[OPE-L:1527] Re: Marx's maths

akliman@acl.nyit.edu (akliman@acl.nyit.edu)
Wed, 20 Mar 1996 10:13:28 -0800

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If I understand Iwao (ope-l 1523), he is saying that, for Hegel, Being is
the absolute negativity of the Idea; that since Being is immediate, so is
absolute negativity; and that truth is the unification of absolute negativity
(or Being) and Idea.

I don't think this is right. Absolute negativity is 2d negativity, the
negation of the negation. The 1st, or immediate negative, is burdened with
its opposite (i.e., *relative* to it), while the 2d negative negates that
"Otherness" of the negative and makes it *self-determining*, positive,
beginning from itself (i.e., absolute).

This seems to me very clearly stated in the Asolute Idea of the Larger
_Logic_ (though of course absolute negativity has other appearances at
earlier stages of the dialectic).

As I understand it then, absolute negativity is the absolute method, which
Hegel summarizes in the Absolute Idea chapter. As such absolute negativity
must be the truth, the unification of Being and Idea, when viewed as
process.. And as method, absolute negativity is not an immediacy, but
absolute mediation.

I'm still not sure how this relates to Marx on the differential calculus.

Andrew Kliman