Hegel's Phenomenolgy of Spirit:
154.
ARGUMENT:
either the universal - Force - is indifferent to the division that is the law - or the
differences - the parts are indifferent to one another
the Understanding however has the Notion of this implicit difference just because the
law is on the one hand the implicit being - but is at the same time inwardly
differentiated
that this difference is an inner difference follows from the fact that the law is a simple
force - or is the Notion of the difference - and is therefore a difference belonging to
the Notion
but this inner difference still falls to begin with only within the Understanding - and is
not yet posited in the thing itself
it is therefore only its own necessity that is asserted by the Understanding - the
difference here is not a difference of the thing itself
this necessity which is merely verbal is thus a recital of the moments constituting the
cycle of the necessity
the moments are indeed distinguished but their difference is expressly said to be not a
difference of the thing itself - and consequently it is immediately canceled again - this
process is called explanation
a law is enunciated - from this its universal element or ground is distinguished as
Force - but this difference is no difference - the ground is constituted exactly the same
as the law
the single occurrence of lightning is apprehended as a universal - and this law is
enunciated as the law of electricity - the explanation then condenses the law in Force
as the essence of the law
this Force then is so constituted that when it is expressed - opposite electricities
appear - which disappear again into one another - that is Force is constituted exactly
the same as the law - there is no difference between them
Force and law have the same content
COMMENTARY:
a statement or law i.e 'all a's are b's' - strictly speaking can never be asserted in the
first place - we have no grounds for such a proposal
so we ask what is going on in the proposal of law?
it is simply this - universal statements give the appearance of certainty
they are in effect a simple denial of uncertainty
and I would put that they therefore function as platforms on which and from which we
deal with - the true reality of uncertainty
for purposes of action we need such illusions -
they are false platforms - created for the purpose of looking forward and proceeding
in such proposals as 'all a's are b's' - what we have is an argument of unity -
the differences are there 'a' is 'a' - 'b' is 'b' - the argument is that all a's are b's -
which is to dissolve the differences - the particularities - into what -?
clearly just the notion of singularity
and this is really the logic of the idea of singularity -
the argument that particularity dissolves -
dissolves into what?
well here the answer is Hegelian in a sense -
into the opposite of particularity
now it's not hard to see that this conclusion - has no content -
multiplicity is given - unity is posited as its opposite
but here the argument as much of Hegel's argument does - assumes there is always an
opposite - and that the opposite has reality
it is true we can always construct an opposite simply by applying the negation sign
the fact that we can perform this operation - may well be very useful at times
however it doesn't follow that in performing that operation we are pointing to an
actual state of affairs
Buddhism and other mystical traditions are based on the fallacy of negative content
the notion of singularity I am suggesting is without content -
clearly though - even as such it has function in our thinking
perhaps it gives us the idea of space
and in order to organize our actions such an idea is necessary
it is clear that when Hegel speaks of force and law as having the same content what
we are getting from him is alternative descriptions of the unknown
these descriptions are - in terms of the unknown - equivalent
their difference is a matter of function
