The Antepenultimacy of the Beginning in Hegel's Science of Logic

Abstract

The Science of Logic is the keystone for Hegel's philosophy. Perhaps the single most perplexing problem in this work is the status of the beginning. Hegel insisted that philosophy must be self-grounding. It cannot start from givens. Yet, if Hegel's beginning is merely stipulated or given, then his project is defeated. The usual view of Hegel's intent is that the beginning (Pure Being) is the last step, so that what begins as a presupposition ends up being proven. This article suggests something different. It proposes that the beginning (Pure Being) is actually the (or third-from-last) step of the Science of Logic. So conceived, the first step is a kind of collapse from the last step (absolute knowing) to the antepenultimate step. The beginning is a failure to have a coherent thought - the failure to produce an unmediated thing.