Hegel's Shorter Logic: An Introduction and Commentary by John Grier Hibben & Eric v.d. Luft

Author:John Grier Hibben & Eric v.d. Luft [Hibben, John Grier & Luft, Eric v.d.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gegensatz Press
Published: 2013-11-25T23:00:00+00:00

Essence as the Ground of Existence (§§ 115-130)

Hegel first considers the category of essence under the aspect of the ground of existence. The conception of the ground of existence implies the idea of something fundamental and permanent. We live in a world of changing phenomena. The elements which constitute these phenomena vary indefinitely, and our natural impulse is to seek some constant factor that will give determinacy to the great world problem. For Hegel, every phenomenon in the universe is the manifestation of its own underlying ground, and on this account it preserves always its identity with itself. Moreover, any phenomenal appearance must be seen as a mere reflection of its underlying essence, and their fundamental identity connects essence and appearance as one and the same (§ 115). Identity is one of the three categories of reflection, or reflective determinations (Reflexionsbestimmungen), along with difference (Unterschied) and ground (Grund). To illustrate his idea of identity, Hegel cites the central integrity of being which characterizes the "I," the logical concept, and God (§ 115 Zusatz). God, the absolute, is seen as self-identity, the all-embracing constant, the underlying essence, whose eternal attributes are reflected in all the phenomena of the world. Here we can clearly see the influence of Spinoza's God on Hegel's theism. Neither thinker would accept a personal God, but both would welcome the "intellectual love of God" (amor intellectualis Dei) (Ethics, V, prop. 33) (cf. § 158 Zusatz).

How can one live a Hegelian life? Fairly easily, it would seem. Some philosophies, e.g., those of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Kant, or Kierkegaard, are notoriously difficult to live by. But others, such as those of Hegel, Aristotle, or John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), come much more naturally. To live as a Hegelian, we need only bracket our subjective or personal involvement in whatever issues we encounter, whether they be ordinary or monumental, and become instead their phenomenological observer, not from above, as it were, but from within, trying to stand in the middle among contradictory elements, trying to see all sides of an issue at once, so that we may come to satisfactory resolution of all our problems, not favoring any side or the other, and avoiding all conflicts of interest. In politics, this means justice; in religion, equanimity; in society, friendship; in life in general, serenity and contentment.

Humans in their conscious life as persons, each an "I," also represent each a self-identity, since the self-consciousness of each forms a center to which the entire variety of experiences may be referred, and which forms one constant factor in the equation of life. Human activities are thus reflections of inner human personality. This self-identity differentiates humans from animals, who seem to possess no such underlying ground of continuity, but live in each present experience with no thought of before or after. There is, moreover, in every logical idea, a constant element, the universal, which maintains its identity amid the indefinite variety of its particular manifestations. This constant is the underlying ground of our thought processes, gives them definition and stability, and functions as their essential reflection.

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