more on this theme     |     more from this thinker


Single Idea 21977

[filed under theme 7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / d. Non-being ]

Full Idea

Nothing can be thought of, imagined, spoken of, and therefore it is.

Gist of Idea

Nothing exists, as thinkable and expressible

Source

Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816], I.i.i.C.1 Rem 3 p.101), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.4

Book Ref

Moore,A.W.: 'The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics' [CUP 2013], p.172


A Reaction

This sounds like Meinong on circular squares. Does this mean that the negation of every truth also somehow exists? I struggle with this idea. Lewis Carroll nailed it.


The 27 ideas from 'Science of Logic'

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