LOGIC AND SYSTEM A STUDY OF THE TRANSITION FROM "VORSTELLUNG" TO THOUGHT IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL by M. CLARK SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V LOGIC AND SYSTEM LOGIC AND SYSTEM A STUDY OF THE TRANSITION FROM "VORSTELLUNG" TO THOUGHT IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL by MALCOLM CLARK • SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V © 1971 by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Ursprünglich erschienen bei Martinus NijhojJ, The Hague, Netherlands 1971 All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form ISBN 978-94-011-9713-7 ISBN 978-94-011-9711-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-9711-3 T ABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE IX INTRODUCTION I. Three contemporary studies of Hegel 2 a. J. Hyppolite 2 b. Theodor Litt 7 c. G. R. G. Mure 9 d. Summary 14 2. The situation ofthis study 15 a. The purpose 15 b. The title 16 c. The method 18 PART I "VORSTELLUNG" AND THOUGHT 21 CHAPTER I THE DESCRIPTION OF VORSTELLUNG 23 I. The meaning ofmeaning 23 2. Thought as Vorstellung 26 a. "Das mittlere Element" 27 b. Contingent and abstract 29 c. Space and time 30 d. Meaning as "Meinung" 32 3. Thought and Vorstellung 35 a. Transition to formal thought 35 b. "Verstand" and "Vernunft" 37 c. The return to Vorstellung 38 CHAPTER II THE PLACE OF VORSTELLUNG IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPIRIT 40 I. Meaning and place 40 VI T ABLE OF CONTENTS 2. The dialectic in nature and spirit 44 a. Soul and nature 45 b. Space and time 46 The double character of time (47) - The appearance of space (48) - The appearance oftime (49) c. Place 50 3. Intuition (Anschauung) 51 a. The place of intuition 5 I b. The totality of intuition 53 c. Attention (Aufmerksamkeit) 54 4. Vorstellung 55 a. Recapitulation 55 b. Transition to Vorstellung 56 c. Recollection (Erinnerung) 57 Temporality of the subject (58) - Verification: the synthesis of Vorstel- lung (59) d. Imagination (Einbildungskraft) 60 Recapitulation (60) - The syntheses ofimagination (62) -Verballanguage (63) -Dimensions oftime (64) e. Memory (Gedächtnis) 65 f. Transition to thought 66 CHAPTER III THE LOGIC OF ESSENCE 68 I. Vorstellung and essence 68 2. The place of essence 71 a. The two principles of division in the Logic 71 The three "Books" (71) - Objective and subjective logic (72) - Externality within the Logic (74) b. The logic ofbeing 75 Dialectic without relations (76) - Intuition and indifference (77) - The totality ofbeing (78) c. Transition to essence 79 Essence and common sense (79) - Transition as reflection (80) - Double sense of reflection (83) - Language and the double categories of essence (84) d. Development to actuality 86 The growth of a totality (87) - Veri/ication and recognition (88) e. Transition to the notion 89 3. Essence as reflection into itself 91 a. Essential and unessential: "Schein" 93 The presupposition of being (94) - The positing of being (95) b. Positing reflection 96 Positing and presupposing (97) - The "in so far" (99) c. External reflection 101 The origin of Vorstellung (10 I) - Thought as historical (102) T ABLE OF CONTENTS VII d. Contradiction lOS The principle of contradiction (lOS) - The final stage ofthought (107) e. Ground 11 0 Self-grounding of the totality (111) - The nature and element of spirit (114) - Transition (I IS) PART 11 LOGIC AND SYSTEM 117 CHAPTER IV DEVELOPMENT TOWARD SYSTEM 119 I. The problem re-stated 119 2. Dualism and system 121 3. The "Jugendschriften" and origins ofthe system 124 a. Tübingen, Berne, Frankfurt 124 First attitude to positivity (124) - Second attitude to positivity (12S) - Reconciliation (126) - "Glauben und Sein" (127) - "Systemfragment" (128) b. Publications at Jena 129 Transition to philosophy (129) - Philosophy as system (129) - Scepti- cism, common sense, and philosophy (131) - Attitude to Fichte and Schelling ("Differenzschrift") (133) - Attitude to Kant ("Glauben und Wissen") (13S) c. The Jena "systems" 137 Their content (137) - The principles of division (138) - Conc1usions (141) d. Origin of the Phenomenology 142 CHAPTER V TIm SYSTEM IN THE ELEMENT OF VORSTELLUNG 146 I. Recapitulation 146 2. Absolute spirit in the form ofVorstellung ISI a. Transition to absolute spirit ISI Finite and absolute spirit (ISI) - Identity of subjective and objective (I S3) - Identity of form and content (I SS) b. Development in absolute spirit I S6 Religion as development (IS6) - Temporal development (IS8) c. The "other" of thought IS9 The three elements of religion (IS9) - Relation to the duality of essence (162) d. Spirit as result and as origin 16S "Offenbarung" and "Erhebung" (16S) - Logic and Phenomenology (166) 3. System in the form ofVorstellung 168 a. The notion of system 168 b. Thethreeelements 16g c. The element of thought 172 Transition in thought and from thought (172) - The ontological argu- VIII TADLE OF CONTENTS ment (174) - Relation to essence (176) - Result and origin (177) d. The element ofVorstellung 178 The "other" of thought (179) - The need of reconciliation (180) - Trans- ition to spirit (182) e. The element of spirit 183 The situation of philosophy (184) - The final identity (187) f. System and history 189 CHAPTER VI THE SYSTEM IN THE ELEMENT OF THOUGHT: CONCLUSION 194 I. Circularityand criticism 194 2. System and syllogism 197 a. The doctrine ofthe syllogism 197 b. The triad of syllogisms 200 c. The mediating syllogism 202 3. The place ofthe Logic in the system 203 a. System 203 The need of system (203) - The thought of totality (203) - The transitions (204) b. Logic 205 Ambiguity and autonomy (205) - Explanation and verification (205) - Thought and experience (206) c. Place 206 The situation of man (207) - Man's "element" (207) - The history of man's thought (209) BIBLIOGRAPHY 210 ApPENDIX 213 PREFACE This book will examine one of the oldest problems in understanding what Hegel was trying to do. What is the place ofthe Logic in the Hegelian system? That is, how did Hegel see the relation between "pure thought" and its origins or applications in our many forms of experience? A novel approach to this old question has been adopted. This book will study Hegers account of what he regarded as the dosest "illustrations" of pure thinking, namely the way we find our thought in language and the way philosophieal truths are expressed in religious talk. The preface will indicate the problem and the approach. The introduction will examine three recent works on Hegel and suggest how they invite the sort of study which is pro posedhere. There was a time when Hegel was read as the source of all wisdom, a time also when he was treated only as an occasion of ridicule. Both are now past. The attitude of metaphysicians is more cautious, that oftheir opponents more receptive. Each side is better prepared to allow those who hold an assured place in the history of philosophy to speak for themselves and reveal their achievements and their limits. In this atmosphere there is special reason, on both sides, for the study of Hege!. No one has made such extreme claims for metaphysical thought and developed it so extensively and systematieally. No one has demanded more from posterity in the criticism of such thought. In one sense, Hegers position may be stated quite briefly. For hirn, to be a metaphysician is to recognize that thinking is not finally distinct from that about whieh we think. What is "there" is there only as experienced, and our many ways of experiencing culminate in the pure thought of the philosopher. Philosophy is not "about" a foreign reality. Philosophy is reality. Better ex pressed, philosophy is the way we gradually master or see through the many oppositions we find or assurne. These are not simply denied. Our life is made up of them. But they remain "within" the final "identity" of thought and its x PREFACE object, "overcome" by it. Absolute knowledge is absolved from dependence on anything merely outside it. The philosopher starts with the totality "ab stractly" experienced and ends with the totality "concretely" known. In another sense, Hegel's position is impossible to state. All the words in the above account draw their meaning from use at stages of the way far short of the final one they describe. Within, overcome, identity itself, all are but crude metaphors carrying a wide range of meanings and a rich train of images. It is only in following the complete way which Hegel prescribes that his student can hope to understand the final stage and formulate it in less in adequate language. Hence, any study of Hegel is condemned, by Hegel's own norms, to a certain one-sidedness. Unless it try to retrace the full way, it must view his system from some particular stage or stages. So far, however, as it is cons cious of its own position within the whole, it should - again by Hegel's own standards - go some distance toward overcoming this bias. Hegel's position brings with it a consequence that may, perhaps with gross over-simplification, be stated as follows. All thinking is confronted sooner or later with an obstac1e that cannot be mastered, with an "unintelligible". Philosophical systems may be c1assified crudely according to where they set, or accept, this obstac1e. The philosopher who advances slowly but surelyon a "foreign" reality starts with what he can most easily handle and moves to ward that which is and remains beyond his grasp. A philosopher who claims to start with the totality may use a similar model to record his progress. Yet a certain insight into Hegel's thought can be gained by seeing it as drawing the consequences from a resolute refusal to treat the unintelligible as a "beyond", as a merely "residual unknown": the firm rejection of any Jenseits is the mark of Hegel's philosophy and temperament. However, the corollary - and this Hegel never admitted in such direct terms - is that the unintelligible must be faced at the beginning. Indeed, if the suggestion is allowed, Hegel made this the "principle of explanation" in his philosophy. The very fact ofbeginning so deliberately with the totalityinvolves certain basic paradoxes, in the "light" of which all else, all within the whole, is "explained". Perhaps this is caricature. And perhaps such a project sounds absurd. Yet nonsense is relative, and it is not easy to say what anyone is doing in "ex plaining", least of all a philosopher. At any rate, those who approach Hegel for the first time must be struck by an air of paradox about his system in its entirety and in its parts. We may, then, in trying to indicate the approach this study of Hegel will make, offer a short account of the paradox of his system as it confronts anyone who examines it afresh, free from the weight of commentaries.