Chapter 11 3. Infinity

From this it follows that the idea of ​​inversion constitutes an aspect of the essence of the supersensible world, from which we must exclude the sensuous notion that fixes the differences in a different persistent element, and that the differences This absolute notion of self-identity as inner difference must be manifested and understood purely as the exclusion of the self-identical from itself and the identity of the non-identical from itself.What we have to think here is pure change, opposition or contradiction within itself.For in a difference which is an inner difference, the opposite is not merely one of the two,—if so, the difference is not an opposite, but a being;— Rather, it is an opposite of the opposite, in other words, the other is immediately present within itself.Of course I put the opposite here and its opposite there; I therefore put the opposite aside as if without the other.But just because I am here treating the opposite as self-existing, it is its own opposite, or, in fact, it takes the other directly within it. —So the upside-down supersensible world simultaneously encompasses the other world and includes the other world within itself.It is itself aware of itself as the world turned upside down, that is to say, it is aware of its own opposite;

It is itself and its opposite world in a unity.Only in this sense is it the difference or self-differentiation of inner differences, or it is infinity. Through infinity we see that law completes itself to inner necessity, and all the moments of the phenomenal world are absorbed into the inner world.To say that the pure essence of the law is infinity or necessity, according to the above analysis, means: (a) The law is a self-identical thing, but it contains differences within itself. In other words, the law is self-repelling and self-dividing. What is the self-identity of the two.The so-called simple force doubles itself and is law by virtue of its infinity. (b) The elements split into two (Entzweite), that is, represented as parts in the constitutional law, are shown to have persistence or substance; parts, then those moments which appear as gravitation: space and time or distance and velocity, they are indifferent and indifferent to each other and to gravity itself. And negative electricity are indifferent. (c) But by virtue of the concept of inner difference the non-identical, irrelevant elements, space and time, etc., become indifferent differences or merely differences of an identical thing whose essence is unity; Affirmation and negation, yin and yang motivate each other, and their existence consists rather in setting themselves as non-existence and sublating themselves in unity.Both sides of the difference exist, they are potential, they are potential opposites, that is to say, they are their own opposites, they have their opposite within themselves, and they are only a unity.

This simple infinity or absolute concept may be called the simple essence of life, the soul of the world, the universal vein, which pervades all things, whose course cannot be hindered or interrupted by any difference or division, but which itself is All difference is and is the sublation of all difference, so it itself beats like a blood vessel but has no movement, it itself vibrates but is still.It is self-equal because the differences in it are recursive; they are differences, but there is no difference.So this self-equal essence is only related to itself.It is enough to see that the self is an other and must be related, and to be related to itself is rather to be split into two (Entzweien); in other words, this self-identity is the inner difference.These divided elements are thus self-contained, and each is an opposite—an opposite; so that only one is mentioned, and its other must also be included.Or, one is not the opposite of the other, but only the pure opposite; each is thus itself its own opposite.Or, in general, each is not an opposite, but a pure being-for-itself, a pure self-identical essence, containing no difference in it: then we need not ask, let alone refer to to take such trouble as philosophy, or even to regard it as a question which philosophy cannot answer,--how can difference or other come out of this pure essence, or how can difference and other derive from it. come out.For the process of splitting has taken place, difference has been excluded from the self-equal, and has been placed on the other side of it; what should have been self-identical has become one of the aspects of the split, and not the absolute essence. .The splitting of itself by the self-equal thus means equally that it sublates itself as that which has split, it sublates itself as something else.It is often said that the unity from which differences do not arise is in fact itself only a moment in the process of disintegration; this unity is only an abstraction of the simplicity which is opposed to difference.But since this unity is an abstraction, which is only one aspect of opposites, it is tantamount to saying that unity is a process of splitting into two; for if unity is a negative thing, an opposite aspect, It is then precisely posited to contain that which is opposite within itself.The process of splitting into two, like the process of self-identity, is likewise only a process of self-sublation; for the self-identical which originally split itself and passed into its opposite is only an abstraction, or is itself already a split. , then its splitting process is thus the sublation of its split being.The process of self-identity is likewise a process of splitting into two; what becomes self-identical is thus opposed to the process of splitting into two; that is to say, it puts itself aside, or rather it becomes A thing split in two.

Infinity, or the absolute non-rest of this pure self-motion, is determined in a certain way, for example, as being, and it is rather the opposite of this determination, which is indeed already the opposite of everything that has come before. The soul, which has passed through all stages, however, presents itself freely only in the inner world.The phenomenal world, or the world of alternations of forces, already manifests its action, but it first appears freely as an illustration; and since it is in the last analysis an object of consciousness, consciousness can know it as it is, and consciousness becomes self-consciousness. .Intellectual account is first of all a description of what self-consciousness is.The understanding sublates the differences that have become pure, but are still separate, in the law, and posits them in a unity, a force.But this process of equalization is just as directly a process of splitting in two; for the understanding can supersede these differences and establish the unity of force only because it makes a new difference, that of law and force. difference, and yet this difference is at the same time no difference.And although the difference between the two is at the same time not different, the understanding still analyzes this difference, and also supersedes it, because the understanding considers the nature of force to be the same as that of law.But such motion and necessity are still those of the understanding, that is, motion itself is not an object of the understanding; on the contrary, it has as its objects positive and negative electricity, distance, velocity, gravitation, and a thousand other things, which The object constitutes the content of each link of the movement.It is precisely because of this that the understanding is too self-satisfied with its "interpretation", because in the interpretation, it can also be said that consciousness is having a direct self-talk with itself, and it just appreciates itself.It is true that consciousness is interpreted as if it were knowing something else, but in fact it is only knowing itself.

In that opposite law, that is, in the inversion of the previous law, or in inner difference, infinity itself is indeed an object of the understanding, but the understanding still does not grasp the true nature of infinity, because it And the inner difference, the self-repulsion of the self-identical, and the mutual attraction of the non-identical, are divided into two worlds, or two substantial elements.This movement is here, from the understanding as it is from experience, only a happening, and identity and non-identity are only predicates whose essence is an existing substratum.The same thing which appears to the understanding as an object with a sensuous appearance appears to us as a pure concept in its essential form.This understanding of difference as it really is, or of infinity itself as it appears to us or potentially as itself.The elucidation of the concept of infinity belongs to the science [logic].But consciousness, when it directly possesses this concept, appears again as a form or a new shape peculiar to consciousness. different things.

When this concept of infinity becomes the object of consciousness, then consciousness is the consciousness of difference and at the same time the consciousness of sublating difference.It is for itself, it divides difference from indifference, in other words, it is self-consciousness.I differentiate myself from myself, and here I am immediately aware that this difference is no difference.I, the self-identical, self-repels itself; yet this which is distinguished from me, which is established as not being identical to me, does not differ to me immediately when it is distinguished.Generally speaking, such consciousness of an other, of an object, is undoubtedly and necessarily self-consciousness itself, consciousness returning to itself, consciousness of itself in its other.This necessary progression from the former configuration of consciousness, which had as its real content a thing other than itself, an other, shows that not only consciousness of things but consciousness of a self is possible, and shows that only self-awareness is the truth of the former ideology.But this truth is real only from our point of view (who examines the process of cognition), and not so far from consciousness.And self-consciousness always first becomes for-itself, it has not yet become a unity with general consciousness.

We see that in the inner core of the phenomenal world, the understanding really knows nothing but phenomena themselves, but not the phenomenal world as an alternation of forces, but the alternation of forces in its absolute universality. In its moments and in the movement of these moments, the understanding actually knows only itself.Once raised above perception, consciousness is shown to be united with the supersensible world through the medium of phenomena; through phenomena, consciousness can intuit the supersensible world behind the phenomenal world.These two extremes, the pure inner world on the one hand, and the inner world of intuition as a pure inner world on the other, are now brought together, and they disappear both as two extremes and as a medium different from them. up.The veil covering the inner world is thus withdrawn, and what emerges is the intuition of the inner world by the inner world, but this process of intuition of the undifferentiated self-identity (the undifferentiated self-identity) Self-rejection of oneself, establishment of oneself as a differentiated inner world) to that differentiated inner world is equally immediately the indifference of both—this is self-consciousness.This shows that behind this so-called curtain that is said to hide the inner world, nothing can be seen unless we ourselves go behind it, and there must also be something actually visible behind it, We can see it.At the same time, however, it is also clear that one does not walk straight into that back without experiencing any difficulties.For this knowledge of what is the truth of the idea of ​​the phenomenal world and the idea of ​​its inner world is itself the result of a long and tortuous journey through which the modes of consciousness: signification, perception and understanding, gradually And it is also obvious that to know what the consciousness knows when it knows itself, more conditions and a longer and tortuous journey are needed, which are what will be discussed and developed in the following.