Questions

1. (Preliminary Conception) Assume that §§20–23 have the following structure: (α = §20) thinking as subjective; (β, γ = §§21–2) thinking-over (Nachdenken); ([δ] = §23) free thinking. Explain thinking-over as a shining-within-itself of subjective thinking (i.e., explain why it is a second moment), why it is thinking of an object (Objekt), and why this means getting at the essence of that object, or what really matters about it (the Sache). Finally, considering free thinking as the third moment (about moment of being-for-self), explain why the three moments taken together characterize thinking in the way appropriate to “objective idealism.” (as hinted at also in §24).

2. (Quality) Consider the following (partial) summary of Descartes’s Second and Third Meditations: (1) the Second Meditation shows that I, a thinking thing, am (have being); (2) the Third Meditation discusses the heterogeneous objective being of my ideas (that they are ideas of qualitatively different “something”’s) and (3) compares it with to their homogeneous formal being (that they are all my ideas). How might (1), (2) and (3) be correlated with the moments of quality: being, Dasein, and being-for-self? (Recall what Hegel says about being-for-self in the Zusatz to §96: “The most familiar form of being-for-itself is the ‘I.’ We known ourselves as beings who are there [als daseiende], first of all distinct from all other such beings, and as related to them. But secondly, we also know that this expanse of being-there is, so to speak, focused onto the simple form of being-for-self.”) Use the correlation to explain, from Hegel’s point of view, why the immediate form of consciousness is time: that is, why consciousness is, immediately, the unified consciousness of a succession of determinate contents, one after the other.

3. (Quantity) Consider the following moments of quality: (1) becoming (third moment of being, §88); (2) the true infinite (third moment of Dasein, §95); (3) attraction (third moment of being-for-self, §98). Consider a correlation between those three and the three moments of pure quantity: continuous quantity, discrete quantity, unity (all described in §100, p. 160). (We might expect a correlation something like this given that pure quantity is the “frozen” unity of being and Dasein.) Explain in detail how, in each case, the quantitative moment is a quantitative version of the qualitative one. That is: explain how continuous quantity is becoming regarded as characterizing a dimension in which determination can vary indifferently to the being of which it is a determination, and similarly for the other two pairs (discrete quantity–true infinite, unity–attraction). (Hints: in the case of discrete quantity, remember that we are not talking about a particular discrete quantity, a number, but rather about, so to speak, what is common to all discrete quantities; and remember that attraction is the unity of one and many.)

4. (Measure) In the second short writing assignment, I asked about the sense in which Hegel might agree with Protagoras that “the human being is the measure of all things.” Now consider interpreting this statement as follows: there are no qualitative differences between things as they really are (what really exists is just qualitiless atoms); every quality (for example: sensible qualities such as white and hot) is only the result of the way someone perceives the atoms hitting her sense organs. (This, or something like this, is the interpretation of Protagoras which Socrates advances in the Theaetetus.) Explain, first, why Hegel might say that measure is the exact right determination to use in expressing this thought. Hints: (a) think of measure as quantity-for-quality, in the sense that indifferent quantitative variation within a certain determinate range is unified by its correspondence to a determinate quality (and see the end of the Zusatz to §106, p. 169: in quantitative determinations about the world, we are really concerned “to discover the quantities that underly determinate qualities”); (b) try to understand why Hegel (in the Remark to §99) connects quantity with materialism; (c) as suggested in the original writing assignment, think of measure as a form of being-for-self, hence of finite consciousness as an application of measure (see again the Zusatz to §96, the “expanse of being-there [Dasein]” as “focused onto the simple form of being-for-self”). Second, explain roughly how the judgment of the concept — a finite example, fully developed, would be “This house (being constituted in such-and-such a way) is good (i.e., a good house)” (§179) — is a form of measure, and use that correlation to show why, according to Hegel, Protagoras’ position about qualities entails, or goes along with, moral relativism.

5. (Essence as Ground of Existence) In the Remark to §125 (p. 195), Hegel discusses the difference between “thing” (Ding), a determination of essence, and “something” (Etwas), a determination of being (introduced in §90). How is the difference between being and essence supposed to explain the difference between something’s being determined by a quality (something as the unity of determination and quality), on the one hand, and the thing’s having a property (thing as the unity of ground and existence), on the other? (Hint: remember the definition of quality as determination identical with being.) Explain, then, based also on the difference between mere transition (passing-over), on the one hand, and “shining,” on the other, why the determination following “something” is “limit” (§92), whereas the determination following “thing” is “appearance.” In what sense is appearance to the thing as limit is to something? Hint: “limit” is the determination is which something, as determinate and therefore finite, is seen to depend on its pure negation: the “spurious” (really, “bad”: schlechte) infinite which “is nothing but the negation of the finite” (§94). The world of appearance “proceeds to an infinite mediation of its subsistence by its form” (§132). How is the bad infinite as world of appearance specifically suited to negate the finite as thing?

6. (Appearance) In §135, discussing the essential relationship (Verhältnis) of whole and part, Hegel says that “the content is the whole and consists of [besteht aus] its opposite [Gegenteil], i.e., of the parts [Teile] (of the form)” (§135). Based on this (and perhaps other things he says there), explain in what sense Hegel can say the following about his system. First, we can see the system as a whole which consists of parts — that is, this way of seeing the system is not simply wrong. Second, however, this way of seeing the system is not fully adequate, hence not fully true: in fact, because division into parts (Teile) yields the mere form of the system, which in a way is the precise opposite (Gegenteil) of a true understanding of its content (Inhalt). Explain further why, if we stop with this way of looking at the system (as a whole consisting of parts), what we will have the mere appearance of a system, and why, as a result, will not be able to understand how one can call a halt (Halt) to the further addition of new parts (see the Zusatz §131, p. 200: “appearance is still this inwardly broken [in sich Gebrochene] [moment] that does not have any stability [Halt] of its own” — but you must explain that, and hopefully in a way which connects it to Inhalt and Verhältnis). Finally, consider the following correlation: whole/parts (§135)–living thing within itself (§218); force/expression (§§136–7)–living thing and its environment (eating) (§219); inner/outer (§§138–41)–living thing and its environment (reproduction and death) (§§ 220–21). Explain why this is appropriate and argue that the original way of seeing the system (as whole and parts) is inadequate precisely because it regards the system as inanimate.

7. (Actuality) Consider the following three accounts of the relationship between God, the world as possibility, and the world as actuality. (1) “Before” God created the world, it had no real possibility at all: it was “merely,” formally possible (§143), and, in creating the world, God added nothing at all to this mere possibility, other than the relationship to his actualizing will, nor was there anything in the content of the world which made that will necessary: the world is created by grace, and is purely contingent (§ 144). (This is Descartes’s view, more or less.) (2) The possibility of the world simply is the divine essence; God’s “creation” of the world doesn’t take him out of himself, or even express something about him which was merely implicit: God and the world are the same thing, considered as substance (potentiality as might, power) and as modes or accidents (actuality as passive) — creation is the substance’s self-activity (“activity-of-form,” §150). (This is Spinoza’s view, as Hegel points out in the Zusatz: God as active substance = natura naturans, as passive modes = natura naturata.) (3) God is the cause of the world: the two are distinct, but, given the divine nature, the world necessarily follows. Taking the moments of actuality in their primary application as determinations of the absolute, explain in what sense Hegel can say that all three of these seemingly mutually inconsistent alternatives is correct, but that all are still inadequate in that they regard the world as mere actuality, not as independent object (Objekt), or (which it to say the same thing) leave out the moment of divine purpose (which is supplied only in Leibniz’s view: see the Remark to §194, as well as the discussion of Leibniz in the Zusatz to §121, pp. 190–91). (Note: if you are not familiar with Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, you should be able to answer this without referring to them; I mention them because, if you are familiar with them, it may help to keep them in mind.)

More questions coming.