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feat: collapse into being and return to becoming section
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Firgrep committed Feb 16, 2025
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85 changes: 75 additions & 10 deletions content/hegel/reference/something/development.mdx
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Expand Up @@ -34,8 +34,8 @@ is either specified in terms of `reality` or `negation`. Crudely put, it signals
that which is real and that which is not there. Hegel emphasizes that
determinateness exists. It is not to be thought of as something separate from
existence or as that which lacks existence, since to qualify something as not
being there counts, in Hegel's eyes, as equally determining as qualifying
something as being real. Indeed, the two are logically inseparable.
being there counts, in Hegel's eyes, as equally as qualifying something as being
real. Indeed, the two are logically inseparable.

```
Now though these distinctions are present in existence,
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -124,12 +124,12 @@ simple fact that the second `existence` (returned) is _mediated_ whereas the
first is _immediate_. This point is significant once the whole development is
viewed together.

`Quality` is a development of `existence`, indeed, it is the existent
_determinateness_. Likewise, `existence` is determined, or _qualified_, through
it. However, when `quality` is looked at more closely, it becomes apparent how
its two forms `reality` and `negation` form moments of one another. This then
showed that neither form is absolute and independent, and furthermore, that
`quality` itself proves to be a moment. But what is `quality` a moment of?
To briefly recap: `Quality` is a development of `existence`, indeed, it is the
existent _determinateness_. Likewise, `existence` is determined, or _qualified_,
through it. However, when `quality` is looked at more closely, it becomes
apparent how its two forms `reality` and `negation` form moments of one another.
This then showed that neither form is absolute and independent, and furthermore,
that `quality` itself proves to be a moment. But what is `quality` a moment of?

There is nowhere for determinateness to go, so to speak, than back to where it
came from, namely, `existence`. In fact, this is already built into
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -284,14 +284,79 @@ moments between themselves exhibit contradiction and the resolution is a
collapse (_fällt_) to `being`. Why does the mediation collapse into `being`? And
why does the `negation of negation` have no "determinations for its sides"?

The `negation of negation` TODO
The `negation of negation` has no determinations for its sides because it is the
total mediation of `existence` to `quality` to `existence`. And, furthermore,
this mediation does not suffer the contradiction of sheer `becoming`, rendering
it coherent and complete. In other words, the `negation of negation` spells out
the movement latent in `existence` whereby it ceases to be understood _merely_
as `existence` but, rather, as `something`. For this reason, the mediation
effectively ceases, since there is no further determination left at this point;
the movement has successfully shown that self-mediating existent determinateness
picks out `something` and, following this, the mediation unravels into `being`.

```md
Something _is_, and _is_ therefore also an existent.
```

TODO: READ SENTENCE SPECULATIVELY
This sentence appears to sum the current development unless it is read
speculatively: `something`, particularly when focused on its mediation,
collapses into `being`, and, re-running the development of pure `being` again,
`existence` is (once more) developed. It is thus seen how the development of
`something` loops back to the beginning of the logic.

> Further, it is _in itself_ (_an sich_) also becoming, but a becoming that no
> longer has only being and nothing for its moments. One of these moments,
> being, is now existence and further an existent. The other moment is equally
> an existent, but determined as the negative of something – an _other_.
> As becoming, something is a transition, the moments of which are themselves
> something, and for that reason it is an _alteration_ – a becoming that
> has already become _concrete_ (Hegel 2010, 90/21.104).
While the logic appears to loop back to the beginning, it is _only the
mediation_ of `something` that undergoes this. `Something` as such, must be kept
in view. Indeed, it in the _context of_ `something` that its mediation collapses
into `being` and re-develops from therein. Now, Hegel claims that from this
context, the development of `becoming` is modified: `becoming` under the
`negation of negation` does not have `being` and `nothing` for its moments, but
`existence`. As `existence`, the developments of `quality` and `something`
follow such that the `becoming of something` is made up of a pair of `something`
as its moments. This is confirmed when Hegel writes:

```md
As becoming, something is a transition, the moments of which are themselves
something
```

However, two difference emerges between these two `something-as-becoming`
moments. First, Hegel claims that both moments are equally `existence`, or
qualitative determinateness, but that _one_ of them is determined as the
negative of `something`. This negative is called the `other` (_Anderes_). Why is
one of them determined this way?

While Hegel does not provide a direct reason in the development here, it can be
inferred from the logic of `becoming` that its two moments must be
differentiated. As `becoming` is the movement of two immediately different
elements, and `existence` does come in two forms, then one of these forms must
be different from the other. Insofar as `becoming` here takes place, two
identical moments are precluded.

Second, as the movement of `becoming` in the context of `something` is no longer
that of vanishing moments but of `somethings`, there is no vanishing of the
vanishing but, rather, an _alteration_ (_Veränderung_). The
`becoming of something` therefore, alternates or changes between its two
moments, `something` and `other`.

## Further Commentary

## Todos

TODO: Reconsider the logical argument. The qualities are first and foremost
self-relating, each relates to itself through its other? But is this the case?
And something IS this self-relatedness?

TODO consider: each moment [reality and negation] relates to itself in differing
from the other (because each is contained in the other from which it differs).
It is thus not just quality as such that proves to be self-relating, but reality
and negation as well. (Houlgate)

TODO is this containment rightly read?
3 changes: 3 additions & 0 deletions cspell.json
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Expand Up @@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
"words": [
"Ahilleas",
"analysed",
"Anderes",
"Ansichsein",
"Assertoric",
"atemporal",
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -86,6 +87,7 @@
"seiend",
"Seiendes",
"Sein",
"sich",
"simpliciter",
"spatio",
"sphil",
Expand All @@ -110,6 +112,7 @@
"unseparatedness",
"Upsert",
"vanishedness",
"Veränderung",
"webp",
"Wissenschaft",
"Yirmibes",
Expand Down

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