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Single Idea 21760

[filed under theme 7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing ]

Full Idea

Thinking of nothing is not the same as simply not thinking. Thought that suspends all its presuppositions and so ends up thinking of nothing determinate still remains thought, albeit utterly indeterminate and inchoate thought.

Gist of Idea

Thinking of nothing is not the same as simply not thinking

Source

report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'From indeterminate'

Book Ref

Houlgate,Stephen: 'An Introduction to Hegel' [Blackwell 2005], p.32

A Reaction

This is the very starting point of Hegel's dialectical inferences in his 'Logic'. It is hard to entirely disagree, though I wonder whether the exercise is actually possible. What are you aware of if you have a thought with no content?

Related Idea

Idea 21761 If we start with indeterminate being, we arrive at being and nothing as a united pair [Hegel, by Houlgate]

The 27 ideas from 'Science of Logic'

21761 If we start with indeterminate being, we arrive at being and nothing as a united pair [Hegel, by Houlgate]
21764 Thought about being leads to a string of other concepts, like becoming, quantity, specificity, causality... [Hegel, by Houlgate]
21766 Dialectic is the instability of thoughts generating their opposite, and then new more complex thoughts [Hegel, by Houlgate]
21762 To grasp an existence, we must consider its non-existence [Hegel, by Houlgate]
21760 Thinking of nothing is not the same as simply not thinking [Hegel, by Houlgate]
21765 The ground of a thing is not another thing, but the first thing's substance or rational concept [Hegel, by Houlgate]
22059 Kant's thing-in-itself is just an abstraction from our knowledge; things only exist for us [Hegel, by Bowie]
22083 Hegel believe that the genuine categories reveal things in themselves [Hegel, by Houlgate]
20954 The 'absolute idea' is when all the contradictions are exhausted [Hegel, by Bowie]
21972 Hegel, unlike Kant, said how things appear is the same as how things are [Hegel, by Moore,AW]
22038 Hegel's non-subjective idealism is the unity of subjective and objective viewpoints [Hegel, by Pinkard]
22044 Hegel claimed his system was about the world, but it only mapped conceptual interdependence [Pinkard on Hegel]
21464 The Absolute is the primitive system of concepts which are actualised [Hegel, by Gardner]
22058 Hegel's 'absolute idea' is the interdependence of all truths to justify any of them [Hegel, by Bowie]
20953 Every concept depends on the counter-concepts of what it is not [Hegel, by Bowie]
21763 When we explicate the category of being, we watch a new category emerge [Hegel, by Houlgate]
22037 Objectivity is not by correspondence, but by the historical determined necessity of Geist [Hegel, by Pinkard]
21983 Being and nothing are the same and not the same, which is the identity of identity and non-identity [Hegel]
21978 Hegel's dialectic is not thesis-antithesis-synthesis, but usually negation of negation of the negation [Hegel, by Moore,AW]
21977 Nothing exists, as thinkable and expressible [Hegel]
21985 The so-called world is filled with contradiction [Hegel]
21975 The absolute idea is being, imperishable life, self-knowing truth, and all truth [Hegel]
21976 The absolute idea is the great unity of the infinite system of concepts [Hegel, by Moore,AW]
22080 The nature of each category relates itself to another [Hegel]
22084 Authentic thinking and reality have the same content [Hegel]
21772 In absolute knowing, the gap between object and oneself closes, producing certainty [Hegel]
21769 We must start with absolute abstraction, with no presuppositions, so we start with pure being [Hegel]