The end of Hegel's Logic: Absolute Idea as Absolute Method

The last chapter of Hegel's Wissenschaft der Logik is a test for the entire preceding logical development and, thereby, a test for the success of the book as a whole. It is only at this point-namely, at the conclusion of the itinerary of pure speculative-dialectical thinking-that it is possible (and necessary) for Hegel to demonstrate that the logic which has been immanently developed in its successive moments is, indeed, the speculative science laying the foundations of the philosophical system and leading on to a Realphilosophie. The aim of the final test taking place in the chapter on method is twofold. First, Hegel needs to show that the logical process now approaching its conclusion can by no means be exploited by a non-dialectical way of thinking. In other words, he needs to prove that only dialectical thinking can use or appropriate the logical process it has developed up to this point in order to construct knowledge and produce science. The claim to be justified is that the foregoing succession of logical forms is, indeed, the method of speculative thinking, and of this thinking alone. Second, Hegel needs to demonstrate that the logic, as a concluded and complete discipline, is a system and can therefore lead forward to the expanse of a system of philosophy. The two points are clearly connected as parts of the same systematic project. The notion of method designates, for Hegel, this constellation of issues; not only the question of how the succession of logical forms is immanently developed or deduced throughout the logic, but also the question of how, retrospectively, one shall reflect upon such a succession and how this reflection shall be used in order to produce knowledge, self-knowledge, and science. Method is both the immanent production of logical forms and the final comprehensive knowledge of the whole process of logical deduction.1

This is the interpretive framework within which I want to discuss the general problem posed by the last chapter of the Wissenschaft der Logik, the chapter on the absolute Idea. Simply put: Why does Hegel's logic finish in the way it finishes, namely, with an account of the absolute method?. Or, Why is the absolute idea developed into absolute method? And what constitutes the necessity of this conclusion? The famous (or infamous) beginning of the logic has been the source of never ending attempts at interpretation and the difficult transition to nature has been criticized as no other part of the logic. Instead, I want to focus on the far less discussed problem of its conclusion-the problem of the end (das Ende). Why and how must the logic come to an end, and to which end? And more generally (and methodologically): What is the end (taken absolutely or schlechthin)-das Ende? Thus, my topic is the connectio...

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