Hegel and What is Actual

Abstract

This article consists of three chapters in a work on Hegel's Science of Logic. The three chapters cover Hegel's analysis of actuality. What is actual for Hegel is that things pass away. Everything else is an illusory being or an appearance. When an appearance of essence shows itself to be finite and false, it passes away and becomes actual, since its destiny is to pass away. This leads directly to Hegel's theory of subjectivity. For Hegel, substance is subject. And what is subject is the continuance of being across the process of the disappearance or dissolution of appearances.

Keywords: Hegel, metaphysics, actuality, subjectivity