Single Idea 15610

[catalogued under 18. Thought / D. Concepts / 1. Concepts / a. Nature of concepts]

Full Idea

When thinking is taken as active with regard to ob-jects, as the thinking-over of something, then the universal - as the product of the activity - contains the value of the matter, what is essential, inner, true.

Gist of Idea

Active thought about objects produces the universal, which is what is true and essential of it

Source

Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §21)

Book Reference

Hegel,Georg W.F.: 'The Hegel Reader', ed/tr. Houlgate,Stephen [Blackwell 1998], p.141


A Reaction

I prefer to talk of 'general terms' rather than 'universals'. If 'tiger' is coined for the first one, but must be applicable to subsequent tigers, it has to generalise what they all have in common. Locke's 'nominal' essence, I would say.