On Hegel's 'Science of Logic' : A Realm of Shadows - part fifty two.

'The flower, full blown, now bends the stalk, now breaks'

by Alfred Austin, (1835 – 1913) 

The flower, full blown, now bends the stalk, now breaks;

The mellow fruit inclines the bough to earth;

The brow which thought impregnates ofttimes aches;

Death-stricken is the womb in giving birth.

Cracked is the vase by heat which doth illume,

The driest logs the swiftest burn to nought,

Sweet flowers are stifled by their own perfume,

And bees when honey-clogged are easy caught.

Snapped are true chords e'en by the note they give,

The largest wave is broken by its weight,

Choked by its sheer sufficiency the sieve,

And blunted soon the shaft which flieth straight.

And so the largest mind and richest soul

Are always most amenable to dole.

'Utopia', 1945, René Magritte

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1779 - 1831). 'The Science of Logic'.

The Realized End.

The activity of Subjective End was directed against the external objectivity. Now Speculative Reason points out that objectivity was the means of Subjective End's own self-realization. The key is that Subjective End's attack on externality turns out to be an attack on itself. The attack is no victory for Subjective End, for that would leave the objective world still an externality, which would simply spur the Subjective End into a bad infinity of attacks: Were the activity again to consist in merely determining the immediate objectivity, the product would again be merely a means, and so on to infinity; the outcome would be only a means suitable to end, but not the objectivity of the end itself.

'Purpose is in its connection to the means already reflected into itself, but its objective immanent turning back is not yet posited. The activity of purpose through its means is still directed against objectivity as an initial presupposition; this is precisely what that activity is, to be indifferent to determinateness. If it were again to consist in determining the immediate objectivity, the product would again be only a means, and so forth into infinity; only a purposeful means would result, but not the objectivity of the purpose itself. In being active in its means, therefore, purpose must not determine the immediate object as something external to it, and the object, accordingly, must merge with it in the unity of the concept through itself; or again, the otherwise external activity of purpose through its means must determine itself as mediation and thus sublate itself as external'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Hegel here describes the paradox of consumption as developed in the 'Philosophy of Right'.

'BY being taken into possession, the thing acquires the predicate ‘mine’ and my will is related to it positively. Within this identity, the thing is equally established as something negative, and my will in this situation is a particular will, i.e. need, inclination, and so forth. Yet my need, as the particular aspect of a single will, is the positive element which finds satisfaction, and the thing, as something negative in itself, exists only for my need and is at its service. — The use of the thing is my need being externally realised through the change, destruction, and consumption of the thing. The thing thereby stands revealed as naturally self-less and so fulfils its destiny'.

'Remark: The fact that property is realised and actualised only in use floats before the minds of those who look upon property as derelict and a res nullius if it is not being put to any use, and who excuse its unlawful occupancy on the ground that it has not been used by its owner. But the owner’s will, in accordance with which a thing is his, is the primary substantive basis of property; use is a further modification of property, secondary to that universal basis, and is only its manifestation and particular mode'.

'Addition: While in marking a thing I am taking possession in a universal way of the thing as such, the use of it implies a still more universal relation to the thing, because, when it is used, the thing in its particularity is not recognised but is negated by the user. When I mark a thing as mine, I attribute to it the universal predicate ‘mine’ and ‘recognise’ its particular characteristics in the sense that I do not interfere with them. But when I use it I ‘negate’ its particular characteristics in the sense that I change them to suit my purpose. To mark land as mine by fencing it does not change its character, but to use it, e.g. by planting it, does. The thing is reduced to a means to the satisfaction of my need. When I and the thing meet, an identity is established and therefore one or other must lose its qualitative character. But I am alive, a being who wills and is truly affirmative; the thing on the other hand is something physical. Therefore the thing must be destroyed while I preserve myself. This, in general terms, is the prerogative and the principle of the organic'.

- 'Use of the Thing', in 'Philosophy of Right'

According to this paradox, the autonomous subject is defined as not the object. It attacks, consumes and proves its independence from the object. But since it is defined as not the object, its being is in the object. The object must spring back again, if there is to be a subject. The subject must consume again to prove its independence. To break the cycle, the subject needs an object that resists consumption, can recognize the subject and can sustain a reciprocal existence over time. In short, the resisting object must itself be a subject; the two subjects contractually divide the object world between them.

Something similar happens in Realized End. To avoid a bad infinity, Means must itself be End, consequently the object must spontaneously conform to the unity of the Notion. Similarly, Subjective End must realize itself as Means to the other Subjective End, and the two of them together must form a joint contractual reality that is Realized End. For this reason, Hegel emphasizes that material externality is not an abstract being subsisting on its own account over against the Notion; on the contrary, it exists only as a becoming as is explained later on in the Idea:

'But the idea has not only the general meaning of true being, of the unity of concept and reality, but also the more particular one of the unity of subjective concept and objectivity. For the concept is as such itself already the identity of itself and reality; for the indeterminate expression 'reality' means nothing but determinate being, and this the concept possesses in its particularity and singularity. Objectivity, moreover, is likewise the total concept that has withdrawn into identity with itself out of its determinateness. In the subjectivity of the concept, the determinateness or the difference of the latter is a reflective shine which is immediately sublated, withdrawn into being-for-itself or into negative unity, an inhering predicate. But in this objectivity the determinateness is posited as immediate totality, as external whole. Now the idea has shown itself to be the concept liberated again into its subjectivity from the immediacy into which it has sunk in the object; it is the concept that distinguishes itself from its objectivity – but an objectivity which is no less determined by it and possesses its substantiality only in that concept. This identity has therefore rightly been designated as a subject-object, for it is just as well the formal or subjective concept as it is the object as such. But this is a point that needs further precision. The concept, inasmuch as it has truly attained its reality, is this absolute judgment whose subject distinguishes itself as self-referring negative unity from its objectivity and is the latter’s being-in-and-for-itself; but it refers to it essentially through itself and is, therefore, self-directed purpose and impulse. For this very reason, however, the subject does not possess objectivity immediately in it (it would then be only the totality of the object as such, a totality lost in the objectivity) but is the realization of the purpose – an objectivity posited by virtue of the activity of the purpose, one which, as positedness, has its subsistence and its form only as permeated by its subject. As objectivity, it has the moment of the externality of the concept in it and is in general, therefore, the side of finitude, of alteration and appearance; but this side retreats into the negative unity of the concept and there it perishes; the negativity whereby its indifferent externality of being8 manifests itself as unessential and as a positedness is the concept itself. Despite this objectivity, the idea is therefore absolutely simple and immaterial, for the externality has being only as determined by the concept and as taken up into its negativity; in so far as it exists as indifferent externality, it is not only abandoned to mechanism in general but exists only as the transitory and untrue. – Thus although the idea has its reality in a materiality, the latter is not an abstract being standing over against the concept but, on the contrary, it exists only as becoming, as simple determinateness of the concept by virtue of the negativity of the indifferent being'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

In other words, nature becomes Notion by serving as Means to Notion. The Spurious Infinity of End-Means is said to be the first premise in the syllogism of Teleology - d, e, f in Means, (see previous article). The relation of d, e, f to Realized End g is the second premise - an immediate relation of the middle term g to the other extreme d, e, f. (746) Once again, we have the paradox of an immediate mediatedness.

'The connection of the activity of purpose with the external object through the means is first of all the second premise of the syllogism – an immediate connection of the middle term with the other extreme. It is immediate because the middle term has within it an external object and the other extreme is likewise an external object. The means is effective and potent against this latter object because its own is linked with the self-determining activity, whereas for the other the immediate determinateness that it possesses is an indifferent one. Their process in this connection is none other than the mechanical or chemical one; the previous relations come up again in this objective externality, but under the dominance of purpose. – But these processes, as they themselves showed, return into purpose on their own. If, therefore, the connection of the means to the external object which it has to work upon is at first an immediate one, that connection has earlier exhibited itself already as a syllogism, for purpose proved to be their true middle term and unity. Since the means is therefore the object that stands on the side of purpose and has the latter’s activity within it, the mechanism that occurs here is at the same time the turning back of objectivity into itself, into the concept which, however, is already presupposed as purpose; the negative attitude of the purposeful activity towards the object is therefore not an external attitude but, on the contrary, the objectivity’s own alteration and internal transition into it'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

The first premise (End-Means striving, or d, e, f) is now conceived as an object within the immediate second relation. Against this object, the middle term g has its moment of indifference.

Realized End (Idea)

'Reverie de Monsieur James', 1943, René Magritte 

The relation between the two objects (g and d, e, f) is Mechanical and Chemical. Each object is indifferent to its own determination and requires the other to determine it (Mechanical). Each strives toward its other (Chemical). But these processes are now under the dominance of Realized End, taken as a whole. So the relation between Subjective End and external Means is now internalized within Realized End. The two objects are to be taken as two subjects, each of which initially views the other as means. The attack of Subjective Ends may be regarded as violence in so far as the end appears to be of quite another nature than the object.

'That the purpose immediately refers to an object and makes it into a means, as also that through this means it determines another object, may be regarded as violence inasmuch as purpose appears of an entirely different nature than the object, and the two objects are in like matter mutually independent totalities. But that the purpose posits itself in a mediate connection with the object, and between itself and this object inserts another object, may be regarded as the cunning of reason. As remarked, the finitude of rationality has this side, that purpose relates to the object as a presupposition, that is, as external. In an immediate connection with that object, purpose would itself enter into the sphere of mechanism and chemism and would therefore be subject to accidentality and to the loss of its determining vocation to be the concept that exists in and for itself. But in this way, by sending an object as a means ahead of it, it lets it do the slavish work of externality in its stead, abandons it to the wear and tear while preserving itself behind it against mechanical violence'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

But in this process, violence is transformed into peace. Realized End mediates the mutual attacks; it is a new object that interposes itself between the fighting objects and may be regarded as the cunning of reason. (See my articles The Cunning of Reason - parts One to Four). The cunning of reason is 'the way in which particular interests and purposes conspire, without the intention of the individual agents, to the realization of a wider and a higher end than they envisage' explains Errol E. Harris. Notion puts forward an object as means, allows [Subjective End] to wear itself out in its stead, exposes it to attrition and shields itself behind it from mechanical violence. In its violent mode, Subjective End is finite, not rational in the sense of holding objective difference in unity. The victim (Means) is the middle term between Subjective End and Realized End. Means, which turns the other cheek, is therefore superior to finite End (i.e., external purposiveness). Tools are therefore more advanced than the natural inclinations served by them: The plough is more honourable than are immediately the enjoyments procured by it and which are ends. The tool lasts, while the immediate enjoyments pass away and are forgotten. In his tools man possesses power over external nature, even though in respect of his ends he is, on the contrary subject to it.

'Since it is finite, the purpose further has a finite content; accordingly, it is not rational absolutely, or simply in and for itself. But the means is the external middle term of the syllogism which is the realization of purpose; in the means, therefore, the rationality in the purpose manifests itself as such by maintaining itself in this external other, and precisely through this externality. To this extent the means is higher than the finite purposes of external purposiveness: the plough is more honourable than are immediately the enjoyments which it procures and which are the purposes. The tool lasts while the immediate enjoyments pass away and are forgotten. It is in their tools that human beings possess power over external nature, even though with respect to their purposes they are subjected to it'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

It has been suggested, by David Lamb, that this passage on tools is really about the dignity of labour generally. 'When reading Hegel one must be like a detective and search for clues ... [T]he plough, an instrument of labour, represents human destiny. It is the key to the dialectic of history, symbolic of the relationship between man and nature'. Realized End is the truth of the violent Mechanical Process, and in such a process Subjective End only meets with itself. The subject is nothing apart from its interaction with the object, and so the subject has its very being in the object. The object's externality is mere illusory show. Externality is merely posited by the Notion) which is nothing but the activity of externalizing itself.

Life (Immediate Idea)

Hegel has characterized Realized End as the relation of two premises - the bad infinity of End-Means d, e, f and the middle term g that is separate from End-Means. The immediacy and indifference of these relations toward each other implies that Realized End suffers from the defect of the formal syllogism in general.

'If we now examine the product of teleological activity more closely, we see that purpose comes to it only externally if we take it as an absolute presupposition over against a purpose which is subjective, that is to say, in so far as we stop short at a purposive activity that relates to the object through its means only mechanically, positing in place of one indifferent determinateness of the object an other which is just as external to it. A determinateness such as an object possesses through purpose differs in general from one which is merely mechanical in that it is a moment of a unity and consequently, although external to the object, is yet not in itself something merely external. The object that exhibits such a unity is a whole with respect to which its parts, its own externality, are indifferent; it is a determinate, concrete unity that unites different connections and determinacies within itself. This unity, which cannot be comprehended from the specific nature of the object and, as regards determinate content, is of another content than the object’s own, is for itself not a mechanical determinateness, yet still is in the object mechanically. Just as in this product of purposive activity the content of the purpose and the content of the object are external to each other, so too do the determinations in the other moments of the syllogism relate to each other externally – in the connecting middle, the purposive activity and the object which is the means; and in the subjective purpose, which is the other extreme, the infinite form as totality of the concept and the content of the concept. According to the connection by which the subjective purpose is syllogistically united with objectivity, both premises are an immediate connection – namely the connection of the object determined as middle term with the still external object, and the connection of the subjective purpose with the object made into means. The syllogism is therefore affected by the deficiency of the formal syllogism in general, namely that the connections in which it consists are not themselves conclusions or mediations but already presuppose the conclusion for the production of which they are supposed to serve as means'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

This defect is that the premises themselves are not conclusions or mediations, but each requires proof on its own. Consider the first premise - the End-Means relation. Subjective End cannot entirely subsume Means within this relation. Nor can Means subsume Subjective End. Neither can swallow the other. Accordingly, external reflection must interpolate a third term to mediate the two. But this interpolated term is itself Means to the End, and it too requires yet another interpolation, and so on to infinity. The second premise - the relation of g and d, e, f - suffers from the same fault. Since these have a moment of diversity, they demand proof - a middle term which can only be supplied externally. But this sets up a new demand for a middle term between the middle term and its parts, etc. Since the premises already presuppose the conclusion [or missing third term], the conclusion, being based on these merely immediate premises, can only be imperfect. The conclusion or the product of the purposiveness act is nothing but an object determined by an end external to it; consequently it is the same thing as the means.

'If we consider the one premise, that of the immediate connection of the subjective purpose and the object that thereby becomes a means, then the purpose cannot connect with the object immediately, for the latter is just as immediate as the object of the other extreme in which the purpose is to be realized through mediation. Since the two are thus posited as diverse, a means for their connection must be interjected between this objectivity and the subjective purpose; but such a means is equally an object already determined by purpose, and between this objectivity and the teleological determination a new means is to be interjected, and so on to infinity. The infinite progress of mediation is thereby set in motion. – The same happens as regards the other premise, the connection of the means with the yet indeterminate object. Since the two terms are utterly self-subsistent, they can be united only in a third, and so on to infinity. – Or conversely, since the premises already presuppose the conclusion, the latter can only be imperfect, for it is based on those only immediate premises. The conclusion or the product of the purposive activity is nothing but an object determined by a purpose that is external to it; thus it is the same as what the means is. In such a product itself, therefore, only a means has been derived, not a realized purpose; or again: purpose has not truly attained any objectivity in it. – It is therefore entirely a matter of indifference whether we consider an object determined by external purpose as realized purpose or only as means; what we have is not an objective determination but a relative one, external to the object itself. All objects in which an external purpose is realized equally are, therefore, only a means of purpose. Anything which is intended for the realization of a purpose and is taken essentially as a means, is such a means by virtue of its vocation that it be used up. But also the object that is supposed to contain the realized purpose and show itself to be its objectivity is perishable; it likewise fulfills its purpose not by a tranquil, self-preserving existence, but only to the extent that it is worn out, for only to this extent does it conform to the unity of the concept, namely in so far as its externality, that is, its objectivity, sublates itself in that unity. – A house, a clock, may appear as purposes with respect to the instruments employed in their production; but the stones, the crossbeams, or the wheels, the axles, and the rest that make up the actuality of the purpose, fulfill this purpose only through the pressure which they suffer, through the chemical processes to which they are exposed with air, light, and water, and from which they shield the human being; through their friction, and so on. They fulfill their vocation, therefore, only through their being used up and worn out, and only by virtue of their negation do they correspond to what they are supposed to be. They are not united with purpose positively, because they possess self-determination only externally and are only relative purposes, or essentially only means'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

'Le beau langage', 1952, René Magritte

End cannot obtain objectivity by this Means. This proves that Realized End is only Means if so determined by external Subjective End. Whatever is intended to be used for realizing an end and to be taken essentially as means, is a means which, in accordance with its destiny, is to be destroyed. There is a theological point here. When taken as an intelligent, purposive Creator who stands apart from the Created, God is reduced to Means - an external object we use to explain creation. Means, however, demands further interpolation of a new middle term, and so a God that stands apart from its creation must pass away, like any finite object. Only a self-creating God in unity with all the other creations can endure.

Subjective End, then, presupposes Realized End, which is Subjective End's truth as well as Mean's truth. Subjective End's attack on Means is merely illusory show and already the very sublation of the show. In Realized End, Subjective End requires to use no violence against the object, no reinforcement against it other than the reinforcing of itself.

'But the result is in fact not only an external purposive connection, but the truth of such a connection, inner purposive connection and an objective purpose. The self-subsistence of the object over against the concept that purpose presupposes is posited in this presupposition as an unessential reflective shine and as already sublated in and for itself; the activity of the purpose truly is, therefore, only the exposure of this reflective shine and the sublation of it. – As the concept has demonstrated, the first object becomes by virtue of communication a means, for it implicitly is the totality of the concept, and its determinateness, which is none other than the externality itself, is posited as something only external and unessential – is posited in purpose itself, therefore, as the latter’s own moment, not as anything that stands on its own over against it. As a result, the determination of the object as a means is altogether immediate. There is no need, therefore, for the subjective purpose to exercise any violence to make the object into a means, no need of extra reinforcement; the resolution, the resolve, this determination of itself, is the only posited externality of the object, which is therein immediately subjected to purpose, and has no other determination as against it than that of the nothingness of the being-in-and-for-itself'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

Within the confines of Realized End, Means is supposed to manifest the nullity of its being-in-and-for-self. And this proves it has being-in-and-for-self, since, by nullifying itself, it is living up to its very nature. Subjective End therefore must sacrifice itself, thereby proving it is Means to Realized End. Teleology 'reiterates the Hegelian idea that the infinite life of the world goes on through and beyond the demise of finite things. It only lives in these finite things, and hence through them, but it perpetually survives their necessary end' explains Charles Taylor. Taylor goes on to say that 'at the end of Objectivity we come to a view of the universe as unfolding in fulfillment of an intrinsic purpose'. This purpose is described as 'a double movement. There is the movement of finite things which go under and succeed each other in an effort to overcome the inconsistency of finitude, to attain the self-coherence of rationality. But there is also the movement of the Idea of rationality itself, which goes out and posits a world of finite things'.

This sacrifice is the first sublation - the obliteration of selfish, immediate End. In this sacrifice as Hegel will explain later Notion is liberated again into its subjectivity from the immediacy in which it is submerged in the object (See above). There is a second sublation as well. Realized End is the relation of g and d, e, f. This relation also suffered from immediacy and in need of external proof. That means it is finite and so must pass away. But, in passing away, Realized End does not fall apart. Rather g and d, e, f withdraw into a perfect unity - Immediate Idea, or Life, 'the first form in which the substance is conceived as subject' as Herbert Marcuse put it. 'Life is simply Teleology 'collapsed into immediacy', a system where wholeness and unity is everywhere at work' says John N. Findlay. Idea, then, is Objectivity as the total Notion that out of its determinateness has withdrawn into identity with itself. It is portrayed here as the move of the Understanding. It represents the external proof - the mediated cognition - that Realized End requires to vindicate itself. Are we then to conclude that Idea is an external reflection? The answer is yes and no. Life (Immediate Idea) represents the move of the Understanding, but Understanding has now so educated itself that it is also the move of Speculative Reason. That is to say, the diverse parts of Realized End now withdraw into Idea. This erasure of diverse parts is precisely what Speculative Reason is. Idea, then, represents the unity of the Understanding and Speculative Reason. 'There are no subdivisions in the last chapter of the Logic because in it dialectic has been transformed into speculation. Dialectic is the process by which understanding is converted into reason' explains Stanley Rosen.

In Idea, Objectivity falls apart, and this is precisely the Understanding's proposition - that Objectivity falls apart. Disintegration is the objective truth. Accordingly, negativity returns into itself in such a manner that it is equally a restoration of the objectivity but of an objectivity identical with [the negativity. This self-identical objectivity is external and internal, a distinction that is now sublated. In Idea, Realized End shows itself as Means to reaching Idea. End and Means are shown to be the same thing. Notion is now "the concrete identity of the objective end" and simultaneously "the same identity as abstract identity and immediacy of existence.

'The second sublating of objectivity through objectivity differs from this first sublation in that the latter, being the first, is the purpose in objective immediacy; the second, therefore, is not only the sublating of a first immediacy but of both, of the objective as something merely posited and of the immediate. The negativity thus returns to itself in such a way that it is equally the restoration of objectivity, but of an objectivity which is identical with it, and in this it is at the same time also the positing of it as an external objectivity which is only determined by purpose. Because of this positing, the product remains as before also a means; because of the identity with negativity, the product is an objectivity which is identical with the concept, is the realized purpose in which the side of being a means is the reality itself of purpose. In the completed purpose the means disappears because it would be simply and solely the objectivity immediately subsumed under that purpose, an objectivity which in the realized purpose is the turning back of the purpose into itself; further, there also disappears with it mediation itself, as the relating of an external; it disappears into both the concrete identity of objective purpose, and into the same identity as abstract identity and immediacy of existence'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

'Le sens de la pudeur', 1957, René Magritte

End and Means sacrifice themselves; sacrifice is the Idea. Robert Wallace claims that Idea is merely announced, not proved. Wallace excuses Hegel because objects are finites which self-erase and lead to Idea. But this misses the fact that both subject and object erase themselves. Subject is means to the object, and vice versa. In sacrifice, Notion determines itself. Its determination is its own indifference to externality and also to subjective internality. Subject and object are now indifferent, in the double sense of that word. Throughout Objectivity, Notion was reciprocal action with itself. Subject presupposed predicate (or object), but the object was the subject all along. The subject maintained itself through negating the object. It lived by repulsion. Indeed, it was nothing but this repulsion. But the repulsion is actually a self-repulsion, because the subject was as much object as subject. Hence, Idea is based on negative relation to self according to Marcuse.

As we will see when we get to the Absolute Idea on this subjectivity alone rests the sublating of the opposition between Notion and reality, and the unity that is truth. Within Objectivity, the Notion was self-repellant (Mechanical), and a striving toward objectification (Chemical). These presupposed a subject-object standing over against themselves. The Subjective End tried to subjugate this mechanico-chemical world. Here Subjective End thought to meet the object but it only met itself. Hegel describes how Ends and Means differ from primitive Cause and Effect. See Finite Substance. In Cause and Effect, Cause meets itself in Effect, but it doesn't really meet its other. Effect is not thereby elevated to the dignity of Cause. Meanwhile, Cause is slave to external Effect and cannot exist without it. In End and Means, Subjective End meets itself and its other in Means. Furthermore, Notion is free in the face of objectivity. Externality is therefore the Notion's own moment - the form of its immanent differentiation.

'The content of the purpose is its negativity as simple determinateness reflected into itself, distinguished from its totality as form. On account of this simplicity, the determinateness of which is in and for itself the totality of the concept, the content appears as that which remains identical in the realization of the purpose. The teleological process is the translation of the concept that concretely exists distinctly as concept into objectivity; as we see, this translation into a presupposed other is the rejoining of the concept through itself with itself. The content of the purpose is now this identity concretely existing in the form of the identical. In every transition the concept maintains itself; for instance, when the cause comes to effect, it is the cause that in the effect only comes to itself. But in the teleological transition, what maintains itself is the concept that as such already concretely exists as cause, as the free concrete unity as against objectivity and its external determinateness. The externality into which the purpose translates itself is, as we have seen, itself already posited as a moment of the concept, as the form of its inner differentiation. In the externality, therefore, the purpose has its own moment; and the content, as the content of the concrete unity, is its simple form that does not remain in its different moments only implicitly equal with itself (as subjective purpose, as means and mediating activity, and as objective purpose) but also exists concretely as abidingly self-equal'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

But otherness is equally honoured in Realized End. Realized End is therefore Notion as concrete but abidingly self-identical. By subjugating Means, Subjective End proved itself Means to Realized End. Meanwhile, Realized End itself proved defective, and proof of its defect is the whole Idea. In Realized End, "means and mediation are preserved [as] the last result of the external end-relation? Sublation of mediation is precisely what Idea is. Idea, then, is the totality in its positedness.

'Since the concept is here, in the sphere of objectivity where its determinateness has the form of indifferent externality, in reciprocal action with itself, the exposition of its movement becomes doubly difficult and intricate, for such a movement is itself immediately doubled and a first is always also a second. In the concept taken for itself, that is, in its subjectivity, the difference of itself from itself is as an immediate identical totality on its own; but since its determinateness here is indifferent externality, its self-identity is in this externality immediately also self-repulsion again, so that what is determined as external and indifferent to the identity is rather this identity itself, and the identity as identity, as self-reflected, is rather its other. Only by firmly attending to this shall we comprehend the objective turning back of the concept into itself, that is, its true objectification; only then shall we see that every one of the single moments through which this mediation runs its course is itself the whole syllogism of the mediation. Thus the original inner externality of the concept, by virtue of which the concept is self-repelling unity, purpose and the striving of purpose towards objectivity, is the immediate positing or the presupposition of an external object; the self-determination is also the determination of an external object not determined by the concept; and conversely this determination is self-determination, that is, the sublated externality posited as inner, or the certainty of the unessentiality of the external object. – Of the second connection, that of the determination of the object as a means, we have just shown how it is within itself the self-mediation of purpose in the object. –Likewise the third mode of connection, mechanism, which proceeds under the dominance of purpose and sublates the object by virtue of the object, is on the one hand the sublating of the means, of the object already posited as sublated, and consequently a second sublation and immanent reflection, and on the other hand a first determining of the external object. This last, as we remarked, is in the realized purpose again the production of only a means; the subjectivity of the finite concept, by contemptuously rejecting the means, has attained nothing better in its goal. But this reflection, namely that purpose is attained in the means and that the means and the mediation are preserved in the fulfilled purpose, is the final result of the external connection of purpose – a result in which this connection has sublated itself and which it has exhibited as its truth. – The last considered third syllogism differs from the rest in that it is in the first instance the subjective purposive activity of the preceding syllogism, but also the sublation of external objectivity and consequently of externality in general; it is this through itself, and is, therefore, the totality in its positedness'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

It is therefore essentially this: to be distinct from its implicit objectivity, and thereby to possess externality, yet in this external totality to be the totality's self-determining identity. Notion is now Idea, the unity of Notion and reality.

'We have now seen subjectivity, the being-for-itself of the concept, pass over into the concept’s being-in-itself, into objectivity, and then the negativity of that being-for-itself reassert itself in objectivity; the concept has so determined itself in that negativity that its particularity is an external objectivity, or has determined itself as the simple concrete unity whose externality is its self-determination. The movement of purpose has now attained this much, namely that the moment of externality is not just posited in the concept, the purpose is not just an ought and a striving, but as a concrete totality is identical with immediate objectivity. This identity is on the one hand the simple concept, and the equally immediate objectivity, but, on the other hand, it is just as essentially mediation, and it is that simple immediacy only through this mediation sublating itself as mediation. Thus the concept is essentially this: to be distinguished, as an identity existing for itself, from its implicitly existent objectivity, and thereby to obtain externality, but in this external totality to be the totality’s self-determining identity. So the concept is now the idea'.

- 'The Science of Logic'

'La voix de l'absolu', 1955, René Magritte

Dedicated to my lovely One. My rose. 🌹 ❤️

'My Rose'

by Nikolaus Lenau, (1802 – 1850)

To the lovely jewelry of Spring,

to the rose, my delight,

that is already bowing and turning pale

from the hot beams of the sun,

I reach out a cup of water

from a deep well.

You rose of my heart!

From the silent beam of pain

you bow and turn pale;

At your feet, I would like,

as this flower water does,

to silently pour my soul out,

even if I then might not see

you rise.

'Meine Rose'

Dem holden Lenzgeschmeide,

Der Rose, meiner Freude,

Die schon gebeugt und blasser

Vom heißen Strahl der Sonnen,

Reich' ich den Becher Wasser

Aus tiefem Bronnen.

Du Rose meines Herzens!

Vom stillen Strahl des Schmerzens

Bist du gebeugt und blasser;

Ich möchte dir zu Füßen,

Wie dieser Blume Wasser,

Still meine Seele gießen!

Könnt' ich dann auch nicht sehen

Dich auferstehen

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'The Popular Novel' ('Le Roman Populaire'), René Magritte

Coming up next:

Finally! The last leg of our epic journey:

THE IDEA!

To be continued ....