Idea as Development and Development as Concretion

The first point was that thought, free thought, is in itself essentially concrete. This implies that it is alive, that it moves of itself.

2. Idea as Development

The infinite nature of spirit is its own process in itself. It does not rest. It is essentially productive and exists by producing.

This movement is development. The concrete as active is essentially self-developing. This involves making distinctions.

The distinctions involved in the process causes something different to necessarily emerge. The movement turns out to be development.

These distinctions come out, even when we stop simply at the familiar notion of development; it is merely a question of reflecting on the notion of development.

a. Being-in-Itself

With regard to development, what immediately comes to our attention is that there must be something there that develops, which is to say something hidden – the seed, the tendency, the capacity, what Aristotle calls dunamis, i.e., possibility (not some superficial possibility as such, but real possibility), or, as it is called, the in-itself, that which is in itself and at first merely that.

Customarily we have in regard to what is in itself the high opinion that it is what truly is. To get to know God and the world is to get to know them in themselves.

What is in itself, however, is not yet the true but only the abstract; it is the seed of what truly is, the tendency, the being-in-itself of the true. It is something simple, something which, of course, contains in itself multiple qualities, but in the form of simplicity – a content which is still hidden.

An example of this is the seed. The seed is simple, almost a point; even through a microscope it can scarcely be seen. This simple thing, however, is pregnant with all the qualities of the tree. In the seed is contained the whole tree, its trunk, branches, leaves, its color, odor, taste, etc.

Nevertheless, this simple thing is the seed, not the tree itself; the fully articulated tree does not yet exist. It is essential to know that there is something utterly simple, which in itself contains a manifold, which latter, however, does not yet exist for itself. A more important example is the 1. When I say I, this is the utterly simple, the abstract universal, that which is common to all, for everyone is an I.

Still, the I which each one is is the most diverse wealth of notions, drives, desires, inclinations, thoughts, etc.

In this simple point, the I, all this is contained. It is the force, the concept of all that man develops out of himself. With Aristotle we can say that in the simple, which is in itself, in the dunamis, potentia in the tendency, all that develops is contained. In development no more comes out than what is already there in itself.

b. Being-there.

What follows is that the in-itself, the simple, the hidden, develops and unfolds. For it to develop means to posit itself, to enter into existence, to be as something distinct.

At first it is distinct only in itself, and it exists only in this simplicity or neutrality, like water which is so clear and transparent and yet contains within itself so many physical and chemical materials, even organic possibilities.

Whether it is in itself and hidden, or whether it is revealed and, as such, exists, it is one and the same thing, or rather, one and the same content. The difference is simply one of form, but on this difference everything depends.

The big difference consists in this: Man knows what he is, and only when he does so is he actually what he is. Without this, knowing reason is nothing, nor is freedom. Man is essentially reason; man and child, educated and uneducated, each is reason; or rather, the possibility of being reason is present in each, is given. Still, reason is of no use to the child, to the uneducated.

It is only a possibility; and yet, not an empty but a real possibility, with its own orientation to fulfillment. Only the adult, the educated, knows through experience that he is what he is. The difference is simply that in the one case reason is present only as a tendency, only in itself, whereas in the other case it is so explicitly, beyond the form of possibility and posited in existence.

The whole difference in world-history is reducible to this difference. All men are rational, and the formal element in this rationality is human freedom.

This is man’s nature, it belongs to his essence. Still, among many peoples slavery has existed, to some extent it still does, and people are satisfied with it. Orientals, for example, are men and as such free, and yet they are not free, because they have no consciousness of their freedom but are willing to accept every sort of religious and political despotism. The whole difference between Oriental peoples and those who are not subject to slavery is that the latter know that they are free, that to be free is proper to them.

The former are also in themselves free, but they do not exist as free. This, then, introduces an enormous difference into man’s world-historical situation, whether he is free merely in himself or whether he knows that it is his concept, his vocation, his nature, to be as a free individual.

This, then, is the second point – simply this difference of existential separateness. In itself the I is free, but it is also free for itself; and I am, only to the extent that I exist as free.

c. Being-for-itself

The third determination is that what is in itself and what exists and is for itself are one and the same. This is precisely what is meant by development.

If the in-itself were no longer the in-itself, then something else would be there, and a complete change would have taken place. In this case there is something and it becomes something else.

In regard to development, it is true, we can also speak of change, but the change must be such that the other which results is nevertheless still identical with the first, such that the simple, the in-itself, is not annihilated. It is something concrete, something differentiated, but still maintained in the unity of the original in-itself.

This is what the seed does; it does not change completely but develops. If it changes completely, by being crushed or pulverized, then it cannot develop.

This unity of what is present, the existing, and what is in itself is the essential in development. The unity of the differentiated, of the seed and that into which it has developed, is a speculative concept, where they are two and still one.

It is a concept of reason; all other determinations in this regard belong simply to understanding. But abstract understanding cannot comprehend this unity; it sticks with the difference and can grasp only abstractions, not the concrete, the concept.

At the same time, development involves mediation; the one is only to the extent to which it is related to the other. What is in itself has the drive to develop, to exist, to pass over into the form of existence; and existence requires the mediation of this sort of tendency.

Actually, nothing is immediate. In recent times much noise has been made about immediate knowledge, intuition, etc., but this is only a bad, one-sided abstraction. Philosophy has to do with the real, with concepts. The immediate is simply the unreal.

In all that is called immediate knowledge, etc., it is easy to show that mediation is present. As soon as anything is true, it contains in itself mediation; just as mediation, if it is not merely abstract, contains immediacy.

If, in regard to realization, what came first was the in-itself, the seed, etc., and second, existence, i.e., what emerges, then third comes the identity of both, more precisely the fruit of development, the result of the entire movement; and this is what I call, abstractly, being-for-itself. It is the being-for-itself of man, of spirit itself, since a plant does not have being-for-itself, if we speak in a language which has reference to consciousness. Only spirit becomes truly for itself, identical with itself.

There we have the concept of development, a thoroughly general concept. It is vitality, movement as such. The life of God in Himself, the life of universality in nature and spirit, the life of whatever lives, the lowest as well as the highest, that is what development is. It is a self-differentiation, a bringing of itself into real being (Dasein), into being-for-another while still remaining identical with itself.

It is the eternal creation of the world, which in another form is the generation of the Son, and it is the eternal return of the Spirit into itself – an absolute movement which is at the same time rest, absolute rest – eternal self-mediation.

This is the being-with-itself of the idea, the capacity to return into itself, to join with the other and in the other to have itself. This capacity, this power, to be with itself in what is the negative of itself, is also the freedom of man.

3. Development as Concretion

If absolute development, the life of God and of the Spirit, is only one process, only one movement, then it is merely abstract. But universal movement as concrete is a series of manifestations (Gestaltungen) of the Spirit.

This series should not be pictured as a straight line but as a circle, a return into itself. This circle has as its circumference a large number of circles; one development is always a movement passing through many developments; the totality of this series is a succession of developments curving back on itself; and each particular development is a stage of the whole.

Although there is progress in development, it does not go forward into (abstract) infinity but rather turns back into itself.

Spirit must know itself, externalize itself, have itself as object, must know itself in such a way as to exhaust its own possibilities in becoming totally object to itself.

It must reveal itself completely, going down into its uttermost depths and revealing those depths. The higher spirit’s development is, the deeper it is; in this way it is really deep, not just in itself; in itself it is neither deep nor high.

Development is precisely a self-deepening of spirit, such that it brings its own depths to consciousness. The goal of spirit is, if we may employ the expression, to comprehend itself, to remain no longer hidden to itself. The road to this is its development, and the series of developments form the levels of its development.

Now, to the extent that something is the result of a level in a development it is once again the starting-point of a new and further development. The end of one level is always the beginning of another. Goethe, therefore, is correct when he says somewhere, “What has been formed becomes ever again matter.

The levels are distinct; each subsequent level is more concrete than the preceding; and the lowest is the most abstract. Thus, in regard to spirit, children are the most abstract; they are rich in sensible intuitions but poor in thoughts.

At the beginning of a lecture we usually have much sensible material, which is poorest in regard to thoughts.

Our first thoughts are more abstract determinations of our thinking than are later ones. Thus, we first come up against the notion of thing. There is no thing; it is only a thought; and so in the beginning only such abstract determinations of our thinking emerge. The abstract is simple and easy.

Subsequent stages are more concrete. They presuppose the determinations proper to previous stages, and they develop them further. Each subsequent stage of the development, then, is richer, augmented by these determinations and, thereby, more concrete. There is, then, no thought which does not progress in its development.

These are the notions (Bestimmungen) I wanted to present by way of preface to my remarks. I have not proved them, only given an ordered enumeration of them, seeking to make them plausible to those who follow our way of thinking.

Now we have to make an application of these notions and see their concrete consequences. For that reason I have proposed them. We now turn to what is more precise, more determinate, in the matter of history, i.e., of the history of philosophy.