ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION IN RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA(MAY 2019) -

forthcoming in 2020

Hegel’s Revisions of the Logic of Being

Abstract: This essay aims to demonstrate a clear and significant, difference, not merely expository
revisions or additions, in the log
ical progression of Being between Hegel's two main versions of the Doctrine of Being (1812-1817
and 1827-1830, 1832). This controversial issue is analysed by retracing and examining changes that
international scholarship still widely neglects. Focussing on Hegel's introduction of the doubled
transition of Quality and Quantity in the genesis of Measure, the essay argues that the main point of
the revisions is that Hegel views the whole determinateness of Being as self-sublating its own
externality, because in one determination of Being passing into another one, the first does not vanish;
instead, both remain within their relational unity. Hegel's new version of the genesis of Measure
indicates an essentially qualitative appreciation of the quantitative methods of the empirical sciences.
This accords with Hegel's growing acknowledgment in Berlin of the independent cognitive status of
the natural sciences in regard to philosophy, and with his reassessment of the relation among intuition,
representation and conceptual cognition of the objects of consciousness, to do justice to their real
differences and their being for themselves within their own existence.

Key words: Hegel's revised genesis of Measure; Being 1832 and Essence 1813, variant and versions
of the Encyclopaedia Logic, real difference of beings.

1. Introduction
Hegel wrote extensively on logic, publishing two different works with the same title: Die
Wissenschaft der Logik. The first Science of Logic appeared in 3 volumes: two volumes of «Objective
Logic»: the Doctrine of Being (1812) and the Doctrine of Essence (1813), followed by the
«Subjective Logic», namely, the Doctrine of Concept (1816). The 1812 Doctrine of Being was
revised in its second edition (1832).1 Hegel’s second Wissenschaft der Logik appeared as the first part
of the compendium to his entire system, to be expanded in university lectures (Enzyklopädie der
philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse).2 The first edition of Hegel’s Encyclopaedia Logic
(1817) is entirely consistent with the first edition of the 1812–1816 Science of Logic. The second and
third editions of the Encyclopaedia (1827, 1830) nearly coincide with each other, though the 1827-
1830 Encyclopaedia Logic differs significantly from both its 1817 edition and the 1812–16 Science

1
In 1831 Hegel completed, just before his death, a greatly revised and expanded version of the Doctrine of Being which
appeared in 1832 published by Cotta, and again in 1833, edited by Leopold von Henning, in the Vollständige Ausgabe
durch einen Verein von Freunden des Verewigten. On the exchange between Hegel and the Nürnberg publisher Schrag
(in 1826) to plan a second edition of the 1812-1816 Science of Logic, see Labarrière & Jarczyk 1972, pp. xi-xii. The 1832
text is enlarged in comparison with that of 1812 by about one third, with two notable extra Remarks on the calculus; the
variants between the two versions are more than 3000 (see ivi, p. xii, note 24). Only the 1832 Doctrine of Being has been
translated into English.
2
Each of the 1817-1830 editions of the Encyclopaedia presented the ideal (Science of Logic) and real (Philosophy of
Nature, Philosophy of Spirit) divisions of Hegel's system in only one volume. In 1840-1845 the 1830 text of the
Encyclopaedia appeared in the posthumous Works in three distinct volumes, one for each part of the system, with
additions (Zusätze); the Encyclopaedia Logic was edited by Leopold von Henning and appeared in 1840.
2
of Logic, yet it accords with the revised 1832 Doctrine of Being. This editorial history should caution
against reading the 1832 Doctrine of Being as continuous with the 1813 Doctrine of Essence, since
the Science of Logic we now read combines the 1832 extensively revised first volume with the sole,
unrevised editions of the second (1813) and third (1816) volumes.
When introducing his revised edition of the Doctrine of Being (1832), Hegel states his
dissatisfaction with the difficulty of the subject matter:

An diese neue Bearbeitung der Wissenschaft der Logik, wovon hiemit der erste Band erscheint, bin ich wohl mit dem
ganzen Bewußtseyn sowohl der Schwierigkeit des Gegenstandes für sich und dann seiner Darstellung, als der
Unvollkommenheit, welche die Bearbeitung desselben in der ersten Ausgabe an sich trägt, gegangen; sosehr ich nach
weiterer vieljähriger Beschäftigung mit dieser Wissenschaft bemüht gewesen, dieser Unvollkommenheit abzuhelfen, so
fühle ich noch Ursache genug zu haben, die Nachsicht des Lesers in Anspruch zu nehmen. (GW 21, p. 10.1-8).3

Unfortunately, Hegel does not here specify in what consists the imperfections he has tried to remedy
after working seriously for many years on it, but certainly he points to the inherent difficulties of the
topic and imperfections lodged in the 1812 edition’s treatment of it. Hegel’s remark strongly suggests
that more is at issue than mere expository revisions, as it is still commonly held.
Only in 2010 did David Kolb thoroughly compare the 1813 Doctrine of Essence to the 1830
Encyclopedia Logic’s version, though without considering changes in the Doctrine of Being
regarding the genesis of the category of Measure and its transition to Essence.4 Yet research published
two decades prior to Kolb’s already identified and examined changes in Hegel’s Doctrine of Being
directly affecting the 1827 and 1830 sequence of categories also within the Doctrine of Essence and
Hegel's logical method.5 However, most scholarship remains unaware of Hegel’s revisions. As John
Burbidge remarks, in part this is because the 1832 Doctrine of Being, published shortly after Hegel’s
death, was simply included by Hegel’s editors with the first editions of the other two parts (Essence
and Concept). Additionally, these editors conveyed the message that Hegel’s system was static and
complete, from its inception, when Hegel (purportedly) agreed with Schelling. Moreover, Wilhelm
Dilthey’s 1905 discovery of a set of manuscripts of the young Hegel (published by Herman Nohl,
1907), exhibiting significant differences to Hegel’s later views, originated the myth of the progressive
schematic rigidifying and closure of Hegel’s thought, molded into a system as an invariable
monolith.6

3
«When I undertook this new treatment of the Science of Logic of which this is the first volume, I was fully conscious
not only of the difficulty of the object for itself and of its exposition, but also of the imperfection which the treatment in
the first edition carried in itself; earnestly as I have tried after many years of further occupation with this science to remedy
this imperfection, I feel I still have reason enough to claim the indulgence of the reader» (SL, p. 11; translation revised).
4
See Kolb 2010, pp. 43–55. Kolb aims only to show the difficulty of identifying a uniquely correct sequence of categories,
emphasizing the connection of Hegel’s logical investigations with historical language and practice.
5
See e.g. Ferrini 1988, 1991/2, 1998; Burbidge 1996, pp. 56–64; Burbidge 2006, p. 40, pp. 113–117; Carlson 2007, pp.
280–282.
6
See on the point Burbidge 2006, pp. 113–114.
 Although George di Giovanni’s 2010 English translation of Hegel’s 1832–1816 Science of
Logic includes an Appendix titled «Hegel’s Logic in its revised and unrevised parts», which lists
many variants, scholars tend to regard these as stylistic rather than substantive, as if Hegel were
revising only his expressions of the same idea. After stressing the main changes between the 1812
and 1832 editions of the Doctrine of Being, di Giovanni comments: «To what extent, if any, they
make for a substantial change in the orientation of Hegel’s thought is of course a matter of
interpretation» (di Giovanni 2010, p. 756). However, rather than examining the nature and
significance of these variants before dismissing them, recent interpretations continue to ignore them,
perhaps presuming that the differences between the 1812-1817 and the 1827-1832 editions of the
Doctrine of Being are minor and of no logical significance. For example, in an analysis of logical
relations within the category of Measure, focusing on the roles of real numbers in physical
measurement (2017), the authors state (without further analysis): «We take the two versions of the
Logic to present a single theory».7 Another detailed study (2014) of Hegel’s logical development and
determining within the sphere of Being, beginning from the section «General Division of Being»,
fails to appreciate that Hegel changed his description of the second of the three divisions.8 Here are
the respective passages; the key changes in 1832 are emphasized in bold.
1812:
Zweytens ist es innerhalb seiner selbst bestimmt; [...] Nach der zweiten Eintheilung ist es die Sphäre, innerhalb welcher
die Bestimmungen und die ganze Bewegung der Reflexion fällt. [...] ihre Bestimmungen haben erst aus der Bewegung
des Seyns selbst zu entstehen, und sich darin zu rechtfertigen (GW 11, p. 41.4–19).9

1832:
Zweytens ist es sich innerhalb seiner selbst bestimmend; [...] Nach der zweiten ist es die Sphäre, innerhalb welcher die
Bestimmungen und die ganze Bewegung seiner Reflexion fällt. [...] ihre Bestimmungen haben erst aus der Bewegung
des Seyns selbst zu entstehen, sich dadurch zu definiren und zu rechtfertigen (GW 21: 66.4–19).10

In 1812 we read of what is within itself «bestimmt», instead in 1832 of what is within itself «sich
bestimmend»; in 1812 we read of «der Reflexion», instead in 1832 of «seiner Reflexion»; in 1812
we read of the domain wherein – within which («darin») – a justification is to occur; instead in 1832
of the advent of these determinations as that through which – thereby, «dadurch» – this justification

7
Kaufmann & Yeomans 2017, p. 1014., note 1.
8
Pierini 2014, pp. 111-112.
9
«According to the second [division of Being], Being is determined within itself; […] According to this second division,
[Being] is the sphere within which falls the determinations and the entire movement of reflection. […] these
determinations must first arise out of the movement of Being itself, and therein to justify themselves» (my translation).
10
«According to the second [division of Being], Being is self-determining within itself; […] According to this
second division, [Being] is the sphere within which falls the determinations and the entire movement of its reflection.
[…] these determinations must first arise out of the movement of Being itself, and thereby to define and to justify
themselves» (SL, p. 56, translation revised).
4
is to occur, adding that this same advent is also that through which these determinations define
themselves: «sich zu definieren».
These changes are not insignificant for Hegel's logical analysis. Consider for instance Karl
Ludwig Michelet’s composite Zusatz to Enz. 1830 § 111, re-published in Hegel’s Werke (Suhrkamp),
which, in accord with the 1812 position, makes explicit that the relational form Hegel ascribes to
Being is of an external kind, due to «our» reflection:

Im Wesen findet kein Übergehen mehr statt, sondern nur Beziehung. Die Form der Beziehung ist im Sein nur erst unsere
Reflexion; im Wesen dagegen ist die Beziehung dessen eigene Bestimmung. Wenn (in der Sphäre des Seins) das Etwas
zu Anderem wird, so ist hiermit das Etwas verschwunden. Nicht so im Wesen; [...] beim Übergehen des Verschiedenen
in Verschiedenes verschwindet das Verschiedene nicht, sondern die Verschiedenen bleiben in ihrer Beziehung (W8, pp.
229–230; my emphasis).11

This Zusatz also matches Hegel’s 1813 clarification of the difference between Essence’s
«Bestimmung» (where the determining remains within a relational unity) and Being’s
«Bestimmtheit» (where the determining is a becoming or a passing over, whereby the first vanishes:
GW 11, pp. 242.25-37, SL, p. 338).12 By contrast, in 1832 the 1812 second division of Being is so
revised to mean that determinateness is characterized by a movement of self-determination as
reflection of Being within itself, not as «our reflection»: a clear and important difference within
Hegel’s logical analysis which sets his 1832 account of determining within Being at odds with his
1813/1817 characterization of Essence.
Consider now that in the Preface to the most recent collective commentary on Hegel’s Science
of Logic, the editors acknowledge that shortly before his death, Hegel completed the second edition
of the first volume of his Science of Logic with «major, even systematically significant modifications
to the first version of the Logic of Being».13 Nevertheless, Michael Quante bases his reading of the
logical relation between Essence’s, and Hegel's modification of the immediate transitions between
Quality and Quantity Being’s, ways of determining upon a text of the 1813 Doctrine of Essence in
the Science of Logic (GW 11, p. 242.22-24) which Hegel significantly modified in §112 of the 1827
and 1830 Encyclopaedia Logic.14 Likewise, this same collective commentary presents the logical

11
«In Essence no passing-over takes place any more; instead, there is only relation. In Being, the relational form is only
[due to] our reflection; in Essence, by contrast, the relation belongs to its own determination. When something becomes
other (in the sphere of Being) the something has thereby vanished. Not so in Essence […]. For in the passing of what is
diverse into another diversity, the first one does not vanish; instead, both remain within this relation» (EL, p. 173; my
emphasis).
12
Michelet’s Zusätzen are notoriously problematic. Though added to clarify and explain the 1830 Encyclopaedia text,
they were composed by merging notes of auditors from various academic years.
13
Quante & Mooren 2018, p. VII.
14
See Quante 2018, p. 281: «Weil das Wesen alle Bestimmtheiten des Seins in sich aufgehoben hat, ist es »zunächst das
unbestimmte Wesen« (GW 11, 242, 22 f.); es enthält diese Bestimmtheiten (als aufgehobene) zwar »an sich«, nicht aber,
wie Hegel betont, »wie sie an ihm gesetzt sind« (GW 11, 242, 24). Hier wird schon deutlich, dass Hegel die Relationen,
die zwischen Sein und Bestimmtheiten einerseits sowie Wesen und Bestimmungen andererseits, differenzieren will, um
die wesenslogische Konzeption des Absoluten von der seinslogischen abgrenzen zu können». However, in Enz. 1830 §
development of Quantity and the restoration of Quality which gives birth to Measure without
mentioning that the wording of a crucial line changes from 1812 (GW 12: 186) to 1832 (GW 21: 310):
«jene ist in diese übergegangen» is revised to «jene hat sich als in diese übergehend gezeigt».15
The aim of this essay is to demonstrate a clear difference between the original version of the
passing over into another, which constitutes the nature of determining in the sphere of Being as
distinct to Essence, and its revisions, by retracing changes in the two main versions of the Logic of
Being which scholarship still widely neglects. In Sections 2-3 I examine some crucial cases. I argue
that Hegel modifies the mode of transitions between the categories of Being, challenging the standard
view according to which the whole sphere of Being is characterized by an immediate transition of
one thought-determination into another (Übergehen in Anderes). As a simple becoming or passing
from one category over to another, the former would vanish into the latter that has become. Remaining
mutually unrelated and external to each other, at the end, all these determinations of Being would
vanish in their transition to Essence. My claim is that Hegel publishes a revision of the Logic of Being
which reworks the form of relation between categories so that the two versions (1812/1817 and
1827/1832) do not present one single theory of the relation between the qualitative and the
quantitative. In Section 4, I conclude by framing the results of my textual analysis within a recent
interpretive account of the theoretical significance of Hegel's revision of his philosophical system
during the Berlin period.

2. Published texts and lectures

A common view of the dynamic of reasoning within Hegel’s Objective Logic regarding the logical
relation between Being and Essence is well represented by Michael Baur:

Thought finds itself condemned to a perennial and arbitrary interplay of qualitative and quantitative alterations which
lack any stable substance or truth of their own […]. The problem can be overcome only when one succeeds in articulating
a kind of relation which is not a relation to Other at all, but rather a kind of self-relation. That is, once the sphere of being
has shown itself in its nullity, one must enter a sphere where all transition is no transition at all.16

The characteristic mode of logical movement in the whole sphere of Being is seen as an immediate
transition into another (Übergehen in Anderes), a simple becoming or passing from one term over to
another, so that at the end all the determinations of Being would vanish in their transition to Essence,

112, Hegel writes that Essence is the simple relation to itself which Being is, but in a higher form because it is « posited»
(gesetzt; added to the parallel texts of Enz. 1817 § 64) as the negation of the negative, hence no longer (as in 1813 and
1817) as «pure negativity», but as the mediation of itself with itself «within itself» (in sich; added to the text of Enz. 1817
§ 64).
15
See Houlgate 2018, pp. 199-201.
16
Baur 1998, quoted in Carlson 2007, p. 276, note1. This reading is suggested by Hegel’s 1813 account of the difference
in determining between Being and Essence (GW 11, p. 242.25-37; SL, p. 338) and by Enc. 1830 § 111Z.
6
showing their nullity. According to Gwendolyn Jarczyk, this is indeed how we have to take the
pathway of the Doctrine of Being, for it corresponds to the rule governing the first of the three final
syllogisms of the Encyclopaedia, where «the mediation of the concept has the external appearance of
the form of a passing over and science that [external appearance of the form] of a being» (Enz. 1817
§ 475, p. 287).17 This interpretation is confirmed by Hegel’s characterization of Essence at it arises
from Being in terms of «reine Negativität»; however, this point is revised in the 1827/1832 editions.
Indeed, in his 1830 edition of the Encyclopaedia Logic Hegel characterizes Essence as it arises
from Being in terms of an immanent, inherent and inward («in sich») self-mediation of Being, in such
a way that relational (posited and mediated) determinateness does not vanish in Essence’s simple
relation to itself or self-equality (between being-in-itself and being-for-itself); only the one-sided
determination of Being’s immediacy falls into pure negativity.
In all the three editions of the Encyclopaedia Logic Hegel introduces Essence as «Being that
mediates itself with itself through the negativity of itself (durch die Negativität seiner selbst sich mit
sich vermittelnde Sein)»,18 and maintains that Essence is «Being that has gone into itself». The
important difference between the 1817 original position and the subsequent revisions concerns the
significance of the self-mediation of Being through its own negativity. In Enz. 1817 § 64 Hegel
remarks that Essence is Being that has gone into itself through the negation of the negative, «as pure
(reine) negativity». By contrast, in Enz. 1830 § 112 Essence is Being that has gone into itself through
the negation of the negative «as mediation of itself into itself with itself (als Vermittlung seiner in
sich mit sich selbst»; in 1827: merely as «absolute» negativity). In 1817 the result of the self-
mediation of Being through its own negativity has the significance that Essence «contains (enthält)»
negativity as the determinacy that has been immediately sublated, as «semblance (Schein)»;19 by
contrast, in 1830 Essence «is» Being as «shining within itself (als Scheinen in sich selbst)».
In 1817 Essence is «reflection», that is, it is relation to itself only by being relation to another,
but this other is «the immediate (das unmittelbare)» only as posited and mediated. A parallel text in
the 1813 Science of Logic clarifies this point: «Essence, as the complete turning back of being into
itself, is thus at first the indeterminate essence; the determinacies of being are sublated in it; it
contains them within itself, but not as they are posited within it (es enthält sie an sich; aber nicht wie
sie an ihm gesetzt sind)».20
By contrast, in 1830 the self-mediation of Being through its own negativity has the result that
«Essence is the Concept as posited Concept» (GW 6, § 112, p. 143.4). This is not a minor change, for
in 1816, at the outset of the Division of his Subjective Logic, Hegel had written that Essence is the

17
Jarczyk 1980, p. 113; see also Enz. 1830 § 575.
18
Enz. 1817, § 64, p. 50; Enz. 1827, § 112R, p. 120; Enz. 1830: GW 6 §112R, p. 143, EL, p. 175.
19
See the parallel text in GW 11, p. 247, SL, p. 344, where Hegel writes that in essence, being is non-being and this
inherent nothingness is essence’s own absolute in-itself.
20
SL, p. 338 (English translation revised, my emphasis); GW 11, p. 242.
«first» negation of Being, which has become «Schein», and that the Concept, being the «second», or
the negation of the negation of Essence, is also the «restored (wiederhergestellte) Being» (GW 12, p.
29; SL, p. 526). In both 1827 and 1830 (§ 112) Hegel stresses that in Essence the determinations are
only relative, but not yet strictly reflected «within themselves». Essence is still presented as the
«relation to itself only by being relation to another», where this other is the immediate, not as «what
is (als Seiendes)», but only as posited and mediated. However, at this juncture of the text Hegel
introduces the phrase that «Being is not vanished (das Sein ist nicht verschwunden)»; adding that,
rather, «in the first place (erstlich)», Essence as «simple relation to itself is Being» and only the one-
sided determination of the immediacy of Being is «reduced (herabsetzen) » to the mere negativity of
a semblance.
Concise and compressed as this revision may be in an abridged compendium, it should not be
dismissed as a simple change in wording, implying no clear and significant difference between the two
versions. This revision and its examination here may be considered as a research hypothesis to test on
Hegel’s Lectures on Logic which expand the Encyclopaedia’s text and on other parts of the Doctrines of
Being and of Essence in The Science of Logic.
In Good’s (Heidelberg 1817) transcript of Hegel’s course on Logic and Metaphysics, ad § 63
[64], Hegel clarifies the meaning of Essence as «pure (reine) negativity» or negation of the negative
(hence no longer simply negative) by saying: «Das Wesen ist das reine Sein, aber nicht das
unmittelbare Sein, sondern das Sein durch die Negation in sich zernichtet. Hier ist das Negative als
bloß aufgehoben, als bloßer Schein gesetzt» (Vorl. 11, p. 109.192-193; my emphasis) ».21
By contrast, in the 1831 Lectures on Logic Hegel does not present the becoming of Essence
through the annihilation of Being within itself, and the phrase that Being «has gone into itself»
highlights «that this inner essence of immediate being is itself replete with a content all its own»
(Vorl. 10, p. 135). The determinacy of Being comes to be known through the explication of its
essence, the entire sphere of Being is nothing but the overcoming of itself by «showing (zeigen) its
essence». To test whether this evidence is a clear indication of a significant difference between the
two versions of the Encyclopaedia Logic, consider whether it would make sense to deny it, by
contending that in both editions Being’s determinateness is preserved in the sphere of Essence.
In the 1813 Science of Logic, essence itself in the determinateness of being is a mere
semblance. Essence has a shine because it is determined within itself (it contains the determinateness
of Being as negated) and is therefore distinguished from its absolute unity. Schein is the negative
which has a being, though in another, in its negation; it is a non-self-subsisting-being, which is
inherently sublated and null (GW 11, p. 248; SL, p. 410). Treated as an independent category,
«Schein» is the first chapter of the first section of Essence as reflection in itself. The being of «Schein»

21
«Essence is pure being, but not immediate being, rather being annihilated within itself through negation. Here the
negative is posited as merely sublated, as mere semblance» (my emphasis and translation).
8
consists solely in being’s nothingness («Nichtigkeit»): this nothingness Being has in Essence, and
apart from its nothingness, apart from Essence, it does not exist («diese Nichtigkeit hat es im Wesen,
und ausser seiner Nichtigkeit, ausser dem Wesen ist er nicht»: GW 11, p. 246). In the 1817 Lectures
(ad § 65) Hegel states that in Essence, Being’s immediate determinacy or difference is «nur» (only)
Schein. This accords with the 1813 and 1817 editions of the Doctrine of Essence, which state at the
outset: Being is «preserved» in the «Schein» of Essence only in its inherent nothingness, which
constitutes essence’s own absolute in-itself. This corroborates Franz Anton Good’s transcript:
Essence is Being «durch die Negation in sich zernichtet (annihilated)».
By contrast, in accord with the 1827/1830 introduction of the phrase «Being is not vanished»,
in the 1831 Lecture on Logic, Hegel says that Essence is shining «in itself (in sich selbst)» and Schein
counts as the completely simple determination, containing the moments of the determination of the
identity with itself («Scheinen des Wesens in sich»), the mediation of the difference («Das Wesen ist
sich auf sich beziehende Negativität», containing also essentially the determination of the difference)
and its totality as «Grund» (als Identität die zugleich unterschieden von sich ist; Vorl. 10, p. 145).
That is, determinacies such as identity, difference, previously treated as pure determinations of
reflection, «are the by-products of the internal reflection of “essence” which acquire the “reflective
shine” of having independent being» (di Giovanni 2010, p. 755, note 5, my emphasis), in accord with
the 1827 and 1830 change remarked above regarding Essence that as simple relation to itself is Being.
It is no longer a novelty that starting from the 1827/1830 editions of the Encyclopaedia Logic,
Hegel rearranged the ordering of the categories of Essence. He replaced the title of the first grouping,
which in 1817 was «The Pure Determinacies of Reflection», with «Essence as the Ground of
Existence»; Kolb also acknowledges that in 1830 the subsection on Ground ceases to be the major
topic it was in 1813, when Hegel dealt with form and essence, form and matter and form and content
under the heading «The Absolute Ground».
This relocation indicates a significant change in the logical development of Essence: compare e.g.
Enz. 1817 § 81 with Enz. 1830 § 131. In 1817 Hegel writes that Essence must «appear (erscheinen)»
and that «its semblance within itself (sein Schein in ihm selbst)» is the sublating of itself «into (zur)»
the immediacy of existence, which is not the immediacy of Being, because it is grounded in reflection;
therefore it «has its ground in an identity with itself which is not (seiner Grund in einer nicht seyenden
Identitat mit sich hat)»; (Enz. 1817, p. 61). In 1830, Hegel maintains that Essence «must appear
(erscheinen)», but now «its shining within itself (sein Scheinen in ihm)» is no longer the sublating of
itself «into (zur)» the immediacy of existence. Rather, now immediacy is «matter» (subsistence), as
reflection within itself, and is «form» (subsistence sublating itself), as the reflection into another. This
prepares the treatment of «Content and Form» as subsection of the totality of appearances. Indeed
Hegel also moved the category of «Existenz», which in 1817 was in the second grouping under the
general heading of «Appearance (Erscheinung)», to the first grouping («Das Wesen als Grund der
Existenz»), and in the second grouping of 1830, still entitled «Appearance», replaced it with «The
World of Appearance». The third part, «Actuality (Wirklichkeit)» that in 1817 presented mere
possibility and accidentality as «Schein gesetzte Schein» (Enz. 1817, § 94), in 1830 includes moments
previously found in «Ground» («Condition», «The thing itself (Sache)», and «Activity»).
The most significant evidence of a self-sublation of immediacy within and by the movement of
Being itself is the 1832 inclusion of the 1813 Logic of Essence’s category of «Sache» as substratum
within the dialectic of Measure, as Burbidge has rightly pointed out by reading Hegel’s introduction
of Sache into the final stage of Measure as anticipating the 1813 reflective modes of Essence within
the revised sphere of Being.22

3. Becoming other and determining in the 1812 and 1832 genesis of Measure

This examination suggests the further hypothesis that Hegel’s reassessment of the logical relation
between Being and Essence requires revising the 1812/1817 characterization of Being’s way of
determining. In the 1813 Hegel writes:

Dieses Bestimmen ist denn anderer Natur, als das Bestimmen in der Sphäre des Seyns, und die Bestimmungen des Wesens
haben einen andern Charakter als die Bestimmtheiten des Seyns. Das Wesens ist absolute Einheit des An-und-
Fürsichseyns; sein Bestimmen bleibt daher innerhalb dieser Einheit, und ist kein Werden noch Uebergehen, so wie die
Bestimmungen selbst nicht ein Anderes als anderes, noch Beziehungen auf Anderes sind (GW 11, p. 242.30-36; Hegel’s
emphasis).23

This quotation sets my research agenda. My task is to demonstrate a clear difference between the
original version of the passing over into another, which constitutes the nature of determining in the
sphere of Being as distinct to Essence, and its revision. Is there evidence that, in the 1827/1832 sphere
of Being, the determinations themselves «are neither an other as other nor references to some other», as
stated here in Hegel’s original account of determining within Essence?
I take as my guideline § 241 of «The Absolute Idea», a section added only in the second and
third editions of the Encyclopaedia Logic, where Hegel recapitulates the whole development of his
Logic, discussing the progression within Being, within Essence, and within Concept; here the first
two are relevant. In 1817 Hegel describes the «progression (Fortgang)» within Being as «another and
a passing over to another»; whereas the progression within Essence is «Scheinen in dem

22
Burbidge 2006, pp. 115–116.
23
SL, p. 338: «This determining [within the sphere of Essence] is thus of another nature than the determining in the sphere
of being, and the determinations of essence have another character than the determinatenesses of being. Essence is
absolute unity of being-in-itself and being-for-itself; consequently, its determining remains inside this unity; it is neither
a becoming nor a passing over, just as the determinations themselves are neither an other as other nor references to some
other». See also: «Das Seyn ist überhaupt unreflectirte Unmittelbarkeit» (Enz. 1817, § 91, p. 67).
10
Entgegengesetzen» (Enz. 1817, § 187, p. 105). This description matches the account most scholars
still provide of Hegel’s examination of Being and its relation to Essence. In the 1827/1830 parallel
section, Hegel revises this description, expressly stating that those two progressions in Being and in
Essence are their «abstract» forms («Die abstracte Form des Fortgangs»: Enz. 1827/30 § 240).
In the newly added § 241 Hegel spells out how his speculative method identifies a «doubled
(gedoppelte)» movement of transition between two different spheres, so as «to do justice to their
difference (erhält der Unterschied sein Recht)»: «each [sphere] considered in itself, completes itself
as totality and thus unifies itself with the other [sphere]. Only the self-sublation (das Sichaufheben)
of the one-sidedness of each within itself precludes their unity becoming one-sided» (GW 20, Enz.
§241, p. 230; Hegel’s emphasis).
Do the 1827/1832 editions accordingly revise the 1812 account of transition in the sphere of
Being so that the becoming other and passing over into another could count as an abstract and external
form of progression? Does Hegel rework the form of relation between opposites within Being so that
their unity becomes a posited totality, where each determination self-sublates its one-sidedness opposition
to another within itself?
Consider now the two accounts of the progression within Being in the two editions of the
Science of Logic. In both editions, Quantity as such appears in opposition to Quality; the turning point
of the dialectic of Quantity is the final subsection on ratios, where two quanta relate to each other to
form a single quantum (e.g., fractions, powers). In the ratio of powers, the exponent to which a
number is raised defines the amount, determining how many times a quantum is multiplied by itself.24
Thus, in this very externality of magnitudes, the quantum unit relates only to itself by determining its
own amount, that is, its becoming another number.25 The quantum has become another quantum by
itself. However, this self-referring externality is no longer a number, it is a measure. Quantity resulted
from the dialectic of the qualitative one;26 now, in the ratio of powers, the quantum becomes “its”
other: quality. Measure arises as unity of opposites: how is this unity achieved? To maintain that the
move to the third category of Measure occurs in both editions because quantity itself proves to be
qualitative may be a nice summary, though at a very high level of generality. In fact, the two editions
(GW 11, p. 186 and GW 21, p. 310) present two different accounts of the significance of the ratio of
powers and the genesis of Measure. In 1812 the quantum has equally passed into another
determination, and has become its other, quality. In 1832 Quality shows itself to pass over into

24
For details of the transition from quantity to quality see Houlgate 2014, pp. 27-29: the exponent «is the superscript
number that indicates how many times a number is to be multiplied by itself».
25
See Houlgate 2018, p. 198. Note that in the ratio of powers (exactly with square powers) Hegel sees the full realization
and the truth of quantum, because: «Thus is quantum posited in the ratio of powers: its otherness, the surpassing of itself
in another quantum, as determined through the quantum itself» (SL, p. 278; GW 21, p. 319).
26
For thorough analysis of the logical development of Quality from pure Being to true infinity, see Houlgate 2006, pp.
263-441.
quantitative externality, and so posits itself, generating the concrete unity of Measure. In 1812 Hegel
writes:

Das Quantum hat sich damit nicht bloß dargestellt mit einer qualitativen Bestimmtheit, sondern als Qualität. Es ist aber
insofern zugleich in eine andere Bestimmung übergegangen. Es hat nemlich das Moment seiner Aeusserlichkeit oder
Gleichgültigkeit aufgehoben, welche seine Bestimmung war, und ist zu seinem Andern, der Qualität, geworden. (GW 11,
p. 186, Hegel's emphasis)27

Here Hegel identifies a determinateness which, by sublating its definition, in its becoming refers to
its other. This accords with the 1813 text recalled above about the nature of determining within the
sphere of Being. This passage (1812) continues by stating how the truth of Quality itself is Quantity,
since the former first passed over into the latter, and in the transition of the quantum back to Quality,
the truth of Quantity is Quality. Hegel underlines that «however», «to the contrary», Quantity is in
its truth the externality that returns into itself and is not indifferent, thus the externality is Quality
itself, so that apart this determination, Quality would no longer be anything:

Zunächst erscheint die Quantität als solche der Qualität gegenüber; aber die Quantität ist selbst eine Qualität; sich auf
sich beziehende Bestimmtheit, unterschieden von der ihr andern Bestimmtheit, von der Qualität als solcher. Aber damit
ist sie selbst eine Qualität. Allein sie ist nicht nur eine Qualität, sondern die Wahrheit der Qualität selbst ist die Quantität;
jene ist in diese übergegangen. Aber die Quantität ist dagegen in ihrer Wahrheit die in sich selbst zurückgekehrte, nicht
gleichgültige Aeusserlichkeit. So ist sie die Qualität selbst, so daß ausser dieser Bcstimmung nicht die Qualität als solche
noch etwas wäre. (GW 11, pp. 186.35-187.5, my emphasis)

Note that Hegel introduces this second transition (back) with two adversative clauses, which
underline and retain its distinction from the first. Thus in 1812 Hegel presents the genesis of Measure
as an immediate unity in which differences are at first determined one in contrast to the other, as
Quality and quantum; at the same time this unity exhibits itself according to these relational forms:
1. connection between opposites (Quality as quantum’s – ‘its’ – other); 2. transition into another; 3.
joining of each of the opposites in the other with itself.28 In 1812 Hegel clarifies that «the quantitative
being makes itself into measure».29 This account he now revises to focus on the determining of
Quality. The parallel passage in 1832 clearly indicates a reassessment of the earlier relational form
of transition:

27
«[In powers] The quantum has presented itself not merely with a qualitative determination, but as quality. However, in
this same regard the quantum has equally passed into another determination. Namely, it has sublated the moment of its
externality or indifference, which has been its determination, and has become its other, quality» (my translation).
28
Vorl. 11, p. 108 [ad § 63] transcribes the expressions: «Übergang ineinander and Zusammengehen eines jeden im
Anderen mit sich selbst».
29
GW 11, p. 232.8-9: «Das quantitative Seyn macht sich zum Maaß» (my emphasis).
12
Zunächst erscheint also die Quantität als solche der Qualität gegenüber; aber die Quantität ist selbst eine Qualität, sich
auf sich beziehende Bestimmtheit überhaupt, unterschieden von der ihr andern Bestimmtheit, von der Qualität als solcher.
Allein sie ist nicht nur eine Qualität, sondern die Wahrheit der Qualität selbst ist die Quantität, jene hat sich als in diese
übergehend gezeigt. (GW 21, p. 320.14–18; Hegel's emphasis)30

The quantum does no longer simply becomes its other, quality. Hegel’s re-vision now sees that
Quality itself re-emerges, for now he writes that Quality has shown itself as passing over into
Quantity; in 1832, the category of Quality presents itself as an universal form determining its negation
(Quantity) as its external and indifferent determinacy. In the number that indicates how many times
a number is to be multiplied by itself, Quality exhibits itself within the self-development of the
quantitative.31 Indeed, in the exponent Quality presents itself as the (prima facie simply negated)
qualitative of the determination that is in truth immanently and constitutively (i.e. conceptually)
connected with the externality and indifference of magnitudes, i.e. with the quantitative of the
determination.
Another passage from the 1831 Lectures on Logic warns against taking the resulting
immediate self-referring externality of Measure as a unity «distinct from quality and quantity by being
the fusion of both»,32 a “fusion” which would obliterate differences and their self-subsistent being.
Hegel says: «[Das Maß ist] zunächst nur unmittelbare Einheit. In dieser Einheit, insofern Qualität
und Quantität wieder unterschieden werden, so sind sie Beziehung. Die eine ist vermittelst der andern,
in dieser Beziehung haben sie sich beide» (Vorl. 10, p. 134.279-282; my emphasis). In their unity,
Quality and Quantity «become re-differentiated», they are mutually and inherently related, the one is
mediated by the other, and in this relation both have each other.
Their unity is now as a posited totality, insofar as each self-sublates its one-sidedness within
itself, relating to itself only by relating to its other within itself. Each exhibits in itself its identity with its
other; only this totality is concrete within the sphere of Being, and this existing unity is the category
of Measure.
Why Hegel made this move? By so revising the 1812 version, Hegel counters any suspicion
of schematizing formalism, with its unstructured intellectual intuitions in which any and all
distinctions of Being collapse and vanish, by showing that his logical determinations are immanent
within their subject-matter. Hegel underscores this change by adding in 1832 a note on the great
importance of this doubled transition for scientific or speculative method (SL, p. 279; GW 21, p. 320).
By stressing the requirement of a «doubled (gedoppelte)» transition for «the totality (die Totalität)»

30
«At first Quantity as such thus appears in opposition to Quality; but Quantity is itself a quality, self-referring
determinateness in general, distinct from the determinateness which is its other, from Quality as such. Except that Quantity
is not only a quality, but the truth of Quality itself is Quantity, and Quality has shown itself as passing over into it» (SL,
p. 271, translation revised, my emphasis).
31
Against this background one could well read the logical development of Quantity in terms of «the logical history of the
one», see: Houlgate 2018, p. 200.
32
Houlgate 2014, p. 29.
to be posited, Hegel re-determines both quality and quantity as immanently and inwardly self-relating
moments of one concrete whole.
The «gedoppelte Übergang» and the focus on the posited totality in the determinateness of Being
capitalise upon the idea of the true infinite already emergent within the revised examination of
Quality.33 Indeed, at an earlier logical stage, in a subsection of «Bestimmtheit», retitled in 1832:
«Affirmative infinity»,34 where determinate being as such moves through the finitude of the
something and the other to qualitative infinity, Hegel adds a second Remark on the meaningless
contraposition between naïve realism or empiricism and forms of subjective idealism (Berkeley and
Hume, Kant and Fichte) from the standpoint of absolute idealism. According to the first position,
things are independent, in and for themselves outside of consciousness, and given in an alien shape
and as a pre-formed existing material to it; according to the second, the certainty of itself is all reality
and truth, things are only representations, appearances, also in themselves, self-consciousness itself
posits the outer world by producing or modifying external determinations through its activity.35 By
contrast, in absolute idealism, sensed things are appearances also in themselves, not just for us, and
the finite has not the ground of its being in itself. Significant for our purpose is that in 1832 Hegel
writes:

Indem vorhin das Princip, das Allgemeine, das Ideelle genannt worden, wie noch mehr der Begriff, die Idee, der Geist,
Ideelles zu nennen ist, und dann wiederum die einzelnen sinnlichen Dinge als ideell, im Begriffe, noch mehr im Geiste,
als aufgehoben sind,so ist dabey auf dieselbe Doppelseite vorläuffig aufmerksam zu machen, die bey dem Unendlichen
sich gezeigt hat, nemlich daß das einemal das Ideelle das Concrete, Waharftseyende ist, das andremal aber ebensosehr
seine Momente das Ideelle, in ihm aufgehobene sind, in der That aber nur das Eine concrete Ganze ist, von dem die
Momente untrennbar sind). (GW 21, pp. 142.30-143.5)36

The addition at an earlier logical stage of this remark about the concrete, true existent whole whose
moments are inseparable and sublated within it, prepares the ground for the posited totality of the
concrete unity of Measure through the doubled transition in the revised Doctrine of Being.37 As
remarked earlier, in 1812 Hegel characterizes the nature of determining in Being as a becoming or a
passing over, just as the determinations themselves are «an other as other» or «references to some

33
David Wittmann drew my attention to this point.
34
The only difference between 1812 and 1832 in the presentation of the three main divisions of the chapter on «Dasein»
is the title of the second: «Bestimmtheit» in 1812 vs. «Etwas und Andere, die Endlichkeit» in 1832. The third division is
announced as «Qualitative Infinity» in both the editions.
35
See Gabriel 2016, pp. 185-196.
36
See SL, p. 124: «in saying then that the singular things of the senses are idealizations in […] their concept, and even
more so when sublated in the spirit, we must note […] the same double-sidedness that transpired in the infinite, namely
that an idealization is on the one hand something concrete, a true existent, but, on the other hand […] its moments are no
less idealizations, sublated in it; in fact, however, there is only one concrete whole from which the moments are
inseparable» (my emphasis).
37
Note that in the 1808/09 Logic of the Nürnberger Propädeutik the third category of Being was «Unendlichkeit» (GW
10.1, pp. 62-79).
14
other» (1812/1817). From the standpoint of this first edition, what comes later in determining always
remains somehow external and negative in relation to what is earlier. Precisely this is made apparent
at the end of the 1812 Specific Quantity of Measure. In using quantities to measure things, Hegel
accounts for the logic underlying the use of ratios between features (as in measuring velocity and
acceleration) and then turns to measuring a natural phenomenon using a ratio between two of its
qualities (as in specific weight, which is a proportion of weight to volume).38 In the Ratio of Qualities,
the empirical numbers we ascertain by observing rules and regularities in nature (from the fall of
stones to the orbits of the planets), as immediate quantitative determinations of concrete magnitudes,
are taken as external and irreducible to the measure of their mechanical or physical law.39 Hegel
writes:

Diese Qualitäten haben die beyden Seiten, als Qualitäten erstens gleichgültig gegen ihre Maaßbeziehung als gegen die
quantitative Seite zu seyn, und zweytens in dieser Beziehung zu stehen [...]. Aber ihre Gleichgültigkeit gegen das Maaß
hat noch eine andere Seite, nemlich die directe Bedeutung ihres Heraustretens aus dem Maaße. — Die Qualitäten sind
nemlich nur durch das Maaß selbst; denn in diesem liegt das Moment der an sich bestimmten Unmittelbarkeit. Aber diß
Moment ist als Unmittelbarkeit der einfache, unvermittelte Quotient des Maaßes, oder er ist das aufgehobene Maaß. (GW
11, pp. 201.35–202.1, 202.3–8, my emphasis)40

In 1812 and 1817, Measure has an unmediated quotient, a magnitude whose direct meaning is to be
an immediacy which is indifferent to measure and falls outside of it, though resulting from measuring
itself (it is only «through (durch) measure»: GW 11, p. 202): The real numbers of a law of nature
appear to be nothing but the restoration of the immediate quantum,41 an irreducible empirical
externality. In particular, this condemns to failure any attempt made by any philosophy of nature to
be logically aprioristic and deductive about observable existences, such as the distances of the planets
from the sun;42 in general, this expresses Hegel's view, in Nürnberg and Heidelberg, about the relation
between philosophical and natural science, conceptual rational knowing and representation, clearly
summarized by David Wittmann in these terms: «parce qu’elle a le monopole de la raison, la

38 Burbidge 2001, p. 105.

39
See GW 11, p. 202.22–31.
40 «These qualities have the two sides as qualities which firstly are to be indifferent in respect to their relation of measure

as well in respect to the quantitative side, and secondly [as qualities] which are to stand in this relation [...]. But their
indifference in respect to measure also has another side, namely, the direct meaning of their emerging out of measure.
Indeed the qualities are only through measure itself, for in measure lies the moment of the immediacy that is determined
in itself. But this moment, as immediacy is the simple unmediated quotient of the measure, that is to say the sublated
measure» (my translation).
41
See GW 11, p. 202.9–13.
42
See also Nur.Enz. § 28, p. 32, Enz. 1817 § 202R, and the parallel 1827 § 259. For a parallel reading of Enz. 1817 § 224,
where Hegel mentions the complete failure of astronomy to discover «anything rational» (i.e. any actual law: «kein
wirkliches Gesetz») as regards the series of planets and the distances from the sun, dismissing his own early attempt in
the 1801 Dissertatio philosophica de orbitis planetarum, and Enz. 1827 and 1830, § 280, see Ferrini 1998, pp. 284-285.
In the revised text, Hegel maintains the same note on the astronomers's unsuccesful attempts, but deletes the remark on
his dissatisfaction about his Dissertation, and is much more explicit about the shortcomings of his contemporary
philosophy of nature (W9, § 280, p. 131). In the addition to Enz. 1830, we read that he is disparaging about the tentative
analogy drawn by Schelling and Steffens between the planetary series and the series of metals (W9, § 280Z, p. 132).
spéculation absorbera en son sein la part rationnelle des sciences à l’exclusion de ce qui en elles
relève de l’empirique et qui forme, dès lors, leur part propre».43
The parallel 1832 text bears a different title: «Das Fursichseyn im Maasse» replaces
«Verhaltniss von Qualitäten». We are here told right at the outset that the matter under consideration
–the relation between quality, quantum and their specific ratio of measure – is no longer to be viewed
as something that «emerges out» of this ratio, as «negated» or «sublated» measure; the moment of
the immediately determined quantum as externally given expresses now the immediate, contingent
moment of the law itself: «Quality and quantum, even as they extend outside measure, are at the same
time connected with it; the immediacy is a moment of their belonging to measure» (SL, p. 299; GW
21, p. 342; my emphasis).44 The connection between empirical numbers and law, which in 1812 Hegel
expressed in these terms: «Die Qualitäten sind nämlich nur durch das Maß selbst» (GW 11: 202, my
emphasis), in 1832 is now expressed in different terms, for Hegel finds that the immediately
determined quantum is inherently grounded in a conceptual connection (SL, p. 299; GW 21, p. 342),
which essentially belongs to measure and does not appear as something merely external and
disconnected from it, after being generated through measuring. Why has Hegel substituted «in itself
grounded in a conceptual nexus (an sich in einen Begriffszusammenhang begründet)» for «emerging
out (Heraustreten)», «immediacy (Unmittelbarkeit)» and «sublated measure (aufgehobene Maß)»? It
appears that now for Hegel the real numbers in physical measurement no longer simply (accidentally)
emerge out of measure, but arise from a fundament: they are an sich rooted in a conceptual net, which
reveals something basic and necessarily qualitative inherent to their quantitative appearance in
observed nature.45 This indicates a new, distinctive, qualitative appreciation of the quantitative
operations of the natural sciences: to take this or that empirical determination as grounded in an
object's inner nature or kind. Recently, it has been observed that Hegel's Berlin reassessment of the

43
Wittmann 2018, pp. 119-120.
44
See Wittmann 2018, p. 120: «Le projet d’une Encyclopédie des sciences philosophiques, dans sa mouture initiale,
renoue donc bien avec un programme véritablement épistémologique, mais il intègre dramatiquement en son propre sein
la tension entre autonomie de la raison et autonomie des savoirs constitués dans la mesure où il incorpore les sciences
tout en refusant d’accorder à ces dernières un statut indépendamment de la philosophie. Nous allons voir à présent que si
la première édition de l’Encyclopédie à Heidelberg comporte certains signes de continuité avec les esquisses de
Nuremberg, les éditions ultérieures témoignent au contraire d’une évolution considérable de la position hégélienne».
45
Bonsiepen’s research on transcripts of Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Nature shows that, in general, Hegel
adopted both the division and the terminology of the 1827 and 1830 editions of the Encyclopedia as early as 1821/22, yet
there is also evidence that Hegel began rearranging his contents soon after the first edition of the Encyclopedia (Bonsiepen
1991, pp. 48–51). Despite many changes Hegel made to the 1817 Encyclopedia in its second and third editions, however,
he always maintains the correspondence between Logic and Philosophy of Nature. In 1830 the Logic of Being appears to
be the framework of Mechanics, which in § 254 begins with what is quantitative, as in 1817. However, in 1817 Hegel
examines the concepts of space and time (Enz. 1817, §§197–203) in the first section of his Philosophy of Nature, under
the heading Mathematics: Mathematics here is pure mathematics; that is, Hegel presents it as abstracting from time (as
arithmetic) and space (as geometry), as well as from their unity, for the infinitesimal calculus does not go beyond formal
ratios. This change of title is the more macroscopic change we can relate to the sphere of Being. Bonsiepen also remarks
that, in a surviving systematic prospectus of the time, the first part of the Philosophy of Nature, regarding «matter in its
generality, as heavy matter», appears to be related to the Logic of Being, and the second part («matter particularizing
itself in physical properties and in corporal individuality») to the Logic of Essence.
16
relation between speculative philosophy and empirical sciences is key to understand the rationale of
his systematic changes in the 1827-1830 Encyclopaedia.46

4. Conclusion

In 1832 physical measures are no longer the restored immediate quanta as mere concrete existences:
in a specific measure, by the concrete truth of Being and not by Essence (as in GW 11, pp. 381-382),
they show the inner qualitative aspect of being the immediate, contingent moment of the being-for-
itself of the category of Measure, that is, of being the immediate, contingent moment of the logical
form of Measure which has thus became manifest to itself.
Hegel revised the Logic of Being by more sharply focusing the need for determining, indeed,
determining inherent within Being. The main point of the 1827-1832 revisions of the whole
progression of Being is that the content expresses, unto itself, its self-sublation of the abstract form
of integrating opposites. The advent of measure as the concrete truth of Being in 1827/1832 sublates
the 1812/1817 externality of a transition of one determination into another, which required the further
moment of their joining into a unity which annihilated their self-subsisting difference. This change
regarding the vanishing of determinateness is introduced at the stage of thinking the concrete
immediacy of Being itself (in the genesis of Measure), and no longer through the absolute indifference
and the pure negation of all the determinacies of Being in the genesis of Essence. This shows that the
distinguished determinateness of Being is preserved as a moment within the totality of the logical
idea, not in an inherent nothingness, but in its own concrete positive difference.
Hegel's revisions indicate that philosophy cognizes Being as for itself something external, as the
being-external-to-itself to which we have access through our representation and sense-certainty.
Being’s difference itself is no longer mere shine. Being's determinateness is now cognized, in its
extant and manifest qualitative externality, as an explication of essence;47 only its apparent
unmediated character, its immediacy, has proven to be mere semblance. If Hegel were consistent, and
the revisions retraced here were speculatively and methodologically significant, we should find

46
See Wittmann 2018, p. 124: «Nous avons donc pu voir que c’est la position épistémologique de Hegel qui se transforme
de manière sensible au cours de la période berlinoise et que cette mutation engage également une modification du sens
que l’on peut conférer à une Encyclopédie des sciences philosophiques si tant est que la philosophie elle-même et les
sciences empiriques voient leurs statuts respectifs et leur articulation radicalement repensés [...] On pourrait dire [...] qu’il
constate l’émancipation, certes encore sociologiquement et universitairement relative, mais déjà effective pour lui, des
sciences empiriques et que, paradoxalement, la dernière version de l’Encyclopédie ne prenne véritablement sens que dans
cette perspective». Wittmann acknowledges his debt to Emmanuel Renault's presentations: «Le concept d’expérience
dans l’Encyclopédie des sciences philosophiques» (at the conference for the Bicentennial of Hegel's Encyclopaedia, La
Sorbonne, December 2017) and «Philosophy and Experience. A significant difference between the first and the last
versions of Hegel's Encyclopedia» (at the 32nd Conference of the Internationale Hegel-Gesellschaft, Tampere, Finland,
June 5-8, 2018).
47
See Vorl. 10, p. 135. 6–8: «das Sein wird gewusst als Explikation des Wesens, es ist notwendig; was expliziert wird,
ist das Wesen, es selbst kommt in die Erscheinung».
rearranged counterparts in his system after 1817, expressing the same theoretical concern of
distancing his speculative philosophy from both schematizing formalism or ill-grounded analogies
and subjective idealism, doing justice to the real difference of beings.
Commenting on Hegel's 1827 and 1830 revision of §1 of the Encyclopaedia, Wittmann
remarks:
Hegel exprime ici avec force que la sphère spéculative présuppose essentiellement la sphère représentative. Il s’appuie
pour ce faire en premier lieu sur un argument factuel, à savoir que, dans la prise en compte de ces objets pluriels, il y a
du point de vue de la conscience commune un primat chronologique de la représentation, pourtant cet argument est
renforcé en second lieu par argument génétique très appuyé: l’accès même à la philosophie, ou à la conception pensante,
n’est possible que par un travail de traversée critique des représentations. C’est le second sens de la coupure qui s’évapore
en signant la reconnaissance de la consistance propre des discours de la représentation auquel par voie de conséquence
la philosophie est essentiellement renvoyée. On ne saurait penser de transformation plus radicale du complexe théorique
mis en place en 1817.48

Hegel wrote a systematic account of consciousness, highlighting the logical content of its
phenomenological experience in the philosophy of subjective spirit. In Enz. 1817, § 335, in continuity
with the 1812 Logic of Being and the determination of the object of sense-certainty in the 1807
Phenomenology, as Hegel himself recalls, the “I” is in consciousness as still abstract thinking and
formal identity. Therefore at first it has in its object only the abstract thought-determinations of spatial
and temporal singularities of the «here» and the «now». More importantly, the sensible singular object
of the cognitive experience of consciousness, what is immediately other than an abstract “I” obtains
its (external) determination only through its relation to consciousness. At the level of immediacy,
Hegel writes that the object is taken only according to the identity of this relation; it is «not for itself
something external, or itself a being-external-to-itself» (Enz. 1817 § 335, p. 226). Only after the
dialectic of sense-certainty, the sensible as «something (Etwas)» becomes «another», exhibiting that
what it is intrinsically, it is through something else, i.e. it is essentially related and mediated. The
simple being of the object of the unmediated sense-certainty has become the reflected being of the
singular thing («das Ding») of Perception with many qualities and predicates, which is nothing but
the reflection of the something within itself, according to the determinations of the Logic of Essence
(Enz. 1817, § 336, p. 226).
However, in the 1825 Berlin Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit, transcribed by Friedrich C.H.V.
von Kehler, Hegel’s approach is different. Introducing the issue of determining the object in respect
of consciousness as the other to the “I”, Hegel now asks what is the content of the object (PhG 1825:
284), remarking how the “I” is the being-for-self of the soul, proceeding from the sphere of feeling:
the “I” has being only as negation of the determinations of its sensation, the “I” is only insofar as it
relates itself to an object, and this object is the content of feeling itself (PhG 1825, p. 284); for the

48 Wittmann 2018, pp. 124-125.

18
subject as “I”, these determinations of sensation have the form of an external world, this world is
these given «specific sensed features (Empfindungsbestimmungen)», which have been separated and
expelled from the soul. Therefore, in respect to the object, Hegel remarks that in knowing, the “I”
relates itself to the content of sensation; to expel the content out from our sensation is our activity in
knowing, yet this is only one aspect, however essential. To say that, e.g., the representation of space
simply comes to us, that we first endow finitude and externality to things, would mean to follow
subjective idealism and be one-sided, for «things also have a finite mode of existence, likewise the
thought that relates itself to the lower, finite, sensuous sphere» (PhG 1825, p. 288). Our activity is
one aspect, but the other aspect is the being of the object right there («dass der Gegenstand auch ist»:
PhG 1825, p. 290). The object of consciousness («Gegenstand») is the object («Objekt») that is «out
there for itself (draussen für sich)», «encountered (vorgefunden)».49
In 1817, the immediate being of the object (Gegenstand) was determined only as external to
consciousness, as another over against the I, and it was «not for itself something external, or itself a
being-external-to-itself». By contrast, in 1825 Hegel contends that although the object is in relation
to the I, it is also another unto itself, and since this is also what it is, it is what is self-external, the
other of itself.50 In the next sentence Hegel identifies two determinations of the object. The first
determination is its externality to the I; the second determination is that the object within itself is an
other; however, these two aspects are both conjoined (beides aber ist verbunden) and this makes the
object immediately singular, the other of itself, manifold within itself (PhG 1825, § 335, p. 296).
This relational form between determinations, insofar as each it has self-sublated its one-sidedness
within itself in one concrete whole, matches the 1827/1832 revision of the progression within the
sphere of Being and is confirmed in the 1827/28 Berlin Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit
transcribed by Johann Eduard Erdmann and Ferdinand Walter. First: at the level of immediacy, Hegel
remarks that in the determination of simple being, the singular and abstract object (Gegenstand),
which faces the singular and abstract subject (the “I”), is (already) reflected in itself (in sich), that is,
it is not only related to the subject but also to itself. Hegel explicitly says that the object is not only
in relation to me, as external only to consciousness, but also to itself. The sensible object of conscious
intuition is not only for others, but it is also for itself: it is a singularity (ein Einzelne»), that is,
something exclusive and distinctive in respect to other objects (a tree, a house), so that now Hegel
can say that space is the being-external-to-itself of the objects unto themselves (an ihm selben), a
feature explicitly rejected in 1817 (Enz. 1817 § 335, p. 226), where the freedom of the object, as what
is other than the subject, to count on its own and being for itself, can first be obtained only through
the freedom of spirit. In 1827/28 Hegel instead states that «this freedom of the object to be for itself,
to be within itself this totality, it first achieves insofar as it relates itself to spirit» (Vorl. 13, p. 152.730-

49
PhG 1825, p. 286.
50
Compare Enz. 1817 § 335, p. 226 with PhG 1825, p. 296.
732; my emphasis).51 The object is now within itself («in sich») the totality of being-for-itself , relating
to itself only by relating to its other within itself -- exactly in accord with the 1827/32 account of the
doubled transition which posits totality.

Cinzia Ferrini (University of Trieste)

Bibliographical References
Abbreviations
- Enc.: Theodore F. Geraets, Wallis A. Suchting, Harry S. Harris (eds.), The Encyclopaedia Logic. Part I of the
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences with the Zusätze, Hackett, Indianapolis/Cambridge 1991.
- Enz. 1817: Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse. Zum Gebrauch seiner Vorlesungen. Von
G.W.F. Hegel, Oswald, Heidelberg 1817.
- Enz. 1827: Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse. Zum Gebrauch seiner Vorlesungen. Von
G.W.F. Hegel, Oswald, Heidelberg 1827.
- Enz. 1830 [see GW 20]
- GW 10.1: Gesammelte Werke, Nürnberger Gymnasialkurse und Gymnasialreden (1808–1816), Band 1, Klaus Grotsch
(Hrsg.), Gymnasialkurse und Gymnasialreden, Meiner, Hamburg 2006.
- GW 11: Gesammelte Werke, Friedrich Hogemann, Walter Jaeschke (Hrsgg.), Wissenschaft der Logik. Zweites Buch.
Die Lehre vom Wesen. Meiner, Hamburg 1978.
- GW 20: Gesammelte Werke, Ugo Rameil, Wolfgang Bonsiepen, Hans-Christian Lucas (Hrsgg.), Enzyklopädie der
philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830), Meiner, Hamburg 1992.
- GW 21: Gesammelte Werke, Friedrich Hogemann, Walter Jaeschke (Hrsgg.), Wissenschaft der Logik, Erstes Buch,
Die Lehre vom Sein, Meiner, Hamburg 1984.
- GW 25.2: Gesammelte Werke, Christoph J. Bauer (Hrsg.), Vorlesungen Über die Philosophie des Subjektiven Geistes
[Wintersemester 1827/28. Nachschrift Stolzenberg], Meiner, Hamburg 2011.
- PhG 1825: Die Phänomenologie des Geistes (Sommer Semester, 1825 / The Phenomenology of Spirit (Summer Term,
1825), in Michael J. Petry (ed.), Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, Reidel, Dordrecht/Boston 1978, pp. 270–357.
- SL: Hegel, The Science of Logic, translated and edited by George di Giovanni, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge 2010.
- Vorl. 10: Ugo Rameil, Hans-Christian Lucas (Hrsgg.), Vorlesungen über die Logik. Berlin 1831. Nachgeschrieben v.
Karl Hegel, Meiner, Hamburg 2001.
- Vorl. 11: Karen Gloy et al. (Hrsgg.), Vorlesungen über Logik und Metaphysik. Heidelberg 1817, Mitgeschrieben v.
F.A. Good, Meiner, Hamburg 1992.
- W 8: Werke in zwanzig Bänden, Eva Moldenhauer, Karl Markus Michel (Hrsgg.), Enzyklopädie der philosophischen
Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830), Bd. 8, Die Wissenschaft der Logik. Mit den mündlichen Zusätzen, Suhrkamp,
Frankfurt a.M 1970.
- W 9: Werke in zwanzig Bänden, Eva Moldenhauer, Karl Markus Michel (Hrsgg.), Enzyklopädie der philosophischen
Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830), Bd. 9, Die Naturphilosophie. Mit den mündlichen Zusätzen, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt
a.M 1970.

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51
Stolzenberg's transcript of the same 1827/28 course reports that the object has «in itself (an ihm)» distinguished
determinations, «but not side by side (aber nicht nebeneinander»: GW 25.2, p. 755.1.
20
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