Comments on §81, On the Criterion at the Outset of Science
My regrets for the tardiness in finishing up my notes on the introduction. I've altered the dates so the posts fit properly according to the order of the text.
In §80, Hegel had just argued that science cannot have a determinate content if it only negates each presentation in turn, but rather must arrive at a particular conclusion which presents itself as such. Here Hegel raises the question: what, then, is the criterion of truth by which we'll know to have our positive result? In the previous passage, the suggestion was that this had something to do with the coincidence of subject and object. Evidently he does not mean that the object discovered in phenomenal knowledge is then the criterion, for this would just result in the dogmation position critiqued in §77-78. Does the act of reflection then supply the criterion? This would entail the other kind of dogmatic position already attacked in §73-75. In fact, Hegel says, precisely because science has just come on the scene and is unable, as he has argued, to establish itself on either of these dogmatic grounds, there evidently is no criterion available for it.
In §80, Hegel had just argued that science cannot have a determinate content if it only negates each presentation in turn, but rather must arrive at a particular conclusion which presents itself as such. Here Hegel raises the question: what, then, is the criterion of truth by which we'll know to have our positive result? In the previous passage, the suggestion was that this had something to do with the coincidence of subject and object. Evidently he does not mean that the object discovered in phenomenal knowledge is then the criterion, for this would just result in the dogmation position critiqued in §77-78. Does the act of reflection then supply the criterion? This would entail the other kind of dogmatic position already attacked in §73-75. In fact, Hegel says, precisely because science has just come on the scene and is unable, as he has argued, to establish itself on either of these dogmatic grounds, there evidently is no criterion available for it.