²¹⁹ 2. Something preserves itself in the negative of its determinate being [Nichtdasein]; it is essentially one with it and essentially not one with it. It stands, therefore, in a relation to its otherness and is not simply its otherness. The otherness is at once contained in it and also still separate from it; it is a being-for-other.

²²⁰ Determinate being as such is immediate, without relation to an other; or, it is in the determination of being; but as including within itself non-being, it is determinate being, being negated within itself, and then in the first instance an other-but since at the same time it also preserves itself in its negation, it is only a being-for-other.

²²¹ It preserves itself in the negative of its determinate being and is being, but not being in general, but as self-related in opposition to its relation to other, as self-equal in opposition to its inequality. Such a being is being-in-itself.

Being-for-other and being-in-itself constitute the two moments of the something. There are here present two pairs of determinations:

1. Something and other,

2. Being-for-other and being-in-itself. The former contain the unrelatedness of their determinateness; something and other fall apart.

But their truth is their relation; being-for-other and being-in-itself are, therefore, the above determinations posited as moments of one and the same something, as determination which are relations and which remain in their unity, in the unity of determinate being. Each, therefore, at the same time, also contains within itself its other moment which is distinguished from it.

²²² Being and nothing in their unity, which is determinate being are no longer being and nothing — these they are only outside their unity — thus in their unstable unity, in becoming, they are coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be. The being in something is being-in-itself Being, which is self-relation, equality with self, is now no longer immediate, but is only as the non-being of otherness (as determinate being reflected into itself). Similarly, non-being as a moment of something is, in this unity of being and non-being, not negative determinate being in general, but an other, and more specifically — seeing that being is differentiated from it — at the same time a relation to its negative determinate being, a being-for-other.

²²³ Hence being-in-itself is, first, a negative relation to the negative determinate being, it has the otherness outside it and is opposed to it; in so far as something is in itself it is withdrawn from otherness and being-for-other. But secondly it has also present in it non-being itself, for it is itself the non-being of being-for-other.

²²⁴ But being-for-other is, first, a negation of the simple relation of being to itself which, in the first instance, is supposed to be determinate being and something; in so far as something is in an other or is for an other, it lacks a being of its own. But secondly it is not negative determinate being as pure nothing; it is negative determinate being which points to being-in-itself as to its own being which is reflected into itself, just as, conversely, being-in-itself points to being-for-other.

²²⁵ 3. Both moments are determinations of what is one and the same, namely, the something. Something is in itself in so far as it has returned into itself out of the being-for-other. But something also has in itself (here the accent falls on in) or within it, a determination or circumstance in so far as this circumstance is outwardly in it, is a being-for-other.

²²⁶ This leads to a further determination. Being-in-itself and being-for-other are, in the first instance, distinct; but that something also has within it the same character that it is in itself, and, conversely, that what it is as being-for-other it also is in itself-this is the identity of being-in-itself and being-for-other, in accordance with the determination that the something itself is one and the same something of both moments, which, therefore, are undividedly present in it.

This identity is already formally given in the sphere of determinate being, but more expressly in the consideration of essence and of the relation of inner and outer, and most precisely in the consideration of the Idea as the unity of the Notion and actuality. People fancy that they are saying something lofty with the expression ‘in itself’, as they do in saying ’the inner’; but what something is only in itself, is also only in it; ‘in itself’ is only an abstract, and so even external determination. The expressions: there is nothing in it, or, there is something in it, imply, though somewhat obscurely, that what is in a thing also belongs to the thing’s being-in-itself, to its inner, true worth.

²²⁷ It may be observed that the meaning of the thing-in-itself is here revealed; it is a very simple abstraction but for some while it counted as a very important determination, something superior, as it were, just as the proposition that we do not know what things are in themselves ranked as a profound piece of wisdom.

Things are called ‘in themselves’ in so far as abstraction is made from all being-for-other, which means simply, in so far as they are thought devoid of all determination, as nothings. In this sense, it is of course impossible to know what the thing-in-itself is. For the question: what? Demands that determinations be assigned; but since the things of which they are to be assigned are at the same time supposed to be things in-themselves, which means, in effects to,- be without any determination, the question is thoughtlessly made impossible to answer, or else only an absurd answer is given. The thing-in-itself is the same as that absolute of which we know nothing except that in it all is one. What is in these things-in-themselves, therefore, we know quite well; they are as such nothing but truthless, empty abstractions. ®

What, however, the thing-in-itself is in truth, what truly is in itself, of this logic is the exposition, in which however something better than an abstraction is understood by ‘in-itself’, namely, what something is in its Notion; but the Notion is concrete within itself, is comprehensible simply as Notion, and as determined within itself and the connected whole of its determinations, is cognisable.

²²⁸ Being-in-itself, in the first instance, has being-for-other as its contrasted moment; but positedness, too, is contrasted with it.

This expression, it is true, includes also being-for-other, but it specifically contains the already accomplished bending back of that which is not in itself into that which is its being-in-itself, in which it is positive.

Being-in-itself is generally to be taken as an abstract way of expressing the Notion; positing, properly speaking, first occurs in the sphere of essence, of objective reflection; the ground posits that which is grounded by it; still more, the cause produces or brings forth an effect, a determinate being whose self-subsistence is immediately negated and which carries the meaning of having its matter [Sache], its being, in an other.

In the sphere of being, determinate being only proceeds from becoming, or, with the something an other is posited, with the finite, the infinite; but the finite does not bring forth the infinite, does not posit it.

In the sphere of being, the self-determining even of the Notion is at first only in itself or implicit — as such it is called a transition; and the reflected determinations of being such as something and other, or finite and infinite, although they essentially refer to each other or are as a being-for-other, they too count as qualitative, as existing on their own account; the other is, the finite ranks equally with the infinite as an immediate, affirmative being, standing fast on its own account; the meaning of each appears to be complete even without its other.

On the other hand positive and negative, cause and effect, however much they may be taken as isolated from each other, are at the same time meaningless one without the other. There is present in them their showing or reflection in each other, the showing or reflection in each of its other. In the different spheres of determination and especially in the progress of the exposition, or more precisely in the progress of the Notion towards the exposition of itself, it is of capital importance always clearly to distinguish what is still in itself and what is posited, the determinations as they are in the Notion, and as they are as posited, or as being-for-other. This is a distinction which belongs only to the dialectical development and which is unknown to metaphysical philosophising, which also includes the critical philosophy; the definitions of metaphysics, like its presuppositions, distinctions and conclusions, seek to assert and produce only what comes under the category of being, and that, too, of being-in-itself.

²²⁹ Being-for-other is, in the unity of the something with itself, identical with its in-itself; the being-for-other is thus present in the something. The determinateness thus reflected into itself is, therefore, again in the simple form of being, and hence is again a quality: determination.