Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 1 (of 3)Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy
Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 1 (of 3)
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy -- History
While he defines absolute existence as universal, we see here that in
objective existence, or in matter, universality and thought abandon
Anaxagoras. The implicit is to him, indeed, no absolutely sensuous
Being; the homœomeriæ are the non-sensuous, _i.e._ the invisible and
inaudible, &c. This is the highest point reached by common physicists
in passing from sensuous Being to the non-sensuous, as to the mere
negation of the being-for-us; but the positive side is that existent
Being is itself universal. The objective is to Anaxagoras certainly
the _νοῦς_, but for him the other-Being is a mixture of simple
elements, which are neither flesh nor fish, red nor blue; again
this simple is not simple in itself, but in its essence consists of
homœomeriæ, which are, however, so small that they are imperceptible.
The smallness thus does not take away their existence, for they are
still there; but existence is just the being perceptible to sight,
smell, &c. These infinitely small homœomeriæ undoubtedly disappear in
a more complete conception; flesh, for instance, is such itself, but
it is also a mixture of everything, _i.e._ it is not simple. Further
analysis equally shows how such a conception must, to a greater or
lesser degree, become confused; on the one side each form is thus
in its main elements, original, and these parts together constitute
a corporeal whole; this whole has, however, on the other side, to
contain everything in itself. The _νοῦς_, then, is only what binds and
separates, what divides and arranges [_das diakosmirende_]. This may
suffice us; however easily we may get confused with the homœomeriæ of
Anaxagoras, we must hold fast to the main determination. The homœomeriæ
still form a striking conception, and it may be asked how it conforms
with the rest of Anaxagoras’ principle.
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