Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 2 (of 3)
Georg Hegel · en
_b._ However false this point of view on the one hand is, the occasion
for it may be found in the Aristotelian manner. Some particular
passages to which in this reference great importance has been given,
and which have been almost the only passages understood, are made use
of to prove this idea. Hence we have now to speak of the character of
the Aristotelian manner. Since in Aristotle, as we already said (p.
118), we need not seek a system of philosophy the particular parts of
which have been deduced, but since he seems to take an external point
of departure and to advance empirically, his manner is often that
of ordinary ratiocination. But because in so doing Aristotle has a
quality, altogether his own, of being throughout intensely speculative
in his manner, it is further signified that in the first place he
has comprehended the phenomenal as a thinking observer. He has the
world of appearance before himself complete and in entirety, and sets
nothing aside, however common it may appear. All sides of knowledge
have entered into his mind, all have interest for him, and he has
thoroughly dealt with all. In the empirical details of a phenomenon
abstraction may easily be lost sight of, and its application may be
difficult: our progress may be one-sided, and we may not be able to
reach the root of the matter at all. But Aristotle, because he looks at
all sides of the universe, takes up all those units as a speculative
philosopher, and so works upon them that the profoundest speculative
Notion proceeds therefrom. We saw, moreover, thought first proceeding
from the sensuous, and, in Sophistry, still exercising itself
immediately in the phenomenal. In perception, in ordinary conception,
the categories appear: the absolute essence, the speculative view of
these elements, is always expressed in expressing perceptions. This
pure essence in perception Aristotle takes up. When, in the second
place, he begins conversely with the universal or the simple, and
passes to its determination, this looks as if he were enumerating the
number of significations in which it appears; and, after dealing with
them all, he again passes all their forms in review, even the quite
ordinary and sensuous. He thus speaks of the many significations that
we find, for example, is the words οὐσία, ἀρχή, αἰτία, ὁμοῦ, &c. It
is in some measure wearisome to follow him in this mere enumeration,
which proceeds without any necessity being present, and in which the
significations, of which a list is given, manifest themselves as
comprehended only in their essence, or in that which is common to all,
and not in their determinations; and thus the comprehension is only
external. But, on the one hand, this mode presents a complete series of
the moments, and on the other, it arouses personal investigation for
the discovery of necessity. In the third place, Aristotle takes up the
different thoughts which earlier philosophers have had, contradicts