Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T08:08:38.051Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 3 - The Absolute Relation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2021

George Di Giovanni
Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal
Get access

Summary

Absolute necessity is not so much the necessary, even less a necessary, but necessity – being simply as reflection. It is relation because it is a distinguishing whosemoments are themselves the whole totality of necessity, and therefore subsist absolutely, but do so in such a way that their subsisting is one subsistence, and the difference only the reflective shine of themovement of exposition, and this reflective shine is the absolute itself. – Essence as such is reflection or a shining; as absolute relation, however, essence is the reflective shine posited as reflective shine, one which, as such self-referring, is absolute actuality. – The absolute, first expounded by external reflection, as absolute form or as necessity now expounds itself; this self-exposition is its self-positing, and is only this self-positing. – Just as the light of nature is not a something, nor is it a thing, but its being is rather only its shining, so manifestation is self-identical absolute actuality.

The sides of the absolute relation are not, therefore, attributes. In the attribute the absolute reflectively shines only in one of its moments, as in a presupposition that external reflection has simply assumed. But the expositor of the absolute is the absolute necessity which, as self-determining, is identical with itself. Since this necessity is the reflective shining posited as reflective shining, the sides of this relation, because they are as shine, are totalities; for as shine, the differences are themselves and their opposite, that is, they are the whole; and, conversely, they thus are only shine because they are totalities. Thus this distinguishing, this reflecting shining of the absolute, is only the identical positing of itself.

This relation in its immediate concept is the relation of substance and accidents, the immediate internal disappearing and becoming of the absolute reflective shine. If substance determines itself as a being-for-itself over against an other or is absolute relation as something real, then we have the relation of causality. Finally, when this last relation passes over into reciprocal causality by referring itself to itself, we then have the absolute relation also posited in accordance with the determination it contains; this posited unity of itself in its determinations, which are posited as the whole itself and consequently equally as determinations, is then the concept.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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.

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.

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.

Available formats
×