commentary: difference between being and nothing

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cspell.json

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         "Houlgate",
         "itselfness",
         "Keon",
+        "Meinen",
         "mindmap",
         "Niklas",
         "Pinkard",
@@ -33,10 +34,12 @@
         "spatio",
         "sphil",
         "sublated",
+        "sublating",
         "sublates",
         "Suchting",
         "systemphil",
         "Taggart",
+        "Trisokkas",
         "Wissenschaft",
         "Zusätze"
     ],

src/pages/hegel/reference/nothing/difference-between-being-and-nothing.mdx

@@ -0,0 +1,202 @@
+---
+title: The Difference Between Being and Nothing
+description:
+    Learn about the difference between being and nothing from Hegel's Science of
+    Logic.
+isArticle: true
+authors: Filip Niklas (2024)
+editors:
+contributors:
+---
+
+## The Difference Between Being and Nothing
+
+Following the early logical development of Hegel's _Science of Logic_, pure
+being and pure nothing are understood to be the same. Each proves to be other
+yet, equally, both are the same such that they cannot be properly distinguished.
+However, Hegel insists that they are "absolutely distinct" (Hegel 2010,
+60/21.70). What is the sense of this distinction?
+
+Typically, one would _determine_ a distinction by developing some quality,
+property or some other form of being through which the two are differentiated.
+However, at the earliest stages of the _Logic_, determinacy itself has not been
+developed, such that determinacy cannot justifiably be employed to distinguish
+the two categories.
+
+> If being and nothing had any determinateness differentiating them, then, as we
+> said, they would be determinate being and determinate nothing, not the pure
+> being and the pure nothing which they still are at this point (Hegel 2010,
+> 68/21.79).
+
+One cannot then make use of some distinguishing factor for an idea that is
+omnipresent; there is no conceptual space, as it were, where one might draw a
+border without evoking that space again.
+
+Moreover, determining something that would distinguish `being` from `nothing`
+also annuls the purity of these terms. If some determinacy were to obtain for
+either, then they are no longer understood in their purity and the initial
+meaning of these categories would be lost as well as invalidating their early
+development. What difference could possibly remain then?
+
+### The Immediate Difference Between Pure Being and Pure Nothing
+
+{/* If more commentary is added to this article, consider categorizing by commentator. */}
+
+John McTaggart notes that there is more to `being` and `nothing` than their
+identity. He puts it that each term "originally meant" different things, namely,
+by `being` it was intended to a "pure positive—reality without unreality",
+and by `nothing`, conversely, was intended a "pure negative—unreality
+without reality". Whilst the two terms have been discoverd to be equivalent, a
+contradiction has nonetheless arisen. The original meaning has not been
+discarded: "For it is that same characteristic which determines their
+equivalence" (McTaggart 1910, 16-17).
+
+Stephen Houlgate points out that the difference between `being` and `nothing`
+lies in _intention_ [_Im Meinen_]: "There is no clear, determinate difference between
+the two, but they are nonetheless _meant_ to be different" (Houlgate 2022, 144).
+He adds that this is not a difference we, as human beings, draw, but belongs to `being`
+and `nothing` themselves. They are themselves absolutely distinct.
+
+> Pure being does not have any contrast with nothing built into it, but it is
+> pure and simple _being_ without further determination. As such, it is the
+> utter opposite of nothing: it is pure being with no trace of the negative
+> whatsoever. Similarly, nothing has no contrast with being built into it
+> – and so is not to be understood as "non-being" – but it is sheer
+> and utter _nothing_. As such, however, it is the complete absence of being
+> (Houlgate 2022, 144).
+
+Notice how each category immediately means something unique to itself yet is
+_then_ regarded upon reflection in relation to its opposite. But this relation
+hardly merits the name of a relation since neither category has built into it
+any form of contrast, whether explicitly or implicitly. Each category simply is.
+
+This simplicity coupled with immediacy sets the difference between `pure being`
+and `nothing`. "Being and nothing are immediately different because each is
+purely and immediately _itself_ and thereby completely excludes the other ...
+each in being itself _in fact_ shuts out the other" (Houlgate 2022, 144). This
+signals that there is in `pure being` nothing but `pure being`, or, put
+differently, there is in the thought of `pure being` no conceptual space for
+anything else—not even `nothing`.
+
+Likewise, as Houlgate goes on to point out, this difference is unsustainable and
+disappears the moment it is thought. It is merely an _immediate difference_ and
+so nothing persists beyond this immediacy. Indeed, `being` and `nothing`
+_vanish_ into each other such that the immediate difference between them is
+undermined: each is just as indeterminate as the other, and this indeterminacy
+applies back to the difference as well. "This vanishing in turn renders explicit
+the fact that the _immediate_ difference between being and nothing is an utterly
+_indeterminate_ one" (Houlgate 2022, 145).
+
+The immediate difference between `being` and `nothing` turns out to be a
+self-sublating or self-undermining one. `being` and `nothing` are _immediately_
+different, but this difference fails to persist beyond the vanishing of `being`
+and `nothing`. Each category differs, therefore, "in such a way that neither is
+definitely – and so stably – itself but each vanishes into its
+opposite" (Houlgate 2022, 145).
+
+This has a further implication regarding the nature of purely immediate
+difference, namely, that what is so purely immediately different is so only in a
+contradictory and utterly unstable manner. Hegel's dialectic reveals that while
+`being` _is_ distinct from `nothing`, it is _also_ utterly indistinguishable
+from it.
+
+However, as Houlgate points out, the immediate difference between `being` and
+`nothing` is not simply eliminated but is restored in its very disappearance.
+The logic for this idea is the following:
+
+1. As `being` and `nothing` prove to be (and vanish into) each other, such that
+   the difference between them disappears, they prove to be the same
+   indeterminacy. This can be seen as the moment of uniformity.
+1. Yet, `being` and `nothing` prove to be the same _by vanishing_ into each
+   other, in and so doing remain _other_ than one another. The vanishing of each
+   occurs precisely through remaining immediately different from the other:
+   "each vanished by proving to be the _other_ in which it is completely absent"
+   (Houlgate 2022, 145). This, by contrast, can be viewed as the moment of
+   distinction.
+1. These two moments occur _at once_, for each category in question proves to be
+   the other _in being immediately different_ to the other that it vanishes into
+   as well as _being the same_ as the other. The difficulty in grasping this
+   lies in trying to separate the two moments from each other and understand
+   them sequentially, but Houlgate's point is that these must occur in the same
+   movement.
+1. Thus, in annihilating itself, the immediate difference between `being` and
+   `nothing` has restored itself.
+1. Finally, the immediate difference between `being` and `nothing` is thus
+   doubly contradictory. Firstly, it is a difference that is not a difference,
+   and, secondly, it is one that, in disappearing, restores itself.[^1]
+
+[^1]:
+    Any trace to the term "preserve" has been omitted from the logic of
+    Houlgate's argument both for simplification and because it is contentious
+    (Niklas).
+
+Houlgate uses the term "preserve" alongside "restore" in his exposition of this
+argument. However, the term "preserve" suggests that the _singularly_ same
+immediate difference between `being` and `nothing` is carried through its
+disappearance. But there is no distinguishing factor either for or against this;
+the difference is exactly immediate and so nothing determinate can be made out
+about it that would definitively show that it is one or the other, namely, that
+it is _this_ immediate difference between `being` and `nothing` or _the same
+type of_ immediate difference between `being` and `nothing` (as being the
+instance of a class). For all intents and purposes, this matter may be
+inconsequential but it is not unambiguous.
+
+{/* TODO Revisit this when commentary on the Concept is written. Trisokkas uses the term "preserve" as a peculiar characteristic of the concept. */}
+
+### The Dynamism of Being
+
+> If the result that being and nothing are the same seems inherently startling
+> or paradoxical, there is not much to be done about it. We should be amazed
+> rather at this amazement that appears so refreshing in philosophy... (Hegel
+> 2010, 61/21.71).
+
+The opening of the _Science of Logic_ quickly violates the principle of
+non-contradiction or the law of identity. The form of thinking involved in
+Hegel's logic disrupts that kind which clings on to clear and definite
+distinctions between `being` and `nothing`, such as that found in Parmenides
+which resists the thought that they could ever be the same (Houlgate 2022, 146).
+The idea that a thing could only ever be the thing that it is, or whose being is
+identical to itself, is disproven at the very outset of the _Logic_, for at the
+very least `being` (and `nothing`) is unable to _simply be_ – it vanishes
+into `nothing`.
+
+As Houlgate describes it, there is nothing mysterious or irrational about the
+dialectical change taking place in `being` and `nothing` into each other. "That
+dialectical conversion is logically necessary: being and nothing pass into one
+another for the reasons we have seen, and the immediate difference between them
+thereby proves to be, of necessity, an indeterminate, unstable difference"
+(Houlgate 2022, 146). Hegel therefore does not mean to flout the traditional
+principles of reasoning or to undermine rational argument, he is simply
+revealing the "dynamism in being that he takes to become evident when one
+focuses on being in its purity and immediacy _without uncritically assumed
+preconceptions_" (Houlgate 2022, 146). When `being` is considered
+[without presuppositions](/hegel/guides/presuppositionless-thinking), the
+argument of the _Logic_ is unassailable: `pure being` is utterly incapable to
+simply be.
+
+### Parallel Categories, Divergent Conceptions (Niklas)
+
+When considering the respective transitions of being and nothing, note that the
+text concerning the development of these categories is slightly divergent.. The
+development of `being` ends with it turning out to be `nothing`, whereas the
+development of `nothing` ends with it turning out to be _the same as_ `being`.
+
+The former case uses _is_ whereas the latter case uses _same_. The first
+signifies a more immediate transition whereas the latter seems to convey the
+sense of some essence, an "area" where being and nothing are conjoined. If the
+two categories were to be differentiated in terms of immediacy and mediation,
+`nothing` appears to fall on the side of mediation. If this notion of _sameness_
+indeed belongs to `nothing` inasmuch as it is the thought that reveals the
+sameness of the two, then it could be thought of as the "gathering" or
+aggregating category whilst `being` signals "dispersal" or diremption.
+
+This has the implication that not only does `being` and `nothing` immediately
+mean something different, but that there is a different conceptual movement at
+work in each of them. One breaks off into new ground whereas the other coalesces
+a return to what was.
+
+Alternatively, this element of sameness is conjoined with the intention of the
+immediate difference between `being` and `nothing`, and that that intention is
+the presence of `becoming` (Hegel 2010, 68/21.79), such that this is not a
+peculiar property of `being` or `nothing` but is the alpha of the emergent
+category.