This process continues as I read. Sometimes what I thought fit together must be torn apart and rebuilt if I cannot get what I am now reading to fit. Maybe what I had put together is not right and maybe what I am now trying to put together is not right and sometimes neither is right and the whole thing needs to be revised. But it may be that there are pieces that come later, and so, everything remains tentative. — Fooloso4

So, an easy 5 minute walk in the park :wink:

Pinkard #20

"20. The true is the whole. However, the whole is only the essence completing itself through its own development. This much must be said of the absolute: It is essentially a result, and only at the end is it what it is in truth.

Its nature consists just in this: to be actual, to be subject, or, to be the becoming-of-itself. As contradictory as it might seem, namely, that the absolute is to be comprehended essentially as a result, even a little reflection will put this mere semblance of contradiction in its rightful place. The beginning, the principle, or, the absolute as it is at first, or, as it is immediately expressed, is only the universal. But just as my saying “all animals” can hardly count as an expression of zoology, it is likewise obvious that the words, “absolute,” “divine,” “eternal,” and so on, do not express what is contained in them; – and it is only such words which in fact express intuition as the immediate.

Whatever is more than such a word, even the mere transition to a proposition, is a becoming-other which must be redeemed, or, it is a mediation. However, it is this mediation which is rejected with such horror as if somebody, in making more of mediation than in claiming both that it itself is nothing absolute and that it in no way is in the absolute, would be abandoning absolute cognition altogether."

Thanks. This SEP article is very helpful. It describes various interpretations of Hegel's Dialectics.
[ It also provides a link to another resource. Hegel on Dialectic, Philosophy Bites podcast interview with Robert Stern (https://philosophybites.com/2010/04/robert-stern-on-hegel-on-dialectic.html). ]

The first moment I didn't copy, but the three together comprise what is called thesis, antithesis, synthesis (in some books, and as noted above somewhere, is terminology Hegel disavowed). — tim wood

Yes. Here, it spells out that Hegel rejects the technique of using a triadic form:

Instead of trying to squeeze the stages into a triadic form (cf. Solomon 1983: 22)—a technique Hegel himself rejects (PhG §50; cf. section 4)—we can see the process as driven by each determination on its own account: what it succeeds in grasping (which allows it to be stable, for a moment of understanding), what it fails to grasp or capture (in its dialectical moment), and how it leads (in its speculative moment) to a new concept or form that tries to correct for the one-sidedness of the moment of understanding. This sort of process might reveal a kind of argument that, as Hegel had promised, might produce a comprehensive and exhaustive exploration of every concept, form or determination in each subject matter, as well as raise dialectics above a haphazard analysis of various philosophical views to the level of a genuine science.

So how would this process be reconciled with an organic growth - thinking back to the analogy of bud, blossom, fruit (para 2 )? Distinct from the more formalised pattern of: positive >negative > aufheben.
Perhaps, a more important, overarching question should be kept in mind:
How does this process lead to what is important to Hegel - The Absolute Spirit or Idea ?

This “textbook” Being-Nothing-Becoming example is closely connected to the traditional idea that Hegel’s dialectics follows a thesis-antithesis-synthesis pattern, which, when applied to the logic, means that one concept is introduced as a “thesis” or positive concept, which then develops into a second concept that negates or is opposed to the first or is its “antithesis”, which in turn leads to a third concept, the “synthesis”, that unifies the first two (see, e.g., McTaggert 1964 [1910]: 3–4; Mure 1950: 302; Stace, 1955 [1924]: 90–3, 125–6; Kosek 1972: 243; E. Harris 1983: 93–7; Singer 1983: 77–79). Versions of this interpretation of Hegel’s dialectics continue to have currency (e.g., Forster 1993: 131; Stewart 2000: 39, 55; Fritzman 2014: 3–5). On this reading, Being is the positive moment or thesis, Nothing is the negative moment or antithesis, and Becoming is the moment ofaufheben or synthesis—the concept that cancels and preserves, or unifies and combines, Being and Nothing.

We must be careful, however, not to apply this textbook example too dogmatically to the rest of Hegel’s logic or to his dialectical method more generally (for a classic criticism of the thesis-antithesis-synthesis reading of Hegel’s dialectics, see Mueller 1958)...

...Ultimately, Hegel thought, as we saw (cf. section 1), the dialectical process leads to a completely unconditioned concept or form for each subject matter—the Absolute Idea (logic), Absolute Spirit (phenomenology), Absolute Idea of right and law (Philosophy of Right), and so on—which, taken together, form the “circle of circles” (EL §15) that constitutes the whole philosophical system or “Idea” (EL §15) that both overgrasps the world and makes it understandable (for us).

— Julie Maybee

[ I'm kinda back in the game after reading Peter Singer's Introduction to Hegel.
A short but clear overview - well explained.]

From this I get that negating isn't something I do, either consciously or unconsciously, rather it is a step intrinsic to understanding as the thing in revealing itself also conceals, and as (my) the understanding becomes aware of the concealment, the original insight/understanding is "destabilizes" (from above). — tim wood

I don't understand this. Would it be possible to give a practical example of how this operates ?

From Gardner's glossary:
NEGATIVE, NEGATION, NEGATIVITY, NEGATE

The negative is that which is different from, opposed to, other than. Negation is for Hegel determinate, as determinate as what is negated. Hegel's thought characteristically observes the dialectical sequence:
1. affirmation
2. negation
3. negation of negation = affirmation of something new.

Applied to consciousness, per Pinkard, negativity is the capacity to critically undermine its own form of rationality; (determinate) negation is the sceptical undermining of a form of rationality — Gardner

.

Note that the meaning of negation changes according to how or where it is applied.

As someone else advised: 'a glossary can be helpful but it can also be misleading. The general meaning of a term or even the way an author uses the term in general might not be the way he is using it in a specific instance.'

This is why I think it might be useful to compile one's own glossary along the way. Referencing context.
As mentioned earlier, this would be part of the active reading process - 'making the text 'properly one's own' by investigating its meaning and truth'.

Note that the meaning of negation changes according to how or where it is applied. — Amity

Hah! Indeed!

What is making sense to me so far is that Hegel is describing a process of understanding. Within this description of this process, a certain flexible quality is incorporated into the words that describe it.

It leaves a problem that Kant solved, but that Hegel, in Hegel's version of knowing which opposes Kant's, returns to life. And in this may be some guidance.

We're told Kant was a world-class scientist. A problem he had was in the grounding of scientific knowledge. Practical knowledge told him his chair was a chair - no problem. But Kant could not so easily find a similar "no problem" ground for scientific knowledge. How, on exactly what basis, could science tell him his chair was a chair? And he recognized the existence of this problem from Hume and Berkeley. His solution was to filter the perceived through his categories, to assemble a finished product of perception as knowledge. At the cost of not knowing (as a matter of science) what he more often called the thing in itself as it is in itself, ding as sicht selbst. The common short-hand of this, "thing-in-itself," thus being subtly misleading. It's not what can be known, it's how it can be known.

Hegel, on the other hand, is a philosopher. Kant's problems with knowing are not his. Hegel's is what knowledge is. In his answer he essentially destroys knowledge and substitutes for it knowing - process. While Kant is concerned with trying to bridge the gap between knower and thing to be known, Hegel is concerned with what the thing that is the knowing is, and how it works. In this, Hegel casts loose from the world (i.e., that world that concerned Kant).

The guidance I find is that in Hegel's analysis, what he is analyzing is not a thing but a process, not directly from the world, though its materials got from it. And therefore not conformable to language usually used to describe the world. "Immediacy," e.g., then, while necessarily an obvious problem which from a Kantian viewpoint would call out for an account of this immediacy, is for Hegel as simple immediacy, and for Hegel what he moves forward with.

So indeed those of us accustomed to trying to think categorically and to reason everything back to some fundamental ground as providing a foundation for knowledge, with Hegel have got to get comfortable with process itself as ground, and not from the world - which imposes its own constraints - but from mind.

The chair, then, never in Kantian terms "self-posits." Nor is it ever, in Kantian terms, immediate. Because these are all aspects of the problem of how the world gets into perception. In Hegel they're already there. What appears in consciousness is the immediacy of the chair. it "self-posits" itself there - don't ask how*. In its immediate self-positing it then becomes the ground, or first movement, in its own sublation into whatever it is to be in its completeness.

-----
*Just a guess, but I suppose Hegel would argue that the account for what is immediately present in perception is got through its own steps of sublation, starting with nothing-being-becoming.

Thank you, again, for your insights. Bit by bit, I think we're touching some stable ground here and there.

So indeed those of us accustomed to trying to think categorically and to reason everything back to some fundamental ground as providing a foundation for knowledge, with Hegel have got to get comfortable with process itself as ground, and not from the world - which imposes its own constraints - but from mind. — tim wood

Yes, but we need not discard our immediacy of perception, right? We need to find the synthesis of both world and mind, Wesen(essence) and Form

Yes, but we need not discard our immediacy of perception, right? — WerMaat

Depends on what you're about. A kiss is about immediacy, which is lost in translation - though poetry try to capture it, and on occasion with some success! And as being in general. But surely not as an account of anything. I'm learning to keep straight which is which - it was never before to me either question or problem. I thought of Hegel in Kantian terms; now that seems a mistake.

And Hegel is using his method to both explicate and understand his method - the tool on itself. This self-referential aspect inevitably leads to whirlpool-like confusions where gentle reader can get stuck, until he sails out of it.

#20
I don't see fundamentally new happening in this paragraph. Actually, Hegel is being quite patient with us, isn't he?
I think he's carefully and repeatedly explaining the fallacy that lies in immediate perception of the absolute: You end up with "big" words that are empty: In their universality they become vague and indeterminate.
They are not totally useless, however, they are still the right starting point for the following mediation.

However, it is this mediation which is rejected with such horror — Hegel

Now, this sounds like he faced some lively opposition to his ideas already, doesn't it?

as if somebody, in making more of mediation (...), would be abandoning absolute cognition altogether. — Hegel

Would it be too forward to translate into modern vernacular:
"Calm down, folks! I'm NOT abandoning the absolute"

Yes, but we need not discard our immediacy of perception, right? We need to find the synthesis of both world and mind, Wesen(essence) and Form — WerMaat

I agree. We can't discard this. It is part of a 3 stage process. Leading to knowing ? Truth ?

1. Immediacy comes first. If it means intuitive and simple perception of the world. A vagueness.
Non conceptual. Universal.
2. Mediation is opposed to immediacy. If it means conceptualization. Cognition. Particular.
3. The process of reasoning ( ? involving 1. and 2. ) > Self development > Individuality

Or something like that ?

Hegel casts loose from the world — tim wood

What a strange phrase. How can Hegel cast loose from the world when he is in it ?

What appears in consciousness is the immediacy of the chair. it "self-posits" itself there - don't ask how*. In its immediate self-positing it then becomes the ground, or first movement, in its own sublation into whatever it is to be in its completeness. — tim wood

* How can a chair self-posit ? There is no consciousness.

What a strange phrase. How can Hegel cast loose from the world when he is in it ? — Amity

The substance of my point is that he separates thinking from the world. In contrast to Kant who wants to figure out how we know about the world (in a scientific sense), Hegel just seems to find it in his perception. He, Hegel, is then concerned with what thinking itself means, how it works. As such he needs have no consultation with the world; his thinking is not constrained by the world as Kant allows his to be. By "cast loose" I meant a somewhat vivid metaphor of a boat cast off from the dock, no longer moored to land, but rather at sea, where there is both greater freedom and a different dynamic. If you wonder why Kant, German thinking in that era was overshadowed by and oriented to Kant in some way or another.

How can a chair self-posit ? There is no consciousness. — Amity

Who said the self was the self of the chair?

Immediacy comes first. If it means intuitive and simple perception of the world. — Amity

Fine, informally. But on any analysis at all, it doesn't stand. Nor is intuition or any "simple" perception of the world simple. Between you and me, it would work. We would probably understand one another. But it just won't work for a Hegel. Think about what immediacy means. It means without any mediation - nothing in between: this, and then immediately that. Maybe in some chemical interactions - maybe. And perception: think about just how, exactly, when you look at a tree you form a perception of the tree. Not simple.

Does that mean Hegel is full of beans? It depends on what he means. I take him to simply define "immediacy" and "self-positing" for his own purposes so that those problems don't apply. You perceive the chair - you see the chair and understand it as the chair you see. In this, the chair plays a part; it's not a horse. So I take it to mean that at the first, what you got is what the the chair itself gives you in your perception of the chair; in that sense it self-posits. And I further think that Hegel would account for your ability to understand the chair as a chair as growing out of more basic and fundamental perceptions, experience, understanding.

And this is no great problem if thought in a Hegelian way - which I am attempting to do. But this "simple perception," taken as the absolute of the chair, is what he's blowing up as an inadequate understanding of the chair - and this goes back to the seed, flower, fruit metaphor, or the acorn seed and the oak. Seen in any of these restricted ways is in Hegelian terms an impoverished view of the tree and the plant. The right view, if I get the terminology right, is the self-positing of the thing, the negation of the thing, and the negation of the negation - the sublation - onto something new that preserves elements of the old.

Or another way, with Kant, on land, your feet are always on ground. At sea with Hegel, floating, or if in the water, then treading water to stay afloat. Two different ways. Their ideas are in collision. I am unaware of any contact between them, Hegel, 1770-1831, Kant 1724-1804. But I think it might have been interesting. Maybe Kant would say they shared little in common in their respective purposes or theories.

Pinkard #s 21, 22

"21. However, this abhorrence of mediation stems in fact from a lack of acquaintance with the nature of mediation and with the nature of absolute cognition itself. This is so because mediation is nothing but selfmoving self-equality, or, it is a reflective turn into itself, the moment of the I existing-for-itself, pure negativity, or, simple coming-to-be.

The I, or, coming-to-be, this mediating, is, on account of its simplicity, immediacy in the very process of coming-to-be and is the immediate itself. – Hence, reason is misunderstood if reflection is excluded from the truth and is not taken to be a positive moment of the absolute. Reflection is what makes truth into the result, but it is likewise what sublates the opposition between the result and its coming-to-be.

This is so because this coming-to-be is just as simple and hence not different from the form of the true, which itself proves itself to be simple in its result. Coming-to-be is instead this very return into simplicity. – However much the embryo is indeed in itself a person, it is still not a person for itself; the embryo is a person for itself only as a culturally formed and educated rationality which has made itself into what it is in itself. This is for the first time its actuality. However, this result is itself simple immediacy, for it is self-conscious freedom which is at rest within itself, a freedom which has not set the opposition off to one side and left it only lying there but has been reconciled with it.

-----

22. What has just been said can also be expressed by saying that reason is purposive doing. Both the exaltation of a nature supposedly above and beyond thinking, an exaltation which misconstrues thinking, and especially the banishment of external purposiveness have brought the form of purpose completely into disrepute.

Yet, in the sense in which Aristotle also determines nature as purposive doing, purpose is the immediate, the motionless, which is self-moving, or, is subject.

Its abstract power to move is being- or-itself, or, pure negativity. For that reason, the result is the same as the beginning because the beginning is purpose – that is, the actual is the same as its concept only because the immediate, as purpose, has the self, or, pure actuality, within itself.

The purpose which has been worked out, or, existing actuality, is movement and unfolded coming-to-be. However, this very unrest is the self, and for that reason, it is the same as the former immediacy and simplicity of the beginning because it is the result which has returned into itself. – What has returned into itself is just the self, and the self is self- elating sameness and simplicity."

Note that the meaning of negation changes according to how or where it is applied. — Amity

Some of the difference between Kant and Hegel is that the individual is not the only theater in town. Hegel relates the negation of person-hood as happens between Master and Slave as part of the process of becoming aware of the "other." Reason, with a capital R, is not possible without lots of awful experience.

The substance of my point is that he separates thinking from the world. In contrast to Kant who wants to figure out how we know about the world (in a scientific sense), Hegel just seems to find it in his perception. — tim wood

Or another way, with Kant, on land, your feet are always on ground. At sea with Hegel, floating, or if in the water, then treading water to stay afloat. Two different ways. — tim wood

Hegel deals with the world and consciousness at different levels. Thinking is part of being in the world. It includes and leads to all kinds of knowledge.
As far as I can tell, Hegel's intent to explicate the whole as a practical and human concern. The world and society are basic to individuals self-development or self-realisation.

The general theme of human self-realization in the practical sphere presupposes a conception of potentiality elaborated by Aristotle in Greek antiquity. For Aristotle, human being is rational as well as political. Subordinating ethics to politics, he sees life as realized in the political arena, what we now call society. Distantly following Aristotle, Hegel has constantly in mind a view of human beings as realizing their capacities in what they do. Society forms the real basis for human life, including knowledge of all kinds.

Hegel considers the practical consequences of two main views of human self-realization. Individual self-realization founders on the inevitable conflict between the individual and social reality, or between the individual and other people. The Kantian view, which focuses on strict application of universalizable moral principles in substituting rigid obedience for human self-realization, is self-stultifying for two reasons. First, universal principles binding on particular individuals cannot be formulated; and, second, proposed principles are unfailingly empty. Although human beings are intrinsically social, neither view of human subjectivity comprehends them in the sociohistorical context. Accordingly, Hegel turns to a richer conception, with obvious roots in Greek antiquity, of human action as intrinsically teleological. We must comprehend a person as acting teleologically to realize universal goals through action within the social context. — Tom Rockmore

https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft7d5nb4r8;brand=ucpress

Hegel relates the negation of person-hood as happens between Master and Slave as part of the process of becoming aware of the "other." Reason, with a capital R, is not possible without lots of awful experience. — Valentinus

Thanks. I would be grateful if you could provide a reference for this.

In the Pinkard translation, it can be found in Section B, Self Consciousness, starting with Chapter A, titled: Self-Sufficiency and Non-Self-Sufficiency of Self-Consciousness;Mastery and Servitude.

The paragraphs 179 to 181 specifically involve "sublating" the other.

Hegel relates the negation of person-hood as happens between Master and Slave as part of the process of becoming aware of the "other." — Valentinus

'The process of becoming aware of the other' seems central to Hegel's theory.
We only become self-aware or self-conscious via our relationships to others.

In the Pinkard translation, it can be found in Section B, Self Consciousness, starting with Chapter A, titled: Self-Sufficiency and Non-Self-Sufficiency of Self-Consciousness;Mastery and Servitude.

The paragraphs 179 to 181 specifically involve "sublating" the other. — Valentinus

Thanks. I have taken note of the pdf page - starts p155, para 178. Jotted down p160 para 190 where I think the discussion starts in earnest. ( but I could be wrong ! )

I'm currently reading Tom Rockmore's 'Concept - An Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit' - (again, the search function is proving useful ).
Didn't realise that this passage was so famous, particularly from the Marxist perspective.
Conscious individuals in their conflicting interrelationships the basis for the master-slave relationship.

...Hegel further sees that self-awareness is not all or nothing but a question of degree. Like Rousseau, he understands social life as an ongoing struggle for recognition that can have vastly different outcomes. Both his exposition of the master-slave relation in the first section and his further exposition of free self-consciousness in the second section concern the social constitution of the cognitive subject...

...The German terms in the title of the passage suggest a distinction between those who are self-sufficient, hence independent, and those who are not. Hegel's surprising point is that in inherently unstable relations of social inequality, the master is not self-sufficient but dependent on the slave. When such a relationship has finished evolving, the unexpected result is that the slave is the  master  of the  master  and the  master  is the slave of the slave. The relation of inequality remains, although its terms reverse themselves.

Hegel's reputation as a social liberal is justified. His liberalism is not restricted merely to his early period. He composed this passage against the backdrop of the still recent French Revolution. It is at least arguable that what is still the greatest political upheaval of modern times resulted from the emergence of social awareness. For the change in our way of looking at ourselves and our world leads to their transformation.
— Tom Rockmore

https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft7d5nb4r8;brand=ucpress

I think Rockmore speaks too generally when he says: "The relation of inequality remains, although its terms reverse themselves". The master's dependency on the servant develops over time and when the relationship is superseded by a new one. The ground is not the same as at the beginning.

This touches on what Tim Wood is saying about the process of understanding being prior to the description of a knowing agent and what is known. Reading backwards from paragraph 190 to the initial discussion of perception, the process is not separated into different agents with different objects.

I think Rockmore speaks too generally when he says: "The relation of inequality remains, although its terms reverse themselves". The master's dependency on the servant develops over time and when the relationship is superseded by a new one. — Valentinus

Perhaps you are right.
However, I read it that the inequality remains when the roles are reversed.
Yes, the relationship develops over time. Rockmore says the relationship evolves.

In any case, I think it probably time I backtracked to para18 of the Preface !
Thanks for your thoughts.

Well, what is the reverse of a condition made only possible through development?

comment removed

Well, what is the reverse of a condition made only possible through development? — Valentinus

The term or idea of 'development' usually has positive connotations but not always.
What do you mean by it ?
What 'condition' are you talking about ?
What is the point of the question?

I am returning to para 17, Preface.
I didn't quite catch the importance of this on my first skim through.
Appreciate Fooloso4's thought here:

In the middle of these distinctions there is what seems to be a non-sequitur:

"However much taking God to be the one substance shocked the age in which this was expressed, still that was in part because of an instinctive awareness that in such a view self-consciousness only perishes and is not preserved."

I take this is a direct reference to Spinoza’s God. Hegel thinks it shocked the age not because, as is commonly assumed, threatening the status of God as distinct and separate, but because it threatens the status of man as distinct in his self-consciousness. It is not a non-sequitur because this is precisely what is at issue - the relationship between God, man, thinking, and the whole. — Fooloso4

Thanks for spelling out what is at issue.: 'The relationship between God, man, thinking, and the whole' Although still not sure what kind of God Hegel is speaking of. Nor what the 'whole' is in practical terms *. Are we supposed to be at One with each other ?

I introduced Spinoza because of what Hegel goes on to say about God as the one substance. Why does he introduce this here, at this point? — Fooloso4

it means that there is only one substance and that it is not derived from or dependent on anything else. — Fooloso4

So, God is a substance ? Is Hegel a pantheist ? Rockford seems to suggest so:

The allusions to God as one substance (§17, 10) refer to the controversy about Spinoza, after G. H. Lessing's death, in correspondence between Jacobi and Moses Mendelssohn. This correspondence, published in 1785, led to a famous "struggle over pantheism" (Pantheismusstreit ). Eventually, Kant, J. W. Goethe, J. G. von Herder, J. C. Lavater, and others became involved. In the Encyclopedia, recalling Lessing's famous remark that Spinoza was treated like a dead dog, Hegel later comments that the treatment of speculative philosophy is scarcely better. His sympathy for Spinozism is apparent in his claim, redolent of pantheism, that "the living Substance is being which is in truth subject" (§18, 10).

Hegel further stresses his idea of the true as substance and as subject.
The object of knowledge is, like a subject, active in that it develops within consciousness.

For "the living substance is being which is in truth Subject, or, what is the same, is in truth actual only in so far as it is the movement of positing itself, or is the mediation of its  self -othering with itself" (§18, 10).
He echoes a passage in the Diffirenzschrift in comparing the process through which the object changes as we seek to know it to a "circle that presupposes its end as its goal, at its beginning, and is only actual through the carrying out and its end" (§18, 10*).
— Tom Rockmore

What does this mean ? Is God the Subject, the living Substance - and we are the object (or small subject ) endeavouring to become at one with the Subject ? Do we reject our self so as to move on, to process and progress?

Self-positing is negative in that it is a rejection of what it is in order to become what it will be. — Fooloso4

Could you expand on this, please. I am still not entirely sure what 'self-positing' means?

The movement is within the subject, a turning from within itself away from and back to itself. In its otherness it is still its sameness. That is, it is never wholly other.

The true is not an original unity as such, or, not an immediate unity as such. It is the coming-to-be of itself, the circle that presupposes its end as its goal and has its end for its beginning, and which is actual only through this accomplishment and its end.

The subject here is not the individual or only the individual but mankind. — Fooloso4

Do you mean the subject or the object which changes, developing through increased awareness ?
The relationship between our particular selves > the world > reaching some whole Truth via the process of reason or thought ?
Are we meant to get tied in knots ?

* from Rockford on 'the whole':

Now returning to his view of substance as subject, he draws the consequence in writing that "the True is the whole" (§20, 11); what we seek to know, which he calls the absolute, can only be known when it is fully developed, as a result. For it is in the result, in which its essence (Wesen ) is effectively realized, or actual, that it has become and can be known. The result follows from a process. — Tom Rockford

I don't see fundamentally new happening in this paragraph. Actually, Hegel is being quite patient with us, isn't he? — WerMaat

Well, there is nothing new here in the sense that I still don't get it no matter how often he may repeat himself. This:

The true is the whole. However, the whole is only the essence completing itself through its own development. This much must be said of the absolute: It is essentially a result, and only at the end is it what it is in truth. — Hegel

I have read this and similar phrases over and over. It seems to be the nub of the matter.
I am tempted to throw my arms in the air and shout 'So what !?' :meh:

Imo, it's useful to think about what making sense means - to step back from and out of the particular of the moment and just reflect in general. How to be brief, here, and myself make sense?! First, making sense means making sense to you. You're the judge. If it does not make sense to you, then it does not make sense. It does little good for you to say to yourself (anyone to him- or herself) it makes sense but not to me.

Second. Assuming the subject does itself make sense, then how to understand it? What is the right approach. I had an epiphany about restaurants a long time ago. You don't go to a restaurant to get what you like, rather you go to a restaurant to (because you) like what you get. That is, they do what they do and you cannot change their menu - and you like it or you don't.

So Hegel is dead and the "menu" is fixed - and beware of those who tell both you and Hegel what he means! But how to proceed? By approximations is the short answer, keeping in mind that what is gained approximately is subject to change through better understanding.

The clue here is that it doesn't make sense to you, but you make sense of it. And in the case of a difficult-to-understand subject, this is usually done by degrees, in increments, by parts, whatever kind of approximation is appropriate to the subject matter.

For you to make sense of it (a process metaphorically like folding clothes), you start by imposing sense where and when you can. You decide what the words mean; you decide on the sense, as far as you can. Of course this is just a kind of modeling, and understood as tentative conjecture; but it's a start, and there's a good chance you'll do better than you think! (And of course your friends at TPF, ever watchful for error, stand always ready to let you know when you're wrong!)

In taking control and making your own tentative (though firm) decisions, likely you will try to apply the ideas concretely - or I do, at least - where they both make sense and work. And in our present circumstance with Hegel, I think that serendipitously turns out to be the right way. His is not mysticism or magic, but concrete sense, just seen from an unusual angle - a viewpoint that yields at least some of its secrets to even just a persisting inquiry and increasing familiarity.

And his style doesn't help. His audience understood his language and context. But they too are long gone, so nothing for us in this is easy.

All the jargon, then, applies to something concrete. So far I find that concreteness best laid out in his metaphor of plant-flower-fruit, and acorn seed-tree. The totality of a thing, then, lies not in any moment, but all of its moments considered as a one, a unity.

Even in such an elementary example of seeing a tree, (I argue) Hegel's "universal" of that tree is not complete until and unless you "see" the tree in 360 degree view all the way 'round, including roots, and its history from seed through and including its death and long decay. Together with its interconnectedness with its world - which includes you!

The dynamic of that kind of viewing is taking in what is given (in "immediacy"), and recognizing what is not given in that giving (the negation), and further "recognizing" wherein the immediacy and the negation inhere in the sublation (the immediacy together with the negativing of the immediacy) into something that "rises" out from them while preserving something of them.

As it stands, then, it's a very general and even simple formula that is continuously applied and re-applied. Everything is subject to it.

And what he castigates - that takes up so much of the preface and imo confuses more than it makes clear - is that view of the tree that is just the glance that takes in this moment of it and from just this viewpoint, and supposes its unreflective self as knowledge, even sometimes all that can be known!.

1. Immediacy comes first. If it means intuitive and simple perception of the world. A vagueness.
Non conceptual. Universal.
2. Mediation is opposed to immediacy. If it means conceptualization. Cognition. Particular.
3. The process of reasoning ( ? involving 1. and 2. ) > Self development > Individuality

Or something like that ? — Amity

Yes, pretty much. I agree!
I feel that the Immediacy is more focused on the moment, timeless and floating, while the mediation is more temporal, looking at the whole process.

Or another thought I had, a more modern metaphor:
The immediacy of the absolute could be compared to the DNA of an animal. If you know the DNA, then apparently you have the ultimate knowledge about this creature, its innermost structure, the core, the absolute.
Then Hegel might say that the DNA alone is just a mirage, a potential. You need to see the animal born, observe while it grows and develops, if you want to understand it fully.
DNA, the genotype, may be the essence, but the particular body, the phenotype: that is the form.

Well, there is nothing new here in the sense that I still don't get it no matter how often he may repeat himself. This:

The true is the whole. However, the whole is only the essence completing itself through its own development. This much must be said of the absolute: It is essentially a result, and only at the end is it what it is in truth. — Hegel


I have read this and similar phrases over and over. It seems to be the nub of the matter.
I am tempted to throw my arms in the air and shout 'So what !?' :meh: — Amity

You know, I get the feeling that you have grasped all that pretty well already. Perhaps you are at that point when you have trained and practiced a lot, and learned something well, and suddenly it's pretty easy to do... And then you get the feeling that you're missing something or doing it wrong, just because you think "it can't be that easy".

That sentence you quote - doesn't it describe the same 1-2-3 process that you yourself summarized above?
"The whole": point 3, the completed understanding
"The essence": point 1, immediacy
"completing itself through its own development": point 2, the mediation. negation, questioning, and in the end sublation to a new understanding.

Otherwise the both of us are missing the point, 'cause I'm no further than you are (I've not even read all of the articles you've linked.)

You don't go to a restaurant to get what you like, rather you go to a restaurant to (because you) like what you get. — tim wood

I totally need to memorize this sentence, that's a brilliant way of describing it!

In taking control and making your own tentative (though firm) decisions, likely you will try to apply the ideas concretely - or I do, at least - where they both make sense and work. And in our present circumstance with Hegel, I think that serendipitously turns out to be the right way — tim wood

Agreed! The only thing we need to guard against is a too strong fixation on our ideas and decisions. We need to keep checking if they work and adjust as necessary, or we run the risk to become

those who tell both you and Hegel what he means! — tim wood

And his style doesn't help. His audience understood his language and context. But they too are long gone, so nothing for us in this is easy. — tim wood

Yeah. The style is typical for the time, but it could be wielded with more elegance and clarity. Take Goethe - his reputation as a master of language is sometimes a bit blown up, but not undeserved. Texts by Goethe are far easier to read. On that note: Kant's style is even worse, in my opinion

Even in such an elementary example of seeing a tree, (I argue) Hegel's "universal" of that tree is not complete until and unless you "see" the tree in 360 degree view all the way 'round, including roots, and its history from seed through and including its death and long decay. Together with its interconnectedness with its world - which includes you! — tim wood

Very good summary!
I also like your suggestion that "negation" is in understanding what's missing, in grasping the inadequacies of the "universal" view.

.

The style is typical for the time, but it could be wielded with more elegance and clarity. Take Goethe - his reputation as a master of language is sometimes a bit blown up, but not undeserved. Texts by Goethe are far easier to read — WerMaat

Now this captured my attention. I am very fond of Goethe.
Having read one or two pieces of his literary work, I hadn't thought of Goethe in terms of German Idealism. Wanting to know where his theoretical texts fitted in...I googled.
So, up they pop, here:
1790 - Metamorphosis of plants
1810 - Theory of colours.

1801 - Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_German_idealism

Goethean Science -
Goethean Science defines and values "expansion of knowledge" as: 1) Observing organic transformation in natural phenomena over time (historical progression); and 2) Organic transformation of the inner life of the experimenter.

"Individual phenomena must never be torn out of context. Stay with the phenomena, think within them, accede with your intentionality to their patterns, which will gradually open your thinking to an intuition of their structure.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[ Article includes the Kantian Problem]
— Wiki

So, there we have it, Goethe developed a phenomenological approach to natural history or natural philosophy. This gave me an increased understanding and appreciation of historical progress. The changing ideas...

The timeline picks up on the 'Pantheism Controversy' ( see para 17 discussion ).
This a major event in German cultural history (1785 - 1789 )
Goethe is linked to this via his poem 'Prometheus' published in 1789.

So, it seems that Hegel and Goethe were kindred spirits, even dying within a year of each other.
If we wanted to attach a label to their cold, white big toes, then perhaps 'humanist' would fit the bill...as well as any other...

I had an epiphany about restaurants a long time ago. You don't go to a restaurant to get what you like, rather you go to a restaurant to (because you) like what you get. That is, they do what they do and you cannot change their menu - and you like it or you don't. — tim wood

Would you go to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe ?

All the jargon, then, applies to something concrete. So far I find that concreteness best laid out in his metaphor of plant-flower-fruit, and acorn seed-tree. The totality of a thing, then, lies not in any moment, but all of its moments considered as a one, a unity. — tim wood

Yes. That is what drew me in. The first mouthwatering bite...and then look what happened...
A great discussion. Thanks to you and all.