Doctrine of Being: Quality - Existence (2)

Finitude

In the previous division, the positive aspects of existence as an existent were developed; in the present division its negative side will be developed. The basic tone will be that of the “negation of negation.”

A. Something and Other

• Two things start out as indifferent to each others' status; thus, once can equally be a something (reality) or an other (negation)
  • One could develop a critique of nominalism from this position; to declare that “something is x” where x is a proper name is meaningless, since x expresses a one-sided individuality without universality
• A comparison between something and other requires a third
• A something is not merely an other in relation to an external something; it is also an other to itself within itself
• In this way, the other is determined not in contradistinction to something else, but rather as it is in itself
• This autonomous other is physical nature (!?)
• The autonomous other is the “other of the other” (92)
  • The first other is external to something; the second is a reflection of something into itself out of its own external other
• By nurturing this other of the other as an aspect of itself, the something is able to negate its other without thereby becoming just this other
• This double-other is thus the condition of the thing's self-identity – this is also a “being-for-other”
• The identical aspect of such an existence is “being-in-itself”
• Being-for-other and being-in-itself are contained as moments in the something
• Something / other still remain external to each other
• Being-for-other / being-in-itself are in relation in an other
• This in-itself is to be distinguished sharply from the “thing in itself” - a thing which lacks the moment of being-for-other
  • “Things are called “in-themselves” in so far as abstraction is made from all being-for-other, which really means, in so far as they are thought without all determination, nothing” (94)
  • The thing in itself is pure nothing, and thus is by default unresponsive to the question: “what is it?”
  • The thing in itself is completely known; it merely cannot answer to the question concerning its “what”
  • “What, however, the thing-in-itself in truth is, what there basically is in its, of this the Logic is the exposition” (94)
• In existence (unlike in essence or in the concept) one being does not bring forth or posit its own negative
• The finite is thus momentarily treated as a being-in-itself (as the purely non-infinite) in the sphere of being
• Contrary to this immediate, implicit existence, essence or the concept immediately posits its other as part of itself
• The idea that an essence or a concept can exist only through its reflective shine in its other, this is the fundamental view of all anti-metaphysics
  • This is because both metaphysics and critique aim to produce existents, not essences or concepts
• The something which harbors a being-for-other within itself, this is quality as determination

B. Determination, Constitution, Limit

• How does existence in itself come to be posited? - this is the guiding question here
• “The quality which in the simple something is an in-itself essentially in unity with the something's other moment, its being-in-it, can be named its determination” (95)
  • This is affirmative determinateness; it allows us to say not merely that something is determinate, but that it has been determined in such-and-such a way
• Determination is “filled in” by other determinatenesses (e.g. a human being is determined as a rational thoughtful being and is filled up with thoughts)
• Constitution is the determinatenesses which are the bases of determination (e.g. thoughts constitute a human being)
• Alteration of a thing is the alteration of its constitution
• Determination and constitution are here external to each other
• These are two sides of a third being which is “in” the something – determinateness
• The two sides freely alternate in a determinateness depending on whether it takes on the form of being-in-itself or being-for-other
• “The connection, upon closer consideration, is this: in so far as that which something is in itself is also in it, the something is affected with being-for-other [as has been shown in Part A]: determination is therefore open, as such, to the relation with other” (96)
• The excess of determinateness over being-in-itself = determination is the force which converts the latter to constitution
• By thus sublating this distinction between determination and constitution, we return to a something, but this time the something is posited
• Here, the something does not need the real presence of an other for its return into itself – rather, the other is already posited and negated in it as a virtual being
  • “Something behaves in this way in relation to the other through itself; since otherness is posited in it as its own moment, its in-itselfness holds negation in itself, and it now has its affirmative existence through its intermediary alone” (97)
  • “The negation of its other is only the quality of the something” (97)
• Limit is the something as it exists on its own account, or through its negation of negation
• Limits is ideally this movement, yet is also manifested really as qualitative distinctions
• Movements of limit include: 1) The limit of something is at the same time the limit of the other in relation to this something; in this way the limit is the definition of the something; 2) In being a limit, something exists and also negates its existence at the same time; this opens the way to an overlap of somethings, where each is only mediated by the limit, not the other something; here we see authentic quality
  • E.g. A line is a line by virtue of its negative relation to a plane both positively (“a line is the boundary of a plane”) and negatively (“a line is not the inner surface of a plane”)
• (Continuing): 3) This new something outside the limit is existence in general – a something stripped of all qualities due to the lack of limitation); this something is now posited within the limit, and it shares its quality as existence, but is also distinct from other things by virtue of different limits
• The dialectic between limit and something pushes the limit, so to speak, to other qualitative beings
• The point is the dialectic of becoming a line
• Due to the self-negating expansion of limits, all beginnings appear as accidental, and all developments appear as necessary (e.g. whether one starts from the definition of a line in terms of a point or in terms of a plane, such an accidental beginning will eventually lead to a complete system of points, lines, and planes which, in its completeness, appears with an internal necessity)
• The something which is limited is the finite

C. Finitude

“When we say of things that they are finite, we understand by this that they not only have a determinateness, that their quality is not only reality and existent determination, that they are not merely limited and as such still have existence outside their limit, but rather that non-being constitutes their nature” (100) – an on-parade of previously deduced and developed jargon.

“Finite things are, but in their reference to themselves, they refer to themselves negatively – in this very self-reference they propel themselves beyond themselves, beyond their being” (100).

1. Immediacy of Finitude

• In finitude, there is no longer any purely self-referring and positive existence
• The negative movement of the limit in finitude is negation as perishing
• The negativity of finitude is the “most obstinate of the categories of the understanding” because it asserts the absolute imperishability of nothing – this gives limitation to every being and thus shuts the door towards qualitative infinity
• Finitude is here seen as the eternal determinateness of things
• But as finitude, it does not want to assert its eternity in this way
  • Yet, in the perishing of perishing (or in the negativity of finitude) the finite being returns into itself, not as an affirmative being, but as a pure nothing
  • In nothing, the contradiction between finitude and its double-perishing just happens, but in finitude it takes place in opposition to an affirmative being, infinity – in this relation, the former is able to maintain itself as nullity or a perishing being in relation to an other
  • This movement is to be developed dialectically in the forthcoming, so that finitude will pass into the perishing of its perishing, and by way of this to infinity

2. Restriction and Ought

• The object here is the finite something as being-in-itself
• A limit which is posited negatively (e.g. “a line is not a point” instead of “a line is a collection of points”) is restriction
• Restriction, as a negative act, also posits a new limit (in this example, a point) which it negates and can lead to another restriction, which will then come to constitute a new something (e.g. “a point is not a color” which can lead to a “colored point”)
• The movement from restriction to its negated limit is an ought
• Something is said to transcend itself when its limit is the restriction of its determination
• The ought has a double determination: 1) that which is over and against negation; 2) a new determination, i.e. a restriction which arises out of nothing, which exists in itself
• In finitude, determination is an ought, and limit is a restriction
• Restriction is posited as finite, but the ought is not yet done so
• The ought is a being that is at the same time non-being, since what ought to be cannot be something that is already here; it is therefore a being with a limit, and so also with its own restriction
• This limit is determination as determinateness
• Thus, the finite being's own determination is an ought, and also its restriction, since it is that which ought to be repeated in its transcendence
• At the same time, the finite being transcends its restriction as an ought
• The ought posits the restriction which it negates; in this way a being is finite

Remarks

• Based on the forgoing, the statement “you can because you ought” is just as valid as the statement “you cannot even though you ought” - it is just a matter of which side one emphasizes, either that of the ought or of restriction
  • Something appears as necessary from the side of the ought yet impossible from the side of restriction
  • “In the ought the transcendence of finitude, infinity, begins” (105)
• Critique of the claim “there are certain restrictions which are impossible to transcend, such as those of thought or reason”
  • This position forgets that by being posited as a restriction something has already been transcended
  • E.g. by positing the law of identity as a restriction on logic, one opens the way to other logics which are not based on this law
• The other side of a restriction is the unrestricted beyond
• Things like stone and metal fail to transcend their own restrictions, since these restrictions are not for themselves
• But if the stone is grasped as a concept, then the path open up to the transcendence of its restriction via the limits posited in such a concept
• Examples can be found at almost all levels – in living things, in sensations, in inanimate objects, in institutions, etc.
• “Pain is the negation within the sentient's self, and this negation is determined as a restriction in the sentient's feeling just because the sentient has a feeling of its self, and this self it the totality that transcends the determinateness of the negation” (106) – from this interplay between pain and self, one could elaborate a Hegelian critique of animal rights
• Leibniz: if a magnet were to be conscious, the North would be the determination of its will... - but this is bonkers; as a determination, the North would be a restriction which is in opposition to the universality of space, which is all direction
• Ought is a finite transcendence of restriction
• Duty is an ought over against the finite will which is a restriction
• The dialectic of ought and restriction shows that the ought is realized everywhere in multiple ways; every restriction has its own unique set of oughts, and to insist on just one duty as the sole “beyond” of a finite will is a finite perspective which fails to grasp this dialectic

C. Transition into the Infinite

The finite contains both the ought and the restriction as two moments of itself, negatively related to each other. The result is twofold: finitude is 1) determined as such, it is its own determination; the finite persists as such to without end; and 2) it is being-in-itself, since now the finite being returns into itself whether out of its ought or of its restriction – this, as an affirmative being, is the infinite.