The Logic of Hegel

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Wolfs definition of philosophy is 'the Science of the possible in so far as it can be'; and the possible = the non-contradictory.

P. [64], § 29. The oriental sage corresponds (cf. Hegel, Werke, xii. 229) to the writer known as Dionysius the Areopagite (De Mystica Theologia, and De Divitus Nominibus.)—The same problem as to the relation of the Infinite (God) to the Finite (world) is discussed in Jewish speculation (by Saadia, Mamuni, &c.) as the question of the divine names,—a dogma founded on the thirteen names (or attributes) applied to God in Exodus xxxiv. 6. (Cf. D. Kaufmann, Geschichte der Attributenlehre.) The same spirit has led to the list of ninety-nine 'excellent names' of Allah in Islam, a list which tradition derives from Mohammed.

P. [65], § 31. Cf. Werke, ii. 47 seqq.: 'The nature of the judgment or proposition—involving as it does a distinction of subject and predicate—is destroyed by the "speculative" proposition. This conflict of the propositional form with the unity of comprehension which destroys it is like the antagonism in rhythm between metre and accent. The rhythm results from the floating "mean" and unification of the two. Hence even in the "philosophical" proposition the identity of subject and predicate is not meant to annihilate their difference (expressed by the propositional form): their unity is meant to issue as a harmony. The propositional form lets appear the definite shade or accent pointing to a distinction in its fulfilment: whereas in the predicate giving expression to the substance, and the subject itself falling into the universal, we have the unity in which that accent is heard no more. Thus in the proposition "God is Being" the predicate is Being; it represents the substance in which the subject is dissolved away. Being is here meant not to be predicate but essence: and in that way God seems to cease to be what he is—by his place in the proposition—viz. the permanent subject. The mind—far from getting further forward in the passage from subject to predicate—feels itself rather checked, through the loss of the subject, and thrown back, from a sense of its loss, to the thought of the subject. Or,—since the predicate itself is enunciated as a subject (as Being or as Essence) which exhausts the nature of the subject, it again comes face to face with the subject even in the predicate.—Thought thus loses its solid objective ground which it had on the subject: yet at the same time in the predicate it is thrown back upon it, and instead of getting to rest in itself it returns upon the subject of the content.—To this unusual check and arrest are in the main due the complaints as to the unintelligibility of philosophical works,—supposing the individual to possess any other conditions of education needed for understanding them.'

P. [66], § 32. On the relation of dogmatism and scepticism see the introduction to Kant's Criticism of Pure Reason, and compare Caird's Critical Philosophy of I. Kant, vol. i. chap. i.

P. [67], § 33. The subdivision of 'theoretical' philosophy or metaphysics into the four branches, Ontology, Cosmology, Psychology (rational and empirical), and Natural Theology, is more or less common to the whole Wolfian School. Wolf's special addition to the preceding scholastic systems is found in the conception of a general Cosmology. Metaphysics precedes physics, and the departments of practical philosophy. In front of all stands logic or rational philosophy. Empirical psychology belongs properly to physics, but reasons of practical convenience put it elsewhere.

P. [69], § 34. The question of the 'Seat of the Soul' is well known in the writings of Lotze (e.g. Metaphysic, § 291).

Absolute actuosity. The Notio Dei according to Thomas Aquinas, as well as the dogmatics of post-Reformation times, is actus purus (or actus purissimus). For God nihil potentialitatis habet. Cf. Werke, xii.228: 'Aristotle especially has conceived God under the abstract category of activity. Pure activity is knowledge (Wissen)—in the scholastic age, actus purus—: but in order to be put as activity, it must be put in its "moments." For knowledge we require another thing which is known: and which, when knowledge knows it, is thereby appropriated. It is implied in this that God—the eternal and self-subsistent—eternally begets himself as his Son,—distinguishes himself from himself. But what he thus distinguishes from himself, has not the shape of an otherness: but what is distinguished is ipso facto identical with what it is parted from. God is spirit: no darkness, no colouring or mixture enters this pure light. The relationship of father and son is taken from organic life and used metaphorically—the natural relation is only pictorial and hence does not quite correspond to what is to be expressed. We say, God eternally begets his Son, God distinguishes himself from himself: and thus we begin from God, saying he does this, and in the other he creates is utterly with himself (the form of Love): but we must be well aware that God is this whole action itself God is the beginning; he does this: but equally is he only the end, the totality: and as such totality he is spirit. God as merely the Father is not yet the true (it is the Jewish religion where he is thus without the Son): He is rather beginning and end: He is his presupposition, makes himself a presupposition (this is only another form of distinguishing): He is the eternal process.'

Nicolaus Cusanus speaks of God (De docta Ignorantia, ii. I) as infinita actualitas quae est actu omnis essendi possibilitas. The term 'actuosity' seems doubtful.

P. [73], § 36. Sensus eminentior. Theology distinguishes three modes in which the human intelligence can attain a knowledge of God. By the via causalitatis it argues that God is; by the via negationis, what he is not; by the via eminentiae, it gets a glimpse of the relation in which he stands to us. It regards God i.e. as the cause of the finite universe; but as God is infinite, all that is predicated of him must be taken as merely approximative (sensu eminentiori) and there is left a vast remainder which can only be filled up with negations [Durandus de S. Porciano on the Sentent, i. 3. I]. The sensus eminentior is the subject of Spinoza's strictures, Ep. 6 (56 in Opp. ii. 202): while Leibniz adopts it in the preface to Théodicée, 'Les perfections de Dieu sont celles de nos âmes, mais il les possède sans bornes: il est un océan, dont nous n'avons reçu que les gouttes; il y a en nous quelque puissance, quelque connaissance, quelque bonté; mais elles sont toutes entières en Dieu.'

The via causalitatis infers e.g., from the existence of morality and intelligence here, a Being whose will finds expression therein: the via eminentiae infers that that will is good, and that intelligence wise in the highest measure, and the via negationis sets aside in the conception of God all the limitations and conditions to which human intelligence and will are subject.