Science of Logic

rather, [the mind] is necessarily placed upon it on its own path, and to that extent, the system is perfectly true. — But it is not the highest standpoint. Standpoint (Standpunkt) refers to a specific level of philosophical development or a particular way of viewing the world. For Hegel, history and logic are a series of standpoints that build upon one another. Yet, for this reason, the system cannot be viewed as false, nor as something that needs or is capable of refutation; rather, only this one thing about it is to be considered false: that it claims to be the highest standpoint. Therefore, the true system cannot relate to it by merely being opposed to it; for if it were, this opposite would itself be one-sided. Rather, as the higher system, it must contain the subordinate one within itself.

Furthermore, a refutation must not come from the outside; that is, it must not proceed from assumptions that lie outside that system and to which the system does not correspond. The system simply does not need to recognize those assumptions; a flaw is only a flaw for someone who starts from the needs and demands based on those external assumptions. In this sense, it has been said that for someone who does not take the freedom and independence of the self-conscious subject as an established prerequisite for themselves, no refutation of Spinozism The philosophy of Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), which Hegel identifies with the "Logic of Essence." It views everything as part of one single Substance, often at the perceived expense of individual human freedom. can take place. Besides, such a high standpoint, which is already so rich in itself as the relationship of substantiality, does not ignore that assumption; rather, it also contains it; one of the attributes In Spinoza’s system, "attributes" are what the intellect perceives as the essence of Substance. The two known to humans are Thought and Extension (matter). of Spinozistic substance is thought. Instead, this standpoint knows how to dissolve the definitions under which these assumptions conflict with it and pull them into itself, so that they appear within it, but only in the modifications appropriate to it. The core of external refutation then relies solely on upholding the opposite forms of those assumptions—for example, the absolute self-subsistence term: Selbstbestehen (self-subsistence) – the quality of existing independently on one’s own, rather than as a part or "mode" of something else. of the thinking individual—against the form of thought as it...