Chapter 39 B. Object III. Purpose (Die Teleologie)

§204 Aim is the concept of being-for-itself that achieves free existence by negating immediate objectivity.Purpose is defined as subjective.Because its negation of objectivity is only abstract at first, so it is still only in the opposite position to objectivity at first.But this subjective character of it is only one-sided in comparison with the totality of the concept, and is for itself, since as far as the end itself is concerned, all one-sided properties are assumed to be superseded in itself. .The presumed prior object is therefore only an ideal in-itself unreal to the end.Although the purpose has the contradiction between its self-identity and the negativity it contains and its opposition to the object, it is itself a sublation or active force, which can deny this opposition and win it and itself. unity, this is the realization of the purpose.In this process, the purpose turns into its subjective counterpart, and objectifies itself, and then sublates the difference between subjectivity and objectivity, and only maintains itself and combines itself with itself.

[Explanation] The notion of purpose, on the one hand, is superfluous, but on the other hand it is justly called the notion of reason, as opposed to the general abstraction of the understanding. The abstract universal only formally summarizes the particular, but does not take the particular as its intrinsic nature. [The concept as end, however, contains particularity, i.e. subjectivity, and thus a further difference within itself, as its own intrinsic quality. ]—Furthermore, the distinction between an end as a final cause and a mere active cause, or what is commonly called a cause, is of the utmost importance.The cause belongs to that blind necessity which has not yet been revealed.Therefore, the cause will transition to its opposite, thus losing its original originality and becoming a presupposed existence, and must depend on its opposite.

Only in its potentiality, or in our view, can a cause be said to be a cause, to return to itself, only in effects.On the contrary, the end is assumed to contain its determination or to appear there as its otherness, that is, the effect is within itself.The end contains the effect within itself, so that in the effect the end does not pass outside, but remains itself, that is to say, the end realizes itself only through the effect, and it is in the end as it was in the beginning or original. Sex is the same.Because of this self-sustainability of purpose, it is truly original. — We must understand the end from the speculative point of view, as the concept which contains the judgment or negation, the opposition of the subjective and the objective, in the unity and ideality of its own determinations, and It is also the sublation of this negation and opposition.

As soon as purpose is mentioned, we must not immediately think of it, or only think of a determination that exists only in consciousness and appears in the form of a (subjective) idea.Kant put forward the theory of inner purpose, and he once awakened people's new understanding of the general idea, especially the idea of ​​life.Aristotle's definition of life also included the concept of inner purpose, so he went far beyond the teleology of modern people who held only limited external purpose. The needs and wants of men are arguably the closest examples of ends.They are within the human organism: the perceived contradiction, which arises within the living subject itself and gives rise to a negativity which imposes on this negativity [or contradiction] which is still purely subjective. negative.The gratification of needs and wants restores the peace between the subjective and the objective.Because the objective thing, as long as this contradiction still exists, or as long as this desire is not satisfied, although it still stands on the other side or outside, but by combining with subjectivity, it will also promote other one-sidedness.To those who speak of finite things, of the fixity and insurmountability of subjective and objective things, every act of will furnishes a contrary instance.Desire can be said to be a kind of conviction, that is, the conviction that subjectivity, like objective things, is not only one-sided and has no truth.Will further fully realizes this conviction; for the act of will makes this one-sided finitude abolished, and makes the subjective only and always subjective, and the objective only and always objective. This sublation of opposites can become a fact.

When it comes to the activity of purpose, there is another layer to be noticed, that is, in the inference expressing the purpose of activity, the purpose is combined with itself through the means of realization as an intermediary, and the main feature is the negation of the two extremes.This negativity is the negativity just mentioned, which negates the immediate subjectivity expressed in the end on the one hand, and the immediate objectivity expressed in the means or the presupposed object on the other hand.This negativity is the same as that employed by the spirit which, when elevated to divinity, transcends (denies) the accidents of the world on the one hand, and transcends (denies) its own subjectivity.To prove the existence of God in the form of intellectual reasoning ignores and loses the account of this spiritual improvement (as mentioned in the introduction and in §192), that is, ignores and loses the inference of the nature of this spiritual improvement and negation.

§205 The immediate purposive relation is initially only an external purposiveness, the stage at which the concept is opposed to the presumed prior object.The purpose is thus limited, on the one hand by virtue of its content [being subjective], and on the other hand by having a present and present object as material or external condition for its [purpose] realization.In this case its self-determination is only formal.The purpose of immediacy is also characterized in that its particularity or content (that is, the subjectivity of the purpose appears as a determination of form) is self-reflective, so that its content expresses a totality different from its form, different from its form. in its underlying subjectivity, or concept.This difference constitutes finitude within the end itself.Thus, the content of the purpose is limited, contingent, and given, just as the object of the purpose is specific and ready-made.

Note: When it comes to purpose, most people always think that it only refers to the external purpose.In this view, things have no mission of their own, but are used or exploited as tools, or to achieve an end outside of themselves. This is the general practical point of view.This point of view, which at some time ago occupied a very important place, even in the sphere of science, has since been despised as it deserves, because it has been seen that the practical point of view is not sufficient for a true insight into the nature of things.Undoubtedly, finite things are rightly to be regarded as non-ultimate, directed beyond themselves.But at the same time, it should be noted that the negativity of finite things is their own dialectics. In order to understand the internal dialectics of things, people must first pay attention to their positive content.Teleological views are often based on a benign interest in revealing that God's wisdom is specifically revealed in nature.But it must be pointed out that this way of seeking the end, using things as a tool to achieve the end, cannot make us go beyond the limit, and it is easy to fall into poor and trivial reflection.For example, we study the vine from the point of view of its known use only, and we examine an oak tree whose bark is used to make corks, and how this tree can be peeled off for corks to seal wine bottles. .There have been many books written in this style in the past.It is easy to see that this method advances no real interest in religion nor in science.Outward purposefulness stands directly at the door of the idea, but it is not always enough to be at or outside the door.

§206 The purposive relation is a corollary [or triadic unity].In this corollary or unity, the subjective end is united through a middle term with an objectivity external to it.The middle term is the unity of the two: on the one hand, purposive activity, and on the other hand, the objectivity, that is, the instrument, posited as directly subordinate to the purpose. Note: The development from purpose to idea has to go through three stages: first, the subjective purpose; second, the purpose in the process of being completed; third, the completed purpose.First, we get the subjective end, the subjective end, as a concept existing for itself, which is itself the totality of its moments.The first link is a self-identified universality, just like the original water of neutrality, which contains everything, but has nothing to distinguish it.The second link is the specialization of this universal body. Through this specialization process, it has specific content.When this specific content is established by the process of activity of the universal, the universal returns to itself by this process and unites itself with itself.So when we put an end in front, we say again that we have decided to do something, and we thereby see ourselves first as if we were open, that we could accept this determination or that determination.In the same way we sometimes go further and say that we are determined to do something, which means that the subject moves forward from its inwardness which simply exists for itself, to deal with the objectivity which is external and opposed to him.Thus is formed the progression from purely subjective ends to purposive activities turned outward.

§207 (1) The subjective end is a corollary (or ternary unity) in which the concept of the universal is brought together through the particular and the individual in such a way that the self-determining individual becomes a subject of judgment.That is to say, when making judgments, individuality not only specializes the undetermined general concept and makes it have definite content, but also establishes the opposition between subjectivity and objectivity, and at the same time it returns to itself.Because it analyzes that the subjective concept, which is opposed to objectivity, is defective compared with the whole combined with itself, it therefore turns itself outward at the same time.

§208 (2) This turning outward activity is individuality.Because individuality is identical with particularity at the stage of subjective purpose, within particularity and its content there is also external objectivity.This outwardly directed activity is such individuality that it first directs itself to the object, takes hold of it as its instrument.The concept is this immediate power (Macht), because the concept is a negativity identical with itself, in which the existence of the object is only entirely ideal. —The whole middle term then becomes this inner active force of the concept.Because of this active force, the object is directly combined with the concept as an instrument and subordinate to the active force of the concept.

[Explanation] In limited purposiveness, the middle term splits into two mutually external moments, namely (a) the activity and (b) the object used as an instrument.The purpose as force is connected with the object, and the object is governed by the purpose is a direct process (the object is governed by the purpose is the first premise in the whole inference), because as long as in the concept or purposiveness at this stage, The object is only a kind of ideality that exists for itself, and it itself is something that is assumed to be unreal.This relation or the first premise itself becomes the middle term, which is at the same time the inference itself, so that the purpose, through this relation in which it is contained and predominates, its activity is united with objectivity. Note: The implementation of the purpose is to realize the purpose under the intermediary method.But the immediate realization of the purpose is equally necessary.The end grasps the object directly, because the end is the power over the object, because in the end there is particularity, and in particular there is objectivity. - Animate beings have a body in which the soul controls and directly objectifies itself.The soul of man has much work to do in order to make its body its instrument.It seems that man must first occupy or control his body, so that his body can be used as the tool of his soul. §209 (3) The purposive activity and its tools are still directed outward, because the purpose has not yet reached the identity with the object, so it must use the object as a tool to achieve the goal.The tool as the object in this second premise is the other extreme of the syllabary, which assumes a direct connection with the prior objectivity and material.This connection is the mechanistic and chemical sphere which is now able to serve the purpose which is their conception of truth and freedom.Thus the subjective end as a force governing mechanical and chemical processes in which objective things consume each other and supersede each other, while it transcends itself outside them, but at the same time preserves itself within them .This is the ingenuity of reason (die List der Vernunet). Note: Reason is ingenious and powerful at the same time.Rational ingenuity, generally speaking, manifests itself in the use of tools.On the one hand, this rational activity allows things to interact and weaken each other according to their own nature, without directly interfering with the process itself, but at the same time it just realizes its own purpose.In this sense, Providence can be said to have absolute ingenuity with respect to the world and its processes.God allows men to indulge their particular passions, and to pursue their individual interests, but the result is not the fulfillment of their purposes, but his, and his [God's] purpose is not the same as that which the men he employs were trying to pursue. , are quite different. §210 The realized purpose is thus the established unity of subjectivity and objectivity.But the main characteristic of this unity is that subjectivity and objectivity are neutralized and superseded only according to their one-sidedness.But objectivity takes the end as its free concept, as a power higher than itself, and thus yields to it and follows it.The end then maintains itself, against and within the objective.Because in addition to the one-sided subjectivity or particularity of the purpose, it is also the concrete universality, the potential identity of the subject and the object.This concrete universality, returning as simple itself, is the content that retains its own identity through the three terms of inference and their movement. §211 But in a finite finality, even the attained end remains itself as incomplete as it is the middle and first end.What we have here is only a form proposed from outside, imposed on the ready-made material, which is limited by the content of the purpose and is also an accidental determination.The end achieved is therefore only an object, which in turn becomes a means or material for other ends, and so on and on to infinity. §212 [The activity with limited purpose, as far as it is only the relative whole of subjectivity and objectivity, falls into infinite progression, because this kind of activity is a kind of contradiction, which makes the subject and object it sublates in the process of activity Contradictions are born again. ] But the result of the realization of the purpose itself is that one-sided subjectivity and the illusion that the current objective independence is opposed to subjectivity are also sublated.In the process of grasping the tool, the concept establishes itself as the self-existing essence of the object.In the process of mechanics and chemistry, the independence of the object has disappeared in itself.And in their purpose-governed development the semblance of their independence, or the negativity of the concept, is discarded.But in view of the fact that the realized end is defined only as a means or material, the object to which this end is aimed is at once posited as something not real in itself, but merely ideal. In this way, the opposition between form and content disappears.When the end is united to itself by virtue of other formal determinations (the one-sidedness), its self-identical form thus becomes content, so that the concept, which is the active force of the form itself, only takes itself as its own. content.Through this process the character of the concept of end is generally established, and the unity of subjectivity and objectivity which exists in itself is now assumed to be a unity which exists for itself.That's the idea. Note: The limitation of the end lies in the fact that when the end is realized, the material used as a means is only externally subordinate to the realization of the end, becoming a tool to follow the end.But in fact the object is the latent concept, and when the concept realizes itself in the object as the purpose, it is only the manifestation of the inner nature of the object itself.In this way, objectivity seems to be just a shell, but the concept is hidden inside.In the realm of finite things we cannot see or perceive that the purpose is really attained.The advantage of the idea of ​​the realization of an infinite purpose is only that it removes the illusion that the purpose always seems to be unfulfilled.The good, the absolute good, fulfills itself eternally in the world, with the result that the good or supreme good does not have to wait for us to realize it, it realizes itself in the world itself and for itself.We always live in this illusion, but this illusion is also a driving force, and our interest in the world is based on this force.The Idea, in the course of its development, creates this illusion for itself and creates an opposition against it, but the Idea's action consists in sublating this illusion.It is only because of this error that truth emerges.And in this fact there is a reconciliation of truth and error, of infinity and finiteness.The superseded error or otherness is itself a necessary moment in reaching truth, since truth as truth is only a result of itself by itself.