The end of Hegel's Logic: Absolute Idea as Absolute Method

• Author: Angelica Nuzzo
• Position: Professor of Philosophy, City University of New York
• Pages: 203-224

Page 203

The last chapter of Hegel's Wissenschaft der Logik is a test for the entire preceding logical development and, thereby, a test for the success of the book as a whole. It is only at this point-namely, at the conclusion of the itinerary of pure speculative-dialectical thinking-that it is possible (and necessary) for Hegel to demonstrate that the logic which has been immanently developed in its successive moments is, indeed, the speculative science laying the foundations of the philosophical system and leading on to a Realphilosophie. The aim of the final test taking place in the chapter on method is twofold. First, Hegel needs to show that the logical process now approaching its conclusion can by no means be exploited by a non-dialectical way of thinking. In other words, he needs to prove that only dialectical thinking can use or appropriate the logical process it has developed up to this point in order to construct knowledge and produce science. The claim to be justified is that the foregoing succession of logical forms is, indeed, the method of speculative thinking, and of this thinking alone. Second, Hegel needs to demonstrate that the logic, as a concluded and complete discipline, is a system and can therefore lead forward to the expanse of a system of philosophy. The two points are clearly connected as parts of the same systematic project. The notion of method designates, for Hegel, this constellation of issues; not only the question of how the succession of logical forms is immanently developed or deduced throughout the logic, but also the question of how, retrospectively, one shall reflect upon such a succession and how this reflection shall be used in order to produce knowledge, self-knowledge, and science. Method is both the immanent production of logical forms and the final comprehensive knowledge of the whole process of logical deduction.¹Page 204

This is the interpretive framework within which I want to discuss the general problem posed by the last chapter of the Wissenschaft der Logik, the chapter on the absolute Idea. Simply put: Why does Hegel's logic finish in the way it finishes, namely, with an account of the absolute method?. Or, Why is the absolute idea developed into absolute method? And what constitutes the necessity of this conclusion? The famous (or infamous) beginning of the logic has been the source of never ending attempts at interpretation and the difficult transition to nature has been criticized as no other part of the logic. Instead, I want to focus on the far less discussed problem of its conclusion-the problem of the end (das Ende). Why and how must the logic come to an end, and to which end? And more generally (and methodologically): What is the end (taken absolutely or schlechthin)-das Ende? Thus, my topic is the connection between logic, method, and end. It is only having cleared this connection that we can gain an access to the further problem of the transition to nature.

The last chapter of Hegel's Logic has not ceased to intrigue me despite the number of studies I have dedicated to different aspects of its argument during the last ten years. Somehow, the analysis of any section of the Logic has always brought me back to its conclusion. In the following considerations I build on the results of my previous research, in particular on the following three theses:

1. Hegel replaces the metaphysical Absolute with a theory of absolute cognition whereby knowledge of the Absolute turns into absolute knowing. He replaces the ontology of the ens absolutus with a logic of the absolute idea as absolute method. The term absolute for Hegel is no longer substantive but only adjective, as such absoluteness is predicated of each one of the final moments of his system: absolute knowing (absolutes Wissen), absolute idea (absolute Idee), absolute spirit (absoluter Geist).

2. The development of the absolute idea is determined by its initial definition as result of the previous logical movement. Accordingly, the absolute idea arises from the overcoming of the (Kantian) split between theory and praxis; it displays the identity of theoretical and practical idea, as well as the unity of the idea of life and the idea of knowledge.

3. The absolute method is the method of the system of philosophy. The method is in charge of laying the foundation for the system-Page 205atic development of philosophical thinking and knowing. In this way, it effects the transition from Logic to Realphilosophie.²

These three theses, which I take here for granted, define the background of the position I am now going to outline. However, I will further elaborate on them, approaching them from the different perspective of the issue of the conclusion of the Logic-the issue of the necessity of a conclusion, as well as the issue of the specific necessary conclusion that Hegel has to offer.

I have mentioned the very general question I presently want to ask and the set of background assumptions through which I am asking it. I finally want to add that the specific direction taken by the following analysis is determined by a more particular concern that I see concentrated in an enigmatic passage placed at the very beginning of the chapter on the absolute idea.³ My present considerations are a sort of commentary on this passage. I attempt to frame the issue of the method of Hegel's logic in terms of the problem raised by that passage.

After having presented the absolute idea as the result of the immediately preceding movement whereby the idea is defined as the rational concept unifying theoretical and practical idea, life, and cognition, Hegel characterizes it as the form of personality truly reconciled with its other as with its own objectivity. In this way, the absolute idea has reached the highest form of truth. This fundamental characterization of the idea is the starting point of the final movement of the logic. Hegel gives this sense of culmination by construing a radical opposition to the absolute idea (and notice that he has just claimed that despite its multiple conciliations, the absolute idea bears "in itself the highest opposition").⁴ Hegel declares: "All the rest is error, confusion, opinion, endeavor, arbitrariness, and transitoriness; only the absolute idea is being, imperishable life, self-knowing truth, and is all truth."⁵ This passage is puzzling for more than one reason. First, it is syntactically construed in a curiousPage 206 way. The opposing member somehow precedes that to which it is opposed; the rest precedes that in relation to which what is left is understood as rest-a resulting caput mortuum brings forth the absolute idea as all truth. Yet the caput mortuum is obtained from the idea. Second, this passage has always struck me as being highly un-dialectic, and un-dialectic in the most implausible place within the logic. Hegel's main point in this last chapter is to establish the absolute idea as an omni-pervasive structure-iibergreifend, he says⁶-that includes all opposition within itself. Its absolute character is determined precisely by the fact that there is no exteriority or externality opposed to it.⁷ Moreover, the absolute idea as method is defined as the force of infinite power from which nothing can be declared independent, to which everything with no exception is by necessity subjugated (unterworfen).⁸

How can these claims be reconciled with the notion that there is indeed something, a whole realm of negativity, that remains as an uncomfortable rest (ubrig) placed in front of the absolute idea and opposed to it in a sort of un-dialectical Manichaeism-all truth against all the rest? How can we accept that this discarded realm must somehow present itself in this external opposition in order for the absolute idea to shine in all its transparency and might as the omni-pervasive and comprehensive truth, as all truth? Is this a passage that we need to ignore if we want to move on to the characterization of the dialectical nature of Hegel's method? Or shall we instead acknowledge that herein Hegel somehow provides the key for the following development of the absolute idea to method, and then to the end of the logic as foundation of the philosophical system? If the latter is the case, how does such development take place? My suggestion in these considerations is that this passage formulates the specific problem that Hegel's idea of method sets out to solve. But there are additional important questions that this passage raises and that we should be able to address, as well. What does Hegel indicate with the "all the rest (alles Ubrige)"⁹ immediately declared error, confusion, opinion, arbitrariness? And where is this rest systematically located?Page 207

In the following analysis, I address the problems posed by this passage, engaging with the text in an interlocutory way. I will formulate and reformulate a series of questions in order to cover the entire development of the last chapter of the logic, which, I show, should be considered Hegel's answer to the issue raised by that initial passage-the issue of das Ende, I want to pursue the following thesis: Hegel's absolute method is not only the immanent way in which the logical process is step-by-step generated and the way in which this immanent production is successively presented-method is not only Entwicklungsweise and Darstellungsweise. In the logic, the method constituting the end of the process is also the way in which the entire logic is finally reflected upon and retrospectively re-construed in order to be used in cognition and action by speculative thinking. The method as conclusion of the logic offers a synoptic reconstruction of the entire logical process that breaks with the sequence in which its forms have been...