Thursday, March 20, 2014

We find the various stages of the logical Idea in the history of philosophy in the shape of a succession of emerging philosophical systems, each of which has a particular definition of the Absolute as its foundation. [...] But the relationship of the earlier to the later philosophical systems is in general the same as the relationship of the earlier to the later stages of the logical Idea; that is to say, the earlier systems are contained sublated within the later ones. This is the true significance of the fact (which is so often misunderstood) that in the history of philosophy one philosophical system refutes another, or, more precisely, that an earlier philosophy is refuted by a later one.

When people talk about a philosophy's being refuted, they usually take this first in a merely abstract, negative sense---in other words, as meaning that the refuted philosophy is simply no longer valid at all, that it is set aside and done with. If this were the case, then the study of the history of philosophy would have to be considered an utterly mournful affair indeed, since it only shows how all the philosophical systems that have emerged in the course of time have met their refutations. But, although it must certainly be conceded that all philosophies have been refuted, it must also equally be affirmed that no philosophy has ever been refuted, nor can it be. This is the case in two ways. First, every philosophy worthy of the name always has the Idea as its content, and second, every philosophical system should be regarded as the presentation of a particular moment, or a particular stage, in the process of development of the Idea. So, the "refuting" of a philosophy means only that its restricting boundary has been overstepped and its determinate principle has been reduced to an ideal moment.

-- Hegel, from The Encyclopaedia Logic, sect. 86, add. 2, p 138





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