Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 1 (of 3)
Georg Hegel · en
In the second half-hour l goes past o to k, and altogether passes from
m to k, or the double of the distance.
1
_E_|——|——|——|——|_F_
_k_ _o_ _i_ _m_
_C_|——|——|——|——|_D_
_g_ _n_ _h_
_A_|——|——|——|——|_B_
This fourth form deals with the contradiction presented in opposite
motion; that which is common is given entirely to one body, while it
only does part for itself. Here the distance travelled by one body
is the sum of the distance travelled by both, just as when I go two
feet east, and from the same point another goes two feet west, we are
four feet removed from one another; in the distance moved both are
positive, and hence have to be added together. Or if I have gone two
feet forwards and two feet backwards, although I have walked four feet,
I have not moved from the spot; the motion is then nil, for by going
forwards and backwards an opposition ensues which annuls itself.
This is the dialectic of Zeno; he had a knowledge of the determinations
which our ideas of space and time contain, and showed in them their
contradiction; Kant’s antinomies do no more than Zeno did here. The
general result of the Eleatic dialectic has thus become, “the truth is
the one, all else is untrue,” just as the Kantian philosophy resulted
in “we know appearances only.” On the whole the principle is the same;
“the content of knowledge is only an appearance and not truth,” but
there is also a great difference present. That is to say, Zeno and
the Eleatics in their proposition signified “that the sensuous world,
with its multitudinous forms, is in itself appearance only, and has
no truth.” But Kant does not mean this, for he asserts: “Because we
apply the activity of our thought to the outer world, we constitute
it appearance; what is without, first becomes an untruth by the fact
that we put therein a mass of determinations. Only our knowledge, the
spiritual, is thus appearance; the world is in itself absolute truth;
it is our action alone that ruins it, our work is good for nothing.”
It shows excessive humility of mind to believe that knowledge has no
value; but Christ says, “Are ye not better than the sparrows?” and we
are so inasmuch as we are thinking; as sensuous we are as good or as
bad as sparrows. Zeno’s dialectic has greater objectivity than this
modern dialectic.