¹ Hegel says, “Judgement is the division of the concept through itself…. It is thus the original dividing [ursprüngliche Teilung] of the original identity” (Science of Logic, Werke in 20 Bänden, Vol. 6, edited by Moldenhauer, E. and Michel, K. M. [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970], p. 304).Google Scholar See also Hegel, 's Encyclopedia LogicGoogle Scholar (EL), §166: “The etymological meaning of judgement in our language is deeper and expresses the unity of the concept as what is first, and its differentiation as the original dividing, what judgement is in truth.”

² Hegel, , Science of Logic, pp. 301–10.Google Scholar See also Hegel's analysis of the speculative proposition in the Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, Werke in 20 Bänden, Vol. 3, pp. 57–63.Google Scholar “Thus as well, in philosophical propositions, the identity of the subject and the predicate should not abolish the difference within, which the form of the proposition expresses, but rather their identity should present itself as a harmony” (ibid., p. 59).

³ EL §166: “The copula ‘is’ comes from the nature of the concept, of being, in its alienation, identical with itself.” The destiny or fulfillment of the copula is the moment of particularity, the existing and essential middle term of the Hegelian syllogism, where “[t]he determined and filled [or fulfilled] copula, which before was formed by the abstract is, but has subsequently been further constituted as the foundation in general, is now present” (Science of Logic, pp. 350–51).Google Scholar Andreas Graeser refuses to consider this fulfillment that is already present in judgement; he persists in seeing the judgement form as only a deficient iteration of identity, citing Hegel's EL §31. While, for Hegel, the prepositional form of judgement is, in itself or on its own, incapable of articulating speculative truth, i.e., it is not yet the syllogism, when it is grasped speculatively, it is seen to contain within itself the germ of speculative truth, of both identity and difference. In Hegel's words, “[t]he etymological meaning of judgement in our language is deeper and expresses the unity of the concept as what is first, and its differentiation as the original dividing, what judgement is in truth” (EL §166). For Hegel, propositions are only speculative, or objectively true, within the system of science, which is syllogistic in form. See Graeser, Andreas, “Hegel über die Rede vom Absoluten. Teil 1: Urteil, Statz und spekulativer Gehalt,” Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 44 (1990): 175–93.Google Scholar

⁴ Surber, Jere Paul, “Hegel's Speculative Sentence,” Hegel-Studien, 10 (1975): 211–30, esp. pp. 214–15.Google Scholar Surber's groundbreaking article is an exegesis of the above-cited passage from the Preface to the Phenomenology. Graeser seems to understand the homonymous use of “Subjekt” as an unfortunate vagueness or ambiguity. In fact, for him, “das Subjekt ist kein Subjekt” (“Hölderlin über Urteil und Sein,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie, 38 [1991]: 111–27, esp. p. 117).Google Scholar This point of view seems untenable in light of sub sequent passages we find in Hegel, where both meanings of “subject” are clearly present. For example, in EL §166, Hegel writes, “However, in that the copula ‘is’ states the predicate of the subject, this exterior, subjective subsumption is in its turn suppressed, and the judgement is taken as a determination of the object itself.” For Graeser, the speculative sentence is not really speculative: “the so-called speculative proposition is a proposition, and nothing more” (“Hegel über die Rede vom Absoluten,” p. 176).Google Scholar See also Surber, 's “The Problems of Language in German Idealism,” in Wiegand, O. K. et al. (eds.), Phenomenology on Kant, German Idealism, Hermeneutics and Logic (Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000), pp. 305–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where he refers to “the Idealists' reflections upon Urteil und Satz as fundamental to their understanding of the relations among logic, language and consciousness” (ibid., p. 336). See also Surber, 's “Satz and Urteil in Kant and Fichte,” in Breazeale, D. and Rockmore, T., eds., New Essays in Fichte's Foundation of the Entire Doctrine of Scientific Knowledge (Amherst, CT: Humanity Books, 2001), pp. 155–64.Google Scholar

⁵ See my “Objective Language and Scientific Truth in Hegel,” forthcoming in Hegel and Language by SUNY Press.

⁶ In terms of classical-truth theories, Hegel eschews truth by correspondence. Rockmore, Tom says, “Hegel is rejecting any form of the correspondence view of truth” (Cognition: An Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997], p. 3).Google Scholar One might then turn to the coherence theory of truth, but this is only completely effective with formal systems and their statements. Hegel's system makes statements about reality, and so the question arises as to how these statements can be true without being so by correspondence.

⁷ Surber points out how this idea of language as both being and thought is found in Schelling's idea of language as art, the incarnation of the absolute (Surber, , “The Problems of Language,” pp. 322–23).Google Scholar

⁸ “The Logos, by tradition … signifies the identity of thinking and Being—or, in modern terms, of subjectivity and objectivity” (Marx, Werner, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by Heath, P. [New York: Harper & Row, 1975], p. xxii).Google Scholar

⁹ Hegel, , Science of Logic, p. 351.Google Scholar Here also we find: “[The regained unity of the concept] is the fulfilled or content-full copula of judgement…. Through this fulfillment of the copula, judgement has become the syllogism.” This is what Hegel means when he writes that the judgement form, or the proposition, is “unsuited to expressing what is concrete (and the truth is concrete) and speculative” (EL §31). To express truth, propositions must be part of a system. “The true form in which the truth exists can only be as the scientific system of itself” (Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 14).Google Scholar

¹⁰ See Aubenque, P., Le problème de l'être chez Aristote (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1962), p. 291.Google Scholar

¹¹ Lessons on Esthetics, Werke in 20 Bänden, Vol. 13, pp. 96, 211.Google Scholar See my article “Hegel et la maladie psychique — le cas Novalis,” Science et Esprit, 56, 2 (maiaoût 2004): 189–202.Google Scholar

¹² Encyclopedia §404, Werke in 20 Bänden, Vol. 10, pp. 203–204.Google Scholar Recent work on madness and Hegel includes: Mills, Jon, “Hegel on the Unconscious Abyss: Implications for Psychoanalysis,” Owl of Minerva, 28, 1 (Fall 1996): 59–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mills, Jon, The Unconscious Abyss: Hegel's Anticipation of Psychoanalysis (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Pillow, Kirk, “Habituating Madness and Phantasying Art in Hegel's Encyclopedia,” Owl of Minerva, 28, 2 (Spring 1997): 183–215CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rozenberg, J., “Physiologie, embryologie et psychopathologie: une mise à l'épreuve de la conceptualité hégélienne,” Archives de Philosophie, 60, 2 (avril-06 1997): 243–54.Google Scholar On Novalis and madness, see Krell, D. F.'s Contagion: Sexuality, Disease and Death in German Idealism and Romanticism (Indianapolis, IN: Indianapolis University Press, 1998).Google Scholar

¹³ Encyclopedia §404. Here, Hegel describes mental illness as “a state where the development of the soul, already having achieved, in its later determination, consciousness and understanding, can once again fall.”

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ This is the original meaning of the Latin term “genius,” a spirit presiding at the birth of an individual, determining its destiny.

¹⁶ Encyclopedia §405.

¹⁷ Ibid., §404.

¹⁸ Ibid., §405.

¹⁹ Ibid., §410.

²⁰ Hegel says the adolescent seeks a male authority figure but he does not say this figure has to be his biological father. This seems to indicate the father's role in the child's genesis and upbringing is extra-natural. See Encyclopedia §397 addition. The movement from soul to consciousness can be seen as a struggle for liberation, as we find in Lucas, Hans-Christian, “The Sovereign Ingratitude of Spirit Toward Nature,” Owl of Minerva, 23, 2 (Sping 1992): 131–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; or in Moland, Lydia, “Inheriting, Earning and Owning: The Source of Practical Identity in Hegel's Anthropology,” Owl of Minerva, 34, 2 (Spring/Summer 2003): 139–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In psychological terms, this liberation from nature should perhaps also be seen as a liberation from the maternal. In this way, the fall into madness is, in the proper sense of the word, hysteria. Other important commentaries on the Subjective Spirit section of the Encyclopedia include Fetscher, I., Hegels Lehre vom Menschen (Stuttgart: Friedrich Frommann Ver lag, 1970)Google Scholar; Greene, Murray, Hegel on the Soul (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Olsen, Allen, Hegel and the Spirit (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992)Google Scholar, and the thematic issue of Hegel-Studien, Vol.19Google Scholar, Hegels Philosophische Psychologie, edited by Dieter Henrich (1979).Google Scholar

²¹ Encyclopedia §405, pp. 125–26.Google Scholar

²² Ibid.,§403, p. 122.

²³ The late Jacques Rivelaygue taught at L'Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne. Some of his students edited his incomparable leçons.

²⁴ I am translating Rivelaygue, Jacques, Leçons de métaphysique allemande, Vol. 1 (Paris: Grasset, 1990), pp. 191–92.Google Scholar

²⁵ It may have been written on the inside cover of Hölderlin's copy of the first edition of Fichte, 's Wissenschaftslehre (1794)Google Scholar (Hölderlin, Friedrich, Sämtliche Werke, Vol. 4, edited by Beissner, F. [Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1962], pp. 226–27).Google Scholar See also Beissner's commentary (ibid., pp. 391–92). For an English translation, see Harris, H. S., Hegel's Development: Toward the Sunlight 1770–1801 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 515–16.Google Scholar

²⁶ Hölderlin, , Sämtliche Werke, Vol. 4, p. 226.Google Scholar

²⁷ Hegel uses the expression “I = I” in too many places to mention to denote subjective or personal identity, a solipsistic self-reflection which cannot include real, worldly difference.

²⁸ EL §84: “[Undetermined] being is the concept only in itself.”

²⁹ Hegel, G W. F., Wissenschaft der Logik, Die Lehre von Sein (1832), edited by Gawoll, H.-J. (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1990), p. 72.Google Scholar

³⁰ Hölderlin, , Sämtliche Werke, Vol. 4, p. 227.Google Scholar

³¹ The text was published in 1961 by F. Beissner and was apparently written in early 1795. See Graeser, Andreas, “Hölderlin über Urteil und Sein,” p. 111.Google Scholar

³² Cf. Serrano-Marin, Vincente, “Sobre Hölderlin y los comienzos del Idealismo alemand,” Anales del Seminario de Historia de la Filosofia, 10 (1993): 173–94.Google Scholar

³³ My translation, from the Hoffmeister edition of Hegel's Correspondence. The round brackets are Hölderlin's.

³⁴ In this fragment, Hegel refers to the question of judgement and being, although he expresses it in terms of a reunion of differences: “Reunion and being have the same signification; in each proposition the binding word “is” expresses the reunion of subject and predicate—a being” (Science of Logic, p. 251).Google Scholar See notes by Depré, O. in the French translation, Hegel, Premiers écrits (Paris: Vrin, 1997), p. 137.Google Scholar See also Kondylis, P., Die Entstehung der Dialektik (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1979), p. 467.Google Scholar

³⁵ Hölderlin, in the above-quoted letter to Hegel (see note 33, above).

³⁶ John Burbidge rightly notes a reluctance among Canadian Hegel scholars to use “absolute” as a noun (“Hegel in Canada,” Owl of Minerva, 25, 2 [Spring 1994]: 215–19).Google Scholar In fact, I would say there is a general reluctance among contemporary Hegel scholars to consider the “absolutist” dimensions of Hegel's thought. I believe it is impossible to understand Hegel's systematic claims without considering the Idea as an absolute subject. At the end of the Encyclopedia, in §577, Hegel refers to “the subjective activity of the Idea.”

³⁷ The expression is found at the end of the EL §244: “The absolute freedom of the Idea is, however, that it … decides in the absolute truth of itself … to freely let itself go out of itself as nature.” A similar expression is found at the end of the Science of Logic. In EL §219, Hegel calls this “letting itself go” the “judgement of the concept” that produces “objectivity as an independent totality … an inorganic nature it is faced with.”

³⁸ Science of Logic, p. 573.Google Scholar

³⁹ Thus, this self-differentiation occurs in both the biblical sense of logos, the creative Word at the beginning of Hegel's favourite Gospel, and as a reasoned discourse. In these rarified realms of the absolute subject, it is hard not to think of God. Indeed, it is difficult not to understand a proposition, where an absolute subject known as the Idea posits its essence as the existence of the predicate, as something akin to the ontological argument, which claims to express the singular case where an idea can do nothing other than posit itself as existing. Such an interpretation would certainly not be false. It would simply be, in Hegelian terms, a depiction or representation of a more complex, scientific, or speculative truth. Such an interpretation would also explain why Hegel took pains to save the ontological argument from Kant's critique. After all, can anything be more radically opposed to Hegel's ontological notion of judgement than Kant's devastating refutation of the argument, saying that existence cannot be predicated?

⁴⁰ This can be found at EL §171. The copula is “filled” or is “inhaltsvolle” because it is the actual determination of both subject and predicate, or it is the moment of particularity between the universal singular (subject) and the universal predicate. As determined particularity, we can say it fulfills its meaning, which is “to be.” The copula thus becomes the middle term in the syllogism. We might say that Hegel reinterprets what every philosophy student knows on a purely formal level: the truth must not simply be asserted in a proposition; it must be expressed in a valid argument form, e.g., a syllogism.

⁴¹ Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 61.Google Scholar

⁴² Not seeing the homonymous nature of “subject” in Hegel's notion of judgement leads Richard Dien Winfield to ask, “even if judgement relates only two terms, why should the independent conceptual factors resulting from individuality be specifically related as subject and predicate? The subject-predicate relation seems to be not just bipolar, but non-transitive” (“From Concept to Judgement: Rethinking Hegel's Overcoming of Formal Logic,” Dialogue, 40, 1 [2001]: 53–74, on p. 70).Google Scholar Winfield's answer to his own question implies that Hegel arbitrarily adopts the judgement form because it is an adequate reflection of a true state of affairs existing outside the language of science itself. I do not believe Hegel's idea of scientific language admits such arbitrariness. “Subject and predicate are appropriate qualifiers insofar as they capture the salient features that the immediate individual and the abstract universal possess in the relationship by which the copula joins them” (ibid., p. 72).

⁴³ Friedrich Schlegel is, for Hegel, the paradigm of this sort of judging (Philosophy of Right, §140 addition). Also see Lessons on Esthetics, Werke in 20 Bänden, Vol. 13, pp. 93–95Google Scholar, and Vol. 11, pp. 233–34. Hegel also associates non-speculative judgement with the calculative reasoning of the understanding, where it is again destructive of the organic whole: “Judging means putting to death, presenting the individual, not what matters (die Sache), as if the living were the individual, not the truth” (Werke in 20 Bänden, Vol. 2, p. 560).Google Scholar Graeser fails to see this distinction between personal judgement and speculative judgements within the system of science.

⁴⁴ History of Philosophy, Werke in 20 Bänden, Vol. 20, pp. 415–16Google Scholar, and Encyclopedia §424. Also see T. M. Knox's commentary to §35 in his translation of the Philosophy of Right: “Knowledge of the self in abstraction from all objects and determinate experiences is the knowledge that ‘I am I.’ Here the object known, the self, is identical with the knower, the abstract and infinite ego” ([Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967], p. 320).Google Scholar