- Sublation
Sublation is an English term used to translate
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 's German term "Aufhebung". The German word "Aufhebung" literally means "out/up-lifting."In Hegel, the term "Aufhebung" has the apparently contradictory implications of both preserving and changing (the German verb "aufheben" means both "to cancel" and "to keep"). The tension between these senses suits what Hegel is trying to talk about. In sublation, a term or concept is both preserved and changed through its dialectical interplay with another term or concept. Sublation is the motor by which the dialectic functions.
Hegel's Logic
Sublation can be seen at work at the most basic level of Hegel's system of logic. The two concepts "Being" and "Nothing" are each both preserved and changed through sublation in the concept "Becoming". Similarly, "determinateness", or "quality", and "magnitude", or "quantity", are each both preserved and sublated in the concept "measure".
Hegel and History
For Hegel, history (like logic) proceeds in every small way through sublation. For example, the Oriental, Greek and Roman Empires (in which the individual is ignored or annihilated, then recognized, and finally suppressed by the States) are preserved "and" destroyed in the German Empire, which, for Hegel, placed the individual in harmony with the State.
At the level of social history, sublation can be seen at work in the
master-slave dialectic . ["Hegel: The Difference Between the Fichtean and Schellingian Systems of Philosophy" (New York: Ridgeview Pub Co 1978).]Hegel and the History of Philosophy
Hegel approached the history of philosophy in the same way, arguing that important philosophical ideas of the past are not rejected but rather preserved and changed as philosophy develops.
The Contradictions of Reflective Thought
In Hegel's view, one can always find another thing in reflective philosophy upon which some "absolute" ground relies. With
Fichte 's ultimate ground, the "I," or "ego ", for example, one can immediately see the reliance upon the "non-I", which allows Fichte to distinguish what he means by the "I." Reflection is circular, as Fichte unapologetically acknowledged.For Hegel, reflective thought is to be avoided due to its circularity. It leads to covering the same problems and ground ever and anon for each philosophical generation. It is a "
philosophia perennis ."Instead, Hegel calls on speculative thought: two contradictory elements are held together, uplifted and sublated without completely destroying one another. Speculative thought seeks to avoid the
idealism inherent in reflective thought and allows one to think in concrete terms about how things work, both in the present, real world and in history.Hegel and Marx
Whereas, in Hegel, sublation shows the movement of "Geist", often translated as "mind" or "spirit", Marx identifies it as the manner of development of material conditions. See "
dialectical materialism ".ources
ee also
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Sublimation
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