In response to Sat19Jul03 post by Randall:



Dear Randall,

Your question is pertinent:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >

Professor Selva where do you stand with the relationship between the Phenomenology of Spirit and The Science of Logic? Particularly, I would like to know where you stand with the last chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit (Absolute Knowledge), and the claim for a presuppositionless beginning to the Logic.

Does the Phenomenology end with a determinate standpoint in Absolute Knowledge? If so doesn't that violate the claim for a presuppositionless beginning to the logic?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

On this point, Hegel�s position wasn�t strictly developed. Commentators have been most contradictories, each one has stressed one only aspect of question; for example: Labarri�re, Fulda, Hoesle, etc. ...

This hegelian question has been reduced in a semantical problem, but presupposition�s question isn�t redutible at it. The problem is rigorously conceptual; that is:

1. The Science of Logic is development of Absolute Knowlewdge. This Absolute Knowledge cannot to have presuppositions. That is, it can to begin with presuppositionless beginning.

2. The Phenomenology of Spirit is deduction of Absolute Knowledge, what is purification of natural consciousness and its elevation at Science. But also this Work is still more properly "the direct driving-forth of what is within and the truncated generation of the universal than it is the emergence of the latter from the concrete variety of existence" (Phenomenology of spirit, � 33, Trans. Miller). In this manner Hegel�s Phenomenology will "in freeing determinate thougts from their fixity so as to give actuality to the universal, and impart to it spiritual life" (ibid.).



3. For this, in the Introduction to Science of Logic (Doctrine of Being, 1812, p. XII), Hegel says:

"The Notion of pure science and its deduction is therefore presupposed in the present work in so far as the Phenomenology of Spirit is nothing other than the deduction of it. Absolute knowing is the truth of every mode of consciousness because, as the course of the Phenomenology showed, it is only in absolute knowing that separation of the object from the certainty of itself is completely eliminated: truth is now equated with certainty and this certainty with truth.

"Thus pure science presupposes liberation from the opposition of consciousness. It contains thought in so far as this is just as much the object in its own self, or the object in its own self in so far as it is equally pure thought. As science, truth is pure self-consciousness in its self- development and has the shape of the self, so that the absolute truth of being is the known Notion and the Notion as such is the absolute truth of being" (apud MIA�s version, �� 51-52).

4. This is ambiguous, but only for the natural consciousness, what still could not to do "its elevation to universality in general" (Phenomenology, � 33) and/or not also "to give actuality to the universal" (ibid.). This natural consciousness, if it free will propose to commence the study of philosophy, then we can to speak of a beginning presupposed of philosophy, because "to speak of a beginning of 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" (Encyclopaedia, � 17, apud MIA�s version). So, natural consciousness (or the "person who proposes to commence the study")has presupposed justly "its elevation to universality in general" (or the thought in-itself) and necessity "to give actuality to the universal" (or the thought for-itself); that is, the Absolute Knowledge.

5. This is so because, on the one hand, "philosophy, in order to start on its course, had, like the rest of the sciences, to begin with a subjective presupposition" (the existence of thought); on the other hand, "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" (Encyclopaedia, � 17, apud MIA�s version). But it is a simple subjective presupposition; there are not only subjective presuppositions, but also objective presuppositions. On this subject matter, in Introduction of his Logic (SL, I, 1832, p. 1-2), Hegel says:

"Logic (...) cannot presuppose any of these forms of reflection and laws of thinking, for these constitute part of its own content and have first to be established within the science. But not only the account of scientific method, but even the Notion itself of the science as such belongs to its content, and in fact constitutes its final result; what logic is cannot be stated beforehand, rather does this knowledge of what it is first emerge as the final outcome and consummation of the whole exposition. Similarly, it is essentially within the science that the subject matter of logic, namely, thinking or more specifically comprehensive thinking is considered; the Notion of logic has its genesis in the course of exposition and cannot therefore be premised" (translation in MIA).

And still (SL, I, 1832, 27-29):

"But in the Introduction, the Notion of logic was itself stated to be the result of a preceding science, and so here, too, it is a presupposition. In accordance with that result logic was defined as the science of pure thought, the principle of which is pure knowing, the unity which is not abstract but a living, concrete unity in virtue of the fact that in it the opposition in consciousness between a self-determined entity, a subject, and a second such entity, an object, is known to be overcome; being is known to be the pure Notion in its own self, and the pure Notion to be the true being. These, then, are the two moments contained in logic. But now they are known to be inseparable, not as in consciousness where each also has a separate being of its own; it is solely because they are at the same time known as distinct (yet not with an independent being) that their unity is not abstract, dead and inert, but concrete.

"This unity also constitutes the logical principle as element, so that the development of the difference directly present in that principle proceeds only within this element. For since the division is, as we have said, the judgement of the Notion, the positing of the determination already immanent in it, and therefore of the difference, we must not understand this positing as a resolving of that concrete unity back into its determinations as if these had an independent self-subsistence, for this would be an empty return to the previous standpoint, to the opposition of consciousness. This however has vanished; the said unity remains the element, and the distinctions of the division and of the development no longer originate outside that element. Consequently the earlier determinations (those used on the pathway to truth) such as subjectivity and objectivity, or even thought and being, or Notion and reality, no matter from what standpoint they were determined, have lost their
independent and purely affirmative character and are now in their truth, that is, in their unity, reduced to forms. In their difference, therefore, they themselves remain implicitly the whole Notion, and this, in the division, is posited only under its own specifications.

"Thus what is to be considered is the whole Notion, firstly as the Notion in the form of being, secondly, as the Notion; in the first case, the Notion is only in itself, the Notion of reality or being; in the second case, it is the Notion as such, the Notion existing for itself (as it is, to name concrete forms, in thinking man, and even in the sentient animal and in organic individuality generally, although, of course, in these it is not conscious, still less known; it is only in inorganic nature that it is in itself)."(translation in MIA).

Finally,

"The objective logic, then, takes the place rather of the former metaphysics which was intended to be the scientific construction of the world in terms of thoughts alone. If we have regard to the final shape of this science, then it is first and immediately ontology whose place is taken by objective logic � that part of this metaphysics which was supposed to investigate the nature of ens in general; ens comprises both being and essence, a distinction for which the German language has fortunately preserved different terms. But further, objective logic also comprises the rest of metaphysics in so far as this attempted to comprehend with the forms of pure thought particular substrata taken primarily from figurate conception, namely the soul, the world and God; and the determinations of thought constituted what was essential in the mode of consideration. Logic, however, considers these forms free from those substrata, from the subjects of figurate conception; it considers them, their
nature and worth, in their own proper character. Former metaphysics omitted to do this and consequently incurred the just reproach of having employed these forms uncritically without a preliminary investigation as to whether and how they were capable of being determinations of the thing-in-itself, to use the Kantian expression � or rather of the Reasonable. Objective logic is therefore the genuine critique of them � a critique which does not consider them as contrasted under the abstract forms of the a priori and the a posteriori, but considers the determinations themselves according to their specific content." (SL, I, 1832, pp. 32-33, apud MIA�s version, � 85).

In other mail, I comment this concept of objective presupposition, but you can to see an approximmation in my last response to Mon, 7Jul03 post by Paul Trejo. For the momment, we can to read:

"Spirit is all phases of content in which it externalizes itself, and the process of leading these phases back to a full consciousness of self. It unfolds its existence and develops its processes in the pure ether of its life and is Systematic Science. In Systematic Science the distinction between subjective knowledge and objective thruth is eliminated: each phase always has both aspects.

"Systematic Science cannot, however, remain a pure conceptual development: it must step out itself and see Spirit developed in space and time and in nature.

"It must then study Spirit returning to itself in time, i.e. in the long procession of historical cultures and individuals." (Phenomenoly, �� 805-808, by Miller).



Unhappily, Miller�s version is not gut; it has compacted german text. But it I discute in other mail.



Yours truly,

Emmanuel Selva.






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