Reciprocal Action

Hegel (logic of essence, highest form of mediation)

Reciprocal action is completed mediation: A and B mutually constitute one another (A⇄B). Each is at once cause and effect. Examples: subject and object in cognition (subject structures the object, object resists the subject), teacher and student (both learn from one another), individual and society (socialization ⇄ innovation). Reciprocal action is the truth of causality: not one-sided determination, but mutual constitution. It leads to freedom: if I determine myself through my other, and this other is my own product, I am with myself - free.

Origin

Kant: reciprocal action as the third category of relation (alongside substance/accident and causality). Fichte: mutual determination of I and not-I. Hegel completes this: reciprocal action as the self-movement of the matter itself, no longer external reflection.

In Hegel

Enz. §155-157; Science of Logic, Vol. 2, Actuality

Cross-references

Causality · Substance · Relation (Verhältnis) · Freedom · Concept · Logic of Essence · Necessity