Abstract

The importance of negativity in Hegel's conception of Spirit is almost universally acknowledged by Hegelian scholars. The self-rotating, cyclical structure of Hegelian dialectic owes to the principles of "double negation," which traces a recurring pattern of position - negation - negation of negation and composition. The primordial "positive" is "Pure Being," and the primordial "negative" is "Nothing," while the primordial "negation of negation" and composition or unity of opposites is "Becoming." ;There are, however, certain well-known problems with this first "triad." For one thing, there is the prima facie problem of having a primordial dyad or opposition consisting of wholly indeterminate terms, since, ex hypothesi, the terms of any genuine opposition are determinate. For Hegel, moreover, any opposition is a self-opposition on the part of Spirit, which entails that any opposition logically presupposes a prior self-identity which generates that opposition through its self-differentiating activity. ;In Mind as Absolute Negativity in Hegel, I argue that this problem can be resolved if we see "Pure Being" as merely a pseudonym for Nothingness, and if we see Nothingness itself as the protean primordiality of Spirit, which generates "Being" via introreflection or self-negation. Since, for Hegel, the "portentous power" of negativity is the self-moving dynamis of Spirit's activity, and since Nothingness is the primordial "negative," the self-moving, self-differentiating, primordial "indeterminacy" of Spirit must itself be Nothingness. ;In Mind as Absolute Negativity in Hegel, I argue for this interpretation on the ground that Hegel's monistic-idealistic conception of Spirit as an introreflexive, self-differentiating activity cannot accept an ultimate dualism, that is, a dyad or opposition which cannot be traced back to a prior identity, and on the ground that there cannot be two primordial indeterminacies, contrary to what Hegel often seems to suggest. I adduce support from Hegel's dialectic of the "true Infinite," "Being-for-Self," and "Essence as Reflection into Self," showing that the self-negation or introreflection, hence the self-determination, which for Hegel is the presupposition of the genesis and unity of all differences, is logically impossible if negativity presupposes a logical and/or ontological foundation of "Pure Being," and therefore that Hegel's conception of introreflection or reflection-into-self presupposes that the true primordiality or indeterminacy of Spirit is Nothingness