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Dialectic of Action

George T. Rozos

Dialectic of Action

HESTIA
PUBLISHERS & BOOKSELLERS
ATHENS 1994

First Edition: September 1994

Published by: Hestia Publishers & Booksellers,
Athens, Greece
Copyright 1994, George T. Rozos
Cover art and photograph: Ellen Looft
Cover design: Patricia McLaughlin
Technical Consulting: Politica Themata Inc.
Printing: Photodotis Press, Greece
Binding: Hasapakis
ISBN: 960-050-584-5

All revolutions, in the sciences no less

than in world history, originate solely
from the fact that Spirit, in order to
understand and comprehend itself
with a view to possessing itself, has
changed its categories, comprehending itself more truly, more deeply,
more intimately, and more in unity
with itself
Philosophy of Nature

Preface
This work returns to the perennial question of the relationship between
theory and practice in the hope of adding some light to the related issue of
the meaning and justification of radical action. The question is pursued
with the help of the dialectic, and especially through an important feature
of it, according to which rationality that which supplies a valid form of
justification is a matter of continuous reinterpretation at various levels,
until an all-inclusive level of meaning has been reached. Such structuralization of reason, which combines unity with difference, enables us to deal
more effectively with the recurring problem of dualism, whereby practice
and theory, action and its justification, belong to different universes, that
of action and thought, respectively. Whether the justification of an action
is moral or instrumental, it is pursued in the realm of words, concepts, and
ideas, whereas action belongs to the realm of physicality.
Hegel's Logic is the locus classicus for the development and defense of the
dialectical method, as his Philosophy of Nature and Philosophy of Spirit are for
its application to the corpus of disciplinary knowledge. All three, and especially the Logic, are used extensively in overcoming the difficulties associated with rigid dualism, and in effecting a synthesis of theory and practice
which is logically sound and relevant to recent social and historical experience. All good philosophy is not only true but part of living experience,
though the link between the two may not be immediately apparent and
must, therefore, be made explicit. Such is the nature of Hegel's philosophy, inasmuch as it is notoriously difficult and the logical chains leading to
the all-inclusive context of meaning, wherein all dualities have been overcome, are both long and tortuous. Yet there are ways that this project can
be made intellectually more manageable, and educationally more available
to a wider public than students of philosophy.
One such way is to begin with those aspects of the dialectic of theorypractice which translate most easily into recognizable experience. Having
learned from the self-critique of reason that it is not homogeneous, w e
must now exercise caution in dealing in the same way with thought-forms
(dialectical categories) and language. Granted, as a philosophical discipline,
the dialectic shares with other philosophical systems the discursive medium
of language. But unlike other systems with objectivist bias in regard to experience, the dialectic has inherited a distinct preoccupation with subjectivity from its romantic and idealist lineage. This, along with the structuralization of rationality, proves a clear advantage in pursuing the intended syn-

thesis and, a unique opportunity to use recent historical experience, such

as that of the activists of the 1960s and the terrorists of the 1980s, for illustration. While the romantic impulse provides the activistic impetus of the
subject, and idealism supplies the conviction that what appears to be external is in truth the subject's o w n creation, the dialectic serves to employ
them at the service of the synthesis of theory and practice.
In short, our dialectical strategy consists in transposing action from the
objectivist setting of theory-practice where it is interlinked with other
polarities, such as mental-physical, thought-action, internal-external, subject-object to the humanistic setting of subjectivity as defined by romanticism and idealism. At the same time the dialectic secures the effort against
developing into a solipsistic exercise, or a sickly romantic quest, through
the hierarchical structuralization of reason, which allows for a continuous
reinterpretation of both subjectivity and objectivity, until the all-inclusive
context of meaning has been reached. By placing action in the setting of
consciousness, reason itself becomes the actor, thus transforming the critique of what is ostensibly external to a self-critique rendering explicit the
categorial apparatus and language alongside the content of action. Contrary
to the appearance that such a shift may mean fleeing from the exteriority
of hard reality to the interiority of consciousness, this move involves graduating from a lower grade of reality shorn of presuppositions, to a higher
form which incorporates the presuppositions rendered explicit at the lower
stage. Not unlike good theater, and art in general, the distancing from commonsensical reality enhances, rather than diminishes, reality by making us
conscious not only of the realistic counterparts of the work of art, but of
the moral and epistemological categories of the artist as well.
The Dialectic of Action rests heavily on the above features of the dialectic
for the justification of radical action. The activistic conception of reason in
conjunction with hierarchical structuralization, translates into a progressive reinterpretation of action. But more important for our purposes, the
discontinuities implicit in the levels of rationality also imply a discontinuity in the manner whereby activistic reason moves from one level to another. Contingency and irrationality (as defined by scientism) are as much
integral parts of dialectical reason as determinacy and scientistic rationality, but this has been obscured in certain lower grades of reason through
their one-sidedness. For example, the element of contingency is part of
the scientistic setting of theory-practice, but from its standpoint it belongs
somewhere "out there," to be domesticated by a more satisfactory, or contingency-free, theory. However, once transposed to the world of enriched
subjectivity and dialectically transformed into a higher grade of practice,
action is shown to be equally infected by contingency. Indeed, it is the element of contingency (immediacy in the generalized dialectical terminology which applies to both subject and object) in its interplay with determinacy (dialectically generalized as mediation) which makes possible the
movement of self-constituting reason. The ascent toward all-inclusiveness

involves both kinds of activity mediation to promote lateral movement

according to a set of rules (rationality) within any given universe of discourse, and immediacy to effect a leap (irrationality, by the prevailing
rules of the game), upward to the next.
The dialectic of action consists of the interplay of immediacy and mediation the radical and the conservative (or consolidating) faces of
Spirit. Radical action is justified through identification with immediacy as
a necessary ingredient of activistic reason. Given the conception of structuralized reason, and the function of immediacy and mediation in propelling it along its activistic path, the dialectic of action can also be exemplified in the more concrete form of institutional organization of intellectual products: knowledge organized along disciplinary lines in an ascending order of dialectical sophistication, coupled with a series of reformulations of the concept of action. The resulting forms of action correspond in
turn to discourses appropriate to them: commonsensically pragmatic, scientistic, moral (instrumental and substantive), socio-political, historical,
and philosophical-dialectical. This allows for an alternative form of justification of radical action through placement in dialectical context, i.e., by
forcing the concept of action to show both of its faces in a more easily
recognizable context: its conservative face within any given discourse or
disciplinary body of knowledge and its radical face in the transition from
the one to the next.
The organization of the Dialectic of Action highlights these internal features of the dialectic, while rendering philosophy a living experience by
bringing them to bear on easily recognizable social and historical experience. The work has been divided into three parts, the first and last of
which are more concrete and the middle more abstract and technical. Part
I, titled "Paradigms and Illustrations of Dialectical Synthesis," is devoted to
an experiential dialectic of action constructed entirely from disciplinary
material, encounters of everyday life and historical experiences of the
1960s. It serves as an introduction to the more demanding Part III and as a
fund of illustrations to be used extensively in the course of the latter. Since
most of the important ingredients of the dialectic of action transcendence, presuppositional challenge, circularity, immediacy, mediation, dialectical incorporation and the conception of the absolute are introduced in Part I, the reader can use it in conjunction with the transitional
Part II in order to skip the difficult Part III on first reading, and go directly
to the critical and more sensuously concrete Parts IV and V, which deal
with applications of the dialectic of action.
In Part III, titled "A Hegelian Interpretation of the Dialectic of TheoryPractice", the attention shifts to Hegel's texts, especially the two versions of
his Logic, for support of our thesis concerning the philosophical legitimation
of radical action. The problem faced here is one of exposition: how to balance economy and clarity while minimizing sacrifice in rigor, given the
central importance of action in Hegel's dialectic and the emphasis he places

on internal coherence of his system. This difficulty is compounded by the

transposition of theory-practice from a setting involving a rigid definition of
externality to that of reinterpreted subjectivity, as outlined earlier.
The concluding Parts IV and V return to the level of the historically and
contemporaneously familiar, by way of raising the possibility of an "applied dialectic," and returning to the issues of rationality and the nature of
radical action raised in Part I. These issues are taken up again, now with
the benefit of the intervening formal dialectic of Part III. The meaning of
an "applied dialectic" is explored briefly with the help of Hegel's own "application" in his Philosophy of Nature. But now it is done after the danger of
relapsing into crude scientistic externality has been overcome in the Logic.
The results of this exploration are, in turn, used for a critique of Marx's
"dialectic" of theory-practice, which is viewed as a classic case of such a relapse. Finally, the work concludes with some thoughts about the relevance
of the dialectic of action for the contemporary scene, both internally, in
terms of our liberal culture, and across cultures.
"Nothing great," as Hegel put it, "has been and nothing great can be accomplished without passion." Such single-mindedness is exemplified in
his work, which turns out to be much more about action than what can
be inferred from explicit references to it. Indeed, the dialectic is as much
about action as it is action, and radical action at that. In the end the Logic is
found to have synthesized (immediacy o f ) action and (mediation by)
thought about action, but not before the insuperable barrier of externality
has been overcome through its transposition to the stage of elevated subjectivity, or Spirit.
A strategy has been devised to highlight this driving force of Spirit
while alleviating some the difficulties of exposition: All discussion and references to secondary sources, expository or critical, have been omitted, so
that full justice can be done to the unifying theme of action. This reflects
no disrespect for secondary works or refusal to admit that I have learned
from others. Rather it is a matter of judgment that, given the difficulties of
exposition, the supreme importance of the dialectic for the matter at hand,
and the long and continuing neglect of Hegel, the marginal returns from
dealing solely with him seemed considerably higher than engaging in disputations about him.
The judgment about Hegel's thought being still in a state of neglect
may seem odd in light of what appears as a veritable renaissance in
Hegelian studies. However, it takes far more than a plethora of "scholarly
research" on the parts of a dismembered Spirit, to usher in a genuine dialectical renaissance. As Hegel would be first to observe, Spirit, "having a
being of its own... is self-particularizing, while it still remains self-identical... It does not manifest, or reveal something, but its very m o d e and
meaning is this revelation."
A number of expository tactics have been adopted to underscore this
holistic animus of Spirit and the pedagogy of consciousness-raising appro-

priate to it: (1) Long quotations were selected with an eye to self-containment and continuity. Once stated, these passages are frequently reused in
different contexts, variously reconstructed with the help of added parenthetical statements, and illustrated through material from contemporary
experience. (2) Key categories from the Logic are used as dialectical roles
in which sub-categories of action are cast for the purpose of eliciting their
dialectical development. (3) In the same vein of rendering explicit the unifying presence of action, surrogates of these sub-categories are located in
the Logic, and the triadic structure of the dialectic is used to show their interchangeability. (4) Organized along alphabetical lines, indexes are particularly useful for reference and guidance in cases where the discourse is essentially linear and inhabited w i t h proper names and atomic events
and/or meanings amenable to concise (dictionary-type) definition. As it
will become increasingly apparent, a dialectical discourse is, by contrast,
circular, intensively self-referential, and highly coherence-dependent for
the determination of meaning. Adapting style to subject matter, the customary index was dropped, and an older device of placing notes in the
margins was resurrected, in the hope of accenting internal coherence and
facilitating the flow of the argument.
The Dialectic of Action is addressed to the student of philosophy and social thought, the philosophically inclined general reader and, not least, the
reflective radical who wishes to gain some insight into his action. It fits into the current intellectual climate of (re)discovery of Hegel, which coincides with an increasingly skeptical attitude about Marx's stature as a dialectician, a philosopher of radical action, and a visionary of a n e w humanity. Not accidentally, it also coincides with the dismantling of social
systems claiming Marx as their patron saint, as well as with a seemingly
independent striving to "deconstruct" systematic philosophy particularly Hegel's, its most illustrious representative.

Acknowledgements and Dedication

The writing of this work has been a product of self-imposed isolation.
Working on it was an encounter with a giant an experience I insisted
on savoring alone, rather than in the company of others. Nonetheless, this
isolation was also externally reinforced, insofar as the spirit of our age, as
reflected in prevailing educational environments and especially academic
bureaucracies, is neither stimulating, nor nurturing, to projects like this.
I would like to thank a number of individuals who have been generous
with their support. George Michalakeas and Damon Kaldelis introduced
me to the various uses of the computer without which the production of
this work would have been much more cumbersome and time-consuming. During the earliest stage of the project, Eugene Gendlin invested
many hours teaching me h o w to effectively translate difficult ideas into
easily comprehensible language. To the extent that his investment has not
paid off, the blame is all mine. Throughout the years, Richard Swiderski
has been particularly generous in sharing with me his erudition and rich
intellectual resources across disciplines and cultures.
Patricia McLaughlin and Patricio Diaz set and styled the manuscript and
designed the cover. They balanced economy and taste to produce something which is both highly functional and aesthetically appealing. In addition to creating the representation of dialectical circularity for the cover,
Ellen Looft devoted endless hours in editing and proofing the manuscript.
For this, and her continuous warmth and moral support in the course of
the final stages of this project, I remain deeply grateful.
I wish to acknowledge my debt to the following publishers w h o have
generously allowed me to quote from their translations of Hegel's and
Marx's works: Oxford University Press (U.K.), George Allen and Unwin,
Ltd. (U.K.), Humanities Press (U.S.A.), International Publishers (U.S.A.),
and Foreign Language Publishing House (Moscow).
In the more intimate family circle of my household, I have been blessed
with two wonderful daughters, Maria and Laura, who, in their emotional
sustenance and youthful wisdom, have managed to incorporate my long
hours of isolated existence into a warm and nurturing environment.
Finally, this work has been inspired by the memory of the best of those
revolutionaries of consciousness and radicals of the future the generation of the 1960s and it is to them, in turn, that it is being dedicated.

Contents
Preface

ix

I. Paradigms and Illustrations of Dialectical Synthesis of Action

A. Political Praxis

B. A Psychoanalytic Paradigm

C. Scientistic Paradigm: Theory-Practice in the Service of Politics

13

D. Adam Smith's Invisible Hand: An Economic Paradigm for

Dialectical Synthesis at the Level of the Group
E. Philosophy as a Paradigm for Dialectical Synthesis through
Meaning

23
32

II. Structure and Rhythm of the Dialectic

A. Structure

45

B. Interchangeably of Categories

55

C. Strategy

65

III. A Hegelian Interpretation of the Dialectic of Theory-Practice

A. Theory-Practice and the Logic of Being
i. The Two Faces of Being: Immediacy of Practice
and Immediacy of Fact

73

ii. Objectivity and Being

79

iii. Subjectivity and Being

90

iv. Further Self-Differentiation of Being

96

B. Theory-Practice and the Logic of Essence

i. Reflection and the Priority of Theory in Essence

101

ii. Identity and Difference

115

iii. Dialectic of Reflection

132

iv. Social Scientism and the Logic of Essence

147

v. Dissolution of Theory-Practice

168

vi. Totalization and Action

173

vii. Actualization, Action, and Freedom

204

C. Action and Subjective Spirit

i. Self-Actualizing Spirit

219

ii. Soul as Pre-Existing Unity of Theory and Practice

228

iii. Concrete Consciousness

245

iv. Free Mind (or Free Action) as Mediated Unity of Theory

and Practice

258

D. Action and Objective Spirit

i. Spirit as Re-Immediated Action

271

ii. Spirit as the Unveiling of Re-Immediation

281

iii. The "Is" and the "Ought" as Elements in the Synthesis

of Action

293

E. Dialectical Synthesis of Action in the Logic of the Notion

i. The Notion in General

309

ii. The Idea

316

iii. Synthesis of the Absolute Idea

337

TV. Misapplications of the Dialectic of Action

A. Transition from Logic to Nature

363

B. Nature as a Field of Misinterpretation of the Dialectic

369

C. Marx's Misunderstanding of the Dialectic of Action

i. Marx's Critique of the Absolute Idea

375

ii. Theory-Practice in Natural Philosophy and in Philosophy

of Nature

390

iii. Marx's Encounter with Hegel's Concept of Spirit

400

iv. Marx's Version of the Dialectic of Action: Praxis

411

V. Contemporary Applications of the Dialectic of Action

A. Dialectical Applications Across Cultures
(with Special Reference to Concrete Universality)

435

B. Dialectical Applications in Liberal Culture

(with Special Reference to Negativity)

461

I. Paradigms and Illustrations

of Dialectical Synthesis
of Action

The business of philosophy is only to

bring into explicit consciousness what
the world in all ages has believed
about thought. Philosophy therefore
advances nothing new; and our present discussion has led us to the conclusion which agrees with the natural belief of mankind.
Logic

A. Political Praxis
In order to pursue our claim that the dialectic is about action, and radical action at that, w e shall begin with a preliminary definition of the dialectic in the context of a paradigm
from radical politics. Implicit in the dialectic is a procedure of
challenging what is presupposed or taken for granted within
any given level of discourse. Any challenge, indeed any proposition, presupposes a context or level of meaning, and there is a
difference between a challenge within any given context and
the challenge of the context itself. The radical function of the
dialectic derives from this capacity of going beyond what lies on
the surface and getting at the root of things by challenging the
underlying context. There are other philosophical systems such
as phenomenology and analytic philosophy which share this
radical function with the dialectic. However, the dialectic is distinguished from these other forms of presuppositional challenge
as a result of this radical function being built-into its most fundamental logical features in a system of closely knit parts.
The dialectic can thus be tentatively defined as the process
whereby contexts of meaning are established only to be challenged as soon as the elaboration of their implications leads to
internal contradictions. This propels them to a more inclusive
context of meaning, or a higher level of coherence. In being
transcended, the previous level of meaning has become explicit
and the rules governing its coherence are no longer hidden or
taken for granted. Experience is being reordered at each n e w
level of meaning which subsumes the previous one under a
new set of rules about coherence. The process leads ultimately
to an all-inclusive context, where nothing is left implicit and
which is at once both the presupposition and the outcome of
the whole process. The dialectic, then, can also be said to form
a system of hierarchically arranged contexts of meaning in an
order of increased comprehensiveness or coherence.
Radical politics can illustrate this simple model of the dialectic if we consider a case in which persistent failures and frustrations in one's efforts may lead either to readjustment of values
or goals, or to retracing one's steps in an attempt to find out
what went wrong. If the latter course is taken, the probe may

Definition of the
dialectic as presuppositional challenge.

Illustration through
radical politics and
the centrality of
theory-practice.

The role of violence

in transcending scientistic rationality.

range from a search for errors in the application of a given theory, or theory-like proposition, to the re-examination of the
theory itself. If this too proves unsatisfactory, the probe may
reach the category of theory-practice itself, which underlies all
cases of a similar application. Such a probe would indicate that
doubt has reached the level (context of meaning) of fundamental cultural rules of the game which a healthy, stable society
normally follows unself-consciously. This sequence of probes
w o u l d correspond to the levels of meaning outlined above,
while the latest of them would qualify as a radical presuppositional challenge because it would involve a wide range of actual
and potential activity encompassed by theory-practice. In other
words, it would entail a radical critique on a broad cultural
front transcending more customary radical probes, such as
those focusing on the socio-economic level. Far from saying
that our probe is to bypass social and economic conditions as
factors for consideration, our claim is that the detection and
evaluation of such conditions, screened through the dual category of theory-practice, have to be re-examined along with the
latter which has now come under scrutiny as well.
This is not the end of the repercussions of the radical challenge just outlined. For the presuppositional challenge of theory-practice has remained, thus far, on the discursive level and
as such it has stopped short of the radical possibilities implicit in
the physical aspects of politics. To put it differently, the strict
compartmentalization of the discursive and physical aspects of
culture, including political activity, is the result of structuring
by polar categories such as theory-practice. When deeply embedded polarities are undermined by presuppositional challenges of radical politics the field is left open for other forms of
action including physicality and violence. Much of the radical
political and countercultural scene of the 1960s consisted of
such challenges of basic rules of the establishment, including
those liberal values of rationality arid efficiency, as incorporated
in the logic of theory-practice. Insa narrow sense the latter is
part of a cluster of methodological rules that define rationality
in science. But in our modern (post-Renaissance) era, wherein
science sets general cultural parameters, theory-practice finds
itself embedded in a fundamental context of cultural meaning,
as the opening paragraphs of this paradigm clearly indicate.
Thus, when, as a result of radical action, a transition is made
from discursive to non-discursive (physical) means in politics, it
turns out that this is no mere leap into irrationality, as defined
by the previous context of meaning or as the opponents of the
activists are claiming, but a step toward a possible synthesis of

theory and practice in a dialectically higher form of action. For

such a synthesis is nothing less than a challenge of the pre-eminence of the particular (scientistic) structuralization of human
action along the familiar dualistic format of theory-practice.
Having concluded on a note of confidence in regard to the
forthcoming synthesis in the hands of the activists, I will n o w
add a note of caution, to which I have already hinted by qualifying such synthesis as "possible." In transcending the scientistic
context of theory-practice, the activist has also relinquished the
predictive logic that goes w i t h it. A full elaboration of this
trade-off of determinacy for freedom has to wait until Part III.
Suffice it to say that, as with the rest of the transitions from one
context of meaning to another in the dialectic, the synthesis at
the new level cannot be carried out according to the rules of
the old one without the outcome being self-defeated, i.e., without allowing a tacit reintroduction of the old rules into the new
context. In this case, one cannot try to transcend theory-practice through (practically validated) theory or (theoretically
guided) practice, without reinjecting the theory-practice dualism into the new level. As the dialectic becomes more advanced
in its totalizing (anti-abstractive) effort, the step ahead cannot
be predicted and the synthesis cannot be planned w i t h o u t
aborting the dialectical effort. Scientism owes its predictive
powers to abstractive features which, however, the dialectic has
to relinquish in transcending theory-practice for the sake of allinclusiveness. Another feature has to be added to the advanced
context of meaning in order to accommodate the new situation:
A historical-retrodictive logic supplants the prevailing scientistic-predictive one and the dialectical categories undergo a parallel shift from those appropriate to individuals to those fitting
collective entities, i.e., from psychological to those which are
more properly sociological.
These cautions and qualifications regarding dialectical synthesis can be cast in the more concrete language of the paradigm by saying that as the radical challenge becomes more
global or cultural, theorizing becomes increasingly impotent in
handling the contingent elements of social experience, which
by now begin to fall between the interstices of theory-practice.
Consequently, presuppositional challenge manifests itself in the
unself-conscious domain of radical politics less in rational deliberation and more as a spontaneous, experiential (total body) response to grievous experience. For example, it is not likely that
the paradigm can be exemplified in an individual w h o goes
through its levels of meaning self-consciously reformulating the
problem of action each step of the way. Rather the self-con-

Dialectical meaning
of synthesis illustrated through theorypractice.

Dialectic as a process
of totalization, and
the transition from
predictive to retrodictive logic.

scious challenge of the old structure of action and the formulation of the n e w will be preceded by a period in which groups
challenge theory-practice experientially in the various forms it
is found embodied in institutions and social practices. Group actions cannot be reduced to sums or multiples of individual
ones. Being part of a group action reinforces the lack of individual self-consciousness about one's motives and consequently
blunts awareness about the links between motivations and intentions, on the one hand, and their outcomes, on the other. If
outcomes of collective actions are difficult to plan, such actions
which also claim the status of an dialectical synthesis planned
beforehand are impossible. They can only be shown to be so
retrodictively. This points to a tentative conclusion to which
w e shall return in more detail later that the construction of a
dialectical synthesis can only be staged ex post facto. In our example, it is the historian-philosopher of the future who will determine whether the countercultural activities of the 1960s
constituted genuine syntheses or frivolous actions. He will
make explicit what had lain implicit in their experiential challenges, while determining whether a n e w context of meaning
has emerged within which theory and practice find themselves
ordered under a new set of rules.

B. A Psychoanalytic Paradigm
This paradigm picks up where the last one left off: with consciousness used to illustrate the dialectical synthesis of theory
and practice into action. The important bearing of consciousness on the issue of dialectical synthesis becomes obvious if w e
recall our comments in the Preface about the centrality of subjectivity in the dialectical process. Psychology, more particularly
phenomenological psychology and psychoanalysis, centers on
self-consciousness with the help of the concept of transcendence. This is also shared by certain brands of philosophy and,
of course, by the dialectic. Transcendence is a form of steppingout from a given context of meaning for the purpose of gaining
some insight into its structure. Obviously it is a technique of
rendering explicit what remains implicit and, as such, it has
proved to be a powerful tool in the hands of a wide range of
disciplines for challenging ideologies and all forms of unselfcritically held knowledge. But it has shown itself to be especially potent against the most tenacious and all-pervading of modern ideologies scientism which has been the target, in one
w a y or another, of disciplines as varying as Kantian metaphysics, p h e n o m e n o l o g y , linguistic analysis, s o c i o l o g y of
knowledge, and deconstruction. However, as in the case of presuppositional challenge earlier, it has remained on the level of
an intellectual critique because transcendence has not reached
deep enough into the fundamental logical features of the discourse, thus allowing the theory-practice polarity and its surrogates to remain untouched. Psychoanalysis has, for our purposes of illustration, an advantage over these disciplines in that
as a therapeutic art concerned with modification of behavior
it shares with the dialectic the built-in logical feature that propels presuppositional challenge from a discursive activity to action. Thus our paradigm of what might be called a successfully
terminated therapy may also give us a glimpse into the elusive
synthesis of theory and practice into action. Needless to add
that w e make no special claims about the scientific validity or
therapeutic value of the proposed model, which is offered solely for paradigmatic illustration.

The centrality of
consciousness for the
dialectical synthesis
of theory-practice.

Psychoanalysis as a
case of dialectical
synthesis by way of
transcendence of
context of meaning.

Transcendence
illustrated through
the dialectical triad
of immediacy
mediationre-immediation.

If w e suppose that there is a theory of neurosis behind the

therapeutic strategy of a behavioral therapist, then the therapist's strategy would be to apply said theory in an attempt to
heal his patient's neuroses. But the rules of the game for psychoanalysis differ from those of behavioral therapy. In our dialectical language, the context of meaning for using the expression "to apply" is not the same for the therapist using it on his
patient as it is for the patient using it on himself. The analytical
context of meaning has resulted from an effort to expand the
behaviorist context of meaning so as to include self-application.
Assuming that it has resolved any internal contradictions of the
expanded context and restored its coherence, the analytical
context is more comprehensive and, therefore, dialectically
more advanced than the behaviorist. The resolution of the
main contradiction is the heart of our paradigm which gives us
the promised glimpse into the future synthesis of theory and
practice: The patient cannot use the accepted (scientistic) theory-practice meaning of "to apply" on himself without generating an inner self which mediates between a theoretical and a
practical part of himself. This is symmetrical to a detached observer of the external world w h o mediates between sensuous
experience and theoretical activity, or between practice and
theory. In the present case such an application would always all o w a core of the self to be exempt from self-application (the
part which does the applying) thus triggering an infinite regress
and, in effect, evading the directive about applying the theory
on the totality and not on only part of one's self.
A shift in the context of the meaning of "application" from
the world of things to that of consciousness has dramatically
changed the structure of action from scientistic theory-practice
to humanistic self-originating action from one in which mediation was all but synonymous with rationality, and immediacy with irrationality, to one in which mediation breeds irrationality in the form of infinite regress, and immediacy of action points the way to sanity. A qualitative change or a leap into a different universe of discourse, took place at the point
where quantitative change led nowhere. No additional empirical evidence adduced by the analyst about the theory's applicability to others, nor any improved theoretical sophistication of
the analysand about the nature of his neurosis, would have
made the crucial difference between intellectualization of action and action. The new rules of the game could only be interpreted as: to apply the therapeutic model on one's self means
simply to act. It was the patient's decision to apply the theory to
himself, which in the n e w context of consciousness is equiva-

lent to acting, that made the crucial qualitative difference. He

learned to act by acting rather than by reflecting on and perfecting the theory on which to base his action. His theoretical
understanding may have prepared him for action, but at the
moment of action this understanding was submerged to the immediacy of action, which in effect was purchased at the expense of the mediating capacity of intellectual understanding.
So much so, that one can sum up by saying that, whereas theory qua mediation unveils what has lain implicit in experience,
action qua immediacy buries it back under a layer of experience
to be unveiled in the course of the next round of mediation. In
this sense our paradigm can be credited with illustrating another important feature of the dialectic, the interplay of immediacy
and mediation. Both involve a two-way process. The way forward is a process of immediation represented by a chain of insightful events or discoveries in therapy, culminating in its successful termination which corresponds to the paradigmatic synthesis of action. The way backward is a progressive mediation
(unveiling) of what lies concealed from consciousness the
unconscious of psychoanalysis and its variants of the prereflective, the prepredicative, the prethematic, or the preconscious,
among phenomenologists and existentialists.
Our paradigm is dialectically instructive on account of both
what it omits and what it encompasses. Useful, and even illuminating, as it might be for the dialectic of action, it is focused
on the individual. Furthermore, its clinical context is conducive
to viewing analytical experience as a tract of time with specified
initial and terminal points. Both of these parameters are dialectically one-sided and unstable suffering from abstraction, as
Hegel would say to be transcended into wider contexts of
meaning within which they are eventually incorporated. What
is missing here is the transition from individual to group, which
is manifested initially in the onto-logic of the dialectic as the relationship between the one and the many. Once these parameters imposed by the clinical context are suspended and the presuppositions about the distinction between healthy and neurotic behavior are being challenged, the double process of veiling
and unveiling described above becomes open-ended and the
point of departure problematic or even arbitrary. This signals
the moment of transition to the next paradigm, or a wider context of meaning, as the case might be.
Since philosophy, particularly the dialectic, can take nothing
for granted, this question about what, if anything, constitutes a
genuine beginning, has to be answered first. For example, to
anticipate what is forthcoming while w e still capitalize on our

Lack of completeness
propels the dialectic
forward.

The dialectical feature of open-endedness and the search

for a beginning.

Comparison of the
dialectic with other
philosophies of
transcendence.

investment in this paradigm, action or human existence

which has been defined in terms of action may be given ontological priority and credited for constituting such a beginning.
Sartrean "existence" and Heideggerian Dasein come readily to
mind in this connection. But since such point of departure lies
on an open-ended axis, w e are dealing here with a kind of advanced human existence, one which has already been mediated. Unlike the scientistic conception of existence, which is appropriate to things, the existentialist, conception involves
awareness of what it means to be. To exist in the latter sense is
to stand beyond or outside of oneself so that the essence of humanity, according to existentialism, is perpetual self-transcendence. Though immediacy of existence graphically rendered
by Heidegger as Dasein, literally as being there can be taken
as the point of departure, mediation is built into the definition
of existence from the outset. Dasein recalls the immediated action of our paradigm which also involves mediation, though it
takes the backward trek of the two-way process to activate it in
the unveiling of what has been buried under in the course of
the forward trek by immediacy.
I m p o r t a n t similarities b e t w e e n the dialectic and these
philosophies of transcendence should not be allowed to obscure
differences suggested by suspending the parameters of the paradigm. For example, the point of departure which for them becomes something of a central importance Husserl's presuppositionless beginning, Heidegger's Dasein, and Sartre's priority
of existence over essence, and of action over reflection is for
the dialectic a matter of thematic convenience. It looks from a
dialectical vantage point as if, having challenged the time-constraints in viewing experience as a tract of time with a specified
beginning and end, these philosophies have not benefitted from
the insight that h u m a n e x p e r i e n c e consists of a t w o - w a y
process of veiling and unveiling and that the initial and terminal points are a matter of disciplinary convention. There is another difference between the dialectic and these philosophies of
transcendence which can also be illustrated through the analytical model: the transition f r o m the individual to the group
which is linked to the suspension of the other parameter of the
clinical context, the pre-eminence of the individual in the therapeutic process. The centrality of the individual is so deeply ingrained in modern cultural experience, that any transition from
it to the group, which preserves the insights of the analytical
process without covertly reasserting the primacy of the individual, requires a radical form of transcendence which is missing
in these philosophies. The difficulties they have encountered in

this transition, from Husserl's notorious problems with intersubjectivity to Sartre's questionable synthesis of Marxism and
existentialism, attest to such deficiency.
Hegel avoided such pitfalls: first, by adopting a more powerful logical apparatus to sustain radical transcendence; second,
by shifting from a pseudo-timelessness to a retrospective-historical discourse in which he could demonstrate that, though not
apparent without radical presuppositional challenge, the individual remains ingrained in any scientistic discourse claiming
objectivity and predictive power because of the built-in subjectobject duality. Thus the shift to an essentially historical discourse becomes pari passu an abandonment of predictive claims,
without involving a categorial assimilation of science and philosophy by history resulting in historicism. This is the standpoint of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, wherein historical correlates are found for the modalities of individual consciousness.
Transcendence is applied by the retrospective philosopher to
unveil segments of historical experience in which the transition
from individual to group is an accomplished cultural fact. The
categorial apparatus appropriate to each historically given
group varies with time and culture as do the ways of transition
and integration. This approach enabled Hegel to avoid misdirected quests for a presuppositionless beginning and misplaced
hopes for a solution which was based on insufficient transcendence: a transition from individual to group using consciousness (which seems to be a clean start) for a point of departure,
but which is actually a historically given form of consciousness.
For such a misleadingly fresh point of departure graphically
illustrated in the paradigm as a point on a open-ended axis
Hegel substituted a form of circularity about which more will be
said later. The seemingly unmediated form of existence, Being,
with which he started his Logic, is also mediated since, in addition to being a category of Logic, it is also part of individual and
cultural experience anchored in a historical setting of western
culture.

The superiority of
the dialectical notion
of open-endedness
as circularity.

This paradigm will take one step further in expanding the

context of meaning of the last one, so that in the following paradigms one can begin to recognize the retrospective philosopher uncovering ex post facto the transition from individual to
group. In being transcended, the previous contexts become explicit so that the rules governing them can no longer be taken
for granted. Thus the synthesis involved here, as elsewhere in
the dialectic, can be viewed as incorporating the old rules under
the new expanded context after having rendered them explicit.
This Chapter will deal in relatively non-technical terms with
the same transition from a relatively crude scientistic context of
meaning to a more sophisticated one representing a form of dialectical synthesis. However, whereas in the last paradigm the
interplay between opposed standpoints unfolded within the
consciousness of the analysand, now it takes the form of a confrontation between two individuals. The approach used approximates the less formal dialectic of Plato, the dialektike: the uncovering of the presuppositions of one's opponent through the
process of dialegesthai, i.e., through the give-and-take of philosophical argument. Though not strictly in dialogue form, what
follows is structured in terms of a dialektike between a liberal
and a radical at the height of the 1960s. The radical challenges,
and the liberal defends, the prevailing rules of the game. As the
process reaches the presuppositional level, it begins to reveal
the scientistic structure of the prevailing (liberal) context of
meaning, in particular the rules which govern rational action
within that context. Challenge and response vary in being disclosed alternately as immediacy and mediation, intellectual critique and action, or a simultaneous two-way process of veiling
and unveiling paralleling that of the psychoanalytic paradigm.
Time and again radicals of that period were asked to produce
some kind of theory or blueprint of what they offered as a replacement for what they proposed to dismantle. Much of the
criticism d i r e c t e d at t h e m was c e n t e r e d n o t so m u c h o n
whether what was being attacked deserved it or not, but on the
fact that the attack was deemed irrational. The radicals' objec-

Extension of the
dialectical context
of meaning from
the individual to
the group.

Rudiments of group
in the adversarial
relationship between
the radical and the
liberal.

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This paradigm will take one step further in expanding the

context of meaning of the last one, so that in the following paradigms one can begin to recognize the retrospective philosopher uncovering ex post facto the transition from individual to
group. In being transcended, the previous contexts become explicit so that the rules governing them can no longer be taken
for granted. Thus the synthesis involved here, as elsewhere in
the dialectic, can be viewed as incorporating the old rules under
the new expanded context after having rendered them explicit.
This Chapter will deal in relatively non-technical terms with
the same transition from a relatively crude scientistic context of
meaning to a more sophisticated one representing a form of dialectical synthesis. However, whereas in the last paradigm the
interplay between opposed standpoints unfolded within the
consciousness of the analysand, now it takes the form of a confrontation between two individuals. The approach used approximates the less formal dialectic of Plato, the dialektike: the uncovering of the presuppositions of one's opponent through the
process of dialegesthai, i.e., through the give-and-take of philosophical argument. Though not strictly in dialogue form, what
follows is structured in terms of a dialektike between a liberal
and a radical at the height of the 1960s. The radical challenges,
and the liberal defends, the prevailing rules of the game. As the
process reaches the presuppositional level, it begins to reveal
the scientistic structure of the prevailing (liberal) context of
meaning, in particular the rules which govern rational action
within that context. Challenge and response vary in being disclosed alternately as immediacy and mediation, intellectual critique and action, or a simultaneous two-way process of veiling
and unveiling paralleling that of the psychoanalytic paradigm.
Time and again radicals of that period were asked to produce
some kind of theory or blueprint of what they offered as a replacement for what they proposed to dismantle. Much of the
criticism d i r e c t e d at t h e m was c e n t e r e d n o t so m u c h o n
whether what was being attacked deserved it or not, but on the
fact that the attack was deemed irrational. The radicals' objec-

Extension of the
dialectical context
of meaning from
the individual to
the group.

Rudiments of group
in the adversarial
relationship between
the radical and the
liberal.

tives, aside from the immediately visible destructive part, were

found to be so vague or even non-existent, that one was incapable of rationally evaluating their practice in terms of their
theory and their ends in light of their means. Their failure to
convince others and successfully carry out their objectives was
attributed to their inability, or unwillingness, to adjust theory to
empirical fact. The argument of liberal critics seemed tight and
their logic impeccable. However, even a gentle presuppositional
probe will show that behind their transparently clear demand
for reasonableness concealed an impressive hidden agenda of
presuppositions, which w e shall n o w take up in order of increasing all-inclusiveness.
The underlying
The demand for reasonableness amounts to a demand to folscientistic theorylow a domesticated version of scientific methodology. The critic
practice of the liberal. is, in effect, asking for something modeled after a scientific theory, like a string of propositions which can be checked against a
domain of experience that has already been certified as factual
or objective according to a specified set of rules. Theory has to be
verified by experience, but the latter is not an undifferentiated
domain of experience as it might first appear. It is tacitly preselected, not by the theory which it is being called to validate
for this would constitute self-defeating circularity but by a
wider context of meaning to which the particular theory has
tacitly but ultimately to submit its credentials. For example, the
corpus of physical or economic theory, including postulates, laws,
theories, in their interconnectedness, and the rules according to
which theoretical propositions are checked against experience,
specify the range of experience acceptable as meaningful in this
context. This is a feature of coherence and a criterion for compartmentalization of any given corpus of knowledge which, however, remains most of the time implicit and taken for granted
until challenged. It is a feature that enables the corpus in the face
of a recalcitrant phenomenon to brand it as a non-fact, or meaningless, and banish it from its domain. Whether, say, a UFO can
qualify as a physical object, or a fact, or be dismissed as an illusion, depends on the corpus of knowledge of the discipline and
the context of meaning it generates within which something can
or cannot be determined to be a fact.
The radical as a
Strange as it might sound, the radical's domain of experichallenger of the
ence, along with his facts, extend into the future, as the dialectic
scientistic presupof Actuality will confirm in Part III, so that what constitutes the
positions of the
painful facts of the present depends to a great extent on his exliberal.
periencing future possibilities more intensely than his critic. His
blueprint is more like a vision than a theoretical construction
and his facts are constituted and validated through the future-

oriented experience he shares with his fellow-radicals. In demanding that the radical submit his vision in the form of a theory, the liberal is also asking that he abandon his presuppositional challenge and adopt the rules of theory-practice into the
new context. Assuming that the radical bows to his opponent's
request and submits a set of propositions which fulfill the preliminary requirements of a testable hypothesis, the next question of the liberal will be: "Does it fit the facts?" or " H o w do
you know it will work in practice?" But terms like "fact," "it
works," even 'Ireality" and "truth," which will be used in the
ensuing exchange, are to be understood in the context of the
scientistic corpus into which the radical has allowed himself to
be drawn. These terms are loaded not merely in the positivistic
sense (also part of the scientistic ideal) of failing to represent reality because language has not been totally purged of its particularisms; but, more important, in the sense of being part of a
self-contained whole of mutually supported elements, which is
capable of screening out what is viewed as meaningless or nonexistent and preserving what will cohere with it. In this light,
scientistic rigor can be attributed not to its universality, or the
fidelity of its propositions to a universally valid notion of reality,
but to its abstractive features which enable it to filter out variants of reality or experience which prove disturbing to its coherence. To unload such key terms of their peculiar function is
not a matter of banishing them and replacing them with those
of a universal language, but of disclosing h o w their being
loaded is part of their belonging to a given context of meaning.
But in order to do this one has to transcend the prevailing context and its categorial apparatus.
The same abstractive features of scientism which fortify it
against challenge when they remain concealed in the presuppositional level, also become a source of its vulnerability w h e n
they are unveiled through transcendence. Culture as a conception of a whole i.e., as a supreme example of an all-inclusive
context of meaning is an intricate network of powerful defense mechanisms as long as its fundamental rules of the game
remain at the unself-conscious level of its members. But they
begin to weaken as soon as self-consciousness about them begins to set in. This is no accident if w e bear in mind that unselfconsciousness assures cultural efficiency, as w e shall see later in
discussing dialectical anthropology. Exposing this concealed efficiency through enhancing self-consciousness increases the
vulnerability of a culture, whether the enhancement is self- or
externally induced by a radical challenge. But an established
culture is also vulnerable to a radical challenge of a non-discur-

Parallels to the
analytical paradigm.

Differences between
the protagonists
as a dispute about
the meaning of
rationality.

sive nature. This is the kind of experiential challenge w e suggested earlier in introducing the element of immediacy in the
dialectic of action, whereby the step ahead involving synthesis
cannot be consciously planned without negating the dialectical
process. Now, with our radical and his opponent locked in confrontation, w e can again put this dialectical insight into use.
A defense of the status quo by the liberal would draw upon
concealment of presuppositions, rely on the screening mechanism of prevailing categories, and downgrade the importance of
experiential elements. The radical, on the contrary, would challenge presuppositions, disclose the role of categories as defense
mechanisms, and emphasize the creative role of experiential elements in carrying out the challenge. In terms of the psychoanalytic paradigm, the radical represents the patient's motivation
to modify his behavior through action originating in the painful
experience of neurosis, while the liberal corresponds to his resistance to therapy manifested as intellectualization of the
process and de-immediation of action. The concept of rationalization has its counterpart in established reason, for as the form e r is e x p o s e d t h r o u g h analysis, so is the latter deflated
through philosophical transcendence. As rationalization relieves the analysand from facing the connection between his
neurotic behavior and concealed parts of his past experience, so
does established reason obscure its links with prevailing institutions thus giving it the illusion of timelessness and universality.
The patient resists getting at the experiential roots of his behavior as the liberal refuses to face the concealed presuppositions
of his rationality.
The key issue of the dispute between the protagonists
that which constitutes rational action is essentially the same
as that confronted by the two earlier paradigms. For the most
part it was broached in negative terms in the political paradigm:
what a genuine dialectical synthesis, which took the form of an
exemplary radical action, is not. It was found to be one whose
validation does not depend on the rules of the context (of theory-practice) which has been transcended. It was then shown, in
the positive terms of the analytical paradigm which followed,
what a dialectical synthesis of theory-practice is like, qua selforiginating action, following a shift in the context of meaning.
Now, with the gradual disclosure that the context of meaning
of liberal's t h e o r y - p r a c t i c e is essentially scientistic, the
question about the rationality of the radical's action can be
settled in context.
In the case of the liberal trying to ascertain the rationality of
the radical's action by asking him to produce a theory or theory-

like proposition, the latter is justified in challenging the presuppositional grounds of the theory-practice relationship. For example, the radical can point out that what he is being asked to
produce is defined within the context of the theory-practice relationship which, however, cannot itself be derived through theorizing, nor be tested and validated through practice without
falling into circular reasoning. Any attempt to validate this relationship as if it were an empirical matter, i.e., by reference to experience through the familiar scientistic procedures, would be
begging the question. The empirical test through theory-practice
that the liberal is implicitly proposing for the action of the radical is a criterion for a historically and culturally given conception
of rationality, i.e., scientistic rationality. In other words, the validation of a principle is something of a different order dialectically speaking, belonging to a more inclusive context of meaning
than the justification of an action according to the same principle. This is also true in regard to the difference between rationality of action judged by scientistic criteria and that established
ex post facto by criteria of cultural and historical coherence.
Though the actual dialogue between the two is not likely to
move on this level of abstraction, the structure of their respective strategies has been clearly outlined: their attempts to conceal, or conversely, lay bare for inspection the presuppositions
of the prevailing context, the hidden agenda of the status quo.
The liberal's task is made lighter by the fact that much of the
concealment is done automatically by the culture's built-in defense mechanisms, the network of institutions as embodiments
of established reason inclusive of language, ethical norms, customs and manners. For example, polite expressions or conciliatory mannerisms of daily discourse may, upon closer scrutiny,
be revealed as protective mechanisms by way of removing presuppositions from routine observation. A reasonable, even innocuous, invitation of the radical to "talk things over" usually
implies keeping the exchange within certain prescribed limits
and not allowing either party to revert to physicality or to shift
into such "philosophical," "transcendent," or "academic" issues
such as "presuppositions." While on the same level of everydayness and popular wisdom, the liberal may continue that
"the situation is more complex than it appears," or that "all
facts are not yet in" and that w e should therefore not " f o o l
around with mindless experiments." Scientism, in its vulgar
version sets the tone about rationality of action even at the level of sub-dialogue, thus providing additional protection to the
status quo through the encasement of its presuppositions in
everyday speech structures.

Built-in cultural
defense mechanisms
of the status quo.

Conservative bias
of scientistic
methodology.

Illustration of
cultural defense
mechanisms through
the rationality of
means-ends and
substantive-instrumental reason.

Similar tendencies to protect the hidden agenda by concealing it in structures w h i c h w o u l d o t h e r w i s e be vulnerable

through visibility can also be mentioned. For example, in separating means from ends and instrumental from substantive rationality, professionals pursue the methodological sophistication
of their disciplines. The distinction of the experientially grounded, not so visible domain of ends (values, ultimate concerns and
commitments) from that of the visible, intersubjectively capable
of validation, ostensibly value-free, and therefore capable of being scientifically grounded, domain of means, has been advanced by aspiring modern disciplines as a credential of their scientific status. Physical science and its emulators deal with chains
of means, in the domain of ethical neutrality and efficiency
where inter-subjective verification is at home, while the realm
of ends is left to the individual and only derivatively to collective
choice. The instrumental rationality of science, as in everyman's
reasonableness earlier, and the rationalization of the analytical
paradigm before that, are screening devices for potentially disruptive experiential elements. The methodological injunction issued to the radical to keep his emotional and ethical bias out of
the picture if he wishes a rational assessment of the situation results, if followed, in screening experiential elements.
Given this role of scientific methodology in, so to speak, rigging the social system in favor of instrumental rationality, it is
no accident that some of the most spirited charges against the
radical were mounted from such grounds. He was accused of
confusing means and ends to the point of allowing this important distinction to lapse altogether. Being unable, for example,
to deal effectively with Dow Chemical Co. (the producer of napalm used against the Vietnamese) through the means-end
chain of efficiency, by defining as their proper end the legislative
process of Congress, the radicals had collapsed their every action
into an end by throwing themselves on the path of the first lowranking recruiting official to visit their campus. They allowed
the mediation of the end through means to lapse in the same
way that they allowed the mediating role of theory to collapse
into their immediacy of practice in dealing with the Dow official.
This critical analysis of the radical's action conceals the fact
that if he w e r e to comply, he would be renouncing the very
possibility of presuppositional challenge which is also the basis
for radical action. By separating means from ends and their experiential roots, ends are placed out of range of the function of
thought in unveiling what lies hidden in experience. Instead,
thought is being reduced to instrumental reason and functions
like theory in the theory-practice relationship. With the loss of

reason's capacity to challenge through transcendence goes its

capacity to unveil what lies hidden under the layers of institutional facticity. For it is recalled that the t w o are sides of the
same coin: it is the elaboration of what is implicit in the prevailing context of meaning which is the other side of its being reordered into a more comprehensive one. Reason qua instrumental rationality is incapable of challenging its own presuppositions in this case the means-end dualism in the same
sense that scientistic theory was unable to test the principle of
theory-practice earlier. Similarly, instrumental reason cannot
unveil an institution as its own embodiment without self-transcendence, i.e., without assuming a standpoint outside of itself.
Therefore, it is not so much the psychological attributes of individuals as the logical in this case dualistic structure of reason into substantive and instrumental, which shields the system
from presuppositional challenge. As in the case of preselected
experience in deciding the reality of a UFO, the structure of
means-end determines which actions are serviceable in terms
of its dualistic structure and consigns the rest to the ineffable
and the irrational. The status quo protects itself in a most fundamental way by incorporating its presuppositional structure into
its institutions and routinely accepted practices.
Under these circumstances, physicality and violence against
these embodiments of established instrumental reason are challenges against categories of high presuppositional status, which
have been embedded in institutional structures through long
social practice. For example, ethical and emotional neutrality,
the hallmarks of instrumental reason, have been institutionalized in the rules, codes, forms of communication, dress, manners and not least in the design of working and living spaces.
Even if our radical is self-conscious about resisting instrumental
rationality, it is next to impossible not to succumb to some of
these pervasive social forces. Irrational as it might seem to his
opponent, when judged by the standards of instrumental rationality, the radical's act of physicality follows a logic which fits
our outline of dialectical synthesis so far. He can be viewed as
advancing the candidacy of his action as an example of such
synthesis, inasmuch as he cannot, as in previous cases, be taken
as having planned it without raising all the familiar objections
about its status as synthesis. Stated somewhat differently, a dialectical synthesis cannot be accomplished in terms of either of
the poles of the dual category which it is supposed to transcend,
without reinjecting the dualism into the n e w context. A presuppositional challenge claiming the status of such a synthesis
can therefore be neither merely theoretical nor merely practi-

Physicality and
violence as presuppositional
challenges.

The dialectic is propetted by unresolved

issues to higher
contexts of meaning.

cal; neither immediacy-free theory, nor unmediated practice,

without perpetuating the theory-practice dualism which it is
supposed to be transcending in the first place. As the two-way
process of the analytical experience has already suggested, theory involves immediacy in the insightful event of positing underived propositions, and practice involves mediation in the
form of those layers of embodiment of past experience and routine practices in individuals and institutions. But both of our
protagonists seem unaware of this when they emphasize the
priority of their favorite term of the polarity at the expense of
the other.
Though substantial progress has been made by the scientistic
paradigm in exemplifying a less abstractive model of a dialectical synthesis of action than the analytical one, old problems remain, and new ones have been generated in trying to answer
emerging questions. On the positive side, the restrictive parameters of the therapeutic model have been lifted so that the
process has become open-ended. The dialogue has come closer
to a dialektike between equals and the foundation for the transition to a more all-inclusive context of meaning has been laid
through the mutual disclosure of hidden presuppositions by
elaborating upon what remains implicit in the prevailing one.
On the negative side, each is remaining irrevocably attached to
his polar term, seemingly unaware of the negative effect this
entails for dialectical synthesis through the involvement of the
opposite term. W e seem to be confirming familiar tentative
conclusions via a different route: Unless w e relinquish the
standpoint of the individual, and the associated scientistic predictive rationality, and adopt instead that of the group, and the
retrospective outlook that goes with it, the dialectical synthesis
of theory-practice into action will remain elusive. W e n o w
know that self-consciousness in the accepted individual-psychological sense will not get us out beyond the impasse if the
subject-object duality is not also transcended. Granted, selfconsciousness was vital in the synthesis at the level of subjectivity in the second paradigm. However, this was a severely abstractive situation which served well as an illustration but will
not do for more concrete social situations. Even the most selfconscious radical w h o has effected the synthesis at the individual level described in the analytical paradigm cannot, by the
same right, claim to have effected one in the social domain.
Whereas in the former case the object is located within himself,
in the latter he remains a subject vis-a-vis objects which belong
to the outside world. This externality being, along with predictive rationality, the cornerstone of scientism, is in principle in-

compatible with a dialectical synthesis of theory-practice. A

radical change in the rules of the game is necessary whereby,
with the transition from individual to group, "subjectivity" can
apply to a collectivity and "self-consciousness" can assume a
different meaning in this new context. The approach utilized in
admitting the subjectivity of the psychoanalytic paradigm as the
locus of synthesis at the individual level can be used again, this
time as an elevated sort of subjectivity involving a collective
self-consciousness. As a result predictive rationality, based on
scientistic externality and individual consciousness, gradually
gives way to a form of historical, or retrospective, rationality.
These important steps are the topic of the next paradigm and
of much else to come, but in some ways they have already been
anticipated in the present one, inasmuch as the interaction between the protagonists supplies the germ of a social system, as
individual categories begin to gradually turn into social ones. For
example, unlike the patient, whose lapse of memory is individual-psychological, the liberal suffers from a kind of historical or
cultural amnesia. Both are displaying lack of insight into their
past which appears to them as something alien in need of a value-free objective approach. Whereas what remains concealed
from the analysand are layers of repressed individual experience,
for the liberal it is the ossified social experience embodied in institutions and social structures. The analyst provides the tools for
unveiling the experience of the former, but the latter cannot rely
on this because the experience involved is collective and anyone
offering assistance is susceptible to the same malaise. The patient's individual rationalizations take social and historical forms in
the case of the liberal. They become the categorial structures and
prevailing ideologies of established reason and especially of that
which is most impervious to unveiling, scientism.

Anticipation of
the group as the
locus of an elevated
subjectivity.

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D. Adam Smith's Invisible Hand:

An Economic Paradigm for Dialectical Synthesis
at the Level of the Group
It is with these important transitions in mind that w e must
now turn our attention to the logical features of Adam Smith's
doctrine of the Invisible Hand. The acknowledged founder of
economics as a separate discipline, Smith stands chronologically
in the middle of the eighteenth century whence the transition
from the traditional pre-bourgeois to the bourgeois order appears starkly visible because of the social upheaval preceding
and following the French Revolution. Thus, if w e allow for a
correspondence between this revolutionary transition and our
dialectical shifts in contexts of meaning, the logical structure of
his economic system (as exemplified in the doctrine of the Invisible Hand) provides the rules for social cohesion in the new
bourgeois order. By the middle of the eighteenth century when
Smith was working on his system, economic activity in England
was sufficiently organized on a mass scale to allow a quantitative treatment modeled after the scientific advances of the preceding century. Moreover, the injection into the social system
of the new philosophical conceptions of freedom and individuality, dating from the previous century, required the establishment of a n e w level of social coherence to replace the social
bonds of the pre-bourgeois social order. Perhaps one can appreciate h o w chaotic the n e w order must have appeared to a
member of the old order by drawing some parallels between
features of the cultural revolution of the 1960s, which w e have
already used in an earlier paradigm, and those of the 1770s.
Separating means from ends and assigning scientific status to
instrumental rationality while relegating ends to the publicly
unverifiable domain of individual (and only derivatively collective) choice, must have seemed, to a member of the old social
order, to be an inducement to social disorder. The realm of ends
in a culture placing a premium on individuality and the ethics
of conscience is a matter of aggregation of a great number and
variety of individual values through a set of rules called democratic. Of course, this does not mean that, having been screened

Dialectical synthesis
modeled after
economics.

Parallels between
bourgeois and
countercultural
challenges.

Smith's replacement
of social (pre-bourgeois), by an economic (modern) transindividual, order.

Individual intentions resulting in

unintended social
outcomes: Hegel's
Cunning of Reason
anticipated.

by the institutional net for social power, individual ends come

out weighing the same as it may be suggested by the egalitarian
nomenclature of liberal democracy. Rather it conveys the view
that, with the realm of individual ends removed from that of
objectively determinable values, it is no longer possible to assign by objective criteria different weights to individual ends. In
the language of the last Chapter, theory having been delegated
to instrumental rationality, there is no room left for substantive
rationality in the realm of ends. This should not be interpreted
as meaning that substantive discourse has lapsed but that its
importance has been minimized by the fact that, unlike its prebourgeois status, it is not securely institutionalized and it is
therefore manifested at the individual level as personal criticism, opinion, or "just another view."
Smith's doctrine of the Invisible Hand was his contribution
toward the discovery of a hidden order in such an apparent disorderly state of human affairs: Selfishly motivated individuals
seek economic advantage but, given conditions of freedom and
equality in competition, the net outcome of their combined efforts leads unintentionally as if guided by "an invisible hand"
of Divine Providence to the general good. What is interesting
from our dialectical standpoint is that Smith meant his work as
a scientific contribution in the successful empirical tradition of
his times as exemplified in physics. But somehow the "invisible
hand" worked behind his back also, turning what he intended
as an empirical study into what is essentially a logical construction modeled after the fallacy of composition. For he intended,
as did most of the luminaries of the age of reason, a successful
scientific explanation of human behavior, but ended up with a
prime dialectical paradigm for the transition from the individual
to the group and a prototype for Hegel's own counterpart, the
Cunning of Reason.
For economics as an empirical science, Smith's dialectical
discovery was equivalent to an application of the wrong logic to
his subject matter. This set his successors and the emulators of
the n e w "successful" economic science in other social disciplines on the wrong methodological track. However, for dialectical philosophy the Invisible Hand provided a new level of coherence and a point of departure for the elevated form of subjectivity required in the advanced stages of the dialectic. The
elaboration of Smith's System of Needs is a detailed drawing of
implications from the economic system in the light of what is
called in formal logic (which he also taught at the university) a
fallacy of composition: arguing from properties of individuals to
those of wholes. The social system was viewed by analogy to

the fallacy of composition, whereby the unintended beneficial

outcome corresponds to logical whole and the selfish perceptions and intentions of human individuals to logical individuals.
The nature of explanatory power through logical metaphor and
the transcendence of the individual into the group was not realized by Smith's successors and, in all likelihood, was partially
missed by Smith as well. They mistook his approach for a genuine ground-breaking in empirical explanation and they proceeded to deduce a great variety of increasingly refined corollaries from the social fallacy of composition as if it were a cluster of theoretical propositions. As evidenced by the development of economic theory in the hands of Smith's successors, it
was on an economic reality contrary to that stipulated by Smith
for the operation of the Invisible Hand (a market blemished by
less than the stipulated freedom and knowledge of its participants, and more power than the stipulated impotence of any
single participant to affect its free mechanism) that the empirical claims and predictive powers of the new discipline came to
sorrow. On the other hand, it was precisely this arena, in which
it was discredited by scientistic criteria, that Smith's logical
metaphor retained its value by w a y of dialectical standards.
While Smith's methodology failed as a set of operating rules
within the given scientistic (economic) context of meaning, it
succeeded, as will be shown in much detail later, as an operating code for the transition from a scientistic to a humanistic
context of meaning.
In addition to illustrating dialectical transition the metaphor
of the Invisible Hand is an example of all-inclusiveness or, what
is known dialectically, as concreteness. For, unlike a theoretical
proposition which is an abstraction in search of an empirical
correlate, a metaphor, viewed presently as a paradigm for concrete (dialectical) universality, has a life of its own. Using Aristotle's dialectically suggestive definition of a metaphor as the
application of a meaning associated with any given level of discourse to another, w e may elaborate that the transference of
meaning of the metaphor involves a superimposition of aprioristic elements of one discourse onto empirical ones of the other.
By contrast to the scientistic-empirical use of the Invisible Hand
by Smith's successors, whereby the propositions derived from it
were taken as theoretical and were expected to seek their empirical correlates in the social world, these same propositions, as
representative of dialectical concreteness, are self-contained. In
the latter case the logical features of the fallacy have their empirical counterparts in the social features selected in effecting
the metaphor. Operationally speaking, in terms of research

The logical
metaphor of
society as an
example of dialectical concreteness.

Further illustration
of the dialectical
integration of the
individual into the
group through the
Invisible Hand.

strategies by economists, a more strictly scientistic interpretation, of the sort that did not take place in the history of economic thought until relatively late. This would have called for
successive adjustments of the model of perfect competition (the
Invisible Hand) until empirical confirmation was possible or, if
this proved unsuccessful, for the model to be dropped. The logical metaphor, on the other hand, self-contained to a degree as
it is, can be used as a heuristic device to explore social subject
matter by allowing its logical possibilities to unfold. This, in fact,
happened for a long time in economic thought, to the detriment of its development as a empirical science.
Without trying to minimize the similarities between theories, models, and metaphors in terms of self-containment, capacity for self-selecting empirical data, and heuristic value, the
contrast between theories and metaphors above was intended
to emphasize the difference between empirical and dialectical
concreteness. Whereas scientifically and commonsensically a
metaphor is empirically grounded or physically tangible, dialectically it is (albeit at a low level of concreteness) self-complete
or, as w e put it above, having a life of its own. Since explicit ness or unveiling of what lies behind the surface is a fundamental value of the dialectic in its quest for all-encompassing
coherence, it is weary of a mode of comprehension like the scientistic, which relies on a problematic (dualistic) epistemological structure of mental-physical, as it did w i t h the similar
methodological structure of theory-practice. Instead, it opts for
a structure of self-containment including both terms of the polarity what w e have called a "mix" of the aprioristic and the
empirical in the case of the metaphor. Recalling the UFO case, it
was the lack of explicitness about the high-order (implicit) parameters of reality which resulted in the self-selection of empirical data that "proved" the non-existence of UFO's. It is a similar lack of explicitness leading to self-concealment that the dialectic is avoiding, which is being illustrated through the selfcompleteness of the metaphor. Needless to add that the selfcontainment of the metaphor, and correspondingly of any moment of the dialectical process short of the final one, is not truly
all-inclusive, thus allowing for an advance to the next higher
context of meaning.
We can return to the Invisible Hand for an illustration of the
incompleteness of the aggregation of individuals leading to the
self-completeness of the group as a result of their satisfactory
integration into it. This can also be interpreted as a change in
quality as a result of increase in quantity or, better still, as a
qualitative leap in a context of meaning by way of a universal-

ization of a feature in the context preceding it. It is the universalization of the knowledge (or ignorance) of all entrepreneurs
given a large enough number of them so that no one can affect the price by controlling output that makes it possible for
the Invisible Hand to work for the benefit of the whole. If one
or more participants have superior knowledge about market
conditions, monopolies and oligopolies emerge and the universal pursuit of self-interest is no longer conducive to the general
welfare, as the Invisible Hand ceases to operate for their benefit
without their knowledge. In effect, a more inclusive or secondorder context of meaning has been generated, as the knowledge of the master student of the market system (e.g., Adam
Smith) is now being shared by participants who were previously ignorant of it. As one's knowledge of the system increases, so
does his capacity to determine, with increasing accuracy, the
net effect of his actions on the whole and thereby neutralize
the effects of the Invisible Hand. The operation of the latter can
now be seen as the result of lack or deficiency in self-knowledge (or self-consciousness in terms of the advanced moments
of the dialectic). The fallacy of composition has become inoperative at this level of knowledge (context of meaning) because
its logical individuals have become self-conscious beings w h o
will not allow themselves to be victimized by the fallacy. To
paraphrase the old logic textbook example, people will discontinue going to parades equipped with stools, if they know that
any differential advantage will be wiped out when they all try
to enjoy it.
It may appear, from our treatment of Smith's metaphor of
the Invisible Hand as an illustration of a dialectical context of
meaning and of the elaboration of its implications as a paradigm for the transition from one context to the next that it is
possible to substitute dialectic for empirical theory. In other
words, the dialectic might be misconceived (in fact, it has been
by some of its critics in the past) as an injunction to deduce empirical features of the world from the properties of logical systems like the fallacy of composition. In our case, pointing to the
socio-logical metaphor of the Invisible Hand as a mix of empirical and aprioristic elements might be misconceived as an effort
to derive, even in the barest outline, the theory of imperfect
competition from the logical exploration of the properties of the
Invisible Hand. The detailed explanation of why this is not the
case must wait until later, but the basic reason for it has already
emerged from the discussion so far. As w e move up the dialectical ladder rigidly dichotomous categories become less reliable.
The a pnon-empirical has n o w been added to theory-practice

Anticipation of
later dialectical
developments by
the social fallacy of
composition.

and means-end in the treatment of human action by social disciplines. These dual structures are not summarily abolished but
are being set up in order to be dialectically synthesized or sublated. Each of their polar terms becomes progressively more
concrete through an admixture with elements from its opposite, in the way suggested by the mix of the a priori and the empirical elements in our metaphor, until the moment when they
find themselves, almost by surprise, synthesized. Reality comes
in many grades w h i c h scientism, in its self-concealment of
rigidly polarized categorial structures, tends to overlook. The
metaphor was a mix from both aprioristic and empirical elements from the outset, since there was already an empirical element present in the logical metaphor w h e n the latter was
dressed up in a social garb in order to serve as a social fallacy of
composition. As the logical possibilities of the Invisible Hand
began to unfold, new empirical content was introduced to give
sensuously concrete form to the illustration of the new possibilities. With each extension the old mix of the empirical and the
a priori takes on the role of a new a priori until a higher level of
dialectical concretion is reached, and so on. This is a reformulation of the familiar rhythm of the dialectic in terms of the social
fallacy of composition, whereby, with every expansion of a context of meaning and the rendering of its implications explicit,
the old context becomes incorporated in the new one under a
n e w set of rules. But it is also a dialectical response to Kant's
question about the possibility of the synthetic a priori.
The centrality of
self-consciousness
for the transition to
the next context of
meaning (and
paradigm).

For example, the textbook's illustration of the fallacy of

composition through parade-goers is already a case in low-level
concreteness. The choice of illustration is also a preselection of
empirical elements which fit the a priori features of the logical
structure of the fallacy. A n act of abstraction is being performed: one dimension of individuality is being selected out of
a richly concrete social life. Individuals are reduced to the simple function of viewers devoid of other individualizing features,
such as social position, income, character, except perhaps for
height and physical stamina. But most important, the feature
most instrumental for the change in the context of meaning,
self-consciousness about one's role in the system, has also been
abstracted away. The restoration of these individualizing features means a higher level of concreteness where individuals
qua self-conscious beings can better anticipate the net effect of
their actions. Thus, they can escape the victimization by a system which is no longer external to them but to which they are
related in ways of which they are conscious.

Self-consciousness, the other side of freedom, is the key to

the understanding of the final and most embracing context of
meaning of Hegel's Logic, the Absolute Idea and, by the same
token, the final synthesis of theory and practice. For now, it
seems clear that what precedes it according to our paradigm, is
a dialectical aggregation of unself-conscious individuals w h o
cannot be reduced to a mere quantitative one, without losing
its most distinctive quality of having transcended predictive rationality on the part of the individuals composing it. The successful operation of the Invisible Hand depended on the presence of a reduced (abstract) individuality of the members of the
economic community. This is also a way of saying that homogeneity is conducive, and differentiation is hindering, to its operation, and that the transition from individual to group entails
a genuine loss of individuality before the latter can recoup in
the next round as an expanded form of consciousness. In other
words, the purging from persisting scientistic elements which
threatened the integrity of the new context of meaning of selfconsciousness is being purchased in this stage at the expense of
abstract individuality and predictive capacity. Self-knowledge,
as w e saw earlier, is particularly inhibiting to the operation of
the Invisible Hand because it translates into the differential
knowledge (or ignorance) which renders individuals intractable
to the abstractive procedures of aggregation associated with scientism. However, this does not mean the abandonment of abstractive procedures, nor the wholesale rejection of scientism
for that matter, but rather their reintegration at each level in
pace with self-consciousness. The same process can perhaps be
conveyed by individuals playing the role of both objects of aggregation according to a prevailing set of rules, and subjects redefining at each level the new set according to which the next
round of integration is to take place.
It is difficult to overstate the importance of the metaphor of
the Invisible Hand as a compact embodiment of ideas about human action at that particular junction of intellectual history. A
century earlier the scientific revolution had reached its apex in
the major work of Newton. The intervening period between his
Principia and Smith's Wealth of Nations was crowded with aspiring Newtons of the social disciplines laboring to subject human
action to scientific treatment. It should come as no surprise that
the great majority of these efforts in morals and politics were
modeled or, more accurately, were thought to be modeled, after
physics. The fascinating thing about Smith is that, though an
aspiring Newton of the domain of human action, having succumbed to the Invisible Hand, he became an exception by pro-

The dialectical
importance of the
social metaphor of
the Invisible Hand
restated.

ducing a non-scientistic and distinctly more advanced position

about action. Unlike his economic successors, who at their best
dealt with the Invisible Hand as a first approximation of a scientific hypothesis, thus foreclosing on its dialectical possibilities,
these were not lost to Hegel w h o incorporated them in his system. His celebrated Cunning of Reason, trans-individual Reason, working behind the back of individual reason and using
the latter to accomplish its higher ends, is a generalized version
of Smith's Invisible Hand. The role of the Cunning of Reason
throughout Hegel's work is not limited to the instances where it
is referred to explicitly. It dominates the more advanced stages
of the dialectic and its cunning is Hegel's metaphorical way of
expressing not only the transition from individual to group, but
also a corresponding shift from a rationality appropriate to individual action to that of dialectical Reason peculiar to collective
entities or supra-individual social and historical forms. Reason
operates with cunning, or so it appears to individuals who are
not fully self-conscious. It is only by hindsight that they realize
h o w they have been tricked by the Cunning of Reason. Thus,
the metaphor conveys not only the transition from individual
to group, as in Smith's counterpart, but the nature of the instrumentality of Reason itself through which the transition is
being effected, as well as Reason's retrospective approach in its
final accomplishment as self-consciousness.

E. Philosophy as a Paradigm for

Dialectical Synthesis through Meaning
The last Chapter began with economics and ended with philosophy. It started with a model of a relatively unself-conscious
kind of social activity and concluded with a species of self-conscious action, in which one's knowledge extends beyond objective conditions and into the effects one's own subjective states
(e.g., knowledge, expectations) have on these conditions. But
self-consciousness is the standpoint of the context of all contexts and the hallmark of dialectical philosophy par excellence.
The question might then be raised at this point: Doesn't this climactic role of philosophy, and philosophy of self-consciousness
at that in our sequence of paradigms prejudice the issue
of dialectical synthesis of theory and practice in favor of theory
and against practice? Would this not raise the spectre of a surreptitious reinjection of the theory-practice polarity? This paradigm is taken from philosophy in order to allay such fears and
provide an easy transition to the strictly philosophical subject
matter which follows.
Philosophy, born a long time ago out of both theoretical and
practical concerns, has retained, after some extended lapses, its
holistic concerns. The theoretical dimension derives from a logical prioritization of metaphysical being over beings, as conceived by various disciplines and common sense. Philosophy
places itself at the apex of hierarchically stucturalized being.
However, this holistic claim of philosophy, as exemplified by
the great metaphysical systems of Antiquity and the Middle
Ages, was challenged by modern science beginning with the
Renaissance. Science had supplanted metaphysical being with
its own operationally tractable and empirically (through theory-practice) testable being, which was congenial to the pragmatic temper of the emerging bourgeois social order. Laboring
under a bruised ego and the indignities of division of labor, philosophy retreated into a self-doubting epistemological quest unable to reclaim its privileged holistic position for nearly three
centuries. The important break came with a philosophical shift
from being to meaning, and from epistemologically certified
knowledge to interpretation as the correct approach to cultural

The possibility of
the resurfacing of
theory-practice
polarity considered.

The holistic claim

of philosophy
buttressed by Vico's
epistemological
reorientation.

objects. The break was initiated with Vico's cutting of the epistemological Gordian noose from around the neck of philosophy, which ushered in the emancipation of cultural disciplines
f r o m the m e t h o d o l o g i c a l t u t e l a g e of physical science.
Vico said that w e do not need epistemological certification of
our knowledge of cultural matters. We understand such matters
for the simple reason that w e made them. The explanation is
much more complex than that, but the gist of it is contained in
this simple pronouncement. The great edifice of German Idealism is a direct descendant of Vico's Copernican Revolution in
the methodology of cultural disciplines. Kant's conception of
creative or spontaneous reason and Hegel's central notion of
Spirit provide the immediate links between Vico's insight and
modernity. The peculiarly humanistic approaches to culture by
phenomenology, existentialism and hermeneutics (interpretation), as well as the methodological innovations within social
sciences as a result of these approaches, can be traced directly
to this final overcoming of epistemological dualism by the persevering holistic commitment of philosophy.
Hegel's conception of
There is a practical in both the pragmatic and the selfSpirit as a safeguard originating moral senses of the term dimension of holistic
against the resurfac- philosophy. It follows directly from the reorientation of philosoing of the polarity of
phy's holistic claim from being to meaning and from (scientistheory-practice.
tic) knowledge to (cultural) interpretation. By contrast to scientistic objects which are "known" because they are external to
the subject, cultural objects are "interpreted" because they are
clusters of meaning generated by the subject in the course of
social interaction with others over the lifespan of a culture.
Though cultural objects, cultural complexes, and indeed culture
itself, are of our o w n doing, w e are not aware of our roles as
their creators because of the limitations of our conceptual grasp
and cultural memory. Hegel's conception of Spirit which will
be explored more deeply later encompasses both the exoteric
aspect of our sedimented meanings (Objective Spirit) which
renders it independent and even alien to us in its facticity, and
Spirit's esoteric side (interpretation), which represents our own
effort (Subjective Spirit) at desedimentation of those layers of
sedimented meaning which compose it. In other words, there
are two complementary aspects of Spirit: On the one hand, an
objective side representing culture which, though our creation,
confronts us as alien in its sedimented opacity and misleads us
to treat it as if it were a scientistic object; and, on the other, a
subjective side standing for our quest to comprehend culture,
and in doing so, through the desedimentation of our very own
sedimented meanings, to comprehend ourselves.

In setting unitary Spirit at the center of philosophical enterprise, while substituting theory and practice for its subjective
and objective faces, respectively, one can get still another
glimpse of the modern holistic claim of philosophy, as regards
the unity of theory and practice, on the basis of meaning. Practice corresponds to the process by which sedimented meanings
generate cultural objects, while theory is the way by which sedimented meanings are understood through being rendered
transparent by way of desedimentation. The unitary claim of
philosophy is not advanced by virtue of any supramundane
form of being, but on the basis of the interpretation of cultural
objects or other manifestations of commonly shared culture.
Contrary to the prevailing view of common sense and scientistic understanding that it is somehow resides in the clouds, philosophy, in its dual capacity as outlined above, has its feet on
earth. What of course prevents the perception of philosophy, as
bearing on everyday life, from being immediately obvious to
common sense as well as to science, is that the logical chains of
mediation the links in the process of unveiling or desedimentation between philosophy and everyday life are both
long and tortuous. However, philosophy is at home with both
the world of essences of empirical science and that of appearances of common understanding for the simple reason that it
advances nothing new, but merely brings to consciousness
through the unveiling of sedimented meaning what common
sense and specialized disciplines have all along believed to be
true in their circumscribed contexts of meaning. Philosophy,
therefore, amounts to no more than self-consciousness of culture or Spirit. Unless this claim is taken seriously, the world appears, from the vantage point of philosophy, as incoherent as it
does from that of specialized disciplines which, having carved
out from the world their own peculiarly coherent universes of
discourse, relegate whatever does not fit into it as belonging to
the domain of obscurity or outright irrationality.
The remainder of this Chapter is devoted to the illustration
of this holistic effort of philosophy with special reference to the
unity of theory and practice. The preceding paradigms of their
synthesis are viewed from the standpoint of dialectical philosophy as layers of meaning sedimented in psychoanalytic, revolutionary, and economic activity, as a result of the routines of linguistic usage and social practice. Though the dialectically progressive arrangement of the paradigms anticipates the culminating holistic act of philosophy in synthesizing them, there are
still pockets of opacity which can only be rendered transparent

Pre-modem view
of philosophy qua
bearing on everyday life.

with the help of the ultimate tool for overcoming sedimentation, self-consciousness, the privilege of dialectical philosophy.
Though the analytical paradigm represented a rudimentary
form of social situation consisting of two individuals, their roles
were prearranged and one was assigned the important function
of guiding transcendence. In this respect the role of the analyst
resembled that of the practitioner of the Platonic dialektike, the
Socratic philosophos, the lover (philos) of wisdom (sophia). But
wisdom is no mere intellectual understanding of virtue, nor
routine practice of it, but the dialectical synthesis of them in the
person of the sophos. The practice of virtue follows necessarily a
deeper form of intellectual-cww-experiential understanding
along the lines of the analytical paradigm. The post-Classical
change in the meaning of philosophy from love of t h e o r y - W practice of virtue to a mere philosophizing about it, made it almost impossible for the modern student of philosophy to make
sense of the Socratic doctrine according to which all it takes is
true knowledge of virtue in order to issue in virtuous action.
Advanced as it may seem when proposed as a synthesis of theory and practice at the philosophical level, this Greek synthesis
of theory and practice stands quite low in terms of the dialectical path traversed by philosophy between Plato and Hegel.
In his three-volume Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel
opens the discussion w i t h pre-Socratics and proceeds on a
course exemplifying temporal advance along with dialectical
concreteness, concluding with his own system which he takes to
be the dialectical summation of the work of his predecessors.
Given his approach, the Greek paradigm, like the analytical, is a
preliminary one containing implicitly that which is to become
fully explicit at the end of the dialectic. The synthesis of theory
and practice comes full circle from the unself-consciously held
Greek version to Hegel's o w n fully developed and self-consciously formulated one. For example, from the vantage point of
Hegel, scientistically oriented post-Renaissance philosophy,
which in one form or another had dominated the scene until his
times, seemed incapable of performing the transcendence which
would also involve transcending itself qua merely mental activity. This much Hegel was probably intimating in his frequently
misunderstood remarks about philosophy ending with him.
Once philosophy has made it impossible to think of itself as a
species of dialectical synthesis of theory and practice, the way
back to synthesis is through the end of philosophy as it is
known. In other words, the change in the meaning of philosophical activity, from the Socratic reflection-and-action to the
m o d e r n reflection about action, made it impossible for the

philosopher of the modern era to transcend his position without

transcending himself qua philosopher practicing only in the reflective mode and becoming also a man of action. Hegel's declaration of being the last of the philosophers in the reflective
mode is, at the same time, a claim of having secured a foothold
outside that mode through his method of transcendence. But it
does not follow, as some Young Hegelians have implied, that he
should have put aside reflection and become a man of action,
nor that he should have put philosophy in the service of revolutionary action. As w e shall see in detail later Hegel would
have been first to retort this is a relapse to scientism of theory-practice. It is reminiscent of the demand on the radical to
produce a blueprint of action and overlooks the intervening mediations between scientistic predictive rationality and dialectical
retrospective Reason. Action comes in different grades in dialectical hierarchy, depending on the context of meaning at which
one is operating, as does reflection. As in the preceding paradigms, action at the level of Reason is neither sheer immediacy
nor mere ex cathedra theorizing but a dialectical synthesis of the
two, to be certified as such by the retrospective philosopher-historian. However, this raises the question: Where is the latter going to stand in order to give us his retrospective account without
generating an even more all-embracing context of meaning?
So far the difficulties connected with the context of all con- Recapitulation
texts has been postponed by moving up the dialectical scale
of the preceding
with each paradigm. But, having reached the level of philoso- paradigms.
phy where nothing can be taken for granted, this issue must be
faced if the the dialectic is not to be reduced to another version
of historical relativism. The issues surrounding the philosophical paradigm of action in both its Hegelian version and its
Marxist aberration, occupy the center of what follows in the
main part of this work. A comprehensive answer to the above
question has, therefore, to be postponed and a more tentative
one given in the remaining pages of this paradigm. In the detailed account which follows in Part III, the disciplines of psychology, politics, economics, and philosophy, from which the
paradigms were drawn, represent subject matter for a dialectical treatment of progressive sophistication, with special reference to the category of action appropriate to each. They are
separated from each other by a varying number of shifts of contexts of meaning moments, in dialectical terminology to
which they correspond and which, in turn, they illustrate.
We have attempted to show the progressive concreteness of
the dialectical moments by referring to the gradual relaxation of
parameters in the paradigms as w e move up the scale. Full di-

alectical insight from a paradigm required the gradual suspension of both built-in constraints by the parameters and abstractive features of the concepts involved in it. The modifications
undergone in the rigid juxtaposition of the empirical and the a
priori, and the shift from reason to Reason in the economic paradigm, were examples of the latter. The change from therapeutic
to normal setting, the extension of the end-points on the timeaxis and the foregoing of the prearranged roles in the process of
transcendence in the analytical paradigm, were examples of the
former. In the analytical paradigm which (because of the severity of constraints) ranked lowest on the dialectical scale of concreteness, the shift in the context of meaning from externally
applied to self-applied theory resulted swiftly, and with near-logical necessity, in a synthesis of theory-practice anticipating the
final outcome of the dialectic. Not so in the case of scientism in
the service of politics whereby, with the relaxation of these constraints and the transition to the more concrete level of politics,
a similar synthesis could not have taken place without a good
deal more of mediation. The economic paradigm illustrated the
transition from individual to group and the succeeding shift
from consciousness to self-consciousness: from the situation in
which one thinks that the rules are operating in front of one's
eyes, but they are, in fact, operating behind his back, to that
where they are operating behind his back, but he knows that
this is so. Unlike the situation of the analytical paradigm, here
no one can be entrusted with guiding transcendence without
the risk of reinjecting the old rules into the new context. With
the transition from individual to group and from individual reason to trans-individual Reason, there is no one w h o can be
trusted as a repository for this function in a way which corresponds to the analyst of the psychological paradigm. The emergence of the group brings an element of contingency regarding
h o w transcendence is to be initiated. There is no way of planning the next dialectical step without reinfecting that which was
intended as synthesis with the germs of what it was supposed to
overcome. As the challenge cannot be planned without aborting
the dialectical effort, so is it impossible to assign the role of the
challenger beforehand without negating transcendence. The
challenge, therefore, has to be left to those experiential elements
which are not categorially preselected through scientistic rationality and theory-practice in particular. It can only originate in
those undomesticated elements which were branded irrational
or non-existent by established reason, but which nevertheless
persevered in its interstices.

Philosophy, standing as it does above economics and politics

and, therefore, so many more steps removed from science and
psychology on the dialectical scale, appears to have inherited
from them a rather problematic state of affairs. It may be useful
at this preliminary stage to begin defining its role in formulating the elusive synthesis by approaching its final category,
Hegel's Absolute Idea, in negative terms. Like the Brahman, the
absolute of Indian idealist philosophy with which Hegel's final
category has many affinities, it is more instructive to begin by
giving an account of it through negative determinations. Ontologically speaking, at the level of the Absolute Idea, there is no
experiential element remaining undoriiesticated and thereby
capable of mounting a challenge, and logically there is n o
longer a correspondingly more inclusive context of meaning.
All contingency has ceased, as has all presuppositional challenge, since by definition there is nowhere to go in terms of
more fundamental presuppositions or more embracing contexts
of meaning. Or, reverting to the logical mode of describing the
Absolute, all change in what can be judged by reference to
what remains fixed, all successive syntheses in terms of the final one, and generally all relativity, needs to be gauged against
an absolute frame of reference. The retrodictive criterion for
judging the authenticity of synthesis which was initiated at the
level of politics is being finalized at that of philosophy. Yet, the
Absolute would be wanting as an absolute frame of reference if
it had to be described as merely retrodictive in judging all previous syntheses. For, though dialectically more advanced than
the predictive logic of scientism, retrodictive logic entails an unresolved duality. It suffers from the same difficulty as theorypractice earlier, in which w e found that neither of the polar
terms could independently constitute an adequate ground for a
synthesis while the other was tacitly assumed and, therefore,
bound to be surreptitiously reintroduced into the new context.
Like any temporal setting modeled after past-future, the retrodictive-predictive structure retains duality at a level which, by
the very meaning of the Absolute, is not permissible.
The way out of this impasse (too involved for discussion at
this early stage) is to provide a context whereby one can meaningfully assert the validity of both the predictive and retrodictive synthesis. Hegel's solution to this problem consists in the
circular structure of his dialectical system as a whole. Though
forming the initial and the terminal points of his Logic, the first
and last categories of this work, Being and the Absolute Idea,
constitute in terms of his system as a whole, points on the circumference of a circle. Thus, as was pointed out earlier, the all-

Philosophy on the
integrating path of
sophia as revised by
the Absolute Idea.

Dialectical circularity as the basis

for resolving the remaining difficulties.

inclusive context of the Absolute, as indeed every other category of the dialectic, is both a presupposition and an outcome, depending on which way it is facing on the circle. Although the
Absolute can go no further in terms of a more all-inclusive context, there is a "forward" in terms of the beginning of the dialectical process the forward movement of the circular path
on the w a y to Being. So the Absolute is the outcome if it is
facing backward and is adopting a retrospective standpoint,
and a presupposition if it is facing forward and adopting a predictive outlook.
The final synthesis
as a result of transcendence from
object-language to
meaning-language.

Possible misunderstandings of
meaning-language
clarified through the
concept of circularity.

However, it should be pointed out that the latter is not the

already transcended predictive rationality of scientism, but the
predictive capacity implicit in the self-knowledge of an all-encompassing whole. The Absolute has dialectically incorporated
the insight that the validity regarding scientism's predictive
claims is implicit in the inter-connectedness of its categorial apparatus. But scientism is unaware of what is implicit in its categories and, therefore, labors under the illusion that it make predictions about things external to itself. Its epistemological realism, its ontological dualism, its object-language and its methodological theory-practice, are interdependent elements of a
closely knit context of meaning. All of them, but especially its
object-language, get in the way of self-consciousness and the
process of unveiling what is implicit in the dualistic structure of
its categorial apparatus. In the dialectic the transition from scientists to humanistic contexts of meaning is pari passu a shift
from object-language to meaning-language. The gradual attainment of self-consciousness, which is characteristic of the later
stages of the dialectic, signals a systematic desedimentation of
deeper structures of meaning. Significantly, the super-categories
which encompass the scientistic and humanistic contexts are
called Essence and Notion, respectively, wherein the latter conveys the concern about the meaning of the concept itself, or the
concept of the concept. By the time the absolute context has
been reached, all traces of object-language have been eliminated along with the remaining dualistic features and the prevailing language is that of meaning alone. As Hegel put it, echoing
Aristotle and underlining the feature of self-consciousness, the
Absolute thinks and talks about itself.
A number of misunderstandings and subsequent criticisms
of Hegel's philosophy stem f r o m overlooking the fact that,
though clothed in metaphorical, and even anthropomorphic
expression suggestive of object-language, his language is preeminently meaning-language or meta-language not unlike
modern philosophies of meaning and transcendence. Common

sense realism and its many variations, pressing from both the
cultural and the philosophical front in the last century, have
made these misunderstandings difficult to avoid. It takes more
than the usual effort and time to convince a contemporary educated audience that Spirit (Geist) and Notion (Begriff), the two
super-categories of the later stages of the dialectic, are about
meaning rather than disembodied entities and subjective notions. A similar fate may await the present effort to render the
universe of meaning through the loaded object-language of the
metaphor of a Janus-faced Absolute moving along a circular
path. But having gone so far in this mode with the help of paradigms, there seems little choice but to continue and conclude
this Part by recalling some cases from these paradigms which
deal with fundamental concepts most susceptible to object-language and endeavor to restate them in meaning-language.
During our earlier comparison of Hegel's treatment of being
with other philosophies of transcendence, w e noted that his
point of departure was a matter of convenience rather than a
presuppositionless beginning. Being was found to be a form of
unmediated existence posited by philosophers w h o are unaware of what is implicit in it as a product of historically given
form of consciousness. Like any other form of immediacy, a
posit conceals mediation, but this is not realized at the moment
it is being posited and has to wait for the next higher context of
meaning, wherein the unveiling of what had lain implicit takes
place. Thus the earlier context becomes explicit in the later one,
and the end is implicit in the beginning. It takes a whole succession of dialectical steps to make fully explicit in the absolute
context not only what has been implicit in the previous one,
but in the process itself of making explicit. In other words, the
full meaning of rendering something explicit is k n o w n only
when nothing remains implicit in the succession of contexts of
meaning and when, in addition, it has become clear that the
process of rendering explicit is circular. There is a qualitative
difference between the absolute context and all the rest which
has important consequences for the final synthesis of theory
and practice. It can be formulated with special reference to being by pointing out that the philosophical examination of what
is, leads inexorably to an investigation of what it means to be.
But since there are many contexts of meaning, a referential
point is necessary, a context of contexts, if there is to be a
meaningful discourse about the meaning of a being and ultimately about being itself. The Absolute is such referential context of meaning whose fixity cannot be impugned by retorting
that it is time-bound and therefore changeable. For, the concept

Circularity leads to
the dialectical fixing
of identity through
opposition.

of time is itself part of that same universe of meaning and subject to the same rules of the absolute context as being.
Recalling the analytic paradigm, w e can point out that with
the establishment of the circular pattern of the dialectic, all remaining constraints imposed by the time-axis of analytic experience have been suspended. The initial and terminal points of the
axis were first allowed to become open-ended and then, with
the introduction of the philosophical paradigm, they were
joined in conformity with the circular structure of the dialectic.
The dual process of mediation and immediacy, of unveiling what
lies implicit and positing, of retroflection and action, is no longer
initiated only at select points on the axis. Any point on the circumference can serve as the locus for initiating this process and
the resulting movement, the heart of the dialectic, leads back
and forth to the point of origin from different directions. If w e
wish to relieve this heavily burdened object-language from the
load imposed by visual metaphor and gradually shift to the
meaning-language appropriate to this advanced stage of the dialectic, w e may say that the feature of a dialectical moment as
Janus-faced can be conveyed in meaning-language by saying
that the meaning of a term or process is fixed through its opposite. As the all-inclusive context is approached it becomes progressively apparent that hitherto recalcitrant polar terms have
all along been on either side of the same two-faced process. Immediacy is shared by both thought and action, and so is mediation. What appears as unmediated thought or action turns out,
upon unveiling, to involve mediation, and the converse is true
of mediation. Action is implicit understanding and understanding is action m a d e e x p l i c i t . As s o m e o n e w h o posits, the
retroflective philosopher is a man of action, and as someone
w h o retroflects, the man of action is a potential philosopher.
This is not a series of obliterations of distinctions, which
might seem to be the case if the object-language of these statements is taken at face value. Hegel would be the first to condemn the flouting of the so-called laws of formal logic or the
muddling of distinctions. If taken as elements in the domain of
meaning, these statements underline interconnectedness with
those in opposition in the formation of the texture of meaning.
In the sense that the advanced categories of of the dialectic are
about meaning, and that philosophical activity par excellence
makes meaning explicit, Hegel has given reflection the privileged standpoint and the last word to the philosopher. But having granted that, w e must also concede in the spirit of the twoway traffic of the dialectic, that the man of action is given the
green light in the name of immediacy so that the philosopher

has something to reflect upon. What appears as pure immediacy in the former's impulsive action is revealed, upon philosophical unveiling through mediation, to be a reflection of the age
the man of historical action is a child of his times. To paraphrase Kant's admission that he had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith, Hegel had to limit philosophy to
retroflection in order to leave the future open for the man of
action. Significantly, the Absolute Idea, which is the context of
meaning for both in the last moment of the Logic, is also the final synthesis of theory and practice.

Part II: Structure and

Rhythm of the Dialectic

The science of (Logic) exhibits itself as

a circle returning upon itself the end
being wound back into the beginning. .. this circle is moreover a circle
of circles, for each individual member
as ensouled by the method is reflected
into itself, so that in returning to the
beginning it is at the same time the
beginning of a new member.
Science of Logic

A. Structure
W e are still in the process of introducing the main project Strategy to be
and laying down a strategy that will facilitate our task. This Part followed and broad
is accordingly divided into three Chapters. The first deals with a description of works
to be used.
description of the structure of the main works which w e shall
be using. The second will be conveying something about the
rhythm of the dialectic employing Aristotle's concepts of matter
and form as a foil. Finally, the third will deal with matters of
strategy to be used in the Parts which follow.
In view of the great complexity and close interconnectedness between the different works of the Hegelian system, it is
advisable to provide a sense of its structure beginning with the
Encyclopedia in which the systematic intent is most visible. This
work, by whose structure w e shall be primarily guided, can be
viewed as a vast interdisciplinary project cast along dialectical
principles and dealing with subject matter which Hegel treated
in a more concise manner in separate works. It is divided into
three parts: the Logic, the Philosophy of Nature, and the Philosophy
of Spirit, corresponding at once to the triadic rhythm of the dialectic and the subject matter of the logico-mathematical, physical-biological, and cultural-humanistic disciplines, respectively.
This tripartite division repeats itself, as structure and subject
matter divide and subdivide throughout the Encyclopedia and
the other of Hegel's major works. The Logic subdivides into Being, Essence, and the Notion, corresponding to quantitative, scientistic, and dialectical rationality, respectively. The Philosophy of
Nature subdivides into Mechanics, Physics, and Organics. The
Philosophy of Spirit subdivides into Subjective Spirit (anthropology, phenomenology, and psychology), Objective Spirit (law,
morality, politics, sociology, and history), and Absolute Spirit
(art, religion, and philosophy).
Since w e will also deal extensively with Hegel's Science of Logic Subdivisions of the
Encyclopedia
(a more detailed version of the Logic), the following list of their
and the Science
combined subdivisions has been created for use as a reference.
of Logic.
The overarching triad of Being is QualityQuantityMeasure.
Each of these moments contains between two or three subdivisions of which w e give only two. Quality subdivides into Being
[(pure) BeingNothingBecoming], Determinate Being (Da-

sein) [SomewhatFinitude (Limit)Infinity (False and True)],

Being-for-self [OneMany (Repulsion)Repulsion and Attraction], Quantity subdivides into Pure Quantity [Pure Q u a n t i t y Continuous and Discreet QuantityLimitation of Quantity],
Quantum [NumberExtensive and Intensive QuantumQuantitative Infinity], Degree [DegreeQuantitative Infinite ProgressionQuantitative Ratio], Finally, Measure subdivides into Specific QuantityReal MeasureTransition to Essence.
The overarching triad of Essence is Introflection (or Reflection-within-self)AppearanceActuality. Again each of these
moments sometimes subdivides into three, but for our purposes
w e need list only two. Introflection subdivides into Show, or Illusory Being [Essential/UnessentialIllusory BeingReflection], Essentialities [IdentityDifferenceContradiction], and
Ground [Formal GroundReal GroundComplete Ground],
Appearance subdivides into Existence [Thing/Properties
Thing/MattersMatter/Form], Appearance Proper [World of
AppearanceContent/FormCorrelation], and Essential Relation [Whole/PartsForce/ExpressionInner/Outer], Actuality
subdivides into Absolute [Exposition of the AbsoluteAbsolute
AttributeMode of the Absolute], Actuality Proper [Formal
Possibility/ContingencyReal Possibility/Real ActualityAbsolute Necessity], and Absolute Relation [Substance/Accident
Cause/EffectReciprocity].
The overarching triad of the Notion is Subjective N o t i o n Objective NotionIdea. The Idea subdivides into Notion as
SuchJudgementSyllogism. The Objective Notion into MechanismChemismTeleology. The latter subdivides into Subjective EndMeansRealized End. Finally the Idea subdivides into Life [Living IndividualLife ProcessKind], Cognition [Cognition Proper(Idea of the True)Will(Idea of the Good)] and
Absolute Idea. Here w e have completely bypassed the numerous
subdivisions of the Subjective Notion, as w e did with the subdivisions of the first two moments of the Objective Notion.
The organization of the Philosophy of Spirit is as follows: Subjective Spirit, Objective Spirit, and Absolute Spirit. The overarching triad of Subjective Spirit is SoulConsciousnessMind.
Soul subdivides into Physical Soul [Physical QualitiesPhysical
AlterationsSensibility], Feeling Soul [Feeling Soul in ImmediacySelf-FeelingHabit], and Actual Soul. Consciousness subdivides into Consciousness Proper [Sensuous ConsciousnessSense PerceptionIntellect (Understanding)], Self-consciousness [AppetiteSelf-consciousness RecognitiveUniversal
Self-consciousness], and Reason. Mind subdivides into Theoretical M i n d [IntuitionRepresentationThinking], Practical

Mind [Practical Sense or FeelingImpulse and ChoiceHappiness] and Free Mind.

The overarching triad of Objective Spirit is Law (Recht)
Morality of Conscience (Moralitat)Ethical Life (or Ethical Substance, Sittlichkeit). Law subdivides into PropertyContract
Right and Wrong. Moralitat subdivides into PurposeIntention
and WelfareGoodness and Wickedness. Sittlichkeit sub-divides
into FamilyCivil Society (System of WantsAdministration
of JusticePolice and Corporation), and State (Constitutional
LawInternational LawUniversal History). Finally, Absolute
Spirit sub-divides into ArtRevealed ReligionPhilosophy.
The overarching triad of the Encyclopedia itself, LogicNature The rhythm of
Spirit, as well as all others subsumed under it, are meant to dialectical concreteconvey an advance not only in logical (dialectical), but also in ness exemplified in
sensuous, concreteness. This is difficult to express adequately in
the structure of the
the linear arrangement of the printed page and the discursive
Encyclopedia.
medium of language. Not only is the path of the dialectic circular,
but every step toward greater concreteness involves a simultaneous operation of immediacy and mediation, both the forward
and the backward trek on its circular path. But there is a way of
gradually introducing concreteness at the grand scale of the Encyclopedia from the micro-scale of the triad, or even from the concept of polarity itself, short of the technicalities of the dialectic.
Aristotle had already noted, in ways that anticipated the
Concreteness
rhythm of the dialectic, that matter and form are always found
introduced through
conjoined in a concrete thing, or what he called a substance. In Aristotle's concepts
the case of a wooden table, for example, the wood is the matter
of matter and form.
and the structure of the table is the form. But the w o o d is not
pure matter either, since it too has form now expressed as volume, weight and shape, which render it in-formed at the least
concrete mathematical level. Already there is the suggestion of
the low level of the logico-mathematical moment of Being of
the Logic, as it corresponds to the relatively un-informed chunk
of wood. What is form in the less sophisticated (dialectically
more abstract) mathematical discourse or context of meaning,
becomes the new matter for in-formation in the next more sophisticated (dialectically more concrete) context of meaning.
Formless matter and matterless form are equally inconceivable
because any kind of articulation of form is impossible without a
sensuous complement. We hear echoes of the dialectical insistence that the terms of a polarity are not indifferent toward
each other, but that together they define reality. The potential
table has graduated from a measurable chunk of w o o d in Being, to a technological product in Essence, and from there to a

Parallelism between
Aristotle's teleology
and Hegel's dialectic,

cultural product, i.e., the table reflecting the artistic style and
social norms of the age.
In the context of the macro-scale, this interaction between
form and matter becomes a line of progression, organically teleological in Aristotle and dialectical in Hegel. In the former's
schema of progression, matter is potentially something until is
is actualized in a given form which in turn serves as matter for
the next form, and so on. In Hegel's dialectical schema also,
each step makes explicit what has been implicit in the one before it. But, unlike Aristotle's, where nature provides the movement, here it is dialectical Reason that provides the impetus.
Every step up the ladder is a reconstitution of the context of
meaning in line with criteria of coherence which Reason imposes on itself as it presses harder on the presuppositions of any
given context. As w e m o v e up Aristotle's scale of nature, or
Hegel's hierarchy of dialectical moments, there is a progressive
determinacy in terms of the pre- or self-selection of form and
matter depending on the two thinkers' principles of nature and
Reason, respectively. As the form becomes more articulated and
the matter more in-formed, the degrees of freedom left for the
next step are reduced. What is implicit in each is progressively
limited by its increasing internal articulation. The potential uses
of wood in a raw state are infinitely more numerous than when
used for the construction of a table, and they are further reduced when the table has been made in a specific style for the
purpose of being incorporated into a given interior design. For
both thinkers the process of realization entails an ultimate point
of reference and model of perfection against which it can be
measured. In other words, the process of increasing determinacy results into a kind of stasis, a limiting state where all potentiality has been realized, a state in which everything implicit
has been rendered explicit. This is God qua pure actuality in
Aristotle and the Absolute in Hegel.
Unsettling as this conclusion about concreteness as a measure
of perfection might be for the modern reader (steeped as he is
likely to be in our ideology of linear progress and the meaning of
concreteneness as sensuous affinity or tangibility) he should bear
in mind the vast differences in cosmological outlook between the
classical times and ours. As for Hegel, such position follows directly from his shift from scientistic reason to humanistic (dialectical) Reason, and from predictive to retrodictive rationality in
the advanced stages of the dialectic. This is reflected in the transition from Essence to the Notion in the Logic and from Nature to
Spirit in the overarching triad of the Encyclopedia.

In drawing upon the comparison b e t w e e n Aristotle and

The triadic structure
Hegel to shed light on the structure of the latter's opus, and parin the progressive
ticularly on whether its organization reflects the dialectical ideal
build up ofconof concreteness, the common unit of discourse has been polari- creteness.
ty, more specifically that of matter-form. But it is the triadic
structure that provides the organizational principle and the
rhythm of the movement in Hegel's work. The question naturally arises as to what this portends for concreteness and what
is the relationship between it and polarity. Hegel talks about
this rather lucidly at the end of the Science of Logic, wherein he
takes up the issue of the triadic method used in his work.
Thus all the oppositions that are assumed as fixed, as for example
finite and infinite, individual and universal, are not in contradiction through, say, an external connection; on the contrary, as an
examination of their nature has shown, they are in-and-for-themselves a transition; the synthesis and the subject in which they appear is the product of their Notion's own reflection. If a consideration that ignores the Notion stops short at their external relationship, isolates them and leaves them as fixed presuppositions, it is
the Notion, on the contrary, that keeps them steadily in view,
moves them as their soul and brings out their dialectic.
Now this is the very standpoint indicated above from which a universal first, considered in-and-for-itself, shows itself to be the other of
itself. Taken quite generally, this determination can be taken to
mean that what is at first immediate now appears as mediated, related
to an other, or that the universal appears as a particular. Hence the
second term that has thereby come into being is the negative of the
first, and if we anticipate the subsequent progress, thefirstnegative.
The immediate, from this negative side, has been extinguished in the
other, but the other is essentially not the empty negative, the nothing,
that is taken to be the usual result of the dialectic; rather is it the
other of the first, the negative of the immediate-, it is therefore determined as the mediated contains in general the determination of the
first within itself. Consequently the first is essentially preserved and
retained even in the other. To hold fast to the positive in its negative, in the content of the presupposition, in the result, this is the
most important feature in rational cognition; at the same time only
the simplest reflection is needed to convince one of the absolute
truth and necessity of this requirement and so far as examples of the
proof of this are concerned, the whole of logic consists
of such.
Now more precisely the third is the immediate, but the immediate
resulting from sublation of mediation, the simple resulting from sublation of difference, the positive resulting from sublation of the negative, the Notion that has realized itself by means of its otherness and
by the sublation of this reality has become united with itself, and
has restored its absolute reality, its simple, relation to itself. This result is therefore the truth. It is equally immediacy and mediation; but
such forms of judgement as: the third is immediacy and mediation,

or: it is the unity of them, are not capable of grasping it; for it is not a
quiescent third, but, precisely as this unity, is self-mediating movement and activity. As that with which we began was the universal,
so the result is the individual, the concrete, the subject; what the former is in-itself, the latter is now equally for-itself, the universal is
posited in the subject. The first two moments of the triplicity are abstract, untrue moments which for that very reason are dialectical,
and through this their negativity make themselves into the subject.
The Notion itself is for-us, in the first instance, alike the universal
that is in-itself, and the negative that is for-itself, and also the third,
that which is both in-and-for-itself, the universal that runs through
all the moments of the syllogism; but the third is the conclusion, in
which the Notion through its negativity is mediated with itself and
thereby posited for-itself as the universal and the identity of its
moments. (Hegel's Science of Logic, trans. A.V. Miller, London: George
Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1969, pp. 833-34, 837-38; subsequently referred to as Science of Logic. Throughout our work all emphases are
in the original texts unless otherwise specified. Minor changes in
capitalization and spelling have been made for the sake of conformity with the rest of the quoted passages in our text.)
Preliminary terminological clarifications and Hegel's
own account of dialectical circularity.

Some of the terms used by Hegel such as immediacy and mediation, abstract and concrete, and the first, second, and third
moments of the triad, more popularly known also as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, are already familiar. Others, such as in-itself, for-itself and in-and-for-itself will be clarified in context in
the next Chapter. But the detail of the important term "sublation" and the way in which it preserves or retains the essence of
what it cancels through the creative use of negation, must wait
until the discussion of Essence in Part m. It is worth noting here
that "triplicity" reflects the syllogistic form in general, and in this
instance that of UniversalParticularIndividual (Concrete
Universal). This gives Hegel the opportunity to underline the
movement toward concreteness at the micro-level of the triad
through the transition from the abstraction of the universal concept to the equally abstract (one-sided) concreteness of something particular, and from there to the synthesis of the two in
the self-containment or self-completeness (also known as concrete universality) of the logical individual. The last term that
Hegel adds to our familiar polarity is, in effect, a breakdown of
the second term Aristotle's concrete thing or "substance" (ousia) in order to reveal the inner dynamic that propels the dialectic on its path. In contrast to Aristotle where nature supplies
the movement, in Hegel it turns out (after the self-concealment
of scientistic reason has been revealed) that it is Reason operating on itself that does so. But the sharing of this feature of reason, i.e., of the formal "triplicity" of the syllogistic form, with
traditional logic, also gives Hegel the opportunity to emphasize
their difference in terms, of the concreteness of the third term.

This is something that formal logic is "not capable of grasping"

because of its abstract use of negativity. Another important function of the third term is to provide the basis for the feature of
circularity of the dialectic noted earlier. The key to the understanding of this is the return of immediacy to the third term
which w e shall subsequently refer to as re-immediation but
in a sublated form. This Hegel explicates at some length, beginning with the second part of the following quotation. The joining of the first and last terms of the triad at the micro-level of
the syllogism is the model for circularity at the macro-level of
the internal structure of the Encyclopedia.
Each of the parts of philosophy is a philosophical whole, a circle
rounded and complete in itself. In each of these parts, however,
the philosophical Idea is found in a particular specificality or medium. The single circle, because it is a real totality, bursts through
the limits imposed by its special medium, and gives rise to a wider
circle. The whole philosophy in this way resembles a circle of circles. The Idea appears in each single circle, but, at the same time,
the whole Idea is constituted by the system of these peculiar phases, and each is a necessary member of the organization. (The Logic
of Hegel, trans. W. Wallace, London: Oxford University press, 1950,
#15; subsequently referred to as Logic.)
It may seem as if philosophy, in order to start on its course, had,
like the rest of the sciences, to begin with a subjective presupposition. The sciences postulate their respective objects, such as space,
number, or whatever it be; and it might be supposed that philosophy had also to postulate the existence of thought. But the two
cases are not exactly parallel. It is by the free act of thought that it
occupies a point of view, in which it is for its own self, and thus
gives itself an object of its own production. Nor is this all. The very
point of view, which originally is taken on its own evidence only,
must in the course of the science (of speculative or dialectical philosophy) be converted to a result, the ultimate result in which
philosophy returns into itself and reaches the point with which it
began. In this manner philosophy exhibits the appearance of a circle which closes with itself, and has no beginning in the same way
as the other sciences have. To speak of a beginning in philosophy
has a meaning only in relation to a person who proposes to commence the study, and not in relation to the science as science. The
same thing can be thus expressed. The notion of (speculative) science the notion therefore with which we start which, for the
very reason that it is initial, implies a separation between the
thought which is our object, and the subject philosophizing which
is, as it were, external to the former, must be grasped and comprehended by the science itself. This is in short the one single aim, action, and goal of philosophy to arrive at the notion of its notion,
and thus secure its return and its satisfaction. (Logic, #17; parentheses added in this case, and in subsequent quotations, unless otherwise specified.)

By virtue of the nature of the method just indicated, the science

exhibits itself as a circle returning upon itself, the end being wound
back into the beginning, the simple ground, by the mediation; this
circle is moreover a circle of circles, for each individual member as
ensouled by the method is reflected into itself, so that in returning
into the beginning it is at the same time the beginning of a new
member. Links of this chain are the individual sciences (of Logic,
Nature, and Spirit), each of which has an antecedent and a successor
or, expressed more accurately, has only the antecedent and indicates its successor in its conclusion. (Science of Logic, p. 842; parentheses in the text)

Limitations of the
linear discursive
medium for dialectical exposition.

Hegel's "single circle" is what w e have been referring to as a

context of meaning and, correspondingly, his "circle of circles" is
our "context of contexts." His "particular specificity or medium"
was sometimes rendered in our discussion as "the rules of the
game." Our "leap" from context to context, or the element of
"irrationality" involved in action between contexts of meaning,
corresponds to his circle's "burst (ing) through the limits imposed
by the special medium, and giv(ing) rise to a wider circle." Finally, our two-faced Janus has a concise counterpart in his assertion that the single circle, now a specific discipline, or cluster of
related disciplines in the Encyclopedia, "has only the antecedent
and indicates its successor in its conclusion." In this case "has" represents backward-oriented mediation; and "indicates" forwardlooking immediacy in our two-way path of the dialectic.
Metaphor, with its power to transfer meaning from one level
of discourse to another, has served well in explicating dialectical
shifts in meaning. But metaphors are rendered in the medium of
language, and the discursive language of philosophy in particular, which, to use Hegel's term, has its own "specificity." Part of
such specificity is its linearity, which often gets in the way of
both explication and understanding of the dialectic. We shall try
to anticipate some of the misapplications of the dialectic, with
which w e shall be dealing later, by taking up possible misunderstandings due to the linearity of language. The impression is often given that logical structure and subject matter (form and
matter) are drawing apart, in spite of Hegel's efforts and assurances to the contrary. More specifically, it may seem that the relationship between the categorial apparatus of the Logic and the
disciplinary content of the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy
of Spirit is one of externality, so that the dialectic is reduced to
just another theory in search of an application. The sequential
arrangement of Logic, Nature, and Spirit, as well as that of their
lesser triads in the Encyclopedia, may suggest such externality due
to the linearity of the discursive medium, inasmuch as the linear
exposition does not allow a simultaneous development of the

smaller triads and those arching above them. The transitions between larger triads are often laconic and may even appear unwarranted because they seem inadequately necessitated. For example, in the transition from Subjective to Objective Spirit in
the Philosophy of Spirit, the preparation for a synthesis (in terms
of building up of concreteness) has been going on between the
opposing moments of the overarching triad. But it is difficult to
make this explicit in a linear mode of exposition without disrupting the sequence of the lesser triads under them.
Time and again critics have complained about the abruptness, even arbitrariness, of the transition from Logic to Nature
in the Encyclopedia. But, in fact, the ground has been prepared
by the lesser categories from behind the surface, so that when
the advanced categories of action (Cognition and Will) at the
end of the Logic first encounter Nature, it is as if they are meeting someone familiar. This familiarity is, of course, the result of
the circular feature of the dialectic, whereby dialectical moments are both presupposition and outcome. For example, theory-practice does not encounter Nature in its scientistic garb,
but as highly mediated Cognition and Will which, having dialectically incorporated theory-practice, recognize Nature, not
as raw nature, but as dialectically structuralized Nature. The circularity involved here results in discovering as already present
in Nature what has all along been thought by scientism and
common sense to be a presupposition for the understanding of
nature something derived from logic with an intention to
apply to external nature.
But there is another important piece without which the nature of dialectical transitions is bound to remain a puzzle: Selfconsciousness, which has been fully attained with the last category of the Absolute Idea in the Logic, is also the synthesis of
Cognition and Will. In v i e w of this, the encounter of Nature
will be made by the Absolute Idea which contains, in sublated
form, the advanced successors of theory and practice Cognition and Will. The transition from Logic to Nature has, therefore, to be reformulated as follows: Not only is Nature being encountered as familiar, but also in full awareness about the limitations of the scientistic categories of theory-practice. Recalling
our UFO illustration, it would be as if, say, a dialectically inclined physicist were to review, in full transparency about presuppositions, the results of some Air Force scientists who, in
their self-concealment about the embeddedness of ontological
presuppositions into their deeper categorial apparatus, had concluded that certain sightings were unreal. The important consequence of dialectical circularity for our purpose is that, unlike

Misplaced criticisms
of the dialectic due to
the limitations of the
linear medium.

the case between theory and practice in the scientistic context,

the relationship between its advanced counterparts, and pari
passu that between Logic and Nature, is not governed by externality. Dialectical logic is not applicable to Nature in modo scientific, as the linearity of structure and medium may wrongly
suggest, and one should not, therefore, be misled into believing
that they are related as are a theory and its application.

B. Interchangeability of Categories
Our introduction of the dialectic by way of the Aristotelian
concepts of form and matter is already evidence of interchangeability of categories within the dialectical process since these
concepts are also important categories of the dialectic. Further
hints about interchangeability can be found in what has already
been said about immediacy-mediation, externality-internality,
and abstract-concrete in terms of features which they share
with each other and with theory-practice. This line of thought
will be pursued further because interchangeability plays a key
role in the strategy to be employed in the following pages. But
first a f e w words about the concept of definition itself, which
underlies our position on interchangeability, and which, it is
hoped, will also help to explain its role of pre-eminence in our
treatment of the subject.
A dialectically rich category may be compared to a package
formed out of layers of meaning accumulated through successive sublations. But its concreteness is not apparent unless one is
constantly aware of the process the category has undergone
unless one, so to speak, is willing to untie the package at a moment's notice. This highlights the premium, from a dialectical
standpoint, for understanding a concept in context or, more accurately, in process. It also underlines the familiar difficulties
generated by the linearity of discursive medium for our reliance
on simultaneity. Freedom-necessity, subject-object, and theorypractice, especially the latter's dialectically advanced successors,
such as Cognition-Will, are examples of concrete polar categories. In the case of the Will (or the Practical Idea of the Science
of Logic), the intervening mediations have eradicated almost all
traces of outward resemblance to their ancestry, so that it takes
quite a task of unveiling to establish their line of descent. This is
not to say that the gradations in the concreteness of concepts are
the discovery of the dialectic. The dialectic has simply accented
this fact by placing the process of making explicit what remains
implicit at the center of its methodology. Not all dialectical concepts are categories of varying concreteness. For example, immediacy-mediation, as well as others to be added to the list later,
are operational terms not amenable to development, but cast in

Interchangeability
related to dialectical
concreteness and
illustrated through
freedom and immediacy-mediation.

The concept of
definition related
to dialectical concreteness.

polar form to facilitate the dialectical process by promoting interchangeability between themselves and those subject to concretion. By its very nature, as one term of a dual category, immediacy connotes abstraction, or incompleteness, and points to
its polar opposite, mediation, for completeness and concreteness.
Immediacy and mediation sift experience between themselves in
ways other than traditionally utilized. The former corresponds to
the surface as represented by those elements of sensuous experience which lend themselves most readily to description. By contrast, mediation corresponds to exploration of what lies behind
the surface, the dominion of scientific theorizing and philosophical speculation. As an illustration of how the onto-logic of dialectical categories such as immediacy and mediation interface
with concrete social and historical reality, one can point out that
immediacy can be used logically-psychologically in connection
with a discourse in order to indicate the function of non-discursive (emotional, intuitive) elements, in contrast to chains of deduction or intellectual argumentation. Or, adding a measure of
socio-historical concreteness, immediacy can be used in conjunction with action to refer to speed, abruptness, or surprise,
characterizing military force or revolutionary violence, for the
attainment of given ends, which could conceivably have been
pursued through mediation.
Viewed from outside of a dialectical context, dialectically
concrete concepts (or categories) seem vague and lacking in
precision and tractability which w e associate with scientistic
discourse. This is due precisely to their concreteness in conjunction with the limitations of linearity of the discursive medium.
Their definition is, in effect, the story of their lives. Take, for example, freedom as a cultural concept by contrast to a precisely
defined juridical freedom necessary in the adjudication of a libel
suit. The former, though vague and totally intractable for purposes of adjudication, is quite functional within its context of
meaning, and dialectically more advanced than the latter, since
it incorporates juridical freedom in its definition contains it
in a sublated form, as Hegel would say. As linguistic analysis
would state this point, the unsatisfactory outcome of attempting a satisfactory dictionary-type definition of cultural freedom,
is not due to the primitive state of the subject matter, nor to our
intellectual sloppiness, but to a category-mistake, i.e., to our attempting the wrong type of definition. The concept of cultural
freedom is quite appropriate for, say, a historical discourse in
which the terms are concrete enough to allow placement in
context instead of a dictionary-type definition in order to elicit
their meaning. But this operation involves a great deal of over-

lapping and a considerable number of ragged edges in regard to

definition of boundaries with equally concrete concepts, such as
those of democracy, liberalism, individualism, and so on. With
this in mind w e turn to interchangeability which w e shall illustrate by putting our familiar Aristotelian polarities to Hegelian
use, and vice versa.
The path toward perfection through increasing actualization
of potentialities, which w e encountered in the informal dialectic of matter-form, is also the path to freedom, appearances
about increasing determinacy within each succeeding form notwithstanding. Hegel's conception of freedom is a continuation
and generalization of the classical conception implicit in the
doctrine about actualization of potentialities in the scale of nature of which humankind is an integral part. However, unlike
classical thought, in which human f r e e d o m is restricted by
what is considered to be the nature of all living things, in Hegel
it acquires a new dimension because it is not nature, but Reason that provides the propelling force for the actualization of
human potentialities. The impetus of the dialectic is Reason's
radical habit of challenging its own presuppositions. Hegel's definition of history as the progressive actualization of freedom in
terms of the realization of human potentialities follows directly
from this operation of Reason on itself and it would be incomprehensible without Reason's self-consciousness. Though the
higher stages of the dialectic, such as the later stages of in-formation of the piece of wood-turned-to-table earlier, are characterized by increased determination; the latter, upon closer
scrutiny, is revealed to be self-given or self-determination. But
this is realized only through the attainment of self-consciousness by Reason, wherein it becomes clear that what had appeared to be external, and therefore as externally necessitated,
was, in fact, the result of Reason's free action on itself.
Form-matter and its complement, actuality-potentiality, are Interchangeability
interchangeable with freedom-necessity within the dialectic,
illustrated through
until humankind becomes involved. Then, Hegel's superimposi- concreteness.
tion of the function of Reason on the Aristotelian schema of
nature changes the rules of the game. However, form-matter
has not disappeared from the picture, but is preserved in a sublated form, ready to surface and play surrogate for freedom-necessity should the need arise to unpack a concrete version of
freedom at a moment's notice. Hegel added a third term to the
polarity of potentiality-actuality, which provides their synthesis,
while at the same time assuring his contribution to the Aristotelian process of realization. His terminology cast in the form
of a triad becomes: In-itself (an sich)for-itself (fur sich)in-

and-for-itself (an-und-fur-sich). The first two terms correspond

to potentiality (or implicitness) and actuality (or explicitness)
respectively, as in Aristotle. But the third term secures the
movement which, by Hegel's rules of the game, is provided by
Reason and self-consciousness certifying the synthesis after the
fact. This can be seen when a subject is cast in the role of the
moments of the triad. The first moment indicates lack of selfconsciousness; the second indicates limited self-consciousness
(insofar as the subject is aware of himself as he is explicitly and
not in terms of his potentialities); and the third moment points
to full self-consciousness of both one's actuality and potentiality. Hegel also uses alternatively the expression for-us (fUr-uns)
to indicate the standpoint of those who, having attained selfconsciousness by stepping out of the process, are capable of
grasping the circular structure of the dialectic as a whole i e
the whole range of potentialities.
Commonly encountered polarities developed into triads.

Other polarities turned into triads which have been anticipated in the discussion can now be explicitly identified- ImmediacyM e d i a t i o n - R e - i m m e d i a t i o n , Individual (predictive)
reasonits negation (as irrationality in the political paradigm
and as ignorance in the economic one)-(retrodictive) Reasom
Subjective freedom (in which the subject is unaware that determination is self-given) its negation through (external) Determination
( c o n c r e t e ) F r e e d o m ( n e g a t i o n of the negation
through Reason's realization [self-consciousness] that determination is the result of Reason's operation on itself [internal or
self-determination]); Internality-Externality-Mediated (elevated or enriched) Internality; or, alternatively, (individual)
Subjectivity Objectivity Elevated (or trans-individual) Subjectivity; and, last but not least, TheoryPractice (or in reverse
order Practice-Theory)their synthesis in Action. Further development of these triads, in addition to others, is awaiting in
Part HI. This will suffice for now if a sense of interchangeability
between them is established in v i e w of their concreteness or
operational nature. Dialectically concrete concepts like action
and f r e e d o m cut across the w h o l e dialectic through interchangeable categories as above, which stand as surrogates for
them, while these concepts remain implicit throughout the
process and surface only at the end of it. The rest of this Chapter will pursue this issue of interchangeability, using the paradigms of Part I to show that the same material can support categories of high concreteness, in addition to theory-practice
The similarity of structure between the polarities of theorypractice and mediation-immediacy extends also to matter-form
and freedom-necessity. However, both sets are related to each

other through the polarities-turned-triads of Reason-reason,

subject(ivity)-object(ivity) and internality-externality. Practice
exchanged roles with immediacy because in contrast to theory,
w h i c h represented mediation, it signified challenge w h e n
judged according to the prevailing rules. But the feature of immediacy which entitled practice to challenge, also removed the
rational ground for knowing beforehand what constitutes a
presuppositional challenge leading to a genuine synthesis. For
such ground can only be provided by rational activity, such as
theorizing, and this involves mediation. No sooner had the priority claim of practice been established through immediacy,
than its erosion began with the realization that theory had at
least an equal claim through mediation. So far in our re-enactment of the political paradigm through surrogates, immediacymediation carried the burden. But n o w w e can hand this role
to internality-externality, C o g n i t i o n - W i l l , s u b j e c t ( i v i t y ) object(ivity), and freedom-determination, as w e allow our protagonists, i.e., theory-practice, to illustrate more advanced segments of the dialectic in which the high concreteness of categories makes their interchangeability more apparent.
Externality is manifested differently as an obstacle-to-beovercome in the cases of the liberal and the radical. In the former's universe of discourse reason guides goal-oriented action
according to the principles of scientistic theory-practice. In his
optimistic world, where every problem is, in principle, remediable through the application of the right principles of reason, externality is represented by the not-as-yet domesticated experience or recalcitrant to theory practice. For the radical, on the
other hand, w h o has with varying degrees of self-consciousness
challenged the theory-practice polarity itself, externality is represented by the fact that his action is goal-oriented too, but for a
different reason: Action originates in the subject, but it is directed outside of it. In other words, the subject-object polarity is implicit in both, but whereas in the liberal's case it is taken in a
theoretical, in the radical's case it is taken in a practical sense.
However, now "theoretical" and "practical" are not meant in the
familiar scientistic sense, but in the dialectically more advanced
one of the cognitive and moral dimensions of human activity
the dialectical successors of theory and practice, Cognition and
Will, and the Theoretical and Practical Idea, respectively.
As the ideal of knowledge (implicit in the Theoretical Idea)
remains elusive for the liberal, so the ideal of action (implicit in
the Practical Idea) remains unaccomplished in the case of the
radical. Reason, the model of self-containment, cannot fully prevail as long as externality persists at the categorial level, as ob-

Illustrations of
interchangeability
through theory-practice and internalityexternality.

jectivity in the yet-to-be-fulfilled realm of the Theoretical Idea,

and as freedom (in opposition to determination) in the yet-tobe-realized realm of the Practical Idea. As the element of contingency is manifested in the liberal's epistemological universe of
discourse as elusiveness of truth qua objectivity, so is it experienced in the radical's practical universe as action of uncertain
outcome and stifled freedom qua self-determination. The liberal,
in launching his epistemological quest from a set of dualistic
presuppositions remains their captive as long as he is insufficiently aware of their implications. So is the radical who, having
rejected his opponent's dualistic presuppositions, has nevertheless unself - consciously generated others to which he has become
equally bound. The liberal had pursued the ideal of knowledge
as he considered it a prerequisite for right action, but it eluded
him because of unself-consciously held categories that arrested
him at the level of epistemological dualism. Now this ideal is out
of reach for the radical also, who, from his standpoint of immediacy, cannot distinguish between the ideal and the liberal's misplacement of it. As a consequence, he too sets himself on a dualistic track, except that now action and freedom are at issue. Action premised on subject-object polarity (external-goal-oriented
action), or freedom under conditions of externality (freedom
from external determination), are as self-defeating as knowledge
and truth under the same subject-object presupposition. The
reason for this is that the setting of a new goal involves resetting
of just another condition of externality. To put it differently,
planning implies externality at both the theoretical and practical
levels as assessment of objective conditions and as goal-orientation both of which are premised on subject-object dualism.
Whereas the radical bypassed the former type of externality
through his action's immediacy, he retained the latter and the
contingency that goes with it.
Interchangeability of
theory-practice with
in-itselffor-itself
and form-matter.

Thus, given the nature of the protagonists' underlying presuppositions, their respective ideals of knowledge and action
are not merely left unrealized, but remain, in principle, unrealizable if pursued for-themselves, i.e., as they appear to the protagonists from their individual vantage points. For, not until
their methodological individualism and epistemological dualism
have been transcendednot merely bypassed as w e witnessed
in the case of the radical abovedoes any ground exist for a final synthesis of theory-practice. If these ideals are to be pursued with any success, they have to be viewed also in-themselves, i.e., as not-yet-in-view potentialities, and not merely
not-in-view, as they were previously seen from their respective
individual standpoints. But to do this involves shifting to a

standpoint for-us: those w h o stand with Smith's Providence,

and Hegel's retrospective philosopher, beyond the domain of
the individual and into that of the trans-individual subject.
The radical and the liberal were pressed beyond the abstractive constraints of the original paradigm almost to the dialectical conclusion of their dialektike. This was done for the purpose
of showing that as categories become concretely rich with the
progress of the dialectic, the routes to the Absolute Idea become
limited and can be more easily interchanged. The situation can
be more easily compared to the climbing of a mountain whereby, as w e get closer to the peak our choice of paths is narrowed
down and it becomes easier to interchange the paths (as a result of preselection given the closeness to the peak and the uphill direction of the diminishing number of paths). This is the
same process of preselection by the hidden second-order categorial apparatus in the UFO case that sorted out which empirical data were relevant in determining that the sightings were
unreal. The process can be traced to the Aristotelian doctrine of
the in-formation of matter earlier, according to which there is a
predisposition of matter to select its next form as a result of previously embodied forms. It is also the process which operated in
the example of the wooden table by progressively limiting the
possibilities of actualization as w e moved along the path of information. This process of preselection, or implicit selection, is
also behind what was noted earlier about the advanced categories of action (at the end of the Logic) encountering Nature as
something familiar. It further manifests itself in the political
paradigm, in which social institutions are no mere objects, nor
subject matter for the behaviorist sociologist to be dealt with
externally, but are already socially in-formed and, therefore, a
species of advanced concreteness. Theory-practice could serve
liberal's concealment strategy because the latter, being part of
the scientistic abstractive enterprise, such as that of the Air
Force physicist, had no insight into the function of its own categorial structure of preselecting the range of social phenomena
which constituted the testing ground of its own theory.
Institutional embodiment adds to presuppositional concealment and social amnesia and, by the same measure, to the illusion of freedom for liberal and radical alike. The former defined
his freedom in an institutional setting that he took for granted,
while the latter saw the social setting as the institutional embodiment of unfreedom and sought to destroy it. The liberal
was unaware of the restrictions he was imposing on his self-determination by allowing the presuppositions of what he perceived as his freedom to remain concealed. The radical, on the

Interchangeability of
theory-practice with
determination
self-determination
(freedom).

other hand, labored under the illusion that by challenging his

opponent's presuppositions he was planning his own freedom,
rather than merely undermining the liberal's lack of it. He was
unaware that in principle it is impossible to plan the outcome
of a genuinely radical action (i.e., a dialectical synthesis of theory-practice) without embracing something categorially essential
to what was being challenged. The more radical the challenge
is, the more one adds to the element of contingency about the
final outcome and pari passu to the limitation of one's freedom
qua self-determination. Subjectively, he acted in the way expected of him as a radical, but with no assurance that his action
would be judged as radical after the fact. He associated the sensation attending the immediacy of action with freedom, but upon closer scrutiny this can be shown to be a species of subjective freedom as is that of the liberal. The liberal lacks insight
concerning the ways in which his self-determination is linked
to institutions as embodiments of past (concealed) mediations.
The radical suffers from a similar lack regarding the link between immediacy of action and the sensation of freedom which
comes with it, on the one hand, and the nature of mediated
past actions which remain concealed and the reality of freedom, on the other. In Hegelian terminology, it is for-us (as retrospective philosophers) that the radical's action looks as it truly is, in-itself, i.e., potentially or implicitly radical. From his perspective, however, or for-itself, his action appears to be actually
or explicitly radical because his view is distorted, and his expectations misplaced, due to lack of self-consciousness.
The dialectic of freedom can thus be formulated in terms of
the categories of matter-form and potentiality-actuality, as can
the dialectic of theory-practice be cast in terms of mediationimmediacy. On the other hand, both freedom and action can be
interfaced by virtue of their dialectical links via subjectivity-objectivity and reason-Reason. Conceptual affinity between freedom and action is not the discovery of the dialectic. It was the
contribution of Kant in his Critique of Practical Reason and has,
more recently, served as the centerpiece of the analytical philosophy of action. The important insight of the dialectic into
this, and its affinities with other highly concrete concepts, is
turning their interchangeability (due to vagueness of definition
and mutual overlapping) into a philosophical advantage. In
other words, the dialectic reveals the other side of apparent
conceptual flabbiness as the riches of hidden interconnections
waiting to be disclosed. In this, it anticipates modern anthropology and sociology at their best, probing into the experiential
and the pre-rational with their phenomenological techniques

and unveiling the intricacies of human existence which appear to the naivete of common sense and scientism alike, as so
much confusion and disorder.

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C. Strategy
In the last Chapter w e discussed overlapping polar categories
which behaved in accordance with what Wittgenstein called
"family resemblances." This is the kind of resemblance shared
by members of a class in which there is no one common similarity, but their resemblance is based on features shared by
some members in one respect, and other members in another.
In a dialectical context, this kind of resemblance would characterize a class of highly concrete concepts ("concrete universals"
in Hegel's terminology) which have incorporated a number of
features through mediation. It would then follow, by their description as concrete, that the resemblance of these entities
with other members of their class, would be with respect to one
or some, but not all, features. For example, as w e saw in the
last Chapter, freedom and action have family resemblances
which we established through intermediary concepts, or operational categories. Though not categories in the formal sense of
having an assigned position in the list of the last Chapter, these
concepts stand as surrogates for more authentic ones. They owe
their family resemblances to their logical structure as against
their more concrete fellow family memberse.g., cultural complexes such as liberalism, the Baroque, the Third World, and
generally entities such as those which inhabit Hegel's domain of
Spiritwhich owe their interchangeability to high concreteness
on the dialectical scale.
The short list of polarities given in the last Chapter will be
expanded with new ones as they are needed in the following
discussion but, most important, the third term will be supplied,
thus rendering explicit the contribution of the dialectic. A partial list of triads sharing family resemblances with the super triad of the Logic (BeingEssenceNotion) has been constructed
since it, along with the previous list, will be useful for reference
throughout Part III: ImmediacyMediationRe-immediation,
In-itselfnessFor-itselfnessIn-and-for-itselfness, Intuition
Conception(dialectical)Thought, Abstract Universality ParticularityConcrete Universality (Individuality), Undifferentiated
unityDifferentiationDifferentiated unity, Indifference
DifferentiationSelf-differentiation, InternalityExternality

Surrogate categories
and their operationalfunction.

Internality-in externality, SubjectivityObjectivity Re-instated

(or elevated) subjectivity, IdeaNatureSpirit, Subjective SpiritObjective SpiritAbsolute Spirit.
Sketching the dialecThough it does not formally appear in its most advanced
tical path of theoryform of the Theoretical and Practical Idea until the very end of
practice in what
the Logic and of the Science of Logic (and correspondingly the end
follows.
of Subjective Spirit), theory-practice runs through these formidable works from the beginning, interfacing with surrogates
f r o m the above list as it advances along the dialectical path.
This is understandable given its high concreteness and the importance Hegel accords to it by placing it just prior to the final
synthesis in these works. But by the same token, this implicitness of theory-practice places a heavy burden on the student of
the dialectic, who has to elicit the dialectical progress of theorypractice through surrogates. A strategy has, therefore, been devised, whereby the search and interpretation of the development of theory-practice extends also to the parts of the two
mentioned works wherein theory-practice remains implicit.
The first two Chapters of Part III are devoted to the first two
super-moments of the Logic, Being and Essence. The third
Chapter shifts to the Philosophy of Spirit for a brief encounter
with theory-practice in its explicit form, as it momentarily surfaces in the first super-moment of the latter work, Subjective
Spirit. There is a structural symmetry between these two works
which also justifies this shift. Following the familiar tripartite
organization, each is divided into three super-moments, BeingEssenceNotion in the Logic, and Subjective Spirit Objective SpiritAbsolute Spirit in the Philosophy of Spirit. Though
by virtue of its placement in the linear arrangement of the Encyclopedia, Subjective Spirit seems more advanced than the Notion, the structural symmetry between the super-moments of
each work suggests otherwise. This can also be verified by perusing the list of surrogate categories above, which fit not only
super-categories, but lesser ones. The operational triads among
them are suited to perform this function of relating different triadic structures of similar, as well as different, orders of comprehensiveness. This shift to Subjective Spirit offers an opportunity
to complement the logical concreteness of Being and Essence
with the sensuous concreteness which is characteristic of Spirit.
The fourth Chapter, Action and Objective Spirit, corresponds
structurally to Essence and continues on the same path of sensuous concreteness, though theory-practice has again gone below the surface. Finally, in the last Chapter of Part in, Synthesis
of Action in the Logic of the Notion, the focus is shifted back to
the Logic and theory-practice, which has resurfaced for the stag-

ing of the final synthesis, but now with the benefit of what has
intervened within socially and historically concrete Spirit.
It is possible to view Part III as a series of attempts at increasing comprehensiveness of the synthesis of theory and practice.
This was also the aim of Part I in which the paradigms and illustrations from sensuously concrete subject matter were used
to convey the same. In this sense there is a symmetry between
Parts I and III as well, for both contain three types of union of
theory and practice in the same ascending order of dialectical
concreteness. First, there is the analytical paradigm dealing
with the dialectical synthesis of action at the individual level
which prima faciae corresponds to the final moment (philosophical psychology) of Subjective Spirit. But by virtue of the symmetry between Logic and Philosophy of Spirit, this fits somewhere
at the end of Being. Such a retrograde step is not surprising if
we recall that the rather advanced model of synthesis found in
the final stage of successful therapy was staged with the help of
severe abstractive parameters. Relaxing these constraints led to
a more open-ended dyadic structure of the political-scientistic
paradigm, which brought us one step closer to the social group,
and correspondingly, to early Essence and Objective Spirit.
Second, there is the dialectical synthesis of theory-practice at
the level of the group found at the heart of Objective Spirit, i.e.,
the cluster of institutions and the social disciplines belonging to
them. To the extent that the latter are pervaded by scientistic
methodology, their logic corresponds to the early and middle
Essence. The movement toward more complexity and higher
integration of the group proceeds gradually within Objective
Spirit, as does a parallel movement within the corresponding
structures in late Essence and the Notion in the Logic. The humanistic disciplines (except dialectical philosophy, for which is
reserved the final moment of both Logic and Spirit) and their
methodology belong to these spaces. Part I moved in symmetry
with this progressive complexity and integration, by allowing
the political paradigm to continue w h e r e the psychological
could go no further. The economic paradigm, in turn, exemplified a synthesis approximating social praxis, by way of working
out the implications of the dyadic structure of the political paradigm. The dialectical insight into the nature of what appears external to be truly internal dawns midpoint in the course of the
paradigms. The economic paradigm marks the emergence of elevated subjectivity (or externality-in-internality) and the dividing line between the logic of parts and the logic of wholes, between scientistic and dialectical rationality, and b e t w e e n
Essence and the Notion.

Preview of Part III

in symmetry with
the paradigms as
exemplifying a succession of dialectical
syntheses of
theory-practice.

Possible misunderstandings regarding

the nature of dialectical synthesis.

Third, there is the final synthesis of theory-practice at the

level of the Absolute Idea in the Logic, which corresponds to
Philosophy, i.e., the last moment of Absolute Spirit in the Philosophy of Spirit. These are the climactic moments of both works,
inasmuch as they leave no unsublated residue to propel the dialectical process any further. They are, therefore, truly deserving of the term "synthesis." Furthermore, the absolute moment
in both cases is not the locus for the synthesis of theory-practice
alone, but of all those highly concrete polar categories sharing
its family resemblances. Whereas in the Logic this moment is
the synthesis of theory and practice in its most advanced formulation of the Idea of the True and the Idea of the Good, in
the Philosophy of Spirit the absolute moment is dialectical philosophy as self-consciousness in the manner of the last paradigm.
Misunderstandings concerning the function of Reason in effecting the final synthesis have been at the center of persistent
and consistently misplaced criticism of Hegel's dialectic of action
from both ideological and philosophical quarters. The difficulty
seems to originate in the confusion about "thought" as a term in
the polarity of thought-action or theory-practice, and thought
qua dialectical thought, which Reason is par excellence. In view of
the crucial importance of this point for the radical import of the
dialectical synthesis, the first half of Part IV has been almost entirely devoted to its clarification. In the same vein regarding the
capacity of thought, it bears repeating that a sense in which a
higher category (thought) incorporates a lower one was given in
the quotation earlier in which Hegel explicates the structure of
the triad. The way Reason incorporates reason or, using a surrogate, a trans-individual subject incorporates individual subjects,
was exemplified in the economic paradigm as the logical properties of the metaphor of the Invisible Hand were generalized from
economic life to the life of Reason itself. The elaboration of this
dialectical rationality in its nature as both embodying lower
forms of rationality and being itself a social embodiment the
institution of a free market being the embodiment of the Invisible Hand in the paradigm corresponds to the later moments
of the Notion (Means-End and the Cunning of Reason) just before the Idea in the Logic. The same process corresponds to the
later moments of Objective Spirit, and especially Universal History, just before the transition to Absolute Spirit in the Philosophy of Spirit. Reason, on the other hand, in its full-blown state as
retrodictive self-containment modeled after self-consciousness,
belongs to the absolute moments of the Logic and Spirit, which
are the fixed points of reference for all multiplicity and opposition. But reason in its fully developed stage becomes the posses-

sion of relatively f e w individuals capable of practicing retrodictive rationality, repeating, in a manner of speaking, Hegel's "toil
of the Notion." For the overwhelming majority, including most
of Hegel's critics on this score, Reason is still working behind
their backs while they, not unlike Plato's prisoners of the cave,
get only a glimpse of its workings.

A Hegelian

Interpretation

of the Dialectic of
Theory and Practice

Those who have no comprehension of

philosophy shudder, it is true, when
they hear

the proposition

Thought is Being.
Philosophy of Spirit

that

A. Theory-Practice and the Logic of Being

i. The Two Faces of Being: Immediacy of Practice

and Immediacy of Fact
Theory-practice is not a category of either Being or Essence,
nor is it referred to in any but a peripheral sense in these parts
of the Logic. Yet, as noted earlier, with these t w o super-moments being the counterparts in Hegel's work for quantitative
and scientistic rationality, the connection is vital though it remains implicit. It is the purpose of this Chapter to render this
explicit in the case of Being, by examining the relationship between some of its categories and the basic features of scientism, and by focusing on the logical features shared by both. In
order to accomplish this w e shall have to search for family resemblances between the categories of Being and our list of surrogates. The role of theory-practice within scientism is that of a
methodological principle whose function is to test theoretical
findings against a given kind of reality. As such it operates under ontological and epistemological presuppositions which are
usually concealed from those operating within its context of
meaning. Lack of self-consciousness regarding its o w n presuppositions is responsible for scientism's compartmentalized view
of the ontological, epistemological, and methodological concerns and, as a result, for viewing its own concern as self-contained. As Hegel put it:
But there is a fundamental delusion in all scientific empiricism. It
employs the metaphysical categories of Matter, Force, those of
One, Many, Generality, Infinity, etc.: following the clue given by
these categories it proceeds to draw conclusions, and in so doing
presupposes and applies the syllogistic form. And all the while it is
unaware that it contains metaphysics in wielding which, it
makes use of those categories and their combinations in a style utterly thoughtless and uncritical. (Logic, #38)
In addition to the m o r e tactical advantages of w o r k i n g
through family resemblances in eliciting theory-practice from
under the surface, the use of surrogates from the metaphysical
domain will help disabuse scientism of its illusion of self-containment. By contrast, the super-moment under discussion, as

The implicitness of
theory-practice in
Being disclosed
through dialectical
circularity.

The logical priority

of Being scrutinized
in the light of dialectical circularity.

indeed every category of the Logic, is open-ended both ways

thus precluding this kind of self-concealment. Essence is open
backward to Being and the externality and immediacy it represents, and out of which its o w n differentiation evolves. But it
is also open f o r w a r d to the N o t i o n and the more advanced
f o r m of unity t h r o u g h r e - i m m e d i a t i o n that it represents,
w h e r e i n hidden agendas have been disclosed and illusions
about compartmentalized concerns have been removed. Being
is open forward to Essence and the internal differentiation it
lacks, but also backward to the Absolute qua presupposition of
the system as a w h o l e via the circular path of the dialectic.
Every moment of the dialectic is an instance of self-scrutiny in
light of both what lies ahead and what has been left behind. As
in the psychological paradigm, the forward movement represents positing, immediacy, and the unmediated practical term
of theory-practice, while the backward one stands for theory
qua mediation, and in its more advanced successors for retrospection. The latter is closer to classical theoria, or contemplation, than to scientistic theory. Pursuing the etymological connections between "posit," "position," and "presupposition," the
familiar t w o - w a y journey of the dialectic on its circular path
can be stated in another way: Every step involves both forward
movement in terms of posit(ion) and backward movement in
terms of pre-supposition, whose etymology suggests not merely reaching back (pre-) f r o m the present posit(ion), but also
reaching beneath it (sup-) to reveal its hidden foundations. In
this light, the implementation of our strategy consists essentially in casting scientistic features and concepts in their categorial counterparts of the dialectic so as to remove the effects
of compartmentalization and allow the two-way journeying to
disclose their presuppositions.
The discussion of Being presents all the difficulties common
to the beginning of any endeavor. This difficulty is aggravated
in philosophy because a beginning has to be justified in a more
fundamental way than in other subjects. Hegel devoted a long
chapter dealing exclusively with such justification at the opening of the Science of Logic. The logical priority of Being is of special interest to us because it is linked through surrogates to the
priority of practice associated with the radical and the priority
of fact associated with the liberal. A number of surrogate categories for practice applies in this case: immediacy, externality,
undifferentiated unity, intuition, in-itselfness, potentiality, indifference, abstract(ion), and subjectivity of a low grade on the
scale of concreteness. Each of these categories is a first term of
a triad, w h i c h immediately suggests the application of our

strategy of casting non-dialectical concepts (like our scientistic

theory-practice) in dialectical roles in order to render their presuppositional links transparent and expose their self-deceptions. Such application would reveal that first terms do not
come without their polar counterpart. It will also reveal what
w e have learned from our earlier discussion: that unmediated
practice is a case in self-deception, whether it comes on the
side of the radical in the form of unmediated subjectivity or
immediacy of action; or on that of the liberal as unmediated
objectivity or the immediacy of fact.
However, as Hegel repeatedly assures us, and as is also suggested by the surrogates of the two faces of Being above, the
latter is also the domain of undifferentiated unity lacking internal differentiation.
In Being, the form of reference is purely due to our (i.e., for-us as
dialectical philosophers capable of viewing the whole process) reflection on what takes place; but it (i.e., the form of reference or
interconnectedness characteristic of internal differentiation) is the
special and proper characteristic of Essence." (Logic, #111 Zusatz;
italics added)
A question arises as to how this can be reconciled with the
principle of circularity, and more particularly with the fact that
the loop is intact between Absolute Spirit and Being. For, it is
Absolute Spirit, and specifically its last moment, Philosophy, that
serves as both outcome (facing backward the total labor of the
Encyclopedia) and presupposition (linked forward to Being, the
first moment of both the Logic and the Encyclopedia). The answer
lies in the dual path of in-itselfness, i.e., working immanently or
within the resources of any given context of meaning (as in the
case of Essence in Hegel's quotation), and that of for-us ("to our
reflection on what takes place"). In the former sense, which is
also a pedagogic strategy of Spirit, there is a beginning and the
whole arrangement is more consistent with the linearity of the
discursive medium and the temporal sequence of the Encyclopedia than the circular structure which is open only for-us, in
Hegel's company. Such a pedagogical device was evident earlier
when Nature was confronted by the Absolute Idea at the end of
the Logic. At that point, the Absolute Idea had already incorporated not only the scientistic m e t h o d o l o g y f r o m Being and
Essence, but also the Notion's insight into the role of meaning
for the understanding of cultural and humanistic disciplines. Yet,
the Absolute Idea had to somehow play innocent in order to
elicit from Nature a degree of dialectical sophistication appropriate to it through the immanent technique.

The immanent technique as pedagogy of

Spirit for reaffirming circularity.

The dual path of circularity indicative of

both concealment
and disclosure of
Being as a mediated
concept.

What is important and instructive about these two paths is

that they reveal both the process of concealment and its transcendence. In the early stages of the dialectic, when a good deal
remains implicit, and therefore concealed, they run parallel to
each other. But as more is progressively made explicit, they begin to converge until they coincide in the absolute moment. In
the case of Being, where they emphatically diverge, the path
for-us is most evident and is replete with illustrations of Being
from Thales to Kant in both versions of the Logic and in the Lectures on the History of Philosophy. The Absolute Spirit, using Philosophy, its final moment, as its mouthpiece, has. come full circle to ensure that what might appear at first as primary ontological matter and the irreducible beginning of philosophy, is finally understood to be a mediated and advanced concept. Far
from being logically primitive, some of the kinds of being chosen by Hegel (e.g., Kant's and Jacobi's) to illustrate his first category belong to the logical future of Being, that is the later moments of the Notion. What makes them appear to be primitive
(as in the case of the concepts of being and existence of the existentialists earlier or, for that matter, the concept of the priority
of practice of our radical) is that re-immediation has been so effective that the intervening mediations have been concealed
even from the thinkers themselves, to say nothing of people of
action, such as the radical. But not so for-us as Hegel is ready to
tell us.
The theory of which we are speaking (i.e., Jacobi's) is not satisfied
when it has shown that mediate knowledge taken separately is an
adequate vehicle of truth. Its distinctive doctrine is that immediate
knowledge alone, to the total exclusion of mediation, can possess
a content which is true... But it is characteristic of the view before
us to decline to examine the nature of the fact, that is, the Notion
of it; for such an examination would itself be a step toward mediation and even toward (philosophical) knowledge. (Logic, #65; see
also Science of Logic, pp. 68-72)

The corollaries of
such disclosure for
theory-practice.

Addressing the psychological aspects of immediate knowledge, which corresponds to our radical's immediacy, or priority
of practice, Hegel concludes:
Under these circumstances examination is directed to the field of
experience, to a psychological phenomenon. If that be so, we
need only note, as the commonest of experiences, that truths,
which we well know to be the results of complicated and highly
mediated trains of thought, present themselves immediately and
without effort to the mind of any man who is familiar with the
subject... The facility we attain in any sort of knowledge, art, or
technical expertness, consists in having the particular knowledge
or kind of action present to our mind in any case that occurs, even
we may say, immediate in our very limbs, in an outgoing activity.

In all these instances, immediacy of knowledge is so far from excluding mediation, that the two things are linked together, immediate knowledge being actually the product and result of mediated knowledge. (Logic, #66)
In his undialectical outlook Jacobi shows both faces of immediacy of Being: subjectivity and objectivity, the radical's priority
of practice and the liberal's priority of fact. With respect to the
latter, Jacobi refused to unpack what appeared as solid and irreducible fact. He "decline(d) to examine the nature of the fact,
that is the Notion of it" which leads to truth qua interconnectedness. But he also resembles the radical in his failure to see the
inseparability of immediacy from mediation in even such spontaneous action as those "immediate in our very limbs, in an outgoing activity." The first kind of failure centers on the unmediated fact on the objective side, while the second refers to the subjective side and the self. Both neglect mediation as inseparable
from immediacy, the one in what is given and the other in what
is being posited. Both are doomed by lack of insight regarding
mediation's role in perpetuating the gap b e t w e e n theory and
practice a gap they wish to close. For, while each may be able
to detect the mediations embedded in his adversary's immediacy, he fails to see it operating in his own.
Being emerges f r o m this short o v e r v i e w in a state of selfconcealment or, dialectically speaking, in-itself (in a state of
potential self-revelation) because it lacks the tools for mediation that will give it the capacity to v i e w itself for what it is,
or for-itself. H o w e v e r , this concealment is clear for-us w h o ,
having arrived at Being through the circular path of the dialectic, are familiar with what lies ahead. A similar conclusion was
reached about the immediacy of practice as w i t h that of unmediated Being, by casting the former in the roles of its surrogates Nature and Being. The radical's body-knowledge, the sort
of practical knowledge present in his " v e r y limbs in an outgoing activity," assures h i m of an u n m e d i a t e d access to truth
about action. But this proves to be a self-perpetuating illusion,
as w e shall see w h e n practice is cast in the role of the False Infinite, another surrogate category from the realm of Being. The
liberal is on a similar track of perpetuated self-certainty coupled with self-concealment, except that n o w the locus of immediacy is not subjectivity but objectivity. But, as w e already
know from the application of the principle of circularity, there
is no w a y of certifying either the primacy of Being qua experience or the logical priority of Being as fact. There are pauses of
self-certainty (for-itselfness) along the dialectical path, as Spirit
rediscovers and redefines itself in terms of the categories of

each level. But there is no self-certainty in coincidence with

(objective) truth (in-and-for-itselfness) short of the absolute
moment.

Having f o r m e d a general sense of what the subjective and

objective faces of the immediacy of Being are like, w e can turn
our attention to a more detailed v i e w of each, beginning with
the objective side. So far, immediacy was located on the positing end, that of the subject side in the subject-object relationship. It will n o w be located on the object side in terms of the
immediacy of fact. Until n o w w e have placed "fact" under the
general configuration of Being. But Being still remains undefined, which raises a further question about the legitimacy of
subsuming something branded "the subjective face of the immediacy of Being" under it. In other words, w e have operated
by borrowing f r o m the future, which is allowed for-us on the
circular path. Hitherto w e managed to get away without a definition of Being because all w e needed to establish the surrogacy of Being for our immediacy of practice was the concept of
an apparently legitimate (unmediated) beginning, or a seemingly "clean start." With these preliminaries out of the w a y w e
can get on w i t h the task of Spirit, by s h o w i n g f r o m w i t h i n
(without reliance on the standpoint of for -us) the reason that
Being as a "clean start" is unwarranted and that mediation is
essential to its constitution. W e have, therefore, to turn our attention to the i m m a n e n t track and the p e d a g o g i c a l task of
Spirit, by offering a dialectical definition of Being beginning
with its objective face.
Being, pure Being, without any further determination. In its indeterminate immediacy it is equal only to itself. It is also not unequal relatively to an Other; it has no diversity within itself nor
any with a reference outwards. It would not be held fast in its purity if it contained any determination or content which could be
distinguished in it or by which it could be distinguished from an
Other. It is pure indeterminateness and emptiness. There is nothing to be intuited in it, if one can speak here of intuiting; or, it is
only this pure intuiting itself. Just as little is anything to be
thought in it, or it is equally only this empty thinking. Being, the
indeterminate immediate, is in fact nothing, and neither more nor
less than nothing. (Science of Logic, p. 82)
Obviously, Being as defined above will not help in the further specification of the objective term because all it amounts
to is an undifferentiated continuum. Our tactic of casting scientistic objectivity in the role of dialectical Being in order to
reveal its hidden agenda has yielded nothing. For-us, w h o are
familiar with the future development of Being, this is no cause
for alarm, but if this d e v e l o p m e n t is to b e c o m e m e a n i n g f u l
from the standpoint of the immanent path, w e have to allow
the dialectic to unfold itself. But before w e proceed with this,

Dialectical definition
of Being through its
opposite.

w e should note that, disheartening as it might seem to see our

hopes dashed for locating an objective correlate for immediacy
(as w e did for a subjective one in immediacy of practice earlier), there is an important lesson to be learned from this experience: Do not search Being for any basic irreducible matter on
which to build a "clean start" because such matter is the result
of mediations; and conversely, any metaphysical or scientific
claims about the irreducibility of such matter, are also bound
to end in nothing upon disclosure of these mediations.

Transition from
(pure) Being to
Determinate Being
by way of Nothing.

In order to test the value of the dialectical insight about scientistic objectivity for theory-practice, some instances of differentiated Being (or beings) should be cast into dialectical roles
whose outcomes are then observed in terms of our polar category. In this respect, not all moments in the self-differentiation
of Being are of equal interest to us. But g i v e n our focus on
theory-practice, there are t w o classes of candidates from which
our selection can be made: First, the progenitors of the scientistic notion of objectivity, the ontological antecedents of concepts such as empirical datum and physical entity in science;
and second, the methodological antecedents of scientism in the
area of quantification in general. The former are dealt with in
the Logic under Quality, and the latter under Quantity, while
Measure, which provides their synthesis, lays the ground for
the transition to Essence. From the first class of candidates it is
the dialectical role of the Other (introduced in the last quotation) that will occupy us the most because it cuts across many
moments, and as such, fits well the progenitor of the object in
the subject-object relationship, which underlies scientism.
T h e f e a t u r e of Being as an u n d i f f e r e n t i a t e d continuum,
w h i c h has b e e n articulated in the preceding triad, B e i n g
NothingBecoming, already begins to negate itself in the triad
under Determinate Being. This is essentially accomplished as
Being and Nothing (which, through their lack of determinacy
are t w o sides of a coin) neutralize each other, thus resulting
momentarily in a stable unity.
Both (i.e., Being and Nothing) are the same, Becoming, and although they differ so in direction ( i.e., the one is ceasing-to-be
and the other is coming-to-be) they interpenetrate and paralyze
each other.
Becoming, as this transition into the unity of Being and Nothing,
a unity which is in the form of Being or has the form of the onesided immediate unity of these moments, is Determinate Being. (Science of Logic, p. 106)
Hegel uses "interpenetration" instead of the usual "sublation"
in this transition, but he also points out that Being and Nothing

"are not reciprocally sublated the one does not sublate the
other externally but each sublates itself in itself and is in its
own self the opposite of itself." Nor has negation which is the
one side of sublation, the other being preservation or incorporation yet attained its important function qua determination.
In Determinate Being its determinateness has been distinguished as
Quality; in Quality as determinately present, there is distinction
of reality and negation. Now although these distinctions are present in Determinate Being, they are no less equally void and sublated. Reality itself contains negation, is determinate Being, not indeterminate abstract Being. Similarly, negation is Determinate Being, not the supposedly abstract Nothing but posited here as it is in
itself, as affirmatively present, belonging to the sphere of Determinate Being. Thus Quality is completely unseparated from Determinate Being, which is simply Determinate qualitative Being.
This sublating of the distinction (of reality and negation) is more
than a mere taking back and external omission of it again, or than
a simple return to a simple beginning, to Determinate Being as
such. The distinction cannot be omitted, for it is. What is, therefore, in fact present is Determinate Being in general, distinction in
it, and sublation of this distinction; Determinate Being, not as devoid of distinction as at first, but as again equal to itself through
sublation of the distinction, the simple oneness of Determinate Being resulting from this is sublation. The sublatedness of the distinction is Determinate Being's own determinateness; it is thus Beingwithin-Self: Determinate Being is a Determinate Being, a Somewhat.
Somewhat is the first negation of negation, as simple self-relation in
the form of Being...The negative of the negative is, as Somewhat,
only the beginning of the subject Being-within-Self, only as yet
quite indeterminate. It determines itself further on, first, as a Being-for-Self and so on, until in the Notion it first attains the concrete intensity of the subject. (Science of Logic, pp. 114-15)
These early transitions f r o m the Logic give the reader a
sense of the compactness of Hegel's language and the rhythm
of the dialectic in what follows. But most important, one can
get a glimpse of the creative role of negation "negation is
Determinate Being, not the supposedly abstract Nothing" in
generating through sublation the earliest progenitor of the scientistic object, the Somewhat. Though devoid of differentiation in the familiar sense of qualities and attributes of things,
as they are found in its successors (the categories of Essence),
Determinate Being displays the first instance of differentiation
in the Logic. This is based on the fundamental dialectical principle of determination through negation. The moving force of
this differentiation is the distinction between reality and negation which are carry-overs from the previous moments of Being and Nothing, respectively. " N o w although these distinc-

The role of negation

in the determination
of Being.

Sublation as
negation of
negation.

Upgrading of Being
and the build-up of
concreteness.

Consolidation of
Being along the
dialectical path.

tions are present in D e t e r m i n a t e Being, they are not less

equally void and sublated. Reality itself contains negation."
The emergence of Somewhat from Determinate Being proceeds in two steps, each involving sublation of distinction in
the above sense (i.e., combining negation and incorporation)
while the two put together constitute a double negation. First,
w e have the distinction of Determinate Being as a species of
generalized Quality, as "simply Determinate qualitative Being."
This distinction entails the negation of (pure) Being qua undifferentiated continuum. Second, the sublation of this distinction or the negation of the negation that it entails so that
Somewhat can stand on its o w n feet as Being-within-Self. If
w e are to include the first moment of Being in the rhythm of
negation, this could be represented triadically as follows: Lack
of distinction (of reality and negation) equivalent to very primitive self-relation (pure Being) Negation of lack of distinction
equivalent to imposition of distinction (of reality and negation)
in the f o r m of generalized Quality (Determinate B e i n g )
Negation of the negation of the lack of distinction (of reality
and negation) equivalent to the reimposition of self-relation at
a higher level (Somewhat as Being-within-Self). The process of
sublation ensures that the second negation (the third moment
of our schema) is no "mere taking back (to an earlier undifferentiated state) and (an) external omission of it (i.e., of the distinction of reality and negation)," but leads to a situation in
which "Determinate Being is a Determinate Being, a Somewhat"
which is "again equal to itself (i.e., self-contained or Beingwithin-Self) through the sublation of the distinction."
The above transition from Determinate Being to Somewhat is
representative of Hegel's dialectical method and especially the
role of negativity in building up concreteness. Double negation
is used to upgrade self-containment by including any seemingly
self-complete entity that lies outside of it. This is the key to
which w e shall be returning time and again in this study for
the understanding of the basic rhythm in the dialectic's quest for
a holistic approach to truth and reality. Yet, no illusions should
be entertained about the level of self-containment or concreteness of Somewhat at this early stage of the dialectic. This much
Hegel also tells us when he continues that "the negative of the
negative is, as Somewhat, only the beginning of the subject" of
the dialectic. Higher grades of concreteness follow, such as Being-for-Self, but not until the Notion does the principle of negativity "first attain the concrete intensity of the subject."
The moments that follow Somewhat continue on the same
path of consolidation of rudimentary self-contained entities,

thus setting the stage for encountering externality and abstraction. The highlights between Somewhat and Being-for-Self (for
our purpose of tracing dialectical counterparts of the scientistic
object in this context) are: the Other, Finitude (Limit), and Infinite (True and False).
Somewhat is the negation of the negation in the form of Being-, for
this second negation is the restoring of the simple relation to self;
but with this, Somewhat is equally the mediation of itself with itself.
Even in the simple form of Somewhat, then still more specifically
in Being-for-Self, subject, and so on, self-mediation is present; and it
is present even in Becoming, only the mediation is quite abstract.
In Somewhat, mediation with self is posited, in so far as Somewhat
is determined as a simple identity...
The mediation with itself which Somewhat is in itself, taken only
as negation of the negation, has no concrete determinations for its
sides; it thus collapses into the simple oneness which is Being.
Somewhat is, and is, then, also a Determinate Being; further, it is
in /tee//also Becoming, which, however, no longer has only Being
and Nothing for its moments. One of these, Being, is now Determinate Being, and, further, a Determinate Being (i.e., a Somewhat). The second is (as outcome of self-mediation) equally a Determinate Being, but determined as a negative of the Somewhat
an Other. (Science of Logic, p. 116)
Taken in c o n j u n c t i o n w i t h the p r e v i o u s transition, this
seems quite straightforward. It utilizes Somewhat's feature of
self-relation to establish it "as a simple identity," a "simple oneness which is Being." But Somewhat has also dialectically incorporated Becoming, "which, h o w e v e r , no longer has only
Being and N o t h i n g for its m o m e n t s . " For, in the m e a n t i m e
"Being (has given rise to) Determinate Being, and, further (on
to) a Determinate Being," while Nothing has provided the negative element in the self-relation of the Somewhat, the "negative of the Somewhat," thus generating out of it the Other.
Here is an example of h o w the power of negativity in building up concreteness is being hidden under layers of mediations
even at the outset of the dialectical course. Similarly, one can
begin to appreciate the value of the dialectic in unveiling these
mediations and, pari passu, the sources of self-deception of scientism in o v e r l o o k i n g w h a t lies buried under its cherished
concepts of objectivity and theory-practice.
Besides, this school (i.e., the Empirical School) makes sense-perception the form in which fact is to be apprehended: and in this
consists the defect of empiricism. Sense-perception as such is always individual, always transient: not indeed that the process of
knowledge stops short of sensation: on the contrary, it proceeds to
find out the universal and permanent element in the individual
apprehended by sense. This is the process leading from simple perception to experience.

Anticipation of
the vagaries of the
scientistic view of
objectivity.

In order to form experiences, empiricism makes special use of the

form of analysis. In the impression of sense we have a concrete of
many elements, the several attributes of which we are expected to
peel off one by one, like the coats of an onion. In thus dismembering the thing, it is understood that we disintegrate and take to
pieces these attributes which have coalesced, and add nothing but
our own act of disintegration. Yet analysis is the process from the
immediacy of sensation to thought: those attributes, which the
object analyzed contains in union, acquire the form of universality
by being separated. Empiricism therefore labors under a delusion,
if it supposes that, while analyzing the objects, it leaves them as
they were: it really transforms the concrete into an abstract. And
as a consequence of this change the living thing is killed: life can
exist only in the concrete and one. Not that we can do without
this division, if it be our intention to comprehend. Spirit itself is
an inherent division. The error lies in forgetting that this is only
one-half of the process, and that the main point is the re-union of
what has been parted. (Logic, #38 Zusatz)
Corollaries from
the abstractive view
of objectivity
byscientism.

Dialectical transitions to the Limit

and the False
Infinite.

Granted, empiricism has made many advances since Hegel's

time, especially in the field of scientific methodology. But his
main criticisms, namely empiricism's ability to "transform the
concrete into an abstract," and to raise its compartmentalized
results to "the form of universality," still stand today. In the absence of a method that would disclose the hidden articulations
of the pre-existing unity of a thing in this case the Somewhat its analysis would result in permanent dismemberment raised to the status of universal truth. For example, without the benefit of its pre-existing unity in Being, the newly derived polarity of Somewhat-Other would appear to this version
of empiricism as permanently disjoined. So would other polarities, including theory-practice, which would also be viewed in
the same light of externality and abstraction.
Finitude (or Limit) follows directly from the interplay of
Somewhat and the Other, on the one hand; and the principle
of negative determination, which launched the process of selfdifferentiation of Being, on the other. Since the l o w level of
concreteness prevailing at this early stage involves lack of differentiation at the concrete level as Hegel put it, "only the
mediation is quite abstract" negation has to carry the full
burden of the advance. Hence Somewhat and its alter ego, the
Other, are determined by what they are not by what lies
outside of them.
In Determinate Being in general, 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. Somewhat is by its
quality, firstly Finite, secondly Alterable; so that Finitude and
Alterability appertain to its Being.

In Determinate Being in general, the negation is still directly one

with the Being, and this negation is what we call a Limit (boundary). A thing is what it is, only in and by reason of its Limit. We
cannot therefore regard the Limit as only external to Determinate
Being in general. It rather goes through and through the whole of
such existence. The view of Limit, as merely an external characteristic of Determinate Being in general, arises from a confusion of
Quantitative and Qualitative Limit. (Logic, #92 and Zusatz)
Alterability (a sub-category of Limit omitted from our list for
the sake of simplicity) combined w i t h Finitude, or the Limit,
give rise to the False Infinite.
On the one hand the Limit makes the reality of a thing: on the
other it is its negation... A Somewhat is implicitly the Other of itself, and the Somewhat sees its Limit become objective to it in the
Other. If we now ask for the difference between Somewhat and
another, it turns out that they are the same.
Somewhat becomes an Other: this Other is itself Somewhat:
therefore it likewise becomes an Other, and so on ad infinitum.
(Logic, #92 Zusatz and #93)
The Somewhat and the Other, the terms of the False Infinite, turn out to be the same because, lacking internal differentiation, they are indifferent to each other. Yet the illustrations of these abstract moments come mainly f r o m the concrete sphere of Spirit, the logical future of Being. Hegel's illustration of Limit is through the use of the Ought which, as a
moral category, belongs to the advanced stages of Spirit. This is
of direct interest to us because of its f a m i l y resemblance to
practice, which can be established with the help of immediacy.
But before w e deal with it in the next Section, it is proper to
draw some corollaries with regard to theory-practice from the
early moments of Being.
Hegel was always aware of the historical correlates of his
categories, as is obvious f r o m his illustrations and especially
f r o m his Lectures on the History of Philosophy. Officially, Being
corresponds to the Greek Pre-Socratic cosmologists. But the
differentiation of Being so far can also fit the Cartesian "clean
start" with its t w o fundamental substances, mind and extension, and generally the dualistic trend in post-Renaissance
thinking under the influence of both Christianity and science.
In order for such correspondence to hold w e have to make the
assumption, which Hegel also makes throughout his symmetries between his categories and major philosophical thinkers,
that such thinkers are operating on the dialectical path of mere
for-itselfness. In other words, w e have to assume that in laying
the foundations of dualism in modernity and putting forth a
claim about a "clean start," Descartes labored under self-con-

Historical counterparts of the "clean

start" thesis.

cealment about the pre-existing unity of Being. This is not too

wild an assumption to make if w e consider his preoccupations
and the dazzling effects of scientific discoveries. The point at
w h i c h w e have to place him on the dialectical path, while in
his state of relative philosophical amnesia, is where the Other
emerges alongside the Somewhat. Descartes' t w o fundamental,
but devoid of concrete content, substances can be fitted into
the dialectical roles of the equally fundamental and abstract
Somewhat and Other. The result will be a confirmation of our
familiar but tentative conclusion that a "clean start" is precluded by the circular structure of the dialectic, and that experience does not come raw or irreducible but always involves mediation alongside immediacy. The aspiration for a "clean start"
has been shown to be futile, as it leads through mediation back
to N o t h i n g (the other side of Being), and f r o m there all the
w a y around to w h e r e w e are headed from the opposite direction to the Absolute, which, in the end, certifies the futility of such enterprise. Hegel uses some interesting linguistic
analysis to expose the hopelessness of non-dialectical means to
reach a "clean start."
The word 'this' serves to fix the distinction (between A and B) and
the Somewhat which is to be taken affirmatively. But 'this' clearly
expresses that this distinguishing and signalizing of the one Somewhat is a subjective designating falling outside the Somewhat itself.
The entire determinateness falls into this external pointing out;
even the expression 'this' contains no distinction; each and every
Somewhat is just as well a 'this' as it is also an Other. By 'this' we
mean to express something completely determined; it is overlooked
that speech, as a work of the Understanding, gives expression only
to universals, except in the name of a single object; but the individual name is meaningless, in the sense that it does not express a
universal, and for the same reason appears as something merely
posited and arbitrary; just as proper names, too, can be arbitrarily
assumed, given or also altered. (Science of Logic, p. 117)
Had H e g e l b e e n writing a hundred years later, he might
have easily included in his illustrations some of the positivist
and phenomenalist endeavors to reach pure observables qua
"clean starts," such as Russell's sense data or Mach's non-inferred observables. But he has something to say which is quite
relevant to modern science and h o w it has communicated its
self-concealment to other kinds of endeavors.
If we let Somewhat and an Other, the elements of Determinate
Being, fall asunder, the result is that Somewhat becomes Other,
and this Other is itself Somewhat, which then as such changes
likewise, and so on ad infinitum. This result seems to superficial reflection something very grand, the grandest possible...The case is
the same with space, the infinity of which has formed the theme
of barren declamation to astronomers with a talent for edification.

In the attempt to contemplate such an infinite, our thought, we

are commonly informed, must sink exhausted. It is true indeed
that we must abandon the unending contemplation, not however
because the occupation is too sublime, but because it is too tedious. (Logic, #94 Zusatz)
Though some progress has been made in relativistic cosmology toward a conceptual overcoming of certain forms of False
Infinite, the contemporary ring of Hegel's observation extends
beyond astronomy, indeed beyond science, to endeavors centering on power, production, consumption, and perception of
values. In the absence of the standpoint of the N o t i o n (what
Hegel calls a " d i a m o n d - n e t " in his Philosophy of Nature) the
claim of a "clean start" for the sake of true knowledge, is being
debased into the tedium of the False Infinite.
Being and the associated problematic of a "clean start" contain, in germ, the solution of the so-called problem of priority
in the relationship between theory and practice and the subsequent accomplishment of their synthesis. In its sparsity f r o m
the standpoint of sensuous concreteness, Being is a microcosm
of what is to follow. Part III can be v i e w e d , in this light, as a
series of increasingly elaborate versions of the solution already
suggested in the relatively primitive setting of the first f e w categories of Being: The issue of a "clean start" (the issue of priority, as it translates in the case of theory and practice) arises only because of self-concealment ignorance of the subject's
participation regarding presuppositional links backward as
well as forward on the circular path of the dialectic. The problem evaporates at the moment these links become transparent,
as can be tentatively seen in the case of the Somewhat and the
Other. Rendering the presuppositional links transparent backward toward Being, resulted in the abandonment of the futile
search for priority of either theory or practice. Doing the same
forward in the direction of Limit, ended with the same hopelessness in reaching a "clean start" by giving the priority to either or, to paraphrase Hegel's expression, by "let(ting) theory and practice fall asunder." W e took the liberty of paraphrasing because Somewhat and the Other stand as prototypes of
our key polarities to be synthesized (i.e., of subject-object and
theory-practice). This f o r m of surrogacy stems f r o m their abstract nature, also granted tacitly by Hegel w h e n he introduced
S o m e w h a t as " h a ( v i n g ) n o c o n c r e t e d e t e r m i n a t i o n f o r its
sides" acting, in our terminology, as an operational category.
Situations in which infinite regress precedes a shift in the
context of meaning, or where an obscuring of presuppositional
links leads to the misconception of one's fragmentary domain

Corollaries of the dialectic of early Being

for theory-practice.

Corollaries of the
dialectic of Being for
theory-practice
reinforced by
paradigms.

as self-contained, are familiar to us. The analysand of the earlier paradigm hopelessly reproduced the subject-object dualism
that was the source of his neurosis. The remedy was provided
by a change in the context of meaning and the emergence of
the notionally structured synthesis of theory-practice. So is the
overcoming of infinite regress achieved here by the generation
of the rudiment of self-containment, first in the True Infinite
and then in the Being-for-Self, as w e shall see shortly. In the
case of the psychoanalytical paradigm the self-concealment in
the methodological domain of theory-practice was locked into
a relationship of mutual reinforcement w i t h the ontological
self-deception of viewing oneself as a thing. Similarly, w e have
a situation n o w in which the supposedly irreducible sensa or
facts supply t h e o r y w i t h the ultimate entities for its testing
ground of practice. The latter are the ingredients which constitute the objects of science t h r o u g h successive mediation in
Essence. But, as in previous cases, mediation is obscured because scientism, in its self-concealment, ignores the dialectical
links between moments and mistakes its o w n limited concern
as self-contained. For an example f r o m the case of Being, w e
can use the surrogate triad Undifferentiated Unity Differentiation Differentiated Unity in conjunction with the charge
Hegel levels against the Empirical School for "dismembering
the t h i n g , " and n e g l e c t i n g " t h e r e - u n i o n of w h a t has been
parted." In mistaking its limited concern as self-complete, scientism focuses o n the middle term at the exclusion of what
precedes and w h a t f o l l o w s it, thus obscuring the dialectical
links backward to the primitive self-containment (pre-existing
unity) of (pure) Being and forward to a more advanced form
of unity of the True Infinite and Being-for-Self. This was precisely the handicap under which the liberal was laboring in the
political paradigm earlier. He was treating cultural objects in
modo scientifico by bringing them into the testing range of theory-practice, that is, in separation f r o m their pre-existing unity
wherein they have been culturally "loaded."

Cautioning against
misguided holistic
claims in the name
of philosophy.

In concluding this Section it should be pointed out that the

criticism against scientism for self-concealment does not imply
that it should change its ways and play by the rules of dialectical philosophy. If this w e r e so, science would cease to be what
it is and, given the holistic approach of dialectical philosophy,
it t o o w o u l d be i m p o v e r i s h e d by the same measure. Indeed
Hegel gives empirical science its due for philosophy's rise to
maturity.
The rise of philosophy is due to these cravings of thought (to learn
directly from experience). Its point of departure is experience; in-

eluding under that name both our immediate consciousness and

the inductions from it...The sciences, based on experience, exert
upon the mind a stimulus to overcome the form in which their varied
contents are presented, and to elevate these contents to the rank of necessary truth. (Logic, #12; italics added)
The issue with which w e are concerned is highlighted by
the emphasis of the conclusion in the above quotation. We do
not question the internally established criteria for conducting
business in science or, for that matter, in any other discipline
claiming (in its self-concealment) self-containment. This they
do in ignorance of their presuppositional links and cannot be
done otherwise without disruption of the normal flow of business. Rather, it is the open or tacit claim of universality for results or methods which, in view of scientism's compartmentalized approach, remain partial and disjointed in light of the
comprehensive view of philosophy. Through pursuit of this latter course, scientism, in effect, elevates indifference and externality to universal truth, whereas the avowed "aim of philosophy is to banish indifference, and ascertain the necessity of
things." (Logic, #119 Zusatz)
The method of empirical science exhibits two defects. The first is
that the Universal...(is) not on its own account connected with
the Particulars or the details. Either is external and accidental to
the other; and it is the same with the particular facts which are
brought into the union: each is external and accidental to the others. The second defect is that the beginnings are in every case data
and postulates, neither accounted for nor deduced. In both these
points the form of necessity fails to get its due. Hence reflection,
whenever it sets itself to remedy these defects, becomes speculative thinking, the thinking proper to philosophy. (Logic, #9)

iii. Subjectivity and Being

Clarification of the
context of meaning
through anticipation
of the course of the
dialectic.

Historical counterpart of the subjective

side of Being located
in the "ought" of the
radical.

Subjectivity, which so far has been implicit (by contrast to

objectivity) in the polarity of Somewhat-Other, is about to become explicit in the most rudimentary form of self-containment, Being-for-Self. But there has also been another side to
subjectivity, the trans-individual subjectivity not immanently
reached at this early stage, which is represented by those of us
w h o observe the immanent process from the outside, standing
by so to speak, as repositories for Spirit. It is the former path of
subjectivity w e are going to pursue in this Section, while the
latter will be serving as a measure of our success in making
subjectivity explicit, or determining the extent to which Being,
which so far has been only for-us begins also to be for-itself
(i.e., Being-for-Self).
Dismemberment, as practiced by scientism in the way described earlier, indicates presence of externality or indifference.
Categorially, these features belong to Finitude and the False Infinite. Translating their function in terms of scientistic theorypractice, w e may tentatively say that the theorizing subject and
the tested object remain external to each other, indifferent with
regard to intervening mediations, and self-concealed with regard to presuppositional links. As w e enter Essence this assessment has to be amended to the extent that in the more mature
brands of scientism the immanently derived subject gradually
supplants the external one the standpoint for-us is giving
way to that of for-itself, with the result that scientism becomes
increasingly aware that scientific objects are at least in part
products of mediation. However, a core of objectivity the reflection of the "clean start" of Being still remains, inasmuch
as scientism never transcends the subject-object polarity. This
has to wait for the Notion in which the remaining unsublated
high-order dualisms, including theory-practice and subject-object, are finally overcome by way of their dialectical synthesis.
Similar considerations hold true for certain philosophies of
immediacy, such as moral intuitionism, which were exemplified earlier in the case of Jacobi. Though dialectically far ahead
of Being in terms of concreteness, they too suffer from a fundamental sort of indifference and Finitude which, as in the
case of scientism, are residues of their sojourn with Being. After all, they are the scientistic and the moral, the objective and
subjective faces of immediacy, as w e argued in an earlier Section. But there was also an important difference between them
as to whether immediacy was located in the positing or the
posited end of the subject-object axis. It was an essential fea-

ture of scientistic self-concealment to have overlooked the act

of positing on the part of the subject and the mediation that
this act entailed, and thus v i e w its object as external. Reverting
to our political paradigm for illustration, there is immediacy
w h e n the radical posits his "ought," which coincides with his
claim about the priority of practice. But there is also immediacy in the scientism of the liberal, w h o in his self-concealment
(i.e., his ignorance about his contribution in the generation of
the object), overlooks the positing on the part of the subject,
and accepts his cultural-political objects as irreducible facts
subject to the external treatment of theory-practice. The dialogue between radical and liberal provided a rudimentary dialectic, w h e r e b y each u n v e i l e d for the other that w h i c h he
could not reveal for himself in his self-concealment. However,
it was the radical's "ought" which provided, through the challenge of socially and physically embodied presuppositions, the
main thrust t o w a r d a change in the rules of the g a m e . T h e
same is true of the Somewhat and the Other, which w e left in
self-perpetuating indifference at the hands of the False Infinite
a short w h i l e ago. Though it is a long w a y to the Notion and
the group-logic associated with it, the transition from the False
to the True Infinite and f r o m there to Being-for-Self, anticipates that development of the complementary roles of opposed
sides as they reach a synthesis.
This Infinity (i.e., the False one) is the wrong or negative infinity:
it is only a negation of a finite: but the finite rises again the same
as ever, and is never got rid of and absorbed. In other words, this
(false) infinite only expresses the ought-to-be elimination of the Finite. {Logic, #94)
This demand is carried out in the next paragraph.
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 passes into is quite the
same as what passed over, since both have one and the same attribute, viz. to be an Other, it follows that Somewhat in its passage
into Other only joins with itself. To be thus self-related in the passage, and in the Other, is the True 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 Being-for-Self.
Dualism, in putting an insuperable opposition between Finite and
Infinite, fails to note the simple circumstance that the Infinite is
thereby only one of two, and is reduced to a particular, to which
the Finite forms the other particular. Such an Infinite, which is
only a particular, is coterminus with the Finite which makes for it

The dialectical location of the "ought"

in Being-for-Self
supplies the germ of
its final synthesis
with the "is."

a limit and a barrier: it is not what it ought to be, that is the Infinite, but
is only Finite. (Logic, #95; emphases added in the last instance)
The two faces of
Being as prototypes
of the penultimate
categories of the
dialectic.

T h e S o m e w h a t has collapsed into the Other since "in its

passing into Other only joins with itself." Thus, through a double negation, the Other returns to itself, but n o w as self-related
B e i n g - f o r - S e l f . This also marks the transition f r o m False to
True Infinity. As the latter is the precursor of notional structure, a demand for the banishment of the Finite is also a demand of the Other (or Somewhat) for self-completion and the
remedy of infinite regress. The "ought to be" at the end of the
last quote reaffirms the claim of the priority of Being, but n o w
manifested through its subjective face. It may thus be called
the progenitor of the demand of reason in the practical sphere,
as the Somewhat was the precursor of the demand for objectivity in the realm of theoretical reason. The " o u g h t " poses a
demand that the Finite passes to the Infinite, which has no rational foundation in the external w o r l d but emanates totally
f r o m w i t h i n itself. A s the p r o t o t y p e of s u b j e c t i v i t y in the
sphere Being, the "ought" needs a foothold outside the object
in order to proclaim a flaw in it, or in what is. There is further
e v i d e n c e of this w h e n H e g e l suggests that "the readiest instance of Being-for-Self is found in the T . " Man, he continues,
...is distinguished from the animal world, and in that way from
nature altogether, by knowing himself as T : which amounts to
saying that natural things never attain a free Being-for-Self but, as
limited to Being-there-and-then (i.e., Dasein or Determinate Being), are always and only Being-for-an-Other. Again, Being-forSelf may be described as Ideality, just as Being-there-and-then
was described as Reality. (Logic, #96 Zusatz)
If the structure of the Somewhat anticipates theoretical reason and that of the "ought" practical reason, then their synthesis in the Being-for-Self is the prototype of the Absolute Idea,
the Notion in its most advanced manifestation. This is already
implicit in the synthesis of the Somewhat and the Other in #94
and #95 of the Logic. It becomes more obvious if the demandposing subjectivity is assigned to the f o r m e r as it passes into
the latter, w h i c h w o u l d then represent external reality. The
m o r e detailed Science of Logic makes the same point more explicit than does the telescoped version of the Logic.
In order that the Limit which is in Somewhat as such should be a
limitation, Somewhat must at the same time in its own self transcend the Limit, it must in its own self be related to the Limit as to
Somewhat which is not. The Determinate Being of Somewhat lies
inertly indifferent, as it were, alongside its Limit. But Somewhat
only transcends its Limit in so far as it is the accomplished sublation of the Limit, is the in-itself as negatively related to it. And

since the Limit is in the determination itself as a limitation, Somewhat transcends its own self.
The "ought" therefore contains the determination in double form:
once as the implicit determination counter to the negation, and
again as a non-Being which, as a limitation, is distinguished from
the determination, but is at the same time itself an implicit determination. (Science of Logic, p. 132)
The entry of the "ought," and by implication of the "is," into the dialectic of Being qua surrogates of the Somewhat and
the Other makes increasingly apparent the underlying presence of theory and practice. The dialectic of the " o u g h t " and
the "is" is central to the final synthesis of theory-practice and a
special Section is d e v o t e d to it at the end of Part III. But as
with other important elements in the final synthesis, the role
of the " o u g h t " is anticipated early in the dialectic of Being.
Once the roles of the "is" and the "ought" are assigned to the
Somewhat and the Other, negation plays the same important
role of determination as it did earlier with their surrogates. W e
recall that the followers of scientism, in their self-concealment,
v i e w e d the situation m e r e l y f o r - t h e m s e l v e s , in claiming a
"clean start" from the objective (at the exclusion of the subjective) side. N o w this is true of the philosophers of immediacy
from the subjective (at the exclusion of the objective) side. But
the transition to True Infinity unmasked the self-concealment
of both. " S o m e w h a t in its passage into Other only joins w i t h
itself. To be thus self-related in the passage, and in the Other, is
the True Infinity."

The presence of theory-practice in Being

by way of surrogacy
of the is-ought.

Negation plays the same creative role with the "ought" and
the "is" as it did with their surrogates through showing that by
virtue of being opposites each is essential to the meaning and
i n t e g r i t y of t h e o t h e r . T h e r o l e of n e g a t i o n is m a n i f e s t e d
through the f u n c t i o n of the Limit, most significantly in the
finding of the first quoted paragraph: since the Limit is part of
the determination of the meaning of Somewhat, the recognition of this entails that Somewhat has transcended the Limit
and in doing so has transcended itself. The implication f r o m
the fact that Somewhat has "transcend(ed) its own self is, that
having, so to speak, stepped out of itself, it realized the role of
negation in the formation of its meaning and integrity and is
now, therefore, in possession of a more complete v i e w of itself.
The "Somewhat only transcends its Limit in so far as it is the
accomplished sublation of the Limit, is the in-itself (Somewhat
in potentia or the 'ought') as negatively related to it (its Limit)."
This conclusion is then applied in the f o l l o w i n g paragraph to
the "ought" which is n o w in full v i e w of being determined in

The creative role of

negation in the case
of is-ought.

both a positive w a y "counter to the negation," and negatively

"as a non-Being which, as a limitation, is... itself an implicit
determination." The continuation of that page of the Science of
Logic shows more explicitly the replay of the dialectic of Somewhat as the dialectic of the "ought" (or the dialectic of Somewhat's realized potentiality as an "ought").
What ought to be is, and at the same time is not. If it were, we
could not say that it ought merely to be. The ought has, therefore,
essentially a limitation. This limitation is not alien to it; that which
only ought to be is the determination, which is now posited as it is
in fact, namely, as at the same time only a determinateness.
Hence as the ought, Somewhat is raised above its limitation, but conversely, it is only as the ought that it has its limitation. The two are
inseparable. Somewhat has a limitation in so far as it has negation
in its determination, and the determination is also the accomplished sublation of the limitation. (Science of Logic, pp. 132-33)
Elucidation of
morality and ideals
through the concept
of negation.

As in cases of other dialectical concepts, there is a positive

and negative determination of the "ought." What adds to the
importance of the "ought" for morality and the dialectic of action stems f r o m the fact that the positive w h i c h is being
posited in this case by the radical belongs to the future and
as such remains unaccomplished and therefore a negative or a
"non-Being." The "ought," as do other concepts, has a Limit,
but it also has "essentially a limitation." "The ought... (as positive) is raised above its limitation, but conversely, it is only as the
ought that it has its limitation (i.e., that it is a n o n - B e i n g ) . "
Since the negation of what is not yet the case is the other side
of the posited which is the contents of the "ought," the latter is
found wanting by criteria of reality set up by more advanced
categories, such as Actuality.
Those who attach such importance to the ought of morality and
fancy that morality is destroyed if the ought is not recognized as
ultimate truth, and those too who, reasoning from the level of
Understanding, derive a perpetual satisfaction from being able to
confront everything there is with an ought, that is, with a 'knowing better' and from that very reason they are just as loath to
be robbed of an ought do not see that as regards the finitude of
their sphere the ought receives full recognition. But in the world
of Actuality itself, Reason and Law are not in such a bad way that
they only ought to be it is only the abstraction of the in-itself
that stops at this any more than the ought is in its own self
perennial and, what is the same thing, that finitude is absolute.
The philosophy of Kant and Fichte sets up the ought as the highest point of the resolution of the contradictions of Reason; but the
truth is that the ought is only the standpoint which clings to Finitude and thus to contradiction. (Science of Logic, p. 136)

For a more sensuously concrete illustration of the dialectic

one may again recall the "ought" of the radical, his vision that
invited the ridicule of his opponent. The liberal's perception of
this vision corresponds to the origin of the "ought" above and
its one-sided subjectivity in which case its demand, as w e put
it then, rested on no rational foundation in the external world.
However, in v i e w of the above dialectic of the "ought," this
must be amended accordingly. The radical's vision, his "ought,"
is an unrealized possibility which, as w e shall see in some detail later in the dialectic of Actuality, serves to fix the reality of
" n o w " in the same way that Limit served to turn Somewhat
into Being-for-Self. Everything possible partakes through negativity in Being, as it will later partake in Existence and in Actuality. This is part of the more general picture of the successors of Being, to be finally pieced together after the transition
from the time-bound Essence to the timeless Idea. Of this w e
have had already a hint in the philosophical paradigm, when
the issue of relativity of time came up in connection with the
role of the Absolute Idea as the context of all contexts the
standard by which all movement and toil is to be measured.
This encounter of time with timelessness is already prefigured
here in the transition from the time-impregnated False Infinite
to the timeless self-completeness of True Infinity and Beingfor-Self. The overcoming of time-bound Essence (and the predictive rationality of scientism) by the timeless structure of
self-containment, is the key to resolving the difficulties of the
dialectic with the concept of time, and the way to the understanding of the eternity of the Absolute Idea.
The respective perceptions of ideals and the future by the
liberal and the radical are anchored, from a dialectical standpoint, to different metaphysical grounds. The radical can claim
that his "ought" is real because it is defined as real by virtue of
the role of negation and the grades of reality involved, whereas in the liberal's w o r l d v i e w of compartmentalized negation
and affirmation and his relatively one-dimensional conception
of reality, such a claim would amount to nonsense. Suffice it to
add, that in the last resort it is the retrospective Notion and the
corresponding categories of Objective Spirit, especially the
judgment of World History, that decide which of the few, from
a multitude of "oughts" posited, are finally actualized. The radical's tragic, but also potentially heroic role, consisted in probing the ways of Spirit without even the logical possibility of
prior knowledge about the final outcome of his action.

Illustration of the dialectic of the "ought"

through the political
paradigm.

iv. Further Self-Differentiation of Being

Transition to atomized Being and, by
extension, to social
atomization and
methodological
individualism.

N o sooner had Being-for-Self (the prototype of self-containment and subjectivity) emerged than the dialectic reverted to
B e i n g at its most abstract a t o m i z e d m a n i f e s t a t i o n , that is,
quantitative Being. The sub-triad of Being-for-Self consists of
O n e M a n y ( R e p u l s i o n ) R e p u l s i o n and Attraction, w h i c h
sets the stage for the categories of Quantity.
The relation of the negative to itself is a negative relation, and so a
distinguishing of the One from itself, the repulsion of the One:
that is, it makes Many Ones. So far as regards the immediacy of
the self-existents, these Many are: and the repulsion of every One
of them becomes to that extent their repulsion against each other
as existing units, in other words their reciprocal exclusion.
(Logic, #97)
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...the meaning being that, toward whatever side the
determination of magnitude be altered, the thing still remains
what it is. (Logic, #99 and Zusatz)
The chief illustrations of these categories come from atomic
t h e o r y in p h y s i c s a n d a b s t r a c t i o n f r o m t h e q u a n t i t a t i v e
methodology of mathematics. In both cases Hegel uses the occasion to r e n e w his attack on the scientists for allowing their
abstractive m e t h o d o l o g y and implicit philosophizing to lead
them to bad metaphysics.
Newton gave physics an express warning to beware of metaphysics, it is true; but, to his honor be it said, he did not by any
means obey his own warning. The only mere physicists are the
animals: they alone do not think: while man is a thinking being
and born metaphysician. The real question is not whether we
shall apply metaphysics, but whether our metaphysics are of the
right kind: in other words, whether we are not, instead of the
concrete logical Idea, adopting one-sided forms of thought, rigidly
fixed by (the) Understanding, and making these the basis of our
theoretical as well as our practical work. It is on these grounds
that one objects to the Atomic philosophy. (Logic, #98 Zusatz)
If Quantity is not reached through the action of thought (of the
logical Idea), but taken uncritically from our generalized image of
it, we are liable to exaggerate the range of its validity, or even to
raise it to the height of an absolute category. And that such a danger is real, we see when the title of exact science is restricted to
those sciences the objects of which can be submitted to mathematical calculation. Here we have another trace of bad metaphysics (mentioned in #98 Zusatz) which replaces the concrete
Idea by partial and inadequate categories of (the) Understanding.
(Logic, #99 Zusatz: second parenthetical phrase in the text)
Social atomism is used as another illustration of Hegel's criticism of the methodology of scientism. Social reality is closer to

the Idea than physical reality, and yet social atomism seeks to
understand social reality in terms of the implicit metaphysics
of physical atomism.
In modern times the importance of the atomic theory is even
more evident in political than in physical science. According to it,
the will of individuals as such is the creative principle of the State:
the attractive force is the special wants and inclinations of individuals; and the Universal, or the State itself, is the external nexus of
a compact. (Logic, #98)
Some general observations about the place of theory-practice in Being are in order before w e leave this sphere. Perhaps
these can be rendered more transparent if w e generate still another surrogate triad for Being Essence Notion, reflecting
h o w the relationship between our polar terms (not the terms
themselves) relate to the members of the overarching supertriad. The terms of this n e w triad will in all instances be theory-practice, but in each case the relationship will be characterized differently depending on the sphere w i t h i n w h i c h they
operate. These characterizations are available to us f r o m our
earliest list of surrogate triads, since they w e r e generated precisely so they can be interchangeable with the terms of the super-triad by virtue of family resemblances. Thus, selecting from
the first terms of the surrogate triads immediacy, externality,
and indifference, w e can say that these terms can also apply as
characterizations for the relationship between theory and practice under Being, inasmuch as they stand as surrogates for the
latter. By contrast, their relationship in Essence will be characterized by mediation. It will not be one of synthesis, but a perpetuation of a relation of duality for the moment let us call
it one of for-itselfness, or reflection b e t w e e n t w o mirrors in
which images reduplicate themselves without ever coinciding.
Finally, the last moment will be one of genuine unity inclusive
of difference. This synthesis will correspond to re-immediation
that is returning to the immediacy of unity but preserving the
benefits of mediation, as illustrated by the analysand at the climactic m o m e n t of his termination of successful therapy. The
result will appear in triadic f o r m as follows: Theory (or Practice) as external or indifferent to Practice (or T h e o r y ) T h e o r y
(or Practice) reflected into Practice (or Theory)Synthesis of
Theory and Practice.
With particular reference to Being, this relationship can be
confirmed if w e consider that the entities generated out of the
process of Being's self-differentiation are the very contents of
practice e.g., the sense-data, the irreducible facts, the results
of scientism's quest for a "clean start." The above characteriza-

Implications of the
dialectic of Being for
theory-practice.

Methodological
implications of the
dialectic of Being.

tions of Being were deemed appropriate precisely because they

corresponded to such entities. For example, indifference is particularly aggravated under Quantity because, as w e have just
witnessed, the already abstract entities under Quality, though
on the verge of a breakthrough toward further concreteness by
way of Being-for-Self, suffer a setback because they have been
mediated by Quantity. The domain of objective reality and
testing ground for theory under Being is composed of entities
which have undergone the most severe forms of abstraction.
Furthermore, there is no hope for alleviation from within the
immanent track, because the standpoint of theory is for-us.
And, it is only we, w h o can see into the future in Essence, who
also know that a relief from this abstraction in the domain of
objects can only come with a relief from the externality between theory and practice. But this can only come about gradually through the relinquishing of the standpoint for-us the
other side of the in-itselfness, which also characterizes Being
by theory, which then also joins in the immanent track and
a progressive rapprochement with practice in anticipation of
their synthesis.
Another consequence of the mediation of Quality by Quantity the mathematization of primitive objectivity of Being
that bears directly on our project is the location of the source
of the predictive rationality of scientism. In dealing with abstract entities such as those encountered in Being, the predictive power of scientism is potent because theorizing comes in
the form of highly abstractive mathematical operations. High
predictive power, scientism's single most important criterion of
theoretical adequacy, is the result of sublation by Quantity. We
recall from the Logic #99 that when Quality was being dialectically incorporated into Quantity, the former lacked internal
differentiation and, therefore, anything beyond minimal empirical content what w e then identified as "generalized
quality." As a result, there was little that quantification could
do to further dismember through abstraction. However, as the
dialectic progresses and empirical content becomes enriched
through successive mediations, quantification implies by comparison increased abstractiveness. One may safely conclude
that the severity of abstraction is proportional to the level of
the dialectic at which quantification takes place. The further
w e advance on the dialectical scale, the richer becomes the
content and, therefore, the more severe the abstractive process
once initiated through quantification.
In both the cases of minimal and enriched empirical content, the predictive power of a scientistic system is due to its

built-in abstractive process. If the content is minimal the system approximates an axiomatic one whose predictive value is
high in the sense that w h a t is d e r i v e d f r o m it (e.g., proofs,
corollaries) is predictably what has been put into it in terms of
definitions, postulates, axioms, and rules. As the empirical
content becomes enriched, the abstractive process goes into effect by selecting from such content and filling-in according to
its conceptual requirements. But, as in previous occasions, it is
not the process of self-selecting itself that is being questioned.
This has been going on at every level of the dialectic according
to the context of meaning prevailing at it. Rather, what is at issue again is scientism's self-concealment in mistaking the object of its o w n activity as something externally given, and the
product of its o w n quantification as a faithful reflection of the
intricacies of nature. W h a t is being o b j e c t e d to, in H e g e l ' s
words, is not doing metaphysics but doing the wrong kind, and
"instead of the concrete logical Idea, adopting one-sided forms
of thought, rigidly fixed by (the) Understanding." "If quantity
is not reached through the action of thought (of the logical
Idea, which is also the standpoint of complete self-consciousness), but taken uncritically f r o m our generalized ( c o m m o n sensical) image of it, w e are liable to exaggerate the range of its
validity, or even raise it to the height of an absolute category."
The self-concealment of scientism is so deeply r o o t e d in the
abstractive procedures of quantification, that Hegel goes so far
as to warn even empirical scientists against it.
If it be the office of comparison to reduce existing differences to
Identity, the science, which most perfectly fulfills that end, is
mathematics. The reason of that is, that quantitative difference is
only the difference which is quite external... It follows from what
has been formerly said about the mere Identity of Understanding
that, as has also been pointed out (#99 Zusatz), neither philosophy
nor the empirical sciences need envy this superiority of mathematics. (Logic, #117 Zusatz; parenthetical phrase in the text)
H o w e v e r , scientism i n v o l v e s m o r e than quantitative
m e t h o d o l o g y and if w e are prepared to e x t e n d our adopted
strategy of exposing its self-concealment beyond its quantitative
aspect, w e should be able to carry our strategy into Essence, to
which scientism's conceptual apparatus more accurately corresponds, and to which w e must n o w turn our attention.

B. Theory-Practice and the Logic of Essence

i. Reflection and the Priority of Theory in Essence

Our strategy of casting scientism in dialectical roles in order
to force it to yield its hidden agenda remains in effect. We also
continue our search for the implicit theory-practice structures
in the scientistic apparatus as the latter becomes disclosed in
Essence. As in the case of Being, this will be done by selecting
categories which highlight our concern. The criteria of selection will also be the same. First, the progenitor of the scientistic object, and second, the antecedents of scientific methodology, with special reference to theory-practice. This objective has
to be revised since, being in Essence where mature scientism
feels categorially at home, w e are not dealing so much with
abstractive models but with what is closer to the actual conceptions and practices of science. Instead of sense-data and
other forms of alleged raw experience and "clean starts," w e
are now approximating progressively differentiated entities in
the form of empirically defined scientistic objects. Similarly, as
the mathematically inclined categories of Being are dialectically incorporated into increasingly concrete levels of meaning,
the emerging procedure begins to resemble current scientific
methodology.
Most important, Essence signals a shift of emphasis f r o m
practice to theory and a related change from the standpoint of
in-itselfness (or for-us) to that of for-itselfness, as mediation
assumes an increasingly leading role. Practice in Being was in a
state of self-concealment or, more accurately, one of only potential self-disclosure (i.e., in-itself), because it lacked the categorial equipment (i.e., mediation and reflection) to view itself
for what it was or for-itself. This self-concealment was apparent for-us w h o had arrived at that point via the circular path.
With the transition to Essence, mediation (as its etymology
and common usage also suggest) is equivalent to the intercession between two parties for the purpose of effecting a reconciliation by way of clarifying or making explicit their respective
positions. We may recall that the most recent addition to the

Strategy in dealing
with Essence.

Distinction of
Essence from
Being, with special reference to
theory, mediation,
and reflection.

list of surrogate triads, BeingEssenceNotion, was Immediac y M e d i a t i o n R e - i m m e d i a t i o n . But mediation also corresponds to theory as the latter relates to practice by way of reflection. This suggests the key role that the surrogate middle
terms t h e o r y and m e d i a t i o n w i l l be p l a y i n g in explicating
Essence. Reflection will be carrying most of the burden of mediation and Hegel will be making full use of the both etymological and metaphorical affinities between thought processes
and reflection properties of light to secure the role of mediation in this sphere. This is the context in which theory will be
taking its turn in claiming priority over practice by virtue of
mediation between terms which have hitherto been burdened
w i t h externality. The last paragraph of Being and the first of
Essence in the Logic summarize this development very well.
In Being, the form of reference (or relation) is purely due to our
reflection (as travellers on the circular path) on what takes place;
but it (i.e., reflection) is the special and proper characteristic of
Essence. In the sphere of Being, when Somewhat becomes an
Other, the Somewhat has vanished. Not so in Essence: here there
is no real Other, but only Diversity, reference of the one to its Other. The transition of Essence is therefore at the same time no transition: for in the passage of different into different, the different
does not vanish: the different terms remain in their relation.
When we speak of Being and Nothing, Being is independent, so is
Nothing. The case is otherwise with the Positive and the Negative.
No doubt these possess the characteristics of Being and Nothing.
But the Positive by itself has no sense; it is wholly in reference to
the Negative. And it is the same with the Negative. In the sphere
of Being the reference of one term to another is only implicit; in
Essence on the contrary it is explicit. And this in general is the distinction between the forms of Being and Essence: in Being everything is immediate; in Essence everything is relative. (Logic, #111
Zusatz; italics added in the first instance)
The terms of Essence are always mere pairs of correlatives, and not
yet absolutely reflected in themselves: hence in Essence the actual
unity of the Notion is not realized, but only postulated by reflection. Essence, which is Being coming into mediation with itself
through the negativity of itself is self-relatedness, only in so far
as it is relation to an Other, this Other however coming to view
at first not as something which is, but as postulated and hypothesized. Being has not vanished: but, firstly, Essence, as simple
self-relation, is Being, and secondly as regards its one-sided characteristic of immediacy, Being is deposed to a mere negative, to a
seeming or reflected light Essence accordingly is Being thus reflecting light into itself...That reflection, or light thrown into itself,
constitutes the distinction between Essence and immediate Being,
and is the peculiar characteristic of Essence itself. (Logic, #112)
The point of view given by the Essence is in general the standpoint of 'Reflection.' This word 'reflection' is originally applied,

when a ray of light in a straight line impinging upon the surface

of a mirror is thrown back from it. In this phenomenon we have
two things, first an immediate fact which is, and secondly the
deputed, derivated, or transmitted phase of the same. Something of this sort takes place when we reflect, or think upon an
object; for here we want to know the object; not in its immediacy,
but as derivative or mediated. (Logic, #112 Zusatz)
The first paragraph describes the transition f r o m Being to
Essence in terms of a shift f r o m a pre-eminence of immediacy
to that of mediation, and a change f r o m externality to internality. M o r e specifically, the shift takes place between external
( " o u r r e f l e c t i o n " ) and internal reflection or I n t r o f l e c t i o n
"the special and proper characteristic of Essence." As the second paragraph proceeds to show, it is the latter kind of reflection identified as Introflection ("reflected into themselves")
on the part of the dualities ("pairs of corellatives") w h i c h
provides the m o v e m e n t and bears the burden for building-up
concreteness in Essence. Hegel also allows us a peek into the
future of the process of I n t r o f l e c t i o n , and g e n e r a l l y of the
build-up of concreteness through self-relatedness, in the f o r m
of the "actual unity of the Notion." Being had gone only as far
as a relatively abstract and external "simple self-relation," thus
generating, through a quantitative self-duplication, the Other
f r o m S o m e w h a t and the M a n y f r o m the O n e . Essence has
transcended this "one-sided characteristic of i m m e d i a c y " of
Being, through dialectically incorporating what is immediate
or apparent, but " d e p o s i n g it) to a mere negative, to a seeming or reflected light" in the mirror-like metaphor of reflection.
Finally, the third quoted paragraph makes explicit the dialectically significant reflective properties of thought through the
analysis of this metaphor of light.
The following version of the same transition f r o m Being to
Essence given by the Science of Logic parallels that given above
by the Logic. But it has the advantage, for our purposes, of following more explicitly the shift of the theoretical component
as Hegel calls it " t h e external r e f l e c t i o n of the subjective
thinker" from the circular to the immanent path.
Absolute indifference is the final determination of Being before it
becomes Essence; but it does not attain to Essence. It reveals itself
as still belonging to the sphere of Being through the fact that, determined as indifferent, it still contains difference as an external,
quantitative determination; this is its Determinate Being, contrasted
with which absolute indifference is determined as being only implicitly the Absolute, not the Absolute grasped as Actuality. In other
words, it is external reflection which stops short at conceiving the
differences in themselves or in the Absolute as one and the same,
thinking of them as only indifferently distinguished, not as intrin-

Distinction of
Essence from Being
in terms of grades of
indifference.

sically distinct from one another. The further step which requires
to be made here is to grasp that this reflection of their differences
into their unity is not merely the product of the external reflection
of the subjective thinker, but that is the very nature of the differences of this unity to sublate themselves, with the result that their
unity proves to be absolute negativity, its indifference to be just as
much indifferent to itself, to its own indifference, as it is indifferent
to otherness. (Science of Logic, pp. 383-84)

Preliminary location
of theory-practice in
the dialectic of
Essence.

As w e recall from our discussion of Being, indifference had

been heightened as a result of mediation by Quantity. The category of Measure which, f o l l o w i n g Quantity, contributed the
conception of a substrate which laid the ground for the duality
of essential-unessential that is characteristic of Essence. Thus,
Being bequeathed to Essence "absolute indifference" as exemplified in the presence of an unsublated substrate vis-a-vis "the
external reflection of the subjective thinker" the counterpart
of "purely due to our reflection on what takes place" from the
p r e v i o u s q u o t a t i o n . The A b s o l u t e first appears a b o v e in its
most incipient stage as "absolute indifference" or undifferenti-

I
j
j
j
j

ated unity, and not as self-differentiated unity or unity-in-difference it is " o n l y implicitly the Absolute, not the Absolute
grasped as Actuality." At this point it may be useful to refer to
the surrogate triads: IndifferenceDifferentiationSelf-differentiation (or Unity-in difference), and IdentityDifference
Identity-in-Difference, which w e shall encounter shortly. Difference stands dialectically higher than indifference because it
admits its opposite in fixing its meaning, while indifference explicitly rejects any such connection.

j
j
j
j
j
j
i
]
j

In this light, the "external reflection of the subjective thinker"

corresponds to theory, while "the differences in themselves (i.e.,

as they are still in a state of potentiality)... as only indifferently
distinguished (i.e., not yet internally differentiated)," provide
the contents of practice. This is no different than the case encountered earlier in Being w h e r e i n , though t w o faces of the
same coin, the in-itselfness (the "in themselves" here) representing the contents of practice, and the for-us (the "subjective
thinker" here) representing theory, are burdened with externality vis-a-vis each other, and are only potentially part of the
unity-in-difference which includes them both. In other words,
w e are short of the situation in which differentiation builds up
f r o m within, whereby "unity is not merely the product of the
external reflection of the subjective thinker, but that it is the
v e r y nature of the differences of this unity to sublate themselves." W e have not yet reached a genuine form of unity qua
unity-in-difference "grasped as Actuality." Since the Absolute is
the model for such conception, genuine unity is characterized

j
j
j

j
j
i
j
j
^
I

j
I

by a coincidence of the standpoint of the external observer, or

"subjective thinker," representing the theoretical component;
and the differences viewed externally ("in themselves" or "only
indifferently distinguished") representing that of practice. Or,
better still, rendering the same synthesis in terms of Hegel's terminology of the above quoted passages, it amounts to "conceiving the differences in themselves (as they potentially are) or in
the Absolute (i.e., as they have been actualized at the moment
of the Absolute of Actuality) as one and the same."
In Essence there is more of an anticipation and first approximation of the forthcoming synthesis of theory and practice,
but still within a self-perpetuating dualistic context of meaning
that precludes the final consummation of the coincidence or
synthesis of the two sides. Though the double-mirror analogy
takes care of such reduplication of dualism, it misses the qualitative change of the reflected object due to the intervening mediations. It does not account for the fact that each successive
act of reflection adds to the internal unity of the object or relation at hand, so that the differences become progressively less
"indifferently distinguished," and more "intrinsically distinct
from one another. "Thus," it is the very nature of the differences of this (genuine internal) unity to sublate themselves,
with the result that their unity proves to be absolute negativity
(double negation leading to affirmation of unity of the kind w e
witnessed in the transition to Somewhat), its indifference to be
just as much indifferent to itself, to its own indifference, as it is
indifferent to otherness."
The succession of the acts of r e f l e c t i o n w i l l c o n t i n u e
throughout Essence until all indifference is banished. Indeed,
as is apparent even from perusing the list of the categories of
Essence, the dialectical progress within that sphere is equivalent to the gradual convergence of the immanent path of Spirit
with the hitherto external path of the "subjective thinker."
This progression toward coincidence of the two paths secures a
more concrete, or dialectically advanced, standing for theory
than it enjoyed under Being from the standpoint of the "subjective thinker." It now possesses a position of incipient unityin-difference a unity with, coupled with a detachment from,
its object (the contents of practice). What unites theory and its
object is the operation of the self-selection of the contents of
practice the view of the Other as "postulated and hypothesized." The element of separation, on the other hand, derives
from the persisting underlying dualistic structure of Essence.
Theory cannot overcome this detachment from its object while
still in the sphere of Essence because, being part of the latter's

Determination
of the present state
of theory-practice
through anticipation of what is forthcoming in their
synthesis.

Exploration of the
mirror-like quality
of reflection in order
to illuminate
thought in Essence.

structure, it cannot transcend the duality that characterizes

Essence throughout. Indeed, theory is not yet aware of duality
as a hidden agenda, for such an awareness would constitute
the first step toward overcoming it.
Essence represents for-itselfness, i.e., the capacity to see for
itself, by virtue of its built-in duality and reflection, what it
looks like. Being, on the other hand, lacking this rudimentary
and partly illusory (because of the constantly shifting polar
structures of Essence) type of self-awareness, represents in-itselfness or mere potentiality for what is to come. Such potentiality is also for-us, since it is only w e qua philosophical observers w h o are aware of it. Our role as "subjective thinker"
(the locus of theory) remains in effect in Essence, but unlike
the case of Being, it is shared with the active term of the "pair
of correlatives" in the process of reflection. Not until the subject-object polarity (the ultimate ground of the "subjective
thinker") has been transcended, with the full development of
self-consciousness at the end of the Notion, is the standpoint of
for-us also eliminated. The Notion is, accordingly, the stage of
the in-and-for-itselfness, for it represents the capacity of Spirit
to v i e w itself not merely as it appears to itself, but also as it
truly is once its potential is realized. In short, while in Essence
thought m e r e l y operates upon itself, in the N o t i o n it also
knows that it does so.
Reflection in the physical sense has features which serve
Hegel's dialectical aims not only in the case of Essence, but also
in anticipating what is forthcoming in the Notion. He pursues
this by turning the mirror-like capacity of thought qua reflection into an instrument for the exploration of thought itself.
The capacity of a body to reflect combines a receiving and an
emitting function in one operation a passive side as inseparable from an active one. Reason qua active is an important
feature (which Hegel traced to Aristotle) that distinguishes his
o w n dialectical brand from other forms of idealism and from
empiricist doctrines that have compartmentalized reason in its
passive and active functions. Reflection signals a new situation
in which reason qua active can turn upon itself. Given the dialectical context of levels of meaning, this does not represent
an endless reproduction of the same image a la double mirrors
resembling the False Infinity of the dialectic and the vicious
circularity of formal logicians, but a gain in concreteness for
each round of self-reflection or self-relatedness. Returning to
the mirror-metaphor, the gain in concreteness through dialectical circularity or, perhaps, spirality if w e abide by Hegel's
description of the circularity of his system in Part II consists

in taking the recurring image as an opportunity and a guide to

l o o k e l s e w h e r e f o r the real t h i n g . W i t h the shift f r o m the
standpoint for-us to that of for-itself, thought has been given
the green light to turn upon itself in the same way. The fundamental insight f r o m the mirror-metaphor, that thought seeks
to penetrate behind the surface and l o o k for the essence of
things, can n o w also be applied to thought itself.
In the case of other instruments, we can try and criticize them in
other ways than by setting about the special work for which they
are destined. But the examination of knowledge can only be carried out by an act of knowledge. To examine this so-called instrument is the same thing as to know it. But to seek to know before
we know is as absurd as the wise resolution of Scholasticus, not to
venture into the water until he had learned to swim. (Logic, #10;
italics added)
Though Hegel does not make it explicit, what lies behind the
puzzle of Scholasticus is that thought, like being, is not h o m o geneous but comes structuralized, giving rise to grades of rationality as w e ascend the dialectical scale. Had it been homogeneous, w e would be experiencing the familiar reduplication of
conditions, first encountered in the case of the analysand trying
to apply scientistic theory-practice on himself as if he were an
object and, more recently, in the double-mirror effect of multiple images with no benefit from reflection or progress in concreteness. The structural similarity between the case of Scholasticus and that of the analytical paradigm is no coincidence. In
both cases it is a leap into a different (dialectically higher) context of meaning that provides the solution to the problem of infinite regress (False Infinite) the reduplication of neurosis in
the case of the analysand and the perpetuation of the state of
n o n - s w i m m e r f o r Scholasticus. I n b o t h cases the s o l u t i o n
comes in the form of action: the equivalence of the application
of theory-practice on oneself to action, in the former; and the
substitution of "an act of knowledge" for an external object-like
"examination of knowledge," in the case of the latter.

Eliciting the actiondimension of

thought through
the analytical
paradigm's
synthesis of
theory-practice.

It is not a coincidence that both cases represent a situation

in which knowledge is inextricably linked to sensuous activity,
and that the locus for such intimate union is the subject. As anticipated in the Preface, though not fully realized until the Notion, only a higher f o r m of subjectivity (which, in effect, the
Notion is) can accommodate a synthesis of thought and action
without allowing the underlying dualism of subject-object to
undermine the result. In other words, the synthesis w i l l be
modelled after structures w e normally associate with the interiority of consciousness, such as the "I," the self, and the active
Reason turning upon itself. But, as w e may already suspect in

Further anticipation
offorthcoming synthesis through an
intimation of
elevated subjectivity.

The use of the "mix"

of the a priori and
the empirical of the
economic paradigm
to illustrate elevated
subjectivity as the
locus of synthesis.

view of the role of negativity in generating concreteness, this is

hardly a solipsistic enterprise. Though, strictly speaking, associated w i t h the N o t i o n , this process of setting up the interior
subjective space (internality) within which the synthesis will
be effected, it is already in force in Essence side by side with
externality and the compartmentalizing tendencies of dualism.
W e have a hint of this in the role of reflection qua generative
of entities w i t h i n its interiority in the opening paragraph of
Essence, wherein the latter "is self-relatedness, only in so far as
it is relation to an Other, this Other h o w e v e r coming to
v i e w at first not as something which is, but as postulated and
hypothesized."
Another equally important dimension of subjectivity as the
locus for syntheses of high-order dualities remaining at the end
of Essence is that thought does not come in a pure state but incorporated. In addition to being structuralized, thought comes
in various "mixes" with empirical elements. This much w e began to realize in discussing the debt of Hegel to Aristotle, and
in anticipating the nature of Objective Spirit in terms of the
logical metaphor of the Invisible Hand. In fact, the two dimensions are complementary inasmuch as the context of meaning
that is being transcended befcomes the empirical content of the
one that transcended it. This might appear as a queer use of
"empirical," but it follows directly from our conclusion regarding the impossibility of irreducible empirical entities and "clean
starts" earlier. Such impossibility extends n o w to the v i e w of
the empirical as a " m i x " of both aprioristic and empirical elements. The absurd demand "to seek to know before w e know,"
is the result of the illusion that thought can be dealt with in abstracto f r o m its dialectical embodiments. Specifically, the illusion, as manifested here, is that active Reason which has, in effect, put an end to the disarray generated by the Understanding's attempt to resolve an issue that was b e y o n d its means,
can be put on a par with the Understanding.
At the root of the illusion lies the separation of being and
thought or, its equivalent, the rejection of the basic tenet of dialectical (absolute) idealism. For, as soon as being and thought
are viewed as separate, their locus can be assigned to object and
subject, respectively, disregarding the fact that, dependent upon their position on the dialectical scale, they not only partake
of each other, but also exchange roles. So much w e have already e n c o u n t e r e d in the parallel situations of matter and
form, and in the empirical and the a priori earlier. The object,
as was also anticipated in the economic paradigm (and will be
f o l l o w e d up in great detail in Objective Spirit), is an embodi-

ment of thought as a result of intervening mediations. And so

is thought, as viewed from the opposite end qua embodied in
being not merely in the case of the individual subject, but
more important, in the trans-individual subject, (e.g., an institution, an art school, a political movement). Had the synthesis
been limited to the level of the individual subject, the dialectic
would have been arrested short of the union of subject and object, leaving the subject in the absurd position of Scholasticus.
This may not seem obvious because, moving as w e do on the
circular path, w e are fully aware of Reason's function. But this
is not the case while moving on the immanent path where the
conception of thought as means for knowing something other
than itself (or itself in the form of externality in the way that
the analysand operated during his scientistic stage) persists
well into the Notion and is transcended only with the synthesis of Means and End in the Idea.
In other words, from the standpoint of the immanent path
there is no Reason to bring Understanding to order. As the category of the Idea the synthesis of subjectivity and objectivity modelled after self-consciousness requires, the meansend dualistic structure is being transcended as inappropriate in
the case of thought directing its activity upon itself. The detail
of this transition will have to wait, but its import for the present argument is clear: Once in the realm of Reason, the distinction between instrumental and substantative rationality,
which is a feature of the Understanding, is sublated into a unitary form of Reason. It makes no sense, therefore, to demand
that philosophical thought certifies its instrument before it can
proceed any further. To put it differently, in the realm of Understanding, where thought is viewed qua separate from being,
philosophical thought is v i e w e d by the Understanding in its
own dual image as substantive and instrumental. But as soon
as the level of Reason has been reached and thought has incorporated being by virtue of the subject-object synthesis, thought
already knows its object as its own embodiment. It knows that
what appears as external and, therefore, in need of certified instruments before it is approached in order to be comprehended, is truly its own. Securing the means before accomplishing
the end is rendered superfluous, and there is no alternative but
to conclude with Hegel that "the examination of knowledge
can only be carried out by an act of k n o w l e d g e (by action
which is not certified by prior knowledge)."
The exploration of the physical properties of reflection with
its two-way beam proved a valuable metaphor for the understanding of certain features of thought as viewed by idealism,

Rudimentary (synthesis of) individual

action anticipates
later trans-individual syntheses (institutional incorporations of knowledge)
in the Notion.

Illustration of active
Reason (the "act of
knowledge ")
through the active
universal of the
syllogistic structure.

p a r t i c u l a r l y its dialectical v e r s i o n . T h e idealist identity of

thought and being and the v i e w of knowledge as an act exemplifying a synthesis of action like that of the analytical paradigm is crucial to the dialectic of action. Thought and action
are t w o sides of the same activity of Spirit, and theory-practice
is only a phase of that activity. As it will be shown, beginning
with the next Section, reflection supplies the structural model
for casting thought in a role of action, thus establishing the
ground for their dialectical synthesis in the Idea. W e shall use
the remainder of this Section to take up Hegel's anticipation of
the same conclusion, w h i c h he does by casting thought in a
role of action in the triadic structure of the syllogism in symmetry with BeingEssenceNotion and its surrogates.
If we take our prima faciae impression of thought, we find on examination first (a) that, in its usual subjective acceptation,
thought is one out of many activities or faculties of the mind, coordinate with such others as sensation, perception, imagination,
desire, volition, and the like. The product of this activity, the form
or character peculiar to thought, is the UNIVERSAL, or, in general, the abstract. Thought, regarded as an activity, may be accordingly described as the active universal, and, since the deed, its
product, is the universal once more, may be called a self-actualizing universal. Thought conceived as a subject (agent) is a thinker,
and the subject existing as a thinker is simply denoted by the term
'I.' (Logic, #20; parentheses in the text.)
This is the m o m e n t of thought corresponding to the first
terms of the surrogate triads, and in particular Abstract UniversalityParticularityConcrete Universality (Individuality),
ImmediacyMediationRe - immediation, IntuitionC oncep tion(Dialectical) Thought, SenseUnderstandingReason,
and SubjectivityObjectivityRe-instated (or elevated Subjectivity). Abstract universality finds itself in the same column
w i t h intuition, immediacy, sense, subjectivity, and Being because of the role of language in masking the particular and the
ineffable.

The particular individual is also a

product of active
Reason by way of
the universal.

Now language is the work of thought: and hence all that is expressed in language must be universal. What I only mean or suppose is mine: it belongs to me, this particular individual. But
language expresses nothing but universality; and so I cannot say
what I merely mean. And the unutterable, feeling or sensation,
far from being the highest truth, is the most unimportant and
untrue. (Logic, #20)
H e g e l t h e n proceeds to the second m o m e n t of thought,
which corresponds to Essence and the middle terms of the triads above.
(b) Thought was described as active. We now, in the second place,
consider this action in its bearings upon objects, or as reflection

upon something. In this case the universal or product of its operation contains the value of the thing is the essential, inward, and
true.
For instance, we observe thunder and lightning. The phenomenon
is a familiar one, and we often perceive it. But man is not content
with a bare acquaintance, or with the fact as it appears to the
senses; he would like to get behind the surface, to know what it
is, and to comprehend it. This leads him to reflect: he seeks to find
out the cause as something distinct from the mere phenomenon:
he tries to know the inside in its distinction from the outside.
Hence the phenomenon becomes double, it splits into inside and
outside, into force and its manifestation, into cause and effect.
Once more we find the inside or the force identified with the universal and permanent...
In thus characterizing the universal, we become aware of its antithesis to something else. This something else is the more immediate, outward and individual, as opposed to the mediate, inward
and universal. (Logic, #21)
(c) By the act of reflection something is altered in
which the fact was originally presented in sensation,
or conception. Thus, as it appears, an alteration of the
be interposed before its true nature can be discovered.

the way in
perception,
object must
(Logic, #22)

Finally, the third m o m e n t of thought corresponding to the

Notion and the standpoint of Reason, or dialectical thought:

The chief tenet of

idealism as the prod-

(d) The real nature of the object is brought to light in reflection;

but it is no less true that this exertion of thought is my act. If this
be so, the real nature is a product of my mind, in its character of
thinking subject generated by me in my simple universality,
self-collected and removed from extraneous influences, in one
word, in my Freedom. (Logic, #23)

uct of active Reason.

With these explanations and qualifications, thoughts may be

termed Objective Thoughts, among which are also to be included the forms which are more especially discussed in the common
logic, where they are usually treated as forms of conscious
thought only. Logic therefore coincides with Metaphysics, the science of
things set and held in thoughts, thoughts accredited able to express the essential reality of things. (Logic, #24)
From what has been said the principles of logic are to be sought in
a system of thought-types or fundamental categories, in which the
opposition between subjective and objective, in its usual sense,
vanishes. The signification thus attached to thought and its characteristic forms may be illustrated by the ancient saying that 'nous
governs the world,' or by our own phrase that 'Reason is in the
world': which means that Reason is the soul of the world it inhabits, its immanent principle, its most proper and inward nature, its
universal. (Logic, #24 Zusatz)
If w e were to pursue the parallelism in the case of Scholasticus between Reason qua active and the dialectical structure of

Corollaries for the

synthesis of theorypractice.

action, then thought and being are the metaphysical ancestry

of theory and practice, whose synthesis corresponds to their
coincidence above. As practice represents immediacy which
characterizes Being, theory stands for mediation in thought
which is the basic feature of Essence. Holding on to the middle
moment of the Understanding, it appears at first that its builtin dualism, w i t h respect to subject-object and essentialunessential, conforms neatly to the structure of scientistic theory-practice. Theory corresponds to the subject searching for
the essential the "something distinct from the mere phen o m e n o n " and practice to the object "the fact as it appears to the senses." But upon disclosing our presuppositional
links backward to Being, it becomes clear that things are not as
neat as they appear. In the course of the transition from Being
to Essence, the object of theory has, as a result of reflection,
"become double, (and has) split into inside and outside." We
are, in effect, dealing with two aspects of reality, the essential
and the unessential, while the theoretical function has undergone a corresponding shift. Whereas Reason still occupies its
high circular track observing, so to speak, the activity of the
Understanding, part of its function has passed to the latter
which, operating on the immanent track, is eager "to get behind the surface" of reality by sorting out the essential from
the unessential.
The transition from Being to Essence, and the role of reflection in particular, has signalled an important shift in the relationship between theory and practice from one of immediacy,
externality, and indifference between the two terms, to that of
mediation, internality and differentiation. This can be seen
more clearly in the new active role that theory has assumed by
virtue of the dual property of reflection. As w e recall from the
opening paragraph of Essence in the Logic, "Being has not vanished (but)...is deposed (by reflection) to a mere negative, to a
seeming or reflected light." Similarly in the last quoted passages, "by the act of reflection something is altered in the way in
which the fact was originally presented... It appears, an alteration of the object must be interposed before its true nature can
be discovered." Far from a retreat from objectivity, as it would
be viewed from the standpoint of Being, this is an upgrading of
the relatively crude objectivity of the latter, n o w shown by
comparison to also represent a crude sort of subjectivity. The
strange ring of this conclusion can be allayed if we recall Hegel's
observations in the last set of quotations about the role of language in masking the implicit subjectivity in Being. This
strangeness is only apparent since it was w e who, having as-

sumed the standpoint for-us, w e r e viewing the results of Being's self-differentiation in their immediacy as objective entities.
But with the transition to Essence and the rise of mediation to
pre-eminence, these entities can n o w be seen for what they
truly are in their unmediated form "far from being the highest truth, (they are) the most unimportant and untrue."
Similar results regarding the increasing role of subjectivity
can be reached if w e begin to unmask the self-concealment of
the Understanding while in Essence, but begin to discern the
presuppositional links forward with the Notion. The most relevant surrogate triads for illustrating this step ahead are SubjectivityObjectivityRe-instated Subjectivity, and Externality
InternalityExternality-in-Internality. Essence has made good
on its claim vis-a-vis objectivity, but only up to a point; for it is
still remaining committed to deep-seated dualisms, such as subject-object, thought-being, and theory-practice in its advanced
form of CognitionWill, or Theoretical IdeaPractical Idea.
Once it has "adopt(ed) one-sided forms of thought, rigidly fixed
by (the) Understanding," it is impossible for Essence to conceive
of its having initiated the relationship of subject and object,
whereby the former projects the latter through reflection as its
own and comes to the conclusion of the dialectical synthesis of
the two. Nor can it being fixed on the subject-object polarity
conceive of the possibility of "Objective Thoughts" in a different way than "are more especially discussed in the common
logic, where they are usually treated as forms of (subjective)
conscious thought only." (Italics added in this instance). The emergence of trans-individual subjectivity resolves the impasse of
the Understanding that initiated the process of synthesis of being and thought through the instrumentality of reflection, but
is unable to carry it through because of self-concealment about
presuppositional links backward with Being and forward with
the Notion: backward by missing the fact that the unity with its
object, which it was trying to establish through mediation, preexisted in the undifferentiated immediacy in Being; and forward by overlooking the point that it had itself placed its o w n
obstacles to the u n i o n w i t h its object, t h r o u g h m e d i a t i o n ,
which by its very nature perpetuates dualism. The remedy for
this lies in somehow taking advantage of immediacy which, as
w e shall see in full detail later, the Notion will do through reimmediation after having incorporated Essence's accomplishments through reflection.
The dialectic of thought qua reflection, or the dialectic of
the "I," as it is formulated in terms of subjectivity, is of central
importance to us because it provides the dialectical-idealist

Appreciation of both
accomplishments
and shortcomings of
Essence through a
glimpse into the
dialectical future.

context of elevated subjectivity necessary for resolving the inextricable difficulties associated with these hard core dualisms.
As Hegel put it, the "ideality of the finite is the chief maxim of
philosophy; and for that reason every genuine philosophy is
idealism." (Logic, #95)

IT

ii. Identity and Difference

Reflection's accomplishment of the build-up of internality
and concreteness will be explored in detail in the next Section.
There is, however, another way from Being to Essence via the
category of Identity, and this w e will pursue now. Hegel used
Identity and Reflection (Introflection) as the first categories of
Essence in the Logic and the Science of Logic, respectively. These
two categories deal with the same topic of effecting internal differentiation. But they pursue it by highlighting different aspects
of the process: Identity by pointing to the end-result of internal
coherence or self-containment; and Reflection by focusing on
the instrumentality used for the accomplishment of this end.
Without trying to downplay the role of Reflection, the approach of Essence through Identity has a special merit for our
purpose if w e recall h o w w e left things in Being. Throughout
the latter w e conducted a t w o - f r o n t advance, the paths of
which often crossed each other. On the one hand, there was
the interplay between the subjective and the objective aspects
of practice, practice qua action, and practice as contents of, and
testing ground for, theory. On the other, it was the advance on
the objective side displaying the progressive self-differentiation
of Being as contents of practice Being and Nothing, Somewhat and Other, One and Many, and more generally, Quality
and Quantity. Both of these paths exemplified immediacy on
the part of subject and object, while mediation, standing for
theory, was represented by an outsider to the i m m a n e n t
process the standpoint for-us. It is, therefore, proper to conclude that Being represented the priority of practice in its two
faces. Essence, by contrast, represents the priority of theory in
the sense that it resumes the path of the objective side. Now,
however, it is not merely a case of self-differentiation but also
one of differentiation, since it goes on with the full participation
of theory, which has now shifted from the circular to the immanent track. Theory, working through the immanent track,
will unmask a long line of spurious claims to the title of the essential term. This parallels the earlier situation in which the circular track (the standpoint for-us) was employed to challenge a
succession of contenders for the representation of true Being.

Recapitulation and
background of Identity in the double
role of differentiation and integration.

In this light, Identity, as the underlying category behind the

changing identities of both the scientistic object and the subject,
assumes a logical priority. What it means to be such and such
rather than something else, becomes an important question as
soon as the standpoint for-us becomes vacant and things have
to be worked out from within, along the immanent track. For

The centrality of
Identity in light of
what lies ahead.

Grades of Identity
determined along
similar lines as
those of Being.

Comparison of
dialectical insight
with scientific
practice.

example, the illusions of the priority of practice, and those of a

"clean start" earlier, could not be exposed without an anticipatory look into the future of Essence and the Notion as granted
to us by our position (for-us) on the circular path in the company of Hegel. We knew the meaning' of identity as applied to a
subject, and what constitutes a concrete subject, w h e n w e
called Being-for-Self a precursor of the Idea, and used this
knowledge of true subjectivity to diagnose the claims of logical
priority of practice as cases in self-deception. Nor would it have
been possible for us to deflate the same claim of priority, now
put forth by the theorizing subject on behalf of his object, had
w e not been familiar with the identity of highly concrete subj e c t i v i t y f r o m advanced k n o w l e d g e of the N o t i o n and the
sphere of concrete Spirit. But this anticipatory knowledge,
which w e have taken for granted, is located somewhere on the
dialectical path thanks to the immanent toil of the Notion.
If w e view Identity as the end-product of the process of selfdifferentiation of Being, then it is also the most advanced specimen from the progenitors of the scientistic object that the dialectic has produced so far. Indeed it is the first and most generalized form under which an entity can claim our attention. In
order for something to be the object of theory, or contents of
practice, it must first have an identity. This issue assumes additional gravity in Hegel's case because the matter of identity is
complicated by the creative role of negativity in generating concreteness and, therefore, contributing to the category of Identity itself. The abstract-sounding label "Identity" belies its dialectical concreteness which is the product of a succession of mediations beginning with Being. Even without going into the detail
of the particular types of scientistic object, w e now suspect that
there is no one kind of it in Essence. As w e also learned from
the unpacking of Somewhat and Being-for-Self in the discussion of Being, an irreducible scientistic entity like a sense-datum is non-existent. As theory is being reconstituted each time
its earlier phase gets incorporated into the immanent path, so
are the contents of practice being continuously redefined as a
result of the same dialectical process.
This process is no different than that which is involved in
the activity of successful practitioners of science as far as theory-practice is concerned: an interplay between theory qua detached from practice in dialectical terms, the standpoint forus, or the "subjective thinker" and theory as incorporated in
its object, i.e., the "subjective thinker" abandoning the high
path of circularity and joining the immanent one of Essence.
The detail of this alternation between detachment of theory

from externality and its incorporation in it will be taken up in

the next Section, the Dialectic of Reflection. It can be stated
now in anticipation that, in the absence of dialectical tension
between detachment and incorporation, scientistic theory-practice in search of new frontiers of application is reduced at best
to trivial advances in practical application, and at worst to a
string of tautologies, as theory is being applied without intervening mediation back to the reality from which it was derived
in the first place.
This dialectical insight about the inseparability of immediacy
from mediation, lies behind the apparent paradox that basic research, or what might be called "disinterested" pursuit of knowledge, has a more lasting and significant impact on practical application than one pursued "interestedly" with an eye to practical application. For example, the Greeks, w h o m w e rightly acknowledge as having laid the foundations of our conception of
theorizing, had developed, through a disinterested pursuit of
knowledge, a mathematical corpus to the point of being capable
of supporting applications in technology comparable to those of
the eighteenth century. By contrast, the Egyptians and the
Babylonians w h o were interested in practical applications, did
not develop this body of mathematical knowledge beyond the
rudiments necessary for land surveying and irrigation. In modern times the most earth-shaking applications of atomic energy
(both beneficial and destructive) were the result of "disinterested" theorizing in physics. The examples can be extended to liberal arts disciplines for the purpose of showing that those opting
for immediacy, in the form of practicality, do not get off the
ground in path-breaking practice, while those w h o raise their
sights above the ground are more instrumental in technological
applications of consequence. The reason behind this apparent
incongruity is not far to seek if w e recognize that theory depends on practice. But w e also have to realize that such dependence is fatal if the former cannot detach itself (assume a stance
of "disinterestedness") under the indicated conditions of dialectical tension. Otherwise theory would be keeping its nose to the
ground, indulging in vicious circularity by way of reduplicating
the "official" version of reality.
Here lies the root of Kant's question, "How is the synthetic a
priori possible?" It is the same question whose dialectical resolution w e have anticipated by way of Aristotle's " m i x " of form
and matter in Part II, and again with the dialectical "mix" of the
a priori and the empirical of the economic paradigm. But w e
must hasten to add that while successful empirical scientists operate in line with dialectical principles, they most often do so

Illustration from the

history of science.

Recalling earlier discussion to illustrate

differences between
the dialectic and
the sciences.

Distinction between
dialectical and undialectical (tautologous) identity.

unself-consciously in accordance to our stated motto, which distinguishes their d o m a i n (of Essence) f r o m the N o t i o n : that
whereas in Essence thought operates on itself, in the Notion it
also knows that it does so. This discrepancy between what they
are doing and what they think they are doing, is most evident
in what methodologists of science and sometimes luminaries
among its practitioners in their methodological asides have
to say about their activity. As w e shall see in what f o l l o w s ,
what they say as methodologists is conspicuously undialectical,
which is symptomatic of what w e refer to in the course of this
study as self-concealment of scientism. At this particular juncture self-concealment is manifested in the fact that physical reality is constructed, in the sense of the UFO example of Part I.
Theory is already incorporated in the scientistic object qua contents of practice and, therefore, the priority of theory under
Essence turns out to be as much of a pseudo-problem as the
priority of practice under Being. In both cases, establishing priority presents itself as a problem because of the self-concealment of scientism regarding presuppositional links forward and
backward, of lack of awareness about what it has "packed into"
its very o w n object which it perceives as external. The incorporation of Difference in Identity, or its embodiment of both the
essential and the unessential at the outset, is an indication that
the theoretical component is already implicit in the pre-existing
(primitive) unity of Being.
Self-relation in Essence is the form of Identity or of Reflection-intoself, which has here taken the place of the immediacy of Being.
They are both the same abstraction, self-relation.
The unintelligence of Sense, to take everything limited and finite
for Being, passes into the obstinacy of Understanding, which views
the finite as self-identical, not inherently self-contradictory. (Logic,
#113)
This Identity, as it has descended from Being, appears in the first
place only charged with the characteristics of Being, and referred
to Being as to something external. This external Being, if taken in
separation from the true Being (of Essence), is called the Unessential. But that turns out a mistake. Because Essence is Being-in-self,
it is essential only to the extent that it has in itself its negative, i.e.
reference to another, or mediation. (Logic, #114)
When the principles of Essence are taken as essential principles of
thought they become predicates of a presupposed subject, which,
because they are essential is 'Everything.' The propositions thus
arising have been stated as universal Laws of Thought. Thus the
first of them, the maxim of Identity, reads: Everything is identical
with itself, A=A: and, negatively, A cannot at the same time be A
and not A. This maxim, instead of being a true law of thought,
is nothing but the law of abstract Understanding. The propositional

form itself contradicts it: for a proposition always promises a distinction between subject and predicate; while the present one does
not fulfill what its form requires.
Identity is, in the first place, the repetition of what we had earlier
as Being, but as become, through supersession of its character of immediateness. It is therefore Being as Ideality. It is important to
come to a proper understanding of the true meaning of Identity:
and, for that purpose, we must especially guard against taking it as
abstract Identity, to the exclusion of all Difference. That is the
touch-stone for distinguishing all bad philosophy from what alone
deserves the name of philosophy... So again, in connection with
thought, the main thing is not to confuse the true Identity, which
contains Being and its characteristics ideally transfigured in it, with
an abstract Identity, identity of bare form. (Logic, #115 and Zusatz)
There is an important symmetry between Being-Nothing in
Being and Identity-Difference in Essence. Indeed the "abstract
Identity" of the last quoted paragraph or the "mere Identity" of
the earlier quoted passage from Logic #117 Zusatz, can be taken as
equivalent to the tautologous self-relation of (pure) Being "Being, pure Being, without any further determination. In its indeterminate immediacy it is only equal to itself." The difference between "true Identity" and "mere" or "abstract Identity," is found
in the dialectical incorporation of the intervening moments between Being and Essence between "what w e had earlier as
Being, (and what it has) become, through supersession of its character of immediateness," or between "abstract Identity" and that
"which contains Being and its characteristics ideally transfigured
in it." Identity provides the link between the more distant progenitors of the scientistic object, such as Being, Somewhat, and
Other, and its successors like Existence, and Thing(hood).

Comparison with
Being in regard
to grades of concreteness.

The role of negation in building up concreteness is pointed

out by #114 in conjunction with the externality of Being lest it
be misunderstood that the nature of Identity remains the same
throughout Being and Essence. The difference is due to the fact
that in Being negation works from without, in line with its general feature of externality. Recalling the quoted terminal paragraph of B e i n g , " w h e n S o m e w h a t b e c o m e s an Other, the
Somewhat has vanished... W h e n w e speak of Being and Nothing, Being is independent, so is Nothing." Negation bears the
full burden of carrying out the process of self-differentiation
"in Quality as determinately present, there is distinction... of
reality and negation." Since the distinction-making is done under the reign of externality, negation is manifested as bare opposition. Not so in Essence wherein negation has become part
of its constitution. Here the "Positive by itself has no sense; it is
w h o l l y in r e f e r e n c e to the N e g a t i v e . " Or, as stated a b o v e

The difference between Being and

Essence determined
by the creative role
of negation.

(#114), Essence "is essential to the extent that it has in itself its
negative, i.e. reference to another, or mediation."
The either/or structure of Being resembles the binary logic
of the computer, in which all the riches of the programmable
differentiation are high multiples of the basic yes/no dualism of
its logic. It's immense tractability is due to its equally great
speed in repeating the same operation. M o r e than anything
else, computer logic exemplifies the "mere Identity of the Understanding" of the mathematical methodology of Being. Indifference is generated by the severity of the abstractive procedure, which reduces all sensuous concreteness to binary operations, and externality is highlighted by the fact that any change
of rules requires the external intervention of the programmer.
By contrast, "true Identity" already contains negation within itself, by virtue of belonging to Essence and being the product of
the self-splitting of Being into the essential and the unessential.
As the opening paragraph #112 of Essence put it, the latter
"which is Being coming into mediation with itself through the
negativity of itself is self-relatedness, only in so far as it is relation to an Other, this Other h o w e v e r coming to view at
first not as something which is, but as postulated and hypothesized." This is important because, once incorporated into Identity, negation becomes inseparable from the various exemplifications of Identity throughout Essence the particular identities
of the scientistic object as Existent, Thing, and so on. If we proceed to deal with such objects through scientific method, and
theory-practice in particular, as if they were cases of "mere" or
"abstract Identity," w e are setting ourselves up for the worst
form of self-concealment. Here lies the import of Hegel's charge
against "the obstinacy of Understanding, which views the finite
(such as the scientistic object above) as self-identical, not inherently self-contradictory." As it is evident from Hegel's reference
to the "universal Laws of Thought" in the same paragraph, this
is also the center of his running argument against formal logicians concerning the nature of the "laws" of identity and contradiction. This argument concerns us only to the extent that
Hegel's position, consistent with that of the identity of thought
and being earlier, is a case for de-compartmentalization at the
most f u n d a m e n t a l l e v e l of the structure of language and
thought. As such, Hegel's position bares the presuppositional
links of Essence backward and forward and discloses the hidden
agenda of scientism to which it corresponds. Furthermore, since
such form of self-concealment is the other side of claiming universality for something partial, or viewing one's own finite domain as self-contained, our discussion for the remainder of this

Section will be limited to the "universal Laws of Thought" insofar as they bear on these two closely related issues.
W h e n Hegel describes the first of these " l a w s " as being
"nothing but the law of abstract Understanding," he summarizes both sides of our concern: the roots of reification of the
object of theory (or contents of practice), and the compartmentalization of reality and negation (of identity and contradiction). He is suggesting that the Understanding has, in its selfconcealment, put forth a claim for universality on behalf of the
"Laws of Thought," when in fact these are laws peculiar to its
domain alone. In support of his contention, Hegel points to the
propositional form which, in "promis(ing) a distinction between subject and predicate" contradicts the tautologous selfidentity of the first "law" of thought. No progress is possible in
any endeavor, disciplinary or otherwise, through tautologous
propositions such as the "laws" of identity and contradiction
A = A and its complement that A cannot be both A and not-A.
Rather, it is those propositions which make predicative use of
"is" a is grey, A is heavy, etc. which carry the burden for
advances of k n o w l e d g e in both science and the conduct of
everyday life. The Understanding can answer in defending the
"laws" that they are not put forth for heuristic purposes but to
ensure that no matter what the discourse, its elements have to
be identified and clearly delineated. But this is precisely what
Hegel wishes to avoid. He is aware that there are no irreducible
building blocks of reality or "clean starts," and concerned that
such delineation would result in reification and eventual obstruction in the understanding of reality.
For example, by the time the internally undifferentiated
Somewhat reaches Essence, it has been incorporated into Identity which is now internally differentiated. It is a kind of identity which, thanks to the operation of reflection or the direct
operation of negation depending upon one's standpoint contains within itself its opposite, difference. If the "law of identity"
reduces Identity to "mere" or "abstract Identity" by depriving it
of what it has incorporated, it will conceal its presuppositional
links and, in so doing, obscure the process of concretion. Unless
what has been dialectically incorporated through past mediations can be "unpacked" at a moment's notice, w e are bound to
be misled about the nature of reality. It is the propositions that
make predicative use of "is" which provide the tools for such
"unpacking," while the "law of identity" obstructs this by keeping identity free of content, and the existential use of "is" in
strict separation from its predicative. This is the ontological
source of the self-concealment of scientism about its own foun-

Hegel's critique of
formal logic in the
light of his view of
negation.

Illustration of
Hegel's critique by
reference to the function of the copula.

dation. Our earlier conclusion about scientism's illusory v i e w

with regard to ontological and methodological concerns being
compartmentalized and, therefore, its v i e w about its o w n field
of inquiry as self-contained, holds pari passu about the logic of
abstract Identity, or what Hegel called above "the law of abstract Understanding." The rigid dualistic distinction of the use
of the copula along existential and predicative lines by the logic
of abstract Identity, is a reflection of a parallel (but hidden from
itself t h r o u g h tight c o m p a r t m e n t a l i z a t i o n ) c o m m i t m e n t to
Hegel's "bad metaphysics" of epistemological realism. The outlook of the latter is, to complete his earlier expression, "rigidly
fixed by (the) Understanding" along the familiar dualistic lines
and now, more fundamentally, between reality and negation,
and identity and difference.
Anticipation of
objections to the
dialectical critique
offormal logic.

N o inference should be drawn from what has just been concluded that the dialectic ignores or confounds the distinctions
established by these polarities. Quite the contrary, these and
other polarities are the lifelines from which the dialectic derives
its impetus. But distinctions are made to be abolished and reconstituted at a higher and more concrete level. The dialectic
can be v i e w e d as a series of such reconstitutions in a long line
of polarities using Identity-Difference as the point of departure.
Nor is Hegel flouting the distinction between the existential and
the predicative function of the copula, which he admits is the
propelling force in the dialectic.
In the form of the proposition, therefore, in which Identity is expressed, there lies more than simple abstract Identity; in it, there
lies this pure movement of Reflection in which the Other appears
only as Illusory Being, as an immediate vanishing; A is, is a beginning that hints at something different to which an advance is to be
made; but this different something does not materialize; A isA;
the difference is only a vanishing; the movement returns to itself.
The propositional form can be regarded as the hidden necessity of
adding to abstract Identity the more of that movement. (Science of
Logic, 415-16)
As in the quoted counterpart of this passage from the Logic
(#115), in which the propositional f o r m promises something
which the tautologous existential proposition A = A does not deliver, here "this (something) different does not materialize" because of the limitation imposed by "abstract Identity." But in
this case Hegel also looks at the positive side of the situation
and finds that, due to the "pure m o v e m e n t of Reflection (Int r o f l e c t i o n ) , " w h i c h has built-up concreteness f r o m w i t h i n
Identity, w e are confronted with something "more than simple,
abstract Identity." Thus, "the propositional form can be regarded (as it should have been f r o m the beginning, were it not for

the misleading formal "law" of identity) as the hidden necessity

of adding to abstract Identity the more of that m o v e m e n t (toward concreteness)." Consequently, concrete or "true Identity"
emerges by virtue of Introflection as self-Identity, which is similar in form to abstract Identity. However, what separates them
is that, whereas the latter remains an empty form, the former is
equal to itself as made up of the introflected parts, as encountered in the opening statements of Essence. In terms of the formal triadic structure of the Science of Logic, the internally enriched Identity emerges at the end of I d e n t i t y D i f f e r e n c e
Contradiction after having incorporated several sub-categories
of Difference which, being third-generation categories, w e r e
omitted from our list for the sake of simplicity. They are as follows: Diversity (Likeness-Unlikeness)Opposition (Contrarie t y ) C o n t r a d i c t i o n , w h i c h brings us back to the listed sequence, and Contradiction as the synthesis of either Identity
and Difference, or Diversity and Opposition.
Least of all can Hegel be accused of flouting the "law of contradiction" which, as the dialectical culmination of the categories of negativity, is the propelling force par excellence of the
dialectic "the specific, original ground of all activity and selfmovement" of the dialectic provided that it is understood in
the same way as the "law of identity," as self-Identity inclusive of Difference. This is obvious from Hegel's position on Difference qua self-Difference w h i c h , as he puts it in the same
quote, is "itself and Identity... (or) the whole (Identity) and its
own moment (Difference), just as Identity equally is its w h o l e
and its moment." This is also true of Contradiction which, as a
sub-category of D i f f e r e n c e and its logical c o n s u m m a t i o n
"Difference as such is already implicitly Contradiction" follows the same rules of determinate negation as does Contradiction and the rest of the sub-categories of Difference.
Difference in itself is self-related Difference: as such, it is the negativity of itself, the difference not of an Other, but of itselffrom itself;
it is not itself but its Other. But that which is different from Difference is Identity. Difference is therefore itself and Identity. Both together constitute Difference; it is the whole and its moment... Difference is the whole and its own moment, just as Identity equally is
its whole and its moment. This is to be considered as the essential
nature of Reflection and as the specific, original ground of all activity
and self-movement (of Spirit). (Science of Logic, p. 417)
Difference as such is already implicitly Contradiction: for it is the
unity of sides which are, only in so far as they are not one and it
is the separation of sides which are, only as separated in the same relation. (Science of Logic, p. 431)

Constructive role of
contradiction in
building up concreteness.

Identity (inclusive
of Difference) as
the key to concreteness qua all-inclusiveness.

The dialectic of Identity is instrumental in the pursuit of the

task of all-inclusiveness that Spirit has set for its goal. This task
suggests a structuralization of knowledge that is different than
the one with which w e are accustomed from the compartmentalization of disciplines. It envisions an interdisciplinary project
whose articulations are transparent and whose links between
bodies of knowledge provide a continuity which goes beyond
the surface. Our newly acquired insight into the nature of Identity, as inclusive of Difference, can be used in this project by
probing into the credentials of the particular identities of objects of scientistic inquiry, as well as the identities of the disciplines which are claiming them. The Encyclopedia offers an especially fertile ground for this probing inasmuch as it is itself such
an interdisciplinary project.

Examples of Identity
in interdisciplinary
projects.

Scientism shares the ideal of all-inclusiveness with dialectical

philosophy but it lacks the most basic ingredient to sustain it:
the correct conception of identity which includes within it the
moment of negation. It is hampered by its abstractive methodology which is the other side of its ontological insularity and selfconcealment about presuppositional links. It can relinquish neither without losing its epistemological raison d'etre, which can be
summed up in Comte's credo, "To know in order to predict and
to predict in order to control." And all this notwithstanding possible objections about science's pure "theoretical" stance by way
of disengagement from "practical" concerns. Such objections only point once more to the state of indifference between theory
and practice (beginning with the sphere of Being) to which science, in its more formalistic and mathematical aspects, corresponds. At first sight, indifference seems perfectly in place and
the self-image of its formal discourses as self-contained may appear to be fully justified and inviting further emulation. But,
having gone through the critique of the abstractive nature of
such systems in "reduc(ing) existing differences to (abstract)
Identity," w e should be inclined to agree with Hegel (in the already quoted #117) that "neither philosophy nor the empirical
sciences need envy this superiority of mathematics."
Within the empirical sciences which, as a whole, correspond
to Essence, the relationship between theory and practice is characterized by reflection. In contrast to indifference, which separates its terms in an irrevocable way, reflection relates theory
and practice. To begin with, this relationship seems ambiguous
in that it may lead to endless reduplication or vicious circularity,
as in our illustration through the reflection of double-mirrors.
Or again, it may lead to concreteness via non-vicious circularity
or, spirality, if w e care for another physical metaphor, having

Applications of the
dialectic of Identity
to theory-practice.

abandoned the mirrors. The former case, the abstract side of reflection paralleling "mere" Identity, corresponds to the persistence of duality in different forms throughout Essence. The latter, the concrete side of reflection paralleling "true" Identity, corresponds to the fact that the terms of the persisting dualities of
Essence increase in concreteness behind the surface, so that at
any given moment the synthesis takes place almost by surprise.
The relationship between theory and practice undergoes exactly
the same process by way of surrogacy linking it to reflection. But
consistent with its abstract view of Identity, scientism continues
to view each term of the theory-practice polarity as tautologically self-identical and, therefore, the two of them as unalterably
opposed. And, all this, when in actual practice, w e know that
scientism behaves otherwise. If empirical science w e r e to
scrupulously heed the methodological injunctions of what Hegel
calls the sterile philosophy of Identity, its propositions would be
reduced to a string of tautologies. Fortunately for empirical science, the Cunning of Reason has been w o r k i n g behind the
backs of its luminaries more often than not, as in the case of
Adam Smith earlier, and Hegel's example of Newton, w h o tended, at their best moments, to disregard their own methodological pronouncements and the injunctions of the philosophy of
abstract Identity. Thus, the key to the e x p l a n a t i o n of the
progress in empirical science seems to lie in the fact that, in spite
of the sterility of its professed methodology of theory-practice,
the terms of the polarity are already exemplifying dialectical, or
concrete, Identity.
Prior to the introduction of Identity and reflection, similar
considerations were raised in the parallel case of the polarity of
the a priori and the empirical in the economic paradigm, and
again in the case of the primitive dialectic of matter and form
in Part II. In both cases w e tried to capture the sense of concrete Identity of each of the terms, by calling them a "mix" of
elements from itself and its polar opposite. More recently, capitalizing on the distinction between True and False Infinity, the
same point was conveyed by distinguishing vicious circularity,
associated with trying to deal with empirical matter through
abstract Identity, and a non-vicious circularity, or spirality, associated with the use of concrete Identity. The difference between the two can also be accounted for by the fact that, because of the admixture of determination and contingency, or
the "mix" in the cases of the a priori and the empirical, there is
always an undomesticated element of contingency; or an unabsorbed empirical residue at the beginning of each dialectical
round. It is precisely this element of resurfacing contingency,

Elaborating on concrete Identity with

the help of the economic paradigm.

and the challenge it poses to the all-encompassing effort of

Spirit, that accounts for the forward movement in both the dialectic and science.
Further illustration
of Identity by way
of the political
paradigm.

To illustrate, let us recall the opening paragraph of this

study, in which w e introduced a tentative definition of the dialectic of action through political praxis. If a discrepancy appears between theory and fact, and a check fails to expose an
error in the application of theory or the observation of fact, it
is time to start revising the theory. In dialectical language, the
theoretical term of the polarity of theory-practice is more concrete as it has incorporated a new range of experience from the
empirical domain. But at the same time, the practical moment
has become more concrete as it has been upgraded in line with
the n e w theory, which recognizes and selects it as fact. In other words, a sense-datum has graduated into a rounded scientistic object and the generation of the new theory now corresponds to a move along the path of self-differentiation of Being
through Essence for example, in the forthcoming transition
f r o m Existence to T h i n g ( h o o d ) . The unabsorbed empirical
residue started the process moving, but it was incorporated in
the theoretical term. The latter was, in turn, responsible for restructuring the domain of the empirical fact, so that the effect
of contingency did not stop there but was carried on to the
next round of reflection, thus forming what w e called non-vicious circularity, or spirality.

Identity illuminates
the relationship between the synthetic
a priori, dialectical
circularity, and
theory-practice.

It is the same unabsorbed empirical residue which helps remove the mystery from the synthetic a priori the capacity of
the a priori to generate n e w empirical knowledge. If Identity
and Difference are taken in a dialectical sense as mutually inclusive, and the a priori is similarly treated with respect to the
empirical, then not only is dialectical circularity compatible
with the synthetic a priori, but it becomes coextensive with it.
The a priori and the empirical are not irreconcilably opposed,
and dialectical circularity is neither fallacious nor conducive to
sterility of thought. This would have been the case if the two
had been mutually exclusive, as with abstract Identity and Difference taken as rigidly compartmentalized. To revert to our
UFO example, vicious circularity would be present if the facts
for testing the existence of the entities in question were preselected by the particular theory that they had been called upon
to validate. Such a case would involve no unabsorbed empirical
residue and would correspond precisely to the illustration of
double mirrors reduplicating the same image with no difference
whatsoever. But there is no fallacious circularity if the facts
were preselected by a theory from a wider or more advanced

context of meaning upon which, ultimately but not within the

same context, the former theory is dependent for confirmation.
The difference between the t w o cases is that, whereas in the
former theory and practice are taken as bare abstractions, inasmuch as there is no shift between contexts of meaning and,
therefore, nothing to incorporate in the movement between
them; in the latter there is incorporation through mediation because there is such movement between contexts. For example,
in the UFO case the n a r r o w e r context could be the one in
which theory would deal with the functional relationship between angular velocities of bodies and their ability to withstand
disintegration. On the other hand, the theory associated with
the broader context of meaning can be one which sets the parameters within which an entity can qualify as a physical body.
We have reached similar conclusions about theory and practice via the immanent path of Spirit, and through the category
of Identity in particular, as w e did earlier in Being for practice
alone from the standpoint of the external reflection of the "subjective thinker." Facts do not come in a raw or irreducible state,
but are mediated by the aprioristic or theoretical term of the
polarity. Nor does theory come pure, but self-mediated by the
empirical or practical term of the polarity. So that when theory
is being tested in practice, both theory and practice consist of a
"mix" of ingredients from both rather than abstract theory in
opposition to equally bare practice, as would be the case in tautologous self-identity and vicious circularity. It is in the latter
state, shorn of its concrete underpinnings, that circularity is included in the proscribed list of texts in logic. Yet scientism, in
self-concealment about its concept of identity, confuses the two
concepts of circularity with the result of condemning both in
theory, but following the dialectical one in practice, though apparently without awareness of what this entails for its abstract
view of identity.
As w e noted earlier in this Section, scientism's self-concealment in viewing its own finite domain as self-contained is the
other side of claiming for it universality. The consequences of
this are far-reaching since scientism feels entitled to claim validity for its method and findings in areas where they do not belong. This is the result of its abstract view of universality about
which we shall have more to say later. The source of this claim,
like that of any other which makes a false start by mistaking
the true nature of identity and by extension of anything else
which can claim an identity can be traced to an abstract view
of the category of Identity itself. Once presuppositional links
have been severed backward and forward at the level of Identi-

Scientism's unwarranted claim of universality as a corollary of its abstractive

view of Identity.

Scientistic folly of
universalization
illustrated through
the history of science.

ty, the feature of for-itselfness, which characterizes Essence (the

viewing of itself as it appears in self-reflection), is writ large on
the scale of its universe of discourse. It is no accident, as Hegel
astutely observed, that the operations of the Understanding,
i.e., the "laws" of abstract Identity and Difference, have been
called "universal Laws of Thought."
This can be illustrated with the help of some preliminary remarks about the dialectical view of time which will be taken up in
the Notion and again in Part IV in conjunction with the Philosophy
of Nature. The plausibility of all-inclusiveness of the abstractive
view of scientism in the pre-relativistic era derives in great measure from its conception of time qua indifferent. Essence has a
similarly abstract view of time that remains external or indifferent
to objects within its compass. This view permits Essence and scientism to deal with predictive and retrodictive rationality as symmetrical. But this is not so in the Notion wherein, by contrast to a
retrospective account, an attempt to predict proves dialectically
abortive. Like the relativistic space-time, in which the latter does
not remain neutral with respect to the constitution of objects and
events, neither is time indifferent to what is happening in the Notion. The abstractive view of past and present extending indefinitely on the same axis gives time the character of neutrality.
Coupled with the subject-object dualism which separates time as
subjectively experienced from time as objectively measured, this
sustains scientism's tendency to raise to universality claims which
pertain only to its own domain. Thus, when in ignorance of links
to ontological and epistemological concerns, scientism asserts a
proposition ostensibly about its compartmentalized domain, it is
in effect, asserting something about the truth within those other
concerns to which it is, unbeknownst to itself, presuppositionally
linked. This is the sort of implicit philosophizing cited by Hegel
earlier when he chastised physicists for not being explicit about
their metaphysics, with the result of ending up with "bad metaphysics... which replaces the concrete Idea by partial and inadequate categories of (the) Understanding." When the findings and
methodology of science are proudly exported and uncritically admitted to social disciplines which deal with action, the latter also
tacitly import, as w e shall see in much detail later, scientism's "bad
metaphysics." We have already had samples of this by way of the
analysand's attempt to deal with himself as if he were an object,
and the liberal dealing with the pronouncements of the radical as
if they were scientifically testable propositions.
A far more illustrious and historically concrete case of universalization through compartmentalization can be found in
Kant, whom Hegel often criticized for having promoted the "bad

metaphysics" of Understanding. Kant's failure can be located in

his main project of denying the credentials of theoretical reason
beyond the scientistic domain in order to make room for practical reason. His case is particularly instructive because it centers
on the relationship between advanced versions of theory and
practice. Kant's proposal can be rephrased so as to provide a
testing ground for our proposition about the effect of compart mentalization: the compartmentalization of the two functions
of reason generates universalizing tendencies in both. In his
first Critique, Kant had given us a thorough philosophical justification of N e w t o n i a n science by making the conceptions of
space and time postulated by classical physics what he called
the "forms of sensibility" permanent fixtures of human nature. This enabled him, with the help of his synthetic a priori, to
restore the kind of necessity in the operation of theoretical reason that Hume had undermined with his o w n critique. But
when the time came in the last sections of Kant's work, appropriately called Dialectic, to apply the newly-won technique beyond science's " w o r l d of appearances" and into that of the
"things-in-themselves" the realm of God and human action
properly speaking theoretical reason was found wanting because of "antinomies," or internal contradictions.
From Hegel's standpoint, Kant missed a golden opportunity
to use contradiction in a creative way as a foundation of a truly
unitary (dialectical) Reason. Both thinkers were confronted
with the same difficult question of either delegating freedom,
morality, and religious experience, outside the bounds of theoretical reason, or redefining the latter to accommodate these
experiences. Kant opted for the former course by creating a different compartment of reason. But Hegel, having learned from
the Kant's example, used the dialectic to create a unitary Reason embracing both the theoretical and the practical functions.
Kant cannot be entirely faulted for failing to keep the ideal of a
unitary reason high on his agenda, but his implementation of
this ideal suffers from what Hegel calls indifference between the
two kinds of reason. Without the dialectic to mediate between
their terms, Kant's polarities the a priori-empirical, sensibleintelligible, phenomenon-noumenon, rational-empirical, appearancesthings-in-themselves persist and eventually
change through repetition from analytical tools to reified entities. This is most obvious in his later w o r k on social ethics
which, by dialectical standards, should be the most mediated
and, therefore, the most concrete. It is a period to which also
belongs a short essay of Kant devoted specifically to the relationship between theory and practice. As can be expected, this

Universalization by
way of compartmentalization as exemplified by Kant.

metaphysics" of Understanding. Kant's failure can be located in

his main project of denying the credentials of theoretical reason
beyond the scientistic domain in order to make room for practical reason. His case is particularly instructive because it centers
on the relationship between advanced versions of theory and
practice. Kant's proposal can be rephrased so as to provide a
testing ground for our proposition about the effect of compart mentalization: the compartmentalization of the two functions
of reason generates universalizing tendencies in both. In his
first Critique, Kant had given us a thorough philosophical justification of Newtonian science by making the conceptions of
space and time postulated by classical physics what he called
the "forms of sensibility" permanent fixtures of human nature. This enabled him, with the help of his synthetic a priori, to
restore the kind of necessity in the operation of theoretical reason that Hume had undermined with his o w n critique. But
when the time came in the last sections of Kant's work, appropriately called Dialectic, to apply the newly-won technique beyond science's " w o r l d of appearances" and into that of the
"things-in-themselves" the realm of God and human action
properly speaking theoretical reason was found wanting because of "antinomies," or internal contradictions.
From Hegel's standpoint, Kant missed a golden opportunity
to use contradiction in a creative way as a foundation of a truly
unitary (dialectical) Reason. Both thinkers were confronted
with the same difficult question of either delegating freedom,
morality, and religious experience, outside the bounds of theoretical reason, or redefining the latter to accommodate these
experiences. Kant opted for the former course by creating a different compartment of reason. But Hegel, having learned from
the Kant's example, used the dialectic to create a unitary Reason embracing both the theoretical and the practical functions.
Kant cannot be entirely faulted for failing to keep the ideal of a
unitary reason high on his agenda, but his implementation of
this ideal suffers from what Hegel calls indifference between the
two kinds of reason. Without the dialectic to mediate between
their terms, Kant's polarities the a priori-empirical, sensibleintelligible, phenomenon-noumenon, rational-empirical, appearancesthings-in-themselves persist and eventually
change through repetition from analytical tools to reified entities. This is most obvious in his later w o r k on social ethics
which, by dialectical standards, should be the most mediated
and, therefore, the most concrete. It is a period to which also
belongs a short essay of Kant devoted specifically to the relationship between theory and practice. As can be expected, this

Universalization by
way of compartmentalization as exemplified by Kant.

is a particularly disappointing work, inasmuch as it consists of

merely external, or unmediated, application of rational principles (theory) to empirical situations (practice) in strict conformity to scientistic theory-practice. In social ethics, which exemplifies the embodiment of reason in institutions, mediation and
the presence of a "mix" from the terms of his dualities is totally
appropriate. Yet, such an "admixture of the rational and empirical" elements, as he called it, is what he dreaded most, lest empirical elements contaminate his pure philosophical treatment.

Further illustration
of universalization
by recalling the scientistic paradigm.

Reason in Kant is universal because it is abstract, i.e., it has

shunned mediation and has remained, like time and space, and
the categories of understanding, indifferent with respect to particular empirical content. Similarly, theoretical and practical
reason share in the universality of the ideal of unitary reason,
because the emphasis in each is on universality at the expense
of particularity: universality of conditions under which empirical content qualifies as knowledge in theoretical reason, and
universality of conditions under which particular human action
qualifies as moral in practical reason. It is universality as abstracted from particular content in each case which constitutes
the ideal of unitary reason that embraces them both. In the end
this ideal is found to be synonymous with scientistic rationality
since practical reason is modelled after theoretical, and both after scientism. Universality is gained at the expense of indifference with respect to particular content, whether this is a physical event or human action. Universalization is found to be the
other side of compartmentalization of Kantian reason because
the latter's transcendence by the former is only apparent. It is
the same principle of universality which allows a cross-over between compartments by treating their contents indifferently,
which also sustains compartmentalization by encouraging indifference and preventing genuine mediation to become effective.
To return momentarily to our liberal for further illustration,
the fact that he overlooked the nature of institutions as products
of mediation and embodiments of reason caused him to deal
with them through scientistic theory-practice. Conversely, it was
his v i e w of scientistic theory as indifferent to the contents of
practice that made him deal with institutions in their immediacy
as if they were scientistic objects. Kant intended that scientism's
self-confidence be limited to its own clearly delineated domain,
but the Cunning of Reason willed it otherwise. The rigid boundaries Kant set between theoretical and practical reason had an
effect which proved to be contrary to his intentions. The universality of reason turned out to be the universality of scientistic rationality, with the Enlightenment and its various projects for ap-

plication of science becoming its historical and cultural embodiments. But the Cunning of Reason did not stop there. We recall
from the case of Adam Smith, and Hegel's observations on the
self-concealment of the physicists, that what was exported by
the physical, or "hard," to the "soft" disciplines, or methodologically emulated by the latter since then, was, for the most part,
not what the former practiced, but what they thought (in their
self-concealment) they were practicing. It is, therefore, no accident but a confirmation of Hegel's charges of sterility against the
philosophy of abstract Identity, that "soft" sciences, which are
scrupulously following scientific methodology, are still producing a good deal of useless tautologies.

iii. Dialectic of Reflection

The importance of
Reflection in promoting philosophy's
central aim.

Usually we regard different things as unaffected by each other.

Thus we say: I am a human being, and around me are air, water,
animals, and all sorts of things. Everything is thus put outside of
every other. But the aim of philosophy is to banish indifference,
and to ascertain the necessity of things. By that means the Other is
seen to stand over against its Other. {Logic, #119 Zusatz)
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the dialectic of
Reflection in banishing indifference or externality, which is the
main source of self-concealment of scientism and those inspired
by it. It is equally difficult to overestimate the category of Reflection as the major instrument for unveiling self-deception
and ascertaining the necessity of things. In this Section w e shall
allow Hegel to speak for himself as much as possible, providing
only such interpretation as seems necessary to clarify this particularly obscure part of the Science of Logic.

Reflection in Hegel's
two versions of the
Logic.

The Logic contains no separate moment of Reflection and its

discussion takes place in the context of the categories under Essentialities in our list. There is also a highly compact account of
it the Zusatz of #112, an important part of which was already
quoted at the opening of the discussion of Essence. In the Science of Logic however, Reflection occupies the third moment of
the first triad under Introflection, as is apparent from our list of
categories. It sub-divides into Positing (and Presupposing) ReflectionExternal ReflectionDetermining Reflection which,
being third-generation categories, w e r e omitted from our list.
These m o m e n t s contain the formal presentation of what w e
have been referring to in the preceding pages as either the shift
of the (external) standpoint of the "subjective thinker" to the
objective movement of Spirit, or the partial incorporation of the
standpoint for-us to the immanent path of Essence. The dialectic of Reflection can also be taken as a detailed commentary of
the highly telescoped account of reflection in #112 of the Logic,
and especially the quoted description of the Other in Essence as
"postulated and hypothesized."
Being can serve as a point of departure in outlining the main
features of this segment of the dialectic. As already quoted in
# 1 1 2 , " B e i n g has n o t v a n i s h e d ( i n E s s e n c e ) : but, firstly,
Essence, as simple self-relation, is Being, and secondly as regards its one-sided characteristic of immediacy, Being is deposed to a mere negative, to a seeming or reflected light." In
the first m o m e n t w h i c h is Positing Reflection, Essence posits
the m o m e n t of Being which is n o w part of its self-relation. In
the f o l l o w i n g passage the Science of Logic delegates Being to a

mere Show or Illusory Being instead of "depos(ing it) to a mere

negative, to a seeming or reflected light," as did the Logic.
Essence is sublated Being. It is simple equality with itself, but only in
so far as it is the negation of the sphere of Being in general. Essence
thus has immediacy confronting it as an immediacy from which it
has become and which in this sublating has preserved and maintained itself...

The meaning of
Essence fixed as the
essential through the
negation of Being.

But at the same time, Being, as contrasted with Essence is the

unessential; in relation to Essence, it has the determination of sublated Being.
Being is Illusory Being. The Being of Illusory Being consists solely in Being reduced to
the sublatedness of Being, in its nothingness; this nothingness it nothingness by the
has in Essence and apart from its nothingness, apart from Essence,
process of Reflection.
Illusory Being is not. It is the negative posited as negative. (Science of
Logic, pp. 394-95)
Illusory Being is the same thing as reflection; but it is reflection as immediate. For Illusory Being that has withdrawn into itself and so is
estranged from its immediacy, we have the foreign word reflection.
Essence is reflection, the movement of becoming and transition Reflection as a
that remains internal to it, in which the differentiated moment is process of becoming
determined simply as that which in itself is only negative, as Illusodistinctive of Essence.
ry Being. At the base of Becoming in the sphere of Being, there lies
the determinateness of Being, and this is relation to Other. The
movement of reflection, on the other hand, is the Other as the
negation in itself, which has a being only as self-related negation. Or,
since the self-relation is precisely this negating of negation, the
negation as negation is present in such wise that it has its being in its
negatedness, as Illusory Being. Here, therefore, the Other is not Being with a negation, or Limit, but negation with the negation. But the
first, over against this Other, the immediate or Being, is only this
very equality of the negation with itself, the negated negation, absolute negativity. This equality with itself, or immediacy, is consequently not a first from which the beginning was made and which
passed over into its negation; nor is it an affirmatively present substrate that moves through reflection; on the contrary, immediacy is
only this movement itself.
The same relational
Consequently, Becoming is Essence, its reflective movement, is the
movement of nothing to nothing, and so back to itself. The transition, process
or
(reflection)
Becoming, sublates itself in its passage; the Other that in this transi- which extinguishes
tion comes to be, is not the non-being of a being, but the nothingBeing restores it by
ness of a nothing, and this, to be the negation of a nothing, constitutes Being. Being only is as the movement of nothing to nothing, way of a double
negation.
and as such it is Essence. (Science of Logic, pp. 399-400)
Comparison of the
All of the major points made in these passages are implicit in
two versions of the
the much shorter but clearer accounts of the already quoted
#111 and #112 of the Logic. However, the account of the Science Logic in regard to
Reflection.
of Logic contains the technical ingredients out of which the important dialectic of Reflection is constructed. For example, Be-

coming, which n o w plays a key role in the transformation of

Being under Essence, corresponds to the situation in #111 in
which (Pure) Being and Nothing were found to "interpenetrate
and paralyze each other," thus giving rise to movement and the
idea of process. But unlike the sphere of Being, w h e r e "the
form of reference is purely due to our reflection on what takes
place," in Essence,
there is no real Other, but only diversity, reference of the One to its
Other. The transition of Essence is therefore at the same time no
transition: for in the passage of different into different, the different does not vanish: the different terms remain in their relation.
The absence of a "real Other" in #111 corresponds to "the
Other (which) is not Being with a negation, or Limit, but negation
with the negation," or to the situation a f e w lines later wherein
the "first (the Other's polar opposite or alter ego is not) an affirmatively present substrate that moves through reflection; on
the contrary, immediacy is only this movement itself." (emphases
added in the last instance) It is the same relational constitution
of the terms of Essence which saved Being from extinction in
both versions of the Logic. But, whereas in #112 it was "deposed
to a mere negative, to a seeming or reflected light," in the passage above it was reduced to an "Illusory Being (which) consists
solely in the sublatedness of Being, in its nothingness" apart
from Essence.
The role of negativity in the Science of Logic version is the result of the same relational interpretation as between Being and
its Other in the Logic, except that in this case the terms involved
are Being and Nothing. This too is implicit in #111, as stated:
... when we speak of Being and Nothing (in Being), Being is independent, so is Nothing. The case is otherwise with the Positive and
the Negative (in Essence). But the Positive by itself has no sense; it
is wholly in reference to the Negative.
Gradual reinstatement of Being as a
logical construction.

The profusion of negativity in the above version is the result

of also rendering the Positive in terms of its n e w l y acquired
concreteness, w h i c h is inclusive of both the Positive and the
Negative. Hence, the strange-sounding conclusion of the above
quoted passage that, "Being only is as the movement of nothing
to nothing, and as such it is Essence." The first and third of the
quoted paragraphs provide the first installments of negativity
w h e r e b y the externality of Being is transformed to relational
features and the l o w - g r a d e o b j e c t i v i t y characteristic of this
sphere is reduced to process. The first step takes place in the
first paragraph since, Essence qua "sublated B e i n g " is also a
"simple equality with itself, but only in so far as it is the negation of the sphere of Being in general." But there is a second

step in the direction of negativity because, though "Being in

general" has been negated, w e recall from #112 that it "has not
vanished" but has been "deposed to a mere negative, to a seeming or reflected light." This is the Illusory Being of the third
quoted paragraph, whose being "consists solely... in its nothingness, apart f r o m Essence, Illusory Being is not." In short,
there is nothingness qua absence of "Being in general" at the
positing end because Essence, in sublating Being, has negated
"the sphere of Being in general." But there is also nothingness
at the posited end because the Being posited is illusory, as it has
been "deposed to a mere negative, to a seeming or reflected
light." This much Hegel is n o w explicitly granting in the opening sentence of a passage w h i c h deals w i t h the m o m e n t of
Positing Reflection.
It (Reflection) is a Positing (one) in so far as it is immediacy as a returning movement; for there is no Other on hand, either an Other
from which or into which immediacy returns; it is, therefore, only
as a returning movement, or as the negative of itself. Furthermore,
this immediacy is the sublated negation and the sublated returninto-self. Reflection, as sublating the negative, is a sublating of its
Other, of immediacy. Since, therefore, it is immediacy as a returning movement, as a coincidence of the negative with itself, it is
equally a negative of the negative as negative. Thus it is a Presupposing (Reflection). (Science of Logic, p. 401)
Being, as w e k n o w it in its solidity, has been dissolved, as
have the end points of reflection as visualized by the physical
metaphor of light the "Other from which or into which immediacy returns." The l o w - g r a d e objectivity w h i c h was the
contribution of Being to the progress of Spirit is being replaced
by a process (Introflection, literally Reflection-within-itself)
that increasingly resembles self-reflective thought. In the interiority of its space, reflection can be better approximated in
physical terms by bouncing back-and-forth within its circumference Hegel's " r e f l e c t i o n as immediate" f r o m the f o u r t h
paragraph of the last quoted set. In these circumstances, reflection can only be described in terms of a sequence of negations.
By contrast to the determinateness of Being, w h i c h emerges
through the negation implicit in the Limit, the Illusory Being is
literally made-up of negativity. As w e recall from the previous
set of quotations:
The movement of reflection, on the other hand, is the Other as the
negation in itself, which has a being only as self-related negation. Or,
since the self-relation is precisely this negating of negation, the
negation as negation is present in such wise that it has its being in its
negatedness, as Illusory Being.

The first moment

of the dialectic of
Reflection

Epistemological
contributions
of the Essence
to the dialectic.

Essence is process like Becoming, but as Reflection-withinitself it is internal relatedness which, in the absence of solid
end-points like the Somewhat and the Other of Being, becomes
a "transition... (which) is therefore at the same time no transition" or, more emphatically, "the movement of nothing to nothing,
and so back to itself It becomes increasingly difficult not to notice that what Hegel is describing has less resemblance to a
physical process of reflection, and more to the operation of
thought working on itself, as w e observed it in the discussion of
Identity. If this is true, Introflection has to provide a place for
objectivity within the interiority of thought if the dialectic is not
to be reduced to a branch of introspective psychology. In fact,
the next transition to External (via Presupposing) Reflection
consists of just that.

Transition to the
second moment of
Reflection via Presupposing Reflection.

This is the background in the light of which the terminology

and workings of the Positing moment of Reflection can be best
understood. For example, in the case of "immediacy as a returning movement," such characterization has already been justified
in context, as the expressions "reflection as immediate" and "immediacy is only this movement itself." That "this immediacy is the
sublated negation and the sublated return-into-self" is no news
to us either. It has already been established that in the absence
of the end-points of the "first" and the Other, in which case
negation operates by way of Limit, "the movement of reflection
(itself) is the Other as the negation in itself which has a being only as self-related negation."
However, mediation is also part of Reflection even in the absence of solid end-points upon which to act. The non-entity of
Illusory Being has been functioning as a point of reference for
thought operating as "self-related negation" within the confines
of its circular "movement of nothing to nothing, and so back to itself."
If this is so, the ongoing process can also be viewed in the light
of the mediating side of Reflection, inasmuch as the latter, "as
sublating the negative, is a sublating of its Other, of immediacy."
But now it is impossible to deny the role of Positing Reflection
as also presupposing something outside the circle of negativity,
since the "coincidence of the negative with itself," the distinguishing mark of immediacy and the identifying characteristic
of Positing Reflection as "return movement," cancels itself. This
is effected by the double negative of the sentence before the last
in the most recently quoted paragraph. The "negative as negative" refers to Positing Reflection and its identifying characteristic of "immediacy as a returning movement," whereas the "negative" before it negates both "immediacy" and the "returning
m o v e m e n t . " This leaves Reflection no choice but to adopt a

presupposing stance outside of its self-imposed circle of negativity, thus turning into Presupposing Reflection.
In spite of what seemed to be the dissolution of Being and its
variants of objectivity under the impact of the negativity of
Essence, the former reasserts itself implicitly in its old solid self
in the closing sentence of the most recently quoted paragraph
w i t h the help of double negation. A f t e r all, Being was the
source of Essence, though for a while it had been "deposed to a
mere negative, to a seeming or reflected light." This is a good
example of dialectical transition from one context of meaning
to the next. By following through the implications of the first,
and upon discovering an element which disturbs its internal coherence here the two sides of Reflection within the same
context w e proceed to reorder them under different rules of
the game: the rules of externality involving a presupposition replace those of internality which rely on positedness. The resurfacing of externality beckons a general, but temporary, shift in
the rules of the game from Becoming to Being, from self-mediation to mediation involving externality, and from positing to
presupposing. More specifically for the category at hand, it signifies a shift f r o m reflection as embodied in the relational
process of Essence what w e called earlier the immanent path
of Spirit to reflection as external, similar to the standpoint
for-us earlier, or that of the "subjective thinker" in Being. Far
from erasing previous gains, this apparent backward step consolidates them through sublation.
The implications of this shift to externality are also important but w e will save them for the conclusion of this Section.
However, it should be stated in anticipation, lest it be presumed
that the dialectic of Reflection is far too abstract or pure in
thought to be of consequence for theory-practice, that the latter
is very much in presence but remains implicit in this phase of
the dialectic of Essence. If theory is substituted for thought, and
the latter's self-reflexive feature stands for the self-awareness
that theory has to develop while on the immanent path (for-itselfness), then the dialectic of Reflection represents the self-education of theory so as to avoid self-concealment. Whereas in
Being theory is represented by the "subjective thinker" standing
outside the immanent path, and practice by the products of Being's self-differentiation; in Essence theory begins its self-education by joining Reflection on the road to dialectical adventure.
So far, Illusory Being, a spin-off from Being (though it lacks all
solidity characterizing an object), has provided theory with its
first lesson about its objects as logical constructions. First came
Positing Reflection with its emphasis on the posited or de-

Restoration of the
objectivity of Being
with dialectical
gains from the intervening sublation.

Implications of the
shift to externality.

rived from theory itself nature of its object corresponding to

Illusory Being. But n o w comes the corrective of externality and
the presupposition of something other than a purely theoretical
construct being the source of theory's objects. W e are n o w
about to resume the adventure of the self-education of theory
with the formal statement of External Reflection.
Statement of External Reflection with
the accent on the
gain of concreteness
due to sublation.

External Reflection therefore presupposes a being, first, not in the

sense that its immediacy is only positedness or a moment, but, on
the contrary, that this immediacy is self-relation and that the determinateness is only a moment. Its relationship to its presupposition is such that the latter is the negative of reflection, but so that
this negative as negative is sublated. Reflection in its positing, immediately sublates its positing and thus has an immediate presupposition. It therefore finds this before it as something from which it
starts, and from which it is first the return-into-self, the negating of
this its negative... This External Reflection in the sphere of Being
was the Infinite; the Finite ranked as the first, as the real; as the
foundation, the abinding foundation, it forms the starting point
and the Infinite is the reflection-into-self over against it. (Science of
Logic, p. 403)
The description of this m o m e n t shows the gain accrued in
concreteness as a result of the sublation at the end of the passage describing the last m o m e n t . Being qua immediacy is not
only "positedness or a moment," as it would be without the insight of Positing Reflection about "immediacy as a returning
m o v e m e n t , " but also "immediacy... (as) self-relation and the
determinateness... (as) only a moment (of the self-relation)"
or, in the words of the paragraph quoted earlier, as immediacy
qua "sublated return-to-self." This n e w enriched immediacy (or
r e - i m m e d i a t i o n ) is dialectically of a higher grade than those
progenitors of the scientistic object encountered earlier in Being. As in the case of Identity, such increase in concreteness was
made possible by the bouncing back-and-forth of Reflection.
And as if Hegel did not want to leave any lingering doubt about
the upgrading of the level of objectivity of the "real" by the old
rules of the Understanding, he concludes the aforementioned
passage with a parallelism between the moments of Reflection
and those of the Finite and the Infinite in Being.
It is precisely the same rhythm of enrichment which led us
to the conclusion in Part I: the institutions and physical manifestations of culture that the radical was confronting were no
m e r e objects, but rather the outcome of layer-upon-layer of
meanings or mediations. Similarly, it is n o w no longer possible,
after the insight supplied by the first t w o moments of the dialectic Reflection, to take the object as merely, or only externally, given. Therefore what is being presupposed is not simply external, as it w o u l d be if External Reflection had incorporated

the insight of Positing Reflection, but something recognizable as

having been put there (posited) to begin with by the first moment of Reflection. "It (External Reflection) therefore finds this
( " a n immediate presupposition")
b e f o r e it as s o m e t h i n g f r o m
which it starts, and f r o m which it is first the return-into-self,
the negating of this its negative." If, as was the case in the previous m o m e n t , the "return m o v e m e n t " is the first negative,
then the negation of this m o v e m e n t is the second n e g a t i v e
which also means the reinstatement of Being as presupposed
with a higher rank of concreteness. It may be recalled that the
transition from the Finite to the False Infinite, and f r o m there
to the True Infinite and the Being-for-self, was similarly carried
out by a double negation through which the Other returned to
itself, though n o w possessing the higher grade of Being associated with True Infinite and Being-for-self. It was noted then
that this development in self-containment self-relatedness,
or reflection-within-self, as the case may be marked the first
step toward the notional structure. Such is the case n o w with
the intro-flecting capabilities of Essence at work. This is made
even more explicit in the moment of Determining Reflection.
Determining Reflection is in general the unity of Positing and External Reflection. This is to be considered in more detail.
1. External Reflection starts from immediate Being, Positing Reflection from nothing. External Reflection, when it determines, posits
an Other but this is Essence in the place of the sublated Being; but the determination thus posited is not put in the place of an
Other; the positing has no presupposition. But that is why it is not
the completed, Determining Reflection; the determination that it
posits is consequently only something posited; it is an immediate,
but not as equal to itself but as negating itself; it has an absolute relation to the return-into-self; it is only in reflection-into-self, but it
is not this Reflection itself.
2. In the determination of Reflection, therefore, there are two sides
which at first are distinguished from one another. First, the determination is positedness, negation as such; secondly, it is reflectioninto-self. As positedness, it is negation as negation; this accordingly
is already its unity with itself. But at first, it is this only in itself or in
principle (an sich), or, it is the immediate as sublating itself in its
own self, as the Other of itself. To this extent, (Positing) Reflection
is an immanent determining. In the process, Essence does not go
outside itself; the differences are simply posited, taken back into
Essence. But according to the other side (External Reflection), they
are not posited but reflected into themselves; the negation as negation is in an equality with itself, is not reflected into its Other, into
its non-Being.
3. Now since the determination of Reflection is as much a reflected
relation within itself as it is positedness, this fact immediately

Transition to the
last moment of the
synthesis of Determining Reflection.

throws more light on its nature. For as positedness, it is negation as

such, a non-being over against an Other, namely, over against absolute reflection-into-self, or over against Essence. But as self-relation it is reflected into itself. This its reflection and the above positedness are distinct; its positedness is rather its sublatedness; but its
reflectedness-into-self is its subsistence. In so far, therefore, as it is
the positedness that is at the same time reflection-into-self, the determinateness of Reflection is the relation to its otherness within itself...
It is positedness, negation, which however bends back into itself the
relation to Other, and negation which is equal to itself, the unity of
itself and its Other, and only through this is an Essentiality. It is,
therefore, positedness, negation; but as reflection-into-self it is at
the same time the sublatedness of this positedness, infinite self-relation. {Science of Logic, pp. 405-8)
Recapitulation and
exegesis of the synthesis of Reflection.

A f t e r a brief opening statement about what distinguishes

each of the t w o m o m e n t s , H e g e l discusses their respective
shortcomings in v i e w of the forthcoming synthesis. The characterization of Positing Reflection as dealing with nothing encapsulates not only its "movement of nothing to nothing" earlier,
but also the pre-eminence of the interiority of thought within
which this m o m e n t operates, by contrast to the exteriority of
Being associated with External Reflection. Generally speaking,
the shortcomings of External R e f l e c t i o n taken up in #1 are
those of externality w h e n v i e w e d apart f r o m internality. For
example, the latter is found wanting because "the determination thus posited ("immediate Being") is not put in the place of
an Other (in a w a y that it can be justified); the positing has no
presupposition (but rather is itself a presupposition)." What "it
posits is consequently only something posited; it is an immediate, not as equal to itself (but external to itself, or) as negating
itself." As a result, the feature of self-containment or reflection-into-selfness that characterizes External Reflection is restricted to the extent that this externality remains unsublated.
"It (the "immediate") is only in reflection-into-self, but it is not
this Reflection itself."
The shortcomings of the Positing Reflection are in turn taken up in #2. Its familiar characterizations as "negation as such"
or "negation as negation," recall the operation of thought within its interiority generating "Being in its negatedness as Illusory
Being." These features of Positing Reflection resurface n o w as
failings in the light of the imminent synthesis. Its apparent selfcontainment revealed in the internality of this moment, "its
unity with itself," is a mere potentiality "it is this only in itself
or in principle which keeps "Reflection (as) an immanent determining" and does not allow Essence to "go outside itself." In
other words, without the co-operation of External Reflection,
Positing Reflection is in danger of remaining only a promise of

real self-containment, if not at risk of being reduced to a solipsistic exercise in thought. But External Reflection is in no better
position by itself since, by contrast to the former moment in
which "differences (externality) are simply posited, (and) taken
back into Essence," in the latter they remain in the exteriority
of Being they are "reflected into themselves" but their externality "is not reflected into its Other, into its non-Being (into
the interiority of self-reflecting thought)."
Finally, in #3 w e arrive at the long awaited synthesis, which
is worked out through a process of mutual complementing,
whereby the strengths of each moment provide the remedy for
the shortcomings of the other. The Positing Reflection, while
strong in internal coherence ("sublatedness") through the negativity of thought "negation as such, a non-Being" but
lacking externality, compensates for External Reflection's externality by supplying positedness. The latter, on the other hand,
being strong in externality ("presupposedness") and in building-up concreteness in Being "its reflectedness-into-self is its
subsistence" but lacking in internal coherence, provides the
former with the ingredient of reflection-into-self. The combination of positedness and reflection-into-self ensures not only internal coherence but also, that what is being posited is a solid
Other, and not an Illusory Being. The result is that Determining
Reflection includes "the relation to its Otherness within itself in
line with the true meaning of self-containment, or internal coherence. Or, as the concluding sentences put it more graphically, the Determining Reflection "is positedness, negation, which
however bends back into itself the relation to Other, and negation which is equal to itself, the unity of itself and its Other, and
only through this is an Essentiality."
Another important corollary of the synthesis of Determining
Reflection is the coincidence of presupposition and outcome. We
introduced this in connection with the two-way movement on
the circular path of the dialectic in Part I, but lacked the dialectical equipment of Reflection to pursue it formally. There was an
anticipation of this accomplishment already in External Reflection, where it was pointed out that the higher grade of Being
reached through Reflection was more akin to True Infinite
which, as synthesis of the Somewhat and Limit, needed no presuppositional anchoring outside of it. Only at the last moment
does it become explicit that positedness is the other side of presupposition. The insight dawns at the point of the union when it
is realized that presupposing itself is an activity of thought, as is
positing, and does not, so to speak, come out of the blue. This
becomes more obvious if w e recall that this is the same activity,

Synthesis accomplished by way of

mutual complementarity of the respective shortcomings
of the first two
moments.

Circularity
confirmed by
the dialectic
of Reflection.

whose two inseparable sides of immediacy and mediation correspond here to presupposition and positedness. In the Hegelian
terminology of the dialectic of Reflection our charge against the
protagonists of the political paradigm would now read: They remain in self-concealment that "positedness (our "mediation") is,
as such, negation; but, as presupposed (by the same mediating
activity of thought which now posits it as immediacy), it is also
reflected into itself. Positedness is thus (in its new enriched status qua synthesis) a determination of Reflection." (Science of Logic, p.
406; added emphases between our parentheses)
Illustration of circularity and synthesis
through the scientistic paradigm.

The complementary
roles of Identity and
Reflection in building up concreteness.

To return to our criticism of the liberal and the radical

and, by implication, of scientism and the philosophies of immediacy it was directed against them on the ground that, in
their one-sidedness about immediacy and mediation, they remained in self-concealment about presuppositional links backward and forward. For example, in the case of the liberal laboring in a state of cultural amnesia, the Supreme Court and
the Pentagon had the facticity of unexamined presuppositions,
whereas for the radical they have the character of positedness,
of having been placed there in the first place by the class interests of his opponent. But the radical was not free of self-concealment either, since he had stopped his unveiling effort short
of uncovering the presuppositional side of his own vision and
his interpretation of his opponent's view as founded on unexamined presuppositions. Both failed to realize that positing is
the other side of presupposing. In both cases it was the refusal
to recognize the dialectical coincidence (as a result of mediation) of presupposition and outcome that lay at the root of
their self-concealment. Their incapacity to probe into this matter, especially in the social sciences, can be traced directly to
the logic of "abstract" or "mere" Identity and the methodological dread of circularity (implied in such coincidence), which
such logic has inspired in their methodologies. As a result,
their single most important source of sterility, as w e shall see
in more detail beginning with next Section, is their refusal to
admit the creative role of negation for fear of contradiction,
and the dialectical coincidence of presupposition and outcome
for fear of fallacious circularity.
In referring to Essentiality as the end-product of the dialectic
of Reflection, Hegel is pointing to the heart of this problem, the
category of Identity which, being the first moment of the triad
of Essentialities, follows Reflection immediately in the Science of
Logic. Inasmuch as w e have reversed the order of discussing
Identity and Reflection to follow more closely the arrangement
of the Logic, the intimate connection between the two cate-

gories had been anticipated and hopefully, by now, has been

clarified. It would be no exaggeration to add that, in their complementary roles, Identity and Reflection constitute literally the
building blocks of concreteness and the chief tools of the dialectic for "banish(ing) indifference, and ascertain(ing) the necessity of things." This is accomplished in both cases by setting a
rhythm by which the transition from one context of meaning
to the next from the narrow to the "wider circle," or "circle
of circles," in Hegel spatial metaphor for describing dialectical
philosophy begins at the center of these cocentric circles and
progressively incorporates that which lies outside of them.
The rhythm takes the form of an interplay between Identity
and Difference in the case of the former and between Reflection-within-self and Reflection-into-another in the latter. By
highlighting the fact that the center of the circles consists of
subjectivity, as exemplified by the "I" in the illustration of the
dialectic through propositional form earlier, Identity performs
an important service for our cause by ensuring that the ultimate synthesis of theory and practice on the basis of highly
concrete (trans-individual) subjectivity, will not be jeopardized
by last-minute resurfacing of subject-object dualism. On the
whole, Reflection will secure coherence by attending to the internal structure of the context of meaning, while Identity (always inclusive of Difference) will be taking care of its integrity
vis-a-vis whatever form of externality is being encountered at
each round.
Given the complementary relationship between Identity and
Reflection, on the one hand, and what w e have steadily regarded as the implicit presence of theory and practice throughout
the dialectic, until it emerges in the final synthesis of the Notion, on the other, it is important that w e locate the presence of
theory-practice in Reflection as we did earlier in Identity. However, it should be noted that there is more of a visible division
of labor between Reflection and Identity than has just been
suggested. Both possess the p o w e r of negativity of thought
which propels the dialectic, though this is more obvious in the
case of Reflection, and less in the case of Identity, unless the
particular identity in question is a subject, or unless the center
of the cocentric circles is occupied by subjectivity. As things fall
into place, Identity usually provides the structure for dealing
with the particularized identities of the objects of theory (or
contents of practice) as products of mediation. Reflection, on
the other hand, stands for theory which, as mediation, supplies
the dynamic element of negativity of thought in Essence. This is
evidenced by the fact, soon to become apparent, that most of

Corollaries of the
dialectic of Reflection
for theory-practice.

the transitions w e shall encounter in what follows are being

conducted via the interplay of reflection-within-self and reflection-into-another, while the determination of the identities of
the succession of particular objects is handled within the framework of Identity.
As anticipated in the course of the transition from Positing
to External Reflection, the implicit but pervasive presence of
theory and practice must be sought with the help of the surrogates of thought and Being respectively. They are, in effect, the
protagonists of the drama of Essence alternately assuming the
role of the essential and the unessential, as witnessed in the
first two moments of Reflection. Theory falls naturally into the
position of thought in Positing Reflection, as it makes an arrogant start following the sublation of Being. It assumes the role
of the essential after it has "deposed (practice) to a mere negative, to (the) seeming or reflected light" of an Illusory Being.
This stance can perhaps be likened to an overconfident rationalism which attempts to deduce reality f r o m within its resources a case of "self-relation" of thought negating the externality of Being without reference to externality. From
Hegel's previously quoted text, "since the self-relation is precisely this negation of negation, the negation as negation is present in such wise that it has its being in its negatedness, as Illusory Being." Thought's misplaced ambition comes to grief with
the double negation at the end of Positing Reflection, when it
realizes that there is a mediating side to immediacy that it has
been ignoring all along until, in the absence of end-points of reflective activity, it comes dangerously close to solipsism. By sublating negation and the return-into-self, which are part of the
self-referential "movement of nothing to nothing, and back to itself,"
thought has also sublated "its Other... immediacy," which lay at
the root of its self-entrapment in "reflection as immediate," or of
"immediacy (as) only this movement (of reflection) itself." To
put it in terms more applicable to its surrogate, in postulating a
mere logical construction as its object to be tested in practice,
theory has negated its own essential quality which is mediating
through something external to it. It has indulged in the positing
of unobservables and the construction of models with no reference to externality.
Dialectical circularity
reasserted by the synthesis of Positing and
Presupposing in Determining Reflection.

This of course never happens in good scientific practice because what is being postulated always has some connection with
the empirical domain. This is precisely what Hegel wants to
bring out but with an important n e w dimension: full transparency about the process under way so that there is no fear of
self-concealment, i.e., so that there is coincidence in what em-

pirical scientists are doing and what they think they are doing.
After all, the reason for the abandonment of the standpoint forus upon entering Essence and the ex hypothesi elimination of the
correct but perhaps unself-consciously held position of scientists, was an auspicious beginning of the self-education of
Spirit on the immanent path. Unlike scientism, which often believes that it has made a "clean start" w h e n in fact it has not,
Spirit wants to explore the implications of such belief. The result
in this case confirms earlier findings that there is no such thing a
"clean start" since thought has been found as much tainted with
Being, and vice versa, as is theory in relation to practice. This is
a corollary of the circular structure of the dialectic in general,
and of the coincidence of presupposition and outcome in particular, of which the dialectic of Reflection is a formal presentation.
However, the moment of Positing Reflection deals with half of
the demonstration of this coincidence, namely the part that begins with positing and shows that it entails presupposing. The
moment of External Reflection, on the other hand, starts with
presupposition and shows h o w this involves positing. Finally,
Determining Reflection points to their synthesis as a state of
complementarity where each compensates for the other's shortcomings through its own strong points.
In terms of our casting of theory and practice in the roles of
the moments of Reflection, an overly ambitious theory has so
far been cast in the role of Positing Reflection with the result of
learning that presupposition is the other side of positing. N o w a
new level of immediacy (or re-immediation) has been generated with a spot no longer occupied by Illusory Being, but by solid Being (an "immediate Being") standing for the object of theory and contents of practice. After some initial exultation about
concreteness (accomplished through reflection-into-itself) of
such entity, its weaknesses begin to show up. Though securing
a higher level of concreteness for its n e w Being, External Reflection has not fully benefitted from the insight about the coincidence of positing and presupposing. The positing of its n e w
Being is not fully justified in the sense of being rationally linked
to its antecedent the "positing has no presupposition" so that
it ends being "only something posited." The positing and the
presupposing have the same referent, but the propositions to
which they correspond are not included in the same context of
meaning. In Hegel's words, External Reflection "is only in reflection-into-self, but it is not this Reflection itself." In the language of theory-practice, in spite of the fact that the object of
practice (the new "immediate Being") is no longer viewed as an
irreducible fact but is certified as concrete "tainted with the-

Anticipation of the
synthesis of theorypractice by the dialectic of Reflection.

ory," if you wish the relationship between theory and practice is still burdened with externality, since the logical connection between the capacity of theory to posit a theoretical construct as its object, and the presupposition of an external object,
is yet to be made by theory.
The shortcomings of both Positing and External Reflection
cancel each other, as the internality of the former makes up for
the lack of the same by the latter, and vice versa. In the context
of theory-practice, the strength of theory lies in its ideal of internal coherence as w e saw it developed in Positing Reflection,
until its ideal was undermined by the discovery that positing is
the other side of presupposition, which necessitated moving
outside of its closely knit web of determinacy. The strength of
practice, on the other hand, rests on externality and the capacity to provide a link with what lies outside of the interiority of
theory. The synthesis of theory and practice, like the synthesis
of Determining Reflection, supplies the structure for the complementary suspension of the flaws of the other two moments
or, in Hegel's words, the relocation on the part of Determining
Reflection of "the relation to its Otherness within itself."

iv. Social Scientism and the Logic of Essence

Given the relationship established between the moments of
Reflection and theory-practice, and the fundamental role of the
former (along with Identity) in providing the structure and setting the rhythm for the progress of the dialectic, w e are in possession of a powerful tool to deal with Essence in a way which
serves our concern. We will see how the disciplines corresponding to the categories of Essence v i e w their object of inquiry
through these categories. This will make it possible to understand the manner in which representative disciplines understand and apply theory-practice to their subject matter in the
light of the dialectic. Since, furthermore, the Encyclopedia is a
huge interdisciplinary project, with subject matter and methodology integrated on a dialectical scale to fit Hegel's conception
of coherence, as well as his peculiar hierarchical structuralization of knowledge, this approach to the categories of Essence
seems particularly fitting for our project.
Our original strategy of casting non-dialectical concepts in
dialectical roles is still in force, but with the additional provision
that it is limited to methodological concepts and, more specifically, to theory-practice. The preceding discussion of Reflection
has laid the ground for this in two ways: First, the categories of
Essence constitute a replay of the dialectic of Reflection in
terms of the interplay between reflection-within-self and reflection-into-another; and second, the assignment of theory, practice, and their synthesis to the roles of Positing, External, and
Determining Reflection, respectively, provides us with an anticipatory look at their final synthesis. The surrogate triad ImmediacyMediationRe-immediation can serve to link these two
sets, with immediacy standing for either theory or practice as a
first moment. But before w e proceed, some observations about
the basic rhythm of the dialectic in Essence and the continuing
role of Identity are in order.
As anticipated, the basic mode of Essence is dualism with respect to structure, and progressive gain in concreteness through
the sublation of what remains external (reflected-into-another)
to what is internal (reflected-within-itself). The challenge of externality in Essence originates from within its categories as they
unfold, alternating between self-containment and dualistic diremption, essential and unessential and (within the triad of Appearance) between the apparent and real. This challenge of
resurfacing externality (or dualism) can also be viewed as originating in Identity, in the sense that the categories which follow
it represent particularized categorial identities. As inclusive of

The purpose of this

Section outlined.

The task of this

Section in the light
of the dialectic of
Identity and
Reflection.

The task ahead

viewed as an application of the dialectic
of Identity and Reflection to the particularized identities
within Essence.

Difference, Identity is also the implicit source of dualism; it "is

the whole and its own (negative) moment," or its Other. A reenactment of the categorial interplay within Essence is thus possible, as the Other of Identity (corresponding to the reflectioninto-another of Reflection) emerges at each moment to challenge Identity's integrity from the outside, only to be reincorporated into a new and more rich categorial identity and a more
concrete form of internality. Enriched as it is by contrast to the
"mere" or "abstract Identity" of formal logic, this concrete Identity is still abstract because it has not yet incorporated the externality involved in the categorial interplay of the main body of
Essence. Though it might be concrete if judged by the criteria of
self-containment attained through the dialectic of Reflection,
Identity must still exemplify itself through particularized identities of objects of the external world of common sense and scientism. This is only one episode in a how-to-overcome-dualism series, which concludes with the completion of Actuality at the
end of Essence. But the story is far from over, since the more
deeply embedded dualisms of subject-object and theory-practice,
in their advanced forms of the Theoretical and Practical Idea (or
Cognition and Will), are still to be overcome. It is only then that
Spirit, armed w i t h the categorial apparatus d e v e l o p e d in
Essence, will be ready to meet the most ambitious challenges of
externality presented by these deeply rooted polarities to the
cultural and humanistic worlds of Objective and Absolute Spirit.
In the course of carrying out this preliminary task of clearing the
ground of those relatively less embedded polarities, the polarities
of theory-practice and subject-object will remain below the surface being, so to speak, carried along by surrogates in the manner indicated by the dialectic of Reflection.
With particular reference to theory-practice, it may be useful
to anticipate its implicitness in the course of Essence by taking
another step beyond such surrogates as thought and Being of
the dialectic of Reflection. Since the categorial transitions of
Essence are, structurally, replays of the dialectic of Reflection, a
good way to find out w h o plays surrogate for theory-practice is
to ask w h o stands for thought and Being in what follows Reflection in the pages ahead. Generally speaking, the answer is
mediation and immediacy, respectively, which recalls the important role that these surrogates played in Part I, in the form
of mediation of theory and immediacy of practice, or mediation
of thought and immediacy of action. The rule, no mediation
without immediacy, and vice versa, still holds. But far from precluding the temporary emphasis of one at the expense of the
other, such imbalance constitutes an indispensable element in

the dialectical m o v e m e n t . So w h e n theory, m e t a p h o r i c a l l y

speaking, is being carried along by mediation, it is not only the
fundamental quality of t h e o r y (and thought) qua mediation
that is being conveyed, but also its feature of negativity and capacity to sublate and be sublated, which are so essential to the
dialectical process. For example, sublation makes it possible to
accept the statement made earlier, in the course of illustrating
the rationale behind radical action, that the building of the Pentagon incorporates thought, or consists of layers of accumulated
mediations (or meanings), in more than a metaphorical w a y or
as a figure of speech. Furthermore, in the categories that follow,
mediation is associated w i t h internality in the sense that the
latter is responsible for building up internal coherence through
r e f l e c t i o n - w i t h i n ( o r into)-self of the context of m e a n i n g at
hand. By contrast, immediacy stands for the recalcitrance of
practice standing outside the circle of self-completeness, but still
in a relationship of give-and-take (reflection-into[or on]-another), and a challenge of the complacency of self-containment
achieved by mediation.
The transition from Identity to its first particularization, the
Ground, is made via Contradiction, which is the synthesis of
Identity and Difference in the Science of Logic, and of Diversity
and Opposition in the Logic.
In general, our consideration of the nature of Contradiction has
shown that it is not, so to speak, a blemish, an imperfection or a
defect in something if a contradiction can be pointed out in it. On
the contrary, every determination, every concrete thing, every Notion, is essentially a unity of distinguished and distinguishable moments, which, by virtue of the determinate, essential difference, pass
over into contradictory moments. This contradictory side of course
resolves itself into nothing, it withdraws into its negative unity.
Now the Thing, the subject, the Notion, is just this negative unity
itself; it is inherently self-contradictory, but it is no less the contradiction resolved: it is the Ground that contains and supports its determinations. The Thing, subject, or Notion, as reflected into itself in
its sphere, is its resolved contradiction, but its entire sphere is again
also determinate, different; it is thus a finite sphere and this means a
contradictory one. It is not itself the resolution of this higher contradiction but has a higher sphere for its negative unity, for its
Ground. Finite things, therefore, in their indifferent multiplicity
are simply this, to be contradictory and disrupted within themselves
and to return into their Ground. (Science of Logic, p. 442-43)
The Ground affords us the first opportunity to observe the
way that a particularized identity of a category is modeled after
that of Identity, which consists of "its whole and its o w n (negative) moment." Like Identity and other m o r e advanced categories to follow, the Ground is "inherently self-contradictory,

Particularization of
Identity exemplified
in the category of
Ground.

but it is no less the contradiction resolved." Hegel n o w goes bey o n d the m e r e diagnosis that the Ground, like Identity, is a
"negative unity." Consistent with operating on the immanent
path, he works f r o m within this n e w category to develop the
first easily recognizable relational concept for dealing with the
empirical world. Without going into the detail of its sub-moments, which were also omitted from our list, it is safe to characterize the Ground as a formative causal relationship established between t w o terms, as represented by the motto "everything has a sufficient ground." Essence, at this dialectical moment, is represented by the category of the Ground and, as the
many illustrations Hegel supplies suggest, reality is viewed and
interpreted in the light of this loose sort of determinacy.
We must be careful, when we say that the Ground is the unity of
Identity and Difference, not to understand by this unity an abstract
identity. Otherwise we only change the name, while we still think
the identity (of Understanding) already seen to be false. To avoid
this misconception we may say that the Ground, besides being the
unity, is also the difference of identity and Difference...We wish, as
it were, to see the matter double, first in its immediacy, and secondly in its Ground, where it is no longer immediate. This is the
plain meaning of the law of sufficient ground, as it is called; it asserts that things should essentially be viewed as mediated. (Logic,
#121 Zusatz; parentheses in the text)
The last sentence tells us that the object of theory in this
moment of Essence "should essentially be viewed as mediated."
What w e have known since the political paradigm is n o w being
formally worked out and stated in the process of self-discovery
of Spirit. Hegel's numerous examples illustrate his cautionary
remark about Contradiction not being "a blemish, an imperfection or a defect in something," but a necessary ingredient of its
" n e g a t i v e u n i t y " qua mediated. If this is not understood the
concrete identity of the entity at hand, be it physical or moral,
collapses into abstract self-identity. Under these circumstances
the use of the latter for reasoning about the relationship of
G r o u n d to G r o u n d e d in tautologies has o n l y the f o r m of a
causal explanation.
With the same justice as the (formal) logician maintains our faculty of thought to be so constituted that we must ask for the ground
of everything, might the physicist, when asked why a man who
falls into the water is drowned, reply that man happens to be so
organized that he cannot live under water; or the jurist, when
asked why a criminal is punished, reply that civil society happens
to be so constituted that crimes cannot be left unpunished. (Logic,
#121 Zusatz)

In a similar vein, as regards the present state of the social

disciplines and social practice, Hegel explicates the sociology of
sophistry.
For sophistry (in classical times) has nothing to do with what is
taught: that may very possibly be true. Sophistry lies in the formal circumstance of teaching it by grounds which are as available
for attack as for defense. In a time so rich in reflection and so devoted to raisonnement as our own, he must be a poor creature who cannot advance a good ground for everything, even for what is worst
and most depraved. Everything in the world that has become corrupt has had good ground for its corruption. (Logic, #121 Zusatz)
Discourse in everyday life abounds in the search for grounds
because, as Hegel aptly observes in the same Zusatz, grounds
s e r v e w e l l " w h a t m a y be t e r m e d t h e h o u s e h o l d n e e d s of
knowledge," or what A l f r e d Schutz calls "recipe k n o w l e d g e . "
But they also serve the social disciplines which, in their inability to supply t h e m e d i a t i o n s n e c e s s a r y f o r s o l i d i f y i n g t h e
grounding process, often fall back on tautologies such as the
above. For example, this requires far more unveiling of layerupon-layer of mediations than presently done by social disciplines, which take so much for granted in trying to establish
that the ground of political association is human nature or that
of economic organization is self-interest. Private property, free
competition, acquisitiveness, and, more recently, consumerism
have been defended on similar grounds. Lacking the power or
the will to discriminate b e t w e e n the m o m e n t s (e.g., justice,
goodness) w i t h i n the "negative u n i t y " of Ground, legal and
psychological disciplines have turned into devotees of "raisonnement" searching for "grounds which are as available for attack
as for defense." To continue in Hegel's terminology, what needs
to be done in the absence of any obvious determination, is to
unveil through mediation the components of social activity so
that they can stand out from where they have "returned or fallen) into their Ground," as the "distinguished and distinguishable
moments" of social life. The process of determination has to be
kept up relentlessly if the expectation about truth qua all-inclusiveness is, in turn, to stand its ground and not fall back into
the tautology and platitude associated with the search for, and
d e f e n s e of, m e r e grounds. For, as H e g e l put it in the same
Zusatz, " o n o n e hand any g r o u n d suffices: on the other n o
ground suffices as mere ground." Perhaps in his desire to avoid
such platitudes and tautologies as these, combined with an inability to c o p e w i t h the e n o r m i t y of m e d i a t i o n s i n v o l v e d ,
Bertrand Russell (no lover of the dialectic otherwise) decided,
according to an autobiographical account, to give up social science as too difficult and opted instead for mathematical logic.

Ground explicated
through sophistry
and platitudinous
explanations.

Existence exemplifies
the process of
differentiation
in Essence.

In fact the next moment, Existence, is doing precisely what

the methodologically self-conscious researcher above was pursuing in lifting out from the Ground and rendering distinct the
moments which lay there "withdraw(n) into its negative unity."
But it does it at the expense of mediation which characterizes
the Ground.
Existence is the immediate unity of reflection-into-self and reflection-into-another. It follows from this that Existence is the indefinite multitude of existents as reflected-into-themselves, which at
the same time equally throw light upon one another, which, in
short, are co-relative, and form a world of reciprocal dependence
and of infinite interconnection between grounds and consequents.
The grounds are themselves existences: and the existents in like
manner are in many directions grounds as well as consequents.
The phrase 'Existence' (derived from existere) suggests the fact of
having proceeded from something. Existence is Being which has
proceeded from the Ground, and been reinstated by annulling its
intermediation. The Essence, as being set aside and absorbed, originally came before us as shining or showing in self (as category of
Show or Illusory Being), and the categories of this Reflection are
Identity, Difference and Ground. The last is the unity of Identity
and Difference; and because it unifies them it has at the same time
to distinguish itself from itself (self-mediate). (Logic, #123 and
Zusatz; parentheses in the first instance in the text)
The reflection-on-another of the existent is however inseparable
from the reflection-on-self: the Ground is their unity, from which
Existence has issued. The existent therefore includes relativity, and
has on its own part its multiple interconnections with other existents: it is reflected on itself as its ground. The existent is, when so
described, a Thing. (Logic, #124)
The Thing is the totality the development in explicit unity of
the categories of the Ground and of Existence. On the side of one
of its factors, viz. reflection-on-other-things, it has in it the differences, in virtue of which it is a characterized and concrete thing.
These characteristics are different from one another; they have
their reflection-into-self not on their own part, but on the part of
the Thing. They are Properties of the Thing. And their relation to
the Thing is expressed by the word 'have.' (Logic, #125)

Transition to Thing
(hood) as a further
exemplification of
particularization of
Identity with an
accent on selfcontained unity.

The dialectical r h y t h m in Essence has been variously described in the preceding pages as an interplay between unity
and duality, "the whole and its o w n moment," Identity and Difference, internality and externality, mediation and immediacy,
essential and unessential, and reflection-into-self and reflection-into-another. All of these plus a n e w polarity between "to
be" and "to have" are explicit, or strongly implied, in the above
transitions. In the Ground the emphasis lies on the first of these
polarities, but with Existence the balance tips in the direction of
the second. In this sense Existence resembles Being, its progeni-

tor in the line of categories corresponding to the scientistic object. But there is an important difference in concreteness since
Existence has dialectically absorbed all intervening mediations
("intermediations"). Also, Existence exemplifies re-immediation since the Ground is basically a exercise in self-mediation.
The implications of this move are carried one step further in the
same paragraph where Existence qua re-immediation "the
immediate unity of reflection-into-self and reflection-into-another" winds up in an "indefinite multitude of existents," a
diversity of facts.
The reaffirmation of immediacy in the form of the surfacequality of diverse facts which "are in many directions grounds as
well as consequents," signifies that w e are w e l l w i t h i n the
bounds of scientism. If w e situate ourselves in terms of Hegel's
correspondences between logic and the history of philosophy,
we end up as follows: Locke corresponding to Thinghood, Hume
to the World as Appearance, Spinoza to the Absolute of Essence,
Leibniz to Actuality Proper, and Kant to Absolute Relation. We
are now in the vicinity of Galileo and Descartes, the rising fortunes of scientism and the foundations of its self-concealment
regarding hidden ontological agendas. The immediacy (surfacequality) of existent facts and their capacity of serving as both
grounds and consequents, makes it possible to assign them specific time and space coordinates. Determinateness has thus been
given a boost, but this has been secured at the expense of abstraction, since the present feature of immediacy of existents obscures their deeper determination and common origin in the
"negative unity" of the Ground. The most dramatic manifestation of this source is the current methodological rule of ceteris
paribus ("all other things [existents] being equal"), while deductive operations are being conducted for a more manageable
number of variables under the auspices of theory-practice.
While this rule has proved to be a powerful tool in conjunction with mathematical techniques, such as differential equations in the (dialectically) abstract physical sciences, in the case
of their sisters dealing with the highly concrete social world, it
has proved a chronic affliction as evidenced by the fortunes of
economics. The situation with theory-practice is no better since,
as pointed out earlier, it is part of the methodological packet
that has been deferentially received f r o m scientism without
properly examining its content. So theory, in the true sense of
for-itselfness the double-mirror e f f e c t characteristic of
Essence selects from the existent facts those which it has
been programmed to select in the first place. In short, w e are
faced with a situation whereby the difference in concreteness

Illustrations of the
interplay of unity
and diversity from
the history of
philosophy and
the sciences.

(or the differential operation of Identity-in-Difference) between

the physical and the social world, combined with the lack of
awareness on the part of the students of the latter about such
difference, turns theory-practice from an instrument generating
dialectical (creative) circularity to a tool which leads to a vicious or fallacious one.
The instability of
the category of
Thing(hood)
leading to its
dissolution.

The category of Thing(hood) is the synthesis of Ground and

Existence. It represents a more balanced view, as more emphasis is placed on reflection-on-self and the pre-existing unity of
e x i s t e n t s w i t h i n the G r o u n d . H o w e v e r , this n e w unity of
T h i n g ( h o o d ) proves short-lived because the underlying unifying force of the Ground is unable to keep the disruptive elements from reasserting themselves. This tendency is embodied
in the fact that there are such entities as "Properties of the Thing:
and their relation to the Thing is expressed by the word 'have'."
To begin with, it may seem possible for an entity to be a thing
without having particular properties. But on closer examination
the Thing dissolves if its Properties are taken away. The pendul u m has swung f u r t h e r a w a y f r o m unity and into diversity
w h i l e the role of the essential t e r m has switched f r o m the
Thing to its Properties and eventually to its Matters, or kind of
physically d e f i n e d matter of w h i c h something is composed
(e.g., the "caloric, and electrical or magnetic matters" of the foll o w i n g quotation). Though dialectically more advanced than
the context of meaning w h i c h it superseded, this one is ultimately no more stable or satisfactory. If this n e w insight about
reality is taken to its logical conclusion, and the Thing and its
Matters are reduced to different kinds of formless matter, something has to account for the ways in which w e experience nature and, even more so, Spirit.
Thus we hear caloric, and electrical or magnetic matters spoken of.
Such matters are at the best figments of Understanding. And we
see here the usual procedure of the abstract Reflection of Understanding. Capriciously adopting single categories, whose value entirely depends on their place in the gradual evolution of the logical
Idea, it employs them in the pretended interests of explanation,
but in the face of plain, unprejudiced perception and experience,
so as to trace back to them every object investigated. (Logic, #126
Zusatz)
The Thing, being this totality, is a contradiction. On the side of its
negative unity it is Form in which Matter is determined and deposed to the rank of Properties (#125). At the same time it consists
of Matters, which in the reflection-of-the-thing-into-itself are as
much independent as they are at the same time negatived. Thus
the Thing is the essential existence, in such a way to be an existence that suspends or absorbs itself in itself. In other words, the

Thing is an Appearance or Phenomenon. (Logic, #130; parentheses

in the text)
N o sooner had the Thing been secured in its independence
with the help f r o m the categories of Reflection, than was the
stage set for its dissolution, in the last two sentences of the preceding paragraph, by the v e r y same categories t h r o u g h the
transition to M a t t e r and Form. This takes us to A p p e a r a n c e
Proper, with the World of Appearance as its first moment in the
Logic and the Law of Appearance as its counterpart in the Science
of Logic. Unlike the category of Illusory Being in w h i c h the
unessential moment of Being was reduced to a mere Show ("to
a seeming or reflected light"), the triad of Appearance Proper
involves more of an interplay between t w o moments as equals
thanks to the groundwork laid by the dialectic of Matter and
Form. W e have just moved into the heartland of scientism with
its two main variants, epistemological realism and phenomenalism corresponding to the "real" and the "apparent" moments,
respectively. In our world of scientistic methodological equivalents, this state of affairs is consistent with the account of scientism given by Hegel in the last quotation, except that instead of
latching on to the real term at the expense of the apparent (as
would the scientism associated with the epistemological realism
of the Thing), scientism n o w holds on to the apparent and rejects the real as unreliable. In the history of philosophy this
m o m e n t corresponds to Hume's p h e n o m e n a l i s m as was the
previous one the counterpart of Locke's epistemological realism. This is the world-view of radical empiricism in science, behaviorism in social science, and certain popular (vulgar) renditions of phenomenology in recent literature.

Transition to the
categories of
Appearance.

Existence has reasserted itself along with the apparent moment and the specificity (location in space and time) of existents, which can be utilized in the formulation of empirical laws
or theories. In the case of the former, which correspond to the
Law or World of Appearances, mathematically stated invariable
associations are formulated between observables (apparent or
unessential terms) w i t h o u t reference to unobservables (real
terms or essences). By contrast, theories, which correspond to
Thing and its Matters, postulate unobservables (represented by
Matters as the essential or real t e r m ) and test the results of
their theoretical deductions in the controlled experience of experiments or in everyday practice (represented by the Thing as
the unessential or apparent term). In both cases the confirmation via theory-practice may come through with flying colors
but, as p o i n t e d out in the case of Existence, this does n o t
amount to much. Casting scientism into dialectical roles forces

Illustration of
the categories of
Appearance from
philosophy and the
sciences.

into the open its presuppositional amnesia: backward concerning the pre-existing unity of the apparent and the real, and forward in regard to their forthcoming synthesis in Actuality. With
Existence it was scientism's amnesia about the Ground as the
"negative unity" of the existents; n o w it is the lack of insight
about the unity of matter and form. More precisely, in the case
of phenomenalism, it is its overlooking that the essential (now
behind-the-surface moment which it dismisses) is as much the
product of both immediacy and mediation, as the apparent one
which it takes for granted.
To illustrate Hegel's charge against scientism for "capriciously
adopting single (i.e., without their polar opposite or negative
complement) categories...so as trace back to them every object
investigated," w e can assume the position of a behaviorist who
is trying to give an explanation of human action with special
reference to driving in traffic. The possibility of establishing a
law stating in quantitative terms the degree of association between red traffic lights and bringing one's car to a halt may
readily suggest itself. A statement in the form of a scientific law
can be produced which, in all probability, will be confirmed in
practice and used for traffic control, police assignments, city
planning, etc. But without the postulation of non-observables
that extend beyond the physical and into the moral and cultural world, it is impossible to offer a genuine explanation about
human action. Unless the correlations between traffic lights and
human reactions are placed in a succession of wider contexts of
meaning whose dialectical counterparts are the interplay between reflection-within-self and reflection-into another, or between "the whole and its own (negative) moment" with the
result of contributing further determinations, the outcome is a
mere abstraction. Put into the terms of the forthcoming categories of Appearance Proper, the outcome has the barest form
but not the content of an explanation. For example, these further determinations in the explanation may be initiated by asking questions about the role of culturally required rule-conforming behavior, moral values about respect of life and property, in addition to those about police effectiveness and the
handing out of summonses.
Illustration of the
one-sidedness of the
World of Appearance by way of vulgar phenomenology.

Similar observations hold true in the case of a bowdlerized

brand of phenomenology which, though posing as a corrective
to phenomenalism and its manifestations in the social field
such as behaviorism tends to duplicate them. Authentic phenomenology is a highly evolved discipline sharing important
features with the dialectic. It emerged as a discipline out of familiar to students of the dialectic concerns about accept-

ing an overconfident scientism's claims to guide the search for

truth in social and humanistic studies. Most important, phenomenology shares with the dialectic the strategy of unveiling
what phenomenology calls "desedimenting" of behindthe-surface congealed mediations, with the help of tools (e.g.,
bracketing, reduction, phenomenological description) precisely
crafted for this purpose. Thus, insofar as scientism is an integral
part of liberal culture, phenomenology is also a radical discipline in the socio-cultural sense, since allegedly value-free scientific, as well as ethical, norms are essential components of
liberal culture's protective armor. In this correctly understood
sense, phenomenology will be taken up later in conjunction
with correspondingly advanced moments of the dialectic. For
now, it will suffice to use a corrupt popular version of phenomenology to illustrate the one-sidedness of the "apparent" moment in the World of Appearances.
The dualistic structure of the "apparent" and the "real" in
the dialectic of Appearance is the point of departure for both
genuine and vulgarized phenomenology: Whereas the former
uses the surface to subvert scientism's implicit dualistic metaphysics, the latter bypasses the behind-the-surface, thus slipping back into the implicit dualistic ontology of scientism by default. In order to highlight this accomplishment of vulgar phenomenology, one should ask the following questions: If w e are
to challenge scientistic presuppositions garbed in the form of
theorizing in search for the "real" by suspending ("bracketing") our belief in theoretically dished-out "truth" and adopting
instead the description of the "apparent" ("see, don't think," or
"back to the things themselves"), h o w can w e avoid a relapse
into the implicit low-grade theorizing of common sense? Or, if
we apply our reduction ("epoche") on the "truths" of common
sense ("natural attitude"), which is thus reduced to data of consciousness to be handled through phenomenological description of the "apparent" what guarantee do w e have that all
residue of theorizing have been removed from such data so that
they have n o w become presupposition-free? Can w e really
claim that description has been rendered totally free from all
implicit theorizing?
In their eagerness to unseat the arrogant claim on the behind-the-surface "real" by scientism, vulgar phenomenology
settled for the "apparent" at the expense of the "real." As in the
case of its purported sworn enemy, behaviorism, vulgar phenomenology replaced theorizing with description, oblivious of
Hegel's previously quoted warning:

The only mere physicists are the animals: they alone do not think:
while man is a thinking being and a born metaphysician. The real
question is not whether we shall apply metaphysics (of the crude
dualistic-scientistic version, or no metaphysics at all, by reverting
to equally crude mere description), but whether our metaphysics
are of the right (dialectical) kind (involving the synthesis of surface
and behind-the-surface).
The effect of its undialectical outlook shows w h e n vulgar
p h e n o m e n o l o g y confronts the scientistic "think" of our times
with the same strategy that scientism, beginning with Galileo,
confronted the pre-scientific world-view of its times: Challenging the "taken for g r a n t e d " w o r l d - v i e w by zeroing-in on its
built-in presuppositions that had been hidden from everyday life,
without the benefit of the intervening mediations between n o w
and then. The difference is, that while Galileo questioned "natural attitude" by w a y of challenging its presuppositions in the
name of theorizing science, vulgar phenomenologists are challenging the presuppositions of scientism in the name of the
worldview of "everyday life" that Galileo had long since demolished. Genuine phenomenology, on the other hand, systematically exposes what common sense has often intuited but could
not always make clear. This is the basic insight behind the concept of "behind-the-surface," the much misunderstood phenomenological exploration of "everydayness," and the equally
misunderstood powerful tool of phenomenological description.
The suspension of theorizing, and of other forms of intellectual
mediation, of which making distinctions is a species, are tools
and not end-products of phenomenology. Its reduction ("bracketing") of the contents of mediation, so that it can be taken as
m e r e data of c o n s c i o u s n e s s , i . e . , as r a w m a t e r i a l easily
amenable to description, may look like banishing of all theorizing and a relapse to sheer immediacy only to vulgar phenomenology. It looks as if the latter (having turned its back on the
fruits that philosophy had diligently gathered regarding the nature of presuppositions in the course of its epistemological quest
between Galileo and Kant) is restoring the hidden presuppositions of "natural attitude" that Galileo had exposed, in the place
of those of science that Kant had found limited.
Implications of
the dialectic of
Appearance for
theory-practice.

In our discussion so far, dualism, especially as manifested in

theory-practice, has served as a foil in anticipation of its formal
encounter in middle Essence. In tracing it first through the selfdifferentiation of Being, and then by w a y of Reflection and the
particularizations of Identity in Essence, w e tried to disclose the
implicitness of theory-practice in Being and Essence, in line
with our announced strategy at the opening of Part m . However, n o w as w e encounter the dissolution of the Thing midway

in Essence with the help of Matter-Form, w e begin to realize

that we are dealing less with things in the accepted (commonsensical or realist) sense as objects of theory and contents of
practice, and more with processes and scientific methodologies
of progressive sophistication. Matter and Form cannot be added
to the descendants of Being in the same w a y as the Existent,
the Thing, the succession of Somewhat (and the Other), the
Being-for-self, and the One and Many before that. Rather, they
are to be taken as initiating a shift which is to dominate the rest
of the dialectic, as it becomes evident that organic, and eventually cultural, life can be properly comprehended only in the
light of categories emphasizing process. In short, the dialectic of
Reflection has opened the way to the convergence of theory
and practice, as both can now be viewed in the light of process.
The dialectic of
Significantly, the category which stands in place of Matter
Content
and Form.
and Form in the arrangement of the Science of Logic (Hegel
placed Form and Matter, and Content and Form under Ground
in this work) is titled Dissolution of the Thing. More important
for our purposes, this shift anticipates the dissolution of the scientistic phase of theory-practice, as the title of the next Section
indicates. The insight for this has, of course, its source in the dialectic of Reflection as expressed in our motto earlier that,
whereas in Essence thought, in line with for-itselfness, operates
on itself rather than on what seems to be external to it, in the
Notion it knows that it does so. Recast in terms of theory-practice the motto will read: While in the light of Thinghood theory
views practice as external to it, with the transition to Matter
and Form it realizes that it is part of itself. For, in the context of
meaning of this category, there is no matter which is not informed, as much as there is no form which is devoid of matter.
What is apparent to scientistic reason (the Understanding) as
external in-formation, is, in fact, the result of a succession of
self-in-formations. Thus, reason's claim that it is observing
things (manifestations of Thinghood), is, in effect, an indication
of reason itself turning into Reason, a process to be completed
only at the end of Actuality.
The same conclusions had been reached earlier via the doImplications for
mesticated dialectic of the political paradigm. The liberal overtheory-practice
looked the nature of institutions as products of mediation and
illustrated through
embodiments of Reason, which caused him to deal with them
the political
through scientistic theory-practice. Conversely, it was his view
paradigm.
of theory as indifferent to the contents of practice that caused
him to deal with institutions in their immediacy as if they were
scientistic objects. Moreover, it was in the process of interaction
between the liberal and the radical that the disclosure of their

respective kinds of self-concealment took shape, thus propelling

the dialectic f r o m individual to group and the m o r e organic
form of unity characteristic of trans-individual reason, or Reason. The case of the amnesic social and humanistic disciplines,
which Hegel uses to illustrate the middle categories of Essence,
closely parallels the above. Akin to the liberal and the Air Force
scientist who, in their self-concealment, view their "loaded" existents or facts as neutral with respect to theorizing, these disciplines have no awareness of what has been "packed" into their
objects which they v i e w as external. They have been conceptually arrested at the "bad metaphysics" of the epistemological realism of Thinghood, with neither the knowledge of what has
b e e n dialectically incorporated in it, nor the opportunity to
learn what lies in store for them in the Notion.
Since our discussion of matter and f o r m in Part II has provided the background for this important juncture in the dialectic, w e m o v e directly to the m o r e advanced version of it: the
category of Content and Form.
The essential point to keep in mind about the opposition of Form
and Content is that the content is not formless, but has the form of
its own self, quite as much as the form is external to it. There is
thus a doubling of form. At one time it is reflected into itself; and
then is identical with the content. At another time it is not reflected into itself, and then is the external existence, which does not at
all affect the content. We are here in presence, implicitly, of the
absolute correlation of Content and Form: viz. their reciprocal revulsion, so that Content is nothing but the revulsion of Form into
Content, and Form nothing but the revulsion of Content into
Form. (Logic, #133)
In the Zusatz of the same paragraph Hegel explains the difference between Matter and Content and h o w lack of development along the dialectical scale accounts for the apparent separation between the t w o moments.
Form and Content are a pair of terms frequently employed by the
reflective Understanding, especially with a habit of looking on the
content as the essential and independent, the form on the contrary
as the unessential and dependent. Against this it is to be noted that
both are in fact equally essential; and that, while a formless content
can be as little found as a formless matter, the two (content and
matter) are distinguished by this circumstance, that matter, though
implicitly not without form, still in its existence manifests a disregard of form, whereas the content, as such, is what it is only because the matured form is included in it.Still the form comes before us sometimes as an existence indifferent and external to content, and does so for the reason that the whole range of Appearance still suffers from externality. (Parentheses in the text)
It follows from this, as well as from the examples that Hegel
o f f e r s in the same Zusatz f r o m science, art, philosophy, and

everyday life, that the degree or completeness of identity of

content and f o r m is an index of the maturity of the discipline
on the dialectical scale, w i t h the "range of (the triad) of A p pearance" being something of a dividing line between those still
suffering from externality and those struggling to overcome it.

Applications of the
dialectic of Content
and Form.

The latter (the sciences) are finite, because their mode of thought,
as a merely formal act, derives its content from without... This partition disappears in philosophy, and thus justifies its title of infinite
knowledge. Yet even philosophic thought is often held to be a
merely formal act; and that logic, which confessedly deals only
with thoughts qua thoughts, is merely formal, is especially a foregone conclusion... Even ordinary forms of thought however, and
the common usage of language, do not in the least restrict the appellation of content to what is perceived by the senses, or what has
a being in place and time. A book without content is, as every one
knows, not a book with empty leaves, but one of which the content is as good as none... But this is to admit that thoughts are not
empty forms without affinity to their content, and that in every
other sphere as well as in art the truth and the sterling value of the
content essentially depend on the content showing itself identical
with the form.
Dualism reaches its full maturity in the categories that fall
under Correlation, which is the synthesis of the W o r l d of Appearance and Content-Form. The f o r m e r contributes to their
synthesis the insight b e q u e a t h e d to it by M a t t e r and Form,
namely that the w o r l d is m o r e of a unity under Appearance
than Essence had led us to b e l i e v e . The latter, o n the other
hand, bestows to their synthesis a w o r l d v i e w w i t h a strong
promise of a lasting unity but still dominated by polarity, n o w
in the form "of the absolute correlation of Content and Form,"
or "their reciprocal r e v u l s i o n . " T h e o u t c o m e is the triad of
Whole-PartsForce and its ExpressionInner-Outer, headed
by Correlation in the Logic and by Essential Relation in the Science of Logic. That these categories comprise a veritable goldmine
of social scientistic self-concealment should come as no surprise
if w e consider that Essential Relation is the apogee of the dialectical counterparts of dualistic scientism. M o r e important for
our concern, the polar terms are rigidly fixed in equipoise with
no clue as to h o w duality will be resolved.

Transition to the
categories of
Essential Relation
(or Correlation).

The truth (i.e., the full realization) of Appearance is the Essential

Relation, the content of which has immediate self-subsistence; simply affirmative (seiende) immediacy, and reflected immediacy or selfidentical reflection. (Science of Logic, p. 512; parentheses in the second instance in the text)
The dual structure becomes more explicit in the members of
the triad under Correlation in the Logic, beginning with W h o l e
and Parts.

Discussion of the
dialectical triad
under Correlation.

The immediate relation is that of the Whole and the Parts. The content is the whole, and consists of the parts (the form), its counterpart. The parts are diverse from one another. It is they that possess
independent being. But they are parts, only when they are identified by being related to one another; or, in so far as they make up
the whole, when taken together. But this 'Together' is the counterpart and negation of the part.
Essential correlation is the specific and completely universal phase
in which things appear. Everything that exists stands in correlation, and this correlation is the veritable nature of every existence.
The existent thing in this way has no being of its own, but only in
something else: in this other however it is self-relation; and correlation is the unity of the self-relation and relation-to-others.
The relation of the whole and the parts is untrue to this extent,
that the Notion and the reality of the relation are not in harmony.
The notion of the whole is to contain parts: but if the whole is taken and made what its notion implies, i.e. if it divided, it at once
ceases to be a whole. Things there are, no doubt, which correspond
to this relation: but for that very reason they are low and untrue
existences. We must remember however what 'untrue' signifies.
When it occurs in a philosophical discussion, the term 'untrue'
does not signify that the thing to which it is applied is non-existent. A bad state or a sickly body may exist all the same; but these
things are untrue because their Notion and their reality are out of
harmony... And if this be so in organic life, it is the case to a much
greater extent when we apply this relation to the mind and the
formations of the spiritual world. (Logic, #135 and Zusatz; parentheses in the text)
Exemplifications
of categories of
Correlation in cases
of disciplinary selfconcealment.

The correlative structure underlying these categories readily

lends itself for the illumination of many seemingly intractable
issues within the social and humanistic disciplines. For example, the relationship between One and Many in Being, n o w elevated though successive steps of concreteness to the category
of W h o l e and Parts, has an obvious bearing on the perennial
p r o b l e m of summation of individual utilities and disutilities
(the Parts) of welfare economics as a means towards a rational
apportionment of social burdens and benefits in economic policy. The summation procedures of welfare economics exemplifies the hopelessness of its effort to reach the more advanced
c o n c e p t i o n of t h e c o m m o n g o o d ( t h e W h o l e ) w i t h i n the
mechanistic parameters of Essence. Such effort is doomed by
the mechanistic procedures inherent in its m e t h o d o l o g y . A
similar problem of integrating individual interests into those of
a group is reflected in the distinction between methodological
individualism and methodological holism in sociology. Sociology of a Durkheimian persuasion has taken a dialectically more
advanced position according to which the organic integration
of i n d i v i d u a l interests, based o n the logical priority of the

group over the individual, is more true to social reality than

one in which the integration of individual interests is based on
their mechanical summation. Yet sociologists, on the whole,
fail to understand that far from being merely two methodologically distinct approaches to the c o m m o n good, these approaches are not only internally connected but they represent
different levels of dialectical comprehensiveness, as the dialectic of Whole and Parts indicates. The categories of Essential Relation also lend themselves to the clarification of an equally
persistent problem in psychology and sociology: the relative
roles of the individual and the environment in shaping human
behavior. Even dialectically concrete disciplines, such as history and philosophy, are not immune to these vexing problems
associated with the principle of correlation. The relative contributions of historical forces and historical individuals also happens to be one of Hegel's favorites. Finally, the last category of
Essential Relation, the Inner-Outer (which leads directly into
Actuality via the category of the Absolute), is the prototype for
the dualism of inner states and outer manifestations and the
multitude of the problems of philosophy of mind associated
with it, not the least of which is the opposition between freedom and determinism.
A correlative differs f r o m a mere polar structure because
each of its terms has advanced in concreteness to use Hegel's
terminology above, "correlation is the unity of the self-relation
and the relation-to-others." Or, to use the method of Identity,
each of the polar terms of the above-listed correlative problems
has a concrete identity, inasmuch as the latter is inclusive of its
negative moment. In other words, it owes its concreteness to
the cooperation of its opposite term, and vice versa. In addition,
these correlative structures have the common characteristic
that in each case their polar terms compete for the essential
role. As a result, throughout Essence w e have been witnessing
an interchange of categories in assuming the essential role, as
the factions on either side of, say, the individual vs. environment controversy challenge each other's positions and adduce
new arguments in support of their respective positions. But,
given the present polar counterpoise described in Hegel's most
recently quoted passages, neither succeeds in holding on, as the
predominance of one tends to reinforce the other by virtue of
their mutual determination. "The existent thing in this way has
no being of its own, but only in something else: in this other
however it is self-relation."
For example, given the conceptual division between the individual and the environment, any assertion in favor of the in-

Domestication of the
category of Whole
and Parts by way of
the paradigms.

dividual as the essential factor determining behavior is defined

by reference to social claims,, and vice versa. The claim that a
child's character is formed by his inner resources has, by the
very nature of the polar structure in which the educational issue is formulated, to be stated through the negation of the
claims put forth on behalf of the social environment. And, conversely, the same is true in the case of the environment, so that
each position (moment) requires for its completion the inclusion of its negative Other. Positive and negative determinations,
as two sides of the same concrete Identity, supply the basis for
their pre-existing unity which remains invisible to the two positions because of their for-itselfness. They instead view each other as unalterably opposed and, while endeavoring to defend
their respective positions they unintentionally, in their self-concealment, reinforce the other side, thus perpetuating the polarity.
The categorial reduplication just encountered is symptomatic
of the stage of "untruth" short of the Notion as described above
by Hegel. This is the phase of for-itselfness in which Spirit views
itself only as it appears to itself (in the reflection of its own mirror* image while on the immanent path), rather than with the
knowledge of what it also potentially is (the privileged knowledge from the vantage point of the circular path). The same foritselfness was responsible for the reduplication of theory-practice
dualism in the case of the patient in the analytical paradigm
who, having been categorially arrested in Thinghood in dealing
with himself, had resorted to self-application of theory-practice
thus succeeding only in the perpetuation of his neurosis. The
process of reduplication was ended by way of informal anticipation of in-and-for-itselfness, which enabled the patient to see
through the self-concealment involved in for-itselfness and
cease to v i e w himself as an object or, pursuing the mirrormetaphor of for-itselfness, to view himself instead as something
more than merely a reflected image. He was, in other words,
able to expand the context of meaning so as to include both moments of himself: his potentiality as human being (in-itselfness)
and his present existence as he views it (for-itselfness).
It is precisely the same correlative structure that accounts for
those recurring and seemingly intractable polarities of amnesic
disciplines. The pre-existing interconnectedness of the polar
terms, which in their self-concealment due to for-itselfness now
appear irreconcilable, holds the key to their resolution. In Part I
w e had access to this key because w e held a privileged position
on the circular path in full view of the coincidence of presupposition and outcome, of in-and-for-itselfness. But now these disciplines follow the same immanent path as self-educating Spirit,

which explains that any attempt on their part to subsume their

polar structures under a unitary explanation proves as elusive
as the attempts of the analysand and the liberal to respond
through the use of theory-practice to the challenges posed to
them. It is, therefore, no accident that theory-practice is useless
in lifting them out of their scientistic-dualistic context of meaning. As in the parallel situation in Part I, any investigation of a
pre-existing link b e t w e e n the polar terms cannot be pursued
through empirical means without prejudging the issue, that is,
without covertly injecting dualism through theory-practice into
the investigation, thus perpetuating the polarity. Yet, there is
nothing else available to a social discipline categorially arrested
at the stage of scientism. The pre-existing link can no more be
disclosed through an empirical procedure such as theory-practice than be imported f r o m outside the context of empirical
meaning without eliciting the charge of inviting metaphysics
into a scientistic discourse. But it is precisely meta-physics, literally a metaphysike a discourse which is categorially prior and,
by the very circular logic of the dialectic of Reflection, also posterior to an empirical discourse that is needed at this point to
get these disciplines out of their impasse.
Force and its Manifestations, the category w h i c h f o l l o w s
Whole and Parts as the second moment of the triad of Correlation, gives us a clue as to where a break in this stalemate may
be found.
The relationship of Whole and Part is the immediate and therefore
unintelligent (mechanical) relation, a revulsion of self-identity
into mere variety. Thus we pass from the whole to the parts, and
from the parts to the whole: in the one we forget its opposition to
the other, while each on its own account, at one time the whole,
at another the parts, is taken to be an independent existence.... But
if this infinity be taken as the negative which it is, it is the negative
self-relating element in the correlation, Force, the self-identical
whole, or immanency; which yet supersedes this immanency and
gives itself expression; and conversely the expression which
vanishes and returns into Force.
Compared with the immediate relation of Whole and Parts, the relation between Force and its putting-forth may be considered infinite. In it that identity of the two sides is realized, which in the former relation existed for the observer. (Logic #136 and Zusatz:
parentheses in the text)
The superiority of this moment lies in its organic quality, as
compared with the "unintelligent (mechanical) relation" between W h o l e and Parts which characterizes the last moment.
Force and its Expression carry the task of integration of the correlative terms, and the ensuing increase in determinacy, one

Transition to the
category of Force
and Manifestation.

Illustration of Force
and its Manifestationsfrom social
psychology.

step further in a way paralleling the transition from Thing and

its Properties to Thing and Matters. However, the intervening
dialectic of Matter and Form, and Content and Form, has now
made a shift possible from objects to processes, so that it is no
longer the integrative superiority of chemical over mechanical
properties which provides the physical analogue for tightening
the unity of the m o m e n t . Instead, it is the superiority of
processes resembling magnetic or electrical fields that supply
the analogue for the category at hand. Hegel's illustrations from
psychology can be extended into more recent times to include
field theories as well as forces of the unconscious in Lewin and
Freud. Yet the unity of the correlative terms, the apparent and
essential moments, still eludes us. In Whole and its Parts it was
the latter that had assumed the essential role while the former
retained the apparent one. N o w in an effort to pull together its
manifestations, Force assumes the essential role and its expression, the apparent one. But in spite of the fact that there is no
such thing as force which remains unmanifested, Force is not
developed enough as an underlying unity to prevent the regeneration of dualism. As long as there is a trace of polarity left behind, the powerful dialectic of Reflection (with its two-pronged
operation into-self for unity and into-another for duality) ensures its regeneration.
Yet the progress made toward the synthetic achievement of
Actuality ought not to be overlooked. By contrast to the previous moment which exemplified False Infinity by "pass(ing)
from the whole to the parts, and from the parts to the whole,"
this one exemplifies the good side of infinity. Though negative,
as in the last moment (in the sense that each position negates
the previous one) its infinity is superimposed on the "self-relating element" of the correlation. In the simplified language of
our earlier illustration of c o r r e l a t i v e structures, if asked
whether it is the inner resources of a child or his environment
that determine his behavior, it is now possible to answer "both"
without contradiction. In fact, this is the answer usually given
by practitioners of disciplines, such as social psychology, which
profess interdisciplinary competence. The adversary now, however, is not False Infinite but weak determination reminiscent
of the flaccid causal explanation under the category of Ground
as misinterpreted in the light of abstract Identity. Similarly, the
superiority of the newly attained concreteness is lost to the undialectical discipline. Without the full force of mediation between the two terms, the standpoint of "both" is reduced to a
mere additive process, a mechanical assemblage of two sides
which, lacking the combined reflection-within-themselves and

reflection-on-each-other which distinguishes true unity, also

lacks genuine explanatory power.
Not surprisingly, such is the nature of many, if not most, socalled interdisciplinary efforts. Simply stated, the lesson f r o m
Force and its Manifestations is that the superiority of thinking
in terms of processes rather than objects and interaction instead
of linear causal determination, especially w h e n it concerns social and human subject matter, is not secure unless the fruits of
the previous m o m e n t have been incorporated. For the practitioner in the social and humanistic disciplines, this means at
least a modest dialectical " m e m o r y , " w h i c h in turn implies a
minimum of awareness of what lies buried in the f o r m of past
m e d i a t i o n s u n d e r the surface of o n e ' s subject m a t t e r and
methodology. In the absence of such awareness one may lack
the capacity to discriminate between the state of sublatedness
and that of being merely superseded or bypassed. The seriousness of this deficiency cannot be overemphasized: it deprives its
victim of his capacity to correctly assess the value of scientific
methodology and make the necessary judgment whether or not
it is time to use the techniques of "hard" disciplines or opt for
those procedures associated with the "soft" ones. The result of
such lack is the all-too-frequent looseness of thinking in this
case manifested as the employment of "process" as a cure-forall the sort of potential defect which seems to have dissuaded Bertrand Russell from becoming a social scientist.

Pitfalls in the application of the dialectic

in the absence of
adequate sublation.

The dialectic of Inner-Outer takes the last step toward the

elimination of dualism at this level, thus laying the ground for
the transition to Actuality.

Transition to the
category of the
Inner and Outer.

The Inner (Interior) is the ground, when it stands as the mere form
of the one side of the Appearance and the Correlation, the empty form of reflection-into-self. As the counterpart to it stands the
Outer (Exterior), Existence, also as the form of the other side of
the correlation, with the empty characteristic of reflection-intosomething-else. But Inner and Outer are identified: and their identity is identity brought to fullness in the content, that unity of reflection-into-self and reflection-into-other which was forced to appear in the movement of Force. Both are the same one totality,
and this unity makes them the content. (Logic, #138) (Parentheses
in the text)
The wealth of Hegel's illustrations all of them f r o m the
social and humanistic disciplines leaves no question as to the
strategic importance of this category as the point of transition to
Actuality. As such it signals the shift from scientism to humanism and f r o m the dominance of theory-practice to action. The
full exploration of Inner-Outer takes us into the heart of the dialectical concept of freedom.

v. Dissolution of Theory-Practice
Actuality introduces
the syntheses of
being and thought,
the actual and the
rational, and theorypractice, by way of
re-immediation.

Actuality is the unity, become immediate, of Essence with Existence, or of the Inner with Outer. The utterance of the actual is the
actual itself: so that in this utterance it remains just as essential,
and only is essential, in so far as it is in immediate external existence.
We have... met Being and Existence as forms of the immediate. Being is, in general, unreflected immediacy and transition into another. Existence is immediate unity of Being and Reflection; hence Appearance: it comes from the Ground, and falls to the Ground. In Actuality this unity is explicitly put, and the two sides of the relation
identified. Hence the actual is exempted from transition, and its externality is its energizing. In that energizing it is reflected into itself:
its existence is only the manifestation of itself, not of an Other.
Actuality and thought (or Idea) are often absurdly opposed. How
commonly we hear people saying that, though no objection can be
urged against the truth and correctness of a certain thought, there
is nothing of the kind to be seen in actuality, or it cannot be actually carried out!... Thought in such a case is, on one hand, the synonym for a subjective conception, plan, intention or the like, just
as actuality, on the other, is made synonymous with external and
sensible existence... Ideas are not confined to our heads merely,
nor is the Idea, upon the whole, so feeble as to leave the question
of its actualization or non-actualization dependent on our will. The
Idea is rather the absolutely active as well as actual. And on the
other hand actuality is not so bad and irrational, as purblind or
wrong-headed and muddle-brained would-be reformers imagine...
The same view may be traced in the usages of educated speech,
which declines to give the name of real poet or real statesman to a
poet or a statesman who can do nothing really meritorious or reasonable. (Logic, #142 and Zusatz; parentheses in the text)

Theory-practice
emerges to explicitness and synthesis.

In the course of Part III theory-practice has, until now, remained implicit and has had to be elicited through surrogates.
At this point, almost as if by surprise, it rises to the surface as a
result of the synthesis of the I n n e r and the Outer, and of
Essence and Existence. A polar category which was appropriate
to the domain of abstractive and predictive rationality of scientism, n o w turns out to be a unitary category applied retrodictively to the highly concrete world inhabited by cultural entities. T h e preceding paragraphs p r o v i d e the categorial background to the celebrated, but often misunderstood, Hegelian
formulation of the coincidence of the rational and the actual.
These terms are not abstractions no mere "subjective conception^), plan(s), intention(s) or the like," nor mere "external
and sensible e x i s t e n c e ( s ) " but are, instead, terms w h i c h
have, through successive mediations, reached such a high degree of concreteness, as to automatically issue in their coinci-

dence, i.e., without "its (the Idea's) actualization or non-actualization (being) dependent on our will." Actuality the objective side of Hegel's aphorism about the identity of the rational
and the actual is no mere Existence (or commonsensical reality), but the end-product of sublation of all preceding grades
of objectivity, or exemplifications of Identity, in types of scientistic objects (or contents of practice) since Being. Nor is rationality mere scientistic rationality, but what w e have identified
as the surrogate for theory in Reflection (the "external reflection
of the subjective thinker"), which has also grown in concreteness through its mediating activity in Essence between now and
then. The forces behind the gradual convergence and eventual
coincidence of the rational and the actual, of theory and practice, are the same forces which were responsible for the building up of concreteness of the polar terms along the categorial
path of Being and Essence with Actuality as the outcome.
Yet, w h i l e concreteness advances and c o n v e r g e n c e approaches the point of coincidence of theory and practice, the
implications of what is taking place remain hidden from common sense and scientistic modes of investigation and explanation. Self-concealment, in regard to the changing role of theory-practice, prevails for the same reasons and has the same effect, as it did earlier under the sequence of the categories of the
dialectic: the inability to discern the pre-existing link between
apparently separate moments, resulting in the perpetuation of
dualism. However, there is an important difference. Theorypractice, in its more advanced version of the Theoretical and
Practical Idea, is categorially prior to these scientistic modes of
disciplinary understanding, inasmuch as they presuppose this
advanced form of theory-practice and the logically and ontologically prior to it subject-object polarity. In other words, when it
comes to self-concealment, the fundamental pre-existing link
between theory and practice lies hidden not one, but two layers
below the middle categories of Essence. It cannot, therefore, be
unveiled in the course of the latter and must wait for the Notion, the toil of Actuality notwithstanding.
Significantly, the first volume of the Science of Logic, which
includes Being and Essence, is titled Objective Logic, while the
second, which is devoted to the Notion, is called Subjective
Logic. Mere subjectivity would be as hopeless as mere objectivity in supplying the ground for the final synthesis without reverting to reduplication this time of the subject-object polarity. It will take the dialectically elevated, or trans-individual
subjectivity, after which the second volume of Hegel's work was
named, to accomplish this task. Ironically, or better still, in the

The element of
surprise in the
synthesis points to
the build-up of
concreteness behind
the surface.

The role of trans-individual subjectivity

in the synthesis of
theory and practice.

Elucidation of the
structure of the synthesis of theory and
practice through a
peek into the future.

true dialectical spirit, the same Reflection which initiated convergence when it first integrated the standpoint of the "subjective thinker" into the immanent process, was responsible not
only for regenerating polarity through its two-pronged reflection, but now also for exposing the deeper layer of duality below the surface of Essence. Reflection regenerated externality
in the very effort to overcome it. But, in the course of the same
process, it was again unveiling the more deeply embedded externality implicit in the the polarities of subject-object and theory-practice in its advanced form. While we, the "external reflection of the subjective thinker" of Being were being incorporated in the objective process, w e were preserved and upgraded
to philosophical observers at the level of the elevated subjectivity of the Notion. From such elevated vantage point w e shall
eventually be able to deal with the results of Essence as if they
were contents of a trans-individual self-consciousness. In other
words, externality persists only in the sense that, instead of taking its object as merely external as would be the case in Being,
theory views it within the intro-reflected space of Essence "as
postulated and hypothesized," w h i l e w e can still behold its
viewing from the outside.
This is p r e c i s e l y h o w d i s c i p l i n a r y k n o w l e d g e , and its
methodological apparatus in particular, was viewed by dialectical philosophy in the last Section. Since such knowledge in the
context of Essence is a species of "reflective Understanding,"
the understanding of its object and modes of explanation are
forms of for-itselfness. Moreover, since unlike the new philosophical observer's standpoint, this disciplinary knowledge is
presuppositionally amnesic backward and forward, it tends to
remain categorially arrested and reduplicates the polarity of the
category to which it corresponds. As long as the polarity of the
essential (Essence) and the apparent (Existence) is still unsublated, or as long as disciplinary knowledge remains at the first
level of self-concealment, theory corresponds to the essential,
and practice to the apparent, moment. The existent fact constitutes the scientistic object and contents of practice, while theory
supplies the thought-determinations with the help of posited
unobservables behind the surface. But as soon as self-concealment on this layer is removed by exposing the pre-existing link
between the two moments, scientistic theory-practice loses its
raison d'etre: t h e o r y has n o t h i n g e x t e r n a l to mediate and
Essence and Existence find themselves synthesized in Actuality.
However, since the disclosure of the pre-existing link between
subject and object in the unitary Idea (or Spirit) has to wait until the Notion in order to be exposed, the ontological and epis-

temological presuppositions of theory-practice remain embedded at the deeper level of self-concealment throughout Essence.
In this respect, it may be useful to recall that the process of progressive concreteness, as approached via Identity, having exemplified itself in the particularized identities of scientistic objects,
does not stop short of the duality of subject-object but continues beyond Essence. Identity as both "the whole and its o w n
moment," will finally be consummated when its terms standing for subject and object respectively it can instantiate itself
in self-consciousness the model for the Idea and for "all activity and self-movement of Spirit." (italics added in this case)
The transition to Actuality is of added significance for our
purposes because, in dissolving scientistic theory-practice and
yet retaining the underlying standpoint of epistemological realism implicit in the subject-object dualism, it points to a cluster
of disciplines straddling the scientistic world of theory-practice
and the humanistic world of action. Their ambiguities illuminate not only the transitional space that they occupy between
these two worlds, but also the dialectic of action which occupies
our attention. This space is inhabited by social disciplines whose
methodological loyalties are divided between the scientistic and
humanistic approach to their subject matter.
To begin with, there are some disciplines, such as social psychology, which believe in a more eclectic approach (inclusive of
various combinations of ingredients from each methodological
bag) in the hope that this will suit things human. Second, there
are those closer to the dialectical v i e w of synthesis of matter
and form, and method and subject matter. As a consequence,
the latter have worked out their own categorial apparatus with
particular reference to action, so as to replace the dissolving
theory-practice in matters human. We refer here to the Weberian concept of action qua meaning-oriented behavior, Alfred
Schiitz's phenomenological approach to action, the related analytical philosophy of action of Wittgenstein and his followers,
the Marxist concept of social praxis, and a psychoanalytical
model of action reminiscent of our paradigm in Part I. The last
cannot be attributed specifically to anyone, though Freud could
be its best claimant. Nor have w e proposed this model as the
most advanced in therapeutic terms. Its chief merit, for our
purposes, has been its paradigmatic value for illuminating a
low-grade (by criteria of dialectical concreteness) synthesis of
theory and practice. We shall not be detained by each case of
action since sociology will be taken up later in connection with
the dialectic of Means-End, and the Marxist version of the dialectic of action will occupy Part IV in its entirety. Social psy-

The transition to
Actuality clarified
by a critique of
methodological confusion regarding
concept of action.

Illustration of conceptual disciplinary

difficulties by way
of interdisciplinary
projects.

chology or, to be fair, our incomplete sampling from it, exemplifies a basic weakness in determinateness, which is characteristic of this zone of ambiguity and is also shared, albeit to varying degrees, by other social disciplines.
W e recall that the rationale behind the structuralization of
disciplinary k n o w l e d g e in Part II was that the dialectically
ranked disciplines shared with the categories (to which they corresponded in the hierarchical scale) certain logical features that
fitted them best in the unitary project of the Encyclopedia. The
same dialectical criteria were used for ranking these disciplines
as were used by Hegel for their categorial counterparts: a mix of
internal cohesion and determinateness which contributed to allinclusiveness in proportion to their proximity to the all-inclusive
Absolute Idea. Moreover, each disciplinary context of meaning,
as did its categorial counterpart, had its own criteria of cohesion
standards of precision, degree of determinateness, rules of
evidence, meaning of truth. These disciplines were not bound
together into an interdisciplinary project by a uniformity of criteria, for such binding would have turned the Encyclopedia into a
lofty abstract universal, just another Comtean project. It was not
their similarities but their differences, not their static quality but
their movement, that kept the Hegelian interdisciplinary project
together. Not unlike other finite things, disciplines "in their indifferent multiplicity are simply this, to be contradictory and disrupted within themselves and to return into (the negative unity of) their
Ground." Taken in their totality, their ground is no less than the
dialectical fold as a whole. But in particular, for those located in
that transitional space between thinghood and humanity, it is
the correspondingly transitional categories between Essence and
the Notion. This means that Actuality cannot be ignored, especially as it applies to the object of inquiry of these disciplines, the
concept of an actualized human being.
The parts cannot be allotted the essential role in the course
of the inquiry about the nature of a human being, without relapsing to sheer empiricism which "labors under a delusion...
that, while analyzing the objects, it leaves them as they are
(when) it really transforms the concrete into an abstract." Nor
should the disciplines aspiring to the knowledge of what a human being is, allow themselves to fall into the trap of Scholasticus by waiting to acquire the proper methodological knowledge, apart from the knowledge of what an actual human being is, before they embark on the task. The best confirmation
of the coincidence of methodology and subject matter came via
the synthesis of Matter-Form, Content-Form and, in cases
dealing particularly w i t h human matters, the Inner-Outer,

which is found at the point of transition f r o m the w o r l d of

things to that of humans.
It is, above all, the familiar vagaries of the linear arrangement of subject matter that prevents the coincidence of method
and subject matter, of presupposition and outcome, and of their
pre-existing link, from becoming fully transparent in the Encyclopedia. Even so, the correspondences which w e have established between the super-moments, and between said moments
and their subsidiaries, may serve as a partial remedy. For example, Soul, the first moment of Subjective Spirit which w e shall
take up after Essence, functions precisely as an anthropological
paradigm to a holistic conception of a human being. Though
the sequential arrangement of the Encyclopedia may obscure it,
such study of humanity through the sensuously concrete route
of anthropology, proceeds pari passu with the corresponding
moments of the Logic. This can minimize, if not totally eliminate, the problems raised by the ecclecticism of social psychology, which represents only a host of similar cases exemplifying
so-called synthetic or interdisciplinary approaches. The case of
Weberian sociology is similar in the sense that it suffers from
lack of ripeness of its synthetic outcome or, in dialectical terms,
from a lack of "a higher sphere for its negative unity, for its
Ground." But its synthetic effort rests on a much more sophisticated Kantian foundation than the hastily thrown together disciplines and sub-disciplines in the name of interdisciplinary interest in social science. However, in this respect our earlier observations regarding the unintended effects of abstract universalization issuing in compartmentalization of theoretical and
practical reason in Kant's case hold pari passu for Weber.
The methodological ambiguities of analytical psychology further illustrate the schizoid tendencies detected in the rest of the
disciplines inhabiting that buffer zone between Essence and the
Notion. But they also confirm the operation of the Invisible
Hand behind the back of its founder in ways similar to Newton
and to Adam Smith before him. In fact, the Invisible Hand does
a better job of putting psychoanalysis over the fence and into
the humanistic camp than the rest of the disciplines of the buffer
zone that were self-conscious about their humanistic allegiances.
Freud never repudiated the empirical methodology of physiological psychology and generally considered himself within the
fold of scientism. Psychoanalysis, qua a systematic study of selfconcealment, methodologically parallels efforts by science to disclose all sorts of concealment erected by mother nature at the
level of the category of Appearance. It is an attempt to reconcile
unverifiable inner states (anxieties, phobias) to verifiable outer

Disciplinary methodological shortcomings exemplified by

particular social
disciplines.

Illustration of
methodological
ambiguities in
regard to action
through analytical
psychology.

ones (modes of behavior) by positing unobservables as theoretical constructs (id, superego). From our dialectical standpoint,
Freud's major contribution his insight about the motivation
for self-concealment being also, by way of neurosis, the impetus
behind the quest for self-understanding is also a key factor
behind the exposing of unwarranted scientistic claims, including
those advanced on behalf of psychoanalysis itself.
The paradox of a body of knowledge adding immensely to insight about human behavior, while at the same time removing
the ground for its scientistic validation, is only apparent. So is the
professed correspondence between field theories in physics and
in psychology, which may have inspired the scientistic claims of
psychoanalytic methodology in the first place. Both can be exposed by casting psychoanalysis in the dialectical role best approximating its self-perception (i.e., its for-itselfness) as scientistic
discipline, the category of Force and its Expression. The parallel
was suggested at the end of the last Section between field theory
in psychology involving synergistic and antagonistic forces (e.g.,
death wish, libido) and correlated topographic concepts (e.g., id,
ego, superego), on the one hand, and the electro-magnetic field
theory involving forces and topographically defined entities in
physics, on the other. The analogy exemplifies a situation (as in
the case of Adam Smith earlier), whereby conceptual misapplication serves to propel the dialectic forward and steer the corresponding discipline to a methodology which is at one with the
subject matter in which form and matter are in coincidence.
The key to the disclosure of misapplication here is the confusion
of the two levels of self-concealment: the first layer, wherein disclosure reveals the pre-existing link between the apparent and
essential moments, and the second, in which it reveals the more
deeply embedded link between subject and object and their
methodological counterparts of theory and practice. The former
is within the operating range of scientism, where Maxwell's differential equations provide an elegant and highly determinate
way for linking underlying processes and apparent entities. Not
so Freud's inferences, linking inner states to outer manifestations
through the use of theoretical constructs, for which he has been
severely criticized in scientistic quarters. To the extent that Freud
and his followers allowed scientistic criteria to guide their work,
this criticism is well deserved. But Freud was, unbeknownst to
himself, also transcending these criteria in his psychoanalytic
practice, which in this sense is dialectically ahead of his theorizing and methodology. The issue, then, is not an improvement of
the theory in a theory-practice setting, as the methodologists of
science were urging, but the applicability of theory-practice in

the first place a "category-mistake" as G. Ryle would put it

in areas overlapping with the humanistic domain of Spirit.
The ways in which Spirit works behind the backs of individuals is not news to us. Like Smith, and Newton before him, Freud
was applying the "wrong" logic (i.e., not the one he thought he
was applying), but the right one by therapeutic practice (when
judged by what should have originally been applied, given the
nature of his subject matter). The scientistic methodological critique of psychoanalysis would be justified if its object were the
state prior to a retrospective account of the analytic process. In
other words, to the extent that predictive rationality is in effect
and theory-practice is the testing means of the client's future behavior and symptoms, the scientistic demand, that psychoanalytic theory should specify the conditions under which its theoretical propositions, are empirically refutable, is totally legitimate.
Under similar conditions a demand for a retrodictive account
would be equally appropriate. But "theory," in its scientistic
sense, is a misnomer when applied to psychoanalysis because it
describes a situation in which these requirements are, in principle, inapplicable. To put it in Ryle's language or Waismann's
similar formulation in terms of "language strata" there is a confusion between the proper application of a given category and its
applicability in the first place. In the more specific language of the
dialectic there is a mistaking of Actuality for Existence.
The process of actualization, whose full import will become
explicit with the discussion of freedom in the last Section of
Essence, is, above all, one of disclosure of self-concealment and
the subsequent attainment of inner integrity (internal coherence) in the context of an ever-widening whole. In the analytical paradigm it took the form of integrating the analysand's
view of himself at a higher level of meaning than that of physicalism, through replacing the abstractive view of himself as an
object g o v e r n e d by physical laws w i t h one in w h i c h he is,
above all, a subject and therefore in command. In his former
state he may report symptoms which do not exist by verificationist criteria and over which he claims no control. A successful psychotherapy lays the ground, through an analysis of
meaning, for the realization that though displaced, the symptoms are also part of the subject and, therefore, under his control. Once this realization takes hold the analysand cannot disown them by claiming that they "happen to him," but begins to
take responsibility for his symptoms and brings them within the
range of his capacity to change them. Action replaces theorypractice as their synthesis when, in the language of the first
paradigm, the analysand is unable apply his newly acquired in-

Methodological difficulties explained by

way of self-concealment regarding
dialectical links
forward to the
Notion.

Tracing human realization to dialectical

actualization and
the forthcoming
concept offreedom.

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the first place a "category-mistake" as G. Ryle would put it

in areas overlapping with the humanistic domain of Spirit.
The ways in which Spirit works behind the backs of individuals is not news to us. Like Smith, and Newton before him, Freud
was applying the "wrong" logic (i.e., not the one he thought he
was applying), but the right one by therapeutic practice (when
judged by what should have originally been applied, given the
nature of his subject matter). The scientistic methodological critique of psychoanalysis would be justified if its object were the
state prior to a retrospective account of the analytic process. In
other words, to the extent that predictive rationality is in effect
and theory-practice is the testing means of the client's future behavior and symptoms, the scientistic demand, that psychoanalytic theory should specify the conditions under which its theoretical propositions, are empirically refutable, is totally legitimate.
Under similar conditions a demand for a retrodictive account
would be equally appropriate. But "theory," in its scientistic
sense, is a misnomer when applied to psychoanalysis because it
describes a situation in which these requirements are, in principle, inapplicable/To put it in Ryle's language or Waismann's
similar formulation in terms of "language strata" there is a confusion between the proper application of a given category and its
applicability in the first place. In the: more specific language of the
dialectic there is a mistaking of Actuality for Existence.
The process of actualization, whose full import will become
explicit with the discussion of freedom in the last Section of
Essence, is, above all, one of disclosure of self-concealment and
the subsequent attainment of inner integrity (internal coherence) in the context of an ever-widening whole. In the analytical paradigm it took the form of integrating the analysand's
view of himself at a higher level of meaning than that of physicalism, through replacing the abstractive view of himself as an
object g o v e r n e d by physical laws w i t h one in w h i c h he is,
above all, a subject and therefore in command. In his former
state he may report symptoms which do not exist by verificationist criteria and over which he claims no control. A successful psychotherapy lays the ground, through an analysis of
meaning, for the realization that though displaced, the symptoms are also part of the subject and, therefore, under his control. Once this realization takes hold the analysand cannot disown them by claiming that they "happen to him," but begins to
take responsibility for his symptoms and brings them within the
range of his capacity to change them. Action replaces theorypractice as their synthesis when, in the language of the first
paradigm, the analysand is unable apply his newly acquired in-

Methodological difficulties explained by

way of self-concealment regarding
dialectical links
forward to the
Notion.

Tracing human realization to dialectical

actualization and
the forthcoming
concept offreedom.

sight about neurosis to himself without acting. In the words of

the transition to Actuality, "the utterance of the actual is the actual itself," since Actuality represents re-immediation ("Actuality
is the unity, become immediate"), in which state "the actual is
exempted from (further) transition."
The scientistic critic of psychoanalysis may insist that his
predictive logic is still applicable in the sense that the free-action-inducing strategy of the therapist should be evaluated
against the successful outcome of the therapy. However, before
pressing his demand, the critic should consider that by the rules
of the analytical process outlined above, the criterion of success
has been shifted f r o m without to within the subject, w h o is
n o w the sole judge of the experience of actualization. Moreover, this experience is n o w open-ended both forward and
backward, by virtue of the fact that its humanistic meaning has
blurred the sharp distinction between a narrowly therapeutic
and an overall concern about human realization. What gives
analytical experience an appearance of self-containment, and
its criteria of success a appearance of fixity, are the familiar abstractive constraints of the psychoanalytic paradigm: methodological individualism, the institutionally imposed initial and
terminal points of therapy, and generally the therapeutic standpoint with relatively fixed societal parameters within which
normalcy and the adaptive capabilities of the analysand vis-a-vis
the prevailing social order are being defined. In other words,
while the critic is focusing on what is limiting and useful only
in its narrowly institutionalized function, psychoanalytic practice points beyond to wider social and humanistic concerns.
That which, in the absence of strict conditions of falsifiability,
appears to the critic as an evasive maneuver, or even an outright intellectual dishonesty of an ex post facto accommodation
posing as a scientific explanation, is more like a retrospective
unveiling of what heretofore lay hidden under layers of past
mediations. What appears as scientistic theorizing is truly more
like classical theoria literally detached viewing which was
aimed at exposing to view first through ritual, later in theatrical
performance and finally by way of philosophical contemplation,
the inner articulations of being.
The unveiling of disciplinary shortcomings leading to the
next dialectical step
of totalization.

As mentioned earlier, the psychoanalysis of meaning is no

different than an analytical philosopher's process of discovering
Ryle's "category-mistakes," or a dialectical philosopher's revealing of the underlying unity between between Existence and
Actuality. The dialectic parts company from both philosophical
analysis and psychoanalysis, through its insistence that the exploitation of their valuable insights cannot, and should not,

stop there, but should be allowed to lead us to totalization. This

important requirement was stressed in the course of the paradigms by highlighting the fact that their apparent determinacy
was secured at the price of artificiality, in much the same sense
that scientistic discourses have assured their own internal coherence through insulation and other abstractive strategies. The
immediacy which characterizes action in the early paradigms is
symptomatic of this built-in contingency due to abstractiveness
through insulation from the broader social context. For example, the coincidence of theory and practice in action in the case
of the analysand, has incorporated such contingency due to abstractiveness. Though more free than before in terms of being
more genuinely "in command" of his own actualization, he is
going to be operating in a society whose potentialities for freedom are stifled. Individuals are acting on the belief that they
are changing their lives, and those of others, according to a plan
for freedom as actualization of their humanity; whereas from
the standpoint of the Cunning of Reason, their plans seem
more like random probes for fittingness into a wider whole, of
whose inner workings they remain ignorant. Not unlike random mutations in Darwin's theory of natural selection, only a
small portion of probes in our case actions claiming the status of synthesis in Actuality are actualized, whereas the
overwhelming majority is reduced to ephemeral Existence. Only with the banishment of indifference through the completion
of the circle of determinacy or what amounts to the same
thing when the contingency-burdened standpoint of the actor has been supplanted by the retrospective account by the
philosophical observer, will the structure, as well as the tragic
dimension of freedom of action, be appreciated.
In the following Sections, this placement of freedom at the
center of the dialectic of action takes the form of generating a
holistic space through the familiar instrumentalities of Reflection and Identity what we shall refer to as process of totalization within which true actualization, or genuine freedom, is
meaningful. In the absence of this, the valuable insights of psychoanalysis and humanistic psychology fall short of their aim of
freedom qua self-realization. In other words, freedom, the central conception of modern philosophy, is being left without adequate determination, thus allowing for caprice and, generally,
subjective interpretation. As w e shall soon see, the value of this
classical insight, as renewed by German idealism, has been only
half-realized, or even lost, not only to humanistic psychology,
but also to some modern followers of dialectical philosophy
who should have known better.

The dialectical task

of banishing externality continues
on the front of
subject-object.

Actuality has been found to be the locus for the convergence

of theory and practice and the gradual dissolution of its polarity.
This came about as a result of the progressive concreteness of
its terms through mediation, as was also true for its surrogates
in this case the concepts of rationality and reality, respectively. The same result was illustrated with examples from disciplinary knowledge and their use of theory-practice in the pursuit
of their objects of inquiry. But so far the task of Actuality in
completing the circle of determinacy, of "banish(ing) indifference and ascertain(ing) the necessity of things," has remained
incomplete inasmuch as the residue of externality that characterizes Essence has persisted in Actuality, though with a different accent, since the dissolution of theory-practice in its familiar scientistic form. This unsublated residue was first identified
at the categorial level as the deeply embedded, or second-layer,
polarity of subject-object. It was reflected in the structure of
disciplinary knowledge qua object-oriented and was the source
of serious m e t h o d o l o g i c a l ambiguities for those social disciplines straddling the scientistic and humanistic worlds. Not until the resurfacing of the psychoanalytic paradigm, with its polarity-free knowledge modelled after self-knowledge, did w e get
a glimpse of the end in the toil of Actuality and the transition to
the Notion.

Self-contradictory
nature of the Exposition of the Absolute
leads to the Absolute
Attribute.

The immediate task of this Section in pursuing this end of

removing the residual vestiges of externality, consists essentially
in casting our newly generated category of action in the category of the Absolute which, by its very definition, precludes externality. In this way the sub-categories of the Absolute will ferret out other possible externalities that have remained concealed w h i l e the dialectic was working out the dissolution of
scientistic theory-practice. For our purposes, the dialectic of the
Absolute will be like a grand rehearsal for the final synthesis of
theory and practice, by discovering other obstacles that might
have been left along our path. Or, to formulate the same objective in a more positive light, w e shall be using any remaining
vestiges of externality as a foil for building up concreteness
through the interplay of reflection-into-self and reflection-intoanother, so that w e can conclude the task of totalization. The
context of meaning in which the dialectic will be operating may
be described as one of totalization whereby, in the absence of
any resurfacing externality, the outline of the structure of the
Notion can at least be forced into the open.
The simple substantial identity of the Absolute is indeterminate, or
rather in it every determinateness of Essence and Existence, or of Be-

ing in general, as well as of Reflection, has resolved itself. Accordingly, the process of determining what the Absolute is has a negative outcome, and the Absolute itself appears only as the negation of all
predicates and as the void. But since equally it must be pronounced to be the position of all predicates, it appears as the most
formal contradiction... But we have to exhibit what the Absolute
is; but this 'exhibiting' can be neither a Determining nor an External Reflection from which determinations of the Absolute would
result; on the contrary, it is the exposition, and in fact the self-exposition, of the Absolute and only a display of what it is. (Science of
Logic, p. 530)
The result of the first act of the rehearsal, the Exposition of
the Absolute as it emerges f r o m the above quotation, is the
Absolute as an undifferentiated whole giving the impression
"as the negation of all predicates and as the void" of an Upanishadic Brahman. "But since (according to the labors of the
dialectic so far) equally it must be pronounced to be the position of all predicates, it appears as the most formal contradiction." The former is an erroneous perception because it overlooks the fact that the Absolute is the most concrete entity as a
result of past mediations "in it every determinateness of
Essence and Existence, or of Being in general, as well as of Reflection, has been r e s o l v e d . " This v i e w is contradicted by our
knowledge of the workings of the dialectic. A mere exposition
of the Absolute "in fact the ^//-exposition, of the Absolute
and only a display of what it is" would have to conform with
this first view, inasmuch as it would ignore the enormity of
hidden mediations behind this meager show of an Absolute.
This cannot be but a short-lived position because even in the
form of a mere "self-ex position... and only a display of what it
is," it cannot proceed with its task without resorting to External Reflection. But this would be self-defeating for a conception of an Absolute within which, by definition, "Reflection has
resolved itself." This contradiction forces the transition to the
next moment, the Absolute Attribute.
But the Exposition of the Absolute is, in fact, its own act, which begins
from itself and arrives at itself. The Absolute, merely as absolute identity, is determinate, namely, as the identical; it is posited as such by reflection as against opposition and manifoldness; or it is only the negative
of reflection and the process of determining as such. Therefore not
only is this expounding of the Absolute something imperfect, but so
also is the Absolute itself which is only arrived at. Or, the Absolute that
is only an absolute identity, is only the Absolute of an External Reflection.
It is therefore not the absolute Absolute but the Absolute in a determinateness, or it is Attribute. (Science of Logic, p. 532-33)
With External Reflection in place the Absolute returns to the
path of concreteness. The familiar dialectic of Reflection is back

Attempt to avert the

resulting erosion of
the Absolute with
the help of the dialectic of Reflection.

in action, except that now it is working from within and is being centered on the most advanced particularization of Identity,
that of the (self-)identity of the Absolute. The same triadic
rhythm of Reflection is operating now: First, the positing of the
Illusory Being corresponding to the Show or the illusion of an
Absolute of the last moment; second, the viewing of the result
qua external in the f o r m of an Other of this moment; and,
third, the "bend(ing) back into itself the relation to Other... the
unity of itself and the Other" of the next moment. However,
there is an important difference because, unlike the earlier situation in which the dialectic advanced by sublating the Other,
n o w there is no genuine Other. By the operating rules of the
context of meaning of the Absolute there is nowhere to go outside of it. Yet, by the rules of External Reflection there is an inside and an outside (last encountered as the Inner and the Outer which synthesized into Actuality) of which the Absolute is
the first moment. External Reflection is responsible for a relapse of the Absolute into a context of meaning which exhibits
further capacity for determination and more advance in concreteness. These are proper features for lesser categories but not
fitting for the Absolute which is, by definition, the consummation of concreteness. "Therefore not only is the expounding of
the Absolute (through External Reflection) something imperfect, but so also is the Absolute itself which is only arrived at
(through external means)... It is therefore not the absolute (or
genuine) Absolute but the Absolute in a determinateness, or it
is (in the form of an) Attribute (like any other category, when it
becomes an attribute of the 'absolute Absolute')."

Inability to restore
The transition from the crude externality of the Exposition
the Absolute due to
of the Absolute to the more subtle one of the Absolute Atpersisting externality. tribute had momentarily raised the hope that once inside the
Absolute w e would be able to eliminate the dualistic trace that
had infected the Absolute by way of its exposition from a standpoint external to it. But our hope was dashed upon the realization that as an attribute the Absolute is a mere thought-determination or form which expresses only part of what it means to
be the Absolute. This reduces the Absolute again to a relative
Absolute and forces the dialectic onward to the Mode of the
Absolute and Formal Possibility. In Actuality earlier, the final
synthesis of theory and practice was not consummated because
the subject of the deeply embedded polarity of subject-object
had remained unsublated. So now the synthesis of Inner-Outer
has not closed the dialectical circle of determination because of
the continuing need of a standpoint from which to give an exposition of the Absolute which is similarly inhabited by the un-

sublated subject. Or, to anticipate the final outcome, the circle is

closed only to the extent that the Absolute is the product of
thought-determinations and not thought self-determinations in
the context of the trans-individual subjectivity of the Notion. In
other words, the Absolute is "not the absolute Absolute but the
Absolute in a determinateness" of the last quoted paragraph.
The "absolute Absolute," like the final synthesis of theory and
practice, has to wait for the eradication of all forms of externality, which means the elimination of the subject as a standpoint
of any sort vis-a-vis an object. But this cannot be effected before
the transition from Objective to Subjective Logic and the synthesis of subject and object in the elevated form of subjectivity,
the trans-individual subject.
Accordingly the true meaning of Mode is that it is the Absolute's
own reflective movement, a determining; but a determining which
would make it not an Other but only that which it already is, the
transparent externality which is the manifestation of itself, a movement out of itself, but such that this being-outwards is equally inwardness itself and therefore equally a positing that is not merely
positedness but absolute Being. (Science of Logic, pp. 535-36)
The synthesis is modelled after the structure of the Inner-Outer, with the Exposition of the Absolute corresponding to the Outer and the Absolute Attribute to the Inner, while Force and its
Expression contributes the dynamic dimension in their relationship, rendered successively as "transparent externality," "manifestation of itself," and "movement out of itself." All of these expressions are indicative of how long the strides of self-manifestation
have been in the quest of securing the self-containment of the
Absolute. Yet, a few pages later in introducing the second triad of
Actuality, Actuality Proper, we get a glimpse of how much more
is to be accomplished before the Absolute can claim the pinnacle
of concreteness that it is supposed to represent.
The Absolute as such manifestation, the Absolute which is nothing
else and has no content save that of being self-manifestation, is absolute form. Actuality is to be taken as this reflected absoluteness. Being is not yet actual: it is the first immediacy; its reflection is therefore a becoming and transition into an Other; or its immediacy is not
Being-in-and-for-self. (Science of Logic, p. 541)
As anticipated, the Absolute at this stage is not yet concrete
enough to accommodate the supreme synthetic task imposed
on it by the dialectic. Spirit can ill afford an "Absolute which is
nothing else and has no content save that of being self-manifestation, (one which) is absolute form." Though formally ahead of
its counterparts in Spinoza and Schelling, which Hegel uses as
foils, his Absolute qua Attribute seems almost as successful in
levelling of attributes as Schelling's, which he had mocked as

Temporary relief of
the instability of the
Absolute through
the Absolute Mode.

"the night in which all cows are black." Yet, the difference between them lies in Hegel's provision for content through the
transition to the Mode of the Absolute and from there to Actuality Proper and its categories covering the w h o l e spectrum
from Formal Possibility to Absolute Necessity. As the dialectic of
Matter and Form, as well as that of Content and Form, and the
interplay between the a priori and the empirical in the economic paradigm have taught us, the way to add flesh-and-blood to
the form is not that of common sense and scientism. The content of Absolute is not going to be poured as if into an empty
container called "absolute form" at some future moment because, consistent with the principle of the identity of Content
and Form, the "absolute form" is not only supplied with content,
but it is identical with "absolute content."
...the content of the Absolute is just this, to manifest itself. The Absolute is the absolute form which, as the diremption of itself is utterly
identical with itself, the negative as negative, or that (which) unites
with itself, and only thus is it the absolute identity-with-self which
equally is indifferent to its differences, or is absolute content. The content,
therefore, is only this exposition itself. (Science of Logic, p. 536).

Methodological tangles in social disciplines in the light

of the dialectic of
the Absolute.

As a consequence, w e shall be witnessing a progressive concreteness of the already existing form-cwm-content until w e realize almost by surprise as in the case of the dissolution of
scientistic theory-practice that while the apparently pure formal side of the Absolute had been building up, the concreteness
associated with its material side had already been added on.
There should be no mystery left if w e bear in mind that logical
and sensuous concreteness are two sides of the same coin, or
that both are products of the same self-activated Spirit. Recalling Hegel's short definition of idealism, the "ideality of the finite
is the chief maxim of philosophy; and for that reason every
genuine philosophy is idealism." Without this in mind it may
seem puzzling to place the triad of the Idea as the apex of concreteness in the end of Logic, to say nothing of the apparently
inexplicable abruptness in the transition from the Absolute Idea
to Nature at the very conclusion of the same work.
In light of this dress rehearsal for the Absolute Idea in the dialectic of the Absolute of Essence, w e may have another look at
the methodologies of the disciplines corresponding to this first
installment of the Absolute. This seems in order as absolute
form is aspiring to be the "absolute Absolute" and yet remains
short of it (while still in Essence) because of persisting externality between content and form. The same fate awaits social disciplines, straddling as they do Essence and the Notion, by virtue
of their humanistic content and yet unable to totally disengage

themselves from scientistic forms, which they should have accomplished by now if they were to have achieved an identity of
content and form. The last victim of presuppositional amnesia
was a specimen of social psychology cast in the categories of Essential Relation in the Science of Logic and Correlation in the Logic. In our search for illustration w e tried to clarify the effort of
this sub-discipline to resolve the perennial question of the relative weight of heredity and environment in the formation of
character. From a dialectical viewpoint, each of the polar terms
claimed the essential role, but in the process of doing so they
were reinforcing the claim of the other side. Social psychology
was locked-in, alternating between two irreconcilably opposed
positions. A more advanced position, that both sides can claim
the essential moment, evolved gradually among these categories, as the opposed moments converged until the synthesis
of Inner and Outer led to Actuality by way of its first triad of
the Absolute. But unless a discipline is dialectically aware of the
underlying unity between seemingly irreconcilable terms, it
cannot hold on to the insight of "both," because this insight is
virtually useless in its lack of determinacy when assessed by scientistic criteria, to which an undialectical discipline is, by its
very nature, harnessed.
Perhaps it should be clarified that "irreconcilable" in this
context means that the two positions are presuppositionally, or
"in principle," opposed so that the causal chain leading from
the environment to character and from heredity to character is
of a different nature. For example, a sociobiologist handling the
latter would consider the rules of social or historical causation
flabby, and the social psychologist attending to the f o r m e r
would consider those of scientistic causation unduly restrictive.
It is the same kind of irreconcilability about fundamental rules
of the g a m e the u l t i m a t e of these b e i n g the " l a w s of
Thought" that the dialectic has been combatting all along in
moving f r o m one context of meaning to the next by w a y of
presuppositional challenge. T h e r e f o r e , w h i l e the claim of
"both" under non-dialectical conditions can be found unacceptable, from a dialectical standpoint it is not only acceptable, but
indeed required. The amnesic about links forward (to humanistic) and backward (to scientistic) interdisciplinary effort is thus deprived of a genuine use of "both" which is neither
flabby nor unfitting to its domain. Needless to add that the
progress of science does not stop short of multiple chains of
causation, as shown in the case of Force and its Expression.
Two or more variables can easily be accommodated in social explanation which would thus exhibit an increase in determinacy.

Use of the dialectic

of the Absolute in
resolving methodological impasses.

But the point remains that this would involve scientistic reductionism where it might be inappropriate dialectically speaking, being hitched to the standpoint of External Reflection as
the comparison of Maxwell and Freud suggested earlier. The dialectical legitimation of the standpoint of "both" can therefore
be viewed as a preliminary step in establishing a connection between methodological holism and the category of the Absolute.
In terms of a disciplinary counterpart, the category of the
Absolute is a generalization of the case of "both" (i.e., of Correlation). For example, an aspiring functionalist sociologist, w h o
has seen the pitfalls of scientism and may have come under the
spell of the Durkheimian holistic v i e w of society as the incarnation of God, may pronounce that it is not merely two, but all,
elements in society in their interconnectedness that account for
any single one in a social whole. Though pointing in the right
direction, this statement is rather bland in its generality unless
it is filled with empirical content. This too seems like the right
step, but on closer inspection it is fraught with a number of difficulties: First, the content is being added-on externally, "raked
together from the outside as something given and contingent,"
in the q u o t a t i o n that f o l l o w s ; second, it invites scientistic
methodology so that one can draw f r o m it operational consequences and not be "submerged in the abyss of the Absolute by
a r e f l e c t i o n alien to that c o n t e n t " ; and third, it retains the
standpoint outside the social w h o l e for its exposition. W h a t
seemed like a promising start turns out, in the absence of dialectical " m e m o r y , " to be a relapse into a positivist enterprise
which has in fact happened to functionalism.
Essence, Existence, the world-in-itself, Whole, Parts, Force these
reflected determinations appear to ordinary thinking as a true being
which is valid in-and-for-itself; but the Absolute as against them is
the Ground in which they have been engulfed... In its true presentation this Exposition (of the Absolute) is the preceding whole of
the logical movement of the sphere of Being and Essence, the content
of which has not been raked together from outside as something
given and contingent, or submerged in the abyss of the Absolute by
a reflection alien to that content; on the contrary, it has determined
itself internally through its inner necessity, and as Being's own Becoming and as the reflection of Essence, has withdrawn into the Absolute as into its Ground. (Science of Logic, pp. 531-32)

Illustration of
the dialectic of
the Absolute via
phenomenological
sociology.

Our dress rehearsal for the forthcoming dialectic of the Absolute Idea in the Notion, by w a y of the present dialectic of the
Absolute of Essence, has served to highlight the lack of universal applicability of scientism to the social world. Scientism's ontological and methodological dualism, variously exemplified as
internality-externality, subject-object, and theory-practice, has

been found incompatible with a social w h o l e as the locus of

truth. So far the shortcomings of its dualistic structures have
been masked, at least in part, by the fact that something was always left outside of the network of its determinacy to stand for
externality. But now, with the Absolute at hand and the end of
externality in sight, these dualistic structures have outlived
their function and scientism's limitations have become explicit.
Dialectically speaking, the replay of the synthesis of reflectioninto-self and reflection-into-another, with every step adding
concreteness to the object of theory (or contents of practice),
seems to have come to rest in the Absolute.
If we were to search for a disciplinary counterpart to this development as it leads to its logical conclusion, w e might encounter phenomenological sociology. This branch of sociology is
committed to a holistic view of a Life-World, or Everyday Life,
and a pure or disinterested understanding of social phenomena.
Having transcended, according to its own self-perception, the
polarities of moral-instrumental and theoretical-practical, as
they are found in scientism, phenomenological sociology confidently proceeds with its task using the method of phenomenological description. We shall reserve the discussion of phenomenological sociology's claim of ethical neutrality for inclusion in
a later discussion dealing with the dialectic of Means-End. In
this Section w e shall limit ourselves to some findings from a
comparison between phenomenological sociology's methodological claims and the dialectic of the Absolute.
Phenomenological sociology's aspiration for an uninfected by
scientism concept of description goes beyond Hegel's first moment of the Absolute the "exhibiting" of the Absolute as "neither a Determining nor an External Reflection from which determinations of the Absolute would result, (but) on the contrary... the exposition, and in fact the self-exposition, of the Absolute and only a display of what it is." At its best, phenomenological sociology's technique is no mere description that takes the
structure of reflection (or procedure of reaching determinateness) for granted. Rather, it insists on a sort of description which
elicits the articulation of the fundamental structure of reality
of "things themselves". In dialectical terms it aspires to a position
beyond concrete Identity and into that of absolute Identity.
But because absolute Identity has only this meaning, not merely
that all determinations are sublated but that it is also the reflection
that has sublated itself, therefore all determinations are posited in
this identity as sublated. {Science of Logic, p. 534)
Once the structure of reflection has been placed by the selfexhibiting Absolute on the same level of "exhibiting" as the phe-

The challenge of empiricist sociology of

knowledge against
premature holistic
philosophy.

nomena exhibited (the structure of appearance), reflection can

no longer hide its polarizing function. We are becoming progressively less susceptible to self-concealment, as the reflective power of for-itselfness has been exposed to the same view as the
phenomena it organizes. For example, when the phenomenologically oriented sociologist of knowledge, in his dispassionately
objective mood, reduces the bracketed "knowledge" of "humanity" of a moral philosopher, a welfare worker, and a United Nations bureaucrat of the Commission on Human Rights to the
same footing through phenomenological description, he performs an important first step toward totalization. By adopting
purely empirical criteria based on description, and thereby relegating to the same privileged status the "knowledge of humanity" of a philosopher, a bureaucrat, and a social worker, the phenomenological sociologist of knowledge has failed according to
premature holistic criteria of philosophy. But this is not the
whole truth. For while our down-to-earth sociology had hurled
such indignity at celestial philosophy, the latter had virtually ascended to the clouds, thus defaulting on its own holistic aspiration with respect to the unity of theory and practice. Perverse as
it may seem, a radically empiricist branch of social science, such
as phenomenological sociology of knowledge, has brought philosophy back to earth, forcing it to reconstitute itself on the
firmer ground of "absolute Identity" of the last quoted passage.
Phenomenological sociology displays the peculiarly holistic temper of philosophy because, unlike scientism which perpetuates
the surfacebehind-the-surface polarity in the process of using
it, phenomenology in the service of social science attends meticulously to the surface. It attends to the "phenomena" themselves (from which it etymologically descends) with an eye for
tearing down the deeply embedded scientistic structure of surfacebehind-the-surface. Ultimately, the phenomenological
preoccupation with description of allegedly raw or unstructured
surface is not as much about objectivity and faithfulness to detail, as it is an interest in toppling structures, particularly those
of science, our cultural sacred cow, and its emulators in philosophy, social studies, and the humanities.
To pursue the parallelism between phenomenological sociology of knowledge and the dialectic of the Absolute, the former
initially "exhibits" the social world along the lines of the first
moment of the latter (the Exposition of the Absolute), whereby
the Absolute "appears only as the negation of all predicates and
as the void." Obviously, not all predicates have been negated by
a radically empirical discipline such as phenomenological sociology. But, more important, the deeply embedded dualistic

structures which have infected philosophy and the methodology of social science have been undermined. Having suspended
doubt, which philosophy would have maintained in order to
investigate the epistemological and ontological status of "human" and "humanitarianism," sociology of knowledge accepts
everyday knowledge about them as given. No epistemological
priority is given to the philosophical "knowledge" of these concepts over those held by the bureaucrat at the United Nations
or the employee at the Department of Welfare. The philosopher's privileged standpoint has been subverted by depriving
him of the conceptual tools of mediation, which gave him access to such position in the first place. By accepting the "knowledge" of the philosopher on the same footing as that of others
in the phenomenological context of Everyday Life, the sociologist of knowledge has denied the philosopher an entry into the
realm of the "essence" of things by way of theorizing. This is
the main tool of the non-phenomenological philosopher, the
scientist, and the aspiring forms of common sense, for getting
behind the surface of things for the purpose of discovering a
higher order of reality.
Allowing phenomenological sociology to play the dialectical
role of the category of the E x p o s i t i o n of the A b s o l u t e in
Hegel's interdisciplinary project confirmed our tentative findings of the philosophical paradigm (to be restated with finality
later in the Notion) that philosophy reasserts its holistic claim
on knowledge by shifting its focus from objectivism to meaning. This was restated in the preceding paragraphs with an
added twist of a dialectical paradox, wherein the confirmation
was carried out by a discipline of a radically empirical temper
such as phenomenology. The philosophical paradigm used the
same language of object-turned-to-meaning in the synthesis of
theory and practice as phenomenological sociology and the
Absolute use now. In the language of the philosophical paradigm, the synthesis of theory and practice into action takes
place at the level of meaning, whereby "all determinations (including reflection itself) are posited in this (absolute) identity as
sublated." Or, in the language of the phenomenological sociologist, having "bracketed" (i.e., suspended) the scientistic and
other built-in "structures of relevance" of the social world, w e
can get on with the proper task of sociology, which is to describe what is left as a texture of meanings.
The theory-practice polarity is among those bracketed as belonging to the practical structure of relevance or the preconceived way of viewing the world in the light of scientism and
common sense. By reducing the various socially generated

Holistic claim of philosophy confirmed

by phenomenological
illustration in anticipation of the Notion.

"structures of relevance" or, Wittgensteinian "forms of life," to a

texture of meanings, sociology competes with the dialectical
philosophy of the last paradigm for a claim to concrete universality. For, as in the case of the latter, and unlike scientistic abstract universality, sociology does not cannibalize those other
"forms of life" but, having renounced theory-practice and other
surgically abstractive instruments, describes them dispassionately in the light of meaning. Good sociology is, therefore, first
and foremost a form of consciousness about the pervasive selfc o n c e a l m e n t in society as such. Society is, in (especially
Durkheimian) sociology's eyes, the whole par excellence which
served as the model for God and the Absolute, in religion and
philosophy, respectively. In this context of meaning it is impossible for (external) exposition not to turn into self-exposition;
and, in the process of shifting f r o m facts to meaning, not to
change the rules of the game about what constitutes understanding. Though the picture is not complete until the bracketed "structures of relevance" corresponding to later forms of
Spirit have been addressed, phenomenological sociology at its
best has a strong claim as a disciplinary counterpart to the
Mode of the Absolute with all its blessings and perils.
The consideration of the logic of wholes and the corresponding shift of disciplinary understanding and its methodologies,
have taken us one step closer to the tightly knit determinateness of the Notion. Indeed, the case of sociology as a form of
consciousness has taken us beyond the Absolute of Essence,
thus pointing the way toward completing the process of totalization. The Absolute needs concreteness which, as the previous quote indicated, cannot be "raked together from the outside as something given and contingent," or deduced "by a reflection alien to that content," i.e., by a methodology inappropriate to the nature of the subject matter. The abstractive features lingering in the Absolute (as suggested by the title of the
last moment of the Absolute as Mode, insinuating a modality of
subjective thought in apprehending the Absolute) do not, in
principle, preclude such an eventuality. The dialectic forecloses
on that eventuality by turning into the Absolute itself as the
source of more concreteness.
Rounding off
the conception of
the Absolute by
the dialectic of
Possibility.

Actuality as itself the immediate form-unity of Inner and Outer is

thus in the determination of immediacy over against the determination of reflection-into-self; or it is an actuality as against a possibility.
Actuality is formal in so far as, being primary actuality, it is only immediate, unreflected actuality, and hence is only in this form-determination but not as the totality of form. As such it is nothing more
than a being or Existence in general. But because it is essentially not a

mere immediate Existence but exists as form-unity of being-withinself or inwardness and outwardness, it immediately contains the initself or possibility. What is actual is possible. (Science of Logic, p. 542)
It may sound paradoxical to say that the needed content, the
flesh-and-blood of the "absolute form" which w e have developed
so far, can be added onto with the help of categories of possibility. But if w e recall h o w the visions of the radical shaped the
actualities of the present some of the paradox may begin to dissolve. In fact, Hegel's purpose is to elicit such content from the
"absolute form" itself by bringing the categories encompassing
the w h o l e spectrum f r o m the possible to the necessary, and
from the potential to the actualized, within the fold of Actuality. As it will soon become apparent, the consequences of such a
move are far-reaching for disciplinary methodology, as well as
for the world of political and historical action.
Beginning w i t h the first m o m e n t of the triad of Actuality
Proper, the pair of Formal Possibility and Contingency, Hegel
distinguishes two sides in Formal Possibility. As with Identity, of
which it is a particular instance, it has a positive side corresponding to abstract (self-)Identity and a negative side which
corresponds to its complement, (self-)Difference. This will help
establish his aim: the inclusion of Possibility into Actuality
through the familiar two-pronged device of Reflection. The following is the first step in this strategy.

Transition to the categories of Possibility

and Contingency.

Possibility therefore contains two moments: first, the positive moment that it is a reflectedness-into-self; but since it is reduced in
the absolute form to a moment, the reflectedness-into-self no
longer counts as Essence, but has, secondly, the negative meaning that
Possibility lacks something, that it points to an Other, to Actuality
in which it completes itself. (Science of Logic, p. 543)
The definition of Formal Possibility a f e w lines later, according to which "everything is possible that is not self-contradictory," is a
corollary of the "positive moment," in the sense that Formal Possibility in the context of this m o m e n t is a bare Essentiality, a
mere "identity-with-self (i.e., abstract self-identity) and "as such
it is the relationless, indeterminate receptacle for everything
whatever...This merely formal predication of something it is
possible is therefore equally as superficially empty as the law
of contradiction and any content that is admitted into it." As in
the case of the triad under Essentialities earlier in Essence, w e
can be thankful to "the negative meaning (above) that (Formal)
Possibility lacks something, that it points to an Other, to Actuality in which it completes itself."
The possible, however, contains more than the bare law of identity. The possible is the reflected reflectedness-into-self, or the identical
simply as moment of the totality, and hence it is also determined as

being not in itself; it has therefore the second determination of being only a possible and the ought-to-be of the totality of form. Possibility without this ought-to-be is Essentiality as such; but the absolute form contains this, that Essence itself is only a moment, and
without Being lacks its truth.
But this relation (i.e., the pre-existing unity or Ground which determines both moments of Formal Possibility as possible), in which
the one possible also contains its Other, is the contradiction that
sublates itself. Now, according to its determination it is the reflected, and as we have seen, the self-sublating reflected; it is therefore
also the immediate and thus becomes Actuality.
Everything possible has therefore in general a being or an Existence.
This unity of (Formal) Possibility and Actuality is Contingency. (Science of Logic, pp. 543-45)
Actuality Proper
as an upgrading of
reality by virtue
of Possibility.

Content, beginning with the contingent, is getting into the

"absolute form," or w h a t H e g e l calls " t h e totality of f o r m , "
through the operation of the familiar Identity (inclusive of Difference) or the unity of opposites established in the beginning
of Essence. As "Difference is the whole and its o w n moment, just
as Identity equally is its w h o l e and its m o m e n t , " so n o w "the
possible is the reflected reflectedness-into-self or the identical simply as the moment of the totality." What is ahead or outside Formal Possibility (as the "totality" corresponding to "reflected" in
the last double reflection) becomes, through the process of reflection, part of its determination. Or, as the moral terminology
of the last quote put it, the possible being determined as "the
ought-to-be of the totality of form." The same technique that was
used in breaking d o w n m a n y dualisms, beginning w i t h the
compartmentalization of thought and being in the dialectic of
Identity and Reflection, is n o w being used to the same end, as
well as for the equally fundamental polarity of (logical) possibility and (empirical) reality. The immediate result is the upgrading of Formal Possibility through Contingency to an elementary form of reality in the context of the category of Actuality. A similarly rudimentary form of necessity, Relative Necessity, eifierges because of the instability characteristic of Contingency, which, as of this moment, provides the content of the
Absolute. The instability "this absolute unrest" of the following
quotation is the result of the fact that the Contingent as the
realization of Formal Possibility, both has and has not ground
depending on whether one places the accent on "realization" or
"Formal Possibility." But, as w e have learned from the last moment, even unrealized possibilities help fix "in general a being
or Existence" through the mediation of an Other. A ground has

has thus been provided for both realized and unrealized possibilities in the unity of the "totality of form" of the Absolute.
This absolute unrest of the becoming of these two determinations (i.e.,Transition to NecesAbstract Possibility and Actuality) is Contingency. But just because
sity provides further
each immediately turns into its opposite, equally in this Other it simconcreteness to the
ply unites with itself, and this identity of both, of the one in the other,
Absolute.
is (Formal or Relative) Necessity.
The necessary is an actual; as such it is something immediate,
groundless-, but equally it has its actuality through an Other or in its
ground, but at the same time is the positedness of this ground and
the reflection of it into itself; the possibility of the necessary is a
sublated possibility. The contingent, therefore is necessary because
the actual is determined as a possible, hence its immediacy is sublated and repelled into the ground or the in-itself, and the grounded,
and also because this its possibility, the ground-relation, is simply
sublated and posited as being. The necessary is, and this that simply
is, is itself the necessary. (Science of Logic, pp. 545-46)
If the previously stated objective of the triad of Actuality
Proper is the enhancement of the concreteness of the "absolute
form," then the content has to be closely knit to the form, or the
process of determination has to move in step with the nature of
the content. This is epigrammatically stated in the last sentence
paralleling the o f t e n quoted aphorism f r o m the Preface of
Hegel's Philosophy of Right which equates the rational and the actual. The sentence preceding that famous (or infamous) aphorism provides the logical background to this statement and
would have saved many misunderstandings and disparaging remarks against its author had it been more widely known and
understood. Formal Possibility, the green light par excellence for
radicals, visionaries, and generally for those w h o want to meddle with bare Existence, has found a way into Actuality via Contingency right next to the merely existent: "the contingent,
therefore, is necessary because the actual is determined as a possible." Hence, the radical vision's seeming disconnectedness (i.e.,
the contingent's "immediacy") to, and irrelevance for, reality
(i.e., Actuality) has been unmasked as a self-concealment of the
logic of the establishment (i.e., the logic of the Understanding).
Instead, the connection with, and relevance of the radical vision
to, reality stand firm by virtue of the c o m m o n ground they
share, that which both visions and reality are made of. Reverting
to the same explanation of the text, not only is this so because
the contingent's "immediacy is sublated and repelled into the
ground...and the grounded," but "also because this its possibility
(i.e., the Formal Possibility which issued in Contingency), the
ground-relation (since by the same token it too n o w shares the

Implications of the
dialectic of Possibility for radical politics.

Misunderstanding
regarding Hegel's
criticism of idealism.

Hegel's critique of
the use of Possibility.

common ground), is simply sublated and posited as being (now

on a par with the rest of the contents of Actuality)."
Perhaps some of the misunderstandings regarding the import of Science of Logic for action, and political action in particular (apart from Hegel's personal life), can be attributed to the
spirited and often sarcastic remarks about visionaries and political idealists in the Zusatze of the Logic appended to the sections
dealing with Actuality. But again it should be emphasized that,
as in the parallel remarks in the dialectic of the Ground and in
others to follow, his target is not visionaries per se but the way
they sever their ideals from their underlying ground within Actuality. His criticism applies not only to visionaries but to their
critics, and indeed to anyone who, laboring in ignorance about
the pre-existing links of something to the whole, and of the actual to the possible, takes the part as if it could stand the
ground by itself. Scientism has been subjected to the same line
of criticism throughout this work with no intent to deprecate in
the least the work of the scientists, and especially not to imply
that their undertakings might have had better results had they
been versed in the dialectic.
A n important corollary of the dialectic of Actuality Proper
which deals with the whole spectrum of the categories of possibility in conjunction with those of actuality is Hegel's critique of
the use of counter-to-fact conditionals. This is particularly applicable to their methodological abuse by such dialectically advanced disciplines as history and philosophy.
In philosophy, in particular, there should never be a word said of
showing that 'It is possible,' or 'There is still another possibility,' or, to
adopt another phraseology, 'It is conceivable.' The same consideration should warn the writer of history against employing a category
which has now been explained to be on its own merits untrue: but
the subdety of the empty Understanding finds its chief pleasure in the
fantastic ingenuity of suggesting possibilities and lots of possibilities...
Possibility is often said to consist in a thing's being thinkable.
'Think,' however, in this use of the word, only means to conceive
any content under the form of an abstract Identity. Now every content can be brought under this form, since nothing is required except to separate it from the relations in which it stands... It is possible
that the Sultan may become a Pope; for, being a man, he may be
converted to the Christian faith, may become a Catholic priest, and
so on. In language like this about possibilities, it is chiefly the law of
the sufficient ground or reason which is manipulated in the style already explained. Everything, it is said is possible, for which you can
state some ground. The less education a man has, or, in other
words, the less he knows of the specific connections of the objects to which
he directs his observations, the greater is his tendency to launch out into all sorts of empty possibilities. An instance of this habit in the political sphere is seen in the pot-house politician. In practical life too

it is no uncommon thing to see ill-will and indolence slink behind

the category of Possibility, in order to escape definite obligations...
After all there is as good reason for taking everything to be impossible, as to be possible: for every content (a content is always concrete) includes not only diverse but even opposite characteristics.
Nothing is so impossible, for instance, as this, that I am: for T is at
the same time simple self-relation and, as undoubtedly,relation to something
else. The same may be seen in every other fact in the natural or spiritual world... Generally speaking, it is the empty Understanding
which haunts these empty forms: and the business of philosophy in
the matter is to show how null and meaningless they are. (Logic,
#143 and Zusatz; parentheses in the text; emphases added)
Counter-to-fact conditionals are the products of "empty Understanding" as they are offered "on (their) o w n merits" as
true, rather than being viewed as only part of the larger picture
which, since the last triad, has been expanded to mean the Absolute. As with negative determinations in general, what could
be otherwise and what ought-to-be, are in that larger picture
part of the determination of what actually is. The unrealized
logical possibility, the counter-to-fact conditional, and later on
the normative statement, find their truth in the totalization of
the Absolute and its method of self-exposition. Important steps
have been made toward bridging the familiar rigid dualisms of
scientism by casting them in the context of meaning of the Absolute: the actual-possible, the "is"-"ought," the present-future
and last, but not least, theory-practice. With regard to the latter,
its dissolution and synthesis into action has already been anticipated in the last Section. This can now be confirmed by having
another look at it after the advent of the Absolute and the dialectic of Actuality.
The key conclusion of the Section on the dissolution of theory-practice was that the progressive concreteness of the polar
terms had removed the rationale behind the polarity, thus rendering their synthesis in action inevitable. This is consistent
with the way the polarity (as viewed by the Understanding) of
the actual-possible was resolved by reference to the underlying
common ground within which they synthesized. More specifically, the fate of theory-practice can be traced by casting it in
the roles of the Inner-Outer to which Possibility-Actuality now
also corresponds. What then emerges is no mere external application of the one term on the other, the likes of which w e have
grown accustomed to in the case of theory-practice. Instead w e
are faced with a continuous process of externalization, or manifestation, between two terms whereby the one issues into the
other. This process has been worked out in the categories of Essential Relation, as polarity is gradually faded out. Force and its

Corollaries of the dialectic of the Absolute

and Actuality Proper
for theory-practice.

Expression exemplifies this process, but even more does InnerOuter, which is the most closely-knit polarity short of the formal unity of the Absolute.
The same process of implicit issuing into explicit, and of Inner manifesting itself in the Outer, which characterizes these
categories, is also the main feature of the synthesis of theorypractice into action. The gradual convergence of the polar
terms, which eventually becomes unity in Actuality, describes
accurately the transformation of theory-practice from external
application between terms of a polarity to action qua actualization proceeding from within the same term which is the product of their synthesis. If this single term can be viewed as a subject, as will become increasingly obvious when w e approach
the Notion, then what w e have at hand is the idealist doctrine
of freedom dressed in dialectical garb: action as rendering explicit what is implicit in the agent, or freedom as self-realization
and action qua essentially free. The next Section, dealing with
the implications of the dialectic of Actuality for the concept of
freedom, is an elaboration about this vital point of action as essentially free action. W e had our first inkling of this action in
our paradigmatically self-generated action of the analysand, by
contrast to his self-application of theory-practice, at the terminal phase of his successful therapy.
This development in the relationship between the terms of
the polarity is in accord with our casting of it in triadic form
earlier. In that case, the shift from the second to the third moment was equivalent to one from externality to internality. It is
also consistent with the changes that have been taking place in
the Absolute. For if w e are again allowed to borrow momentarily from the future, the Absolute, especially after the crucial
step from external to self-exposition and the establishment of
its nature as self-manifestation, is the model for the self-completeness of elevated subjectivity within which the synthesis of
theory-practice in its most advanced form will take place. In
this sense the important move from external to self-exposition
in the Absolute and the establishment (in the quotation that
follows) that the externality of Real Actuality "is an inner relationship to itself alone (and that) what is actual can act," is another confirmation that under the rules of the game of totalization theory-practice has been superseded.
Real Actuality (which along with its necessary complement, Real
Possibility, constitute the second moment of Actuality Proper) as
such is in the first instance the thing of many properties, the existent
world; but is not the Existence that resolves itself into Appearance,
but, as Actuality, it is at the same time the in-itself (i.e., potentiality) and the reflection-into-self (i.e., self-containment); it preserves

itself in the manifoldness of mere Existence; its externality is an inner relationship to itself alone. What is actual can act; something
manifests its actuality through that which it produces. Its relationship to another something is the manifestation of itself: neither a
transition the relation between Somewhat and an Other in the
sphere of Being nor an appearing where the Thing is only in
relation to others and, though a self-subsistent, has its reflection-into-self, its determinate essentiality, in another self-subsistent.
This possibility (i.e., the other side of Real Actuality) as the in-itself
of Real Actuality is itself Real Possibility, and first of all, the in-itself as
pregnant with content. Formal Possibility is reflection-into-self only as
abstract Identity, which merely means that something is not internally self-contradictory. But if one brings into account the determinations, circumstances and conditions of something in order to ascertain its possibility, one is no longer at the stage of Formal Possibility, but is considering its Real Possibility. (Science of Logic, pp. 546-47)
From all appearances Real Actuality and Real Possibility
have together defined a whole which is both structurally and
dynamically self-complete insofar as it also "can act" and
"manifest its actuality through that which it produces." Furthermore, they have overcome externality inasmuch as "its
(i.e., Real Actuality's) externality is an inner relationship to itself
alone" and they can account between themselves for both actuality "the thing of many properties, the existent world"
and its potentiality or what can issue from it "the in-itself as
pregnant with content." However, upon closer scrutiny it is found
that necessity has not kept up with this progress. The Formal
Necessity which matched the Formal Possibility and Contingency of the last moment has to be upgraded to fit the new relationship of form and content engendered by Real Actuality
and its activistic features. Hence the rationale behind taking up
Necessity again, which, as it turns out, still cannot close the circle of determination so that w e can pass to Absolute Relation,
the last triad of Essence.

The dynamic feature

of Real Possibility/
Real Actuality
leads to Absolute
Actuality/Absolute
Necessity.

But this Necessity is at the same time relative. For it has a presupposition from which it begins, it has its starting point in the contingent.
For the real actual as such is the determinate actual, and has first of
all its determinateness as immediate being in the fact that it is a multiplicity of existing circumstances; but this immediate being as determinateness is also the negative of itself, is an in-itself or possibility,
and thus it is Real Possibility. As this unity of the two moments it is
the totality of the form, but the totality which is still external to itself... Real Possibility does, it is true, become Necessity; but the latter thus begins from that unity of the possible and the actual which
is not yet reflected into itself this presupposing and the self-returning movement are still separate or Necessity has not yet spontaneously determined itself into Contingency.

Thus in point of fact Real Necessity is in itself also Contingency.

This is manifest at first in this manner: though the really necessary
is a necessary as regards form, as regards content it is limited, and
through this has its contingency. But contingency is also contained
in the form of Real Necessity; for, as we have seen, Real Possibility
is only in itself or in principle the necessary, but it is posited as the
otherness of Actuality and Possibility towards each other. Real Necessity therefore contains Contingency; it is the return-into-self
from that restless otherness of Actuality and Possibility towards each
other, but not from itself to itself.
Here, therefore, the unity of Necessity and Contingency is present
in itself or in principle; this unity is to be called Absolute Actuality
(which is the other side of Absolute Necessity and the last moment
of Actuality Proper) (Science of Logic, pp. 549-50)
Real Necessity has been unable to tie the remaining loose
ends symptomatic of "that unity of the possible and the actual
which is not yet reflected into itself," or of "that restless otherness of (Real) Actuality and (Real) Possibility towards each other, but not from itself to itself." The result is a "unity of (Real)
Necessity and Contingency (which) is present in itself or in principle," that is a unity in potentia in which, when realized, "(Real)
Necessity (will indeed) spontaneously determine itself into Contingency." Absolute Actuality (or Absolute Necessity) is thus a synthesis because it literally includes Contingency "in itself in the
sense that it does not allow the latter to remain external so that
it can regenerate external necessitation i.e., to have "a presupposition from which it begins... (and a) starting point in the
contingent." But the "in itself conveys also the more technical
meaning of in-itselfness, or potentiality, in the sense that the
accomplished unity is still in its immediacy, or "in principle," i.e.,
it waits for the unfolding of the articulations of its unity to be
rendered explicit in the moments that follow. The awkward expression about Real Necessity "spontaneously determin(ing) itself
into Contingency" captures the important moment of re-immediation wherein, beginning with the categories of Absolute Relation and beyond, external determination turns into self-determination and the logical ground is set for the retrospective rationality of the Notion.
Recapitulation of the
dialectic of Actuality
Proper as regards
the elusive goal of
closing the circle of
determinacy.

Before trying to add some flesh-and-blood to this important

but difficult segment of the dialectic by reference to its amnesic
disciplinary counterparts, it is good to pause and take our bearings by borrowing a page from the future and reviewing briefly
some salient points of the recent past. What has been the distant goal at the beginning of Essence (namely the overcoming
of those deeply embedded polarities of subject-object and theory-practice in its advanced forms) is still the case, but now it has

become proximate since it is only the triad of Absolute Relation

that is separating us from the Notion. But before such synthesis
could take place, all remaining residue of externality had to be
removed from the content what takes the role of the object
in the subject-object relationship and contents of practice in
theory-practice. Otherwise, externality is bound to resurface as
a polarity in the way w e have repeatedly encountered it in the
middle categories of Essence. The triad of the Absolute has been
the locus for the integrating task involved. Though successful,
the results were limited to the extent that they applied only to
the "absolute form." Yet, the dialectic of the Absolute has made it
impossible to ignore the interconnectedness of the parts within
a whole w h e n offering an explanation of any of them, thus
rendering the use of an abstractive scientistic instrument like
theory-practice inapplicable. In casting its last moment, the Absolute Mode, in the form of Determining Reflection, this dialectic confirmed at the level of the Absolute the crux of any such
integrating effort: the circularity of the dialectic as expressed in
the coincidence of positing and presupposing, of presupposition
and outcome. But it left pending the issue of the incoming content which, though necessary for concreteness that is indispensable for the conception of dialectical advance, has so far proved
intractable to the labor of establishing necessity and internal coherence at progressively concrete levels.
As late as the second moment of Actuality Proper above, its
"totality of form" was found reinfected with contingency in the
process of being supplied with a content: "As the unity of the
two moments (of Real Actuality and Real Possibility) it (relativized Real Necessity) is the totality of form, but the totality
which is still external to itself." Content and form are still not at
one with each other in the sense that, w i t h the content in
place, the specifications of the "absolute form" about the coincidence of presupposition and outcome remain unsatisfied
"this presupposing and the self-returning movement are still separate." Therefore, Real necessity "has a presupposition from which
it begins, it has its starting point in the contingent." In other
words, the indifference between content and form, expressed
earlier as "hav(ing) a content' or being "pregnant with content (instead of being at one with content)," has infected the form of
Real Necessity which, contrary to the specifications of "absolute
form," now contains a beginning: "But contingency is also contained in the form of Real Necessity; for, as w e have seen, Real
Possibility is only in itself or in principle the necessary, but it is
posited as the otherness of ( R e a l ) A c t u a l i t y and ( R e a l )
Possibility, towards each other." Externality b e t w e e n them

takes the form of "that restless otherness...towards each other,

but not from itself to itself," which is reminiscent of the "absolute unrest" characterizing the externality between Formal Possibility and Formal Actuality before they are synthesized into
the present moment.
Establishing bearings by allowing a
glimpse into the
dialectical future.

Methodological selfconcealment of social

disciplines linked to
Actuality Proper.

It should not go unnoticed that this is all happening in spite

of the painfully instructive experience of the Absolute, wherein
the structure of externality was reinjected via External Reflection into the Absolute Attribute, resulting in a synthesis limited
to "absolute form alone"; notwithstanding the fact that Actuality
Proper, being essentially a dialectic of actualization, ensured
that the content was being elicited immanently and not "raked
together from the outside as something given and contingent."
It is not enough that the content be generated within the form
in the immanent way peculiar to the dialectic of actualization
in order to overcome the remaining traces of externality. What
is also needed, for necessity to be upgraded and for the circle of
determinacy to be closed, is that the process of actualization
cease, as all implicitness is exhausted by being rendered explicit. In other words, complete determinateness requires no less
than a static Absolute where all potentialities have been realized. The detail of this bizarre-sounding (for a dialectic which
w e have come to associate with self-moving Spirit) conclusion
belongs to what is forthcoming. Here it is anticipated in order to
give a sense of direction and the scope of dialectical preparation
needed to capture the conception of internal coherence in the
face of so many apparently unrelated factors.
Let it suffice for n o w that such conclusion may sound less
bizarre if w e can accept it in line with the principle of negative
determination, i.e., as a way of fixing the more usual depiction
of the dialectic as activity or process. In the philosophical paradigm, through which w e informally introduced this dual aspect
of the Absolute, w e shifted from a predictive to a retrospective
point of view, which is the best approximation of such demand
for all-inclusiveness. This naturally brings history to mind as
the most appropriate discipline for illustrating this segment of
the dialectic. W e must also include historical knowledge's
methodological pitfalls f r o m ignoring underlying categorial
links backward and forward, not the least of which is this dual,
and prima faciae self-contradictory, personality of Spirit being at
once a static and a dynamic entity.
Historical knowledge enters the picture at this juncture as a
retrospective account of experience, staking out a claim for exemplifying the logic of the whole with an assertion that a complete explanation can only be given in terms of what actually

has been. As has previously been the case with other kinds of
disciplinary knowledge, self-concealment in historical knowledge hinges on the categorial level at which the discipline has
been arrested pursuing its subject matter. Invariably this difficulty can be traced to the overlooking of the positive function
of negation or its determining capacity (determinate negation),
most recently encountered in the determining role of Possibility
in the dialectic of Actuality Proper. This is not difficult to explain since it is this taking of negation in its merely negative
side which isolates the discipline from what is before and after
it, thus fostering amnesia and precluding anything like a genuine interdisciplinary project. But self-concealment is also compounded by the fact that as the discipline finds itself more advanced on the dialectical scale it tends, in its self-concealment,
to drag along fragments from the scientistic logic of past moments. For example, the Understanding operating within historical knowledge may try to give scientistic legitimacy to its
counter-to-fact conditionals by dressing them up in probabilistic
language. It may try to reproduce a scientistic statement by filling in the outlying conditions, by assigning to them probable
values according to past experience, and even venture into predictive "if..., then" statements about similar possible future occurrences on the basis of it. Such procedure may even appear
to have Hegel's blessing from the previously quoted passage introducing Real Possibility:
But if one brings into account the determinations, circumstances
and conditions of something in order to ascertain its possibility,
one is no longer at the stage of Formal Possibility, but is considering its Real Possibility.
But the similarity of such reasoning as a basis for a probabilistic-cwm-predictive treatment is doubly misleading: First, because the "if..., then" structure is part of the abstractive-predictive equipment of scientism which has been superseded since
the holistic approach of the Absolute. Second, even if the barrier of abstractiveness is bypassed by allowing an ever-expanding
set of conditions, thus taking the whole range of Real Possibility
as the universe of discourse for such a probabilistic statement,
that universe has not ceased to be suffering from contingency.
"The latter (Real Necessity, which because of this contingency
'is at the same time relative') thus begins from that unity of the
possible and the actual which is not yet reflected into itself (i.e.,
still suffering from lack of unity) this presupposing and the
self-returning movement (the outcome) are still separate or necessity has not yet spontaneously determined itself into contingency

Application of selfconcealment to historical knowledge.

(i.e., external necessitation has not given way to self-necessitation as befits a truly coherent whole)."
This cumulative self-concealment in the methodology of historical knowledge can be illustrated by pursuing a little further
Hegel's scornful remarks in the Logic. They were directed at the
use of logical possibility by the Understanding in the example
involving the possibility of Sultan becoming a Pope. A historian
operating by the rules of the Understanding may retort that
Hegel's scorn is a bit overstated since, while it might be logically
possible for the Sultan to become a Pope, it is highly improbable. It may be promising to resort to probability in order to
avert "the empty Understanding (from) find(ing) its chief pleasure in the fantastic ingenuity of suggesting possibilities and lots
of possibilities." He may further insist that rather than follow
the tortuous dialectical path in order "to show h o w null and
meaningless they are," w e should employ one of these "empty
forms" of Understanding in this case probabilistic thinking
to rid ourselves of contingency. But closer reflection on the
most recent dialectical developments in Actuality Proper shows
such expectation to be misplaced. Probability presupposes a
highly grounded universe of discourse, and its predictive power
about an event depends upon the determination and assignment of values and surrounding conditions. Unless contained
by abstractive procedures which limit the universe of discourse
within which probabilistic thinking operates, the ever-expanding chain of conditions inexorably points to the whole of the
Absolute. But this is precisely what the Understanding in its abstractive preoccupation and predictive outlook is prevented
f r o m doing w h e t h e r it be the e n f o r c e m e n t of the ceteris
paribus clause, or the pursuit of its familiar compartmentalization through abstract universalization.
Even assuming that the Understanding pursued the Absolute
by, for example, the need of philosophically secure foundations
of probability, or the hope that this will insure better predictive
success, w e n o w know that self-concealment will persist at a
deeper level. It is the externality of the predictive standpoint itself, which injects contingency in the "absolute form" that the
Understanding and scientism are trying to approximate in their
universalist tendencies. Recalling the dialectic of Actuality Proper, it was essentially a scientistic syndrome, a carry-over from
the dialectic of Ground, of pursuing determinacy with a method
burdened with externality (i.e., an alternation of conditioningconditioned) which infected the "absolute form" with a beginning, transforming it into just another link in an interminable
chain of conditions. So too, in this case of cumulative self-con-

cealment of the Understanding, externality qua alternation of

conditioning-condition has been superadded on externality qua
External Reflection of the Absolute. The possibility of the Sultan
becoming a Pope is not a question which can be approached via
any "empty forms" of the Understanding because a category-distinction is involved. In Ryleian language, such an approach
would be a category-mistake and it would be pointless to pursue
the matter through the sharpening of the tools of scientism.
The source of Hegel's impatience and ridicule of both common sense and the philosophies of Understanding, as evidenced
by his illustrations, is the tendency of these "empty (abstract)
forms" to supplant the concrete forms (the advanced categories) appropriate to the "formations of the spiritual world" (of
social institutions, history, and freedom), as w e shall soon see.
Extending his last illustration, with the help of a counter-to-fact
conditional and the addition of scientism's darling, the "if...,
then" form, may bring us one step closer to current historical
thinking, both popular and academic. Thus w e may be able to
say: If the present Pope were more liberal regarding social doctrine, the danger of some Latin American countries converting
to communism might be averted. And, in the absence of a present-day Sultan (at least one of historical consequence) one
may hypothesize with a good deal of "scholarly research"
and the backing by computers which are literally the apotheosis
of "possibilities and lots of possibilities" as follows: Given the
Russian artistic avante-garde of the 1920s, if Stalin sensibilities
were more refined, Moscow rather than Paris might have dominated the modern art scene between the t w o wars. Though
they cannot be verified in the same w a y since they have already taken place, these attempts at retrodiction are symmetrical to scientism's "if... ,then" statements which pose predictive
claims. Now it is worth comparing with the above the following
similarly structured counter-to-fact conditional: If Stalin had
jumped from the Kremlin wall, he would have injured himself
fatally. Whereas in the latter case dealing with Stalin qua physical entity the use of such "empty forms" is proper, in the former
it is not. To the extent that he is dealt with as a body in abstraction from the rest of his person, Stalin partakes of Thinghood
and is subject to the law of the World of Appearance (i.e., the
uniformity of the laws of nature). But he, no less than the
Pope, is part of the "formations of the spiritual world."
These formations began to take^shape with Correlation
the standpoint of "both" at the end of Appearance Proper
but were formally introduced in the first moment of Essential
Relation and the dialectic of the W h o l e and its Parts, which

Critique of historical
methodology extended to counter-to-fact
conditionals.

Recapitulation of dialectical steps whose

omission results in
self-concealment.

represented an organicist approach to social phenomena and

the standpoint of "all" according to which everything depends
on everything else. Actuality remedied the weakness of this
position by resting on the correct insight about the truth residing in the whole, yet it was unable to firm it up because this
would have meant relapsing to scientistic means reverting,
in effect, to the position that the whole is equal to the sum of
its parts. As the first moment of Actuality, the Absolute took,
so to speak, the first crack at this problem by hinting at a radically different approach: The whole is not only different than
the sum of the parts and impossible to define apart from them,
but all externality (or contingency) must be removed. Only
then can the implications of the original insight about the
truth residing in the whole be worked out without reverting to
scientistic means for building-up internal coherence. The shift
from external description to self-exposition was the first hint
of what was to follow in terms of the collapse of the scientistic
apparatus for dealing with advanced (in this instance social
and historical) subject matter.
Dialectically speaking, it is the distances between logical orders, now dressed up in the garb of "formations of the spiritual
world," that differentiate between apparently similar conditionals about the physical and cultural attributes of Stalin. The logic
of cultural wholes, or spiritual formations, governs as much of
his person (and actions) taken as a mediated (reflected-withinitself) whole, as do the cities of Moscow and Paris as cultural entities. The latter are inclusive of physical components and such
apparently disembodied, but also physically mediated, spiritual
formations as "modern art" or "avante-garde styles of the 20s."
For example, in trying to determine what made Paris, rather
than Moscow, the capital of avante-garde art between the two
wars, it is impossible to treat modern style as external to the city
of Paris, as something related to it in the manner of Thing to its
Properties, where the removal or substitution of the aesthetic
components will leave the city's identity intact. So many seemingly external factors (e.g., culturally strategic location, lifestyles of inhabitants, language, tradition and monuments, even
climate conducive to outdoor cafes and good wines) are subtly
but intimately connected with style, that any attempt to hypothesize about what Paris would have been like without the avantegarde (or vice versa), may result in the elimination of Paris, or
the avantegarde, altogether as distinctive cultural entities.
The same is true in the case of Stalin, w h o would be gradually losing his historical identity if, in pursuing the logic of the
counter-to-fact conditional, w e were to substitute modern for

his realist aesthetic sensibilities. We are no longer dealing with

the concrete man of action whose temperament was served by
his realist aesthetics (and vice versa), and whereby both subserved his political objectives (and vice versa). Instead of concentrating on such interconnections within Actuality, our historian, who abides by the rules of Understanding, indulges in Formal Possibility to which he gives the appearance of science with
the use of counter-to-fact conditionals. As w e recall from the
Zusatz of Logic #143:
For every content (a content is always concrete) includes not only
diverse but even opposing characteristics. Nothing is so impossible,
for instance, as this, that I am: for T is at the same time simple
self-relation and undoubtedly, relation to something else. (Emphases
added in this instance)
Viewed as a concrete historical person, Stalin incorporates
"not only diverse but even opposing characteristics," as a result
of building-up of concreteness through the process of mediation the process of graduating from abstract "simple self-relation" to concrete "relation to something else." For example, his
advocacy of realistic representation (as against abstraction) involves "diverse but even opposing characteristics" which have
been incorporated in his aesthetic realism. By shifting the focus
to Stalin's possible views, our historian reverses the progress toward the understanding of the concrete and reverts to it qua
"simple self-relation."
It is in this same vein of recapturing the concrete identity of
historical figures as a "relation to something else" that Hegel renews his scorn for the historians of the Understanding, this
time for their abstractive moralistic perspective.
All that they (i.e., historical individuals) have accomplished, we say, is
outward merely; inwardly they were acting from some very different
motive, such as desire to gratify their vanity or other unworthy passion. This is the spirit of envy. Incapable of any great action of its own,
envy tries hard to depreciate greatness and to bring it down to its own
level.
If the heroes of history had been actuated by subjective and formal interests alone, they would never have accomplished what they have.
And if we have due regard to the unity between the Inner and the
Outer, we must own that great men willed what they did, and did
what they willed. (Logic, #140 Zusatz)

vii. Actualization, Action, and Freedom

The centrality of
the categories of
Actuality Proper for
action and freedom.

Moral and historical

relativization as constant sources of infection of actuality with
contingency.

The latest casting of historical knowledge and its methodology

in the categorial roles of Actuality Proper has given us a preliminary sense of how varied and far-reaching the implications of the
dialectic of Actuality are for central questions of action, such as
morality and freedom. This dialectic is no less vital for issues relating directly to history and its philosophical presuppositions.
The distinctions taken up between actuality and possibility, prediction and retrodiction, exposition and self-exposition, bear directly on the morally unsettling question of historical relativity.
They are also immediately relevant to whether or not there is
something to be learned from history and, if so, what is the nature of knowledge involved. Dealing with the former necessarily
involves the latter because, as w e learned from the dialectic of
the Absolute, the exigencies of our advanced subject matter require the standpoint of self-exposition. In other words, we must
step out of the standpoint of External Reflection associated with
scientism and into the categorial frames of the historical agent
and the historian, successively. This is necessary if we are to seriously face the complete network of determinacy that constitutes
the actual. The expectation was that the Absolute qua locus of
self-completeness par excellence would provide a context of meaning within which contingency including both the ontological
and the ethical variant of relativism could be overcome.
This expectation was dampened as w e realized, with the
transition to Actuality Proper, something that w e could have
surmised from the dialectic of Content-Form: that the external
injection of content was infecting the "absolute form" on which
we had placed our hopes for achieving internal coherence. This
was manifested both as burdening this form with a beginning,
thus transforming it into a link in an interminable chain of conditions, and a recurring "restless otherness" of its principal moments of Actuality and Possibility representing an unstable unity of content and form. Reverting to our disciplinary illustrations, unless a cut-off point i.e., another form of contingency
is admitted, the self-bracketing phenomenological sociology
follows sociology of knowledge down the same path of infinite
regress in its quest for an Archimedean point from which to
combat relativization. Or, returning to the case of Stalin, unless
one is willing to accept a similarly contingent (external to the
historical process) cut-off point and an equally external standard of evaluation, his status as a historical figure remains subject to endless reinterpretation.

The new element emerging from recasting the problems of

historiography in categorial forms is the moral dimension,
which also has to be part of a coherent whole if the Absolute is
to deserve its name. This task belongs to the last triad of the
Notion, the Idea. But one gets from this brief recasting a sense
not only of the extent of the dialectical struggle remaining, if
externality is to be subdued but, more specifically for our purposes, a glimpse of the new gap of externality between the ontological-epistemological and moral dimensions, the "is" and
the " o u g h t " as dialectical successors of theory and practice.
These t o o must be parts of a s e l f - c o m p l e t e A b s o l u t e , if all
pending questions besides those of history are to fall into place.
Though the moral dimension and the latest gap in externality
between the "is" and the " o u g h t " belong to the Notion, and,
correspondingly to Objective Spirit, the laying of their logical
foundation belongs to the totalizing effort of Actuality in the
two versions of the Logic. The inseparable pair of the concepts
of action and freedom or, more accurately, the conception of
action as essentially free, also known as the doctrine of freedom qua self-realization, is the link between Actuality and the
final synthetic accomplishment of the Notion, and especially of
the Idea.
This doctrine of freedom has often been the source of both
puzzlement and misconception. For the sake of clarification it is
worth recapitulating the sense in which the dialectic of Actuality has laid the logical ground for freedom before proceeding
any further in this Section. The placing of theory-practice in the
context of totalization of the Absolute carried its dissolution,
which had been going on since the triad of Essential Relation,
to its logical conclusion. The overcoming of External Reflection
the standpoint of "the external reflection of the subjective
thinker" which has been sustaining externality between the
terms of theory-practice under various guises since Being removed the last logical foothold from theory-practice as we have
known it in its scientistic context of meaning. Inasmuch as the
Absolute claimed to be the framework (or "absolute form") for
subjects and objects alike, its "^//-exposition," and especially
the recasting of its Mode in the form of Determining Reflection,
provided the structure for the supplanting of dualistic theorypractice by the self-contained unitary conception of action. The
categories of Actuality Proper, added to the feature of sell-origination, the dynamic concept of realization of what heretofore
had remained implicit "what is actual, can act" thus signalling the emergence of the dialectical concept of freedom.
For, given the nature of the Absolute, and by extension, of ac-

Foundations of the
dialectical concepts of
freedom and action
in the Absolute and
Actuality Proper.

tion as self contained, realization turns into self-realization. The

latter is co-extensive with freedom because ex hypothesi all externality has ceased in a truly self-complete whole like the "absolute Absolute" of the Idea.
Exposition and setting of the concept
offreedom within
the parameters of
Actuality Proper.

Regarding the last point, it is well to be reminded again that

as of n o w not all externality has been overcome, which accounts for the reason that the synthesis of theory and practice
is still incomplete. No reminder is superfluous in view of persistent misconceptions, that the logical requirements for individual freedom are inextricably linked with those of a whole, and
that the logical requirements of the whole are those represented by the Absolute. This translates in simple terms: There is no
possibility of true freedom, or freedom qua self-realization outside of a self-complete whole, such as a community or a cultural entity. The socially and historically concrete implications of
this can only emerge gradually beginning with what follows,
but will not be complete before the end of this work.
The freedom of the will is an expression that often means mere
free choice, or the will in the form of Contingency. Freedom of
choice, or the capacity to determine ourselves toward one thing or
another, is undoubtedly a vital element in the will (which in its
very notion is free); but instead of being freedom itself, it is only
in the first instance a freedom in form. The genuinely free will,
which includes free choice as suspended, is conscious to itself that
its content is intrinsically firm and fast, and knows it at the same
time to be thoroughly its own. A will, on the contrary, which remains standing on the grade of option, even supposing it does decide in favor of what is in import right and true, is always haunted
by the conceit that it might, if it had so pleased, have decided in
favor of the reverse course. When more narrowly examined, free
choice is seen to be a contradiction, to this extent that its form
and content stand in antithesis. The matter of choice is given, and
known as a content dependent not on the will itself, but on outward circumstances. In reference to such a given content, freedom
lies only in the form of choosing, which, as it is only a freedom in
form, may consequently be regarded as freedom only in supposition. On the ultimate analysis it will be seen that the same outwardness of circumstances, on which is founded the content that
the will finds to its hand, can alone account for the will giving its
decision for the one and not the other of the two alternatives.
(Logic, #145 Zusatz; parentheses in the text)
If w e allow the concept of freedom, i.e., the "genuinely free
will," and its subsidiary concept of "freedom of choice" to play
the dialectical roles of their counterparts in Actuality Proper,
some of the misconceptions referred to above may be put to
rest. For example, w e can substitute abstract or formal freedom
("freedom of form" or "free choice" in the above quotation) for
Formal Possibility, and the externally given content of such

choice (the "content dependent not on the will itself, but on

outward circumstances" above) for Contingency. Then their
unity would constitute an actualized choice that corresponds to
Real Actuality which is still burdened with contingency. It was
externality of content that infected the "absolute form" with contingency in the dialectic of Actuality Proper, saddling the form
with an outside beginning and the principal moments with
"restless otherness." So is the case now with freedom, where the
"outwardness of circumstances (i.e., externality)... can alone
account for the will giving its decision for the one and not the
other of the alternatives."
The difficulty that common sense and even sympathetic
scholarship may have with the last point, and the endless disputations associated with the problem of free will, may be due
to overlooking the fact that the resolution of contingency of
which freedom of the will as commonly viewed is the correlate
can only take place in the context of a self-complete whole
such as the Absolute. Allowing Formal Possibility to play out its
role undialectically as if it w e r e separate f r o m Actuality, is
equivalent in the above of allowing the will to be "always
haunted by the conceit that it might, if it has so pleased, have
decided in favor of the reverse course." But Actuality Proper
has taught us otherwise, to the effect that such seeming independence of Formal Possibility (and Contingency) is a fallacy of
the Understanding, when in fact it is constitutive of Actuality
along the familiar lines of determinate negation "everything
possible has therefore in general a being or an Existence."
Beginning with the (Self-)Exposition of the Absolute, the dialectic has laid the preconditions for overcoming contingency.
In the disciplinary field this was illustrated by the extension of
phenomenological description to the sociologist's own categorial apparatus. There was a promise for the resolution of problems pertaining to ethical and epistemological relativity until
contingency resurfaced with the injection of content into the
"absolute form," which in turn infected the disciplinary discourse
by "ha(ving) its starting point in the contingent." Similarly, in the
dialectic of freedom, as self-consciousness takes the place of
self-exposition: "the genuinely free will... is conscious to itself
that its content is intrinsically firm and fast, and knows it at the
same time to be thoroughly its own."
It may appear that, in having its own content as its object,
free will is not as all-embracing as the model of the Absolute, or
as its phenomenological counterpart of self-exposition in sociology, would require. That this is not the case will become increasingly clear as the outline of the trans-individual subject be-

Anticipation of possible objections to the

dialectical concept of
freedom.

Correspondence

gins to emerge more clearly in Subjective Logic. For it is this elevated subject (what neo-Hegelians often referred to as the
higher self, or Self), which is the proper object of a genuinely
free will "the content (which) is intrinsically firm and fast,
and (the free will) knows it at the same time to be thoroughly
its o w n . " Viewed in this light of the trans-individual subject,
the issue of freedom places us on a head-on course vis-a-vis the
persisting subject-object polarity, because it demands its resolution in the form of an elevated subjectivity, what Hegel means
by Spirit. Given our present preoccupation with freedom, it is
fitting to provide some continuity with this pending issue of
subject-object polarity, thus anticipating the forthcoming outcome of the concept of action qua essentially free action in the
concrete setting of Spirit.
Not unlike the concept of action emerging out of the con-

between the dialectic

of action and freedom qua overcoming externality.

verging terms of theory-practice (which almost caught us by

surprise because the progressive concreteness of its terms had
been going on behind the surface while w e were moving forward), so now with the terms of the more deeply embedded polarity of subject-object that have been converging all along in a
similarly concealed matter. However, in neither case should this
come as a surprise, if w e recall the difficulties in the exposition
of the dialectic because of the simultaneous concealment and
disclosure the nature of the Janus-faced Spirit of the philosophical paradigm in conjunction with the linearity of the
discursive medium. Freedom is the product of this latter convergence, as action was the outcome of the former one. Freedom,
no less than action, is the culminating point of concreteness and
the end-result of convergence of their respective polarities. The
progress of freedom consists of the gradual elimination of externality between subject and object the "conscious(ness) to itself (on the part of the subject, that the object of its will) is intrinsically firm and fast, and knows (it) at the same time to be
thoroughly its o w n " as prefigured when external determination turned, in the context of Actuality Proper, into self-determination. So too is the synthesis of action a gradual elimination of
the externality between theory and practice in all its forms, to be
finally consummated in precisely the same way and place as
freedom. That which begins as similarity between freedom and
action, due to their shared relationship vis-a-vis externality,
which defines their respective dialectical paths, ends as their
identity in the final synthesis of the Absolute Idea. This is to be
expected if w e consider that the unresolved subject-object polarity, which holds up the synthesis of theory and practice in their
advanced form of Cognition and Will, is the same barrier in the

final consummation of freedom. Looking backward from where

we now stand, the paths of the two concepts seem more divergent and their involvement more differentiated.
Parallelism between
The paradigm w e used to illustrate the dialectic of action
the dialectic offreefrom the perspective of freedom can also be used to shed light
dom and action
on how freedom and action are related in a dialectical context.
illustrated through
The abstractive constraints of the psychoanalytical paradigm are
the paradigms.
equally limiting to freedom as they are to action qua essentially
free. As a result of the individualistically oriented rules of psychotherapy, the analysand is insufficiently integrated into the
social whole of which he is a part. We are unable to say that he
"is conscious to (himself) that its (his will's) content is intrinsically firm and fast, and knows at the same time to be thoroughly
(his) own." In spite of having gone through therapy, he still operates in the individualistic realm of "freedom in form" or "freedom of choice," inasmuch as he does not self-consciously will
the contents of the social whole, nor does he k n o w it "at the
same time to be thoroughly (also his) own." In other words, for
the individual to be "genuinely free," operating as he does in the
context of meaning of the Absolute as sublated into Actuality
Proper, he has to knowingly will a harmonious social whole of
which he is part. But this is not the case with the freedom that
our analysand attained at the end of his therapy, which is instead
burdened with individualism. This is symptomatic of the familiar
abstractive constraints which w e placed on the paradigm for purposes of illustration. They w e r e gradually suspended as w e
moved to the rudimentary dyadic social interaction between liberal and radical and from there to the more genuine relationship
of individual and social whole of the economic paradigm.
In the logical metaphor of society a la Adam Smith the difference between "freedom of choice" and "genuinely free will"
is again visible as the accent shifts to the contrast between the
unself-consciousness of the standpoint of the individual "the
conceit that (he) might, if (he) had so pleased, have decided in
favor of the reverse course" and that of self-consciousness
(the "conscious(ness) to himself") as a necessary ingredient of
genuine freedom. This difference becomes apparent in the juxtaposition of the subjectively free choices of individual competitors operating with no awareness as to the effects of their individual actions on the w h o l e , and that of a m o n o p o l i s t or
monopsonist w h o is conscious of the possible effects of his actions and the action of others. As in the case of the individual
in a free market, w h o must transcend his standpoint of subjective (sense o f ) freedom and individual reason, and assume the
inclusive outlook of Reason of the Invisible Hand of Providence

Illustration of the

(or Cunning of Reason) if he is to liberate himself from the impersonal forces of the market; so must our subject embrace the
standpoint of the social whole in the form of trans-individual
Reason if he is to transcend his individualism and get rid of the
show of freedom associated with freedom qua mere choice.
If, as w e have been arguing, the polar terms of freedom are

dialectic offreedom
through the dialectic
ofthe "I."

ultimately subject and object, the dialectic of Identity (inclusive

of Difference) can also be used to explicate freedom by following through the particularizations of Identity in the different
grades of subjectivity: from abstract (individual) subjectivity
corresponding to freedom of choice, to concrete (trans-individual) subjectivity corresponding to concrete (genuine) freedom.
In fact this has already been anticipated under the guise of the
dialectic of the "I," which is no different than a label a particularized identity, if you wish of subjectivity. As early as in
the Section titled R e f l e c t i o n and the Priority of T h e o r y in
Essence, the syllogistic structure of thought what turned out
to be the dialectic of the
was used with the help from extended quotes from Logic #20-24 to cast theory-practice in the
role of subject-object of the syllogism. The intent was to show
the parallelism b e t w e e n , on the one hand, the dialectic of
thought as activity compressed in the surrogate triad Abstract
UniversalityParticularityConcrete Universality (Individuality) and, on the other, the final (and only possible) version of
the dialectical synthesis of action occurring in the place of a
trans-individual subject that the last term of the triad represented. N o w the same structure can be utilized for the dialectic of
freedom since subject-object is the polarity which has been
playing surrogate for it.
To recapitulate the dialectic of the "I" in terms of freedom, at
first, thought was conceived as "the active universal, and, since
the deed, its product, is the universal once more, may be called
a self-actualizing universal. Thought conceived as a subject
(agent) is a thinker, and the subject existing as thinker is simply
denoted by the term T.'" As a linguistic expression denoting so
many others using it, the "I" is an abstract universal, but as active capable of a "linguistic act," as moderns would put it
the " I " can graduate to a "self-actualizing universal," the concrete universal of the above triad. The second moment in this
self-actualizing process which is not yet complete, occurs when
the "I," still "the universal once more" but now in its particularizing stage, brings itself to bear on objects through the activity
of reflection.
We now, in the second place, consider this action in its bearing upon objects, or as reflection upon something. In this case the uni-

versal or product of its operation contains the value of the thing

is the essential, inward, and true...
As we reach the third moment, it becomes obvious that "by
the act of reflection something is altered in the way in which the
fact was originally presented in sensation, perception, or conception." The abstract subjectivity of the first moment, the bare
self-identity of 1=1, has made the important step toward all-inclusiveness on the basis of internality, which is its distinguishing characteristic. In other words, the syllogistic form, the very
way in which w e comprehend reality, incorporates in itself the
way in which subjectivity is inclusive of objectivity. The " I "
contains through its deed "the universal once more," except "in
this case the universal or product of its (thought's) operation
contains the value of the thing (what is essential in objectivity)." The third moment of the dialectic of the "I" sums up the
overcoming of the polarity of subject-object within the parameters of the syllogistic form and the emergence thereof of concrete freedom, the counterpart of the "genuinely free will" in
the sphere of thought.

The syllogistic form

highlights the structure of both the dialectic offreedom
and action.

The real nature of the object is brought to light in reflection; but it

is no less true that this exertion of thought is my act. If this be so,
the real nature is a product of my mind, in its character of thinking
subject generated by me in my simple universality, self-collected
and removed from extraneous influences, in one word, in my
Freedom.
When the above and the preceding paragraphs in the Logic
were cited at the opening of the discussion of Essence, it was
with an eye to the bearing of the synthesis of subject-object on
that of theory-practice. Now they are offered in support of the
dialectic of freedom and, more particularly, its being co-extensive with that of action. If f r e e d o m is to be grounded, as it
should be, in Hegel's work on logic the will has to have the social whole (inclusive of itself) as its object, structurally patterned after the Absolute and its transformation under Actuality Proper. This is precisely what is happening above in the third
moment of the syllogistic model of the dialectic of the "I," with
the result being structurally equivalent to freedom as self-realization. The "I" qua concrete universal of the last moment incorporates not only "the universal (of the abstract first moment) once more," but also "the value of the thing" chosen by
the "I" of the second moment, by virtue of it being an "active
universal" and having the capacity of "bearing upon objects"
and using its universality to sort out "the essential, inward, and
true" which suits its needs. Hence the "I" qua concrete universal is no different than "the genuinely free will, which includes

The emergence of
dialectical freedom as
self-realization within a wider whole.

free choice as suspended, (and) is conscious to itself that its

content is intrinsically firm and fast, and knows it at the same
to be thoroughly its own." Both involve a "self-actualizing universal" which, as involving activity, is not merely the subject of
thought but also of action. We conclude with a view of freedom
as well as of action as self-realization, taken in the dialectical
sense of "includ(ing) free choice (or formal freedom, and in the
case of action theory-practice) as suspended (i.e., incorporated)." As in the case of action, concrete freedom is grounded in
the onto-logic of Actuality, outside of which any realization of
one's own potentialities remains indeterminate.
The holistic counterpart offreedom as
self-realization in
the classical ideal of
the polis.

The justification of self-realization in terms of a logic of the

whole is also implicit in the classical (organicist) view of the relationship of the individual to the social whole. In accordance
with the latter, the individual can realize his freedom only in
the context of a social whole which is the community of the polis. This connection is not usually made clear, which leads to the
misunderstanding that the logic of the whole is a mere quantitative extension of that of the individual. Or, as Hegel put it in
the already quoted Logic #135 Zusatz regarding the Whole and
its Parts, "the m o d e in which this subject (i.e., the organic
w h o l e ) is treated by the analytic Understanding (which) is
largely founded on the analogy of this finite (i.e., external and
mechanical) relation." Such possible misinterpretation of the
classical conception of individuality makes it more palatable to
the spirit of our age and easier to invoke the Greeks for moral
and intellectual ancestry of modern individualism and liberal
democracy. But it obscures the fundamental issue about the
whole being the object of genuinely free action if self-realization is to have a determinate meaning. This generates difficulties for the understanding of modern, and even current, social
and political problems, to say nothing about their resolution.
For example, the same conception of concrete freedom of German idealism has provided the philosophical background of a
variety of ethico-political formulations on the relationship between the individual and the social whole from Rousseau to
Bosanquet. Yet even some of their sympathetic expounders
were not explicit about there being no necessary logical connection between such conception of freedom at least in the
way it was formulated by Hegel and totalitarianism or authoritarianism. This has given rise to a steady f l o w of wild
charges against this doctrine of f r e e d o m for breeding such
forms of unfreedom.
In more recent times, self-realization enjoyed great vogue
being the motto of both humanistic psychology and certain

brands of the New Left or Marxist humanism. Humanistic psychology has tried to synthesize the therapeutic norm of psychoanalytic "normalcy" and the concept of self-realization. Though
with the best of intentions and the accompaniment of repeated
pronouncements that such "normalcy" goes hand-in-hand with
a "good society," the effort did not and could not have succeeded because of the built-in externality between these norms.
This is inevitable because, as a professional discipline and
therefore, by its very nature, harnessed to certain "official" definitions of social reality humanistic psychology has to take
certain things for granted. Thus, the form and content of freedom are not at one with each other or, to use Hegel's words,
"the matter of choice is given, and known as content dependent not on the will itself, but on outward circumstances."
Though at a more dignified level, and with a more substantive
menu from which to make choices, the situation is, in principle,
no different from one involving an owner of a TV satellite antenna and a variety of programs to choose from. In neither case
is the individual "conscious to (himself) that (his) content is intrinsically firm and fast, and knows it at the same time to be
thoroughly (his) own."
The outcome in terms of mere "freedom of choice" would be
similar to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's conception of meditation as
empty form which, torn apart from the content of a holistic path
inclusive of diet, moral code, physical, intellectual, and spiritual
discipline, can equally accommodate the "self-realization" of
saints, bankers, policemen, or gangsters. Viewed from the opposite direction of concrete freedom, had the will of the citizen of
the dissolving socialist regimes been "conscious to itself that its
(socialist) content is firm and fast, and k n o w ( n ) it at the same
time to be thoroughly its own," he could have claimed a "genuinely free will" even if he had a limited political and economic
choice, without having to duplicate Western-style pluralism and
consumerism. Nor would a more all-encompassing approach,
such as a Marcusean or New Left brand of humanistic Marxism
in which a planned "good society" is envisioned to optimize individual self realization, be able to overcome this thorny problem of externality. The social planning involved in this position
is symptomatic of its view that the social whole is a precondition
for individual self-realization, rather than a genuine whole inclusive of self-realization. In other words, the unity implied between the individual and the whole, when w e think of the former as the subject of self-realization and the latter as the objective conditions of society conducive to its optimization, is still
burdened with externality. The lingering subject-object polarity

Illustration of
freedom qua selfrealization through
disciplinary
knowledge and
contemporary life.

Contingency in the
planning offreedom
parallels uncertainty
in the planning of
dialectical synthesis
of action.

makes the full attainment of concrete freedom still unattainable.

If w e recall the dialectic of Actuality Proper, the "restless otherness" of the principal moments of Actuality (corresponding now
to objective conditions) and Possibility (representing the subjectivity of "free choice as suspended") has infected the "absolute
form" with contingency. So do the "restless otherness" between
subjectively free choice (now exercised in the selection of the
right objective conditions for optimizing self-realization), and
the actual social conditions inject the element of contingency in
the effort to plan genuine freedom.
The similarity of this conclusion to the one tentatively
reached in Part I, namely that a genuine dialectical synthesis of
action cannot be planned beforehand, is, of course, not accidental if w e have been following the convergence of the polar
terms of freedom and action in their dialectically advanced formulations. This will be confirmed again at the level of a higher
synthesis at the end of the Idea. Far from being a call to complacency, the element of resurfacing contingency represents a
call to action. Precisely because the "good society" cannot be
planned beforehand with contingency built-in into the planning process, and in view of the fact that it can be recognized as
such only after the fact, the only hope left in bringing it about
is to act. The closer that freedom is carried to its dialectical conclusion, the less palatable may its synthesis appear to common
sense, scientistic rationalism, and liberal sensibilities. Aside
from the visions of mindlessness and anarchy this conclusion
may provoke, there is nothing in modern historical experience
to exemplify the closely-knit unity, accompanied with self-consciousness, between individual and social whole that this conception of freedom represents. And, having challenged the credentials of the two most prominent present-day contenders for
representing such conception in psychology and politics, there
seems to be nothing to correspond to it among the widely held
current philosophical or ideological constructions either. The
only possible historical approximations of it in the West can be
detected in small select communities of the past as they have
come down to us in ideal form e.g., Athens at its Periclean
best, early communities-in-Christ, and medieval guilds and
knightly orders or in literary reconstructions, such as Hermann Hesse's spiritual communities of the Glass Bead Game and
the Journey to the East. Recently a claim has been advanced by
apologists of liberalism, w h o are also supposed to have studied
Hegel, that with the massive failures of one of the two contending World Spirits (socialism), Hegelian "end of history" is at
hand. If this "end of history" (about which more later), is taken

as the achievement for all of freedom qua self-realization, then

democratic capitalism can also claim such accomplishment,
which seems far from the case.
However, the scarcity of visible historical manifestations of
unity of form and content in this area should not be construed
as an absence of concrete freedom. As in the parallel case of action, wherein the unity of the polar terms of theory and practice had been well under way (implicitly) behind the surface
before their visible (explicit) synthesis in action caught us by
surprise, so the subjective and objective terms of freedom (the
form and content of the will) are now building up their respective concreteness in preparation of a surprise without external
betrayal of their forthcoming unity. The element of surprise is,
in fact, another way of rendering the impossibility of grasping
at once the implicit and the explicit, the in-itselfness and the
for-itselfness, expressed graphically earlier by the image of
Janus-faced Spirit at once concealing and disclosing its footprints, but unable to give a simultaneous account of both actions because of the linearity of the discursive medium.
The nature of freedom as partially concealed from our view,
short of the Idea, accords also with the role of the Cunning of
Reason and the corresponding task of the dialectic of rendering
explicit, or unveiling, what lay implicit in the circular path of
Spirit. Once the Absolute Idea has been reached, freedom can
be taken to represent the supreme synthetic accomplishment of
Spirit, and as such the highest grade of reality and the norm by
which historical experience can be deemed progressive. A n d
yet, it would be very misleading if w e were to conclude from
this that freedom or, for that matter, any other synthetic
achievement of the late Notion as that of the Good are mere
measuring rods by w h i c h lesser grades of reality are to be
gauged. If this were the case, all of the Notion's toil to overcome externality between form and matter would have been
expended in vain and the dialectic would have been reduced to
a species of Platonism. These highly concrete conceptions are
also supremely real because they contain within themselves, as
a result of sublation, the commonsensical, no less than the scientistic, brand of reality. Needless to repeat at this stage that for
this to become fully explicit both sides of the Janus-faced Spirit
on the circular path of the dialectic have to be equally attended.
As already suggested in Part I, one should be ready to unpack,
through mediation, on the backward trek of Spirit what has
been incorporated in its forward segment through immediacy.
It is with this in mind that one should approach the otherwise
puzzling assertion of Hegel that philosophy is not only not op-

Parallelism between
freedom and action
in building up concreteness behind the
surface.

posed to common sense what he calls in the quotation that

follows "the natural belief of mankind" but rather that the
latter finds its ultimate justification in dialectical philosophy.
The business of philosophy is only to bring into explicit consciousness what the world in all ages has believed about thought. Philosophy therefore advances nothing new; and our present discussion
has led us to a conclusion which agrees with the natural belief of
mankind. (Logic, #22 Zusatz)
Transition to Spirit.

Inasmuch as w e are about to enter the realm of Spirit which

deals with culture in an anthropological sense, this last claim of
Hegel fully coheres with not only the retrospective role of philosophy, but also with the unveiling function of the dialectic
which w e have been underscoring all along. It would be no exaggeration to state now, that for the remainder of Part III w e
shall be dealing with the reconciliation of this apparent discrepancy between the commonsensical and the dialectical view of
freedom or, perhaps more accurately, with the vindication of the
former in the context of the latter. In this respect Spirit performs
a vital function by adding a new dimension of sensuousness to
the logical concreteness w e have known thus far. Therefore,
much of what has been happening in building up concreteness
behind the scenes will, from now on, be conducted mostly on
the surface with the help of the full-blooded categories of Spirit.
In both cases of action earlier, and of freedom now, the complete synthesis of the polar terms has to wait for the advanced
Notion and the explicit overcoming of the remaining traces of
the subject-object polarity. This may belong to the future, but at
the same time the synthesis is also part of the present insofar as
it had been going on all along before taking us by surprise. In
the course of the next two Chapters, Subjective and Objective
Spirit will be building up the concreteness of subject and object,
respectively, in the same way that the succession of polarities in
Essence was building up the terms of theory-practice, allowing
only for the difference in sensuous and historical concreteness
characteristic of Spirit. Indeed, the overcoming of the subjectobject polarity has already begun through surrogates and, more
explicitly, in the dialectic of the "I" of which Subjective Spirit is
no more than a dialectical elevation and an elaboration in anthropological, phenomenological, and psychological terms. In a
parallel fashion, Objective Spirit is no different than a fullblooded legal, sociological, and historical build-up of the concreteness of the objective term of the polarity of action and
freedom social praxis and the objective conditions for self-realization, respectively. In dealing separately, each with its respective term of this important and deeply embedded polarity,

Subjective and Objective Spirit may seem to be reinforcing the

rift between the terms. But as concreteness is progressively
heightened on each side, implicit as it may still be, it becomes
increasingly clear that their much awaited synthesis is at hand,
for the reason which, by now, is all too familiar from the Logic:
The increase in concreteness of a term is realized by virtue of
what remains external to it as its polar opposite.

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C. Action and Subjective Spirit

i. Self-Actualizing Spirit
As w e are about to take temporary leave of the Logic and
embark on the Philosophy of Spirit, w e should recall why this digression was deemed appropriate according to our original
plan. It was then thought to be both structurally fitting to
Hegel's overall schema, and facilitating our task of explication,
to take a recess and go back to the psychological and cultural
concreteness begun in Part I. With regard to structural appropriateness, it should also be recalled that the overarching triad
of the Logic corresponds not only to the system as a whole
i.e., LogicNatureSpirit as arranged in the Encyclopedia but
also to the triadic structures of its divisions and sub-divisions.
Taking Spirit as an example, BeingEssenceNotion corresponds both to its divisions in SubjectiveObjectiveAbsolute
Spirit and the sub-divisions of Subjective Spirit into Soul (anthropology)Consciousness (phenomenology)Mind (philosophical psychology). This multiple correspondence sheds light
on the many-levelled syntheses, which w e shall be encountering in the dialectic of freedom and action. More particularly for
our case, the correspondences between Logic and concrete Spirit
gives us the opportunity to refer to various specific forms of action which, in our preoccupation with scientistic theory-practice and the radical implications of its synthesis in action, had
no occasion to relate to the categorial schemata of the Logic.
For example, in the sub-categories of Soul w e shall soon begin to recognize a variety of routine actions which dominate
our everyday life as it is organized within culture. In their characteristic unself-consciousness these actions correspond to the
in-itselfness of Being which stands apart from the standpoint of
reflection of the "subjective thinker." But the picture changes
with the convergence of the two paths and the transition to
Consciousness whose logical counterpart is Essence, the familiar scene of reflection: the standpoint of for-itselfness where
theory views practice in its own image, i.e., as self-external or
severed from their pre-existing unity in unself-conscious Being.

Subdivisions of
Spirit and their
correlates in
the Logic.

Preview and placement in context of

the Logic of what is
forthcoming in Spirit,

To this class belongs a w h o l e range of instrumental actions

which, like theory-practice, are peculiar to modern societies
geared to technology and efficiency in general. Mind, the last
super-moment of Subjective Spirit, recaptures the lost pre-existing unity of Soul at a higher level corresponding to the Notion. The class of actions belonging to this moment of Subjective Spirit are free actions, where action and freedom, as outlined in the last Section, verge on coincidence. They are those
in which Spirit, acting upon something external, is not only operating on itself (as is also true in Essence and, correspondingly
in Consciousness), but it also knows that it does so.
Though the synthesis at the end of Subjective Spirit takes
place at the level of the self-conscious subject (the model for the
Notion, whose logical structure encountered so far is the self-exhibiting Absolute), at this early stage of Spirit this subject is still
an individual-psychological one. Like its counterpart of the psychological paradigm, which gave us a glimpse into the future at
the cost of severe abstractive constraints, Subjective Spirit gives
us a sense of what is forthcoming in terms of the least concrete
by Spirit's standards form of subjectivity. However, concreteness begins to build up immediately as the subject begins to
be viewed successively in the light of increasingly sophisticated
categories and their corresponding disciplines in physical and
cultural anthropology, empirical psychology, and philosophical
psychology. As in the succession of the paradigms and the categories of the Logic, there is an inexorable tendency toward all-inclusiveness and tightness in internal coherence. The ultimate
goal of Subjective Spirit is to establish that the only form of understanding which is not burdened with externality is self-understanding. This corresponds to the synthesis of action of the
analytical paradigm and the synthesis of freedom of the dialectic
of the "I," in their as-yet-incomplete logical grounding in the dialectic of Actuality. This goal is being gradually approximated as
the "I" adds to its concreteness by continuing to overcome what
remains external through the familiar logical devices of unityin-opposition or identity-in-difference.
As w e proceed, it also becomes clear that the goal is bound to
remain unaccomplished in the subjective phase of Spirit for the
same reason that the parallel task, by its logical counterpart in
Actuality, was still incomplete when w e temporarily took leave
of the Logic. The totalizing effort of Actuality was then tainted
with contingency that was reflected in the dialectic of freedom
as insufficiently developed unity between the individual and the
social whole. So now are the all-embracing aspirations of Subjective Spirit bound for disillusionment, because the built-in on-

tological and methodological individualism at the level of the

subject ensures that the subject is regenerated at every renewed
effort toward all-inclusiveness. Not until the individual subject
has been gradually sublated into the trans-individual one in the
Absolute Spirit and the Absolute Idea, correspondingly, can Spirit be secured against such polarizing tensions. This is precisely
what remains for the final dialectical synthesis of action. But it
must wait until both Subjective and Objective Spirit develop
their respective terms to the point of concreteness and w e are no
longer dealing with a subject or an object, but with subjectivity
and objectivity. At such a point these terms are no longer logical
particulars but logically concrete individuals, thus making it impossible to conceal the fact that each has incorporated its opposite through intervening mediations.
The result of this synthesis of subjectivity and objectivity is
the Absolute Idea and the corresponding Absolute Spirit in the
Logic and the Philosophy of'Spirit, respectively. It is hoped that by
now any associations of Spirit with spiritualist activity or incorporeal substance have been completely discarded. But just in
case a mist is still hanging around, let us recall from Part II that,
as with all richly concrete terms, Spirit cannot be rendered satisfactorily by a short dictionary-type definition or even a paragraph description, without giving the impression of imprecision, of something inexpressibly transcendent, some mystical
entity. Like its closest equivalent, culture, it requires that its
meaning emerge in the context of a discourse about Spirit. Before allowing Hegel to do this in the extended quotations which
follow, let us clarify that our preliminary renditions of Spirit in
Part I were in terms of collective representations and the anthropological conception of culture. Now, in light of the intervening dialectic of the "I," it can be recast in terms of a trans-individual subject occupying the last moment of the appropriate
triad. Recalling freedom's surrogate triad Abstract UniversalityParticularityConcrete Universality (Individuality), if w e
assign the individual subject to the first moment, and its particularizing effort as a "self-actualizing universal" to the second,
then the high-grade individuality of the last moment corresponds to the trans-individual subject, Spirit. Stated in terms of
freedom, the individual subject w h o begins by exercising his
formal freedom (or freedom of choice) in the first moment,
ends up in the last moment being genuinely free being his
true Self, as the neo-Hegelians would have it by embracing
the standpoint of the concrete universality of Spirit.
The same result can be obtained by using the surrogate triad
SubjectivityObjectivityObjectivity-in-Subjectivity (Elevated

Meaning and
definition of Spirit
through dialectical
surrogates.

Meaning of Spirit
through historical
and cultural counterparts.

Spirit as agent
capable of action.

Subjectivity), or alternatively in the case of the historical development of freedom, ObjectivitySubjectivitySubjectivity- inObjectivity (Elevated Objectivity or the exoteric aspect of Spirit).
Whereas the first triad represents the dialectic of freedom from
the standpoint of an individual graduating to that of Spirit, the
second (corresponding to Hegel's historical and political works)
views freedom from the position of Spirit qua historical subject.
Spirit goes through the same process of self-realization, with
self-consciousness as a yardstick of progress along the dialectical
scale, since there is no wider whole beyond itself to which it can
attend. On this scale, the classical Greek polis, though possessing
the right objective conditions, is wanting in self-consciousness.
The middle term of the last triad represents the rise of subjectivity as a precondition for universal self-consciousness, which is finally attained by Spirit with the Protestant Revolution in the last
moment of the triad. Historically, this is the point at which the
first triad begins to be applicable because, as Hegel points out in
his Lectures in Philosophy of History, the Protestant Revolution
opens only a potentiality which each individual can realize in
pursuing his concrete freedom.
This v i e w of Spirit, as a historical subject undergoing the
same dialectic of freedom qua self-realization, is also reflected in
the historical view of the dialectic of action. In this light of the
pre-modern view of freedom as implicit in the objective conditions of the community of the polis, action is more of what
might be called group-action, i.e., activity characteristic to the
members of a social, cultural, or hieratical group. This is reflected in the Greek terms for the classification of human activities
in theoria, praxis, and poesis. Originally these terms referred to
group activities oriented toward contemplation of transcendent
entities, management of the common good, and craftsman-like
creation, respectively. Far f r o m their modern etymological
counterparts of theory, practice, and poetry, whose subjects are
individuals, their precursors were collective representations, or
what w e call trans-individual subjects. The implications of this
difference are far-reaching for understanding the difference in
the political and moral order (e.g., the attribution of honor or
responsibility to the group, rather than the individual, for one's
actions) between antiquity and modernity. Bearing this in mind
will help us to avoid unwarranted analogies between the two
cultures and, especially in this case, to appreciate Hegel's view
of Spirit as the agent behind the historically conceived dialectical synthesis of the moments of freedom along the lines of the
second triad: the pre-modern organic cohesion of individual
and social whole, the modern (post-Renaissance) rise of subjec-

tivity, and the post-modern (post-Reformation) true subjectivity which synthesizes the other two by way of its own contribution of self-consciousness.
It is no accident that the Philosophy of Spirit opens on a classical note the integrity characterizing the political and intellectual life of the polis but also with a modern accent on selfconsciousness, "the summons to Greeks of the Delphic Apollo,
Know Thyself" (Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, trans. W. Wallace/A.V.
Miller, London:Oxford University Press, 1971, #377 Zusatz; subsequently cited as Philosophy of Spirit; Geist has been rendered as
"Spirit" unless otherwise specified; certain minor changes in
spelling and capitalization have been made for the sake of uniformity). Subjective Spirit will be concentrating on the Delphic
motto but, by exploring internality in increasingly concrete
terms, it will also render progressively transparent the external
term (Objective Spirit) as part of its activity. Thus, the cause of
freedom is being forwarded by the same means as the dialectic
of the "I" cast in the triad of concrete universality of the Logic,
but in empirically concrete terms.
If we consider Spirit more closely, we find that its primary and
simplest determination is the T.' The 'I' is something perfectly simple, universal. When we say 'I,' we mean, to be sure, an individual; but since everyone is 'I,' when we say 'I,' we only say something quite universal. The universality of the T enables it to abstract from everything, even from its life. But Spirit is not merely
this abstractly simple being equivalent to light, which was how it
was considered when the simplicity of the soul in contrast to the
composite nature of the body was under discussion; on the contrary, Spirit in spite of its simplicity is distinguished within itself;
for the T sets itself over against itself, makes itself its own object
and returns from this difference, which is, of course, only abstract,
not yet concrete, into unity with itself. This being-with-itself of the
T in its difference from itself is the T s infinitude or ideality. But
this ideality is first authenticated in the relation of the T to the infinitely manifold material confronting it. This material, in being
seized by the 'I,' is at the same time poisoned and transfigured by
the latter's universality: it loses its isolated, independent existence
and receives a spiritual one.
Theology, as we know, expresses this process in picture-thinking
by saying that God the Father (this simple universal or being-within-self), putting aside his solitariness creates Nature (the being that
is external to itself, outside of itself), begets a Son (his other T ) ,
but in the power of his love beholds in this Other himself, recognizes his likeness therein and in it returns to unity with himself;
but this unity is no longer abstract and immediate, but a concrete
unity mediated by the moment of difference; it is the Holy Spirit
which proceeds from the Father and the Son, reaching its perfect
actuality and truth in the community of Christians; and it is as this

Hegel's definition
of Spirit through
philosophy, religion,
and history.

that God must be known if he is to be grasped in his absolute

truth, as the actual Idea in-and-for-itself, and not merely in the
form of the pure Notion, of abstract being-within-self, or the
equally untrue form of a detached actuality not corresponding to
the universality of his Notion, but in the full agreement of his Notion and his actuality.
But a different relationship (than that between Nature and Spirit
illustrated above through religion) obtains with the Mind or Spirit
that makes world-history. In this case, there no longer stands, on
the one side, an activity external to the object, and on the other
side, a merely passive object: but the spiritual activity is directed to
an object which is active in itself, an object which has spontaneously worked itself up into the result to be brought about by
that activity, so that in the activity and in the object, one and the
same content is present. Thus, for example, the people and the
time which were moulded by the activity of Alexander and Caesar
as their object, on their own part, qualified themselves for the
deeds to be performed by these individuals; it is no less true that
the time created these men as that it was created by them; they
were as much the instruments of the Mind or Spirit of their time
and their people, as conversely, their people served these heroes as
an instrument for the accomplishment of their deeds. (Philosophy of
Spirit, #381 Zusatz; parentheses in the text with the exception for
the last instance)
Spirit explicated
through triadicity,
concreteness and
dialectical circularity.

Spirit fleshes out the sensuously abstract forms of the Logic

in three different cases: philosophical psychology, religion, and
history. Underlying this process is the super-triad of the Encyclopedia itself, LogicNatureSpirit, of which the last moment is
the culmination of concreteness. The two triads used to illustrate the two aspects of freedom above also fit the dialectical
rhythm of this work. Equally fitting is the surrogate triad InternalityExternalityInternality-including-Externality, which
renders the same process of progressive concreteness through
the externalization of Spirit in the Son of God in Christianity, in Nature, and in the object of the "V of the Logic before
returning to itself enriched. But Spirit also tends, by the very
nature of this process, to conceal its own footsteps. For, to continue in the metaphorical language of Part I, the building up of
concreteness is no different than adding layer-upon-layer of
newly incorporated externality, through the familiar devices of
Identity (inclusive of Difference) and Reflection. Its essential
feature of self-consciousness safeguards Spirit from self-concealment regarding what remains hidden in these layers. For
those of us w h o have not kept up w i t h this process until it
reaches its concluding moment, self-concealment manifests itself in the anthropological conception of culture. Dialectically
speaking, the latter is no different than the exteriority of Spirit

(as grasped through the "process of picture-thinking" in the

case of religion) without the knowledge of what remains concealed below the surface. What w e understand as culture institutions, norms, customs, rituals, and all other forms of bonding have been building up behind our backs for millennia.
Not by accident, only after Hegel's insight into the nature of
Spirit, anthropological consciousness pointed the way toward
the unveiling of what lay behind the exteriority of Spirit. Both
the logical articulations contributed by the first moment of Logic in the above triad, and the layers represented by the mediated Nature of the second moment, are incorporated in the final
moment of Spirit. Unless w e are ready to untie this dialectical
package of Spirit on a moment's notice, the discourse on Spirit
is likely to be taken as artificially constructed and criticized as
unduly metaphorical and anthropomorphic.
For example, without the surrogate triad of concrete universality standing for the dialectic of the "I," the doctrine of Trinity
may appear as a mere rationalization of religious dogma. But,
in addition, this doctrine is the paradigm par excellence for concrete Spirit qua culture, i.e., for the most binding, and at the
same time, the most liberating force for humankind. In other
words, the doctrine of Trinity is a rationalization a social
construction, in phenomenological language of Christian religion but, in being so, it is also a justification of the most solid
and long-standing bonding tissue of culture, religion, and by
virtue of this, the most challenging problem for anthropology
and philosophy to unveil in their quest for freedom. Nor would
the relationship between world-history and historical individuals seem to be more than a flabby interactionism as exemplified earlier by the "both" of social psychology if it were not
for the dialectic of Actuality Proper and the corresponding case
of the might-have-been-otherwise moralistic historian of the
Stalin era. Most of all, the crowning achievement of Spirit, its
meaning-endowing function referred to in the quotation of the
title-page (the context of contexts of the philosophical paradigm and the ultimate weapon against the insidious contingency in the final moments of Essence) is in danger of being
conceived as mere edification, or even mystification, without
the indispensable complement of the logical structure. The sensuously concrete, the garb which Spirit uses to clothe this bare
structure, is also the domain of "the natural belief of mankind."
The doctrine of Trinity is a sample of such belief which portrays
Spirit as a subject of sensuous embodiment, while the following
quotation provides us with a preliminary view of the unveiling
of the same the re-vealing, or "Revelation," of Spirit as an

Spirit as an embodiment of mediations

and as a challenge to
unveil them.

agent of embodiment. Both illustrate what Hegel told us earlier:

"The business of philosophy is only to bring into explicit consciousness (through unveiling of such embodiments) what the
world in all ages has believed about thought... (that) which
agrees with the natural belief of mankind." Neither the process
of embodiment, nor that of unveiling its articulations, can be
totally demystified apart from the corresponding segments of
the Logic, the dialectic of Reflection in particular.
Revelation, taken to mean the revelation of the abstract Idea, is an
unmediated transition to Nature which comes to be. As Spirit is
free, its manifestation is to set forth Nature as its world; but because
it is reflection, it, in thus setting forth its world, at the same time
presupposes the world as a nature independently existing. In the intellectual sphere to reveal is thus to create a world as its being a
being in which the Spirit procures the affirmation and truth of its
freedom. (Philosophy of Spirit, #384)
The forthcoming
strategy of unveiling
in terms of the
structural correspondences between
Logic and Spirit.

The structure of the dialectic of Reflection and its result in

the coincidence of positing and presupposing is easily recognizable. So too is the resulting freedom qua self-realization, and
action qua self-originating action, when this dialectic is applied
on a self-contained whole, as in the Absolute earlier and the
Spirit now. Soul, whose discussion immediately follows, is Spirit at its most implicit, as a perusal of the list of the categories of
Subjective Spirit in Part II will confirm. From our perspective
this means that, as in the case of its logical counterpart in Being, Soul is the locus of the pre-existing unity of theory and
practice. This will be our criterion for selecting from Soul in the
Philosophy of Spirit those categories which highlight this pre-existing unity. Though perhaps not immediately apparent, this
parallels the status of theory and practice as encountered in Being. The standpoint for-us "in Being, the form of reference is
purely due to our reflection on what takes place" which had
assumed the role of theory for the sake of underscoring Being
(as object of theory and contents of practice), obscured the preexisting unity of theory and practice in the implicitness of Being by keeping the two separate. This was set straight in the following (also quoted earlier) #112, where such pre-existing unity was confirmed by the way Essence was generated out of Being: "Essence, as simple self-relation, is Being...(which) is deposed to a mere negative, to a seeming or reflected light."
While on the issue of correspondences, it is wise to remember
that what holds true in the Logic is also the case between the
latter and the Philosophy of Spirit. Correspondences do not limit
themselves to triads of equal scope but extend to those between
unequal scope. For example, in the case of Soul, its triad, Physical SoulFeeling SoulActual Soul, corresponds to Being

EssenceNotion, of which the latter triad also corresponds to

SoulConsciousnessMind. For our purposes, this means an
adaptation of the dialectical relationship between theory and
practice cast in triadic form, so that the surrogate triad Pre-existing UnityDisunityRe-establishment of Unity of Theory
and Practice, corresponds to the narrow-scope triads of Soul, as
well as to the overarching triads of Subjective Spirit, and the familiar ones of the Logic.

ii. Soul as Pre-Existing Unity of Theory and Practice

The dialectical correspondence of Soul
to Being.

Illustration of the
dialectic of Soul by
way of anthropological participant
observation.

In dialectical symmetry to Being, Soul is characterized by

immediacy, in-itselfness or potentiality, and is ready to embark
on the path of self-differentiation. But by the same token, its
state for-us is not to be interpreted as beginning from something irreducibly simple. Soul, even more obviously than Being,
is the product of re-immediation and Hegel explicitly warns
that "to suppose that w e begin with the mere Notion of Spirit
would be a mistake; for as w e have already said, Spirit is always
Idea, therefore realized N o t i o n . " (Philosophy of Spirit, #387
Zusatz) Granted, in the linear procession of the Encyclopedia, the
Idea is already developed when the transition is made from the
Philosophy of Nature to the Philosophy of Spirit. In this temporal
order Soul stands ahead of all of Nature, but it is the dialectical
and more precisely the circular structure that ultimately defines
the role of a category, and this cannot provide an unqualified
answer beforehand. By this criterion Soul, like any other category, is both primitive and advanced depending on the way the
dialectical process is facing: primitive in the light of immediacy
as viewed from the standpoint of for-itselfness, advanced as a
product of re-immediation as viewed for-us. Both approaches
are indispensable inasmuch as combined, they supply the inand-for-itselfness which is the basis of synthesis at all levels.
This is also evident from the fact, as noted above, that correspondence is not limited to triads of the same scope.
For example, Soul qua immediacy corresponds to the first
term of every triad of Subjective Spirit. For if externality is to be
overcome, the process of self-differentiation has to proceed immanently, whereby the tools in this instance the categories
have to be forged by Spirit from within its resources. And yet, as
all good practicing anthropologists using the same immanent
technique know, one can never start from scratch. Anthropologists compensate for this handicap through heightened selfawareness about their tools and what the latter might tacitly inject into their discourse. Dialectically speaking, this is an anthropologist's way of countering the effects of "external reflection of
the subjective thinker" who, unlike our external observer of Being, is not also privy to the intricacies of the circular path of
Spirit. In other words, the standpoint for-us cannot be allowed
to become a permanent fixture in anthropologist's participant
observation without perpetuating the subject-object dualism and
the self-concealment associated with it. It can only serve as a
prop until the immanent process of participant observation
works from within the observed culture's own categories. In di-

alectical language, this prop will stand until culture, with the
Notion, reaches the standpoint of in-and-for-itselfness (i.e., of
viewing itself in terms of its o w n categories) at which point the
"subjective thinker" is at one with the immanent process.
Inasmuch as Physical Soul, the first moment of Soul, corresponds to Being, w e can expect the same self-generated tendencies of alternating differentiation and individuation as in the
latter. As in (apparently) unmediated Being and Nature, Soul
qua Physical Soul begins as an immediate unity, but progressively unfolds in a great variety of combinations with physical,
biological, and geographical factors. W h e n this unity is gradually challenged at the end of Physical Soul, it is due not to surreptitiously injected dualisms but to internally developing tensions.
Since our main interest lies in the "pre-existing unity" of theory
and practice in the anthropological setting of Soul, it is w o r t h
noting Hegel's uses of the conception of an immediately unitary
Soul to steer clear from the dualism of soul-body and its more
secular offspring, the perennial mind-body problem.
Spirit came into being as the truth of Nature. But not merely is it, as
such a result, to be held the true and real first of what went before:
this becoming or transition bears in the sphere of the Notion the
special meaning of 'free judgement.' Spirit, thus come into being,
means therefore that Nature in its own self realizes its untruth and
sets itself aside: it means that Spirit presupposes itself no longer as
the universality which in corporeal individuality is always self-externalized, but as a universality which in its concretion and totality
is one and simple. At such a stage it is not yet Spirit, but Soul. (Philosophy of Spirit, #388)
The Soul is no separate immaterial entity. Wherever there is Nature, the Soul is its universal immaterialism, its simple 'ideal' life.
Soul is the substance or 'absolute' basis of all the particularizing and
individualizing of Spirit: it is in the Soul that Spirit finds the material on which its character is wrought, and the Soul remains the
pervading, identical ideality of it all. But as it is still conceived thus
abstractly, the Soul is only the sleep of Spirit the passive nous of
Aristotle, which is potentially all things.
The question of the immateriality of the Soul has no interest, except where, on the one hand, matter is regarded as something true,
and Spirit is conceived as a thing, on the other. But in modern
times even the physicists have found matters grow thinner in their
hands... The fact is that in the Idea of Life the self-externalism of
Nature is implicitly at an end: subjectivity is the very substance and
conception of life with this proviso, however, that its existence
or objectivity is still at the same time forfeited to the sway of selfexternalism. It is otherwise with Spirit. There, in the intelligible
unity which exists as freedom, as absolute negativity, and not as
immediate or natural individual, the object or the reality of the intelligible unity is the unity itself; and so the self-externalism, which
is the fundamental feature of matter, has been completely dissipat-

Pre-existing unity of
Soul undermines
dualism throughout
Spirit.

ed and transmuted into universality, or the subjective ideality of

the conceptual unity. Spirit is the existent truth of matter the
truth that matter itself has no truth.
A cognate question is that of the community of soul and body. This
community (interdependence) was assumed as a fact, and the only
problem was how to comprehend it. The usual answer, perhaps, was
to call it an incomprehensible mystery; and, indeed, if we take them
to be absolutely antithetical and absolutely independent, they are
as impenetrable to each other as one piece of matter to another,
each being supposed to be found only in the pores of the other, i.e.
where the other is not. (Philosophy of Spirit, #389; parentheses in
the text)
The unitary feature
of Soul as the basis
for lifecycles and
racial and ethnic
collective representations.

Having gone through a succession of grades of truth and reality until w e reached their highest grade in the all-inclusive Absolute in Essence, w e should have no difficulty recognizing
Hegel's use of the results of the Logic to undermine the claims of
dualism in the case of matter-mind and body-spirit. Like Aristotle, w h o m Hegel praises for his organicist conception of soul
(psyche), Hegel's Soul uses a structural approach to overcome
these built-in dualisms in current discourse about the soul. "The
Soul is (Nature's) universal immaterialism, its simple 'ideal' life.
Soul is the substance or 'absolute' basis of all particularizing and
individualizing of Spirit." He also adopts the dynamic dimension of psyche as "the sleep of Spirit... which is potentially all
things." The first particularizations of Spirit as Soul are collective
representations exemplifying a thorough fusion of mental and
physical, cultural and climactic, as well as racial and geographic
elements a fusion which can be conveyed in expressions such
as primitive soul, arctic soul, Latin soul. As the dialectic advances within the moment of Physical Soul, its self-differentiation reaches individuation "the Soul is further de-universalized into the individualized subject." (Philosophy of Spirit, #395)
The category of Soul now applies to stages of the individual lifecycle, those of the sexes, and states of wakefulness and sleep.
Use of the logic of
The advanced conceptions of action and freedom, familiar
Essence to illuminate to us from late Actuality, can already be traced in these collecthe self-discovery
tive representations of early Soul. Furthermore, since various
and freedom of Soul.
collective souls exist in such a way that cultural contact is possible between them, w e are again given the opportunity to cast
concrete recognizable cultural situations in the categories of
Spirit. Every collective soul is, as part of self-generated Spirit,
the product of the process of self-creation consistent with the
dialectic of Reflection, which Hegel announced earlier in introducing Spirit: "As Spirit is free, its manifestation is to set forth
Nature as its world; but because it is reflection, it, in thus setting forth its world, at the same time presupposes the world as a

nature independently existing." Every collective soul is the

product of such self-creation, though it is relatively few, if any,
w h o have reached freedom through self-knowledge about it.
Paraphrasing the corresponding situation in the Logic, few have
reached the moment of (Self-)Determining or Absolute Reflection, whereby not only are they the creators of their culture as
are the rest, but they also know that they are. But they are potentially free because there is nothing standing between external determination e.g., climate, natural resources, etc.,
which corresponds to External or Presupposing Reflection
and self-consciousness which represents freedom. Unlike the
dualistic approach, which has been arrested at the moment of
External Reflection with determinism and freedom standing
opposed to each other, the unitary approach of Soul qua Spirit
in potentia allows Soul to proceed immanently on the path of
potential self-discovery and freedom.
For example, faced with the dilemmas of modernization,
Third World collective souls are confronting problems similar to
those of the radical of our paradigm: whether or not their determination to tear down their traditional cultures for the sake
of Western "goodies" constitutes an act of genuine freedom qua
self-realization. Like the reflective radical who, on the eve of a
day of violence may be wondering whether his action will result in a genuine dialectical synthesis (re-immediation) or a
mere immediacy of action, so may the Third World activist be
agonizing over a similar dilemma about the potential for freedom in the traditional institutions he is about to dismantle. The
insight contributed by Soul qua Spirit in potentia, to the agonizing moments of both, is the feature of immanence on the path
to self-discovery and freedom. In practical terms this feature
underscores the importance of self-consciousness about both
their role and that of their ancestors in creating and sustaining,
albeit unself-consciously, a culture which they are about to tear
down. In this connection w e are reminded that "the genuinely
free will, which includes free choice as suspended, is conscious to
itself that its content is intrinsically firm and fast, and knows it
at the same time to be thoroughly its own." (italics added in this
instance) The value, say, of the modern Greek dish-breaking in
taverna celebrations, or the blanket-burning of American Indians in the course of their potlatch, must be assessed both externally in terms of western criteria of efficiency and order and,
what is most exacting, internally ("conscious to itself) in terms of
its function in preserving social cohesiveness (thoroughly its own)
and saving resources which otherwise would have to be used
for police, courts, and prisons.

Illustration of the
logic of self-discovery
of Soul through the
cultural dilemmas of
the Third World.

Shift from collective

representation to
individuation.

The structural similarity between this approach to culture

and the familiar two-way-facing path of Spirit the in-itselfness and the for-itselfness, the for-us as outsiders to another
culture and as insiders working through the immanent technique of participant observation is, of course, not coincidental. There is immediacy involved in the former approach of taking the alien culture at face value with the help of one's categories rather than working through its own categorial apparatus. But there is also mediation insofar as this approach uses
categories external to the culture under scrutiny (i.e., those imported by the participant anthropologist). Put differently, in-itselfness involves immediacy by virtue of its one-sidedness in
overlooking the way culture views itself. However, there is also
immediacy in viewing culture merely as it views itself, i.e., in
its for-itselfness. In the present case it is in-itselfness, or the potentiality implicit in the culture under examination, that is being neglected. Though each term representing a syntheses reimmediation for the interplay of immediacy-mediation and inand-for-itselfiiess for in-itselfness and for-itselfness supplies
us with an answer to the problem of one-sidedness, it cannot
provide a guide for action since dialectical synthesis of action
cannot be planned ahead. Or, as w e have more recently confirmed in Actuality Proper, potentially free action (i.e., the will
striving for its completion or totalization) is still tainted by contingency. But what they do provide is a set of parameters within which the Third World soul, similar to our radical earlier, can
act in the hope that the future historian will judge his action as
genuinely free.
The sojourn of Soul as a collective representation organically
embedded in physicality is short-lived. But through being Objective Spirit in potentia it has shown us the deeper roots of preexisting unity of theory and practice in culture and what this
portends for freedom. By the time Spirit returns in the form of
a collective representation, it will be the highly mediated, closely-knit and, therefore, more free unity in the context of Objective Spirit. For n o w the process of mediation proceeds, as Soul
is being "de-universalized into the individualized subject." Sensibility, the third moment of Physical Soul, is a neutral step in
this direction of individuation resulting in the sentient Soul
which, in being "monadic," is more reminiscent of the One in
Being rather than true individuality. Under this heading are
treated senses, feelings, and even more mediated states like
emotions. Significantly, this is always done in conjunction with
their physical correlates or "corporealizations" or, perhaps
more accurately, corpo-realizations in body temperaments, or-

gans and their functions in crying, sighing, laughter, etc. Hegel

is holding on to his unitary (mental-cMW-physical) structural
approach to Soul after his first step toward individuation, using
the term "psychical" in line with the non-dualistic Aristotelian
conception of psyche.
A further step toward individuation is taken with the transition to the triad of Feeling Soul and especially its second m o ment of Self-Feeling. For greater appreciation, this point should
be taken in conjunction with its counterpart in the Logic, Beingfor-self. The latter was the early prototype of individuality in
the sense that its primitive identity contained w i t h i n itself,
rudimentary and relationless as it might be, the first difference
in the interplay b e t w e e n the S o m e w h a t and the Other. T h e
emergence of a similar rudimentary duality is already visible in
the first m o m e n t of F e e l i n g Soul, w h i c h is F e e l i n g Soul in
its Immediacy.

Further individuation of Soul with its

transition to Feeling
Soul.

Though the sensitive individuality is undoubtedly a monadic individual, it is, because immediate, not yet as its self, not a true subject
reflected into itself, and is therefore passive. Hence the individuality of its true self is a different subject from it a subject which
may even exist as another individual. By the self-hood of the latter
it a substance, which is only a non-independent predicate is
then set in vibration and controlled without the least resistance on
its part. This other subject by which it is so controlled may be
called its genius. (Philosophy of Spirit, # 405)
This m o m e n t points to the familiar result encapsulated in
the surrogate triad of concrete universality to the effect that
true individuality involves internal differentiation. A "monadic"
state will lead to individuality by w a y of a dyadic relationship,
which is illustrated by a variety of situations ranging f r o m the
normal e.g., mother-foetus; dreaming and the unconscious
or "implicit self" to paranormal states such as a wide assortment of hypnotic or "magnetic" cases, and even supernormal
powers e.g., premonitions, extra-sensory perception, clairvoyance, and spiritual healing.
This standpoint can be called magical relationship of the Feeling
Soul, if this term connotes a relation of inner to outer or to something else generally, which dispenses with any mediation; a magical power is one whose action is not determined by the interconnection, the conditions and mediations of objective relations; but
such a power which produces effects without any mediation is 'the
Feeling Soul in its Immediacy.' (Philosophy of Spirit, #405 Zusatz)
Arbitrary as it may seem by empirical standards of verification, this sector of immediacy of Spirit is anthropologically very
important because it encompasses many classes of immediacy
of action which have "dispense(d) with any mediation." Religious and ritual actions as well as mass-psychological manifes-

Interpretation of
Feeling Soul
through immediacy
of practice (action).

tations still fall within this range. Since, at this stage, Soul has
not yet reached the distinction between subject and object, no
mediation exists to validate the "interconnection" between the
terms of this polarity. Instead, there is a passive and an active
function in a dyadic relationship, whose members are dominated by i m m e d i a c y as if they w e r e at o n e w i t h each other. In
terms of categories of action, this situation corresponds to immediacy on the opposite end of the re-immediation reached by
the analysand at the moment of his terminal session. Both the
analysand and the "genius" are at one with themselves in the
sense that there is no gap between the decision to act and action itself. The "genius" and the "magnetizer" have no more
need of empirical m e t h o d o l o g y to validate their action than
does an individual w h e n it comes to his inner state. But the difference between immediacy and re-immediation signifies that:
whereas the "genius," not aware of the distinction between decision to act and action, simply acts; the analysand, having gone
through the middle moment of mediation through theory-practice, both knows the distinction and transcends it in action.
The characteristic point in such knowledge is that the very same
facts (which for the healthy consciousness are an objective practical reality, and to know which, in its sober moods, it needs the intelligent chain of means and conditions in all their real expansion)
are now immediately known and perceived in this immanence.
This perception is a sort of clairvoyance-, for it is a consciousness living in the undivided substantiality of the genius, and finding itself
in the very heart of the interconnection, and so can dispense with
the series of conditions, external one to another, which lead up to
the result the conditions which cool reflection has in succession
to traverse and in so doing feels the limits of its own external individuality. (Philosophy of Spirit, #406; parentheses in the text)
Implications of Feeling Soul for scientific
methodology.

Hegel has taken us back to the archaeology of the concept of

action and placed us "in the very heart of the interconnection"
between theory and practice. He has forced us to consider that
the controversial nature of many of the topics under his category of Soul stem f r o m the fact that they have yet to satisfy the
requirements of scientific methodology of which theory-practice testing is a sine qua non. But it was requirements such as
these that came under severe attack in the first place, as early
as the quoted #9 of the Logic, to the effect that in this method
"the Universal... (is) not on its o w n account connected with the
Particulars or the details. Either is external or accidental to the
other." Prima faciae this would seem to be an unfair criticism of
scientific methodology that endeavors to subsume empirical detail under its universal, if not for the fact that "on its o w n account" refers to the immanent process which transforms the

abstract into a concrete universal by w a y of the familiar surrogate triad at each context of meaning. As the discussion of externality has shown, the concrete universal of the dialectic is
the "self-actualizing universal" and not the abstract universal of
the Understanding, whose empirical content has "been raked
together from the outside as something given and contingent,"
thus raising Understanding's myopic dualistic v i e w of reality to
the universality of knowledge. Hegel returns to his critique of
empirical m e t h o d o l o g y in the Philosophy of Spirit w i t h o u t the
logical underpinnings, but with added scorn and special reference to psychology, and the "pre-existing unity" n o w referred
to as "the original unity" of Spirit.
With this defect of the form (i.e., the disunity of universal and particular described above) there is necessarily linked the despiritualization of the content...For though this (i.e., empirical) psychology
also demands that the various spiritual forces shall be harmoniously
integrated a favorite and oft-recurring catch-phrase on this topic,
but one which is just as indefinite as 'perfection' used to be this
gives expression to a unity of Spirit which only ought to be, not to
the original unity, and still less does it recognize as necessary and
rational the particularization to which the Notion of Spirit, its intrinsic unity, progresses. This harmonious integration remains,
therefore, a vacuous idea which expresses itself in high-sounding
but empty phrases but remains ineffective in face of the spiritual
forces presupposed as independent. (Philosophy of Spirit, #378 Zusatz)
The moments of Soul served as anthropological samples of
this "original unity" of Spirit and good illustrations of dialectical
incorporation at a stage of sheer immediacy. As such, the components of culture remain, unbeknownst to its members, inextricably linked not only with each other but also with the physical environment. First, this unity had its locus in Physical Soul
wherein human collectivity was at one with nature. Then, with
Feeling Soul, the focus shifted to a dyadic relationship representing an incipient form of individuality (Feeling Soul in its Immediacy), since the latter involves self-differentiation. But it is implicitly self-diremption, which again is a stage for the emergence
of true individuality. Finally, in the second moment of Feeling
Soul, Self-Feeling or, more accurately, Soul's sense of self
which w e are about to enter now, this self-diremptive aspect of
individuality takes the f o r m of insanity. Immediacy of knowledge and action, and the unmediated transition from the former
to the latter, which w e have been witnessing so far, will again be
highlighted by juxtaposition to self-diremption.

Recapitulation
and transition to
Self-Feeling.

The seeming perversity of insanity occupying the middle between the "original unity" of the first moment, Physical Soul,
and the recapturing of that unity in the individuality of Actual
Soul of the third m o m e n t , should not be a source of puzzle-

Explication of SelfFeeling by way of

self-diremption of
insanity.

Sickness as disunity
between body and
mind.

ment if w e understand that self-actualizing Spirit is logically

prior to all of this. As Hegel w a r n e d at the v e r y outset of the
Philosophy of Spirit, "from our point of v i e w (i.e., for-us privy to
the circular path, w h o do not put all of our trust in the sequential arrangement of the Encyclopedia) Spirit has for its presupposition Nature, of which it is the truth, and for that reason its absolute prius." In so being, Spirit, as do some of the more insightf u l critics of i n s t i t u t i o n a l i z e d psychoanalysis, points m o r e
deeply into the difficulty anticipated by the dialectic of freedom
in Actuality: Individuality cannot be defined apart f r o m the
w h o l e ; it is, therefore, unfit at this level as a sole criterion regarding what constitutes mental health. Through its capacity as
logically prior to both individual and group (in their isolation),
Spirit returns to their unity in its last phase of Subjective Spirit
after the intermediation of Consciousness no longer as imm e d i a t e but r e - i m m e d i a t e d and f u l l y re-appropriated f r o m
within with the help of self-consciousness. Far from reflecting
Hegel's mere fascination with the paranormal, the occult, the
morbid, and the abnormal, these lengthy moments (occupying
approximately one fifth of Subjective Spirit) constitute "an essential stage in the development of the Soul."
Spirit as such is free, and therefore not susceptible to this malady.
But in older metaphysics Spirit was treated as a soul, as a thing;
thing, i.e., as something natural and existent,
that it is liable to insanity the settled fixture of some finite element in it. Insanity is therefore a psychical disease, i.e., a disease of
body and mind alike: the commencement may appear to start from
the one more than the other, and so also may the cure.

a n d i l is o n l Y as a

The point is that insanity must be grasped essentially as an illness

at once mental and physical, and for this reason, that the unity of the
subjective and the objective which prevails in insanity is still wholly immediate and is not as yet the outcome of infinite mediation;
because the 'I' afflicted with insanity, no matter how acute this
point of self-feeling may be, is still a natural, immediate, passive 'I,'
and consequently the moment of difference can become fixed as a
passive, simply affirmative being; or, to put it still more specifically,
because in insanity a particular feeling which conflicts with the objective consciousness of the insane person is held fast, is not transformed into an ideality, this feeling consequently having the form
of a simply affirmative, hence corporeal, being, with the result that a
duality of being is produced in him which is not overcome by his objective consciousness, a difference which remains purely affirmative
and which becomes for the insane person a fixed limitation. (Philosophy of Spirit, #408 and Zusatz)
Spirit cannot be sick, because derangement, as well as crime
and immorality, do not represent lack, or absence, but rather di-

remption or an abstractive view of what already is a "splittingup" to be mended in the next round of synthesis.
Crime and insanity are extremes which the human mind in general
has to overcome in the course if its development, but which do not
appear as extremes in every individual but only in the form of limitations, errors, follies, and offences not of a criminal nature. This is
sufficient to justify our consideration of insanity as an essential
stage in the development of the Soul... The necessity of this
progress lies in the fact that the Soul is already in itself the contradiction of being an individual, a singular, and yet being at the same
time immediately identical with the universal natural Soul, with its
substance. (Philosophy of Spirit, #408 Zusatz)

Sickness not as deficiency, but as disruption of the "original

unity " of Soul.

Hegel gives us an illustration of this from Objective Spirit,

which has the added advantage of illuminating his conception
of sickness qua abstraction.
In the philosophical development of the ethical sphere, however, we
cannot begin with the State, since in this the ethical sphere has unfolded itself into its most concrete form, whereas the beginning is
necessarily something abstract. For this reason, the moral sphere,
too, must be considered before the ethical sphere, although the
former to a certain extent comes to view in the latter only as a
sickness. But for the same reason in the sphere of anthropology,
too, we have had to discuss insanity before the concrete, objective
consciousness, since insanity, as we have seen, consists in an abstraction rigidly held in opposition to that concrete objective consciousness. (Philosophy of Spirit, #408 Zusatz)
If freedom is to be attained through "ideality" (i.e., sublation
of externality), "objective consciousness" must be developed
first. This can only be done by setting it in opposition to subjectivity, or what amounts to the "splitting-up" of the "original unity" of Soul. However, at this groping stage of individuality, selfdiremption means insanity. For, having ruptured its "original
unity" of subject and object of the previous moment, "the unity
of the subjective and the objective... is not as yet the outcome of
infinite mediation," which is a feature of late Spirit or Reason.
As we have already said, this unity, however, only receives its perfect form in speculative Reason; for only what is thought by this is
true in regard both to its form and its content a perfect unity of
Thought and Being. In insanity, on the contrary, the unity of the
difference of the subjective and the objective still have a merely
formal significance from which the concrete content of the actual
world is excluded. (Philosophy of Spirit, #408 Zusatz)
Soul qua insanity has been caught between the pristine unity of the past, which enabled it to function through the immediacy of the "magical relationship" with externality, and the
concrete unity of the future. It is through the latter that "a particular feeling which conflicts with the objective consciousness" can be "transformed into an ideality." Arrested in this in-

Insanity as selfdiremption is a
necessary step toward freedom qua
self-realization.

between state and lacking a developed "objective consciousness," Self-Feeling Soul reifies this "particular feeling" which
"is held fast... having the form of a simply affirmative (i.e., merely
positive and so devoid of negative determination which is the
earmark of sublation), hence corporeal being." The sick "I" has
advanced the cause of freedom, having contributed a rather
early installment toward self-consciousness, but in doing so it
has generated for itself a state of unfreedom "a duality of being...produced in him which is not overcome by his objective
consciousness." Freedom carries a heavy price, among others,
of self-diremption in the form of insanity. "Man alone has the
capacity of grasping himself in this complete abstraction of the
7'. This is w h y he has, so to speak, the privilege of folly and
madness." (Philosophy of Spirit, #408 Zusatz).
Consequences of the
Hegelian view of
sickness for the
dialectic of action
and disciplinary
knowledge.

The cultural and philosophical implications of this interpretation of madness as a state of unfreedom which is, nevertheless, a necessary stage in the path of self-realization, are too
great in number and importance to take up here. Instead, w e
shall concentrate on those interpretations centering on our topic the paradigmatic possibilities of the dialectical treatment of
insanity for the illumination of the dialectical synthesis of theory-practice. The madness of Soul is the early prototype of the
modern (i.e., post-classical) malady of self-diremption of a culture, wherein theory-practice has progressively become the
dominant category of action. In both the above, and in our psychoanalytical paradigm of synthesis of action, sickness is a form
of reification: one deals with oneself and other human beings
through a method modelled after scientism. The most obvious,
and at the same time most pervasive, manifestation of this sickness qua reification in modern soul is to be found in the fact
that "objective consciousness... (as defined by scientistic theory-practice) is held fast, is not transformed into ideality." The result is the all-too-familiar feature of modernity, whereby reification permeates all compartments of modern soul:'the rules of
the game for earning a living dominate the way one puts one's
life together as a whole.
One should not be misled about sickness qua reification associated with scientism by the apparent lack of symmetry between Self-Feeling and scientistic soul, i.e., that the latter does
not reify particular subjective feelings but rather holds fast onto
"objective consciousness." Insofar as scientism corresponds to
Essence and, by extension, to Consciousness, the two cases belong to different levels in the dialectical scale. The moment of
Self-Feeling corresponds to an incipient form of externality
which is confined within the Soul and whose referent is the fix-

ated feeling "this feeling... having the form of a simply affirmative, hence corporeal, being." The more advanced externality
vis-a-vis nature has to wait for the transition to Consciousness,
wherein the viewing of nature takes place not merely in the
light of "the magical relationship" of the Feeling Soul in its Immediacy as an extension of the self. For, Self-Feeling Soul had
already overcome this much, only to fall back within its o w n
confines. Rather, the overcoming should be of a true Other to
be dealt with through the instrumentality of theory-practice. In
this case of incipient externality is found not only correspondence between the middle moments of triads of equal overarching capacity, but between middle moments of different capacity as well, i.e., Essence, Consciousness, and Self-Feeling Soul.
What matters, both dialectically and culturally, for our purCultural (holistic
poses of using the dialectical view of insanity to elucidate issues
and particularism
about action and culture in general, is not the specific content of
implications of the
"the moment of difference (between the subjective and objective dialectic of insanity.
sides which) become(s) fixed as a passive, simply affirmative being," but rather the fact that one term of the polarity "is held fast,
is not transformed into an ideality." Similarly, the significance of
the cure as a consequence of the dialectical insight about the
malady of dualism, is that it is a form of transcending this fixation or "fixed limitation," whereby "the duality of being... produced (in the patient) "is... overcome" and not the particular
content of this duality. Only under these circumstances of alienation, common to both culture and the individual, can the importance of the conclusion "that insanity must be grasped essentially as an illness at once mental and physical" become fully illuminated. By pursuing an extended and often profound coverage of
the realms of the prehistorical, the paranormal, the supernormal, and the abnormal, Hegel has partially suspended, by way of
his conception of soul (i.e., Aristotelian soul unity-in-ethnic diversity), the monotheistically grounded dualistic (soul-vmwsbody) parameters of humanistic discourse. His dialectical unityin-diversity approach to culture provides valuable insights into
the current debates about cultural diversity which, dualistically
structured as they are, swing heedlessly between mindless relativism and narrow-minded Judeo-Christian Eurocentrism. These
insights will be taken up in Part V along with other dialectical
explorations of the contemporary scene.
The categories of action have correspondingly benefitted
Transition to the
from this suspension. One can appreciate the extent to which category of Habit
immediacy of action has faithfully served humanity in the
and the immediacy
course of countless millenia of its formative existence. The imof routine practice.
portant function of immediacy can now be fully recognized by

following the next transition from Self-Feeling to Habit. This is a

significant step whose dialectical gains will be transferred wholesale to Objective Spirit, for which the institutionalization of routine practice is indispensable. Habit is bordering on the organic
or on a sort of Darwinian selection for its establishment. Radical
action, in its purest immediacy and the absence of rational calculation about its final outcome, resembles wild probes into a
wide range of hidden possibilities, from which only a f e w will be
actualized, though all w i l l e n j o y ephemeral existence. In the
case of anthropologically defined immediacy of practice some instances will lose the sheer subjectivity and ephemerality that
goes w i t h the charge of feeling and become objectivated and
universalized through repetition. In retrospect, what justifies the
apparent irrationality of the radical at the institutional level, as
some of his probes make it into history, also rationalizes the derangement-modelled immediacy of action at the level of Feeling
Soul as some of its probes make it into culture.
The Soul's making itself an abstract universal being, and reducing
the particulars of feeling (and of consciousness) to a mere feature
of its being is Habit... The Soul is freed from them, so far as it is not
interested in or occupied with them: and whilst existing in these
forms as its possession, it is at the same time open to be otherwise
occupied and engaged...
This process of building up the particular and corporeal expressions
of feeling into the being of the Soul appears as a repetition of them,
and the generation of habit as practice...
Habit is rightly called a second nature; nature, because it is an immediate being of the Soul; a second nature, because it is an immediacy created by the Soul, impressing and moulding the corporeality which enters into the modes of feeling as such and into the representations and volitions so far as they have taken corporeal form.
Habit is often spoken of disparagingly and called lifeless, casual,
and particular...and yet habit is indispensable for the existence of all
intellectual life in the individual, enabling the subject to be a concrete immediacy, an 'ideality' of Soul enabling the matter of
consciousness, religious, moral, etc., to be his as this self, this soul,
and no other, and be neither a mere latent possibility, nor a transient emotion or idea, nor an abstract inwardness, cut off from action and reality, but part and parcel of his being. (Philosophy of
Spirit, #410; parentheses in the text)
Habit as incipient
re-immediation of
action anchored in
the non-dualistic
conception of
Soul (psyche).

Formally, Habit is the synthesis of the t w o main characteristics of the preceding moments: the fusion of Feeling Soul in its
Immediacy and the self-diremption of Self-Feeling into a higher
unity w h i c h prefigures concrete universality, i.e., a "concrete
immediacy." The latter incorporates, on the one hand, "abstract
universal being" through disengagement from "the particulars of

feelings" and "repetition" of "the particular and corporeal expressions of feeling" and, on the other hand, particularity to the extent that various forms of cultural consciousness (e.g., religious,
moral, etc.) can be said "to be his as this (particular) self, this
(particular) soul." Abstract universality slowly emerges out of
the "original unity" of the Soul, as this unity further breaks
down before the final synthesis of Soul in Actual Soul. This has
significance for our purposes because the "original unity" reflects our pre-existing unity of theory and practice: first as immediacy of action or practice, then Habit, and soon to be encountered as Actual Soul. All of these constitutes incipient forms
of re-immediation of action, inasmuch as the "original unity"
stems from the structural-functional conception of Soul, which
has been exemplified throughout this discussion in its non-dualistic approach to action.
The ingredients of the non-dualistic approach to action in
Soul are as follows: First, in Feeling Soul in its Immediacy as a
condition neither merely bodily nor merely mental, but "psychical"; second, in the realization that action has to be understood
as governed by a "magical relationship" which "dispenses with
any mediation" as a requisite in theory-practice; and finally in
the application of this unitary principle whereby it is recognized
"that insanity must be grasped essentially as an illness at once
mental and physical." The "original unity" of Soul will be reinstated in the forthcoming Actual Soul, but not before it undergoes a
series of self-diremption, the latest of which is Habit. In the latter, Soul becomes further "de-universalized" through self-application of division of labor with an eye to efficiency through detachment from the immediacy of feelings. "The Soul (is) making
itself an abstract universal being, and reducing the particulars of
feelings... to a mere feature of its being... The Soul is freed from
them... (and is) at the same time open to be otherwise occupied
and engaged." (Italics added in this instance) In Habit, Soul is separating itself from its feelings by objectifying them, by "building
up the corporeal expressions of feeling into the being of Soul."
Unlike the state of "original unity" in which the "merely bodily"
and the "merely mental" coincided in the "psychical" structure
which is Soul, now feelings and "corporeal expressions" can be
distinguished from each other by virtue of the latter's "repetition... and the generation of habit as practice."
One may be tempted to conclude, with this apparent separation of the physical from the mental, the preoccupation with efficiency, and the externalization of practice,that the rise of polarity
of theory-practice in the realm of Spirit is finally at hand. Not yet
however, for though with Habit w e have reached beyond mere

Recapitulation of
non-dualistic, as
well as diremptive,
elements of action
implicit in Soul.

Habit prefigures
diremption between physical from
mental implicit in
institutionalization.

nature and into a "second nature," w e are still short of Consciousness where duality in all its manifestations truly belongs.
Soul has indeed generated a rudimentary sort of mediation, because Habit qua second nature and, by extension, practice as repetition, are "an immediacy created by the Soul." Yet Habit is also
part of mere nature "because it is an immediate being of the Soul."
(Added emphases in the last t w o instances) To paraphrase and
extend our familiar motto distinguishing Essence from Notion in
terms of self-consciousness: whereas in Consciousness the "I" operates on itself and thinks that it operates on something external,
and in M i n d it similarly operates on itself and it knows that it
does so, in Soul it lacks even a clear sense of the separation between the two. This anticipation of mediation in the final moments of Soul is reminiscent of the similar prefiguring of Essence
in Measure, the final moment of Being. But it is equally an incipient form of re-immediation of action, as it is more evident in Actual Soul, the last moment of Soul.
Reaffirmation of
non-dualism in
Actual Soul by way
of language and art.

The Soul, when its corporeity has been moulded and made thoroughly its own, finds itself there a single subject; and the coiporeity is
an externality which stands as a predicate, in being related to which,
it is related to itself. This externality, in other words, represents not
itself, but the Soul, of which it is the sign. In this identity of interior
and exterior, the latter subject to the former, the Soul is actual: in its
corporeity it has its free shape, in which it feels itself and makes itself
felt, and which as the Soul's work of art has human pathognomic and
physiognomic expression. {Philosophy of Spirit, #411)
The Actual Soul is a reaffirmation of the non-dualistic conception of the first moment of Soul (Physical Soul) after incorporating the contributions of the second m o m e n t (Feeling
Soul), including the important benefits of detachment f r o m
feelings through repetition (Habit). By virtue of the latter it can
liberate enough energy for symbolizing activity, thus signalling
the transition to higher forms of culture. The process of liberation through delegation of routine action to habit, reaches a
high point w i t h the symbolizing function of language. "Seen
from the animal world, the human figure is the supreme phase
in which Spirit makes an appearance. But for the Spirit it is only its first appearance, while language is its perfect expression."
(Philosophy of Spirit, #411) Language is an advanced specimen of
Soul's "corporeity b e ( i n g ) m o u l d e d and made thoroughly its
o w n . " It can be equally taken as a high-grade immediacy or,
as above, a low-grade re-immediation of action. For the externality implied in this action is not yet the genuine externality to be d e v e l o p e d in Consciousness as it was in Essence; it
"represents not itself, but the Soul, of which it (i.e., externality)
is the sign." In placing language under Habit in the context of

Soul ( w h e r e externality remains to b e c o m e explicit), H e g e l

places himself in opposition to realist v i e w s of language, for
which externality contains those pre-existing objects, on which
meanings are subsequently attached. His v i e w of language falls
under the rubric of unmediated (by externality) action, which
gives him a claim of having anticipated the role of intentionality and action of modern phenomenological and speech-act theorists of language.
Historically, Actual Soul corresponds to the classical conception of psyche writ large in Greek social, educational, and aesthetic values, as outlined in the Platonic system of virtues: That
a healthy mind resides in a healthy body in both humans and
the body-politic ("this identity of interior and exterior"); that
external beauty is the other side of internal harmony, for both
individual and c o m m u n i t y ( " S o u l ' s w o r k of art has human
pathognomic and physiognomic expression"); and that virtue
which is essentially a matter of h a r m o n y is also a matter of
practice of both mind and body (Habit).
But philosophy has to recognize that Spirit is only for-itself (i.e., reduced to the self-concealment of Essence) by opposing to itself material being, partly in the shape of its own corporeity and partly as
an external world, and by leading back what is thus differentiated
into unity with itself, a unity mediated by the opposition of material being and the overcoming of it. (Philosophy of Spirit, #410 Zusatz)
The familiar Socratic doctrine about the practice of virtue
following inevitably from the true knowledge of it reflects all of
the above points, and is a direct outcome of the pre-existing
unity of theory and practice as incorporated in early Soul. Action, w e recall, operated as if it were governed by a "magical relationship" which "dispenses with any mediation." Knowledge
was equally ruled by immediacy, as it was "a sort of clairvoyance," w h e r e b y "the v e r y same facts ( w h i c h for the healthy
consciousness are an objective reality, and to know which, in its
sober moods, it needs the intelligent chain of means and conditions in all their real expansion) are n o w immediately known and
perceived in this immanence." (emphases added in the last instance) The Socratic doctrine and its dialectical counterpart in
Actual Soul stand as re-immediation vis-a-vis the immediacy of
early Soul, after the intermediation of Self-Feeling Soul the
Socratic "sick soul" and Habit. But it also stands in a relationship of immediacy vis-a-vis the advanced re-immediation of
the Idea, as w e shall see later.
As usual, the dialectical benefits of Actual Soul and the immediacy of action corresponding to it are retained in future moments, so that the historical illustrations may be extended be-

Historical counterpart of Actual Soul

in classical psyche
and polis.

Cautionary note on
the apparent attainment offreedom in
Actual Soul.

yond the citizen of the polis to the good Christian knight, the
good Marine, and of course the good radical of our paradigm.
They all are part of a closely-knit community whose values cohere in varying degrees with a wider social whole. But above
all, they share in this "magical relationship" of immediate operation of mind and body in pursuing their ideals and defending
their values. As the more insightful reformers and experimental
educators of all times, but especially of the 1960s realized, experiential education along the principle of the "concrete immediacy" of the Soul viewed as "at once mental and physical," is indispensable for societal bonding through instillation of values.
Recalling our example of the correspondence of theoria, praxis,
and poesis to parts of the soul of the polis, the expectation was
that in a healthy community each part will act in line with the
category of action appropriate to it without having to apply the
test of theory-practice. The latter would have automatically resorted to mediation, which would mean that the right knowledge may not have automatically issued in virtuous action.
But w e must not try to advance too quickly, lest we may be
perceived as suggesting that the freedom of the citizen of the
polis is also ours. Our casting of Actual Soul into the role of
both re-immediation (facing backward) and immediacy (facing
forward) highlighted the facf (also done earlier in conjunction
with casting Hegel's dialectic of freedom in historical terms)
that the self-diremption of Actual Soul in the hands of Consciousness is both a historical fact and a philosophical determination after the fact. To put it in the dialectical language of SelfFeeling Soul, the insanity implied in scientistic theory-practice
is an "essential stage in the d e v e l o p m e n t of Soul." Hegel's
meticulous inclusion and emphasis of self-consciousness as an
ingredient in the definition of modern freedom, was meant also
as a warning against culturally and historically unwarranted invocations of ideals of classical paedeia in the education and, indeed, socialization in our times. That right knowledge can issue
immediately in virtuous action seems inconceivable to our
modernity, inhabited as it is by moral theorists who are preaching virtue during their working hours, but w h o turn to "do
their o w n thing" after work and all of this in the name of
freedom. But, more fundamentally, it is symptomatic of how
modernity is imbued with the syndrome of mediation as exemplified in theory-practice, which has also encroached upon the
domain of action and freedom. Equally inconceivable for a
member of a pre-modern culture (particularly that of early polis
where the virtue of honor reigned supreme) would be the selfdirempted behavior of our teacher of moral virtue.

iii. Concrete Consciousness

Consciousness is the middle moment of Subjective Spirit. It
corresponds also to Essence and to Nature as the mediating moments of Logic and Spirit, respectively. In terms of theory and
practice, consciousness represents the moment of polarity in the
triad describing the changing relationship between theory and
practice. Delineation of its transitions is a demanding task because it requires a comprehensible summary of what is already a
very compact rendition of Hegel's seminal work, the Phenomenology of Spirit. Our hope is that the following strategy may somewhat alleviate the density of the presentation: First, w e shall
make frequent references to its counterparts in Essence, especially where this has implications for our project. Second, w e
shall provide some bearings with regard to the importance of
consciousness for the final synthesis of theory and practice.
Beginning with the Preface, w e have made repeated references to the fact that the final synthesis will take place in the
context of an elevated sort of subjectivity modeled after self-consciousness, which contains objectivity in a sublated form. Consciousness, and especially its triad of Self-consciousness, is precisely this model of subjectivity that has to be built-up in concreteness before it can assume this vital task. We recall that the
dialectic of action cannot reach its final synthesis with the polarity of subject-object remaining intact. This task will be accomplished, as was the synthesis of theory-practice in Essence, after
its terms have reached a stage of behind-the-surface concreteness. But while the build-up of the objective term in concreteness in the realm of Spirit (i.e., culture) can be grasped intuitively, that of the subjective term is far from self-evident. Here again,
scientistic dualism and its big brother epistemological realism, can
be blamed since they have succeeded admirably, in their self-concealment, in turning the subject into a psychologistic concept. On
the other hand, it has been the towering achievement of the Phenomenology of Spirit to expose this fiasco by giving cultural and
historical expression to forms of consciousness.
With respect to the last point, w e should anticipate that,
whereas in the Logic w e had a succession of increasingly concrete objects being generated out of the most primitive being,
here w e shall have a succession of subjects whose concreteness
results from progressive mediation with objects generated out
of themselves in their state of self-diremption. And, instead of
convergence taking place between the subject and something
outside of it, the whole process beginning with the pre-existing unity of Soul, proceeding with self-dirempted Conscious-

Strategy of exposition and preview of

the conclusion of
Subjective Spirit.

Emergence of

ness and ending with reunified Mind takes place within the
compass of increasingly self-enriched (concrete) subjectivity. Finally, instead of a synthesis between theory associated with a
subject, and practice with an object, w e shall witness their synthesis in Mind only insofar as they represent these self-generated polarities within the subject.
The transition f r o m Soul to Consciousness is the result of

Consciousness from
Spirit by way of

w h a t w e h a v e encountered in the last m o m e n t as the increased p o w e r of Actual Soul has its corporeity "moulded and

self-reflection.

made thoroughly its o w n . "

The Actual Soul with its sensation and its concrete self-feeling
turned into habit, has implicitly realized the 'ideality' of its qualities; in this externality it has recollected and inwardized itself, and
is infinite self-relation. This free universality thus made explicit
shows the Soul awaking to the higher stage of the ego, or abstract
universality, in so far as it is for the abstract universality. In this
way it gains the position of thinker and subject specially a subject of the judgment in which the ego excludes from itself the sum
total of its merely natural features as an object, a world external to
it but with such respect to that object that in it is immediately
reflected into itself. Thus Soul rises to become Consciousness. (Philosophy of Spirit, #412)
It is apparent f r o m the outset that Consciousness will be a
replay of the logic of Essence in terms of concrete subjectivity,
as the former emerges from the immediacy of Soul in the same
w a y that Essence emerged from the immediacy of Being in the
oft quoted #111 and #112 of the Logic. For example, in #112,
"Essence... is self-relatedness, only in so far as it is relation to an
Other." So is Consciousness above, which, in its "infinite selfrelation," has "gain(ed) the position of thinker and subject
specially a subject of a j u d g m e n t in w h i c h the ego excludes
from itself the sum total of its merely natural features as an object." The for-itselfness which characterizes Essence is also present above in the fact that abstract universality, which comes
with the soul's "awaking to the stage of the ego," is not for-us
(as it w o u l d have been in Soul or Being), but "for the abstract
universality," i.e., for-itself. Reflection too, of which w e had a
glimpse at the end of the last quoted passage, as the ego being
"immediately reflected into itself," retains its crucial role. The
outcome in Essence, the accomplishment of the dialectic of Reflection (and Identity), was the gradual overcoming of externality between subject and object, which was also reflected in the
convergence of theory and practice. By the time w e reached the
end of Actuality Proper, the gap was all but closed with the exception of deeply embedded traces of subject-object polarity
which kept resurfacing as contingency in the course of the last

totalizing efforts of Actuality. N o w the same goal of closing this

gap is being pursued and by precisely the same means of reflection, except that the effort is centering within the subject.
Only when I come to apprehend myself as 'I,' does the Other become objective to me, confronts me, and is at the same time converted into an ideal moment in me, and hence brought back to
unity with me. That is why in the above Paragraph the T was
compared to light. Just as light is the manifestation of itself and its
Other, darkness, and can manifest itself only by manifesting that
Other, so too the T is manifest to itself only in so far as its Other is
manifest to it in the shape of something independent of it. (Philosophy of Spirit, #413 Zusatz)

Building up of concreteness with the

subject as an object
of consciousness.

As already anticipated, the outcome will again be convergence of the p o l a r terms as t h e y b u i l d - u p in c o n c r e t e n e s s

through the process of reflection. However, since the terms are
n o w the t w o sides resulting f r o m the self-dirempted subject
which has just ushered in consciousness, the same dialectic of
Identity (or Reflection) is about to be centered on the subject
which n o w contains both itself and the object.
On the one hand we must, of course, distinguish being which is absolutely immediate, indeterminate, undifferentiated, from thought
which is self-differentiating and by the reduction of difference
to a moment self-mediating, that is, from the 'I'; yet, on the
other hand, being is identical with thought, since the latter returns
from every mediation to immediacy (i.e., re-immediation), from all
self differentiation to serene unity with itself. (Philosophy of Spirit,
#413 Zusatz)
Thus, our first encounter with an advanced form of unity of
theory and practice will be at the level of the subject itself. But
as it will b e c o m e increasingly clear in the remainder of this
Chapter, enough concreteness will be accumulated by the subjective term through dialectical incorporation of objectivity at
the end of Mind, to enable the subject to qualify for the appellation of Subjective Spirit.
The symmetry between Consciousness and Essence extends
beyond general principles into the structural detail of their respective triads.

The symmetry
between Consciousness and Essence
The Spirit as ego is Essence; but since reality, in the sphere of qua middle triadic
Essence, is represented as in immediate being and at the same time
terms, and as dual
as 'ideal,' it is as Consciousness only the appearance (phenomenon)
structures.
of Spirit. (Philosophy of Spirit, #414; parenthesis in the text)

The aim of conscious Spirit is to make its appearance identical with

its essence, to raise its self-certainty to truth. (Philosophy of Spirit, #416)
The grades of this elevation of certainty to truth are three in number: first (a) Consciousness in general (i.e., Proper), with an object
set against it; (b) Self-consciousness, for which ego is the object; (c)
unity of Consciousness and Self-consciousness, where the Mind

sees itself embodied in the object and sees itself as implicitly and
explicitly determinate, as Reason, the Notion of Mind. (Philosophy of
Spirit, #417)
Further symmetries
between Logic and
Spirit illuminate
Spirit's project of progressive concreteness.

The building up of concreteness of the subjective term is already in process, as the latter begins as "only the appearance" of
Spirit in the first quoted paragraph, and m o v e s to gradually
"make its appearance identical with its essence." The "grades of
this elevation of certainty to truth" are pari passu grades of subjectivity, which are structuralized as is Being. In #415 Hegel is
explicit that "consciousness consequently appears differently
m o d i f i e d according to the difference of the given object; and
the gradual specification of consciousness appears as a variation
in the characteristics of the objects." Thus, from the standpoint
of Subjective Spirit, the raising of "its self-certainty to truth" corresponds in the Logic to the synthesis of Essence and Appearance in Actuality "to mak(ing Spirit's) appearance identical
with its essence." Pursuing "the grades of this elevation of certainty to truth" one step further, the first sub-division of Consciousness Proper, Sensuous Consciousness, corresponds to Existence in the Logic; its second, Sense-perception, to the Thing;
and its third, Intellect or, what w e have been referring to as
the Understanding (Verstand) throughout these pages corresponds to scientistic rationality from the phenomenalism of early Appearance to the sophisticated theory-construction of late
Essential Relation.
The transition from Consciousness Proper to Self-consciousness results in an upgrading of Spirit's project of "elevation of
certainty to truth," as Spirit turns the light on itself, as its object. But m o r e important for the undertaking of progressive
concreteness, there is a sharp turn toward social and historical
concreteness, totally belied by the triad's title but perfectly fitting Spirit's long-run enterprise. Anticipating what is forthcoming, with the help of symmetries between Logic and Spirit, the
gains f r o m the build-up of concreteness in the subject under
Consciousness Proper are applied to Self-consciousness. The latter, being treated like the contradiction between Essence and
Appearance in the Logic, yields to what corresponds to late Actuality in that work, Universal Self-consciousness. Finally, in
Reason corresponding to the Subjective Notion in the Logic
the model of self-consciousness resurfaces as Spirit makes
the transition to Mind. At this level of high concreteness of the
subject, the boundary between subject and object becomes increasingly difficult to fix and their respective theoretical and
practical roles, as w e have hitherto known them, reverse themselves and become fused in the subject. As of now, the subject's

concreteness, i.e., its progressive incorporation of the object, is

the other side of its assuming the role of a trans-individual subject the Idea or, correspondingly, Spirit in its full manifestation. In this sense, the familiar parallelism between subject-object and theory-practice has collapsed as part of the operation to
eliminate the deeply embedded subject-object polarity, which
has been standing in the w a y of the final synthesis of theory
and practice.
Tracing the rise
in concreteness
in the course of
the transition from
Consciousness Proper
to Self-consciousness.

Concreteness begins to build up rather quickly for the remainder of Consciousness, starting with a category which may
seem unsuitable for such a role, Self-consciousness. The latter is
pursued through variously illuminating socially and historically
concrete embodiments, but not before the logical foundations
are set with the categorial equipment of the Logic. The familiar
dialectical rhythm of Identity used to pursue the self-differentiation in a succession of particularized identities of Being is n o w
used again, beginning with an abstract conception of self-identity, of the 1=1.
Self-consciousness is the truth of Consciousness: the latter is a consequence of the former, all consciousness of an other object being as
a matter of fact also self-consciousness. The object is my idea: I am
aware of the object as mine; and thus in it I am aware of me. The
formula of Self-consciousness is 1=1: abstract freedom, pure 'Ideality'; and thus it lacks 'reality': for as it is its own object, there is
strictly speaking no object, because there is no distinction between
it and the object.
In the formula, 1=1, is enunciated the principle of absolute Reason
and freedom. Freedom and Reason consist in this, that I raise myself to the form of 1=1, that I know everything as mine... that in the
world I find myself again, and, conversely, in my consciousness
have what is, what possesses objectivity. This unity of the T and the
object which constitutes the principle of Mind is, however, at first
only abstractly present in immediate Self-consciousness, and is
known only by us who reflect on it, not as yet by Self-consciousness itself. Immediate Self-consciousness has not as yet for its object the 1=1, but only the 'I'; therefore, it is free only for-us, not foritself, is not yet aware of its freedom, and contains only the foundation of it, but not as yet freedom that is truly actual. (Philosophy of
Spirit, #424 and Zusatz)
As the truth of Sense-perception is the Intellect (Understanding), so is Self-consciousness the truth of Consciousness. Following the dialectical principle of circularity, the more advanced category in logically completing or making explicit the less advanced one, also provides the context of meaning in which the
latter can be understood. Self-consciousness is as much presupposed in consciousness, though this remains implicit, as it is the
outcome of the latter, inasmuch as what was previously an ex-

Parallelism between
the dialectic of Identity and that of
Consciousness.

ternal object is n o w in "me." N o w "I am aware of the object as

mine; and thus in it I am aware of me." But, as Hegel proceeds
to explain, this Self-consciousness is only in potentia the counterpart of abstract Identity in Essence and Being, since it is "only
by us (i.e., for-us as a guide for the attainment of Reason and
f r e e d o m ) w h o reflect on it." The dialectical forces which were
instrumental in propelling the logical identity of A = A in Essence
along the path of concreteness, are responsible n o w for doing
the same for the 1=1 of abstract Self-consciousness. The way out
in both cases, as indeed in all dialectical transitions, is through
the elaboration of the contradictory implications of the one-sidedness of abstractions, as in the present case of self-Identity
without Difference. Such is the case of abstract Self-consciousness here which, on the one hand, proclaims confidently, "in my
consciousness (I) have what is, what possesses objectivity" and,
on the other, its formula 1=1 is, in its abstraction, devoid of all
objective content. Expressed more formally in terms of the previous m o m e n t of Consciousness Proper, which has been both
negated and dialectically incorporated (i.e., sublated) by Selfconsciousness, the latter has both negated and retained an external object. It has negated it because it has superseded Consciousness Proper which is distinguished by having an object,
but it has also retained it in the sense that, having had incorporated Consciousness Proper, it contains sublated within itself the
latter's attitude towards an object.
Abstract Self-consciousness is the first negation of Consciousness
(Proper), and for that reason is burdened with an external object,
or, nominally, with the negation of it. Thus it is at the same time
the antecedent stage, Consciousness: it is the contradiction of itself
as Self-consciousness and as Consciousness. But the latter aspect of
the negation in general is in 1=1 potentially suppressed; and hence
as this certitude of self against the object it is the impulse to realize
its implicit nature, by giving its abstract self-awareness content and
objectivity, and in the other direction to free itself from its sensuousness, to set aside the given objectivity and identify it with itself.
The two processes are one and the same, the identification of its
consciousness and self-consciousness. (Philosophy of Spirit, #425)
The locus for the final synthesis of theory and practice in subjectivity begins to take shape in the f o r m of "this certitude of
self against the object (which) is the impulse to realize its implicit nature (i.e., qua foundation of its freedom 'but not yet freed o m that is truly actual'), by giving its abstract self-awareness
(i.e., the f o r m 1=1) content and objectivity." The psychoanalytical paradigm provided a clue about the transition from externally given to self-given action by casting the scientistic m o ments of theory-practice in the form of self-consciousness. N o w

the same conclusion is formally effected in the dialectical transition from Consciousness Proper to the triad of Self-consciousness. This is only the beginning of securing the object within
the fold of the subject, thus laying a similar foundation for freedom on the part of concrete Spirit as the dialectic of freedom
has laid in logical terms in Actuality Proper. But it is a very important beginning in the sense that the logical connection between externally caused to self-given action has been, since the
Cartesian point of contact between mind and matter, an ongoing riddle for dualistic mind.
The dialectical unfolding of action qua self-given begins with
Appetite, the first sub-moment of Self-consciousness. Re-immediation is at work again since such beginning of Self-consciousness points to its lowly roots in Soul. But it is also indicative of
a related phenomenon, which is fundamental for our project.
This was referred to above as reversal of the polarity of theorypractice, which lays the ground for the advanced form of "practical" as self-given: the situation whereby the subject of the last
quotation "free(s) itself from its (passive) sensuousness, to set
aside the given (from the outside) objectivity (which is also the
testing ground of scientistic practice) and identify it with itself."
These ingredients of an incipient practical qua self-given attitude of the subject are found in pre-existing unity in Appetite.
Such continuity of this "practical" from the quasi-animalistic
Appetite to the self-given action according to universal laws of
the last moment of Self-consciousness, Universal Self-consciousness, would have no doubt appalled Kant w h o , as w e
shall see in detail later, wanted the sensuous and the rational
domains compartmentalized. However, w e should be cautious
in realizing that this is only one battle with externality and that
the confrontation with the object will not be over with Selfconsciousness in the middle of Subjective Spirit. It is well to remember that here Self-consciousness (and M i n d in a more
comprehensive way later) is dealing with objectivity within itself, as a preliminary step to its final synthetic task in the Idea.
Stated in our customary alternative way, Spirit has first to build
up its concreteness qua subject (Subjective Spirit) and later as
object (Objective Spirit) in anticipation of the final synthesis.
This is done for the purpose of pre-empting any situation in
which either term may resurface as merely subjective or merely
objective thus aborting the synthesis. In short, while a succession of battles are being won, the war with externality will not
be over until w e reach the Idea, and more precisely the Absolute Idea.

Appetite, the
moment of Selfconsciousness, as
the progenitor of
self-given (free)
action.

Self -consciousness, in its immediacy, is a singular, and a desire

(Appetite) the contradiction implied in its abstraction which
should yet be objective or in its immediacy which has the shape
of an external object and should be subjective. The certitude of
one's self, which issues from the suppression of mere Consciousness, pronounces the object null: and the outlook of Self-consciousness towards the object equally qualifies the abstract ideality of
such Self-consciousness as null. (Philosophy of Spirit, #426; parentheses in the text)
This moment opens on a self-contradictory note inasmuch as
Self-consciousness qua Appetite is burdened with immediacy
and abstraction from the outset. They are part of its legacy from
Soul and Consciousness Proper in keeping a genuine unity of
subject and object f r o m materializing: their unmediated unity
in Soul "its abstraction w h i c h should yet be objective"
and their disunity in Consciousness Proper "its immediacy
which has the shape of an external object and should be subjective." The resolution of this self-contradiction lies implicit in the
incorporated legacy of Self-consciousness, this time abstract
Self-consciousness, which "as this certitude of the self against the
object it is the impulse to realize its implicit nature." (Change of
emphases from the originally quoted passage)
In spite of this internal contradiction, however, Self-consciousness
remains absolutely certain of itself because it knows that the immediate, external object has no true reality but is, on the contrary,
a nullity over against the subject possessing only a seeming independence, and is, in fact, a being which neither merits nor is capable of an existence of its own, but must succumb to the real power
of the subject. (Philosophy of Spirit, #426 Zusatz)
The dialectic of
Self-consciousness
as a struggle for
recognition and
self-realization.

In Self-consciousness as Appetite, and in its counterpart in

the Phenomenology of Spirit wherein those sections of Subjective
Spirit are fully elaborated, Hegel has offered us the basic ingredients of a sociology of modern mass culture. Externality, like
its material counterpart in consumerist culture, is being appropriated in search of self-fulfillment. But, lacking sublation of
the object of the consumer's appetite, the resurfacing object
or, what is tantamount to a relapse into Consciousness Proper
ends up in the negation of self-realization through the operation of the False Infinite in consumer appetite. In effect, concrete freedom supplants abstract choice as the criterion for consumption. But this does not come about normatively, in the
w a y that w e have been accustomed to in recent sermonizing by
those w h o deplore consumerism. Rather, it emerges immanently, almost circuitously and certainly not amiably, as the self
eventually encounters another subject on its path toward selfrealization. This marks the transition to the m o m e n t of SelfConsciousness Recognitive.

Here there is a self-consciousness for a self-consciousness, at first

immediately, as one of two things for another. In that Other as ego I
behold myself, and yet also an immediate existing object, another
ego absolutely independent of me and opposed to me... This contradiction gives either self-consciousness the impulse to show itself
as a free self, and to exist as such for the other: the process of
recognition. (Philosophy of Spirit, #430)
This process is fraught with nastiness and danger. Indeed "the
process is a battle" (Philosophy of Spirit, #431) for recognition, but
implicitly also for freedom since the primitive practical attitude
of immediate Self-consciousness qua Appetite is also a claim for
self-realization. The challenge to one's freedom, by withholding
recognition as another "I," amounts to a reduction to thinghood
and the denial of the very possibility for self-realization.
Freedom demands, therefore, that the self-conscious subject
should not heed his own natural existence or tolerate the natural
existence of others; on the contrary indifferent to natural existence, he should in his individual, immediate actions stake his own
life and the lives of others to win freedom. (Philosophy of Spirit,
#431 Zusatz)
The contradiction between "natural existence" and recognition resulting in life-and-death struggle, only seemed to be resolved by the victory of one of the combatants. For, as Hegel
continues to point out in the next #432, " f r o m the essential
point of v i e w (i.e., of the outward and visible recognition) a
new contradiction (for that recognition is at the same time undone by the other's death) and a greater than the o t h e r " has
been generated by the victory. This n e w contradiction is reconciled by the realization that social organization constitutes a
more permanent foundation of freedom than mere recognition,
and that preservation of life, is as important as the willingness
to sacrifice life, if freedom is to be secured.
But because life is as requisite as liberty to the solution, the fight
ends in the first instance as a one-sided negation with inequality.
While the one combatant prefers life, retains his single self-consciousness, but surrenders his claim for recognition, the other
holds fast to his self-assertion and is recognized by the former as
his superior. Thus arises the status of master and slave.
In the battle for recognition and the subjugation under a master,
we see, on their phenomenal side, the emergence of man's social
life and the commencement of political union. (Philosophy of Spirit,
#433)
This subjugation of the slave's egotism forms the beginning of true
human freedom. This quaking of the single, isolated will, the feeling
of the worthlessness of egotism, the habit of obedience, is a necessary moment in the education of all men. Without having experienced the discipline which breaks self-will, no one becomes free, rational, and capable of command. (Philosophy of Spirit, #435 Zusatz)

Social organization
as a basis for selfrealization emerges
out of the struggleto-the-death for
recognition.

The justly celebrated dialectic of master and slave in the Phenomenology of Spirit, of which this is a most severe condensation,
is, in addition to being a stage in the development of Self-consciousness, also a paradigm for social development as force
gives way to power and its consolidation through institutions of
production and social control. Having learned the benefits of
self-control and habits of workmanship from the slave, upon
w h o m he has become increasingly dependent, the master is
now ready to join him in obedience to the universal rule of law
and the impersonal rationality of the productive process. The
door is even left open for the emancipation of both from social
stratification and subjugation to division of labor, as the transition is being made to the last moment of Self-consciousness,
Universal Self-consciousness and the principle of Reason.
Universal selfconsciousness, or
the standpoint of
Reason, as the consciousness offreedom
belonging to all.

In this stage (i.e., Universal Self-consciousness), therefore, the mutually related self-conscious subjects, by setting aside their unequal
particular individuality, have risen to the consciousness of their real universality, of the freedom belonging to all, and hence to the
intuition of their specific identity with each other... In this state of
universal freedom, in being reflected into myself, I am immediately
reflected into the other person, and, conversely, in relating myself
to the other I am immediately self-related... The nature of this relationship is thoroughly speculative (i.e., dialectical); and when it is
supposed that the speculative is something remote and inconceivable, one has only to consider the content of this relationship to
convince oneself of the baselessness of this opinion. The speculative, or the rational and true, consists in the unity of the Notion or
subjectivity, and objectivity. (Philosophy of Spirit, #436 Zusatz)
This unity of Consciousness and Self-consciousness (in Universal
Self-consciousness) implies in the first instance the individuals mutually throwing light upon each other. But the difference between
those who are thus identified is mere vague diversity or rather it
is a difference which is none. Hence its truth is the fully and really
existent universality and objectivity of Self-consciousness which
is Reason. (Philosophy of Spirit, #437)

Universal self-consciousness illustrated

by the inter-subjective Reason of the
economic paradigm.

Thus, Consciousness, the middle moment of Subjective Spirit, culminates in an intersubjective form of rationality, already
encountered as the Cunning of Reason in Adam Smith's model
of economic organization under the principle of the Invisible
Hand. Not unlike the previous situation in which the dyadic interplay of individual rationality (in the case of the liberal and
his opponent) issued in trans-individual Reason as the principle
behind advanced forms of social organization, so n o w the dialectic of the individual self-consciousnesses of master and slave
results in a trans-individual (Universal) Self-consciousness
"which is Reason."

At first sight this may seem to be Subjective Spirit's misappropriation of a task concerning social organization which is reserved for Objective Spirit. But if w e recall the discussion at the
opening of this Section about the build-up in concreteness of
the subjective and objective terms of Spirit in anticipation of
the synthesis, this is perfectly appropriate. It should, therefore,
come as no surprise certainly not as much of a surprise after
the similar experience of progressive concreteness of the terms
of theory-practice resulting in the synthesis of Actuality that
Reason now emerges as social embodiment in the climactic moment of Self-consciousness, whose prima faciae psychological
nature hardly conveys anything as institutionally concrete as
Reason which is its dialectical outcome. After all, it is such objectification (in an elevated subjectivity) of mere (i.e., psychologistic) subjectivity that has been going on throughout these moments, especially in Self-consciousness, which w e tried to convey by the title of this Section. For example, the socially concrete material pertaining to the dialectic of master and slave is
no mere external manifestations of their respective self-consciousnesses, but a component of a Universal (trans-individual)
Self-consciousness in the making a "really existent universality and objectivity of Self-consciousness which is Reason."
Nor are Hegel's illuminating cultural and historical material in
the Phenomenology of Spirit mere exemplifications of a succession
of forms of individual consciousness and self-consciousness, as
they are often taken to be. Rather, they are dialectical phases of
a unitary Spirit on its path to progressive concreteness by way
of attainment of self-consciousness. Assuming that w e can abstract away from the dynamic dimension of the dialectic, Hegel
is, in this respect, close to Plato's organic doctrine of the community in the Republic in the sense that w h e n it comes to its
function and the articulation of parts, the community is the individual soul writ large.
This conclusion is consistent with the requirement for the elevated subjectivity of a trans-individual subject as the locus for
our final synthesis. Subjective Spirit, and the moment of Selfconsciousness in particular, have secured such a subject whose
elevated nature is the other side of its high level of concreteness, i.e., the possibility of including within itself what has hitherto been social and historical externality. Without such possibility for it is only just that until the synthesis of Subjective
and Objective Spirit the synthesis of theory-practice and subject-object will continue to elude us. In this connection it is also
worth noting that Reason, in its capacity of embodiment in history and institutions (as w e shall soon encounter it in Objective

The emergence of the

basic features of elevated subjectivity (or
the trans-individual
subject) of the pages
to follow.

Spirit), is the converse of concrete Self-consciousness in its possibility of incorporating socio-historical externality. Expressed in
terms of symmetries between the Logic and the Philosophy of
Spirit, w e have reached the latter's counterpart in the Logic, the
point from which w e set out at the end of Essence for our digression into the Philosophy of Spirit and our search for more
sensuously concrete formulations of the dialectic of theory and
practice. The conclusion which then equated the actual and the
rational is now the logical counterpart of Reason's capacity for
embodiment "the unity of the Notion or subjectivity, and objectivity" in Reason here. Hegel's castigation of realism, to the
effect that "ideas are not confined to our heads merely, nor is
the Idea, upon the whole, so feeble as to leave the question of
its actualization or non-actualization dependent on our will,"
corresponds to his condemnation of an equally abstract view of
Reason: "the baselessness of th(e) opinion" that "the speculative is something remote and inconceivable."
The symmetry extends further in terms of turning the possibilities opened up by Self-consciousness and Reason into the
actuality of the Idea and self-complete Spirit. In the Logic traces
of externality continued to resurface as contingency undermined the totalizing effort of Actuality Proper. This had manifested itself at the level of theory-practice as a symptom of the
deeply embedded subject-object duality, which prevented the
convergence of the terms of the polarity from consummating
themselves into a final synthesis. In other words, the coincidence of the rational and the actual was pronounced by a subject for which it was still external, the effort of the dialectic of
Actuality Proper notwithstanding. The counterpart of this in
the Philosophy of Spirit is represented by the fact that the moment of Mind still awaits us before the subjective term of Spirit
can come to full concreteness and readiness to unite with its
objective counterpart. Stated differently, Reason is not ready for
its role as an institutional embodiment in Objective Spirit before engaging in a bout of self-scrutiny, as represented by Mind.
Or, adapting our familiar motto, which distinguishes phases of
the Logic, to the corresponding conditions of Subjective Spirit:
While in Consciousness (Essence) thought operates on itself but
thinks that it operates on something external, and in Mind (Notion) it operates on itself in full awareness that it does so, in
Reason too thanks to the m o m e n t of Self-consciousness
which preceded it it is aware that it operates on itself, but it
does not know precisely how this takes place. It is this last point
that Mind is meant to take care of in the temporary retreat of
Reason to the interiority of thought, and as the cultivation of

self-knowledge required by the last part of the motto, before

venturing out again qua institutional embodiment in Objective
Spirit. The discourse on psychology in the course of Mind is intended for the accomplishment of this end and should not be
taken as a relapse into psychologism after the advances made
by Self-consciousness. Yet, neither should it be interpreted that
all traces of psychologism have been eliminated in Mind.

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aAipafqO ui luauiipoquia jEuoiimiisui vnb U I E 8 E ino S u u m u a A
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ssausnopsuoj apnuoj

self-knowledge required by the last part of the motto, before

venturing out again qua institutional embodiment in Objective
Spirit. The discourse on psychology in the course of Mind is intended for the accomplishment of this end and should not be
taken as a relapse into psychologism after the advances made
by Self-consciousness. Yet, neither should it be interpreted that
all traces of psychologism have been eliminated in Mind.

iv. Free Mind (or Free Action) as Mediated Unity

of Theory and Practice
Relationship between Mind and
Essence, and of
both to the forthcoming Notion.

As is evident from perusing the list of the categories of Subjective Spirit, Mind subdivides into Theoretical, Practical, and
Free M i n d . The latter is the synthesis of the other t w o and
moves along the same lines as the familiar dialectic of freedom
outlined in the course of Actuality. However, we are now dealing, not merely with the logical structure of the "I," but with a
psychologically fleshed-out " I " around that structure. In this
sense of concreteness w e stand at a more advanced dialectical
level than w e did earlier. Our applications of the dialectic of
f r e e d o m in A c t u a l i t y w e r e i n t e n d e d to illustrate that its
progress is stifled as long as its totalizing effort was infected by
contingency or, put differently, as long as the dialectic remained
short of the Notion. N o w that the Notion is close at hand in the
form of its counterpart in Subjective Spirit (i.e., Mind), we are
being confronted with a different sort of inadequacy. Unlike Actuality, Mind is not burdened with externality because it did
not attain the kind of self-containment it set out to achieve.
Rather, having accomplished its task (the synthesis of the theoretical and practical terms at the individual level, which w e
shall soon witness), it continues to fall short of the synthesis of
the individual and the social whole as encountered in Essence,
but not as yet fully resolved in the Logic. Thus, neither Mind
nor Essence, for different reasons, can provide the setting for
the final synthesis, though as complements of each other the
psychological concreteness of the "I" and in its juxtaposition to
the Other (the social whole), respectively they have taken
one step toward getting closer.
Such step w e are now about to take as w e bypass the detail
of the sub-categories of Theoretical and Practical Mind and
move directly to their synthesis.

The relationship between Mind and

Consciousness in
symmetry to that
between the Notion
and Essence.

As Consciousness has for its object the stage which preceded it, viz.
the natural Soul (#413), so Mind has or rather makes Consciousness its object: i.e. whereas Consciousness is only the virtual identity of the ego with its Other (#415), the Mind realizes that identity
as the concrete unity which it and it only knows. Its productions
are governed by the principle of all Reason that the contents are at
once potentially existent, and are the Mind's own, in freedom.
Thus, if we consider the initial aspect of Mind, that aspect is
twofold as being and as its own: by the one, the Mind finds in itself something which is, by the other it affirms it to be only its own.
The way of Mind is therefore (a) to be Theoretical: it has to do
with the rational as its immediate affection which it must render its
own: or it has to free knowledge from its pre-supposedness and
therefore from its abstractness, and make the affection subjective.
When the affection has been rendered its own, and the knowledge

consequently characterized as free intelligence, i.e. as having its

full and free characterization in itself, it is (b) Will: Practical Mind,
which in the first place is likewise formal i.e. its content is at
first only its own, and is immediately willed; and it proceeds next to
liberate its volition from its subjectivity, which is the one-sided
form of its contents, so that it (c) confronts itself as Free Mind and
thus gets rid of both its defects of one-sidedness. (Philosophy of
Spirit, #443; parentheses in the text)
It is difficult not to notice the structural affinities b e t w e e n
this preliminary sketch of the final synthesis at the level of Subjective Spirit and its antecedents in both the Logic and the Philosophy of Spirit. First, there is the obvious symmetry b e t w e e n
the characterization of the synthesis of theory and practice in
Mind "as being and as its own," and the description of "Difference (and Identity in the Logic as being) the whole and its o w n
(opposite) moment." This of course is no accident, since the dialectic of Identity (and Reflection) sets the rhythm according to
which Spirit moves "this (i.e., the formula for Identity) is to
be considered as the essential nature of Reflection and as the
specific original ground of all activity and self-movement (of Spirit)."
The result is the same if the f o r m u l a t i o n of the synthesis of
M i n d is e x a m i n e d through the categories of Reflection. The
viewing of something as external in "its pre-supposedness and
therefore (in) its abstractness," represented above "as being"
and earlier as Consciousness Proper, corresponds to Essence in
general, but more particularly, to External (or Presupposing)
Reflection. The "its own" in its separation from "as being" suffers
equally f r o m abstractness, this time o n the subjective side
"its content is at first only its own, and is immediately willed."
To the extent that "its own" represents abstractness qua irreconciled polarity of these t w o terms, it too corresponds to Essence
and, more particularly, to Positing Reflection.
At this point, however, a complication arises since the t w o
terms do not remain the same throughout the three moments of
Mind. For example, it should not go unnoticed that the role of
Positing Reflection goes beyond the effort of Essence to complete
its theoretical task of " r e n d e r i n g its immediate affection of being) its own." In other words, the content of the posit is not just
the subjective contribution to the theoretical effort in Essence, in
w h i c h "practical" means the f i e l d of o b j e c t i v i t y and testing
ground for theory. Rather its content is the "practical" as selfgenerated within the subject according to the specifications of the
dialectic of Self-consciousness, i.e., the "practical" as successor to
Jacobi's moral "ought," and to the incipient practical qua self-given action in Appetite. W e begin to sense that the chain of continuity extending from the practical qua self-given action to Ap-

The dialectical
moments of Mind in
symmetry with
theory-practice.

Gradual shift in
the meaning of
"practical" from
scientistic to moral
with the dialectic of
totalization.

Shift in the meaning

of "practical" as a
result of a reversal
in the polarity of
theory-practice.

petite, and all the way back to the original unity of theory and
practice in Soul, has to include among its links the externally given practice of scientistic theory-practice. The anomaly of having
the same term cover such seemingly incompatible meanings, led
serious thinkers to draw a sharp distinction, and even generate
philosophical terminology, in order to avoid what they considered irreconcilable meanings of "practical."
We can begin to show that such anomaly is only apparent by
repeating our contention, that only in the context of a trans-individual subject is the final synthesis of theory and practice, in
their most advanced formulation, possible. Throughout this
work w e have assumed a continuity between the externally
given (scientistic) "practical" and the self-given "practical" (as
part the domain of freedom). Now, in the light of the preliminary sketch of the dialectical synthesis of an advanced version
of theory and practice as Theoretical and Practical Mind, we can
ascertain the connection between, on the one hand, the role of
the trans-individual subject as the locus for the final synthesis
and, on the other, the changing relationship between the two
meanings of "practical" (also referred to as the reversal of the
polarity of theory-practice). Already at the end of Theoretical
Mind, "when the (immediate) affection (of external being) has
been rendered its own," the practical qua externally given has
been sublated into what is a trans-individual subject. In retrospect, w e can see that this process has been going on behind
the surface all along, as progress was being made in the theoretical effort of Essence. Correspondingly, this happened also in
Consciousness, with Self-consciousness supplying the indispensable ingredient to the formula of "being and as its own" by
bringing the object under the rubric of a new subjectivity (i.e.,
self-consciousness as the core of trans-individual subjectivity).
The scientistic "practical" has been dialectically absorbed qua
external and retained as internal in the new subjectivity, from
which point it can be declared self-given and delivered in normative terms. Thus, some of the reverence has been removed
from the practical qua self-given, especially its capacity to deliver moral commands dressed in universality, beginning with Actuality Proper in the Logic and, correspondingly, with Universal
Self-consciousness in the Philosophy of Spirit. For, as w e recall
from the application of the dialectic of Actuality to the concept
of freedom, it was the inexorable logic of totalization under the
pressure of resurfacing contingency that yielded freedom as
self-realization, but only when pursued self-consciously by an
individual also willing the interest of the whole.

Our preliminary account of Practical M i n d confirms this

continuity indirectly by showing us what "practical" would be
like without the contribution of Self-consciousness and Universal Self-consciousness, or if the subject were to be taken in its
"formal" or abstract sense prior to its synthesis with Theoretical
Mind. The equally sketchy synthesis of the t w o moments of
Mind is structured after Determining Reflection in that it takes
advantage of the complementary strengths and weaknesses of
the two previous moments. Thus, through their unity, it can
"get rid of both its defects of one-sidedness." This is the nucleus
of the final synthesis, to be elaborated upon at the conclusion
of this Chapter and, in its completed form, with the Idea which
follows Objective Spirit at the end of Part III. The final version
of the synthesis includes a balancing dose of objectivity provided by the Objective Notion in the Logic, before trans-individual
subjectivity reaches its most mature stage in the Idea.
As noted earlier, w e chose to bypass both the Subjective and
Objective Notion, substituting instead the corresponding Subjective and Objective Spirit for the sake of added sensuous concreteness. Therefore, as things stand now, the above sketch of
synthesis of action still suffers from the familiar psychologistic
limitations imposed by the parameters of Subjective Spirit. No
matter h o w considerable the build-up in concreteness of the
subjective term may be by the end of Mind, or how serviceable
this will be for its sublation by Objective Spirit, the synthesis of
Free Mind (or Free Action) is still between polarized compartments of individual mind, rather than between compartments
of a polarized world reflecting, and being reflected, by individual mind. Accordingly, action in this context of meaning is still
an overarching category for progressively concrete forms of intentionality, as evidenced by the sub-moments of Practical
Mind e.g., Practical Sense or Feeling, Impulse and Choice,
and Happiness rather than genuine externalized action. In
the words of the following quotation, in order to see the difference we have "to pursue this externalization to the point where
volitional intelligence becomes Objective Spirit, that is, to the
point where the product of will ceases to be mere enjoyment
and starts to become deed and action."
The Theoretical as well as the Practical Mind still fall under the
general range of Subjective Spirit. They are not to be distinguished
as active and passive. Subjective Spirit is productive: but it is a
merely nominal productivity... Outwards, the Subjective Spirit
(which as a unity of Soul and Consciousness, is thus also a reality
a reality at once anthropological and conformable to Consciousness) has for its products, in the theoretical range, the word, and in

Remaining shortcomings in this

preliminary sketch
of the synthesis of
Theoretical and
Practical Mind.

the practical (not yet deed and action, but) enjoyment. (Philosophy of
Spirit, #444; parentheses in the text)
True liberty, in the shape of moral life, consists in the will finding
its purpose in a universal content, not in subjective or selfish interests. But such a content is only possible in thought and through
thought: it is nothing short of absurd to seek to banish thought
from the moral, religious, and law-abiding life.
Intelligence has demonstrated itself to be Mind that withdraws into
itself from the object, that recollects itself in it and recognizes its inwardness as objectivity. Conversely, will at the start of its self-objectification is still burdened with the form of subjectivity. But here, in
the sphere of Subjective Spirit, we have only to pursue this externalization to the point where volitional intelligence becomes Objective Spirit, that is, to the point where the product of will ceases
to be merely enjoyment and starts to become deed and action.
(Philosophy of Spirit, #469 and Zusatz)

Futility of assigning
logical priority to
either polar term
in effecting the synthesis of Mind.

The build-up in concreteness of the respective terms, especially Theoretical Mind, occupies the bulk of the middle section
of Mind. But the general sense in which this foreshadows their
convergence and contains the germ, not only of their synthesis
at the level of Subjective, but at that of Objective Spirit as well,
is contained in the above quoted passages. The build-up of Theoretical Mind culminates in thought (Thinking) and of Practical
Mind in enjoyment. But, as Hegel emphasizes above, the content of their synthesis in Free Mind (or Free Action) "true
liberty, in the shape of moral life... the will finding its purpose
in a universal content" in line with the dialectic of freedom
cannot be understood unless enjoyment is mediated by thought
for, "such a content (of e n j o y m e n t ) is only possible in
thought and through thought."
Hegel shows the way in which conditions for the union of
Theoretical and Practical Mind pre-exist (activity or "productivity" underlies both) their respective syntheses, which issue "in
the theoretical range (in) the word, and in the practical (not yet
deed and action, but) enjoyment." By insisting on their common
feature of activity more accurately of self-"productivity"
characteristic of Spirit rather than distinguish them respectively as "active and passive," he is setting the stage for recognizing the mental and the physical in the context of a unitary
principle as he did under Soul. Now, however, in the light of
the intervening moment of Consciousness and the historically corresponding Cartesian revolution of dualistic consciousness
looking for a point of contact between mental and physical substance, to say nothing about their synthesis their pre-existing
unity in Soul is not sufficient. One must look for a mediated
unity, which, in fact, Free Mind (or Free Action) is. The unitary

principle is again the familiar Identity (inclusive of Difference),

"as the specific original ground of all activity and self-movement" of
Spirit, now manifested as self-"productivity" of Spirit. It is identified as "merely nominal productivity" in Subjective Spirit, because its parameters confine the meaning of externality to the
interiority of Mind; and real "productivity" in the case of Objective Spirit where, in the presence of genuine externality, "the
product of the will ceases to be merely enjoyment and starts to
become deed and action."
It is only an apparent paradox that the clue to the mediated
synthesis of the mental and the physical (which, as anticipated
by Soul, is so important to the final synthesis of the theoretical
and the practical in their n e w state of reversed polarity) is
found in Mind. For, as the quotation on the title-page reminds
us, the categories of Spirit play a role second to none in the determination of the specific nature of externality. In addition,
having gone through Correlation in Essence, it is equally true
that it is foolish to try to decide whether or not the categories of
Mind, or those of externality, are logically prior in such determination. This clue consists of the fact that, with the rigid polarity of mental-physical out of the way, it is these grades of externality (through progressive inclusion of what lies on the periphery, with the help of the dialectic of Identity, or Reflection)
that consummate the final synthesis of theory and practice. To
repeat, "in the sphere of Subjective Spirit, w e have only to pursue
this externalization to the point where volitional intelligence becomes Objective Spirit." (added emphases in this instance)
The graduation from the sphere of the mental to that of the
physical (qua incorporating the mental) was achieved through
advancing the limits of externalization by way of activity and
self-movement. In fact, the experiential counterpart of such
outward movement of the dividing line between the mental
and the physical was found in the escalation of the confrontation from argumentation to physicality in the political paradigm. By generating gradations of externality (sit-in's, voting
with one's feet, etc.) the radical was, in effect, repudiating the
rigid polarization of the physical from the mental. In functioning as a protective mechanism against physicality, this polarization has served liberalism well and has been incorporated into
its legal institutions and political culture. When the radical proceeded to use physicality and violence his action was tantamount to a fundamental challenge of bourgeois culture in its
physical embodiments or Objective Spirit. This symmetry is not
invalidated by pointing out Hegel's insistence about the importance of thought qua mental activity and the " a b s u r d i t y o f )

Illustration of the
non-dualism of
mental-physical
through the Paradigms of Part I.

The unity-producing
power of negation
and sublation exemplified in the moments of Theoretical
Mind.

seek(ing) to banish (it) from the moral, religious and law-abiding life." As w e shall soon see in Objective Spirit, what is found
embodied in institutions and physical structures is not individual thought per se, but the latter as mediated by the activity of
the trans-individual subject, or Spirit, in the manner of the economic paradigm. In this the radical partakes as much as the liberal, albeit to a great extent unself-consciously. This also fits the
conclusion of the philosophical paradigm that the certification
of the radical's action as genuine challenge to Objective Spirit
can only come post festum. Similar considerations hold vis-a-vis a
possible objection that for Hegel to push externality to the limit
in the interest of internality (inclusive of externality) is essentially a process of re-appropriation rather than of sheer destruction. Again, as clarified in Soul, Spirit is free from destruction or
death, and any seeming setback for it can only be interpreted
after the fact as an opportunity to consolidate its powers on its
path to a higher level of self-consciousness and freedom. Therefore, any conclusions as to how much better off Spirit (i.e., culture) would have been if, say, the barbarians had not sacked
Rome, or Mao's Red Guards had not destroyed irreplaceable
treasures of high historical and artistic value, belong to the
same class of futile speculations as those of the cultural historian of the Stalin era.
As the dialectical meaning of negativity and the related
process of sublation clearly suggest, destruction is the other side
of creation and rejection is an essential aspect of re-appropriation. If progressive concreteness of the polar terms, achieved by
way of pushing externality to its limits and appropriating what
continues to lie on the periphery through the dialectic of Identity (and Reflection), then sublation is indispensable to the
process of re-appropriation. Even the process of knowing and
its organon, Theoretical Mind, which is commonly considered
the apex of conservation, are good illustrations of this dual
process of selection and rejection, appropriation and alienation,
and creation and destruction. For example, Representation
(Vorstellung), the second moment of Theoretical Mind, means
literally re-presentation of what lay implicit in Intuition. The
latter has also undergone the same process of re-appropriation
through its informal sub-moments of selective attention and
fixation of the object potentially within its fold. The sub-moments of Representation perform the same task through the
more sophisticated discursive apparatus of Theoretical Mind. In
Recollection (Erinnerung) the subject literally re-collects
makes its own once more, now in a more secure and intimate
w a y a specific segment of the contents of Intuition which

was his to begin with. On the other hand, Imagination (Einbildungskraft) is involved in the creation of its images out of what
has been internalized in Recollection.
Significantly, the process of symbolization is placed under
the creative rubric of Imagination, pointing to several important
developments which affect the remainder of Spirit. For example, Hegel adopts the position of priority of language o v e r
thought, as is also evident from his placement of Thinking
i.e., categorially advanced thought having Actuality as its approximate logical counterpart after Imagination and Memory
(Gedachtnis) at the end of Theoretical Mind. But given the dialectical (circular) interpretation of categorial order, the meaning of such priority has to be understood according to the familiar reversal of temporal and logical priority. This point was first
expounded in Part I as the Janus-faced Spirit of the circular
path of the dialectic, and more formally in introducing Spirit
earlier: "From our point of view Spirit has for its (temporal) presupposition Nature, of which it is the truth, and for that reason
(logically speaking) its absolute prius." We cannot go into further
detail in this important and controversial matter without being
deflected from our main topic. But the dialectic offers, in the
combination of circularity and structuralization of both symbolization and thought, fruitful approaches to this thorny problem
of the relationship between thought and language. W e can
view language, along with reality to which it is linked through
thought, not monolithically but as consisting of grades depending upon its position on the dialectical scale. A n y attempt to
keep language compartmentalized from either thought or reality would reintroduce the familiar polarity of thought and being
under the guise of a new dualism of symbolization and reality.
Thus, one can speak of each discipline as having its own discourse, not merely in terms of a range of subject matter, .but also in terms of its peculiar structure of language. Each discipline
can be said to have its own "English," not so much in terms of
vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, which can still remain less
than literary without significant detriment to the disciplinary
sub-text, but more so as the "logic" or structure of the disciplinary discourse itself is concerned. For example, the particular
disciplinary literacy appropriate to sociological theory, and its
associated philosophical complements, has closer structural
affinity to the analytical "logic" of legal argument, rather than
the narrative structure of history, the inform-and-command
"logic" of a bureaucratic memo, or the descriptive-classificatory
"logic" of zoology, botany, and so on. This is precisely what
Hegel is contesting when he gives full rein to Spirit qua active

Deconstructionist
parallels to the
dialectical conception
of language.

in re-appropriating what was already its own at a lower context

of meaning. Symbol-generating Imagination and symbol-retrieving Memory set the stage for a meaning-generating Thinking which, far from being externally related to reality, is at one
with it.
Synthesis of Theoretical and Practical
Mind as a result
of progressive concreteness of the
theoretical term.

Intelligence (now at the stage of Thinking) is recognitive: it cognizes an intuition (i.e., the reservoir from which Imagination
draws for its symbolizing activity), but only because that intuition
is already its own (#454); and in the name it rediscovers the fact
(#462): but now it finds its universal in the double signification of
the universal as such, and of the universal as immediate or as Being finds that is the genuine universal which is its own unity
overlapping and including its Other, viz. Being...
Thinking is the third and last main stage in the development of intelligence; for in it the immediate, implicit unity of subjectivity and
objectivity present in Intuition is restored out of the opposition of
these two sides in Representation as a unity enriched by this opposition, hence as a unity both in essence and in actuality. The end is
accordingly bent back into the beginning... Those who have no
comprehension of philosophy become speechless, it is true, when
they hear the proposition that Thought is Being. None the less, underlying all our actions is the presupposition of the unity of
Thought and Being. (Philosophy of Spirit, #465 and Zusatz; parentheses containing numbers in the text)
Intelligence which as theoretical appropriates an immediate mode
of Being, is, now that it has completed taking possession, in its own
property: the last negation of immediacy has implicitly required that
the intelligence shall itself determine its content. Thus thought, as
free Notion, is now also free in point of content. But when intelligence is aware that it is determinative of the content, which is its
mode no less than it is a mode of Being, it is Will. (Philosophy of
Spirit, #468)
The synthesis of the theoretical and practical moments in
Theoretical Mind is accomplished when the process of progressive concreteness in the form of re-appropriation has been carried to its logical conclusion, turning the practical into the theoretical moment's property. The proprietary metaphor for the
synthesis, originally introduced "as being and as its own," has
been preserved throughout a long chain of intermediation until
all externality has been appropriated by the theoretical moment
what had hitherto remained alien has ceased to be so "now
that it (the theoretical moment) has completed taking possession
(of it), in its own property." The result of this build-up in concreteness of the theoretical term into a transition to the practical term has been as inescapable as it has been startling in its
simple naturalness. But the amount and complexity of the
preparatory work required for such an apparently simple outcome should not go unnoticed. For example, Hegel has given

us evidence of the presence of the dialectic of Identity by pointing out "the genuine (i.e., concrete) universal which is its own
unity overlapping and including its Other, viz. Being." Also evident is the necessity of the operation of circularity on the dialectical path "the end is accordingly bent back into the beginning" if the process of re-appropriation is to amount to
anything more than a proprietary metaphor. Last but not least,
the same operation of totalization is under way in connection
with the dialectic of freedom as had occurred in Essence, but in
reverse sequence. Whereas in Actuality Proper the will is "conscious to itself that its content is intrinsically firm and fast, and
knows it at the same time to be thoroughly its o w n , " here
thought "shall itself determine its content... (so that) as free Notion, is also free in point of content."
Though with the transition f r o m Theoretical to Practical
Mind their synthesis has been rendered virtually complete,
Hegel proceeds to use the same symmetrical approach to the
synthesis as he did earlier with the theoretical term, but n o w
working through the progressive concreteness of the practical
term. The focus is being reversed and the attention directed to
the theoretical features incorporated in the practical term, as
the process of intermediation carries us forward to Free Mind
(or Free Action). Practical Sense (or Feeling), the first sub-moment of Practical Mind, also represents the purest form of immediacy of action.
It (Practical Sense) is thus 'practical feeling,' or instinct of action. In
this phase, as it is at bottom a subjectivity simply identical with
reason, it has no doubt a rational content, but a content which as it
stands is individual, and for that reason also natural, contingent
and subjective... (Philosophy of Spirit, #471)
The "Ought" ... (corresponding to this formative "practical") is the
claim of its essential autonomy to control some existing mode of
fact which is assumed to be worth nothing save as adapted to
that claim.
Delight, joy, grief, etc., shame, repentance, contentment, etc., are
partly only modifications of the formal 'Practical Feeling' in general,
but are partly different in the features that give the special tone
and character mode to their 'Ought.'
The celebrated question as to the origin of evil in the world, so far
at least as evil is understood to mean what is disagreeable and
painful merely, arises on this stage of the formal Practical Feeling.
Evil is nothing but the incompatibility between what is and what
ought to be. (Philosophy of Spirit, #472)

The synthesis of
Mind approached
from Practical Mind
via progressive
concreteness.

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us evidence of the presence of the dialectic of Identity by pointing out "the genuine (i.e., concrete) universal which is its own
unity overlapping and including its Other, viz. Being." Also evident is the necessity of the operation of circularity on the dialectical path "the end is accordingly bent back into the beginning" if the process of re-appropriation is to amount to
anything more than a proprietary metaphor. Last but not least,
the same operation of totalization is under way in connection
with the dialectic of freedom as had occurred in Essence, but in
reverse sequence. Whereas in Actuality Proper the will is "conscious to itself that its content is intrinsically firm and fast, and
knows it at the same time to be thoroughly its o w n , " here
thought "shall itself determine its content... (so that) as free Notion, is also free in point of content."
Though with the transition from Theoretical to Practical
Mind their synthesis has been rendered virtually complete,
Hegel proceeds to use the same symmetrical approach to the
synthesis as he did earlier with the theoretical term, but n o w
working through the progressive concreteness of the practical
term. The focus is being reversed and the attention directed to
the theoretical features incorporated in the practical term, as
the process of intermediation carries us forward to Free Mind
(or Free Action). Practical Sense (or Feeling), the first sub-moment of Practical Mind, also represents the purest form of immediacy of action.
It (Practical Sense) is thus 'practical feeling,' or instinct of action. In
this phase, as it is at bottom a subjectivity simply identical with
reason, it has no doubt a rational content, but a content which as it
stands is individual, and for that reason also natural, contingent
and subjective... (Philosophy of Spirit, #471)
The "Ought" ... (corresponding to this formative "practical") is the
claim of its essential autonomy to control some existing mode of
fact which is assumed to be worth nothing save as adapted to
that claim.
Delight, joy, grief, etc., shame, repentance, contentment, etc., are
partly only modifications of the formal 'Practical Feeling' in general,
but are partly different in the features that give the special tone
and character mode to their 'Ought.'
The celebrated question as to the origin of evil in the world, so far
at least as evil is understood to mean what is disagreeable and
painful merely, arises on this stage of the formal Practical Feeling.
Evil is nothing but the incompatibility between what is and what
ought to be. (Philosophy of Spirit, #472)

The synthesis of
Mind approached
from Practical Mind
via progressive
concreteness.

' p u t w { B D I P E I D J O J U 3 X U O U I J X 3 U a q j O J S P B 3 J SiqX ,/jqSnO,,

j o I U J O J a p n p B ipns o j jiuiqns o j 8 U I [ [ I M J O U S I Q D I Q M P P O M
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U B
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(ZLP# 'iwdsJo /(ifdosojiiij) -aq 01 jqgno

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pue afqesaiSesip si ieqM ueaui o j poojsjapun si J I A 3 S B jseaf J E
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us evidence of the presence of the dialectic of Identity by pointing out "the genuine (i.e., concrete) universal which is its own
unity overlapping and including its Other, viz. Being." Also evident is the necessity of the operation of circularity on the dialectical path "the end is accordingly bent back into the beginning" if the process of re-appropriation is to amount to
anything more than a proprietary metaphor. Last but not least,
the same operation of totalization is under way in connection
with the dialectic of freedom as had occurred in Essence, but in
reverse sequence. Whereas in Actuality Proper the will is "conscious to itself that its content is intrinsically firm and fast, and
knows it at the same time to be thoroughly its o w n , " here
thought "shall itself determine its content... (so that) as free Notion, is also free in point of content."
Though with the transition f r o m Theoretical to Practical
Mind their synthesis has been rendered virtually complete,
Hegel proceeds to use the same symmetrical approach to the
synthesis as he did earlier with the theoretical term, but n o w
working through the progressive concreteness of the practical
term. The focus is being reversed and the attention directed to
the theoretical features incorporated in the practical term, as
the process of intermediation carries us forward to Free Mind
(or Free Action). Practical Sense (or Feeling), the first sub-moment of Practical Mind, also represents the purest form of immediacy of action.
It (Practical Sense) is thus 'practical feeling,' or instinct of action. In
this phase, as it is at bottom a subjectivity simply identical with
reason, it has no doubt a rational content, but a content which as it
stands is individual, and for that reason also natural, contingent
and subjective... (Philosophy of Spirit, #471)
The "Ought" ... (corresponding to this formative "practical") is the
claim of its essential autonomy to control some existing mode of
fact which is assumed to be worth nothing save as adapted to
that claim.
Delight, joy, grief, etc., shame, repentance, contentment, etc., are
partly only modifications of the formal 'Practical Feeling' in general,
but are partly different in the features that give the special tone
and character mode to their 'Ought.'
The celebrated question as to the origin of evil in the world, so far
at least as evil is understood to mean what is disagreeable and
painful merely, arises on this stage of the formal Practical Feeling.
Evil is nothing but the incompatibility between what is and what
ought to be. (Philosophy of Spirit, #472)

The synthesis of
Mind approached
from Practical Mind
via progressive
concreteness.

Impulse and Choice. In contrast to the previous moment, this

one, showing clear evidence of the build-up of concreteness of
the practical term (subjectivity), begins to incorporate elements
from the theoretical term (objectivity).
In Practical Feeling, it is a matter of contingency whether the immediate affection is in harmony with the inward determinateness
of the will or not. This contingency, this dependence on an external objectivity, is in contradiction with the will that knows itself to
be determined in and for itself, that knows objectivity to contained
in its subjectivity...
Impulse, on the other hand, since it is a form of volitional intelligence, starts from the surmounted opposition of subjectivity and
objectivity, and embraces a series of satisfactions, hence is a whole,
a universal. (Philosophy of Spirit, #473 Zusatz)
However, before reaching Choice, Hegel takes up Passion and
Interest which, though lacking formal status as categories, are
important additions to the concreteness of the practical term.
This will be more obvious in Objective Spirit qua embodiment of
rationality, as their future bearing for concrete Spirit unfolds.
The title (i.e., passion) only states that a subject has thrown his
whole soul his interests of intellect, talent, character, enjoyment
on one aim and object. Nothing great has been and nothing
great can be accomplished without passion. It is only a dead, too
often, indeed, a hypocritical moralizing which inveighs against the
form of passion as such. (Philosophy of Spirit, #474)
But Impulse and Passion are the very life-blood of all action: they
are needed if the agent is really to be in his aim and the execution
thereof...
Even in the purest righteous, ethical, and religious will whose sole
content is its Notion, that is,freedom,there is also involved the separation into a particular, natural individual. This moment of individuality must be satisfied even in the pursuit of the most objective
aims; I, as this individual, do not wish, nor ought I, to perish in the
pursuit of the aim. This is my interest, and this must not be confused with selfishness, for this prefers its particular content to the objective content. (Philosophy of Spirit, #475 and Zusatz)
Abstract freedom, or
freedom of choice,
reached through
the progressive
concreteness of
Practical Mind.

As w e encounter Choice w e begin to feel on familiar ground,

since w e have reached, via Practical Mind, the doctrine in the
Logic of "the genuinely free will, which includes free choice as
suspended." In Actuality Proper the individual will became identified with the general will (or, free choice grew to be genuinely
free will) through the logical totalization of the categories of Reflection as they apply to the Absolute. Now the same totalization
is reached in terms of the progressively concrete categories of
Practical Mind, as the practical term of Subjective Spirit culminates by way of Choice and Happiness to "actual free will (as)
the unity of Theoretical and Practical Mind."

Will as choice claims to be free, reflected into itself as the negativity of its merely immediate autonomy. However, as the content, in
which its former universality concludes itself to actuality, is nothing but the content of the impulses and appetites, it is actual only
as a subjective and contingent will. It realizes itself in a particularity, which it regards at the same time as a nullity, and finds a satisfaction in what it has at the same time emerged from... and (this)
satisfaction, which is just as much no satisfaction, (leads to) another, without end. But the truth of the particular satisfactions is the
universal, which under the name of Happiness the thinking will
makes its aim. (Philosophy of Spirit, #478)
Happiness is the mere abstract and merely imagined universality of
things desired a universality which only ought to be. (Philosophy
of Spirit, #480)
But such abstract for having failed to sublate particularity
universality is no different than its counterpart in the Logic
in which the "absolute form," having left its content insufficiently sublated, burdened the totalizing effort of Actuality Proper
with contingency and kept freedom of choice f r o m being consummated in genuinely free will. It is the same obstacle, in the
way of finalization of the synthesis of theory and practice in Actuality, that is blocking our way in culminating the synthesis of
the theoretical and practical moments in Mind now. Earlier w e
called it a deeper or second-layer polarity of subject-object,
which had to wait for the Notion and especially the Idea for its
resolution. Now, more-explicitly, it is the psychologistic parameters imposed by Subjective Spirit which block the synthesis. The
nature of Spirit at this level is still (though highly concrete) an
individual, and not yet the trans-individual, subject. The same
difficulty can be conveyed by saying that Happiness is a totalization of merely the "will as choice" which, by its very nature
qua subjective, places a restriction in the totalizing e f f o r t of
Spirit. Nor, as one may expect, does the ultimate category of
both Mind and Subjective Spirit, Free Mind (or Free Action)
what Hegel also refers to in the following quotation as "actual
free will" provide the final remedy for this problem.
Actual free will is the unity of Theoretical and Practical Mind: a free
will, which realizes its own freedom of will, now that the formalism, fortuitousness, and contractedness of the practical content up to
this point have been superseded. By superseding the adjustment of
means therein contained, the will is the immediate individuality selfinstituted an individuality, however, also purified of all that interferes with its universalism, i.e. with freedom itself. This universalism the will has as its object and aim, only so far as it thinks itself,
knows this its concept, and is will as free intelligence. (Philosophy of
Spirit, #481; emphases added in the first and third instances)
The Mind which knows itself as free and wills itself as this its object,
i.e. which has its true being for characteristic and aim, is in the first

The final synthesis of

Free Mind (or Free
Action) is reached as
Theoretical and
Practical Mind
complement each
other's strengths
and deficiencies.

instance the rational will in general, or implicit Idea, and because

implicit only the Notion of Absolute Spirit. As abstract Idea again, it is
existent only in the immediate will it is the existential side of reason the single will as aware of this its universality constituting its
contents and aim, and of which it is only the formal activity. If the
will, therefore, in which the Idea thus appears is only finite, that
will is also the act of developing the Idea, and of investing its selfunfolding content with an existence which, as realizing the Idea, is
Actuality. It is thus 'Objective' Spirit. (Philosophy of Spirit, #482)
The synthesis of the
theoretical and practical terms in Subjective Spirit sets the
stage for the same in
Objective Spirit.

Thus, Subjective Spirit, covering about three quarters of the

Philosophy of Spirit, concludes on an anticipatory note regarding
the accomplished synthesis "actual free will" as only "implicit
Idea" or "as abstract Idea again," or as "the existential side of
(trans-individual) Reason" in view of what is forthcoming in
the Idea. This should not, however, be taken to depreciate the
synthesis at the level of Mind. Clearly, Spirit has gained a deeper
insight about itself as individual subject, before continuing in the
next phase as a trans-individual one. In non-anthropomorphic
language, the pre-conditions of the synthesis of the theoretical
and practical terms have to be examined in a psychological-subjectivist context of meaning before they are taken up in a sociohistorical and philosophically holistic one. A more relevant
methodological bearing of this insight is that the most serious
source of self-concealment, and the greatest obstacle to overcoming the polarity of theory-practice and its successors, is its
reinforcement due to the reflection back-and-forth of dualism
between the subjective and objective terms: from the polarized
mental equipment of the subject onto external world, and back
to the subject's psychological categories. And, as if this were not
enough, one must still secure an Archimedian standpoint from
which to cope with the origin of polarity itself. The important
dialectical conceptions of pre-existing or "original unity" of the
terms, as elaborated in Soul and the concept of circularity in
general that "the end is accordingly bent back into the beginning" are central to the handling of this difficulty. Yet, their
use and application require a mental discipline which, unlike
non-dialectical psychology, has neither implicitly nor explicitly
capitulated to scientistic forms of self-concealment. As Hegel
succinctly expressed it above, the will comes out of the dialectic
of Mind "also purified of all that interferes with its universalism,
i.e. with freedom itself."

D. Action and Objective Spirit

i. Spirit as Re-Immediated Action

Objective Spirit occupies less than one fifth of the Philosophy
of Spirit consisting (as did Subjective Spirit) of highly abbreviated versions of subject matter developed at length in independent works of Hegel's late period, such as the Philosophy of Right
and the Lectures on the Philosophy of History. Since w e are not
mainly concerned about his views on law, sociology, international politics, and history, nor in the way such disciplinary material is organized under dialectical principles beyond what w e
have said earlier, this highly telescoped version of such material
under Objective Spirit will be adequate for our purposes. Ours
is essentially to balance the build-up of concreteness of the subjective term of Spirit in the last Section, by a similar process in
the objective term in this, and the Section that follows. Such
procedure will also reveal the kind of action implicit in this
phase of Spirit. But much to our pleasant surprise the objective
side of Spirit is already built up, confronting us in its immediacy
or, more accurately, in its re-immediation. After a long sojourn
into the interiority of the space of Mind, w e suddenly find ourselves in the exteriority of social institutions, politics, and world
history. This, and the apparently even more jolting transition
from the Logic to the Philosophy of Nature (as w e shall see later),
has given some cause for complaint that, far from a dialectical
transition, it resembles a change of topic in the linear mode of
the arrangement of subject matter in the Encyclopedia. However,
the abruptness (or surprise) is more apparent than real if w e recall, beginning with the dialectic of Identity through determinate negation, that such build-up of one term through mediation necessarily involves its polar opposite. So that by the end
of the subjective phase of Spirit, or its logical counterpart in Actuality, w e are presented with more than w e have anticipated:
The remarkable coincidence of the actual and the rational in
Actuality, and the synthesis of the Theoretical and Practical
Mind in Free Mind (or Free Action), which necessarily involves
the institutions of Objective Spirit.

The simultaneity in
the build-up of concreteness of the objective and subjective
terms of Spirit.

The Objective Spirit is the Absolute Idea, but only existing in posse:
and as it is thus on the territory of finitude, its actual rationality retains the aspect of external apparency... These aspects (i.e., 'external things of nature' and 'ties of relation between individual wills')
constitute the external material for the embodiment of the will.
(Philosophy of Spirit, #483)
Restatement of the
process of building
up concreteness behind the surface.

There should be no trace of mystery left in this double track

operation. It has been with us since the Janus-faced Spirit on its
t w o - w a y path of the philosophical paradigm, covering its footprints through immediacy (or re-immediation) and uncovering
them through mediation. The familiar devices of in-itselfness
(implicitness of it) and for-itselfness (explicitness of it) have
been indispensable to the hide-and-reveal feature of Spirit.
Thus, the element of surprise comes with the realization (foroneselfness) of that which was concealed in the process (in-itselfness, or disclosure for-another, i.e., for-us, the dialectically
versed observers familiar with the peculiarities of the path). It is
the reader's association with the linearity of the medium and
his routine familiarity with the visible part of this two-way operation that is responsible for the sense of surprise and the disappointment at the abruptness of transition. His situation is
symptomatic of being identified w i t h a state of for-itselfness
(still short of the in-and-for-itselfness wherein he is also aware
of what is going on b e l o w the surface), which cannot be handled simultaneously with what lies above the surface through
the linear mode of the discursive medium of philosophy.

Exemplifications
of the build-up of
concreteness behind
our backs by the
Cunning of Reason.

This is precisely what w e are confronted with in the transition f r o m the interiority of Subjective Spirit to the apparently
unrelated exteriority of Objective Spirit. The bearing that this
apparent abruptness of Spirit's transition has on our project is
worthy of our notice: Beyond just being told that the categories
of action pertaining to Essence or Spirit remain, for the most
part, implicit or behind the surface, w e n o w know the function
of this implicitness in light of the overall dialectical picture. W e
know, for example, that the explicit synthesis of the theoretical
and practical moments within Mind is only half of the picture.
The other half is the extension of this synthesis, by virtue of the
features of the dialectic just considered, beyond the interiority
of M i n d and into the exteriority of Objective Spirit. Or, stated
using the will as an example, its externalization beyond the interiority of Mind is an essential ingredient of the concept of the
w i l l itself, as it is implicitly granted in the t w o most recently
quoted paragraphs of the last Chapter and as it will be made
fully explicit in what follows.
It should, therefore, be no source of amazement that social
institutions of modernity, with all of their paraphernalia, appear

in their maturity at the outset of Objective Spirit like Athena in

full panoply from the interior space of Zeus' head. Here lies the
key to the understanding of the synthesis of the subjective and
objective moments of Spirit and, by extension and correspondence, of the final synthesis of the theoretical and practical moments in the Absolute Idea. Social institutions have been building up below the surface of Subjective Spirit beginning with the
anthropological discourse of Soul. Correspondingly, in a historical sense, they have been evolving behind our backs in the true
spirit of the Cunning of Reason behind the surface, or on the
track of immediacy of Janus-faced Spirit, wherein it can best
hide its footprints for literally more than a million years. The
accomplishment of Objective Spirit through immediacy (or reimmediation) of packing layer-upon-layer of culture-to-be-unveiled through mediation, has been immense throughout the
eons of human e v o l u t i o n . But so is the task of unpacking
through mediation the other track of Janus-faced Spirit
which, by comparison, has only just begun by such intellectual
offspring of the dialectic as cultural anthropology and phenomenologically oriented sociology. Spirit's combined effort has
been aptly encapsulated in Hegel's concept of in-and-for-itselfness and, more recently, in his use of the proprietary metaphor
of "as being and as its own," to convey its dual task of packing
and unpacking culture, of immediacy and mediation, in a single
act of re-immediation, or re-appropriation. Though he has
handed down to us the most powerful tools to proceed with
this task, Hegel could not have given us but a small sample of
what lies ahead in terms of the vast project of lifting the veil of
self-concealment, which w e have pulled over ourselves on the
path of immediacy in the course of our human existence. In
this Chapter w e must limit ourselves to those instances in
which, within the parameters of Objective Spirit qua re-immediation, theory and practice emerge on the surface, while also
taking care to point out the way in which they remain incorporated in institutions and other manifestations of culture.
The multiple levels of correspondence, of which w e have
been keeping track between the Logic and the various phases of
Spirit, can be relied upon here for clarification of meaning. In
the overall picture Objective Spirit, as the middle term of the
super-triad of Spirit, corresponds to Essence, the paragon of
mediation. This may sound strange in view of the fact that Objective Spirit has been heralded as a case of re-immediation.
But on closer examination the accent is on unpacking, as indicated by the disclosing task of anthropology in regard to culture. From the viewpoint of the last moment, Free M i n d (or

Objective Spirit's division and structural

correspondences to
the Logic, to the
Part I paradigms,
and to disciplinary
knowledge.

Free Action), having practiced and sharpened its tools on an

object within its interiority, is now ready to deal with the same
in the exteriority of Objective Spirit. In other words, when the
latter confronts us as totally developed and in full panoply, it is
only to submit to unveiling. This can be confirmed by looking
at another level of correspondence, wherein the moments of
Objective Spirit, LawMoralitatSittlichkeit, are seen as the
counterparts of the super-moments of Logic and of ImmediacyMediationRe-immediation, respectively. Law represents
immediacy, and yet what Free M i n d confronts in Law is no
mere object, no sheer immediacy but, as w e recall from the parallel case of Being, re-immediation.
The major source of the liberal's self-concealment was his
v i e w of institutions undialectically as reified and, therefore,
amenable to scientistic treatment through theory-practice. What
he, and also the radical, were lacking, was a sense of the self, as
well as of institutions, as products of re-immediation and therefore amenable to unveiling through mediation. Now, however,
with the labors of self-exploration of Subjective Spirit behind,
there is less danger of being re-entrapped in this sort of self-concealment. Nor is there a likelihood that the presence of Law and
its institutions in a fully developed form at the outset of Objective Spirit may, in the absence of the mediations leading to their
advanced state, be misconstrued as solicitation for their reification; or, for that matter, for their justification by virtue of their
mere existence, as Hegel is sometimes supposed to have done.
Rather, inasmuch as the tools necessary for unveiling are now
available from the Logic, and the preceding self-exploration of
Subjective Spirit has provided further safeguards against selfconcealment, the charge is to begin "unpacking," or unveiling,
of what has been buried under in the course of immediacy.
Review of strategic
logical categories for
the understanding of
Spirit's shift from
predictive to retrodictive rationality.

The transition to Objective Spirit is also a clear signal that

the long-in-preparation shift, from the predictive rationality of
Essence to the retrodictive one of the Notion, and the accompanying reformulation of the synthesis of theory and practice
within the retrospective, or historical, context of meaning, is finally at hand. As it may be recalled from middle Essence, the
explanatory power of predictive rationality was beginning to
wear thin with Correlation and continued to lose ground in the
course of the categories of Essential Relation which followed.
By the time the Absolute was introduced as the first moment of
Actuality, it had become clear that the usefulness of predictive
rationality, as well as that of scientistic theory-practice, was to
continue only as sublated in higher explanatory forms such as
the retrospective rationality of historical explanation.

The much discussed problem of contingency is another element from late Essence to be used in completing the picture of
the new retrospective rationality. The transition to the Absolute
was intended to remedy contingency generated by External Reflection, through the reduction of both categorial framework
and the content embraced by it to the same level of self-description, or the Self-exposition of the Absolute. But it is also
recalled that neither the Absolute, nor the triad of Actuality
Proper which followed, could completely resolve this problem
as long as the Absolute operated in the context of meaning of
Essence. The same traces of externality that prevented the consummation of the dialectical synthesis of theory-practice under
Actuality, also prevented the resurfacing element of contingency from coming to rest in the fold of the Absolute. In Hegel's
familiar odd expression, "(Real) Necessity (still burdened with
external necessitation) ha(d) not yet spontaneously determined itself into Contingency." Translated into the corresponding historically concrete categories of Spirit, this meant that with predictive rationality still tainting historical discourse it was impossible to shake off relativism from historical interpretation.
Casting Stalin in the role of a patron of modern art, with the
help of the categories of Formal and Real Possibility, highlighted
the parallelism b e t w e e n a totalizing e f f o r t through logical
means and one through historically retrospective means. But it
also showed an important difference which will become more
evident as w e proceed, i.e., the difference between historical
understanding corresponding to the categories of Actuality
Proper and the same understanding under Objective Spirit, attained with the benefit of Self-consciousness from the intervening self-exploration of Subjective Spirit. The reverse is also true,
as the interposition of the last triad of Essence between Subjective and Objective Spirit will show for a better understanding of
Law and Sittlichkeit in what follows. If breaking away from Logic
to digress into Spirit at the end of Actuality Proper helped to lay
the ground for historical consciousness, and through the latter
illuminate the Notion, then returning to the site where w e left
Logic will also be instrumental in setting the stage for what lies
immediately ahead in Objective Spirit. In the remainder of this
Section w e shall change our course by briefly reverting to
Essence at the point from which w e took off for our digression
into Spirit, just short of the last triad of Actuality. By interposing the last triad of Essence between Subjective and Objective
Spirit w e can focus more sharply on an important correspondence between Logic and Spirit. This increases our appreciation
of Law and Sittlichkeit as instances of re-immediation logically

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9lz

Interposition of the
last triad of Essence
for an enhanced
appreciation of
concrete Spirit.

dealt with just prior to the major transition to re-immediation

in the Logic the Notion itself.
Absolute Necessity (or Absolute Actuality), as discussed prior
to our digression into the Philosophy of Spirit, is already a bold
affirmation of re-immediation and the logical counterpart of
our being confronted by a seemingly spontaneous birth of Objective Spirit. But, to recall a quoted passage in part, this was
accomplished only "in itself or in principle."
Here, therefore, the unity of (Real) Necessity and Contingency is
present in itself or in principle; this unity is to be called Absolute Actuality (which is the other side of Absolute Necessity).
To use Hegel's expression, "this is a unity where "(Real) Necessity has... (indeed but only in potentia) spontaneously determined itself into Contingency." What remains for this potentiality
to be actualized is to make explicit the w a y in which Absolute
Necessity is indeed the other side of Absolute Actuality. This is
the task of the last triad of Actuality and of Essence, called Absolute Relation, w h i c h consists of Substance and Accident
Cause and EffectReciprocity. It amounts to no less than a critique and reconstruction of causality along dialectical principles,
so that necessitation remains truly internal, thus eliminating
the danger of relapsing into externality (because of a defect
within Absolute Actuality) at the very last moment before the
transition to the Notion.
Absolute Necessity is Absolute Relation because it is not Being as
such, but Being that is because it is, Being as absolute self-mediation.
This being is Substance; as the final unity of Essence and Being it is
the being in all Being.
Substance, as this identity of the reflective movement, is the totality of the whole and embraces accidentally within it, and accidentally is the whole Substance itself. The differentiation of itself into
the simple identity of Being and the flux of accidents in it, is a form of
its Illusory Being.
In other words, this relation is only totality in the form of Illusory
Being as a becoming; but it is equally reflection; accidentality which
in itself is Substance is for this very reason also posited as such; thus
it is determined as self-relating negativity towards itself determined as self-relating simple self-identity; and it is Substance that exists for itself and has power. Thus the relation of substantiality passes
over into the relation of Causality. (Science of Logic, pp. 555-57)
The anticipation (raised by calling "Substance... the final unity of Essence and B e i n g " ) that the duality of Essence has at
long last been sublated, and that the final trace of externality
has been overcome, has been dashed: "this relation (of substant i a l i t y ) is o n l y t o t a l i t y in t h e f o r m of I l l u s o r y B e i n g as a

becoming; but it is equally reflection." Genuine unity or true

self-containment still eludes us, and Reflection, which throughout Essence has been instrumental in promoting higher forms
of integration through progressive concreteness, seems n o w
like a handicap in fostering "self-relating negativity towards itself" or "self-relating simple self-identity" on the part of Substance. Yet, when it is all over with Essence, at the moment of
Reciprocity following Causality, it will be clear that this last triad of Essence was, in fact, Reflection's last stand in the good
cause it has been promoting. This final step before w e continue
on to the Notion is to update the category of determination,
where it can match the most closely-knit unity that Substance
is aspiring to as "the final unity of Essence and Being (which) is
the being in all Being." All previous categories of determination
beginning with Ground-Grounded and continuing with ThingProperties, Whole-Parts, Inner-Outer, and Force-Expression,
subserved through progressive sophistication the dialectical end
of self-containment at the corresponding level of Being's selfdifferentiation. With the Absolute it seemed as if externality
had been overcome and the dialectical goal accomplished, but
this expectation proved premature precisely because of a weak
form of determination "(Real) Necessity ha(d) not yet spontaneously determined itself into Contingency." N o w that the circle of
necessitation finally seems closed by virtue of re-immediation,
and Substance stands as the latest of the models of self-completeness, w e can ill-afford to allow this final product of the
meticulously developed stages of unity-cwm-self-determination
to be imperiled by a half-baked conception of internal necessitation between Substance and its Accidents.
Absolute Necessity and the categories under Absolute Relation, beginning with Substance and its Accidents, logically describe what w e have come to understand as the attribution of
logical priority to social wholes by classical sociology. All of the
basic features of such understanding, as they are found in, say,
Durkheim or Simmel, have their logical counterparts in the final triad of Essence in conjunction with the corresponding moments of Objective Spirit: The radical transcendence of individualism and psychologism as expressed in the transition from
Subjective to Objective Spirit; the ultimacy of the "social fact"
and "collective representation" corresponding to the immediacy
(or re-immediation) of Objective Spirit; the self-necessitation of
the social whole represented in the Logic by Absolute Necessity;
and finally, the effecting of social control by way of social cohesiveness through "moral facts" in Durkheim, and "spiritual
entities" in Simmel corresponding to Hegel's Ethical Sub-

Elucidation of
Absolute Necessity
and Absolute
Relation by way of
classical sociology.

Durkheimian
sociology's deficient
determination.

stance or Sittlichkeit. In this sense these modes of understanding

of social phenomena find themselves in positions similar to
those of their more crude predecessors, which were forced to
reveal their shortcomings by being cast in the roles of the categories of middle and late Essence.
Classical sociology, especially as exemplified by Durkheim,
represents the initial insight about the ultimacy of social fact.
This was conveyed more colorfully by our puzzlement in being
confronted by a fully grown Objective Spirit in its immediacy, at
the conclusion of Subjective Spirit. In Hegel's words, this insight about the ultimacy of the social whole, corresponding as it
does to Substance, is bound to remain a "relation (which) is only totality in the form of Illusory Being as a becoming; but it is
equally Reflection." The reason for this is that, being in selfconcealment about dialectical links forward, the Durkheimian
insight also lacks the next stage in this moment, whereby Substance is "determined as self-relating negativity towards itself
determined as self-relating simple sell-identity." In other words,
this insight lacks the element which would have forced it to reassess its categories of causality, which might have saved it from
the taint of scientism with which Durkheim is often charged.
The same point can be made by reference to Objective Spirit
and the institutions of Law and Sittlichkeit. No matter how selfcontained the original conception of Ethical Substance might
be, uncritical pursuit of the interconnections between its components (its Accidents) through those abstractive categories of
d e t e r m i n a t i o n ( b e l o n g i n g to the predictive rationality of
Essence), is likely to prove abortive to this newly arrived insight
about self-containment.
So much was already anticipated in tracing the beginning of
the downfall of scientistic theory-practice right into the middle
of its own turf in Essence. It seems, therefore, understandable
that Hegel saves Causality for the very end of Essence, where it
is being reconstructed to fit the forthcoming transition to the
Notion qua self-containment. "In short, it is in the effect that
the cause first becomes actual and a cause. The cause consequently is in its full truth causa sui." (Logic, #153) The final outcome is an advanced form of reciprocal determination, which
he calls Reciprocity. This Hegel entrusts to guard against categorial disruptions of the newly discovered unity, at least for the
time being.

Provisional remedy for

less-than-perfect determinacy provided by Reciprocity until the Notion.

In the finite sphere we never get over the difference of the formcharacteristics in their relation: and hence we turn the matter
round and define the cause also as something dependent or as an
effect. This again has another cause, and thus there grows up a
progress from effects to causes ad infinitum. (Logic, #153)

Reciprocal action realizes the causal relation in its complete development. It is this relation, therefore, in which reflection usually
takes shelter when the conviction grows that things can no longer
be studied satisfactorily from a causal point of view, on account of
the infinite progress already spoken of... Reciprocity is undoubtedly the proximate truth of the relation of cause and effect, and
stands, so to say, on the threshold of the Notion; but on that very
ground, supposing that our aim is a thoroughly comprehensive
Idea, we should not rest content with applying this relation... To
make, for example, the manners of the Spartans the cause of their
constitution and their constitution conversely the cause of their
manners, may no doubt be in a way correct. But, as we have comprehended neither the manners nor the constitution of the nation,
the result of such reflections can never be final or satisfactory. The
satisfactory point will be reached only when these two, as well as
all other, special aspects of Spartan life and Spartan history are
seen to be founded in this Notion (where the terms of Reciprocity
are found in their unity). (Logic, #156 Zusatz)
This pure self-reciprocation is therefore (Absolute) Necessity unveiled or realized. (Logic, #157; emphases added)
The last sentence encapsulates the failure of Durkheim to
combine his insight about society qua re-immediation with the
appropriate category of "self-reciprocation." As a result, his unveiling suffers a relapse into a scientistic enterprise. It also
points to the next step of remediation of classical, by w a y of
phenomenological, sociology through having "(Absolute) Necessity (or Absolute Actuality) unveiled or realized." The role of
phenomenological sociology will be undertaken in the next
Section where w e shall encounter Spirit's other face in the unveiling of re-immediation. By n o w w e have secured, with the
help of the last triad of Essence, a better foothold on the logical
significance of the shift from predictive to retrodictive rationality, and a better picture as to the reasons w h y that which lies
ahead has to be dealt with in terms of "unpacking," or having
"(Absolute) Necessity (or Absolute Actuality) unveiled or realized." In the absence of such approach, the detail of what confronts us in its immediacy say, the "special aspects of Spartan
life and Spartan history" will not properly cohere, or will be
short of being "on the threshold of the Notion." This does not
mean that with the organization of such detail in terms of the
category of Reciprocity w e have reached the self-containment
of the Notion. But at least, in the logical concreteness of "pure
self-reciprocation," scientistic determinism has lost its predictive
zeal, which it had secured at the cost of abstractiveness beginning as early as the mathematical categories of Being.
Yet, no clue has been given as to the category on which w e
can safely rely to service the n e w socio-historical approach

u o i j B p g ajrqosqy jo p e u j aq; U I O I J
sjqSisui SuiuaAiajui a q j j o jijauaq a q j q j i M u o d n p a j e i o q e p
uaaq seq SB 'juids aAipafqo ui aiSoj-ouojsiq a q j jo suoijBaiidun
a q j j o j m s m d a q j qjiM juajuoa aq o j aABq aM 'auiijuBaui a q j
ui j u i d s a j u j o s q y o j a A i j a a f q o U I O J J U O I J I S U B J J a q j j o j i B d i a j
-unoa iBarSoi a q j O S J B S I qaiqM 'Bapi a q j puB U O I J O N aAijaafqo
a q j uaaMjaq U O I J I S U B J J J O juiod a q j J B pug puB suBaw jo A I J A A J B
-ip a q j pus A8o[oapx Aq pappvoid aq J J I M 8uipii8iapun jBaiSoj
siqj AjiBujuaAg uadoig AjqBnjay jo suoijBaijqduiax^ iBauojsiq
i n o jo asinoa a q j 8uunp U O I J B Z I J B J O J J B sjjojja pajduiajjB m o ui
pajajunoaua aM S U O I J B J J S U J J a q j j o MaiA U I pazisBqduiaiaAo a q
AjpjBq UBA uoijBJOjdxa jBauojsiq j o 8uipji8iapuu q a n s J O J p a a u

s q i -8uqi3Aun jo ssaaoid a q j i o j (AjqBuiajxa j o saaBij U I O J J )

u o i j a a j o j d j o o i d j o o j apiAoid uea q a i q M AjoSajBa o u jaA SB
SI a j a q j 'qaeoidde aAijaadsoijai a q j uiqjiM pajBjqns vnb paAjas
-aid uaaq aABq A J I J B U O I J B J aAijaipaid puB AjijBsnBa aijsijuaps
SBajaqM 'spjoM j a q j o ui -Aiojsiq uBjJBds j o asBa a q j ui A j p o j d
- p a g jo asn a q j i o j p 8 a n Aq q j i o j jud suoijBAiasai a q j j n o q j i M

}uid$ aaipalqo puv uoipy

08Z

without the reservations put forth by Hegel for the use of Reciprocity in the case of Spartan history. In other words, whereas
scientistic causality and predictive rationality have been preserved qua sublated within the retrospective approach, there is
as yet no category w h i c h can provide foolproof protection
(from traces of externality) for the process of unveiling. The
need for such undergirding of historical exploration can hardly
be overemphasized in view of the frustrations w e encountered
in our attempted efforts at totalization during the course of our
historical exemplifications of Actuality Proper. Eventually this
logical undergirding will be provided by Teleology and the dialectic of Means and End at the point of transition between the
Objective Notion and the Idea, which is also the logical counterpart of the transition from Objective to Absolute Spirit. In
the meantime, w e have to be content with the pursuit of the
implications of the historio-logic in Objective Spirit, as has been
elaborated upon with the benefit of the intervening insights
from the triad of Absolute Relation.

ii. Spirit as the Unveiling of Re-immediation

In order to appreciate the implications of the newly found
historio-logic for the dialectic of freedom and action, w e shall
pick up the argument at the point where w e left it, with freedom in the form of Free Mind (or Free Action), at the end of
Subjective Spirit before our last digression back into the Logic.
To that conception of freedom (arrived at via the inferiority of
Mind) w e can now juxtapose the same conception (as embodied in the exteriority of Spirit) qua re-immediated, or freedom
as incorporated in the corresponding categories of Absolute Relation just reviewed.

Refitting the dialectic

offreedom to suit the
continuity between
Logic and Spirit.

This truth of necessity, therefore, is Freedom: and the truth of Substance is the Notion, an independence which, though self-repulsive into distinct independent elements, yet in that repulsion is
self-identical, and in the movement of Reciprocity still at home and
conversant only with itself.
Necessity is often called hard, and rightly so, if we keep only to necessity as such, i.e. to its immediate shape... Freedom too from this
point of view (i.e., of independent subsistence) is only abstract, and
is preserved only by renouncing all that we immediately are and
have. But, as we have seen already, the process of necessity is so directed that it overcomes the rigid externality which it first had and
reveals its inward nature... Necessity indeed qua necessity is far
from being freedom: yet freedom pre-supposes necessity, and contains it as an unsubstantial element in itself. (Logic, #158 and Zusatz)
Liberty, shaped into the actuality of a world, receives the form of
Necessity, the deeper substantial nexus of which is the system or organization of the principles of liberty, whilst its phenomenal nexus
is power or authority, and the sentiment of obedience awakened in
consciousness. (Philosophy of Spirit, #484)
The refitting of the dialectic of freedom so as to include ne- Accent on the unveiling of embodied
cessity becomes unavoidable at the end of Essence because "libimmediacy once
erty, shaped into the actuality of a world, receives the form of
Necessity." Once Absolute Necessity enters the picture as the log- Objective Spirit
is conceived as
ical counterpart of Objective Spirit's re-immediation, the dialecre-immediation.
tic of freedom has to be updated to accommodate necessity. But
this signals a change in the context of meaning for the interpretation of freedom since now, with retrospective rationality in
effect and freedom embedded in institutions, the accent is on
unveiling the structure of necessity. In other words, since necessity qua absolute is the basic feature of social reality, the new
rule of the game for the interpretation of freedom is the same
as that of Objective Spirit as a whole: an injunction to accept its
necessity and commence the process of unveiling. There is no
way, within the given parameters for subjective freedom, to
make a dent on Absolute Necessity short of relaxing the condi-

tion of absoluteness. This would automatically mean relapsing

to Actuality Proper and submitting to the same trials by contingency which propelled us forward to Absolute Actuality (or Absolute Necessity) in the first place. However, this approach of
freedom qua necessity is not the last word on freedom, nor the
last w e have heard from contingency. At this stage, the subjective moments of both Spirit and freedom are still very much
alive and will remain so until the penultimate category of the
Logic, at which point they will resurface for the last time as the
highly concrete successor of practice, the Practical Idea. In fact,
the two moments of freedom, as well as the subjective and objective sides of Spirit, will remain in opposition as they build up
their concreteness or perfect their final complementarity
in anticipation of the final synthesis of theory and practice in
the Absolute Idea. As much has already been intimated in the
quotation which follows as well as in the first paragraph of the
preceding one, wherein w e are told that "freedom presupposes
necessity, and contains it as an unsubstantial element in itself."
Freedom as self-realization presupposes
the unveiling of
Objective Spirit qua
Absolute Necessity.

This version of freedom qua incorporated in re-immediated

Spirit having its logical counterpart in Absolute Necessity (or
Absolute Actuality) and, by extension, in Substance is the dialectical outcome and complement of its earlier version from
the opposite end of Subjective Spirit as the synthesis of Theoretical and Practical Mind. It is the outcome of a development
upon which w e have insisted in the course of the last Section:
that social institutions (i.e., Absolute Actuality or Ethical Substance) in which freedom now finds itself incorporated as (Absolute) Necessity, have been building up behind the surface
while freedom qua synthesis of the theoretical and practical
moments of Mind was being pursued on the surface. When the
moment of realization comes the two paths are really one: subjective freedom emerges as having objective (institutional) necessity as its inseparable other side. The structure of freedom is
unitary as expressed by the logic of totalization under Actuality
Proper (to be finalized by the Notion) but it is fleshed out differently, depending on whether w e are in the subjective or objective phase of Spirit. The complementarity of the subjective and
objective sides of Spirit can be further illustrated by recalling
the symmetrical relationship between these two sides of freedom. In the subjective version it is "the genuinely free, which
includes free choice as suspended" because the dialectic initiates
the process of totalization from psychological grounds. By contrast, in the objective version, the process is being initiated from
the immediacy or facticity of the institutional setting, "freedom

presupposes necessity, and contains it as an unsubstantial element in itself."

Objective Spirit,
The unity of the rational will with the single will (this being the
peculiar and immediate medium in which the former is actualized)
as the embodiment
constitutes the simple actuality of liberty. As it (and its content) be- of institutions and
longs to thought, and is the virtual universal, the content has its
customs, needs the
right and true character only in the form of universality. When invested with this character for the intelligent consciousness, or insti- complement of Subtuted as an authoritative power, it is Law (Gesetz). When, on the jective Spirit to issue
other hand, the content is freed from the mixedness and fortuin freedom as selfitousness, attaching to it in the Practical Feeling and in Impulse,
realization.
and is set and grafted in the individual will, not in the form of Impulse, but in its universality, so as to become its habit, temper, and
character, it exists as a manner and custom, or Usage (Sitte). (Philosophy of Spirit, # 485; parentheses in the text)
The moral life (i.e., Sittlichkeit rendered as Ethical Life or Ethical
Substance) is the perfection of Spirit objective the truth of the
Subjective and Objective Spirit itself. The failure of the latter consists partly in having its freedom immediately in reality, in something external therefore, in a thing partly in the abstract universality of its goodness. The failure of Spirit subjective similarly consists in this, that it is, as against the universal, abstractly self-determinant in its inward individuality. When these two imperfections
are suppressed, subjectivefreedomexists as the covertly and overtly
universal rational will, which is sensible of itself and actively disposed in the consciousness of the individual subject, whilst its practical operation and immediate universal actuality at the same time
exist as moral usage, manner and custom where self-conscious
liberty has become nature. (Philosophy of Spirit, #513)
Inasmuch as we have shown in the last Section that the moments of Objective Spirit are the domain of re-immediation, it
can be expected that the categories of action can also be found
incorporated in them. For example, w e may substitute theorypractice qua scientific and technological norm for Law, as institutionalized "moral usage, manner and custom, where self-conscious liberty has become nature." Then w e can claim, in line
with the above quotation, that the failure of Objective Spirit is
due in part to the fact that law-like theory-practice has its validation incorporated "immediately in reality, in something external therefore, in a thing (and) partly in the abstract universality
of its goodness." Though they may be originating as self-conscious applications of the theory-practice norm, institutional activities continue unself-consciously as routine practices. Once,
say, the blueprint of a factory or a penal institution is brought
to fruition according to rational planning and the methodological principles of theory-practice i.e., "shaped into the actuality of a world, (whereby) it receive(s) the form of Necessity"
the next level of embodiment the design externalized in the

Adaptation of the
dialectic of action
to the exigencies of
Objective Spirit.

Misunderstanding
of the facticity of
Objective Spirit as a
call for acquiescence.

concrete outcome consisting of institutional activity-cwm-mortar-and-glass prescribes the paths along which everyday activity takes place.
In other words, the category of action appropriate to this
phase of Objective Spirit is institutional or routinized practice.
Functioning institutions, as layer-upon-layer embodiments of
various clusters of norms have, to a great extent, replaced conscious testing and application of rationality with respect to individual actions. As a result, self-conscious methodological
screening is reserved only for unruly occasions. The other area
"the abstract universality of its goodness" in which Objective Spirit is found wanting and needs to be complemented
by Subjective Spirit, will eventually be provided in a sublated
form: First, the remedy to routine practice of institutionalized
life by way of those abstract claims in the name of "goodness"
which, as w e have already seen in our radical's repertory and
shall again encounter in Moralitat, are capable of making a dent
in institutionalized routine practice. But, more important, a
dent will be made by the Practical Idea which, as the most concrete practical moment, exemplifies the best antidote to institutionalized routine in terms of a (possibly radical) challenge to
the shortcomings of Objective Spirit.
Objective Spirit, coupled as it is with Absolute Necessity, can
be the source of endless misconceptions regarding the dialectic,
and consequent misinterpretations of Hegel's views about action, if taken apart from its subjective complement. For example, without careful consideration of the logical counterparts to
Objective Spirit, Hegel's acceptance of what is essentially a
point of departure for the unveiling of the status quo, can be easily mistaken as an apology for it. In fact, Objective Spirit is no
less of an embodiment of challenges to the status quo from diverse quarters, e.g., radical challenges demanding to be "shaped
into the actuality of a world, and (be) receive(d in) the form of
Necessity." For, as w e have been told above, it is indeed a failure
of Objective Spirit, which "consists partly in having its freedom
immediately in reality, in something external therefore, in a
thing." But, in anticipation of the final synthesis, Hegel continues that this failure of Objective Spirit is compensated by the
complementary strength of Subjective Spirit, to the effect that
"subjective freedom exists as the covertly or overtly universal rational will, which is sensible of itself and actively disposed to
the consciousness of the individual subject." To recall the oft invoked metaphor of the Janus-faced Spirit, here w e are being
presented with "subjective freedom" representing Spirit's path of
immediacy and concealment of its tracks forward, while being

complemented by the path of mediation and unveiling backward the "freedom immediately (or through re-immediation incorporated) in (institutional) reality."
As is evident from the list of the categories of Objective Spirit, Sittlichkeit synthesizes Law and Moralitat. Or, more plainly,
the institutional setting incorporates conceptions of right that
have been crystallized in legal norms, as well as "oughts," in
different stages of concreteness which have successfully challenged what is established. To use Hegel's favorite expression,
Spirit finds in these externalized and objectified legal norms
"something which is" and confronts it, to begin with, in its immediacy and abstract universality as alien, rather than as something which Spirit can affirm "to be only its own."
The free will is:
(A) Itself at first immediate, and hence as a single being the person: the existence which the person gives to its liberty is property.
The Right as Right (law) is formal, abstract right.
(B) When the will is reflected into self, so as to have its existence inside it, and to be thus at the same time characterized as a particular, it
is the right of the subjective will, morality of the individual conscience.
(C) When the free will is the substantial will, made actual in the
subject and conformable to its concept and rendered a totality of
necessity it is the ethics of actual life in Family, Civil Society,
and State. (Philosophy of Spirit, #487; parentheses in the last instance in the text)
The "actually free will" that w e left at a high level of concreteness within the parameters of the interiority of Free Mind, w e
now encounter (given the more advanced parameters of Objective Spirit) at a low level of concreteness, as "a single being
the person" situated in a relationship to externality vis-a-vis the
abstract universality of Law qua "formal, abstract right." The will,
as external to law, has reverted to in-itselfness from the in-andfor-itselfness it had attained in Free Mind, because freedom in
Objective Spirit has to go through the same labor of totalization,
now within the expanded definition of externality. Once again,
Spirit must undergo the process of first re-cognizing and then
re-appropriating what is "only its own." Though they seem to
confront us as outsiders, legal and social institutions are of our
own doing. They are products of the forward trek of immediacy
(or re-immediation) throughout the anthropological stages of
Soul, and subject to the task of unveiling in the course of the
backward path of Objective Spirit. This shift in direction is already evident in the summary of the moments of Objective Spirit quoted above. In the second moment of Moralitat, corresponding to for-itselfness, Spirit turns inward and "the will is reflected

Detailed account of
the dialectical incorporation offreedom
in Objective Spirit.

ir

Illustration of the
unveiling dimension
of Objective Spirit by
way of phenomenological sociology.

into itself, so as to have its existence inside it" in preparation for

the final moment of re-appropriation. The latter corresponds to
the last moment, the in-and-for-itselfness of Sittlichkeit, wherein
the individual will coincides with the "actually free will" "the
free will is the substantial will (of the social whole), made actual
in the subject and rendered a totality of necessity (as counterpart to the logic of totalization of Actuality Proper)."
We may return, for illustration, to the socio-historical parallels between the dialectic and the emergence of sociological consciousness: whereas Objective Spirit in its immediacy corresponded to Durkheimian facticity, phenomenological sociology
represents the process of unveiling. Not until almost a century
after Hegel did sociology rediscover Spirit's dual path in its quest
for meaning, i.e., for the link between what is on the surface
and what is working behind the surface. Its intellectual vanguard properly concluded, in line with the Cunning of Reason,
that while science uncovers the tricks played on us by mother
nature, sociological theory unveils the deceptions induced by
ourselves upon ourselves in the course of the forward trek of
the Janus-faced Spirit. It took still another half century for phenomenological sociology to rediscover the familiar dialectical
motto that while in Essence (scientistic knowledge) thought
merely operates on itself, in the Notion (humanistic knowledge)
it also knows that it does so thus proudly pronouncing that
all reality is socially constructed and beginning the job of unveiling these self-deceptions with tools borrowed from philosophy.
Phenomenological sociology obviously represents an advanced standpoint on the dialectical scale that w e have been
using to appraise disciplinary knowledge. This is also evident
from the account of its logical counterpart in late Essence and
the self-exhibiting outlook displayed there by the dialectic of
the Absolute. Its advanced point of view was then reflected in
the fact that, with the transition to the Absolute, this outlook
automatically brought into focus the categorial equipment used
for exhibiting reality alongside reality itself, as viewed through
the categories of Essence. The ground had thus been firmly laid
for the transition from the scientistic to the humanistic domain
and the gradual shift from the position of combating deception
to that of overcoming self-deception. W e recall that the frustrated effort for totalization under the Absolute turned, with
the shift to Absolute Relation, into self-understanding and the
disclosure of self-concealment by w a y of "unpacking" Substance. The situation is no different with the corresponding dialectic of Objective Spirit except that, as befitting a culturally
concrete form of re-immediation, what has been concealed,

and is about to be reappropriated, is an embodiment of categories as exemplified above in the design incorporated in the
institutional and physical setting of a prison or a factory. In
turning its attention to the institutional order under the n e w
rules of retrospective rationality, Spirit has directed its beam on
its own embedded categories, including those concepts of action
under Moralitat, which constitute the progressively mediated
grades of "ought" and challenges to the social order.
The full import of Moralitat qua challenge of institutionalized
The element of parvalues can be better appreciated by bringing to mind the conticularity as chaltrast between the first two moments of Objective Spirit, as sumlenge to the facticity
marized in the last quotation. Whereas in the first moment of
of Objective Spirit
in-itselfness (Law) or potential (abstract) freedom, the will is still found in Moralitat.
"immediate, and hence as a single being the person" is being
confronted by the establishment which "as Right (law) is formal,
abstract right," in the second moment of for-itselfness (Moralitat),
"the will is reflected into itself." This moment represents the
"particular... the right of the subjective will, (and the) morality of
the individual conscience." Though sandwiched between the abstract universality of the first moment and the concrete universality of the last one, this should not obscure the function of
Moralitat qua challenge to the status quo by virtue of its features
of particularity, subjectivity, and the "morality of the individual
conscience." But at the same time it should not be forgotten that
the residual subject-object polarity is still to be sublated in the
Notion. The retrospective rationality, whose application has now
resulted in our acceptance of Objective Spirit in its immediacy as
a preliminary to the commencement of unveiling, is also a kind
of abstractive procedure, now in the form of an is-ought dualism. On the one hand, w e have the standpoint of hands-off Objective Spirit associated with its facticity but, on the other, w e
have the challenge of it by Moralitat which, though sublated in
Sittlichkeit, will resurface with added fervor and concreteness in
its logical counterpart in the Notion as the Practical Idea. In effect, there has been a trade-off of dualisms the is-ought for
predictive-retrodictive rationality for the sake of overcoming
the persistent problems associated with the internal coherence
of the Absolute, in the hope that it will finally pave the ground
for the final synthesis of the Absolute Idea. Already the transition to Actuality Proper and the process of totalization can be
perceived as a prefiguring of this trade-off of polarities: scientistic theory-practice and subject-object for those centered on the
time-axis, such as present-past and predictive-retrodictive rationality. The is-ought polarity, to which the next Section is devoted, represents a species of the latter which also incorporates the

Exemplification of
unresolved dualisms
in sociological subdisciplines.

The danger of onesidedness, or dialectically unripe synthesis, exemplified

by phenomenological and Marxist
sociology.

(reversed) post-scientistic polarity of theoretical-practical (qua

self-given).
As with the earlier cases in Essence, these n e w polarities
represent forms of disciplinary knowledge, inasmuch as the Encyclopedia can be viewed as a dialectically integrated interdisciplinary project. Accordingly, the various kinds of disciplinary
self-concealment can be revealed following our strategy of casting disciplines in the roles of appropriate dialectical categories.
Phenomenological sociology can be dialectically cast in order to
illustrate the methodological difficulties generated by the isought polarity. These problems are shared by other social and
humanistic disciplines which, having won, with varying success, the epistemological battle against dualism through strategies reminiscent of Durkheimian totalization, n o w find their
holistic accomplishment imperiled by the is-ought dualism. Dialectically speaking, these disciplines find themselves in a state
in which they can confront segments of Objective Spirit, including their own methodological apparatus in the manner of
the Self-Exposition of the Absolute, with the exception of the
factual-normative duality. In their self-concealment regarding
logical links backward and forward, they are unable to integrate
the lessons from the dialectic of the Absolute within their holistic scheme, relapsing instead to dualism commonly referred
to as the methodological rule of ethical neutrality or, more vulgarly, the "two hats" rule.
For example, a phenomenological sociologist of religion,
w h o is also a believer, is supposed to wear two hats, one as a
defender of the faith and another as an subverter of faith when
he shows, through his phenomenological technique, that religious beliefs can be reduced to social location and cultural cohesion. In the context of Objective Spirit this practice of debunking corresponds to the unveiling of socially and historically
embedded categories of action, such as intentionality of faith.
But unlike phenomenological sociology and other similarly oriented social and humanistic disciplines, the dialectic does not
stop there. Lacking full determinacy, these disciplines correspond to an unstable equilibrium en route to the Absolute Idea
and the overcoming of all dualisms. This too can be illustrated
through forms of disciplinary knowledge by pointing out that,
though more advanced on the dialectical scale than the social
disciplines filling the roles of the categories of middle Essence,
phenomenological disciplines show the same symptoms of selfconcealment as did those before them.
The unveiling methods of Marxist sociology of knowledge
can be used by those w h o reject the "two hats" rule in order to

challenge the status quo, by contrast to the phenomenological

sociologist w h o upholds ethical neutrality while using unveiling techniques similar to those of sociologists of knowledge.
These sub-disciplines of sociology display a complementarity
resembling that of Subjective and Objective Spirit in their respective gropings for a genuine synthesis earlier. The critical
edge of phenomenological sociology can be turned against the
Marxist sociology of knowledge by providing the "social location" of the latter's radical "oughts." It may even appear, from
a cursory comparison of the phenomenological conception of
the social construction of reality with the quotation from Philosophy of Nature on the title-page (after a rightful substitution
of "culture" for "Spirit"), that phenomenological sociology has
reached, by its own means, the same end as the dialectical synthesis of Spirit. But this would be quite misleading since, advanced as it may be compared to the rest of social disciplines,
its standpoint has been arrested at the level of Objective Spirit,
which is still flawed in the sense already indicated by the quoted #513, to the effect that, its "failure... consists partly in having its freedom immediately in reality, in something external
therefore, in a thing." This is evidenced by the phenomenological bracketing of philosophical connections (through suspension of doubt) in order to pursue its exploration of social phenomena. Granted, unsettling consequences for the status quo
may f o l l o w phenomenology's radical empiricist attention to
the surface of phenomena. But this is the work of Cunning of
Reason and not the result of having transcended the is-ought
dualism in its own self-understanding.
Marxist sociology of knowledge is no less flawed. Though it
pretends to be ahead of phenomenological sociology in having
transcended the dualism of the "two hats," it has, in effect, relapsed into the more primitive "ought" of Subjective Spirit
an "ought" colored by "the failure of Spirit subjective (which)
similarly consists in this, that it is, as against the universal, abstractly self-determinant in its inward individuality." (emphases
added in this instance) The "ought," which Marxist sociology of
knowledge is in the habit of locating socially in individuals and
groups, is not the advanced (concrete) "ought" representing the
Practical Idea, but a dialectically unripe individual "ought" corresponding to "subjective freedom (not yet) exist(ing) as the
covertly and overtly universal rational will." In the absence of
their coincidence, the result of the effort of sociology of knowledge for the social location of such "ought" is riddled with indeterminacy, manifested most vividly in those endemic fits of infinite regress f r o m w h i c h s o c i o l o g y of k n o w l e d g e suffers,

Complementarity of
phenomenological
and Marxist sociologies in their respective deficiencies.

w h e t h e r it opts for the proletariat, the Party, or an intelligentsia, for the location of a "universal rational will." The full
force of Hegel's insistence, as evidenced by the dialectic of freedom in Actuality Proper, that free will has necessarily the social
whole as its object, suddenly comes back into play. Now, however, there is an added realization of h o w hopeless the logical
separation is between "subjective freedom" and the "universal rational will," and, consequently, h o w self-deceptive the effort
can be of securing either ethical neutrality, or the "ought," according to the "universal rational will" or "subjective freedom," in
separation from each other.
The respective shortcomings of sociological sub-disciplines
compared to those
of Subjective and
Objective Spirit.

Each of these sociological sub-disciplines corresponds to a

moment whose partial truth is to be completed in a context of
meaning which forces it to point beyond itself. In their respective forms of one-sidedness, as reflected in different kinds of indeterminacy, they represent the corresponding "failure(s)" of
Subjective and Objective Spirit. While wearing his ethical neutrality hat, the phenomenological sociologist focuses on the
"oughts" that have been externalized and thus present themselves "immediately in reality, in something external therefore,
in a thing." He makes a self-conscious effort to keep out of his
professional involvement what might be thrust upon him by
the "abstract universality of its goodness." This enables him to
avoid one "failure" of Objective Spirit: the contingency of content which haunts low-concreteness "ought," as w e recall such
contingency f r o m having f o l l o w e d low-grade freedom (free
choice) upward to genuine freedom in Essence and again in
Subjective Spirit. But on closer inspection this advantage proves
illusory as soon as w e realize that the use of a means (a radically empirical technique) which is purportedly neutral with respect to ends, involves the surreptitious admission of the latter
in the very act of its use. This was the central lesson from the
dialectic of Content-Form, in which the content was necessarily
involved in the application of form. The same result was utilized in the dialectic of freedom under Actuality Proper, wherein Hegel properly underscored the issue of determinacy of the
content of g e n u i n e f r e e d o m , lest it be supplied by default
through freedom of choice: "The genuinely free will... is conscious to itself that its content is intrinsically firm and fast, and
knows it at the same time to be thoroughly its own." (emphases supplied in this instance)
The sociologist of knowledge, on the other hand, having
consciously adopted a normative stance according to our original specifications, is not in danger of furthering another's
"ought" by default as is his phenomenological colleague. But

he is no better off in terms of furthering determinacy for reasons which are only apparently different. He shares his phenomenological colleague's awareness that values are socially
located. But his problem originates in his attempt to accomplish what is tantamount to a dialectical synthesis of the Theoretical and Practical Idea from a foundation of insufficient concreteness. W h i l e he is aspiring to transcend the " t w o hats"
rule, he remains in self-concealment regarding the indispensable dynamic of totalization involved in the dialectic of freedom. In other words, his one-sidedness stems not from lack of
awareness that his "ought" is socially located, but rather from
the fact that the latter lacks the dialectical ripeness that would
enable it to lead directly to the synthesis of which he thinks it
capable. In the absence of a dialectical u p g r a d i n g of his
"ought" from the level of "subjective freedom" to the "universal
rational will" which so far has proven elusive, his "ought" is
still too much in his head, in the manner of Subjective Spirit,
for his aim to come to fruition.
This parallelism between the two sub-disciplines of sociology
on the one hand, and of subjective and objective moments of
Spirit on the other, may not be immediately obvious because
the intervening shift from predictive to retrodictive rationality
between these two moments has relegated the object of theoretical concern to the past. Though not apparent, this shift is
symptomatic of the intensified theoretical concern, insofar as
now it is not only the object, but the categorial equipment as
well, that is subsumed under the more comprehensive nonpredictive theoretical compass. Such intensification, approximating, as w e noted earlier, the gaze of classical theoria, has
been the impetus behind the unveiling of Objective Spirit following re-immediation, and correspondingly, behind the preoccupation of the phenomenological sociologist with ethical neutrality. Having graduated from predictive theorizing to retroflective theoria, Spirit, more than ever before, is projecting its concern on what is rather than on what will or ought-to-be. The logical root of this conservative face of Spirit, apparent in the case
of phenomenological sociology, is of course, Absolute Necessity
(or Absolute Actuality), the foundation of its re-immediation as
Objective Spirit. But this is only half of the story, as it will become evident when w e probe more deeply into the logical ancestry of Spirit's Janus-facedness.
The distant progenitor of the present two-way indeterminacy (resolved by the dialectic of Mind only to resurface in Objective Spirit and exemplified in the predicaments of our sociologists) can be traced all the w a y back to the treatment of

Complementarity of
the respective contributions and shortcomings of the two
sociological disciplines prefigures
those of the "is "
and the "ought."

"ought" in its most incipient form under the immediacy of Being. Such treatment might have seemed odd at the time, but in
light of what has intervened in Essence regarding polarity and
the role of mediation, as inextricably linked to immediacy in
furthering "ought's" concreteness, this is now understandable.
For, insofar as immediacy means externality between subject
and object, the unmediated forms of the "is" and the "ought"
which kept the two sub-disciplines of sociology apart, are two
sides of the same coin. In this case externality underlies both
the theoretical attempt to understand what is, and the practical
standpoint of what ought to be. In their self-concealment
about the complementarity of both their failures and strengths,
the phenomenological sociologist and the Marxist sociologist of
k n o w l e d g e are in a direct line of succession to the earliest
identification of self-concealment in connection with the socalled unmediated "is" of Being and the immediacy of the
"ought" of Jacobi, respectively.

iii. The "Is" and the "Ought" as Elements in the

Synthesis of Action
Though not always apparent, the dialectical paths of theorypractice and the is-ought run a parallel course beginning with
Being where the polar terms are pitted against each other in abstract opposition or total indifference. In Essence this situation
of externality was gradually alleviated as convergence set in
along with mediation and the gradual gain in concreteness by
the opposed terms. Since the categories appropriate to the humanistic domain do not e m e r g e until late in Essence, the
"ought," in its positing role, is represented by Positing Reflection, which stands as its logical surrogate until Actuality and
the dissolution of scientistic theory-practice into humanistic action. The underlying process of convergence and ultimate synthesis of the polar terms was illustrated with examples f r o m
psychoanalysis, echoing the fundamental insight of the first
paradigm about the synthesis of theory and practice into selforiginating action. But this very same feature of self-givenness
is what characterizes moral or genuinely free action. The logic
of totalization under Actuality Proper and, correspondingly, the
synthesis of Theoretical and Practical Mind into Free Mind (or
Free Action), provided the logical and psychological undergirding, for such self-given action. By the time w e reach Objective
Spirit, this self-given posit begins to be recognizable as the
moral "ought," the "practical" of the moral domain and with
some additional mediations to be taken up between n o w and
the end of the Logic as the supremely concrete Practical Idea
at the end of the Notion.
What has obscured the continuity of the dialectical path of
the "ought" and made it appear as if springing out of nowhere
not unlike action at the end of Essence and re-immediated
Spirit at the opening of Objective Spirit is the fact that for
long stretches it too remained behind the surface building up in
concreteness. For example, the path between the crudely immediate "ought" of Jacobi or, for that matter, the instrumental
"ought" of Essence, and the Practical Idea is so tortuous and
seemingly discontinuous, that thinkers as profound and as different as Hume and Kant had been sanguine about the fundamental discontinuity between the "is" and the "ought." Yet the
careful reader should be able to ascertain that this path is more
of a continuous one, a chain of mediations resulting in progressively concrete formulations of both. Essence, which may be
viewed as the longest discontinuity on the surface in "ought's"
path and the fount of the alleged gap between it and the "is," is

Parallelism between
the path of theorypractice and the
is-ought.

Continuity of the
path of the "ought,'
appearances
notwithstanding.

also the locus of an instrumental or technological "ought,"

which is a variant of the scientistic "if...then," i.e., "if you want
to accomplish... then you ought to proceed..."
As w e move into the more advanced segments of Subjective
Spirit the mere parallelism between theory-practice and isought gives w a y to certain complexities inasmuch as Consciousness begins by dealing with itself or, in the language of
the first paradigm to which it structurally corresponds, it is applying theory-practice to itself. We recall that the practical categories of Mind are the outcome of continuing self-mediations
beginning with the cruder forms of theory-practice of Feeling
Soul elaborated under insanity. These self-mediations continue
with the anticipation of the practical qua self-given in Self-consciousness under Appetite, and culminate in the full-blown
transformation of the practical moment from external to internal. This is in line with the oft-quoted formula whereby Mind is
viewed both "as being (external to itself) and as (internally) its
own." The ground has thus been cleared for a transition from
the instrumental to the moral "ought," which had first formally
emerged early in Practical Mind as an amoral category under
Practical Feeling. Like its technological counterpart, the moral
"ought" (at this stage of relative abstraction) is neutral with respect to universal ends, and as such, is capable of indifferently
serving good or evil. In the words of the quotation that follows,
it claims "essential autonomy," it is "itself immediate, (and it) is
not at once elevated into thinking universality."
Gradations of the
"ought" in line
with dialectical
concreteness.

Practical Mind considered at first as formal or immediate will, contains a double ought (1) in the contrast which the new mode of
being projected outward by the will offers to the immediate positivity of its old existence and condition an antagonism which in
Consciousness grows to correlation with external objects. (2) That
first self-determination, being itself immediate, is not at once elevated into thinking universality. (Philosophy of Spirit, #470)
The 'Ought' of Practical Feeling is the claim of its essential autonomy to control some existing mode of fact which is assumed to be
worth nothing save as adapted to that claim. But as both, in their
immediacy, lack objective determination, this relation of the requirement to existent fact is the utterly subjective and superficial
feeling of pleasant or unpleasant.
Evil is nothing but the incompatibility between what is and what
ought to be. 'Ought' is an ambiguous term indeed infinitely so,
considering that casual aims may also come under the form of
Ought. (Philosophy of Spirit, #472)
As is evident from Hegel's assessment of its levels of concreteness above, a genuine moral "ought" cannot be reached within
the confines of Subjective Spirit because of the latter's self-im-

posed individualistic parameters. But, it is also recalled, even beyond Practical Feeling ( w h e r e these passages belong), after a
succession of mediations involving such theoretically infused
categories as Interest and Choice, the "ought" continues to suffer from indeterminacy to be "an ambiguous term." Happiness, the penultimate and most concrete practical category of
Subjective Spirit, epitomizes its incapacity to transcend its individualism and psychologism the Subjective Spirit "has for its
products, in the theoretical range, the word, and in the practical
(not yet deed and action, but) enjoyment." (Added emphases within
the parentheses in this instance) This task of transcending individualism and psychologism is eventually undertaken by Objective Spirit, and Moralitat in particular, which shoulders the burden of transforming a host of psychological categories to their
moral counterparts. Freedom must, so to speak, be reconquered
after the synthesis of Free Mind (or Free Action) under an expanded context of meaning inclusive of externality. Contingency
has to be confronted once more while the familiar battles for totalization must be fought again, n o w on the dialectically higher
plateau of Objective Spirit. There is a clear sense of this replay in
the parallelism between the categories of Practical M i n d (i.e.,
Choice, Interest, Happiness) and their counterparts in Moralitat
(i.e., Purpose, Intention and Welfare).
Similarly, in Subjective Spirit there is already an obvious anticipation of its inadequacy to logically support the categories of
the sphere of Morality of Conscience (Moralitat), to say nothing
of those of Ethical Life (Sittlichkeit) in which L a w and Moralitat
are finally synthesized.
Their genuine rationality (i.e., belonging to the psychological
'oughts' under Impulse and Choice) cannot reveal its secret to a
method of outer reflection which pre-supposes a number of independent innate tendencies and immediate instincts, and therefore is
wanting in a single principle and final purpose for them. But the
immanent 'reflection' of Mind itself carries it beyond their particularity and their natural immediacy, and gives their content a rationality and objectivity, in which they exist as necessary ties of social
relation, as rights and duties. It is this objectification which evinces
their real value, their mutual connections, and their truth. And
thus it was a true perception when Plato... showed that the full reality of justice could be exhibited only in the objective phase of justice, namely in the construction of the State as the Ethical Life.
(Philosophy of Spirit, #474)
Yet in the overall triadic structure of Objective Spirit it is not
Moralitat (representing the "ought" of moral conscience), as one
might have expected, but Law representing the "is," which occupies the m o m e n t of immediacy ( r e - i m m e d i a t i o n f r o m the
standpoint of Free Mind or Free Action). Moralitat, in turn, occu-

Increase in concreteness through the

incorporation of the
"ought" in the institutional setting of
Objective Spirit.

pies the slot of mediation, and their synthesis in Sittlichkeit holds

that of re-immediation from the standpoint of Objective Spirit.
Free Mind (or Free Action), being the highly concrete last moment of Subjective Spirit, finds itself suddenly confronting the
first moment of Objective Spirit (Law) as if it were sheer externality. This development was implied throughout Free Mind's
rise to concreteness but, for the well-known occurrences behind
the surface, was not made explicit. Our hands are filled once
more with a case of freedom qua realization at a more concrete
level than Subjective Spirit, which includes the institutional setting and must again be approached with the logical tools of totalization of Actuality Proper. This is the step that our Marxist
sociologist of knowledge missed, thus generating those conditions of False Infinite that haunt his search for the social location
of concrete freedom in perpetuity, and doom his aspiration for
encompassing the genuinely practical "ought" in his unveiling
enterprise. It is precisely this critical point of totalization, viewed
now from the vantage point of socio-culturally concrete Spirit,
that Hegel pries open by juxtaposing the free individual "as a
subject" and "as a person" in the following quotation.
Recasting of the concept of freedom in
the progressively
concrete setting of
Objective Spirit.

The free individual, who, in mere Law, counts only as a person, is

now (i.e., in Moralitat) characterized as a subject a will reflected
into itself so that, be its affection what it may, it is distinguished (as
existing in it) as its own from the existence of freedom in an external thing... Its (i.e., the subjective will's) utterance in deed with
this freedom is an action, in the externality of which it only admits
as its own, and allows to be imputed to it, so much as it has consciously willed... But here (i.e., in Moralitat) the moral signifies volitional mode, so far as it is the interior of the will in general; it
thus includes Purpose and Intention (and Welfare) and also
moral (Goodness and) Wickedness. (Philosophy of Spirit, #503;
parentheses in the second instance in the text)
The full implications of "the existence of freedom in an external thing" escape the individual "as a person" confronted by
Law in its externality. For, as Hegel put it in #488, as "a person...
the inward sense of this freedom (is) in itself still abstract and
empty," since it has not given the content (which is in this case
the freedom to use and enjoy property) to itself in the manner
of the dialectic of freedom, but it was given to him externally
by law. However, once the transition has been made from "a
person" to "a subject" of "an action, in the externality of which it
only admits as its own, and allows to be imputed to it, so much
as it has consciously willed," w e are well on our way to the formation of concrete freedom, structurally fitting Actuality Proper
but within the new parameters of externality of Objective Spirit. The corresponding transition from the political to the eco-

nomic paradigm comes readily to mind, w h e r e the w a y out of

the contingencies generated by the "is" and the "ought" implicit
in the protagonists' respective positions, formed the prototype
for the socio-logic of the Invisible Hand. Beginning w i t h the
kernel of such socio-logic in the dyadic relationship of the protagonists, their contingencies w e r e then o v e r c o m e through a
reversal of roles (or a resort to complementarity) in the same
w a y Theoretical and Practical M i n d resolved their respective
contingencies in the synthesis of Free M i n d (or Free A c t i o n ) .
The transition to the economic paradigm completed the shift
from the individualistic-psychologistic logic of the early paradigms to the socio-logic of the group as represented by the social metaphor of the Invisible Hand. As in the course of the early stages of Objective Spirit, those individuals "persons" in
Hegel's terminology operating under the Invisible Hand are
in a state of externality vis-a-vis its mechanism and their role in
its operation. But as their insight Hegel's "will reflected into
itself" into the nature of their contribution to the workings
of the social mechanism (the Ethical Life or Ethical Substance)
increases, the veil is being lifted and the Hand of Providence is
no longer invisible.
Thus comes contingency's turn to be confronted again, n o w
in search of totalization on the n e w plateau of Objective Spirit.
The last category of Moralitat, significantly titled Goodness and
Wickedness, represents contingency in the moral context, as
free choice did in the Logic, and as Theoretical and Practical
Mind did in the psychological domain of Spirit prior to synthesizing their respective contingencies in Free Mind.
But the agent is not only a mere particular in his existence; it is also a form of his existence to be an abstract self-certainty, an abstract reflection of freedom into himself. He is thus distinct from
the reason in the will, and capable of making the universal itself a
particular and in that way a semblance. The good is thus reduced
to the level of a mere 'may happen' for the agent, who can therefore decide on something opposite to the good, can be wicked.
(Philosophy of Spirit, #509)
It is thus a matter of chance whether it harmonizes with the subjective aims, whether the good is realized, and the wicked, an aim
essentially and actually null, nullified in it: it is no less matter of
chance whether the agent finds in it his well-being, and more precisely whether in the world the good agent is happy and the
wicked unhappy. But at the same time the world ought to allow the
good action, the essential thing, to be carried out in it; it ought to
grant the good agent the satisfaction of his particular interest, and
refuse it to the wicked; just as it ought also to make the wicked itself null and void. (Philosophy of Spirit, #510)

The quest for totalization now pursued

in the context of
concrete Spirit.

The all-round contradiction, expressed by this repeated ought, with

its absoluteness which yet at the same time is not contains the
most abstract 'analysis' of the Mind (i.e., Spirit) in itself, its deepest
descent into itself... The subjectivity alone is aware of itself as
choosing and deciding. This pure self-certitude, rising to its pitch,
appears in the two directly interchanging forms of (the morality
of) Conscience and Wickedness. (Philosophy of Spirit, #511)
Theory-practice
upgraded to action
through the mediation of concrete
moments of the
Will, the moral
"practical," and
the "ought."

Contingency injected
by the "ought"
traced to its logical
root in Essence.

The dialectic of action in Objective Spirit consists in the progressive externalization of the will beginning with its embodiment in "an external thing," which is Property, the first moment of Law. This process continues through Contract, and
Right and Wrong, as externalization extends from things to the
will of others. But in Moralitat this trend is temporarily reversed
as the "will (is) reflected into itself" as part of the transition
from "person" to "subject" and from legal "deed" to moral "action." The will pauses and turns inward in the middle (mediating) moment of Objective Spirit, as it did in the corresponding
Consciousness of Subjective Spirit, before it turns again outward in being sublated into Sittlichkeit. The mediation by Moralitat (through its categories of Purpose, and Intention and Welfare) enhances Sittlichkeit's concreteness by linking it to the exteriority of Objective Spirit in the same way that their psychological counterparts of Choice, Interest, and Happiness operated
in the interiority of Subjective Spirit. But as in the case of the
latter and that of the logical prototype of both, i.e., Actuality
Proper, contingency is still haunting Objective Spirit, as eloquently evidenced by the ambiguities of the Morality of Conscience in the last quotation and the conflicting "oughts" of the
earlier one.
The way in which such contingency prefigures for our present discussion in the dialectic of Actuality Proper can be
shown more clearly if w e allow Possibility to stand for the
"ought" and Actuality for the "is" in the effort of late Essence to
synthesize the a priori and the empirical. We recall that the first
approximation of the synthetic effort resulted in Contingency
as the dialectical synthesis of (Abstract) Possibility and a low
grade of Actuality. At first sight, this step from Abstract (or Formal) Possibility to Contingency may not seem to be much of an
advance. But a review of the transitions will confirm that this
was not the case once it became obvious that, in line with determinate negation, unrealized Possibility serves to fix Actuality
"everything possible has therefore in general a being or an
Existence," since "the possible... contains more than the bare law
of identity. (It) is the reflected reflectedness-into-self, or the identical simply as moment of the totality... and the ought-to-be of the
totality of form." By the time w e reach the second stage of the

synthetic effort in Real Possiblity/Real Actuality, Actuality has

moved one step higher up the ladder of concreteness to Real
Actuality as has Contingency in degree of determination by
passing into Real Possibility (Relative Necessity or probability).
The path of progressive concreteness followed by Abstract Possibility through Real Possibility to Absolute Necessity (coinciding with Absolute Actuality) is the logical counterpart of the
progressive concreteness of the "ought," as w e have been tracing it through Subjective and Objective Spirit. Symmetrically,
the path of Abstract Possibility-turned-Contingency, continuing
as Real Actuality and culminating as Absolute Actuality, is the
logical counterpart of the life-story of the "is" and what is expected to be its final synthesis with the "ought" in the coincidence of Absolute Actuality and Absolute Necessity. But, in
what by now seems like a dialectical habit, contingency keeps
resurfacing beyond Absolute Necessity/Absolute Actuality, as
evidenced by the latest jolt to its internal coherence, inflicted by
mediating Moralitat on the previously pristine immediacy of
Objective Spirit.
Careful review of the corresponding developments in the
Logic will ascertain that the root of this persisting contingency
can be traced there. For example, Contingency perseveres in
the course of the first synthetic attempt of Actuality Proper as
the "restless otherness" or "absolute unrest of the becoming of
these two determinations," i.e., of Abstract Possibility and Actuality, whose synthesis it is. It continues to persist in the next
level of Real Actuality (and Real Necessity) as the familiar lack
of coincidence of presupposition and outcome resulting in a disruptive "starting point in the contingent." But most surprising of
all, the final synthetic effort of the triad of Actuality Proper under Absolute Actuality overcomes Contingency by what seems
like a total surrender to it. "The unity of (Real) Necessity and
(resurfacing) Contingency is present in itself or in principle-, this
unity is to be called Absolute Actuality (or Absolute Necessity)."
Put in terms which highlight the corresponding familiar phase
of Objective Spirit qua re-immediation, "Real Necessity has (indeed)... spontaneously determined itself into Contingency." Or, still
more bluntly, "it (i.e., Absolute Necessity) is, because it is... Absolute Necessity is therefore blind." (Science of Logic, p. 552)
Clearly Sittlichkeit will be no more the final word on the synthesis of the "is" and the "ought" than was Actuality on its logical counterpart. Occupying a central position, as it does in the
final resolution of the synthesis of theory and practice, the isought will gradually merge into the Theoretical-Practical Idea,
of which it is the immediate precursor. The paths of these po-

Surprising, but temporary, overcoming

of contingency coincides with the facticity of Objective Spirit.

The dialectic of
action reflects the
conservative and radical faces of Spirit.

larities followed a course parallel to those of theory-practice

and subject-object. The residual dualism of the latter, which
stood in the way of the synthesis of the former in Actuality, was
also reflected in the realm of Spirit as its subjective and objective terms. By n o w the reasons are clear as to w h y neither
could single-handedly provide the basis for their synthesis
which would, in turn, allow the final synthesis of theory and
practice to come through. The introduction of retrospective rationality with re-immediated Objective Spirit, or its acceptance
as "it is, because it is," and the invitation to commence unveiling, may have given us some relief from the relentless bouts
with contingency and indeed some hope for a final resolution.
But such expectation proved unwarranted as w e realized, on
the eve of the transition to the moment of Universal History,
that w e were still burdened with contingency. This had been
anticipated in the Logic also, by the historical illustration of Actuality Proper, namely that the contingency at the level of Real
Actuality/Real Possibility was exemplified as historical relativism and the need for a constant reinterpretation of the past
in the light of the present. "But this necessity (i.e., the Real Necessity corresponding to the Real Actuality of historical experience) is at the same time relative. For it has a presupposition from
which it begins, it has its starting point in the contingent (as represented by the ever-changing values and assumptions of the present)." Stated differently, the historical dimension of contingency is the other side of the n e w dualism of past-present,
which has (since the sublation of Moralitat into Sittlichkeit) supplanted the is-ought until the latter's final re-emergence as
Theoretical-Practical Idea.
Thus w e find ourselves at the doorstep of the last moment of
Objective Spirit, Universal History, with two inseparable sides of
the same contribution toward the final synthesis of theory and
practice, one conservative and the other radical. On the conservative side, the synthesis emerges as an incorporation of the
"ought" of Moralitat into the "is" of Sittlichkeit as "habit, temper,
and character," or "as moral usage, manner and custom
where self-conscious liberty has become nature," of the already
quoted #485 and #513 in the last Section. As in the reversal of
the polarity of scientistic theory-practice because of added concreteness to its terms, the moral is-ought is a dialectically advanced version of its instrumental counterpart. Consequently,
the process of sublation of the "ought" of Moralitat into Sittlichkeit emerges as structurally no different than the theorypractice embodiment into the steel-and-mortar of the factory
used to illustrate the sublation of Law into Sittlichkeit. The sen-

suously abstract dialectic of potentiality-actuality in the Logic

becomes a concrete dialectic of incorporation of psychological
traits into the personality as a whole and of values into the social fabric, in Subjective and Objective Spirit, respectively.
The field of illustration of this important junction in the dialectic of action can be extended by recalling the Socratic doctrine about true knowledge of virtue issuing naturally into right
action. This precept loses any oddity it might have for the modern reader if understood in the context of the logic of actualization. The classical conception of paideia, or socialization, to
which Hegel alludes in praising Plato earlier for "show(ing) that
the full reality of justice could be exhibited only in the objective
phase of justice," has its counterpart in Hegel in the succession
of mediations that the will must undergo in the life of concrete
Spirit. For the modern mind, steeped as it is (through the builtin externalities of scientistic theory-practice) in the discontinuity between the practical qua instrumental and the practical qua
(self-given) moral, the transition from mind to body and the
translation of knowledge into action, has retained an aura of
mystery for both philosophy (since Descartes' fruitless attempt
to locate the point of their contact) and common sense. But for
the dialectical approach, indebted to classical conceptions such
as actualization and soul, the transition is continuous and it is
hoped that any remaining metaphysical mist has been dissipated. Within the logic of totalization, knowledge and action are
indistinguishable as activities in the pursuit of freedom as selfrealization. Both, as w e recall from the synthesis of Theoretical
and Practical Mind, are efforts of Spirit to deal with externality
at once "as being and as its own." As the identity of Free Mind
and Free A c t i o n in the final synthesis of Subjective Spirit
demonstrated, to overcome externality is tantamount to the
pursuit of knowledge as coherence in the process of totalization. But overcoming externality is equally action in the pursuit
of freedom. Dialectical incorporation, which is characteristic of
Objective Spirit, is therefore nothing more than an extension of
this logic of totalization to a n e w range of activity of the " I "
w h i c h , qua aspiring t r a n s - i n d i v i d u a l , n o w embraces the
institutional setting.
There is, however, a radical side to this synthetic effort of
Spirit that will propel it through Universal History to its last and
absolute moment. This is the "blindness" of Absolute Necessity
that corresponds to the re-immediation of Objective Spirit,
which stands in direct contrast to the self-transparency of Absolute Spirit (and, correspondingly, of the Absolute Idea). In
other words, Absolute Necessity (or Absolute Actuality), the

The radical face of

Spirit resides in the
feature of contingency implicit in
the "blindness " of
Objective Spirit.

counterpart of the Durkheimian accomplished social fact, has

been secured at the expense of "blindness." For, in trying to get
rid of contingency, Spirit has also preserved in the true sense
of dialectical incorporation as both cancellation and preservation that which was being canceled. While contingency was
being eliminated in the form of a presupposition of Absolute
Actuality its "starting point in the contingent" it was at the
same time being preserved as the ubiquitous contingent characteristic of the "blindness" of Absolute Necessity also rendered
as the familiar result of "Real Necessity ha(ving) spontaneously
determined itself into Contingency."
In order to appreciate this in context, w e must follow the
Logic once more into Absolute Relation (and its counterpart in
Spirit, Universal History), and the advanced categories of
causality under Substance (correspondingly, Ethical Substance
as exemplified in the State, in the Philosophy of Spirit). These advanced moments begin to point beyond the "blind" Absolute
Necessity to the category of Teleology in the full self-transparency of the Notion, which will be taken in detail in the next
Chapter.
What is necessary, on the other hand, we would have be what it is
through itself; and thus, although derivative, it must still contain
the antecedent whence it is derived as a vanishing element in itself. Hence we say of what is necessary, 'It is.' We thus hold it to be
simple self-relation, in which all dependence on something else is
removed.
Necessity is often said to be blind. If that means that in the process
of necessity the End or final cause is not explicitly or overtly present, the statement is correct...If on the contrary we consider teleological action, we have in the end of action a content which is already foreknown. This activity therefore is not blind but seeing...
The intellectual principle underlying the idea of divine providence
will hereafter be shown to be the Notion. But the Notion is the
truth of necessity, which it contains in suspension in itself: just as,
conversely, necessity is the Notion implicit. Necessity is blind only
so long as it is not understood. There is nothing therefore more
mistaken than the charge of blind fatalism made against the philosophy of history, when it takes for its problem to understand the
necessity of every event. The philosophy of history rightly understood takes the rank of Theodicy. (Logic, #147 Zusatz)
Universal History
overcomes the
"blindness " of the
State at the expense
of reinjecting dualism on the time-axis.

As the sensuously concrete counterpart of Absolute Relation

just before the Notion, Universal History represents the last effort of totalization prior to the transition to Absolute Spirit. This
new extension of totalizing effort was necessitated by the emergence of the dualism along the time-axis when all seemed comp l e t e w i t h the synthesis of the " i s " and the " o u g h t " in
Sittlichkeit. This trade-off of is-ought for past-present is mani-

fested in socio-historically concrete Spirit in the transition from

the moment of State to that of Universal History.
The consciously free substance, in which the absolute 'ought' (i.e.,
the one that has reached full concreteness by way of successive
mediations) is no less an 'is,' has actuality in the spirit of a nation...
In its actuality he (the person) sees not less an achieved present,
than somewhat he brings about by his action yet somewhat
which without all question is. Thus, without any selective reflection, the person performs his duty as his own and as something
which is; and in this necessity he has himself and his actual freedom. (Philosophy of Spirit, #514)
As the spirit of a special nation is actual and its liberty is under natural conditions, it admits on this nature-side the influence of geographical and climatic qualities. It is in time... It has, in short, a history of its own. But as a restricted spirit its independence is something secondary; it passes into universal world-history, the events
of which exhibit the dialectic of the several national spirits the
judgment of the world. (Philosophy of Spirit, #548)
At long last it seems as if the synthesis of the theoretical and
practical m o m e n t s of Spirit is at hand, as the " a b s o l u t e
'ought'... (is) somewhat (the person) brings about by his action
yet somewhat which without all question is." Liberated from
the built-in externality in theory-practice, the individual can
"without any selective reflection... perform his duty as his own
and as something which is; and in this necessity he has himself
and his actual freedom." However, what appears in the first
quoted paragraph as the successful termination of a long quest
for freedom finally reached in the fold of the national state,
proves elusive once more as contingency resurfaces in the form
of the n e w duality on the time-axis. Though apparently selfcontained for having "a history of its own," national state is a
dependent cultural entity, i.e., a "spirit (whose) liberty is under
natural conditions" and, therefore, "a restricted spirit (whose)
independence is something secondary" in the court of "judgment of the world." The same force of cultural cohesiveness, or
spirituality, that made the synthesis of the "is" and "ought" possible and enabled the person to choose genuine freedom "without any selective reflection," also undermines its existence.
The apparent nature of this contradiction or, from a dialecSelf-consciousness as
tical standpoint, its creative power can be unraveled by havthe key for achieving
ing another look at the first quoted paragraph above. This w e do
what remains unacin juxtaposition to the the dialectic of freedom in its logical
complished in the
counterpart in Essence, wherein "the genuinely free will... is pursuit offreedom.
conscious to itself that its content is intrinsically firm and fast, and
knows it at the same time to be thoroughly its own." It seems
clear that contingency, which became explicit with Universal
History, was already implicit in the State in the form of historical

consciousness before the injection of time. For, in the case of the

State it is "without any selective reflection, (that) the person performs his duty as his own and as something which is." (emphasis
added in the first instance in this case) In other words, self-consciousness makes the difference between genuine freedom and
what Hegel calls (in the same passage where he outlines the dialectic of freedom in the Logic) "mere free choice, or the will in
the form of Contingency." The moment of State is no more the
last w o r d o n f r e e d o m than was the h a l f - b a k e d Absolute of
Essence the last word on self-containment.
Universal History is the final m e m b e r of the triad of the
State and the concluding category of Objective Spirit. It brings
into the open not only what has been accomplished by the latter culminating in the State, but also what is left undone and
remains to be completed by Absolute Spirit. The contribution of
the State is succinctly formulated as follows:
The State is the self-conscious Ethical Substance, the unification of
the Family principle with that of Civil Society. The same unity,
which is in the Family as a feeling of love, is its essence, receiving,
however, at the same time through the second principle of conscious and spontaneous active volition the form of conscious universality. This universal principle, with all its evolution in detail, is
the absolute aim and content of the knowing subject, which thus
identifies itself in its volition with the system of reasonableness.
(Philosophy of Spirit, #535)
Shortcomings of the
synthesis of the State
as gauged by the realization offreedom.

Yet, the synthesis of Family and Civil Society in the State is

still short of the concrete universality characteristic of the complete unity of content and form, as found in genuine freedom.
The kind of unity contributed by Family as content is devoid of
self-consciousness, insofar as it is dependent on the immediacy
of the " f e e l i n g of l o v e . " On the other hand, the unity contributed by Civil Society is the result of mediation between the
self-interest of the productive class (organized along the lines of
the Invisible Hand in the moment of the System of Wants) and
the universal interest represented by the class of enlightened
civil servants in the moment of Corporation. But in neither case
does universality advance to the concrete stage in which genuine freedom is possible because in both cases, for different reasons, content and form remain separate.
The System of Wants is burdened by a discrepancy which is
familiar to us f r o m the operation of the Cunning of Reason in
our e c o n o m i c paradigm. W e r e m e m b e r that individuals qua
economic agents are not only unself-conscious about their role
in advancing the universal interest, but that any added insight
about their roles in promoting universality disrupts the operation of the Invisible Hand which, at this stage of freedom, is the

custodian of universal interest. The logic of totalization inherent in the dialectic of freedom is similarly hampered in the case
of Corporation. For now, it is the restricted class of enlightened
administrators who, as the repositories of universal interest, can
self-consciously pursue genuine freedom through the process of
totalization, while the majority can go on performing their duties "without any selective reflection." This much Hegel has
granted in the last quoted paragraph, by allowing Civil Society
to contribute to the synthesis of the State merely "the form of
conscious universality." The State becomes "the absolute aim
and content of the knowing subject, which thus identifies itself
in its volition to the system of reasonableness." (emphasis
added in the second instance in this case) It is only to such enlightened minority and only potentially to everybody that
the rendition of the State as "the self-conscious Ethical Substance" refers, while the rest of the citizenry fits the description
according to which it is "without any reflection (that) the person performs his duty as his own and as something which is."
The State emerges as much as a culmination of what preceded it within Sittlichkeit as it does a negation of it through the injection of self-consciousness by way of the universal class. In
order for this to be appreciated w e must recall that Objective
Spirit, which was introduced logically as re-immediation in the
form of Absolute Actuality (or Absolute Necessity) about to be
unveiled, socio-historically represented countless norms which
have been unself-consciously clustered into institutions literally
behind our backs for millennia. The Family and the System of
Wants have been typical of this domain of culture in the spirit
of Soul. But the operation of the Cunning of Reason is not limited to economics, though perhaps inspired and best illustrated
by it. It also includes religion with all its rich exoteric paraphernalia, and art w i t h its dimension of unself-consciousness,
though Hegel chose to deal with them in their more absolute
rather than cultural forms, thus placing them under Absolute
Spirit. As an institution depending upon unself-consciously
generated mechanisms of social control for its perpetuation, the
state is a logical extension of what preceded it in Sittlichkeit and,
before that, in Soul. Hegel's adulatory remarks about the state
in the Philosophy of Right, especially its association with divinity
and his insistence on religion as the foundation of the state, are
more like sociological observations about legitimation through
divinization, or the order-maintaining function of religion,
rather than the merely crude attempts to justify the Prussian
state, as they have sometimes been misinterpreted.

Cultural and historical counterparts

to the dialectical moment of the State.

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s,pfoH)
apBui ajB jBqj sSuiqj jo aiaqds aqj 3Aoqe pajjexa SB os puB
' J U B J S U O D puB 'ajojaaaqj auiAip S B 'jpsji Aq puB ui juajsixa Ajduiis
Suiqjauios SB laqjBi pajBaij aq jsnui JJ auiij ui 8upq ojui auioa
SBq ji qSnoqj uaAa 'apeui Suiqjamos SB papiBSai aq jou pjnoqs
uoijnjijsuoa aqj jBqj [Bijuassa ApjnjosqB si ji 'laAaMoq 'asBD AUB u i

juids daipdlqo puv uotpy

90

In any case, however, it is absolutely essential that the constitution

should not be regarded as something made, even though it has
come into being in time. It must be treated rather as something
simply existent in and by itself, as divine therefore, and constant,
and so as exalted above the sphere of things that are made. (Hegel's
Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox, London: Oxford University
Press, 1942, p. 178; subsequently referred to as Philosophy of Right)
Man must therefore venerate the state as a secular deity, and observe that if it is difficult to comprehend nature, it is infinitely
harder to understand the state. (Philosophy of Right, p. 285)
It is in being thus related to religion that state, laws, and duties all
alike acquire for consciousness their supreme confirmation and
their supreme obligatoriness, because even the state, laws, and duties are in their actuality something determinate which passes over
into a higher sphere and so into that on which it is grounded... The
state is the divine will, in the sense that it is Spirit present on earth,
unfolding itself to be the actual shape and organization of a world.
(Philosophy of Right, p. 166)
Social and religious
foundations of the
State.

Once the transition is made from a state of affairs where social controls are mainly the job of the Cunning of Reason to
that where self-consciousness predominates and freedom is secured for all, such social functions of religion as the "vene r a t i o n of) the state as a secular deity," give way to an understanding, "infinitely harder" though it might be, of the State
qua Spirit "unfolding itself to be the actual shape and organization of a world." As "self-conscious Ethical Substance," the State
is an advanced form of social organization, as well as a negation
of Sittlichkeit, because the understanding of the origin and function of cultural norms is gradually becoming the province of all.
W h e n Hegel insisted in his lectures in the Philosophy of History
that the modern era of freedom for all begins with the revolution in consciousness heralded by Protestantism, he may have
also had in mind this negation of unself-conscious operation of
social controls heralded by this revolution and given a secular
embodiment in the universal class of civil servants of the State.
The latter is an advanced moment as promoter of freedom because it sets the parameters within which what has been effected before it, by the Cunning of Reason, can now gradually be
the function of self-conscious activity. But Philosophy of History
adds a caution to this, as does the dialectic of Objective Spirit,
inasmuch as freedom for all is still only a potentiality. As w e recall from the analysis of its logical structure, freedom involves a
process of totalization which requires that self-consciousness
should prevail throughout the social whole. So that, in addition
to satisfying the conditions imposed by the formula of freedom
in Actuality Proper, our unself-conscious participation in the
formation of culture through time, of which w e have so far re-

mained in self-concealment, can be rendered fully transparent.

Obviously, the realization of these conditions of freedom involving self-consciousness is not a matter for the foreseeable future. So much so, that it is pertinent that, for the time being,
w e approach these conditions as links to the absolute moments
of both the Logic and Spirit of which they are part, i.e., as timeless yardsticks for gauging time-bound contexts of meaning.
As the final moment of both Objective Spirit and the State,
Universal History provides that link between the time-bound
and the timeless. It is the "self-conscious Ethical Substance" which
has transcended the standpoint of any particular state and is capable of viewing itself in time as part of world history. As the last
member of the triad of State, Universal History bears in relation
to it, by virtue of the added dimension of time, the same selfconsciousness-raising role as did the State vis-a-vis its overarching triad of Sittlichkeit with the help of the universal class of civil
servants. Self-consciousness reasserts itself in the form of historical consciousness, not as a reinforcement of the unity of theState but as a disruptive force of the latter's self-containment.
Thus, ground has been gained toward the forthcoming absolute
moment and the timeless standard of freedom for measuring
historical progress. But all this was obtained at the price of historical relativism and the corresponding reduction of the State to
a "restricted spirit ( w h o s e ) independence is something secondary." Like negation, and reflection-into-self and reflection into-another in Essence, self-consciousness operates to overcome externality in the more advanced stages of the dialectic.
However, as w e recall from Essence and Consciousness, in
the Notion thought not only operates on itself but it also knows
that it does so. The two-way power of both negation and reflection, in canceling what is being transcended while integrating
the same in what lies ahead, has n o w been passed on to selfconsciousness. We have already witnessed the latter dissolving
the unself-consciously established norms of Ethical Substance
in order to restructure them at the level of self-consciousness in
the State. It n o w dissolves those also in order to embrace a
higher unity in Universal History. With the transition to its absolute moment, Spirit will rely on increasingly tighter forms of
self-consciousness, beginning with art, continuing with religion, but giving the last word to philosophy. This seems also to
be corroborating the neglected sociological dimension of Hegel's
v i e w on religion as the bonding tissue of social fabric, as revealed religion too must ultimately submit to unveiling. Philosophy, as the culminating moment of Spirit and its logical counterpart of the Notion, is there to ensure total transparency in

Universal history
highlights, through
contrast, the forthcoming timeless and
absolute Notion.

the articulations of internal coherence. A n anticipation of this

was already found in the triad of Absolute Relation, but it was
also hinted at in the context of Universal History, as the issue of
relativism was confronted with theodicy in anticipation of Religion and Philosophy in Absolute Spirit.
But as in the case with all speculative process this development of one thing out of another means that what appears as sequel and derivative is rather the absolute prius of what it appears to
be mediated by, and here in Spirit is also known as its truth...If religion then is the consciousness of 'absolute' truth, then whatever is
to rank as right and justice, as law and duty, i.e., as true in the
world of free will, can be so esteemed only as it is participant in
that truth, as it is subsumed under it and is its sequel... Thus for
self-consciousness religion is the 'basis' of Ethical Life and of the
State. It has been the monstrous blunder of our times to try to look
upon these inseparables as separable from one another, and even
as mutually indifferent. (Philosophy of Spirit, #552)

E. Dialectical Synthesis of
Action in the Logic of the Notion

i. The Notion in General

Objective Spirit concluded on a note of freedom, as did Subjective Spirit and Actuality before it. On the practical side, Subjective Spirit culminated in a synthesis of action (Free Action or
Free Mind) short of its externalization. Objective Spirit concentrated on its externalization ("deed and action") in institutions
and history, while Actuality provided the logical structure of totalization for both. Whereas on the subjective side of Spirit the
theoretical and practical moments synthesized in Free Mind (or
Free Action), on the objective side the "is" and the "ought" synthesized through dialectical embodiment in the State and finally in Universal History. The separate treatment of Subjective
and Objective Spirit confirmed what w e had anticipated beginning with Actuality, namely that the persistence of the subjectobject dualism was standing in the way of the final synthesis of
theory and practice. Yet, it was also evident that the subjective
and objective terms had not only severally reached a high level
of concreteness, but each tended to coincide with its polar opposite through the familiar build-up in concreteness behind the
surface. By the time Absolute Spirit was ready to take us by
surprise in presenting this coincidence as an accomplished fact,
we had to take leave of Spirit in order to return to the Logic and
attend to unfinished business with the Notion. In the case of
Subjective Spirit, its objective correlate, the institutional setting,
remained implicit until it took us by surprise in its immediacy.
On the other hand, in Objective Spirit, its subjective correlate
performed in the same way, first in the f o r m of the "ought"
and, just before w e took leave of Spirit, as a reassertion of selfconsciousness at a higher level. Both were encountered in the
midst of what at first appeared to be the brazenness of "it is, because it is" of Objective Spirit. But in the process of unfolding it
was established that both the "ought" and self-consciousness
were elements that had remained sublated in Objective Spirit,

Recapitulation of the
dialectic of action.

Elucidation of the
enhanced role of
self-consciousness
in Objective Spirit
through the dialectic
of the "/."

the former from as far back as the Practical Feeling in Soul, and
the latter from the second moment of Consciousness. In fact,
s e l f - c o n s c i o u s n e s s , w h i c h s e e m e d to h a v e issued out of
nowhere in the facticity of Objective Spirit, is a highly concrete
or elevated form of subjectivity without which the process of
unveiling of institutional setting would be inconceivable. Even
more surprising, as the locus of the long-awaited synthesis of
subject-object and theory-practice in their advanced forms, selfconsciousness adds nothing more to their already accomplished
syntheses by Objective Spirit than its unique power of explicitness through unveiling, which was already implicit in the operations of Objective Spirit.
Self-consciousness' new role of adding transparency to concreteness below the surface can be illuminated if the externalization of the will, which Objective Spirit is all about, is understood in connection with the dialectic of the "I" and its logical
surrogate triad of Abstract UniversalityParticularityConcrete Universality (Individuality). Then the process of unveiling
characteristic of Objective Spirit is revealed to have been always
the operation of self-consciousness, that is, of the "I" qua concrete universal. The trans-individual subject as Spirit is no different than a collective representation (or spiritual entity) operating on itself. Far from being manifestations of mere subjectivity or sequential arrangement of topics, Art, Religion, and Philosophy in Absolute Spirit constitute dialectical transitions in
the best sense of the term "this development of one thing
out of another means that what appears as sequel and derivative is rather the absolute prius of what it appears to be mediated by." There is no more mystery or surprise in the emergence
of self-consciousness out of facticity during the process of unveiling the articulations of the institutional setting. Nor is there
just political convenience in Hegel's assignment of self-consciousness to the universal class of public administrators, since
unveiling is not an externally applied procedure but an application of Spirit on itself. Once the view of art and religion as culture's highest forms of self-interpretation is granted, it is easier
to accept the "V qua concrete universal rather than the individual "I" of the particular great artist or religious innovator as the
subject of self-consciousness or self-interpretation. To put it
bluntly, it is safer to accept culture's self-interpretation of its art,
as exemplified in its intellectual and aesthetic products over
time, rather that the inanities all too often offered by great
artists as interpretations of their work.
The concept of culture as such, i.e., as collective representation the counterpart of Hegel's Spirit whose logical equiva-

lent is the Notion is a rather recent rediscovery by social disciplines which has not yet penetrated educational consciousness even at the level of university textbooks. Culture, on the
other hand, has generated art, religion, and all sorts of social
formations through the ages without the self-conscious participation of individuals. Self-conscious Spirit speaks as much
through Hegel or, more accurately, through his strategically
placed category of Philosophy at the very end of Absolute Spirit
as it does through the great historians of the nineteenth and
the sociologists and anthropologists of the twentieth. It is hoped
that the Notion will remove all remaining obstacles in comprehending that Spirit's capacity for self-consciousness and self-interpretation is not an obfuscation of meaning, or a generation
of a new form of mysticism, but a second-level discourse or a
metalanguage dealing with the meaning of meaning Hegel's
"Notion of the Notion" (Science of Logic, p. 582). Such metalanguage is n o w necessary because, w i t h the cessation of the
process of externalization of Objective Spirit, the subject-object
language has outlived its function and any prolongation of its
use can only threaten to reinject dualism into the final synthetic effort of the Notion. The time has come for Spirit to turn inward and re-examine its meaning-endowing instruments, beginning with the whole apparatus of formal logic with its builtin presuppositions in favor of a (subject-)object language. In
this sense Subjective Logic, i.e., the logic of the Notion occupying the second half of the Science of Logic, presents no new material but a scrutiny of what was already presented in Being and
Essence, now in the light of a renewed effort of totalization on
the basis of a texture of meaning. The old contingency-ridden
Absolute of Actuality will be reconstituted with the help of the
newly elevated subjectivity as trans-individual self-consciousness, so that the Notion will slowly but inescapably assume the
form of a practical as well as of a theoretical norm. In the true
spirit of Platonism (whose concept of the Idea was borrowed by
Hegel as the ground for the final synthesis of theory and practice in the Absolute Idea), the Notion represents theoretical coherence as much as it does the structure of totalization within
which the will is realized into genuine freedom.

Introduction of the
Notion qua concrete
universality through
self-interpretation of
art and culture.

The Notion is the principle offreedom, the power of Substance self-re- Basic definitional
alized. It is a systematic whole, in which each of its constituent
ingredients of the
functions is the very total which the Notion is, and is put as indisNotion.
solubly one with it. Thus in its self-identity it has original and complete
determinateness.
The position taken up by the Notion is that of absolute idealism...In
the logic of Understanding, the Notion is generally reckoned a mere
form of thought, and treated as a general conception... The Notion,

in short, is what contains all the earlier categories of thought merged in it.
It certainly is a form, but an infinite and creative form, which includes, but at the same time releases from itself, the fullness of all
content. And so too the Notion may, if it be wished, be styled abstract, if the name concrete is restricted to the concrete facts of
sense or of immediate perception...
We speak of the deduction of a content from the Notion, e.g. of the
specific provisions of the law of property from the notion of property; and so again we speak of tracing back these material details to
the Notion. We thus recognize that the Notion is no mere form
without a content of its own. (Logic, #160 and Zusatz; all emphases
supplied with the exception of the first instance)
The onward movement of the Notion is no longer either a transition
into (as in the case of Being), or a reflection on something else (as in the
case of Essence), but Development. For in the Notion, the elements
distinguished are without more ado at the same time declared to be
identical with one another and with the whole, and the specific
character of each is a free being of the whole Notion. (Logic, #161;
emphases supplied with the exception of the last instance)
The Notion is generally associated in our minds with abstract generality, and on that account it is often described as a general conception. We speak accordingly, of the notions of color, plant, animal, etc... This is the aspect of the Notion which is familiar to Understanding...
But the universal of the Notion (i.e., the concrete universal) is not
a mere sum of features common to several things, confronted by a
particular which enjoys an existence of its own. It is, on the contrary,
self-particularizing or self-specifying (i.e., a logical individual), and with
undimmed clearness finds itself at home in its antithesis. For the sake
both of cognition and of our practical conduct, it is of the utmost
importance that the real universal should not be confused with
what is merely held in common.
The distinction referred to above between what is merely in common, and what is truly universal, is strikingly expressed by
Rousseau in his famous 'Contrat Social,' when he says that the
laws of a state must spring from the universal will (volontegenerate),
but need not on that account be the will of all (volonte de tous)...

The constituents of
self-containment and
freedom in the meaning of the Notion as a
genuine whole.

It is we who frame the notions. The Notion is not something which

is originated at all... Rather the Notion is the genuinefirst;and things
are what they are through the action of the Notion, immanent in
them, and revealing itself in them. In religious language we express this by saying that God created the world out of nothing.
(Logic, #163 Zusatz; parentheses in the last two instances in the
t e x t ; emphases supplied in the first two and the last instance)
"The power of Substance self-realized" throughout the remaining categories of the triad of Absolute Relation is the logical equivalent of freedom in Sittlichkeit, n o w realized through
self-consciousness. The concept of freedom qua self-realization

is rendered fully explicit in the Notion, as self-consciousness

provides the transparency for the insight of Substance (or, correspondingly, of facticity in Objective Spirit) about internal coherence. The pursuit of the logic of freedom through totalization had shown that it involves necessity. Now, with the superimposition of self-consciousness on the contribution of Substance qua /nterconnectedness,the link between freedom and
determination is also made transparent, as determination turns
into self-determination. "Thus in its se//-identity (the Notion, as
the principle of freedom and the power of Substance ^//-realized) has original and complete determinateness." In the first and
third quoted paragraphs, Hegel can also claim that "each of its
constituent functions is the very total which the Notion is," and
that "for the Notion, the elements distinguished are without
more ado at the same time declared to be identical with one another and with the whole." This is true because under this new
context of meaning of the Notion as internal "Development," the
"constituent functions" or "elements" lack self-identity "the
specific character of each is the free (i.e., self-contained) being
of the Notion." This new identity of parts and whole is being reinforced in the fourth quoted paragraph by way of locating the
psychologistic-subjectivist notion in the first, and the true Notion in the third, moment of the surrogate triad Abstract UniversalityParticularityConcrete Universality (Individuality).
The same procedure has been followed in what goes on under
the first super-moment of the Notion, the Subjective Notion
which deals with the detail of the forms of traditional logic. By
relegating them to the first moment of the Notion, which corresponds to abstract universality, Hegel means to convey, as was
done before in early Essence, the way in which the contribution of traditional logic has been sublated into the dialectic.
This incorporation of the first (abstract) moment into the
third (concrete) moment of universality has an important bearing on our project because it contributes to the synthesis of the
theoretical and practical moments in the Idea. This much Hegel
anticipated by insisting above that, "for the sake both of cognition and our practical conduct, it is of the utmost importance
that the real universal (i.e., the concrete universal) should not
be confused with what is merely held in common (i.e., the abstract universal)." For example, to return momentarily to Universal History whose contingency, manifested as historical relativism, is to be overcome by a species of methodological theodicy in the next Section, it is the Notion that ties together the remaining loose ends in Teleology. In this sense Christian theology exemplifies the complete identity of content and form which

The logical structure

of the Notion illuminates the final synthesis of theory and
practice in the Idea.

Illustration of the
Notion through
the conception of
a norm-

the Notion qua concrete universal represents. The Notion also

represents the logical priority of the whole in the concrete universal, thereby shedding light on the religious conception of the
creation of the world ex nihilo. In either case, anything less than
complete identity of content and form would result in resurfacing of contingency or would mean, in Hegel's familiar graphic
expression, that the content has been "raked together from outside as something given and contingent, or submerged in the
abyss of the Absolute by a reflection alien to that content."
Neither the abstract universal, nor formal logic can serve as
a norm appropriate for the Notion because of this "raking" activity characteristic of externality. Notion's incorporation of formal logic as Subjective Notion (corresponding to Abstract Universality) is followed by Objective Notion (Particularity) and
culminates in the Idea (Concrete Universality or Individuality).
The Notion recognizes abstract universality as a norm appropriate to dialectically low-level (abstractive) discourses to be sublated into concrete universality, which alone is reserved as the
norm "both of (higher forms o f ) cognition and our practical
conduct." Significantly, in the domain of Spirit at its most concrete, such as moral action and especially creative and religious
activity, it seems appropriate to point to something individual
or concrete (e.g., a great work of art or an exceptional moral
act) as a norm, whereas in the scientific field it is a body of (abstract) universal principles or laws that usually serve the same
function. Equally, it seems no accident that, while the normative aspect of "norm" is highlighted in the former case, it is the
meaning "normal" which attracts attention in the latter.
The advanced status of the concrete universal is of special
interest for our project because, in being the locus for the final
synthesis of theory and practice, it in effect tells us that it is not
enough for the terms to be synthesized within either the subjective or objective context of meaning as has been done so far.
Instead the subject and object must also be synthesized, which
involves the new context of meaning, reserved only for meanings which have been established by the Notion. This is the
context used by the Idea in its synthesis of the Subjective Notion (i.e., subjectivity, or what it means to be a subject) and the
Objective Notion (i.e., objectivity, or what it means to be an object). For, unless a norm can be found which exemplifies selfconsciousness f r o m the outset, combining subjectivity and
transparency about meanings or notions, the all-too-familiar
resurfacing of externality will continue to haunt our project to
the very end. The Notion in its final form of the Idea is such a
norm, possessing in its logical priority total disengagement from

the subjectivist associations of formal(ist) logic "it is not we

who frame the notions. The Notion (or, better still, 'the Notion
of the Notion') is not something w h i c h is originated at all."
Equally, the Notion in its self-conscious all-inclusiveness is free
"the Notion is the principle of freedom... in its self-identity it
has original and complete determinateness" from the objectivist associations of the seemingly self-contained ontologies
under the Objective Notion. As with the formal logic under the
Subjective Notion, these ontologies too have failed to purge all
residue of dualism from their ranks through the metacritique of
meaning characteristic of the Notion in general. Only when all
is clear does the Idea attempt the synthesis of theory and practice again, this time resulting in the f i n a l v e r s i o n of the
Absolute Idea.

ii. The Idea

Teleology assumes
the synthesis of
subjectivity) and
object(ivity), the
newly surfaced dualism on the time-axis

The time has finally come to remedy the contingency generated by the most recent dualism on the time-axis that which
was branded a trade-off of the is-ought dualism for that of pastpresent or present-future. In historically concrete terms, this
was manifested at the conclusion of Objective Spirit as the familiar relativism injected by Universal History in what had
seemed to be the synthesis of the "is" and the "ought" in the
m o m e n t of the State. The N o t i o n qua timeless structure of
meaning supplies the preconditions for overcoming this latest
form of contingency. The result of this effort is the Idea, as
shown by the following extended quotations. The next and last
time w e encounter the theoretical and practical moments, in
the form of the Theoretical and Practical Idea, they will have
been completely purged of all traces of built-in externality, fully
mediated in their respective concreteness and, therefore, ready
for their final synthesis in the Absolute Idea.
In the (teleological) End the Notion has entered on free existence
and has a being of its own, by means of the negation of immediate
objectivity. It is characterized as subjective, seeing that this negation is, in the first place, abstract, and hence at first the relation between it and objectivity still one of contrast. (Logic, #204)
The teleological relation is (cast in the form of) a syllogism in
which the Subjective End coalesces with the objectivity external to
it, through a middle term which is the unity of both. This unity is
on one hand the purposive action, on the other the Means, i.e. objectivity made directly subservient to purpose. (Logic, #206)
Purposive action, with its Means, is still directed outwards (i.e., is
still burdened with unfreedom due to externality), because the
End is also not identical with the object, and must consequently
first be mediated with it. The Means in its capacity of object stands,
in this second premiss, in direct relation to the other extreme of
the syllogism, namely, the material or objectivity which is presupposed...
Reason is as cunning as it is powerful. Cunning may be said to lie
in the inter-mediative action which, while it permits the objects to
follow their own bent and act upon one another till they waste
away, and does not itself directly interfere in the process, is nevertheless only working out its own aims... God lets men do as they
please with their particular passions and interests; but the result is
the accomplishment of not their plans, but His, and these differ
decidedly from the ends primarily sought by those whom He employs. (Logic, #209 and Zusatz)
The Realized End is thus the overt unity of subjective and objective
(Ends)... The (Realized) End maintains itself against and in the objective (End, or the End in the process of accomplishment): for it is

no mere one-sided subjective or particular, it is also the concrete

universal, the implicit identity of both... (Logic, #210)
In finite design, however, even the executed End has the same
radical rift or flaw as had the Means and the initial End. We have
got therefore only a form extraneously impressed on a pre-existing
material: and this form, by reason of the limited content of the
End, is also a contingent characteristic. The End achieved consequently is only an object, which again becomes a means or material for other ends, and so on for ever. (Logic, #211)
As w e approach the conclusion of the Logic the categories
become more concrete and all-inclusive and the basic elements
of the forthcoming synthesis begin to converge. The theoretical
and practical moments are not yet at hand in their final form as
the Idea of the True (or Theoretical Idea) and the Idea of the
Good (or the Practical Idea) because of the familiar contingency. The latter was expressed earlier in terms of historical relativism, the resurfaced polarity on the time-axis, and in the
most recently quoted paragraph as the "radical rift or flaw" of
finite design. The remedy of this flaw is the crucial contribution
of the Means-End dialectic of Teleology toward the final synthesis of the theoretical and practical moments. Teleology accomplishes this by introducing the triad of Subjective (or Finite)
EndObjective Means (or End in the process of accomplishment)Realized (or Infinite) End. Finite design consists of the
process short of the last moment while infinite design is inclusive of it. Teleology not only takes care of the remaining extant
polarity on the time axis, but also takes an important step in
overcoming the pending subject-object dualism by casting its
triad in terms of this fundamental underlying polarity. Subject
and object are assigned the first two members of this triad, so
that in the beginning externality prevails between them in their
respective roles as Subjective End and Objective Means. Far
from involving "the negation of immediate objectivity," which
the "free existence" of the Notion requires, "the relation between it (i.e., the Notion) and objectivity (is) still one of contrast." The same is also true in the opening of #209 where "purposive action, with its Means, is still directed outwards." However, this is no longer the case in the last moment wherein the
dynamic of the surrogate triad of Abstract UniversalityParticularityConcrete Universality (to which the triad of Teleology
also corresponds) comes into play. The syllogistic form underlying the triad of concrete universality, also confirmed by the parallel dialectic of the "I" early in the Logic, reinforces the finding
of the last moment of the triad of Teleology. According to it, the
object subserves the elevated subject which has emerged as a
result of the operation of the triad of concrete universality

The general parameters of the dialectic of Teleology.

"the objective things wear themselves out on one another, (as

the Subjective End) contrives to keep itself free from them, and
to preserve itself in them." (Logic, #209)
The Idea as synthesis
The outcome of this synthesis is, of course, the Realized End
of residual dualisms which in #210 turns out to be "the overt unity of subjective
and objective... the concrete universal, the implicit (in anticipacast in syllogistic
tion of the explicit soon to be encountered in the Absolute
(teleological) form.
Idea) identity of both." The placing of the Cunning of Reason
between the second and third moments of Teleology is indicative of the fact that the transition from abstract to concrete universal in this context is also the transition from individual to
trans-individual subjectivity. Converging on the Idea are not
only key categories through which theory-practice has been
handled so far, but their socially and historically concrete counterparts from the realm of Spirit. Included in this realm are the
contributions of psychology, economics, and the moral disciplines to the concept of action, as represented by subjective
ends in Practical Mind, manipulation of objective means in Civil Society, and the embodiments of the will (or f r e e d o m ) in
State and Universal History. The category of Teleology telescopes these contributions into a syllogistic form in which each
of them occupies, in the same order, the position of a moment
in its triad. Since subject(ivity) and object(ivity) have already
been cast in terms of the same triad, Hegel can claim freedom
as both the form and content of this newly elevated subjectivity, the Idea.
Synthesis of
subjectivity) and
objectivity) in the
Idea qua Infinite
End.

But what virtually happens in the realizing of the End is that the
one-sided subjectivity and the show of objective independence confronting it are both canceled. In laying hold of the means, the Notion constitutes itself the very implicit essence of the object. In the
mechanical and chemical processes the independence of the object
has been already dissipated implicitly, and in the course of their
movement under the dominion of the End, the show of that independence, the negative which confronts the Notion, is got rid of.
But in the fact that the End achieved is characterized only as a
Means and a material, this object, viz. the teleological, is there and
then put as implicitly null, and only 'ideal.' This being so, the antithesis between form and content has also vanished. While the End
by the removal and absorption of all form-characteristics coalesces
with itself, the form as self-identical is thereby put as the content,
so that the Notion, which is the action of form, has only itself for
content. Through this process, therefore, there is made explicitly
manifest what was the notion of design: viz. the implicit unity of
subjective and objective is now realized. And this is the Idea.
The finitude of the End consists in the circumstance, that, in the
process of realizing it, the material, which is employed as a means,
is only externally subsumed under it and made conformable to it.
But, as a matter of fact, the object is the Notion implicitly: and thus

when the Notion, in the shape of End, is realized in the object, we

have but the manifestation of the inner nature of the object itself.
Objectivity is thus, as it were, only a covering under which the Notion lies concealed. Within the range of the finite we can never see
or experience that the End has been really secured. The consummation of the infinite End, therefore, consists merely in removing
the illusion which makes it seem yet unaccomplished. The Good,
the absolutely Good, is eternally accomplishing itself in the world:
and the result is that it needs not wait upon us, but is already by
implication, as well as in full actuality, accomplished. This is the illusion under which we live. It alone supplies at the same time the
actualizing force on which the interest in the world reposes. In the
course of its process the Idea creates that illusion, by setting an antithesis to confront it; and its action consists in getting rid of the illusion which it has created. Only out of this error does the truth
arise. In this fact lies the reconciliation with error and with finitude. Error or other-being, when superseded, is still a necessary
dynamic element of truth: for truth can only be where it makes itself its own result. (Logic, #212 and Zusatz)

The synthesis of the

Idea exemplified in
the union of the
"ideal" and the
"real," content and
form, and the realization offreedom.

The Idea is truth in itself and for-itself, the absolute unity of the
Notion and objectivity. Its 'ideal' content is nothing but the Notion
in its detailed terms: its 'real' content is only the exhibition which
the Notion gives itself in the form of external existence, whilst yet,
by enclosing this shape in its ideality, it keeps it in its power, and
so keeps itself in it. (Logic, #213)
The Idea may be described in many ways. It may be called Reason
(and this is the proper philosophical signification of reason); subject-object; the unity of the ideal and the real, of the finite and the
infinite, of soul and body; the possibility which has its actuality in
its own self; that of which the nature can be thought only as existent, etc. All these descriptions apply, because the Idea contains all
the relations of Understanding, but contains them in their infinite
self-return and self-identity. (Logic, #214)
The implications of the synthesis in Teleology are many and
far-reaching. To begin with, action, under the various bodies of
knowledge that are incorporated in Spirit (e.g., psychology,
economics, politics, and history), is hierarchically structured
under the principle of freedom qua realization as exemplified in
the Notion and especially the Idea. With "the antithesis between form and content ha(ving) also vanished," all movement
forward in realization has ceased. Paradoxical as it may sound,
this is a corollary of the logical priority of the Notion and its acceptance as the norm "both of cognition and our practical conduct" earlier. It entails a standard or norm which is not merely
fixed, as norms as commonly understood, but is also internal to
what is being applied and, therefore, not fixed by the commonly accepted meaning of the term, i.e., as externally fixed or given. This causes difficulties for the Understanding, as does what
follows from it: that "the Good, the absolutely Good, is eternal-

Implications of the
synthesis of the Idea
via Teleology for the
persisting dualisms
of our project.

ly accomplishing itself in the world... but is already by implication, as well as in full actuality accomplished." The difficulty
stems from the fact that externality, which the dialectic has virtually overcome in the Idea, is something onto which the Understanding is tenaciously holding.
Understanding may demonstrate that the Idea is self-contradictory:
because the subjective is subjective only and is always confronted
by the objective, because Being is different from Notion and
therefore cannot be picked out of it, because the finite is finite
only, the exact antithesis of the infinite, and therefore not identical
with it; and so on with every term of the description. The reverse
of all this however is the doctrine of Logic. Logic shows that the
subjective which is to be subjective only, the finite which would be
finite only, the infinite which would be infinite only, and so on,
have no truth, but contradict themselves, and pass over to their
opposites. (Logic, #214)
Idea as the expanded
To these irreconcilable polarities, as viewed by the UnderIdentity (inclusive of
standing, Hegel could have added another between what "is
Contradiction) in the
eternally accomplishing itself in the world" and what is "in full
context of all contexts. actuality, accomplished." Their common ground can be further
identified by pointing out that the polarity of the norm, and
what it is being applied to, is a variant of Form-Matter that has
been overcome in Essence under conditions less than the selftotalizing context of the Notion. Now, however, it is being reused in a new context of meaning whereby it can yield no less
than the identity of the polar terms. But w e must also recall
that Identity includes Difference, which is represented in the
last quotation by its sub-category, Contradiction. As Hegel put
it, the polarities of the Understanding "have no truth, but contradict themselves, and pass on to their opposites." The resulting dialectical synthesis is incorporated, in turn, by way of sublation into the n e w expanded Identity now exemplified in the
Idea: "While the (Realized) End by the removal and absorption
of all form-characteristics (i.e., by the sublation of lower categorial forms in the new all-embracing context of meaning of the
Notion) coalesces with itself, the form as self-identical (i.e., the
n e w expanded identity of form inclusive of the difference of
content) is thereby put as the content, so that the Notion,
which is the action of form, has only itself as content." From
where it n o w stands, at the apex of the dialectical scale, with
nowhere to go except to its own final moment of the Absolute
Idea, the Notion provides the norm for all grades "of cognition
and our practical conduct" that the dialectic has gone through.
But, since the Notion has overcome externality, "the antithesis
between (the norm) and (what it is being applied to) has vanished." Or, again, "as self-identical (the form or the Notion) is

thereby put as the content, so that the Notion, which is the action of form has itself for content."
The internality of the norm (or the overcoming of the externality of matter and f o r m ) at the level of the N o t i o n is the
source of puzzlement for the Understanding and the key to the
resolution of the apparently irreconcilable contradictions that remain before the final synthesis. It is also the corollary of the
principle of concrete universality and an alternative formulation
of the equally fundamental principle of dialectical circularity. In
introducing the Notion in the already quoted #163 that "for the
sake both of cognition and of our practical conduct, it is of the
utmost importance that the real (i.e., the concrete) universal
should not be confused with what is merely held in common
(i.e., the abstract universal)," Hegel was pointing to the Understanding's familiar habit of "raking" content with the help of the
abstract universal. This has been, literally, the trade-mark of scientism which claims, in its self-concealment, universality for a
grade of action which is only appropriate to its domain.
Circularity is no less cardinal in the synthesis of Means and
End in Teleology. Indeed the connection between Teleology and
circularity can also be demonstrated through the action of the
concrete universal, whose feature of self-containment or selfcompleteness is characteristic of the Notion. Our first set of
quoted passages from the Idea began with a juxtaposition of infinite design, through which the Notion enjoys "free (i.e., selfdependent or self-complete) existence" achieved "by means of
the negation of immediate (i.e., unmediated) objectivity." This
is in contrast to finite design, whose "purposive action, with its
Means, (is) still directed outwards (i.e., is still burdened with
unfreedom due to externality), because the End is also not identical with the object, and must consequently first be mediated
with it." This link between freedom and circularity through
concrete universality can be further sustained by noting that
the distant progenitors of finite and infinite design can be
traced all the way back to Being, in the False and True Infinite,
respectively. The former (as did finite design) represented an infinite regress perpetuating the characteristic for Being's feature
of externality. Similarly in finite design "we have got therefore
only a form extraneously impressed on a pre-existing material:
and this form... is also a contingent characteristic. The End
achieved consequently is only an object, which again becomes
a means or material for other Ends, and so on for ever." (emphases added in this instance) The True Infinite, on the other
hand, leads directly to Being-for-self which, in its incipient self-

Implications of the
synthesis of the Idea
for internality of
norms, circularity,
and concrete universality.

completeness, is a precursor of both infinite design and concrete universality.

The lingering dualism on the time-axis
as the price for the
synthetic achievement of Teleology.

The "radical rift or f l a w " of finite design proves to be one

more manifestation of the resurfaced polarity on the time-axis,
as the rift between the "executed End" and the infinite End is
perpetuated by infinite regress. This is the most advanced manifestation of dualism yet and the target for Teleology to overcome. But as has become obvious by now, this cannot be done
at the level of the individual who, as we have already noted, is
represented by the Subjective End "with the objectivity external to it." From the perspective of the individual, action is subject to the same hopeless infinite regress, standing as he does
on the Subjective End of finite design. The timely entry of Cunning of Reason between the second and last moments of the dialectic of Teleology saves the day. Not coincidentally, this is also
the point of entry of the concrete universal between the second
and last moment of its triad which matches point by point in
terms of both overcoming dualism and reaching for trans-individual subjectivity the triad of Teleology.

Promising setting for

the final synthesis of
theory-practice
through propelling
the subject to the
trans-individual
subjectivity of the
Cunning of Reason.

Having devoted a whole paradigm in Part I, and additional

observations between n o w and then about the importance of
Cunning of Reason for the transition from psycho-logic to sociologic and f r o m the individual to group, there is no need to
pursue it further here, except for pointing out some connections with Teleology. By virtue of its placement at the opening
of the Realized End, the Cunning of Reason corresponds to the
infinite design or what Adam Smith called the Divine Hand of
Providence. From the vantage point of the Subjective End of
the triad of Teleology, its workings seem to be the mere result
of combined individual actions; while from the standpoint of
the opposite end, i.e., the Infinite End of the triad, it looks like
something quite different. The two views are inseparable, yet
the latter is dialectically more advanced because it contains
within itself the former in sublated form or, plainly speaking,
because it makes it possible to explicitly state this relationship
b e t w e e n them. Recalling our t w o - w a y facing Janus of the
philosophical paradigm, the activist path forward through immediacy seemed meaningless without the unveiling path backward through the help of mediation. Self-concealment (rendered graphically by covering the footprints of his path forward) was less of a handicap w h e n coupled with its complement of disclosing what lay buried in the course of the forward
trek. N o w too, as Hegel points out, "error or other-being (which
is necessary for fixing Being according to the principle of determinate negation), when superseded, is still a necessary dynamic

element of truth: for truth can only be where it makes itself (in
line with the principle of internality) its own result." Self-con cealment, as used in our encounters with scientism, is, from the
vantage point of the final m o m e n t of Teleology, part of the
hide-seek-and-discover game which the Idea plays with itself.
As such, self-concealment is as much internal to the Idea as is
the norm (i.e., truth) to gauge it.
In the course of its process the Idea creates that illusion (which
makes it appear that the absolutely Good is yet unaccomplished,
thus requiring the actualizing force of our action), by setting an antithesis to confront it: and its action consists in getting rid of the illusion which it has created.
Should a question remain in regard to internality fostering
the very same relativism that the Notion is trying to overcome,
one has to be reminded that, freedom which stands at the apex
of all grades of action as the supreme norm, is also what defines
the Notion "The Notion is the principle of freedom, the power of Substance self-realized." Recalling Universal History,
which is Spirit's counterpart to the moment of Teleology in Logic, subjective freedom corresponds to Subjective End, determinism to Means, and Realized End to freedom qua self-determination (and self-realization). The contingency associated with historical relativism (the reinterpretation of the past in the light of
the changing values of the present) corresponds to the infinite
regress of the middle moment "the limited content of the
End... which again becomes a Means or material f o r other
Ends, and so on for ever." Finally the overcoming of contingency in both cases comes about through the Notion conceived
as a norm defined in terms of genuine or concrete freedom.
However, since Spirit and Logic differ in their kind of concreteness, freedom takes a different form of expression in each case.
Whereas in the Logic it is a structure of totalization beginning
early with the dialectic of the "I" and culminating through the
Absolute and Substance in the Notion, in Spirit it is self-realization in the socio-historical context of Objective Spirit.
The teleo-logic literally the logic of the end-purpose or
perfection is the logic of self-realization in a cosmic context.
At the end of Universal History it was expressed in the sensuous-figurative language of Christian theology in anticipation of
the transparency of the moment of Philosophy at the end of
Absolute Spirit. But far from belittling freedom as the practical
norm par excellence, the interposition of Art and Religion between Universal History and Philosophy reinforces it. For philosophy can n o w unveil the contributions of art and religion,
not only as forms of cultural self-interpretation, but also as ide-

The totalization underlying freedom

mitigates against the
relativism and historicism implicit in
the dualism of the
lingering time-axis.

Illustration offreedom qua self-consciousness through

manifestations of
the Soul.

ologies as obstacles that Spirit generates on its own path "by

setting an antithesis to confront it (and in turn) by its action...
getting rid of the illusion it has created." And just in case the
increasingly prominent role of the trans-individual subject is
unsettling, one should ponder whether in hiding its footprints
to make the task of rediscovering them more rewarding and
make truth "its own result," Spirit acts differently than culture
in concealing certain processes from its members. Hegel has
told us in the discussion of Habit, and anthropologists keep reminding us, that such concealment of truth is necessary to free
consciousness to deal creatively with new situations. Freedom
can thus be advanced through the unself-conscious practice of
whatever activity is culturally necessary, while the true function of the activity is hidden from the members of the community. But the totalization of freedom, or the completion of the
task of the Notion, requires transparency in the form of selfconsciousness at the level of the trans-individual subject. Otherwise w e relapse into a state of externality short of the selfcompleteness of the moment of Realized (or Infinite) End, or to
a situation wherein the absolutely True, as much as absolutely
Good, is "yet unaccomplished...and needs (to) wait upon us" to
be accomplished.
In Soul, the Third World activist, faced with the dilemmas of
modernization, was in a difficult position because any genuinely
free action on his part entailed full self-consciousness, not merely on the individual level but on that of tribal or national soul.
In other words, he would be required to play completely by the
rules of trans-individual Spirit, which is impossible given the fact
that, as a man of action, his goal of self-transparency can never
be complete. This is the source of our earlier reference (in the
political paradigm) to the tragic-heroic quality of our radical
reaching for self-consciousness. Similarly, the Third World activist, prior to dismantling the rituals, customs, ghosts and spirits
of the past as so much mumbo-jumbo, has to determine their
meaning by unveiling Spirit's ways and especially the intricacies
of its game with self-imposed hurdles. But, as w e shall see in
more detail in the next Section, his action is, by its very nature,
contingency-producing, whether in the form of unself-consciously covering his footprints on the path of immediacy or,
equally unintentionally, by generating new ghosts in the course
of ideological praxis. The paradigmatic experience of the Third
World activist can also be applied to the Western world, insofar
as ideological praxis is a dominant modern form of self-concealment in the latter. Indeed it can serve the same purpose of historical and contemporary illustration of the dialectic in the

sphere of the Notion as did scientism in Essence. In the remainder of this Section w e shall endeavor to give a more sensuously
concrete, and even contemporary, dimension to the moment of
Teleology with the help of ideology and the kind of action with
which it is associated.
The premodern cultural space is fully inhabited by spirits
and ghosts, which scientistic modernity in its self-concealment
(especially since the Enlightenment), has branded as dysfunctional and attempted to exorcise. Not surprisingly, many of
these inhabitants were brought down precisely because they
functioned by operating unbeknownst to individuals in line
with the dictates of the Cunning of Reason. But in the process
of being dismantled, other more modern and therefore more
functional because of being difficult to detect ghosts were
put in their place. Some of the latter will be taken up in the
concluding chapters of this study in conjunction with applications of the dialectic to current issues. The Romantic m o v e ment, to which Hegel supplied the fundamental philosophical
undergirding of self-consciousness, provided the much needed
corrective lens to the myopia of the Enlightenment. German
idealism, in particular, deserves the credit for having exposed
the various rigging mechanisms that scientism contributed to
modern culture: first, by unveiling the categorial schemata of
scientism (Kant), and then providing their historio-logical interconnections. But it took anthropology and sociology another
century to rediscover self-consciousness and put Spirit (culture)
and spirits (trans-individual cultural entities) back on a respectable footing, w h i l e alerting us to scientistic claims of
putting ghosts out of business once and for all by means of the
Understanding. By its very nature as de-totalizing, or contingency-laden, action will continue to regenerate ghosts through
concealment of Spirit's footprints on the path of immediacy.
Though secular by nature and political in flavor, those post-Enlightenment ghosts Sorel's "myths" and the various ideologies or "isms" which, by their presence, dominate modern historical space are no different than their premodern equivalents in promoting action behind the backs of individuals. Their
dialectical location is the open-ended arena of Universal History
in Spirit and, correspondingly, the finite ends (and finite design) of the Means-End dialectic of Teleology in the Logic. The
added dimension of time, resulting in what w e called historical
consciousness (i.e., the awareness that something does not
merely belong to the past but that it also has a past), made it
possible for Spirit to observe its actions and assess their value

Elaboration offreedom as totalization

through the illusions
of Enlightenment
reason and ideology.

literally to view itself as Zeitgeist or the spirit of a particular segment of time.

Ideological praxis as
It is such tracts of time, organized in what anthropologists
the category of action call cultural complexes, possessing their own categories of time
corresponding to the and philosophies of history which, having supplanted the State
Age of Reason.
in Universal History, are now the norm for self-containment
and the locus for the realization of freedom. The Prussian state is
no longer the supreme embodiment of rationality, "the hieroglyph of Reason" but, having been placed in this new temporal
dimension, it has surrendered its dominant position not just to
another state but to a culturally defined epoch. This added parameter of time (noted earlier for rekindling polarity on the
time-axis) allows this new embodiment of Reason to be viewed
from a historical dimension. Spirit now reflects on these new
embodiments not as eternal, but as evolving dialectically in
time. If the moments of Objective Spirit were to be given historical counterparts, Universal History would correspond to the
age of ideology beginning with the French Revolution and continuing into the nineteenth century up to the present. The category of action appropriate to it would be ideological praxis in
the sense of collective action, whereby ideas are used to promote action, which gives rise to the element of unself-consciousness and the contingency associated with it. Not accidentally, ideology also means a species of rationalization or lack of
transparency, as would come under the category of Appearance, or even Show (Illusory Being), in the Logic. It is not difficult to locate this new form of action in time, if we ponder for a
moment that institutions which had settled to the point of ossification, represented by Sittlichkeit in Objective Spirit (corresponding historically to the pre-revolutionary regimes of western Europe), suddenly assumed a precarious existence in the
drama of Universal History. As time accelerated (as a result of
revolutions in technology, industry, politics, and the uprooting
of social patterns), it was not the reflection of what is, but the
participation in the drama, and indeed the capacity of changing
it in accordance with what ought to be, that really mattered.
Misplaced claims for
the final synthesis of
theory-practice in
ideological praxis.

There is a definite implication of a synthesis of theory and

practice in ideological praxis, as will become clear from the extensive discussion in Part IV wherein the Marxist connection is
taken up. But this implication also partially stems from the classical connotation of praxis as collective political activity devoid
of the familiar polarity of theory-practice and peculiar to a class,
the citizenry of the classical polis. However, the absence of such
polarity at the level of praxis should not be confused with its final dialectical overthrow, since what might be mistaken as the

polar complement of praxis (i.e., theoria) is a different class of

activity, or rather, the activity of a different class of citizens
the politically reflective and the philosophers of the polis. Yet,
the synthetic claim, put forth on behalf of ideological praxis by
Marx and his followers, rests beyond this classical association in
the Hegelian conception of objectivation or embodiment, as expounded in Objective Spirit, and particularly in the already
quoted #513. In this sense ideological praxis is, insofar as it is
successful, the incorporation of one's "ought" into Sittlichkeit. To
that extent it is a synthesis of the "is" and the "ought," or a synthesis of theory and practice in the context of Objective Spirit.
However, this is not the final synthesis for the same reason
that Objective Spirit is not the last word on the issue of the dialectical synthesis of action, namely the residual externality between subject and object and the resurfacing of polarity of theory and practice on the time-axis, which has just been attended
to by Teleology. More important, as w e shall see in detail in Part
IV, by forcing the issue of the final synthesis short of the Notion, Marx and his followers relapsed into scientistic theorypractice. Instead of being guided by the Idea and placing themselves qua ideologues along with other actors on the dialectical
scale, they claimed finality for ideological praxis, when in accordance to the Notion such praxis is just another (though higher)
form of contingency-plagued action. Measured by the standards
of the Notion, this claim of finality of its synthetic power on the
part of ideologues is just another myth-generating device, one
more eschatological ruse of the Cunning of Reason to promote
its ends through ideological praxis. Though philosophically
wanting, and intellectually shallow, coming from those who literally sat at the feet of Hegel, this claim for ideological praxis
makes eminent historical sense when viewed against the backdrop of the Zeitgeist of millenarianism, which dominated the
first half of the nineteenth century.
The stage for ideology had already been set by British empiricism which, to a great extent, saw its task as the clearing out
of epistemological obstacles. This accomplished, philosophy was
free to proceed in matters of social organization and human
conduct, along the lines of practice-follows-theory and human
engineering as pioneered by science. In the light of the prevailing high fortunes of science and the institutionally catastrophic
event of the French Revolution, it seemed natural that the future could be viewed as a large scale application of social theory
worked out along scientific principles. The Philosophes in
France before the Revolution, the Philosophical Radicals in
England, and Saint-Simon and his followers in France after the

British empiricism
and French scientism as precursors of
the age of ideology.

Ideological praxis
as theory-practice
dualism cast along
a time-axis.

Revolution, envisioned the future as a massive application of

the great scientific discoveries of the preceding century. Science
emerged as another brand of ideology the "ism" of science,
or scientism, promoting action through the vision of miraculous
scientific discoveries and the Sorelian "myth of progress"
which still haunts us today.
Thus, ideological praxis, as exemplified in science, can furnish us with a historical illustration of the familiar polarity of
theory-practice n o w cast on the time-axis as past-present, respectively. This new ideological-scientistic polarity, being more
concrete than the strictly scientistic one, can be said to have dialectically transcended the latter. It negates, in the same breath
that it enhances, its role as action-promoting ideology, by placing the content of practice in the future, out of reach of experimental confirmation. But this n e w polarity also dialectically
transcends the ideology it promotes, by pointing out that what
is proposed for application is no bare hypothesis but (as is enriched Identity, inclusive of Difference), the product of mediation. This is another way of saying that, as terms and propositions of which they are part, theory (corresponding here to the
past) and practice (to the future) are becoming increasingly
concrete, thus approximating the Theoretical and Practical Idea
on their w a y to synthesis by the familiar w a y of progressive
concreteness. Such conclusion, far from underrating the contribution of science, as it may appear from the high rank in concreteness due to its ideological dimension, clarifies its boundaries and functions, resulting in a more accurate appreciation of
its contributions.
Higher concreteness involves dialectical incorporation so
that polar terms at the present advanced stage are most concrete, not only because of the historical dimension just outlined, but also because each includes in sublated form all preceding grades of action: scientistic theory-practice, institutionally routinized action, the parts of Moralitat which managed to
make a dent on Sittlichkeit, and last but not least, ideological
praxis and its scientistic variant. As with all levels of the dialectic, the appreciation of the contribution of science is more complete since it k n o w s w h e r e it failed to p r o p e r l y d e f i n e its
boundaries and what it has encompassed successfully within itself. "For truth can only be where it makes itself (from within
error) its o w n result." For example, the fact that the roundabout method of finite design was used by British empiricists
for dealing with the practical, was due in part to the impact of a
philosophically naive and overconfident modern science which
had a poor sense of its limits. Having subverted, through its di-

chotomy of theory-practice, the pre-Renaissance unitary conception of knowledge and action, scientism conceived knowledge as instrumental. Scientifically inspired philosophy subsequently became the means for dealing with human conduct as
an end. Once cast dialectically as means and end, respectively,
knowledge (theory) and conduct (practice) were bound, in the
absence of the Notion, to a relationship of externality governed
by finite design and doomed from the outset to the self-perpetuation with which, by now, w e are all too familiar.
Historically speaking, successfully tested in external and allegedly neutral nature, scientific methodology was uncritically
imported by empiricist philosophy f r o m science in order to
solve its epistemological and ethical problems. But, in its selfconcealment, the former also imported the subject-object and
mind-matter dualism implicit in the ontology of the n e w science. From its inception, modern post-Renaissance culture
seems to have rigged all important questions in terms of such
interlocking dualisms as being-thought in ontology, subject-object in epistemology, is-ought in ethics, and theory-practice in
methodology. The same can be said about the polarity of pastpresent playing surrogate for theory-practice in ideological praxis. Without the dialectic of Actuality Proper, in which Actuality
and Possibility assumed the roles of present (or past) and future
(and by which is shown their mutual determinateness) ideological praxis, whether political or scientistic, is locked in a Utopian
setting where our polarity takes the form of a present reality as
against an unreachable ideality. In fact, as the dialectic of Actuality Proper has taught us, what appears segregated in the future, and amenable only to the abstractive adaptation of theory-practice, is very much the projection of aspirations of the
present, as they have been mediated by the past. And conversely, what appears secluded in the past is an interpretation of the
present in the light of the dreams and hopes of the future. The
ideologues want us to believe that they are trying to change the
future in line with plans laid in the present and the experience
of the past, when in fact they are trying to make a dent on the
present with tools borrowed from the present.
The polarity of ideological praxis on the time-axis can only
be surmounted by overcoming the polarities generated between
past, present, and future. But action is time-bound and as such
is burdened with contingency. These problems will have to be
faced again, in the feature of timelessness of the Absolute Idea,
as the locus of the final synthesis in the next Section. However,
we have already had a taste of what is to come in the moment
of Realized End of the triad of Teleology, where a coincidence

Empiricism in philosophy and instrumentalism in science,

in the light of the
dialectic of Teleology
and Actuality Proper.

Creation of illusions
through unintended
outcomes by ideological self-concealment.

The meaning-Ianguage of the Notion

as the key to the unveiling of ideological
self-concealment.

has been reached between what "is eternally accomplishing itself in the w o r l d " and what "is already by implication, as well
as in full actuality, accomplished." Self-concealment, under
which w e are still laboring in the final moment of the Realized
End, is manifested here as our failure to recognize this identity.
This is the illusion of our age or, in Hegel's words "the illusion
under which w e live." It is inextricably linked with a situation
wherein, given the pervasiveness of division of labor and the
compartmentalization of means and ends, e v e r y activity or
f o r m of knowledge is defined as a means in the service of another v i e w e d as an end, and so on ad infinitum. This can claim
precedence among the illusions peculiar to our age because its
intensification, since the age of the revolutions, has also coincided with the rediscovery of self-consciousness. Like the division of labor, o n w h i c h it squarely rests, this externality of
means and ends has been imported wholesale from scientistic
and engineering projects into the management of human affairs. Occasionally, questions have been raised concerning human engineering and, generally, the management of human
matters along the same lines as non-human resources. Yet, the
absence of a dialectical structuralization of activity and the
knowledge pertaining to it, makes it impossible to oppose such
externality of these terms without falling prey to either some
unquestioning (almost mystical) acceptance of their unity, or
their irreconcilable polarity in the f o r m of a divergence between intended results and unintended outcomes.
For example, the ideological self-concealment underlying
the symmetry b e t w e e n theory-practice and past-future is the
other side of the myth-generating function of ideological praxis,
or the eschatological use of the future for generating change.
The ideological concern is served well insofar as action is generated toward a desired end. But what turns out as the realized
end is usually different than what was intended by the ideologues in the first place. To repeat, ideology
is the illusion under which we live. It alone supplies at the same
time the actualizing force on which the interest of the world reposes. In the course of its process the Idea creates that illusion, by setting an antithesis to confront it; and its action consists in getting rid
of the illusion which it has created.
Thus the Idea also provides the r e m e d y for self-concealment in " r e m o v i n g the illusion (of i d e o l o g y ) which makes it
(i.e., 'the consummation of the infinite End') seem yet unaccomplished," by telescoping future and past into a timeless actuality of the present. This is the structurally familiar state of
affairs wherein "the Good, the absolutely Good, is eternally ac-

complishing itself in the world... as w e l l as in full actuality,

(having been) accomplished." In other words, what is impossible in a rectilinearly ordered w o r l d and self-contradictory in
the objectivist language of epistemological realism, makes eminent sense if these constraints are suspended as w e m o v e into
the realm of meaning-language of advanced Spirit and the Notion. What should not be forgotten is that the criterion for validation at the level of the Idea is internal, i.e., a sense of internal coherence, conveyed here by what "makes eminent sense,"
rather than any formal sort of validation belatedly reimported
from the Understanding.
The purpose of philosophy has always been the intellectual ascertainment of the Idea; and everything deserving the name of philosophy has constantly been based on the consciousness of an absolute unity where the Understanding sees and accepts only separation. It is too late now to ask for proof that the Idea is the
truth. The proof of that is contained in the whole deduction and
development of thought up to this point. (Logic, #213 Zusatz)
In this light, the view of the sphere of the Notion as the context of m e a n i n g about m e a n i n g , indicated earlier, assumes
added significance. The relative importance of meaning-lang u a g e (as a g a i n s t o b j e c t - l a n g u a g e ) has b e e n i n c r e a s i n g
throughout these pages in proportion to the relative weight of
cultural (as against scientistic) subject matter. This is to be expected if w e bear in mind the difference between the epistemologically realistic presuppositions of the latter and the phenomenological (i.e., meaning-disclosing) ones of the former. As w e
have already anticipated, with the transition to the Notion, w e
stand firmly in the midst of culture and, therefore, in the heartland of meaning-language. For example, the coincidence of
timelessness and time-boundedness in framing the question of
the realization of the Good above, cannot be pursued in the scientistic mode or in the context of meaning of Essence without
prejudging the issue, since time-boundedness is built into the
latter's objectivist language. This situation is paralleled by that
w h i c h is e n c o u n t e r e d in cultural a n t h r o p o l o g y , w h e r e i n a
metalanguage about meaning is being used in an effort to try to
make sense of a culture which is fundamentally different than
ours in this case, one not sharing the same categorial structure or language dealing w i t h objectivity and time. Instead, a
meaning-language is being used in which contradictory statements b e t w e e n d i f f e r e n t cultures can be c o m p r e h e n d e d in
terms of framing of a higher order (or coherence) at the level of
meaning. Mythology and ritual are comprehensible in terms of
meanings c o m m o n to both cultures (e.g., socialization, social
cohesion) once removed from the objectivist context of mean-

Examples of meaning-language from

anthropology and
culture.

Recapitulation of
the shortcomings of
object-language.

The dialectic of Teleology and its counterpart of Universal

History confirm the
process of synthesis
through progressive
concretion.

ing of scientism and placed into one of meaning encompassing

similar activities in both pre-literate and literate cultures. The
concept of Spirit enables us to make sense of apparently disparate activities, such as ritual and incarceration, or mythology
and education (in pre-literate and literate cultures, respectively)
in terms of socialization. For, being a texture of meaning rather
than a cluster of objects, Spirit (or culture) can subsume those
apparently disparate elements (when viewed in the light of objectivist language) under the concept of culture per se and its
unitary language of meaning.
In the course of this study, the exposition of scientism's inadequacies in the handling of material not amenable to objectivist language became critical as the process of totalization began to involve the subject, and the concept of freedom emerged
in the process of defining necessity in the context of the Absolute. Our exploration of historical method, and the effort to
define the object of historical inquiry under Actuality Proper,
confirmed the deficiencies of object-language, as contingency in
the form of historical relativism became unavoidable in the absence of a notional structure. Pointing in the direction of a teleological meaning of history, with the help of the dialectic of Actuality-Possibility, prefigured the Notion in terms of its conception of truth as totalization. Not accidentally, Universal History
did likewise, since it too, in a corresponding way, bordered on
the absolute moment of Spirit. Having reached the Idea, w e
now know that the historical relativism that burdened both Actuality Proper and Universal History, and which ultimately propelled them to the absolute moments of Logic and Spirit respectively, was not a mere case of inability to integrate values into
the historical process without issuing in infinite regress. More
fundamentally, it was a case of underlying metaphysical conceptions involving the objectivist language of epistemology and
the ontological attachment to a scientistic rectilinear conception
of time, which could only be gotten rid of by entering into the
new context of meaning of the Notion.
The dialectic of Teleology concurrently offers a formal statement of the resolution of the problem of contingency short of
the Absolute Idea, and a possibility for a confirmation of the
same by reference to a wide range of illustrations from contemporary social and historical experience. Operating on the concrete level of Spirit, the Means cannot be abstractively contained in its originally assigned role as mere means, but spills
over into the End. Whereas from the standpoint of Subjective
End, or that of finite design, means and ends alternate ad infinitum, f r o m that of Realized End, or infinite design, "the one-

sided subjectivity and the show of objective independence confronting it are both cancelled... and in the course of their movement under the dominion of the (Realized) End, the show of
that independence, the negative which confronts the Notion, is
got rid of." In its concreteness as a cultural entity, the Means
can no more be treated as an isolated means, than the Theoretical and Practical Idea can be viewed as mere scientistic theorypractice, or, for that matter, than can Stalin qua historical figure
be taken as a physical body or just another individual. As already quoted in the dialectic of Means and End:
In laying hold of the Means, the Notion constitutes itself the very
implicit essence of the object (which heretofore in its abstraction has
been claiming independence)...and thus when the Notion, in the
shape of (Realized) End, is realized in the object, we have but the
manifestation of the inner (i.e., concrete) nature of the object itself.
Objectivity is thus, as it were, only a covering under which the Notion lies concealed.
In its increasingly behind-the-surface concreteness, the objectivity of the means is a cover for the elevated subjectivity of
the Idea. This recalls other similar cases, notably at the opening
of Actuality and again in the b e g i n n i n g of O b j e c t i v e Spirit,
whereby, upon the synthesis of theory and practice, w e suddenly realized that the concreteness of the polar terms leading to it
have been continuously building-up behind the surface. N o w
again, the Notion "lies concealed" behind the seemingly abstract
term of the objectivity of means, which has grown in concreteness, as indicated by its proximity to the synthesis of the final
moment. The same build-up is also suggested by the fact that "in
laying hold of the Means, the Notion constitutes itself the very
implicit essence of the object." (Emphases added in this instance to
indicate both concreteness and the feature of concealment)
For the Understanding, or the rationality of the Enlightenment, such reliance on Teleology may seem to be no more than
a relic of theology. But, as w e noted above, its applications are
as wide-ranging as they can be illuminating. For example, by
the v e r y self-imposed Marxist standards of creating a " n e w
communist man," the Soviet and thereafter the Chinese, the
Cambodian, and the Albanian efforts have proved to be failures because the means had, so to speak, infected the end. Unlike a scientistic universe of discourse in which, due to its abstractive nature, the externality of means and ends is relatively
unambiguous, in a cultural context externality is more or less
apparent because of varying degrees of concreteness, depending
upon its advanced position on the dialectical scale. In other
words, w h o e v e r pursues a noble end w i t h means alien to it,
has, because of the concrete (cultural) nature of the terms, de-

Cultural and historical illustrations of

concealment and
disclosure in the dialectic of Means-End.

faulted on his aim by allowing the end to become infected by

the means. Like any other cultural complex, totalitarianism is
highly concrete, made of intimately linked components from
areas as diverse as technology, psychology, economy, art, politics, and education. Means qua cultural items are also culturally
concrete in the sense that, say, economic motivation or socialization are dependent upon these, and other, cultural interconnections, for their effectiveness in bringing about the " n e w
communist man." As such, means fill the cultural space, thus
not allowing any room for alternative (to totalitarian) institutional networks which w o u l d complement and nurture the
projected "new human being." Hypothesizing about which alternative means would have generated this ideal specimen of
humanity, w o u l d be as f u t i l e as the speculation w h e t h e r
Moscow would have been the cultural center of Europe, had
Stalin's aesthetic sensibilities been different. This new means,
being equally concrete, would have similarly constituted a totally different cultural complex. In both cases, w e would be introducing a new cultural entity with no possibility of applying
the ceteris paribus clause of holding the cultural complex unchanged while changing one variable (in this case one means)
at a time. As with the objectivity (in separation from elevated
subjectivity) of means above, the abstract appearance of means
(as segregated from the end) is misleading, because at this stage
of the dialectic they are concrete and, therefore, already at one
with the end behind the surface. The dialectic of Means-End
places the Machiavellian motto about the end justifying the
means in an entirely new light. And it also does so for a whole
spectrum of social disciplines that have become too dependent
upon abstractive mathematical techniques for theorizing.
Though by virtue of their concreteness, these social disciplines
overlap with their humanistic sisters, they perceive themselves
as dealing predominantly (or even exclusively) with means.
M a n y of the problems plaguing the "dismal science" of economics originate in this very area of misplaced abstraction.
Misconstruing
the Means-End relationship along scientistic lines disguises
the build-up of
concreteness behind
the surface.

The recent turn of events in the socialist countries, as well as

the abundance of similarly structured pursuits in capitalist
countries, is very instructive in showing us how not to pursue a
culturally concrete end. Perhaps it is understandable that, in
our wish to see our ideal realized, w e tend to revert to the scientistic mode and conceive of an "application" of the Notion in
objectivist terms, or cast our ideal in the role of an end in line
with finite design, when, in fact, meaning-language precludes
us from doing so. In terms of the opening sentences of the already quoted #211 and #212, it is the difference between the

language of "finite design... (in which) even the executed End

has the same radical flaw (of objectivist language) as had the
Means and the initial (Subjective) End" and "what virtually
happens in the realizing of the End." Our ideal cannot come
about through the manipulation of externally opposed means
and ends. It cannot emerge if cast in the instrumental logic of
finite design of ideological or material planning and administrative decree. Nor, of course, can it be planned using the Notion
like a blueprint for action. Rather, the N o t i o n and more
specifically in this instance the Realized End is instrumental
for recognizing ex post facto that the synthesis of Means and End
has successfully taken place. Unless the Subjective End, as represented by the values deemed necessary by the socialist citizen
for his self-realization, coincides with the objectivity of the
Means, as represented by the institutional setting, the ideal of a
new human being will remain unrealized. The convergence of
the two, which precedes the union, follows the familiar pattern
of progressive concreteness behind the surface.
This dialectical proposition can be further domesticated in
socially concrete terms by recalling Actual Soul, as exemplified
in the classical ideal of unity of the arete of the citizen (his
virtue as formed by paedeia, or socialization, whereby it issues
immediately, i.e., without the mediation of deliberating, in
practice) and the institutions of the polis. We have encountered
a similar pattern of progressive concreteness in the dialectical
paths of the subjective and objective terms of Spirit. At that
point the coincidence of individual values and institutional
structures was suggested by the final moments of Subjective
Spirit in which, having reached a high level of concreteness,
the latter already implied the institutional setting of Objective
Spirit. As in the Socratic doctrine of the logical continuity between the "is" and the "ought," that same continuity between
the subjective and objective terms and their eventual synthesis
was undersigned by their respective concreteness. The lesson
for the socialist planners of the new human being comes from
this juncture between Subjective and Objective Spirit wherein,
unless the "ought" of Practical Mind has reached the required
level of concreteness through a succession of mediations, and
whereby the "is" of prevailing institutions is automatically issued in, any attempt to bridge the gap externally is bound to
abort the synthesis of subjective values and institutional
arrangements in Objective Spirit. The element of surprise,
caused by immediacy in the appearance of the full-grown institutions of Objective Spirit, was no different than the explicit
manifestation of what was going on implicitly within Subjective

Further substantiation of the illusory

nature of ideological
praxis by recalling
Actual Soul.

Spirit. This element of surprise should not be misleading in regard to the important role of the gradual behind-the-surface
process of concretion, or be taken as evidence that the synthesis
can be e f f e c t e d externally through action. Nor, of course,
should the gradual process of concretion be interpreted as an
invitation for inaction, as w e shall see in the coming Section.
The behind-the-surface activity of Spirit also invites action because no one knows precisely h o w close one is to the surprise
(or to the shock in the case of a revolution), or how decisive
one's action may be in bringing it about.
Admittedly, the conditions set by the Notion for the pursuit
of an ideal constitute a tall order. But this, among other things,
shows how much store Hegel places in the "toil of the Notion"
for the accomplishment of "the absolutely Good" without having "to wait upon us." To domesticate his language with the
help of a n t h r o p o l o g y , he underscores h o w much remains
buried-under in the course of countless acts of immediacy
through the ages and, by the same token, how much unveiling
and consciousness-raising is still required before humankind
can even think about planning a culture. It is precisely this
form of cultural self-concealment that Hegel seems to wish to
convey by placing Life as the first moment of the Idea. Needless
to add that this is not a mere organic category at this late stage
of the dialectic, but rather, culture defined in the above sense as
unself-conscious life-like culture not just organic life, which
is a category of Nature. As such, it represents immediacy, or unself-consciousness, which is what culture has been all about for
countless ages, and still is, for the overwhelming majority of
humanity. Spirit has managed pretty well so far without having
to "wait upon us," though again by its very own rules w e have
no hard (external) criterion to gauge this nor, of course, do we
have any way to judge how things would have been otherwise
without being entangled in the counter-to-fact conditionals of
the historians of the Stalin era. Only with the relatively recent
revolution of consciousness, and the emergence of freedom as a
possibility for all, did w e begin to gain a glimpse of what lay behind the surface, and of the immensity of the task of unveiling
ahead, by comparison to which any scientistic project has to be
ranked as secondary, if not insignificant.

Self-consciousness emerges as the centerpiece of the final

triad of the Logic and the way of overcoming the final traces of
externality. As it is also the latest addition to the successive reformulations of freedom qua self-realization through totalization, it is the key to the final synthesis of the theoretical and
practical moments in their last and most concrete manifestations. They are Cognition and Will in the Logic, and the Idea of
the True (Theoretical Idea) and the Idea of the Good (Practical
Idea) in the Science of Logic. Needless to add, at this late stage,
that all psychological and even epistemological associations of
"self-consciousness," "cognition," and "idea" have to be suppressed so that their dialectically concrete meanings can emerge
in the course of the following discussion. Considerable headway has been made in this direction, the latest of which has
been the rendition of the theoretical and practical moments as
instances of the Zeitgeist: the eras, or segments on the time-axis,
of theorizing and praxis, respectively, in which earlier forms of
this polarity have been sublated. Also Platonic echoes of the
system of ideas, as a pyramid at the apex of which stands the
idea of the good in its all-inclusiveness (dialectical concreteness), sound quite clear. In this sense the terminology of the
Science of Logic seems most appropriate. If w e can further assume, in line with the dialectical outcome of Teleology, that the
advocates of ideological praxis are victims of "the illusion under
which w e live" concerning the compartmentalization of past
and future, then w e have a close historically concrete counterpart to the Theoretical and Practical Idea. This analogy also
serves to abbreviate our exposition, since w e can n o w bypass
the long exposition of Life and its transition to Cognition (in
General) and go directly to our principals, the Theoretical and
Practical Idea, without too much loss in continuity. First, the
highlights of the two moments from the Logic.
Reason comes to the world with an absolute faith in its ability to
make the identity (between itself and the objective world) actual
and to raise its certitude to truth; and with the instinct of realizing
explicitly the nullity of that contrast which it sees to be implicitly
null. (Logic, #224)
This process is in general terms Cognition. In Cognition in a single
act the contrast is virtually superseded, as regards both the one-sidedness of subjectivity and the one-sidedness of objectivity. At first,
however, the supersession of the contrast is but implicit. The
process as such is in consequence immediately infected with the
finitude of this sphere, and splits into the twofold movement of the
instinct of Reason, presented as two different movements. On the
one hand it supersedes the one-sidedness of the Idea's subjectivity

Recapitulation of
progress toward
defining the
Absolute Idea.

The theoretical and

practical moments of
the Idea are complementary in their
one-sidedness.

by receiving the existing world into itself, into subjective conception and thought; and with this objectivity, which is thus taken to
be real and true, for its content it fills up the abstract certitude of
itself. On the other hand, it supersedes the one-sidedness of the
objective world, which is now, on the contrary, estimated as only a
mere semblance, a collection of contingencies and shapes at bottom visionary. It modifies and informs that world by the inward
nature of the subjective, which is here taken to be the genuine objective. The former is the instinct of science after Truth, Cognition
properly so called: the Theoretical action of the Idea. The latter is
the instinct of the Good to fulfill the same the Practical activity
of the Idea or Volition (or the Will). (Logic, #225)
The theoretical moment reaches the determinateness which
characterizes the
practical moment.

The necessity, which finite cognition produces in the Demonstration, is, in the first place, an external necessity, intended for the
subjective intelligence alone. But in necessity as such, Cognition itself has left behind its presupposition and starting-point, which
consisted in accepting its content as given or found. Necessity qua
necessity is implicitly the self-relating Notion. The subjective Idea
has thus implicitly reached an original and objective determinateness, a something not-given, and for that reason immanent in
the subject. It has passed over into the Idea of the Will.
The necessity which Cognition reaches by means of the Demonstration is the reverse of what formed its starting-point. In its starting-point Cognition had a given and a contingent content; but
now, at the close of its movement, it knows its content to be necessary. This necessity is reached by means of subjective agency. Similarly, subjectivity at starting was quite abstract, a bare tabula rasa. It
now shows itself as a modifying and determining principle. In this
way we pass from the Idea of Cognition to that of Will. The passage, as will be apparent on closer examination, means that the
universal, to be truly apprehended, must be apprehended as subjectivity, as a notion self-moving, active, and form-imposing.
(Logic, #232 and Zusatz)
The subjective Idea as original and objective determinateness, and
as simple uniform content, is the Good. Its impulse towards self-realization is in its behavior the reverse of the Idea of truth, and
rather directed towards moulding the world it finds before it into a
shape conformable to its purposed End. This Volition has, on the
one hand, the certitude of the nothingness of the pre-supposed object; but, on the other, as finite, it at the same time pre-supposes
the purposed End of the Good to be a mere subjective idea, and the
object to be independent. (Logic, #233)

Conversely, the practical moment reaches

the presuppositional
thinking characteristic of the theoretical
moment.

This action of the Will is finite: and its finitude lies in the contradiction that in the inconsistent terms applied to the objective world the
End of the Good is just as much not executed as executed, the
End in question put as unessential as much as essential, as actual
and at the same time as merely possible. This contradiction presents
itself to imagination as an endless progress in the actualizing of the
Good; which is therefore set up and fixed as a mere 'ought,' or goal
of perfection. In point of form however this contradiction vanishes
when the action supersedes the subjectivity of the purpose, and

along with it the objectivity, with the contrast which makes both finite; abolishing subjectivity as a whole and not merely the one-sidedness of this form of it. (For another new subjectivity of the kind,
that is, a new generation of the contrast, is not distinct from that
which is supposed to be past and gone.) This return into itself is at
the same time the content's own 'recollection' that it is the Good
and the implicit identity of the two sides, it is a 'recollection' of
the pre-supposition of the theoretical attitude of mind (#224) that
the objective world is its own truth and substantiality.
While Intelligence merely proposes to take the world as it is, Will
The synthesis of
takes steps to make the world what it ought to be. Will looks upon
the theoretical and
the immediate and given present not as solid being, but as mere
practical moments
semblance without reality. It is here that we meet those contradicis the result of the
tions which are so bewildering from the standpoint of abstract
complementarity
morality. This position in its 'practical' bearings is the one taken by
the philosophy of Kant, and even by that of Fichte. The Good, say
of their respective
these writers, has to be realized: we have to work in order to proimperfections.
duce it: and Will is only the Good actualizing itself. If the world
then were as it ought to be, the action of the Will would be at an
end. The Will itself therefore requires that its end should not be realized. In these words, a correct expression is given to thefinitudeof
Will. But finitude was not meant to be the ultimate point: and it is
the process of Will itself which abolishes finitude and the contradiction it involves. The reconciliation is achieved, when Will in its result returns to the pre-supposition made by Cognition. In other
words, it consists in the unity of the Theoretical and Practical Idea.
Will knows the end to be its own, and Intelligence apprehends the
world as the Notion actual. This is the right attitude of rational cognition. Nullity and transitoriness constitute only the superficial features and not the real essence of the world. That essence is the Notion in posse and in esse: and thus the world is itself the Idea. All unsatisfied endeavor ceases, when we recognize that the final purpose
of the world is accomplished no less than ever accomplishing itself.
Generally speaking, this is the man's way of looking; while the
young imagine that the world is utterly sunk in wickedness, and
that the first thing needful is a thorough transformation. The religious mind, on the contrary, views the world as ruled by Divine
Providence, and therefore correspondent with what it ought to be.
But this harmony between the 'is' and the 'ought to be' is not torpid and rigidly stationary. Good, the final end of the world, has being, only while it constantly produces itself. And the world of Spirit
and the world of nature continue to have this distinction, that the
latter moves only in a recurring cycle, while the former certainly also makes progress. (Logic, #234 and Zusatz; parentheses in the text)
As evident from the list of the categories of the Notion, Cognition (in General) has only two moments, Cognition (Proper)
and the Will. Thus the Absolute Idea can be taken as the synthesis of both LifeCognition (in General) and of Cognition
(Proper)Will. From the quoted passages, #224 and #225 belong to Cognition (in General), #232 to Cognition (Proper), and
#233 and #234 to the Will. Cognition (in General) highlights,

The vital function of

concreteness in effecting the final synthesis of theory-practice.

Use of the concept of

pre-existing unity to
explicate the synthesis of the theoretical
and practical moments of the Idea.

through the pre-existing unity of Reason, the fact that dealing

with Cognition at this late stage is no more an epistemological
concern, than was dealing with Life out of a biological concern
earlier. In #224, the pre-existing unity of subjectivity and objectivity is conveyed through Reason's "instinct of realizing the(ir)
unity," or "its absolute faith in its ability to make the identity
(of subjectivity and objectivity) actual." The concreteness of the
polar terms is by n o w so advanced "in a single act the contrast is virtually superseded" and "with this objectivity... it (subjectivity) fills up the abstract certitude of itself" as to render
epistemological considerations inapplicable. Rather, the situation is one of phenomenological concern whereby Reason, having bracketed its roles as subject and object "the twofold
movement of the instinct of Reason" is about to unveil the
implications of this two-way (i.e., object-for-a-subject and subject-for-an-object) relationship. Or, using the earlier illustration
of the Theoretical and Practical Idea representing different
phases of the Zeitgeist, having attained a measure of historical
detachment through Cognition, the same unitary Reason can
distinguish itself playing different roles in theoretical reflection
and ideological praxis.
Similar phenomenological considerations apply between
#225 and #232 where there is a gap in the continuity of quoted
passages. At first, Hegel's text seems to be a reiteration of principles of m e t h o d o l o g y under the sub-moments of Cognition
(Proper): Analytic and Synthetic Cognition, Definition, Classification, and Theorem and Demonstration (third-generation categories which have been omitted from our list). As in the case of
Life and Cognition (in General), his procedure here is as much
rendering explicit the pre-existing unity of the theoretical and
practical moments of the Idea as is the sequence leading to such
unity (misleadingly termed "deduction"). Such two-faced procedure accords with the dialectically advanced (concrete) nature of
subject matter; one which is at once complete and in the process
of completion, as in the case of the Good which is at the same
time "eternally accomplishing itself" and "in full actuality, accomplished." This procedure was introduced in Teleology in
connection with its final moment of Realized End as a result of
overcoming the polarities of action on the time-axis, and is reaffirmed here in connection with the coincidence of the "is" and
the "ought to be" in #234. Thus, when w e resume quoting with
#232 in regard to Demonstration, as exemplified by Hegel in Euclidian geometry, it is not scientific method's deductive reasoning per se (which has long been superseded) that is at issue.
Rather, it is the intellectual model of truth qua self-containment,

i.e., the experiencing of the world as an object-for-a-(trans-individual)-subject which, if followed through in its implications,
leads to the Practical Idea. In other words, it takes a concrete
universal in the form of trans-individual subjectivity a "universal, (which) to be truly apprehended, must be apprehended
as subjectivity" to perform this phenomenological operation
from the vantage point of an implicit pre-existing unity of Cognition and Will, if w e are to make a success of the transition
from the former to the latter and their eventual synthesis.
Hegel capitalizes on this difference in conceptual apparatus
between the Understanding, which a geometrical demonstration of a theorem instantiates, and the Notion to effect the important transition from Cognition to the Will. Viewed for-itself,
i.e., as it sees itself from the vantage point of finite cognition,
Demonstration entails "an external necessity intended for the
subjective intelligence alone." But viewed in-itself (or for-us,
the philosopher standing on the high plateau of the Notion),
"necessity qua necessity (or 'necessity as such') is implicitly the
self-relating Notion. This is so because "Cognition itself has left
behind (its realist-dualistic epistemological standpoint according
to which) its presupposition and starting point consisted in accepting its content as given and found." That this result, i.e.,
"something not-(externally-)given, and for that reason immanent in the subject," constitutes precisely the crucial "pass(ing)
over into the Idea of the Will," should come as no surprise, if
w e recall that according to the dialectic of freedom "the genuinely free will...is conscious to itself that its content is intrinsically firm and fast, and knows it at the same time to be thoroughly its
own." (italics added in the last two instances) The transition to
the Will is thus effected by establishing a higher form of Cognition (Truth) which overcomes contingency through the kind of
self-necessitation characteristic of the Will, and whose defining
feature is also a form of totalization, i.e., freedom. The result
can also be viewed as a reinstated-at-a-higher-level subjectivity
(which the title of the Notion as Subjective Logic also conveys),
whereby the universal is "apprehended (concretely) as (an elevated subjectivity), as a notion self-moving, active, and formimposing," rather than in the familiar scientistic manner, as abstract universal "raking" external content.
But no sooner has the Will tied the loose ends of Cognition
through this elevated subjectivity than cracks begin to develop
again in the newly attained unity. For, though in "its impulse towards self-realization (through) moulding the world it finds before it," the Will promotes coherence, the very nature of action
itself which "pre-supposes the purposed End of the Good to be a

Hegel allows contingency one more

chance while he
settles accounts
with Kant.

Setting the stage for

the final synthesis in
the Logic by removing the remaining
traces of the subjectobject dualism.

mere subjective idea, and (by implication) the object to be independent," again opens the door to contingency. Now the Will also suffers from finitude, which "lies in the contradiction that in
the inconsistent terms applied to the objective world the End of
the Good is just as much not executed as executed." Either the
"End of the Good" is realized through action, in which case it
cancels itself in the process, or in an effort to remain intact it abstains from externalization, thus rendering itself ineffectual by
being separated from its aim. "This contradiction presents itself
to imagination as an endless progress in the actualization of the
Good; which is therefore set up and fixed as a mere 'ought,' or
goal of perfection." Hegel's grudge against Kant's conception of
the will is that the latter's qualification of it as the only thing
which deserves to be unconditionally called good, has, in effect,
rendered it unrealizable. Kant transformed the will into an abstract universal whereby it could not issue in externalization
without cancelling itself, nor could it preserve itself without being reduced to "a mere 'ought,' or a goal of perfection... The
Will itself therefore requires (according to 'these writers') that its
End should not be realized." But, as w e know by now, Kant's
"good will," this "goal of perfection," which he tried to keep uncontaminated from what he called "empirical admixtures," is already such a "mix" of the empirical and the a priori because it is,
in fact, a concrete universal. Being the product of repeated mediations with empirical content throughout the two phases of
Spirit, and more recently as the embodiment of ideological
praxis, the Will is already a highly concrete entity. Though in
terms of their relationship to freedom the conceptions of the will
of the two thinkers are similar, in terms of action Kant is operating, because of his unredeemed dualism, as if the dialectic of
Content-Form had never taken place.
In order to further appreciate this important transition, perhaps one has to consider that the dialectical progenitor of the
Will, and counterpart of Kant's "good will" is Moralitat, which is
the source of unconditional moral "oughts" being cast in abstractly universal terms. The defect in this formulation which
propelled Moralitat to Sittlichkeit was a lack of necessary (i.e., internally necessitated) externalization. Kant's categorical form
was found unacceptable because, being cast in the form of an
abstract universal and therefore lacking internal necessitation,
it could issue indifferently in goodness or wickedness. Hegel's
remedy for this (moral) form of contingency placing moral
experience in the social and historical context of Ethical Life
(Sittlichkeit) sufficed for a while until it resurfaced as historical relativism in Universal History, and n o w as a result of the

built-in contingency in the structure of action. This most recent

apparent setback should not catch us off guard since, as it has
been repeatedly pointed out beginning with Actuality, the subject-object polarity has loomed unsublated in various ways in
the background. Elevated subjectivity is aimed precisely at this
residue of dualism, to which Hegel is also drawing our attention
as he begins to sketch out the final synthesis in the first paragraph of #234. For, as it has become increasingly obvious since
the beginning of Actuality, the polarity of theory-practice is inextricably linked to that of subject-object and, therefore, dependent for its synthesis on the sublation of the latter. Furthermore, the finality of this synthesis, by contrast to the variety of
past dualisms, sublated in one form only to reappear in another, is emphasized by Hegel who adds that "in point of form" the
contradiction of the Good being "as much not executed as executed" vanishes when the action of the Will taken in its new
trans-individual role as the "Notion self-moving, active, and
form-imposing" behind the "endless progress in the actualizing
of the Good" "abolish(es) subjectivity as a whole, and not
merely the one-sidedness of this form of it." (Italics added in
this instance) And, as if to ensure that the point is not lost to
the reader, Hegel adds the parenthetical reference to #224,
where the issue of the implicit pre-existing unity of the theoretical and practical moments of the Notion had been taken up.
In the Logic the remedy assumes the extremely compact and
almost cryptic form of "this return into itself (which) is at the
same time the content's (i.e., the Will's) own 'recollection' that
it is the Good and the implicit identity of the two sides (i.e., of
the practical and theoretical moments as per #224)." This is a
shorthand w a y of conveying that only (retrospective) selfknowledge, or self-consciousness, can provide a sound basis for
synthesizing: on the one hand, a self-particularizing Will which
does not suffer from loose presuppositions, but is generating
contingency by its very own action of externalization; and, on
the other, a universalizing Cognition which has the tools for
self-completeness, but could not, prior to the Notion, close the
circle of self-containment by tying-up the loose end of "its presupposition and starting-point, which consisted in accepting its
content as given or found." In the terminology of the quoted
passage, the Will, being part of that pre-existing unity "the
implicit identity of the two sides" by virtue of the circularity
of the dialectic is, in effect, being asked to dig up its memory for
"the theoretical attitude of mind (#224) that the objective
world is its own truth and substantiality." Recollecting this
or, in our terminology, unveiling the layers of self-accummulat-

Final synthesis of
the theoretical and
practical moments
accomplished by carrying concreteness to
its logical conclusion.

concreteness in its new trans-individual status, the Will can

turn its contingency-generating into contingency-eliminating
action, by setting what it has recollected as its object. For, by
choosing as its object "the Good (which is also) the implicit
identity of the two sides," the Will removes its o w n defect of
contingency by identifying itself with the "attitude (of Cognition) that the objective world is its (Cognition's, but now also of
the Will) truth and substantiality." Far from particularizing, the
action of the Will in this instance explicitly reaffirms its unity
with Cognition, as its "action supersedes the (individual) subjectivity of the purpose, and along with it the objectivity, with
the contrast which makes both finite "
The synthesis of
the theoretical and
practical moments as
carried out by the
Science of Logic.

The Science of Logic assumes a more leisurely pace to advance

this important final transition of the dialectic. We shall, therefore, take advantage of it in trying to further elucidate the terse
account of the Logic.
The determinateness contained in the Notion and in the likeness of
the Notion, and including within it the demand for an individual
external actuality, is the Good... This Idea is superior to the Idea of
Cognition already considered, for it possesses not only the worth of
the universal but also of the out-and-out actual. It is an urge in so
far as this actuality is still subjective, positing its own self, and not
having at the same time the form of immediate presupposition; its
urge to realize itself is, strictly speaking, not to give itself objectivity
this it posseses within itself but merely this empty form of
immediacy. Hence the activity of the End is not directed against itself in order to adopt and appropriate a given determination; on
the contrary, it is in order to posit its own determination and by
sublating the determinations of the external world to give itself reality in the form of external actuality. The Idea of the Will as explicitly self-determining possesses the content within itself. Now it is
true that this is a determinate content and to that extent something
finite and limited-, self-determination is essentially particularization,
since the reflection of the will into itself as a negative unity in general is also individuality in the sense of the exclusion and presupposition of an Other. Nevertheless, the particularity of the content
is in the first instance infinite through the form of the Notion,
whose own determinateness it is; and in this content the Notion
possesses its negative self-identity, and therefore not merely a particular, but its own infinite individuality. Consequently the abovementioned finitude of the content in the Practical Idea is tantamount to the latter being in the first instance the not yet realized
Idea; the Notion is, for the content, something that is in and for itself;
it is here the Idea in the form of objectivity that is for itself, on the
other hand, the subjective is for this reason no longer something
merely posited, arbitrary or contingent but an absolute; but on the
other hand, this form of concrete existence, being-for-self, has not as yet
the form of the in-itself as well. What thus appears in respect of
form as such, as opposition, appears in the form of the Notion reflected into simple identity, that is, appears in the content as its sim-

pie determinateness; thus the Good, although valid in and for itself, is some particular end, but an end that has not to wait to receive its truth through its realization, but is already on its own account the True.
As the Idea contains within itself the moment of complete determinateness, the other Notion with which the Notion enters into relation
in the Idea, posseses in its subjectivity also the moment of an object;
consequently the Idea enters here into the shape of self-consciousness
and in this one aspect coincides with the exposition of the same.
But what is still lacking in the Practical Idea is the moment of consciousness proper itself; namely, that the moment of actuality in
the Notion should have attained on its own account the determination of external being. Another way of regarding this defect is that
the Practical Idea still lacks the moment of the Theoretical Idea. (Science of Logic, pp. 818-21)
The structural similarity of the version of the Science of Logic to
that of the Logic, and of both to Teleology, is evident. In both, externality between subject and object is surmounted through elevated subjectivity as the locus for their synthesis, though the Science of Logic puts the accent on self-consciousness. Closer to Teleology, the latter version uses the triadic form of syllogism, casting subject and object in the first and second terms of the triad.
Thus, the second term the Means earlier, and the "empty
form of immediacy," or the "reality in the form of external actuality," now represents the externalization of the first, the Subjective End earlier, and the "urge in so far as this actuality (of the
Good) is still subjective" now. The final term stands for subjectivity in its elevated form, as synthesis of the Idea and the Absolute Idea, in the moments of Teleology and the Idea of the
Good, respectively. The syllogistic form used in the Science of Logic (through the surrogate triads of in-and-for-itselfness and concrete universality) has the merit of highlighting the transition
from "practical" qua demand of (Practical) Reason "the worth
of the universal" to "practical" as "the out-and-out actual,"
which explains the "superiority" of the Practical over the Theoretical Idea. The enigmatic (if not Platonic) "recollection" by
which the Logic accounts for the synthesis, is replaced in the Science of Logic by self-consciousness, which can more coherently
discharge the same function. The latter represents no mere subjectivity but a return of subjectivity to itself, i.e., to its newly elevated status, after having encountered the object in the second
m o m e n t . For according to the notional structure, there is
nowhere else to go "the particularity of the content is in first
instance infinite (i.e., self-enclosed or self-contained) through
the form of the Notion, whose own determinateness it is." Or, as
Hegel put it in the last two of the above quoted paragraphs:

Comparison of the
two versions of the
Logic in regard to
the final synthesis of
theory-practice.

As the Idea contains within itself the moment of complete determinateness, the other Notion with which the Notion enters into relation in the Idea, possesses in its subjectivity also the moment of an
object; consequently the Idea enters here into the shape ofself-consciousness...
But what is still lacking in the Practical Idea (which is now being
provided by the return movement of subjectivity entailed by the
notional structure) is the moment of consciousness proper (i.e., of
cognitive consciousness) itself, namely that the moment of actuality
in the Notion should have attained on its own account the determination of external being (or, in the words of the Logic, 'that the objective
world is its own truth and substantiality'.) (italics in addition to
those of the text)
Self-consciousness
ensures that Theoretical Idea's want
for the realization of
the Practical Idea is
not allowed to abort
the synthesis.

Caution against
misunderstanding
and/or misapplication of the final
synthesis of theorypractice.

Once the context of meaning has been defined in terms of

notional self-containment whereby "the Idea contains within itself the m o m e n t of complete determinateness," both terms
which have hitherto remained apart are being reduced to elements of the new concrete universal which "possesses in its subjectivity also the moment of an object or, more compactly, the Idea
has entered "into the shape of self-consciousness." So when the
practical attitude is expressed as realization, or externalization,
of the first into the second term of the triad or syllogism of the
Good the "giv(ing) itself (by the practical term) reality in the
form of external actuality" it is no longer externalization
which would have perpetuated externality, but an elevated sort
of internalization in "the shape of self-consciousness" that is taking
place. But it is precisely such internalization or "possess(ion) in
its subjectivity also (of) the moment of an object" that the theoretical
attitude is also about.
The dialectic of the Idea is tantamount to a full awareness of
our frequently used description of the Notion, that while in
Essence thought merely operates on itself, in the Notion it also
knows that it does so. We are finally reaping the rewards of patience in having progressively matched the polarity of theorypractice against the categories of the dialectic, only to discover
that there was still more "toil of the Notion" ahead before all
traces of externality could be eradicated. But now, to our pleasant surprise, w e have discovered that w e need no longer work
through surrogates because theory and practice themselves have
surfaced explicitly as the last pair in the long sequence of dialectical syntheses. The expectation, and indeed the temptation, to
try to put the result into some practical use is great. But, in view
of what w e have repeatedly said of the dangers inherent in such
an attempt, it should be resisted. We should be especially cautious of trying to put to ilse the culminating outcome of the dialectic, i.e., self-consciousness, for guiding individual efforts of

synthesis. Self-consciousness may automatically come to mind,

especially in the light of the psychoanalytic paradigm, as an enriched kind of reflection which will guide us to a synthesis of action. This would be moving away from the concrete universality
of the trans-individual subject and a relapse into a psychologistic-individualistic stance. Consciousness-raising coupled with
self-originating action comes closer to filling the label for dialectical synthesis of theory and practice, as w e tried to show in the
psychoanalytic paradigm. But this too must be used with extreme caution, in recognition of the severely abstractive conditions under which this paradigm was formulated.
Even at this late stage, it seems no less superfluous to add
that this subsumption of the synthesis under self-consciousness
is no solipsistic exercise, than it does to deny that the trans-individual subject can be represented by a human individual w h o
can think and act at the same time. Suffice it to note that this is
a replay at the highest level of previous syntheses (of theory
and practice in Actuality, and again in Free Mind or Free Action), whereby convergence or build-up of concreteness increased behind the surface, so as to catch us almost by surprise
when the synthesis was fully revealed. Any remaining mist has
also been dispelled, since by now w e know that the element of
surprise is only symptomatic of our ignorance of the pre-exist ing unity i.e., of the familiar concreteness behind the surface of what appear as separate categories. N o w there is left
no trace of externality between categories playing the role of
form in unveiling pre-existing unity, and behind-the-surface
concreteness representing content, since the unity of content
and form has been rendered fully manifest. Or, more plainly, on
reaching the Absolute Idea, w e realize that there is nothing implicit which has not been rendered explicit, and that its form
and content are in full coincidence. From such vantage point of
full transparency all the constituents of surprise have been
eliminated.
The same phenomenological approach of transparency via
unveiling the pre-existing unity of the theoretical and practical
components of the Idea, provides the key for illuminating any
remnants of opaqueness, or that which was left unsaid in the
approach of the Logic. The "recollection" of the Will in the Logic
has been refreshed by the Science of Logic through some of the
quotations pertaining to the concreteness of the (Idea of the)
Good. This concreteness is also the basis for the pre-existing
unity of the Good and the True, and ultimately of the former's
"recollection of the presupposition of the theoretical attitude of
mind." First, there is the quoted statement that the Good "pos-

Recapitulation of the
synthetic achievement of the Absolute
Idea.

The decisive role of

"recollection " of preexisting unity and its
phenomenological
unveiling for the
final synthesis.

sesses not only the worth of the universal but also of the outand-out actual." This is followed a few lines later by the assertion that "its urge to realize itself is, strictly speaking, not to
give itself objectivity this it possesses within itself but
merely this empty form of immediacy." This affirmation of "actuality" and "objectivity" as possessions of the Good may seem
puzzling in view of an earlier statement in the same quotation,
wherein the Good is defined in terms of "the demand for an individual external actuality." The contradiction proves to be only
apparent if w e equate "empty form of immediacy" with "individual external actuality" and both with Existence, in contrast
to the more advanced categories of Actuality and Objectivity
(i.e., Objective Notion) on the dialectical scale. This confirms
the high concreteness of the Idea of the Good as having dialectically incorporated all these grades of reality. But it is also an
indication of the power of its "urge... positing its own self... (in
order) to realize itself" without leaving a trace of externality
"to posit its own determination and by sublating the determinations of the external world to give itself reality in the form of
external actuality."
Second, the restoring of Practical Idea's "recollection" of the
unity of the Good and the True is based on certain ambiguity
about its content. Hegel unveils them with the help of the dialectic of Content-Form and of In-itselfnessFor-itselfness. On
the one hand, there is the "finitude of the content" of the Good,
inasmuch as "this is a determinate content and to that extent
something finite and limited." On the other hand, "the particularity of the content is in the first instance infinite through the
form of the Notion." So that in its "urge" to externalize itself,
the Practical Idea is involved both in universalizing its content
"the subjective is for this reason no longer something merely
posited, arbitrary or contingent but an absolute" while at the
same time particularizing it "but on the other hand, this form
of concrete existence, being-far-self has not as yet the form of the
in-itself as well." Thus, concludes Hegel rather inconspicuously,
"the (Idea of the) Good although valid in and for itself (i.e., explicitly realized in its universality), is (still) some particular end,
but an end that has not to wait to receive its truth through its
realization, but is already on its own account the (Idea of the)
True." There is an obvious correspondence between the version
of Logic, in which the synthesis is effected by the Will choosing
as its object the universal content of "the Good (which is also)
the implicit unity of the two sides," to the above in "what appears in respect of form as such, as opposition, appears in the
form of the Notion ("recollected" by the Practical Idea as being)

reflected into simple identity." There is an equally obvious parallelism between "the final purpose of the world (being) accomplished no less than ever accomplishing itself," in the Logic, and
the "end (of the Good) that has not to wait to receive its truth
through its realization, but is already on its o w n account the
True," in the Science of Logic. This is especially true because the
synthesis of the Absolute Idea (through the Idea of the Good
choosing its own content according to the rules set by the Idea
of the True) points to sensuously concrete illustrations of the
Notion, without falling into the trap suggested by attempts at
so-called "applications" of it.
It follows directly from the above quoted text of the Science of
Logic that the Notion has the capacity, by entering "into the
shape of self-consciousness," to turn finitude into (dialectical) infinity and contingency into self-containment through self-determination. Or, again in Hegel's words, "the particularity of the
content is...infinite through the form of the Notion." Since selfcontainment is a high-grade internality in line with the surrogate triad InternalityExternalityInternality (inclusive of Externality), the result of the Absolute Idea can be restated: The
synthesis was accomplished when the (Idea of the) Good made
its own (i.e., internalized) externality (not merely any externally given end but, according to the prevailing context of meaning, externality itself, or the meaning of externality), thus precluding any further resurfacing of it. This outcome may be recognized as structurally similar to the earlier dialectic of InnerOuter leading to the synthesis of Actuality, with the exception
that, in the first case, the objectivist context of meaning still
prevailed. The same was true then of the individual (in contrast
to the present case of trans-individual) subject, since in the earlier case the subject-object polarity remained unsublated. The
Inner and the Outer synthesizing in Actuality were no less the
dialectical progenitors of the Theoretical and Practical Idea,
than was scientistic theory and practice converging into action
behind the surface in Actuality, before that. As the latter anticipates the Absolute Idea in terms of the coincidence of progressively concrete polar terms, so is it foreshadowing the unity of
the Good and the True in the Absolute Idea in the synthesis of
the Inner (Internality) and the Outer (Externality). It does so
by showing that the individual-psychologistic position, still
holding in the case of Correlation, has to be transcended by a
historicaltrans-individual one if the final synthesis is to take
place. This is not immediately obvious in the formal derivation
of Actuality, but it shows through in some otherwise tantalizing
illustrations from the Zusatz, as w e will see in the following,

Clarification of the
final synthesis by
way of tracing the
predecessors of the
Theoretical and
Practical Idea and
their respective
syntheses.

which are reminiscent of the plight of the cultural historian of

the Stalin era.
Illustrations of the
outcome of the final
synthesis through
history and contemporary affairs.

In passing judgment on men who have accomplished something

great and good, we often make use of the false distinction between
Inner and Outer. All that they have accomplished, we say, is outward merely; inwardly they were acting from some different motive, such as a desire to gratify their vanity or other unworthy passion. This is the spirit of envy. Incapable of any great action of its
own, envy tries hard to depreciate greatness and to bring it down
to its own level...
What is called the 'pragmatic' writing of history has in modern
times frequently sinned in its treatment of great historical characters, and defaced and tarnished the true conception of them by this
fallacious separation of the Outer from the Inner...To make these
pragmatical researches in history easier, it is usual to recommend
the study of psychology, which is supposed to make us acquainted
with the real motives of human actions. The psychology in question however is only that petty knowledge of men, which looks
away from the essential and permanent in human nature to fasten
its glance on the casual and private features shown in isolated instincts and passions.
If the heroes of history had been actuated by subjective and formal
interests alone, they would never have accomplished what they
have. And if we have due regard to the unity between the Inner
and the Outer, we must own that great men willed what they did,
and did what they willed. (Logic, #140 Zusatz)
The dialectic of the True and the Good presents us with a
fully explicit norm which the Inner-Outer is striving to approximate without the benefit of the sublation of the polarity of subject-object. This norm says, in effect, that what the dialectic of
Inner-Outer has accomplished through synthesizing in Actuality, namely that the truth of the Inner plainly the (Idea o f )
Truth or meaning of truth in the Absolute Idea is inseparable
f r o m its manifestation in the Outer, which corresponds to the
Good in the final synthesis of the Logic. Simply stated, it is the
reaffirmation by w a y of p h e n o m e n o l o g i c a l disclosure of the
pre-existing unity of the True and the Good of what w e have
been referring to as the Socratic doctrine about true knowledge
necessarily issuing in virtue. The illustrations are intended to
show that the actions of historical persons are inevitable manifestations of their true nature, especially in instances of high
concreteness such as historical experience. To resurrect Stalin
once more, it is impossible to separate his paranoia as an individual (which is usually cited as the motivation for the many
crimes committed at his orders), from his paranoia as a historical figure which functioned protectively for the n e w l y established Soviet state, in line w i t h M a n d e v i l l e ' s motto "private

vices, public virtues." As indicated in Teleology, the Soviet state

of that era is no exemplification of the realization of the Good
for reasons more advanced, i.e., by virtue of Teleology being dialectically more concrete than either Actuality or Universal History. But, given the context of the last t w o moments, the greatness of Stalin cannot be "defaced and tarnished... by this fallacious separation of the Outer f r o m the Inner." Nor, f o r that
matter, are the statures of Ronald Reagan or J. Edgar Hoover, at
the other end of the political spectrum, to be diminished because they have been frequently targeted by liberals for their
feeble-mindedness and evil-mindedness, respectively.
Though it is evident that the Absolute is no m e r e theory,
model, or blueprint for action to be applied in experience, these
and other illustrations f r o m history and everyday life are admissible as insights for the understanding, and even as guides
for the solution, of practical problems. For example, there is a
wide range of activity beyond education, socialization, and penal reform, which can be better understood w i t h the help of
the Notion, as Hegel's wealth of illustrations suggests. W e shall
return to t h e m in Part IV, and especially Part V, in order to
bring the results of this study to bear on contemporaneity. Let it
suffice for n o w to add that in both education and criminal reform, Hegel deals with illustrations of the dialectic of the Inner
and Outer as he does with similar situations in concrete Spirit:
the disclosure of the pre-existing unity between individual and
the group within such advanced (trans-individual) forms of internality as the Good.
But to call it (i.e., nature) external 'in the gross' is not to imply an
abstract externality for there is no such thing. It means rather
that the Idea which forms the common content of nature and Spirit, is found in nature as Outer only, and for that very reason only
Inner... Those who look upon the essence of nature as mere inwardness, and therefore inaccessible to us, take up the same line as
that ancient creed which regarded God as envious and jealous; a
creed which both Plato and Aristotle pronounced against long ago.
The education and instruction of a child aim at making him actually and for himself what he is at first potentially and therefore for
others, viz. for his grown-up friends. The Reason, which at first exists in the child only as an inner possibility, is actualized through
education... As with the child so it is in this matter with the adult,
when, in opposition to his true destiny, his interest and will remain in the bondage of the natural man. Thus, the criminal sees
the punishment to which he has to submit as an act of violence
from without: whereas in fact the penalty is only the manifestation
of his own criminal will. (Logic, #140 Zusatz)

The centrality of the

concept offreedom in
exemplifications of
the Absolute Idea
in everyday life.

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jo suoijisoddnsaid aijsqoq a q j piBMoj jno SuiqaEai aiB sjuap
-njs m o ' S J I B jBiaqq SuiApnjs ui 'jBqj uiiBp aM "ia J J E U I jaafqns
SB []9M SB suiioj SuqiBAaid aziuijmas o j uBaui aM /sjBnpiAip
-ui aaij I O J juBaui si J I jBqj 10 ,/spuiui i p q j uado oj ,/^uiqj oj
Moq ajdoad qasaj oj papuajui si uoijEanpa S J I B jBiaqq jBqj ajBjs
A p u i j n o i aM u a q M uaqjo qaEa oj jEuiajxa (ajoqM B SB iaqja8
-oj ajq s,auo Suijjnd) pua puB ( S U I A I J B SupjBui) suBarn paiap
-uai AjjBijuassa SBQ qaiqM ainjjna B U I uoijsanpa jBuoissajoid oj
spuodsaiioa ' U I J O J ui uiopaaij,, 10 papuadsns S B aaioqa aaij,,
aaioqa vnb uiopaaij jo a j o i AiEipisqns a q j 'puBq l a q j o a q j
u o uoijBanpa S J I B jBiaqq jo aAipafqo aqj oj spuodsaiioa U O I J
-BzijBai-jjas I O J jxajuoa J B D I S O J aqj SuipiAoid ajnjosqy aqj jo aij
J O iaq8iH) uBipgan-oaN aqi ui paiaj
-aajBip a q j ui 10 ' j p s
-unoaua U O I J E Z I J E J O J J O juauiap a q j uiopaaij jo uoisuauiip
aijsqoq aqx ajoqM B SB iaqja8oj ajq s,auo guijjnd I O J pauiiE A[ia
-doid aiB iajjEj aqj ' S U I A I J E 8 U I > [ E U I spiBMOj pajuaiio aiB lauiioj
aqj SEaiaqM 'jBqj S U I A E S Aq S U E jBiaqij puB saipnjs jEuoissajoid
uaaMjaq aauaiajjip aqj uo ajEioqEp UBD 3 M -uoijEanpa iaq8iq
jo suiioj AiEioduiajuoa oj aauaiajai Aq pajEaijsauiop l a q j m j aq
UED uiopaaij jo sapBiS O M J asaqx uiopaaij ajaiauoa qjiM (aaioqa
jo) uiopaaij jasijsqB puB ' H I M jEiauaS puB jBnpiAipui S u i j p
-uoaai ui uoijBzijBai-jjas SE uiopaaij jo ssaaoid jajjEiBd a q j puiui
o j sSuuq A J I E I U J E U ' U O I J E Z I J E O O S J O ssaaoid a q j aqiapun qaiqM
'snoj ap ajuojoA,, a q j pus ^ajBiauaS ajuojoA,, jsmEassno^ a q j
uaaMjaq 10 ,/jps,, puB jps UBipSan-oaN uaaMjaq aauappuioa
aqx ,/IIIM (jsiiauinsuoa) J B U I U I I I D (lauui) U A V O ( i p q j ) jo uoijBjsaj
- L U B I N aqj Ajuo si (amjEU S U I Z I U O S B Aq pasodun) AjjEuad aqj P B J
ui SEaiaqM '(juauiuoiiAus 3qj j o uoijanijssp a q j 'ABS) pasod
-un AjjBuiajxs SB paMaiA saijiAijaE Suiuuiapuoa saApsuiaqj puij
sjEupiAipui I S U O I J B U J I S uiapoui j o qjjBaM E J O uoijEiojdxa a q j
I O J uiSipBiBd ajqsujEA E saqddns O S J E ApAipadssi 'AjiAipafqris
JBUpiAipUI pUE [ B n p i A i p U I - S U B I J [ [ B 3 S U E I P G 3 H " 0 3 U 3 U I 0 S S B 'jps
iBjnSsi siq puE j p s iaqiq siq i a j n o aqj puB lauui aqj uaaMj
-aq ijuij aqj jnoqB juauqEaauoa-jjas siq ui 'jBuiuiua s j a g a n

uoi}on am Jo oiSoq

ui uotpy/o s/sa^jw/tg

Hegel's criminal, in his self-concealment about the link between the Inner and the Outer his higher Self and his regular
self, as some neo-Hegelians call trans-individual and individual
subjectivity, respectively also supplies a valuable paradigm for
the exploration of a wealth of modern situations: Individuals
find themselves condemning activities viewed as externally imposed (say, the destruction of the environment), "whereas in
fact the penalty (imposed by agonizing nature) is only the manifestation of (their) own (inner) criminal (consumerist) will." The
coincidence between Neo-Hegelian "Self" and "self," or between
the Rousseauist "volonte generale" and the "volonte de tous,"
which underlie the process of socialization, naturally brings to
mind the parallel process of freedom as self-realization in reconciling individual and general will, and abstract freedom (of
choice) with concrete freedom. These two grades of freedom can
be further domesticated by reference to contemporary forms of
higher education. We can elaborate on the difference between
professional studies and liberal arts by saying that, whereas the
former are oriented towards making a living, the latter are properly aimed for putting one's life together as a whole. The holistic
dimension of freedom the element of totalization encountered in the Neo-Hegelian (Higher or Real) Self, or in the dialectic of the Absolute providing the logical context for self-realization corresponds to the objective of liberal arts education. On
the other hand, the subsidiary role of freedom qua choice
"free choice as suspended" or "freedom in form," corresponds
to professional education in a culture which has essentially rendered means (making a living) and end (putting one's life together as a whole) external to each other. When w e routinely
state that liberal arts education is intended to teach people "how
to think," "to open their minds," or that it is meant "for free individuals," w e mean to scrutinize prevailing forms as well as
subject matter. W e claim that, in studying liberal arts, our students are reaching out toward the holistic presuppositions of
genuine freedom, of which the training in how to make a living
exemplifies mere "choice as suspended," which is subsidiary to
the primary goal of freedom. For example, in liberal arts, students learn to exercise their freedom between holistic options,
such as cultural life-styles or forms of life, which include freedom of "choice as suspended" self-realization versus consumption orientation, risk-taking versus security, physicality versus
sedentariness, and so on rather than mere choice, say, between consumer goods (taking consumerism as a form of life for
granted), or b e t w e e n jobs (taking a life style of security for
granted). The demand, not always heeded in a mass culture

dominated by engineering of consent, that liberal arts be put at

the core of the curriculum, is the counterpart of Hegel's familiar
formulation of freedom wherein "the genuinely free will, which
includes (consumerist) free choice as suspended, is conscious to
itself and (of the fact) that its content (the goal of putting one's
own life together as a whole) is intrinsically firm and fast (because it represents its Real or Higher Self), and knows it at the
same time to be thoroughly its own (and not the outcome of external human manipulation)."
The synthesis of Inner and Outer (represented here by the
individual or self, and the general will or Self, respectively)
marked the conclusion of Actuality and the transition f r o m
Essence to the Notion. The structure of freedom was originally
hammered out of the logical needs generated in the process of
overcoming contingency (represented here by the individual),
by way of totalization in the Absolute (represented here by the
whole). The Absolute is the logical outer limit in the process of
self-containment (here self-realization through education),
within which genuine freedom, as the coincidence of the individual will with that of the whole, has been defined. In addition, it was in the context of the dialectic of the Absolute that
the insight about the ultimate identity of the True and the Good
originally emerged. As with the dialectic of Reflection, the Absolute contains, under the cover of logical terms (e.g., positing
and presupposing, immediacy and mediation, externality and
internality), the logical structure of both the Good and the
True. With the benefit of hindsight from the Absolute Idea, w e
now realize that the residue of subjectivity that persisted outside of the Absolute was responsible for branding it less than
genuinely absolute. This forced the transition from Objective to
Subjective Logic (the Notion) and the reconstitution of selfcontainment under the newly elevated subjectivity of the genuine Absolute of the Absolute Idea. The totalizing labor of the
latter proved to be no different than the familiar totalizing effort of the dialectic in the interest of freedom qua self-realization. When, therefore, Hegel passes judgment about the superiority of the Practical over the Theoretical Idea, he does so in the
name of freedom.
In this sense of the Notion qua norm for freedom it functions
as a guide for the presence of freedom as self-realization in public affairs and everyday life. The long-standing fund of illustrations from the confrontation between the liberal and the radical
can serve us again. This time they can be understood, in their
respective contingencies, to correspond to the residual indeterminacies of the Theoretical and the Practical Idea as they are

Elaboration on the
final synthesis by
way of the confrontation between the
protagonists of the
political paradigm.

viewed separately prior to their final synthesis. Thus, the radical's normative position has an "out-and-out actual(ity)," for
the same reason of concreteness through mediation that the
Practical Idea had prior to its attainment of an "empty form of
immediacy." Assuming the same degree of concreteness, his position is superior to that of the liberal for "it possesses not only
the worth of the universal but also of the out-and-out actual.
(His) is an urge in so far as this actuality is still subjective positing its o w n self, and not having at the same time the form of
immediate presupposition (with which the cognitive standpoint
and basis for the position of the liberal has been burdened)."
Through the transcendence of the liberal's presupposition and
the contingency stemming from it his "form of immediate
presupposition" above the radical has also transcended the
former's standpoint, both as a theoretical construction lacking
coherence and as a defective foundation for values due to its
scientistic structure. In other words, the radical, by "positing
(his) own self," has surmounted the liberal's taking the institutional setting for granted and inability to benefit from the insight of his o w n theoretical attitude at its most concrete: "that
the objective world (of the established institutions) is (not real
in its own right, but rather is his) own (i.e., the liberal's) truth
and substantiality."
We are, however, advancing too quickly if w e leave our previous assumption intact, that the concreteness of the position of
the radical is on a par with that of the Practical Idea. This is a
lot to assume but, more decisively, it is impossible for him to
v e r i f y such equivalence short of trying "to mould the world
(he) finds before (him) into a shape comformable to (his) purposed End... (in accordance to his) certitude of the nothingness
of the pre-supposed object." In other words, any attempt on the
radical's part to gauge the concreteness of his action by placing
it on the dialectical scale, would also constitute a tacit admission of an ability to predict the next step, thus countering the
retrodictive context of meaning of the Notion. This gives him
the green light, indeed more than that, it becomes necessary for
the radical to act in order to test the concreteness of his position
without knowledge of future syntheses. This, in turn, raises the
familiar charge of irrationality. Now, with the benefit of the Notion, w e can confirm that this charge is unfounded because the
radical is, in effect, being accused of failing to act in accordance
with the long since transcended conception of scientistic theory
that is totally inappropriate for his kind of action. He is now,
however, also aware of himself as the source of another form of
irrationality which is inherent in his action qua contingency-

generating, but for which he cannot be charged without in the

same breath being asked to abdicate his role as an activist and,
indeed, as an actor. In dialectical terminology, the radical cannot have the full benefit of the insight of "recollection" (in the
words of the Logic) because of the contingency inherent in the
practical attitude which whether in the f o r m of postulation
or action goes contrary to totalization by generating particularization. To review part of the first lengthy quotation from the
Science of Logic:
...it is true that this (i.e., the content of the Idea of Good) is a determinate content and to that extent something finite and limited; selfdetermination (as well as determination) is particularization, since
the reflection of the will into itself as a negative unity in general is
also individuality in the sense of the exclusion and presupposition
of an Other.
It is thus as impossible to think of "recollection," or of a "return," in the w a y that the synthesis was figuratively summed
up in the Logic, as it is to conceive of the radical assuming the
attitude of a retrospective philosopher-historian while the action is going on. Or, in terms of the more explicit Science of Logic,
the action of the Practical Idea is inseparable from contingency
through particularization (radical's inherent "irrationality").
From the standpoint of the final synthesis, this is the defect of
the Practical Idea w h i c h is r e m e d i e d w h e n the G o o d finally
ceases to be itself (i.e., a demand of the Practical Idea, or the action of the radical) and becomes the object of retrospective contemplation in the context of self-consciousness of the Absolute
Idea. Self-consciousness is the locus for uniting a W i l l w h i c h
generates a n e w f o r m of contingency (through particularization) on the w a y to remove, through action, the contingency
inherent in knowledge of Cognition which is bound by presuppositions; and a universalizing Cognition whose knowledge is
burdened by contingency ("finitude" in the quotation that follows), because it cannot will its presupposition.
Thus the truth of the Good is laid down as the unity of the Theoretical and Practical Idea in the doctrine that the Good is radically and
really achieved, that the objective world is in itself and for itself the
Idea, just as it at the same time eternally lays itself down as End,
and by action brings about its actuality. This life which has returned
to itself from the bias and finitude of Cognition, and which by the activity of the Notion has become identical with it, is the Speculative or
Absolute Idea. (Logic, #235; all but the last two emphases added)
Hitherto we have had the Idea in development through its various
grades as our object, but now the Idea comes to be its own object.
This is the noesis noeseos which Aristotle long ago termed the
supreme form of the Idea. (Logic, #236 Zusatz)

Implications of
the synthesis of
the Absolute Idea
for contemplation
and action.

Seeing that there is in it no transition, or pre-supposition, and in

general no specific character other than what is fluid and transparent, the Absolute Idea is for itself the pure form of the Notion,
which contemplates its content as its own self... a self-identity in
which however is contained the totality of the form as the system
of terms (i.e., previous categories in sublated form) describing its
content. (Logic, #237)
It is indeed the prerogative of the philosopher to see that everything, which, taken apart, is narrow and restricted, receives its value by its connection with the whole, and by forming an organic element of the Idea. (Logic, #237 Zusatz)
Or, as poetically encapsulated in the much quoted passage
from the Preface to the Philosophy of Right, p. 13:
It is only when actuality is mature that the ideal first appears over
against the real and that the ideal apprehends this same real world
in its substance and builds it up for itself into the shape of an intellectual realm. When philosophy paints its grey in grey, then has a
shape of life grown old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be
rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its
wings only with the falling of the dusk.
Implications of the
final synthesis for
radical action.

Although this result has been anticipated in more than one

w a y by Actuality and by the corresponding moments of Spirit, it
is not altogether free f r o m the element of surprise associated
with the build-up of concreteness behind the surface. This is especially so in v i e w of our m o d e r n preconceptions about the
compartmentalization of the Good and the True, and the premium w e set in individual effort for the accomplishment of the former. Hegel, by contrast, provides us with a dialectical updating
of a p r e - m o d e r n v i e w , o f t e n referred to here as the Socratic
teaching about virtue, according to which true knowledge naturally issues in goodness. Whereas scientistic modernity labors
under "the bias and finitude of Cognition...(whereby in the light
of contingency generated by a host of presuppositions) everything, which, taken apart is narrow and restricted," dialectical
philosophy "receives its value by its connection with the whole."
The surprise is in no small measure due to what seems like the
undermining of the superiority of the Practical Idea, and, by extension, of the radical's quest, by granting the final word to the
contemplative outlook of dialectical philosophy.
Yet, one could only rush to such an erroneous conclusion if
he has not closely f o l l o w e d what preceded the final synthesis.
Like other major dialectical transitions, the Absolute Idea signifies a shift in the universe of discourse, in this case from a timebound normative context of meaning dominated by action in
the pursuit of the Good, to one dominated by retrospective philosophy. The Absolute Idea cannot be a prescription for moral
or political complacency or, for that matter, for activism if

for no other reason than, having transcended that context, it is

no prescription to begin with. It was precisely because the
mode of prescribing that of positing and of the "ought"
involved contingency through particularization, that the Practical Idea was found wanting, thus propelling itself to the Absolute Idea. But this does not mean that the activities associated
with the transcended moment cease within its context, nor that
its value has been annulled. The transition from the Practical to
the Absolute Idea no more implies that the radical should turn
into a dialectical philosopher, than the transition from Being to
early Essence, and from there to Actuality suggested earlier that
the mathematician should turn into a physicist, and the latter
in turn into a social scientist. Nor does command of the dialectic secure more efficiency in one's station in life, since the increasing awareness of what has h e r e t o f o r e been taken f o r
granted, can prove, on the whole, detrimental to one's routine
activity. But it does increase awareness about presuppositions,
and as theory-practice turns into action and awareness becomes
self-awareness, the dialectic enhances self-consciousness in the
comprehensive sense understood here. Thus, the radical may
find himself more conscious'about the concreteness of his
"ought" and, therefore, more confident about the moral and
historical grounds of his cause. But this will never eliminate the
uncertainty of his position, not merely because of the practical
difficulties attending such ventures, but because of the deeper
logical contingency associated with what "is essentially particularization" of action. In other words, he is acting not only without the knowledge that he will succeed, but with the awareness
that true knowledge in this area of the concrete (which comes
only after the fact) is unattainable at the level of the Practical
Idea. Yet, rather than restrain him in his "urge...oi positing (his)
own self," the lack of such knowledge may in fact encourage
him, inasmuch as the true knowledge of the Absolute Idea presupposes his activity of "giv(ing his visions) reality in the form
of external actuality." For, his activity is, so to speak, the last
loose end waiting to be tied to close the circle of determinacy.
Far from discouraging it, the Absolute Idea welcomes the dents
which the radical is making on what "is," for they are the very
objects it is reflecting upon through the mind of the dialectical
philosopher.
The synthesis of the Absolute Idea can also be illustrated by
contrasting Hegel's position to that of thinkers with w h o m he
has affinities, or to w h o m he is indebted. W e have already referred to Plato's idea of the Good, and Socrates' more secular approach, that truth, if pursued to its logical conclusion, leads to

Illumination of
the Absolute Idea
through the competing philosophies
of Plato, Aristotle,
and Kant.

goodness. N o w with his reference to noesis noeseos, Hegel acknowledges his debt to Aristotle for placing self-consciousness at
the pinnacle of the Absolute Idea. But it is Kant to whom he is
most indebted, especially for serving as a foil in Subjective Logic,
which Hegel considered his own unique contribution to philosophy. Kant, like the rest of these thinkers, shared his preoccupation with the concept of totalization. But as Plato knew, and
Kant demonstrated with rigor, this concept is not something that
can be arrived at empirically. It is, rather, a demand of reason
(Idea of Reason in Kant's terminology) in order to establish coherence and avoid contradictions (Antinomies of Reason) resulting from the pursuit of such demands with scientistic tools that
do not measure up to the task. Hegel's dissatisfaction with Kant,
to the extent that it bears on our project, was that in establishing
the claims of Reason vis-a-vis those of the Understanding, he did
not fully secure the superiority of the former over the latter, but
left them side by side, with the consequence that theoretical and
practical reason continued to occupy separate domains. Kant,
Hegel would argue, had lost the original insight of Plato about
the unity of Reason, by pursuing its critique undialectically with
what had been essentially the method of the Understanding.
Kant, on the other hand, would have recognized in Hegel's dialectic some of his own Transcendental Dialectic of the Critique of
Pure Reason, especially his Antinomies generalized in Hegel's Logic as a categorial apparatus with a constructive intent. But he
would have, nevertheless, dissociated himself from such uses of
the dialectic as the technique of mediation, entailing progressive
logical concreteness which involved a "mix" of the a priori and
the empirical. Kant would have deplored the inevitable transition from logical to sensuous concreteness (Spirit), as well as the
illustrative Zusatze and our effort to generate historically concrete counterparts of categories, as "empirical admixtures"
which interfere with the exposition of the principles of "pure"
theoretical and practical reason.
Consequently, what is for Hegel the action of the good will
"posit(ing) its own determination and by sublating the determinations of the external world g i v ( i n g ) itself reality in the
form of external actuality" remains for Kant at the mental
level, short of externalization a mere "posit(ing o f ) its own
determination" lest the purity of its abstract universality be
tainted by "empirical admixture." But if it is to qualify as practical reason, Hegel's (Idea o f ) Good (or Kant's "good will") cannot but be externalized, i.e., get hold of "a determinate content
and to that extent (become) something finite and limited," before it is found wanting in universality and forced to pass on to

the highest form of concrete universality, the Absolute Idea.

Action which results in externalization was relegated by Kant
to the application of "pure principles," which is, of course, tantamount to a relapse to Essence, and scientistic theory-practice,
in particular. His Tugendlehre (Discourse on Ethics), and especially the Rechtslehre (Philosophy of Law), have the same aversion for sensuous content though they were offered as applications of the principles of pure practical reason developed in the
Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical
Reason. Not unexpectedly, his essay On the Maxim: That May Be
True in Theory but Does not Apply in Practice, explicitly devoted to
the relationship between theory and practice, as exemplified in
the highly concrete domain of morals and politics, does not go
beyond scientistic theory-practice. For Hegel, on the other
hand, the so-called defect of sensuous admixture the "finitude of the content of the Practical Idea (which) is tantamount
of the latter being in the first instance the not yet realized Idea"
is what propels the Idea to its absolute moment. Contradiction is built-in up to the final moment wherein the last traces of
empirical admixture, or externality, are sublated along with
their props, the conceptions of space and time what Kant
called the "pure forms of perception," and Hegel, the "self-ex ternality (of the Idea) in its complete abstraction Space and
Time." (Hegel's Philosophy of Nature, trans. A.V. Miller, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1970, #253; subsequently referred to
as Philosophy of Nature)

IV. Misapplications of the

Dialectic of Action

The only mere physicists are the animals: they alone do not think: while
man is a thinking being and a born
metaphysician.
Logic

- E N o j U O I J I S U E I J a q j I O J p j o q j o o j U I I I J E ApaiEas 'ji jo aasj a q j

uo 'puE asuas uouiraoa I O J ssauajaiauoa ajEununsuoa jo Ajijua
ajqEziuSoaai ou puE uoisnpuoa aijsijEai ou si s i q j 'pajusiQ
'jps U M O sji SE juajuoa SJI sajEiduiajuoa
qaiqM 'uoijojst a q j jo U I I O J amd aqj "pafqo UMO S J I aq oj jpsji
puuoj Eapi ajrqosqy aqj 'jjaj uoijisoddns-aid ou puE U O I J I S U E I J
ou qjiM niun 'juajuoa oj U I I O J U I O I J pue ' i a J J E U I jaafqns j p q d
-xa o j suoijisoddnsaid j p E j U I O I J xuaqj Suiumj Aq 'Ajqsuiajxa
jo doid io juauiap aijsqBai E pa8e8ua psq juauioui Suipaaaid
AiaAa qaiqM Aq ssaaoid AqjSuaj aqj AjauiEu ' U O I J O N aqj jo J I O J
aqj q g n o i q j paAaiqas uaaq SEq jjnsai siqx Ajimd ajnjosqE jo
apis laqjo aqj si Eapi ajnjosqy aqj ui ssauajaiauoa ajEununsuoa
'ssauajaiauoa jo mnijaads a q j jo pua ajisoddo a q j uo SuiqjoN
puE S u p g uaaMjaq sSuiuEaui paxij AqEnjnui jo asEa aqj ui sy
(aauEjsui siqj ui pappE saijEji) m}u3uvdsuvu} puv pinjJ si ivifM uvqi
U3i{)0 jspvuvyy oijpsds ou jEiauaS ui puE 'uoijisoddns-aid ou io
' U O I J I S U E I J ou jo ajEjs aqj ui papasiadns uaaq psq (AjijEuiajxa
qjiM pajEpossE auiij puE aaEds jo aAisnpui) j[oojjno jBujdaaiad
-asuas aijsijEai a q j jo sdoid aqj JJB pjun ajajduioa aq jou pjnoa
aupisai J S E J aqj oj uMop AjijBuiajxa SuiuioaiaAO I O J ajS^uus aqj
'spiOM iaqjo ui "aSEjs ajEununsuoa sji J E uoijESau ajsuiuiiajap
jo ajdpuiid a q j saijqduiaxa O S J E Eapi ajrqosqy aqj 'uiiou-iadus
a q j SE ' j s q j jaEj a q j SupfoojiaAo aq pjnoM siqj 'laAaMOH eapi
ajnjosqy aqj ' S U I I O J J J B J O U I I O J aqj jo uoijduasap siqj J I J qaiqM
S U I I O J aind jnoqB si atSoj jBaijaajBip j B q j (oiBoq Jo dousps a q j
jo uoijaupoijui a q j ui S U I I O J J E D I S O J J O Ajimd a q j oj saauaiajai
I B J I U I I S q S n o i q j jioddns oj ajqissod O S J B ) uoissaiduii a q j 3 A I 8
A B U I siqj 'jaadsouai ui ,/uoijojsr aqj jo U I I O J aind aqj "juaiBd
- S U E I J pus pmjj si J B Q M uEqj i a q j o lajaBiBqa aijpads ou qjiM
j p s j i spuij Bapi ajrqosqy aqx uoijaBijsqB jo uoijEuiuinsuoa
a q j ' - a i 'ajisoddo jaExa sji u s q j ssaj ou puE aioui ou Ajqisuajso
si 'Bapi ajrqosqy aqj ui SuijBuiuqna 'aaBjms aqj puiqaq dn 8ui
etpadopAaug sqj
-pjmq uaaq psq qaiqM ssauajaiauoa aqx U O I J I S U E I J aqj jo aauEj
Jo pvufuadns atj} Jo -loduii a q j Suijjijaq auo 8iq E auiij siqj asiidms E I O J U I AIB
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A. Transition from Logic to Nature

The consummation of the logical concreteness of the Notion
The result of the Abin the Absolute Idea has set the stage for the transition to the solute Idea as viewed
middle moment of the Encyclopedia, Nature. As in past cases w e from the standpoint
are in for a surprise this time a big one befitting the impor- of the supertriad of
tance of the transition. The concreteness which had been buildthe Encyclopedia.
ing up behind the surface, culminating in the Absolute Idea, is
ostensibly no more and no less than its exact opposite, i.e., the
consummation of abstraction. The Absolute Idea finds itself
with "no specific character other than what is fluid and transparent... the pure form of the Notion." In retrospect, this may
give the impression (also possible to support through similar
references to the purity of logical forms in the Introduction of
the Science of Logic) that dialectical logic is about pure forms
which fit this description of the form of all forms, the Absolute
Idea. However, this would be overlooking the fact that, as the
super-norm, the Absolute Idea also exemplifies the principle of
determinate negation at its consummate stage. In other words,
the struggle for overcoming externality down to the last residue
could not be complete until all the props of the realistic senseperceptual outlook (inclusive of space and time associated with
externality) had been superseded in the state of "no transition,
or no pre-supposition, and in general no specific character other
than what is fluid and transparent." (italics added in this instance)
As in the case of mutually fixed meanings between Being and
Nothing on the opposite end of the spectrum of concreteness,
consummate concreteness in the Absolute Idea is the other side
of absolute purity. This result has been achieved through "the
toil of the Notion," namely the lengthy process by which every
preceding moment had engaged a realistic element or prop of
externality, by turning them from tacit presuppositions to explicit subject matter, and from form to content, until "with no
transition and no pre-supposition" left, the Absolute Idea found
itself "to be its own object... the pure form of the Notion, which
contemplates its content as its own self."
Granted, this is no realistic conclusion and no recognizable
entity of consummate concreteness for common sense and, on
the face of it, scarcely a firm foothold for the transition to Na-

Logic as the first moment on the circular

path of the Encyclopedia as both
immediacy and
re-immediation.

The peculiarity of
the transition from
Logic to Nature explained by the selfcompleteness of the
Absolute Idea.

ture. But again, a realistic (in the commonsensical or scientistic

sense of term) outcome can hardly be expected at this stage, given the aims and method of the dialectic. If reality is to encompass not merely what is experienced under realistic modes, but
their presuppositions as well, this conclusion of the Logic is profoundly real. In its dialectical pursuit philosophy has to go beyond sensuously concrete experience, but only as a preparation
to return better equipped and ready to deal w i t h it self-consciously. This going-forward-and-returning is encapsulated in
the surrogate triads (Abstract) UniversalityParticularityIndividuality (Concrete Universality) and ImmediacyMediation
Re-immediation. It is in turn reflected, in conjunction with the
principle of circularity, in the triadic structure of the Encyclopedia
as LogicNatureSpirit. On the dialectical path, it does not
take one long to realize that neither abstraction nor immediacy
ever come in pure form, but always in relation to the next most
concrete or mediated term. Thus, the first super-moment of the
Encyclopedia, Logic, is neither sheer abstract universality nor
mere immediacy but re-immediation, as our discussion of circularity using Being as an example in Part III has demonstrated.
Logic precedes Nature and Spirit in the sequential arrangement
of the Encyclopedia. But, as w e are well aware, having been on
the circular path for the w h o l e stretch of the dialectic, this is a
logical, rather than a temporal, priority. This much Hegel also
confirms w h e n he tells us that there is "no (more) transition" to
be made beyond the Absolute Idea or, as he puts it more explicitly in the conclusion of the Science of Logic.
But this determination (of the Idea to unite with Nature) has not
issued from the process of becoming, nor is it a transition, as when
above, the Subjective Notion in its totality becomes Objectivity (i.e.,
Objective Notion), and the Subjective End becomes Life (at the opening of the Idea)... The passage is therefore to be understood here
rather in this manner, that the Idea freely releases itself in its absolute self-assurance and inner poise. By reason of this freedom,
the form of its determinateness is also utterly free the externality
of space and time existing absolutely on its own account without the
moment of subjectivity. (Science of Logic, p. 843)
Thus Idea, b e i n g in a state of "self-assurance and inner
poise," upon reaching self-completeness in its absolute moment,
relinquishes the role of playing by the rules of space and time to
Nature "freely releases itself (i.e., the part of itself representing
externality, or Nature qua Idea's "self-externality"). The net result of this highly anthropomorphic transition to Nature is that
the latter does not come as raw nature but as pre-mediated categ o r y "Nature," in the w a y w e shall be encountering it at the
opening of the Philosophy of Nature. Spirit will again be pulling

out its phenomenological tool-box to unveil the categorial structure implicit in what we, in our self-concealment, have all along
been perceiving as raw nature.
The f o l l o w i n g excerpt illustrates Spirit's unveiling project
with special reference to the central categories of Nature, space
and time, f o l l o w i n g the transformation of nature into Nature
(qua "self-externality"). Armed with the categorial apparatus of
the just concluded Logic, Spirit can no longer v i e w space and
time as the roots of externality but instead as the product of
self-externality of the Idea. Stated in terms of our contrast between object-language and meaning-language, an expansion of
the context of meaning has taken place involving a shift f r o m
"natural" to "spiritual" objects in what follows:
The question of the eternity of the world (this is confused with Nature, since it is a collection of both spiritual and natural objects)
has, in the first place, the meaning of the conception of time, of an
eternity as it is called, of an infinitely long time, so that the world
had no beginning in time; secondly, the question implies that Nature is conceived as uncreated, eternal, as existing independently
of God. As regards the second meaning, it is completely set aside
and eliminated by the distinctive character of Nature to be the Idea
in its otherness. As regards the first meaning, after removing the
sense of the absoluteness of the world, we are left only with eternity in connection with the conception of time.
About this, the following is to be said: (a) eternity is not before or
after time, not before the creation of the world, nor when it perishes; rather is eternity the absolute present, the Now, without before and after. The world is created, is now being created, and has
eternally been created; this presents itself in the form of the preservation of the world. Creating is the activity of the Absolute Idea;
the Idea of Nature, like the Idea as such, is eternal, (b) In the question whether the world or Nature, in its finitude, has a beginning
in time or not, one thinks of the world or Nature as such , i.e., as
the universal; and the true universal is the Idea, which we have already said is eternal. The finite, however, is temporal, it has a before and an after; and when the finite is our object we are in
time... Having rid oneself of the conception of the absolute beginning of time, one assumes the opposite conception of an infinite
time; but infinite time, when it is still conceived as time, not as
sublated time, is also to be distinguished from eternity. It is not this
time but another time, and again another time, and so on (#258),
if thought cannot resolve the finite into the eternal... In our ordinary way of thinking, the world is only an aggregate of finite existences, but when it is grasped as a universal, as a totality, the question of a beginning at once disappears... We pass beyond it, but not
to infinity, but only to another beginning which, of course, is also
only a conditioned one; in short, it is only the nature of the relative which is expressed, because we are in the sphere of finitude.
This is the metaphysics which passes hither and thither from one
abstract determination to another, taking them for absolute. A

Nature qua self-externality of the Absolute Idea reconciles

the findings of science
with those of dialectical philosophy.

plain, positive answer cannot be given to the question whether the

world has, or has not, a beginning in time. A plain answer is supposed to state that either the one or the other is true. But the plain answer is, rather, that the question itself, this 'either-or,' is badly posed. If
we are talking of the finite, then we have both a beginning and a
non-beginning; these opposed determinations in their unresolved
and unreconciled conflict with each other, belong to the finite: and
so the finite, because it is this contradiction, perishes. (Philosophy of
Nature, #247 Zusatz, parentheses in the text but emphases added)
Nature is the first in point of time, but the absolute prius is the
Idea; this absolute prius is the last, the true beginning, Alpha is
Omega. (Philosophy of Nature, #248 Zusatz)
Implications of the
dialectical sublation
of nature for the scientific conceptions of
space and time.

The relinquishing of the epistemological realist props generated by the Absolute Idea has been accomplished thanks to
the p o w e r of sublation without the loss of either the use of
the categories of space and time for purposes of conducting science, or the Idea's painstakingly attained notional integrity in
anticipation of the task ahead in Nature. The changing relationship between temporal and logical priority in line with the triadic rhythm of the Encyclopedia as a whole has been anticipated
by #381, already quoted at the opening of the Section on Spirit.
"From our point of v i e w Spirit has for its (temporal) presupposition Nature, of which (being also the logical presupposition) it is
the truth, and for that reason its absolute prius." This is apparent
here as follows: First, the sublation of temporal into logical priority as represented by the Absolute Idea. Second, the reassertion by the former of its independence vis-a-vis the latter as reflected in the self-externalization of the Idea qua Nature. And,
third, their reunion in the final moment of Spirit according to
the last quotation. In other words, the sequential arrangement
of the Encyclopedia reflects the fact that nature precedes culture
temporally, but the interpretation, and indeed the mere perception of culture, logically presupposes a categorial apparatus
evolved by culture over the ages. What complicates this simple
presentation is that among those culturally constructed categories are also those (such as time and space), implicit in textual arrangement and the art of discursive exposition. This difficulty, with which w e tried to deal in Part H and occasionally bet w e e n n o w and then, is behind much of Hegel's tendency to
f l e e into non-discursive modes such as the above of "the
Idea freely releas(ing) itself in its absolute self-assurance and inner poise" at some of the most critical turns of his argument.
Far from contradictory, the coincidence of these two priorities
underlying the transition from Logic to Nature, is dialectically legitimate and complementary through the incorporation of the
logical apparatus of time-bound Nature (now representing Idea's

self-externality) into the timeless self-completeness of the Absolute Idea. This can perhaps be further illustrated by reference
to Teleology with which the Idea shares the same preoccupations with respect to time. Within Teleology can be found both
the commonsensical (linear or realistic) temporal structure of finite design providing the support for the Good "eternally accomplishing itself in the world"; and the divine (atemporal) side
of infinite design providing the ground for the Good being "already by implication, as well as in full actuality, accomplished."
(italics added in this instance) Similarly, within the context of
the Absolute Idea, the time-bound aspect of the Practical Idea,
providing the ground for action, is being transcended by the
timelessness associated with the Absolute Idea, as it is being realized that it is impossible to overcome the contingency of action
without also transcending its props: Absolute Idea's "self-externality in its complete abstraction Space and Time."

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B. Nature as a Field of Misinterpretation

of the Dialectic
The Logic concludes with the final synthesis of theory and
practice, as does the reconstructive segment of our effort. W e
are about to enter a critical phase which, as the title of Part IV
indicates, is aimed at certain misinterpretations of the Hegelian
synthesis and, by implication, of the dialectic in general. Our
focus will be Marx's claim of having discovered the logic of radical action in his synthesis of theory and practice in praxis. Not
that his is the only, or even the grossest misinterpretation of
Hegel's dialectic, but it is directly opposed to our claim about
the impeccable radical credentials of the Hegelian dialectic of
action. Moreover, among the many misinterpretations and misapplications of the dialectic, Marx's had the gravest consequences, the full measure of which w e only now begin to realize. Its impact goes beyond the more apparent socio-political
level and deeper into the cultural texture, reinforcing its prevailing trends of efficient management, consumerism, and
abuse of both humanity and nature.
For, appearances and Marx's humanistic proclamations
notwithstanding, Marxism is essentially at home with the scientistic spirit of our age. The detail of the claims and counterclaims on this level belongs to the next Chapter, but Hegel's anticipation of such misreading can be found appropriately and
conveniently in his Philosophy of Nature, which w e shall n o w
briefly address.
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the seemingly
flippant transition of the Absolute Idea to Nature, and the ease
with which it can be misinterpreted or overlooked altogether.
This is especially true in view of Marx's preoccupation with the
materialist philosophy of nature, as opposed to Hegel's idealism.
The latter, it is recalled, insisted at the conclusion of the Science
of Logic that "this determination (of the Idea to unite with Nature) has not issued from the process of becoming, nor is it a (dialectical) transition," but it is rather to be understood in this manner, "that the Idea freely releases itself in its absolute self-assurance and inner poise." The domestication, or naturalization, of
the Absolute Idea to be found in the Philosophy of Nature, is al-

Misapplications of
dialectical philosophy in society anticipated by misinterpretations of the
dialectic of Nature.

Possible misinterpretations of the

transition from
Logic to Nature.

ready in process in the c o n c l u d i n g paragraph of the Logic,

clothed in dialectical terminology.
The Idea which is independent or for itself, when viewed on the
point of this its unity with itself, is Perception or Intuition, and the
percipient Idea is Nature. But as intuition the Idea is, through an
external 'reflection,' invested with the one-sided characteristic of
immediacy, or of negation. Enjoying however an absolute liberty,
the Idea does not merely pass over into life, or as finite Cognition
allow life to show in it: in its own absolute truth it resolves to let
the 'moment' of its particularity, or of the first characterization and
other-being, the immediate Idea, as its reflected image, go forth
freely as Nature.
We have now returned to the notion of the Idea with which we
began. This return to the beginning is also an advance. We began
with Being, abstract Being: where we now are we also have the
Idea as Being: but this Idea which has Being is Nature. (Logic, #244
and Zusatz)
This is a safe point of departure for a humanistic approach to
nature for a "humanization of nature" or "naturalization of
humanity," as M a r x mistakenly thought of his o w n doctrine.
The Idea is going to use the humanistic categories that evolved
out of its o w n protracted encounter with scientism in the Logic.
But in order to do this by an immanent route, it must first approach nature on its o w n terms, that is, "to return to the beginning (i.e., the mathematical and physical categories of the Logic,
w h i c h ) is also an advance," because this beginning will n o w
have to be scrutinized in the light of the experience between
n o w and then. In line w i t h this, "Perception or Intuition" is
n o w placed alongside "the externality of space and time." These
props of the realistic v i e w of the world are back on the scene,
this time within the context of meaning of self-consciousness.
As it turns out, the Idea had let "go forth as Nature" in "its absolute liberty," what was part of it in the first place "the 'mom e n t ' of its particularity, or of the first characterization and
other-being, the immediate Idea, as its reflected image."
Implications of the
misunderstanding of
the transition from
Logic to Nature.

The Philosophy of Nature takes one step further in domesticating this often confounding transition, making it easier to understand its important implications regarding the misapplication of
the dialectic.
The Philosophy of Nature may perhaps be regarded prima faciae as a
new science; this is certainly correct in one sense, but in another
sense it is not. For it is ancient, as ancient as any study of Nature at
all; it is not distinct from the latter and it is, in fact, older than
physics; Aristotelian physics, for example, is far more a Philosophy
of Nature than it is physics. It is only in modern times that the two
have been separated...Physics and natural history are called empirical sciences par excellence, and they profess to belong entirely to the
sphere of perception and experience, and in this way to be opposed

to the Philosophy of Nature, i.e., to a knowledge of Nature from

(philosophical or metaphysical) thought. The fact is, however, that
the principal charge to be brought against physics is that it contains
much more (philosophical) thought (implicitly) than it admits and
is aware of, and that it is better than it supposes itself to be; or if,
perhaps, all (philosophical) thought in physics is to be counted a defect, then it is worse than it supposes itself to be. Physics and the
Philosophy of Nature, therefore, are not distinguished from each
other as perception and thought, but only by the kind and manner of
their thought; they are both a thinking (though of differing grades)
apprehension of Nature. (Philosophy of Nature, pp. 2-3)
And on a more personal level:
'Physics, beware of metaphysics,' was his (Newton's) maxim,
which signifies, science, beware of (philosophical) thought; and all
the physical sciences, even to the present day, have, following in
his wake, faithfully observed this precept, inasmuch as they have
not entered upon an investigation of their conceptions, or thought
about thoughts. Physics can, however, effect nothing without
(metaphysical) thought; it has its categories and laws through
thought alone, and without thought it does not effect any
progress... In this way, Newton is so complete a barbarian as regards his conceptions that his case is like that of another of his
countrymen (Boswell) who was surprised and rejoiced to learn
that he had talked prose all his life, not having had any idea that
he was so accomplished. This Newton, like all the physicists, indeed, never learned; he did not know that he thought in, and had
to deal with Notions, while he imagined he was dealing with physical facts. (Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy, trans. Haldane
and Simson, New York: The Humanities Press, 1955, vol. Ill, pp.
323-4)
This disclosure of the self-concealment of scientism, regarding its presuppositions in the aftermath of the transition f r o m
the Idea to Nature, serves as a clear warning for anyone taking
the Idea as thought and looking elsewhere for the reality o n
which to apply it. Even as legitimate a question as, "What is the
relation between reality and the Idea?" has to be carefully unloaded of its dualistic connotation if it is not going to lead us
back to scientistic theory-practice long since transcended. On
this point of abusing the Absolute Idea or, in modern terminology, of confusing issues of empirical fact with those of meaning
"thought about t h o u g h t s " H e g e l sounded a p r o p h e t i c
warning not only against the blunders of his students, but also
in anticipation of more recent developments in the controversy
between analytical and positivist interpretations of action. To
continue, Hegel poses the basic question:
What is Nature? We propose to answer this general question by
reference to the knowledge of Nature (i.e., physics) and the Philosophy of Nature... This inquiry after the being of something has a
number of meanings, and can often refer simply to its name, as in

Difficulties for
theory-practice due
to the misunderstanding of the
transition from
Logic to Nature.

Distinction between
scientific knowledge
of nature and philosophy of nature.

the question: What kind of a plant is this? or it can refer to perception if the name is given; if I do not know what a compass is, I get
someone to show me the instrument, and I say, now I know what
a compass is. 'Is' can also refer to status, as for example when I ask:
What is this man? But this is not what we mean when we ask:
What is Nature? It is the meaning to be attached to this question
that we propose to examine here, remembering that we want to
acquire a knowledge of the Philosophy of Nature.
We could straightway resort to the philosophical Idea and say that
the Philosophy of Nature ought to give us the Idea of Nature. But
to begin thus might be confusing. For we must grasp the Idea itself
as concrete and thus apprehend its various specifications and then
bring them together. In order therefore to possess the Idea, we
must traverse a series of specifications through which it is first
there for us. If we now take these up in forms which are familiar to
us, and say that we want to approach Nature as (philosophical)
thinkers, there are, in the first place, other ways of approaching
Nature which I will mention, not for the sake of completeness, but because we shall find in them the elements or moments which are
requisite for a knowledge of the Idea and which individually reach
our consciousness earlier in other (i.e., more commonsensical)
ways of considering Nature. In so doing we shall come to the point
where the characteristic feature of our inquiry (in highlighting the
philosophical presuppositions of Nature) becomes prominent. Our
approach to Nature (from the more commensensical standpoint) is
partly practical and partly theoretical. An examination of the theoretical approach will reveal a contradiction which, thirdly, will lead
us to our (speculative or dialectical) standpoint; to resolve the contradiction (between the theoretical and practical approaches) we
must incorporate what is peculiar to the practical approach, and by
this means practical and theoretical will be united and integrated
into a totality. (Philosophy of Nature, pp. 3-4; emphases added in the
third and fourth instances)
The project lying ahead for Hegel in his Philosophy of Nature
is to enter the realm of nature as a (metaphysical or philosophical) "thinker," rather than merely as a physical scientist. This he
can n o w do thanks to the insight gained about meaning from
the realm of the Idea and the synthesis of theory and practice
in particular. As the analysis of the question, "What is Nature?"
suggests, such insight is of n o use in f u r t h e r i n g theoretical
knowledge, such as expanding the domain of empirically established propositions in a disciplinary corpus. Nor is it of any help
in solving practical questions in the field of scientific application. There is no sense in pursuing either of these courses independently "for the sake of completion," since the Absolute Idea
has, in its self-completeness, superseded any advance along
these lines by either theoretical and practical endeavor, proceeding in separation from each other.

The Philosophy of Nature takes up the material which physics has

prepared for it empirically, at the point to which physics has
brought it, and reconstitutes it, so that experience is not its final
warrant and base. Physics must therefore work into the hands of
philosophy, in order that the latter may translate into the Notion
the abstract universal transmitted to it, by showing how this universal, as an intrinsically necessary whole, proceeds from the Notion. The philosophical way of putting the facts is no mere whim,
once in a way to walk on one's head for a change, after having
walked for a long while on one's legs, or once in a way to see our
everyday face bedaubed with paint: no, it is because the method of
physics does not satisfy the Notion, that we have to go further.
What distinguishes the Philosophy of Nature from physics is, more
precisely, the kind of metaphysics used by them both; for metaphysics is nothing else but the entire range of the universal determinations of thought, as it were, the diamond net into which
everything is brought and thereby made intelligible... All revolutions, in the sciences no less than in world history, originate solely
from the fact that Spirit, in order to understand and comprehend
itself with a view to possessing itself, has changed its categories,
comprehending itself more truly, more deeply, more intimately,
and more in unity with itself. (Philosophy of Nature, #246 Zusatz)

C. Marx's Misunderstanding of the

Dialectic of Action

i. Marx's Critique of the Absolute Idea

It is precisely on this supreme dialectical effort of the A b solute Idea that Marx chose to concentrate his often scornful
criticism of Hegel in the "Critique of the Hegelian Dialectic
and Philosophy as a W h o l e " , in the Economic and Philosophical
Manuscripts of 1844. A f t e r c o m m e n t i n g o n selected passages
from the concluding chapter of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit,
which deals w i t h Absolute K n o w l e d g e in terms of self-consciousness paralleling and complementing that of the Absolute
Idea of the Logic, Marx turns his attention to the final category
of the latter work.
The Absolute Idea, the abstract Idea, which 'when viewed on the
point of this its unity with itself, is Perception or Intuition,' and
which 'in its own absolute truth it resolves to let the "moment" of
its particularity, or of the first characterization and other-being,
the immediate Idea, as its reflected image, go forth freely as Nature' (Logic, #244) this whole Idea which behaves in such a
strange and singular way, and which has given the Hegelians such
terrible headaches, is from beginning to end nothing else but abstraction (i.e., the abstract thinker) abstraction which, made
wise by experience and enlightened concerning its truth, resolves
under various (false and themselves still abstract) conditions to
abandon itself and to replace its self-absorption, nothingness, generality and indeterminateness by its other-being, the particular,
and the determinate; resolves to let nature, which is held hidden
in itself only as an abstraction, as a thought-entity, go freely forth
from itself: that is to say, abstraction resolves to forsake abstraction
and to have a look at nature free of abstraction. The abstract Idea,
which without mediation becomes intuiting, is nothing else
through-and-through but abstract thinking that gives itself up and
resolves on intuition. This entire transition from Logic to Natural
Philosophy is nothing else but the transition so difficult to effect for the abstract thinker and therefore so queer in his description of it from abstracting to intuiting. The mystical feeling which
drives the philosopher forward from abstract thinking to intuiting
is boredom the longing for a content.

Marx's targeting of
the Absolute Idea in
his criticism of Hegel.

(The man estranged from himself is also the thinker estranged

from his essence that is, from the natural and human essence.
His thoughts are therefore fixed mental... forms together in his
Logic... as a superseding of this alienation, as a real expression of
human thought. But as even this still takes place within the confines of the estrangement, this negation of the negation is in part
the restoring of these fixed forms in their estrangement; in part a
stopping short at the last act the act of self-reference in alienation as the true mode of being of these fixed mental forms;
and in part, to the extent that this abstraction apprehends itself
and experiences an infinite weariness with itself, there makes its
appearance in Hegel, in the form of the resolution to recognize nature as the essential being and to go over to intuition, the abandonment of abstract thought the abandonment of thought revolving solely within the orbit of thought, of thought devoid of
eyes, of teeth, of ears, of everything.)
But nature too, taken abstractly, for itself nature fixed in isolation from man is nothing for man. It goes without saying that
the abstract thinker who has committed himself to intuiting, intuits nature abstractly. Just as nature lay enclosed in the thinker in
the form of the Absolute Idea, in the form of a thought-entity in
a shape which is his and yet is esoteric and mysterious even to him
so what he has let go forth in truth is only this abstract nature,
only nature as a thought-entity but with the significance now of
being the other-being of thought, of being real, intuited nature
of being nature distinguished from abstract thought. Or, to talk a
human language, the abstract thinker learns in his intuition of nature that the entities which he thought to create from nothing,
from pure abstraction the entities he believed he was producing
in the divine dialectic as pure products of the labor of thought forever weaving in itself and never looking outward are nothing
else but abstraction from characteristics of nature. To him, therefore,
the whole of nature merely repeats the logical abstractions in a
sensuous, external form. He analyzes it and these abstractions over
again. Thus, his intuition of nature is only the act of confirming his
abstraction from the intuition of nature is only the conscious
repetition by him of the process of begetting his abstraction...
Marx's critique of
Hegel's conception

Nature as nature that is to say, in so far as it is still sensuously

distinguished from that secret sense hidden within it nature iso-

of Nature.

lated, distinguished from these abstractions, is nothing a nothing

proving itself to be nothing is devoid of sense, or has only the sense of
being an externality which has to be annulled.
'A consideration of Nature according to this relationship yields
the standpoint of finite Teleology (Logic, #205). In this, we find the
correct presupposition that Nature does not itself contain the absolute final End (Logic, #207-11). (Philosophy of Nature, #245)'
Its purpose is the confirmation of abstraction.
'Nature has presented itself as the Idea in the form of otherness.
Since therefore the Idea is the negative of itself, or is external to itself. Nature is not merely external in relation to this Idea (and to
its subjective existence Spirit); the truth is rather that externality

constitutes the specific character in which Nature, as Nature, exists. (Philosophy of Nature, #247)'
Externality here is not to be understood as the self-externalizing world of sense o p e n to the light, o p e n to the m a n end o w e d w i t h senses. It is to be taken h e r e in the sense of
alienation a mistake, a defect, which ought not to be. For
what is true is still the Idea. Nature is still the form of the
Idea's other-being. A n d since abstract thought is the essence,
that w h i c h is e x t e r n a l to it is by its essence s o m e t h i n g
merely external. The abstract thinker recognizes at the same
time that sensuousness externality in contrast to thought
weaving within itself is the essence of nature. But he expresses this contrast in such a w a y as to make this externality
of nature, its contrast to thought, its defect, so that inasmuch
as it is distinguished f r o m abstraction, nature is something
defective. Something which is defective not merely for m e
or in m y eyes but in itself intrinsically has something
outside itself which it lacks. That is, its being is something
other than it itself. Nature has therefore to supersede itself
for the abstract thinker, for it is already posited by him as a
potentially superseded being.
'From our point of view Spirit has for its presupposition Nature, of
which it is the truth, and for that reason its absolute prius. In this
its truth Nature is vanished, and Spirit has resulted as the "Idea"
entered on possession of itself. Here the subject and object of the
Idea are one either is the intelligent unity, the Notion. This
identity is absolute negativity for whereas in Nature the intelligent unity has its objectivity perfect but externalized, this self-externalization has been nullified and the unity in that way been
made one and the same with itself. Thus at the same it is this
identity only so far as it is a return out of nature. (Philosophy of
Spirit, #381)'
'Revelation, taken to mean the revelation of the abstract Idea, is an
unmediated transition to Nature which comes to be. As Spirit is
free, its manifestation is to set forth Nature as its world; but because it is reflection, it, in thus setting forth its world, at the same
time presupposes the world as a nature independently existing. In
the intellectual sphere to reveal is thus to create a world as its being a being in which the Spirit procures the affirmation and
truth of its freedom.'
'The Absolute is Spirit this is the supreme definition of the Absolute. (Philosophy of Spirit, #384)'
(Marx, Karl, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, trans. M.
Milligan, Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1961, pp.
167-71; subsequently referred to as Manuscripts-, parenthetical
statements in the text; the translations of Miller (Philosophy of Nature) and Wallace-Miller (Logic and Philosophy of Spirit) used
throughout this study, with some modifications in terminology and
capitalization, have been substituted for those in Marx's text to ensure uniformity with the rest of our text)

Historical repercussions of Marx's

misplaced criticism of Hegel.

This is a highly misplaced criticism of Hegel displaying not

only an inadequate grasp of what he was trying to convey, but
also a general lack of philosophical temper. Since Marx was no
philosopher, it is perhaps unfair to judge him as such, especially
by Hegelian standards. But historical circumstances, and his
claims, more particularly those of his followers, have forced upon him the mantle of a radical critic of bourgeois culture and a
dialectician par excellence, making it unavoidable that some
judgment be ultimately passed on him as a philosopher. Marx's
"Critique of the Hegelian Dialectic and Philosophy as a Whole",
more than anything else in his work, exemplifies his effort to
deal with the philosophical foundations of his so-called materialistic dialectic in juxtaposition to Hegel. As it presupposes familiarity with the Hegelian idiom and argument in general, this
short work of Marx has not been given as much attention as it
deserves certainly less than the much quoted "Theses on
Feuerbach" and probably less than the more journalistic and
political, rather than philosophical, "Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of the State" (1843), and "Toward the Critique of Hegel's
Philosophy of Law: Introduction" (1843).

Marx's ignorance of
the logical structure
of the dialectic.

Anyone proposing a critical approach to Hegel through his

conception of the Absolute Idea ought to know that this conception is neither an idea, nor abstract, in the sense that these
terms are normally used in philosophical or everyday discourse.
In spite of the fact that Marx was much closer to Hegelian usage than w e are today, he proceeds as if he were ignorant of the
dialectical sequence of the Logic which culminates in the Absolute Idea. For as w e recall, the latter, though lacking in sensuous content, is the final and since the dialectic represents a
process of increasing concreteness or decreasing abstraction
also the most concrete category of the Logic. True, it is still a category and for someone w h o has carefully followed the dialectic
up to that point it might not fit the characterization of concreteness that is normally reserved for what is sensuously perceived
or, as Hegel would say, intuited. However, such sensuous
manifestation would detract from, rather than add to, the concreteness of the Absolute Idea. For, it must also be remembered
that if the Idea is taken in the mentalistic-psychologistic sense
of a subjective consciousness, its object is the pre-notional sensuously intuited object of Essence which has long since been
transcended.

Marx's mistaking
Existence for Actuality, and sensuous
for dialectical
concreteness.

This is where Marx seems to be totally oblivious of Hegel's

warnings (as cited earlier at the end of the Logic) that the Absolute Idea exemplifies the structure of concrete universality at
its most advanced stage: self-containment being perfected to

the point where, in his words, "there is no longer any determination that is not equally posited and itself N o t i o n . " Whereas
Hegel labored to add dialectical concreteness to the categories of
the second part of the Logic (Subjective Logic) by including the
object within the reinstated subjectivity of the Notion, Marx, in
one clean sweep (done in the name of what he mistakenly took
to be added concreteness), placed it outside of the Notion and
back into the dualistic structure of Essence. Thus he missed out
entirely on the value of transcendence as the radical tool par excellence, the "metaphysics... the entire range of the universal determination of thought... the diamond net into w h i c h e v e r y thing is brought and thereby first made intelligible," and used
instead the terminology of the Notion as if it belonged to the
pre-dialectical dualistic metaphysics.
It is clear from his discussion of the Philosophy of Nature that
Hegel is perfectly aware of the value, and indeed the beauty, of
sensuously concrete nature that eludes both the scientific and
philosophical approaches.
The more thought enters into our representation of things, the less
do they retain their naturalness, their singularity and immediacy.
The wealth of natural forms, in all their infinitely manifold configuration, is impoverished by the all-pervading power of thought,
their vernal life and glowing colors die and fade away. The rustle
of Nature's life is silenced in the stillness of thought; her abundant
life, wearing a thousand wonderful and delightful shapes, shrivels
into arid forms and shapeless generalities resembling a murky
northern fog. (Philosophy of Nature, #246 Zusatz)
This is the "abstract thinker" of Marx's philosophical manuscript quoted above:
the man estranged from himself (who) is also the thinker estranged from his essence that is, from the natural human essence.
His thoughts are therefore fixed mental shapes or ghosts dwelling
outside nature and man. Hegel has locked up all these fixed mental
forms together in his Logic... as the superseding of this alienation,
as a real expression of human thought.
Hegel's strategy for combating alienation fails, according to
Marx's interpretation, because he remains in his o w n individual
existence as a "thinker estranged f r o m his essence that is,
f r o m the natural and human essence." Or, as he put it a f e w
lines later, Hegel's effort against alienation is "in a stoppingshort at the last act the act of self-reference in alienation
as the true mode of being of these fixed mental forms." Here is
the core of Marx's theory of alienation, the derivation of the
" f i x e d mental shapes or ghosts d w e l l i n g outside nature and
m a n " f r o m "his essence," the e x p l a n a t i o n of his intellectual
products through "the act of self-reference (i.e., the part of the

Marx's misunderstanding of Hegel's

theory of alienation.

Marx is categorially
arrested at the level
of dualistic Essence.

self grounded in his 'natural and human essence' which leads

to) the true mode of being of these fixed mental forms." This
rendition of Hegel's self-alienation as the source of his dialectical failure raises a number of questions which, given the scope
of this study, cannot be dealt with here. However, casting Hegel
as a champion against alienation (as this is defined by Marx) so
that he can in turn be charged for not having accomplished his
aim through philosophy, goes against Hegel's expressed views
about the nature of the discursive medium of philosophy, the
latter's retrospective preoccupation, and the philosophical lifestyle most appropriate for accommodating both. The role of
alienation in the two thinkers must, therefore, be understood
accordingly: In Marx it is defined above by reference to some
human essence (categorially arrested at the level of Essence)
whose realization is as much of a moral imperative as it is historical necessity. But unlike Hegel, the moral and the historical
dimensions of alienation are not integrated within a dialectical
scheme. In Hegel, on the other hand, alienation is an indispensable part of the dialectical rhythm, sensuously exemplified in
the phenomenology of culture (or Spirit), and made explicit
through the application of the immanent technique.
In spite of its high aspirations, the Marxian endeavor is
doomed to remain in a pre-dialectical stage by the very nature
of its categorial structure. In order for the defeat of alienation to
be handled as an-end-to-be-accomplished, it had first to be
placed within the scientistic structure of what Hegel calls the
logic of Essence, or the Understanding. We recall that this is basically the logic, in the broader Hegelian sense of onto-logic, of
modern science in which something is not as it appears. Knowledge of w h a t really is, is j u d g e d by the capacity to predict
(within given parameters) the apparent, and an explanation of
the latter consists in reducing propositions about what appears
to be, to those about what is. Marx's formulation of the problem of alienation in terms of such dualistic structure of Essence
consists in an appearance of Hegel's philosophy of the Absolute Idea in particular which is apart from "the natural and
human essence" or, as Hegel had put it in his Logic, as appearance which had become estranged from its o w n immediacy.
But instead of dialectically pursuing re-immediation with the
appropriate tools of the Notion, which follows Essence, Marx
continues as if the new synthesis could be handled with the old
apparatus without reinfecting the discourse with scientism, dualism, and the predictive logic of Essence.
The search for the ground or essence of true humanity presupposes polar categories of the logic of Essence such as:

Ground-Grounded, Essence-Existence, Content-Form, InnerOuter, etc. They are all problematic and dialectically unstable in
the course of Hegel's Logic, but apparently taken for granted in
Marx's "Critique" and subsequent works. Hegel tried to forestall
tendencies to bifurcate experience into thought-being, subjectobject, theory-practice, and so on. He showed that, unless attention is directed to the dichotomizing role of these categories
of Essence, these tendencies will continue to claim part of the
domain of Spirit, a task for which they are not suited. But he
did not deny their suitability in the pursuit of subject matter
which, because of its abstractive ("finite") nature, is subject to
treatment by such categories. Our discussion of his Philosophy of
Nature indicates that he w o u l d grant this to the scientist (his
"natural philosopher"), w h o is normally unself-conscious about
the limitations of his categorial equipment, but is kept within
the boundaries of his discourse by institutional checks and disciplinary compartmentalization. M o r e o v e r , he w o u l d allow a
similar liberty to the dialectical philosopher (his "philosopher of
nature") w h o , operating self-consciously about the nature of
his categories within the circular structure of the dialectical system has, so to speak, to rediscover Essence in nature before he
is led, by his immanent approach, to the very same results in
Nature as he' was in the Logic.
It has already been mentioned that, in the progress of philosophical knowledge, we must not only give an account of the object as
determined by its Notion, but we must also name the empirical appearance corresponding to it, and we must show that the appearance does, in fact, correspond to its Notion. However, this is not an
appeal to experience in regard to the necessity of the content. Even
less admissible is an appeal to what is called intuition (Anschauung),
which is usually nothing but a fanciful and sometimes fantastic exercise of the imagination on the lines of analogies, which may be
more or less significant, and which impress determinations and
schemata on objects only externally. (#231, Remark). (Philosophy of
Nature, #246 Remark; parentheses in the text)
Under the operating rules of the dialectic "the progress of
philosophical knowledge" of the above passage Hegel could
not allow an attempt to establish the Notion empirically, that is
to attempt to v e r i f y it as if it w e r e an empirical proposition.
This would have meant negating transcendence and obviating
the w h o l e purpose of the dialectic. But he did not propose to
bypass empirical procedure either, as the above and other passages cited from his w o r k clearly indicate. His intent is further
underlined by the reference to #2 31 of the Logic at the end of
the last quotation. This leads directly to the familiar #232 from
the transition of Cognition to the Will earlier, by w a y of show-

Misconception of the
Notion as requiring
external (empirical)
confirmation.

ing that geometrical knowledge (Kant's paradigm for an a priori synthetic corpus of propositions w h i c h the latter thought
both rigorously demonstrable and compatible with sensuous
e x p e r i e n c e ) was n o t presuppositionless and, t h e r e f o r e , no
model for dialectical concreteness or self-containment. While
incorporating intuition as a necessary sensuous prop for its
verification (the equivalent of the need of "empirical appearance corresponding to it" above), demonstrated knowledge, as
exemplified by geometry, is still burdened with externality
it "impress(es) determinations and schemata on objects only
externally."
That these methods (of demonstration), however indispensable
and brilliantly successful in their own province, are unserviceable
for philosophical cognition, is self-evident. They have presuppositions; and their style of cognition is that of Understanding, proceeding under the canon of formal Identity... The abuses which
these methods with their formalism once led to in philosophy and
science have in modern times been followed by the abuses of what
is called 'Construction'... The name 'Construction (construing) of
notions' has since been given to a sketch or statement of sensible
attributes which were picked up from perception, quite guiltless of
any influence of the Notion, and to the additional formalism of
classifying scientific and philosophical objects in a tabular form on
some presupposed rubric, but in other respects at the fancy and the
discretion of the observer. In the background of all this, certainly,
there is a dim consciousness of the Idea, of the unity of the Notion
and objectivity, a consciousness, too, that the Idea is concrete.
But that play of what is styled 'construing' is far from presenting
this unity adequately a unity which is none other than the Notion properly so called; and the sensuous concreteness of perception is as little the concreteness of Reason and the Idea.
Another point calls for notice. Geometry works with the sensuous
but abstract perception of space... Its inobservancy as to the nature
of its methods and their relativity to the subject matter prevents
this finite cognition from seeing that, when it proceeds by definitions and divisions, etc., it is really led on by the necessity of the
laws of the Notion. For the same reason it cannot see when it has
reached its limit; nor if it have transgressed that limit, does it perceive that it is in a sphere where the categories of Understanding,
which it still continues rudely to apply, have lost all authority.
(Logic, #231; parentheses in the last instance in the text)
The Notion contains,
within itself, its empirical confirmation.

Hegel's emphasis o n the distinction b e t w e e n the logic of

Essence and that of the N o t i o n , parallels the differentiation
made in more recent times by phenomenology and conceptual
analysis regarding levels of meaning, and particularly the distinction between (empirical) truth and (conceptual) meaning
Hegel's method, however, has the merit of pointing beyond that
d i s t i n c t i o n to the dialectical unity of the t w o logics w h e n
viewed from the standpoint of the Notion. Obviously, this is not

a formal identity (or the identity by the rules of the Understanding), but the result of expanding the context of meaning,
or changing the rules of the game, so as to accommodate arising contradictions. In this case it is unsublated residues of externality the result of "raking" of "sensible attributes... f r o m
perception, quite guiltless of any influence of the Notion...
(and) at the fancy and the discretion of the observer" which
propel the Notion to its final conclusion in the Absolute Idea by
generating contradictions between themselves and the ideal of
self-containment already formed within the Notion. From the
higher standpoint of the latter, the contradiction between the
empirically oriented Understanding and the meaning-oriented
Reason is resolved through the Notion's characteristic context
of meaning of self-consciousness. Under its rules of the game,
situations dealt with by the logic of the Understanding and the
Notion, as objects and meanings, respectively, are distinct but
not unalterably opposed. For example, a practicing empirical
scientist qualifies for inclusion in the Notion if he is self-conscious of being a performer of meaning-endowing acts under
the rubric of Reason, while conducting his empirical investigations under the auspices of the Understanding. The contradiction between Reason and the Understanding is present only to
the extent that he remains unself-conscious about his meaningcreation and perceives himself as dealing with the real world of
objects. Or, as Hegel put it, the contradiction is due to the Understanding's "inobservancy as to the nature of its methods and
their relativity to the subject matter." But all contradiction ceases and both logics are found to be immanent in the Absolute
Idea with the attainment of self-consciousness, or w h e n the
Understanding can see that "it is really led on by the necessity
of the laws of the Notion.".
There is no dialectic without transcendence without selftranscendence to be exact since the standpoint of the Notion,
from which transcendence becomes fully explicit, is that of selftranscendence, or what w e have called reinstated subjectivity.
This high-order subjectivity, the result of transcendence, has
been mistaken by Marx for a (merely subjective) idea (in the
head) of the philosopher " f r o m beginning to end nothing
else but abstraction (i.e., the abstract thinker)." That it is (qua
subjective) an abstraction is undoubtedly true, since it historically originated as Hegel's thought, but it is not merely this, nor
"nothing else but" this, as Marx claims, if self-transcendence is
to be taken seriously. Since this is a fundamental point concerning the dialectic, Marx's error infects his whole argument
and transforms his "Critique" into a parody of Hegel's Absolute

Marx's psycho logistic

misconception of
subjectivity in Hegel.

The role of built-up

concreteness behind
the surface in the
psychologistic view
of the Idea.

Idea. The important transition from the Logic to the Philosophy of

Nature (not to Natural Philosophy, as Marx keeps calling it,
which is something different), is dealt with as if it were a shift
"from abstracting to intuiting" motivated by "the mystical feeling
which... is boredom the longing for a content." Dialectical categories and operations are being transformed into subjectivist
and psychologistic conceptions: self-abandonment, longing,
feeling, boredom, self-absorption, nothingness, generality, and
indeterminateness all conditions supposedly suffered by "the
Idea which... is from beginning to end nothing but abstraction
(i.e., the abstract thinker)." Since the Idea, for Marx, is the subjective idea of the abstract thinker, it looks as if these conditions
are the part of Hegel's psychological make-up that can be credited for the forward movement from Idea to Nature. None but
the most superficial reader of Hegel's work, however, would
mistake his trans-individual subject for an ordinary (i.e., individual) subject.
Marx, on the other hand, having collapsed the Idea into an
idea, is left with the choice of either falling back onto the dualistic mode of subject-object with all its ontological, epistemological, and methodological trappings (including scientistic theorypractice, as w e shall soon see); or to a muddled, unmediated
synthesis of the kind Hegel castigated in Schelling, whose Absolute resembles the "dark night where all cows are black."
There is more evidence of the first option in the way Marx interpreted the transition from the Idea to Nature as one "from
abstracting to intuiting." Abstraction is characterized by self-absorption, nothingness, indeterminateness, generality, and boredom. Intuition, on the other hand, leads to a relief from these
symptoms as the subject relates to "its other-being, the particular, and the determinate." Marx's inability to overcome the persisting subject-object dualism is reminiscent of the categorial
structures encountered in middle Essence, with regard to the
position of disciplines on the dialectical scale, as dependent upon their dialectical maturity. At that point the underlying dualistic structure of Essence repeatedly surfaced in the guise of polar structures of increasing sophistication.
The first relief from this form of false infinity came with the
Absolute of Actuality whereby the subject finally turned the
light on itself, the "^//-exposition of the Absolute." A similar
break had occurred much earlier in the psychoanalytic paradigm
with the analysand's critical decision to cease the application of
scientistic theory-practice on himself as if he were an object, and
begin instead to treat himself as a genuine subject in charge of
himself. As understood now in retrospect from the Notion's po-

sition, the break in the paradigm occurred with the shift from a
mere to an elevated subjectivity, or the change from an inauthentic to an authentic self in the person of the analysand. This
was formally accomplished later with the transition from the individual to the group and from Subjective to Objective Spirit. At
first this move appeared rather perplexing in its immediacy. But
on closer scrutiny it was shown that the element of surprise was
due to the same self-concealment syndrome encountered in the
corresponding moments of the Logic, in which the first version
of the synthesis of theory and practice seemed to emerge out of
nowhere. In both cases thought was, in effect, operating on (an
embodiment o f ) itself unbeknownst to itself, so that the emergence of the logical context (in the Logic) and the institutional
setting (in Spirit) in the midst of what were essentially subjectivist preoccupations, had indeed caught thought by surprise. In
both cases the "categories of Understanding, which (thought)
still continue(d) rudely to apply, (had) lost all authority." In his
failure to appreciate Spirit for what it is and his determination to
reduce philosophical to psychological categories, Marx operates
under the same syndrome of self-concealment. Characteristically, he considered metaphysical thought, which he called the activity of abstracting, as a solipsistic one which bears the same relation to the study of the actual world as masturbation does to
sexual love.
Having gone through the Logic, there is no need to underline
that the task of the Understanding could not have been better
carried out with another set of tools. The term "Essence" signifying, in a characteristically Hegelian way, both a category and
its content, the pursuit of the particular h u m a n essence
("species-being," as Marx calls it in the Manuscripts of 1844), is
bound to be a dualistically structured scientistic quest, "humanistic" and "anthropological" Marxist protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. For, even granting the gist of these arguments that Marx's "human essence" is historically defined
through praxis, and setting aside the conceptual problems arising from the definition of an "essence" changing through time
with no trans-historical substratum serving to fix the common
underlying element in historically defined human essence, the
dualistic structure is being resurrected at the next step, thus obviating any synthetic ambitions based on praxis. In other words,
species-being is now being defined within any given historical
context in terms of non-fulfillment of human potentialities, or
human non-realization measured by reference to alienation.
Thus, we are back into the logical structure of dualistic Essence,
now in the form of non-alienated, to-be-realized in the future,

Marx's synthetic
effort is obviated
by his underlying
essentialism.

Marx's mistaking of
dialectical for vicious
circularity.

human essence versus alienated presently-to-be-overcome human existence. This injection of time, in Marx's strategy for overcoming alienation, coupled with his historization of essence,
may seem to place him quite a f e w steps ahead of Essence in
Universal history and, correspondingly, to raise his form of action from scientistic theory-practice to the category of action
appropriate to that moment, namely ideological praxis. But this
is only seemingly progress a "show," his mentor Hegel would
say of dialectical advance, whose flimsiness can be traced
again to the passages quoted earlier from his Critique, before the
concept of praxis can be taken up in detail in the next Section.
in the preceding pages w e saw how Marx's diagnosis of the
defects of the Absolute Idea and the ills of the "abstract thinker"
led him to misinterpret a logical-ontological as a subjectivistpsychologistic discourse: self-transcendence for self-indulgence;
a sensuous manifestation of the dialectical structure or rhythm
(of self-alienating Spirit) for a subjective state (of the philosopher's malady); the tools of subject-object-bound Essence for
those of the dialectic; (philosophical) meaning for (empirical)
truth; and the Idea for an idea. If such diagnosis is correct, there
can be no high hopes placed on his prescription for the remedy
of alienation, at least not by dialectical criteria. Even when the
philosopher, driven from philosophizing by ennui, had dropped
"abstraction" and pursued nature through "intuition," he could
find no relief from the malady of alienation. For, he
...the abstract thinker who has committed himself to intuiting, intuits nature abstractly... the abstract thinker learns in his intuition
of nature that the entities which he thought to create from nothing, from pure abstraction the entities he believed he was producing in the divine dialectic as pure products of the labor of
thought forever weaving in itself and never looking outward
are nothing else but abstractions from characteristics of nature. To
him, therefore, the whole of nature merely repeats the logical abstractions in a sensuous, external form. He analyzes it and these
abstractions over again. Thus, his intuition of nature is only the
act of confirming his abstraction from the intuition of nature is
only the conscious repetition by him of the process of begetting
his abstraction...
One more instance of mistaken identity with far-reaching
consequences for his argument can be added to those already
listed above, as Marx tries to force his scientistic scheme on
Hegel's dialectic: Dialectical circularity is mistaken for one of
the vicious type, with the kind of pernicious effects found in
our discussion of the two forms of circularity as early as the scientistic paradigm of theory-practice in Part I. Marx asserts that
for Hegel, "the whole of nature merely repeats the logical abstractions in a sensuous, external form... His intuition of nature

is only the act of confirming his abstraction f r o m the intuition

of nature is o n l y the conscious r e p e t i t i o n by h i m of the
process of begetting his abstraction." This is a replay of the Air
Force scientists in the UFO illustration confirming their selfconcealment in regard to their realistic epistemological presuppositions by w a y of the methodology of theory-practice, while
at the same time providing one more validation from their preselected experience of this time-honored methodological principle. There is an added curious twist that it is Marx, the practitioner of vicious circularity by default, w h o is claiming to have
unmasked it in his mentor. Hegel is pursuing precisely the opposite course (i.e., concreteness) of that which Marx is accusing
him (i.e., abstraction). However, Hegel is proceeding with the
use of the meta-physical method of transcendence because he
is fully aware that unless his categorial equipment remains untainted by scientism as he m o v e s along, abstraction w i l l slip
back under the guise of sensuous concreteness. In opposition to
Hegel's declaration that the aim of his Philosophy of Nature is
"the notional comprehension of nature," the N o t i o n is being
treated by Marx as if it w e r e a theoretical construct, a concept
derived through theory-practice to be verified in the experiencing of nature. The result of such misconception is his familiar
charge from the lengthy opening quotation of this Section, that
in Hegel
Nature as nature... in so far as it is sensuously distinguished... from
these abstractions, is nothing a nothing proving itself to be nothing
is devoid of sense, or has only the sense of being an externality
which has to be annulled.
As a meta-physical (i.e., meta-empirical) endeavor, "the notional c o m p r e h e n s i o n of n a t u r e " cannot be the result of a
mere application of the final outcome of the Logic (the Notion
in its final f o r m of the Absolute Idea) on the material of nature. Since the Absolute Idea is already a synthesis of theory
and practice in their most advanced sublation, an Essence-like
application as if the t w o w e r e still separate w o u l d clearly constitute a backward step. Nor was any deduction of nature from
logic or, worse, of nature ex nihilo intended by Hegel in
the logical sense as suggested in the above quotations by Marx.
Instead H e g e l m e a n t f o r w h i c h his c i r c u l a r - t e l e o l o g i c a l
structure clearly allowed to rediscover through his immanent technique of the dialectic, the notional structure as it lay
implicit in nature.
It is not difficult to see h o w Hegel's m e t a p h o r of the A b solute Idea "go(ing) forth freely as Nature" in his famous (or infamous) transition from the Logic to Nature, must have scandal-

Hegel's notional
structure precludes
the application of the
Idea as if it were a
theoretical structure.

The historical implications of Marxian

misinterpretations
of the dialectic.

ized Marx and his f e l l o w Young Hegelians. It takes only the

capitalization of "his" and "himself" in Marx's personalized rendition of this transition so as to read "He has let go-forth
from Himself... only abstract nature, only nature as a thought-entity" to transform it from a logical to a theological operation.
This affinity is, of course, not accidental since Hegel frequently
uses structural elements and the idioms of Christian theology to
render central features of the dialectic. Indeed Marx's full quotation of the long Zusatz following #247 of the Philosophy of Nature opens with an explicit use of the doctrine of Trinity to illuminate this important paragraph. "Divine Cognition" was also
used by Hegel at the end of the Logic to clarify this important
transition, but scornfully referred to by Marx as "the divine dialectic" in the same quotation from his "Critique," above. The
point Hegel was trying to make has been discussed in some detail but can again be summed up as follows: For a totally selfcontained, fully determinate and therefore truly exemplifying the structure of freedom category such as the Absolute
Idea, it makes no sense to speak of Nature (not nature, i.e., not
empirically but notionally) as external, but only as self-external. Conversely, in a state where externality (the context of
meaning within which "empirical" can be conceived) has been
transcended, it does make sense to speak of the Idea as "going
forth freely," "freely releasing) itself in its absolute self-assurance
and inner poise" of such elements as "externality," "particularity," "immediacy," i.e., of elements associated with "Perception
or Intuition." In other words, the Absolute Idea has undergone
a self-inflicted diremption, or self-alienation, so as to reunite
within itself more fully integrated in the final moment. This is
not a causally explained phenomenon, as most modern readers
would be inclined to believe w h e n they almost instinctively
ask, "What caused a self-complete entity like the Absolute Idea
to do this?" Rather, the explanation is circular-teleological,
whereby the presupposition is implicit in the outcome as much
as the latter is implicit in the presupposition.
The methodological implications of the difference between
linear-causal and circular-notional forms of explanation in humanistic disciplines are both important and varied, as recalled
from the illustrations of the middle categories of Essence. They
are exemplified here, but more so in Marx's (and Engels) German Ideology, by his futile attempts to provide a coherent causal
link between material and ideational components in cultural
and personal history. These implications have been no less farreaching for applied Marxism, as w e have already suggested in
our illustration by w a y of socialist politics of the moment of

Teleology in Logic and its counterpart of Universal History in the

Philosophy of Spirit. Recalling our illustration from the latter, it
can be further argued that the failure of socialist regimes to
cope with the necessity for increasing productivity, coupled
with mounting consumer pressures instigated by progressive
"openness" to the West, can be traced to their failure to produce the "new communist man" w h o would produce without
individualist motivation and w h o would be equally socialized to
check his consumerist desires within limits defined by Marxist
"human essence." In this context the linear-causal linkage between material and ideational components of society the relations of production and ideology, respectively, in German Ideology proved a prescription for failure, since it seemed to guarantee that a change in the former would automatically secure
the necessary mental superstructure for "the new communist
man." One may be inclined to conclude that circularity would
provide a better prescription for action. But this would also be
an error since, as w e have repeatedly pointed out, predictive
logic has been superseded with Essence. It was precisely Marx's
fatal error to assume predictive logic in effect beyond Essence
and, consequently, to try to extract a prescription for action
from the Idea.

ii. Theory-Practice in Natural Philosophy

and in Philosophy of Nature
Comparison of
the Marxist and
Hegelian approaches
to nature.

Hegel opens the discussion of

nature in his Philosophy of Nature
theme with which he concluded
the latter, wherein he began the

the notional comprehension of

with theory-practice, the same
in the Logic. But in contrast to
discussion with theory only to

draw the curtain of the final act on a practical note (the re-immediated Idea letting itself "go forth freely in Nature"), he now
starts with practice, the practical way " w e relate ourselves to
nature." Nature, far from being "nothing" and "devoid of sense,"
as Marx claims, is something "immediate and external" related
to "an immediately external, and therefore sensuous individual" in the two sentences which Marx has chosen to omit from
his quotation of Hegel. The Zusatz following #245 elaborates on
these opening sentences regarding the practical relationship of
man to nature in richness of illustration and sensuous concreteness not easily matched by Marx's description of his own praxis.
The practical approach to Nature is, in general, determined by appetite, which is self-seeking; need impels us to use Nature for our
own advantage, to wear her out, to wear her down, in short, to
annihilate her.... The other characteristic of the practical approach
is that, since it is our end which is paramount, not natural things
themselves, we convert the latter into means, the destiny of which
is determined by us, not by the things themselves... The negation
of myself which I suffer within me in hunger, is at the same time
present as an Other than myself, as something to be consumed; my
act is to annul this contradiction by making this Other identical
with myself, or by restoring my self-unity through sacrificing the
thing. (Philosophy of Nature, #245 Zusatz)
Marx's dialectically
deficient approach
to nature.

A n outward similarity exists between this and Marx's variety

of expression of praxis qua synthesis of man and nature, which
abounds in his Manuscripts: "natural essence of man," "human
essence of nature," "no nature aside from man," and "humanizing nature." But this point is where the similarity ends. Marx
has been dialectically arrested at this rather primitive level,
from which he proceeds to more empirical and historical investigations, whereas Hegel moves swiftly, in his terse manner, to
focus on the inadequacies of the categorial equipment involved.
In his words, "the End-relationship demands for itself a deeper
mode of treatment than that appropriate to external and finite
relationships, namely, the mode of treatment of the Notion,
which in its o w n general nature is immanent and therefore is
i m m a n e n t in Nature as such." (Philosophy of Nature, #245)
Marx's use of Hegel's #245 at the opening of last Section to support his contention that Hegel's Nature is devoid of sensuousness, is totally misplaced. Granted, the Zusatz of #245 in which

Hegel elaborates on his "practical approach to Nature" might not

have been known to Marx because, though reproduced from
lecture-notes earlier, it was not published in the Michelet edition of the Philosophy of Nature until 1842. However, the passage
that he quotes is from the main body of #245 dealing with the
dialectical category (finite Teleology) involved in the sensuous
appreciation of Nature, in which Hegel also makes direct reference to Teleology in the Logic. It is clear from these references
that is not nature and "externality that has to be anulled" but
the claim, stemming f r o m lack of analysis of the categorial
structure implicit in our practical relationship to it, "that Nature
does... itself contain the absolute, final End." This is no depreciation of nature, but rather an investigation of the extent to
which nature or, better still, Nature displays the Notion in
the context of our practical concern. In this sense it is the category of End, more particularly the important distinction between (linearly structured) finite and (circularly defined) infinite here "absolute, final" End, that is at issue.
All this is perfectly consistent with the fact that the notional
structure of the dialectic was developed by Hegel in the Logic for
the purpose of comprehension and not for application in nature
and Spirit. Had this been the case, Teleology would not be an
advance over causality as an explanatory schema, inasmuch as
it would be reconstituting scientism under the guise of Teleology, i.e., under the cover of "application" of dialectical "theory"
or "principles" of teleology to "external reality." Rather the case
is that Hegel rediscovers the notional structure the "deeper
mode of treatment... of the Notion, which... is immanent in Nature as such" in Nature, and later on in Spirit. Circularity of
the dialectical system as a whole suggests that the conclusion
regarding the merits of self-containment itself a form of circularity within the Logic, the model of notional comprehension, holds true pari passu about the system as a whole. Hegel's
"circle of circles," his way of describing circularity within and
between moments of his Logic, extends and encompasses a circular route from there to Nature and Spirit, and back to the
Logic. Therefore, here as much as in the Logic, it is the contradictions arising from the finitude of Ends here "the standpoint of finite Teleology" that leads to the insight about circularity in infinite Teleology and the view of the Notion as immanent "in its own general nature... and therefore (as) immanent
in Nature as such."
Equally misleading is Marx's misunderstanding of #247 of
Philosophy of Nature, quoted in full this time to support the same
claim about abstraction, n o w with special reference to Hegel's

The central role of

dialectical circularity
for notional comprehension.

view of externality. Between #245 and #247 intervene not only

the equally important #246, but also some lengthy and illuminating Zusatze, w h i c h w e have quoted and discussed in some
detail in the first Chapter this Part l e a v i n g n o doubt about
Hegel's intent and strategy. Again, giving Marx the benefit of
the doubt of being familiar with them for the reasons indicated
above, there is n o excuse for such misinterpretation. Hegel
makes essentially the same points, and in a more leisurely pace
in the introductory sections (#26-#78) of the Logic, the later
sections of which Marx is quoting. Though the context is much
broader and the treatment much m o r e extensive in the Logic
than it is in the Zusatze of the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel's objective is essentially the same: to place his o w n contribution in the
historical-philosophical context of the m a j o r preceding and
contemporary movements, i.e., Continental rationalism, British
empiricism, Kant's critical philosophy, and Schelling's and Jacobi's philosophies of intuition and immediacy. This objective is
somewhat focused in the Logic by specifying that the discussion
centers o n these philosophers' approach to objectivity, and
m o r e severely n a r r o w e d in the Philosophy of Nature through
having selected the ways of relating practically and theoretically
to Nature as the topic of discussion. The structure of the argument in both cases is the same, the familiar circular path of the
dialectic: the logical sequence culminates in the Idea and is rediscovered in Nature and Spirit. In the latter case this rediscovery "of the Notion... in its o w n general nature (as) immanent,"
is found in the historical sequence of the major philosophical
positions leading to Hegel, with special reference to their views
on objectivity as expounded in the introductory sections of the
Logic. The same is done in the Zusatze of the Philosophy of Nature
with more narrowly specific reference to theory and practice in
dealing with nature. Having found the practical approach deficient in its one-sidedness in #245, Hegel moves on to the theoretical approach in #246.
Equally one-sided
cist theory-practice
approaches to
nature.

The theoretical approach begins with the arrest of appetite, is disinterested, lets things exist and go on just as they are; with this attitude to Nature, we have straightway established a duality of object
and subject and their separation, something here and something
yonder. Our intention, however, is rather to grasp, to comprehend
Nature, to make her ours, so that she is not something alien and
yonder. Here, then, comes the difficulty: How do we, as subjects,
come into contact with objects? If we venture to bridge this gulf
and mislead ourselves along that line and so think this Nature, we
make Nature, which is an Other than we are, into an Other than she is.
Both theoretical approaches (i.e., the rationalist and the empiricist)
are also directly opposed to each other: we transform things into
universals (in the way illustrated earlier in rhapsodizing about im-

poverished nature), or make them our own, and yet as natural objects they are supposed to have a free, self-subsistent being. This,
therefore, is the point with which we are concerned in regard to
the nature of cognition this is the interest of philosophy. (Philosophy of Nature, #246 Zusatz; emphases added)
With the benefit of hindsight from the discussion of the Logic,
we can recognize the Notion qua immanent in Nature. W e now
realize that the difficulty in bridging the gap between ourselves
and Nature in "com(ing) into contact with objects" is built
into the question, so that the latter is part of the problem. As the
expression with the added emphasis above epigrammatically
conveys, the externality implicit in the epistemological posing of
the question infects the ontological issue, thus moving us one
more step away from the resolution of the philosophical problem of "grasp(ing)... (or) comprehend(ing) Nature." By now w e
know that the unveiling process of what lies behind the surface
has to extend beyond the "duality of object and subject and their
separation, something here and something yonder," to the categorial structure of subject-object in terms of which the question
had been posed to begin with. As it can be expected, the conclusion in the Philosophy of Nature is no different than that of the
Logic or the Philosophy of Spirit. On the practical side, there is the
crude agnostic attitude vis-a-vis nature, also called "animalistic,"
as we shall see momentarily. This is associated with Being in the
Logic and with the naive or primitive (i.e., unmediated) synthetic attempts of Jacobi's philosophy of immediacy and Schelling's
philosophy of nature. On the theoretical side, there are the empiricist and the one-sided subjective idealist approaches to nature, associated with the irremediable dualism of the British empiricists and Kant, respectively. When their synthesis is finally
reached in the Philosophy of Nature, it is, in effect, a replay of the
familiar mutual cancellation of the opposed theoretical and
practical terms, as recalled from the syntheses of Subjective Spirit and the Absolute Idea.
The difficulty arising from the one-sided assumption of the theoretical consciousness, that natural objects confront us as permanent and impenetrable objects, is directly negatived by the practical
approach which acts on the absolutely idealistic belief that individual things are nothing in themselves. The defect of appetite, from
the side of its relationship to things, is not that it is realistic toward
them, but that it is all too idealistic. Philosophical, true idealism
consists in nothing else but laying down that the truth about things
is that as such immediately single, i.e., sensuous things, they are
only a show, an appearance (Schein). Of a metaphysics prevalent
today (i.e., Kantian) which maintains that we cannot know things
(in-themselves) because they are absolutely shut to us, it might be
said that not even the animals are so stupid as these metaphysi-

One-sided approaches to nature via

theory-practice synthesized along the
same lines as in
the Logic.

cians; for they go after things, seize and consume them. The same
thing is laid down in the second aspect of the theoretical approach
referred to above, namely, that we think natural objects. Intelligence familiarizes itself with things, not of course in their sensuous
existence, but by thinking them and positing their content in itself;
and in, so to speak, adding form, universality, to the practical ideality which, by itself, is only negativity, it gives an affirmative character to the negativity of the singular. (Philosophy of Nature, #246
Zusatz; parentheses in the first instance in the text)
Misleading one-sided
reliance on immediacy or mediation; or
mistaking re-immediation for sheer
immediacy.

The theoretical and practical approaches to Nature in their

one-sided reliance on mediation and immediacy, respectively,
seem unalterably opposed to each other in precisely the same
w a y as did the Theoretical and Practical Mind, or the Theoretical and Practical Idea, prior to their syntheses through the mutual cancellation of their respective forms of contingency, presuppositional dependence, and particularization. It is the logical
priority of the Idea or, stated more psychologically, the pre-existing k n o w l e d g e of the immanence of the Notion in Nature,
that enables one to detect this complementarity. In the absence
of such insight, o n e can easily mistake " s h o w " and "appearance" as formal negations of "sensuous things" as M a r x did,
w h e n in fact S h o w (Schein) and Appearance are, as recalled
from the categorial sequence of the Logic, inextricable parts of a
progressive definition of reality. N o w h e r e is the danger of bypassing mediation in approaching Nature better illustrated than
in Hegel's critique of the philosophy of immediacy or intuition
as exemplified by Schelling.
In order to state briefly what is the defect of this conception (of the
Schellingian philosophy of nature), we must at once admit that
there is something lofty in it which at first glance makes a strong
appeal. But this unity of intelligence and intuition, of the inwardness of Spirit and its relation to externality, must be, not the beginning, but the goal, not an immediate, but a resultant unity.
And so, in the Philosophy of Nature, people have fallen back on intuition and set it above reflective thought; but this is a mistake, for
one cannot philosophize out of intuition. What is intuited must also be thought, the isolated parts must be brought back by thought
to simple universality; this thought unity is the Notion, which contains the specific difference, but as an immanent self-moving unity.
The determinations of philosophical universality are not indifferent; it is the universality which fulfills itself, and which, in its diamantine identity, also contains difference. (Philosophy of Nature
#246 Zusatz)

Hegel's critique of
his predecessors in
regard to immediacy
is equally applicable
to Marx.

These passages might very w e l l have been aimed at Marx,

whose "humanized nature," "naturalized man," and the like, of
his Manuscripts, Hegel w o u l d have found m o r e in the order of
verbal syntheses about which "there is something lofty (and)
which at first glance make a strong appeal," but lack "the seri-

ousness, the torment, the patience, and the labor of the negative." The remedy is, of course, the familiar concrete universal,
the "diamantine identity, ( w h i c h ) also contains d i f f e r e n c e . "
Hegel proceeds to illustrate this in the figurative language of the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity. This not only illuminates the
embeddedness of the philosophical in cultural categories and
religious symbolism, but also shows h o w notional logic and
theo-logic cooperate in locating the category-mistakes of the
Understanding. For example, once w e abandon the misguided
effort to bring back the Notion under the reign of causality and
the rest of the categories of Essence, the mystery is r e m o v e d
from questions such as those that perplexed Marx: What causes
something as self-contained as God (or the Idea) to issue forth
in Nature? H o w can God "in determining Himself, remain equal
to Himself?"
How does the universal determine itself? How does the infinite become finite? A more concrete form of the question is: How has
God come to create the world? God is, of course, conceived to be a
subject, a self-subsistent actuality far removed from the world; but
such an abstract infinity, such a universality which had the particular outside it, would itself be only one side of the relation, and
therefore itself only a particular and finite: it is characteristic of the
Understanding that it unwittingly nullifies the very determination
it posits and thus does the very opposite of what it intends. The
particular is supposed to be separate from the universal, but this
very separateness, this independence, makes it a (concrete) universal, and so what is present is only the unity of the (abstract) universal and the particular. (Philosophy of Nature, #246 Zusatz)
Though in both natural philosophy and philosophy of nature the object is the universal, in the former it is the abstract
and in the latter the concrete universal. In the former case the
abstract universal can be used outside the syllogistic structure
for an application to a sensuously concrete (i.e., empirical) content. In the latter case it cannot be conceived outside of that
structure since the polar categories representing external application e.g., inner-outer, mental-physical, subject-object, and
theory-practice have been sublated, so that the syllogistic
structure represents the internal articulation of the self-containment of the Notion. This is the logical background of Hegel's
claim on behalf of the Absolute Idea at the end of the Logic to
"resolve to let the ' m o m e n t ' of its particularity, or of the first
characterization and other-being, the immediate Idea, as the reflected image, go forth freely as Nature." This is w h y it is possible in #247 (quoted by Marx at the opening of this Chapter) for
"Nature (to have) presented itself as the Idea in the form of otherness," much to his exasperation. For the same reason it is possible for Hegel to argue, w i t h an added touch of Cunning of

Reason, in the last quoted paragraph, that in its self-concealment the Understanding is led to treat God as if he were external to his creation; and to deal with the concrete universality of
the Notion as if it were a theoretical construct to be externally
applied to the empirical domain of particularity and finitude.
But it is precisely because of "this very separateness, this independence" of the universal, representing "the labor of the negative" contributed "unwittingly" by the Understanding, that w e
can end up with the concrete universal which is the mediated
"unity of the (abstract) universal and the particular."
Hegel's concrete
universality as the
guide for a genuine
synthesis of theorypractice.

In terms of the final synthesis of theory and practice, the distance telescoped in the final sentence of the last quotation is that
which is between the Idea of the True and the Absolute Idea in
the Science of Logic. The Theoretical Idea, it may be recalled, had
encountered difficulties in its synthetic effort because of the undue confidence it had placed on the (abstract) universality of
thought (in separation from "particularizing" action) as the unifying element. The transition to the Practical Idea came with the
realization that there is a posit (an action-element also present
in thought) which, far from being ultimately disruptive to universality, added to the latter the feature of (dialectical) concreteness which it lacked qua abstract universality. The Theoretical
Idea had originally staked its quest on the supposition that anything particular was external to it, to be subsumed under its
conception of abstract universality. But in pursuing its task, the
Theoretical Idea gradually came to the realization that what it
had been subsuming all along was not external but part of itself.
Like its theological analogue above, the Theoretical Idea had
been unintentionally pursuing a more sophisticated version of
its own ideal of universality, the concrete universal or "the unity
of the universal and the particular." And, alternatively in the
Logic, "in its starting-point Cognition had a given and contingent
content; but now at the close of its movement, it knows its content to be necessary." Or, back to the conclusion of the Science of
Logic, "the pure Idea in which the determinateness or reality of
the Notion is itself raised into Notion, is an absolute liberation for
which there is no longer any immediate determination that is
not equally posited and itself Notion."
Hegel, of course, is not merely restating the obvious that the
singular (or logical individual) is the result of the union of universal and particular. Nor is he repeating the parallel he drew
between syllogistic figures and structures of action in Teleology.
H o w e v e r useful syllogistic structure might be as a model for
self-containment, and therefore of the Notion itself in illuminating the shortcomings of dialectical synthesis through teleo-

logical or scientistic action, it still remains, so to speak, on this

side of externality. In other words, it still preserves the kind of
duality that the conclusion of the logic of Essence had shown
untenable, thus propelling us to the Notion. If the formal syllogistic structure is to accommodate externality according to dialectical requirements, it has to undergo certain modifications
in the direction of externality. Such modification is, in fact,
Hegel's contribution of the concept of concrete universality. It
will not do, for example, to claim, with the unmodified syllogistic model as our guide, that an application of a (universal) theoretical construct to a (particular) sensuously concrete case, constitutes a dialectical synthesis beyond the level of Essence in the
Logic, or beyond Sittlichkeit in the realm of Spirit. Granted, the
fusion of the other two terms is complete in the resulting individual, and theory has found in it a sensuously concrete embodiment corresponding, as w e shall soon see, to the Marxist
conception of praxis. But (abstract) universality and individuality still remain external to each other, inasmuch as the universal
has to move outside the syllogism and cross the boundary between this and the other side of externality to join the individual. "But such an abstract infinity, such a universality which
had the particular outside it, would itself be one side of the relation, and therefore itself only a particular and finite." What is
needed instead is a category which exemplifies the synthesis,
rather than one which is the outcome of a synthesis attained
through the operation of categories which remain in the realm
of externality and finitude. It should be a category which embodies externality and yet not one in the ordinary sense of having to be tested against sensuous externality.
Our familiar concrete universal fits these specifications since
it is not the sensuously concrete individual which remains external to the abstract universal, nor is it an abstract universal
which needs to embrace external reality, but the dialectically
concrete universal which incorporates the individual. We found
illustrations of it as early as in Part II, where cultural freedom
was set against legal freedom as examples of concrete and abstract universality, respectively. Later on, in the course of illustrating the categories of Essence through disciplinary subject
matter, concrete universality was found best exemplified in history and the cultural disciplines. Their advanced position on the
dialectical scale was manifested in the fact that their units of
discourse (e.g., cultural complexes, historical periods, aesthetic
styles) displayed, in their self-containment, a capacity to overcome externality since their formal features remain internal to
them. For example, a familiar maxim in historical or anthropo-

Examples of concrete
universality encountered so far.

logical discourse is that operating immanently, through the cognitive apparatus and set of values of a given historical period or
culture, is indispensable to its understanding. History and cultural anthropology, corresponding as they do to the more advanced categories of the Logic, provide us with the best illustrations of concrete universality qua synthesis of the abstract universality and particularity of the units of discourse in question.
Substituting again "Spirit" for "culture" and recalling that Idea
is the logical counterpart for concrete Spirit, w e have still another v i e w of the Idea as embodying concrete universality par
excellence, in sharp contrast to the charges Marx has been heaping against it. The Idea, as already quoted, is
the absolute unity of the Notion and objectivity. Its 'ideal' (i.e., abstract when viewed in its one-sidedness) content is nothing but the
Notion in its detailed terms: its 'real' (i.e., equally abstract when
viewed through one-sidedness) content is only the exhibition
which the Notion gives itself in the form of external existence,
whilst yet, by enclosing this shape (i.e., 'of external existence') in
its ideality, it keeps it in its power, and so keeps itself in it.
Marx's gross misunderstanding of the
dialectic of nature.

The Practical Idea is precisely capitalizing on this gain of the

Idea (of which, incidentally, the Theoretical Idea seemed momentarily to lose sight) w h e n a f e w moments later it moves "in
order to posit its o w n determination and by sublating the determinations of the external world to give itself reality in the form
of external actuality." This categorial handling of externality
through a resetting of the syllogistic apparatus in a dialectical
context (carried out under Subjective Notion) is consistent, not
only with our finding that notional discourse is about (categorial) m e a n i n g rather than (empirical) truth, but also with the
highly prominent presence of theory and practice at the very
conclusion of the Logic. To put it bluntly, no dialectical synthesis
of theory and practice is possible without the concrete universal. But this is not all that is entailed for our purposes by the
Hegelian revision of universality. For, having incorporated externality and action within itself, the concrete universal, in its
consummate f o r m of the Absolute Idea, has rendered all discourse retrospective. The concrete universal is not fit for the
predictive tasks vis-a-vis externality for which its abstract homologue was properly equipped. This position, in turn, coheres
with the circular structure (or teleology) of the dialectic in conjunction with the reversal of emphasis from temporal to logical
priority, as e v i d e n c e d in #381 of Philosophy of Spirit (quoted
above by M a r x ) , and more explicitly in #248 Zusatz of Philosophy of Nature.
Hegel seems to have warned against a philosophical interpretation of nature precisely such as Marx's of #247. For he

clearly tells us that this is not a case where the Idea being "the
negative of itself, or... external to itself Nature is... merely external in relation to this Idea." Had this been the case, the duality
of this and the other side of externality would be reconstituted
(here between self-external Idea and nature) and the result of
the toil of the Notion would have been wiped out in one stroke.
"The truth is rather that (self-) externality (of the Idea) constitutes the specific character in which Nature as Nature, exists."
Marx's opening comment, after quoting #247, can be made true
to Hegel's meaning by removing "not" and having it read as exactly the opposite of what he intended: "Externality here is to be
understood as the self-externalizing world of sense open to the
light, open to the man endowed with senses." The self-alienation of the Idea is not "a mistake, a defect, which ought not to
be," as Marx claims is the case for Hegel, for the same reason
that "God, as an abstraction, is not the true God, but only as the
living process of positing His Other, the world." This self-externalization, or self-alienation, is what propelled the dialectic to
the concrete universal, the same reason that "estranged from
the Idea, Nature is only the corpse of the Understanding." If
alienation and self-diremption were for Hegel mistakes and defects "which ought not to be," the whole dialectic should have
been written off by him as a huge blunder, since what it consists of is precisely a circular chain of self-diremptions and reconciliations in the way in which they are inseparable from each
other. The statement that "since abstract thought is the essence,
that which is external to it is by its essence something merely
external," can only be taken to describe the Understanding. To
use it, as Marx does, in the context of the Idea, illustrates the
most gross misunderstanding of what the dialectic is all about.

iii. Marx's Encounter with Hegel's Concept of Spirit

Marx's misdirected
critique of Spirit
due to his lack of
comprehension of
concrete universality.

Thus far, w e h a v e b e e n o c c u p i e d w i t h establishing that

Marx's criticism of Hegel's Absolute Idea, and the dialectic in
general, is the result of his ignorance of the concept of concrete
universality. Marx's constructive efforts, centering on praxis as
the tool for remedying both the mistakes of the understanding
and the defects of social order "which ought not to be," suffer
no less for having missed the very embodiment of concrete universality, i.e., Hegel's conception of Spirit. It is, therefore, appropriate to say something about Marx's misunderstanding of
Spirit before going on with his conception of praxis in the final
Section of this Part.
Marx's critique of Spirit moves along the same lines as that
of the Absolute Idea. It is contained in his discussion of the concluding chapter of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit titled "Absolute K n o w l e d g e , " which plays in this w o r k a synthetic role
similar to that of the Absolute Idea in the Logic.
Hegel's Encyclopedia, beginning as it does with Logic, with pure speculative thought, and ending with Absolute Knowledge with the selfconsciousness, self-comprehending, philosophic or absolute (i.e.,
superhuman) abstract mind is in its entirety nothing but the display, the self-objectification, of the essence of the philosophic mind,
and the philosophic mind is nothing but the estranged mind of the
world thinking within its self-estrangement i.e., comprehending
itself abstractly. Logic (mind's coin of the realm, the speculative or
thought-value of man and nature their essence grown totally indifferent to all real determinateness, and hence their unreal
essence) is alienated thinking, and therefore thinking which abstracts from nature and from real man: abstract thinking. Then: The
externality of this abstract thinking... nature, as it is for this abstract
thinking. Nature is external to it its self-loss; and it apprehends
nature also in an external fashion, as abstract thinking but as
alienated abstract thinking. Finally, Spirit, this thinking returning
home to its own point of origin the thinking which, as the anthropological, phenomenological, psychological, ethical, artistic
and religious mind is not valid for itself, until ultimately it finds itself, and relates itself to itself, as absolute knowledge in the hence
absolute, i.e., abstract mind, and so receives its conscious embodiment in a mode of being corresponding to it. For its real mode of
being is abstraction.
There is a double error in Hegel.
The first emerges most clearly in the Phenomenology, the Hegelian
philosophy's place of origin. When, for instance, wealth, state power, etc., are understood by Hegel as entities estranged from the human being, this only happens in their form as thoughts... They are
thought-entities, and therefore merely an estrangement of pure, i.e.,
abstract, philosophical thinking. The whole process therefore ends
with Absolute Knowledge. It is precisely abstract thought from

which these objects are estranged and which they confront with
their arrogation of reality. The philosopher sets up himself (that is,
one who is himself an abstract form of estranged man) as the measuring-rod of the estranged world. The whole history of the alienationprocess and the whole process of the retraction of the alienation is
therefore nothing but the history of the production of abstract (i.e., absolute) thought of logical, speculative thought. The estrangement,
which therefore forms the real interest of this alienation and of the
transcendence of this alienation, is the opposition of in-itself and foritself, of consciousness and self-consciousness, of object and subject that
is to say, it is the opposition, within thought itself, between abstract
thinking and sensuous reality or real sensuousness...
The appropriation of man's essential powers, which have become
objects indeed, alien objects is thus in the first place, only an
appropriation occurring in consciousness, in pure thought i.e., in abstraction: it is the appropriation of these objects as thoughts and as
movements of thought. Consequently, despite of its thoroughly negative and critical appearance and despite the criticism really contained in it, which often anticipates far later development, there is
already latent in the Phenomenology as a germ, a potentiality, a secret, the uncritical positivism and the equally uncritical idealism of
Hegel's later works that philosophic dissolution and restoration
of the existing empirical world. In the second place: the vindication
of the objective world for man for example, the realization that
sensuous consciousness is not an abstractly sensuous consciousness
but a humanly sensuous consciousness that religion, wealth, etc.,
are but the estranged world of human objectification, of man's essential powers given over to work and they are therefore but the
path to the true human world this appropriation or the insight
into this process consequently appears in Hegel in this form, that
sense, religion, state-power, etc., are spiritual entities; for only mind
is the true essence of man, and the true form of mind is thinking
mind, the logical, speculative mind. (Manuscripts, pp. 147-50;
parentheses in the text)
Marx's mistaking
Marx's critique of the Phenomenology is pervaded by the same
of Spirit for a
misconceptions as that of the Logic earlier. To his previous condematerialized
fusion of identities among fundamental Hegelian concepts is
entity.
n o w added the most comprehensive, and therefore, for the dialectician, the most fatal of all: the substitution of reason for
Reason and of (individual) m i n d for Spirit (or M i n d ) . As w e
n o w m o v e at the level of sensuously concrete Spirit o f t e n
obscured by the rendition of Geist as M i n d or e v e n " m i n d "
Marx's earlier misconceptions in connection w i t h his criticism
of the Logic, can be brought into sharper focus. Contrary to
what M a r x thinks, it did not happen that Hegel, c o n f r o n t e d
with a choice between nature and mind, b e t w e e n externality
and abstraction, between "sensuousness externality in contrast
to thought weaving within itself opted for the latter. Rather, it
is that, w i t h these polarities already sublated b e f o r e the ad-

vanced m o m e n t s of Spirit (and the Idea) are reached, Hegel

was not faced with such choice. His achievement, among others, consists of having overcome scientistic self-concealment by
confronting and resolving these dualisms at the categorial level,
before they return to haunt him in his analysis of "sensuous reality or real sensuousness."
Once emplaced in the institutional setting of concrete Spirit,
"religion, state-power, etc.," which Marx misses in their manifestations as "sensuous consciousness (which) is not an abstractly
sensuous consciousness but a humanly sensuous consciousness," are precisely the concrete universals which Marx missed
in Hegel's Logic the "diamantine identit(ies), ( w h i c h ) also
contain difference." As such, the concrete universals contain
the particular which is the locus of sensuous attributes in the
richness of their variety. Hegel had also anticipated complaints
such as those voiced by Marx with regard to the numbing effect
that philosophical thought has on nature.
The rustle of Nature's life is silenced in the stillness of thought;
(that) her abundant life, wearing a thousand wonderful and delightful shapes, shrivels into arid forms and shapeless generalities
resembling a murky northern fog.
But Hegel's answer to his o w n quandary follows a f e w paragraphs later in the already q u o t e d #246 Zusatz of Philosophy
of Nature.
Intelligence familiarizes itself with things, not of course in their
sensuous existence, but by thinking them and positing their content in itself; and in, so to speak, adding form, universality, to the
practical ideality (i.e., the sensuous dimension of experience)
which, by itself is only negativity (because of one-sidedness), it
gives an affirmative character to the negativity of the singular (i.e.,
the one-sidedness of the individual, thus rounding-up its character
as concrete universal).
Marx's charge, therefore, that cultural complexes, such as institutionalized wealth, state-power, and ethical and religious life,
are for Hegel "spiritual entities; for only mind is the true essence
of man, and the true form of mind is thinking mind, the logical,
speculative mind," is totally unwarranted. Reinforcing Marx's
confusion concerning the distinction between (subjective) mind
and (trans-individual) M i n d (or, m o r e importantly, Spirit),
which is pervasive throughout his argument, is his missing of
the point of Hegel that philosophy has the last word because the
philosopher takes stock after the fact. In this context, Hegel
could not become an activist, as Marx would have liked him to.
N o one would have been more delighted than Hegel to hear that
cultural manifestations as the above were understood by his students as he meant them, i.e., as "spiritual entities." But, equally,

no one w o u l d have been m o r e indignant to find out that not

only was the meaning attached to such entities that of bloodless
categories, or disembodied spirits, but that Hegel himself, w h o
had opened his Philosophy of Spirit with the following quotation,
was in fact the perpetrator of such a blunder.
The knowledge of Spirit is the highest and hardest, just because it
is the most 'concrete' of sciences.
The difficulty of the philosophical cognition of Spirit consists in the
fact that in this we are no longer dealing with the comparatively abstract, simple logical Idea, but with the most concrete, most developed form achieved by the Idea in its self-actualization... But it belongs to the nature of Spirit to cognize its Notion... Spirit is, therefore, in its every act only apprehending itself, and the aim of all genuine (philosophical) science is just this, that Spirit shall recognize itself in everything in heaven and on earth. An out-and-out Other
simply does not exist for Spirit. (Philosophy of Spirit #377 and Zusatz)
It is difficult to be m o r e emphatic than Hegel o n the issue
that Spirit is no disembodied entity. Yet this erroneous v i e w has
persisted long after Marx's reading. Perhaps in addition to the
mentalist, and e v e n spiritualist, associations that this central
Hegelian category raises in the mind of the reader, there is also
the familiar tendency of taking the (dualistic) epistemological
standpoint for granted and tacitly or explicitly resisting any attempt to supersede it. Hegel's o w n description of the Phenomenology as an i n t r o d u c t i o n to his system can be taken in the
manner customary among some of his illustrious predecessors,
as the clearing of the epistemological ground before wrestling
with other, and presumably more important, issues, such as human conduct in the cases of Locke, Hume, and Kant. However,
in line with his o w n meta-physical or speculative approach
in the sense of presuppositional and not in Marx's sense of dogmatically metaphysical "thoughts ( w h i c h ) are therefore fixed
mental shapes or ghosts dwelling outside nature and m a n "
his clearing of the ground consisted in questioning the very dualistic categorial structure in which the epistemological issue
was embedded. A n d all of this as a preparation for the self-appointed task of Spirit above, that "an out-and-out Other simply
does not exist" for it. Thus the transition f r o m Essence to the
Notion can be interpreted as the transcendence of the epistemological standpoint as such, as reflected also in the question
posed at the outset in Philosophy of Nature: " H o w do we, as subjects, come to contact w i t h objects?" The same quest was encapsulated in the Logic in the familiar distinction between Notion and Essence, whereby thought operated on itself, with and
w i t h o u t t h e k n o w l e d g e of d o i n g so, r e s p e c t i v e l y . Or, as

The underlying
epistemological
dualism is behind
Marx's misconception of Spirit.

summed up in Logic #224, in Reason's "certitude of the virtual

identity between itself the objective world," followed by the
conclusion of #234 "that the objective world is its own truth
and substantiality." The self-appointed task of Spirit above is
Philosophy of Spirit's version of the same dialectic of "development and actualization" of the Logic, except that it also encompasses the sensuously concrete detail of "everything in heaven
and on earth."
Apparent incompatibility between the
findings of common
sense and those of dialectical philosophy.

The progressive transcendence of the epistemological stance,

in terms of the identity of subject and object, had understandably proved taxing to common sense and scientistic outlook
alike. This was especially true at the conclusion of the Logic
whereby, with the relinquishment of any remaining sensuousrealistic props, thought was probing into the deeply embedded
presuppositions of time and space. The positions adopted in the
course of the final moments of the Idea, to the effect that "the
End of the Good is just as much not executed as executed," or
"that the final purpose of the world is accomplished no less
than ever accomplishing itself," were as unsettling for the Understanding as was the Absolute Idea for Marx. Even more so
was the suspension, at the conclusion of the Idea, of the props
of space and t i m e , w h i c h had h i t h e r t o f a i t h f u l l y served
throughout the realist w o r l d v i e w of the Understanding. But
transcendence of sensuous experience and of the realist standpoint in general does not mean their elimination as M a r x
claims, but their dialectical incorporation into the wider context
of meaning (of the meaning) of Notion. As Hegel succinctly put
it at the end of the last quote, what inhabits a realist context of
meaning is not a sublated, but "an out-and-out Other (which)
simply does not exist for Spirit." In a different context, but always w i t h the sublated categories of time and space in the
background, he again points to the continuing role of Nature in
the familiar #381 of the Philosophy of Spirit (of which Marx also
has vigorously taken exception early in this Chapter) to the effect that "nature has therefore to supersede itself for the abstract thinker, for it is already posited by him as a potentially superseded being."
We can now fully restate the disputed #381 in a reconstructed form in light of what has intervened between n o w and its
first appearance in the third Chapter of Part m .
From our point of view (i.e., for-us, the dialectical philosophers
enjoying the benefit of the Notion) Spirit has (in the context of the
sublated time-and-space props of the Understanding) for its presupposition Nature, of which it is the truth (i.e., actualization in the
context of the timelessness or eternity of the Idea), and for that
reason (Spirit is) its (Nature's) absolute prius." In this its truth (i.e.,

dialectical fulfillment in the Idea) Nature is vanished, and Spirit

has resulted as the 'Idea' entered on possession (of the part) of itself (which it had alienated in its self-externalization, as it went
forth as Nature). Here the subject and object of the Idea are one
either is the intelligent unity, the Notion. This identity is absolute
negativity for whereas in Nature the intelligent unity has its objectivity perfect but externalized, this self-externalization has been
nullified (as a result of the sublation of the externality of the object
in the subject-object relationship) and the (intelligent) unity (of
the Notion) in that way has been made one and the same with itself. Thus at the same time it is this identity only so far as it is a return out of nature, (emphases added in the last instance in this case)
Hegel is by no means suggesting, as Marx insists, that Nature
somehow dematerializes in his hands and that a materialistically grounded dialectic is needed to bring it back to life. Nature
"is vanished" o n l y to the extent that it is crudely v i e w e d as
merely external, so that the Idea can repossess the part of itself
it externalized on " g o ( i n g ) forth f r e e l y as Nature." Here the
subject (the Idea qua appropriator repossessing itself) and its
object (the self-externalized Idea qua appropriated) are one, the
"intelligent unity, the Notion." Hence "this identity is absolute
negativity (i.e., a double negation: first the negation of the Idea
implicit in its self-externalization as Nature, and then the negation of this self-diremption of the Idea by Spirit) for whereas
in Nature the intelligent unity has its objectivity perfect but externalized, this self-externalization has been nullified and the
unity in that w a y been made one and the same with itself." The
issue, therefore, is not between a nature that has been allowed
to vanish (Marx's v i e w of Hegel's Nature) and another that has
been preserved (Marx's view of his o w n version), one dead and
another alive. Unfortunately for Marx and inevitably (for different reasons) for Hegel, all nature is dead by the time discursive reason is through with it. Rather the case is about grades of
sophistication in approaching Nature the difference between
approaching it in self-concealment and "as thinkers," or f r o m
the standpoint of "for-us" with which #381 was introduced and
which Hegel took pains to employ in his approach to it earlier
through theory and practice. The difference is b e t w e e n a sophisticated and crude one, b e t w e e n a dialectical and non-dialectical or pseudo-dialectical approach, for being unmediated
and less self-conscious about what they are taking for granted.
M a r x ' s a p p r o a c h to n a t u r e a n d his " i n t e l l i g e n t u n i t y " of
thought and being, subject and object, and theory and practice,
belong to the latter category. His crude, realist brand of epistem o l o g y is insufficiently mediated, so that he remains in selfconcealment in the midst of his edifications about nature and
his faith in his o w n brand of naturalism.

The externality of
the epistemologically
realist context does
not vanish in the
dialectical context.

A being who is objective acts objectively, and he would not act objectively if the objective did not reside in the very nature of his being. He creates or establishes only objects, because, he is established
by objects because at bottom he is nature.
Samples of Marx's
undialectical
epistemology.

Man is directly a natural being. As natural being and a living natural

being he is on the one hand furnished with natural powers of life
he is an active natural being. These forces exist in him as tendencies
and abilities as impulses. On the other hand, as a natural, corporeal, sensuous, objective being he is a suffering, conditioned and
limited creature, like animals and plants. That is to say, the objects
of his impulses exist outside him, as objects independent of him; yet
these objects are objects of his need essential objects, indispensable
to the manifestation and confirmation of his essential powers. To
say that man is a corporeal, living, real, sensuous, objective being
full of natural vigor is to say that he has real, sensuous, objects as the
objects of his being or of his life, or that he can only express his life
in real, sensuous objects. To be objective, natural and sensuous,
and at the same time to have object, nature and sense outside oneself, or oneself to be object, nature and sense for a third party, is
one and the same thing... A being which does not have its nature
outside itself is not a natural being, and plays no part in the system
of nature. A being which has no object outside itself is not an objective being. A being which is not itself an object for some third
being has no being for its object; i.e., it is not objectively related. Its
be-ing (i.e., its Being) is not objective.
An unobjective being is a nullity an un-being.
A n d a somewhat less crude epistemologically realist version
in the page that follows:
But man is not merely a natural being: he is a human natural being. That is to say, he is a being for himself. Therefore he is a species
being, and has to confirm and manifest himself as such both in his
being and in his knowing. Therefore, human objects are not natural
objects as they immediately present themselves, and neither is human sense as it immediately is as it is objectively human sensibility, human objectivity. Neither nature objectively nor nature
subjectively is directly given in a form adequate to the human being. And as everything natural has to have its beginning, man too
has his act of coming-to-be history which, however, is for him
a known history, and hence as an act of coming-to-be it is a conscious self-transcending act of coming-to-be. History is the true
natural history of man. (Manuscripts, pp. 156-58; parenthetical
statements in the text except that following "be-ing")

Linking Marx's epistemological realism

to his misinterpretation of Hegel's final
synthesis in the
Phenomenology.

This is part of Marx's saturation attack on a single phrase in

the second paragraph of the last chapter of Phenomenology, according to which, "the alienation of self-consciousness itself establishes t h i n g h o o d . " Taken in context, this phrase offers a
highly compressed statement of the counterpart in this work of
our familiar transition from the Logic (#244) to Nature, whereby the Idea

in its own absolute truth it resolves to let the 'moment' of its particularity, or of the first characterization and other-being, the immediate Idea, as its reflected image, go forth freely as Nature.
As it has, one hopes, become clear in the preceding pages,
this transition is crucial for the comprehension of Hegel's effort
to overcome the epistemological standpoint with particular reference to a mindful approach to nature, and correspondingly,
to Marx's misguided effort to reinstate it. "Thinghood" in the
Phenomenology corresponds Nature in the Logic. Self-consciousness, already a feature of the Absolute Idea in the latter work, is
pre-eminently the locus of dialectical synthesis in the former
one. Finally, alienation in the former corresponds to the whole
" 'moment' of... particularity" of the Absolute Idea, with special
emphasis on its "other-being" in the above quoted transition.
To ensure that there is no ambiguity left on this point, the following opening paragraphs of the concluding chapter of the
Phenomenology, titled "Absolute Knowledge," provide not only
the context for this highly indigestible (for Marx) phrase, but
also the whole basis for the remaining part of his "Critique".
The Spirit manifested in Revealed Religion has not as yet surmounted its attitude of consciousness as such; or, what is the same
thing, its actual self-consciousness is not at this stage the object it is
aware of. Spirit as a whole and the moment distinguished in it fall
within the sphere of figurative thinking, and within the form of
objectivity. The content of this figurative thought is Absolute Spirit.
All that remains to be done now is to cancel and transcend this
bare form; or, better, because the form appertains to consciousness
as such, its true meaning must have already come out in the
shapes or modes consciousness has assumed.
The surmounting of the object of consciousness in this way is not
to be taken one-sidedly as meaning that the object showed itself
returning into the self. It has a more definite meaning: it means
that the object as such presented itself to the self as a vanishing
factor; and, furthermore, that the alienation of self-consciousness
itself establishes thinghood, and that this externalization of selfconsciousness has not merely negative, but positive significance, a
significance not merely for us or per se, but for self-consciousness itself. The negative of the object, its cancelling its own existence,
gets, for self-consciousness, a positive significance; or, self-consciousness knows this nothingness of the object because on the one
hand self-consciousness itself externalizes itself; for in doing so it
establishes itself as object, or, by reason of the indivisible unity
characterizing its self-existence, sets up the object as its self. On the
other hand, there is also this other moment in the process, that
self-consciousness has just as really cancelled and superseded this
self-relinquishment and objedification, and has resumed them into
itself, and is thus at home with itself in its otherness as such. This is
the movement of consciousness, and in this process consciousness
is the totality of its moments.

Consciousness, at the same time, must have taken up a relation to

the object in all its aspects and phases, and have grasped its meaning from the point of view of each of them. This totality of its determinate characteristics makes the object perse or inherently a
spiritual reality; and it becomes so in truth for consciousness, when
the latter apprehends every individual one of them as self, i.e.,
when it takes up towards them the spiritual relationship just spoken of. (Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. Baillie, London:
George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1931, pp. 789-90; subsequently referred to as Phenomenology; minor adjustments in terminology and
capitalization to conform to the rest of our usage)
Parallelism between
the final synthesis
of the Logic and
that of the Phenomenology.

As is evident from the above, the closing moment of the Phenomenology closely parallels those of the Logic and the Philosophy
of Spirit, the Absolute Idea and Absolute Spirit, respectively. The
Phenomenology forms one more link in the circular chain of the
dialectical system, so that the same final outcome, i.e., the
overcoming of the epistemological standpoint and the establishment of the notional structure, are shown to be operating immanently in different subject matter. Whereas in the Logic selfconsciousness served as an intuitive aid for grasping the logical
structure of the Notion, in the Philosophy of Spirit, but especially
in the Phenomenology, it used sensuously concrete culture as its
embodiment. The latter work solved the perennial epistemological riddle of "How can we, as subjects, come into contact with
objects?" by cutting the categorial Gordian knot of prevailing
epistemological presuppositions. "If w e venture to bridge this
gulf and mislead ourselves along that line (of epistemology)
and so (dualistically) think this Nature, w e make Nature, which
is an Other than we are, into an Other than she is." Inasmuch as the
epistemological riddle in the Phenomenology exemplified itself in
the apparent gap between consciousness and culture, the Gordian knot was cut in this case by setting the former in the context of the latter f r o m the outset, so that the stages of consciousness, writ large in phases of culture, constitute the very
subject matter of the dialectic of culture. The Phenomenology culminates in a synthesis of theory and practice in the shape of an
elevated self-consciousness, in the same way that the Logic concludes in the same synthesis in the form of the trans-individual
subjectivity of the Idea. The scandalous (for Marx) "alienation
of self-consciousness" turned into "thinghood," before synthesizing into Absolute Knowledge, is the counterpart in the Phenomenology of theory and practice having their last bout of opposition in the Logic as Theoretical and Practical Idea, before
their final synthesis in the Absolute Idea.
In this sense, Revealed Religion, the moment immediately
preceding Absolute Knowledge and about to be sublated in the

latter in the passage just quoted, corresponds to the Practical

Idea where externality still persists. In the words of the first
paragraph above, it is evident that "Spirit manifested in Revealed Religion has not yet surmounted its (epistemological) attitude of consciousness as such," in order to attain that of selfconsciousness, i.e., that where "its actual self-consciousness is...
the object it is aware of." The "figurative thinking" and its perception of Spirit qua "content" are the same persevering dualistic
elements w e encountered as late as in the concluding moments
of the Logic, except that here they are clothed under the aesthetico-religious garb of the Phenomenology. "All that remains to
be done n o w is to cancel and transcend this bare (for being
apart from content) form; or, better, because the form (apart
from content) appertains to consciousness as such (and not to
self-consciousness), its true meaning must have already come
out in the shape or modes consciousness has assumed (in the
previous moments of the Phenomenology)."
The second paragraph of that passage deals with the outline
of the proposed final sublation and can be simply stated: with
the establishment of the standpoint of self-consciousness, the
prior stages of "consciousness as such" can n o w be viewed as
forms of "alienation of self-consciousness." This is the Phenomenology's precise correlate to the statement from the conclusion
of the Science of Logic (p. 843) that
the Idea is itself the pure Notion that has itself for subject matter
and which, in running itself as subject matter through the totality
of its determinations, develops itself into the whole of its reality,
into the system of the science (of Logic), and concludes by apprehending this process of comprehending itself, thereby superseding
its standing as content and subject matter and cognizing the Notion
of the science.
And, in the Logic (#236 Zusatz and # 2 3 7 )
The unity and truth of these two (i.e., the Theoretical and Practical
Idea, as well as the categories of Life and Cognition) is the Absolute
Idea, which is both in-itself and for-itself. Hitherto we have had the
Idea in development through its various grades as our object, but
now the Idea comes to be its own object.
The Absolute Idea is for itself the pure form of the Notion, which
contemplates its content as its own self. It is its own content in so far
as it ideally distinguishes itself from itself, and the one of the two
things distinguished is a self-identity in which however is contained
the totality of the form as the system of terms describing its content.
Every element of this presentation in the Logic has its more
sensuously concrete counterpart rendered in the vocabulary of
consciousness of the Phenomenology. The surmounted object of
the latter (which is not allowed to remain external even to the

extent of keeping its integrity qua object within the compass of

consciousness and has to be reduced to a "vanishing factor")
appears in the Science of Logic as "subject matter." As such it is in
the process of "superseding its standing as content and subject
matter" or, in the Logic, as content of the Absolute Idea which is
characterized at once as self-identity and self-distinction. It is
from this position of self-distinction-within-self-externality that
Absolute Knowledge can view the course traversed whereby
externality or "thinghood" was confronted as alien as one in
which "alienation of self-consciousness itself establishes thinghood, and that this externalization of self-consciousness has not
merely negative, but positive significance, a significance not
merely for-us or perse, but for self-consciousness itself." The
double (i.e., positive and negative) significance that Hegel attaches to thinghood qua alienated consciousness, stems from
the fact that the negative, i.e., the object's "cancelling ( o f ) its
o w n existence," is the other side of the positive, i.e., self-consciousness' knowledge of "this nothingness of the object" as its
own self-externalization. The significance of externalized selfconsciousness is not merely potentially or in-itself (Baillie's "per
se or for-us" who, as detached but enlightened observers, can
anticipate the final outcome of the dialectical process), but explicitly or for-itself (i.e., "for self-consciousness itself," which
"sets up the object as its self... (and) is thus at home with itself
and its otherness as such").
As in Hegel's other works, the final synthesis is structured
along the lines of the coincidence of potentiality and actuality,
of the implicitly and the explicitly given, the unself-conscious
becoming self-conscious, or the in-and-for-itself. But, again, because the discourse of the Phenomenology is about grades and
manifestations of concretely embodied consciousness, the synthesis is also presented in terms of the coincidence of individual
and trans-individual self-consciousness. This enables Spirit to
view (through the eyes of the dialectically enlightened individual, here represented by the standpoint for-us) what appear to
Marx and common sense as merely external objects, as "spiritual realit(ies)," i.e., as more real for having been more fully mediated by the advanced categories of meaning.

iv. Marx's Version of the Dialectic of Action: Praxis

Marx's interpretation of the closing passages of the quoted
segment from Absolute Knowledge in the Phenomenology, provides a logical point of transition from his diagnosis of what is
wrong with Hegel's dialectic to the prescription of his o w n dialectic of praxis. More than anything else in these concluding
passages, it is the expression about self-consciousness being "at
home with itself in its otherness as such," that encapsulates, for
Marx, Hegel's accommodation, his being "at h o m e " with the
status quo, the "otherness as such" of the establishment.

Marx's branding of
Hegel's dialectic as
accommodationist.

On the other hand, says Hegel, there is at the same time this other
moment in this process, that consciousness has just as much annulled and superseded this externalization and objectivity and resumed them into itself, being thus at home in its other-being as such.
In this discussion are brought together all the illusions of
speculations.
First of all: consciousness self-consciousness is at home with itself
in its other-being as such. It is therefore or if we here abstract from
the Hegelian abstraction and put the self-consciousness of man instead of Self-consciousness it is at home with itself in its other-being
as such. This implies, for one thing that consciousness (knowing as
knowing, thinking as thinking) pretends to be directly the other of
itself to be the world of sense, the real world, life thought
over-reaching itself in thought (Feuerbach). This aspect is contained
herein, inasmuch as consciousness as mere consciousness takes offense not at estranged objectivity, but at objectivity as such.
Secondly, this implies that self-conscious man, in so far as he has
recognized and annulled and superseded the spiritual world (or his
world's spiritual, general mode of being) as self-alienation, nevertheless again confirms this in its alienated shape and passes it off as
his true mode of being re-establishes it, and pretends to be at
home in his other-being as such. Thus, for instance, after annulling
and superseding religion, after recognizing religion to be a product
of self-alienation, he yet finds confirmation of himself in religion as
religion. Here is the root of Hegel's false positivism, or of his merely
apparent criticism: this is what Feuerbach designated as the positing, negating and re-establishing of religion or theology but it
has to be grasped in more general terms. Thus reason is at home in
unreason as unreason. The man who has recognized that he is
leading an alienated life in politics, law, etc., is leading his true human life in this alienated life as such. Self-affirmation, in contradiction with itself in contradiction both with the knowledge of and
with the essential being of the object is thus true knowledge and
life.
There can therefore no longer be any question about an act of accommodation of Hegel's part vis-a-vis religion, the state, etc., since
this lie is the lie of his principle. (Manuscripts, pp. 160-1; parentheses in the text)

Marx's philosophical
derivation of Hegel's
accommodationism
is the result of compounded errors
about the dialectic.

To paraphrase Marx's one-sentence conclusion of the first

quoted paragraph above, this discussion brings together all of
the errors of his pseudo-dialectic. First of all, the reduction of
trans-individual Self-consciousness to individual self-consciousness brought about by a parody of the Hegelian absolute or double negation i.e., "if w e here abstract from the Hegelian abstraction... " is indicative of h o w shaky Marx's philosophical
foundations are. Self- (as against self-) consciousness is of as crucial importance to transcendence, and therefore to the dialectic
in the Phenomenology, as Spirit and "divine Cognition" are in the
Philosophy of Spirit and the Logic, respectively. Transcendence has
to culminate in self-transcendence if the epistemological standpoint is to be overcome, and philosophy is not to abdicate its dialectical character and become just another humanistic discipline or philosophical anthropology. But this is precisely the direction in which Marx, on the footpath of Feuerbach, is headed.
This result the subject knowing itself as absolute self-consciousness is therefore God absolute Spirit the self-knowing and selfmanifesting Idea. Real man and real nature become mere predicates
symbols of this esoteric, unreal man and of this unreal nature.
Subject and predicate are therefore related to each other in absolute inversion a mystical subject-object or a subjectivity reaching beyond the object... (Manuscripts, p. 165)
Secondly, as it should be clear by now, the trans-individual
subject, f r o m the perspective of religion, is indeed God; from
Spirit's standpoint, Absolute Spirit; and Absolute Idea w h e n
seen in the context of the Logic. Furthermore, it is a "subject-object or a subjectivity reaching beyond the object," a subjectivity
w h i c h is the product of (dialectical) transcendence, i.e., the
"high grade" or "elevated subjectivity" of our account. But it is
certainly not "a subjectivity reaching beyond the object" in Marx's
sense of being "mystical," "esoteric," or "unreal" by comparison
to his "real man and real nature," unless w e fall back into epistemological realism.
Finally, self-consciousness being "at home with itself in its otherbeing as such," is no accommodation of dialectical philosophy
"vis-a-vis religion, the state, etc." since, as w e recall, "when philosophy paints its grey in grey, then has a shape of life g r o w n
old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but
only understood." Whatever Hegel's o w n actions or omissions
indicating accommodation with the status quo might have been,
they cannot be linked to his philosophy by w a y of the Absolute
Idea. Unlike the predictive logic of Essence, the Notion is no theoretical schema to be applied externally to experience so that it
can guide action. Marx is, in effect, reintroducing the very same
parameters which the logic of the Idea had striven to overcome

in the synthesis of the Theoretical and Practical Idea at the end

of the Logic. The shift from predictive to retrodictive logic in the
course of the last moment of this work precluded such use, by
rendering the Notion a criterion for the assessment of asunder ness rather than an instrumentality for future action, which by
its very contingency would have reinjected asunderness into the
system. Hegel's statement that the "alienation of self-consciousness itself establishes thinghood," is precisely a case in point,
wherein such a diagnosis can be made by Absolute Knowledge
itself, as it reflects backward on the moments which have constituted it. It is only from the standpoint of its advanced outpost of
full self-consciousness that it can view thinghood as the product
of its o w n self-alienation. To put it differently, in order for selfconsciousness to judge the degree of alienation in the moments
it has traversed and incorporated, it requires a criterion which it
finds in its o w n state of this final moment of Absolute K n o w l edge. There can be no judgment about the process and degrees
of alienation without a fixed point of reference the state of
self-consciousness (being) "at home with itself in its other-being as
such." As w e recall f r o m the Logic, (#234 Zusatz) there is no
process of self-realization without a telos.
All unsatisfied endeavor ceases, when we recognize that the final
purpose of the world is accomplished no less than ever accomplishing itself... But this harmony between the 'is' and the 'ought to be'
is not torpid and rigidly stationary. Good, the final end of the world,
has being, only while it constantly produces itself, (emphases added
in this instance)
The elimination-cMW-preservation of thinghood and, by implication, of particular things at the level of the absolute m o ment, whereby alienation has ceased and self-consciousness is
fully at h o m e with itself, does not detract one bit f r o m thinghood and things. Their solidity and other commonsensical features remain perfectly operative in different degrees at the levels where (as in the case where "self-consciousness itself establishes thinghood") self-consciousness is still in a state of selfalienation. This seemingly outrageous (for M a r x ) conclusion of
the Phenomenology simply means that Absolute K n o w l e d g e is
about (categorial) meaning rather than about (empirical) truth.
Marx's contention "that consciousness (knowing as knowing,
thinking as thinking) pretends to be directly the other of itself
to be the world of sense, the real world, life thought overreaching itself in thought," is completely out of place. Rendering Hegel's "self-consciousness" for this is what is involved
here and not "consciousness" as "knowing as knowing" and
"thinking as thinking" is quite misleading. So is the expression

Marx's misunderstanding of Hegel's

double negation and
self-transcendence.

about self-consciousness "pretend(ing) to be directly the other of

itself" and "thought over-reaching in thought" above. Nor is the
parallel case in Marx's next quoted paragraph, in which selfconsciousness "pretends to be at home with its other-being as
such," indicative of his understanding of what dialectical transcendence is all about.
This misunderstanding is all the more serious since it leads
directly to the misinterpretation of Hegel's double negation as a
form of accommodation, and from there to the ushering in of
Marx's new, (materially or sensuously-based) dialectic of praxis
as an answer to the former's "false positivism, or of his merely
apparent criticism." It comes as no surprise that without the
benefit of transcendence, Marx's first negation takes place
when self-consciousness "pretends to be directly the other of itself" and the second when, significantly, it is "he" (i.e., the selfconscious man and not trans-individual self-consciousness, or
Spirit) that "pretends to be at home in his other-being as such." In
the absence of the dialectical structuralization of levels of discourse (especially Essence and the Notion, or the discourse
about objects and that about meaning of propositions dealing
with objects), the double negation cannot perform its dialectical
function of shifting the discourse from one level to another and
remains limited, pendulum-like, to the same level. W e recall,
for example, h o w double negation in the Philosophy of Spirit
(#381) propelled the Idea via self-externalization to Nature, and
from there through a second negation of self-externalization to
concrete Spirit. Or, as in Philosophy of Nature (#246 Zusatz): "if
genera and forces are the inner side of Nature, the (abstract)
universal (of science), in face of which the outer and individual
is only transient, then still a third stage is demanded, namely,
the inner side of the inner side," to shift our level from abstract
to concrete universal and from natural philosophy to philosophy of nature. There is not a trace of awareness of this in Marx
w h o , having mistaken the N o t i o n for Essence, and Hegel's
search for conceptual meaning for abandonment of empirical
(sensuous) reality, proceeds to brand him an advocate of "false
positivism" and an accommodationist with the "lie (of religion
and the state being) the lie of his principle." What Marx takes to
be Hegel's double negation only reinforces his o w n original
misconception about the dialectic being merely an interplay between (individual) consciousness and an (external) object. Given the way in which Marx managed to corner himself, it is understandable for him to conclude that Hegel had to "pretend"
(since there is no way for something to be also its "other" in the
hopelessly dualistic structure of Essence in which he is entan-

gled) that something could be at once "the other of itself" and

"at home with its other-being."
In the two-dimensional flatland which Marx inhabits, and to
which he has condemned the Hegelian dialectic, there are t w o
mutually exclusive alternatives: alienation or accommodation.
This, of course, is not the case for Hegel, for alienation and "accommodation" are not merely on the same level, or, more accurately, they both, are and are not, on the same level. Alienation is the state self-consciousness finds itself in its previous
moments w h e n they are v i e w e d f r o m the standpoint of A b solute Knowledge. But such a state is only implicit in-itself
or for-us w h e n v i e w e d f r o m the standpoint of these m o ments. "Accommodation," if this term can be made to fit the dialectical context, is the standpoint of self-containment and selfcontentment on the basis of which the judgment about alienation is made possible. But, as w e recall from the final synthesis
of theory and practice in the Logic, self-containment at this level
is neither merely theoretical nor merely practical in nature, but
both. The contribution of the Idea of the Good in this final synthesis has been to ensure that any merely theoretical vision of
self-containment advanced by the Idea of the True was also one
of self-contentment according to the specifications of the Idea
of the Good that every "is" was also an "ought to be." A n accommodation with the status quo, Marx's charge against Hegel,
would have to clear these specifications, even if Hegel personally had given it his blessing as indeed he had done with certain political arrangements of his times. Obviously Marx's "accommodation" does not meet the specifications of an "ought to
be," otherwise it w o u l d not have been presented as a blemish
of Absolute Knowledge. Marx's translation into personal terms
of his already confused formulation of alienation and accommodation, as he sees them in Hegel, further confounds the issue. Having mistakenly inferred, from his two-dimensional outlook, that according to Hegel, mere philosophical (theoretical)
knowledge is sufficient to overcome alienation in his (Marx's)
sense, he is n o w in effect asking: Has H e g e l himself w h o
must have reached the level of Absolute Knowledge in order to
be able to tell us about it managed to overcome alienation?
In The German Ideology he gives us the familiar s o c i o l o g y of
knowledge type of answer: Hegel mistook ideology for Absolute
Knowledge, so that w h i l e he believed that he had conquered
alienation through philosophical k n o w l e d g e he was, on the
contrary, succumbing to it on account of his position within the
productive forces of his bourgeois environment.

Implications of
Marx's charges
against Hegel for
accommodation
and alienation.

The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first

directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking,
the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behavior. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of the politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics of a people...
In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from
heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to
say, we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor
from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to
arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men, and
on the basis of their real-life process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process. The
phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life-process, which is empirically verifiable
and bound to material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics,
all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain their semblance of independence... Life
is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.
Where speculation ends in real life there real, positive science
begins: the representation of the practical activity, of the practical
process of development of men. Empty talk about consciousness
ceases, and real knowledge has to take its place. When reality is
depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of activity loses its
medium of existence. At the best its place can only be taken by a
summing-up of the most general results, abstractions which arise
from the observation of the historical development of men. Viewed
apart from real history, these abstractions have in themselves no
value whatsoever. They can only serve to facilitate the arrangement of historical material to indicate the sequence of its separate
strata. (Marx K. & Engels F., The German Ideology, trans. Pascal,
New York: International Publishers, 1947, pp. 13-15; subsequently
referred to as German Ideology)
Marx's relapse into
dualism andpositivism in the absence
of the Notion.

This is as clear and v i v i d a sample of positivism as can be

f o u n d . W h a t might help conceal it f r o m the non-dialectical
reader, and i n d e e d f r o m M a r x h i m s e l f , is the s o c i o l o g y of
knowledge garb in which it is clothed. But the element of transcendence alone the "stepping-out" technique shared by the
dialectic, sociology of knowledge, and phenomenology, among
others is no guarantee against relapse into phenomenalism
and scientism. In fact, if practiced without the safeguard of the
Notion acting as a check against the resurfacing of dualism (as a
result of the succession of "stepping outs"), the relapse into dualism in the course of infinite regress is a certainty. This can be
attested t o by b o t h the dean of sociologists of k n o w l e d g e ,
M a n n h e i m , w h o suffered chronically f r o m the malady of the
"false infinite," and at times even Husserl himself, in carrying
out his succession of epochae. Essentialism, or the standpoint of

Essence, seems the obvious w a y to cancel this unpleasant condition and it is no accident that those most vulnerable to it settle for this cure: cancel infinite regress by introducing an irreducible entity, something "really real" in the system, so that
one can, in turn, deduce from it other less real features of reality, such as appearances. Having g o n e through Essence in the
Logic and the corresponding moments in the Philosophy of Spirit,
w e n o w k n o w that this is not the solution either, since essentialism is also an unstable position.
Instead of dealing with conceptual difficulties generated by
an unexamined categorial apparatus under the light of the Notion, Marx dismisses the latter and settles for his o w n version of
Essence: productive forces as the "really real." Or, instead of
facing up to the inevitable issue of categorial meaning, he deals
with the Notion as if it were an empirically verifiable concept, a
construct which failed to do justice to reality. Thus conceived,
the N o t i o n must h a v e appeared as a dismal failure because,
though it was supposed to have dialectically incorporated the
"ought to be," it did not produce a situation in which it could
be realized into a future "is". Thus, in terms of M a r x and his
fellow Young Hegelians, philosophy would inevitably lead into
action. Instead, the "ought to be" appeared in their eyes to have
collapsed into an identity with the "is," a sheer accommodation
with the status quo. So he felt entitled to call Hegel's position
"false positivism" and seek a remedy whereby the "ought to be"
could be predictably realized into an "is," and philosophy would
indeed lead to action. But in order to accomplish this, both the
"is" and the "ought to be" had to be brought under a common
set of underlying principles which w e r e "empirically verifiable
and bound to material premises." In short, the "predictably"
above had to be translated into the detail of the familiar predictive logic of the Understanding. The price for attempting an activistic reconstruction of philosophy through bypassing the Notion, resulted in a relapse to Essence: a search for those "material premises" behind the surface of the "mental productions" of
German philosophy.
The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life-process, which is empirically verifiable
and bound to material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all
the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness,
thus no longer retain the semblance of independence...
Where speculation ends in real life there real, positive science
begins. (Emphases added in this instance)
W e are back on the dualistic track of m a t e r i a l - m e n t a l of
Essence, n o w in the guise of material (premises)mental (pro-

ductions) whereby "metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and

their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of i n d e p e n d e n c e " and are ultimately
"bound to material premises." The instability of this solution
was shown by Hegel in Essence, in which a succession of reality-appearance structures were generated only to be finally sublated in the Notion. The same situation was also illustrated in
Objective Spirit with examples from sociologism, which now
resurfaces as a dialectically pretentious sociology of knowledge.
Given the capacity of a categorial apparatus to preselect its
"facts" in the absence of a notional structure, the way is opened
for endless variations of the reality-appearance structure. Nothing certainly not Marx's test through what is "empirically
verifiable" can prevent, say, a psychologistic challenge, coming from the Freudian garden variety brandishing its own rules
of evidence, from confronting a sociologistic one of Marxist vintage with a substitution of its "really real" for its opponent's
essence. For example, from the standpoint of psychologism, in
the absence of the "diamond net" of the Notion setting the parameters within which each set of rules of evidence is applicable, Marx's "real, positive science" may be as much "the phantom found in (his)...brain" and the "sublimate" of his id, as is
theirs f r o m his. It is highly symptomatic of our modernity
which, also lacking a "diamond net" but with an infinite capacity to combine and permutate with the assistance of the computer, has produced an abundance of routine-minded and
mindless research which is, nevertheless, impeccably certified
from a methodological point of view.
In the absence of
With Marx, empirical verification has somehow surfaced in
dialectical transcenthe middle of a discourse which was supposed to be the result
dence, Marx relapses of dialectical transcendence. Categories used in the search of
into essentialism,
(empirical) truth are perversely mediating issues of (categorial)
predictive rationalmeaning, and empirical procedures are employed to decide
ity, and empirical
questions about meaning. But this should come as no surprise if
verificationism.
w e recall that metaphysics (Hegel's "range of the universal determinations of thought, as it were, the diamond net into which
everything is brought and thereby first made intelligible") to
which he assigned the task of transcendence, is reduced by
Marx to a state of dependence "to material premises" and the
scrutiny of the rules of empirical verification. The retrograde
nature of this seemingly dialectical transcendence this apparent "stepping out" from a discourse structured according to one
kind of dualism with the help of another cannot be revealed
until the examination of the categories of Essence, or the structures of Reflection themselves, has been undertaken.

Marx's essentialism is often concealed even from a careful, if

undialectical, reader by the fact that some of its formulations
are cast in the parameters of sociology of knowledge, or in a
similarly pseudo-dialectical historicist framework. His essenceappearance relationship is redefined in time according to the
social context. It is even cancelled at some eschaton, some point
in the future at which alienation is supposed to be overcome
and man's dependence on "material premises" is severed. This
may appear to be a Notion-like structure wherein, essentialism,
having been transcended, and the is-ought dualism overcome,
self-consciousness is finally "at home with its other-being," which
this time, unlike the Hegelian case, happens to be the "real"
other-being, i.e., external reality. But on closer examination
this is far from the case. The Marxist Notion-looking entity,
whether it be called communism, conquest of alienation, or
freedom from dependence on "material premises," is more of a
blueprint to be brought to realization at some future date. In
Marx's case a blueprint or a vision boils d o w n to the social
counterpart of a scientistic theoretical construct, in the sense
that it is an adaptation of the predictive logic of the latter for
use in the modification of external (social) circumstances. As
something whose structure is instrumental and whose realization belongs to the future, Marx's vision is governed by the predictive rationality of Essence. But, as w e are well aware from
our encounters in the Logic, this shift to what is no less than scientistic theory-practice, is a step further away from what is portrayed by Marx as their dialectical synthesis of theory-practice
through sensuous human activity, or praxis. His synthesis-inthe-future is premised on the essentialist assumptions of the
present: once the dependence of "mental productions" on
"material premises" is shown in practice, i.e., by acting to
change these "premises," all dualism is supposed to cease automatically. "Empty talk about consciousness ceases, and real
knowledge has taken place. When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of activity loses its medium of
existence." We are, in effect, being asked by no less than a selfproclaimed practitioner of the dialectic, to keep our faith in
good old scientific method, and to show it by trying our hand at
a hypothesis whose confirmation (or disconfirmation) is awaitDestructive implicaing us as soon as w e decide to act.
tions of predictive
Clearly this will not do as a final dialectical synthesis of therationality and
ory and practice because it was precisely the predictive logic of
particularization
scientism which was at issue from the outset, namely the asof action for
sumption that a dialectical synthesis of theory and practice can Marx's "dialectical
be planned beforehand. A n y confidence placed on the out- synthesis."

Marx's misconception about time

in regard to his
attempted synthesis
through praxis.

come, i.e., the ultimate confirmation of the synthesis-in-future

through action, is pari passu a misplacement of confidence on
the efficacy of the dualistic apparatus of scientism to effect radical change. With respect to such misplacement, it is worth recalling the "particularizing" effects of action from the illustration of ideological praxis by way of Soviet planning of synthesis
following the Marxist model of praxis. All sorts of totalizing efforts i.e., radical, for having overcome the recalcitrant underlying duality of theory and practice were advanced on the
basis of predictive rationality. But when the final account of the
de-totalizing effects of action was drawn, with the benefit of the
retrodictive logic of the Notion, these claims proved totally illfounded. Lack of scrutiny regarding the role of the categories of
action lay at the bottom of subverting the final outcome of the
projected totalization. Or, in Hegelian terms, the Practical Idea
lacked self-consciousness about the "particularization" and
"finitude" of action, which it could only have attained with the
aid of "recollection" of the insight of the Theoretical Idea at the
level of the Absolute Idea. This pitfall of action is highlighted
throughout in Hegel's distinction between (empirical) truth and
(categorial) meaning and the corresponding shift from the predictive rationality associated with the former to the retrodictive
one of the latter. It is, therefore, inexcusable for a student of
Hegel, particularly if he, like Marx, was preoccupied with action, to have missed its grave implications.
Hegel's assertion that "all unsatisfied endeavor ceases, when
w e recognize that the final purpose of the w o r l d is accomplished no less than ever accomplishing itself," is destined to remain enigmatic, if not altogether scandalous, for young ideologues like Marx and his fellow Young Hegelians, without some
metaphysical background about their mentor's views about
time. As w e recall from our discussion of the dialectic of Nature, the bracketing of the category of time empowers the final
synthesis to comprehend both stasis and kinesis, telos and the
movement toward its realization. Otherwise the Idea relapses to
the familiar dualism of ideological praxis in the form of processoutcome and present-future. The dialectic of Means-End earlier
in the Logic had already set the stage for overcoming such unsublated carry-overs from Essence, whereby abstract (i.e., either/or-type) distinctions like process-product and action-outcome had persisted well into the Notion. So had the treatment
of freedom at the end of Essence and correspondingly, Free
M i n d (or Free A c t i o n ) at the end of Subjective Spirit as
something which, contrary to the either/or logic of Essence, did
not relate to necessity qua mutually exclusive. In the closing

moments of the Logic, w h e r e dualism made its last stand in

terms of theory-practice, it became clear that such remaining
dualistic residue could not be transcended unless the discourse
became retrodictive and, at the very last moment, kinesis was
synthesized with stasis and movement ceased altogether. Because of the "particularizing" feature of action, proceeding with
the dialectical synthesis involves first an orientation from present-future to past. But since the latter entails the dualism of
past-present, the last step leads to the eternity of the Absolute
Idea. Dualism is finally overcome at the (categorial) level of
theory and practice, wherein synthesis can only be accomplished ex post facto, as viewed backwards from the vantage of
the Absolute Idea, or not at all.
Yet, practice or praxis in all its "finitude" and one-sidedness
constitutes, for Marx, the foundation of his synthesis-in-the-future. This masquerading feat of passing a pseudo-synthesis for a
dialectical one has been made plausible by pushing it into the
future where, protected from critical (dialectical) scrutiny, it can
be embellished with wonderful synthetic attributes.
The transcendence of private property is therefore the complete
emancipation of all human senses and attributes; but it is this emancipation precisely because these senses and attributes have become,
subjectively and objectively, human. The eye has become a human
eye, just as its object has become a social, human object an object
emanating from man for man. The senses have therefore become
directly in their practice theoreticians. They relate themselves to the
thing for the sake of the thing, but the thing itself is an objective human relation to itself and to man, and vice versa. Need or enjoyment have consequently lost their egotistical nature, and nature has
lost its mere utility by use becoming human use.
Just as resulting from the movement of private property, of its
wealth as well as its poverty or of its material and spiritual
wealth and poverty the budding society finds to hand all the
material for this development; so established society produces man in
this entire richness of his being produces the rich man profoundly
endowed with all the senses as its enduring reality.
It will be seen how subjectivism and objectivism, spiritualism and
materialism, activity and suffering, only lose their antithetical character, and thus their existence, as such antitheses in the social condition; it will be seen how the resolution of the theoretical antitheses is only possible in a practical way, by virtue of the practical energy of men. Their resolution is therefore by no means merely a
problem of knowledge, but a real problem of life which philosophy
could not solve precisely because it conceived this problem as merely a theoretical one. (Manuscripts, pp. 107,109)
This is the sort of speculation that Marx accused Hegel of
practicing when he mistook the latter's "speculative method"

Marx's misplacement
of his "synthesis"
through praxis in
the dualistic frames
of action and time.

The philosophical
context of Marx's
priority of practice.

(i.e., the practice of dialectical t r a n s c e n d e n c e ) , his " m e t a physics," for traditional dogmatic metaphysics, or the positing of
transcendent entities b e y o n d the reach of empirical support.
Thus, having mistaken "meta-physical" discourse for traditional
metaphysics and "speculative method" for empirically groundless speculation, he proceeded to supply his o w n cure: "Where
speculation ends in real life there real, positive science begins." The problematic nature of scientistic dualism and essentialism, which are the main targets of Hegel's notional discourse,
is being bypassed in the interest of what Marx conceived to be
the overcoming of metaphysics and the establishment of positive
science. The traditionally or dogmatically metaphysical nature of
his position, i.e., his allowing of the "categories of Understanding...rudely to apply, (where they) have lost all authority," is obscured for the undialectical reader by the scientistic garb in
which his argument remains wrapped. Synthesis-in-the-future
is inferred f r o m alienation-in-the-present via the essentialist
functional relationship b e t w e e n property and consciousness,
"material premises" and "mental productions." Such formulation is sure to have earned the scorn which IJegel reserved for
those w h o tried to put philosophy in the service of managing
the future, which he thought to be not the object of philosophical knowledge, but the domain of hopes and fears.
M a r x ' s c o n f i d e n c e in practice as the locus of synthesis of
( e c o n o m i c ) reality and (philosophical) consciousness has its
premise in his theory about the functional relationship between
such reality and consciousness. " W h e n reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of activity loses its medium
of existence." But for "reality (to be) depicted" in a form which
shows the dependence of consciousness on reality, and destroys
the independence of philosophy by undercutting its alienated
discursive medium, it is necessary that action be used to change
the present form of reality.
The transcendence of property is therefore the complete emancipation of all human senses and attributes...
It will be seen how the resolution of the theoretical antitheses is only possible in a practical way, by virtue of the practical energy of
man. Their resolution is therefore by no means merely a problem
of knowledge, but a real problem of life, which philosophy could
not solve precisely because it conceived this problem as merely a
theoretical one.
This is the c o r e of w h a t has be v a r i o u s l y i n t e r p r e t e d as
Marx's priority of practice over theory, his dialectical synthesis
through praxis, or his materially-based dialectic, or philosophy
being dialectically transcended by praxis. A more epigrammatic

formulation of the same can be found in Theses on Feuerbach II

and VHI.
The question whether objective truth is an attribute of human
thought is not a theoretical but a practical question. Man must
prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the 'this-sidedness' of
his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality
of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question. (Thesis II)
All social life is essentially practical. All the mysteries which urge
theory into mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice. (Thesis VIII)
A n d again, in Theses I, V, IX, X, and XI, and some parallel
passages in The German Ideology (pp. 34-5) the same point is
made through a critique of Feuerbach's position.
The chief defect of all materialism up to now (including Feuerbach's) is, that the object, reality, what we apprehend through
our senses, is understood only in the form of the object or contemplation: but not as sensuous human activity, as practice; not subjectively. Hence in opposition to materialism the active side was developed abstractly by idealism which of course does not know
real sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach wants sensuous objects,
really distinguished from the objects of thought: but he does not
understand human activity itself as objective activity. Hence, in The
Essence of Christianity, he sees only the theoretical attitude as the
true human attitude, while practice is understood and established
only in its 'dirty Jew' appearance. He therefore does not comprehend the significance of 'revolutionary,' of 'practical-critical' activity. (Thesis I)
Feuerbach, not satisfied with abstract thought, wants contemplation:
but he does not understand our sensuous nature as practical, human-sensuous activity. (Thesis V) The highest point to which contemplative materialism can attain, i.e., that materialism which does
not comprehend our sensuous nature as practical activity, is the
contemplation of separate individuals and of civil society. (Thesis
IX) The standpoint of the old type of materialism is civil society,
the standpoint of the new materialism is human society or social
humanity. (Thesis X) The philosophers have only interpreted the
world differently, the point is, to change it. (Thesis XI) (German Ideology, pp. 197-99; parentheses in the text)
Marx's terminology obscures his point of distinguishing ontological materialism f r o m epistemological realism, and both
from his proposed overcoming of the dualism involved by w a y
of praxis. Feuerbach is being criticized for not moving beyond
the point of " c o n t e m p l a t i v e m a t e r i a l i s m , " by w h i c h M a r x
means the epistemological standpoint "that the object, reality,
what w e apprehend through our senses, is understood only in
the f o r m of the object or (of its) contemplation."
"Feuerbach
wants sensuous o b j e c t s d i s t i n g u i s h e d f r o m the o b j e c t s of

Marx's synthetic
effort is doomed
by the underlying
dualism of his
priority of practice.

thought: but he does not understand human activity itself as objective activity." By contrast to this "contemplative" or "old type"
materialism, whose "highest point" of attainment "is the contemplation of separate individuals and of civil society," the
"standpoint of the new materialism (of Marx) is human society
or social humanity." By " n e w materialism" Marx means his
o w n view of praxis "as sensuous human activity, as practice," his
brand of synthesis of consciousness and being, of humanity and
nature the "naturalism of man and the humanism of nature"
of the Manuscripts where "the eye has become a human eye, just
as its object has become a social, human object...(and) the senses
have therefore become directly in their practice theoreticians."
By emphasizing what he calls "active," as against Feuerbach's
passive or "contemplative" side of the subject-object relationship, Marx claims to have effected the synthesis that both oldfashioned materialism (i.e., Feuerbach, among others) and idealism (i.e., Hegel) failed to achieve for different reasons
Hegel for missing the "sensuous activity as such," and Feuerbach for missing it in subjectivity.
It does not take long to see how, under these conditions,
Marx's attempt at a dialectical synthesis is doomed to failure. As
w e are well aware by now, no such synthesis is possible on the
basis of one of its terms, without the tacit reinjection of the other term and, thus, the reintroduction of dualism. A genuine dialectical synthesis involves a change in the categorial apparatus
or the rules of the game, so that the two previously incompatible terms can now be accommodated under a new category. No
matter how much the "active" or practical term of the subjectobject relationship is emphasized, and an e f f o r t made (on
Marx's part) to make it the locus of his synthesis, it basically remains on the other side of the "contemplative" or "theoretical"
term of the polarity without which it is untenable. Any concern
with the modification of external circumstances, of which the
Theses are dramatic illustrations, presupposes some form of duality, which it is the task of the dialectical philosopher to make
explicit ex post facto in the process of his categorial scrutiny, before showing that the radical action involved has indeed constituted a dialectical synthesis of the terms. As Hegel would have
put it, the Practical Idea is "particularizing," no matter h o w
loud its totalizing claims. However, this insight only follows the
"toil of the Notion," which includes the "recollection," or incorporation of the Theoretical Idea into the Practical Idea. But this
is the A b s o l u t e Idea w h i c h M a r x has so c o n t e m p t u o u s l y
brushed aside throughout the Manuscripts. His desperate effort
to accomplish the desired synthesis by somehow endowing the

human body directly with theoretical insight "the senses... becoming)... directly in their practice theoreticians" is a relapse
into the categories of Soul and symptomatic of his failure as a
dialectician. Talking, as Marx does, about the "naturalism of
m a n " or the "humanism of nature" without the categorial
groundwork, is like placing the cart before the horse, positing
the synthesis before the dialectical toil. Indeed, by envisioning
the outcome of his project in the future, and thus placing it
within the predictive parameters of Essence, he undercut the
possibility of it ever becoming a genuine dialectical synthesis of
theory and practice.
The diagnosis of
If theory is reduced to practice and vice versa without
Marx's dialectical
mediation, and with no residue left to sustain the tension between the polar terms until an expanded context of meaning can failure reinforced
through recollection
provide a basis for their synthesis, the ground is being removed
of the paradigms of
from underneath practice, thus eliminating its raison d'etre. In
Part I.
other words, the dialectical process does not proceed through reduction, but through mediation which is kept going by an unsublated residue until the final moment. This is the same ingredient which supplied the radical impetus in the early paradigms of
Part I, variously referred to as the experiential, the undomesticated, the pre-reflective, or irrational element in the dialectical synthesis of action. It accounts for the injection of novelty or what
has also been called a "leap." But w e may also recall that the determination of whether this is a creative or a crazy "leap" like
the similarly structured contingency-generating "particularization" of action is a matter to be determined after the fact and
cannot be left to wishful thinking. Neither can it be left to scientistic inference without relapsing to the status quo ante in Part I,
nor to Essence once w e have reached the Notion. Inference
would, in effect, pave the way for trying to predict the next step
which would be the ultimate negation of the dialectic.
For example, a "leap" inferred by the rules of theory-practice of Essence or dictated by conscience would be no dialectical
"leap," inasmuch as it would amount to deriving the next step
by the rules of the previous moment. The certification of the
"leap" as such by the Notion ex post facto is necessary because
the categories of Essence and Moralitat have become problematic beyond their respective ranges of competence. Given the nature of the element of contingency noted above, the determination of whether the "leap" is dialectically creative, or the result
of mere caprice or craziness, lies ultimately with the Notion. In
this light, Marx's alleged synthetic "leap" effected through revolutionary praxis and signified by such phrases as "humanized
nature," "human ear," "social organs," "human object," and "the

senses ( w h i c h ) have therefore become... theoreticians," are no

more than inferences from the present to the future, or exhortations for bringing about a new social order. Whether they are
ideals to be realized through action or states of affairs which
will inevitably come about whether in fact one is consulting
the Theses, the German Ideology, or the Capital whether, in
other words, Marx is urging people to act or predicting what
will happen, his verbal syntheses are mere cloaks for the logic
of Moralitat and Essence, respectively.
Marx's use of the
historical process as
the locus for his dialectical synthesis.

Marx's dialectic of action is no less untenable as presented

in some passages of the German Ideology and Thesis III, namely
as a continuously realized synthesis cast in a historically materialist framework.
Our conception of history depends on our ability to expound the
real process of production, starting out from the simple material
production of life, and to comprehend the form of intercourse connected with this and created by this (i.e., civil society in its various
stages), as the basis of all history... It has not, like the idealistic
view of history, in every period to look for a category, but remains
constantly on the real ground of history; it does not explain practice from the idea but explains the formation of ideas from material
practice... It shows that history does not end by being resolved into
'self-consciousness' as 'spirit of the spirit,' but that in it at each
stage there is found a material result: a sum of productive forces, a
historically created relation of individuals to nature and to one another, which is handed down to each generation from its predecessor; a mass of productive forces, different forms of capital, and conditions, which, indeed, is modified by the new generation on the
one hand, but also on the other prescribes for it its conditions of
life and gives it a definite development, a special character. It
shows that circumstances make men just as much as men just
make circumstances.
Feuerbach's 'interpretation' of the sensuous world is confined on
the one hand to mere contemplation of it, and on the other to
mere feeling; he says 'man' instead of 'real, historical men.' 'Man'
is really 'the German'... He does not see how the sensuous world
around him is, not a thing given direct from all eternity, ever the
same, but the product of industry and of the state of society...
For instance, the important question of the relation of man to nature...out of which all the 'unfathomably lofty works' on 'substance' and 'self-consciousness' were born, crumbles of itself when
we understand that the celebrated 'unity of man with nature' has
always existed in industry and has existed in varying forms in
every epoch according to the lesser or greater development of industry... (German Ideology, pp. 28-29, 34-36; parentheses in the
text)
This is Marx's alternative to Hegel's version of historical
process as the locus of synthesis of theory and practice. As in his

Marx's misapprehension of Hegel's

has not, like the idealistic view of history, to look for a category, but categorial organizaremains constantly on the real ground of history; it does not extion of the historical
plain practice from the idea but explains the formation of ideas process undermines
from material practice, (emphases added in this instance)
his synthesis of
But, as it was already pointed out, Hegel's Idea is not an idea
theory-practice.
and his dialectical transcendence is not a flight into ideas or
ideals. Nor is his categorial treatment an escape from reality, but
rather the securing of reality on firmer grounds. Marx's materialistic dialectic his treatment of the dialectic as a process in
"real" terms qua "sensuous human activity, as practice" or praxis
is a negation of the dialectic through his rejection of transcendence, his refusal to "look for a category" in dealing with history. The important task ahead for the dialectic of action had not
been to demonstrate that practice has a synthetic role to play
that the " 'unity of man with nature' has always existed in industry." The attainment of this had already begun to be realized
within Sittlichkeit and was finally accomplished by the moment
of Universal History. Rather the question is about the action-categories appropriate to these moments, and more particularly
whether ideological or revolutionary in Marx's sense praxis
was adequate for the task of providing the context for the final
overcoming of the duality of theory and practice.
More specifically, the problematic at this juncture centered
on the fact that the persisting subject-object polarity (i.e., what
Marx, in his epistemological realism, had all along been taking
for granted) has been standing in the way of the final synthesis.
It may be recalled that in the Logic the transition from Teleology
(which is the counterpart of Universal History in the Philosophy
of Spirit) is to the first moment of the Idea, i.e., Cognition in the
Logic and the Theoretical Idea in the Science of Logic. This means
that for the synthesis to be successful Universal History has to
give up those categories of infinitely regressing Means-End and
historical relativism, and be dealt with in terms of the Idea. It is
only the latter which provides the key to overcoming the remaining dualistic obstacles that have been standing in the way
of the dialectical synthesis of theory and practice in its final
form. Recalling #212 of the Logic quoted at length earlier:
"Critique" earlier, Hegel is being blamed for treating this process
"speculatively." By contrast, Marx claims, his own view

Through this process (of overcoming the antitheses of Means and

End, and content and form), therefore, there is made explicitly
manifest what was the notion of (finite teleological) design: viz.
the implicit unity of subjective and objective now realized. And this is the
Idea, (italics added in this instance)
And in the following paragraph of the same work the concrete nature of the Idea is even more explicit:

The Idea is truth in-itself and for-itself, the absolute unity of the
Notion and Objectivity. Its 'ideal' content is nothing but the Notion
in its detailed terms: its 'real' content is only the exhibition which
the Notion gives itself in the form of external existence, whilst yet,
by enclosing this shape in its ideality, it keeps it in its power, and
so keeps itself in it.
Marx's synthetic
failure traced to his
overlooking of Idea's
function as a higher
context of meaning.

Inadequacy of the
historical process
(short of the Idea)
to sustain the final
synthesis of theorypractice.

The much maligned (by Marx) Idea has become the key to
the dialectical synthesis, as the discourse shifts away from the
pursuit of an ever receding "real," to one concerned with categorial meaning. This shift results in bringing the subjective and
the objective, the "ideal" and the "real," elements together in
the Idea. The same shift can be seen as the outcome of self-transcendence. Whereas, prior to the Idea it was the subject or individual self w h o stated the proposition about synthesis, while
taking his position as an outsider for granted, now it is self-transcendence qua trans-individual subject, or the Idea, which includes him in itself. The same result can be stated in terms of the
above quoted transition to the Idea by way of the Notion which,
in being only a structure of self-completeness still in want of
concreteness by way of self-transcendence, resembles individual
subjectivity. The Notion, "by enclosing this shape (of external
existence) in its ideality (i.e.,its relatively abstract structure due
to excluding the object or external reality), it (the Notion) keeps
it (the externality of the object) in its power, and so keeps itself
in it." Marx's target, the Idea, is the key to the synthesis he is after without having to resort to those inanities about "the senses
(turned) directly in their practice theoreticians." By shifting the
discourse to the level of (categorial) meaning, instead of holding
on to the object-level of epistemological realism, the sense in
which w e can talk about synthesis of the subjective and the objective, the "ideal" and the "real," becomes explicit in the context of the Idea. This process of making meaning explicit can also be viewed as the familiar (from the dialectical concept of freedom) process of self-transcendence being co-extensive with selfrealization. For example, in the case of history, its most dialectically advanced or explicit meaning is found in the categorial setting beyond that of Universal History in Hegel's terminology
the "truth" of time-bound Universal History is found in the eternity of the Absolute Idea, or Absolute Spirit.
The idea of a dialectical process, as exemplified in the temporality of Universal History, appealed to Marx and he thought
he could retain it, after stripping it of the Idea's idealist trappings, and adapt it to material conditions. In the Preface to the
second edition of the Capital, written nearly thirty years after
the Manuscripts, Marx estimates his own contribution to the dialectic as follows:

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is

its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain,
i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of 'the Idea,'
he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos
of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of 'the Idea.' With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and
translated into forms of thought. (Marx Karl, Capital, vol. I, trans.
Moore and Aveling, New York: The Modern Library, 1906; p.25,
italics added)
These crudely undialectical versions of the dialectic are the
outcome of stripping the dialectic of its speculative features in
an effort to improve it. The result is two equally dualistic formulations: one of Hegel's position misconstrued as subjective
idealism in which (objective) matter is a reflection of (subjective) mind; and the second, its opposite, is Marx's own dialectic
in which mind is the reflection of matter. N o w h e r e w o u l d
Hegel's prophetic remarks in the Philosophy of Nature, regarding
the mutual refutation of epistemological realism and idealism
through their collapse into the same dualistic ontological
ground, be more apt than in this case. The unresolved dualistic
presuppositions of the Manuscripts and the Theses resurfaced
three decades later in the form of unabashed scientism. The
revolutionary upheavals of 1848, 1870 and 1917, have gone by,
w h i l e the wishful syntheses of the early 1840s are n o w in
shambles: the eye and the ear remain as remote as ever from
becoming theoreticians.
The effect of Marx's effort to purge Hegel's dialectic of its idealistic elements was to deprive it of its indispensable feature of
transcendence, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. For
example, one of Marx's favorite themes from as early as his Doctorsthesis (1839-41) was that praxis transcends philosophy but not
without realizing it. The suggestion of Hegelian self-transcendence is obvious but the similarity is misleading. In the absence
of Spirit (i.e., the trans-individual subject) to act as a foothold in
the stepping-out process, there is no self-transcendence, whether
by praxis is meant relentless criticism or revolutionary action by
the proletariat. Nor is there, by the same reasoning, self-realization without a trans-individual standpoint from which the summing-up process can be witnessed and measured against a standard, as it was done in the case of Universal History. And, for obvious reasons, neither will it do to set up an ideal, a theoretical
schema, or a verbal synthesis, as a measuring rod at this late
stage. For, the toil of the Notion was expended precisely in order
to prevent categorially i.e. radically, or at the root level

Dismissal of the
proletariat as an
agent for effecting
the synthesis of
theory-practice.

those dualistic patterns from recurring because of attempts to

project dialectical syntheses in the future.
In his "Toward a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law: Introduction," Marx settles for the proletariat as the collective
agent for social-revolutionary praxis. He then proceeds to reject
both the formula that one "cannot transcend philosophy without actualizing it" as being one-sidedly practical, and the formula that one "can actualize philosophy without transcending
it" as one-sidedly theoretical. Instead he settles in favor of his
synthesis whereby, "philosophy cannot be actualized without
the transcendence of the proletariat, the proletariat cannot be
transcended without the actualization of philosophy." But if
philosophy is one of the terms to be mediated, then, given the
fact that w e (including Marx) are doing (dialectical) philosophy,
it can only be its discursive medium, rather than the "human
ear" or "the senses... become directly in their practice theoreticians," that will perform the mediation between praxis and philosophy. Self-transcendence, a device expressly suited to this
medium, enables that performance in dialectical stages whereby
the subject ceases to be an outsider to the process of transcendence. This again is the Notion, and especially the Idea. One
cannot, therefore, talk about transcendence in dialectical philosophy without also eventually entailing self-transcendence,
that is, without involving Spirit. Marx and his fellow Young
Hegelians, for w h o m the transition from philosophy to praxis
had become a moral imperative and something of a battle-cry,
were not interested in retrospective accounts by Spirit but in a
speedy realization of this transition, for which the Idea could, of
course, be of no service.
Hegel himself confesses at the end of the Philosophy of History that
he 'has considered the progress of the Notion only' and has represented in history 'the true theodicy.' Now one can go back again to
'producers of the Notion,' to the theoreticians, ideologists and
philosophers, and one comes then to the conclusion that the
philosophers, the thinkers as such, have at all times been dominant
in history: a conclusion, as we see, already expressed by Hegel. The
whole trick of proving the hegemony of the Spirit in history (hierarchy Stirner calls it) is thus confined to the following three tricks.
To remove the mystical appearance of this 'self-determining Notion' it is changed into a person 'self-consciousness' or, to appear thoroughly materialistic, into a series of persons, who represent the 'Notion' in history, into the 'thinkers,' the 'philosophers,'
the ideologists, who again are understood as the manufacturers of
history, as 'the council of guardians,' as the rulers. Thus the whole
body of materialistic elements has been removed from history and
now full rein can be given to the speculative steed. (German Ideology, pp. 42-43; parentheses in the text)

Hegel is supposed to have removed "the whole body of mate- No final synthesis
rialistic elements" from history and to have given "full rein... to
is possible without
the speculative steed." He is being charged with concealing the self-transcendence
real forces of history behind "the mystical appearance of this
involving Spirit.
'self-determining Notion'" and, at the same time, of using a trick
to conceal his concealment by making it "appear thoroughly
materialistic." As in most of the Theses, the pre-notional framework is set up by the way the question is posed from the outset.
In a dualistically presupposed world of mind-matter Hegel "has
considered the progress of the Notion only," trying to hide his
neglect of matter, while Marx emphasized matter by "go(ing)
back to the 'producers of the Notion'," thus unmasking the former's tricks and setting things straight. At this point there is no
need to further insist that what Marx perceives as a step forward, and a remedy of Hegel's alleged idealistic one-sidedness of
the Notion, is, in fact, a relapse to the matter-mind polarity of
Essence long since sublated. Without self-transcendence, the final synthesis of theory and practice whether through industry or proletarian labor, or even revolutionary praxis is bound
to remain external to the subject, thus dooming it to its state in
Actuality prior to the undertaking of the synthesis of subject and
object at the opening of the Notion. In the sense that he remains
an outsider to the synthesis he is describing, Marx's position is
no different than that of Feuerbach whom he criticizes for failing to go beyond the theoretical standpoint of "contemplative
materialism." Marx's own "active" standpoint of "new materialism" is no less one-sidedly theoretical if the overcoming of dualism of theory-practice is the criterion of success in this endeavor.
To put it in a way which perhaps highlights the untranscended
dualism that mars all his efforts at a dialectical synthesis: When
Marx emphasizes the material or "sensuous" term of the polarity
as the locus for the synthesis, he is also pari passu emphasizing
the polarity itself in this case material-mental or sensuous
non-sensuous through which the first members of the pair are
defined by reference to their opposites. Nor is there much of a
dialectical advance in his synthetic effort when he speaks of "reality, what we apprehend through our senses" not only "in the
form of the object or contemplation" but also subjectively "as sensuous human activity, as practice." For, now it is the untranscended
subject-object, or his lack of self-transcendence his rejection
of Spirit as "phantom of the human brain" which comes back
to haunt him as unresolved dualism. His pseudo-dialectic lacking mediation between the terms of polarity is even more discernible in Thesis III.

The materialistic doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and education forgets that circumstances are changed by
men and that the educator himself must be educated. This doctrine has therefore to divide society into two parts, one of which is
superior to society.
The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human
activity or self-changing can only be comprehended and rationally
understood as revolutionary practice. {German Ideology, pp. 197-98)
This and similar passages quoted earlier regarding "circumstances mak(ing) men as much as men making circumstances,"
have been variously identified by interpreters of Marx as specimen of dialectical self-transcendence e.g., self-creation of
man, self-constitution through his activity or labor, self-formation process, and so on exemplifying dialectical synthesis
through praxis. But, as Hegel would have readily noted, externality cannot be ultimately overcome outside of the confines of
Spirit. Thus, what poses as self-transcendence and a synthesis
of theory and practice at this level, is, at best, a relatively crude
form of interactionism described more accurately by the familiar muddled "both" of Correlation in the middle of Essence.

Contemporary Applications
of the Dialectic of Action

Actuality is not so bad and irrational,

as purblind or wrong-headed and
muddle-brained would-be reformers
imagine.
Logic.

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A. Dialectical Applications Across Cultures

(with Special Reference to Concrete Universality)
Throughout these pages, and especially in the course of the
more technical Part III, w e have been trying to compensate for
the abstraction of dialectical philosophy with help f r o m the
fund of illustrations developed in Part I. In these concluding
Chapters w e shall resume this effort toward sensuous concreteness and try to show the ways in which the dialectic can be
brought to bear on our contemporary scene to show, in
Hegel's words, that "the business of philosophy is only to bring
into explicit consciousness what... agrees with the natural belief of mankind." However, since the mediating links between
philosophy and everyday life are neither immediately obvious
nor easily established, it takes a powerful unveiling technique,
such as the dialectic, to make this explicit. W e have come full
circle back to the position advanced in Part I, that all good philosophy is a living one. Now, however, w e have the added benefit of the intervening insights of the dialectic. The key to such
"application" of the dialectic and the demonstration of its bearing on the contemporary social scene, lies with the familiar
power of negativity, or the inseparability of opposites. In this
Chapter w e shall be relying on what w e have often referred to
as unity-in-opposition and unity-in-difference in order to give a
more complete view of contemporary social reality than would
have been possible if w e were to keep within the boundaries of
the "philosophy of Identity," as decreed by the Understanding.
Coming full circle to contemporaneity involves the risk of appearing to flout Hegel's warning that the future, and even the
present, is not the domain of true philosophy, but rather that of
hopes and fears. We are running the additional risk of seeming
to put the dialectic at the service of ideology and prediction.
Nevertheless, w e shall venture into this realm of "finitude," or
"particularization," for the same reasons as w e did in Part I,
where we stepped back from the grey hues of the Absolute Idea
and took sides in the encounter between the radical and the
liberal.
Beginning with the overcoming of the duality of scientistic
theory-practice under Actuality, that which often seemed to

Resumption of the
sensuous concreteness of Part I with
the benefit of what
has intervened.

The role of negativity, or inseparability

of opposites, in the
institutionalization
of social ideals.

Humanitarianism as
a paradigm of unityin-opposition and
associated self-concealment, within
the framework of
institutionalization.

catch us by surprise was shown to be the result of a build-up in

concreteness of the negative term reaching to link up with its
opposite behind the surface. Short of the standpoint of the Idea,
the constructive appeared separable from the destructive, as did
truth from error, and good from evil. However, in view of the
principle of inseparability of opposites made fully transparent in
the moment of the Idea, the Idea of the True and the Idea of the
Good were found to have dialectically incorporated in themselves error and evil, respectively. More important for our synthesis of theory and practice, nothing can be deemed unconditionally good until it is at one with what is absolutely true in the
final moment of the Idea. To give this dialectical conclusion a sociological or even a commonsensical twist, no social ideal or
blueprint can be deemed true or good until it has been institutionalized or put into actual practice. Or, to revert to the dialectical mode, the Idea corresponds to Concrete Universality in the
familiar triad of (Abstract) Universality-Particularity-Concrete
Universality. By the same token, the self-concealment which has
haunted us all along is nothing more than the emphasis of one
term at the expense (or in total forgetfulness) of the other. In
stating as the purpose of philosophy, "to banish indifference (or
externality) and ascertain the necessity of things," Hegel was expressing the same crucial function of the inseparability of opposites. However, n o w the accent on bringing philosophy to life,
by way of socio-historical illustrations, is not so much the unityin-opposition of the Positive and Negative, but unity-in-difference between the logical and sensuous aspects of concreteness.
This is the domain of institutionalization of sociologists and of
Sittlichkeit of dialectical philosophy. To this category belong a
whole range of illustrations including the (cardinal for our purposes) transition from presuppositional to physical challenge in
radical politics and the closely related interpenetration of good
and evil in the dialectic of Moralitat and Sittlichkeit.
Humanitarianism, in the broadest sense of the term as the
promoter of both the dignity and welfare of an individual, lends
itself as a point of departure in making dialectical philosophy
relevant to contemporary social reality. In addition to abstract
principles, such as universal rights (human, legal, political, economic), various forms of assistance, public and private, at home
and abroad, fall under our rubric of humanitarianism. More
important, under the test of the principle of inseparability of
opposites, humanitarianism is forced to reveal its negative (or
ugly) side, while at the same time unveil our self-concealment
about the nature of its activity. The dialectical foundations for
this exercise in disclosure have been provided by Objective

Spirit in conjunction with the surrogate polarities of immediacy-mediation and abstract-concrete. For example, as divorced
from the concreteness of Sittlichkeit, the abstract (unmediated)
"good," as represented by Kant's good will, could, because of
lack of sufficient determinacy or dialectical totalization, issue
indifferently in good or evil. Or, as Hegel put it in the familiar
passage from Moralitat,
The good is thus reduced to the level of a mere 'may happen' for
the agent, who can therefore decide on something opposite to the
good, (and) can be wicked... This pure self-certitude (in the absence
of a firm institutional setting safeguarding the externalization of the
good will), rising to its pitch, appears in the two directly interchanging forms of (the morality of) Conscience and Wickedness.
The built-in potential for evil in (abstractly formulated) lofty
principles was taken up by Hegel in Phenomenology in some of
the most beautifully written pages of philosophy-brought-tolife. Centering on the French Revolution, Hegel incorporated
this insight under the dialectically appropriate (qua inclusive of
both good and evil) title, Absolute Freedom and Terror. Assuming modern liberalism to be the cultural heir of the eighteenth
century's Revolutions, these passages also supply the key to our
illustrations from contemporary liberal culture. As in the case
of the confrontation between the radical and the liberal of our
paradigm, immediacy in the f o r m of the principles of utility,
and subsequently of absolute (or universal) freedom, was used
by the philosophical radicals of the A g e of Reason to criticize
and eventually subvert the institutions of the Old Regime.

Hegel's paradigm of
institutionalization
of unity-in-opposition as an aid to our
domestication of
dialectical categories.

Consciousness has found its Notion in Utility. But it is partly still

an object, and partly, for that very reason, still an End to be attained, which consciousness does not find itself to possess immediately... This withdrawal from the form of objectivity of the Useful
has, however, already taken place in principle and from this inner
revolution (of consciousness) there emerges the actual revolution
of the actual world, the new shape of consciousness, absolute freedom. (Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977; pp. 355-56; subsequently referred to as
Hegel's Phenomenology)
The w a y in which Utility is located in the assaulted institutions of the ancien regime (both as socially constructed by their
critics and in the latter's consciousness), which is the result of
the familiar process of re-immediation. This can be further domesticated, if w e break d o w n the concept of humanitarianism
into three components: humanitarianism as an idea (or ideal);
humanitarianism qua institutionalized (or "making a business"
of it); and humanitarianism as an internalized value (or "making a duty" of it). The first component would correspond to the
opening moments of the dialectical triads: ImmediacyMedia-

Adaptation of dialectical categories for

contemporary use
in the case of
humanitarianism.

tionRe-immediation; Abstract UniversalityParticularity

Concrete Universality; ExternalizationObjectivationInternalization. Humanitarianism, qua institutionalized, would correspond to Mediation, Particularity, and Objectivation, respectively, as the middle terms of the other two triads; and humanitarianism as a duty (or part of conscience) would correspond to
Re-immediation, Concrete Universality, and Internalization, respectively, as the final terms of the remaining triads.
W e recall that re-immediation constitutes a new level of immediacy and, as such, it represents a synthesis of the preceding
t w o moments with respect to thought and action: (1) a new
level of consciousness (self-consciousness) attained through
desedimentation of the second moment represented by the sedimentation of institutions; and (2) a new plateau of immediacy
of action representing the cut-off point, at which consciousness-raising attained by virtue of desedimentation leads to action. As understood from the first position, re-immediation is a
standpoint of enlightenment in the sense that it removes the
opacity from institutions as embodiments of thoughts and values. But v i e w e d from the second post it is also a moment of
free or radical action, in the sense of its capacity to transcend
the prescribed routines and formulations of the institutional
setting. F r o m the m o m e n t of r e - i m m e d i a t i o n w e can see
through our previous state of self-deception. For example, w e
had overlooked the embeddedness of theory-practice in the institutionalization of science, as w e had also missed the embeddedness of humanitarian ideals (of the first moment) in their
institutionalization (i.e., the "making a business" out of humanitarianism), thus mistaking what is essentially a social construction for a set of eternal verities. In the context of our liberal political culture (from which the illustrations that follow are taken) this self-deception is exemplified in the constitutional "selfevident truths" and bourgeois "innate values," whose apparent
externality to the facticity of institutions shields their real function of cementing liberal culture and exercising social control
through their professed humanitarian essence. Re-immediation
can also be domesticated through current terminology by substituting consumerism (or even mass cultural "lollipop") for
Utility, and replacing the triad of ImmediacyMediationReimmediation with externalizationobjectivationinternalization, by which phenomenological sociology constructs social reality. Re-immediation is then represented by the internalization
of norms which have been sedimented ("objectivated" in institutions), so that for the overwhelming majority of individuals
the values (e.g., Utility or consumerism) have become an inte-

gral (unself-conscious) part of their "reality." Once internalized,

they are viewed as innate, or emanating from human nature or
conscience when, in fact, they have been placed there by bourgeois (or consumerist) society for the purpose of socialization
and as protective shields of the ugly side of humanitarianism of
our liberal culture.
Hegel's "inner revolution (of consciousness f r o m which)
emerges the actual revolution of the actual world" is correctly
broached as a cultural revolution, which involves both consciousness and the exteriority of institutions, as defined by the
dialectic of ImmediacyMediationRe-immediation. The totalizing success of the triad, as well as the de-totalizing effect of
cultural challenge, can be highlighted by attending momentarily to the cultural range of its terms. As a dialectical category,
embracing both logical and ontological features, immediacy is
applicable to both abstract logical subject matter and concrete
socio-historical material. By its very nature as a dual category
complementing mediation, immediacy connotes abstraction or
incompleteness and points to its polar opposite, mediation, for
concretion and completion. In the Phenomenology, Hegel tells us
that in the course of the French Revolution the Reign of Terror
was mounted in order to implement an ideal of reason, i.e.,
universal freedom. His conclusion, that this effort failed because it relied one-sidedly on immediacy, at the same time
opens up the field of dialectical exploration in other areas beyond ideology and politics, since immediacy and abstraction
characterize other aspects of knowledge and action.
Hegel's case of the Reign of Terror involves such concrete instances but, more significantly, also a generalized form of concreteness in social experience his familiar third moment of
the surrogate triad (Abstract)UniversalityParticularityConcrete Universality. The last moment of the triad anticipates the
modern sociological conception of institutions qua objectified
mediations "thought-things" or "spiritual 'masses'", as he
calls them in the following quoted passages and by extension
the conception of a cultural (as against a merely political) challenge. When the institutions of the old regime have ceased to
be valued for what they were "in-themselves" (i.e., concrete
universals of the old order exhibiting what is taken for granted
by people with securely internalized values), and were instead
being appraised by those (e.g., the Philosophes and the radical of
our paradigm), w h o were self-conscious about their values as
not being those internalized from the prevailing culture, a cultural revolution is already in progress. For those w h o have
reached self-consciousness, Utility is "still an End to be attained,

Domestication of the
triad of immediacy
for application to social change, and revolution, in particular.

Immediacy of Utility
and Absolute Freedom as agents of social change through
the erosion of antiquated institutions.

which consciousness does not find itself to possess immediately

(as is the case with securely internalized values)." The self-conscious use of Utility as a critical weapon against prevailing institutions initiates the eroding (de-totalizing) process of institutions which Hegel describes above and which, if accompanied
by the physical side of re-immediation symptomatic of an
advance to a higher level of immediacy is indicative that a
cultural revolution is at hand. The "actual revolution of the actual world" has been launched with a shift back to the immediacy on a double front: Utility as a f o r m of consciousness and
Absolute Freedom as a slogan for ideological praxis.
The work (implementation) which conscious freedom might accomplish would consist in that freedom, qua universal substance making itself into an object (an objectification of freedom or turning it
into an institution) and into an enduring being. This otherness (in
the form of an objectification) would be the (dialectical) moment
of difference in it whereby it divided itself into stable spiritual
'masses' or spheres and into the members of various powers. These
spheres would be partly the 'thought-things' (i.e., institutions) of a
power that is separated into legislative, judicial, and executive powers; but partly, they would be the real essences we found in the real
world of culture, and, looking more closely at the content of universal action, they would be the particular spheres of labour which
would be further distinguished as more specific 'estates' or classes.
Universal freedom, which would have separated itself in this way
into its constituent parts and by the very fact of doing so would
have made itself into an existent Substance, would thereby be free
from particular individuality, and would apportion the plurality of
individuals to its various constituent parts. This, however, would
restrict the activity and the being of the personality to a branch of
the whole, to one kind of activity and being; when placed in the
element of being, personality would have the significance of a specific personality; it would cease to be in truth universal self-consciousness. Neither by the mere idea of obedience to self-given laws
which would assign to it only a part of the whole, nor by its being
represented in law-making and universal action, does self-consciousness let itself be cheated out of reality, the reality of itself making
the law and accomplishing, not a particular work, but the universal
work itself. For where the self is merely represented and is present
only as an idea, there it is not actual; where it is represented by
proxy, it is not.
...Before the universal can perform a deed it must concentrate itself into the One of individuality (i.e., a Robespierre or a
Napoleon) and put at the head an individual self-consciousness; for
the universal will is only an actual will in a self, which is a One.
But thereby all other individuals are excluded from the entirety of
this deed and have only a limited share in it, so that the deed
would not be a deed of the actual universal self-consciousness. Universal freedom, therefore, can produce neither a positive work nor
a deed; there is left for it only negative action; it is merely the fury of
destruction.

...The sole work and deed of universal freedom (or of any other
abstract principle) is therefore death, a death too which has no inner significance or filling, for what is negated is the empty point of
the absolutely free self. It is thus the coldest and meanest of all
deaths, with no more significance than cutting off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water. (Hegel's Phenomenology,
pp. 358-60)
The dialectical net of immediacy spreads as the revolution of
consciousness reaches out to include "the actual revolution of the
actual world." In this highly anticipatory formulation of things to
come, cultural categories are dialectically prior to political ones,
as politics alongside morality turns out to be an exoteric manifestation of a more basic form of consciousness. This "actual world"
contains institutions which, by virtue of their nature as 'thoughtthings,' incorporate earlier forms of consciousness. Now, on the
verge of an "inner revolution" of consciousness, these institutions
are about to be confronted in what turns out to be "an actual
revolution of the actual world." This "inner revolution" is exemplified in this historical juncture by the moral-turned-political
ideal of "absolute freedom" (or consciousness known to itself as
universal will) willing the universality of freedom and illustrated
by Hegel through Rousseau's totalitarian "general will," (as opposed to his more democratic-utilitarian "will of all"). But the
implementation of this ideal requires by its very nature as an
admixture of matter ('mass') and thought as embodied in an ideal ("Spirit") the participation of "thought-things" in the form
of institutions. Without the mediation of the latter the ideal cannot be converted "immediately" into social reality without causing "the fury of destruction."

The indispensability
of consciousness
for both cohesion
and erosion of
institutions.

In the words of the preceding passage, "universal freedom,

therefore, can produce neither a p o s i t i v e w o r k nor a deed;
there is left for it only negative action; it is merely the fury of destruction." With the institutions in place being "thought-things"
of the Old Regime, the implementation of absolute freedom is
impossible and the attempt to do so can only result in destruction and terror. But this is not all, as Hegel n o w turns to the
logical dimension of immediacy to show h o w it is also logically
prior to the political use of v i o l e n c e in a revolution. His use
closely parallels the transition from the Theoretical to the Practical Idea in the Science of Logic. There he shows the pointlessness of attempting to implement an absolute value such as universal freedom, "immediately" w h e n implementation requires
action, and universality is logically incompatible with "particularization," w h i c h is implicit in the n o t i o n of action. In the
words of Phenomenology, implementation is a task necessitating
action, which cannot be carried out by a universal, but only by

Absolute Freedom's
change into its opposite, Absolute Terror.

a specific will logically, a particular. Thus, Absolute freedom

turns into its opposite, i.e., Napoleonic despotism and the ensuing bloodbath of Europe, as the task must be assigned to a particular gifted individual a "particular individuality" for its
implementation. Utility has, in the meantime, laid the ground
for dictatorship through social atomization. A seemingly startling outcome f o l l o w s : in a deeper social or cultural sense
despotism is the other side of democratic individualism, as the
latter is being carried by utilitarian immediacy to its (unmediated by institutions) logical conclusion of social atomization. All
of this takes place under the guise of constitutionally guaranteed egalitarian mass democracy. Neither should the discovery
that democratic individualism carried to its logical extreme
leads to its opposite, despotism, nor that Absolute Freedom, under similar circumstances, converts itself into Absolute Terror,
be a source of puzzlement. By n o w w e know that being taken
by surprise is a sign of self-concealment, inasmuch as it signifies
our overlooking of underlying links between apparently irreconcilable polar terms.
Superior explanatory power of deeply
structured cultural
forms of Spirit over
conventional political categories.

In order to appreciate philosophy's applicability to everyday

life, as a result of its recasting of the categories of Spirit (pronounced by the inscription on our title-page), one should also
note that the perennial political spectrum from left to right, and
the associated polar labels of radical-conservative and revolutionarycounter-revolutionary, on which so much political
strategy and ideological warfare have been premised, has been
d e l e g a t e d to e p i p h e n o m e n a of d e e p e r cultural changes.
Napoleonic despotism and its twentieth century totalitarian
successors, on the one hand, and liberal democracy and democratic individualism on the other, emerge, when stripped of their
political, constitutional, and humanitarian paraphernalia, as
two sides of the same mass culture characterized by utility-as-aform-of-consciousness. For example, those soul-searching
Marxists w h o are pondering the reasons for the disintegration
of historical forms of socialism, ought to reflect on Hegel's findings regarding the Reign of Terror and its aftermath in the
hands of Napoleon. First, given the similarities in the socio-logical core of the democratic and the socialist mass cultural systems, wherein institutions are self-consciously as well as unselfconsciously screened in accordance with the principle of utility,
the social organization which can maximize the delivery of
most happiness, in the form of the immediacy of the "lollipop"
to individuals in their atomized state, will prevail in the end.
Second, on the Third World front, where each antagonist
sought allies to buttress its strategic position, the underlying so-

cial components of their respective development and aid strategies p r o v e d also unsurprisingly similar: " m o d e r n i z a t i o n , "
"progress," and the "historical process" for both liberal democracies and socialist states, allowing for some differences regarding
the nature of the laws of historical development. Their common
social cost-and-benefit balance sheet rested on the same Benthamite abstract ("lollipop") principle of the "greatest happiness
of the greatest number," sharp ideological differences between
Marxism and laissez-faire political and economic theory, notwithstanding. The same abstract universal principle of utility underlies both capitalist "progress" via accumulation of capital, and
Marxist "laws of social development" again via accumulation
of capital, but with an eye on building socialism, as a stepping
stone toward the more remote state of communism.
Like the principle of universal freedom, that of universal hap- Institutional violence
piness remained an abstraction even for the majority of the peolaid bare by way of
ple of the humanitarian providers. This is to say nothing of the
the dialectic of imculturally alien recipients, as its universality ran aground in the mediacy and related
capitalist and, in a different way, the socialist economic institucultural analysis.
tions of production and property. The spiritual, and ultimately
physical, violence inherent in the aggregation process by which
"the greatest number" was arrived at, was thus exacerbated by
including both the large expansive Western societies and the
small non-Western ones under the same column, with no consideration of their relative strengths and radically different institutions. For, w h e n the "price of modernization," or the "inevitability of the laws of social development," are measured
against the "cultural costs" incurred by non-Western cultures,
the gauge selected to reduce the two aggregates to commeasurability is the very principle of Western-conceived utility, the hallmark of liberal culture and the same Utility principle, which
marked the transition of institutions from tradition to modernity. Finally, should a recent historical example be necessary to
highlight the common failure of these ideological foes to properly diagnose their common social malaise, let them recall the insights of apolitical cultural radicalism of the 1960s in terms of a
revolution of consciousness Hegel's "inner revolution (of consciousness from which) emerges the actual revolution of the actual world" overriding a merely political-economic solution.
While the phase of immediate violence of the Reign of Terror is instructive for our soul-searching Marxist, the Napoleonic phase of mediated (or institutional) violence, associated with
his socialization of France's new atomized society and the export of its constitutional ideology to the rest of Europe, is particularly instructive for contemporary exporters of liberal cul-

Liberal (constitutional) ideology as a

smokescreen for institutional violence.

ture to the Third World. By casting the Reign of Terror in terms

of the onto-logic of immediacy, Hegel cleared the way for taking up the next bout of immediacy, i.e., re-immediation via the
dialectical route of mediation: Napoleon's military adventures
in immediacy (his forceful export of the institutions of "absolute freedom"), followed at the heels of his equally historic
contribution to mediation (the establishment of a wide variety
of "thought-things") in the form of constitutional reforms and
legal codes. Napoleon's international adventures can be taken
as feats of immediacy or re-immediation, depending upon
whether they are viewed from the standpoint of his new subjects or f r o m his o w n . Institutional v i o l e n c e is already in
process with alienation the "restriction o f ) the activity and
being of the personality to a branch of the whole" in regard
to both the post-revolutionary French society and the ethnically diverse n e w subjects of the Empire. Institutionalization as
the w a y of concealing from self-consciousness that it is being
"cheated out of reality" by being "merely represented," holds
true for those w h o fought for it, as well as for those who were
converted to, or forced into, "absolute freedom." The reason
why such export, imposition, or even voluntary conversion into such ideals through their objectifications, constitutes various
grades of "negative action" or "fury of destruction," will not be
entirely clear until the familiar dialectical conception of freedom (as against free choice) is brought to bear on the examination of precisely what constitutes interference in the affairs
of other cultures. At this point suffice it to say that it is always
easier to quantify and dramatize violence qua immediacy, such
as flash-deaths like those of Hiroshima and Dresden of World
War II, and mega-deaths of concentration and refugee camps,
or politically induced starvation-marches between then and
now. Mass, and especially electronic, media are ideally suited
for the engineering of consent and the general management of
self-concealment. It is otherwise with the protracted suffering
and the lingering death, and especially in the case of meaningless death "a death... which has no inner significance or filling, for what is negated is the empty point of the absolute free
self" of atomized individuals w h o have been culturally voided in the process of acculturation over the long haul, in the abstract principles freedom and equality before the law. Liberal
history-writing and mass socialization through symbols and
imagery of liberal human rights, has desensitized us to the immense human costs of securing, through apparently non-violent means in the long run, what w e find so abhorrent in the

application of explicitly violent means in the short run by totalitarian regimes.

What makes the Hegelian lessons especially poignant for liberals is that the moral high ground from which they justify, defend and export their brand of "universal f r e e d o m " and the
way in which it sustains a posture of self-righteousness and
moral impregnability (conscience through re-immediation),
rests precisely on those embedded moral categories w h i c h
Hegel found to be, here and elsewhere, in need of deconstruction. His historical and political amoralism proved in the end to
be more insightful about morality than the habitual moralizing
of his liberal critics because the desedimentation of culturally
embedded moral categories resulted in a more clear view of the
moral options involved. For example, once the moralistic mask
has be torn away (with the help of the dialectic and phenomenology) from institutions practicing violence under the cover of
democratic principles, the parallel between the Napoleonic feats
of immediacy and the exportation of liberal democracy to the
Third World by present-day liberals is too close to miss. In
France liberals challenged the cultural presuppositions of the
ancien regime in the same way that radicals are now challenging
those of the liberal establishment, while the liberals are still
challenging the traditional and tribal institutions of the Third
World. Yet there is another less obvious, but more instructive
for dialectical purposes, reading of the situation. There is an apparent difference between the use of violence in pursuit of
power and its seeming abandonment, once power has been legitimated and its fruits institutionalized. In Hegel's examples
from the French Revolution, the bourgeois pursuit of concrete
humanitarian goals through abstract principles issued in violence, whereas the liberal temper of our times is associated with
law and order. Following the ideology of the Enlightenment,
liberalism hides its ugly face under the mask of humanitarianism by making an invidious distinction between aggressively religious, or military, interference and its own allegedly humanitarian aid. Mass media, and even educational resources, are replete with contrasts between, on the one hand, the horrors of
dynastic imperialism and the Inquisition, and liberalism's own
secular championing of humanitarian policies in the Third
World, on the other. However, once desedimentation of such
abstract principles as democratic freedom and individual rights
has exposed institutions as protective mechanisms of our western cultural complex, the question of moral options can be reformulated along the lines of alienation suggested by the dialectic of immediacy.

Unveiling the violent face of liberalhumanitarian

ideology through
the dialectic of
immediacy.

Inferences from
the dialectic of
immediacy for
conservative
ideology.

The sole work and deed of universal freedom (or of any other abstract principle, in the absence of an institutional embodiment corresponding to it) is therefore death, a (cultural) death too which
has no inner significance or (institutional) filling, for what is negated is the empty point of the absolutely free self. It is thus the coldest and meanest of all deaths, with no more significance than cutting off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water.
There should be no doubt left, following the unveiling of
those high humanitarian and democratic principles, that they are
indeed abstractions for foreign cultures, especially when they
continue to be abstractions for large segments of our population.
The reformulated moral options can then be put in Hegel's stark
terms by asking whether the "cutting off ...(of a quarter of million Iraqi) head(s) of cabbage" is a good price for implementing
liberal freedom in the Gulf area? Or, how does the "fury of destruction" in Vietnam, or the financing of aggression in the Middle East by bolstering up the "defenses" of our democratic
"friends" in the region, stack up in the dialectical (moral) accounting, according to which "the sole work and deed of universal freedom is therefore (cultural) death... the coldest and meanest of all deaths"? Clearly, in the light of what has been said
about violence by way of universalization, the implication of this
passage extends to the invisible and unadvertised "coldest and
meanest of all deaths," through institutional violence preceded
by alienation "the (familiar) restriction o f ) the activity and
being of (self-realization o f ) the personality," which is being
ceaselessly perpetrated in our very own domestic backyard.
Contrary to the common perception that the enemy of one's
enemy is pari passu one's friend, conservatives can derive no solace for their commitment to the preservation of the status quo
from Hegel's critique of liberal abstract universalism coupled
as it comes with his respect for institutions and his meticulous
abstention from speculations about the future. Rather than interpret his position as a counsel for political acquiescence, it
should be taken as exactly the opposite, i.e., the limitation of
philosophical thought to the interpretation of the past, so that
the green light is given to those committed to action without
h o p e , or e x p e c t a t i o n , of f i n d i n g m o r a l j u s t i f i c a t i o n or
intellectual backing from philosophy, to say nothing of science.
This, of course, does not mean that one cannot learn from philosophy, history, or science, but simply that the fundamental
(meta-)knowledge about creating or breaking values is qualitatively different from the predictively oriented knowledge of scientism, or the insight derived from the study of history. Such
conclusion is consistent with the deeper logical incompatibility
encountered in the dialectic of the Idea and exemplified here

in Hegel's Absolute Freedom (turning by its own logic into) Terror according to which knowledge is cast in terms of logical
universality, whereas action is associated with particularization.
The destructive outcome of culture enforcement or transmission is the result of re-immediation, i.e., of cultural confrontation on the level of immediacy of different institutions
which, in their nature as "thought-things," are on both sides
products of mediation. Inasmuch as culture is governed mostly
by the unself-conscious processes of habituation and institutionalization, the violence perpetrated against small non-West-,
ern societies, as well as against domestic minorities and sub-cultures, has been predominantly institutional, rather than outright physical. As such, it is not consciously intended as destructive, but, more paradoxically (or better, dialectically), intended as humanitarian. This is perfectly consistent with the
characterization of liberal culture as one whose entrenchment
of its o w n moral categories remains unexamined because of
lack of self-consciousness. Both foreign and domestic forms of
destructiveness fall under the familiar dialectic of dehumanization through universalization. The liberal version is more insidious than the aggressively religious or militaristic one because it
is able to disguise its destructiveness under the veil of humanitarianism. The liberal version, like the explicitly non-humanitarian one (e.g., tribal, ethnic, or religious), raises its o w n values to universality but, unlike the latter, flaunts its humanitarian motives which, precisely because of being culturally embedded, are not open to unveiling even to the perpetrators themselves. On the surface, humanitarian principles are unquestionably laudable since hardly anyone can object to introducing humanitarian measures such as time-saving technologies, feeding
hungry children, or inoculating populations at risk. Yet, if w e
recall Hegel's admonition, "universal freedom (or, for that matter, any value cast in universal terms) can produce neither a
positive work nor a deed; there is left for it only negative action;
it is merely the fury of destruction." As universal principles cannot be implemented immediately in the absence of appropriate mediating institutions of the recipient pre-modern societies
destruction is unleashed and the principle of humanitarianism turns into its opposite.
The conclusion of the dialectic of immediacy, as exemplified
in Hegel's treatment of the Reign of Terror, has been that absolute freedom, or any universalized moral principle, cannot be
realized through the mediating function of pre-existing institutions, w i t h o u t being c o - o p t e d because of their nature as
"thought-things" belonging to the very same social order that

Self-concealment
(not conspiracy) as
the key accessory
to institutional
violence.

Corollaries of the dialectic of immediacy

for the nature of
institutionalization
and transmission of
culture as inherently
violent.

Implications of the
dialectic offreedom
for institutionalization and transmission of culture, and
vice versa.

the universal principle aims to replace. But equally, universal

principles cannot be implemented immediately (i.e., in the absence of the mediating function of institutions) without unleashing terror and, in the process, surrendering the principle to
be implemented. No revolutionary, and indeed no one preoccupied with radical action or genuine freedom, can ignore this
fundamental lesson of the dialectic about the Janus-faced institutions being at once pinnacles of stability and order, while
laden with terror and violence. Institutions, especially as cultural items in the process of transmission, represent both mediation and immediacy, both Napoleonic codification and forceful
imposition of the fruits of mediation, both law and order and
institutional violence. Nor can one fail to appreciate Hegel's
placement of freedom of action (as against mere choice) at that
critical point on the dialectical scale, where retrospectively defined knowledge is concluded with what is, and action is about
to take over in order to address the issue of what ought to be.
If the destruction wreaked by liberal culture on the Third
World is, for the most part, being carried out through cultural
transmission and contact, i.e., "painlessly," "in the long run,"
institutionally, and out of the recipients' "free will," rather than
"physically" or "violently," then a fundamental question is immediately raised: Isn't institutional violence also a necessary
byproduct of every cultural contact "freely" undertaken by the
parties involved? Consequently, wouldn't an attempt to deprive
non-Western cultures of their right to "freely" adopt Western
culture, also deprive them of their most cherished feature of
humanity (by liberal standards), the dignity of freedom qua
choice? And, isn't this especially the case, if the content of such
formal freedom (of choice) is flourishing economic enterprises,
miraculous medicine, spectacular science, irresistible consumer
products, and awe-inspiring weaponry for their defense? The
cultural contacts between the West and the Third World are replete with such cases of self-selection of international aid content by humanitarian form under the guise of universal principles of modernization. There is no better recent historical illustration of such overpowering through "freely" chosen cultural
contact than the way former socialist states succumbed culturally, i.e., in terms of defaulting on their communist cultural priorities, long before Reagan and our military establishment
could claim that they brought them to their knees through economic-military competition. These questions highlight issues of
extreme contemporary relevance in v i e w of recent emphases
on a search for a peaceful model of world order, by comparison
to traditional models imposing order through military force. In

the light of the world-wide pre-eminence of liberal culture, its

latest effort involving its most precious definitional ingredient
of humanity, i.e., freedom qua mere choice and not "choice
as suspended" from genuine freedom as self-realization will
undoubtedly play a major role in liberal culture's social construction of the N e w World Order.
As the social discipline closest to the parameters of such Methodological relaglobal construction, cultural anthropology has, through its own tivism qua disciplimode of cultural relativism, gone quite a way in unveiling the nary framework for
culturally entrenched moral categories (humanitarianism in
issues involving
particular), under which liberal culture has been concealing its political oppresugly face. But, having, for the most part, lost contact with what sion and cultural
lies in philosophy adjacent to its disciplinary boundaries be- domination.
cause of compartmentalization, anthropology has also failed to
confront the fundamental philosophical problem involved in its
discourse: Cultural-turned-methodological relativism infecting
social disciplinary discourse in general, and through it philosophy itself, by way of making judgments about truth and value
impossible. In dialectical terms, anthropology and history have,
in view of their global preoccupations, reinfected the final outcome of the dialectic of the Absolute with contingency. In the
language of Spirit, they have effected a relapse of philosophy to
the moment of Universal History, in which the self-contradictory nature of a relative criterion of (the Idea of) the True and the
(Idea of the) Good had not yet been fully realized. In contemporary terms, cultural anthropology and history have infected
philosophy (which should have known better) with relativism
notably in the form of deconstructionism. But, unlike history
and anthropology, philosophy cannot offer compartmentalization, or the ruse of the Cunning of Reason, as mitigating forces
for adopting an essentially anthropological reductionism, thus
bypassing issues about truth and value and what distinguishes
them from that which is merely cultural.
Time and again, especially in the course of the final moThe Idea, and selfments of the Logic, relativism had to be confronted in the most
consciousness in paracute form of recurring contingency. Self-consciousness (comticular, as a means
parable to its distant progenitor in Aristotle's noesis noeseos) for overcoming culemerged not only as the chief methodological tool of philosotural and methodphy and as distinguishing feature of freedom, but also as an inological relativism.
tuitive aid for conveying the element of fixity and stasis in the
A b s o l u t e Idea. Self-consciousness has also b e e n the k e y
methodological tool of modern sociology and anthropology in
identifying the immanence of so-called transcendent moral categories in our liberal culture. It has thus been instrumental in
uncovering the self-deception induced upon us by ourselves in

failing to acknowledge the deeper interdependence between

seemingly contradictory components of culture behind the socio-political surface. Our failure to see through humanitarianism on the institutional and cultural (not merely the personal
kindness) level as a masking device for violence and destruction
of other cultures, is ultimately due to a breakdown in self-consciousness a failure in " b r i n g i n g ) into explicit consciousness
what the w o r l d in all ages (including far a w a y and long ago)
believed about t h o u g h t . " It is of course no accident that the
convergence of all three of these methodologies on the notion
of self-consciousness also coincided chronologically with the
appreciation of both the earth-shaking event of the French
Revolution, and the hitherto exotic spectacle of non-Western
cultures, through the concept of cultural meaning, rather than
mere objectivity. In short, alien cultures helped us to understand ourselves through our desedimentation of their cultural
processes and objects, much in the same w a y that w e did for
ourselves by desedimenting our o w n institutions so magisterially delineated by Hegel earlier in regard to the ancien regime.
H o w e v e r , in our present state of self-confidence, coupled
with self-deceit because of our neglect of self-consciousness, w e
have become progressively arrogant about knowing not only
ourselves, but guided as w e are by those ideals of progress
and modernization also knowing others. W e must, therefore,
return to self-consciousness in order to face once more the issue of relativism, n o w t h r o u g h those disturbing questions
posed above on the destructive outcomes of "free" liberal cultural contacts. Predictably, the key to our answering these questions is the familiar difference in the meaning of f r e e d o m as
conceived dialectically qua self-realization through self-consciousness, and as socially constructed by the "outward circumstances" of liberal culture in the previously quoted passages
from Logic, #145 Zusatz:
A will, on the contrary, which remains standing on the grade of
option, even supposing it does decide in favor of what is in import
right and true, is always haunted by the conceit that it might, if it
had so pleased, had decided in favor of the reverse course. When
more narrowly examined, free choice is seen to be a contradiction,
to this extent that its form and content stand in antithesis. The
matter of choice is given, and known as a content dependent not
on the will itself, but on outward circumstances. In reference to
such a given content, freedom lies only in the form of choosing,
which, as it is only a freedom in form, may consequently be regarded as freedom only in supposition. On an ultimate analysis it
will be seen that the same outwardness of circumstances, on which
is founded the content that the will finds to its hand, can alone ac-

count for the will giving its decision for the one and not the other
of the two alternatives.
In the absence of self-consciousness, Third World Soul remains defenseless vis-a-vis Western f r e e d o m of choice masquerading as genuine freedom. The Section appropriately titled
Soul as the Pre-Existing Unity of Theory-Practice, pointed to
Soul as Spirit in potentia with the moment of Consciousness mediating between Soul and Mind and, by extension, between
the pre-existing (or original) unity of theory and practice in
Soul, and their final synthesis in Mind. Our recurring expression
"pre-existing unity," and Hegel's equivalent of "original unity,"
as applied to Spirit in general, reflect the circular rhythm of the
dialectic whereby one rediscovers, through mediation, that
which had lain implicit in what (as in the case of Being, or the
radical immediacy of action corresponding to it) originally
seemed to be an unmediated beginning. Thus, in the pre-existing unity of Soul, were found in potentia all the self-diremptive
forces which surfaced openly in Consciousness and Self-consciousness (or, correspondingly, in Essence and the Notion of the
Logic) later. In the anthropologically concrete language of culture, w e are gradually becoming aware of what had been hidden from us in the immediacy-laden course of our long social
existence: since w e are the unself-conscious creators of our culture, w e can n o w in our newly acquired freedom through
self-consciousness take charge of our destiny and change it.
We may recall that in exploring the similarities between a
Western and a Third World activist, with respect to the dialectic
of freedom in the course of our discussion of Soul, w e had endowed the latter with the same degree of self-consciousness in
facing the dilemmas of modernization, as w e had the former
(our radical of the political paradigm) in confronting liberal culture: Whether or not the determination to tear down one's traditional culture for the sake of modernization Western-style
constituted an act of genuine freedom qua self-realization. Like
the self-reflecting Western radical who, on the eve of a violent
day, may be wondering whether his action will result in a genuine dialectical synthesis (re-immediation), or a mere immediacy of action; so may the Third World activist be agonizing over a
similar dilemma about the potential for genuine freedom in the
traditional institutions he is about to tear down. In other words,
whereas lack of self-consciousness about his traditional culture
had reduced his conception of freedom to liberal freedom of
choice, the presence of self-consciousness had upgraded his freedom to the potential of self-realization, with the freedom of
choice "as suspended" within a more meaningful set of options.

The test of selfconsciousness as

the criterion for the
presence offreedom
qua self-realization.

Freedom qua selfdetermination as the

criterion for assessing cultural contact
or transmission.

The insight contributed by Soul, qua Spirit in potentia, to the

agonizing moments of both activists was the importance of immanence (as against externality or indifference) on the path toward self-discovery and freedom. If genuine freedom (and not
liberal freedom of choice) is to be used as a criterion for assessing the value of cultural contacts between the West and the
Third World, then most of these contacts are, in the absence of
self-consciousness, detrimental to both. It is never too repetitious to remind ourselves that "the genuinely free will, which
includes free choice as suspended, is conscious to itself that its
content is intrinsically firm and fast, and knows it at the same
time to be thoroughly its own." (italics added in this instance)
Cultural contact, no matter h o w "freely" conducted by liberal
standards, constitutes Western interference with the freedom of
other peoples as much as institutionalization is a prime suspect
of institutional violence against their own citizens. For example, Western international education experts use the same racist
statistical projections from past experience to buttress the vocational education of racial minorities in N e w York public universities, as they do to aid the employment opportunities of Third
World students in their o w n countries. Third World countries
receive the necessary economic assistance to finance their
"higher" education, only to the extent that Western experts, in
conjunction with those of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, certify that the proposed infrastructure development plan (which includes education among others) fits
their criteria of a successful path of modernization.
It is, therefore, important that both cultural contact and institutionalization be assessed both externally, in terms of Western
criteria of efficiency and productivity and, what is most exacting,
internally in terms of being on the immanent path of individual
and cultural self-awareness. In this way, culture (i.e., Spirit) is
self-conscious ("conscious to itself) that its choice of content is not
preselected by another culture but is "thoroughly its own." In the
absence of such dialectical identity, or unity-in-difference of
content and form of freedom, Third World cultures and individuals would fall prey to liberal culture's formal freedom, which
"instead of being freedom itself, it is only in the first instance a
freedom in form." (emphases added in this instance) Lacking selfconsciousness about its own culture, Third World Soul would allow Utility, and ultimately the liberal "lollipop" social construction of freedom qua form (of choice), to pre-select alien content.
This would gradually but surely erode and eventually obliterate
its own cultural forms. Echoes of Ghandi's and Mao's doctrines
of cultural resistance and revolution, as well as of our own cul-

tural revolution of the 1960s, reverberate through this domesticated rendition of dialectical freedom.
In order to clarify the difference made in the case of freedom
by the presence of self-consciousness, it is worth citing a case of
cultural contact between East and West just prior to the reunification of Germany. During the time the Wall was being torn
down, an American television correspondent interviewed a
young German from East Berlin. Asked for his thoughts about
the wealth of consumer goods on which he had just spent his
West German allotment, the East Berliner answered, "It is nice,
but I am not sure whether 30 different kinds of salami are really
necessary." The polarity of freedom freedom as choicefreedom as self-realization (inclusive of freedom of choice in sublated form) immediately suggests itself as a dialectical framework within which liberal freedom of choice can be understood
as subserving genuine freedom as self-realization. In order to
complete the picture, one has to recall from the dialectic of Actuality that genuine freedom cannot be actualized short of totalization wherein contingency the persistent adversary of freedom, if viewed as its irreconcilable opposite has been finally
overcome. This means that freedom qua choice which accurately
describes the contingency "the conceit that it (i.e., the will)
might, if it had so pleased, had decided in favor of the reverse
course" is a necessary ingredient in the process of totalization.
Only in the context of the latter, as a result of consciousnessraising (or heightened self-consciousness in the manner of the
young East Berliner), can one uncover the False Infinite of consumerism behind the facade of liberal culture's f r e e d o m of
choice. The adaptation of the young Berliner's newly heightened
consciousness to our oft-quoted formulation of genuine freedom
could read as follows:
The genuinely free will which includes free (consumer) choice as
suspended, is conscious to itself (about what is truly required for its
self-realization so) that its content (in terms of its actual choice) is
intrinsically firm and fast, and knows it at the same time to be
thoroughly its own (and not the product of West Berlin's opinion
makers and engineers of consent).
The difference between the two cultural settings of East and
West Germany had created for our young man conditions of
consciousness-raising under which he could begin to transcend
formal freedom of choice: His "genuine free will which includes
free choice (from 30 different kinds of salami) as suspended, is
( n o w as a result of consciousness-raising) conscious to itself
that its content (his actual choice out of such meaningless variety) is firm and fast (and not as if he 'might, if [ h e ] had so

Contemporary
application of
the criterion of
dialectical freedom.

Operation of the criterion of dialectical

freedom in cases
involving cultural
diversity.

pleased, had decided in favor' of another kind), and knows it at

the same time to be thoroughly (his) o w n (and not 'dependent... on outward circumstances' such as West Berlin's counterpart of Madison Avenue)." In other words, his genuine freedom "includes (his) free choice as suspended" in the sense that
he is choosing the same brand of salami that a supposedly nutritionally well-informed East German Ministry of Food had decreed, except that it is n o w also his o w n choice. Of course,
much more than salami, which had been imposed externally
before socialism was dismantled in eastern Europe, has been
reintroduced after a period of adjustment, but now as a result
of freedom of choice and, most important, the ensuing realization that mere freedom of choice, whether in economics or politics, is not genuine freedom.
Obviously, the conditions for heightening self-consciousness
and pari passu for clarifying the concept of freedom just
outlined by w a y of cultural contact between East and West
Berlin are unique to the West and, for a number of reasons, not
likely to be duplicated in contacts between the West and the
Third World. Self-consciousness, in the way it was presented by
Hegel, is a peculiarly Western achievement, so that his philosophy has been correctly described as essentially Eurocentric.
However, the totalizing dimension of his philosophy (as exemplified in the dialectic of the Absolute and subsequently of the
Idea) can serve as a mirror for illuminating the contemporaneous political totalizing (i.e., imperialistic) dimension of liberal
culture, as it n o w stands unchallenged by other totalizing ideologies. Here the familiar surrogate triad of UniversalityParticularityConcrete Universality, must come into play again,
n o w in conjunction with the dialectic of freedom. It presents
possibilities which, though lacking the heightened capability of
East German self-consciousness for unmasking the West German pretense of choice masquerading as freedom, still does not
relegate a Third W o r l d culture to the role of an appendage
( " f r e e choice as suspended") to Eurocentric self-realization
through heightened self-consciousness. The unveiling of the
ugly side of humanitarianism was precisely an exercise in extracting the catastrophic implications of abstract universality:
the destructive effects of applying liberal culture's abstract univ e r s a l on culturally (i.e., ethnically, religiously) different people. The damage done to other peoples, as well as to the West's
o w n underclasses and sub-cultures, has been perpetrated once
through the immediacy of raw violence, and again through institutional violence, i.e., the imposition of results of re-immediation (institutions) of Western culture.

In terms of the triad Abstract UniversalityParticularity

Concrete Universality, what proves destructive for the receiving
cultures is the overwhelming of the middle term of Particularity
(representing their cultural peculiarities) by Abstract Universality, standing for the ideological weapons of humanitarian principles and political rights of Western cultural imperialism. In
Hegelian language, non-Western cultures suffer the same kind
of leveling out of distinctions, or "darkness" the "dark night
where all cows are black," an immediacy which is amnesic of
also being re-immediation, or a cancellation of the second term
without sublation which the Particular suffered in the undialectical treatments of the Absolute and of immediacy in the
hands of Schelling and Jacobi. In its characteristic affinity to scientism, liberal culture deals with dialectically concrete (culturally rich) material abstractively. The all too familiar external application of freedom qua form on another culture is the other
side of the treatment of the moment of Particularity in modo scientifico. In conjunction with the availability of Western "goodies," the liberal content of freedom replaces the distinguishing
cultural peculiarities of non-Western cultures with cultural homogenization liberal-style. First, the will of the members of another culture is reduced "by the conceit (due to the new freedom qua form) that it might, if it had so pleased, have decided
in favor of the reverse course." And, second, "the outwardness
of circumstances, on which is founded the content (i.e., the
bounty of grades of salami, among other consumer choices)
that the will finds to its hand, can alone account for the will
giving its decision for the one and not the other of the two alternatives." In the absence of genuine sublation, the result of
this mass cultural deception is destruction of another culture
through the familiar export of abstract universals. But more
surprising, inasmuch as the relationship between the two cultures has been formulated through pre-notional scientistic categories of the dialectic an active (exporter culture) and a passive (recipient culture) in a unidirectional, non-reciprocal structure corresponding to the earlier crude moments of Essence
both cultures are losers by the criterion of freedom qua self-realization. The deficiency in the moment of Concrete Universality is reflected in the fact that both liberal and Third World culture suffer from the destructive outcome of cultural contact as
formulated because of insufficient sublation. The locus classicus
for dialectically demonstrating such mutual loss of apparently
uneven protagonists, is the master-servant relationship in the
Phenomenology. But this can be done with brevity, as well as in
deference to contemporaneous relevance, by way of reverting

The dialectic of
Universal History'
applied to intercultural conlict.

to the familiar (through the paradigms of Part I) domestic scene

of the exporting liberal culture.
Before w e return to the domestic scene in the final Chapter
of this concluding Part, w e must explain our taking sides in the
treatment of the various manifestations of humanitarianism on
the international scene. This is in contrast to Hegel's preferred
w a y of allowing things to sort themselves out culturally, and
then proceed to take stock after the fact, as in his treatment of
world history. For, it is precisely a "taking of sides" that w e
have indulged in, by applying the criterion of freedom qua selfrealization, rather than choice, to the issue of cultural transmission. Or, to put it differently, in approaching liberal culture via
the moment of Abstract (rather than Concrete) Universality, we
are, in effect, opening the way for a challenge and thus turning
our back to a genuine (ex post facto) dialectical approach. On
closer examination, however, w e have not contradicted our reiterated position that genuine dialectical synthesis of which
freedom as well as radical action are exemplifications cannot
be planned ahead, but only recognized ex post facto. Though
trans-individual and in this case also trans-cultural, inasmuch as it is World Spirit Spirit has, as w e recall from World
History, transcended the standpoints of both morality and ideology. In a similar situation of contact between cultures Hegel,
operating by the rules of his retrospective logic, was able to assume the role of a mouthpiece for Spirit and proclaim, as in his
Lectures in the Philosophy of History, a particular national Spirit as
the winner in the world arena, without involving himself into
normative judgments. From his genuinely dialectical (i.e., retrospective) standpoint, the presumption is that the presence of
a winner indicates that sublation has indeed taken place and, as
a result of it, a cultural redistribution if one prefers, of losses
or benefits among the parties has already taken place, as in
all cases of cultural contact. Not so in our present case involving
"particularization of action," wherein the dividing of losses and
benefits is still in progress. The connection between the violent
dimension of the moment of Abstract Universality and the alleged humanitarian side of the particular individual rights of
liberalism, were taken up earlier in conjunction with the hidden defense mechanisms of bourgeois culture.
Yet it is true, that with the transition to Particularity and its
o w n bourgeois content in place, liberal culture is also represented by Concrete Universality. This is liberalism as a robust
status quo, the conservative face of Objective Spirit that Hegel
could have taken up ex post facto as an illustration of genuine
sublation in his philosophy of history. But from the viewpoint

of the radical presuppositional challenge, the liberal establishment has been shifted back to the moment of Abstract Universality, where it remains vulnerable to the experiential elements
it has left undomesticated by its abstractive tendencies the
moments representing "particularization" and "finitude" of action short of the Absolute Idea. As w e may recall, a presuppositional challenge involves a new level of coherence, according to
which the prevailing presuppositions have been reduced to the
status of a new content (along with the facts that they have ordered) to be reconstituted at a new level of coherence. In other
words, the radical challenge has disrupted the prevailing coherence, forcing its reconstitution at a n e w context of meaning.
Restated in terms of the dialectic of content and form, which also allows for our injection of "finitude" of action, the radical
challenge translates as follows: Liberalism's claim to represent
concrete universality (or true individuality) has lost its ground,
as the dialectical scrutiny of the prevailing context of meaning
has unveiled that the moment of Content (Particularity) is the
result of self-selection of content on the part of Form (Abstract
Universality). The claim of the present synthesis to represent
Concrete Universality is invalid since it has left out elements
from radical "irrational" experience by way of the process of
self-selection.
In this process of reconstitution, Particularity is not only recognizable as the propelling force of the dialectic, but also as our
early insight about the source of radical challenge being experiential rather than intellectual. In the syllogistic f o r m of the
above triad, the "irrational" or experiential element is represented by Particularity to be subsumed (domesticated or co-opted, in the language of the political paradigm) under the rationality of Abstract Universality. But Particularity also poses a
challenge to Abstract Universality to change its rules in order to
be accommodated. The full import of our insistence, beginning
with Part I, that a genuine radical challenge can only be rooted
in what w e variously referred to as the experiential, the irrational, the ineffable, the undomesticated, the unclassifiable, and
the outright physical, can now be better understood in the light
of the dialectical v i e w of reality as reflected in this syllogistic
structure. As w e proceeded into the formal exposition of the dialectic these recalcitrant elements continued under the guise of
built-in "contingency" which, by generating difficulties for coherence, propelled the dialectic by way of forcing a reconstitution of coherence at each level of meaning. These "irrational"
elements persisted throughout the Idea under different labels
such as "finitude" or "particularization" of action in the Idea's

The dialectic of Concrete Universality is

brought to bear on
the conflict between
liberal universalism
and ethnic particularism.

Negativity and presuppositional challenge as represented

by Particularity.

Particularity as the
"irrational," or radical, face of Spirit.

practical moment, until they were finally overcome in the Absolute Idea.
Similarly, the dialectic is the logic of freedom in the fundamental sense of allowing the untried moment (the radical face
of Spirit) to challenge what is established (its conservative face)
in the interest of totalization, which is indispensable for the realization of freedom. Irrationality and, by extension, physicality
and violence, inasmuch as rationality has already been incorporated in physical structures and institutions through the domesticating operation of Abstract Universality is a necessary element in the process of totalization. This is not to be interpreted
as if the dialectic offers itself as a substitute for the internal logic
of the system (moment) challenged, nor that it can serve as an a
priori account for the transition from one moment to another.
Rather, it gives the green light to the "irrational" moment (or
immediacy of practice) to challenge, and then allow, dialectical
philosophy to sort out the outcome ex post facto. Rational practice, w e recall, cannot pose a fundamental challenge to theory
because the latter, itself, has set the conditions under which experience can be construed as a challenge within its context of
meaning. The saying that theory is sterile without practice, and
that the latter is blind without theory, contains an important, if
only half, truth. Theory is indeed uncreative without practice,
but the latter must also be blind (or irrational) according to the
specifications of theory, if it is not to be reduced to a mirror-image of theory, thus sealing its sterility. The lesson, from the important dialectic of Reflection, that theory has to assume a
stance of independence (or disinterestedness) from practice if it
is to perform its creative role, holds pari passu for practice vis-avis theory as well, if it is to fulfill its radical function. It has been
the merit of German idealism, and Hegel in particular, to have
reconstituted the "practical" from the level of subordination to
theorizing carried on by a subject to that of a subject imposing
its rules. This was done by Hegel not only on a compartmentalized moral-practical sphere (Kant), but also to extend to the
rule-creating function through the dialectic over the whole
range of both compartments of human experience. To the original idealist position the dialectic added the crucial insight about
continuity of the two meanings of "practical" and what follows
from that in terms of the relative independence of the polar
terms: unless the independent footing of the "practical" is also
retained, as was the corresponding footing of the "theoretical,"
its creative dimension as radical challenge is lost and it devolves
into routine technological-bureaucratic practice.

Particularity and Universality also have their modern sociocultural counterparts in particulars! and universalis! ideologies
and movements. In the first category belong nationalism, fascism, national socialism, and particularist (and especially fundamentalist) religious movements. In the latter are included classical liberalism, Marxist socialism, and religious universalism.
National socialism exhibits, in a most v i r u l e n t l y condensed
form, the features of particularism in the service of a challenge
against universalism. Hitler managed to summon the full potential of the German nation by recouping the potency of the
"irrational" implicit in pre-bourgeois tribal forms of community,
while retaining the advantages from technological and bureaucratic efficiency characteristic of a modern society. He enhanced
the cohesiveness of this otherwise self-contradictory amalgam
of a communally conceived industrial society, by targeting his
challenge against Abstract Universality, the "logical e n e m y " of
Particularity which Nazi Germany represented. This enemy was
perceived as a composite of universalist elements: international
capital consisting of the precursors of modern multinationals,
an international political order pursued by both liberalism and
communism, and internationalist Jewry conveniently doubling
also as an internal enemy. The devastating outcome is too familiar and well documented to recount, but what is less publicized is that the lessons to be d r a w n are t o o i m p o r t a n t t o
shroud under facile explanations, such as Hitler's work was that
of the devil, or a madman, or that Nazism was an aberration of
history. In its one-sidedness, Abstract Universality is as logically
incomplete and unstable as Particularity. In their socio-historical manifestations, they have both been culturally wasteful and
inhumane. For liberalism, as well as for socialism, the unit of
totalization in their pursuit of freedom was, at least in principle,
if not always in practice, global universalism, which made them
veer toward convergence on important matters behind the political and ideological surface. For the varieties of fascism, on
the other hand, of which nationalism can be taken as a less virulent version, it is the particularism of the group ethnic, cultural, racial, and more recently tribal and religious which is
the focus of totalization. The dangers f r o m the latter are all
equally familiar, following the crumbling of the historic forms
of socialism and the disintegration of polyethnic states generated under the auspices of liberal international order and justified
by the doctrine of balance of power.

Contemporary sociocultwral counterparts

of Abstract Universality and Particularity.

jaMod jo aauBjeq jo auujaop a q j Aq

paijijsnf pue lapio jBuoijBujajui jEiaqij jo saaidsne a q j lapun pa
-jBiauaS sajBjs aiuqjaAjod jo uoijBiSajuisip a q j puB uisqepos jo
S U I J O J apojsiq a q j jo Suqquinja a q j SuiMoqoj 'JBqiuiBj Ajjenba
J J B aiB i a j j B j a q j U I O J J sjaSuBp a q i - U O I J B Z I I B J O J J O snaoj a q j
si qaiqM snoiSqaj puB jBquj Ajjuaaaj aioui puB ' J B O B J ' J B I U J
-jna 'aiuqja dnojg a q j jo uisuBjnaijjBd a q j si JI 'uoisjaA juajn
- J I A ssaj B S B ua>[Bj aq U B D U I S I J B U O I J B U qaiqM jo 'puBq j a q j o a q j
uo 'uispsBj jo saijauBA a q j J O J aaBjins jBaiSojoapi puB J B D I J I J
-od a q j puiqaq siajjBui juBjjoduu uo aauagjaAuoa piBMoj J A A A
uiaqj apBui qaiqM 'uisijEsiaAiun jBqojg 'aaijaBJd ui S A B M J B J O U J I
'ajdpuiid ui jsBaj J B ' S B M uiopaajj jo jmsmd i p q j ui U O I J B Z I J B J O J
JO jiun a q j 'uisqBpos J O J SB j p M SB 'uisqBjaqq j o g 'auBUinqui
puB jnjajsBM AjjBJnjjua uaaq q j o q aABq Aaqj 'suoijEjsajiuBui JBD
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A J J B A I S O J S B si AjijBSjaArafi p B j j s q y 'ssaupapis-auo sji ui 'Ajojsiq
jo uoijBjjaqB U B S B M U I S I Z B N jBqj J O 'UBiupBui B J O 'jiAap a q j jo
JBqj S B M > [ J O M s J A J J I N S B qans 'suoijeuBidxa ajpBj japun pnojqs
o j juBjJoduii o o j 3 J B U M B J P aq o j suossaj a q j j B q j si p a z p
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Suqqnop AjjuaiuaAuoa AjMaf jsqBuoijBujajui puB 'uisiunuiuioa
puB uisqBjaqq q j o q Aq pansjnd j a p j o jBaijqod J B U O I J B U J A J M U B
'sjBuoijBuijjnui ujapoui j o siosinaaid a q j jo S U I J S I S U O D jBjidBa
JBUOIjBujajui :sjuauiaja jsijEsiaAiun jo ajisodmoa B SB paApaiad
S B M Auiaua siqx pajuasaidai AuEuiiao I Z B N qaiqM AjuBjnDijjEj
jo Auiaua J B D I S O J , , a q j 'AjqEsiaAiun jaBijsqy J S U I B S B aSuajjBqa
siq SuijaSjBj Aq 'Ajapos jBujsnpui paApauoa AqBunuiuioa B JO
U J B S J B U I B AiojoipBijuoa-jps asiMjaqjo s i q j jo ssauaAisaqoa a q j
paauBqua A N A j a p o s ujapoui B JO aijsiiajDBiEqa Aauapijja aijEia
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a q j jo Aauajod a q j Suidnoaai Aq U O I J B U uBuiiao a q j jo jBijuaj
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pasuapuoa AjjuajruiA jsorn B U I 'sjiqiqxa uisqBpos J B U O I J B N
uisqBSjaAiun snoiSqaj puB 'uisqBpos J S I X J B W 'uisqEiaqq J B D I S
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- S B J ' U I S Q B U O I J B U Suojaq AjoSajsa J S J I J a q j ui -sjuauiaAoui puB
saiSojoapi jsqesiaAiun puB jsuBjnDijjEd ui sjjBdjajunoa jBjnjjna
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Particularity and Universality also have their modern sociocultural counterparts in particularist and universalist ideologies
and movements. In the first category belong nationalism, fascism, national socialism, and particularist (and especially fundamentalist) religious movements. In the latter are included classical liberalism, Marxist socialism, and religious universalism.
National socialism exhibits, in a most virulently condensed
form, the features of particularism in the service of a challenge
against universalism. Hitler managed to summon the full potential of the German nation by recouping the potency of the
"irrational" implicit in pre-bourgeois tribal forms of community,
while retaining the advantages from technological and bureaucratic efficiency characteristic of a modern society. He enhanced
the cohesiveness of this otherwise self-contradictory amalgam
of a communally conceived industrial society, by targeting his
challenge against Abstract Universality, the "logical enemy" of
Particularity which Nazi Germany represented. This enemy was
perceived as a composite of universalist elements: international
capital consisting of the precursors of modern multinationals,
an international political order pursued by both liberalism and
communism, and internationalist Jewry conveniently doubling
also as an internal enemy. The devastating outcome is too familiar and well documented to recount, but what is less publicized is that the lessons to be drawn are too important to
shroud under facile explanations, such as Hitler's work was that
of the devil, or a madman, or that Nazism was an aberration of
history. In its one-sidedness, Abstract Universality is as logically
incomplete and unstable as Particularity. In their socio-historical manifestations, they have both been culturally wasteful and
inhumane. For liberalism, as well as for socialism, the unit of
totalization in their pursuit of freedom was, at least in principle,
if not always in practice, global universalism, which made them
veer toward convergence on important matters behind the political and ideological surface. For the varieties of fascism, on
the other hand, of which nationalism can be taken as a less virulent version, it is the particularism of the group ethnic, cultural, racial, and more recently tribal and religious which is
the focus of totalization. The dangers from the latter are all
equally familiar, following the crumbling of the historic forms
of socialism and the disintegration of polyethnic states generated under the auspices of liberal international order and justified
by the doctrine of balance of power.

Contemporary sociocultural counterparts

of Abstract Universality and Particularity.

- m d aAijaadsai i p q j ui ssaupapis-auo jo S U I I O J pasoddo i p q j

jo AjiiEjuauiajduioa aqj ssiui 'sjsiuoBjoid O M J aqj uaaMjaq auq
SuxpiAip px8xi E UMBip SuiABq 'io .'Aiojsiq jo pua aqj pus uiop
- a a i j jo uoijEuiuinsuoa a q j SuijEiodioaui O S J B S E 'juids P J I O A V
jo ajjij a q j I O J Suijaduioa asoqj S U O U I E ajggnijs a q j ui iauuiM
papajMou>pB a q j 'uisijEjidEa jBiaqq aiEpap l a q j p :saAijBuiaj
- J E (jasijsqE AjjEaipajEip) ajqsjdaaaEun AjjEnba O M J qjiM pajuas
-aid si auo 'Eapi l E a i j a s i j puE jsaijaioaqx a q j jo sjiEdiajunoa
jEaijaajEip U M O I S - J J U J i p q j puE 1 J I E J U I jEaipEi a q j pus jsia
-qq a q j jo ssaupapis-auo jo suiioj AiEjuauiajduioa a q j 8ui|jEaag
[EsiaAiufi ajaiauo^ vnb uiopaaij jo ainjsu aqj jnoqs jsap pooS
E ssiui oj sn SuisnEa 'jiAa pus poo8 uaaMjaq auq SuipiAip jBau
E jas o j Aauapuaj E sajEiauag 'ssaaoid jBqj uiqjiM i a q j o qasa
juoijuoa (sjuauioui jBinjjna uaAiS U I paipoquia SB) AjiiEjnaij
- I B J puE AjijEsiaAiun jaEijsqy u p i a q M 'ssaaoid [sauojsiq jo jan
-poid aqj SE uiopaaij {EaijaajBip jo aauEjdaaas 'ajduiBxa log ajq
AEpAiaAa ui A J I A I J B 8 3 U jBaijaajBip jo suoijBaijqdraaxa aziuSoaai
a M S B ajpuiMp O S J E I J I M sdnoiS io sai8ojoapi pasoddo uaaMjaq
S3pis 8 U I 5 ( E J U I L O A I A J jEaio[oapi m o jnq 'jaajja ui aq qijs J J I M
diqsuBsijiEd m o 'aiojaq sy aaEjms-aqj-puiqaq ssauajaiauoa
ui dn-Suipjmq si JBqM puB aaBjins aqj uo si JBqM uaaMjaq s>[uq
aqj jBaauoa oj ajqissod ia8uoj ou si ji 'AauaiBdsuBij aAissaiSoid
qjiM 'asnEaaq saqsiuBA asudins jo juauiap a q j 'jpqdxa auioa
-aq Jiiids paaBj-snuBf jo qjEd a q j uo p i B M i o j puB piBMjpsq
s>[uq a q j puB spjojun aijaajBip a q j sy 'uoissnasip ino jo sasBqd
laijiBa a q j ui AjjBpadsa 'sn 8 U I X 3 A uaaq SBq qaiqM asudins
jo juauiap aqj ajBuiunp J J I M suiiaj iBjod uaaMjaq auq SuipiAip
a q j jo SuipBj aqx U O I J B S S U (ajBuiuiiajap io) aAijBaia a q j puB
'uoijisoddo-ui-Ajiun ( J B U I 8 I I O I O ) uijsixa-aid aqj 'aauaiajjip-ui
-Ajiun jo suoijBjsajiuBtu jBaiiojsiq-opos aqj : S I I B J J B AiBioduiaj
fawjvfou
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B. Dialectical Applications in Liberal Culture

(with Special Reference to Negativity)
The illustrations in the last Chapter centered predominantly
on dialectical applications involving crossovers between cultures with the help of the triad of Concrete Universality. In this
Chapter the focus shifts to our liberal culture and an emphasis
on the applicability of various categories of negativity on contemporary affairs: the socio-historical manifestations of unityin-difference, the pre-existing (or original) unity-in-opposition,
and the creative (or determinate) negation. The fading of the
dividing line between polar terms will eliminate the element of
surprise which has been vexing us, especially in the earlier
phases of our discussion. As the dialectic unfolds and the links
backward and forward on the path of Janus-faced Spirit become explicit, the element of surprise vanishes because, with
progressive transparency, it is no longer possible to conceal the
links between what is on the surface and what is building-up in
concreteness behind-the-surface. As before, our partisanship
will still be in effect, but our ideological fervor in "taking sides"
between opposed ideologies or groups will also dwindle as w e
recognize exemplifications of dialectical negativity in everyday
life. For example, acceptance of dialectical freedom as the product of historical process, wherein Abstract Universality and Particularity (as embodied in given cultural moments) confront
each other within that process, generates a tendency to set a
neat dividing line between good and evil, causing us to miss a
good deal about the nature of freedom qua Concrete Universal.
Recalling the complementary forms of one-sidedness of the liberal and the radical in Part I, and their full-grown dialectical
counterparts of the Theoretical and Practical Idea, one is presented with two equally unacceptable (dialectically abstract) alternatives: either declare liberal capitalism, the acknowledged
winner in the struggle among those competing for the title of
World Spirit, as also incorporating the consummation of freedom and the end of history; or, having drawn a rigid dividing
line between the two protagonists, miss the complementarity of
their opposed forms of one-sidedness in their respective pursuits of freedom.

Unveiling of behindthe-surface links of

apparently irreconcilable terms as the
contribution of
negativity.

Application of dialectical negativity

to liberal culture,
with special reference to good-evil.

The polarity of Good-Evil is only one of many manifestations of unity-in-opposition, or invisibility of links behind-thesurface responsible for obfuscating through abstractiveness the
understanding of liberal as well as any other, culture. But it assumes a special interest for our project because its relatively (dialectically) abstract nature, evidenced by the polar structure of
Good-Evil, invites the agent to remedy the apparently irremediable opposition of the terms by acting immediately (i.e., without mediation) to overcome the evil. The vagaries of one-sidedness of immediacy (of action) are all too familiar, beginning
with the radicalism of the paradigms in Part I, and frequently
resurfacing, most recently in the case of humanitarianism.
However, the accent in this Chapter is not so much on the destructive effects of action based on immediacy, but on the shortcomings of knowledge leading to such action. Ignorance of the
behind-the-surface links created the illusion that the situation
could have been different.

Evil viewed in abstracto; or ignorance of its behindthe-surface link with

the good.

In order to understand these difficulties due to the one-sidedness of abstraction of evil and by extension of the good,
as exemplified in the immediacy of moralism and radical action
w e had to unveil the ontological links behind the surface of
the polarity of Good-Evil. In its abstractiveness what Hegel
calls "other-being" in a previously quoted passage from #212
Zusatz in the Logic evil is as indispensable part of the good, as
are the more generic categories of Nothingness and the Negative in grounding progressively advanced concepts of reality in
the course of Being and Essence. The Good, as did the True,
went through a succession of oppositions, wherein the opposed
terms were encountered as forms of externality or indifference.
By the time w e reached the Notion it had become increasingly
obvious that the issue of externality could not be resolved apart
from the resolution of the persisting externality between subject and object. The dialectical process confirmed what w e had
suspected f r o m the outset about the ontologically grounded
connection between the "ought" and the "is" in the course of
Being: Their interplay, i.e., "reversal of polarity" in Subjective
Spirit, or their interchange in Objective Spirit, in which the "is"
in Moralitat assumed the role of the villain, and the "ought" that
of the hero only to reverse their roles once more in Sittlichkeit. M o r a l categories w e r e f o u n d to be o n t o l o g i c a l l y
grounded, thus adducing more evidence for the continuity bet w e e n the "is" and the " o u g h t " and the underlying link between them; though, again, a full disclosure of this required the
mediating toil of the Notion. Every effort to seal the gap between the "is" and the "ought" within Objective Spirit (or cor-

respondingly, anywhere short of the Absolute Idea in the Logic)

had only yielded a reopening of it at a higher level through the
familiar operation of the Cunning of Reason.
In the preceding pages Stalin's hypothetical status as a patron of modern art served as a key paradigm for exposing the
vagaries of applying the abstractive logic associated with the
categories of Moralitat to the dialectically more concrete categories of late Actuality in the Logic, and correspondingly, of Universal History in the Philosophy of Spirit. As was the case
throughout the latter work, the concreteness which had built
up behind the surface was only gradually uncovered by the observer, thus accounting for persistent misreadings of the social
scene. In terms of our familiar illustration of the abstractive
thinking in question, Moscow, rather than Paris, could have
been the art center of the world had Stalin's aesthetic sensibilities been different. This reconstruction of Stalin presents a set of
options quite different from those with which he is associated:
for instance, using his spare time to read up on modern art and
have a drink with avant-garde artists, rather than combining
leisure and conspiratorial politics while drinking vodka with his
old cronies from Georgia. The historical Stalin was not as free,
as it might be inferred, from such reconstruction of his situation
by way of counter-to-fact conditionals, which obscures the behind-the-surface links that comprise the dialectically concrete
Stalin. To recast his care in terms of the polarity of Good-Evil,
his presumed freedom (on which his moral responsibility is
premised) is the result of an abstractive formulation of the
question about his personality and freedom. Instead of being
viewed in his historical concreteness involving the unity of the
Inner and the Outer in the full range of their interconnectedness, there is a severance of his politically "relevant" features
(astuteness, power-hunger, single-mindedness, intuitive sense
of articulations of power) from those perceived as secondary, or
even irrelevant, idiosyncrasies behind-the-surface (aesthetic
crudeness, paranoia, sadistic temperament, drinking habits, and
the rest). The "if" of the counter-to-fact conditionals, which are
supposedly functioning as tools for rounding off Stalin's profile
as a historical figure, have precisely the opposite effect of reducing him to a bloodless abstraction.
For the sake of those w h o are particularly scandalized by
such seeming exoneration of Stalin (and other historical figures) from criminal behavior, it is worth noting that the unveiling of cultural links behind-the-surface does not absolve Stalin
from moral or legal responsibility in the way, say, personal and
cultural links behind-the-legal-surface may supply mitigating

Misleading reading
of history as a result
of the abstractiveness
of evil.

Structuralization
of Stalin's responsibility along the
phases of Spirit.

factors for the culpability of a common criminal. Nor is he being

exculpated in the same sense that someone in power might be,
through bribery or cover-up. Having, or aspiring to, the status
of one w h o ushers in a World Spirit, Stalin is not adjudicated as
a c o m m o n individual by a court of law. Rather his status as a
historical individual is at issue, and his case is a subject of an
ongoing assessment by, what Hegel calls, the Court of World
History. In the f o l l o w i n g requoted passage, " e n v y " should be
understood in the same dialectically structuralized sense as "responsibility" above. W h e n Hegel criticizes those w h o assess historical figures by m o r a l categories of e v e r y d a y life, it is the
moralistic " e n v y " of "everyman" (similarly structuralized as historical or political "responsibility" above) that he has in mind.
All that they (i.e., historical individuals) have accomplished, we
say, is outward merely; inwardly they were acting from some very
different motive, such as desire to gratify their vanity or other unworthy passion. This is the spirit of envy. Incapable of any great action of its own, envy tries hard to depreciate greatness and to bring
it down to its own level.

Further illustrations
ofdistortive effects of
abstractive polarization of good-evil.

Not unlike the moments of Law, Morality, and Ethical Life,

which have been successively sublated into Universal History
and ultimately in Absolute Spirit, Stalin's vices, like those of
other evil geniuses in history and art, can claim immunity from
legal and ethical norms in the sense that their ushering of a
n e w World Spirit entails transcending them dialectically. Such
claim of immunity may perhaps seem m o r e palatable if as
w e h a v e been routinely doing w e substitute "culture" for
"Spirit." Then, the all-inclusiveness of culture means that the
normative as well as the cognitive contexts of meaning are internal to culture qua " c o n t e x t of all c o n t e x t s " of m e a n i n g .
W h e n one puts forth the claim of a cultural innovator, one, in
effect, takes his life (as w e l l his universe of meaning) into his
o w n hands. His claim of immunity becomes effective as soon as
the Court of World History has adjudicated in his favor.
Stalin's case highlights the frequency with which the failure
to disclose behind-the-surface links distorts historical understanding and turns investigations of contemporary affairs into
exercises in moralism. Lacking the benefit of sublation, the liberal logic of Identity is unable to come to grips with scores of other
problems of our culture w h i c h have no surface resemblance
whatsoever to the Stalin case. A n example which is closer to
home, involving the presumably irreconcilable polarity of goodevil and the consequent self-concealment (as a result of overlooking behind-the-surface links), is the destruction of the environment through the pursuit of what is perceived to be the good

life. The key to self-concealment, in this case, is the unperceived

underlying connection between (the visibly linked to "good life"
term of) our consumerist appetite and the invisibly linked to it
(through the build-up of productive capacity to satisfy such appetite) destruction of the environment. As in the Stalin case, the
evil of the destruction of the environment is viewed, in the light
of counter-to-fact conditional moralistic thinking, as manageably
remediable: "If only w e were more conscientious about recycling," or "If only our big businesses were less greedy and our
politicians less corrupt." Since w e in the West are by far the
biggest users of natural resources in order to realize our ideal of
a "good life" by way of consumption, w e are all in the same boat
when it comes to attribution of responsibility with regard to the
destruction of the environment. One may, for example, think of
an educated young couple who, in enhancing their personal
leisure, can easily overlook the obvious underlying link between
their moral "commitment" to the preservation of the environment for the sake of their infant, and the seductive features of
disposable diapers (which can take as long as 500 years to biodegrade in a landfill). The pervasiveness of such self-concealment
about the power of negativity in liberal culture the leading
World Spirit at present is that it is being amplified by way of
exportation to the rest of the world through a plethora of mundane products, such as disposable diapers. Consumerism is not
only the leading cause of environmental destruction at home,
but also the single most potent weapon of liberal culture in subverting its socialist adversaries and converting the Third World
to liberal values.
In exemplifying the dialectical principle of unity-in-opposition and the danger of overlooking the link of the opposed
terms behind the surface, the dialectical structure underlying
the mundane case of disposable diapers is in the same column
as the stark opposition between morality and immorality in
politics and history, the abstractiveness of the polarity of GoodEvil encountered in Objective Spirit, and countless other actions (or omissions) of varying grades of self-concealment. A
motivating force for undertaking this project about action was
to reach for more generic forms of action so as to elucidate numerous cases of self-concealment, both as forms of past (sedimented) action and as generated in the process of acting. The
outcome of our effort has been our familiar structuralization of
radical (culturally grounded) action along dialectical lines. The
introduction of the dialectic at the very outset in terms of radical action, and the definition of the latter as presuppositional
challenge, is consistent with our view of culture (Spirit) as fun-

Recapitulation
of our thesis that
radical (presuppositional) challenge
is essentially cultural
in nature (Spirit).

Self-concealment
regarding contemporary affairs
correlated with
the teleological
path of Spirit.

damentally presuppositional. Hence our conclusion that radical

challenge is essentially cultural: indeed "all revolutions... originate solely f r o m the fact that Spirit... has changed its categories." It is time that our dialectical applications to contemporaneity be extended, from the seemingly irreconcilable polarity
of Good-Evil, to that most generic form of polarity of action,
theory-practice itself. W e are about to extend our strategy of
unveiling, from those cases in which self-concealment is a "result of sedimented action," to those in which it is the inevitable
outcome of the "process of acting" itself.
The passages dealing with the dialectic of Means and End
under Teleology, and elsewhere in the Logic, come naturally to
mind when the familiar gap between surface and behind-thesurface is manifested as a discrepancy between what is intended
(on the surface) and what is being actually effected (through
links behind the surface). Whereas from the point of view of
the perpetual effort of the Practical Idea, "the final purpose of
the world is... ever accomplishing itself," from the viewpoint of
the timeless Absolute Idea, it "is accomplished no less (once the
props of space and time have been sublated into the final moment) than ever accomplishing itself." Those familiar with the
celebrated discourse on action qua "disinterested" in the Bhagavad Gita will recognize the structural similarities to the above.
But closer to home, and a possible domestication of the Absolute Idea, the parallels between the role of negativity in the
dialectic of action and that of evil in Christian theology, to
which Hegel often draws the attention of the reader, are too
close to miss. It is for the human agent (for-himself), in his selfconcealment, that the opposition to the Good is unequivocally
evil, whereas for the Idea (or God), it is a roundabout way of
getting its end accomplished of "setting an antithesis (of evil)
to confront it (and in turn) by its action... getting rid of the illusion it has created (for the agent)." And, as if this were not
enough, in this closing (only to be reopened) gap between the
appearance of the surface and the reality of the behind-the-surface, the penultimate attempt to close the gap at the level of the
Idea encountered the ultimate resistance in terms of the very
nature of action itself: The apparent reality of effective action at
the level of the Practical Idea, on the one hand, and the unreality or "finitude" and "particularization" of action, or the tendency to inject contingency in the effort at totalization by the
very process of acting, on the other.
The progress of the dialectic, and especially of its more advanced (mediated) categories, beginning with Teleology (and,
correspondingly, Universal History in the Philosophy of Spirit),

suggests that what is meant by "application" of dialectical philosophy to contemporary affairs, or bringing it to bear on everyday life, is precisely the correlation of the levels of surface and
behind-the-surface, which run through its whole course of its
categories, by w a y of " u n v e i l i n g . " W e are still w i t h i n the
boundaries of Hegel's familiar proposition that "philosophy...
advances nothing new; and our present discussion has led us to
the c o n c l u s i o n w h i c h agrees w i t h the natural b e l i e f of
mankind," though it might appear that w e are being transported, unawares, to the high clouds of philosophical theology. The
reflective reader, w h o has patiently f o l l o w e d the argument
about the function of the polarity of Good-Evil in providing the
impetus for immediacy of action, is now entitled to ask, " W h y
confront evil w h e n it has such a constructive role to play in
propelling the dialectic forward?" The layperson is asking essentially the same question in the context of religious belief,
when he agonizes over the perennial problem of w h y God, in
his infinite power and goodness, allows evil to exist. Or, more
impatiently, " W h y are all these tricky games by God necessary?" The sociologist of religion, w h o is approaching the problem of theodicy through social institutions as suppliers of the
bonding of individuals into groups, is much closer to a common
understanding with the believer than is apparent. The answer
rests with a discourse (involving different rules) beyond individual minds, whether such discourse is socially constructed,
imported, or divinely posited whether it is called Divine
Providence, social Mind, culture, Spirit, Invisible Hand, or God.
What is required to render these apparently ("on-the-surface")
discrepant explanations into a consistent whole is an interpretation of the seemingly disjointed discourses in terms of an allinclusively coherent one what w e have called "the context
of contexts"of meaning. Recalling Hegel's philosophical vindication of the "natural belief of mankind" earlier, "the business of
(coherence-seeking dialectical) philosophy is only to bring
(through unveiling of what lies behind the surface) into explicit
consciousness what the world in all ages has believed (in its
seeming incoherence, due to abstractiveness, of discourses on
the surface) about thought."
In these situations connections between seemingly irreconcilable terms in this case means and end seem both long
and behind the surface. The dialectic is particularly useful in
providing the needed transparency of the behind-the-surface
links frequently referred to as links forward and backward
on the circular path of Spirit between apparently irreconcilable opposites. The main illustration of the dialectic of Means

Meaning of "application " of the dialectic correlated with

the (backward) unveiling path of Spirit.

The meaning of "application " of the dialectic illustrated by

way of teleologically
structured action.

The use of dialectic to

elucidate the instrumental-substantive
structure of action in
public affairs.

and End in contemporary affairs centered around a paradigm of

the Soviet end of planning the creation of a n e w "communist
man" through external means. The effort aborted because the
end had been "infected" (in the process of the build-up of concreteness behind the surface) by the means intended to serve
that end. Such was also the case in trying to serve the end of
concrete freedom through means external to it (i.e., abstract
freedom of choice), without realizing the underlying connecting links in the last Chapter. The logical blanks of the opposed
terms of freedom in need of reconciliation could have been
filled equally well with the terms of Teleology: Subjective (Finite) End(Objective) MeansRealized (Infinite) End. In that
case the closely related polarity of Means-End could serve to illustrate the dialectic of Teleology through the failure of socialist
regimes to bring about the "new communist man," thus leading
to their collapse into the very consumerist cultures they were
aspiring to overcome. The procedure used to illustrate their failure dialectically is no different than that utilized to highlight
the success of capitalism in undermining them. Once again our
attention is directed to the fact that in building up the concreteness of the visible term (in this case the means) w e also involve
through the principle of inseparability of opposed terms, or
of Difference-inclusive-of-Identity the term that remains behind the surface. In the case of pursuing the end of the "new
communist man" in the East, no less than that of aspiring to lay
the foundations of self-realization through freedom of choice in
the West, the Means (structured along the moment of Finite
Design) has subverted the End (modeled after Infinite Design),
because means were external to the end or, alternatively, because of the self-concealment regarding the Identity (inclusive
of Difference) of the two terms.
In the self-congratulatory glow of the aftermath of the Gulf
War, some very intelligent people wondered in print (through
the pages of The New York Times) w h y a society such as ours,
which possesses such organizational abilities and technological
skills in the pursuit of external affairs and the conduct of war,
cannot apply the same in internal affairs and the solution of
problems at home, such as health, poverty, and the environment The best answer came in the way of traditional distinction
between instrumental and substantive rationality which, foll o w i n g Kant and Weber, has become canon in mainstream
methodology of social science: In war, tasks revolve around instrumental, more efficient means for achieving well-defined
substantive ends, whereas the solutions of social problems at
home are complicated by the variety of ends upheld by individ-

uals and groups. As suggested by Hegel's critique of Kant's compartmentalization of theoretical and practical reason, this distinction is valid and useful as far as it goes, but it does not go far
enough. A n important lesson from the dialectic of Objective
Spirit is that substantive (including those self-given values
falling under Kant's practical reason), as well as instrumental
rationality, are subject to such "debasing" processes as embodiment and sedimentation. They are, therefore, as much in need
of unveiling, or desedimentation, if self-concealment is to be
avoided. In dialectical terms, instrumental and substantive rationality qua polar expressions, like good and evil, are not only
linked behind-the-surface through their common feature of
embodiment logically grounded in the familiar Identity-inDifference, or Unity-in-Difference but it is such commonality
that puts them in an institutional setting where they find themselves in competition for social space.
The infection of the end by the means, to which w e referred
in the dialectic of Means-End, was precisely the byproduct of
competition of different forms of institutionalized rationalities
for social space. The noble end of human self-realization advanced by socialism was ultimately subverted by pursuing it
through an instrumental rationality of inherently capitalistic
nature e.g., scientistic, competitive, consumerist, and individualistic fundamentally alien to the communist vision. The
substantive end of creating Marx's and Lenin's " n e w communist man" through socialization, was replaced by an individual
socialized by instrumental rationality (in an effort to build up
the economic foundations of socialism) to become an externally
motivated, selfish consumerist, w h o finally toppled the political-ideological infrastructure. W h o e v e r pursues a noble end
with means alien to it has, because of the culturally concrete
(linked behind-the-surface) opposed terms, defaulted on his
noble aim by allowing the end to be infected by the means. As
the means are of a concrete nature, i.e., replete with embodiments of economic, technocratic, bureaucratic, and psychological values, they fill up the social space, thus displacing a potential alternative institutional network which would have served
as support for the "new communist man."
Similarly, the institutionalized embodiments of the instrumental rationality of our domestic scene displace any potential
embodiments of substantive rationality representing values
(such as self-realization) from social space. For example, the "intelligent systems" and "smart machines" behind the bombing of
Iraq, which elicited the awe of the efficiency-minded during the
Gulf War, are the same embodiments (Hegel's "thought-things"

The convergence of
biological, cultural,
and theological
worldviews under
the auspices of
holistic Spirit.

erected with the help of the dialectic of Identity) of instrumental

rationality which fill the social space of the yuppie couple. However, they now double as peaceful "smart machines" (computerguided answering machines, shopping bar-codes, and automated
teller devices) enhancing a consumer oriented society. This
crowding out of substantive rationality, in the process of implementing it through the use of instrumental rationality, closely
parallels the supplanting freedom by choice in the dialectic of
freedom. Both sets can be combined by saying that the yuppie
couple labors under self-concealment when they pronounce the
value of saving the environment as "their own" and as "self-given" (to denote the process by which substantive rationality operates to discover such value). It is evident from observation of
their everyday existence that neither such "self-given" value,
nor the manner of discovery associated with it, are among those
instrumental values (of efficiency and consumerist good life),
with which they have crowded their interpersonal space. Or, to
put the same thing in a language which is closely reminiscent of
the dialectic of freedom, the yuppie couple does not recognize
these embodiments of instrumental rationality (nor, by implication, the values embedded in them) as really their own, but
rather as means for implementing their declared "real" values of
freedom, humanity, and the preservation of the environment.
We return momentarily to the generic (theological) formulation of the dialectic of Means and End for another glimpse at
the shift from the mode of "taking sides" under the auspices of
the Practical Idea in which w e have been indulging in our
diatribe against the planners of the "communist man" and the
environmental idealism of the yuppie couple to the mode of
the Absolute Idea and the standpoint of the dialectical (restrospective) philosopher as God. In our self-concealment as agents
operating under the rules of Finite Design, w e express our puzzlement and frustration with God's (or the Idea's) seeming indulgence in "tricks" or "games," as if they were operating from
the same standpoint of efficiency; as if they had, so to speak,
chosen to get f r o m point A to point B in a roundabout way
when they could have reached their destination more efficiently without putting obstacles along their path. Our line of questioning misses the point that in the rhythm of the dialectic the
point of departure is also the point of return, a point of selfcompleteness from which the process of unveiling begins. The
etymological affinity between "revelation," in the language of
Christian theology, and "unveiling" in phenomenology, suggests an answer to the quandary of the "crooked path" of God
(or Spirit). What w e view in our one-sidedness (or self-conceal-

ment regarding the journey of return) as the inefficiency of the

crooked path, is for God (or the Idea) fully disclosed in the light
of their being privy to both ways of the circular structure of the
dialectic. The theological, the secular-cultural, and now the secular-biological w o r l d - v i e w s are different sides of the same
process for which, Spirit, straddling both domains, provides the
connecting link. The logical undergirding for this unitary concept of culture (or Spirit) was provided by the discovery of Reason's self-completeness. This began with the important dialectic
of Reflection, but the full implications of it remained undiscerned before the transition to the Notion and the realization
that Reason had been operating upon itself all along. The same
discovery was made at the level of Spirit in the moment of surprise over the presence of self-complete culture at the opening
of re-immediated Objective Spirit. Thus, the onto-logical language of the Logic, the theological language of Christianity, and
the cultural language of Spirit (or the anthropological language
of "the formations of spiritual world") converge on this issue of
vital importance for the dialectic of action and its radical interpretation undertaken here.
The full import of a dialectical conception of culture (or Spirit) for our radical interpretation of action emerges in full view
once w e begin to realize the horizons opened up for radical
challenge by the process of unveiling. This can be summed up
by saying: having realized that culture is of our doing (though
by no means self-consciously so), it is a short step (especially
with the dialectical tools for unveiling ready at hand) to think
ourselves capable of changing it. Without exaggeration, the dialectic forces us, through the activistic path of its Janus-faced
Spirit, to view culture as our o w n doing, not unlike self-complete God looks at his creation. There is of course an important
loose end that must be tied up before that last short step can be
taken. Unlike God's creation, ours has been overwhelmingly an
unself-conscious accomplishment. Hence, any action on our
part to self-consciously improve or undo what w e have unselfconsciously put together through the millennia, must be tempered by the realization that, lacking God's full self-consciousness, any attempt at improvement is fraught with contingency.
The green light was given to radical action on the ground that
all human action is burdened with indeterminacy, and especially that which aims to change the basic parameters of culture,
such as the meaning of freedom or (rational) justification. Another way of saying this is that the dialectic accomplished such
justification of what appears irrational (by the rules of the culture of which rationality is a part) by bringing into the fold of

Review of the dialectical conception of

culture (Spirit) in
anticipation of its
application to contemporary events.

Thefiercelysubversive role of
seemingly tame
self-consciousness.

Particularity as the
locus of the "irrational" challenge
to the "rationality"
of Abstract
Universality.

(dialectical) Reason all those negative terms of our familiar polarities that had been left outside it as rationally unbridgeable
by the non-dialectical reason (the logic of Identity). All domestications of the dialectic, through seeking the invisible link bet w e e n apparently unbridgeable oppositions Evil-Good,
Means-End, Finite-Infinite Design, Choice-Freedom, and most
recently "taking sides"being a "retrospective philosopher"
of this Chapter, are variations of this linking through self-consciousness of our roles as creators and as mere pawns of culture. The f o r w a r d - l o o k i n g , or action-oriented, side of the
Janus-faced Spirit is, by definition, contingency-ridden by contrast to the reflection-oriented, or footprint-unveiling face of it,
w h i f h is animated by a quest for knowledge of actuality.
As w e are well familiar by now, Hegel gave the green light to
("irrational") radical action by assigning self-consciousness as
the distinguishing feature of Reason in the final (absolute) moment of the dialectic. The seemingly harmless by virtue of its
retrospective contemplative nature concept of self-consciousness assumes threateningly radical proportions for the status quo
once it is recognized as the very tool capable of unveiling those
behind-the-surface links between culture as our doing and culture as given. As the distinguishing feature of the absolute moment, self-consciousness supplies the link between the apparently irreconcilable opposition which divides the "harmless" retrospective philosopher corresponding to the Absolute Idea and
the fiery radical representing the Practical Idea. Since contingency (as "particularization of action" characteristic of the Practical Idea) is a built-in feature of all action, the success (or failure) of "irrationality" in subverting the "rationality" of the establishment cannot be identified beforehand, for the same reason that it is impossible to predict which particular form of rulebreaking will eventually be incorporated in the Absolute Idea.
The "go ahead" has been given to us (consistent with self-realization whose success cannot be finalized before the Absolute
Idea) with no illusions about the coincidence between our intentions and the final outcome of our actions.
The moment of Particularity as the seat of the "irrational"
probing the possibility of its inclusion in the next round of Concrete Universality, provides also the rationale behind the claim
that guerrilla warfare or terrorism are poor man's weapons.
This follows from the fact that the challenge has to be mounted
from within the interstices of established rationality of both the
scientistic and moral order. The tragic-heroic feature of the radical challenge, made in the absence of a rational justification of
its grounds, is the other side of the vulnerability of the estab-

lishment, since such absence makes it difficult to identify a potentially good challenge to it. Our suggestion in Part I, that the
security of the challenged behind the logically shielded concreteness of the status quo is the other side of its vulnerability,
can be better appreciated in the light of what has intervened
between now and then regarding the many dialectical faces of
contingency. Even with the best institutionalized "rationality"
in the form of government intelligence, Batista could not have
foreseen Castro's challenge as the fatal one among an assortment of similar "harebrained" operations. Nor could the sophisticated "rationality" of the CIA save the Shah's regime from the
"irrational" challenge of Ayatollah Khomeini.
W e can recapitulate the unlikely (on-the-surface) connection between Spirit's crooked path and the cultural legitimacy
of radical ("irrational") action by way of the mundane language
of physical anthropology. Culture's (Spirit's) crooked path finds
its counterpart in the kinky path of biological evolution which
accommodates both m o v e m e n t w i t h i n a g i v e n c o n t e x t of
meaning (span between kinks) and "leaps" between contexts
(spanning of kinks). In this sense mutations (kinks) represent
the radical element (of immediacy) of action which has been
assured a place in the dialectical synthesis in dialectical language, one which deserves the mark of Actuality, rather than
that of mere Existence. As in the case of evolution, wherein for
every mutation with a successful match in the environment
there are countless which have been banished to oblivion; so in
the case of culture, for every radical whose "ought" has been
incorporated in concrete Spirit there is a myriad of challenges
(beginning with those of the "madman" of early Soul) which
have been relegated to the dustbin of history. Similarly, in both
biological evolution and culture, the element of contingency is
not generated out of the blue, but from a given level of concreteness which differs according to the level attained by the dialectic up to that point. The reopening of contingency, along
with externality and dualism in general, at each moment short
of the concluding one, points to the important fact that irrationality is not only inseparable from rationality, but it is equally structuralized along the dialectical path.
We have come to understand that what cultural revolutions
have in common is the radicalization of the prevailing conception of revolution as v i e w e d through socio-economic categories. There are examples of this in the countercultural movements in recent history: the Maoist attempt to deal with the
stagnation of socialism by grappling with its cultural foundations in the East; the distinctiveness of the Cuban Revolution

Recasting the logic

of radical challenge
in evolutionary
language.

The radical dimension of cultural

(qua transcending
political categories)
challenge exemplified in public affairs.

 The radical import

of recent ascendancy
of culturalparticularism.

vis-a-vis the old socialist regimes of eastern Europe; and the recent resurgence of particularism in the form of ethnicity and religious fundamentalism in eastern Europe and the Middle East.
In all these cases cultural radicalism carried the burden of presuppositional challenge in the name of the (logical) Particular
in confrontation with the Abstract Universal: the "experiential"
of Part I, the "irrational" throughout this study, the victims of
universalist liberal culture of last Chapter, and the contingent of
Part III. In the secondary sense that universalized bourgeois political categories may be superseded by more deeply embedded
cultural forms, history qua struggle within a political context of
meaning may indeed be understood as coming to an end. But
in the higher plateau of understanding history (with Hegel) as
the story of realization of freedom qua self-realization for all,
history does not end w i t h the s e l f - g e n e r a t e d restriction of
meaningless bourgeois choice from, say, the choice from 30
kinds of salami to 3 but only when the choice of the young
Berliner of our earlier example coincides with that of his enlightened community. Even then, it may still be possible to retain freedom of choice from 30 different brands in the form of a
fossilized democratic ritual not unlike the ways we now pay
homage to royal personages retaining all sorts of paraphernalia
as titular heads of state. But in the more substantial sense of a
category of Spirit (culture), i.e., as Universal History incorporating within itself political history as sublated or, correspondingly in the Logic, as the element of contingency exemplified in
the " f i n i t u d e " or "particularization" of action in general in
Idea's practical moment history cannot end short of the casting off of the props of time and space in the Absolute Idea.
In drawing a balance-sheet of terror in the last Chapter w e
had to keep in mind the role of both immediacy in making terror visible through the media and the role of mediation concealing it under the practice of institutional violence. By our dialectical rules of the game, the dividing line was not drawn on
the basis of the political left-to-right axis, but by the surface-tobehind-the-surface cultural plane under the guidance of the triad of Concrete Universality. This meant that w e had to transpose ourselves in the role of the Third World radical earlier in
Soul wherein, armed with the technique of unveiling, we were
determining, not only the explicit political and economic costs
of adopting a universalist approach, but also those hidden injuries of culture. In applying the freedom qua self-realization
test on culture, this often resulted in shifting the focus from
bourgeois freedoms and rights to pre-bourgeois, or even pre-literate, values of community. The latter were recognizable in the

agendas of the 1960s, but seemed unrealizable in equally universalis! liberal and authoritarian cultures. It is, therefore, no
accident that particularism is also on the rise within large industrialized societies in the f o r m of m u l t i c u l t u r a l i s m
whether based on religion, ethnicity, gender, or race. Universalis! mass cultures such as the U.S., have become living laboratories for observing what happens when internal social controls,
which are inherent in communities, are being replaced by external controls (constitutional and legal safeguards for homogenized humanity) peculiar to large societies, or "melting pots."
One may begin to form a sense of the forces behind the resurgence of particularism by observing the rise in marginal social
costs from the replacement of communal by (universalist) societal values: supervisors for work ethic in the work place; police
enforcement for socialization in public space; self-interest for
civic duty in politics; and study for "making a living" instead of
"putting one's life together as a whole" in education. These universalist trends are, of course, not unique to our American
"melting pot" but intrinsic to industrial societies, though the
U.S. can claim the distinction of having exported them to the
rest of the world through consumerist consciousness-raising. If
the anomie generated in the industrial mass societies of the
West, and the unsuccessful effort to combat it with external
controls in this country, is any indication of the social costs involved, a shift toward of particularism seems inevitable.
Yet, one cannot deny the power of the Universal to advance
the very same presuppositional challenges that were served so
effectively by Particularity in the preceding paragraphs. What is
a more pertinent case of a revolution "originat(ing) solely from
the fact that Spirit... has changed its categories," than the explosive potential of Abstract Universality, as expressed in pronouncements of human rights of freedom and equality? This
apparent contradiction points once more to cultural links (established by Spirit) behind the legal (constitutional) and political surface between seemingly irreconcilable polar terms. The
unveiling of the underlying link can be done through the dialectic of Content and Form, wherein these seemingly bare abstractions can accommodate a succession of contents with increasingly radical outcome say, being progressively led from
the conception of legal to political, and from there to economic
(or even social) equality. On this issue of exposing forms of
consciousness (Spirit's changing "categories") as hidden parameters of revolution, Hegel was far ahead of both the liberal
critics w h o accused him of conservatism, and the Marxists

The apparent inconsistency of a

presuppositional
challenge by the
universal explained
through the dialectic
of Content-Form.

charging him with an idealist neglect of the material side of social development.
That the citizens are equal before the law contains a great truth,
but which so expressed is a tautology: it only states that the legal
status in general exists, that the laws rule. But, as regards the concrete, the citizens besides their personality are equal before
the law only in these points when they are equal outside the law.
(Philosophy of Spirit, #539; emphasis in the original)

Domestication of the
dialectic of ContentForm through the
concept of racism.

In the light of this applied formula of the dialectic of Content

and Form, r e v o l u t i o n a r i e s of the t w e n t i e t h century can be
v i e w e d as advocates of the same human rights as w e r e their
counterparts of the eighteenth. But being formulated in the abstract, according to the specifications of ideological praxis (as
w e r e those of their predecessors for the sake of promoting action), they were capable of accommodating a variety of content
and mass support. It is precisely this difference in socio-economic content the difference "as regards the concrete" of the
last quote that accounts for the disparity b e t w e e n the t w o
sets of revolutionaries. In the case of the liberal revolution, the
abstract system of rules the "tautology... (which) only states
that the legal status in general exists" upholds and tacitly
condones social and economic inequality "outside th e law" by
f u r t h e r l e g i t i m i z i n g the status quo. It e f f e c t i v e l y c o n v e r t s
"equal(ity) before the l a w " into concrete inequality by diverting
attention f r o m the behind-the-surface polar complement of
"equal(ity) before the law," which is "equal(ity) outside the law."
The dialectical synthesis of the t w o terms constitutes concrete
equality, the conquest of which, like the realization of freedom,
remains outside the purview of liberal revolution. On the other
hand, the socialist revolutions, by attacking social and economic inequality "outside the law," aim at transforming the tautological "equal(ity) before the l a w " into concrete equality: the dialectical synthesis (or unity) of f o r m of equality ( " b e f o r e the
l a w " ) and content of equality ("outside the law").
These dialectical findings about the dialectic of Content and
Form can be further domesticated by applying them to some
currently relevant problems centering on constitutional rights,
beginning with racism. The fact that this cluster of rights may
seem outside the p u r v i e w of underlying dialectical links between content and form, is again symptomatic of the way liberal culture redefines the boundaries of potentially threatening
problems, such as racism. T h e dialectic, on the other hand,
bares these challenges by showing the interconnectedness bel o w the surface, which liberal (like any other) culture tries to
keep at bay by raising its protective shield. Racism falls under

this cluster of concepts inasmuch as the current liberal meaning

of it (with the help of the notion of stereotyping) implies the
treatment of individuals by virtue of group features (which
they cannot alter), rather than in accordance with their individual qualities. An effective mechanism for rendering individuals
impotent, and covering up the process of doing so, is to sever
them from their group ties commonly referred to as the atomization of society through the familiar universalist approach of constitutional guarantees of individual rights and liberties. By highlighting the formal aspect of stereotyping, this
definition, as adapted and widely disseminated by liberal culture, serves to shield its internal coherence. In this way, liberalism diverts attention from the content of stratification that poses a threat to its existence by undermining its pronounced values of freedom and equality. Even a most superficial observation of the workings of atomized mass culture to say nothing
a melting-pot mass culture dominated by ephemerality of encounters reveals that its efficient functioning rests on stereotyping, whether one wishes to give it the polite (phenomenological) label of "typification," or the scientifically respectable
endorsement of statistical inference. It is, therefore, symptomatic of a deficiency in self-consciousness (or unwillingness to
probe for behind-the-surface links between content and form)
to focus on racism by way of stereotyping through ephemeral
encounters of color in mass cultural everyday life e.g., avoiding "unsafe" neighborhoods, subway cars full of "noisy" people,
"risky" real estate in deteriorating areas, etc. when the real
culprit is not color per se, but behind-the-surface institutional
links, especially stratification, involving color.
An example of an institutional setting, wherein such behindthe-surface links between content and form are synthesized
through incorporation, is a public university entrusted with the
education of aspiring people of color, among others. In this context, racism becomes institutionalized in the sense that it represents values ('thoughts') which have been embedded in the material side of institutions ('things') via the powerful technique
of the dialectic of Identity and Reflection. For example, university administrators, and their liberal backers in legislatures, perceive their civic role as repositories of the educational common
good of their constituents, especially the underprivileged and
those of color. In planning budgets, and proposing curricular reforms, they decide, with the help of statistical projections, that
what is best for disadvantaged students of color is not liberal arts
but, rather, vocational studies. Hence, seemingly innocuous
terms ('thoughts') such as "diverse student body" and "mix of

Institutional racism
as a case in self-concealment regarding
behind-the-surface
links between objectified and pronounced values.

Self-concealment
about underlying institutional links elucidated by way of
contrast between
racism and antiSemitism.

liberal arts and career programs," are coined and embedded into
'things,' such as memoranda, software, deanships and department titles, fields of specializations, catalogue-listings, even interior and architectural forms. Acting in their self-perception as
trustees of tax-payers' money and guardians of the welfare of
the disadvantaged, educational bureaucrats with jurisdictions
encompassing both educational and welfare matters, take charge
of the education of students of color, coded as "diverse student
body." And to cap it all comes the "holy cow" of liberal culture
science with its remarkable capacity for drawing "valuefree" statistical inferences from events of the past for the benefit
of those who wish to implement humanitarian ideals by manipulating the future.
It should not escape notice that social application of statistics
presupposes an atomized society, which it then reinforces by
dealing with individuals qua abstract "plurality," rather than concrete individuality. Not surprisingly, the result is a reduplication
of past iniquities under the blessing of scientific objectivity. Inasmuch as it is the liberal art 'thought' component which provides
the ingredient of self-consciousness necessary to expose institutional racism, the "mix of liberal arts and career programs" virtually guarantees that the hidden agenda of institutional racism
will never surface seriously in the deliberations of the faculties
(to say nothing of the students) of vocational studies in which
black students are tracked.
The domestication of the dialectic of Content and Form can be
taken one step further by comparing racism and anti-Semitism,
which have usually been treated similarly from a universalist human rights point of view. The two can be equated to the extent
that human rights and constitutional guarantees apply equally to
both cases to the extent that "the legal status general exists,
that the laws rule." However, such a legalistic on-the-surface
by way of clinging to form, or stereotyping approach of an essentially social problem, such as stratification by color, is symptomatic of the methodological self-concealment of liberal social science. As soon as one attempts to probe behind the surface for
cultural (institutional) links incorporating a synthesis of content
and form, the similarity between the two cases ends and they begin to diverge radically. Returning to our educational institutional
setting for illustration, Jewish students are expected to perform
academically better than blacks. Hence, the "mix of liberal arts
and career programs" prescribed for black students by enlightened educational administrators are deemed inappropriate for
Jewish students w h o can afford "pure" liberal arts, both financially and intellectually. So-called realism, based on statistical in-

Dialectical Applications in Liberal Culture

ference, is invoked by administrators and faculty w h o point out

that Jewish graduates normally excel in high paid professional
and academic positions, so that the "mix" prescribed for those of
color is for them inappropriate. There are some among the faculty with a well-developed self-consciousness w h o might resist
such "realism," in whom a morally jarring and yet irresistible dialectical truth may dawn: socially embedded universalist legal
and moral categories reinforce, and shield from public (on-thesurface) view, one's privileged position by keeping blacks in the
vicinity of the bottom and Jews in the vicinity of the top of the
social ladder, in the same way that universalist humanitarianism
and the appeal to constitutional rights perpetuated the status quo
by shielding liberal culture from radical challenge.
There is no mystery in this if w e recall that, as with other
concepts whose unity with their polar opposites remains concealed behind the surface, the negative side of abstractive universality of rights the omission that blacks "are equal before
the law only in these points when they are equal outside the law"
is placed out of view while the accent is on the positive side
of the equally abstractive approach of rights. The basic insight
from the treatment of abstract rights (under the moment of
Law) at the opening of Objective Spirit, was that institutions
are the locus of these rights qua embodied in the "original" or
"pre-existing unity" of their polar terms the Good and Evil,
the Universal and the Particular. The task of the dialectic of Objective Spirit was to recover such "pre-existing unity" through
the unveiling of the hidden links between these seemingly opposed terms, as they remain incorporated in the institutional
setting, thus exposing the vagaries of the undialectical (on-thesurface) view of them as opposed or separate. Our critique of
the formal (universalist) approach through rights as it applies to
racism and anti-Semitism is a replay of the dialectic of Objective
Spirit, with an accent on the function of abstract principles qua
protective and reinforcing the status quo. The self-justifying
moral device of explaining one's position at the "top" because
of individual diligence and education, while being otherwise
equal with people on the "bottom" in terms of rights and liberties, is in mutual reinforcement with the moral and political
shield of "equal(ity) before the law," invoked by liberal culture
since its very inception. In fact, far from contributing to equality of content "outside the law," formal "equal(ity) before the
law" reinforces social inequality. Though the human and civil
rights of black students have been diligently upheld by sensitive
administrators, their lot in terms of social equality is not likely
to improve through the pursuit of abstract rights. The imple-

479

The dialectic of
Content-Form in
the service of illuminating the distinction between formal
and substantive
inequality.

Replay of the dynamic of institutionalization in the case

of anti-Semitism.

mentation of these rights is carried out through existing institutions where educational philosophies, scientistic ideologies,
classroom values and practices, budgetary priorities, bureaucratic norms about success, and legislators' perceptions about
civic duties, among others, find themselves embedded in the
way described. In the absence of an investigation of the institutional counterpart to the abstract rights approach, the same
misconceptions about the remedial effects of this approach in
the social domain are generated in the case of anti-Semitism.
The fight against the evil of anti-Semitism has not only been
institutionalized in universal rights, but has been socially and
morally constructed into an absolute evil through a powerful
network of institutions Anti-Defamation Leagues, Holocaust
Museums and studies, media and entertainment saturation coverage, to say nothing Political Action Committees. As such, the
fight against anti-Semitism has not been merely universalized
through becoming a right, but beyond that into becoming an
absolute (not-to-be-relativized) moral duty and, in turn, institutionalized into a powerful business that has been used as a
political weapon. Like its counterpart of bourgeois universalization of moral principles earlier, moral absolutism creates an atmosphere of intimidation which exempts from criticism issues
that expose the privileged status of the absolutizers. In conjunction with social power, moral absolutism shields from public
view causes that have an equal, if not stronger, social claim. In
short, unless the war against the evil of anti-Semitism is shifted
(through an investigation of the institutional embodiments of
abstract rights, as in the case of racism earlier) from the surface
to the underlying links between seeming unrelated concepts, it
degenerates into another variation of the Hegelian Absolute
Freedom and Terror n o w recast as a Manichaean Absolute
Dualism of Good-Evil and Terror. As the institutionalization of
absolute freedom turned into political terror in Hegel's example
from the French Revolution earlier, so does the universalization
of the fight against the absolute evil of anti-Semitism turn into
moral terrorism in our times.
The historical path of liberal culture from the bourgeois revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the
present, and indeed of every group which has attained power
by rallying the powerless on its side, through the use of (abstract) universals, exemplifies the dialectic of Content-Form as
it applies to the distribution of power. In the last Chapter w e
followed the bourgeoisie on the same path of morally shielding
its position of superiority. It did so through the rallying of the
non-privileged groups under its banner of humanitarianism, its

assessment of institutions by utility, and its assortment of universal rights and freedoms. The latter were inscribed on banners and constitutional documents in order to command the
unquestioned allegiance of the masses. Similarly, Marx and his
successors treated the values and aspirations of the proletariat
as coextensive with those of humanity at large during and following the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie. In both cases
the enforcement of universal principles entailed physical, as
well as psychological, terror by the very nature of the operation; while the moral and ideological mechanisms incorporated
in universal principles functioned as smoke screens for their respective positions of power. The two-pronged instrument of violence implicit in humanitarianism as mediated through its
institutions (institutional violence) and as immediacy of action
springing from moral outrage (moral intimidation) is a clear
exemplification of the same process. The Jews are no different
than other privileged groups, or sub-cultures, in socially constructing their moral categories, history, language, and education, and, in turn, raising them to universal principles in order
to serve their particular ends.
In our most recent efforts to apply the dialectic w e have witnessed the convergence of the dialectic of freedom with those of
Content (and Matter) and Form, Means and Ends, Universality
and Particularity, held together by the power of negativity operating through their polar terms. The superiority of the negativity
of the dialectic over the logic of Identity manifested itself in exposing the vagaries of universal rights as remedial of social inequality and injustice. This was accomplished by ferreting out,
through negativity, what lies behind the surface, in the sense of
forcing through mediation, these polar categories to show their
negative (concealed behind the surface) term or ugly side of (the
on-the-surface) reality. In the two most recent examples of the
hidden side of social reality, social inequalities implicit in the institutional setting are kept out of sight by (formal) equality before constitutionally safeguarded human and civil rights for all
citizens. The use of dialectical method in eliciting the negative
side, and rounding off the picture of social reality, was detailed
in the dialectic of Objective Spirit, wherein the abstractive nature of rights was exposed side by side with the process of their
progressive embeddedness in institutional life. The terms "institutional racism" and "institutionalized fight against anti-Semitism" already betray social inequality Hegelian inequality
"outside the law." In the former, racism is more widely institutionalized than is the fight against it; while in anti-Semitism, the
reverse is the case. Our treatment of racism and anti-Semitism

The power of negativity as the activating and unifying

force of the principal
dialectical categories
of Part V.

are paradigms for a wide range of social phenomena involving

gender, sexual preference, age, disability, etc., in which abstract
rights are used to combat discrimination. But the dialectical approach of Identity (inclusive of Difference) uses a different set of
logical assumptions than the logic mere of Identity of liberal-humanitarianism in which, though equally objectionable, abrogation of (the form of) rights and the toleration of (the content of)
social inequality, remain logically separate.
By contrast, our treatment shows that by separating (social)
content and form (rights), one overlooks the dialectical interplay
between the two. The problems posed by externality, or indifference, between polar terms are, interfaced with the incapacity of
the liberal logic of Identity to ferret out the behind-the-surface
institutional articulations linking seemingly unrelated, or opposed, terms: the good w i t h the bad side of the "rights" approach to racism and anti-Semitism above, or the beautiful and
ugly faces of humanitarianism earlier. Guided by the logic of
Identity, the liberal inescapably settles for the bland determination that form shapes content and content affects form, but
misses the critical in view of his pretentious humanitarian aspirations dialectical diagnosis: a change in (quantity or) content results in a change in (quality, or) form. The new configuration of content and form ( n e w institutional embodiments, or
syntheses of content and form) subverts old forms of equality
(abstract rights) by turning them in instruments of inequality.
While universal rights were effective egalitarian instruments in
the hands of the struggling bourgeoisie against landed class privilege during the French Revolution, they became instruments of
oppression in the same hands of bourgeois culture once it became established. As Carlyle sarcastically put it, the liberal ideologues were pronouncing the universal right of citizens to sleep
under the bridges, in the same way, w e may add, our liberal
mayors give the homeless of N e w York, more than a century later, the freedom of choice of subway station benches. Without an
awareness of the dialectic of Content-Form and the interfacing
dialectic of Means-Ends, which accounts for this seemingly mysterious change of quantity into quality of " t h o u g h t " to
"thought-things", or institutions the liberal logic of Identity
remains in the dark as to h o w the fight f o r social equality
through rights changes into its opposite. The alert, but non-dialectical, observer of the social scene marvels over the way that
institutionalization of the fight against powerlessness turns imperceptibly, but inexorably, through the dialectic of Means-End,
into the institutionalization of power in the service of the oppression of the powerless.

In the light of the last two examples, the interfacing pairs of

dialectical polarities converge on an important agreement: the
institutionalization of power operates relentlessly, turning oppressed into oppressor by way of the same means that relief of
the oppressed was effected in the first place. The advantages of
being able to detect this dialectic of domination by classes or
groups, which have risen to power with the help of concealment
of the articulations of this dialectic is also obvious. In the cryptic
language of the dialectic of Objective Spirit, the inability to see
through the process of institutionalization was conveyed repeatedly by our expression "as if by surprise." Being taken by surprise was the result of being abruptly confronted with the outcome of the dialectical synthesis, which, had already taken
place, without our knowledge, behind the surface. We now realize that our capacity of seeing through the surface corresponds
to not "being caught by surprise" by powerlessness having
turned into its opposite behind our backs. The dialectic of freedom and the function of self-consciousness are, of course, the
keys to avoiding such unpleasant surprises. Freedom as self-realization "which includes free(dom of) choice (of information and
education) as suspended" is essential. But it is the link through
self-consciousness, indicated by the expressions "firm and fast"
and "its o w n " in the remainder of the formulation of dialectical
freedom, which secures our ability to see through the dialectic
of domination. Reformulating the definition of freedom to fit
the case at hand: concrete (encompassing both institutions and
abstract rights), as against abstract freedom (encompassing rights
as distinct from institutions), is "conscious to itself (self-conscious) that its (institutional) content is intrinsically firm and fast
(to its abstract form), and (the subject) know(s) it (its content)
at the same time to be thoroughly its own." By making the social content of his free choice "his own," the subject is no longer
victimized by the illusion of constitutional freedom qua choice
within a institutional setting which is not "his o w n " but is defined by "outward circumstances." In the case of the East Berliner, economic freedom as choice issued in externality (defined by
the "outward circumstances" of capitalist-consumerist West
Berlin), so that consumer content was "raked together (choice
qua freedom) from the outside (of East Berliner's consciousness)
as something given and contingent." The same liberal conception of freedom as a right of choice, in isolation from social content, prevails in this case, except that w e are n o w dealing with
legal and political rather than economic freedom. The black, or
the homeless, citizen is led to believe that the legal and constitutional remedies safeguard his freedom, when in fact the social

The seemingly
abrupt change of
quantity into quality
and value into its
opposite, as symptomatic of selfconcealment and
unfreedom.

The countercultural
ideals of Part I revisited in light of the
findings of Part III.

content (the array of vocational courses, jobs, or housing, from

which they freely choose are not outcomes of exercising genuine freedom ("their own"), but "raked together from the outside," from a social content which, as far as they are concerned,
is "something given and contingent."
The difficulties encountered in trying to approximate freedom qua self-realization, under conditions of a modern mass
society, raise the possibility of resetting it under conditions of
community and the context of totalization logically outlined in
the dialectic of Actuality. Such conditions are culturally approximated in the city-states of classical antiquity and the communal ideals of the countercultural radical of Part I in modernity.
Given the centrality of self-consciousness for realizing freedom
under social conditions of modernity, it is no accident that the
main thrust of counterculture was centered on the idea of the
university as a community and the radicalization of liberal arts,
or education as a form of consciousness-raising. Nor is it a coincidence that the springboards for launching such cultural challenges have been the young, more particularly students, near
or inside centers of higher learning. There are important features of such youth groups which render them eminently suited for this radical role. First, rapid social change creates generation gaps which form the basis of a sub-(counter-)culture which
serves as the launching pad for radical critique and action along
cultural lines. Second, the proximity of youth to intellectual
centers such as universities, and the leisure afforded to them,
are prerequisites for the kind of radical reflection necessary for
the practice of unveiling. In the process of radicalizing revolution along these lines, the conventional measuring rod for
gauging "radical" along the political left-to-right horizontal axis
is replaced by cultural criteria on a vertical axis with levels of
embeddedness (or lack of self-consciousness). W e can take our
polarity of theory-practice, in this process of radicalization, as
an example of inseparability of terms which are disguised as
separable when viewed in a state of self-concealment. The radicals' persistent and often violent attempts at educational innovation during the 1960s provide an instructive illustration of
counterculture as an anticipation of the radical function of the
cultural approach Objective Spirit's radical face. This face begins to emerge in the process of unveiling which is an indispensable part of consciousness-raising. Given the nature of institutions as iceberg-like, predominantly below-the-surface
structures, it is understandable that the kind of learning qua
unveiling is, by nature, activistic and, as such, it was natural to
commence with the institution in their immediate proximity,

Dialectical Applications in Liberal Culture

485

the university. Furthermore, since unveiling gradually discloses

the hidden links between theory and practice, it was inexorable
that it would turn to institutional dis-mantling literally disrobing or stripping institutions of their protective layers so as to
reveal their inner articulations which unavoidably involved
physicality, or even violence.
The radicalization
The dialectical counterpart of action in the radicalization of
of
education in the
education of the 1960s can be found in Feeling Soul in its Im1960s as a paradigm
mediacy. In its implicitness (in-itselfness), Soul represents the
feature of unself-consciousness in the countercultural challenge for the countercultural challenge of
of education and politics. The pre-existing or original unity of
the liberal-scientistic
theory and practice is exemplified in the "magical relationship"
which "dispenses with any mediation" or the "concrete imme- conception of theorydiacy" viewed as "at once mental and physical." At the same time, practice.
the in-and-for-itselfness of Actual Soul corresponds to the vision of true community and the attempt to reappropriate it in
the context of modernity. The classical ideal of the union of the
physical and the mental has its counterpart in Actual Soul
"in this identity of the interior... and the exterior the Soul is actual," as the "merely mental" and the "merely bodily" find their
resting coincidence in the Aristotelian conception of the psyche,
or Hegel's "psychical." As a moment of re-immediation within
the moment of Soul, Actual Soul corresponds historically to the
community of the polis and its concept of concrete (cultural)
freedom. The polis provides the social context for the self-realization of the individual within the cultural parameters of
paedeia described earlier as the educationally-induced unity
of individual and communal values. In the pre-bourgeois nondualistic cultural ideal of the polis is prefigured not only the
concrete freedom aspired to by cultural radicals of the modern
era, but the overcoming of all the antitheses represented by the
dualism of Inner-Outer, just short of the logical formulation of
the doctrine of freedom by way of totalization in the Absolute
of Essence. Some of the applications of the dialectic of InnerOuter neatly fit the aspirations of counterculture: The (inner)
moral and social convictions united with the (outer) physical
courage which externalizes them; the inner harmony and its
outer manifestation in a healthy and beautiful body; social values and their physical exemplification in communal spaces, architectural and urban design; personal values and their expression in clothing, adornment, and life-style.
For example, the classroom, a frequent target of radical educational innovation, was seen by traditionalists, and liberal educators alike, as a neutral space where free inquiry could be best
conducted without partiality. On the other hand, for the radical

The traditional
classroom as a microcosm of the vital
socialization space
of liberal culture.

innovators the classroom was as much a social construction as

the institution of which it was a part and, as such, also an embodiment of ideas and values inherent to, and protective of, liberal culture: priority of the "word," rules safeguarding the use
of "free" speech in the interest of bourgeois "rationality," civilities to shield the "rational" pursuit of truth, procedures against
disruptions and physicality, and rituals to sanctify the glass and
mortar of the "talking" space. As a microcosm of the corrupt society-at-large the classroom was no more neutral than were abstract f r e e d o m and human rights earlier in the sense of
Hegel's description that they were "raked" by default from the
concrete social content of prevailing culture. Most important,
all of these built-in values sustained the conception of the classroom as a theorizing space, which ultimately reified the separation of theory and practice and made it more difficult to pursue
their underlying "original" or "pre-existing (behind-the-surface) unity." Not so for the traditional educators for whom theory and theory-supportive institutions, like the traditional
thinking-space of the classroom, had a legitimate place in the
university, whereas practice belonged somewhere "out there"
in the real world of business and politics. Dialectically speaking,
the synthesis of scientistic theory and practice into action in Actuality had been missed by the traditionalists, w h o were, in effect, pursuing the understanding of the (moral and social)
world corresponding to what f o l l o w e d Actuality, with categories which preceded it. Put differently, the asymmetry between scientistic theory (the first term of theory-practice prior
to their synthesis in action) and retrospective theoria (what
might be called contemplative action by phenomenology and
analytical philosophy of action) had been overlooked so that
human action, the centerpiece of moral and social theorizing,
was relegated to scientistic practice. In one big stroke the fundamental distinguishing mark between humanistic and scientistic discourse the asymmetry between the structures of action
appropriate to each was canceled, and the "practical" of humanistic values was dealt with methodologically alongside the
practical applications of anti-foliation chemical theory and behaviorist theory in psychology.

Critical assessment of
Radicals were not free of a similar confusion by erring on
the countercultural
the opposite end of the spectrum (i.e., unmediated practice)
challenge in terms of
when they insisted that the university be bent to "applied" venstructuralized Spirit.
tures and the "service to the community." As in the case of the
radical of the political paradigm, they were ignoring the important lesson of the dialectic of Reflection that theory depends on
practice, but such dependence is fatal to both unless the former

is also partially disengaged (i.e., unless it assumes a stance of

disinterestedness) from practice. Otherwise theory would be indulging in a viciously circular reduplication of practice. Nevertheless, as in the case of the paradigm, the undesirable effects of
self-concealment in our capitalist-consumerist culture are far
more serious from erring on the liberal-scientistic side, by overlooking the inseparability of the opposed terms of theory-practice, than on the radical side by viewing them in their unmediated unity: the side represented in the paradigm by the radical's
lack of awareness, that what he perceived as unmediated practice was also mediated. This dilemma, between missing the mediated aspect of action and not acting at all, which is implicit in
radical action, can be further elucidated by considering that the
radicals were concerned with the moral and social dimension of
the "practical," i.e., its transformation into action following the
synthesis of theory-practice in Actuality, rather than the scientistic "practical" preceding such synthesis. In other words, they
were confronting their professors, and the institutions they
were part of, with the Socratic teaching about true knowledge
issuing automatically in right action. In modern terms, they
were acting like the existentialists who, following on the dialectical path of exposing self-concealment at the level of onto-logic, had raised hypocrisy from a moral category to which bourgeois culture had reduced it, back to an ontological one of premodern times. Though for the most part unaware, in hurling
their charges of universal hypocrisy against bourgeois culture,
the radicals had, in effect, shifted the context of meaning from
the moral to the ontological level. W h e n they demanded that
their liberal professors reveal the hidden links between what
they were preaching and what this entailed for their life-style
and existence in society-at-large, they were forcing into the
open the same issue faced by the young (aspiring environmentalist) yuppie couple and the East Berliner. Furthermore, they
were pursuing their challenge through their poor man's dialectical tools for unveiling the behind-the-surface connections between the "ought" and the "is" in their cultural embeddedness:
"filthy speech," drug induced "changes in consciousness," "voting with one's feet," and fire-bombing computer centers.
The shift from the so-called neutral educational space of the
classroom to workshops, or communes, represented the overall
cultural reorientation of educational radicalism from externality
to internality of values characteristic of face-to-face groups and
communities in general. This, in turn, was reflected in the demand for the replacement of external forms of evaluation, such
as examinations and grades, by an informal communally gener-

ated assessment of one's worth and contribution to the group.

Whether self-consciously or not, the radicals were harking back
to values of the classical past, or even pre-literate non-Western
cultures, while attempting to articulate their vision of the future. The Greeks had used the organic analogy b e t w e e n a
healthy body and a well-ordered community to convey, what
to them, was obvious: knowledge had to be socially effectual
and not contingent on the complexities of human motivation
for its translation into action. Paedeia, or process of socialization,
was a holistic kind of education laying the ground for political
action through co-ordination of intelligence, formation of values, physical courage, and bodily fitness, by way of an informally generated system of social controls. All of these ingredients were necessary for (the exercise of) virtue (arete), so that it
would be inconceivable for someone socialized under paedeia
to, say, witness a mugging in the New York subway without actively interfering in defense of the victim. In this respect the
good citizens of Athens or Rome, the good medieval knight,
and the good U.S. Marine, share in common the benefits of a
holistic paedeia based on communal controls. These cultural values translate directly into action without interference from the
mediating agencies of the mental apparatus, or the threat of external enforcement by mediating institutions of control, e.g.,
police, supervisors, etc. Whereas in the context of their socializing spaces the Socratic doctrine of virtue-follows-knowledge
made eminent sense, in the talking-space of the traditional
classroom, setting the foundation for the separation of thought
from action, it has become the source of perennial mystification
for students and the focus of endless and usually barren scholarly disputation for teachers. In this sense, the countercultural
radicals had a better claim as heirs to the classical notion of
paedeia than did the ex cathedra upholders of humanistic education. Traditional educators, even those steeped in the liberal
arts, not only labored under the notion that it suffices for classical values to be packaged and disseminated through the talking-space of the classroom in order to change behavior, but
went even further in projecting such post-Cartesian methodology onto the classical paedeia, of which they considered themselves the repositories.
Insufficient appreciation of the power
of mediation, selfmediation in particular, by the countercultural challenge.

Of course the quest for freedom does not end with classical
antiquity. Re-immediation recurs at a higher level in Mind at the
end of Subjective Spirit after its phase of self-diremption in its
middle moment of Consciousness, which corresponds historically to the modern era between the Cartesian revolution and the
Hegelian synthesis. This middle moment is also the point at

which all these mediating elements in both the mental and social apparatus which radicals often tried to bypass instead of
mediating are being interposed between theory and practice,
following their original unity in Soul. By the time their unity is
re-established at the mental level in Mind, and ultimately, at
both the mental and institutional levels in the Idea, it has become clear that their synthesis is, in effect, a ^appropriation of
their original or pre-existing unity in Soul. In other words, the
explanation of our surprise when confronted with the fully developed Objective Spirit at the end of Mind (in terms of the simultaneous build-up of concreteness of the objective term) is
nothing more than making explicit the underlying original unity
of theory and practice, which was temporarily out of sight in the
moment of Consciousness. Thus, the countercultural vision of
unity of theory and practice is an attempt to recapture the unitary achievement of Actual Soul in the context of self-diremptive post-Cartesian culture. Its "consciousness-raising" one of
many enriching additions to our vocabulary is both an indirect admission of the prevailing low grade of self-consciousness
and a strong indication that an upgrading of the same is necessary if the implicitness of this unity is to be brought into explicit ness. This is consistent with the circularity of the dialectic and
the corresponding coincidence of presupposition and outcome.
It is no less consistent with the way the radical and conservative
faces of Spirit (or culture) are brought into unity by way of dialectical Identity (inclusive of Contradiction).