Editing Science of Logic (section)

==Hegel's general concept of logic==
According to Hegel, logic is the form taken by the science of thinking in general. He thought that, as it had hitherto been practiced, this science demanded a total and radical reformulation "from a higher standpoint." At the end of the preface he wrote that "Logic is the thinking of God". His stated goal with ''The Science of Logic'' was to overcome what he perceived to be a common flaw running through all other former systems of logic, namely that they all presupposed a complete separation between the ''content'' of cognition (the world of objects, held to be entirely independent of thought for their existence), and the ''form'' of cognition (the thoughts about these objects, which by themselves are pliable, indeterminate and entirely dependent upon their conformity to the world of objects to be thought of as in any way true). This unbridgeable gap found within the science of reason was, in his view, a carryover from everyday, phenomenal, ''un''philosophical consciousness.<ref>{{harvp|Hegel|1969|loc=[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hlintro.htm#HL1_43 §35–§41]}}</ref>

The task of extinguishing this opposition within consciousness Hegel believed he had already accomplished in his book ''[[Phenomenology of Spirit|Phänomenologie des Geistes]]'' (1807) with the final attainment of Absolute Knowing: "Absolute knowing is the ''truth'' of every mode of consciousness because ... it is only in absolute knowing that the separation of the ''object'' from the ''certainty of itself'' is completely eliminated: truth is now equated with certainty and certainty with truth."<ref>{{harvp|Hegel|1969|loc=[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hlintro.htm#HL1_43 §51]}}</ref> Once thus liberated from duality, the science of thinking no longer requires an object or a matter outside of itself to act as a touchstone for its truth, but rather takes the form of its own self-mediated exposition and development which eventually comprises within itself every possible mode of rational thinking. "It can therefore be said," says Hegel, "that this content is the exposition of God as he is in his eternal essence before the creation of nature and a finite mind."<ref>{{harvp|Hegel|1969|loc=[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hlintro.htm#HL1_43 §50–§53]}}</ref> The German word Hegel employed to denote this post-dualist form of consciousness was ''Begriff'' (traditionally translated either as Concept or Notion).