The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner.
[Note: The text appears to be divided into six sections. Zhang Shiying wrote this short text in 1972, as a philosophy professor at Peking University. My notes on this text are to be modestly descriptive, as I'd like to develop a certain level of familiarity with this writing before reading Alain Badiou's extended commentary, as well as the other introductions and material this essay is surrounded by in my book. I've altered some words here and there for readability. Any emphasis are likely my own.]
[Note: As an aside, I'd like to say that although I respect Badiou as a thinker, my interest in his work is more limited than my interest in Althusser and Moufawad-Paul, although all three of us are implicated by the figure of Althusser. I haven't yet worked out what it is, but I find myself incapable of fully identifying with the figure of Badiou, I suspect it might be my general unwillingness to read his three volumes of Being and Event, although I do find myself interested in his Theory of the Subject and Theory of Contradiction, and his essay collection The Adventure of French Philosophy seems like a good introduction to his political and philosophical context as he understood it. I also hope to gain something, anything, from his work on Deleuze, another figure of philosophy I feel no great compulsion to spend an extensive amount of time with. Badiou's books on Ethics and Metapolitics I may or may not ever get around to. Oh yes, I remember his Philosophy for Militants and reading half of Badiou by Badiou but I don't know if I'll ever make it a point to re-read them. One thing I will note is that I find Badiou best in interviews. Every now and again I periodically return to this tweet from Moufawad-Paul to remind myself which works of Badiou I still need to read.]
[Note: Badiou informs me that Kojève and Hyppolite were the most consequential for the development of Hegelianism in France during his philosophical conjuncture. Hence, Bataille and Breton owed everything they said to Kojève.
He brings up the lionization of the Phenomenology congruent with a rediscovery of the 1844 Manuscripts as well as Althusser's philosophical attacks against these tendencies. Althusser resituated in Marx a sort of brutal edge, removed from the subjectivist tradition and remounted on the saddle as positive knowledge. [...] The positivist Marx of Althusser turned out to be more menacing.
We will again manipulate this sphinx at the centre of our philosophical thinking: the maintenance of the scission of the dialectic between Hegel and Marx. [...] Marx is neither the same nor the other of Hegel. Marx is the divider of Hegel. He simultaneously assigns its irreversible validity (the rational kernel of the dialectic) and its integral falsity (the idealist system). [...] Hegel remains the stakes of an interminable conflict. [...] It remains necessary to render speech to a gagged Hegel, to an essential Hegel, one on whom Lenin feverishly annotated, one from whom Marx had drawn the intelligence of Capital: the Hegel of the Logic.
[...] We should rather understand, through the internal contradiction of Hegel's philosophy, a contradiction between its conservative and revolutionary aspect, between an idealist system and the 'rational kernel.' Instead of understanding his dialectic as a totality, the dialectic divides into two.
What I thought was an essay was simply a chapter from a much larger work by Zhang Shiying, which Badiou and others have translated from this, Hegel's Philosophy, which serves as, on the one hand as, 'a source for the study of Marx and Lenin by workers, peasants, soldiers, revolutionary cadres and revolutionary intellectuals,' and on the other hand it is explicitly inscribed in 'the struggle against apriorism and the idealist conception of history' against the bourgeois thinkers who 'exalt the conservative aspect of Hegelian philosophy.'
I've finished reading the introductions (on Hegel in France and Hegel in China, which are both well worth reading despite their short length) which Badiou wrote for presenting this chapter, tomorrow I will read the interview appended at the end of the book before moving on to Badiou's commentary.]
'[Hegel's] idealist philosophy is traversed by something of great value: the dialectic of Hegel is the first, in the history of philosophy, to have developed, as complete as it was systematic, the idealist dialectic.'
[Note: Why the bifurcation between the 'dialectic of Hegel' and the 'idealist dialectic'?]
'Hegel considered that the Absolute Spirit, Absolute Idea, resides in movement, in incessant transformation and development; in the existing movement and development of internal connections and reciprocal conditioning. Truth is concrete: development has its own laws; internal contradictions are their source of development.' [...] 'Knowledge is the process of the deepening and incessant concretization of the abstract towards the concrete; from the simple towards the complex. These dialectical ideas are the progressive, revolutionary aspect of Hegel's philosophy.'
[Note: Does the abstract reside in the concrete itself? Is the simple the result of the complex?]
I. The Principle Relative to Movement and the Independence of Phenomena
'Each stage, each aspect, or link of this process [of the process of development of the Absolute Idea, Absolute Spirit] is not fixed or isolated. Instead, there exists internal relations and living conversations between them: the one converts itself, passes necessarily to an other and necessarily brings about profound interconnections.'
Engels: 'for the first time in the world, the natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process [...] and the attempt is made to trace out the internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this movement and development.'
Lenin: 'Hegel puts foward two basic requirements: 1. the necessity of connection
and 2. the immanent emergence of distinctions.
Very important!! This is what he means, in my opinion: 1. Necessary connection, the objective connection of all the aspects, forces, tendencies, etc., of the given sphere of phenomena: 2. the 'immanent emergence of distinctions'—the inner objective logic of evolution and of the struggle of the differences, polarity.'
'succinct generalizations of Hegel's dialectical thinking' [...] 'From this, we can see that the dialectical thought of Hegel, from the point of view of its most important content, is a thought of the internal relation and development of contradictions.'
'Hegel himself said that, the only understanding, the only reality (that is to say, Absolute Spirit or Absolute Idea), that philosophy should master and understand fall under two characteristics: these are the two principles of development and of the concrete.'
Hegel: 'Thus the Idea as concrete in itself, and self-developing, is an organic system and totality which contains a multitude of stages and of moments in development.'
'The concrete in question here designates the sum of the organic relations of different sorts where, according to the same expression of Hegel, make up 'the union of different determinations.'' [Note: thus, the union of different negations?]
Shiying refers to Hegel's example for explaining the meaning of 'concrete': a bouquet of flowers. This bouquet is 'comprised of its different qualities' smell, shape, color, however, 'the bouquet of flowers is not the fortuitous gathering of these qualities; it is a unity. In a bouquet of flowers, these qualities are related to one another in an internal and necessary manner.' Thus, 'the abstract that we ordinarily speak of is opposed to this concrete.' Thus, 'in saying that this bouquet of flowers is concrete, we mean to say that it is a unity that connects these qualities in an internal way.'
Alternatively, 'if one abstracts away a particular quality from this bouquet, like color, one seperates it from the other qualities and color would then become abstract.'
Thus, 'the concrete is the internal relations, it is the unity' and 'the abstract is the separation, the unilateral.'
'Whether it is in the heavens or on earth, in the natural or the spiritual world, there is nothing 'abstract' or isolated; if one isolates something in an absolute way, it would be without sense.'
'Hegel considered that, since truth is a varied organic unity, it also carries in itself certain contradictory elements, opposed elements, contradictions. This is why reality is not necessarily fixed or at rest, but can convert and contradictorily self-develop. Precisely because of this, Hegel added that truth is living; it is a movement and a process.'
'Hegel affirmed that the object of philosophy is truth-reality [...] such that the goal of philosophy is to understand this truth, this reality. This is why Hegel considered 'philosophy as the apprehension of the development of the concrete.' [...] From this point of view, we can say that the content of the entire Hegelian philosophical system is the description of the process of the development of the concrete truth-reality.'
For an example in Hegel's Logic: 'The fundamental spirit which traverses the description of logical concepts consists in examining them as reciprocally linked things, in development and in incessant conversion.' Further, 'when Hegel analyses the two concepts of Being and Nothing, we see that Being is not a fixed or ultimate thing: it has to pass and to convert itself into the opposing Nothing. As such, a purely abstract Being is, on the one hand, a different concept, opposed to the Nothing, but on the other hand, a purely abstract Being has no determinations and no content; what then would its difference be with the Nothing?'
[Evidence from Hegel's Greater Logic: Being, the indeterminate immediate is in fact nothing, neither more nor less than nothing.
[...] Nothing is therefore the same determination or rather absence of determination, and thus altogether the same as what pure being is.
]
'Being and Nothing are tied in an internal and necessary way; the former in self-development converts itself into the latter.'
'Another example, the two concepts of Freedom and Necessity. [...] If one considers that, to be free, it suffices to not be determined by necessity or, on the contrary, to not be free, it suffices to be determined by necessity, we should say that this point of view has not considered the problem by leaving aside the issue of connections. [...] A freedom that does not include necessity in itself, or does not act through the function of necessity is nothing but a 'formal freedom.' [...] Freedom is essentially concrete, that is to say that it is strictly tied to necessity: it is the understanding of necessity. Only such a freedom is true freedom.'
'Another example: Essence and Phenomena. Hegel noted: Essence and Phenomena do not exist isolated from each other. Phenomenon is the manifestation of Essence; if a phenomenon is such a way, it is due to its Essence; further, Essence does not exist outside of Phenomenon but rather in it. In what phenomenena manifest, there is nothing that is not interior to Essence, and there is nothing in Essence that is not manifest in phenomena. [...] The seperation of Essence and phenomena, in going outside of phenomena to understand an abstract essence, an unknowable thing-in-itself, this is the metaphysical perspective that Hegel critiques.' [Note: I've heard Hegel's thinking described as 'perfected essentialism' and I'm inclined to agree.]
'We can also take the general, the particular, and the individual as examples. Hegel considered these to be the three links of the Concept which are inseperable and tied in an internal fashion. The particular cannot exist outside of the general, the general structures the nature and the essence of the particular. However, the general is also inseparable from the particular: it manifests itself through the latter, it traverses the latter, the general comprises itself through the particular, it has the particular as content.'
'All generality seized outside of the particular is empty and not real. Strictly tied to the particular, this generality is called 'the concrete generality' by Hegel and the cut-off generality of the particular is called 'the abstract generality.' Hegel is for the former and opposes the latter. What he will call 'individuality' is the union of the general and the particular.'
'The method of metaphysical thought considers things as immutable and without intertwining internal connections. Hegel has very vividly critiqued this conception. [...] When it examines something, it never wishes to give attention to the other and opposed aspects; the aspect that is seized is never reconnected with the others. This method misunderstands the organic unity of the aspects of truth, it often expresses many diverse superficial phenomena of a problem but it never truly understands the treatment of the essence from the grounds of its organic unity.'
II. The Fundamental Principle of Dialectics (Contradiction)
'Outside of contradiction, there is no question of the concrete or development. Hegel argued that if truth-reality is in movement, in transformation, in development, it is not because of an exterior force but rather due to an internal contradiction. He affirmed that, at each stage, each link of the process of development of the Absolute Spirit, of the Absolute Idea, carries within itself internal contradictions.'
'According to the example that he himself takes up, the phenomenon of life contains the contradiction between life and death. The metaphysical perspective argues that, since life is different from death, they are mutually opposed; there cannot be factors of death in the phenomenon of life. [...] Hegel has indicated that life is a contradictory process, The living dies, simply because as living they bear in themselves the germ of death.
Since man cannot espace death, there is then, fundamentally, an internal cause.'
'When there is a passage between the two, the conversion of a concept towards another, as Hegel describes in his Logic, it is not due to an external cause, rather a concept comprises the elements of another concept in nature and at the very interior of a concept which is (or are) opposed and different. It is for no other reason than an internal contradiction of the two asepcts forced by the concept to convert and to pass into another concept.'
'If the concept of Being converts itself to the concept of Nothing, it is not because of an exterior force acting without internal connections with being, existing outside of being, that pushes it towards the conversion to the nothing, but rather because of the nature of this purely abstract Being, still without content, already carries the elements of this Nothing in contradiction.'
Another example, 'if identity converts itself into difference, this is not because of an exterior force which has no internal links in germination, but rather because the concept of concrete identity holds in itself the concept of difference in contradiction. It is for no other reason than the internal contradiction between two aspects that the concept of identity is forced to overcome itself and to convert itself into the concept of difference.'
'In all concepts and categories, in all phenomena—otherwise put, at each stage of the link of reality or absolute spirit—there are internal contradictions, and, in this, each overcomes itself and passes into its contrary. Metaphysics considers contradictions as unthinkable or at least illegitimate. Hegel critiqued this metaphysical conception.'
'According to this metaphysical point of view, the principle of contradiction in formal logic does not permit us to affirm something while denying it; this is the elementary law that our thought should respect. [...] However, to understand the principle of contradiction in formal logic is not equivalent to rejecting the contradictions that exist in reality.'
'Hegel affirms that in reality all concrete things are contradictory and that there is nothing that does not include contradictions or contrary characteristics. Hegel considered the contradictions that we speak of in the law of contradiction in formal logic as 'formal,' they are 'impossible' contradictions. But real contradictions are absolutely different from what the principle of non-contradiction of formal logic would exclude. This type of contradiction is a necessary contradiction, one that is 'internal,' and for which, 'it is ridiculous to say that contradiction is unthinkable.' Not only is this type of contradiction not an abnormal phenomenon, but it is 'the very moving principle of the world.' It is 'the universal and irresistible power before which nothing can stay, however secure and stable it may deem itself.''
'Hegel railed against those who rejected contradictory things: 'the usual tenderness for things, whose only care is that they do not contradict themselves, forgets here as elsewhere that in this way the contradiction is not resolved but merely shifted elsewhere.''
III. The Principle According to Which There is a Conversion of Quantitative Change into Radical Qualitative Change
'Truth-reality develops, and from Hegel's point of view, this development is not only quantitative but qualitative. [...] Hegel studied the laws of reciprocal conversion, the reciprocal relations between quantitative change and qualitative change and argued that quality and quantity are characteristics that ranged over everything.'
'To summarize, quality is an inherent character in being while quantity does not directly apply. By the unity of quality and being, Hegel means that quality is the determination that makes a thing a thing. A thing is what it is by its quality; if it loses its quality, it ceases to be such a thing. [...] As such, he concludes that quality is in unity with being.'
'However, while indicating the difference between quality and quantity, Hegel nonetheless underlines the close ties between the one and the other. For Hegel, the non-influence of quantitative change on quality holds only within certain limits.'
Shiying proceeds to use the examples of water and a load-bearing donkey, nothing that the 'augmentation or the diminution' of either the temperature or the weight of the load do not influence the nature of either the water nor the donkey and proceeds: 'However, when the quantitative loading goes beyond the limit, it can bring change to one quality or another. Thus, if the quantitative rise of the temperature of water rises beyond certain limits, water becomes vapour; if it falls beyond certain limits, it becomes ice.' The same for the donkey, but: 'Hegel underlined that we should not take these examples as jokes, because they are actually rich in meaning. [...] They show that, at the start, quantitative change is without consequence from the point of view of quality, but when this change reaches a certain degree, it leads to a transformation of quality. Hegel indicated that quantitative change is gradual and progressive movement; qualtitative change is a rupture in gradation. Here he clearly demonstrates the idea of development by leaps, and attacks the metaphysical perspective in which movement is reduced to pure quantitative change.'
IV. The Principle According to Which Knowledge is a Process that Goes From the Abstract to the Concrete, From the Simple to the Complex
[Note: I really need a style guide for titles.]
'Hegel considered the process of development of truth-reality, that is, Absolute Spirit, the Absolute Idea, as being at the same time the process of its self-knowing. Thus, the process of knowledge as a process that goes from the abstract, superficial, and poor, toward the concrete, the profound, and the rich. The whole process of absolute spirit, from its logical stage to the spiritual stage by its passage through the natural stage, is a process that becomes more and more concrete and complex, noting: the knowledge of spirit is the highest and hardest, just because it is the most 'concrete' of the sciences.
'
'Hegel considered the movement of each concept, of each category in logic as a function of internal contradiction. Each concept holds within itself, its own contradiction, and, as this aspect of negation is in contradiction with itself, it is finally refuted and converts itself into another concept, another category. But, the sense he gives to negation is not the metaphysical conception of negation, or simple overcoming. It is a question of overcoming the primitive given in conserving what is rational. [Note: the movement from the ideological generality to a scientific generality?] [...] It is for precisely this that the process of knowledge, the process of conversion and the deduction of concepts that Hegel speaks of is not a process of overcoming a concept for another, but a process of deepening, a progressive concretization and an incessant enrichment of content.'
Shiying returns to the example of Pure Being, reminding us that it is the most abstract and empty concept with absolutely no determination, 'yet, in traversing the process of negation, Being converts itself into becoming and then again into quality. Of course, the concept of quality is more concrete compared to simple Being, it thus expresses the idea that it comprises certain determinations that simple Being did not comprise.'
Interestingly, he goes on, alluding to 3 different sections of the Logic: 'The same goes for the concept of degree: it is the last concept in the chapter on Being in the Logic and at the same time it is the richest and most concrete concept of this chapter because it does not only overcome the concepts of Quality and Quantity that preceded it, but comprises the two within it. It is the unity of Quality and Quantity. The same for the chapter on Essence: Reality [Actuality] is the last concept, it is at the same time richer and more concrete and it does not only overcome essence and phenomenon, it is the unity of the two. The same goes for the last concept of the last chapter of the Logic: the Concept, that is to say, the Absolute Idea, is the richest and most concrete of the whole of the Logic. It does not only overcome all the concepts and categories that precede it but it comprises everything in it. It is the unity of Being and Essence. All concepts and categories that precede it make up an integral part of it, as the links that constitute it.'
Thus, 'this is why the many parts of Hegel's logic are not simply the juxtaposition and alignment of several concepts situated on an equal level, but actually different stages in a process of self-development, of self-knowing of the Absolute Idea.'
Shiying gives a rough schematic of the definition of the Absolute Idea and uses the example of Essence as one of its deficient moments and arrives at the conclusion, which I will recount in full, 'This is why the Absolute Idea is the great gathering of all its preceding concepts, and all these concepts are, in each one, stages of its self-development and at the same time its content. Outside of these stages, the Absolute Idea itself cannot but be empty and devoid of sense. This is why Hegel argued that in order to understand the Absolute Idea, it is necessary to understand each of the stages of its self-development. In order to understand the categories and ultimate concepts of logic, it is necessary to understand the whole system of its concepts.'
[Note: it occurs to me that Shiying has done more to elucidate Hegel for a mass audience in these 12 pages I've read than I've managed to accomplish with my website in an entire year.]
Shiying summarizes and recounts the major points of the preceding section and proceeds to provide another example, 'the conception of [philosophical] history in Hegel's philosophy.'
'Hegel considered philosophy as the supreme form of the Absolute Idea. That is why the history of the development of philosophy follows a path that goes from the abstract to the concrete and from the simple to the complex. Hegel was strongly opposed to the idea of the history of philosophy as a conglomeration or an alignment of disordered opinions. It is inapt and superficial to conceive of the metaphysical schools in the history of philosophy as excluding and annihilating one another reciprocally [...]. For Hegel, if the philosophical systems in the history of philosophy did take the stage at previous times, if there were not some links between these systems of philosophy, they would not have had any content. If a system of philosophy could exist, it is, as far as the grounds are concerned, because all philosophical systems appear necessarily and develops from preceding philosophical thoughts.'
Shiying spends time schematically (and descriptively) describing the ways philosophical systems historically move from the simple to the complex, arriving at, 'these recent philosophical systems have made these preceding philosophical systems their real existing materials. In taking these for their point of departure, they have reworked and transformed them; the recent philosophical systems have thus not simply rejected all the preceding philosophical systems but have utilized them for enriching themselves, they have made them their links and constitutive elements. [...] This is why the most recent and newest philosophies are more concrete, richer, and more profound: they are a mirror of the whole history.
'
'The study of the history of philosophy is the study of philosophy itself.'
Shiying elaborates on 'Hegel's idea that thought is a process of the abstract towards the concrete and of the simple towards the complex' for half of the paragraph, ending it with documentary evidence which comprises a very extended citation of Hegel, taken from Lenin in his Philosophical Notebooks, this is the longest citation I've encountered in this text so far: congition rolls onward from content to content. First of all, this advance is determined as beginning from simple determinatenesses the succeeding ones becoming ever richer and more concrete. For the result contains its beginning and its course has enriched it by a fresh determinateness. The universal constitutes the foundation; the advance is therefore not to be taken as a flowing from one other to the next other. In the absolute method the Concept maintains itself in its otherness, the universal in its particularization, in judgement and reality; at each stage of its further determination it raises the entire mass of its preceding content, and by its dialectical advance it not only does not lose anything or leave anything behind, but carries along with it all it has gained, and inwardly enriches and consolidates itself.
'[...] concrete things in objective reality are precisely the reciprocal connection and the sum of multiple aspects; they are organic unities having plural determinations and varied aspects. [...] The process of knowledge that humanity has of the concrete character of things, the process of knowing the organic connections of all these aspects of a concrete thing is long and winding. The goal of mastering these things is not reached without passing through the process of an 'abstract activity.' What is called here an 'abstract activity' is the act of extracting one aspect, one determination from a whole and to understand it in isolation.' [Note: the work of Generality II on Generality I?]
Shiying ends this chapter with an example drawn from Marx in his Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. It's unexciting. I wanted to end my notes here and simply read the last 10 pages but the next section is a subject I'm interested in so I couldn't resist.
V. The Principle Relative to the Identity of Thought and of Being and the Coincidence Between the Logical and the Historical
'An important principle of Hegelian philosophy is the identity between thinking and being. [...] Hegel opposed the metaphysical rupture between thinking and being; he considered that if we were to radically separate thinking and the thing itself (being) and if we were to affirm absolute seperation of the thing itself and knowledge, then we would always be reduced to a state of not being able to know things and we would never be able to resolve the question of how knowledge is possible. Hegel says that this point of view drives us towards doubt and despair.'
'Hegel considered that the two contrary aspects of thinking and being are united in an internal fashion: on the one hand, being is the content of thought. Without being, thought would lack content, since it would be empty. On the other side, outside of thought, things or being would lose their dimension of truth. Thought it was seizes and brings about the essence of things. For Hegel, things are nothing but the exterior manifestation of the 'exteriorization' of thought. Further, what is 'exteriorized' is finally brought to be negated and to re-entwine with its primitive base—to the interior of thought—this is why thought and being are in reality two aspects of the same thing. However, these two aspects are not situated on the same footing, to Hegel, thought is what leads, it is first, it is then followed by things, or being, as subordinate; they are the products of thought.'
'On the basis of this principle of identity between thinking and being, Hegel held that, in philosophy, there is also an identity between the theory that concerns being, that is to say, ontology, and the theory that concerns the laws and the forms of thought, that is to say, logic.'
Interestingly, he describes Hegel holding thought principal and being secondary, and thus logic as the foundation of ontology, to be 'manifestly the fundamental principle of Hegel's idealist philosophy.' But, he continues, 'However, here the rational kernel of Hegelian philosophy resides in the fact that, at the interior of an idealist philosophy, he correctly guessed the unity of the laws of thought and the laws of objectivity, the coincidence of ontology and logic. As Lenin said: Hegel actually proved that logical forms and laws are not an empty shell, but the reflection of the objective world. More correctly, he did not prove, but made a brilliant guess.
'
Following, a rather fascinating paragraph which begins, 'more than this, the rational kernel of Hegelian philosophy also resides here in the fact that he underlined the 'active character' of thought. We know that human thought cannot only reflect the objective world but equally, by pushing forth from known objective laws, can act and have an influence on the objective world, thereby transforming what was only found in thought—like an ideal, project, program, etc.—into real being; the objective world is thus subordinated and belongs to it.'
'Hegel held that, since there is an identity between thought and being, the process of the development of thought and knowledge, and the development of being advances side by side. The first is what we call the 'logical,' the second is what we call 'historical'; the two coincide.'
Skipping the preamble, 'What we understand here by logic designates the process of development of the history of philosophy. It is precisely from the basis of this principle that Hegel considers the historical order of the appearance of philosophical systems and the order of the deduction of logical concepts the same. [...] Thus, in logic, there is a category, Being: it is the most original category, the most abstract and most poor. Corresponding to this category, there is, in the history of philosophy, the philosophy of Parmenides, for whom the fundamental principle is the Absoluteness of Being. Hegel considered the place where logic begins as the commencement of the history of philosophy. That is why a true history of philosophy always begins, for Hegel, with the philosophy of Parmenides.'
He repeats the pattern of explication with different philosophers, 'In logic, there is the category of 'becoming,' and there is, in the history of philosophy, a corresponding philosophy, the philosophy of Heraclitus: it considers 'becoming' as the fundamental character of things. Along with this, in the history of philosophy, that which corresponds to the logical category of 'being-in-itself' is the philosophy of Democritus. What corresponds to the logical category of substance is the philosophy of Spinoza; and what corresponds to the ultimate category, the supreme but also the most concrete, the Absolute Idea, is the philosophy of Hegel himself.'
But, 'Hegel held that a total coincidence between logic and history is impossible, and that is why this sort of parallel relation and the correspondences described in the above are not absolute.'
Skipping over his summarizations, 'Marx's Capital is the best example of the study of the principle of the coincidence of logic and history.' An interesting remark. My neck is starting to hurt so I'll finish reading the final section alone, I might take notes on it tomorrow. Might.
VI. The Principle Relative to the Coincidence Between Logic and Theory of Knowledge
'For a better understanding of the coincidence between logic and the theory of knowledge in Hegel, we will approach more particularly the problem of different types of judgement in the Logic of Hegel. [...] Hegel affirms that judgement is not a category exterior to or parallel with concrete truth but the development of it, the exposition and the explication of the particularities or determinations that comprises concrete truth.'
Shiying uses the example of a simple judgement: 'gold is yellow,' and proceeds, ''Yellow' is an exposition of a particularity of this thing that is 'gold.' From this perspective of judgement, Hegel, for the first time in the history of philosophy, had, in sticking close to the content of knowledge, distinguished three great stages and four main types of judgement.'
'The three great stages are that of Being, Essence, and the Concept, corresponding to the three major parts of the Logic. The judgement at the stage of Being is the 'essential judgement'; the judgement at the stage of Essence comprises 'reflective judgement' and 'necessary judgement'; and the judgement at the stage of the Concept is called the 'conceptual judgement.' These four types of judgement are not at the same level and do not have the same value; there is a hierarchy, a given order.'
'Let us take for example 1. 'roses are red,' 2. 'roses are useful,' 3. 'roses are plants,' 4. 'This bouquet of roses is beautiful.''
'According to the content of knowledge, the sense of the predicates, the four types of judgement become increasingly elevated: the first ('roses are red') is the most inferior such that the predicate of this judgement does not lay out anything but the particular direct and sensible qualities of the subject (roses, concrete things). For determining if the subject does or does not have this quality, it is sufficient to use our immediate sensations (for example, our sight). Hegel called these judgements 'essential judgements.' This type of judgement shows that the content of knowledge has not yet attained the essence of the thing, it is not but direct and immediate; this type of judgement is but a stage of Being, and we cannot say that it is equivalent to that of Essence.'
'The second type of judgement, such as 'the roses are useful,' is called the 'reflective judgement.' The account of the predicate of this judgement does not only concern the particular direct and sensible qualities but the determinations relative to certain connections of the subject. In effect, saying that 'roses are useful' bears the trait of the relation between roses and other things; this type of judgement accounts for the particularities of roses from their relation with other things. Hegel held that this judgement touched on the essence of things, such that, for him, the category of a thing is the 'reflection on itself' in a relation. This judgement manifestly gives an account of the content of the subject in a more concrete and profound way.'
'Higher than the 'reflective judgement' is the 'necessary judgement,' such as 'roses are plants.' The account of predicates of this type of judgement are the relations between the substance and the subject; like the 'reflective judgement,' it belongs to the stage of Essence, but it comprises more necessity, it more profoundly and more concretely accounts for the content and the particularities of the subject.'
'The judgement that most profoundly and concretely accounts for the content and particularities of the subject is yet a fourth type of judgement, the 'conceptual judgement.' This judgement shows whether a concrete thing (the subject) corresponds with its nature, with its concept, and to what degree it corresponds. Thus the predicates, 'beautiful,' 'true,' 'good,' and our example, 'this bouquet of roses is beautiful.' These judgements always compare a concrete thing to its concept, they compare 'this bouquet of roses' to the concept of rose. Everything that corresponds to its concept, to its nature, is then beautiful, good, and true. Also, when we say, 'this bouquet of roses is beautiful,' it means that this bouquet of flowers has grown in conformity with its nature, to the concept of rose. Hegel held that, by forming such a judgement, it is necessary to have the most profound and concrete knowledge of concrete things.'
In summary, 'when the content of our knowledge is only the immediate existence of the object, or nothing but the particular abstract and sensible qualities, and only superficial and abstract, the form of thought we use, the form of judgement, is the most inferior judgement, the 'essential judgement'; when the content of our knowledge of being ranges over the determination of the relations of the object, when it penetrates the 'essence' of the object, thus more profound and more concrete, the form of thought we use is the 'reflective judgement' or even the 'necessary judgement.' What the 'conceptual judgement' expresses is that we have the most profound and concrete knowledge of the object.'
'For each sort of content of knowledge, there is a type of form of knowledge; the content of knowledge incessantly deepens itself and concretizes itself and the same goes for the form of knowledge; the whole of the conceptual system of Hegel's logic concretely demonstrates the principle of unity of the logic and knowledge. Of course, this principle is demonstrated by Hegel under an idealist form.'
'Even though what Hegel says is certainly not the dialectic of the objective world, in the dialectic of Absolute Spirit or Absolute Idea, in the process of reciprocal relation, mutual conversion, and the self contradiction of purely logical concepts, in a word, in his idealist dialectic, he divined or, rather, he unconsciously reflected the dialectic of objective things themselves.'
'[...] Only the Hegelian method posed the problem of the universality and the eternity of dialectical development; it tried to make the world a process of movement, of transformation and incessant development, and to discover internal relations within them.'
'However, the dialectic of Hegel, with respect to its essence, is fundamentally idealist. It is built from an anti-scientific basis; Hegel has only guessed the dialectic of objective things in his idealist dialectic and he did not have a scientific knowledge of the real objective process that appears dialectically. On the contrary, he had, under an idealist (mystical) form, fundamentally deformed this real objective process. [...] Marx and Engels thus thought it was necessary first to make a radical critique of Hegel's method, and by penetrating and 'rejecting his idealist residue,' the dialectic might appear under its original aspect.' And thus the text is completed.