Sorry Cde Dominic, indeed the documents are attached. It seems that for a moment there technology conquered me. Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you!
-----Original Message----- From: Dominic Tweedie <[email protected]> Sender: [email protected] Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2011 16:17:46 To: <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [YCLSA Discussion] Being, Essence and Notion, The three divisions of Hegel's "Logic" Dear Cde Thamsanqa, I have been attaching the documents for a few weeks past, to all political education posts, and I did so in this case, as you have probably noticed by now. I don't want to abandon the downloadable links. Those are important means of accessibility for a lot of people. But I will probably continue to attach the documents. I will try to answer your other message (on CU) shortly. VC On 6 October 2011 16:56, <[email protected]> wrote: > Comrade Domza, > > May you please attach the documents instead of just providing the link? For > some reason I can't download these. My apologies for imposing an additional > burden on you. > > Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you! > ------------------------------ > *From: * Dominic Tweedie <[email protected]> > *Sender: * [email protected] > *Date: *Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:55:06 +0200 > *To: *<[email protected]> > *ReplyTo: * [email protected] > *Subject: *[YCLSA Discussion] Being, Essence and Notion, The three > divisions of Hegel's "Logic" > > *CU Course on Hegel, Part 5* > > ** > [image: Immediate]** > > *“Immediacy”: Unselfconscious Being* > > ** ** > > *Being, Essence and Notion* > > * * > > *The three divisions of the Logic* > ** > ** > Lenin wrote: *“It is impossible completely to understand Marx's Capital… > without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's > Logic.” *Our mission, given by Lenin, is therefore to thoroughly study and > understand the whole of Hegel’s Logic. > ** ** > We soon find that there are actually two Logics: *The Shorter > Logic<http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/sl_index.htm> > *, and *The Science of > Logic<http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/hl_index.htm> > *; but they are similar and are both divided by three main headings: * > Being*, *Essence* and *Notion*. > ** ** > This time we are going to reverse the order and take Andy Blunden’s lecture > as the main item, simply because Andy has done a great job. > ** ** > There is a movement from Being, through Essence, to Notion. This is not to > deny the importance of the argument and the detail, but to say that what > distinguishes Hegel’s Logic is that it shows how things develop from nothing > to something. It is not a static philosophy of positions and definitions. > Nor is it an owners’ manual for the mind. It is a science of creation, > and development. The beginning is Being, which is “immediate” with as yet no > past and no future. Hence our illustration of the unselfconscious puppy-dog, > above. > ** ** > The following are extracts from Andy Blunden’s lecture, finishing with a > reference back to Marx’s Capital, that may assist readers to get a quick > overview of Andy’s overview of Hegel’s “Logic”: > ** ** > *“I should mention here as an aside that all Hegel’s major works have the > same structure: he identifies the simple concept or notion which marks the > unconditioned starting point for the given science, and then he applies the > method, the model for which is given in the Logic, in order to elaborate > what is implicit in the given concept; he develops ‘the peculiar internal > development of the thing itself.’ * > * * > *“So, the Logic begins with a critique of Being, what is contained in the > concept of ‘Being’. The Logic is really the study of concepts; so, the > Concept is the truth of Being, whilst Being is the Concept still ‘in > itself’. The Third Book of the Logic is the Doctrine of the Notion (or > Concept which is same thing), that is, the Concept for itself. But in the > Doctrine of Being, the Concept is still just ‘in itself’. * > * * > *“If there is to be some thing amidst the infinite coming and going, the > chaos of existence, the simplest actual thing that can be is a Quality, > something that persists amidst change. And if we ask what it is that changes > while it remains of the same quality, what changes when the thing still > remains what it is, then this is what we call Quantity. But a thing cannot > indefinitely undergo quantitative change and remain still what it is, retain > the same quality; at some point, a quantitative change amounts to a change > in Quality, and this Quantitative change which amounts to a Qualitative > change, the unity of Quality and Quantity, we call the Measure of the thing. > * > * * > *“Thus there are three grades of Being: Quality, Quantity and Measure. We > apply these categories to things that we regard as objects, the business of > the positivist sociologist, the observer. Even a participant in a not yet > emergent social change or sociological category, has to play the role of > sociologist to be conscious of it. * > * * > *“Essence is reflection… When people reflect on things, they do so only > with the aid of what they already know. So reflection is a good term. It is > new Being, reflected in the mirror of old concepts. It’s like what Marx was > talking about in the “Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”: * > ** ** > ‘The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the > brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with > revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist > before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously > conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them > names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in > world history in time-honoured disguise and borrowed language.’ (18th > Brumaire, I) > ** ** > *“The third part of the Logic is the Doctrine of the Notion. Notion is a > translation of the German word Begriff which is also translated as > ‘concept’. * > * * > *“The Doctrine of the Notion begins with an abstract notion, and the > process of the Notion is that it gets more and more concrete. * > * * > *“The first section of the Notion is Subjectivity, or the Subject. And > here for the first time we get a glimpse of Hegel’s conception of the > subject: it is not an individual person in any sense at all, but a simple > element of consciousness arising from social practices which implicate the > whole community, reflected in language, the whole social division of labour > and so on. * > * * > *“The process of the Doctrine of the Notion is the abstract notion > becoming more and more concrete. This process of concretization takes place > through objectification of subjectivity, that is, through the > subject-object relation. The first thing to grasp about the Object, which is > the second division of the Doctrine of the Notion, is that the Object may be > other Subjects, Subjects which are Objects in relation to the Subject or > Subjects which have become thoroughly objectified. Objectification is not > limited to the construction of material objects or texts; it’s a bit like > ‘mainstreaming’, or being institutionalized. The process of development of > the Subject is a striving to transform the Object according to its own > image, but in the process the Subject itself is changed and in the process > of objectification becomes a part of the living whole of the community.* > * * > *“The unity of Subject and Object, the third and last grade of the > Doctrine of the Notion, is the Idea. The Idea can be understood as the whole > community as an intelligible whole, it is the summation of the pure > essentialities of a complete historical form of life. It is the logical > representation of Spirit, or of the development and life of an entire > community, in the form of a concrete concept. * > * * > *“So the starting point of a science is the Notion which forms the subject > of the science, not Being. This is worth mentioning because there is a > widespread fallacy about the relation between Marx’s Capital and Hegel’s > Logic. Some writers have put Capital up against the Logic, and in an effort > to match them, start by equating the commodity relation with Being, on the > basis that the commodity relation is the “simplest relation” or on the basis > that the commodity relation is immediate. But the first thing to be done in > a science, according to Hegel (and Marx followed Hegel in this), is to form > a Notion of the subject, the simplest possible relation whose unfolding > produces the relevant science. In the case of Capital, this abstract notion, > the germ of capital, is the commodity relation. In the case of the > Philosophy of Right, it was the relation of Abstract Right, that is private > property. The problem of the origins of value or of the commodity relation > is a different question, and Marx demonstrates his familiarity with the > Doctrine of Essence in the third section of Chapter One, where the > money-form is shown to emerge out of a series of relations constituting > historically articulated resolutions of the problem of realizing an expanded > division of labour.”* > ** ** > *Please download and read this text via the link:* > *Hegel’s Logic - Being, Essence and Notion, 2007, > Blunden<https://sites.google.com/site/communistuniversity/texts/22-hegel-dialectics/2205Hegel%E2%80%99sLogic-Being%2CEssenceandNotion%2C2007%2CBlunden.doc?attredirects=0&d=1> > * (4951 words) > ** ** > *Further reading:* > *Excerpts from Hegel on Being, Essence and > Notion<https://sites.google.com/site/communistuniversity/texts/22-hegel-dialectics/2205aExcerptsfromHegelonBeing%2CEssenceandNotion.doc?attredirects=0&d=1> > * (1040 words) > ** ** > ** ** > ** ** > > -- > You are subscribed. 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