ABSTRACT

Simplification is finally complete in the stage of Absolute Knowledge, when from a distance spirit looks on at the determinatenesses in their selfmovement, as they take on the form of essential accidents, in other words, of singularities (singularités). At the end of the Doctrine of Essence Hegel shows how the dialectic of necessity and contingency results in a movement in which ‘the self-identical determinateness is likewise posited as the whole’.27 This determinateness is then posited as the ‘self-identical negativity: the singular (das Einzelne)’.28