The crysalide of being

The Chrysalides of Being

©By Abdel Hernandez San Juan

Written, conceived, composed and created in English 

by Abdel Hernandez San Juan

   When Hegel committed to define and discuss his science of logic, he started it by asking about if science should have a beginning and how can be defined such a beginning, and when he response himself to stablish it the objective logic of being appeared as it. 

  The reason to stablish being as the beginning of science was related with how in being coincidence something that seems to be by itself a samennes ontology or Inmanence which simply occur in coincidence with itself without yet an exteriorization of it while paradoxically that impression can only be feel and recognized by a subject.

  Being itself consist precisely in the impression of it by a subject who feeling to be inside himself or outside, creates in awareness, reflected feelings, the appearing of being. By this reason, the beginning of science in being revolves around the crucial point of epistemology and ontology. 

  But according to Hegel, concepts and knowledge can’t not be excluded from being, it is a part of it and precisely because being supposes the paradoxes of something ontologically “being itself” since a sense of it appear in the subject while it is only also since to be it have to goes inside being and as a part of it. 

  The incredible genius of Hegel, in my opinion, consisted about how this dilemma and paradoxes far to make him to feel insecure, all the contrary, inspired and stimuled him to demonstrate his capability to abstract a logic of being. 

  I would like to short recapitulate his thesis given that I will need it to my discussion of this paper.

  There is in Hegel several moments to a being, a moment of “being itself”, this moment, the ontological one receive a long and extensive attention in Hegel logic while paradoxically it finally end as just a moment of being, when late it can’t be understand in the itself of it without “the becoming” meaning that at the same time, this “being itself” without a “becoming” maybe simply “nothing” and by this reason a discussion about the relation between “being” and “nothing” appear as a negation of itself, a discussion I am excluding, while to me, since form is there, it is regarded to the phenomenology of appearance.

  But according to Hegel, like a relation between “to be” and “not to be”, there is a “traspaso”, (this word have an interesting mean, it is translated as transfer, but also evolves to pass, to go by), meaning “traspaso” of being in its opposite “a non being” which like the impression of “nothing” explain to him how “being” can “pass” in “the becoming” and how “becoming” which to him contents itself   “a non being”, a being negated with “nothing”, can late also pass in that “being itself” again.

  If we pay attention to how a “being itself” to just be and to just be the ontological one supposes to evolve inside itself and as a part its own nature, “the becoming”, given that if it supposes to be, to be in itself it have to become (be-come, the becoming of the beenlless being of being) and to become it have to be, there is then not a need to point out or to imagine a “non being” or “a nothing” to the nature of being and to the nature of becoming.

  But according to Hegel we can’t negate “becoming itself” perse a being and that “becoming itself” supposes to him a “non being” or “a nothing”, the pass, transfer or go by appear at this point to imagine how each one considered as distinct, pass (tras-pass) in or through the other considered as its opposite, as a moment of negations of itself.

  In usual terms Hegel efforts to explain both moments, the one of mutual necessity and the one of mutual negation. But such a “being itself” is also negated in another form probably important than the previous one, it is a being negated as a “being itself” by another moment of being, that one when a “being to himself” appear. 

  This “being to himself” and or “to itself” turn being to its own (also stablishing a “self” and an “I”) and start to be from its own out of the first ontology when such a “being itself” appeared, like in the verbal formal time conjunction of “is” and “are” as simply the samennes of being and becoming mutual dissolutions late discussed by Derrida as a concept of being evolving time resolved only in grammatology recalling together at Ousia and Gramme, Aristoteles, Hegel and Heidegger. 

  When the moment of a “being to himself” turn to its own we get “the monad”, “the self”, “the I” and “the subject”, but according to Hegel this moment of “being to himself” to which he also dedicated extensive discussion have also an end appearing like “being itself” also as just a moment of being, since turning to “its own” its opposites appears as its own negation discussing then the “being to another” and “being another”.

  This “being to another” is explained by the mutual inclusivism of pairs, for example, “one” to “multiples one” and biseversa, “being” to “becoming” and biseversa, “finity” to “infinity” and biseversa, something Hegel discuss as moments of mutual samennes or dissolution and as moments of mutual negation considered as opposites pairs. 

  While “being another” appears as being one between the multiples as soon as we are back again in a “being itself” or in a “being to itself” it also have an end. 

  For example, “being another” looks to negate “being itself” from the moment we question how can it “be another” and be at the same time “being itself”?. 

  Leibniz Monad appear here to solution the opposite, how?.

   On the one side we have The “one” of my “one” or of “your one”, this one may be considered as the “single one”, and on the other side we have the “one” of anyone, but this one of any one may appear also at the single one when we say “when one think” or “when one experience” or “when one feel” using the single of the plural or the plural of the single. What we are in front here is about the “to Be” of the verb time, expressed as the “is” and the “are” of any conjunction, in fact, in language verb time we already have this Leibniz monadic solution (and dissolution or sameness) between being it-self and being another as well as of being and is (the to be of conjunctions). 

  The Turn in fact happens at the same time, as soon as being another appear as a moment of being, “being itself” turn to “being to himself” or “to itself” simultaneously, to “its own”.   

  In fact the only ways for the pairs to be inclusives or even sameness, to dilute each one into the other solutioning its opposites a “being itself”, the ontological one, the one which simply “is”, should be reestablished.

  Only in a “being itself” a “becoming”, which to him evolved “to be” the opposite of a being, a “non being” or a “nothing”, can become inclusive to a being, a negation of the negation should appear to solution the rejection of a “one” against “multiples ones” and biseversa, between “finity” and “infinity” as well. 

  A “being itself” should appear and also a “being to itself” should turn to “its own”. 

  There is in Hegel logic of being also a distinction between a “being itself”, the ontological or immanent one and a “putted one being”.

  In the first side there is “being itself” and a considerable part of a “being to itself” that turns to “its own” and in a second side there is a “putted being” as the opposites. 

  This “putted being” appear continuously in his theory to make distinctions between something that “is itself” and an “extrinseque relation”. 

  This extrinseque relation is almost present continually in all Hegel theory of being, for example, reflexion itself start to be first an “extrinseque being” in its relation to a “being itself” ontology, he defined it with an interesting concept I would like to discuss late, the concept of “inmediation”. 

  While I am working in my books with the concept of immediacy my immediacy maybe certainly defined as a pristine one, a pure one, things as simply given to our sensations and impressions, Hegel assign to the immediacy a certain level of mediation defined as inmediation. 

  For example, reflexion maybe considered originally as an extrinseque “putted being”, but this “putted being” negates “itself” in “it own” extrinseque nature and is being late absorbed by “being itself”. In a few words, a reflection start to be first a “putted being” but it late appears again as a part of “being itself”, this maybe defined as the inmediation level of the immediacy, in-mediation (the mediation potential of the immediacy) and is defined as when “being itself” mediate reflection transforming its original putted, extrinsique nature in a part of a “being itself”, (it happen in Hegel nor only with reflexion but with all the forms of “putted beings”).

  And the opposite, also a “being itself” which seems to correspond only to an undiferienced, samennes ontological being without extrinseque relations to it, appears also working in several forms of “putted beings” in Hegel discussion.   

  However, the final resolution of the logic of being is far to be resolved with a theory of moments since there is not an escape to “monad” something stablish the pair of “one” and “multiple” as the more objective one. 

  This pair concept of “one” and “multiple” which grow up and born from the concept of “monad” that Leibniz previously discussed, occupy a significant place in Hegel science of logic and I agree with it even when Hegel dedicate almost the half of his logic of being starting from “one” and “multiple” to discuss the relation between “finite” and “infinity”, “quality” and “quantity”, numbers, quantum’s, geometry and mathematics. In fact, more than a half of Hegel logic of being is dominated by this pair of “one” and “multiple” which is the pair of the Leibniz “Monad”, with a half of it on quality and a second half on quantity. 

  Finally, there is certainly in Hegel as I has discussed in some other papers a general regard of being to Inmanence which generally stay to be an abstract theory of being that can be equally applied to the Inmaterials as to the material. 

  In fact, “being itself” can still be in Hegel just a necessity to stay discussing a unity or a term, a something or a concept, at the end a “monad” again.

  The “being it-self” can be, for example, “the infinity” as there is a moment of the infinity that is being the infinity “in itself”, but there is a moment of infinity that “turn to itself” or to “its own” and then is not already the being of it “in-itself” but the turn to “its own”, if we don’t have such a “turn to its own”, we can’t discuss “concepts by it owns” or any “unity’s by its owns”. 

  With the exception of a few examples, there is not along the whole science of logic first book dedicated to the logic of being, a regard of any of this concepts to the inmaterial or to the material.

  A “being to another”, can be simply a necessity to define how the “finite” is being to the “infinity” and the “infinity” to the “finity”, how the “one” is being to the “multiple” and biseversa, while a “being to itself” may turn to “its own” in the form of a term or a concept “turns to its own”, easing to stay discussing it to “its own”, “the one to its own”, “the infinity to its own”, “the becoming to its own”, “being itself to its own” perse a becoming, as concepts, as monads, as units. 

  “Being itself” at the same time can be the “being itself” of anything, of “something”, of “a thing”, of “finity”, of “infinity”, of “the one”, of “multiple”, of a “quantum”, of a “number”, while “being another to other” can be, like the pair of “one” and “multiple”, exteriority in general, the exteriority of numbers, for example, to plus 3 plus 9 we need each one to be “another to the other” since numbers itself are exteriors, externality maybe here the reason to define a moment of being defined as a “being to another” or being “another to another”. 

  There is not in Hegel in general a literal definition of this concepts regarding distinctions between the material and the Inmaterials in his logic of being, not between the wordless world of life and the universe of geometry, mathematics of chemistries while he assigns existence to everything including the infinity. 

  Remembering that he considers that knowledge’s and concepts are both a part of being his logic of being stay to be apply to everything as possible, it may be applied to literal wordless life, but maybe applied to concepts and knowledge being, maybe applied to mathematics, quantum’s, chemistry and substances, in fact, yes he dedicated also extensive pages to discuss Kant antinomies revolves precisely around this dilemma of the relation between parts and wholes, elements and conjunctions and mainly the antinomies, the one the paradoxes of the composition of substance and matter.

  In fact, Kant antinomies both, the one around substance and matter and the one about space and time are both discussed in the first book dedicated to the logic of being which maintains all the time, as previously explained, the ambiguity or neutral one position of letting it open in a form to be apply to anything without defining if it should be considered as material or Inmaterials, letting it open.

  I am not saying that Hegel never discuss the issue of matter and forms, but he regarded it to his book on essence and excluded it from the logic of being. 

  Why, we will see and discuss it late. 

  To this point I would like to resume toward the whole of this paper, two things, first, the Hegel moment of “being itself”, the ontological one moment, to which all the rest of the moments of being needs to be back to solution, through negation of negation, the opposites and to be mutual or a samennes, need to include and discuss a relation between “being” and “time” that stablishes it as the immediacy, as “the present of time”, considering the immediacy itself as a pristine and pure immediacy without considering yet a Hegelian attribution of mediation to that immediacy, his in-mediation.

  This “being itself”, the ontological one, the one which simply is, should be defined as my immediacy considering it as “the present of the present” and evolve time in a form that also suppose to discuss how time entrance in a being and biverseversa, how a being entrance in time to which we will clearly need to discuss the questions of “the sense of being” at the relation between “sense” and “time” needed nor only to stand the immediacy of space and time “present of the present” but also being and time inside language, (of any language, textual or visual).

  Derrida discussed this “present of the present” at his Ousia and Gramme re-calling Aristoteles Physis and discussing together Aristoteles, Hegel and Heidegger to stablish “the nun”, “the right now of time”. 

  Second, to this point we have in Hegel to the moment only two concepts of mediation, a first one level of mediation assigned to the immediacy and defined as “in-mediation” thanks to which all the forms of being included the putted ones being are mediated by the immediacy (his inmediation) and transformed in a “being itself” and a second one level of mediation defined by how each pair mediate in itself its opposite.

  We should remember that Hegel discussed the pair of “being” and “nothingness” as a pair itself before assigning late “nothingness” and “non being” to the nature of becoming. But as examples of this second level of mediation we may see somes examples.

  For example, when we figure out a “being itself” as an ontological undiferienced samennes without extrinsecación to it, it looks to be infinity but that sensation or impression of infinity can be feel only in sensibility and not demonstrated yet, to be demonstrated, infinity should be considered itself, but as soon as we are considering infinity by itself turning to its own, infinity itself appear as a “non being” or as a “nothing” by itself meaning something opposite to a being, the question is then, how can “being itself”, which supposed to be the more ontological level of being, be feel as infinity in sensibility if infinity considered itself is a “non being”.

  Well, according to Hegel, becoming, which evolve to be to being an opposite “non being” mediate being and only in this form a sense of infinity corresponding to the feeling of becoming, can be assigned to “being itself”, so that a being is already mediated by the “non being” of becoming. 

  According to me a distinction as such is needed to explain the differences between “being” and “is”, but it is also needed for sensibility to feel the infinity of being, according to Hegel. However, at the same time, it is also impossible to figure out both “becoming” and “infinity” without a feeling of being, because only provided by a sense of the “beinless time of being” something as “becoming” and something as a sense of “infinity” can be reflected by sensibility, to this point “being itself” -mediate at the same time “becoming” and “infinity” because without such a mediation of “becoming” and “infinity” by being, “becoming” and “infinity” can’t just be nothing itself. 

  The opposites mediated themselves while to mediate in between the pairs negates in between and the eliminations of each one of the pair by the other one is needed to each one be the itself of it, the being of it by the way is being defined by “what it is not”, the pass by, and the “non being of It” is being participating in defining the “being of it” and the opposite, the “being of it” participating in defining the “non being of it”. There is some other concepts of mediation working in Hegel but I will discuss it late. 

  Certainly, there is not as clear a well stablished “right now of time” in Hegel, nor a “present of the present” strongly stablished, in fact, the way I has previously discussed becoming, helps to see becoming in a form that distance a letlee the very specific sense this concept have in Hegel as we may say that there is an inclusive sense of time in Hegel concept of becoming defined as a concept ready to exit the present toward the future defined as telos, teleology and overall an idea of progression and progress, becoming is in Hegel affected by both the idea of infinity progress and by the idea of infinity itself, so that the time of such a becoming, when he imagine the trasspass or go by of being and becoming mutually, being and non-being, lost a letlee “a sense of the present of present” toward the future defined in this sense.  

  We may say that the “right now of time” appears in Hegel near to my concept of the immediacy, but we should also point that my immediacy is affected in Hegel by his “in-mediation” in a form that start to be far from that pristine nature of my immediacy of the “here and now”. 

  To Hegel a continued process of mediation between “being in itself” by “putted beings” and biseversa, “putted beings” by “being in itself”, transform the immediacy in an space of constant mediations that difference between the “world in itself” as “it is” and the “phenomenological world” start to be a “reflected world” in both levels of reflections mediated by the immediacy of “being itself” and of reflections stablished as a “phenomenological world” under “world in itself”, he define this complex issue as “two sides” that at the same time coincidence in a unity but also negates itself being defined each one by its opposite, “world in itself” and the “phenomenological world”.

  We may be clear on the fact that this point start to exit his logic of being to entrance his logic of essence evolve a discussion on essence, identity, diference, form and essence, form and matter, phenomena, appearance, things etc., to which we will go late. 

  In fact, in front of the question of the “right now” of time Hegel recognize it in term of the logic of being to the moment of the “being to himself” or “to itself” which is the moment of the “being to its own”, I am pointing here a pivotal theoretical issue not previously discussed nor only not about Hegel but I would say in general, given that first it is not clearly focused by Hegel himself, but as I has really read it with exhaustive attention several times certainly, in the precise moment of asking about the “right now of time”, Hegel recognize and assign that time to the moment of the “being to himself” or “being to itself” the one that turn to “its own” not to “being itself”.

  This is a complex issue because a pristine, pure immediacy accepted as the “right now of time and space” supposed to be also the space of a “being itself” as I discussed before, but certainly a “being to itself” or to “its own”, the born of “the I”, “the Self” and “the Monad”, the “one” versus the “multiple”, is needed for the immediacy of the “right now” of time be fully stablished ending then to win Leibniz again regarding ancients and classics discussions.

  We should be also clear at this point on the fact that Deleuze beautiful recalls of Leibniz at “The Fould: Leibniz and the baroque”, move exclusibly to the soul and exclude this turn of “being to himself”, “to itself”, to “its own ” forgetting both “being” and the “worldness world of life” both of “the world” and of “the present” which I has proposed and developed in my books to which only Shurt and Habermas coincident with me, while at the same time Derrida visionary recall of Aristoteles physic together with Heidegger and with Hegel, stablish the “nun” of time. 

  This “nun” in Derrida is exactly the “right now of time”. 

  Going in a form also discussing dots, lines and surfaces –space and time—, Derrida strongly establish “the present of the present” as the more transcendental time, his definition of the “alive present”, but it is instead then regarded by Derrida to the ousia of gramme, meaning to the entity of the substance of presence in phenomenology and language. 

  Definitely, Derrida turn from being to the “nun”, in his way only to the ousia of gramme was extremely important, I am not negating it, it was a necessity to stablish how all we are is about a phenomena of presence, present and presentation including the fact that awareness itself evolve being in the presence of itself as it appear to itself in conscience and by the way “the nun” of it, the “right now of time” of gramme and language from which he define “the sign” as this first apparition of us in front of us assigning it as a Hegel semiology. 

  But the right now of time is not excluded from Hegel logic of being it is assigned to the moment of the “being to itself” which is in the basis of my discussion of the time and space basis of monad and of my proposal and developments of my concept of the world of life, my whole issue on how to develop a new phenomenological sociology, my Intramundane Horizont thanks to shurt but going beyond innovating it. 

  

Abdel Hernandez San Juan

Seminars on Hegel, Various Seminars are upcoming by Abdel Hernandez San Juan

Visit the previous one In Front of Inmanence: Hegel, Frankford and Habermas

Notes

  1-The right now of time appears in Hegel Logic of being mainly in his discussion of Kant Antinomies discussing space on ancient’s surfaces and spacialities such as euclides and when answering the question about if the world have a beginning he establish that certainly there is an absolute beginning in time defined by the relation between dots, lines and surfaces as the now. 

   

   2- Derrida defined this concept of a sign exactly as previously explained as the first form to define a sign, a form to call the phenomenology of the appearance of presence of ourself to ourself in conscience as a sign. Obviously inclusive as certainly evolved as one of the main peculiarities of Hegel way to theorize, Derrida generously attribute it as a Hegel semiology when certainly it is more a Derridean interpretation of Hegel or a way through which Derrida recognize or declare the Hegelian basis in his theory of language, not excluding Saussure, but getting it together. I am not sure if there is a semiology in Hegel as Derrida assigned, I am yes sure about that Derrida way to develop his semiology needed Hegel theory, but I am open to late consider from sociology autonomy and axiology if there is an anthropology when Derrida discussed such a Hegel semiology as a form of anthropology.

   3- Derrida recognize this “alive present” to Hurssel not to Hegel as certainly there is not a clear “liveness of the present” as an “alive present” in Hegel, since Hegel complejization of the immediacy with constant mediations far to it, (his “in-mediation”), however, paradoxically, at the same time, Hegel assign a relevant place to “livennes thought”,  but that thought is in Hegel completely out of a world as also a world in Hegel transform in a complex process of mediations between “world itself” and the “phenomenological world”, while Hurssel discussed a transcendental abstract concept of world coincident with the “alive present”, but this world againt is still an abstract one needed but far yet to my “Intramundane Horizont” world of quotidian life, as to Shurt “worlds of everyday life” and to Habermas “World of Life” too. 

References

Derrida Jacques, Ousia and Gramme: Notes on Sein and Zeit, Margins of Philosophy, The University of Chicago Press and Cathedra

Derrida, Jacques Genesis and Structure and Phenomenology, Anthropos

Derrida Jacques, The well and the Pyramid: Introduction to Hegel Semiology, Margins of Philosophy, The University of Chicago Press and Cathedra

Hernandez San Juan Abdel, Being and Monad, paper chapter. Being and monad, book

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel  Science of Logic London: George Allen & Unwin, 1929, translated by W. H. Johnston and L. G. Struthers, translated by Henry S. Macran (Hegel's Logic of World and Idea) (Bk III Pts II, III only). Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1929  translated by A. V. Miller; Foreword by J. N. Findlay. London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1969, Prometheus; Later Printing edition (December 1, 1991), Humanity books, translated by George di Giovanni, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010

Hegel G.W.F, Science of Logic, Tome I, Doctrine of Being, Solar, Hachete