Der Schein and das Scheinen

Being is now taken up as that which has sublated itself, and which is only in its sublatedness.17 In other words, it is taken up as that which cannot be genuine immediacy but only seeming immediacy (der Schein). Nevertheless, Hegel notes that even in this sublated form, being still seems to be distinct from essence (SL 395/LW 9). We can see

15

In Miller’s translation, the omission of ‘only’ in ‘not only determined as an other’ distorts the complexity of Hegel’s analysis here, for, as we noted above, negation will never entirely lose its immediate aspect, even within the sphere of essence.

16

Miller’s translation of Schein as ‘illusory being’ too strongly suggests that what is in question here is a

bloßer Schein—a mere illusion. Di Giovanni’s translation of Schein as ‘shine,’ retains an important connotation of the German term (one which allows Hegel to connect it so easily to the concept of reflection), but takes too much emphasis away from the sense of Schein as ‘seeming.’ While ‘seeming’ may in some cases function as a translation of Schein, however, it blurs the distinction between der Schein and das Scheinen, where the former is a moment within the latter. Accordingly, I shall generally leave Schein untranslated, and will translate Scheinen by ‘seeming.’

17

Throughout the present study, I follow Miller’s translation of Aufhebung as ‘sublation.’ As Hegel famously remarks, Aufheben means both ‘to nullify and ‘to preserve.’ Yet at this point in Hegel’s derivation of essence, it is the nullification of the sphere of being that is in question.

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why this should be if we consider the structure of Schein more closely. That Scheinis only as sublated means that it is ‘only by means of its negation’ (SL 396/LW 9). It does not precede its being negated, yet at the very moment that it is negated, it flashes up as that which is negated. This is what gives it its seeming immediacy over against essence, though in truth this immediacy is always already sublated.18

Since being has thus been shown to be a ‘nullity’ or a negative which ‘sublates itself and withdraws into essence,’ the question is no longer how being can seem to be distinct from essence. As Houlgate notes, Hegel’s attention now turns to the question of how, even though it is the truth of being, essence itself can seem to be distinct from being, i.e. how it can seem to be immediately self-sufficient. Indeed, Hegel states that ‘all that has to be shown is that the determinations which distinguish [Schein] from essence are determinations of essence itself, and further, that this determinateness of essence

which Schein is, is sublated in essence itself (SL 397/LW 11).

As Henrich observes, section two of the chapter, ‘Schein’ thus involves identifying the nothingness [Nichtigkeit] of Schein with what Hegel terms the negativity of essence.19 The latter concept is rather abruptly introduced at this point in Hegel’s derivation of essence, so in order to see how Hegel arrives at it, we will need to reconsider the nullity or nothingness that being has proved to be. For if essence is nothing other than the truth

18

With a view to Derrida, we might then describe Schein as a ‘trace’ which only appears in its disappearance and disappears in its very appearance. Scheinseems to represent a falling away from immediacy or the diminution of an initial ‘presence,’ yet in truth this is an immediacy that never was, but is only projected backward, after the fact. This is not the place to pursue this thought, however; for it is not until a little later in the course of the logic of essence that Hegel shows that, in truth, essence does not ‘emerge’ from being, but rather itself projects the illusion that being preceded it.

19

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of being, then its negativity must be another aspect of the structure that can also be described as a nullity.

2.2.1 Accounting for the Schein of Immediacy

Schein, as we have seen, is the determinate immediacy or the ‘negative’ that is only in being negated. But this means that it can no longer be conceived as being negated from the ‘outside’: its negation has become internal to it, such that it is negated in itself. It must therefore be conceived as self-relating negation. Yet the latter can be regarded from two ‘angles.’ On the one hand, it is self-relating negation or a negative relation to self. Seen from this angle, it is the nullity of Schein. On the other hand, it is self-relating negation, or ‘a relation of negation only to itself’ (SL 398/LW 12). Seen from this angle, the self-relating negation is the ‘negativity’ of essence which constantly remains with or, as Hegel puts it, ‘goes together with’ itself. Because it relates only to itself it seems to be simply immediate and thus to be distinct from the nullity of being, that is, from Schein.

But it is important to note that essence as negativity is not the simple coincidence

of the negation with itself and thus its collapse into positive immediacy. If this were so, it would only constitute a return to the simple immediacy of being and would again become an immediate, determinate essence over against being. At this point, the self-relating negation that essence has proved to be must rather be thought as a process of self- relation. Essence, then, is not more ‘profound’ than being, but more dynamic; it is nothing but the continual and circular process in which negation relates to itself first by dividing itself and becoming determinate, and then coinciding with itself. Furthermore, as the process of self-relating negation—a process which encompasses both of these moments and in which essence remains with itself even in its division—essence takes on

23

what Hegel calls a ‘reflected immediacy.’ It is this new form of immediacy, which is gained only through the movement of reflection, that accounts for, but is not itself reducible to, what seemed to be essence’s simple immediacy over against being.

In this process that essence has proved to be, Schein now figures as a moment, such that, as Houlgate remarks, essence can be thought as ‘projecting’ Schein.20Schein is the moment within the self-relation of negation when negation is divided from and opposed to itself. As Hegel writes, ‘The immediacy of the determinateness in Schein over against essence is consequently nothing other than essence’s own immediacy; but the immediacy is not simply affirmative [seiend], but is the purely mediated or reflected immediacy’ (SL 397/LW 11).

In interpreting Schein as the determinate or distinctly negative moment of this process, the reading I have given goes against that of Henrich. For Henrich, Schein

amounts to the reconstruction within essence of the positive immediacy of being. It is conceived as the positive moment that is produced when negation cancels itself out, even if this moment is destined to immediately vanish.21 Nevertheless, though the Logic is not always unambiguous on this point, in numerous passages Hegel clearly emphasises the determinate nature of Schein. To take just one of these, he writes, for instance, that ‘Schein is essence itself in the determinateness of being. Essence seems [hat einen Schein] because it is determinate within itself and thereby distinguished from its absolute unity’ (SL 398/LW 12).22

20

Houlgate, ‘Hegel’s Critique of Foundationalism in the Doctrine of Essence’, p. 28.

21

Henrich, p. 264.

22 _{A little earlier Hegel states that Schein is ‘the determinacy of being against mediation: being as}

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2.2.2 Dialectical Reversal

Schein, we have seen, is thus no longer negated by essence, but is in truth only a ‘phenomenon’ generated by essence itself. As Hegel states, Schein in essence is not the

Schein of an other, but ‘Schein as such [an sich], the Schein of essence itself’ (SL 398/LW 12, trans. modified). Nevertheless, as Houlgate makes clear, this does not mean that essence can be thought as something that is distinct from, but generative of, Schein;23 rather, it is ‘nothing but the very process of seeming’ itself. Houlgate elaborates on this in the following way:

All there is, is the process of seeming itself—the process whereby sheer negativity first seems to be immediacy, then seems to be distinct from its own seeming immediacy, and finally dissolves this distinction and reveals itself to be nothing but seeming as such.24

At a certain level, this does not mean that essence is the same as Schein. Essence is rather the process of seeming [das Scheinen] whereas Schein is one moment of this process. Nevertheless, at a more subtle level, even this distinction breaks down, for it is ultimately impossible to isolate one moment of this process without it immediately becoming the other—and so without it showing itself to be the whole of the process. This is what allows Hegel to indicate, in the final paragraphs of his account of Schein, a dialectical reversal between the ‘moments’ represented by Schein and essence. Of the former, he writes that it is

23 _{Houlgate, ‘Hegel’s Critique of Foundationalism in the Doctrine of Essence’, p. 28.} 24

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a non-self-subsistent being which is in its own self sublated and null. As such, it is the negative turning back to itself (das in sich zurückgehende Negative), the non-self- subsistent. This self-relation of the negative or of non-self-subsistent being is its

immediacy; it is an other than the negative itself…[it] is purely self-related negativity, the absolute sublating of the determinateness itself (SL 398/LW 12).

Essence, on the other hand, ‘the self-subsistent, as self-related immediacy, is equally sheer determinateness and moment and is only as self-related negativity’ (SL 398/LW 12). This reversal amounts to the notion that that which is least self-subsistent, that which can least lay claim to its own being, proves to be most self-subsistent and that that which seemed most self-subsistent is in fact least stable in its being.

At the end of Hegel’s account of ‘seeming,’ it becomes evident that there is then only one process of the self-relating negation, or negativity—a circle in which certain moments can be momentarily glimpsed, but which immediately vanish at the very moment they are distinguished. To this extent we might then see these moments as different ways in which self-relating negation might be conceived—as either self-relating negativity or negative self-relation, to borrow John Burbidge’s terms.25

2.2.3 Seeming and the Trace

We can now look back and consider how far Hegel’s conception of essence has already departed from a notion of essence as that which underlies and possesses a certain mastery over the immediate determinations of things. Hegelian essence, as Houlgate

25 _{John W. Burbidge, On Hegel’s Logic: Fragments of a Commentary (New York: Humanity Books, 1999),}

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remarks, both generates and undermines the illusion that there is a foundation to being.26 It generates the illusion because the self-sublation of Schein seems to ‘point back’27 to that which is simply-self equal; in other words, the negation of the negation indicates an underlying positive term. But it undermines it insofar as this seeming positive self-equality immediately sublates itself and becomes determinate, or ‘seems’ within itself, and in truth only is positively immediate insofar as it remains with itself throughout this whole process of self-division and self-coincidence.28 Essence, as Houlgate writes, is thus only the ‘movement from one seeming to another, from seeming to seeming.’29

This movement ‘from seeming to seeming,’ moreover, clearly bears distinct similarities to the movement of the Derridean trace. Like Schein, the trace ‘points back to’ an immediacy which seems to underlie it, but what seems to underlie it is only another trace, another Schein. Hegelian seeming might then seem to be equivalent to the movement of Derridean differance as a chain of displacement which ceaselessly moves from one trace to another, without coming to rest at a final term which would be what it is by itself. Nevertheless, despite the strength of the resemblance, it can only be pushed so far. For even though the process of seeming contains a moment of division, this

26

Houlgate, ‘Hegel’s Critique of Foundationalism in the Doctrine of Essence’, p. 20. In this way, Hegel’s ‘method’ here might be thought to foreshadow Derrida’s deconstructive practice, insofar as it takes one historically dominant interpretation of a concept and shows it to be a moment of a wider process that that moment does not govern.

27

Stephen Houlgate, ‘Why Hegel’s Concept Is Not the Essence of Things’, in Hegel’s Theory of the Subject, ed. by D. G. Carlson (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 21.

28

Essence could therefore be said to exhibit two forms of positive immediacy: the positive immediacy that seems to underlie its seeming, and the positive immediacy of the movement as a whole insofar as that movement remains a process of self-relation throughout.

29

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division is still a self-division in a process which remains a self-relation at all times. As di Giovanni puts this, the movement ‘remains with itself no matter which limited term one may want to abstract from it.’30 This is why this movement is circular and why Hegel will come to conceive it as reflection. As we shall see in chapter 3, the movement of Derridean differance cannot be conceived as such a self-relation, but rather as the dissolution of self-identity.