On the Concept

that being-in-and-for-itself original: An- und Fürsichseyn. This describes a state where something is not only complete in its own nature but also fully conscious or expressed in its reality. exists only because it is positedness original: Gesetztseyn. This refers to something that does not exist independently but is "posited" or established by a prior process or relationship., is the completion of substance. But this completion is no longer substance itself; rather, it is something higher: the Concept, the Subject. The transition of the relationship of substantiality occurs through its own immanent necessity, and it is nothing more than the manifestation of itself—the revelation that the Concept is its truth, and that freedom is the truth of necessity.

It was already noted earlier in the second book of the objective Logic (p. 225 ff., note) that the philosophy which takes its stand on the level of substance and remains there is the system of Spinoza. Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) argued that there is only one substance (God or Nature), and all individual things are merely "modes" of that one substance. At that point, the deficiency of this system was pointed out, regarding both its form and its matter. However, the refutation of it is a different matter. Regarding the refutation of a philosophical system, a general remark has likewise been made elsewhere: we must banish the skewed idea that a system should be presented as entirely false, as if the "true" system were merely the opposite of the "false" one. From the context in which the Spinozist system appears here, its true standpoint—and the answer to whether it is true or false—emerges naturally. The relationship of substantiality produced itself through the nature of Essence; this relationship, along with its presentation as a whole system, is therefore a necessary standpoint which the Absolute adopts. Such a standpoint is therefore not to be viewed as a mere opinion, or a subjective, arbitrary way of imagining or thinking belonging to an individual, nor as an error of speculation; such errors are found