Why Hegel's Concept is Not the Essence of Things

I. The Project of the Logic

Hegel's Logic is both a logic and an ontology. It uncovers the fundamental categories of thought and the inherent structure of being itself. In the course of the Logic, being proves to be not just pure being, but also becoming, quantity, substance, and, eventually, concept (Begriff). Being-as-concept in turn proves to be objectivity and being-as-Idea. The Idea then finally discloses itself to be nature. What there proves to be, therefore, is not just pure being or pure substance, or even pure concept, but space, time and matter.

Note that, on my interpretation, nothing actually exists prior to nature: there is no being or quantity or substance before there is space and time. As Hegel puts it, "[n]ature is the first in point of time . . . ."1 The Science of Logic demonstrates, however, that nature is made necessary by the inherent logic of being. In that sense, the logic of being can be said to "ground" nature. Yet logic is neither the transcendent ground, nor creator of nature (in the manner, say, of Leibniz's God), since it does not actually precede nature itself. Rather, logic is immanent in the very nature it grounds. In Spinoza's terminology, logic is "the immanent, not the transitive, cause" of nature.2

Hegel's ontological logic thus explains why being is, in truth, nothing less than nature. In the course of this logic, there are numerous significant transitions but the one that concerns me here is the transition from substance to concept. This move, in my view, is a watershed in the Logic because it is the move in which the true nature of being is first disclosed. In this move, being shows itself not just ...

If you are already a vLex customer, Access Here