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5. The Universality of Thought
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91 5 The Universality of Thought Perhaps nowhere is the difference between Hegel’s logic and conventional formal logic so sharp and clear as in the idea of the “universal” (Allgemein). The doctrine of the reality of thought established by him leads to this with iron necessity; for, together with this fundamental change, the entire inner structure and order usually ascribed to the concept are reformed. The entire tendency of the formal-logical doctrine of the concept is reducible to establishing that particular, specific structure and that particular , specific order of relations that are inherent in an “ideal concept” in contradistinction to a “real phenomenon.” The ordo et connexio idearum is sharply and precisely distinct from the ordo et connexio rerum.a Things cannot be generic and specific; things are not universal and abstract; things are not subject to the law of identity; they cannot be “defined” and classified. But on the other hand, concepts do not have spatial form or temporal duration; concepts are devoid of intuitable appearance and form; they are not subject to process and change; they require different cognitive modes, are determined by other categories, are subordinate to particular laws. Hegel’s philosophy makes an attempt to rise above these boundaries and distinctions and, as already explained, to establish categories into which any content must fit. Such categories can only be categories of speculative thought or, more precisely, only forms of life of the Concept itself. For any content, if it “means” anything and is worth anything, participates in substantial reality, i.e., in speculative thought. A speculative concept is an essence, and its forms are therefore the forms of any content —not because “we” are only “able to cognize” any content in them, as the “abstractly rational” theory of knowledgeb would say, but because the speculative categories are the actual modes of the actual life of everything that is real. Therefore, to investigate the life of speculative thought in its fundamental forms is to investigate the essence of any genuine process . A thought or concept does not have, according to Hegel, its own special, specific categories and forms, differing from the categories of the “real” world. Thought is real in itself and is the principle of reality in all. The law of thought is the law of everything real; its pulse is the pulse of any accomplishment; its word is indisputable and knows no competition. 92 T H E D O C T R I N E O F T H E E S S E N C E O F T H E D I V I N I T Y It directly follows from this that, in speculative philosophy, thought imparts to everything real the forms of universality, dialectical development, and concreteness; and that the significance of these categories must be completely different by comparison with the similarly named categories of formal logic. The essence of the idea of the “universal” (Allgemein) in any conception and from any point of view is formed in the qualitative combining of multiplicity and unity. Universality is always understood to mean the presence of some multiplicity of elements, differing from one another, and the necessity of forming, in one way or another, some unity given the participation of these elements. Universality is always a unity formed from a multiplicity, even in the case when attention is absorbed by the unity to such a degree that the moment of multiplicity grows pale or appears to be annulled completely. The question of the further definition and understanding of the “universal” is decided in dependence upon what the elements of this multiplicity represent and in what relation they stand to one another and to the unity formed from them. A systematic analysis of all possible combinations and understandings requires a special investigation , of course. Hegel for his part indicates three different understandings of universality, two of which he rejects as false and unphilosophical, while establishing the third as true. The “universal,” as the word itself indicates, is always something that is “common to all” (allgemein—allen gemein) in which, in one way or another, all the elements of the given multiplicity “participate.” These elements are usually called “singulars,” and that unity in which they are participants is usually called a “universal.” Thus, the relation of the universal to the singular consists essentially of a multiplicity of similar relations of a single universality to each of the singular elements of the diversity. In this series of relations there turns out to...