ISSN 0798 1015

Vol. 38 (Nº 49) Year 2017. Page 29

Time and Principle of Identity in Hegel’s Metaphysical Comprehension

Tiempo y Principio de Identidad en la Comprensión Metafísica de Hegel

Tatiana TORUBAROVA 1

Received: 30/09/2017 • Approved: 05/10/2017

Content

1. Introduction

2. Methods

3. Data, Analysis, and Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusion

References

1. Introduction

In metaphysical comprehension of things, we face the following fact – the understanding of being is determined not only in ancient metaphysics or in ordinary human existence (Dasein), but also throughout the history of Western metaphysics, which preserves the understanding of being as the permanent presence and constancy (Siep, 2014; Laughland, 2016; Kreines, 2015).

The original understanding of being is clarified directly in comprehension of permanent presence and constancy. Thus, we answer the question of how to understand things. The question is actually about all that exists in reality that is the leading problem of metaphysics. In Hegel’s view, the Absolute Spirit is an original thing in existence (Grumley, 2016; Bowman, 2013; Tunick, 2014). According to this, the existence of things (like a Spirit) must include an explanation of how the reality should be understood. How does the G.W.F. Hegel understand the existence of things: like an Absolute Spirit or like an “Actual Reality” (the reality of real)? "Spirit ... is always there"; hence, the eternity is a Spirit’s way of being. "Eternity is not before and after time, rather eternity is the absolute presence". "But ... any general concept is eternal, and therefore, it is absolute present" (Hegel, 1975). This Present is not instantaneous now that comes, goes and disappears (Pippin, 2015, p. 159; Deligiorgi, 2014; Yerlan et al., 2016, pp. 4054-4064); it is not only the duration of present in usual sense – it is the Present that is reflected as duration (Nuzzo, 2016, p. 119; Houlgate, & Baur, 2015). It is a higher constancy – the only thing to posit Selfdom, Being-Within-Self.

According to Hegel's statement, the problems of Western metaphysics are risen to a new dimension (Kreines, 2015; Tunick, 2014; Pippin, 2015, p. 159), understanding Being more radically – like a substance, wherein, in the sense of the subject. In this case, Being in an absolute sense means "permanent presence" that is, absolute existence of all things. Being-like-substance is positing in positing actual reality with a sense of the subject, measured by will. According to Hegel, "Being is a produced thought; thus, reality, produced by thinking, is an actual thinking, Ego cogito, actus purus” (Sergeev, & Perov, 2000, pp. 570-571).

2. Methods

The methodological basis of the article is a philosophical-comparative analysis and methods of scientific-theoretical approach to Hegelianism (hermeneutic, inductive, deductive and ascent from the abstract to the concrete).

Thus, Hegel's metaphysical knowledge is analyzed in three areas – ontological, epistemological and methodological, each of which contains different explanatory potential.

We also used logical-theoretical method, which has allowed us to characterize different gnosiological constructs in Hegel’s theory in accordance with his moral concepts and strict scientific criteria.

3. Data, Analysis, and Results

Thus, Time is a Will. Will is possible only in denying certain state of world; therefore, any chosen time posits the former (previous) state of the world. In this case, we can say that the world has no beginning in time. However, we cannot say about the world that it is eternal, as the eternal has neither past nor future. Something is always; hence, Hegel says, "The eternity ... is actual present" (Hegel, 1975). The primacy of Time in "Phenomenology" derives from the fact that the future will always remain as unfulfilled requirement; from the fact that the concept is always projected towards the future realization. In the "Philosophy of Nature", Hegel says about Time: "... it is a reality, which does not exist existing and exists without existing" (Hegel, 1959, pp. 429-430). Since Time is not fully implemented and realized, it continues to exist, but if it is implemented, the Time will end and disappear. Reconciliation with reality will actually end Time. In this case, the concept coincides with reality. There is no reality coinciding with the concept, where Time is destroyed. If a person exists in time with history, then action that overcomes the time would end the history, and thus, the human being with history, formed in history, will disappear. This is not a biological death of a person as of higher organism that has a human form, but a condition, in which there is no will, no future. This is a decay of spirit, a decay of a creative aspect, which is the Time itself. In Hegel’s view, Time is a «spirit’s demand ... to enrich self-consciousness, to set in motion other dimensions...». «This substance, which is a Spirit, is a self-formation; this reflective self-formation of a Spirit is the Absolute Spirit» (Hegel, 1959, pp. 429-430). History as a dialectical development is transformation of awareness of an external object into awareness of something within self. According to Hegel, Time is equal to the history of human knowledge or Philosophy. The beginning of this dialectical process is unconscious and goes back to consciousness only at the end of the process. The identity between the world substance and a man is a hidden principle, but it is not obvious to a person, as the realization of truth depends on the concept of human isolation from the world. Even if there is such isolation, human principle is still hidden in world identity and spirit. The history begins only through human activities to meet their desires, and the world is already there in history. History is a process of dialectical development, as well as knowledge of overcoming this isolation that grounds the history. The history principle is hidden in the original identity of a man and the world. In terms of a man, Time and history are possible only when he or she is separated from the world and sees oneself as opposed to it – the world becomes an object. «Hegel’s challenge is not in a critical world dissection into two halves – being and knowledge; but, on the contrary, in these worlds together – in a beautiful unit. He tries not to discover the poverty of cognition; not to clarify the boundaries, contradictions and antinomies of the spirit; but to smooth these contradictions and eliminate these difficulties. In short, Hegel's system ... is an image of the universe in the form of a wonderful space» (Haym, 2006, p. 68).

The purpose of the history is to restore the lost unity, to overcome the opposition between the man and the world by dialectical development and to discover this hidden principle by means of conception. However, the result of hidden principle becoming an obvious principle eliminates "the lack", and thus, human desire that stimulates human development. After all, Time is a child of desire, and its fulfillment is the end of Time. "It is self-formation, a circle with the end that is its purpose and beginning and which is valid only through its implementation and its end" (Hegel, 1959, pp. 429-430). "This progress is a circle, which expects the beginning, but reaches it only in the end" (Hegel, 1959, pp. 429-430). The Spirit develops this form of knowledge as a real history. If the purpose of history is to return to the beginning, and the history itself is a progress of self-consciousness, then we will need a different perspective to discover the circularity of knowledge. The cyclical conception does not consider Time. Hegel argued that the Time will not be a "continuous creative evolution" if there is no significant change in the world, if there is only a natural duplication. Yet, time is circular, but it eliminates duplication. There is only one circle of Time, which means that it is ultimate. History circle is determined by its beginning. We could start the Time circle from the beginning if the history goes back to its beginning before reaching the end – to the state of original wildness. If this is not possible, then the history time is producing new and creative. In "Philosophy of Right", Hegel has pointed out that neither philosophical concept is unable to overcome the boundaries of certain era, time, that is, any philosophy implements only the ultimate truth of the Spirit in its dialectical development. The principle’s clarity is being reached by finding the truth of the concept that requires separation from the reality represented by the concept. However, as the concept is separated from the world, the contrast between man and the world remains without changes. Therefore, the principle’s identity is not reached. The man has no future if he or she loses the will, if he or she does not seek the absolute. Dialectical development is the concept existence. Since Time is a form of concept existence, there is a phenomenology of the Spirit, developed in the logic of developing concept, which includes three main sections: the being, the substance and the concept.

Hegel pointed out: "What is rational is real and what is real is rational". The first part corresponds to Hegel's thesis that the unconditioned that is present mostly in theory is "only a concept, the principle of the Spirit and the Heart" (Hegel, 1956, p. 292). Hegel believed that the philosophy of history is to comprehend "what is and what was"; wherein, it is "truer, while adhered to reality" (Hegel, 1956, p. 292). Thus, Hegel continues the Enlightenment tradition. He rejects the view of the world that is abstain from earthly being, but his theory remains metaphysical. He tried to overcome the difference between the earthly and the otherworldly, between the ultimate and infinite, between earth (civitas terrena) and heaven (coelistis), between intelligible world (mundis intelligibilis) and sensual (sensibilis), between the sacred and secular history, but this overcoming was carried not in secularized tendencies inherent in the Enlightenment. According to Hegel, the actual knowledge should not be limited to psychophysical phenomena, as in the concept of "natural light" by d'Alembert. It is substantiated and gets objectives not in active human life, but in itself, therefore, it must deduce the meaning of life and its reason without reference to human activity. The second part of the statement is conformation of the course of nature by "pure reason", as the recognition of all reasonable means that all is recognized as existing in a certain order. Hegel’s idea of ​​revelation is limited to comprehend reality, but at the same time, it extends the scope of the given specifically for revelation. In secularizing God, he also deifies the world. Hegel considers the term "reality" as "high title".

Not every being deserves it. However, how could a "pure reason" possibly exist if Hegel said that the idea is true only insofar as it presents itself in detail? Let us consider the concept of unconditioned knowledge, as it was developed in German Idealism and against which Kant spoke. In this concept, the principle of identity of subject and object is a necessary condition for truth. Kantians believed that they were developing his idea of a subject that can know only himself. As long as the subject is limited to another being, his knowledge is necessarily incomplete. In this case, we can never be sure that the knowledge that we have now will not be radically transformed or destroyed in cognition of the whole. Thus, the subject should identify himself with the absolute; he should be infinite. K. Marx wrote, "Hegel can explain the process, by which the philosopher using sensual intuition and species moves from one subject to another, by clever sophistry as the process, performed by the most imaginary rational entity, by an absolute subject" (Mamardashvili, 2011, p. 84). Any knowledge acquires a meaning only in cognizing the whole and absolute. The claims of fragmentary knowledge to the absolute truth are possible only when it can be considered as cognition of the whole. This prerequisite defines the entire Hegel’s system. The explanation of being is determined by his understanding of cognition and "actual knowledge".

Hegel was aware of transient nature and dependence of known-in the history of philosophy “eternal beings”; therefore, none of them attracted him. In thee "Introduction to the History of Philosophy", he says that a new philosophical doctrine is to deny the earlier one, to eliminate shortcomings, finally to found the true one. "But, according to previous experience, it turns out that such philosophical systems could be introduced with words from “The Acts of the Apostles”, told by an apostle Peter to Ananias’s wife: "Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” Look, a philosophy system that denies and replaces yours will not take too long ..." (Hegel, 1932). Hegel's ideas in history, sociology and psychology anticipated important results of many systematic studies of modern science. Yet, Hegel was convinced that no "actual" knowledge is possible, except the knowledge in a holistic sense of self-cognition by an omnipresent entity. In accordance with his idea of actual knowledge being self-cognition, Hegel's logic reveals concepts related with such identity, that is, being self-determines they belong to the idea of ​​such unity. He interprets the nature and human world based on these concepts guiding his logic of thinking; he separates the history on stages, on which self-knowledge is developing. In different types of government and cultures as the highest creations of the Spirit, there is realized knowledge only with finished and categorized content natural and human world. Through this concept of knowledge, determined by identity of subject and object, Hegel substantiates the reasonableness of the real.

4. Discussion

Hegel criticizes the "abstract identity" of F.W.J. Schelling, who denied any differences. According to Hegel, the differences should not be denied in identity, but also "removed" in a double sense. The identity must be considered as the conceptual unity of contradictions, in overcoming which it arises. Speculative unity is a single philosophical system of the world with all the richness of its content. According to I.A. Ilyin: "Hegel’s idea of "identity"... shares the fate of all other ideas: it is transformed, renewed in its content and has a new, speculative value". “Speculative identity” is not a "process stability", but "stability in the process"; it does not exclude new differences and opposites, but, on the contrary, involves them and is enriched by them, it remains true to its original nature. Hegel’s "identity" means a particular unity of two real meanings, substantially and formally combined" (Ilyin, 1994, p. 151).

The principle of absolute identity of subject and object is determined from the very beginning and throughout the Hegelian system as a starting point. Therefore, any differences can be interpreted as a "contradiction" in his system. After all, they are understood as thoughts of the Identity of Everything. That is why he sees incompatible contrast between the philosophy of Heraclitus and Parmenides. Concept dialectical self-development is based on the fact that every definition of progress is associated with a system of perfect self-knowledge and does not satisfy it. The absolute identity as a result is anticipated from the very beginning. It is impossible to gain insight into any progress in logic, philosophy of nature and philosophy of mind without this anticipation.

The categories, determined based on the Principle of Identity, form the horizon and the scale, on which true reality differs from "accidental" existence. These categories define the Mind as the highest stage of reality, to which Hegel refers opposing the Mind to meaninglessness of money and suffering of "creatures of the earth", because it is just a "visibility". Speculative unity helps to transform the knowledge of the world in the knowledge of God, and to allocate the necessary and random phenomena and facts on essential and non-essential etc. More recent history events are devoted to an earlier state of things. Hence, there is an idea of ​ "tricky" mind using people as human material to realize certain goals. Philosophy, according to Hegel, is to cover all the "real" describing metaphysical nature based on the Principle of Identity. Hegel argues that "substantial is a part of phenomenon and only a part of reality" (Hegel, 1929, p. 227). All the contradictions are ultimate in nature. Hegel has convincingly shown that the Principle of Identity of being and thinking, understood in idealistic manner, will turn out to be metaphysical eventually. If we are not the same with the "absolute" Spirit, if 'being' does not move inside us (that what Hegel believes), if it is not the time for a complete cognition of the essence, then there is no philosophy in its metaphysical sense. Philosophy was to be the knowledge of reality and scientific substantiation in the form of research, but it wanted to be independent. It was to uncover the natural, social and spiritual order of the universe, and not turn into a description of conditioned variety. Then, according to Hegel, it should be based on the principle of full self-knowledge of the absolute. If we reject the idea of ​​a tricky reason that stands for people’s struggle for their own interests, the belief in the purpose of the trick to be substantiated goal of world process and knowledge disappears. This belief is based on the principle of essential identity of the Spirit and reality. Hegel's system is based on his speculative logic, based on the Principle of Identity.

According to Hegel, every philosophical system should contain the idea of ​​integrity at a definite stage of its development. Although, it is not fully developed. In the history of philosophy, "it (philosophy) is an idea in general and within all the elements with one heart beating through all the elements, just as a fluttered single life of a personality" (Hegel, 1932). Hegel reveals this absolute idea through his "logical" categories, derived from the Principle of Identity of the subject and the object. Hegel believed that it is important "to be able to recognize these pure concepts in history content" (Hegel, 1932); but "we must already have knowledge of ideas in order to understand their further development in empirical form and phenomena, in which philosophy appears in history" (Hegel, 1932). The unity of Hegelian system, the vision of a staged and circular nature of philosophical doctrines, of necessity inherent throughout the history of the Spirit and developing by its own laws, of its organic structure are based on the Principle of Identity. Hegel said that philosophy is impossible in its speculative sense – there must be a system of Absolute Spirit, learning itself in its manifestations. However, if the knowledge of ordinary man is produced, according to Kant, without the shine of world Spirit’s thinking, if the knowledge and the object of thought and reality are consistent with each other and are not absolutely identical so far in their development, the philosophical thinking has to give up the absolute claims. Hegel equates being that is pointing to the multiplicity of things to Nothing. The Mind could create Reality out of this Nothing imagining himself as a Divine.

Yet, we should not forget the seminal ideas of Hegelianism. Philosophy cannot give up the principle of self-knowledge in the framework of the relations between being and thinking (Heidegger, 1983, p. 62). However, it should remain human in the sense that our thinking cannot be independent, and t cannot imagine itself as a Divine. We will be necessarily involved in metaphysical orientation if we proceed from some independent and absolute foundation of the world with its own internal logic, mind, meaning and purpose that specify all. No one can beat Hegel in that. Hegel himself said that philosophy cannot ignore empiricism, that "philosophy would not go further than in ancient times without self-developments of experimental sciences" (Hegel, 1935, p. 220); that the scientific system is a strict developing action necessity (Siep, 2014). The science should be like this in its systems of knowledge, but it has been already built on different foundations.

5. Conclusion

Thus, the original identity that forms a substantial foundation of the world is the identity of thinking and being, in which there is a difference between subjective and objective, but this difference exists only in mind. Thinking is not only a human activity (subjective), but also an objective substance, which is the primary source of all that exists.

Hegel with his idealism underestimated the sense data and considered thinking as the highest form of knowledge of the outside world. The concept, as the source of life, is the main form of thinking. He identified it with Time. Thus, if Hegel speaks of Abstract Time, this also means he speaks about abstract concepts. This is the usual interpretation of the concept: it is "subjective" concept, separated or could be separated from its real content; it is an empty vessel containing the reality; and it is a concept that exists "outside me, independently of me". Time is interpreted in the same way as the concept is interpreted: if the concept is opposed to reality, if knowledge is an attitude, then Time itself is contrasted to reality, and vice versa. The concept is an "idea" – a kind of unreal substance (nothing filled by another substance, distinct from the first one), presented to the Consciousness from the outside. Since the Concept and Time are inseparable, the same could be said about Time as well.

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1. Philosophy Department, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Moscow, Russia. E-mail: torubarova.tat@gmail.com