第 6 节
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匆匆 更新:2021-02-27 02:11 字数:9316
hand; it is not; that we should reject all that follows。
This thoroughness at the same time has the advantage of guaranteeing that the labour of thinking
shall be reduced to a minimum; it has before it; enclosed in this germ; the entire development
This restriction to what is simple gives scope for the free play of caprice which does not want to
remain simple …but brings in Its own reflections on the subject matter。 Having good right to occupy
itself at first only with the principle and in doing so not to concern itself with what lies beyond it;
this thoroughness actually proceeds to do the opposite of this; for it does bring in what lies
beyond; that is; categories other than those which constitute the principle itself; other
presuppositions and prejudices。 Such presuppositions as that infinite is different from finitude; that
content is other than form; that the inner is other than the outer; also that mediation is no
immediacy (as if anyone did not know such things); are brought forward by way of information
and narrated and asserted rathe than proved。 But there is something stupid…I can find no other
word for it — about this didactic behaviour; technically it is unjustifiable simply to presuppose and
straightway assume such propositions; and; still more; it reveals ignorance of the fact that it is the
requirement and the business of logical thinking to enquire into just this; whether such a finite
without infinity is something true; or whether such an abstract infinity; also a content without form
and a form without content; an inner by itself which has no outer expression; an externality without
an inwardness; whether any of these is something; true or something actual。 But this education
and discipline of thinking by which it acquires plasticity and by which the impatience of casual
reflection is overcome; is procured solely by going further; by study and by carrying out to its
conclusion the entire development。
Anyone who labours at presenting anew an independent structure of philosophical science may;
when referring to the Platonic exposition; be reminded of the story that Plato revised his Republic
seven times over。 The remembrance of this; the comparison; so far as such may seem to be
implied in it; should only urge one all the more to wish that for a work which; as belonging to the
modern world; is confronted by a profounder principle; a more difficult subject matter and a
material richer in compass; leisure had been afforded to revise it seven and seventy times。
However; the author; in face of the magnitude of the task; has had to content himself with what it
was possible to achieve in circumstances of external necessity; of the inevitable distractions caused
by the magnitude and many…sidedness of contemporary affairs; even under the doubt whether the
noisy clamour of current affairs and the deafening chatter of a conceit which prides itself on
confining itself to such matters leave any room for participation in the passionless calm of a
knowledge which is in the element of pure thought alone。
Berlin; November 7; 1831
Introduction
General Notion of Logic
In no science is the need to begin with the subject matter itself; without preliminary reflections; felt
more strongly than in the science of logic。 In every other science the subject matter and the
scientific method are distinguished from each other; also the content does not make an absolute
beginning but is dependent on other concepts and is connected on all sides with other material。
These other sciences are; therefore; permitted to speak of their ground and its context and also of
their method; only as premises taken for granted which; as forms of definitions and such…like
presupposed as familiar and accepted; are to be applied straight…way; and also to employ the
usual kind of reasoning for the establishment of their general concepts and fundamental
determinations。
Logic on the contrary; cannot presuppose any of these forms of reflection and laws of thinking; for
these constitute part of its own content and have first to be established within the science。 But not
only the account of scientific method; but even the Notion itself of the science as such belongs to
its content; and in fact constitutes its final result; what logic is cannot be stated beforehand; rather
does this knowledge of what it is first emerge as the final outcome and consummation of the whole
exposition。 Similarly; it is essentially within the science that the subject matter of logic; namely;
thinking or more specifically comprehensive thinking is considered; the Notion of logic has its
genesis in the course of exposition and cannot therefore be premised。 Consequently; what is
premised in this Introduction is not intended; as it were; to establish the Notion of Logic or to
justify its method scientifically in advance; but rather by the aid of some reasoned and historical
explanations and reflections to make more accessible to ordinary thinking the point of view from
which this science is to be considered。
When logic is taken as the science of thinking in general; it is understood that this thinking
constitutes the mere form of a cognition that logic abstracts from all content and that the
so…called second constituent belonging to cognition; namely its matter; must come from
somewhere else; and that since this matter is absolutely independent of logic; this latter can
provide only the formal conditions of genuine cognition and cannot in its own self contain any real
truth; not even be the pathway to real truth because just that which is essential in truth; its content;
lies outside logic。?
But in the first place; it is quite inept to say that logic abstracts from all content; that it teaches only
the rules of thinking without any reference to what is thought or without being able to consider its
nature。 For as thinking and the rules of thinking are supposed to be the subject matter of logic;
these directly constitute its peculiar content; in them; logic has that second constituent; a matter;
about the nature of which it is concerned。
But secondly; the conceptions on which the Notion of logic has rested hitherto have in part already
been discarded; and for the rest; it is time that they disappeared entirely and that this science were
grasped from a higher standpoint and received a completely changed shape。
Hitherto; the Notion of logic has rested on the separation; presupposed once and for all in the
ordinary consciousness; of the content of cognition and its form; or of truth and certainty。 First;
it is assumed that the material of knowing is present on its own account as a ready…made world
apart from thought; that thinking on its own is empty and comes as an external form to the said
material; fills itself with it and only thus acquires a content and so becomes real knowing。
Further; these two constituents — for they are supposed to be related to each other as
constituents; and cognition is compounded from them in a mechanical or at best chemical fashion
— are appraised as follows: the object is regarded as something complete and finished on its own
account; something which can entirely dispense with thought for its actuality; while thought on the
other hand is regarded as defective because it has to complete itself with a material and moreover;
as a pliable indeterminate form; has to adapt itself to its material。 Truth is the agreement of thought
with the object; and in order to bring about this agreement — for it does not exist on its own
account — thinking is supposed to adapt and accommodate itself to the object。
Thirdly; when the difference of matter and form; of object and thought is not left in that nebulous
indeterminateness but is taken more definitely; then each is regarded as a sphere divorced from the
other。 Thinking therefore in its reception and formation of material does not go outside itself; its
reception of the material and the conforming of itself to it remains a modification of its own self; it
does not result in thought becoming the other of itself; and self…conscious determining moreover
belongs only to thinking。 In its relation to the object; therefore; thinking does I not go out of itself
to the object; this; as a thing…in…itself; remains a sheer beyond of thought。
These views on the relation of subject and object to each other express the determinations which
constitute the nature of our ordinary; phenomenal consciousness; but when these prejudices are
carried out into the sphere of reason as if the same relation obtained there; as if this relation were
something true in its own self; then they are errors the — refutation of which throughout every part
of the spiritual and natural universe is philosophy; or rather; as they bar the entrance to
philosophy; must be discarded at its portals。
Ancient metaphysics had in this respect a higher conception of thinking than is current today。 For it
based itself on the fact that the knowledge of things obtained through thinking is alone what is
really true in them; that is; things not in their immediacy but as first raised into the form of thought;
as things thought。 Thus this