Being-with-itself

Our systematization (terminologized from Hegel's Enc.)

Our term for the first dimension of self-relation in life — the inner organization that differentiates itself without losing its unity. The organism is with itself **through** its organs, not in spite of them. Unlike mere objectivity (for-another — a planet for the gravitational system, salt as product, tool for purpose), life is a **self-purpose**, has a relation to itself.

Origin

In Hegel, "being-with-itself" occurs only four times in the Encyclopedia (§11, §12, §23, §83), there to characterize the **movement of thought**: the "developed being-with-itself" is the return of the concept to itself (§83). We terminologize this as a systematic designation of the first form of living self-relation.

In Hegel

Enc. §11, §12, §23, §83 (methodological); not as a category in SL

Cross-references

Being-out-of-itself · Being-for-itself · Self-relation · Life · Self-differentiation