Three Paragraph Summary of Hegel's Theory of Essence

Essence is the negation of being. Being was immediacy, presence, inoperation, unthinking. Essence is the opposite: mediation, absence, operation, formal thought. The distinctive feature of essence is that it is constituted by the difference between itself and being (e.g. Gregory Bateson: “The organism is the difference between itself and its environment.”). The operation between them is ‘reflection’, for which the basic metaphor is light insofar as it bounces back and forth and reveals things. There are three things to consider about reflection: first, that it is similar to induction, genesis of the abstract universal, the eternalization of the transient content of sensible being; second, that it is the operation of the pure essence itself which does this to being; and third, that it is also the putting (positing) of the essentialized content back into being. An example of reflection from the organic realm would be floral mimesis (plants assuming the appearance of their environment). A purely logical example would be the conversion of a statement of immediate fact (‘opium is making me sleepy’) into a generalization (‘opium has the dormitive virtue’). The course of essence is that reflection as such enters into being so that reflection becomes restful and being becomes self-reflective. But first we begin by considering (1.) pure reflection, the operation of essence within itself. Here we find immanent reflection; external reflection, which comes over sensible being from the outside (e.g. external comparison, likeness and unlikeness); and determining reflection. Determining reflection forms the basis for (2.) the so-called laws of thought: identity (A = A), difference (A ≠ -A), and contradiction (A = -A). These laws are absolute generalizations from all content, but in the form of reflection, and thus essentializations of all content. The fourth law is (3.) the law of sufficient ground (cf. Leibniz). Everything has a ground. Lightning is the ground of the fire which destroys a town; low wages are the ground of the strike. Grounding is the completion of pure reflection, the operation of the empty essence as law in general. Next, essence comes into relation with concrete being (the natural world).

Appearance considers essence as the latter comes into relation with concrete being, the world of natural existence. First we thus have to consider (1.) concrete being, existence. Existence is minimally essentialized being, being which has the structure of reflection. This is a thing with properties. As its etymology suggests, a ‘thing’ is an assembly of beings (qualities), gathered together into one being which owns them. The difference between being and existence is the difference between being and having (Aristotle’s ‘echein’). In the sphere of being, if something lost its quality it ceased to be entirely. But a thing maintains its identity when its properties change. Next we have (2.) the order of general laws set over against the order of things. Order of explication vs. order of being (ordo cognoscendi and ordo essendi). Laws are universals, general principles (e.g. the laws of Newtonian mechanics, F = ma) that govern the order of things, which constitutes the appearance of the laws (e.g. the solar system). Existence is minimally essentialized being; the laws of nature are minimally reified essence. ‘F = ma’ is a law because it has universal applicability which ranges over diverse appearances, whereas ‘1 oxygen + 2 hydrogen = water’, while definitely holding in general, is immediately united to its being and does not stand over it as a ground. (This is the precise middle point of the whole Logic, where being is explained by thinking, reflection, but thinking is not yet entered into being and become self-thinking being, the concept.) The laws of nature require proof, and this proof is to be found only in observation. The two orders are thus intrinsically identical, and we have (3.) the essential relation. These are the three different ways in which the essence relates to its appearances. These are: a) whole and its parts, b) force and its expression (e.g. magnetic force, gravity, etc.), and c) the relation of inner and outer. Essence is inner, existence is outer. The identity of inner and outer is the revelation of essence: there is nothing left over in the essence which is not manifest. This is actuality, being which is intrinsically operative.

Actuality is the identity-in-difference of essence and appearance. If essence is the seed, and appearance is the tree, then actuality is the fruit, the seed rejoining itself in its existence (Aquinas’s ‘ipsum esse subsistens’). This is the concept, but here considered from the side of essence only, and thus as a form of reflection. We thus start with (1.) the empty absolute. The absolute is what is ordinarily called ‘God’, but here as empty abstractum (Spinoza’s absolute substance). The absolute consists of attributes, each of which is the whole absolute (res extensa and res cogitans in Descartes). The absolute is their operation: going out of itself and returning back into itself (Aquinas’s ‘exitus et reditus’; everything comes from God and returns to God; also, Proclus’s triad of abiding-proceeding-reverting). This is (2.) actuality as such. The forms of actuality are the modalities, which exhibit the following progression: a) contingency and formal possibility (the possible worlds of analytic philosophy), b) real possibility and actuality (Aristotle’s ‘dynamis’ and ‘energeia’ – e.g. the seed is potentially the tree), and c) absolute necessity (’it is because it is’, cf. Exodus 3:14). Now we are on the threshold of the concept. Necessitation is (3.) absolute correlation, which has three forms: a) substance and accident, b) cause and effect (or creator and creation), and c) reciprocal action. Substance is Aristotle’s ‘ousia’, being which is not predicated of another. Causality is the action of one substance on another (Aristotle’s ‘poiein’ and ‘paschein’) - necessitation from beyond. The definition of God as merely causal substance corresponds to the unrevealed, irrational God of judaism (sphere of being is to paganism as sphere of essence is to judaism). When causality is bent back into a circle so that necessitation becomes self-necessitation and substance becomes causa sui, this is the higher conception of God: the creative power that acts by being acted on, creates by being created, and consequently whose creativity is self-revelation and infinite communion with itself. This is freedom, the concept.