite, and the necessity that each determinate being is the determinate being it is. Behind the finite is the infinite. God is (in) the world.

Being-for-self is the persistence of being-self in becoming-other. Being-for-self emerges when the somewhat is no longer regarded as a conglomerate of qualities but as an absent point (of negativity? does subjectivity emerge here?) that has attached to it certain qualities, then other qualities, then others all the time interacting with qualities in general as if they were other than it, yet accepting this as necessary in order for it, the absent point, to be. Because all quality is other, any specific quality shift away from a given quality shift that is, alteration does not involve moving from self to other. It is a shift from self to self, or, what is the same, from other to other. In this way is being-for-self the negation of the negation. In Being-for-self enters the category of Ideality. Being-there-and-then, as in the first instance apprehended in its being or affirmation, as reality; and thus even finitude in the first instance is in the category of reality. But the truth of the finite is rather its ideality. Similarly, the infinite of understanding [bad, spurious infinite], which is coordinated with the finite, is itself only one of two finites, no whole truth, but a substantial element. This ideality of the finite is the chief maxim of philosophy; and for that reason every genuine philosophy is idealism (140). Being-for-self, as reference to itself, is immediacy, and as reference of the negative to itself, is a self-subsistent, the One. This unit, being without distinction in itself, thus excludes the other from itself (141). So, there is an absent point (of negativity?) that has qualities attach to itself. These qualities are other than it; it is only by virtue of taking on these qualities, wearing otherness like clothing. Thus is otherness overcoming. But with the absent point (of

negativity) there is another immediacy, another thing that seems self-sufficient, stable, excluding otherness. When this fact, implicit in the category of being-for-self, is recognized, we have arrived at the category of the One. Defining sublation: We mean by it (1) to clear away, or annul: thus, we say, a law or a regulation is set aside; (2) to keep, or preserve: in which sense we use it when we say: something is well put by. This double usage of language, which gives to the same word a positive and negative meaning, is not an accident, and gives no ground for reproaching language as a cause of confusion. We should rather recognize in it the speculative spirit of our language rising above the mere either-or of understanding (142). [T]he One forms the presupposition of the Many: and in the thought of the One is implied that it explicitly make itself Many (142). The one relates to itself. Self-relation already suggests that the self is more than one: the one relates to the one, but the relating one must be different from the related one. The one, in order to relate to itself, must distinguish itself from the others. The relating one relates to the related one; this suggests that there are many ones that the relating one might relate to ones different from the one it is related to. Thus, out of one there is Many. The one is the one by virtue of its relating to one rather than to many. But the many are all ones themselves. The relating one is necessarily different from the related one. The one becomes the one by relating to itself rather than to the many. But this contains the admission that in-itself the one is the many, since the one would, without its self-relation, be the

many. The one is the one by virtue of repulsion: it repels itself away from itself in order to relate to itself; it repels itself away from itself because in itself it is the many; the one s self relation is mediated by repulsion, which is at once selfrepulsion and repulsion of the many it is the repulsion of the many in the one. But the many are all ones. They all repel; they all are ones only through repulsion. Because all of the ones are repelling, repulsion can be seen to be, at the same time, attraction. All of the ones, in repelling one another (and themselves), might be said to be attracted to something at the very least, attracted to this repulsion (but

why? that is the question understanding repulsion as attraction allows us to ask better, or at least differently). With the one and the many we are now talking about being that is indifferent to its character, or mode, but is rather an absent point (of negativity) or absent pointS (of negativity?). This is the defining feature of quantity: Quantity is pure being, where the mode or character is no longer taken as one with the being itself, but explicitly put as superseded or indifferent (145).