Written: 1915
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 4th Edition, Moscow, 1976, Volume 38, pp. 247-268
Publisher: Progress Publishers
First Published: 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XII
Translated: Clemence Dutt
Edited: Stewart Smith
Transcription & Markup: Kevin Goins
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2008).You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Note that this document has undergone special formating to ensure that Lenin’s sidenotes fit on the page, marking as best as possible where they were located in the original manuscript.
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“Anaximander (610-547 B. C.) supposes
man to develop from a fish.” (213) |
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...“Hence the determinations are dry,
destitute of process, undialectical, and sta- tionary....” (244) |
negative de- termination of dialectics |
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This refers to the general ideas of the
Pythagoreans;—“number” and its sig- nificance, etc. Ergo: it is said in regard to the primitive ideas of the Pythago- reans, their primitive philosophy; their “determinations” of substance, things, the world, are “dry, destitute of process (movement), undialectical.” |
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Tracing predominantly the dialectical in
the history of philosophy, Hegel cites the |
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views of the Pythagoreans: ...“one, added
to even, makes odd (2+1 = 3);—added to odd, it makes even (3+1 = 4);—it” (Eins[3]) “has the property of making ge- rade (= even), and consequently it must itself be even. Thus unity contains in it- self different determinations.” (246) |
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Musical harmony and the philosophy of
Pythagoras: |
(“harmony of the world”) |
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“The subjective, and, in the case of hear-
ing, simple feeling, which, however, exists inherently in relation, Pythagoras has at- tributed to the understanding, and he at- tained his object by means of fixed deter- minations.” (282) |
relation of the subjec- tive to the objective |
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Pp. 265--266: the movement of the heav-
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enly bodies—their harmony—the har-
mony of the singing heavenly spheres inaudible to us (in the Pythago- reans): Aristotle, De coelo, II, 13 (and 9)[4]: |
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...“Fire was placed by the Pythagoreans
in the middle, but the Earth was made a star that moved around this central body in a circle....” But for them this fire was not the sun.... “They thus rely, not on sensuous appearance, but on grounds.... These ten spheres” |
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“like all that
is in motion, make a sound; but each makes a different tone, according to the difference in its size and velocity. This is determined by the different distances, which bear a harmonious relationship to one another, in accordance with musical intervals; by this means a harmonious sound (music) arises in the moving spheres (world)....” |
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the role of
dust (in the sunbeam) in ancient philosophy |
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In the soul—seven circles (elements)
as in the heavens. Aristotle, De ani- ma, I, 3—p. 269. |
Pythagore- ans: “guesses,” fantasies on the resem- blance of the macrocosm and the microcosm |
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And here immediately are recounted the
fables that Pythagoras (who had taken from the Egyptians the doctrine of the im- mortality of the soul and the transmi- gration of souls) related about himself, that his soul had dwelt 207 years in other people, etc., etc. (271) |
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NB: the linking of the germs of scien-
tific thought with fantasy à la religion, mythology. And nowadays! Likewise, the same linking but the proportions of science and mythology are different. |
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More on the theory of numbers of Pytha-
goras. “Numbers, where are they? Dispersed through space, dwelling in independence in the heaven of ideas? They are not things immediately in themselves, for a thing, a substance, is something quite other than a number—a body bears no resemblance to it.” 254 Quotation |from Aristotle?—Met- aphysik, I, 9, is it not? From Sextus Empiricus? Unclear|. |
NB |
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Pp. 279-280—the Pythagoreans accept the
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ether (...“A ray penetrates from the
sun through the dense and cold ether,” etc.) |
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Thus the conjecture about the ether
has existed for thousands of years, re- maining until now a conjecture. But at the present time there are already a thousand times more subsurface chan- nels leading to a solution of the prob- lem, to a scientific determination of the ether. |
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In speaking of the Eleatic school, Hegel
says about dialectics: |
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...“We here” (in der eleatischen Schule[10])
“find the beginning of dialectics, i.e., simply the pure movement of thought in Notions; likewise we see the opposition of thought to outward appearance or sen- suous Being, or of that which is implicit to the being-for-another of this implicit- ness, and in the objective existence we see the contradiction which it has in itself, or dialectics proper....” (280) See the next page.[11] |
what is dialectics? (α) (β) |
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Here are essentially two determinations
(two characteristics, two typical features; Bestimmungen, keine Definitionen[12]) of dialectics[13]:
α) “the pure movement of thought
in Notions”; β) “in the (very) essence of objects (to elucidate) (to reveal) the con- tradiction which it (this essence) has in itself (dialectics proper).”
In other words, this “fragment” of He-
gel’s should be reproduced as follows: Dialectics in general is “the pure move- ment of thought in Notions“ (i.e., putting it without the mysticism of idealism: human concepts are not fixed but are eternally in movement, they pass into one another, they flow into one another, otherwise they do not reflect living life. The analysis of concepts, the study of them, the “art of operating with them” (Engels)[14] always demands study of the movement of concepts, of their inter- connection, of their mutual transitions).
In particular, dialectics is the study
of the opposition of the Thing-in-itself (an sich), of the essence, substratum, sub- stance—from the appearance, from “Be- ing-for-Others.” (Here, too, we see a tran- sition, a flow from the one to the other: the essence appears. The appearance is essen- tial.) Human thought goes endlessly deeper from appearance to essence, from essence of the first order, as it were, to essence of the second order, and so on without end. |
Hegel on dialectics (see the previous page |
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Sextus Empiricus presents the point of
view of the Sceptics as follows: |
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...“Let us imagine that in a house in
which there are many valuables, there were those who sought for gold by night; each would then think that he had found the gold, but would not know for certain whether he had actually found it. Thus philosophers come into this world as into a great house to seek the truth, but were they to reach it, they could not tell whether they had really attained it....” (288-289) |
the compari- son is a tempting one... |
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Xenophanes (the Eleatic) said:
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“Did beasts and lions only have hands,
Works of art thereby to bring forth, as do men, They would, in creating divine forms, give to them What in image and size belongs to them- |
Gods in the image of man |
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selves....” (289-290)
“What especially characterises Zeno is
dialectics, which ... begins with him....” (302)
“We find in Zeno likewise true objective
dialectics.” (309)
(310: on the refutation of philosophic
systems: “Falsity must not be demonstrat- ed as untrue because the opposite is true, but in itself....”) |
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“Dialectics is in general α) external dia-
lectics, in which this movement is differ- ent from the comprehension of this move- |
dialectics | |||
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ment; β) not a movement of our intelli-
gence only, but what proceeds from the nature of the thing itself, i. e., from the pure Notion of the content. The former is a manner of regarding objects in such a way that reasons are revealed and aspects of them shown, by means of which all that was supposed to be firmly fixed, is made to totter. There may be reasons which are altogether external too, and we shall speak further of this dialectics when deal- ing with the Sophists. The other dialectics, |
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however, is the immanent contemplation
of the object: it is taken for itself, without previous hypothesis, idea or obligation, not under any external conditions, laws, grounds. We have to put ourselves right into the thing, to consider the object in itself and to take it in the determina- tions which it has. In regarding it thus, it” (er) (sic!) “shows from itself that it con- tains opposed determinations, and thus transcends itself; this dialectics we more especially find in the ancients. Subjec- |
objective dialectics |
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tive dialectics, which reasons from exter-
nal grounds, does justice when it is granted that: ‘in the correct there is what is not correct, and in the false the true as well.’ True dialectics leaves nothing whatever to its object, as if the latter were defi- cient on one side only; but it disintegrates in the entirety of its nature....” (p. 311) |
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With the “principle of development” in
the twentieth century (indeed, at the end of the nineteenth century also) “all are agreed.” Yes, but this superficial, not thought out, accidental, philistine “agree- ment” is an agreement of such a kind as stifles and vulgarises the truth.—If every- thing develops, then everything passes from one into another, for development as is well known is not a simple, universal and eternal growth, enlargement (respective dim- inution), etc.—If that is so, then, in the first place, evolution has to be under- stood more exactly, as the arising and passing away of everything, as mutual transitions.—And, in the second place, if everything develops, does not that apply also to the most general concepts and categories of thought? If not, it means that thinking is not connected with being. If it does, it means that there is a dialec- tics of concepts and a dialectics of cogni- tion which has objective significance. + |
Regarding the question of dialec- tics and its objective significance... |
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NB |
I. II. |
The principle of develop- ment... The principle of unity... |
+ In addition, the uni- versal principle of de- velopment must be com- bined, linked, made to correspond with the uni- versal principle of the unity of the world, nature, motion, matter, etc. |
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“Zeno’s treatment of motion was above
all objectively dialectical....” (p. 313) |
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...“Movement itself is the dialectic of
all that is....” It did not occur to Zeno to deny movement as “sensuous certainty,” it was merely a question “nach ihrer (move- ment’s) Wahrheit” (of the truth of move- ment). (313) And on the next page, where he relates the anecdote how Diogenes the Cynic, of Sinope, refuted movement by walking, Hegel writes: |
NB. This can and must be turned round: the question is not whether there is movement, but how |
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to express it in the logic of concepts |
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...“But the anecdote continues that, when
a pupil was satisfied with this refutation, Diogenes beat him, on the ground that, since the teacher had disputed with reasons, the only valid refutation is one derived from reasons. Men have not merely to sat- isfy themselves by sensuous certainty, but also to understand....” (314) |
Not bad! Where is this continuation of the anec- dote taken from? It is not to be found in Dio- genes Laerti- us, VI, § 39,[15] or in Sextus Empiri- cus, III, 8[16] (Hegel p. 314). Did He- gel invent it? |
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Zeno has four ways of refuting motion:
1. That which is moving to an end must |
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first cover half of the path. And of
this half, again first its half, and so on ad infinitum.
Aristotle replied: space and time
are infinitely divisible (δννάμει[17]) (p. 316), but not infinitely divided (ένεργεία[18]), Bayle (Dictionnaire,[19] Vol. IV, article Zeno) calls this reply of Aristotle’s pitoyable[20] and says:
...“if one drew an infinite number
of lines on a particle of matter, one would not thereby introduce a division that would reduce to an actual infin- ity that which according to him was only a potential infinity....”
And Hegel writes (317): “Dies si ist
gut!”[21] |
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i.e., if one carried out the infinite
division to the end!! |
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...“The essence of space and time is mo-
tion, for it is universal; to understand it means to express its essence in the form |
correct! | |||
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“To understand means to express in the
form of notions.” Motion is the essence of space and time. Two fundamental con- cepts express this essence: (infinite) con- tinuity (Kontinuitä) and “punctuality” (= denial of continuity, discontinu- ity). Motion is the unity of continuity (of time and space) and discontinuity (of time and space). Motion is a contra- diction, a unity of contradictions. |
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Überweg-Heinze, 10th edition, p. 63
(§ 20), is wrong when he says that Hegel “defends Aristotle against Bayle.” Hegel refutes both the sceptic (Bayle) and the anti-dialectician (Aristotle). Cf. Gomperz, Les penseurs de la Grèce, p ...[22], the forced recognition, under the lash, of the unity of contradictions, without recognising dialectics (owing to cowardice of thought).... |
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2. Achilles will not overtake the tortoise.
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“First the half” and so on endlessly.
Aristotle answers: he will overtake it if he be permitted “to overstep the limits.” (320) And Hegel: “This answer is cor- rect and contains all that can be said” (p. 321)—for actually the half here (at a certain stage) becomes the “limit”.... |
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cf. Chernov’s objections against Engels[23] |
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second; were it in either it would be at
rest. If we say that it is between both, this is to say nothing at all, for were it between both, it would be in a place, and |
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this presents the same difficulty. But move-
ment means to be in this place and not to be in it; this is the continuity of space and time—and it is this which first makes motion possible.” (Pp. 321--322) |
NB correct! |
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Movement is the presence of a body in
a definite place at a given moment and in another place at another, subsequent moment—such is the objection which Cher- nov repeats (see his Philosophical Studies) in the wake of all the “metaphysical” opponents of Hegel. This objection is incorrect: (1) it de- scribes the result of motion, but not mo- tion itself; (2) it does not show, it does not contain in itself the possibility of mo- tion; (3) it depicts motion as a sum, as a concatenation of states of rest, that is to say, the (dialectical) contradiction is not removed by it, but only concealed, shifted, screened, covered over. |
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“What makes the difficulty is always
thought alone, since it keeps apart the mo- ments of an object which in their separa- tion are really united.” (322) |
correct! | |||
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We cannot imagine, express, measure,
depict movement, without interrupting con- tinuity, without simplifying, coarsening, dismembering, strangling that which is liv- |
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ing. The representation of movement by
means of thought always makes coarse, kills,—and not only by means of thought, but also by sense-perception, and not only of movement, but every concept. And in that lies the essence of dialectics. And precisely this essence is ex- pressed by the formula: the unity, identity of opposites. |
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3. “The flying arrow rests.”
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And Aristotle's answer: the error
arises from the assumption that “time consists of the individual Nows” (έχ τών νϋν) p. 324.
4. Half is equal to the double: motion
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measured in comparison with an un-
moving body and in comparison with a body moving in the opposite direction.
At the end of the § on Zeno, Hegel com-
pares him to Kant (whose antinomies, he says, “do no more than Zeno did here”).
The general conclusion of the dialectic
of the Eleatics: “the truth is the one, all else is untrue”—“just as the Kantian phi- losophy resulted in “We know appearances only.” On the whole the principle is the same.” (p. 326)
But there is also a difference.
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“In Kant it is the spiritual that de-
stroys the world; according to Zeno, the world of appearance in itself and for itself has no truth. According to Kant, it is our thought, our spiritual activity that is bad;— it shows excessive humility of mind to be- lieve that knowledge has no value....” (327) |
Kant and his (subjectiv- ism, scep- ticism, etc.) |
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The continuation of the Eleatics in Leu-
cippus and among the Sophists... |
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After Zeno (? he lived after Heracli-
tus?)[24] Hegel passes on to Heraclitus and says: “It” (Zeno’s dialectics) “may, to that extent, also be called subjective dialec- tics, insofar as it rests in the contemplative subject, and the one, without this dialec- tics, without this movement, is one ab- stract identity....” (328) |
NB | |||||
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but it was previously said, see the
passage quoted from p. 309, and others, that Zeno’s dialectics is ob- jective dialectics. Here is some kind of superfine “distinguo.” Cf. the following: |
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“Dialectics: (α) external dialectics,
a reasoning which goes hither and thither, without reaching the soul of the |
NB | |||||
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thing itself; (β) the immanent dialectics
of the object, but (NB) following within the contemplation of the subject; (γ) the objectivity of Heraclitus, i.e., dialectics itself taken as principle.” (328) |
NB | |||||
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(In Heraclitus): “Here we see land; there is
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no proposition of Heraclitus which
I would not have adopted in my Log- ic....” (328) |
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“The recognition of the fact that Being
and not-Being are only abstractions de- void of truth, that the first truth is to be found only in Becoming, forms a great ad- vance. The understanding comprehends both as having truth and validity in isolation; reason on the other hand recognises the one in the other, and sees that in the one its other” (NB “its other”) “is contained— that is why the All, the Absolute is to be determined as Becoming.” (334)
“Aristotle says (De mundo,[26] Chapter 5)
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that Heraclitus ‘joined together the
complete whole and the incomplete’ (part)” ... “what coincides and what conflicts, what is harmonious and what discordant; and from out of them all (the opposite) comes one, and from one, all.” (335)
Plato, in his Symposium,[27] puts forward
the views of Heraclitus (inter alia in their application to music: harmony consists of opposites), and the statement: “The art of the musician unites the different.”
Hegel writes: this is no objection against
Heraclitus (336), for difference is the es- sence of harmony: |
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“This harmony is precisely absolute Be-
coming, change,—not becoming other, now this and then an other. The essential thing is that each different thing, each particular, is different from another, not abstractly so from any other, but from its other. Each particular only is, insofar as its other is implicitly contained in its Notion....” |
Quite right and impor- tant: the “other” as its other, development into its opposite |
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“So also in the case of tones; they must
be different, but so that they can also be united....” (336) P. 337: incidentally Sextus Empiricus (and Aristotle) are reckon- ed among the ... “best witnesses”....
körperliche[29]—an “unfortunate” expres-
sion (perhaps, Hegel says (NB), it was chosen by a sceptic (NB),—but time, he says, is “das erste sinnliche Wesen”[30]....
...“Time is pure Becoming, as per-
ceived....” (338)
In regard to the fact that Heraclitus
considered fire as a process, Hegel says: “Fire is physical time, it is this absolute unrest” (340)—and further, in regard to the natural philosophy of Heraclitus: |
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...“It” (Natur) “is process in itself....”
(344) “Nature is the never-resting, and the All is the transition out of the one into the other, from division into unity, and from unity into division....” (341) “To understand Nature means to rep- resent it as process....” (339)
Here is what is said to be the narrow-
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ness of natural scientists:
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...“we listen to their account“ (Natur-
forscher[31]), “they only observe and say what they see; but this is not true, for un- consciously they transform what is im- mediately seen by means of the Notion. |
NB | |||||
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And the strife is not due to the opposi-
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tion between observation and the absolute
Notion, but between the limited rigid notion and the Absolute Notion. They show that changes are non-existent....” (344-345) |
NB | |||||
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“As we find in all expression of per-
ception and experience; as soon as men speak, there is a Notion present, it cannot be withheld, for in conscious- ness there is always a touch of univer- sality and truth.” |
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Quite right and important—it is pre-
cisely this that Engels repeated in more popular form, when he wrote that natu- ral scientists ought to know that the re- sults of natural science are concepts, and that the art of operating with concepts is not inborn, but is the result of 2,000 years of the development of natural science and philosophy.[32] The concept of transformation is taken narrowly by natural scientists and they lack understanding of dialectics. |
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...“He” (Heraclitus) “is the one who first
expressed the nature of the infinite, and who first understood nature as infinite in itself, i.e., its essence as process....” (346) |
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| NB || “Absolute mediation” (348) |
(“absolute connec- tion”) |
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“The rational, the true, that which I
know, is indeed a withdrawal from the objective as from what is sensuous, individ- ual, definite and existent; but what rea- son knows within itself is just as much necessity or the universal of being; it is the essence of thought as it is the essence of the world.” (352) |
NB: Necessi- ty = “the universal of Being” (the universal in Being) (connection, “absolute mediation”) |
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368: “The development of philosophy in
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The develop- | |||
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history must correspond to the de-
velopment of logical philosophy; but there will still be passages in the lat- ter which are absent in historical de- velopment.” |
ment of phi- losophy in history “must correspond” (??) to the development of logical philosophy |
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Here there is a very profound and cor-
rect, essentially materialist thought (ac- tual history is the basis, the foundation, the Being, which is followed by conscious- ness). |
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((stretching of a point by the idealist Hegel, course, stretching a point.)) |
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([Straining to make Leucippus conform
to his Logic, Hegel expatiates on the impor- tance, the “greatness” of the principle (368) Fürsichsein,[38] descrying it in Leucippus. It savours in part of stretching a point.][39]
But there is also a grain of truth in it;
the nuance (the “moment”) of separateness; the interruption of gradualness; the mo- ment of the smoothing out of contradic- tions; the interruption of continuity—the atom, the one. (Cf. 371 i.f.):—“The one and continuity are opposites....”
Hegel’s logic cannot be applied in its
given form, it cannot be taken as given. One must separate out from it the logical (epistemological) nuances, after purifying them from Ideenmystik[40]: that is still a big job.) |
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“The Atomists are, therefore, generally
speaking, opposed to the idea of the crea- tion and maintenance of the world by means of a foreign principle. It is in the theory of atoms that natural science first feels released from the need for demonstrat- ing a foundation for the world. For if nature is represented as created and held together by another, then it is conceived of as not existent in itself, and thus as having its Notion outside itself, i.e., its basis is foreign to it, it has no basis as such, it is only conceivable from the will of another— as it is, it is contingent, devoid of ne- cessity and Notion in itself. In the idea of the atomists, however, we have the con- ception of the inherency of nature, that is to say, thought finds itself in it....” (372-373) |
materialism (Hegel is afraid of the word: keep away from me) versus atomism |
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In the presentation—according to Dio-
genes Laertius, IX, § 31-33—of the atomism of Leucippus, the “vortex” (Wirbel— δίνην)[41] of atoms, Hegel finds nothing of interest (“no interest,” ...“empty representation,” “dim, confused ideas”—p. 377 i.f.). |
NB | |||
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Hegel’s blindness, the one-sidedness of
the Idealist!! |
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“Warmth exists according to opin-
ion (νόμφ) and so do cold and colour, sweet and bitter; only the indivisible and the void are in accordance with truth (έτεή)” (Sextus Empiricus, Ad- versus Mathematicos, VII, § 135).[44] |
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And the conclusion is drawn:
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...“We see this much, that Demo-
critus expressed the difference between the moments of Being-in-itself and Being-for-other more distinctly....” (380) |
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By this “the way is at once opened up”
to “the bad idealism,” that ... “meine Emp- findung, mein....”[45] |
“bad ideal- ism” (my feeling) cf. Mach[46] |
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...“A sensuously notionless manifold of
feeling is established, in which there is no reason, and with which this idealism has no further concern.” |
Hegel versus E. Mach... |
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Anaxagoras. Noΰς[47] “the cause of the world
and of all order,” and Hegel elucidates this: |
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...“Objective thought ... reason in the
world, also in nature—or as we speak of genera in nature, they are the universal. A dog is an animal, this is its genus, its substantial; the dog itself is this. This law, this understanding, this reason is itself immanent in nature, it is the essence of nature; the latter is not formed from without as men make a chair.” (381-382) |
NB the concept of genus is “the essence of nature,” is law... |
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“Noΰς is the same as soul (Aristotle
on Anaxagoras)—p. 394 |
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On the homoeomeriae[50] of Anaxagoras
(particles of the same kind as the whole body) Hegel writes: “Transformation is to be taken in a |
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double sense, according to existence and
according to the Notion....” (403-404) Thus, for instance, it is said that water can be removed—the stones remain; blue colour can be removed, red, etc., will remain. |
transforma- tion (its significance) |
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“This is only according to existence;
according to the Notion, they only inter- penetrate, it is inner necessity.” Just as one cannot remove the heart by itself from the living body without the lungs perish- ing, etc.
“Nature likewise exists only in unity,
just as the brain exists only in unity with the other organs” (404)
whereby some conceive transformation
in the sense of the presence of small qualitatively determined particles and their growth (respective diminution) [combination and separation]. The other conception (Heraclitus)—the transformation of the one into an other. (403) |
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Existence and Notion—are to be dis-
tinguished in Hegel approximately as follows: fact (Being) taken separately, torn from its connection, and connection (the Notion), mutual relation, concat- enation, law, necessity. |
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415: ...“The Notion is that which things
are in and for themselves....”
Hegel speaks of grass being the end for
animals, and the latter for men, etc., etc., and concludes: “It is a circle which is complete in itself, but whose completion is likewise a passing into another circle; a vortex whose mid- point, that into which it returns, is found directly in the periphery of a higher circle which swallows it up....” (414) |
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So far the ancients are said to have fur-
nished little: “Universal is a meagre deter- mination; everyone knows of the univer- sal, but not of it as essence.” (416) |
NB: the “univer- sal” as “es- sence” |
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“development of the nature of knowl- edge” |
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“We see this development of the univer-
sal, in which essence goes right over to the side of consciousness, in the so much de- cried worldly wisdom of the Sophists.”(418)
((End of the first volume)) [The second
volume begins with the Sophists.] |
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[1] The Ionic school, or Miletian school (from the town of Miletus, trading and cultural centre of the ancient world on the coast of Asia Minor), was the earliest school of naturalistic materialism (6th century B.C.) in the history of Greek philosophy. (See F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, Moscow, 1954, p. 250.)
[2] Pythagorean philosophy (6th-4th. century B.C.)—an idealist philosophy that considered the essence of all things to lie in numbers. Named after Pythagoras, the founder of a philosophical, religious and political league in Crotona (Southern Italy) that fought for the supremacy of the aristocracy.
[3] one—Ed.
[4] Aristotle’s work De coelo (On the Heavens) belongs to his natural-philosophic writings and consists of four books that are subdivided into chapters. In modern editions, these books are designated by Roman nvmerals and the chapters by Arabic ones.
[5] Antichthon—Ed.
[6] The number ten was viewed by the Pythagoreans as sacred, as the most perfect number, embracing the entire nature of numbers.
[7] “the soul is solar dust”—Ed.
[8] Aristotle’s work De anima (On the Soul) belongs to his natural-philosophic writings and consists of three books.
[9] The Eleatic school (end of 6th-5th century B.C.) was named after the town of Elea in Southern Italy. In contradistinction to the natural dialectic teachings of the Miletian school, and of Heraclitus, regarding the changeable nature of things, the Eleatic school believed in their indivisible, immovable, unchangeable, homogeneous, continuous, eternal essence. At the same time, some of the propositions of representatives of the Eleatic school, and particularly the proofs advanced by Zeno concerning the contradictoriness of motion (the so-called paradoxes of Zeno), despite their metaphysical conclusions, played a positive role in the development of ancient dialectics, having raised the problem of expressing in logical concept the contradictory character of the processes of motion.
[10] In the Eleatic school—Ed.
[11] The next page of the manuscript contains the text given below.—Ed.
[12] determinations, not definitions—Ed.
[13] Determination is the comprehensive conception of the object which characterises its essential aspects and connections with the surrounding world and the laws of its development. Definition, in this case, is the abstract formal-logical determination that takes into account only the external features of the object.
[14] See F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, Moscow, 1959, p. 21. Also see p. 264 of this volume.
[15] The reference is to the work of Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Famous Philosophers, consisting of ten books. It was published in ancient Greek by G. Gübner, Vols. 1-2, Leipzig, 1830-33.
[16] The reference is to the work of Sextus Empiricus, Basic Tenets of Pyrrhonism, in three books.
[17] in potentiality—Ed.
[19] The reference is to Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique (Historical and Critical Dictionary), 4 Vols., Amsterdam and Leyden, 1740.
[20] pitiful—Ed.
[21] “This if is good!”—Ed.
[22] Lenin has in mind the French translation of the first volume of Theodor Gomperz’s work Griechische Denker (Greek Thinkers).
[23] The reference is to § 1 of the book by V. Chernov, Philosophical and Sociological Studies, Moscow, 1907.
[24] Heraclitus (c. 530-470 B.C.) lived prior to Zeno of Elea (c. 490-480 B.C.). Hegel discusses Heraclitus after the Eleatics because his philosophy, especially his dialectics, was superior to that of the Eleatics, in particular, the dialectics of Zeno. Whereas Eleatic philosophy embodied, in Hegel’s view, the category of being, Heraclitus’ philosophy was an historical expression of the higher, more concrete and genuine category of becoming. This is an example of how Hegel “adapted” the history of philosophy to fit the categories of his logic. At the same time Hegel’s treatment of Heraclitus and the Eleatics reflected the actual law-governed nature of the history of philosophy as a science. Such deviations from the chronological order are quite legitimate in examining the history of individual aspects or categories of philosophy, since in this case their development emerges in a form free from historical accident. Lenin wrote the following in his fragment On the Question of Dialectics about the “circles” in philosophy: “Ancient: from Democritus to Plato and the dialectics of Heraclitus” and remarks: “Is a chronology of persons essential? No!” (See present volume, p. 360.)
[25] semblance, show—Ed.
[26] The work De mundo (On the Universe), included in Aristotle’s collected works, was written after Aristotle’s death by an unknown author at the end of the 1st or beginning of the 2nd century A.D.
[27] Symposium (Feast)—a dialogue by Plato.
[28] “Time is the first corporeal essence.”—Ed.
[29] corporeal—Ed.
[30] “the first sensuous essence”—Ed.
[31] of natural scientists—Ed.
[32] See F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, Moscow, 1959, pp. 21-22.
[33] fate—Ed.
[34] logos—Ed.
[35] “subterfuge”—Ed.
[36] “One”—Ed.
[37] “the principle of the One” is “altogether ideal”—Ed.
[38] Being-for-itself—Ed.
[39] In Lenin’s manuscript these five lines have been crossed out.—Ed.
[40] mysticism of ideas—Ed.
[Back to note #14]
[41] Diogenes Laertius (p. 235)—“vertiginem”—Latin translation.—Ed.
[42] treated—Ed.
[43] step-motherly—Ed.
[44] The reference is to the work of Sextus Empiricus, Against Mathematicians, consisting of 11 books, six of which are devoted to a critique of grammar, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy and music, and five (Against Dogmatists) to a critique of logic, physics and ethics.
[45] “my feeling, mine”
[46] A critique of the subjective idealist teachings of Mach on sensations was presented by Lenin in his book Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Chapter 1, §§ 1 and 2 (V. I. Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Moscow, 1960, pp. 32-61).
[47] reason—Ed.
[48] A word has remained undeciphered here.—Ed.
[49] “It is here that these extremes come into contact (and are transformed!).—Ed.
[50] Homoeomeriae — according to Aristotle, a term used by Anaxagoras to denote tiny material elements consisting in their turn of an infinite number of smaller particles and containing all existing properties (“all in everything”). The elements themselves are inert and set in motion by νοΰς (mind, reason), believed by Anaxagoras to be a kind of fine and light matter. He explained any emergence and destruction by the junction and separation of elements. In the extant fragments of Anaxagoras’ works these elements are called “seeds” or “things”; the term homoeomeriae was introduced by Aristotle.
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