ABSTRACT
Philosophy, when it appears in its own moment, is presented as a conclusion. Philosophy, Hegel declares, ‘seizes, at the close, its own concept’, and ‘looks back (Zurücksehen) on its own knowledge’.1
The retroactive gaze, turning backward, brings about an inversion into the logical order of the exposition, here obeying the order of the triad: judgement, concept, syllogism. The two first paragraphs of the section of the Encyclopedia Philosophy of Spirit2 recall that philosophy only differs from art and religion because of its form, and that ‘the whole question turns entirely on the difference of the forms (Formen) of speculative thought from the forms of mental representation and reflecting intellect’.3 Hegel begins the exposition of this section by examining this difference of form which philosophy has allowed to be its necessary split and defining division:
it is the whole cycle of philosophy (der ganze Verlauf der Philosophie), and of logic in particular, which has not merely taught and made known this difference, but also criticized it, or rather has let its nature develop and judge itself by these very categories.4
