Introduction
Building particularly on chapters 2 and 3, the following chapter considers the further development of Hegel’s logic of essence. It first considers the dialectic of ‘ground,’ which immediately follows that of identity and difference, and then turns to the dialectic of the modal categories near the end of the sphere of essence.
I shall first show that it is in the dialectic of ground, when essence is no longer merely ‘formal’ but now has a content, that the moment of diversity within the dialectical movement gives rise to a state of relativity. This relativity, I shall suggest, becomes the central problem of essence. I shall then examine the manner in which Hegel takes this state of diversity to sublate itself into a state of opposition. The sublation of diversity into opposition is, as I indicated in chapter 2, the process through which we move from one stage of essence to the next, and through which the ‘remainder’ that haunts essence is gradually reduced. Here I shall be concerned to show how, in the dialectic of ground, this sublation is an instance of what in chapter 2 I called the ‘all-or-nothing’ movement of the dialectic in the sphere of essence. Let us briefly run through the stages of that movement as they appeared in Hegel’s logic of identity and difference, since they form a general pattern according to which the subsequent stages of the logic of essence progress.1
1
It should be noted, of course, that this is not a pattern that is simply repeated throughout the logic of essence. Variations upon, additions to, and complications of, this pattern can be observed in the various stages of essence, yet the pattern presented here is a ‘necessary simplification’ if we are to bring into
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1. The stage of ‘going-together.’ The difference between the two terms is initially so slight that they immediately collapse into each other.
2. The stage of division or diversity. Since each term has proved to contain within itself both the other and its difference from that other, each term seems to be self-sufficient. Moreover, since the difference that each contains has become only its self-difference, and is thereby taken to make no difference, each term collapses within itself into simple self-identity. The two terms thus become absolutely indifferent to one another.
3. The stage of opposition and contradiction. Diversity proves to sublate itself and the dialectical movement now swings back to the other extreme. Yet it does not simply fall back into the peaceful identity of the two terms. Because they had become utterly indifferent to each other, they rebound out of this separation with such force that they come into a relation of mutual exclusion. They oppose themselves to each other, but in doing so each proves to be as much the other as it is itself.
4. The stage of resolution or interpenetration. Here it is because the clash is so violently polemical that the two terms come into an ecstatic union. The remaining difference of identity and difference is overcome and the two terms come to be moments of a single
reflection which fully encompasses them both. Derrida captures this point clearly in his discussion of the opposition between the divine and the human law in Glas, which we shall consider in chapter 6: ‘As if two motives [mobiles], disposing each of their self- moving principle [principe automoteur], starting from their opposite places, crossed or met each other in the course of a circular path, stopped short {tombaient en arrêt}, and from the collision formed one single vehicle on an infinite circle’ (Gl 170/192). It is only
view the mechanism through which Hegel ultimately takes the sphere of essence to sublate itself into that of the concept.
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because the terms come into the unity of a single reflection (the identity of identity and difference) that we move to the next stage of essence, within which the difference of identity and difference will subsequently emerge again.
In the dialectic of ground, it is of course in the second of these stages that the state of relativity arises. Because at this point the ground and that which it grounds (the ‘grounded’) fall into the indifference of diversity, each term becomes susceptible to being determined in multiple ways, without any of these determinations being able to claim any ultimate authority. The grounding relation thus proves to be an insufficient way of accounting for something, and this failure indicates that something can be accounted for fully only if the conditions of grounding (or what we might call the surrounding context) are also taken into consideration. This wider context initially seems also to be another form of diversity, insofar as it is constituted by a multiplicity of determinations that are indifferent to one another. To this extent it only constitutes an extension of the problem of relativity rather than its resolution, since the conditions are not unified under any one ground. Yet Hegel argues that this diversity sublates itself, and here we observe another instance of the all-or-nothing character of the dialectical movement. The simply external difference between the conditions becomes wholly internal, such that they sublate their indifference toward one another and through their mutual opposition come to form one, unified whole—they are thereby united under one ‘ground.’ The context, we might say, thus becomes saturated and simply reflects back on that which is to be explained by it.
In the following, however, I shall claim that this transition cannot be immanently justified, i.e. that it cannot be shown to be necessary on its own terms. I shall suggest instead that its apparent plausibility is achieved in two ways. Firstly, it relies on the all-or- nothing character of the dialectical movement. It is because the conditions are first
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presented as simply external to one another that the sublation of this externality might seem naturally to lead to their complete unity. Secondly, and in a manner that foreshadows the Derrida’ critique of Hegel that will be discussed in chapter 6, I shall claim that this all-or-nothing movement constitutes a leap from the ‘givenness’ of the conditions as indeterminate to their ‘givenness’ as ‘self-evident.’ I shall therefore suggest that the sublation of the state of relativity implicitly relies on an appeal to ‘common sense’ regarding the authority of the context.2 It is then in these two ways that the remainder that haunts the logic of ground comes to be conjured away.
I shall also consider what it is that the all-or-nothing movement serves to exclude here, namely, a certain contamination of ‘internal’ difference by ‘external difference.’ Indeed, I shall suggest that were this leap from the former to the latter not to be made, we would arrive rather at a structure similar to that of the Derridean ‘general text’ that we considered in the previous chapter. For Derrida, as we saw, the context proves in itself
to open out on to other contexts, and thereby leaves the sense of the terms ‘contained’ within it open to continual displacement.3
The second part of the chapter will then turn to Hegel’s analysis of the modal categories of possibility, actuality, contingency, and necessity near the close of the logic of essence. Although by this point in the sphere of essence the remainder has been greatly reduced, the modal dialectic is seen to exhibit a similar character to the dialectic of ground. I shall therefore claim that the key transition within this dialectic cannot be immanently justified for the same reasons that are applicable to the dialectic of ground.
2
To this extent, Derrida’s critique of Hegel’s appeal to what ‘everybody knows’ is extremely close to that of Deleuze in the 'Image of Thought' chapter of Difference and Repetition (London: Continuum, 2004), cf. p. 214.
3 This does not mean that a multiplicity of different contexts is presupposed from the outset. The point
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Contingency, just like opposition, can be seen as both a particular and a general category of essence, as is noted by Giacomo Rinaldi: ‘The contradiction typical of all the categories of Essence so far examined was, as we have seen, that they involve a relation
that ‘in itself’ should be ‘internal’, necessary, but de facto remains merely ‘external’—i.e., conditioned by contingent presuppositions extraneous to its concept.’4 Insofar as this contingency or this presupposed ‘remainder’ cannot be shown to be immanently overcome at the key stages of essence that the present study considers, this also means that Hegel cannot demonstrate the necessity of the sublation of the sphere of essence as a whole into that of the concept.