Pascal's Metaphysics of Adjacency

Hegel's Science of Logic (Part 1)

In the first discussion for a series preparing the upcoming Philosophy Portal course on Hegel’s Science of Logic, I host feral philosopher and co-host of The Integral Stage, Layman Pascal (who will also be teaching in this course). Pascal and I discuss his “Metaphysics of Adjacency” (MoA) and its potential interrelations to Hegel’s Science of Logic (SoL).

Pascal’s MoA and Hegel’s SoL have a strange but potentially interesting relationship. The MoA recognises a widespread shift to a (paradoxical) “post-metaphysical era”, represented by the general disbelief in an Absolute One or an Essential Unity as the ultimate “What IS.” In contrast to a human society fused to an Absolute One or Essential Unity, MoA opts for focusing on “what is” as a practical or pragmatic reality, but also as a mediation of “closeness” (as opposed to fusion). For Pascal, the mediation of this “closeness” is to give “ontological dignity” to a society that can more maturely cultivate empathy in a post-metaphysical age. For Pascal, the interesting dimensions of our life are not found when our “hands” are tightly clasped together, nor when they are totally separated, but rather when they are held at a certain “closeness” that generates an “amplified sensitivity.” In this metaphor, we are asked to think not an Absolute One, nor a Separated Two, but rather a One in Two, or a Two as One. Here we recognise that everything we hold dear in life, everything meaningful, is actually lost when we are unable to navigate these close or highly sensitive spaces (like, for example, between Man and Woman, Father and Son, Teacher and Student).¹

SoL starts with a similar recognition, namely, that the emergence of Newtonian Science has killed classical or ancient metaphysics, and its fusion with an Absolute One or Essential Unity. For Hegel, the zeitgeist of our time was structured by the twin forces of a scientific materialism and a social pragmatism.² However, Hegel also posited that this was a mistake, and that, just as “man cannot live by bread alone,” one might also say that “man cannot live on science and pragmatism alone.” From this position, Hegel introduces his basic claim that in the death of metaphysics, we have forgotten that metaphysics is logic. Funny enough, Hegel recognises that logic had not faired much better than metaphysics in the age of scientific materialism and social pragmatism. Logic was still taught in schools, but its inner content, the spiritual life of its content, our psyches, had died. Moreover, its basic form, had remained unchanged for 2,000 years (Aristotle’s pre-modern, pre-scientific logic). Hegel thought that such a situation called for a Science of Logic, so that our forms of knowing in the sciences, could be complemented, with a logic that gave new spiritual life, where the form of logic was capable of helping us process the content of our time.

What is this science of logic? In its most basic formulation it is a form of logic that does not simply present being as a self-identical Absolute One, but conceives of the One as possessing a paradoxical identity. To formulate this understanding, Hegel traces back logic to its roots in the presuppositions of the “first philosopher,” Parmenides, where “Being” is conceived as “One” and “Non-Being” or “Nothing,” is conceived as, well, nothing. Thus, as opposed to starting from other philosophical figures, like Heraclitus’ and his notion of becoming, or the Buddha, and his notion of nothing (the void), Hegel seeks to bring out the historicity of the concept of the first philosopher (which grounds logic). Hegel claims that Being and Nothing are a unity. If one thinks about this for a moment, it is easy to recognise that this unity is a strange unity, or a weird one. Moreover, to understand this strange unity or weird one, one (as a being) has to be close to the other (nothing, since in reality: being-nothing are unified). If your being represses or forecloses nothing, it is only a matter of time before nothing, comes up in you, as a being (and vice versa). Ultimately, when we are capable of thinking the closeness or the weird one of being-nothing, we find the key to real becoming, or the dimension that, for Hegel, opens up the truth of essence (our most intimate nature) and concept (our capacity to reflexive ethical action).

When framed in this way, there appears to be a great conversation between Pascal’s MoA, with its emphasis on the sensitive spaces of closeness, where Two must be prevented from collapsing into One, and One must self-distance to hold the Two.³ For Hegel, this One in Two, or Two in One, is the unity of being-nothing opening thought to the truth of becoming. To think this dimension of becoming, was not only the goal of my first discussion with Layman, but is also one of our major tasks in the Science of Logic course. If you want to learn more, visit Philosophy Portal. Our next course on the Science of Logic starts January 16th 2023 (pre-course sessions are also being offered), and features lectures from not only myself and Layman Pascal, but also philosopher Daniel Garner (of O.G. Rose), musician Alexander Ebert (also known as Bad Guru), computer scientist Thomas Hamelryck and quantum physicist William Rupush. Together, we hope to demonstrate the ways in which Hegel’s Science of Logic speaks to our present in a way that we can rethink everyday life, creativity, technology, and science.

1. Note that philosopher Alain Badiou’s number for Love is not One but Two, and that philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s posits that the number for Hegelian philosophy is not Three but a Two produced by the self-distancing of the One (as opposed to fusion), what he has called a “Weird One.”

2. Two forces that have certainly continued to dominate the zeitgeist of the centuries after his death: how many philosophies are basically structured under a combination of scientific materialism and social pragmatism?

3. Again, this dimension seems crucial to understand the becoming of Love.