Hegel: A Very Short Introduction

by Peter Singer

In the Logic this same method is applied to the abstract categories in which we think. Hegel starts with the most indeterminate, contentless concept of all: being, or bare existence. Pure being, he says, is pure indeterminateness and vacuity. Pure being has in it no object for thought to grasp. It is entirely empty. In fact, it is nothing. From this breathtaking beginning the dialectic of the Logic moves forward. The first thesis, being, has turned into its antithesis, nothing. Being and nothing are both opposites and the same; their truth, therefore, is this movement into and apart from each other – in other words, it is becoming.

Pure consciousness