[…]
B. The One and the Many
This (a) One in its Own Self, standing in negative
relation to all its preceding moments, is entirely differentiated
from each of them. It is neither a Determinate Being, nor a Something, nor a
Constitution, etc. It is therefore indeterminate and unalterable. There is
Nothing in it.[39] Just
as there is no criterion to distinguish Being and Nothing despite the fact that
they are opposites, the One is also identical with its opposite, (b)
the Void. The Void can be said to be the Quality of the One.[40]
EXAMPLE: At this stage, the Logic has incorporated the
ancient atomism of Leucippus and Democritus.
Hegel actually held the ancient philosophical notion of atomism in higher
esteem than the scientific one of modern physics because the
former understood the void not just as the empty space between atoms, but as
the atom’s own inherent principle of unrest and self-movement. “Physics with
its molecules and particles suffers from the atom ... just as much as does that
theory of the State which starts from the particular will of individuals.”[41]
The original transition of Being and Nothing to Determinate
Being is again echoed here in the sphere of Being-for-Self. The One, though, as
negatively related to all aspects of Quality excepting its own Quality of being
the Void, cannot take on a Qualitative determinateness like Determinate Being
did. In its own self-differentiation, it can only relate to itself as another
self identical to it, that is, as another One. Since no new Quality has been
taken on, we cannot call this transition a Becoming, but rather a Repulsion,
i.e., the positing of (c)Many Ones.[42]
C. Repulsion and Attraction
Once these many Ones have been posited, the nature of their
relationship begins to unfold. Because it is the nature of the One to be purely self-related,
their relation to one another is in fact a non-relation, i.e., takes place
externally in the Void. From the standpoint of the one One, then, there
are no other Ones, that is, its relation to them is one of (a) Exclusion.
Seen from within the One there is only one One, but at the
same time the One only exists in the first place through its negative external
relation to other Ones, i.e., for there to be the one One
there must be Many Ones that mutually Exclude one another.[43]
EXAMPLE: The idea that the One is entirely self-subsistent
and can exist without the Many is, according to Hegel, “the supreme, most
stubborn error, which takes itself for the highest truth, manifesting in more
concrete forms as abstract freedom, pure ego and, further, as Evil.”[44]
Now that Many Ones have been posited out of their Repulsion
from the One, their original Oneness reasserts itself and their Repulsion
passes over to (b) Attraction. Attraction presupposes Repulsion: for
the Many to be Attracted by the One, they must have at first been Repulsed by
it.[45]
The One having been restored to unity by Attraction now
contains Repulsion and Attraction within it as moments. It is the Ideal One
of Infinite Being, which, for Hegel, actually makes it more “real”
than the merely Real Many. From the standpoint of this Ideal One,
both Repulsion and Attraction now presuppose each other, and, taken one step
further, each presupposes itself as mediated by the other. The One is
only a One with reference to another One―Repulsion; but this “other” One is in
itself identical to, is in fact, the original One―Attraction: each is
the moment of the other. This is the (c) Relation of Repulsion and
Attraction, which at this point is only relative.[46]
EXAMPLE: Although in Hegel’s estimation a triumph of the
explanatory power of metaphysics over the physics based on sense perception as
it was then practised, he believed that Kant’s Metaphysische
Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft [Metaphysical Foundations of
Natural Science] (1786) retained many of the errors committed by the
latter, foremost among these being that, since matter is given to the senses as
already formed and constituted, it is taken to be such by the mind as well. The
forces of Attraction and Repulsion that are supposed to act upon matter
to set it in motion, then, are not seen also to be the very forces though which
matter itself comes into being in the first place.[47]
Repulsion and Attraction are relative to one another insofar
as the One is taken either as the beginning or result of their mediation with
one another. Imparted with continuous, Infinite motion, the One, Repulsion and
Attraction become the sublated moments of Quantity.[48]
[…]
[…]
Atomic thinkers, according to Hegel, did not remain wedded
to the brute externality of the One and the Void. The Void was recognized as the
source of movement, which, of course, means that the One and the Void did not
have a purely external relation. Thus, the One can move only into unoccupied
space--not into space already occupied by a One.
But this "not trivial" (Science of Logic,166)
piece of information means only that the Void is the presupposition or
condition of movement--not its ground. In addition, the very idea of movement
is also presupposed in this view. That is, no logical connection between the
One and the Void is yet recognized. The profounder view is:
that the void constitutes the ground of movement. . . [I]n the
negative as such there lies the ground of becoming, of the unrest of
self-movement . . . (Science of Logic,166)
[…]
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