What we call “the negative” is always said with reference to the opposite, “the positive.” We have no choice but to accept this premise when discussing the concept of negation even in the absence of dialectical proof. In actuality, all explorations of the negative must first of all be explorations of the relationship between the negative and the positive. However, determining the relationship between the two is one thing with respect to abstract logical form and another thing with respect to the logical relation between concrete things in-themselves, which are determinate concrete contents. In this way, the relationship of the negative and the positive is intimately tied to the problem of being and nothing as regards the substance of the world. We may penetrate the cultural background behind Hegel’s concept of negation from the bigger problem of common identity among the different peoples of this world, which may enable us to gain a richer and more concrete grasp of the concept of negation.
The cultural background of Hegel’s concept of “negation”
Hegel often presents the concept of “the negative” together with that of “nothing.” In Hegel, “nothing” is actually the most basic type of negative. Generally speaking, what comes to the Westerner’s mind when discussing “negation” or “nothing” is often an action taken in relation to something given beforehand; when it manifests in language, it is saying “nothing” in relation to something or to somebody else. As Hegel puts it: “the abstract, immediate negation, the nothing purely for itself, negation devoid of reference—and this can also be expressed, if one so wishes, simply by saying ‘nothing.’”1 Because of this, the Westerner’s concept of “nothing” encompasses two levels: (1) “nothing” is a “lack” of being (something given beforehand). That is, darkness is only the absence of light, and cold is only the lack of warmth; without “being,” there is no “nothing” of which to speak, insofar as being is prior to nothing. Parmenides only argues that non-being (nothing) is not, because “lack” as such has no being of its own. This even becomes one of the most important theoretical grounds upon which Aristotle opposes Plato’s theory of Ideas: how could it be that something that has ceased-to-be and no longer exists still has its own Idea?2 Since nothing presupposes being, in logic, negation presupposes affirmation. (2) “Nothing” is not simply the lack of “being.” Nothing is also a negative attitude or action in relation to being, for which reason, nothing and negation are always connected together with movement and activity. In the Westerner’s view, pure being, simple positivity is static and unchanging, so it cannot produce movement. For this reason, Parmenides negates nothing, but not without negating movement as a necessary consequence, and Heraclitus’s “becoming” had to assume the identity of being and nothing. Democritus’s “void” (nothing) is a condition of movement, but since it only encompasses the first meaning of “nothing” (lack) without the second meaning of the active movement of negation, it fails to explain the problem of the “source” of movement and falls prey to Aristotle’s criticism. Aristotle determines movement as “the actualization of potential,” where actualization (ενεργεια) as an active process similarly carries the meaning of negation, that is, negating the potentialities of the “material” given beforehand, imparting it with a certain form and actualizing the purpose concealed in it. Therefore, when Hegel comments on Aristotle’s category of “actuality” (i.e., actualization): “with Aristotle this negativity, this active efficacy, is expressly characterized as energy,” “in Aristotle there is added and made conspicuous the moment of negativity, not as change, nor yet as nullity, but as difference or determination.”3 In the Phenomenology of Spirit, he also mentions, “This is why certain ancients conceived of the void as what moved things in conceiving of what moves things as the negative, but they did not yet grasp this negative as the self.”4 In other words, they did not grasp that the moving principle is more than “that which is” negative, insofar as it is negation as such.
Christians of the Middle Ages believed God created the entire world from “nothing,” but that which is ultimately first is not “nothing,” because God is absolute being and one in himself; in other words, God is logos, dao: “At the very beginning there was dao”; dao creates the world in “producing being from nothing,” but dao itself is the highest principle that creates the world in the manner of “producing being from nothing,” which exhibits the negative will of God. That is, God negates his own abstractness, transcending his own “silence” and “loneliness.” The modern mystical thinker Jacob Böhme held that activity and the vital impulse is a “torment” (Qual), the thought of which Hegel found to be of utmost importance, insisting “By anguish is expressed that which we know as the absolute negativity—that is the self-conscious, self-experienced, the self-relating negativity which is therefore absolute affirmation.”5
No more examples are needed, for it is already clear that the Western tradition of thought most certainly contains a factor that actively breaks boundaries, fuses substances, shapes things, realizes purposes and makes rigid categorial determinations “flow” by negating and “voiding.” This active factor is no alien force imposing itself from the outside, but rather wells up from inside of things themselves, a qual, a vitality. In the previous chapter we have already named this factor in the Western philosophical tradition “the existential impulse.” Here we want to emphasize that in contrast to Westerners, who understand “nothing” as an active negation of something given beforehand (being), “nothing” in Chinese antiquity, wu 无, was never understood as an action (the action of “voiding” or negating), but was always understood as a primordial state, a state of empty stillness without active impulse. The first philosopher to present this thought in Chinese history was Laozi, who insisted: “All beings in Nature come to life from being, while being comes to life from nothing.”7 “Nothing” as quiescent beholding without restless desire is the most subtle and vital dao. “Thus constantly (chang 常) desire nothing to perceive its subtleties and constantly desire something to perceive its boundaries.”8 The Silk Manuscript Version goes: “eternally (heng 恒) desire nothing in order to perceive its subtleties; eternally desire something in order to perceive its boundaries.” Therefore, there is no need to take any action; one only needs to “reach the extreme pole of emptiness, maintain the critical point of stillness; the multitude of creatures co-operate, I thereby observe them return to it.”9 Wang Bi’s commentary states: