Addition. Empiricism owes its origin to the need, referred to in the preceding section, for a concrete content and a firm foothold, a need that the metaphysics of the abstract understanding is incapable of satisfying. Insofar as the concreteness of the content is concerned, the point is simply that the objects of consciousness are known [gewußt] as determinate objects in and of themselves and as unities of diverse determinations. Now as we have seen, this is by no means the case for the metaphysics of the understanding, in keeping with the principle of the understanding. Thinking that merely conforms to the understanding is limited to the form of the abstract universal and lacks the capacity to proceed to the particularization of this universal. Thus, for instance, the old metaphysics undertook to find out through thinking what might be the essence or the basic determination of the soul, and it was then said that the soul is simple. The simplicity thus attributed to the soul has the meaning of an abstract simplicity that excludes difference. The latter was regarded as compositeness, i.e. as the basic determination of the body and, furthermore, of matter in general. Abstract simplicity is, however, a rather poor determination, through which the wealth of the soul and that of spirit cannot be comprehended at all. Because abstract metaphysical thought thus proved to be deficient, the need was felt to take refuge in empirical psychology. The same is true of rational physics. When, for instance, it was said that space is infinite, that nature makes no leaps, etc., then this is quite unsatisfactory in relation to the fullness and life of nature.

 Addition. From empiricism went forth the call: 'Stop rambling around in empty abstractions, look at your hands, grasp human beings and nature here, enjoy the now!' And it cannot be denied that this call contains an essentially legitimate point. The empty other-worldly reality [Jenseits], the cobweb and nebulous shapes of the abstract understanding, were to be exchanged for the here and now, for this world [Diesseits]. In this way then, the firm foothold, namely the infinite determinability missing in the old metaphysics, was achieved. The understanding picks out only finite determinations; these are inherently [an sich] unsupported and wobbly, and the building erected upon them collapses. To find an infinite determination had been the drive of reason generally; however, the time had not yet come to look for it in thinking itself. As a result, this drive took up the here and now, the this, which possesses the infinite form in itself, if not in its true concrete existence. What is external [das Äußerliche] is in itself the true, for the true is actual and must exist concretely [muss existieren]. Thus, the infinite determinateness that reason seeks is in the world, albeit in sensory, individual form [Gestalt], not in its truth. – More specifically, perception is the form in which matters are supposed to be comprehended [begriffen], and this is the deficiency of empiricism. Perception as such is always of something individual and transitory; knowing, however, does not end with this but in the perceived individual seeks the universal, that which abides, and this is the progression from mere perception to experience. – In order to have experiences, empiricism principally utilizes the form of analysis. In perception, one possesses something concrete in multiple ways whose determinations one is supposed to take apart like peeling away the layers of an onion. This process of splitting them up [Zergliederung] is therefore intended to dissolve the determinations that have grown together, breaking them up [zerlegen] without adding anything but the subjective activity of breaking them up. Analysis is, however, the progression from the immediacy of perception to thought, insofar as the determinations, which the object analysed contains amalgamated within itself, receive the form of universality by being separated. Because empiricism analyses objects, it is in error if it believes that it leaves them as they are, since it in fact transforms the concrete into something abstract. By this process, it happens at the same time that life is taken from the living, for only the concrete, or one, is alive. Nonetheless, this severing [Scheidung] must occur in order to comprehend, and spirit is itself the severing in itself. This, however, is only one side, and the chief point consists in the unification of what has been severed. Insofar as analysis remains committed to the standpoint of separation, the word of the poet applies to it:

 Addition 1. No doubt a very important step was taken by subjecting the determinations of the old metaphysics to scrutiny. Naïve thinking moved innocently among those determinations, which produced themselves straightaway and of their own accord. No thought was given to the question to what extent these determinations have value and validity for themselves. It has already been remarked earlier that free thinking is one that has no presuppositions. The thinking of the old metaphysics was not free, because it allowed its determinations to count without further ado as something pre-existing, as an a priori which reflection did not itself examine. By contrast, the Critical philosophy made it its task to investigate to what extent the forms of thinking were capable of being of assistance in knowing the truth at all. More specifically, the faculty of knowledge was now supposed to be investigated prior to knowing. In this there is contained the correct thought that the forms of thought themselves must indeed be made the object of knowing. However, the misunderstanding of wanting already to know prior to knowing or of wanting not to set foot in the water before one has learned to swim, very quickly creeps into the process. To be sure, the forms of thought should not be employed unexamined, but examining them is already itself a process of knowing. Consequently, the activity of the forms of thought and their critique must be joined in knowing. The forms of thought must be considered in and of themselves [an und für sich]. They are themselves the object as well as the activity of the object. They themselves examine themselves and they must determine for themselves their limits and point up their deficiency in themselves. This is the activity of thinking that will soon be specifically considered under the name of dialectic, about which a preliminary remark must here suffice, namely that it is to be regarded not as something brought to bear on thought-determinations from outside of them, but instead as immanent in them.
The primary concern of the Kantian philosophy is thus that thinking is supposed to investigate itself, the extent to which it is capable of knowing. Nowadays, the Kantian philosophy has been left behind, and everybody wants to be at a point further on. To be further along, however, has a double meaning: both to be further ahead and to be further behind. Looked at in clear light, many of our philosophical endeavours are nothing but the method of the old metaphysics, an uncritical thinking along in a way everyone is capable of.

 Addition 2. Kant's examination of the thought-determinations suffers essentially from the defect that they are not being considered in and for themselves but only from the viewpoint of whether they are subjective or objective. What is understood by objectivity is, following the linguistic usage of ordinary life, what is on hand outside of us and reaches us from the outside by means of perception. Now Kant denied that thought-determinations (such as cause and effect) possess objectivity in the sense mentioned here, i.e. that they are given in perception, and instead regarded them as belonging to our thinking itself or to the spontaneity of thinking, and as subjective in this sense. This notwithstanding, Kant calls what is thought, and more specifically the universal and the necessary, the objective, and what is only sensed the subjective. The linguistic usage referred to just now thus seems to have been stood on its head, and Kant has for this reason been accused of linguistic confusion. But this is a great injustice. Looked at more closely, things are as follows. To the ordinary consciousness, what stands opposite it, what is perceivable by way of the senses – such as this animal, that star, etc. – seems to exist for itself, to be something independent. By contrast, thoughts count as something lacking independence and as being dependent on something else. In fact, however, what is perceivable by way of the senses is what is genuinely dependent and secondary, and thoughts are by contrast what is truly independent and primary. It was in this sense that Kant called what belongs to thought (i.e. the universal and the necessary) the objective element, and in this he was entirely right. On the other hand, what is perceivable by way of the senses is indeed subjective insofar as it does not have its support within itself and is as fleeting and transitory as thought is enduring and inwardly stable. Indeed, nowadays we find that the determination of the distinction mentioned here and advocated by Kant, namely, between the objective and the subjective, is part of the linguistic usage of the more educated consciousness. Thus, for instance, one demands that the judgment about a work of art be objective and not subjective, and by this is meant that the judgment should not proceed from contingent individual sentiments and emotions of the moment, but instead should take into consideration the universal points of view as they are grounded in the essence of art. By the same token, one may distinguish between taking an objective and a subjective interest in some scientific activity.
To continue, however, even the Kantian objectivity of thinking itself is in turn only subjective insofar as thoughts, despite being universal and necessary determinations, are, according to Kant, merely our thoughts and distinguished from what the thing is in itself by an insurmountable gulf. By contrast, the true objectivity of thinking consists in this: that thoughts are not merely our thoughts but at the same time the in itself of things and of the object-world [des Gegenständlichen] in general. – Objective and subjective are comfortable expressions that are employed effortlessly, but whose use nonetheless easily generates confusion. According to the discussion so far, objectivity has a threefold meaning. In the first place, it has the meaning of what is on hand externally, as distinct from what is purely subjective, i.e. what is meant or dreamed up. Second, it has the meaning established by Kant, i.e. the universal and the necessary, in contrast to what, as inherent to sensation, is contingent, particular, and subjective. And third, it has the meaning last mentioned above, of what is thought to be in itself, what is there, in contrast to what is merely thought by us and therefore still different from the matter itself or in itself.

 Addition 1. It is Kant's contention, then, that the thought determinations have their source in the I, and that therefore the I provides the determinations of universality and necessity. – When we look at what is now lying before us, it is a manifold in general. The categories are then simple forms [Einfachheiten] to which this manifold refers. By contrast, the sensory dimension [das Sinnliche] comprises what are outside one another, asunder, external to themselves; this is its proper fundamental determination. Thus, for example, the 'now' has being only in relation to a before and an after. Likewise, red is present only insofar as it stands in contrast to a yellow and a blue. This other, however, is exterior to the item sensed, and the latter exists only insofar as it is not the other, and only insofar as the other exists. The exact reverse of the sensory dimensions (items existing outside one another and external to themselves) holds for thinking or the I. The latter is what is originally identical, one with itself and existing simply with itself [schlechthin bei sich Seiende]. When I say 'I', this represents the abstract relation to oneself, and whatever is placed in this unity is being infected by it and transformed into it. Thus, the I is, so to speak, the melting pot and the fire by which the indifferent manifoldness is consumed and reduced to unity. This, then, is what Kant calls pure apperception to distinguish it from ordinary apperception, which takes up the manifold as such into itself, whereas pure apperception, in contrast to this, is to be regarded as the activity of making things mine. – With this, the nature of all consciousness has, to be sure, been correctly articulated. Human beings' striving is directed generally at knowing the world, appropriating and submitting it to their will, and towards this end the reality of the world must, so to speak, be crushed, that is, idealized. At the same time, however, it needs to be noted that it is not the subjective activity of self-consciousness that introduces absolute unity into the manifoldness. This identity is, rather, the absolute, the true itself. It is, so to speak, the benevolence of the absolute to release the individualities to their self-enjoyment, and this absolute drives them back into the absolute unity.

 Addition 2. Expressions such as transcendental unity of self-consciousness look very difficult, as if something monstrous were hiding behind them, but the matter is really simpler than that. What Kant understands by transcendental is the result of how it differs from the transcendent. For the transcendent is in general what surpasses the determinateness of the understanding. In this sense, it first arises in mathematics. Thus, in geometry it is said that one must imagine the circumference of a circle as consisting of infinitely many infinitely small straight lines. So here determinations that for the understanding are completely different from one another (such as the straight and the curved) are explicitly posited as being identical. Now the self-consciousness that is identical with and infinite in itself (as distinct from the ordinary consciousness determined by finite material) is also such a transcendent entity. Kant, meanwhile, designates that unity of self-consciousness merely as transcendental, and by this he means that it is only subjective and does not also belong to objects as they are in themselves.

 Addition 3. That the categories should be regarded only as belonging to us, i.e. as subjective, must seem rather bizarre to the natural consciousness, and there is indeed something skewed about it. This much is, however, correct, namely that the categories are not contained in the immediate sensation. Consider, for instance, a piece of sugar. It is hard, white, sweet, and so on. But now we say that all these properties are united in one object, and this unity does not exist in the sensation. Things are the same when we regard two events as standing in a relationship of cause and effect to one another. What is perceived here are the two individual events that follow after one another in time. The fact, however, that one is the cause and the other the effect (the causal nexus between the two) is not perceived but instead is present only for our thinking. Now although the categories (such as, for example, unity, cause, and effect, and so forth) do belong to thinking as such, it does not follow at all from this that they should for that reason be ours alone, and not also determinations of the objects themselves. This, however, is supposed to be the case according to Kant's outlook. His philosophy is a subjective idealism, insofar as the I (the cognitive subject) supplies the form as well as the matter of knowing, the one qua thinking, the other qua sensing. – We in fact do not need to care much about the content of this subjective idealism. To be sure, one might somehow suppose that reality has been withdrawn from the objects by virtue of the fact that their unity is transferred to the subject. Meanwhile, neither the objects nor we gain anything from the fact that being accrues to them. Everything depends on the content, namely, whether it is something true. That things merely are does not by itself help them. Time takes care of what is, and soon it will likewise not be. – One could also say that according to subjective idealism human beings can imagine that a lot rests on them. And yet, if his world is a mass of sensory intuitions, he has no reason to be proud of such a world. Nothing at all, therefore, depends on that difference between subjectivity and objectivity. Instead, it is the content on which everything depends, and this is equally subjective and objective. A crime is also objective in the sense of a mere concrete existence [Existenz], but it constitutes a concrete existence that is null and void in itself, a fact also that then comes to exist [zum Dasein kommt] as such in punishment.

 Addition. To assert of the categories that, with respect to themselves, they are empty is unjustified insofar as they possess in any case content through the fact that they are determinate. To be sure, the content of the categories is indeed not perceivable through the senses, it is not spatio-temporal. And yet, this is to be regarded as an advantage rather than a defect of them. Recognition of this fact is also found even in ordinary consciousness and, indeed, in such a way that one says more about a book, say, or a speech being rich in content to the extent that more thoughts, general results, and so on, are to be found in it. Just as, conversely, one does not let a book or, more specifically, a novel count as being rich in content simply because it heaps up a great amount of individual occurrences, situations, and the like. Ordinary consciousness thus explicitly recognizes that more belongs to the content than the sensory material, and this more consists in the thoughts and here primarily in the categories. – In this connection, it should also be noted that the assertion concerning the emptiness of the categories with respect to themselves has indeed a correct meaning, insofar as we must not stop short at them and their totality (i.e. the logical Idea), but must progress to the real domains of nature and spirit. This progression, however, must not be construed as though content alien to the logical idea were to come to it from the outside, but instead that it is the logical idea's own activity of further determining and unfolding itself as nature and spirit.

 Addition. It is first with Kant that the difference between the understanding and reason has been emphasized in a definite way and set down in such manner that the former has the finite and the conditioned as an object and the latter the infinite and the unconditioned. It must be acknowledged as a very important result of the Kantian philosophy that it established the finitude of the merely experience-based knowledge of the understanding and designated its content as appearance. Still, we should not stop short at this negative result and reduce the unconditioned nature of reason to the merely abstract identity with itself that excludes difference. Insofar as reason is regarded in this way merely as stepping out beyond the finite and conditioned character of the understanding, by this means it is in fact itself downgraded to something finite and conditioned, for the true infinite is not merely on the far side of the finite, but instead contains the finite as sublated within it. The same holds equally for the idea, which Kant, it is true, rehabilitated, insofar as he vindicated it for reason by distinguishing it from the abstract determinations of the understanding, not to mention mere sensory representations – things that in ordinary life would also be called an idea. And yet, with respect to it [the idea] he stopped short at the negative and what merely ought to be. – Furthermore, construing the objects of our immediate consciousness (i.e. those forming the content of experiential knowledge) as mere appearances must in any case be regarded as a very important result of the Kantian philosophy. For ordinary consciousness (i.e. the sensory consciousness of the understanding), the objects it knows [weiß] count in their individuatedness as independent and self-grounded, and insofar as they prove to be related to one another and conditioned by one another, this mutual dependence on each other is regarded as something external to the objects that does not belong to their essential nature. Against this, it must be maintained, of course, that the objects that we know [wissen] directly are mere appearances, which is to say that they do not have the ground of their being in themselves but in an other. However, everything depends then on how this other is determined. According to the Kantian philosophy, the things we know [wissen] are only appearances for us, and what they are in themselves remains for us an inaccessible world beyond this one [Jenseits]. The untutored consciousness has rightly objected to such a subjective idealism for which what forms the content of our consciousness is something belonging merely to ourselves, something only posited by us. The fact of the matter is indeed this, that the things we immediately know [wissen] are mere appearances not only for us, but in themselves, and that it is the proper determination of finite things to have the ground of their being not in themselves but in the universal divine idea. This interpretation of things is also to be designated as idealism, albeit as absolute idealism in contrast to the subjective idealism of the Critical philosophy. This absolute idealism, although it does go beyond ordinary realist consciousness, is to be regarded as anything but an exclusive possession of philosophy. To the contrary, it forms the foundation of all religious consciousness, insofar as the latter, too, regards the sum total of everything that is, in general the world as it exists, as created and governed by God.

 Addition. Generally speaking, paralogisms are faulty syllogisms whose mistake consists precisely in using one and the same word in a different sense in both premises. According to Kant, the procedure of the old metaphysics in rational psychology is based on such paralogisms, insofar as merely empirical determinations of the soul are here regarded as belonging to it in and of itself. – It is quite correct, moreover, that predicates such as simplicity, immutability, and so on, are not to be attributed to the soul, yet not for the reason given by Kant, namely that reason would then overstep the limit set for it, but because abstract determinations of the understanding such as these are too poor for the soul and because it is something quite different from what is simple, immutable, and so on. Thus, for instance, the soul is indeed simple identity with itself, but qua active it is at the same time distinguishing itself from itself within itself. By contrast, the merely, i.e. the abstractly simple, precisely as such, is at the same time something dead. – The fact that Kant, through his polemic against the old metaphysics, removed those predicates from the soul and from spirit is to be regarded as a great result. However, he completely misses why it is.

 Addition. From the standpoint of the old metaphysics it was assumed that, if knowing falls into contradictions, this would be only an accidental aberration and rest on a subjective mistake in making inferences and in formal reasoning [räsonnieren]. According to Kant, however, it is inherent in the nature of thinking itself to lapse into contradictions (antinomies) when it wants to gain knowledge of the infinite. Now, as mentioned in the Remark to the above section, pointing out the antinomies is to be regarded as a very important advancement of philosophical knowing insofar as, by this means, the rigid dogmatism of the metaphysics of the understanding was done away with and the dialectical movement of thought was indicated. Nonetheless, at the same time, despite this advancement, note must be taken of the fact that here, too, Kant stopped short at the merely negative result of the unknowability of the in-itself of things and did not press on to the true and positive significance of the antinomies. The true and positive significance of the antinomies consists in general in this: that everything actual contains within itself opposite determinations, and that therefore knowing and, more specifically, comprehending [Begreifen] an object means nothing more or less than becoming conscious of it as a unity of opposite determinations. Now while, as pointed out earlier, in the consideration of objects the metaphysical knowledge of which was at issue, the old metaphysics went to work by applying abstract determinations of the understanding to the exclusion of their opposites, Kant sought, by contrast, to show how, for claims generated in this way, contrasting claims with an opposite content are to be posited with equal justification and equal necessity opposite them. In pointing out these antinomies, Kant restricted himself to the cosmology of the old metaphysics, and in his polemic against it he managed to produce four antinomies by presupposing the schema of the categories. The first concerns the question of whether the world is to be considered limited or not according to space and time. The second deals with the dilemma of whether matter is to be considered divisible ad infinitum or consisting of atoms. The third antinomy refers to the opposition between freedom and necessity, in the sense, namely, that the question is posed whether everything in the world must be considered to be conditioned by the causal nexus or whether free beings, i.e. absolute starting-points of action in the world, are to be assumed as well. To this is added finally, as the fourth antinomy, the dilemma of whether the world in general has a cause or not. – The method that Kant follows in his discussion of these antinomies is as follows. He juxtaposes the opposite determinations contained in them as thesis and antithesis and tries to prove both of them, i.e. to exhibit both of them as the necessary results of thinking them through. In the process he explicitly defends himself against the charge that he sought smoke and mirrors in order to perform a spurious lawyer's proof. However, the proofs that Kant proposes for his theses and antitheses must indeed be regarded as mere pseudo-proofs, since what is supposed to be proved is always already contained in the presuppositions that form the starting-point and only through the long-winded, apagogic process is the semblance of mediation produced. Nonetheless, the construction of these antinomies will always remain a very important and praiseworthy result of the Critical philosophy, insofar as the actual unity of those determinations that are kept apart by the understanding is thereby articulated, even if at first only in a subjective and immediate way. Thus, for example, the first of the aforementioned cosmological antinomies contains the notion that space and time are to be regarded not only as continuous but also as discrete, whereas in the old metaphysics one stopped short at mere continuity and, in keeping with this, the world was considered unlimited in terms of space and time. It is entirely correct to say that we can go beyond any given determinate space as well as any determinate time; but it is no less correct to say that space and time are actual only through their determinateness, i.e. as here and now, and that this determinateness is inherent in the concept of them. The same is true of the rest of the remaining antinomies listed earlier, for instance, the antinomy of freedom and necessity with which, looked at more closely, things stand as follows: what the understanding understands by freedom and necessity indeed concerns only the ideal moments of true freedom and true necessity, and the two in their separation amount to nothing true.

 Addition. It is true that Kant construed reason as the faculty of the unconditioned. However, if reason is reduced merely to an abstract identity, this at the same time entails renouncing its unconditioned status, and then reason is indeed nothing but empty understanding. Reason is unconditioned only in virtue of the fact that it is not determined from outside by some content alien to it, but instead determines itself and is by this means at home with itself in its content. Now, according to Kant, the activity of reason explicitly consists merely in systematizing the material conveyed by perception and doing so through the application of the categories, that is to say, putting it into some external order, and its principle thereby is merely that of the absence of contradiction.

 Addition. What Kant had denied theoretical reason, namely free self-determination, he explicitly vindicated for practical reason. It is principally this side of the Kantian philosophy that has won it great favour, and rightly so. In order to recognize the value of our debt to Kant in this respect, we need first to call to mind that shape of the practical philosophy and specifically the moral philosophy that he encountered as the dominant one. This was generally speaking the system of eudaemonism. In reply to the question concerning the vocation of human beings, it answered that they had to aim for happiness as their goal. Now insofar as one understood by happiness the satisfaction of human beings' particular inclinations, wishes, needs, etc., the contingent and the particular were thereby made into the principle of the will and its activity. Kant placed practical reason in opposition to this eudaemonism that dispenses with any firm hold within itself and opens the door to every whim and passing mood, and he enunciated in this way the requirement of a universal determination of the will that was equally binding on everybody. According to Kant, as has been noted in the preceding sections, theoretical reason is supposed to be only the negative faculty of the infinite and, without any positive content of its own, it is supposed to be limited to recognizing the finitude of knowledge of experience. But he explicitly recognized, by contrast, the positive infinity of practical reason and, indeed, in such a way that he ascribes to the will the capacity for determining itself in a universal manner, that is to say, in thinking. The will surely possesses this capacity and it is of enormous importance to know [wissen] that human beings are free only insofar as they possess this capacity and make use of it in their actions. But with this acknowledgment, the question concerning the content of the will or of practical reason is still not answered. When it is then said that human beings ought to make the good the content of their willing, the question of the content, that is to say, the question of the determinateness of this content, immediately recurs, and one does not advance a single step with the mere principle of the agreement of the will with itself or with the requirement to do one's duty for duty's sake.

 Addition 1. The Critical philosophy deserves great negative credit for promoting and validating the conviction that the determinations of the understanding belong to finitude and that a knowing that moves within these limits does not arrive at the truth. And yet, the one-sidedness of this philosophy consists in that the finitude of those determinations of the understanding is attributed to the fact that they pertain to our subjective thinking only, for which the thing-in-itself is supposed to remain an absolute beyond. In fact, however, the finitude of the determinations of the understanding does not lie in their subjectivity. Rather they are in themselves finite, and their finitude needs to be demonstrated in them themselves. According to Kant, however, what we think is false because we think it. – It is to be considered a further deficiency of this philosophy that it offers only a historical description of thinking and a mere list of the moments of consciousness. To be sure, this list is mainly correct, and yet there is no mention of the necessity of what has thus been empirically gathered together. As a result of the reflections about the various levels of consciousness it is then said that the content of what we know [wissen] is only appearance. With this result one must concur, insofar as finite thinking has to do, indeed, only with appearances. Still, this level of appearances is not the end of it; rather there exists a yet higher terrain, which, however, remains an inaccessible beyond for the Kantian philosophy.

 Addition 2. While in the Kantian philosophy the principle according to which thinking determines itself out of itself has been established first in a merely formal way, whereas the how and in what respect of this self-determination of thinking has not yet been demonstrated by Kant, it is Fichte who by contrast recognized this defect and who, while expressing the requirement for a deduction of the categories, at the same time undertook the attempt actually to deliver one. The Fichtean philosophy makes the I the point of departure for the philosophical development, and the categories are to emerge as the result of its activity. And yet, the I does not truly appear as a free, spontaneous activity here, since it is considered to be aroused first by a check [Anstoß] from outside itself. The I is then supposed to react against this check, and only through this reaction is it supposed to acquire a consciousness of itself. – With this, the nature of the check remains an unknown outside, and the I continues to be something conditioned having an other over against itself. Consequently, Fichte, too, stands pat with the result of the Kantian philosophy that only the finite can be known, while the infinite passes beyond [the realm of] thinking. What is called 'the thing-in-itself' in Kant is, in Fichte, the check from outside the I, this abstractum of something other than the I that has no other determination than being the negative or the not-I in general. The I is considered here as standing in relation to the not-I through which its self-determining activity is first aroused, and this in such a way that the I is only the continuous activity of freeing itself from the check, without, however, the actual liberation taking place. For with the cessation of the check the I itself, whose being is solely its activity, would cease to exist. Moreover, the content that the activity of the I produces is nothing but the ordinary content of experience, only with the addition that this content is only an appearance.

 Addition. When it is said in the Platonic philosophy that we recollect the ideas, this means that the ideas are undeveloped [an sich] in human beings and not (as the Sophists maintained) something foreign to human beings that comes to them from the outside. Yet through this construal of knowing as recollection the development of what is undeveloped in human beings is not ruled out, and this development is nothing but mediation. It is the same with the innate ideas that come up in Descartes and the Scottish philosophers. They are equally to be regarded as being initially present only as undeveloped and in the manner of a disposition in human beings.

 Addition. Because it is firmly maintained in opposition to the form of mediation, the form of immediacy is accordingly one-sided, and this one-sidedness is communicated to any content that is merely reduced to this form. Immediacy is in general an abstract relation to itself and thus at the same time abstract identity, abstract universality. If what is universal in and of itself is taken only in the form of immediacy, it is then merely the abstract universal and, from this standpoint, God acquires the significance of a completely indeterminate essence. If one then still speaks of God as spirit, this is only an empty word, for in any case spirit as consciousness and self-consciousness is a process of distinguishing itself from itself and from an other, and thus at the same time a mediation.

 Addition. When one speaks of thinking in general or more specifically of comprehending [Begreifen], one often tends to have in mind only the activity of the understanding. Now, admittedly, thinking is at first a thinking by way of understanding. However, it does not stand still with this, and the concept [Begriff] is not a mere determination of the understanding. – The understanding's activity generally consists in imparting the form of universality to its contents. More precisely, the universal posited by the understanding is an abstract universal which, as such, is maintained in opposition to the particular and by that very fact is determined at the same time to be itself a particular in turn. By relating to its objects by separating and abstracting [them], the understanding is the opposite of immediate intuition and sensation which as such deal with the concrete throughout and do not budge beyond it.
Those oft-repeated reproaches that generally tend to be made against thinking refer to this opposition between the understanding and sensation, reproaches that come down to saying that thinking is rigid and one-sided and, as a consequence, leads to pernicious and destructive results. Insofar as those reproaches are justified in terms of their contents, the response to them has to be first that it is not thinking in general, and more specifically rational thought, that is subject to them, but only the thinking of the understanding. Furthermore, the thinking that is performed merely by the understanding must above all be accorded its rights and its merits. These consist in the fact that neither in the theoretical nor in the practical field is it possible to arrive at any firmness and determinateness without the understanding. First, as far as knowing is concerned, it starts by apprehending the objects on hand in terms of their determinate differences. Thus, in the contemplation of nature, for instance, matters, forces, genera, etc. are distinguished and fixed as such [für sich] in this their isolation. Thinking proceeds here as understanding, and its principle is identity, the simple relation to itself. This identity then also conditions the further progression from one determination to another in knowing. Thus notably in mathematics magnitude is the determination along which one proceeds while leaving all others out. Accordingly, in geometry one compares figures with each other by emphasizing what is identical between them. In other domains of knowing, too, such as in jurisprudence, one proceeds in accordance with identity at first. Here, inferring one determination from another is nothing but a progression in accordance with the principle of identity. – In the practical sphere no less than in the theoretical sphere, the understanding is indispensable. Action essentially requires character, and a person [Mensch] of character is a human being who understands and, as such, eyes determinate purposes and firmly pursues them. Someone who wants to do something great must know, as Goethe says, how to limit himself. By contrast, someone who wants everything in fact wants nothing and accomplishes nothing. There are a lot of interesting things in the world: Spanish poetry, chemistry, politics, music. All of that is very interesting, and one cannot blame anybody who takes an interest in them. However, if as an individual one wants to achieve something in a particular situation, one must stick to something determinate and not split up one's power in various directions. Similarly, in every profession the point is to pursue it with understanding. Thus, a judge, for instance, must adhere to the law, pass judgment in accordance with it, avoid being distracted by this and that, refuse to accept any excuses, and act without looking right or left. – Furthermore, the understanding generally represents an essential aspect of education [Bildung]. An educated person is not satisfied with nebulous and vague things; instead, he grasps the objects in their firm determinacy, whereas the uneducated vacillate back and forth with uncertainty, and it often takes a great deal of effort to reach an agreement with such a person about the topic of the discussion and bring him to keep his eyes unerringly on the specific point dealt with.
Now furthermore, and following our earlier examination, since the logical sphere in general is to be construed not merely as a subjective activity, but instead as absolutely universal and therefore at the same time as objective, this is to be applied to the understanding as the first form of the logical as well. The understanding is thus to be regarded as analogous to what one calls the loving kindness [Güte] of God, insofar as we understand by this that finite things are, that they have a standing. Thus, for instance, in nature one recognizes the loving kindness of God in that the diverse classes and genera of both animals and plants have been endowed with everything they need in order to preserve themselves and flourish. It is the same with human beings, too, with individuals and entire peoples, who also partly find what is necessary for their continued existence and development as something immediately on hand (such as, for instance, the climate, composition, and products of the land) and partly possess it in the form of disposition and talent. Construed in this way, the understanding shows itself in every domain of the objective [gegenständlich] world, and it belongs essentially to the perfection of an object that the principle of the understanding receive its due in it. Thus, for instance, the state is imperfect if a specific differentiation of estates and professions has not yet emerged in it, and if the political and governmental functions that differ in accordance with the concept have not yet been formed into specific organs in the same way as is the case in the developed animal organism with its different functions of sensation, movement, digestion, etc. – From the discussion so far we learn, furthermore, that even in such domains and spheres of activity that, according to the ordinary representation of things, seem to be furthest removed from the understanding, the latter must nonetheless not be absent, and that to the extent that this is the case, it must be regarded as a defect. This is notably true of art, religion, and philosophy. Thus, for instance, in art the understanding is evident in the way that the forms of the beautiful, differing conceptually as they do, are also maintained and exhibited in terms of this difference of theirs. The same is true of individual works of art. Thus it is characteristic of the beauty and perfection of a drama that the characters of the different personae are portrayed in their purity and determinacy, and also that the several goals and interests that are at play are presented clearly and decisively. – Next, insofar as the domain of the religious is concerned, the advantage of Greek over Nordic mythology, for example (apart from the diversity otherwise of content and conception), consists essentially in that in the former the figures of the individual gods are developed to the point of having a sculpted determinacy [plastische Bestimmtheit], whereas in the latter they merge together in the fog of a murky indeterminacy. – Finally, given what has been discussed up to this point, the fact that philosophy also cannot dispense with the understanding scarcely needs any particular mention. To do philosophy, it is above all required that each thought be grasped in its full precision and that one is not content with vagueness and indeterminacy.
It also, however, tends to be said that the understanding must not go too far. This is correct, insofar as the point of view of the understanding [das Verständige] is not something ultimate but far more something finite instead, and, more specifically, something of the sort that, pushed to the extreme, turns over into its opposite. It is the way of youth to relish abstractions, whereas a person with the experience of life does not indulge in the abstract either-or, clinging instead to what is concrete.

 Addition 1. Properly construing and recognizing the dialectical dimension is of the highest importance. It is in general the principle of all movement, all life, and all actual activity. The dialectical is equally the soul of all truly scientific knowing. In our ordinary consciousness, not stopping short at the abstract determinations of the understanding appears to be only fair, in keeping with the adage 'Live and let live', such that one thing is valid, but so, too, is the other. Looked at more closely, however, the finite is not limited merely from the outside but, by virtue of its own nature, sublates itself and changes into its opposite on account of itself. Thus, for example, it is said that human beings are mortal, and dying is then regarded as something that has its cause in extraneous circumstances only. According to this way of viewing the matter, a human being has two particular properties, that of being alive and also that of being mortal. The true way to construe the matter, however, is that life as such carries within itself the germ of death and that, generally speaking, the finite contradicts itself in itself and for that reason sublates itself. – Furthermore, the dialectic must not be confused with mere sophistic technique, the essence of which consists precisely in upholding one-sided and abstract determinations in isolation from one another, depending on the individual's respective interests and particular situation. Thus, for example, in regard to action, it is essential that I exist and have the means to exist. But if I then lay emphasis exclusively on this side, this principle of my wellbeing, and derive from it the conclusion that I am therefore allowed to steal or betray my fatherland, this is sophistry. – Similarly in my actions my subjective freedom is an essential principle in the sense that I am engaged with insight and conviction in what I do. However, if I reason on the basis of this principle alone, then this is likewise sophistry and all principles of ethical life are thereby thrown overboard. – The dialectic differs essentially from such behaviour, for it aims precisely at contemplating things as they are in and for themselves, and from this emerges the finitude of the one-sided determinations of the understanding. – Incidentally, the dialectic is nothing new in philosophy. Among the ancients, Plato is called the inventor of the dialectic, and rightfully so, insofar as in the Platonic philosophy the dialectic occurs for the first time in its free, scientific and thus at the same time objective form. With Socrates, the dialectical still has a predominantly subjective shape, namely that of irony, in keeping with the general character of his philosophizing. Socrates directed his dialectic against the ordinary consciousness in general and then against the Sophists in particular. In his conversations, he would assume the guise of someone who wanted to be instructed further about the matter under discussion. In this context he raised all sorts of questions and led those with whom he conversed to the opposite of what at first had seemed to them to be right. When, for instance, the Sophists called themselves teachers, Socrates would, through a series of questions, get the sophist Protagoras to admit that all learning is merely recollection. – In Plato's rigorous, scientific dialogues, by means of the dialectical treatment, he shows the finitude of all fixed determinations of the understanding in general. Thus, in the Parmenides, for instance, he derives the One from the Many and, in spite of this, shows how the Many is just this, namely to determine itself as the One. Plato treated the dialectic in this grand manner. – In more recent times, it was primarily Kant who brought back to memory the dialectic and reinstated it in its position of honour. He did this by elaborating the so-called antinomies of reason that we have already discussed (§ 48). In their case, in no way is it a matter of merely going back and forth between reasons and of a merely subjective activity. It is rather a matter of showing how each abstract determination of the understanding, taken merely in the way it presents itself, immediately turns over into its opposite. – Now however much the understanding is prone to resist the dialectic, the latter is by no means to be regarded as present only for the philosophical consciousness. Instead, what is in play here is already found in all other forms of consciousness and is found universally in experience. Everything that surrounds us can be viewed as an example of the dialectic. We know that all finite things, instead of being something fixed and ultimate, are really changeable and perishable, and this is nothing but the dialectic of the finite. By virtue of this dialectic, the same thing (as in itself the other of itself) is driven beyond what it immediately is and turns over into its opposite. Whereas earlier (§ 80) it was said the understanding should be regarded as what is contained in the representation of God's goodness, so now it should be noted in the same (objective) sense about the dialectic that its principle corresponds to the representation of God's power. We say that all things (i.e. everything finite as such) come to judgment, and with this we have a view of the dialectic as the universal, irresistible power which nothing, however secure and firm it may feel itself to be, can withstand. To be sure, the depth of the divine being, God's concept, is not yet exhausted by this determination. Still, it forms an essential moment in all religious consciousness. – Furthermore, the dialectic also establishes itself in all the particular domains and formations of the natural and the spiritual world as, for instance, in the movement of the celestial bodies. A planet stands now in this location, but it is in itself such as to be in a different location as well, and it brings its otherness into existence by undergoing movement. Similarly, the physical elements prove to be dialectical, and the metereological process is the manifestation of their dialectic. It is the same principle that forms the basis of all other processes in nature and through which nature is at the same time driven beyond itself. As far as the occurrence of the dialectic in the spiritual world, and more specifically in the legal and the ethical domain is concerned, one need only be reminded of how, as follows from experience universally, the extremes of a state or an action tend to change into their opposite, a dialectic that proverbs acknowledge in multiple ways. Thus, for instance, it is said that summum ius summa iniuria ['utmost justice is the utmost injustice'] as a means of expressing that abstract justice, driven to the extreme, changes over into injustice. So, too, it is well known how in the area of politics the extremes of anarchy and despotism tend to provoke one another reciprocally. We find consciousness of the dialectic in the ethical domain, as far as its individual form is concerned, in the well-known proverbs: 'Pride goes before a fall', 'Too much wit outwits itself', etc. – Even feelings, bodily as well as mental, possess a dialectic of their own. It is well known how the extremes of pain and joy turn into one another; the heart filled with joy relieves itself through tears, and in some circumstances the most poignant melancholy tends to announce itself with a smile.

 Addition 2. Scepticism must not be regarded merely as a doctrine of doubt. Rather, it is absolutely certain of the matter it is concerned with, namely the nothingness of all things finite. The person who is still doubting continues to harbour the hope that his doubt can be lifted and that one or the other of the determinate points between which he is vacillating will turn out to be firm and true. By contrast, scepticism proper is the complete despair of anything solid in understanding and the attitude that results from it is an unshakeable mind that rests in itself. This is the high-minded ancient scepticism as we find it presented notably in Sextus Empiricus and as it developed as a complement to the dogmatic systems of the Stoics and Epicureans during the later Roman period. We must not confuse this high-minded ancient scepticism with the modern scepticism already mentioned earlier (§ 39) that partly preceded and partly developed out of the Critical philosophy. This modern scepticism consists simply in denying the truth and certainty of the supersensory domain and in designating the sensory and what is on hand in immediate sensation as what we have to cling to.
Incidentally, if scepticism is often regarded even today as an irresistible enemy of all positive knowing [Wissen] whatsoever and thus also of philosophy, insofar as the latter deals with positive knowledge [Erkenntnis], then it needs to be said in response that it is in fact only the finite, abstract thinking of the understanding that has to fear scepticism and cannot withstand it, whereas philosophy, by contrast, contains the sceptical within itself as one of its moments, namely as the dialectical. But then philosophy does not rest with the merely negative result of the dialectical as is the case with scepticism. The latter misjudges its result by clinging to it as a mere (i.e. abstract) negation. Because the dialectic has the negative as a result, the negative is equally positive, precisely as a result, for it contains within itself that from which it results, containing the latter as something it has sublated, and is not without what it has sublated. This, however, is the fundamental determination of the third form of the logical, namely of the speculative or positively rational.

 Addition. In terms of content, the rational is so far from being the possession merely of philosophy that it must be said instead that it is available to all human beings at whichever level of education and mental development they may find themselves. In this sense, human beings have, since ancient times, rightly been designated as rational beings [Wesen]. The general empirical manner in which the rational is known [wissen] is at first that of prejudice and presupposition and, according to our previous discussion (§ 45), the nature of the rational is generally to be something unconditioned which for that reason contains its determinateness within itself. In this sense, human beings know about the rational first and foremost insofar as they know of God and know him as determined by himself alone. Following that, a citizen's knowledge of his fatherland and its laws is similarly a knowledge of what is rational, insofar as this counts for him as something unconditioned and at the same time as something universal to which he has to submit his individual will. In the same sense, even the knowledge and volition of a child is already rational, insofar as it knows and embraces the will of its parents.
Furthermore, the speculative is nothing else than the rational (the positively rational, that is) insofar as it is thought. In ordinary life, the expression speculation tends to be used in a very vague and at the same time subordinate sense, as, for instance, when one speaks of speculations concerning marriage or commerce. What is understood by such 'speculation', then, is merely the fact that, on the one hand, one should go beyond what is immediately on hand and, on the other, what forms the content of such speculations is initially merely something subjective but should not remain so but instead be realized or translated into objectivity.
What was remarked earlier about the idea holds likewise for this ordinary use of language concerning speculation, to which may be added the further remark that those who count themselves among the more educated also often speak of speculation as something merely subjective. They say, namely, that a certain construal of natural or spiritual conditions and circumstances may be very well and good when taken in a merely speculative manner, but that experience does not agree with it and nothing like it can be countenanced in actuality. Against this position it must be said that, as far as its true meaning is concerned, the speculative is neither provisionally nor even definitively something merely subjective. Instead, it is explicitly what contains those oppositions at which the understanding stops short (thus including the opposition of the subjective and the objective) and contains them as something sublated within itself and precisely by this means proves itself to be concrete and a totality. For this reason, a speculative content can also not be expressed in a one-sided sentence. If we say, for instance, 'the absolute is the unity of the subjective and the objective', this is, to be sure, correct but one-sided insofar as only the unity is expressed here and emphasis is placed on it alone, whereas in fact the subjective and the objective are indeed not only identical but also distinct.
As regards the significance of the speculative, it bears mentioning here that the same thing is to be understood by it as formerly used to be called the mystical, especially when referring to religious consciousness and its content. When one speaks of the mystical today, it is normally taken to be synonymous with the mysterious and the incomprehensible, and the mysterious and incomprehensible are then – depending on the respective educational background and mindset – regarded by some as something genuine and true, but by others as belonging to superstition and deception. In this regard, it should be noted first that the mystical is indeed something mysterious, but only for the understanding, simply because abstract identity is the principle of the understanding, whereas the mystical (taken as synonymous with the speculative) is the concrete unity of those determinations that count as true for the understanding only in their separation and opposition. So when those who recognize the mystical as the true are likewise happy to call it the absolutely mysterious and leave it at that, they express that, as far as they are concerned, thinking likewise has the significance solely of positing abstract identities, and that in order to attain to the truth one must renounce thinking or, as also tends to be said, that one must take reason captive. But as we have seen, the abstract thinking of the understanding is so far from being something firm and ultimate that, to the contrary, it turns out to be constantly sublating itself and changing over into its opposite, whereas the rational as such consists precisely in containing the opposites as ideal moments within itself. Thus, everything rational is to be called at the same time 'mystical', by which, however, nothing more or less is said than that it goes beyond the understanding and in no way that it is to be regarded generally as inaccessible to thinking and as incomprehensible.

 Addition. The division of the Logic here given, as well as the entire discussion of thinking up to this point, is to be regarded as a mere anticipation, and the justification or proof of it can only result from the completed treatment of thinking itself. For in philosophy, demonstrating [beweisen] is equivalent to showing how the object makes itself – through and out of itself – into what it is. – The relationship in which the above-mentioned three major stages of thought or of the logical idea stand to each other is generally to be construed in such a way that only the concept is what is true [das Wahre] and, more precisely, the truth of being and of essence, both of which, held fast for themselves in their isolation, are to be regarded at the same time as untrue: being because it is at first only what is immediate, and essence because it is at first only what is mediated. One might raise the question, then, why, if this is so, we begin with the untrue and not right away with the true. The answer to this is that the truth has to prove [bewähren] itself precisely to be the truth, and here, within the logical sphere, the proof consists in the concept demonstrating itself to be mediated through and with itself and thereby also as what is truly immediate. The aforementioned relationship of the three stages of the logical idea displays its concrete and real shape in the way that we know God (who is the truth) in his truth, i.e. as absolute spirit, only insofar as we recognize at the same time that the world created by him, i.e. nature and finite spirit, are, in their difference from God, untrue.