The Origin of Hegel’s Concept of Aufheben

The context for this inquiry and the questions by which I intend to examine it

within my dissertation are conditioned by the relationship I suggest is held

between Hegel’s Concept of Aufheben and his account of the appearance of

the Absolute. My argument concerns the structure of this appearance in

which, for Hegel, Aristotle and Kant illuminate the lacunae of each other’s

philosophies and are able to resolve each other’s contradictions thereby. The

immediate consequence of this ‘simultaneous-resolution’ - which Hegel

formulates as ‘substance is subject’ - was the contravention of the three

Classical Laws of thought: The Law of Identity, The Law of Non-Contradiction

and The Law of the Excluded-Middle. What was almost as immediately

apparent in the light of this resolution, however, was that this seeming

contravention was actually just one aspect of a more profound determination

of these laws, by which the absolute substance was to appear and,

consequently, metaphysics was to be systematically redeemed. Hegel’s

Concept of Aufheben originates with these first glimpses of redemption in

which the loss of any founding ‘law’ of reason becomes the very light by which

reason finds itself. His vision of the absolute’s appearance was bodied-forth in

the circle drawn by his system. In turn, this circle attests to the dynamic truth

of the Concept of Aufheben insofar as it reveals the determinate ‘times’ and

‘respects’ by which the contraventions of the Classical laws of thought

constitute the categorical form of their appearance. The determination of the

Classical Laws of thought, therefore, occurs in the systematic unity of these

appearances that the circle entails, which Hegel formulates as ‘appearance

qua appearance’. The origin of Hegel’s Concept of Aufheben lies principally

within a vision that compelled him to remain steadfast to a course threatening

his thought with inconsistency and triviality. The fulfillment of his vision

required that he endure this threat in order to realize an enduring concept of

truth, which the Concept of Aufheben designates. Having outlined this

hypothesis in greater detail below, I will address the questions I shall be

examining in order to develop it more fully within my dissertation.

1

Hegel’s view that ‘everything is inherently contradictory’ stems from his

conviction that between Aristotle and Kant - or substance and subject - the

Absolute had ‘appeared’. What this appearance amounted to was the

simultaneous resolution of the contradiction between finite and infinite

substance that begged of Aristotle’s thought and the contradiction between

the conceivability yet unknowability of things-in-themselves frustrating Kant’s.

The three Classical Laws of Thought and the categories by which they are

mediated, remain all but intact between Aristotle and Kant. Aristotle never

explicitly formulates the ‘Law of Identity’ as such, but, as Louis Groarke notes,

there are several instances when he asserts its premise - that a thing should

be identical with itself - and it is generally held that these laws gain their first

clear articulation in Aristotle’s philosophyi. As Michelle Grier notes, Kant

contested Aristotle’s claim that the ‘Law of Non-Contradiction’ was the most

fundamental of these laws; arguing that the ‘Law of Identity’ should be

regarded as such for being a positive principle; where the ‘Law of Non-

Contradiction’, being negative, could not produce any ‘actual’ identity ii. Whilst

these differences cannot simply be dismissed, more broadly, the laws these

differences concern are regarded as the over-determination of one and the

same principle of unity. Provisionally, I shall assume Kant has weighted this

differently in order to bolster his own privileging of the subjective ‘I’. As Paul

Redding argues, the major difference between Aristotle and Kant with respect

to these laws - and this unity - pertains to the question of what constitutes

their legitimate objectiii. Through recourse to Aristotle’s concept of infinite

substance, as that which produces itself whilst being complete in its producing

(what Joe Sachs describes as a ‘being-at-work-staying-the-same’iv), Hegel

ventures to solve Kant’s problem by asserting that ‘Substance is Subject’.

Challenging the certitude of substance metaphysics, Kant had reasoned that

form lay on the side of the finite subject whilst content lay in the unknowability

of the object. Where substance is posited as subject, the one pertains directly

to itself as other – as the immanent production of itself as its own content. By

extension, the contradictions in Aristotle’s thought are resolved where Hegel’s

formulation that ‘Substance is Subject’ entails an infinite that only exists in the

finite moments of its self-production.

2

This appearance of the Absolute between Aristotle and Kant had radical

consequences for the Classical laws of thought and the unity these connoted.

Firstly, it inverted the ‘Law of Non-Contradiction’, which argues that an

attribute cannot be true and not-true of a thing at the same time and in one

and the same respect; and is what led Hegel to argue that everything is

inherently contradictory. Thereafter, where identity pertains essentially to its

other, the ‘Law of Identity’, which states that a thing must be self-identical, had

to be rephrased as: identity is the identity of identity and difference. This

Identity - of identity and difference - is in this sense a ‘third-term’ determined

through the relationships between identity and difference. Consequently, the

‘Law of the Excluded-Middle’, which states that an affirmation or negation

must either be true or false, was also inverted. Yet for all this Hegel did not

simply contravene or abolish these laws through this inversion. He also

preserved them by distinguishing between their ratiocinative use at the level

of the Kantian understanding and their speculative use at the level of Reason

liberated from the regulative function Kant had permitted it. By radicalizing the

qualifications, ‘at the same time and in the same respect’ that Aristotle

prefaced with regard to the laws of thought, Hegel was able to articulate the

‘times’ and ‘respects’ in which it was not contradictory to assert that

everything was inherently contradictory. By demonstrating that these times

and respects coincided with the determinations of identity and difference

ordered by the Categories, Hegel provided the Categories with an immanent

unity in which the contradictions marring both Aristotle and Kant were

resolved. Moreover, Hegel’s Determination of the systematic unity of the

Categories, which he formulates as ‘appearance qua appearance’, raises the

ratiocinative and speculative forms of thought up within the ‘actual’ life of the

absolute they determine and are determined by. It is an incipient aufgehoben,

formulated as ‘substance is subject’, which lays out the path of its own

fulfillment in the redemption of substance metaphysics, formulated as

‘appearance qua appearance’. Hegel’s adoption of the term ‘Aufheben’ from

the likes of Schiller is incidental to its immanent development in the

abolishment, preservation and raising-up of the Classical Laws of Thought

from which it originates.

3

In order to pursue this topic within my dissertation I intend to begin by

examining the etymology and use of the notion of aufheben within the history

of philosophy prior to Hegel; so as to develop a sense of the term in itself and

to distinguish between the empirical genesis of this concept and any possible

immanent origin in Hegel’s thought. Thereafter, I will examine the major

philosophical problems faced by Hegel in the wake of Kant’s ‘Copernican turn’

and the evidence to suggest he was drawn towards Aristotle’s metaphysics in

this connection. In particular, how is it possible to suggest that Kant’s

philosophy presented an unresolved contradiction with regard to his critique of

metaphysics? Furthermore, how is it possible to suggest a contradiction in

Aristotle’s philosophy between infinite and finite substance that, for Hegel,

resonated with the contradiction in Kant’s? Is it possible to suggest that

Aristotle and Kant are able to resolve each other’s contradictions? In order to

address these questions I will examine Aristotle, Kant and Hegel’s assertions

on the Categories and Classical laws of thought with regard to the relation

between logic and metaphysics. There are a number of matters that I will aim

to address here. I will begin by considering the relation between Aristotle and

Kant exclusively of Hegel. Firstly, what relation does each philosopher posit

between the determinations of thought and things-in-themselves? Secondly,

to what extent can it be argued that these determinations remain ‘all but’ intact

between Aristotle and Kant? In particular, is the ‘but’ of the ‘all but’ I have

asserted significant enough to contest the prospect of there being a

commonality between Aristotle and Kant with regard to these determinations?

Furthermore, is it possible to posit a meaningful ‘opposition’ within any such

commonality, with respect to the way each relates the determinations of

thought to ‘things-in-themselves’? Concerning Hegel in exclusivity from either

Aristotle or Kant, I intend to examine his stance on the relation of the

determinations of thought to things-in-themselves with regard to his notion of

‘Appearance’ and it’s bearing on the ‘Absolute’. Finally I will aim to establish

whether it is possible to posit that Hegel’s formulation of ‘substance is subject’

can be used to ground his ‘appearance of the absolute’ in a ‘suspension’ of

the Classical Laws of Thought generated through the entwinement of the

Aristotelian and Kantian problematics outlined above.

4

Next, I will examine the logical unity and structure of this suspension, aiming

to establish whether there is any systematic coherence to the way each of

these three laws was inverted and how the Aristotelian and Kantian terms of

this inversion led to a corresponding ‘preservation’. In order to assess the

‘raising-up’ or ‘determination’ of these laws I will examine the correspondence

between the categories in Aristotle and Kant with the determinate moments of

Hegel’s Science of Logic. In particular, I will aim to examine whether it is

possible to argue that this determination is consistent with a working out of the

‘times’ and ‘respects’ in which it is not contradictory to argue that everything is

inherently contradictory; whether this working out is consistent with the

qualifications given in Aristotle’s formulation of the ‘Law of Non-Contradiction’;

and whether it finds its rightful element in the form of the categories. On this

matter I will also aim to examine Hegel’s own views on his original system in

which the Phenomenology of Spirit was to be regarded as the propaedeutic

for the Science of Logic; conceived as the thought of the Absolute in and for

itself. I will conclude this section by examining whether the notion of

‘appearance qua appearance’ can be regarded as a formulation entailing the

completion of the aufgehoben in which the classical laws of thought are finally

resolved, and the appearance of the absolute is made manifest in its own

element. My dissertation will conclude with a brief assessment of whether

Hegel’s Concept of Aufheben can have any value outside of the circle of his

system and what such an outside might be.

In summary, after an initial assessment of the etymology of the German

aufheben and a survey of the philosophical climate Hegel was faced with, my

argument will be divided into an examination of the ‘suspension’,

‘preservation’ and ‘raising-up’ - or ‘determination’ - of the Classical Laws of

thought in the light of the formulations of ‘substance is subject’ and

‘appearance qua appearance’, posited in relation to Aristotelian and Kantian

problematics concerning the conditions of possibility for substance

metaphysics.

5

i Groarke, L. F., Aristotle: Logic, checked on 12 June 2013, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-log/ii Grier, M., Kant’s Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion, 2007, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p.19iii Redding, P., Analytic Philosophy and the Return of Hegelian Thought, 2007, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 222iv Sachs, J., Aristotle’s Metaphysics, 2002, Green Lion Press, Santa Fe

1981 Words

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