Fifteen-Paragraph Summary of Quality

Section I: Quality

A. Being

Being, Nothing, Becoming

Being. Being, pure being. Pure being is completely ineffable. It is totally lacking in articulation or determination. Consequently there is nothing to be said of it. Or rather, there is nothing to be said of it, and so we pass to nothing.

Nothing. Nothing is sheer emptiness, total absence of articulation. Nothing is outright ineffable and unspeakable. Or it is ineffable and unspeakable. Consequently it is the same emptiness as being, and so we pass back to being.

Becoming. Being passes to nothing and nothing to being. The former passage is ceasing-to-be and the latter is coming-to-be. Together they are the two directions of becoming. But becoming exhibits this self-contradiction: if all is becoming, then becoming itself becomes, and consequently cancels itself as becoming. Therefore we have the ceasing-to-be of becoming and thereby being that has come to be. This is entitude. (This is a very hard transition. Because it is like the fall of man in the Bible. Like Adam and Eve, we fall from the purity of pure being into the externality of that which is. We fall from the gerund to the participle. From being to the being.)

B. Entitude

a. Entitude in general, Quality, Something

Entitude in general. The unity of being and nothing is entitude. Entitude is the name given to the realm in which being and nothing occur as mixed together. It is not an entity, but entitude: the sphere of the determining of being. In English grammar it is being with the demonstrative pronoun: being that, being this, being there. Entitude is being in general plus determination. Simple being burneded with an impurity. Entitude is the simple unity of being and nothing mediated through becoming; it has come to be and contains both being and nothing in it as concealed. On account of this simplicity there is nothing more to be said. The further saying of what entitude is, it is own immanent self-distinguishing, the elaboration of the elements contained within it. Entitude must distinguish itself. This self-distinguishing of entitude can be seen in English grammar, in the switch from the demonstrative to the interrogative: from that which is (being) to which is that? or what is that?. Entitude is that which is, the being, that-being. The negative in entitude is accordingly the interrogative: which is that?, what being?, which being?.

Quality. Entitude is the unity of being and nothing. As a unity, it is an immediacy (demonstrativity) and so is the whole composite in the form of being. The nothing in it, the negativity, is the self-interrogation of entitude and is the questioning and qualifying of being. The question to query for quality is ‘which one?’. ‘The red one.’ The quality is the distinguishing mark or character that determines and specifies being. In so doing, it divides being into this and that, here and there. Here, the quality is present. There the quality is absent. Further, the side where the quality is present is obviously the positive side, and is being. But the side where the quality is absent is not pure nothing, but is a determinate nothing and therefore is mixed with being. The quality’s absence is therefore also within entitude and so is entitent. Each side, presence and absence, is entitent and so in an entity in contrast to another. Entities are distinguished through their qualities. (The following observation may help with this hard transition: entitude as such is entity in its universality, quality is the particularization of entity, and something is the negation of negation: the individual entity.)

Something. Through its quality, entitude dsitinguishes itself as an entity. Consequently, entitude is something, a being. One entity implies another: this entity is something, that entity is something else. ‘Something’ and ‘something else’ in English designate the present and absent entities respectively. Something else is also called ‘other’. In this section we have considered entitude in its immediacy, i.e. entitude without regard to its relatedness at all. The next section will develop the relativity of entitude: the relation of something and other.

b. Otherness, Limit, Restriction

Something & Other. The previous section was the development of entitude as such: entitude in its relationless immediacy, determining itself into entities, something and an other. Now we are to develop the relatedness of entities. First of all, 1) considering each entity one at at a time by themselves, without respect to their other, is called considering something ‘in-itself’ (Greek: καθ’ αὑτό; Latin: per se). The kind of being which refers to the entity at this stage is called in-itself-being: the entity is considered as itself, in relation only to itself. Now in contrast to this each entity may be considered in relation to its other, and this relationality is 2) called being-for-another (Greek: πρὸς τί; Latin: ad aliquid). This is the reference which extends from this-entity to the that-entity. These are basically self-sameness and other-difference. But each entity is as much itself as it is other: each is the other of the other and thus the other of itself. Therefore in-itself and for-another are united. In this first section we have witnessed the relationality of entities in its immediate: each entity is standing by itself outside the other, and they are connected through relation to the opposite. The next section continues on with the unity of in-itself and for-another, which is accordingly the interpenetration of the entities: they reciprocal interrelation.

Determination & Constitution. In the previous section, the entities were considered as in-themselves being, and each related to the other through a reference outward, which is called the for-another. But in-itself and for-another are united in each entity. Consequently the relation of entities is an interpenetration, interrelation. The for-another is the entity’s qualification via its relation to another entity. But this qualifying difference is now brought back into the in-itself of the entity, and is called 1) determination. Determination is inner quality: other-difference which is intrinsic to an entity. In contrast to this we have the opposite interrelation: that the being of the entity, its in-itself, is established outside it, i.e. externally. That is called the entity’s 2) constitution. For example, entity X and entity Y are consituted by their difference; or entity X’s being is constituted by entity Y. Determination and constitution take the place of in-itself and for-another respectively. But just as in-itself and for-another are united and interpenetrate, likewise determination and constitution are united. Their unity is constitutive determination: the being of the entities is defined entirely by their reciprocal determination. What is really being therefore is this mutual determining and constituting itself. This is 3) limit, in which the determining and the being are one. The limit fully defines both entities and its their determination and constitution. The limit in fact unites the entities as much as it divides them. Through the limit, the entities are in fact one being, which is a double-differentation. Limit is this consitutive contradiction of being, through which entities simultaneously are and are not. This inherent limitedness is finitude.

Restriction & Ought. In the section on something & other, entities were considered as immedately being themselves apart from each other, and in relation to each other. In determination & constitution, entities were interrelated, the relations interpenetrating and thus determining the entities via each other. Now the relation is being’s inherent limitedness, by which it is inwardly divided against itself. The limit thus divides being into restriction and ought. The restriction is the burden of limitation and the ought is the impulse to transcend it. This is being own self-contradiction, its own inadequacy to itself and failure to be being. The entity thus runs up against another entity, meets its end in it, and the new entity does the same, and on and on. This is transcience. (Now what follows is important because it is the logical proof of the Christian dogma of the resurrection: “Christ is risen from the dead, by death trampling on death…”) To some people, atheists, it seems that the finite is all there is, that the finite is absolute, that there is nothing beyond the world of distinct, transient entities which are inherently limited and thus destined to destruction. But in fact, if the finite is absolute, if it is all there is, then everything is finite, thus finitude itself is finite and so terminates itself. Finitude as such perishes. Or it could be put even more simply: if the finite is finite, then it is finite, i.e. the concept of finitude is inherently self-cancelling. This self-destruction of finitude is the birth of the infinite and the resurrection of being. In the next section we examine this birth and resurrection more closely.

c. Infinity, Bad Infinity, True Infinity

Infinity in general. It may again seem as if we are done, as if entitude has been brought to completion, since surely the infinite is an absolutely affirmative category and thus a return back to being, a circling back to the beginning of entitude and so the resolution of the negativity that was there in it from the beginning – an overcoming of relative qualification, limitation, and termination. But infinity is at first only infinity in itself, implicit infinity, from which actual infinity is to be drawn out. Infinity as it immediately is, the as yet undetermined concept of infinity, has already been given: it is the negation of the finite. But the real meaning of this is what is to be examined in the following.

Bad Infinity. The infinite is the negation of the finite. But then it is something other than the finite. Thus, infinity, which ought to be the absolute in contrast to the relativity of finitude, immediately relapses into entitude: into the relation of something and other. This is the finitized infinite. The finite is entitent, being that has fallen from purity and is mixed with otherness, qualified, and limited; infinity by contrast is a return to pure being. (This is the point where we are now circling back to the pure being of the very beginning.) Finitude is extrinsic being (being-for-another) and infinity is intrinsic being (being-in-itself). If manifold entitude is reduced to its intrinsic being, that is pure, indeterminate being. And this is the beyond of the finite. This is the progression of bad infinity: the finite (i.e. entitude) is limited being; it has limitation inherently; but this limitation is a beckoning to be transcended, a fence that implies a beyond (pure being); but in going over into this beyond, the finite is left behind, so the infinite (pure being) is determined, limited, and thus falls back into the finite. This is the bad infinite, the progression of which is a perseveration, a futile dialectical see-saw which never gets beyond finite entitude. It is the alternation or oscillation of finite and infinite. This kind of contradiction comes up whenever two relative determinations are driven into opposition. But this oscillation is not for nothing, not just an error to be avoided: it is in fact the dialectical genesis of the speculative concept, the true infinity.

True Infinity. In order to generate the concept of true infinity, all we have to do is notice that, even as the infinite becomes finite by being constrained to the other side of the border, so the finite becomes infinite by ever recurring in the beyond. And this oscillation, this see-saw, is the witness of the genesis of the true infinite: the infinity which grasps the finite in it as sublated. The true specification of the finite is that it is just the two sides of infinity held apart in reciprocal oscillation, and the true infinity is what contains and cancels this back-and-forth movement. The falsification that intellect (διανοία as opposed to reason, νους) perpetrates in these matters is that it presupposes the two sides as independently subsisting, which are then brought together externally so that their unity is only an artificial concatenation. This is really a failure of learning, a failure to penetrate into the heart of things. The truth is that rather that in this matter (and in all such matters) the ostensibly external determinations inherently sublate themselves: finitude is intrinsically the infinite, is only the negative, external entitude of the infinite, is at no point utterly separate from the infinite. Their separation is rather something that occurs within the infinite itself. This is in general how things go with the concept. The infinite has sublated the finite, and we have thus circled back to pure being, but with entitude and its entire dialectic sublated and contained in it. This is entitization.

C. Self-entitization

a. Self-entitization in general

Self-entitization in general. Self-entitization is the unity of being and entitude. From being is preseved the indifferent medium within which entities show up. But in self-entitiation, the relativity of the entitent determinacy is negated. Self-entitization is absolute determination. Each entity is the whole of being, is not just an entity but is being in general. Being is therefore self-entitizing. Or more simply: in self-entitization, the key difference is that the relation of one entity to another is in fact the relation of being to itself. Each entity is being, and the relation between entities is the absolute relation of being. Being is entitizing. As absolutely determined being, self-entitization may also be called free being, independent being. This is why Hegel calls it Fürsichsein - being-for-self. As free being, the self-entitizing entities know how to find their way home, so to speak. In departing from being, they are already on the return journey back to being. What come forth, what becomes an entity, must return back to being. This is being-for-one. There are many entities, but their being is gathered together into one being. This is what Aristotle calls πρὸς ἓν. Hegel calls it Sein-für-eines. E.g., words have many meanings but they all indicate or point towards its primary meaning. In self-entitization, being-for-one is the initial and immediate. But there is no other for which the entities would be. The self-entitization of being therefore results in a self-entity. This is a unit, a one. A one is an entity, but an entity which is absolutely determined, i.e. self-determined. It has an inner connection to the other units. All the ones are the same one. And this is really what being is. Being is unity, oneness. And beings, entities, are units, ones.

b. One & Many

One & Many. The one is the absolute entity. It has no true other. The one sublates its other-relations, conquers them. All the foregoing determinations are sublated in the one itself. All we have to do now is see how they exhibit themselves. The one is obviously being. But it is also the negative of being: entitude. Entitude is the relative determination of the one. This can be thought of as the space between the ones: the void. The void is what is ‘outside’ the one. But if the one has an ‘outside’, then the one is not being, not truly the one, but rather itself falls back into entitude. The one thereby becomes a one, an entitent one: a unit. This is how we conceive of the self-entitization of the one. Since all the ones are the same one, the entitization of the one can be called repetition. The one repeats itself in the form of many ones and is the self-entitizing one. As going away from the one, the repetition of the one as many ones is self-externalization. Repulsion can be considered intrinsically or extrinsically: intrinsically, it is the begetting of other entities; extrinsically, it is what is more usually called repulsion: the reciprocal deterrence of presupposed entities. In the distinction of one and many as we have it here, infinity is in two ways which do not as yet link up: infinity is firstly the repelling one which begets many ones; and infinity is simultaneously the void, into which the ones are externalized, but which does not yet constitute any positive relationality. The one is here simply flowing into the void. This is the duality of self-entitization.

c. Repulsion & Attraction

Repulsion & Attraction. In the previous section, self-entitization, through its intrinsic repulsion, lost its unity in the entitization of many ones in the void. Thus, the many ones are now in a thoroughly relativistic way: the loss of the intrinsically repulsive one has made repulsion into extrinsic repulsion (Hegel: Ausschließen), the mutual repulsion that starts from many pre-entitent ones. And yet, each one is still a one, a being with an absolute intrinsic being. But the intrinsicality of each of these disparate ones is the same intrinsic being. Each of the many ones is inwardly the One, i.e. the distinguished one, the exalted one. Their multiplicity is therefore external, extrinsic, and indeed is the void itself. Repulsion is truly the void, extrinsicness as such; and the intrinsic, the absolute intrinsicality, is now what Hegel calls ‘the One one’, which is the coalescence of ones: attraction. But attraction is not simply the abstract negation of many ones. Then they would disappear in the One one. Rather, attraction is just as much sublated repulsion: the ones accumulate, so that the mutual attraction of ones is an addition or summation. The one that attracts gains in size and volume through its attracting. For its part, repulsion is the negative comportment-to-another. But this ricochets off the other and sends the one back into itself. And the intrinsicality of each one is the One one, so repulsion is immediately the same movement as attraction-into-one. And the one is, as said, intrinsically the repulsion of many, so attraction and repulsion are each in-themselves the same as their opposite. With this we have reached the completion of quality, the absolute quality. It is unity, but not as statically entitent unity, but rather as self-entitating unity: self-entitization as self-consolidation. This is the final result: being is truly the one that multiplies itself, but in multiplying itself it does not lose its unity, because its multiplication is intrinsically already its self-consolidation. The truth is that being is inherently self-consolidating.