Difference is the whole and its own moment, just as identity equally is its whole and its moment. – This is to be regarded as the essential nature of reflection and as the determined primordial origin of all activity and self-movement.- Hegel, Science of Logic, p. 362 (di Giovanni translation)
Essence is one of those words which, while essentially philosophical, can be used in ordinary speech with remarkable ease and lucidity. Usually, to call something "essential" means that that "something" cannot be removed without altering the nature of that which this "something" sustains. So, for example, nourishment is essential to survival, because if we stop eating then we cease to survive.
When, at this moment, one asks whether essence is subjective or objective, one is forced to pause for a moment. The essence is in a thing, so it seems at first that it is objective. Thus, regardless of how one understands survival, it is a fact, something determined, that survival requires nourishment. However, on the other hand essence is subjective, because to say that "nourishment is essential to survival" already implies that, whatever is underneath the phenomenon which one calls "survival," survival cannot emerge as a stable chunk of being without language, thought, etc. The way in which being is "carved at its joints" differs according to time and place, and it is thus up to each "subject" or mind to instantiate the claim that survival requires nourishment.
When, at this moment, one asks whether essence is subjective or objective, one is forced to pause for a moment. The essence is in a thing, so it seems at first that it is objective. Thus, regardless of how one understands survival, it is a fact, something determined, that survival requires nourishment. However, on the other hand essence is subjective, because to say that "nourishment is essential to survival" already implies that, whatever is underneath the phenomenon which one calls "survival," survival cannot emerge as a stable chunk of being without language, thought, etc. The way in which being is "carved at its joints" differs according to time and place, and it is thus up to each "subject" or mind to instantiate the claim that survival requires nourishment.
Hegel's position here is to assert that essence is both objective and subjective. Essence is thus the moment in the transition from "being" - pure objectivity - to "concept" - free subjectivity. How does a concept, or a self-consciousness, or a mind, "emerge" out of a material process? The answer is to be sought in the way essence develops out of being.
Essence is, in its first, least mature form, being "as posited." By "posited," Hegel does not have in mind two external things, the one positing, the other posited, placed next to each other, in the sense that my hand "posits" a vase onto the kitchen table. This kind of "positing" is still a simple movement which can be fully represented geometrically. For Hegel, the "positedness" of essence is rather that essence is the past of being. Essence is never "present" in the sense that a triangle or a table is present. In order to say that "x is the essence of this" the "x" must subsist implicitly in the thing even after it disappears from the surface. In this sense, essence is a chunk of the past that has become present. Thus, in saying that "nourishment is essential to survival" one does not observe nourishment all the time conjoined with a surviving organism. Rather, when one witnesses an organism, one automatically assumes that nourishment is implicitly playing a role without which the appearance of survival cannot be sustained. The organism has nourished itself in the past; this past is now posited in the present state of the organism in such a way that the present is sustained by that act which was explicit only in the past.
These considerations show that "positedness" is a very tricky concept. It is difficult to grasp, because essence is neither a figment of our imagination nor an exclusive instant in the process of pure objective being. Essence is, as it were, that free-floating moment which, originally only an instant of being, continues to preside over being in a virtual way. To put it differently, the essential is the virtual. But this virtual is more real than immediate quantities and qualities of being. Nourishment is more real for an organism than the specific shapes, sizes, colours, and movements which the organism happens to undergo at a given time.
Speaking of time, another way to understand the concept of "positedness" is to say that time as such arises with the positedness of essence. Until essence comes on the scene, there is no "past" or "future" in being. Being is just a kind of plenum which, although transforming into this or that shape, cannot understand itself as being different. Every instant is equally real compared to any other, and thus, strictly speaking, being lacks time. Of course, we see that the claim "being lacks time" presupposed that we see time in being. But this act of seeing being in temporalized form is a result of being becoming essence, and essence becoming a mind or a concept. If being is just being, then it will not have time, for nothing can temporalize it.
In essence, being is on its way to temporalize itself. Being "remembers" its own moment, or, to put it in another way, it keeps the trace of a particular moment even after that moment passes away. This trace is "posited," and it is essence. The entirety of being at a given stage is distinguished from the one exceptional moment which is now posited as virtually present, yet underlying this entirety.
In essence, being is on its way to temporalize itself. Being "remembers" its own moment, or, to put it in another way, it keeps the trace of a particular moment even after that moment passes away. This trace is "posited," and it is essence. The entirety of being at a given stage is distinguished from the one exceptional moment which is now posited as virtually present, yet underlying this entirety.
Positedness is extremely important for the entire Hegelian philosophy. Until being "posits" its own moment and lets this latter found the subsequent development of the former, there is no way for being to "return into itself" - i.e. become life. Being is, on its own, a mere line, with no privilege given to a particular point over others. But when a point is isolated, and when being comes to another point which overlaps with the first, then, by virtue of this act of isolation, being can now start to "repeat" itself, and it can also "return" to a "previous" moment. Time comes into being.
Exactly how this self-temporalization - if I can put it this way - of being is achieved, and how essence starts to temporalize and become complex in its own free-floating nature, are questions which cannot be fully responded to in this small entry. It requires a close re-reading of the Objective Logic.
