Science of Logic

Thus, in regard to the active substance, a) acting is the translation of the cause into the effect, into its "other," its positedness original: Gesetztseyn. In this philosophy, something is "posited" when it does not exist on its own but is established or "placed" there by the activity of something else., and b) in the effect, the cause shows itself as what it is; the effect is identical with the cause, not something else; the cause, therefore, in acting, shows its positedness as that which it essentially is. — Thus, from both sides—the identical as well as the negative relating of the others to it—each becomes the opposite of itself; yet each becomes this opposite in such a way that the other, and thus each, remains identical with itself. —

But both—the identical and the negative relating—are one and the same; substance is only identical with itself in its opposite, and this constitutes the absolute identity of the substances posited as two. The active substance is manifested as a cause or as original substantiality through its acting—that is, by positing itself as the opposite of itself, which is simultaneously the sublating Term: Sublate (German: aufheben). A central concept in this logic meaning to cancel out a thing's independent existence while preserving it as part of a higher, more complex whole. of its presupposed otherness (the passive substance). Conversely, through this influence, "positedness" is manifested as positedness—the negative as negative—and thus the passive substance is manifested as self-relating negativity; and the cause, in this "other" of itself, simply comes together with itself. Through this "positing," the presupposed or in-itself Potential or latent state. originality becomes for-itself The state of being actualized, self-aware, or fully developed.; but this being-in-and-for-itself only exists because this positing is just as much a sublating of what was presupposed, or because the absolute substance has returned to itself only from and within its positedness, and is absolute through that return.

This reciprocal action original: Wechselwirkung. A state where Cause A affects Effect B, but Effect B simultaneously reacts back upon Cause A, making it impossible to say which one truly started the movement. is thus the appearance that cancels itself; the revelation of the seeming original: Schein. A technical term for a surface-level appearance or "shimmer" that points toward a deeper underlying reality. of causality, in which the cause exists as a cause only because it [the causality] is a mere seeming. This infinite reflection-into-self, that