Hegel's Parmenidean Descent to the Science without Contrary
Anton Friedrich Koch
Hegel-Studien Band 56 (2023)

Abstract: This essay is intended to make Hegel’s Science of Logic intelligible from its basic antidogmatic methodological rule and resolve: “to want to think purely”, i.e. without presuppositions. The beginning of the Logic (with Being, Nothing, Becoming, Being-there) is deduced from this resolve in detail, as is the central logical operation of negation, especially in application to itself, i.e. non-well-founded or circular negation. Various forms of negation in the logic of being and the three basic types of circular negation that are operative in the logic of being, essence and concept respectively are distinguished and all findings are related to Hegel’s text. The discussion takes place within the framework of classical metaphysics and logic (Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz) and contemporary analytic metaphysics. In particular, Michael Della Rocca’s radically monistic Parmenidean Ascent (2020) to Being is discussed as a profiling foil against which Hegel’s Parmenidean descent from Being to negation, becoming and to all sorts of distinctions stands out. A second foil for comparison is the “science without contrary” that Sebastian Rödl presented in Self-Consciousness and Objectivity (2018). It turns out that Hegel is much more considerate of the radical sceptic than Rödl. – All in all, the Science of Logic is portrayed here as Hegel’s theory of the pre-temporal, purely logical evolution of logical space (the Hegelian Absolute). As such it is designed by Hegel as the final nonstandard metaphysics which, if successful, would critically assess all possible standard metaphysical theories, each of which fixes and immobilises a fluid stage in the logical evolution and treats it as the static whole of logical space. – If successful, mind you, but there are reasons to believe that Hegel does not achieve what he is aiming at.

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