Hegel’s Living Logic

Abstract

Abstract For Hegel, logic does not essentially consist of formal categories used to think about non-logical content. Rather, it consists of formal categories which are also themselves the content of logic. The idea that logic is its own form and its own content means that forms are used to think through other forms such that the same logical determination is a form in one context and a content in another. The generation of form and content out of one another—which precludes the need for the importation of external content into logic—is part of Hegel’s definition of the logical category of ‘life’ in his Science of Logic. A living logic is a logic that accounts for its own self by means of its own self. Through contrasting this idea of logic with formal logic, and logical life with natural life, this essay provides a snapshot of how Hegel views the activity of living, self-determining logic.