Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-12T21:51:41.782Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

20 - On nothing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Daniel Chua
Affiliation:
King's College London
Get access

Summary

‘Nothing’ is the only real absolute in a world without God as foundation. Hence the absolute subject, as the new foundation of philosophy, claims its absolute status by spinning out its existence from nothing – indeed, its entire world from its own nothingness: subject and object.

The first Idea is naturally the notion of my self as an absolutely free being. With the free self-conscious being [Wesen] a whole world emerges at the same time – out of nothing – the only true and thinkable creation from nothing

The question for the early Romantics was how this absolute subject in its godlike sovereignty was going to fashion a world ex nihilo to ground itself in; without a coherent universe, subjectivity would simply flounder in a seemingly contingent and fragmented world. The subject, as ‘God’, needed an absolute that was not merely its own empty autonomy, but a totality in which the diverse and particular things of the world could settle within a system of the whole. But how could one remake God in the abstract from the innards of one's soul, unless there is some intimation of the divine waiting to be sifted out of the subject? What was required was a method of signification that could function as ‘God’, that is, as some kind of invisible sign prior to reality that would organise reality in harmony with the self. The solution? To signify nothing as totality. In fact, Friedrich Schlegel's shorthand for the absolute is 0.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • On nothing
  • Daniel Chua, King's College London
  • Book: Absolute Music and the Construction of Meaning
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511481697.021
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • On nothing
  • Daniel Chua, King's College London
  • Book: Absolute Music and the Construction of Meaning
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511481697.021
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • On nothing
  • Daniel Chua, King's College London
  • Book: Absolute Music and the Construction of Meaning
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511481697.021
Available formats
×