Chapter I. The Phenomenology of Force
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
In his Phenomenology of the Mind Hegel analyzes the concept of force in part III, titled Force and Understanding - the World of Appearance and the Supersensible World. For starters, he considers force precisely as a concept belonging to reason. On this level, the unfolding of matter proceeds over several stages, i.e. through motion, which is what "is called force". In other words, it is moving matter that is force. But it possesses two aspects: firstly, the force of spreading of independent matters in their being is its external manifestation. Secondly, force as disappearance-ability (Verschwundensein) is a force pushed from its external manifestation back into itself, or force in the proper sense. In fact both forces are one and the same, since the force that was pushed away must manifest itself, and the manifested force in exactly the same way is within itself the real force. But this distinction for the purpose of maintaining unity avails only in thought, i.e. as the concept of force (what Hegel calls "being for another"), not the reality of it. In order to cognize this reality, one should free force from thought, find out what it is in essence "in itself and for itself" on the substantive level. Hegel answers this question in the following fashion:
There is a difference between the concept of "force pushed back into itself" and "the unfolding of independent matters", since the latter possess "stable existence". In other words: there would have been no force had it not existed in this opposed fashion. Hegel means that the concept and the substance are independent. At the same time the perceiving and the perceived are one, they are indistinguishable, and each side is "reflected into itself, or it is for itself." Therefore, both sides are aspects of force.
But the second force possesses object form, being in motion as the milieu of unfolded matters. In this capacity, it acts as the inciting source toward that force which is being incited. Here is where the most interesting stuff begins: to Hegel, these are not interrelations based on the principle of cause and effect. He writes: "As a result, this distinction, which took place between one force regarded as inciting and the other as incited, turns also into one and the same reciprocal interchange of characteristics." That is, the conceptual and the substantive side of the aspects are mutually reversible, since "They have thus, in point of fact, no substances of their own which could support and maintain them. … The true nature of force thus remains merely the thought or idea of force." And later: "The notion of force rather maintains itself as the essence in its very actuality: force when actual exists wholly and only in its expression; and this, at the same time, is nothing else than a process of canceling itself."
It follows from this that to Hegel, concepts are more real than reality itself. His entire philosophy is built on this attitude. Nonetheless, in his later work Science of Logic Hegel offers a somewhat different interpretation of force, with its precondition being the material substance itself, albeit in a very nebulous form. In Book Two (The Doctrine of Essence), in Part Two (Appearance), in Chapter Three (The Essential Relations) Hegel analyzes the concept of force which he needs to bring alive "the whole and the part". Let us see how Hegel's force "comes alive", and what it originates from.
Hegel postulates force as a negative unity in the definition of immediate being, i.e. as an existing something. But inasmuch as it is reflected, it belongs to "the existing thing, or to matter". But force is not a form of this thing, i.e. the thing is not defined by force; the thing is indifferent to it. In other words, the thing does not possess some sort of force. On the contrary, as a side posited in its essence has the thing as its pre-condition, i.e. force is tied externally to the thing, or to matter, and is inserted into it by some outside might. At this stage it is still dead, or it does not yet manifest itself; it is "the resting definiteness of the thing," which in that age was often called matter (for example, magnetic, electric and other matters). As matter, it is not active. But, on the other hand, force contains in itself immediate existence as an aspect, i.e. contains it in itself not as an existing thing. It is "negative unity reflected into itself" (ibid.). Therefore, the thing here has no importance to it. As for its existence, force declares it only through manifestation (Äusserlichkeit).
It may appear at first glance that Hegel here separated force from thing, same as in Phenomenology of the Spirit, enabling them to exist in parallel. In actual fact, he described their relations in dialectic form, through reflection. Even though force is "the real immediacy", the latter is "an existing something", and this "something" manifests itself as the former. Only in pushing away from this "former” does it acquire its own meaning, reaching certain independence, when it no longer needs the thing. It is approximately the same as the relation between brain and thought. The brain is something, thought is a moment. The brain gives birth to thought, thought is reflected in the brain. That is, thought has as its precondition the brain (though not only that; but this topic will be discussed in a separate chapter). Note: it is not every brain that gives birth to thought, but not one thought emerges without a brain.
In other words, even in the initial stage of defining the something-force Hegel does not become detached from matter. It is a different subject when he says: "Nor is it, therefore, merely a determinate matter; such self-subsistence has long since passed over into positedness and Appearance."
So how does force manifest itself? Through the resolution of contradictions, naturally, since force is the identity of positive reflection and the reflection that is subject to negation. "Force is thus the self-repelling contradiction; it is active."
To repeat: Force as an aspect is a negative unity, or a substantial inside-itself-being, and it is different from immediate existence. Its unity will mean the transition of the former into the latter. And then "force as the determination of the reflected unity of the whole, is posited as becoming existent external manifoldness from out of itself."
In this stage, though, "force is at first only an activity in principle [ansichseinde Tätigkeit], an immediate activity." But this is not quite activity, but merely a pre-positing action, relating to itself. There is need of another force that yet lies "beyond its positing activity," that would incite it.
At first glance, this seems to mean that another, external force makes its appearance. In fact, though, it is merely a reflection of the own aspect in its own unity. In other words, this external force is in fact its own pre-positing activity. Or, in Hegel's words, "The conditionedness through another force is thus in itself the act of force itself, or force is in so far at first an act of presupposition, a merely negatively self-relating act." But since pre-supposition of action also means reflection in itself, i.e. the resolution of its negation, it reveals itself as an external force, and this comes to pass in the guise of a push (Anstoss) for another force. Thus transpires the discovery of force, i.e. that what had made it external. "Thus force, in its Notion, is at first determined as self-sublating identity, and in its reality one of the two forces is determined as soliciting and the other as being solicited." As a result, the force in-itself-being transited, or, rather, "transformed (othered)" itself into a force of "being-for-another". What transpired is other-establishment, i.e. its discovery in real being. The essence is precisely this: "the activity of force consists in expressing itself." Note: the push through which it is incited to being "is its own soliciting."
Let us now summarize Hegel's principal ideas about force:
First of all, force is an aspect of the existing being. Being is the thing, or matter. The thing is a condition of force's manifestation. That is, thing and force are not equal, not identical.
Manifestation of force takes place as consequence of an internal contradiction that is resolved in the interaction of the inciting and the incited forces. Therefore, the source of motion is in itself, hence, it is active and acting.
In other words, force is not a thing, but the thing is its condition as the moment of being-for-itself. It is internally contradictory, and in the interaction of reflections of different types, some of which are forces in themselves (the so-called external forces), force reveals itself in the other-being, i.e. in the real world. In Hegel's variant force can thus be defined as an aspect of being that reveals itself in interaction with another force.
It should be emphasized here that all phases of its development take place on the conceptual-logical level, i.e. force is an aspect of the conceptual being, not the real being; the latter is merely a condition, or pre-supposition. Therefore, as Hegel stressed many times, the source of force's development is force itself, or, more exactly, the logical operations involved in the understanding of force, but not the thing, not the matter. Here we have that very case of which Marx said: Hegel has the entire construction standing on its head. All that remains is to set it on its feet, and then the logical operations used by Hegel in his reflections on force may be used fruitfully in further concretization of the concept of force in different material substances.
Force and violence. Since we will need subsequently in one way or another to make use of the concept of "violence", we must consider Hegel's understanding of this phenomenon.
Hegel wrote in the chapter on force that in the ante-manifested state (when force is as if hiding in the thing-in-itself) its behavior is passive. In Book 2, Section 3 - Action and Reaction - he analyzes the concept of "violence" that is experienced by "the passive substance": "Violence is the manifestation of power, or power as external. ….the act of violence is equally an act of power." The further course of his reasoning runs like this: "the passive is the self-subsistent that is only something posited, something that is broken within itself." Hence, "therefore not only is it possible to do violence to that which suffers it, but also violence must be done to it." This gives violence the opportunity to discover its might and at the same time to let the passive substance manifest its existence. At that, it is the cause of violence, since if it had not been a passive substance, it would not have been an object of violence, and in that it would not have been revealed.
This approach to violence will subsequently prove to us quite fruitful. It boils down to this: firstly, violence is a phenomenon of might, but not might itself (or might as something external); secondly, the passive substance in conformity with law demands that violence be inflicted on itself. Thirdly - finally - the passive substance is the source of violence.
(Philosophical-sociological Essay)