Totality

Hegel (throughout, systematic principle)

Totality is the organic whole in which every moment is mediated through all the others. It is not a sum (external completeness), but a living unity. Totality contains all determinations, but not as a dead list --- rather as a self-developing system. Example: the organism as a totality (every organ functions only within the whole). Logically: the complete ground as the totality of its conditions. System as the totality of the categories. "The true is the whole" --- but the whole is processual, not static.

Origin

Latin *totalitas* (wholeness). Aristotle: *to holon* (the whole) is more than the sum of its parts. Spinoza: substance as absolute totality. Kant: totality of conditions in the antinomy. Hegel: totality as a living, self-developing whole.

In Hegel

*Enc.* §146 (Ground); (throughout)

Cross-references

System · Ganzheit · Substance · Absolut · Method · Kreis