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Single Idea 21769

[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual ]

Full Idea

The beginning must be an absolute - an abstract beginning; and so it may not presuppose anything, must not be mediated by anything or have a ground; rather it is itself to be the ground of the entire science. ...The beginning therefore is pure being.

Gist of Idea

We must start with absolute abstraction, with no presuppositions, so we start with pure being

Source

Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], p.70), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 03 'Logic'

Book Ref

Houlgate,Stephen: 'An Introduction to Hegel' [Blackwell 2005], p.49

A Reaction

This is the 'presuppositionless' beginning of Hegel's metaphysics, which Houlgate emphasises. Hegel's logic is very obviously a direct descendent of Descartes' Cogito. But it is pure thought, with no mention of a Self.

Related Idea

Idea 21765 The ground of a thing is not another thing, but the first thing's substance or rational concept [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]