One Principle and Three Propositions

One Principle¶

• “Every systematic classification of the sciences must proceed from one principle that can only be the essence of science itself. Though this axiom is indubitable, it has often been neglected.”
• “In order to grasp the idea of knowledge, it is necessary to abstract completely from everything objective…every act of knowing contains two elements: the act itself, and that to which the act is directed, or the intention and that which is intended. “
• “If we refer to the act by which consciousness directs itself at something for the sake of grasping it objectively as “thought,”…
• .…”and if we refer to that which the act is directed, as “being, we have distinguished thought and being as the two basic elements of knowledge.
• Therefore the one principle is established.

Three Fundamental Propositions¶

1. Thought posits Being as that which is comprehended or conceived, as that which is determined by thought.(Principle of absolute Thought)
2. Thought seeks Being as that which is strange and incomprehensible, as that which resists thought. (Principle of absolute Being).
3. Thought is present to itself in the act of thought; it is directed toward itself and thus makes itself an existent. (Principle of Spirit)

Commentary on the Three Fundamental Propositions¶

1. Being is thought-determination (the principle of absolute thought)
   • “Thought attempts to absorb every object…Thus thought dissolves the whole of reality into a network of determinations, until all being is captured in the unity of thought and therefore being is itself dissolved in thought.”
2. Being contradicts thought (the principle of absolute being)
   • “Every act of thought, every instance of consciousness, even the entire conscious process of life, contains this conflict between the unity and the strangeness of the basic elements of knowledge.”
3. Thought is itself being (the principle of spirit)
   • “To these propositions, however, we must add a third: namely, the remarkable fact that thought is directed not only toward being, but also toward itself…Thought becomes a part of existence. If we ask where this existing thought is found, we can only answer: in the "interior" of the conscious being, and for humans, above all, in the spiritual life of humanity.”