Thought and Reality In Hegel’s System. Gustavus Watts Cunningham 1910
1. This statement may be easily misconstrued and should be hedged about with reservations. Since, however, these reservations are to be developed later, I content myself here with merely calling attention to the fact. As we shall see below, the assertion that Hegel deals in the Logic with thought in abstraction is not equivalent to the assertion that he there deals with abstract thought. The reader is asked kindly to regard the above statement as a preliminary one. to be read in the light of what is to follow.
2. Werke, Bd. II, p. 6.
3. Ibid., p. 21.
4. Ibid., p. 64.
5. Ibid., p. 67.
6. Cf. The Origin and Significance of Hegel’s Logic, Chapters VI, VII.
7. Phänomenologie des Geistes. p. ciii.
8. Op. cit., pp. 19-20.
9. Werke Bd. III. p. 32.
10. Enc., §25.
11. Philosophical Review Vol. VI, p. 500.
12. Hegel und seine Zeit, p. 255.
13. Ibid., p. 256.
14. Professor Baillie identifies absolute knowledge with Absolute Mind (cf. Hegel’s Logic, pp. 186 ff.). urging that in the category of absolute knowledge “the standpoint of Absolute Mind has been fully and unequivocally adopted” (ibid., p. 189). This identification seems to me, however, to contribute only to confusion. The point of interest to Hegel in the Phenomenology is the removal of the opposition which at first appears to exist between consciousness and its content. And this he does in the category of absolute knowledge. But when this is accomplished, we have not passed beyond the realm of finite consciousness at all; we have only seen finite consciousness in its true import. The standpoint of absolute knowledge is implicit in all finite consciousness; this fact Professor Baillie insists upon (see ibid., pp. 190. ff.). Why, then, baldly identify the category with the standpoint of the Absolute? If we insist on the identification here, we at least shift the emphasis from the point to be emphasized, namely, that this penetration of its object by consciousness is involved in every stage of consciousness from the sensuous up. It may be that absolute knowledge implies the existence of Absolute Mind, but this is another matter; it is simply a confusion of the point at issue here to identify the two.
15. Werke. Bd. V, pp. 324-325.
16. Metaphysics, Bk. I, Chap. vii. §88.
17. See Haym’s criticism of Hegel on this point, op. cit., pp. 235 ff.
18. Enc., §41. lecture-note (2).
19. Loc. cit.
20. Werke, Bd. IV, p. 127.
21. Enc §60, lecture-note (2).
22. Werke, Bd. VIII p. 63 (Philosophy of Right, trans., p. 37).
23. Philosophical Review, Vol. 1, p. 135.
24. See Professor Bosanquet’s discussion on this point in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1905-1906, Vol. VI, pp. 237 ff.
25. Werke. Bd. V, p. 237.
26. Werke. Bd. I, p. 178.
27. Bk. III, Chap. i. §309.
28. Werke, Bd. VIII. p. 34 (Philosophy of Right, trans. p. 11).
29. Philosophical Review, Vol. VI, p. 502.
30. Enc., §19.
31. Werke, Bd. III, p. 26.
32. Ibid. p. 33.
33. Enc., §215.
34. Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic, §14. Compare with this conception of thought Lotze’s view of thought’s first activity as the process by means of which the immediately given impressions of sense are converted into ideas (Logic, trans., Vol., pp. 13 ff).
35. Cognition is ‘finite’ because its content has the appearance of a datum, a ‘given,’ independent of it and existing in its own right. From the standpoint of the ‘Notion,’ howeve 266.-268.)
36. Werke Bd. XII, pp. 267-268 (Philosophy of Religion, trans., Vol.
III, p. 163).
37. Logic, Bk. III, chap. i, §308.
38. Principles of Logic, p. 533.
39. See Bosanquet’s Logic. Vol. I. pp. 63 ff.
40. Enc. §163, lecture-note (I).
41. Werke, Bd. XV, p. 516 (trans., Vol. III, p. 441).
42. Enc. §379.
43. Enc., §11.
44. Ibid., §24.
45. Werke, Bd. IX, p. 12.
46. Werke, Bd. VIII, p. 33 (trans., p. II).
47. Enc., §471.
48. Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic §104.
49. Loc. cit.
50. See, in this connection, an article entitled “Experience and Thought” by Professor Creighton in The Philosophical Review, Vol. XV, pp. 482. ff. “Thinking or rationality is not limited to the process of abstract cognition, but it includes feeling and will, and in the course of its development carries these along with it. There is, of course, no such thing as what we have called abstract cognition; but the different moments are all united in the concrete experience which we may name the life of thought” (pp. 487-488).
51. Cf. especially op. cit., §206.
52. Cf. Appearance and Reality, Chap. xv.
53. Microcosmus. Bk. VIII, Chap. i. §8.
54. Mr. Bradley would seem to think that discussion on this point is a matter of terminology. For example, in Appearance and Reality. he says that. if one chooses. One may call that fuller experience, which is an adequate synthesis of the real, thought. “But,” he adds. “if anyone else prefers another term, such as feeling or will, he would be equally justified. For the result is a whole state which both includes and goes beyond each element; and to speak of it as simply one of them seems playing with phrases.” (p. 171). I am persuaded. however, that the point is more fundamental than such an attitude indicates.
And I am also persuaded that he who would escape the conclusion that the abstract particular has a part in ultimate reality must ultimately concede Hegel’s contention, – always provided we are in earnest about equating reality with experience. See Hegel, Werke, Bd. XI. pp. 129-130.
55. Hegelianism and Personality, pp. 133-134. I quote from the second edition. Cf. also McTaggart, op. cit., ibid §§194 ff. To mediate the ‘this,’ he asserts, would be to destroy it. Cf. Lotze, Logic, Book III, Chap. i. §308.
56. Philosophy of Lotze, p. 273. Cf. Bosanquet. Logic. Vol. II, p. 207: “In an absolute tautology which excludes or omits difference, identity itself disappears and the judgment vanishes with it.”
57. Enc., §573.
58. Studies in Hegelian Dialectic. §181.
59. Werke, Bd. II, pp. 16-17.
60. Enc., §78.
61. Werke, Bd. III, p. 56.
62. Enc., §65.
63. Cf. ibid., §70.
64. Cf. Werke, Bd. XV, pp. 496 ff. (Hist. of Philos., trans. Vol. III, pp. 420. ff.).
65. Werke Bd. XI, p. 158 (Philos. of Relig., trans., Vol. I, p. 162).
66. Werke, Bd. II, p. 16.
67. Ibid., p. 14.
68. Werke, Bd. XV, pp. 597-598 (Hist. of Philos., trans., Vol. III, p. 525.).
69. Werke, Bd. XIII, p. 55 (Hist. of Philos., trans., Vol. I, p. 41).
70. Werke Bd. II, p. 101. Quoted by A. W. Crawford, Philosophy of P. H. Jacobi, p. 43.
71. Ibid., p. 59. See N. Wilde, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, pp. 63 ff.
72. Werke Bd. XV, p. 549 (Hist. of Philos., trans., Vol. III, p. 475).
73. Werke Bd. III, p. 53. See in this connection Wallace, Prolegomena, p. 45; also Levy-Bruhl, La Philosophie de Jacobi, pp. 257-258.
74. Werke Bd. XI, p. 52 (Philos. of Relig., trans., Vol. I, p. 51).
75. Werke, Bd. XV, p. 551 (Hist. of Philos., trans., Vol. III, p. 477).
76. Enc §63. See also Werke, Bd. XV, pp. 489 ff. (Hist. of Philos., trans., Vol. III, pp. 413 ff.).
77. Werke, Bd. XV, pp. 362-363 (Hist. of Philos., trans., Vol. III, pp. 282.-283).
78. Ibid., p. 498 (ibid., p. 422).
79. Enc., §62.
80. Werke, Bd. XVII, pp. 10 ff.; Enc., §50.
81. Werke, Bd. XI, pp. 58-59 (Philos. of Relig., trans., Vol. I, p. 58).
82. Enc., §74.
83. Ibid.
84. Cf. Werke, Bd. V, pp. 328 ff.
85. Enc., §12.
86. Enc.. §552.
87. Werke, Bd. II, p. 44; see also pp. 43, 45.
88. Enc., §442.
89. Enc., §50.
90. Werke, Bd. V, p. 330.
91. Werke Bd. III, pp. 38-39.
92. Werke Bd. V, p. 331; notice also immediately following pages.
93. Cf. Enc., §173.
94. Principles of Logic, p.118.
95. Cf. Bosanquet, Logic Vol. 1, pp. 293 ff.
96. It might be objected here that such a judgment as ‘The soul is not an elephant gives us no positive knowledge whatsoever. I grant that the objection is true, but I deny its relevancy, since we are here dealing with significant judgments. This so-called judgment sins against the presupposition of all judgment, and consequently is really no judgment.
From the standpoint of epistemology, the infinite judgment does not exist.
97. Werke, Bd. III, p. 7.
98. Ibid.
99. In this connection see Professor G. H. Sabine, “The Concreteness of Thought,” The Philosophical Review, Vol. XVI, pp. 154-169.
100. Cf. Hegel und seine Zeit, p. 331.
101. Will to Believe, p. 273.
102. Logische Undersuchungen, Bd. I, p. 56. I translate from the third edition.
103. Cf. Studies in Hegelian Dialectic, §§8, 9, 109, 117, etc.
104. Principles of Logic, p. 138.
105. Ibid., p. 140.
106. Enc., §24.
107. Ibid., §162.
108. Cf. Werke, bd. V, p. 231. Notice also Hegel’s frequent statements concerning the contingent.
109. A word should be said here to prevent a possible misconception.
This coincidence of logic and metaphysics must not be construed to mean that the logical categories, as universals, destroy the particularity of being. The identification is not supposed to deny the reality of the factual side of existence; it does not do away with ‘existential reality.’ That this is Hegel’s position will be developed below, when he come to ask concerning the relation that Hegel conceives to exist between these two phases of experience. One should never forget that, in Hegel’s view of the matter, the Logic has to be supplemented by the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Mind.
110. Werke, Bd. III, pp. 31-32.
111. Ibid., p. 57. These two quotations from the Logic are given by Professor McGilvary in his admirable discussion on “The Presupposition Question in Hegel’s Logic,” The Philosophical Review, Vol. VI, pp. 497 ff. This discussion seems to me to put the question beyond dispute. If the reader is interested in this problem and desires an exhaustive discussion of it, he could not do better than to turn up those pages.
112. Werke,. Bd. II. pp. 28-29. In this connection the following passage from the Philosophische Propaedeutik is significant: “Science presupposes that the separation of itself from the realm of truth has been done away with, that Spirit no longer belongs to mere phenomena, as is the case in the doctrine of consciousness ... Science does not seek the truth; it is in the truth, indeed, it is the truth itself” (Werke, Bd. XVIII, p. 94). And this presupposition we have seen to be the actual result of the Phenomenology.
113. Vera, Introduction a la Philosophie de Hegel, pp. 179-180.
114. Werke, Bd. III, p. 44.
115. Ibid., p. 33.
116. Enc., §19.
117. Ibid., §82.
118. Werke, Bd. III, pp. 33-34.
119. Cf. ibid., pp. 24-25; see also Enc., §160.
120. Enc., §160: also §164.
121. Enc., §133, lecture-note.
122. Cf. Werke, Bd. II, p. 35; also Enc., §82.
123. See in this connection Caird, Hegel, p. 157; Wallace, Prolegomena to Hegel’s Logic, pp. 302 ff.; and McGilvary, op. cit., pp. 504-507.
124. Enc., §160. See also §43, lecture-note.
125. Werke, Bd. III, pp. 7-8.
126. There are two further points in connection with the Logic, which, though they are hardly relevant to our present purpose, should not be passed over in silence. I refer to the problems concerning the beginning of the Logic and its empirical basis. One or two general remarks here will have to suffice.
Concerning the beginning of the Logic, it may be said without fear of successful contradiction that the first of the categories is not a lineal descendant from the conclusion of the Phenomenology the Phenomenology is not the presupposition of the Logic in this sense. To be sure, the category of Being must be viewed in the light of the Phenomenology for without the development of the Phenomenology Being would hardly be possible as a concrete category. And in this respect the beginning of the Logic is a mediated immediacy, as Hegel himself suggests. (Cf. Werke, Bd. III, pp. 58, 59 ) But when we turn from the Phenomenology and look upon the development of the logical categories as such, Being becomes very abstract. Thus viewed, it is not on a level with absolute knowledge, but rather, one is inclined to say. with the beginning of the Phenomenology: in the realm of the Logic, Being is what Sensuous Consciousness is in the Phenomenology – the most abstract and unmediated standpoint. In a word, then, we may say that the beginning of the Logic, viewed as such, is abstract and immediate; but that it must be regarded as in a sense mediated, since it presupposes the entire development of the Phenomenology.
(For further discussion of this problem see Professor McGilvary and Mr. McTaggart. Mr. McTaggart’s position entirely ignores the Phenomenology, and so does not take account of the mediated aspect of Being.
It has been objected that Hegel illogically smuggles experience into the Logic as the basis of its development. (Cf. Trendelenburg, op. cit., pp. 36 ff.; and Haym, op. cit., pp. 318 ff.) This objection seems to be groundless. Of course the basis of the Logic is experience, but Hegel is not inconsistent in making it so. As we have pointed out above, the presupposition of the Logic is concrete experience; for it is with concrete experience that the Phenomenology has to do. To assert, therefore, that the Logic deals with blank universals, and that it gets its only plausibility by dragging experience in at the back door after having ostentatiously kicked it out at the front, is to show plainly that the real problem and presupposition of the Logic have been misconceived.
The objection is an admirable illustration of the danger involved in an attempt to criticize the Logic taken apart from its context in the system. And so far as one can see, Mr. McTaggart’s answer to Trendelenburg’s objection illustrates the same danger. (Cf.
op. cit., §§30-43 ) If one were compelled to confine oneself to the smaller Logic for data on the problem – as Mr. McTaggart does – one feels that the verdict would have to be in favor of Trendelenburg’s position. It seems more than doubtful whether Mr. McTaggart’s argument is adequate to meet the objection against which it is advanced, simply because it fails to take the right point of departure. Personally, I cannot see that the argument has at all succeeded in establishing the point at issue; and, striking in where it does, it seems to me to be hopelessly defective. In point of fact, however, both objector and defender are beating the air. For both the objection and the defense fail to take any account of the author’s real position, which can be seen only in the light of the Phenomenology.
127. Pp.111-113.
128. Werke, Bd. V, pp.342-343.
129. Enc., §244.
130. Cf. The Pathway to Reality, Vol. II, pp. 68-69.
131. Cf. Werke, Bd. VIl, i. pp. 25 ff.’ Werke, Bd. V, p. 44; Enc., §43, lecture-note.
132. Cf. Werke, Bd. V, p. 341. See also Enc., §244, lecture-note.
133. History of Modern Philosophy, trans., p. 489.
134. See op. cit., p. 181.
135. Hegel und seine Zeit, p. 255.
136. Cf. Gesch. d. n. Philosophie, Bd. VIII, i, p. 574.
137. This point should never be forgotten in connection with Hegel’s system. He never denied the necessity of a science of nature and a science of social values.
138. Hegel tells us that “the other philosophical sciences, the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Mind, take the place, as it were, of an Applied Logic, and that Logic is the soul which animates them both” (Enc. §24. lecture-note (2)).
139. Op. cit., p. 305.
140. Cf. Werke, Bd. V. p. 342.
141. Enc., §43.
142. Werke, Bd. V, p. 318.
143. Cf. La Logique de Hegel, pp. 116 ff.
144. Op. cit.. §27.
145. Doubtless Professor Pringle-Pattison would object here, as he teas objected elsewhere, that it is time to leave off trying to defend Hegel against adverse criticism by complaining that he has been misunderstood.
And there is ground for the objection – though one is inclined to doubt whether it has been the misfortune of any other philosopher to be more universally misunderstood. The assertion unsupported by evidence, however, is puerile. My only excuse for reasserting it here is that, if this study has not erred from the beginning, the statement loses its dogmatic character and assumes for itself a basis of justification.
For it is my purpose to establish the assertion in the light of the conclusions we have already reached, and to maintain that its justification rests upon the validity of those conclusions.
146. Pp, 117-118. I quote from the second edition.
147. Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 121.
148. Werke, Bd. III, p. 33.
149. Cf. op. cit.. pp. 573-576.
150. Hegelianism and Personality, pp. 126-127.
151. It should be noted that Hegel’s frequent ‘snort of contempt’ is reserved exclusively for the category of Being which presumes to exhaust the nature of ultimate reality.
152. For the quotations here given, see op. cit., pp. 128-134.
153. For justification of this assertion concerning Hegel, I refer the reader to the following chapter of this study. There can be no question concerning Professor Pringle-Pattison’s position. In the Scottish Philosophy (p. 170) he very emphatically tells us that “the particular as particular – the mere self-identical unqualified particular – nowhere exists; it is the abstraction of a logic not wholly clear about its own procedure. And the thing-in-itself is simply the fallacy of the mere particular in another form. The mere particular and the mere universal are alike abstractions of the mind; what exists is the individual.” And when we inquire further as to what we are to understand by the individual, we are informed that it is “a particular that is also universal, or, from the other side, it is a universal – a set of universals – particularized.” Or, in other words, it is “identity through difference,” “difference subsumed into identity.” I shall point out later that this is exactly Hegel’s conception of the real, namely, a universal particularized, or, as he himself puts it (´Enc., §167), “a universal which is individualized.” As regards the ultimate nature of the system of reality, Hegel and his critic may disagree; but they are in full accord that that which is real can be neither an abstract particular – nor a blank universal, but must be a particularized universal.
154. A word concerning Professor Pringle-Pattison’s inconsistency on this point may not be amiss. In From Kant to Hegel, by way of criticism of Fichte’s implicit assumption that the object is something more than its manifestations, we read: “The noumenon is always a fuller knowledge as yet unreached by us, and so each category has its own validity and function. But it is not an unattainable reality, and to exalt this useful distinction of thought into a barrier which thought is unable to surmount is simply to fall down and worship our own abstractions.
A philosophy which remains entangled in this opposition must inevitably end in the paradox that the real is what cannot be known” (pp. 46-47). A passage of similar import occurs in the Scottish Philosophy, pp. 173-174. One is at a loss to know how to reconcile these passages with the one in Hegelianism and Personality (pp. 137.-138), in which the opinions of Trendelenburg and Mr. Bradley, to the effect that the real is inaccessible by way of ideas, are quoted with approval. Perhaps the inconsistency here is due to a change of view on the part of the author. I have presumed to call attention to it, because it concerns such a vital epistemological problem.
155. Microcosmos, Book VIII, Chapter 1, §8. The quotation is from the translation of the fourth edition.
156. Enc., §19. See the lecture-note also.
157. Enc., §24. lecture-note (l). The doctrine of thought upheld by Hegel is discussed throughout this entire chapter on the ‘Preliminary Notion.’
158. The writer has no desire to defend the letter of Hegel’s system; the preceding discussion simply aims to be faithful to the spirit of his system. It is true that the time has come to leave off trying to defend Hegel by complaining that he has been misunderstood. But it is also true that the time has come when the critics of Hegel’s doctrines should penetrate beneath the formality of his philosophy and bring to the surface its basic principles. Were this done. there would be much less useless and valueless criticism than one finds at present. In many instances criticisms stand self-refuted, if only their presuppositions are disclosed.
159. See in this connection Hegel’s own words quoted above (Chapter 1) from the Encyclopaedia, section 573. There Hegel states as plainly as possible that there is a marked difference between abstract identity and his doctrine of the unity of the Notion. And upon this difference he rests his case.
160. Abstractness of thought and the attempt to deduce existence from it were early repulsive to Hegel. Cf. ´Werke, Bd. 1. pp. 119 ff.; also Kuno Fischer, op. cit., pp. 267-268.
161. Cf. Werke, Bd. VlI. i, pp. 16-17.
162. Werke, Bd. III, p. 35.
163. Werke, Bd. 1, p. 178.
164. Werke, Bd. V, p. 329.
165. Logic, Vol. I, pp. 2-3.
166. In the present chapter I use the terms experience and reality interchangeably.
This, I think, is true to the spirit of Hegel’s system.
167. Werke, Bd. IV, p. 3.
168. Werke, Bd. VII, I, p. 15.
169. Werke, Bd. II, p. 15.
170. Werke, Bd. V, p. 20.
171. Cf. Enc., §§22, 112, etc.; also the preface to the Phenomenology.
172. Readers will bear in mind that the term thought is used throughout this discussion in the meaning attached to it by Hegel.
173. Cf. Werke, Bd. VII, I, pp. 16-17.
174. Werke, Bd. XVIII, p. 90.
175. Werke, Bd. xv, p. 389 (History of Philosophy, trans, Vol. III, p.
176. Enc., §74.
177. I may be permitted in this connection to record my feeling that the indeterminate act of will upon which free-willists of a certain type are wont to insist in their arguments for freedom is nothing but such an abstract particular. It matters not that they try to make their position plausible by splitting the world into a medley of meaningless possibilities in order to find a haven for the would-be category of ‘chance’; the difficulties still remain. For is it possible to attach any meaning to this notion of ‘chance’? Is it anything more than an expression of ignorance? Of course, the indeterminist will answer that it means mere negativity. But to the question as to what is here meant by negativity nothing more satisfactory than a tautological answer is given. And even granting that, as Professor James asserts, chance “is a purely negative and relative term, giving us no information about that of which it is predicated, except that it happens to be disconnected with something else” (Will to Believe, pp. 151-154), and granting further that a meaning can be attached to the term as thus defined, what about the event of volition that is supposed to be made possible by it? Can it be anything more than an event which has absolutely no relation to the series in which it occurs, and so an event that is only an abstract unrelated particular? It would seem to be an event in time that, apparently, takes place with other events and yet possesses no real, intelligible relation to them. What such an event could possibly be one is at a loss to conceive. It presents the rather odd appearance of being one among other unrelated absolutes – since every voluntary act is presumably the result of ‘chance’ – within the limits of a finite experience; and it would be difficult to think of a bigger nest of contradictions than is revealed by such an unsightly state of affairs.
178. Werke, Bd. XIII, p. 112 (History of Philosophy, trans., Vol. I, p.
95).
179. An appreciation of the difference between the universal of cognition, the formal concept. and the Hegelian doctrine of universality, the Notion, is absolutely fundamental to an understanding of the present justification of Hegel. It is unfortunate that we have no terms in English to express, explicitly. this difference.
180. Hegel’s Logic, pp. 339 ff.
181. Ibid., p. 373.
182. See in this connection the entire twelfth section of the smaller Logic.
There Hegel points out how thought cannot rest in its ‘unrealized universality’ apart from the facts.
183. See E. H. Hollands, “The Relation of Science to Concrete Experience.” The Philosophical Review, Vol. XV, pp. 614-626.
184. Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic, §181.
185. Ibid., §189.
186. Ibid., §193.
187. Ibid., §203.
188. Ibid., §206.
189. Werke, Bd. IX, p. 12.
190. Enc §471.
191. Enc., §133, lecture note.
192. Werke, Bd. VIII, p. 34 (Philosophy of Right, trans., p. II).
193. Werke, Bd. XIII, p. 68 (History of Philosophy, trans., Vol. I, p.
54).
194. Logic, Vol. I, pp. 62-63.
195. Enc., §163.
196. The above is not intended as a criticism of the disciplinary value of formal logic as a course of study. The criticism is directed at formal logic as a theory of knowledge. Undoubtedly. formal logic has a disciplinary value; but there can be no question about its abstractness.
197. Cf. Vol. I, pp. 63 ff.
198. For an elaboration of this doctrine of the concreteness or thought, see the article by Professor Sabine, already referred to. (The Philosophical Review, Vol. XVI, pp. 154-169.)
199. Cf. Werke, Bd. XVII, p 30.
200. Cf. Werke, Bd. v.; also Enc., I. 150 ff.
201. Enc., §163, lecture-note (I).
202. Werke, Bd. VIII., §270 (Philosophy of Right, trans.. p. 270).
203. Enc., §181.
204. See the preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit.
205. Cf. Enc., §160 ff.; also Werke, Bd. V.
206. Cf. Werke, Bd. V, p. 31.
207. Cf. Enc., §193.
208. Ibid., §213.
209. Ibid., §163.
210. Werke, Bd. V, p. 58.
211. Enc., §171.
212. Ibid., §163, lecture-note (2).
213. Ibid., §164.
214. Ibid., §192, lecture-note.
215. “Transition into something else is the dialectical process within the range of Being: reflection (bringing something else into light), in the range of Essence. The movement of the Notion is development: by which that only is explicit which is already implicitly present.” (Enc., §161, lecture-note.)
216. Enc., §20. Quoted in Hegelianism and Personality. p. 137.
217. Logische Untersuchungen, Bd. II, p. 230.
218. Principles of Logic, pp. 63, 69.
219. Enc., §167.
220. See Professor Pringle-Pattison’s emphatic words on this point in Scottish Philosophy, p. 170.
221. Conception of God, p. 258.
222. Principles of Logic, p. 64.
223. As I understand Hegel, this is just the principle upon which he is insisting when he makes immediacy and mediation conterminous. For him there is no ‘given’: a bare fact, or datum, is as pure an abstraction as is the unrelated particular with which he would identify it. See here Professor Sabine, “The Concreteness of Thought,” The Philosophical Review, Vol. XVI, pp. 155-156.
224. Mr. McTaggart looks for the synthesis in emotion as opposed to feeling (Studies in Hegelian Cosmology, §§282 ff.). But this seems hardly to meet the difficulty – that is, if you abstract emotion from its rational principle of unity; for such abstract emotion could hardly furnish us with the synthesis for which we are seeking.
225. It might be well for those who uphold the doctrine that is here objected to if they would study more carefully the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories in the Critique of Pure Reason Kant’s one lesson there is that the categories are essential to immediate experience.
226. Cf. Hegel’s Logic, pp. 340 ff. for the criticism and the passages here cited.
227. Ibid.. p. 373.
228. Students of Kant will see here simply an attempt to apply the lesson of the Transcendental Deduction.
229. Logic, Vol. I, p. 77.
230. The World and the Individual. first series, pp. 55-56.
231. Hegel’s Logic, p. 348.
232. An Idealistic Construction of Exprience, pp. 67-68. It will be noticed that this passage is a very telling criticism of the point of view advocated in the entire last chapter of Hegel’s Logic; and, if the one is true, it would seem that the other must be false. So far as I am aware, the author has passed over this contradiction in silence.
233. Is not the search for an adequate representation of the nature of such a comprehensible whole the task of philosophy? And if such a task is inherently impossible, is, indeed, absurd, then is philosophy worth the pains? Seeking an ideal which is essentially unattainable.
but which, were it miraculously attained, would annihilate us, seems on the face of it to be a rather profitless, or it may be dangerous, business; chasing the rainbow for the bag of gold at its end would appeal more strongly to the timorous. Hegel humorously remarks that, on this theory, “thought is capable of comprehending one thing only, its incapacity to grasp the truth and see into it, and of proving to itself its own nothingness, with the result that suicide is its highest vocation.” (Philosophy of Religion, trans., Vol. III. p. 161.)
234. See Mr. Bradley’s statements on this point in Appearance and Reality, pp. 167 ff. Mr. Bradley and Hegel have practically the same ideas on the problem, the difference being that Mr. Bradley insists on narrowing the term thought to what Hegel would call ‘finite’ thought.
Hegel would seem to have the advantage over Mr. Bradley in this respect at least, namely, that he does give us an intelligible unity of reality whereas Mr. Bradley leaves his Absolute in a rather confused and chaotic condition. And one is inclined to suspect that Hegel’s advantage emerges from this difference in doctrine concerning the nature of thought.
235. I use the term ‘personality’ as synonymous with selfhood or self-consciousness.
236. It may be said that in a sense Hegel makes a distinction between the terms Idea and God, giving to the latter a religious coloring. But he insists over and over again that the object of philosophy and the object of religion do not differ from each other, but are essentially the same. For speculative reason the terms Idea, God. and the Absolute are synonymous. (Cf. Leighton, The Philosophical Review, Vol. V, pp. 609-610. Cf. Hegel Philosophy of Religion, trans., Vol. 1, p. 19; Vol. II, p. 348.)
237. Enc. §221, lecture-note.
238. Ibid.
239. Enc. §216, lecture-note.
240. This standpoint will not be confused with the more comprehensive one also called Cognition in the translation – of which it is simply the first stage. Volition being the second.
241. At present the particular sciences make no claim to this ability; generally speaking, they see quite clearly that ontological problems do not fall within their sphere. But this has not always been true.
242. Enc., §226.
243. Ibid., lecture-note.
244. Enc., §234, lecture-note.
245. Enc., §233.
246. Enc., §234, lecture note.
247. Enc.. §235.
248. Enc., §236, lecture note.
249. Ibid.
250. Enc., §213.
251. Cf. Studies in Hegelian Cosmology, Chapter II; also Chapter III, §63.
252. Ibid., §63.
253. Werke, Bd. XI, p. 97 (Philosophy of Religion, trans., Vol. I, p. 100.).
254. Studies in Hegelian Dialectic, §186.
255. Studies in Hegelian Cosmology, §35.
256. Ibid. This idea is expressed in §§51, 63, etc.
257. Cf. ibid., §§85 ff.
258. Mr. McTaggart escapes this difficulty by inconsistently making the finite individual more than a mere manifestation of the whole; there is something unique about the individual, after all, that falls outside the unity that binds him to others.
259. It is only fair to mention that Mr. McTaggart anticipates this charge and denies its justice (§§38-39). In spite of this, however, I urge it because it seems to me that it becomes unwarranted only when the conception of an absolutely reciprocal relation between the Absolute and its differentiations is definitely abandoned.
260. Enc., §194.
261. Enc., §215.
262. Cf. Studies in Hegelian Cosmology, §§214-218.
263. Ibid., §63.
264. Werke, Bd. V, pp. 317-318.
265. Ibid., p. 320; see also p. 339.
266. Enc., §151, lecture note.
267. Werke, Bd. XII, p. 192 (trans., Vol. II, p. 329).
268. Ibid., p. 284 (trans., Vol. III, p. 74).
269. Ibid., p. 496 (trans., Vol. III, p. 303). Curiously enough Mr. McTaggart cites this passage in support of his interpretation (Cosmology, §224).
270. Werke, Bd. IX, p. 66 (trans., p. 55).
271. See especially the Introduction to the third volume of the larger Logic.
272. Studies in Hegelian Cosmology. §216.
273. Ibid.
274. Werke, Bd. XII, p. 309 (Philosophy of Religion. trans., Vol. III, pp. 100-101).
275. Ibid., p. 340 (trans., ibid., p. 134).
276. Ibid., p. 341 (trans., ibid., p. 135).
277. Ibid., p. 346 (trans., ibid. p., 141).
278. Ibid., p. 350 (trans. Ibid., p. 145).
279. Ibid.
280. Ibid., p. 354 (trans., ibid., p. 149).
281. Ibid., p. 355 (trans., ibid., p. 151).
282. Philosophy of History, trans., p. 41.
283. Werke, Bd. VIII, §258 (Philosophy of Right, trans., p. 247).
284. Werke Bd. XII, p. 343 (Philosophy of Religion, trans., Vol. III, p. 138.).
285. Enc. §535.
286. Werke, Bd. VIII, §272 (Philosophy of Right, trans., p. 277).
287. Ibid. §279 (trans., pp. 290-291).
288. Ibid. (trans., pp. 287-288).
289. Ibid., (trans., p. 287).
290. Ibid., (trans., p. 289).
291. Enc. §542.
292. Of course, no attempt is made here either to give an exhaustive account of Hegel’s conception of the state or to defend his theory.
What we are interested in is simply to point out his insistence on the rational necessity of a personal ruler.
293. It may be objected that all this talk about the unity of the state is beside the issue. In developing this doctrine of the state, it may be said, Hegel was only trying to justify the then existing government of his own country; his elaborate arguments were wrought out primarily in the interests of the Prussian monarchy, and not from the objective point of view of the Idea. Therefore, it may be concluded, these arguments have absolutely nothing to do with the logic of Hegel’s system, and any interpretation that takes serious account of them is useless.
294. Development of Modern Philosophy, Vol. 1, p. 281.
295. James, Pragmatism, p. 160.
296. Werke, Bd. XI, p. 93 (Philosophy of Religion, trans., Vol. I, p. 96).
297. Ibid., p. 97 (trans., ibid., pp. 99-100).
298. I use the terms ‘content, and ‘objective reference’ as synonymous.
An objection might be raised to this use of the terms. But perhaps the objection would rest upon a misconception of my meaning. What I have in mind when I say ‘content’ of consciousness is simply that object, or group of objects, whatever it may be, to which the consciousness refers. And this I take to be practically what one would mean by the ‘objective reference’ of consciousness. If my meaning is clear, I do not care to dispute about the use of words.
299. It seems to me false psychology and vicious logic to identity selfconsciousness and the feeling of self as opposed to a not-self as Professor Taylor does in his argument against the selfhood of the Absolute (Elements of Metaphysics, pp. 336. 343-345). Awareness of self as contrasted with a not-self, so far as I can see, is not at all essential to self-consciousness. It is a matter of common speech that a man is most truly his own self when he is least conscious of a more or less disconcerting not-self. The logical problem of selfhood, or self-consciousness, is one thing; the psychological problem of the origin of the sense of self as opposed to an other is another thing.
300. Outlines of Psychology, p. 90.
301. It appears to me that the ‘wandering adjective’ theory of idealists of Mr. Bradley’s type approaches dangerously near this catastrophe.
302. This, I should say. is sufficient answer to all such criticism as that which Professor James is persistently making of what he cells ‘absolutism.’ Over and over again throughout his works he takes it for granted that the ‘absolutist’ must reduce the entire world of finite existence into an undifferentiated identity with the Absolute; and his objections to the position all rest on the simple assertion that such a reduction cannot take place, since the perseity of the finite is more than a state of consciousness for the Absolute. But this is not the position of the ‘absolutist’ who upholds the doctrine of a self-conscious Absolute. Indeed, such a position is impossible for him. For his argument that the Absolute is self-conscious precludes an effort (even if he had any intention of making one) to reduce the finite world to an identity with the Absolute.
303. Professor Taylor has advanced practically the same objections as those of Mr. McTaggart. See Elements of Metaphysics, pp. 343 ff.
304. Studies in Hegelian Cosmology, §86; see also §66.
305. Hegel, p. 182.
306. What would constitute individuality, or thing-ness, from the standpoint of the Absolute is a problem that demands separate discussion.
I have no intention of solving it off hand by the use of the term ‘object’ here.
307. Werke, Bd. XIII. p. 192 (Philosophy of Religion. trans., Vol. II, p.
329.).
308. Op. cit., §27.
309. One is led to suspect that the inconsistency in Mr. McTaggart’s position here is due primarily to a confusion that arises from his terms ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion.’ Apparently, he does not always succeed in divesting the terms of their spatial reference. When he enlarges on the impossibility of the Absolute’s ‘excluding’ its differentiations from itself, he seems to think of the latter as existentially distinct from the former and as being in contrast with it as a limiting other. This confusion may be due to the fact that Mr. McTaggart hardly gets beyond the category of substance in his theory of the ultimately real: individuality he is inclined to define in terms of a bit of being that is individual solely by virtue of its factual existence.
310. Cf. the third part of the Philosophy of Religion, especially the last of the second general division of the discussion. In these passages Hegel treats of the essential nature of man and shows us that man’s essential nature is to be found in his community with God.
311. Enc., §573.