In response to Mon7Jul03 post by Paul Trejo:



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Post (1) by Selva:

> With Hegel, I retake not only the "potential" and "actual", but too, precisely, the "Natura naturans" and "Natura naturata" from metaphysical tradition (See among others: Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., I, II, 85; Spinoza, Ethic, I, 29). But, in Hegel's System "formant Content" is "Natura naturans", the creative Natura, Substance, Causa sui or self-movement of Content as still unconsciousness of his determinations; or just now the Substance that still has been passed to Subject, or no still consciousness of the self-movement of Content [that is, consciousness of his proper self-movement]. Therefore, I cannot to speak "forming Content"; since "forming" implies passage of unmoving to moving, or potentia to actus, nevertheless in the human consciousness. With this, I distinguish between "formant Content" and "formalizant Form" [not forming Content and formalizing Form], and also between "formed Content" and "formalized Form"; this isn't movement of human consciousness, but the

self-movement of the Absolute captivated in the human consciousness.
Reply (1a) by Trejo:


Professor Selva, you seem to be adding Spinoza's
theories into your argument. I should add here that
Hegel's notion of the Unconscious aspect of the
Absolute is entirely bound up with Nature, and for
Hegel Nature is not Substance, not Self-subsisting,
but is a Creation of the Spirit. Spirit is, by definition,
Conscious, while Nature is largely Unconscious in
Hegel's theory.



My response to Reply (1a) by Trejo:



Dear Trejo, I am not adding Spinoza's theories into my argument. Hegel himself retake Spinoza's theories, see:



a) remark on Spinoza�s �Determinatio est negatio� in the Science of Logic, I (p. 75-78, ed. 1812, Gesammelte Werke 11);

b) remark 1, on Spinoza's representation of Pure Quantity (Ethic, I, XV), in the Science of Logic, I (p. 136-137, ed. 1812, GW, 11; p. 217-219, ed. 1832, GW 21);

c) remark on Spinoza�s philosophy, in the Science of Logic, II (p. 225-229, ed. 1813, GW, 11).

For Hegel (WL, I, p. 78, 1832), the problem of Spinoza�s philosophy is the immobility of the absolute Substance, this substance pass out not to finite. Unhappily, Hegel comment not Spinoza�s Ethic, I, 29. In this locus, Spinoza says:

�Prop. 29. In nature there is nothing contingent, but all things are determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and act in a certain manner.�

�Demonst. Whatever, is in God (Prop. 15); but God cannot be called a contingent thing, for (Prop. 11) He exists necessarily and not contingently (Prop. 16), and that, too, whether it be considered absolutely (Prop. 21), or as determined to action in a certain manner (Prop. 27). But God is the cause of these modes, not only in so far as they simply exist (Corol. Prop. 24), but also (Prop. 26) in so far as they are considered as determined by God (by the same proposition), it is na impossibility and not a contingency that they should determine themselves; and, on the other hand (Prop. 27), if they are determined by God, it is na impossibility and not a contingency that they should render themselves indeterminate. Wherefore all things are determined from a necessity of the divine nature, not only to exist, but to exist and act in a certain manner, and there is nothing contingent. Q.E.D.�

�Schol. Before I go any farther, I wish here to explain, or rather to recall to recollection, what mean by �natura naturans� and what by �natura naturata�. For, from what has gone before, I think it is plain that by �natura naturans� we are to understand that which is in itself and is conceived through itself, or those attributes of substance which express eternal and infinite essence, that is to say (Corol. 1, Prop. 14, and Corol. 2, Prop. 17), God in so far as he is considered as free cause. But by �natura naturata� I understand everything which follows from the necessity of the nature of God, or of any one of God�s attributes, that is to say, all the modes of God�s attributes in so far as they are considered as things which are in God, and which without God can neither be nor can be conceived.�



In this passage, the self-movement of Content (the proper Spirit) isn�t still consciousness of the self-movement of Content, or the substance isn�t still properly Subject. So, it is unconsciousness of his determinations or no still consciousness of its proper self-movement. Therefore, Spinoza�s theory is only abstract, is limited in a external thought; so, for Hegel (ibid.,175), the Spinoza�s Substance is only abstract negation of all determinateness; in itself, the ideality isn�t truly posed. Finally, Spinoza has not applied his �determinatio est negatio� on the proper conception of absolute Substance.

In the Science of Logic (WL, II, 281-282, ed. 1813, GW 11), Hegel says:



�Absolute substance, which as absolute form distinguishes itself from itself, therefore no longer repels itself as necessity from itself, nor, as contingency, does it fall asunder into indifferent, self-external substances; on the contrary, it differentiates itself, on the one hand, into the totality � heretofore passive substance � which is originative as reflection out of the determinateness into itself, as a simple whole, which contains within itself its positedness and is posited as self-identical therein-the universal; on the other hand, it differentiates itself into the totality � heretofore causal substance � into the reflection equally out of the determinateness into itself to a negative determinateness which, as thus the self-identical determinateness is likewise posited as the whole, but as self-identical negativity-the individual. But because the universal is self-identical only in that it contains the determinateness within itself as sublated, and therefore the negative
as negative, it is immediately the same negativity which individuality is; and individuality, because it is equally the determinate determinate, the negative as negative, is immediately the same identity which universality is. This their simple identity is particularity, which contains in immediate unity the moment of determinateness of the individual and the moment of reflection-into-self of the universal. These three totalities are, therefore, one and the same reflection, which, as negative self-relation, differentiates itself into these two, but into a perfectly transparent difference, namely, into a determinate simplicity or simple determinateness which is their one and the same identity.� (Translated by A. V. Miller, George Allen & Unwin, 1969, apud Hegel-by-HyperText). [In next mail, I comment on this passage].



Certainly, Hegel has not used the expressions �Natura naturans� and �Natura naturata�, but his philosophy is only show of self-unfolding of the �Natura naturans� at the �Natura naturata�, and his return by itself. The �Natura naturans�, or absolute Substance, only can to unfold at the �Natura naturata� if still it has recognized (within itself) at itself as a free Substance or the pure Concept. So, �Natura naturata� isn�t Nature (as your �Nature largely Unconscious�), but the plain of reality, as reality of pure Concept (see WL, III, 399-400, ed. 1816, GW. 12). The �Nature largely Unconscious� and the History (the place of the retake for the absolute Spirit of his consciousness) are only moments of the first level [level of first syllogism of the philosophy (see Enc., � 575), the syllogism of determinate Being) of development of the Objectivity, or self-unfolding of the immediate absolute unity of pure Concept and his reality, or still the absolute Idea, as totality without itself in
return into itself.



In � 244 of the Encyclopaedia, Hegel says:



�The Idea which is independent or for itself, when viewed on the point of this 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 characterisation and other-being, the immediate idea, as its reflected image, go forth freely as Nature.� (Apud Hegel-by-HyperText).



In Hegel�s Logic �The Idea which is independent or for itself� is independent or for itself only as still independence simply posed or immediate absolute unity of pure Concept and his reality. So, the relation between �Natura naturans� and �Natura naturata� isn�t the same that relation between pure Concept and his reality. The relation between pure Concept and his reality is immediately Nature, as totality of Idea posed as absolute liberation. But this absolute liberation has that to unfold itself without itself in return into itself.

On Hegel's notion of the Unconscious aspect of the
Absolute, certainly that it is entirely bound up with Nature (in that first syllogism of the philosophy), but also in level of objective Logic. In this level there isn�t relationship between �self-movement of content� and �consciousness of the self-movement of content�; therefore, I can to speak that single �self-movement of content� isn�t still properly �consciousness of the self-movement of content�, and so unconscious (for passage from unconscious Content to consciousness of Content, see Enc., �� 153-154).

In preface to the First Edition of the Science of Logic (WL, I, p. X-XI, ed. 1832, GW. 21, Hegel says:



�Philosophy, if it would be a science, cannot, as I have remarked elsewhere, borrow its method from a subordinate science like mathematics, any more than it can remain satisfied with categorical assurances of inner intuition, or employ arguments based on grounds adduced by external reflection. On the contrary, it can be only the nature of the content itself which spontaneously develops itself in a scientific method of knowing, since it is at the same time the reflection of the content itself which first posits and generates its determinate character.� (Translated by Miller, apud Hegel-by-Hypertext).



And bellow (p. XII-XIII):



�Consciousness is spirit as a concrete knowing, a knowing too, in which externality is involved; but the development of this object, like the development of all natural and spiritual life, rests solely on the nature of the pure essentialities which constitute the content of logic.�

�Consciousness, as spirit in its manifestation which in its progress frees itself from its immediacy and external concretion, attains to the pure knowing which takes as its object those same pure essentialities as they are in and for themselves. They are pure thoughts, spirit thinking its own essential nature. Their self-movement is their spiritual life and is that through which philosophy constitutes itself and of which it is the exposition.� (Translated by Miller, apud Hegel-by-Hypertext).



Also: In WL, I, p. 17 (ed. 1832, GW. 21), Hegel said:



�However, the exposition of what alone can be the true method of philosophical science falls within the treatment of logic itself; for the method is the consciousness of the form of the inner self-movement of the content of logic.� (Translated by Miller, apud Hegel-by-Hypertext).



The �consciousness of the form of the inner self-movement of the content� cannot be the same thing that �the nature of the content itself which spontaneously develops itself� or �the reflection of the content itself�, because thus Hegel would do not a without presuppositions science. There is consciousness in the beginning of Hegel�s Logic, but this consciousness is the consciousness of philosopher and isn�t of content itself.



Reply (1b) by Trejo:

Will you also try to add the psychoanalytic theory
into your interpretation? Until Hegel's dialectic was
discovered, science had no inkling of an idea about the
Self-movement of the Content, the Idea. Was it thus
unconscious? Has Hegel made the unconscious into
the conscious?



My response to Reply (1b) by Trejo:



I will not try to add the psychoanalytic theory
into my interpretation. I am speaking of metaphysical content and not phenomenological content. The psychoanalytic theory has place into Phenomenology of Spirit, in �� of this work, Hegel says:



�27. It is this coming-to-be of �Science as such� or of �knowledge�, that is described in this �Phenomenology� of Spirit. Knowledge in its first phase, or �immediate spirit�, is the non-spiritual, i.e. �sense-consciousness�.� (...).

�28. (...) The single individual is incomplete Spirit, (...). The single individual must also pass through the formative stages of universal Spirit (...). This past existence is the already acquired property of universal spirit which constitutes the substance of the individual, and hence appears externally to him as his inorganic nature. In this respect formative education, regarded from the side of the individual, consists in his acquiring what thus lies at hand, devouring his inorganic nature, and taking possession of it for himself. But, regarded from the side of universal spirit as substance, this is nothing but its own acquisition of self-consciousness, the bringing-about of its own becoming and reflection into itself�. (Translated by Miller, Oxford University Press, p. 16-17).


Certainly, in terms of development of the universal Spirit, �until Hegel's dialectic was discovered, science had no inkling of an idea about the
Self-movement of the Content, the Idea�. Until Hegel, the movement of the universal Spirit hasn�t do to return into itself; thus, until Hegel, this movement was it
unconscious. But, Hegel hasn�t made the unconscious into
the conscious; Hegel was the place of manifestation of the universal Spirit in his discover of itself for itself. Before Hegel, Spinoza (with his �determinatio est negatio�), Christian Wolff (with his inversion of between �Understanding� and �Reason�), and Kant (with his inversion of the procedure of the Metaphysics) have prepared the Spirit of Hegel�s epoch.



The others questions, I reply in next mail.



Hugs,
Emmanuel Selva



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