Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel's Philosophy, and Especially of His Logic
Georg Hegel · en
In this product of intellectual movement above the limits of sensation
we have the 'representation'[12] as Hegel calls it, on which the
Understanding turns its forces. We have one product of the organic
whole of thought taken by itself as if it were independent, set
forth as a settled nucleus for further acquaintance: and this one
point discussed fully and with precision, elaborated in all detail
and consequence, to the neglect of its context, and the necessary
limitations involved in the notion. The process of name-giving may
illustrate this tendency in human thought to touch its objects only in
one point. The names given to objects do not embrace the whole nature
of these objects, but give expression only to one striking feature
in them. Thus the name of the horse points it out as 'the strong' or
'the swift': the moon is 'the measurer' or 'the shining one'; and so
in all cases. The object as expressed in these names is viewed from
one aspect, or in one point: and the name, which originally at least
corresponds to the conception, meets the object, properly speaking,
on that side only, or in that relation. The object is not studied in
its own nature, and in its total world, but as it specially enters the
range of human interest, and serves human utilities. One can at least
guess why it should be so: why a name should, in logical language,
express an 'accidens' and not the 'essentia' of the object. For the
investigation of primitive language seems to show that words, as we
know them in separate existence, are a secondary formation: and that
the first significant speech was an utterance intended to describe a
scene, an action, a phenomenon, or complex of event. In point of time,
the primary fact of language is an agglomeration or aggregate,--we
may call it either word or clause (λόγος in short)--which describes
in one breath a highly individualised action or phenomenon. The
spirit or unifying principle in this group might be the accent. Such
a word-group denotes a highly specialised form of being: and if we
call it a word, we may say that the earliest words, and the words of
barbarous tribes, are ingeniously special.[13] But it would be more
correct to say, that in such a group the elements of the scene enter
only from a single aspect or in a single relation. Accordingly when
disintegration begins, the result is as follows. The elements of the
group, having now become independent words held together by the syntax
of the sentence, are adopted to denote the several objects which
entered into the total phenomenon. But these words, or fragments of the
word-group, 'represent' the objects in question from a certain point
of view, and not in their integrity. The names of things therefore
touch them only in one point, and express only one aspect. And thus,
although different names will arise for the same thing, as it enters
into different groups, in each case the name will connote only a
general attribute and not the nature of the thing.