Philosophical Form

Vol. 6 1974-5

THE ABSOLUTE AS THE BEGINNING OF HEGBL'S LOGIC

ROLF AHLERS

I. THE RELATION OF THE LOGIC TO ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE IN THE

PHENOMENOLOGY

In the section which prepares for the investigation of the Logic, entitled
"Wherewith must the Beginning of Science be made?," Hegel characterises
the relation of the Phenomenology to the Logic by saying that the former
work is the "science of the appearing spirit," which must be understood
as the "presupposition " of "pure science." The "unmediated conscious-
ness" is in the Phenomenology the object of its "unmediated science."*
By distinction, the Logic is "pure science," i.e., "pure science in the total
implication of its development."2 The Logic as pure science has thé
Phenomenology—the. unmediated science of unmediated consciousness—
as its own presupposition. The latter work is therefore the presupposition
of the former insofar as the result of the analysis of the appearing spirit
is the absolute knowledge. In this absolute knowledge, the result of the
Phenomenology, "spirit has gained the concept" and develops its essence
and movement "in this ether of its life, and is science."8 In this science
"the moments of its movement present themselves no longer as determined
forms of consciousness," but rather as definite concepts and as their own
"organically self-founding movement" which is possible through their
difference retreating into "their self."4
We could therefore expect the Logic to spell out with precision the
determinants of pure science. But in this we are mistaken. If the moments
of appearing spirit lead to the necessity to determine precisely the inner
movement of that science itself, we are surprised to find that the Logic
does not begin here, but rather with "undetermined immediacy." In look-
ing at the relation of Book I of the Logic, the logic of being, Sein, to
Book II, the logic of essence or reflection, we are surprised to find that
the relation of being to essence is circular insofar as only the results of

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the process of thought can spell out the legitimacy and therefore rationality
of the presuppositions. The point of the logic of being is that the very
presuppositions of logical thought lie beyond the realm of reflection, and
only after these presuppositions have been dealt with in all their "undeter-
mined immediacy," can legitimate reasons be arrived at in the logic of
reflection (Book II).
y It is Hegel's point that a beginning in logical thought cannot be made
by reflecting on that beginning. That procedure would imply placing dif-
ference into the beginning even before its identity has been permitted to
be the origin of that difference. And precisely a beginning is to be made.
Hegel's use of the words "absolute" and "absolute knowledge" arise from
the attempt not to describe how a beginning can be made, but rather to
make a beginning. The deliberations on essence in the second book differ
from the deliberations of being in Book I insofar as the former is the
reflexive aspect of pure being. The first sentence of Book II states that
the "truth of being is essence." Only in this new development within self-
sufficient being the determination of being takes place, and being is deter-
mined in its specificity.
Therefore we read in thefirstbook, in the opening sentences on being,
that "being is the undetermined immediacy."5 The concept "undetermined"
is a reflex of the determination which takes place in the logic of essence in
Book II, Here is the place where the term "undetermined immediacy" has
its material origin, and not at the beginning of the logic of being, where it
appears first.0 The spelling-out of being itself in the logic of essence is there-
fore the reflex of being, and only in this mirrored image can ont see
precisely what being is in itself. But since all reflection is to be kept away
from a determination of being, since being is to remain altogether free from
the reflexive structures of determinating reason, being is spoken of in
Book I only in the negative form of "undetermined immediacy." Being
as it is in itself can be talked of only in terms of the negated forms of
reflection (which have themselves negating quality).
The reason for this protection of pure being from the forms of re-
flection must be sought in Hegel's attempt to preserve being from misun-
derstanding. Hegel observes that the beginning of all science cannot be
found in reflecting on the way in which thought proceeds. That was rather
the method employed in the Phenomenology. The Logic is now to be the
beginning of all science by reflecting in the second part of the Logic on
the beginning of thought which has actually taken place in the first part.
But such a determination cannot take place by repeating what the Phenom-
enology has done. The Logic has often, indeed, almost universally, been
misunderstood as a determination of the dynamic of thought standing over

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against that which is thought. But the positing of being over against nothing
and insisting on their identity cannot have that meaning, if Hegel's pro-
fessions are to have any meaning that those critics are on the wrong path,
who assault the dynamic of being and nothing with their reflexive forms.7

II. THE PROBLEMATIC OF THE BEGINNING IN THE LOGIC

How is then this dynamic to be understood? We will attempt to clarify

this interrelation by trying to give an argument for a beginning of all
thought to be able to be accomplished at all.
Hegel mentions in the Anmerkungen to the first chapter of the logic
of being the names Parmenides, Hcraclitus and Spinoza.8 The "Spinozistic
substance" appears then again at the end of the logic of being, just prior
to the "transition to essence" at the end of thefirstbook.9 In the first three
terse formulations concerning being, nothing and becoming—which inci-
dentally were kept unchanged in the second edition—the identity of being
and nothing is maintained. But simultaneously Ilegel insists that both being
and nothing are "undetermined" and "immediate." The undetermined and
immediate nature of being and nothing must be maintained, because the
opposition of nothing to being is in the form of negation usually the deter-
mining and specifying factor. But here, where Hegel confronts the secret
of being and nothing itself, such reflective aspects must not yet be applied.
Hegel knows that the dynamic process of being itself cannot be maintained,
if reflexive forms, which appear only in the second book of the Logic, are
already introduced here, and that thereby a beginning can in fact not be
made. Rather, reflection is to be an action of that dynamic itself. So the
simple and unreflected presentation of this dynamic of the relation of being
and nothing must be accomplished first, if a beginning is to be made in
this process at all. The secret of being able to present that beginning of all
thought is at the same time the key to understanding Hegel's Wissenschaft
des Absoluten.
In the presentation of the secret of being in view of its potential to be
the beginning of thought, it is appropriate for Hegel to refer to the first
form of Kant's Antinomy of Pure Reason.10 Whereas Kant's intention was,
however, to show that theoretical reason has certain limitations beyond
which reason may not proceed, in order to make room for the engagement
of moral reason,11 Hegel probes the secret of that logical dilemma itself.
For Kant the inescapable contradictions of theoretical reason, presented
convincingly in the first Widerspruch of the Antinomy of Reason concern-
ing the beginning of the world, becomes the motor driving practical reason

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 THE ABSOLUTE AS THE BEGINNING 01' HEGEL'S LOGIC

to its goals. (Because the question whether the world was created and thus
had a beginning or has existed eternally ends in a theoretical aporia, I am
called upon practically to realize that reasonableness which is theoretically
unasccrtainablc.) That means that for Kant the logically unresolved con-
tradiction becomes the beginning of moral reason.
But Hegel picks up that Widerstreit and asks himself, how it can be
the beginning of logic. To answer that question, a different approach than
Kant's was necessary. And this approach is to begin with the "indefinite
immediacy," "which is no something nor a thing (at all) nor any indifferent
being which is outside of its determinateness and relation to the subject,"
as Hegel says in the first chapter of the logic of essence.12 The transition
from Kant's scepticism to Hegel's idealism13 is not possible by assuming
knowledge to be recognition of a thing in itself, as Kant did, a thing which
is outside of the knowing subject. Rather, the path to a more logical
idealism is to resolve that logically unresolved dualism (pointed out first
by Jacobi) and to let being and the negating reflection on being evolve
out of one indefinite immediacy. But that becoming cannot take place by
reflecting on it. By doing that one falls back into Kant's problem. Being
and reflection on it must rather arise out of the undifferentiated origin of
the two. That is also the reason why the logic of reflection follows upon the
logic of being. Reflection can only follow out of being if being is to be
capable of specification and determination. The simple, unreflected14 presen-
tation of that secret in the Logic becomes the driving motor of Hegel's
science of the absolute itself.
Hegel, influenced by the Kant-critique of Jacobi and Fichte and Schel-
ling, therefore immerses himself anew into the secrets of being. Spinoza and
Parmenides are important figures in this task. He realizes that neithei
Parmenides' nor Spinoza's being could be as an absolute principle at the
same time a beginning. A becoming, a development is possible only if being
and nothing are understood as identical. Hegel made this problematically
clear in the four notes16 to thefirstsection of the logic of being, particularly
in note four. There can be no beginning, either if one thinks being—here
there is no becoming, because being is already—or if one thinks non-being
—here there is nothing and therefore there can be no becoming. Therefore,
Hegel argues, nothing of substance is brought against becoming or cessation,
nor against the unity of being and nothing. And because no argument of
substance is produced, the thesis of the unity of being and nothing and be-
coming remains intact for Hegel as the basis and absolute principle of
the Logic.
It is significant to observe how Hegel strives to protect this thesis
in spite of its indisputability from the destructive assaults of reflection.

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Being is from the start the "undetermined immediacy; it is free from

determination over against the essence,"10 and that means over against
reflection. For that reason the naive thought is "more consequent" in its
assertion that the unity of being and nothing cannot be; it is more consequent
than the reflected notion that being and nothing can be conceived only as
being separate, which reflection asserts while at the same time insisting that
becoming and cessation can be as well. This thought lacks internal con-
sistency. Therefore it remains for Hegel, who starts from within the context
of the problem, a secret, that the absolute principle from w|iicb all thought
must start, is that being and nothing are in their identity at the same time
the basis for becoming. Only as that secret develops and unfolds its internal
workings through the logic of being, essence and concept, will it specify
its internal workings. At the end of the Logic will the secret therefore be
explicated. Only at the end of the Logic will that enigmatic identity there-
fore have a beginning in the sense of being well-grounded. But the begin-
ning of that development cannot start with that explication. This beginning
of the dialectic remains rather something which is "inconceivable."17 "That
which makes the beginning, the beginning itself, is therefore to be takpn as
something which is not analysable, in its simple, unfulfilled immediacy,, and
therefore (it is to be taken) as being, as the complete emptyness."10
This emptyness becomes consequently the "ground," that is, the adequate
ground for all further arguments, while these further arguments explicate
that ground and fill it with content. Anything short of this unfulfilled,
indetermined, pre-reflected immediacy of the absolute, which is the .prin-
ciple of the unity of being and nothing, will be incapable of providing
any reasonable progress in logical thought. It will be incapable of pro-
gressively determining itself into the specificity which makes out reality.
It is important to note how unconstructed this notion of the absolute
is. The very call to keep distant the categories of reflection and to simply
look at the dynamic of thought itself by immersion into this dynamic
prohibits a forced interpretation, such as that of Kojéve, indicating that
"Hegel becomes God in thinking or writing the Logic"19 The problematic
of Hegel's absolute is so easily misinterpreted because the result of the
Phenomenology, the "idea as pure knowledge"20 is not to become the center
of attention. Reason does not stand over against that pure knowledge. Much
less does reason create or produce it. To the contrary. How reasonable
progress of reflection is possible is to be shown in the first place. Whereas
the Phenomenology was concerned with the structure of the "appearing
spirit" which, in its description becomes the "unmediated knowledge,?' the
Logic is to be the unfolding of pure knowledge itself. It might seem rea-
sonable therefore to assume that a description of this pure knowledge is;a

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 THE ABSOLUTE AS THE BEGINNING OF HEGEL'S LOGIC

product of mediation and therefore a construct of reflection. But the Logic

does not describe. Rather, a beginning of reflection is made with the Logic.
The interpretation of this fcook as a construct of reason is, as Henrich has
shown,21 a misinterpretation. Hegel's theory of the absolute is guided alto-
gether by the intention to make evident a thought which does not lend itself
in any way to such a tour de force of thought. When Hegel insists that the
Logic is to be "pure science"22 it is the exact opposite of that wilful deter-
mination which attempts to make manageable and which hopes to control
that which is objectified by scientific thought. Hans-Georg Gadamer
properly questions that "method" of scientific thought.23 But it is a ques-
tionable interpretation of Hegel's absolute when Gadamer identifies this
rightfully criticised method of scientific thought with Hegel's "infinite
knowledge."24 The entry into this "infinite science" must be sought in its
unavailability over against the will to methödicate. It appears that Hegel
was himself not capable of formulating the method of his thought. Hegel
rarely reflected from the outside of his system as to the method in which his
thought proceeds. Such a description is foreign to him.25 The enigma of
Hegel's absolute as the inner dynamic of his "pure science" can apparently
be approached only by freely, with Gelassenheit,2Q i.e., iinconstructively
following27 the inner consequence of the issue which formulates itself at
the beginning of the Logic in the thesis of the identity of being and
nothing.28

III. THE ORIGIN OF THE SCIENCE OF THE ABSOLUTE IN THE SYSTEM-

FRAGMENT OF 1800

How consistently Hegel followed the inner necessity of the issue, once
grasped at Frankfurt in the circle of his friends, is evident in the "definition
of the absolute" with the help of a formula which he stated in the
Dißerenzschrijt of 1801, but which has a history even longer than that
first publication.
In the logic of being, where Hegel deals with the question how science
can make a beginning, he says "The analysis of the beginning gives us
therewith the concept of the unity of being and nothing—or, in reflected
form, the unity of being differentiated and being not differentiated—or the
identity of identity and non-identity. This concept could be taken as the
first, purest, i.e. most abstract definition of the absolute."20 Hegel picks up
here the formula which he had stated in his first publication on the Differ-
ence Between Fichte's and Schelling's System of 1801: "But the absolute
itself is therefore the identity of the identity and the non-identity; juxtaposi-

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tion and unity arc simultaneously in it."30 But this formula of 1801, almost
identical with the one in the Logic of 1812, stems from the germinal
philosophical insights wliicli Hegel had had at Frankfurt in 1800, where
he wrote the famous Systemfragment, llcre Hegel uses the term "Leben"
instead of "Seyn" in the Logic, and states of life that it is the "unification
of the unification and non-unification."31 It is in the context of this earliest
of Hegel's conception of the system quite clear that a beginning and the
impetus of the whole thought can be guaranteed only if that "which was
called the relation between the synthesis and antithesis is not something
posited, nothing rational (nichts Verständiges), nothing reflected, but that
rather its character for reflection can alone be that it |ias its being outside
of reflection."32 Reflection must be kept apart from this "living whole,"
which here is still called "life." Only by keeping reflection apart from the
whole of life, is it possible to have a genuine beginning of thought out of,
this whole. For, to continue quoting this fragment of asysteni, 6t 1800,
"death, juxtaposition, reason is posited simultaneously in the living whole;
it is posited as a living multiplicity which is vital and is capable as some-
thing living to posit itself as a whole."38
But a beginning of thought in the sense of a systematic and scientific
progress of reason implies the quality of being "guided" and having a
"Ruhepunkt,"u a point of rest. Thought "being eternally driven along"
between the contradictions of reason is a dynamic which one of the friends
at Frankfurt, Zvvilling, envisioned. That is, Zwilling did conceiye the con-
tradictions of {hought to arise out of the whole, but he was incapable of
getting out of the eternal progress of these contradictions; therefore his
conception was lacking internal "guidance." The other friend, Isaak von
Sinclair, who was so important a mediator between Hölderlin and Hegel,35
had been capable of achieving the unity of difference and non-difference
only by means of comparisons. Therefore also he was incapable of achiev-
ing the needed guiding stability in the system.30
From this insightflowsright from the start the demand that philosophy
must end with religion.37 The reason why Hegel claims this termination of
philosophy in religion, which still maintains itself in the Phenomenology
in chapter VII on Religion, is identical with the thesis in the Logic that
being and nothing are identical, that their identity alone can make a
beginning which guarantees the scientific progress of the system, and that
this progress is possible only on condition of keeping reflection distant
from this identity, i.e., understanding both being and nothing in all their
indefinite immediacy. Reflection, the activity of philosophical reason, has
the task to "point out finality in all that is final," but especially "to recog-

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 THE ABSOLUTE AS THE BEGINNING Ol l U ' G E l / s LOGIC

nizc the errors through its own infinity," which it can accomplish only by
"positing the truly infinite outside of its own circumference,"118
The thesis'of the logic of being, to start reflection in the absolute, is
therefore identical with the claim of the fragment of the systematic con-
ception of 1800. For the absolute is this prereflected "unity of being and
non-being," which has its reflected counterpait in the unity of the "identity
of the identity and difference."39 But the Logic as a whole, composed of
the logic of being in Book I, progressing to the logic of essence in Book II
to the logic of the concept in Book III has the task to conceptualize
precisely at the end of the process the science of logical discourse. For the
sake of that precise determination, a beginning has to be made in the
unconceptualized and undefined absolute. The progress of that precise
determination in the Logic, ending in the logic of the concept with the
absolute idea,40 is conceived already in the systematic fragment of 1800.
This progress is to be definite and precise. It is not to be a "progress into
the infinite"41 but rather "guided." The eternal progress of Zwilling and
Sinclair which comes to no definite conclusion is avoided by beginning in
the Logic with the absolute as the prereflected unity of being and nothing.
In the fragment of 1800 this "elevation" appears as the elevation to religion:
"The elevation of the finite to the infinite characterizes itself thereby as the
elevation of the finite life to the infinite as religion, that it does not posit the
being of the infinite through reflection, as an objective or subjective (being),
adding thereby to the limited the limiting, recognizing this again as a
posited, itself as a limited, progressing from here to the renewed search for
the limiting, and making the demand to continue this process into infinity."42
Such a progress from the limited to the limiting and so forth is incapable
of determining the precision of logically proceeding thought. It is, as Hegel
indicated in the fragment of 1800 "driven along without a point of lest,"
and therefore without "guidance," For the sake of that guidance the system
has to start with a "being outside of reflection,"43 which circumstance
takes form in the Logic's beginning with "being," characterized as "without
all further determination." Being is the start of the Logic in its "undeter-
mined immediacy."44 Being as undetermined and therefore empty is iden-
tical with nothing, which is therefore also "this identical determination or
rather indétermination and therefore the same which the pure being is."4r'
It has often been remarked that both in the early manuscripts and in
the Phenomenology religion is the end-point of the process developed.40
The fragment of 1800 makes the demand that "philosophy must end with
religion."47 But if the elevation of the fragmented life to the whole life is
the elevation out of which a scientifically proceeding reflection can alone

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 ROLF AHLERS

arise, the systematic conception of the fragment of 1800 appears not to be

contradictory to the procedure of the Logic which begins with that pre-
reflected absolute, The unresolved problem with which Kant had left the
philosophical scene was the task to provide adequate grounds for the
guided progress of reason. To see a contradiction in the claim of the
fragment of a system of 1800 to have philosophy end with pierefiected
unity of all being which is religion, whereas the Logic beging wSfrltttfT
prereflected absolute unity of being and nothing indicates a lack of under-
standing that even though the system was conceivecf ' in one instance,
"im Nu" as Henrich expressed himself once,48 that does not mlian that the
spelling out of that systematic conception was also done in that^sâme
instant. Hegel did have at one instant around 1800 the brilliant insight
which guided all his further thought. But the development of the various
"moments" of appearing consciousness in the Phenomenology served to
arrive at that absolute ground out of which the ability to differentiate:and
unify arises. Once that ground has been reached, it can serve as the basis
from which the process of logic can itself proceed. Because Hegel 4qes
not artificially construct a system but rather follows diligently the,;inner
logic and necessity of his original insight of 1800 he must fi^st \yçr& Jus
way through the phenomenological appearance of the various forms pi
consciousness/up to the high ground of absolute knowledge, from wljich
the inner dynamic of logical thought can be traced.
Only if the logic of reflection in Book II is understood to originate
out of the prereflected and undetermined being in Book I, for .which the
ground was prepared in the Phenomenology, can the manifold and preise
determinations of the concept in Book III come to expression. Hegel voices
this circumstance with the first words of the logic of essence: "Essence
comes out of being; insofar it is not immediate and in and for itsçlfi,: bot
rather a result of that movement."40 But the Hegelian dialectic understands
being to be also a result of essence.50 Being as immediacy is the immediacy
over against essence which is the "definite negation" of being: "Essence has
the immediacy (of being) over against itself as one out of which it .has
become and which preserves itself in this elevation (Aufheben) S'*1\Only
because being is posited in its immediacy by essence as the ground
out of which it comes, does essence have its definity and defining potential.
Positing (Setzen) implies mediation and negation. If being is posited by
essence, it is mediated by its own ground, essence. But being is mediated
in its immediacy. Being is therefore the result of essence insofar asJt -is the
negation of negating essence.52 Essence, in positing being, mediates^ ;b^tJn
positing being, it posits the absolutely immediate. Essence as the relation-
creation determination is the determination of being itself. Thç reflection

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 THE ABSOLUTE AS THE BEGINNING OF HEGEL'S LOGIC

of the logic of essence is a reflection not from the outside of being on being,
but rather the reflection of being upon itself. The merely external reflection,
as it appeared in Spinoza,53 is the end of the logic of being, not yet having
"reached" essence. Substance had in Spinoza been understood as being
that pure negativity which "absorbs" everything into itself. In Spinoza,
difference is introduced altogether from the outside. The attributes in
Spinoza's understanding of substance have no more significance than that
they express this substance altogether. But the difference is external and
therefore merely quantitative, not qualitative. But if being is to be under-
stood as the posited immediacy of essence, which itself is the "definite nega-
tion" of being, then this difference must not be merely external. It must be a
difference which appears within being itself. In Spinoza's understanding
of substance, "difference is not immanent to her (substance); as quantita-
tive it is rather the opposite of immanence, and the quantitative indifference
is the externality of unity. Herewith also difference is not understood quali-
tatively, and substance is not determined as that which differentiates itself,
not as subject."54
In this last formulation the famous sentence of the Preface of the
Phenomenology is repeated, that truth is to be grasped and expressed not
as substance, but rather just as much as subject.55 The Logic is now the
process by means of which truth comes to its own self-understanding. And
the secret of the relation of being to essence must be sought in the lack
of any presupposition setting this process in motion. Truth comes to self-
understanding altogether out of itself.
Only if in this manner the logic of reflection and finally the deter-
minations of the concept arise as internal reflections out of indeterminate
and immediate being will the well guided science of the absolute, which
is Hegel's Logic, and in a broader sense Hegel's whole thought, be able to
unfold. We hope to have made with these remarks a small ccmtribution to
a better understanding of Hegel's logic of the absolute.
Russell Sage College

NOTES

1 Logik I, p. 53, ed. Lasson, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg, Phil. Bibl. number 56,
1969. The second volume is Phil. Bibl. number 57.
2 Logik I, p. 53.
3 Phänomenologie des Geistes, ed. Hoffmeister, Hamburg, 1952, 6th ed., Phil. Bibl.
number 114, p. 562.
* Ibid., p. 562.

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 ROLF AHLERS

5
Logik I, p. 66.
* See Henrich, Hegel im Kontext, Suhrkump Verlag, Frankfurt, 1971, p. 85.
7
Logik I, p. 80.
a Ibid., pp, 69, 68.
0
lbid.r p. 396.
10
Kant, Kritik der Reinen Vernunft, ed. Raymund Schmidt, Phil. Bibl. number 37a,
Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg, 1956, pp. 454ff.
11
See Peter Cornchl, Die Zukunft der Versöhnung, Vandenhock & Ruprecht, Göttin-
gen, 1971, see esp. p. 64: "Die Restriktion der theoretischen steht bei Kant im Dienste
des Primats der praktischen Vernunft. Der 'letzte Zweck,' die 'Endabsicht' cier
Vernunft liegt nicht im Horizont des Wissens, sondern des Willens."* See also p. 75:
"Kant kommt alles darauf an nachzuweisen, dass die Einschränkung' unse^r theore-
tischen Vernunft gerade unserer praktisch-sittlichen Bestimmung angemessen ist und
dass also die 'unerforschlichen Weisheit, durch die wir existieren, nicht minder
verehrungswürdig ist in dem, was sie uns versagte, als in dem, was sie uns zuteil
werden Hess.' (K.d.Pr.Vernunft, p. 266. 9th ed., Hamburg, 1959, Phil. Bibl. number
38, ed. by Vorländer, Felix Meiner Verlag.) Denn die Möglichkeit theoretischer
Einsicht in die letzten Dinge hiitlc in praktischer Hinsicht fatale Folgen."
12 Logik II, 9.
« Ibid., 9f.
" See Henrich, Hegel im Kontext ( = H i K ) , p. 85ff.
15
Problematically, because the footnotes reflect on that secret of the beginning of
the logic, rather than being that beginning. Because Hegel realized this problem,
he relegated these rejections to mere "notes."
iß Logik I, 66.
17 ibid., p. 91.
« Ibid., p. 60.
19
Kojéve, Hegel, Versuch einer Vergegenwärtigung seines Denkens, Kohlhammcr
Verlag, Stuttgart, 1958, p. 86. See also p. 109: "Wenn man wie Hegel behauptet, dass
alles Verstehen dialektisch und die natürliche Welt verstehbar ist, dann behauptet man
damit . . . dass diese Welt das Werk eines Demiurgen, eines nach dem «Bilde de»
arbeitenden Menschen aufgefassten Schöpfergottes ist. Und das sagt Hegel tatsächlich
in der Logik, wenn er ausführt, dass seine Logik (d.h. seine Ontologie) 'das Denken
Gottes vor der Schöpfung der Welt1 ist. Daraus würde folgen, dass Hegel die Welt
versteht, weil die Welt auf Grund des Begriffes erschaffen ist, den Hegel hat.' Und
damit sind wir mitten im Paradox: Der Hegeische Anthropo-theismus hört auf, ein
Bild zu sein; Hegel ist tatsächlich Gott der Schöpfer und ewiger Gott. Nun kann aber
kein Mensch von sich behaupten (es sei denn im Wahnsinn), er habe die Welt
geschaffen. Wenn also das sich in der Logik offenbarende Denken, das die Welt
erschaffende ist, so ist es sicherlich nicht das Hegels, sondern das eines Schöpfers, der
weder Hegel noch der Mensch im allgemeinen ist: das Denken Gottes. Die Logik ist
daher, auch trotz ihres Titels, nicht einfach Logik, sondern—wie Spinozas Ethik~
Theo-logie, also Logik, Denken oder Rede Gottes." Theunissen is closer to a more
appropriate interpretation. The remark about Hegel becoming God when thinking the
Logic is a "silly remark," Hegels Lehre vom Absoluten Geist als Theologisch-Politischer
Traktat, DeGruytcr, Berlin, 1970, p, 6.
20 Logik I, p. 53.
2i Henrich, HiK, 89.
22 Logik I, 53.

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 THE ABSOLUTE AS THE BEGINNING OF HEGEL'S LOGIC

23 Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, Tubingen, 2nd ed., 1965, p. 426.

24 ibid,, p. 461.
25 See Henrich, HiK, p. 104f.
26 I am using this Heideggcrian term provocatively to indicate that the Heidegger
School's rejection <of Hegel's absolute science possibly might fail to interpret properly
Hegel's intentions.
27 Gadamer does acknowledge Hegel's "logical instinct" with which he follows in
"unbewusster Weise'* the inner consequence once opened up by the beginning. Sec
Gadamcr, Hegels Dialektik, Mohr, Tübingen, ' 1971, esp. the essay Die Idee der
Hegeischen Logik, ibid., pp. 50ff. The acknowledgement of following unconsciously
the logical instinct, pp. 63ff. But Gadamer insists that the hermeneulical experience
which unfolds itself through language is missing in Hegel's dialectic. With Hegel's
dialectic he "makes a false claim'1 (p. 5 7 ) . "Diese Dialektik, die wir in unserer eigenen
Reflexion ausspinnen, stellt . . . lediglich eine beständig hineinspielende Vermittlung
mit den natürlichen Vormeinungen des Bcwusstseins dar. Dagegen ist die 'Erfahrimg'
die das Bewusstsein selber macht und die wir beobachten und begreifen, und sie allein,
der Gegenstand der Wissenschaft" (p. 57), That seems to be a problematical intcrpic-
tation of Hegel's intention. Reflection is to be kept distant, if a beginning in logical
discourse is to be made at all. Gadamer finds however, that the Logic is a restriction
of that hermeneutical experience of all reality which unfolds itself in and through
language {ibid., p. 6 4 ) .
28 Henrich, HiK, 101.
20 Logik I, 59.
30
Jenaer Schriften, Suhrkamp Verlag, Hegel in Zwanzig Bänden, vol. 2, Frankfurt,
1970, p. 96 ( = J S , SuII).
31 Dieter Henrich has indicated in Hegel im Kontext, p. 27, that the evolving con-
tinuum between the terms Sein, Liebe, Leben and Geist can be explained with good
reasons.
32
See Rohrmoser's comments to this formula in Subjektivität mid Verdinglickwtg,
Göttingen, 1961, p. 55; and Theunisscn, Hegels Lehre ( ~ HL) (p. 3 5 ) .
33
Frühschriften Hegel in Zwanzig Bänden, vol. Ï, Frankfurt, 1971, ed. by Eva Mol-
denhauer and Karl Marcus Michel, p. 422. ( = FS, Su I).
" Ibid., p. 422.
33
See Henrich, HiK, 9ff, Hegel und Hölderlin.
30
See Hannclorc Hegel, Isaak von Sinclair, Klostcrmann Vcilag, Frankfurt 197J,
p. 65.
37
FS, SU I, pp. 422f. Sec to this problem Lukacs, Der Junge Hegel, Zürich, Wien,
1948, p. 282. Theunisscn, HL, p. 16, Rohrmoscr, Subjektivität und Verdi'nglichu/n;
( = S V ) , p . 56.
38
FS, Su I, p. 423. The action of that positing is also called the "elevation of the finite
to the infinite," and the "elevation of finite to the iniinile life," characterized as
"religion" maintains itself thcmnlically through the Phenomenology and the Logic
into the later writings, and can be found with the almost identical wording in the
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion in the Vorrede.
;i0
Logik I, p. 59.
10
Logik N, p, 483fT.
il
FS, Su I, p. 423.
4
" Ibid., p. 423.
43
Ibid., p. 422.

299
 ROLF AHLERS

44 Logik I, p. 66.
45 Ibid., p. 67.
46 See, for example, Theunissen, HL, 75.
47 FS, Su I, 422f.
48 HiK, in the essay Hegel und Hölderlin, pp. 9ff.
49 Logik H, p. 7.
60 See preliminary remarks concerning this situation above, pp. 289 and 291.
öl Logik II, p. 8.
52 See also Henrich to this point in HiK, 107: "Sein kann als Resultat des Wesens;
als durch es gesetzt, also als 'Gesetztsein' gelten, das garçz ohne Umstand aus deitf
Gedanken der doppelten Negation gewonnen ist. Gesetztsein heisst abefr aufgehobenes'
Sein,—Sein, welches das Wesen zu seinem Grund hat, und zwar so, das| Wêsén '
!
seinerseits im Setzen von Unmittelbarkeit besteht." •» - 'x * •?
ö3 Logik I, pp. 3?6, 397.
54 Logik I, p. 396.
55 Phänomenologie, ed. Hoffmeister, ibid., p. 19.

300