Concepts, judgements and syllogisms are the three basic forms of traditional logic. They are also the basic categories of Hegel’s metaphysics. However, Hegel contends that one of them, the judgement, is contradictory, finite and untrue. The judgement, he writes, is ‘unsuitable to express that which is concrete and speculative—and the true is concrete’ (EL: 71/GW 20: 72).Footnote 1 Hegel reiterates this verdict on multiple occasions, never retracting it.Footnote 2
In her Hegel’s Concept of Life (Reference Ng2020), however, Karen Ng addresses Hegel’s problem with judgements, arguing that the limitations Hegel sees in judgements ‘all point to life’ as their solution (Ng Reference Ng2020: 180). Ng’s argument follows a well-established approach to Hegel scholarship, assuming that problems that arise in various stages of Hegel’s Logic are resolved by appealing to principles revealed in later stages. Robert Pippin (Reference Pippin2018) advances similar positions,Footnote 3 specifically with reference to the problem with judgements. In their interpretation, like-minded scholars follow a dominant interpretive framework outlined by Michael Theunissen, who suggested that for Hegel properly understanding amounts to restoring some sort of harmony (Theunissen Reference Theunissen1980: 59ff.).
Whereas Ng argues that life resolves Hegel’s problem with judgements, I contend that death underscores its insolubility. To make this case, I will examine Hegel’s discussion of judgements in the Logic, arguing that judgements are inherently contradictory because they both unite and separate individuals and universals. I will demonstrate that the problem with judgements is not resolved retrospectively; rather, contradiction, finitude and untruth are intrinsic to the judgement form. Moreover, since judgements play a constitutive and determinative role in Hegel’s metaphysics, they pass their contradiction, finitude and untruth onto the objects they constitute. Specifically, I will argue that, for living beings, judgement is literally a matter of life and death. In other words, that Hegel viewed the contradiction, finitude and untruth of judgements as implying the finitude of the objects they constitute, namely the perishability of things and the mortality of organisms.
I will begin (I) with a short discussion of idealist accounts of death, noting that idealist philosophers tend to view death primarily as the result of material or efficient causes. By contrast, I will argue that Hegel views death as stemming from the contradictions of ideality. With this intent, I will focus (II) on the problem with judgements, namely their contradictory form which both unites and separates, stressing (III) that this contradiction persists across all types of judgement, including what Hegel refers to as the judgement of the concept. This analysis of the judgement form will allow me to examine (IV) the metaphysical role Hegel assigns to judgements, arguing that their role in constituting relatively independent individuals is based on their contradiction which is reproduced rather than resolved in objectivity. Considering the metaphysical role of judgements will lead me to contend (V) that while life is premised on the unity of individuals and their universals, death is premised on their separation. Addressing points of agreement and disagreement with Ng (Reference Ng2020), I will argue that judgements separate individuals from the universals that serve as their final causes, breaking the teleological relationships on which life depends.
All in all, this article suggests that given its ideal cause, the inexorability of death lends credence to a solution-sceptic interpretation to Hegel’s problem with judgements. In other words, it draws attention to an instance where, for Hegel, true understanding does not restore harmony but instead grasps disparity.Footnote 4
I. Idealist accounts of death
In idealist philosophy, death is widely understood as the separation of body and soul. While perspectives differ regarding the mortality or immortality of the latter, idealist philosophers tend to view death as resulting primarily from bodily failure. This implies that causes of death are believed to be efficient or material rather than formal or final. While delving into the intricacies of more than two millennia of idealist views on death is far beyond the scope of this section, I aim to briefly touch on this trend by referencing three influential philosophers: Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas.Footnote 5
(1) In the Phaedo, Plato lays the groundwork for the entire idealist approach to death, when he declares that the body is mortal, while the soul is immortal. Since the mortal body—source of all trouble, disease and evil—is nothing but ‘a disturbing element’ that hinders the soul from acquiring knowledge, Plato sees death as ‘the release of the soul from the chains of the body’ (Plato Reference Plato and B. Jowett1931 II: 206/67c–d).
(2) Although Aristotle argues for the mortality of both body and soul, his account remains similar to Plato’s in perceiving death as the outcome of a bodily breakdown. In On the Soul, Aristotle exemplifies this conception by stressing that the infirmities of old age are ‘due to an affection not of the soul but of its vehicle’, that is the body. ‘That is why’, he continues, ‘when this vehicle decays, memory and love cease; they were activities not of mind, but of the composite which has perished; mind is, no doubt, something more divine and impassible’ (Aristotle Reference Aristotle and W. D. Ross1908: 408b 18–29). In later texts, Aristotle identifies cooling and drying as the bodily changes that bring about death.Footnote 6
(3) Eager to demonstrate the perfection and immortality of the soul, Aquinas is straightforward in attributing the cause of death to the body. In the Questions on the Soul, he writes: ‘Although the soul, which is the cause of life, is incorruptible, still the body which receives its life from the soul is subject to change; and because of this the body loses that disposition by which it is suited to receive life. It is in this way that the corruption of a human being takes place’ (Aquinas Reference Aquinas and Robb1984: 180/§14, ad. 20). Like Aristotle, Aquinas explains that drying and cooling are the material processes that render the body inanimate.Footnote 7
In the next sections, I will show that for Hegel, in stark contrast to his idealist predecessors,Footnote 8 the cause of death is not merely material or efficient but primarily formal or final. In clearer terms, causes of death are not merely objects or states of affairs within or between objects, but primarily concepts or states of affairs within concepts. More specifically, death is caused by contradictions, flaws and failures inscribed in the structure of what Hegel labelled ‘the concept’.Footnote 9 In arguing this point, I will follow the once standard line of interpretation according to which Hegel’s dialectic traces contradiction to the very essences of things.Footnote 10
II. The problem with judgements
For Hegel, tracing contradiction to the essences of things requires a discussion of judgements, since the latter are the logical forms that introduce contradiction into essences. Hegel defines the judgement as a combination of subject and predicate which also serves as an answer to the question: What is this? (SL: 551/GW 12: 54). This definition implies that judgements are not just combinations but, as Martin rightly notes, combinations that explain something, namely relate an individual or a particular with a universal (Martin Reference Martin2012: 264). In other words, judgements connect individuals, properties and kinds with their properties and kinds.Footnote 11
Comparing Hegel’s notion of judgement to the Kantian notion highlights two important features. In §19 of the B edition of the transcendental deduction, Kant defines the judgement as ‘nothing other than the way to bring given cognitions to the objective unity of apperception’ (Kant Reference Kant, Guyer and Wood1998: 251/B141).Footnote 12 By this, Kant means two things: first, that the judgement unifies two representations, specifically a subject and a predicate; second, that it is an act of cognition. For Kant, accordingly, all judgements are acts of thinking in which various representations are unified.Footnote 13 I will address the first feature now and return to the second in the fourth section.
In contrast to the first feature of Kantian judgements, Hegel sees judgements as both a unification and a separation of subject and predicate. The judgement is a unification in so far as the copula ‘expresses that the subject is the predicate’ (SL: 555/GW 12: 58). For example, an individual is united with one of its properties (‘this rose is red’, ‘this man is mortal’, ‘this painting is beautiful’). However, the judgement is also a separation in so far as subject and predicate appear in the judgement as ‘two self-subsistents’ (SL: 550/GW 12: 53). For instance, ‘this rose’ appears independent of its redness, since ‘this rose’ is not its ‘redness’—it could just as easily have been white. For this reason, Hegel argues that in judgements the subject ‘conveys the reflective semblance of an independent subsistence’ (SL: 744–55/GW 12: 245).Footnote 14
In the judgement, accordingly, the subject is both united with and separated from the predicate. ‘This rose’ is and is not ‘red’. Although this does not violate the law of excluded middle—since ‘is’ and ‘is not’ are said of the same thing but not in the same sense—Hegel refers to this ambiguity or tension as a contradiction. This is not the place to explore Hegel’s notion of contradiction in any sufficient detail, but it should be observed that far from confusing the ‘is’ of identity with the ‘is’ of predication, Hegel’s point is that the two are not clearly distinguishable. This is the case since the identity of a subject can only be constituted by its predicates.Footnote 15 Longuenesse stresses this point, when she argues that Hegel’s discussion of contradiction in the Logic dissolves the ‘illusory independence’ of things by expressing ‘the fact that the identity of a thing is determined only to the extent that this thing is constituted as other to itself, having its identity not in itself but in the system of relations that opposes it to the other things’ (Longuenesse Reference Longuenesse2007: 6, 69). In other words, the contradiction Hegel identifies in judgements lies in the fact that they establish identity by means of difference—unity by means of separation.
In a play on the German word for judgement (Urteil), Hegel labels the separation in judgements ‘the original division of the concept’ (Ur-teilung des Begriffs). Hegel borrows this term from Hölderlin, who uses it to define the judgement as ‘that separation through which alone object and subject become possible’ (Hölderlin Reference Hölderlin1988: 37/SW 4: 226).Footnote 16 Exploring the image behind Ur-teilung, namely that of a concept breaking up into judgements, will help ascertain another important point. If the concept of a subject contains the latter’s essential predicates, dismembering concepts allows these predicates to connect with subjects. The concept ‘gold’, for instance, which contains predicates such as ‘lustrous’, ‘malleable’, ‘metallic’, breaks up into judgements like ‘gold is lustrous’, ‘gold is malleable’, ‘gold is metallic’. However, judgements not only relate subjects to essential predicates but also to accidental ones. They connect ‘gold’ with ‘metallic’ just as they connect ‘this rose’ with ‘red’. The ambiguous function of the copula is further complicated in so far as the ‘is’ of identity-in-predication remains the same even though ‘metallic’ is an essential property of gold whereas ‘red’ is an accidental property of roses. In other words, it stays the same even though its function changes to express different relations between subject and predicate. For this reason, Hegel believes that judgements cannot unequivocally express the metaphysical dependence of subjects on their natures or essences. In Hegel’s words, the judgement ‘is incapable of holding within its grasp the speculative content and the truth’ (SL: 744–55/GW 12: 245).
III. The various types of judgement
In his discussion of judgements, Hegel is less concerned with valid reasoning and more focused on exploring how a single logical form (‘x is y’) expresses various relations between subjects and predicates. Hegel presents, analyses and criticizes four main types of judgements, each exhibiting a distinct type of relation between subject and predicate, with each new type drawing nearer to the relation Hegel believes obtains between concepts and objects. This point will be explored later in greater detail. For now, it suffices to specify that each new relation between subject and predicate brings the judgement closer to expressing a relation between concepts, considered as natures or essences, and the things over which they exert final causality. Beyond their various sub-divisions which cannot be fully explored within the confines of this article, Hegel discusses (1) the judgement of existence; (2) the judgement of reflection; (3) the judgement of necessity; and (4) the judgement of the concept.
(1) In judgements of existence, the subject is posited as ‘a thing of manifold properties’ or ‘a substance of precisely such accidents’ (SL: 559/GW 12: 62). In simpler terms, the subject is an individual thing while the predicate is an accidental property. Two of Hegel’s examples of such judgements are ‘this rose is red’ and ‘this wall is not green’. Judgements of existence link an individual with what it happens to be. In them, the property attributed by the predicate appears to be dependent on—and thus subordinate to—the object referred to by the subject. The reason is that an object can persist without one of its accidental properties, but not the other way around. For instance, a rose would still be a rose if it were white rather than red.
(2) In judgements of reflection, predicates ‘express an essentiality’ (SL: 569/GW 12: 71). In other words, the subject is an individual thing while the predicate is an essential property. Examples of such judgements are ‘this thing is perishable’ and ‘all humans are mortal’. Judgements of reflection link an individual with what it must be. In such judgements, the object referred to by the subject appears to be dependent on—and thus subordinate to—the property attributed by the predicate. This is because an object cannot be what it is without one of its essential properties. For instance, humans would not be humans if they were immortal.
(3) In judgements of necessity, the predicate is an ‘objective universality’ (SL: 575/GW 12: 77). The subject is a kind (or species) while the predicate is a higher kind (or genus). Examples are ‘the rose is a plant’ and ‘gold is a metal’. Judgements of necessity link kinds with their own kinds. In them, like in judgements of reflection, the kind referred to by the subject is dependent on and subordinate to the kind attributed by the predicate, since the former cannot be what it is without the latter. Gold would not be gold if it were not a metal.
(4) In judgements of the concept, finally, the predicate is ‘an ought to which reality may or may not conform’ (SL: 582/GW 12: 84). Subjects are individuals while predicates are normative properties such as good, true, right, beautiful, suitable or fitting. Examples of such judgements are ‘this painting is beautiful’ and ‘this action is good’. Judgements of the concept link individuals with what they should be. In these judgements, the object referred to by the subject is not only dependent on the property attributed by the predicate but relates to the latter as to its purpose.
For Hegel, the judgement of the concept, being the most advanced judgement type, accurately exhibits the metaphysical dependence of objects on concepts. Moreover, since judgements enjoy a constitutive status in Hegel’s philosophy, they determine the relation between objects and concepts as a relation of final causality. To grasp the intricacies of this relation, we need to examine the unique role judgements are assigned in Hegel’s metaphysics.
IV. The metaphysics of the problem with judgements
Noting a second point of divergence between Kant and Hegel allows us to grasp another key characteristic of Hegelian judgements, namely that Hegel does not regard judgements primarily as functions of our cognition. For Kant, as I already mentioned, judgements are mental representations, indistinguishable from acts of judging. For Hegel, by contrast, the objective logical forms discussed in the Logic differ from the cognitive acts explored in Hegel’s philosophy of subjective spirit. Accordingly, Hegel does not treat judgements as mere representations. In Hegel’s words, judgements should not be grasped merely ‘in the subjective sense as an operation and form that surfaces merely in self-conscious thinking’ (EL: 242/GW 20: 183/§167).
In Hegel’s metaphysics, judgements that dwell ‘within the things themselves’, as distinct from judgements that are ‘merely occurrences in our head’, combine with concepts and syllogisms to form the nature or essence of things, by means of which things ‘are what they are’ (EL: 242/GW 23.3: 932/§166A). Summarily labelled ‘the concept’, these basic forms of Hegel’s metaphysics align in this way with those of traditional logic, which explains Hegel’s emphatic assertion that his Logic ‘coincides with metaphysics’ (SL: 58/GW 20: 67). In this framework, and owing to their inner contradiction, judgements play a twofold role. On the one hand, judgements separate individuals from universals; on the other hand, they unify individuals with universals.
The first metaphysical role of judgements is to separate individuals from their universals. I noted earlier that concepts break up into judgements. In other words, the concept ‘apple’ breaks up into judgements that spell out its content with respect to individuals (‘this apple is nutritious’, ‘this apple is a fruit’) in such a way that the subject of these judgements (‘this apple’) appears to be independent. On this basis, the first metaphysical role of judgements is to constitute individuals with relative independence with respect to their properties and kinds. In Hegel’s words, judgements ‘can therefore be called the first realisation of the concept, for reality denotes in general the entry into existence as determinate being’ (SL: 550/GW 12: 53). In separating individuals from universals, judgements provide a logical structure for the real-world distinction between objects and concepts. In simpler terms, they constitute a world in which objects exist.
The second metaphysical role of judgements is to unify individuals with their universals. Just as they split concepts apart, judgements unite subjects with the predicates contained within their concepts. From the concept of ‘apple’ proceed the judgements ‘this apple is nutritious’, ‘this apple is a fruit’, etc. On this basis, the second metaphysical role of judgements is to determine what individuals are. When an apple is rich in nutrients, to stick with the same example, it has this property by virtue of judgements that spell out the essence or nature of apples and apply it to individuals (‘this apple is nutritious’). For this reason, Hegel declares: ‘All things are a judgement,—i.e. they are individuals which are a universality or inner nature in themselves, or a universal that is individuated’ (EL: 243/GW 20: 183/§167). In different terms that were already mentioned, things ‘are what they are’ because of judgements (EL: 242/GW 23.3: 932/§166A). In unifying individuals with universals, judgements provide a logical structure for the causal relationships that are necessary for the real-world existence of determinate objects, namely objects that possess the properties of their kinds.Footnote 17 The specific teleological nature of these causal relationships will now be discussed.
V. Life and death in the power of judgement
Since judgements play a key role in constituting and determining objects, namely since they belong to the concept ‘which constitutes a stage of nature as well as of spirit’ (SL: 517/GW 12: 20), Hegel references them in his discussions of the three forms of objectivity: mechanism, chemism and teleology. For our purposes, what matters is that by uniting and separating individuals and universals, judgements provide a logical structure for the unification and separation of objects and concepts, which are crucial moments in teleological processes. In the following subsections, we will see that, due to its importance to teleology, the contradictory form of judgements implies the life and death of the objects they constitute.
V.i. Judgement of life: teleology
Hegel contends that living beings possess a ‘self-moving principle’ (SL: 680/GW 12: 183).Footnote 18 This means that the cause for certain changes in organisms is found within the organisms themselves, or more precisely within their concepts. In Hegel’s own words, ‘the mutability of the external side of the living being is the manifestation in it of the concept’ (SL: 681/GW 12: 184). Moreover, Hegel argues that concepts have a power of final causality over individual organisms: ‘to be a ground in a teleological sense is a property of the concept’ (SL: 388/GW 11: 293). The concept ‘fig’, for instance, contains the latter’s essential properties: ‘fruit-bearing’, ‘deciduous’, ‘adaptable’, etc. For individual fig trees, fruit-bearing is thus not only an essential property but also an intrinsic purpose. To achieve this purpose, fig trees set in motion a series of processes, such as pollination, fertilization and hormone release, which are not random occurrences produced by blind mechanism, but the real-world realization of the purpose of fruit-bearing, namely the reproduction and perpetuation of figs. In more rigorous terms, Hegel believes that these processes are means to the ends inscribed in the concept ‘fig’. The organism is ‘the means and instrument of purpose, fully purposive, for the concept constitutes its substance’ (SL: 681/GW 12: 184).
Ng argues that the final causality of living beings is an act of judgement, since the latter is ‘a self-constituting act of the judging subject whereby it is realised as an individual of a genus’ (Ng Reference Ng2020: 246).Footnote 19 Her interpretation is based on identifying judgement, in this case, with ‘what judgement is in its objectivity and truth’ (Ng Reference Ng2020: 166), namely with judgements of the concept, which are ‘teleological judgements, or life-form judgements’ (Ng Reference Ng2020: 187).Footnote 20 Although Ng speaks here of subjective judgements (‘merely occurrences in our head’) rather than objective judgements (dwelling ‘within the things themselves’), her suggestion is compatible with the interpretation I advocate, when we apply its rationale to objective judgements as well. With Ng’s insight, we can now observe the following:
(1) Given that judgements separate individuals from their universals, they provide a logical structure for relatively independent objects. In Hegel’s words, the ‘concept of life’ has ‘an objectivity corresponding to it […] that is to say, posits it as corresponding to it’ (SL: 679/GW 12: 183).
(2) Given that judgements unify individuals with their universals, they provide a logical structure for objects that are determinable by the properties of their kinds. In Hegel’s words, the soul ‘has an objective being’—‘a reality which is subjugated to purpose’ is ‘predicated of the subject’ (SL: 680/GW 12: 183).
(3) Given that judgements of the concept link individuals with what they should be, they provide a logical structure for teleological causality, where objects are determined by the purposes inscribed in their concepts. In Hegel’s words, ‘self-subsisting objectivity’ exists ‘only as the predicate of the judgement of the concept’s self-determination’ (SL: 680/GW 12: 183).
With Ng, we thus discover the teleology of life within the judgement form, following the meaning of Hegel’s mention of the ‘originative judgement of life’, which both ‘separates itself off as individual subject’ and ‘constitutes itself as the negative unity of the concept’ (SL: 678/GW 12: 181; Ng Reference Ng2020).
But Ng also argues that life resolves the problem with judgements. For her, the only determination sufficient for grounding the truth-aptness contained in judgements ‘is the unity of form displayed by the activity of life’ (Ng Reference Ng2020: 177).Footnote 21 This is the way judgements ‘point to life’ as their solution (Ng Reference Ng2020: 180). In her interpretation, as I already mentioned, Ng follows a well-known approach to Hegel’s Logic, assuming that problems arising in its earlier stages are resolved in its later stages. She expresses this clearly when she states that ‘every thought-determination of the Logic has revealed itself to be insufficient in some way […] as the Logic progresses, subsequent thought-determinations are enlisted to resolve the insufficiencies of earlier ones’ (Ng Reference Ng2020: 248). Here, I disagree with Ng’s interpretation since neither life nor even the absolute make judgements any less problem laden. In other words, they neither resolve their contradiction nor make them ‘agree with themselves’.
Textual evidence that directly supports this point, that specifies the inherent nature of the problem with judgements, can be found throughout Hegel’s Logic. Hegel asserts that the judgement is ‘unsuitable to express that which is concrete and speculative—and the true is concrete’ (EL: 71/GW 20: 72/§31R). He explains that ‘the judgement lacks what is required by the definition of truth, namely the agreement of the concept with its subject matter’ (SL: 525/GW 12: 28). He reiterates that in ‘connection with judgement it was shown that its form in general […] is incapable of holding within its grasp the speculative content and the truth’ (SL: 744–55/GW 12: 245). Hegel even affirms that, ‘in its truth’, even the most advanced form of the judgement, the judgement of the concept, ‘has not arrived at the truth’ (SL: 698/GW 12: 200).Footnote 22 But nowhere is the insolubility of the problem of judgement more visible than in Hegel’s theory of objectivity, where in addition to its life-giving role, the contradiction inherent in judgements is explicated as the logical form of death.
V.ii. Judgement of death: broken teleology
In so far as life is premised on relationships of final causality between individuals and universals, death is premised on the dissolution of these relationships. When hearts beat, they beat with the force of teleology. When they stop beating, they do so in its absence.
For this reason, the separability of individuals and universals is the mark of finitude. This is also evident in its definition: ‘It is the definition of finite things that in them concept and being are different; that the concept and reality, soul and body, are separable; that they are therefore perishable and mortal’ (SL: 66/GW 21: 77). For this reason, finite ‘means contradictory’ or ‘internally fractured’ (SL: 384–85/GW 21: 289). Since being contradictory is the opposite of being in ‘agreement with self’, finite is also antonymous with true: ‘finite […] unfit to hold the truth’ (SL: 18/GW 21: 16). Linking untruth, contradiction and finitude,Footnote 23 Hegel claims that individuals are finite and untrue because they contradict, differ and are hence separable from their universals.
This predicament is most easily observed in living beings, where finitude means mortality. In living beings, Hegel writes, finitude ‘has the determination that soul and body are separable’. This ‘constitutes the mortality of the living’ (EL: 288/GW 20: 219/§216). This same point, well known from other idealist accounts of mortality, is then repeated with an emphasis on the power of concepts: ‘What is alive dies because it is the contradiction of being in itself the universal, the genus, and yet existing concretely and immediately only as individual. In death, the genus demonstrates itself to be the power over the immediately individual’ (EL: 290/GW 23.3: 954/§221A). In Hegel’s terms, the fact that untruth, contradiction and finitude are essential properties of living beings means that life is inherently deficient. ‘The deficiency of life’, he writes, ‘consists in the fact that here concept and reality do not truly correspond to one another’ (EL: 288/GW 23.3: 653/§216A). This deficiency qualifies Hegel’s statements that life, as idea, is the correspondence of concept and reality. Life is only a partial correspondence, which may readily be broken.Footnote 24
Whatever allows the partial correspondence of life creates the conditions of finitude. Since they enable the dissociation of individuals and concepts, judgements play this crucial role. In clearer terms, the separation of individuals and universals in judgements provides a logical structure for the separation of objects and concepts—and hence body and soul. For this reason, judgements provide a logical structure and are hence the formal cause of death. Specifically, Hegel assigns this role to judgements of the concept:
In the concrete things, together with the diversity of the properties among themselves, there also enters the difference between the concept and its realization. The concept has an external presentation in nature and spirit wherein its determinateness manifests itself as dependence on the external, as transitoriness and inadequacy. Therefore, although an actual thing will indeed manifest in itself what it ought to be, yet, in accordance with the negative judgement of the concept, it may equally also show that its actuality only imperfectly corresponds with this concept, that it is bad. (SL: 712/GW 12: 213–14)
In this passage, Hegel makes two points. First, he reiterates that objects fall short of their concepts. But then he argues that the logical structure of this inadequacy is found in judgements, namely in ideality rather than in the shortcomings of matter. Another aspect of these shortcomings is that living things are dependent on external nature. But this dependence is only possible because judgements imperfectly unite individuals with universals.
Ng contends, as I already mentioned, that positive judgements of the concept are ‘teleological judgements, or life-form judgements’ (Reference Ng2020: 187), because they unite individuals with their essences as final causes. This is the case, for instance, of the judgement ‘this fig tree is good’, or in greater detail ‘this fig tree, bearing fruit, is good’. Nonetheless, we may now see that Hegel also argues that negative judgements of the concept play the opposite role. In determining deficient or broken teleological relationships, they are—to reverse Ng’s terms—death-form judgements. This is the case, for instance, in the judgement ‘this fig tree is bad’, or in greater detail ‘this fig tree, not bearing fruit, is bad’.
In separating individuals from their universals, negative judgements of the concept undermine the teleological relationships of life and provide the logical structure that allows for finitude and death. In so doing, they reaffirm the metaphysical implications inherent in judgements on the order of ‘the individual is universal’, which convey—according to Hegel—‘both the perishableness of individual things and their positive subsistence in the concept in general. The concept itself is imperishable, but that which emerges from it in its division is subjected to alteration’ (SL: 559/GW 12: 61). The crucial point to recall is that even though the concept is imperishable, the mutability and perishability of the individual ‘which emerges from it’ are determined by those contradictory judgements that combine with concepts and syllogisms to form what Hegel summarily labels ‘the concept’, namely the nature or essence of things.
V.iii. The causality of fatal disease
In providing the logical structure that allows for finitude and death, the contradiction in those judgements that make up the essences of individual organisms is the ground or formal cause of death.Footnote 25 In the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel makes this point when he argues that life culminates ‘in the death of the creature’ because its ‘universal is disjunction or judgement’ (PN: 410/GW 20: 366/§367). Several paragraphs later, Hegel provides an equally valuable account of the causality of fatal disease, which helps reinforce this point. Hegel’s argument advances in two stages: first, he argues that disease is caused by external objects; then, he notes that these externalities are not the cause of death. Instead, Hegel attributes this cause to a contradiction inscribed in the concept of the organism.
In his account of disease, Hegel argues that disease arises from contact with an external object. He explains that the organism falls ill when one of its systems or organs is ‘stimulated into conflict with the inorganic power’ (PN: 428/GW 20: 371/§371). This point was highlighted by Von Engelhardt (Reference Von Engelhardt, Cohen and Wartofsky1984), who discussed the ‘empirical’ or ‘concrete causation’ at work in Hegel’s understanding of disease. According to this understanding, disease is largely caused by ‘particular, external harmful influences with which the organism comes into contact’ (PN: 432/GW 24.3: 1560/§371A), such as ‘air and moisture’ (PN: 430/GW 24.3: 1598/§371A).
In his discussion of fatal disease, however, Hegel introduces another type of causality. He observes that the ‘animal suffers violence and perishes’ but locates the source of this violence in ‘inner universality’ (PN: 440/GW 20: 374/§374). In a key passage, Hegel distinguishes between two distinct levels of causality:
The necessity of death does not consist in particular causes [Ursachen], for it lies in the organism itself that the cause [Ursache] is external. There is always a remedy for a particular disease; for the latter as such is weak and cannot be the cause [Grund] of death. This cause is the necessity of the transition of the individuality into universality. (PN: 441/GW 24.3: 1608/§374A)
At the beginning of the passage, Hegel discusses the necessity of death, locating it within rather than outside the individual. Then he speaks of the cause of death, arguing that external objects, like ‘air and moisture’ for instance, cannot serve this function.Footnote 26 Hegel ends with a general conclusion: the cause of death is found in the necessary transition to universality. Later in the same passage, Hegel continues this line of argument when he notes that in death the universal sublates or cancels the individual (PN: 441/GW 24.3: 1608/§374A).
This passage demonstrates that while acknowledging the role of material or efficient causes in disease, Hegel did not consider them as primarily responsible for death. This conclusion is further supported by Hegel’s choice of words, which indicates that causes of death are not efficient (Ursache) but formal (Grund). The key takeaway here is that, for Hegel, causes of death are not external objects, nor the organism’s vulnerability to them or its inability to resist their effects, but rather the inner universality of organisms. In other words, the cause of death is found within the concept or universal of the dying individual. In the subsequent paragraph, Hegel explains this point with reference to the contradiction between the individual and the universal, which he explored in his discussion of judgement. This disparity, rather than any exterior influence, is the ‘original disease’ of the organism and ‘the inborn germ of death’ (PN: 441/GW 20: 375/§375).Footnote 27 It must persist—and may not be resolved—if life is to run its natural course, culminating in death.
VI. Conclusion
This article focused on Hegel’s discussion of judgements in the Logic, arguing that the contradiction he identified in these logical forms remains necessarily unresolved. Hegel’s account of death was examined to highlight how the inevitability of death demonstrates the insolubility of the problem of judgements. Hegelian judgements were thus revealed to be inherently contradictory. Hinging on the unresolved tension between unification and separation, they function as a double-edged sword—giving life just as they cause death.
Bringing this article to a close, I can only reiterate how unique and captivating is Hegel’s stance that the source of the flaws and failures of finitude is not to be found in matter but in form, namely in the categories of logic, nature and spirit—a position which stands out in the history of philosophy, diverging from the conceptions of other idealists who regard forms as pure and essences as perfect. In this way, Hegel’s ‘idealism of the finite’ (SL: 124/GW 21: 142; see also Stern Reference Stern2015) may be grasped as a philosophy which explains how contradictory or finite categories determine the contradiction or finitude of the things they constitute. In other terms, it explains how the truth value of the categories determines the truth value of the things they constitute.Footnote 28 Beyond the uniqueness of Hegel’s account of the causality of death, the role that inherently problem-laden judgements play in determining the inexorable problem par excellence—death—lends credence to this solution-sceptic approach of Hegel’s philosophy. Though the problem with judgements and the causality of death are merely instances of this broader interpretative framework, which grasps the task of Hegel’s philosophy as explaining contradictions rather than resolving them, I believe they serve as fine examples, setting the stage for more accounts to follow.Footnote 29
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