Lenin's Conspectus of Hegel’s Science of Logic: Book I (The Doctrine of Being) (original) (raw)

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Note: Quoted text and page numbers—i.e., (67)—indicate links to passages in Hegel’s Science of Logic.

Book One:

THE DOCTRINE OF BEING

WITH WHAT SHOULD ONE BEGIN SCIENCE?

SECTION ONE:

DETERMINATENESS (QUALITY)

SECTION TWO:

MAGNITUDE (QUANTITY)

Kant has four “antinomies.” In fact, every concept, every category is similarly antinomous. (217)
“The old scepticism did not shrink from the labour of demonstrating this contra- diction or antinomy in every concept which it found in the sciences.”	The role of scepticism in the history of philosophy
Analysing Kant very captiously (and shrewdly), Hegel comes to the conclusion that Kant simply repeats in his conclusions what which was said in the premises, namely he repeats that there is a category of Kon- tinuität[50] and a category of Diskretion.[51]
From this it follows merely “that, takes alone, neither determination has truth, but only their unity. This is the true dia- lectic consideration of them, and the true result.” (226)	Wahrhafte Dialek- tik[52]
229:	“Die Diskretion [translation? sepa- rateness,[53] dismemberment] like die Kontinuität [contiguity (?), successiveness (?),[54] continuity] is a moment of Quantity....”
232:	“_Quantum_—which, first, means quan- tity having any determinateness or lim- it at all—is, in its complete determi- nateness, Number...”
234:	“Anzahl amount enumeration? and Unit constitute the moments of Num- ber.”
248	—On the problem of the role and sig- nificance of number (much about Py- thagoras, etc., etc.)
Among other things, an apt remark:
“The richer in determinateness, and hence in relation, thoughts become, the more con- fused, on the one hand, and the more arbit- rary and senseless, on the other hand, be- comes their representation in such forms as numbers.” (248-249) ((Valuation of thoughts: richness in determinations and
consequently in relations.))
In regard to Kant’s antinomies (world without beginning, etc.) Hegel again dem- onstrates des Längeren[55] that the premises take as proved that which has to be proved. (_267_-278) Further the transition of quantity into quality in the abstract-theoretical expo- sition is so obscure that nothing can be understood. Return to it!!
283:	the infinite in mathematics. Hither- to ‘the justification has consisted only in the correctness of the results (“welche aus sonstigen Gründen erwie- sen ist”[56]),... and not in the clear- ness of the subject [c.f. Engels[57]].	NB
285: In the infinitesimal calculus a certain inexactitude (conscious) is ig- nored, nevertheless the result obtained is not approximate but absolutely exact!
285:	Notwithstanding this, to demand Rechtfertigung[58] here is “not as super- fluous” “as to ask in the case of the nose for a demonstration of the right to use it.”[59]
Hegel’s answer is complicated, abst- rus,[60] etc., etc. It is a question of higher mathematics; c.f. Engels on the differential and integral calcu- lus.[61]
Interesting is Hegel’s remark made in passing—“transcendentally, that is really subjective and psychological”... “tran- scendental, that is, in the subject” (288)
Pp. 282-327 u. ff.—379 A most detailed consideration of the differential and integral calculus, with quotations - Newton, Lagrange, Carnot, Euler, Leibnitz, etc., etc.,—showing how interesting Hegel found this “vanish- ing” of infinitely small magnitudes, this “intermediate between Being and not-Being.” Without studying higher mathematics all this is incomprehens- ible. Characteristic is the title: Carnot: “Réflexions sur la Métaphysique du calcul infinitésimal”!!
“The development of the concept Verhält- nis[63] (379-394) extremely obscure. Note only, p. 394, the remark on symbols, that there is nothing to be said against them in general. But “_against all Symbolism_” it must be said that it sometimes is “a con- venient means of escaping from compre- hending, stating and justifying the _concep- tual determinations_” (Begriffsbestimmun- gen). But precisely this is the concern of philosophy. “The common determinations of force,
or substantiality, cause and effect, and others, are themselves too only symbols used to express, for example, vital and	?NB
spiritual relations; that is, they are untrue determinations of those relations.” (394)

SECTION THREE:

MEASURE

Notes

[1] Hegel, Werke, III, Berlin, 1833.—Ed.

[2] of knowledge—Ed.

[3] “nothing”—Ed.

[4] “being”—Ed.

[5] See F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, p. 372.)

[6] determination—Ed.

[7] quality—Ed.

[8] Existent Being—Ed.

[9] Being—Nothing—Becoming—Ed.

[10] Something—Ed.

[11] Out of nothing comes nothing?—Ed.

[12] Determinate Being—Ed.

[13] in fine—at the end—Ed.

[14] Perhaps so?—Ed.

[15] “external reflection”—Ed.

[16] “incomprehensibility of the beginning”—Ed.

[17] sophistry—Ed.

[18] arising and passing away—Ed.

[19] The superseding of Becoming.—Ed.

[20] supersede = terminate-maintain (simultaneously to preserve)—Ed.

[21] Existent Being is Determinate Being—Ed.

[22] “concrete”—Ed.

[23] an other—variable and finite_—_Ed.

[24] every determination is negation—Ed.

[25] abstract and obscure Hegelianism—Ed.

[26] Thing-in-itself—Ed.

[27] being-for-other—Ed.

[28] See f. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, p. 371.)

[29] the question, in thoughtlessness, is so put as to render an answer impossible—Ed.

[30] in reading Hegel—Ed.

[31] Something—Ed.

[32] Ought, or Should-be; and Bound or Boundary_—_Ed.

[33] the Finite—Ed.

[34] In the MS, the Russian letter “и” appears above the last letter of the word for “evolution”. In Russian, the ending “и” forms the plural of the word.—Ed.

[35] impulse, pain—Ed.

[36] “bad infinity”—Ed.

[37] on this side_—_Ed.

[38] on that side_—_Ed.

[39] they are—Ed.

[40] inseparable_—_Ed.

[41] One_—_Ed.

[42] atom (indivisible)—Ed.

[43] source of motion_—_Ed.

[44] contains—Ed.

[45] self-movement—Ed.

[46] inordinate—Ed.

[47] the One_—_Ed.

[48] Being-for-Self—Ed.

[49] the posited—Ed.

[50] continuity_—_Ed.

[51] discreteness_—_Ed.

[52] true dialectics—Ed.

[53] in the MS., the word “separateness” is crossed out.—Ed.

[54] In the MS., the words “contiguity, successiveness” are crossed out.—Ed.

[55] in detail—Ed.

[56] “demonstrated on other grounds”—Ed.

[57] See F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, Moscow, 1959 pp. 74-76, 186.

[58] justification—Ed.

[59] An allusion to the couplet “The Question of Right,” from Schiller’s satirical poem “The Philosophers,” which may be translated as follows:
Long have I used my nose for sense of smell. Indeed, what right have I to this, pray tell?

[60]abstruse—Ed.

[61] See F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, Moscow, 1959 pp. 186, 189.

[62] Reflections on the Metaphysics of the Infinitesimal Calculus_—_Ed.

[63] relation—Ed.

[64] law or measure—Ed.

[65] higher proof—Ed.

[66] qualities or determinate concepts (like space and time) that are related—Ed.

[67] measure—Ed.

[68] specific quantity—Ed.

[69] real measure—Ed.

[70] elective affinites—Ed.

[71] The reference is to a remark made by Feuerbach in his work Vorläufige Thesen zur Reform der Philosophie (Preliminary Theses on the Reform of Philosophy), appearing in Vol. II, p. 257, of Feuerbach’s Works published in German in 1846.