There are two kinds of metaphysics, general and special metaphysics.

 

General metaphysics has to do, basically, with the constitution of the object. The object is constituted by the categories. So general metaphysics has to do with the categories. And it has to do with the understanding, with so-called finite thought, because, obviously, the objects are outside and opposed to us.

 

So the first two part, the first two sections, of Hegel's SL is a general metaphysics. The first section deals with the categories quality, quantity and measure (a third category added by Hegel to the list from Kant and Aristotle). The second section deals with modality, relation and a third unnamed category added by Hegel.

 

Special metaphysics, then, has to do with the three Ideas of Reason called by Kant the cosmological, psychological and theological Ideas. This has to do, ultimately, with infinite thought, with thought thinking itself--hence with reason.

 

This has to do with the third part of the SL. Here the three ideas are called Life, Cognition and the Absolute Idea. So Life corresponds to the cosmological idea, cognition to the psychological idea and the absolute idea to the theological idea.

 

And Hegel's system as a whole is a special metaphysics. The three moments of the system, logic, nature and spirit, correspond to the three ideas, with logic corresponding to the theological idea, nature to the cosmological idea, and spirit to the psychological idea.

 

It is significant to Hegel's system as a whole that logic, the theological idea, comes first, and spirit, the psychological idea, comes last (with nature obviously in the middle). This might be seen as the basis of Hegel's supposed atheism. But really it is a simple following of the creed, where this is the order followed--with spirit as the final moment.

 

John