Hegel and Schelling 1801

The Critical Journal of Philosophy

Introduction on The Essence of Philosophical Criticism Generally, and its
Relationship to the Present State of Philosophy in Particular

First Published: Kritisches Journal der Philosophie, 1, no. 1 (1802) iii-xxiv;

Translated: by H S Harris.

IN WHATEVER DOMAIN OF ART or [speculative] science it is employed, criticism requires a

standard which is just as independent of the person who makes the judgment as it is of the thing that
is judged – a standard derived neither from the singular [i.e. the immediate occasion for critical
judgment] nor from the specific character of the [judging] subject, but from the eternal and
unchangeable model [Urbild] of what really is [die Sache selbst]. Just as the idea of fine art is not
first created or discovered by art criticism, but is purely and simply presupposed by it, so too in
philosophical criticism the Idea of philosophy is itself the precondition and presupposition without
which it would only be able to set one subjective view against another for ever and ever, and never
set the Absolute against the conditioned.
What distinguishes philosophical criticism from art criticism is not the judgment of the capacity for
objectivity that is expressed in a [philosophical] work, but rather just the object [of criticism]; [in
other words] the Idea itself that is basic to the criticism, and which cannot be anything other than
the Idea of philosophy itself. As far as the capacity for objectivity is concerned, philosophical
criticism involves the same claims to universal validity that art criticism does. So anyone who
wants to deny objectivity of judgment in philosophy in spite of that, must claim not merely the
possibility of distinct forms of one and the same Idea, but the possibility of essentially distinct yet
equally true philosophies – a view of the matter [Vorstellung] which properly deserves no
consideration, for all its immense comfortableness. The fact that philosophy is but one, and can
only be one, rests on the fact that Reason is but one; and just as there cannot be distinct Reasons, so
too a wall cannot be set up between Reason and its self-cognition, through which its self-cognition
could become essentially distinguishable from its appearance. For Reason absolutely considered,
and Reason when it becomes object for itself in its self-cognition (and hence philosophy) is again
just one and the same thing, and therefore completely equal.
The ground of a distinction within philosophy itself cannot lie in its essence, which is strictly one,
any more than it can be based on the inequality of the capacity to shape [gestalten] the Idea of
philosophy objectively. For the fact is that in the philosophical perspective the Idea itself is all that
counts, while the capacity to set it forth that comes additionally with its possession, makes only
another side of philosophy, and one that is not peculiar to it. Therefore, once philosophy is defined
as a cognition of the Absolute) the possibility of infinitely many distinct reflections, such that each
has an equal right to maintain itself against the others, each of them being essentially distinct from
the others, could only result from thinking of the Absolute (whether as God or in some other aspect
as Nature) as fixed in immovable and absolute opposition to cognition as subjective.
But even upon this view the distinction would have to suspend and ameliorate itself. For since
cognition is here represented as something formal, it is thought of as completely passive in its
relationship to the object; and it is required of the subject that is to be capable of this reception of
the divinity, or of the purely objective intuition of nature, that it should close itself quite generally
against every other relationship to any limiting factor at all, and restrain itself from any activity of
its own, since that would upset the purity of the reception. Through this passivity of intake, and the
equality of the object [in all such pure intuitions] what is represented as result, would have to be just
the cognition of the Absolute, and a philosophy that sprang from this root must again be simply
unique and in every respect the same.
It is because the truth of Reason is but one, like beauty, that criticism as objective judgment is
possible in principle, and it follows evidently that it only makes sense for those who have the Idea
of the one identical philosophy present to their minds; and by the same token it can only be
concerned with those works in which this Idea is expressed more or less clearly for cognition. The
effort of criticism is entirely wasted on the people and the works that are deprived of the Idea. In the
absence of the Idea criticism gets into the gravest difficulty, for if all criticism is subsumption under
the Idea, then all criticism must necessarily cease where the Idea is lacking, and it can have no other
direct relationship [to that with which it is concerned] than that of repudiation. But in this
repudiation it ruptures altogether every connection between that wherein the Idea of philosophy is
lacking, and that in whose service criticism exists. Since reciprocal recognition is in this way
suspended, what appears is only two subjectivities in opposition; things that have nothing in
common with one another come on stage with equal right for that very reason; and in declaring that
what is before it to be judged is anything else one likes, – which is tantamount to declaring it to be
nothing at all, since philosophy is all that it aims to be – criticism transposes itself into a subjective
situation and its verdict appears as a one-sided decision by violence. Since its activity ought to be
objective, this situation directly contradicts its essence; its judgment is an appeal to the Idea of
philosophy but since this Idea is not recognized by the adverse party, it is only a foreign court of
judgment for him. There is no immediate escape from this relationship of criticism, which cuts
unphilosophy off from philosophy – criticism must stand on the one side and have unphilosophy on
the opposite side. Since unphilosophy takes up a negative attitude to philosophy, and hence there
can be no question of discussing it as philosophy, there is nothing to be done but recount how this
negative side expresses itself and confesses its non-being (which in as much as it has a phenomenal
aspect is called platitude), and since what is nothing to begin with, must unfailingly appear ever
mote clearly a; nothing in its development, until it can be recognized [erkannt] as such by virtually
everyone, through this completely executed construction [of evident nullity] from the primal nullity.
Criticism is reconciled once more with the incapacity [of the cultured public] which could see
nothing in the original verdict [of the philosophical critic] but self-satisfied personal bias and
caprice.
On the other hand, where the Idea of philosophy is actually present, there it is the concern of
criticism to interpret the way and the degree in which it emerges free and clear, and the range within
which it has been elaborated into a scientific system of philosophy.
As for this last point, if the pure Idea of philosophy is expressed with spirit, but naively and without
scientific range – if it does not arrive at the objectivity of a systematic consciousness -we must still
greet it with joy and delight; it is the mark of a beautiful soul, whose inertia guards it against falling
into the original sin of thinking, but which also lacks the courage to hurl itself into that sin and to
follow the path of its guilt, till the guilt is dissolved – and so it has not arrived at the intuition of
itself in an objective whole of science. The empty form of such spirits, however – those who aim to
give the heart and essence of philosophy in short formulas without [living] spirit – this form has no
scientific significance, and has no other interest either.
But when the Idea of philosophy becomes more scientific it must be carefully distinguished from
the individuality which will express its character without harm to the identity of the Idea of
philosophy or to the purely objective exposition of it – the subjectivity or limitedness, that gets
mingled in the exposition of the Idea of philosophy. Criticism has to apply itself especially to the
way that philosophy looks when masked by this subjectivity – it must tear the mask off.
When it is shown to be the case that the Idea of philosophy is actually before the mind, then
criticism can cleave to the requirement and to the need that is expressed, to the objective factor in
which the need seeks its satisfaction, and can lay aside the limitedness of the shape through its own
genuine tendency toward perfect objectivity.
But in this connection two cases are possible. In the first case consciousness has not properly
developed beyond subjectivity.
Idea of philosophy has not risen to the clarity of free intuition, but stays hidden in a dark
background, partly, perhaps, because some forms in which it finds itself largely expressed, forms
which possess great authority, still hinder the breakthrough to pure formlessness, or to be the
highest form (which is the same thing). Even when criticism cannot allow the work and the deed to
be valid as a shape of the idea, it will not ignore the striving [toward that]; the genuinely scientific
concern here is to peel off the shell that keeps the inner aspiration from seeing daylight; it is
important to be aware of the manifoldness of the reflections of the spirit, each of which must have
its place in philosophy, as well as being aware of their subordinate status and their defects.
In the second case it is evident that the Idea of philosophy has been more clearly cognized, but that
subjectivity has striven to ward off philosophy in so far as this is necessary for its own preservation:
Here what matters is not to set the Idea of philosophy off in relief, but to uncover the nooks and
crannies that subjectivity makes use of in order to escape from philosophy, and to make the
weakness, for which any limitation offers a secure foothold, visible both on its own account [für
sich] and with respect to the Idea of philosophy qua associated with a subjectivity; for the true
energy [i.e., actualization] of the Idea is incompatible with subjectivity.
But there is still another way of proceeding upon which criticism must especially fasten; the one
that gives itself out to be in possession of philosophy, which uses the forms and vocabulary in
which great philosophical systems are expressed, goes in for lengthy debates, but is at bottom only
an empty fog of words without inner content. This sort of chatter, though lacking the Idea of
philosophy, gains for itself a kind of authority through its very prolixity and arrogance. Partly this is
because it seems almost incredible that such a big shell should be without a kernel, and partly
because the emptiness is in its way universally understandable. Since there is nothing more
sickening than this transformation of the seriousness of philosophy into platitude, criticism must
summon up all its forces to ward off this disaster.
These distinct forms [of philosophy and unphilosophy] are in general more or less dominant in the
German philosophy of the present time to which this Critical Journal is addressed. But they [the
forms] have the further peculiarity that every philosophical enterprise takes on the aspect of a
science and the dimensions of a system, or at the very least takes its stand as the absolute principle
of philosophy as a whole. Through the work of Kant, and still more through that of Fichte, the Idea
of a science, and particularly of philosophy as a science, has been established. Philosophizing
piecemeal [das einzelne Philosophieren] has lost all credit, and the possibility of counting for
something as a philosopher through a variety of philosophical thoughts upon this or that topic,
published perhaps in scholastic treatises, no longer exists. As a result a multitude of systems and
principles is arising which gives that part of the public which does philosophy a certain outward
similarity to the state of philosophy in Greece, where every prominent philosophical mind
elaborated the Idea of philosophy in his own individual way. At the same time philosophical
freedom – emancipation from authority and independence of thought – seems to have reached such
a pitch with us, that it would be considered disgraceful to call oneself a philosopher after the fashion
of a school that already exists; opinion has it that thinking for oneself can only proclaim its presence
through originality – the invention of a system that is entirely novel and one’s own.
When the inner life of philosophy comes to birth in an outward shape, it necessarily endows that
shape with something of the form of its own peculiar organization; by so much is the original aspect
of genius distinct from the particularity which takes itself for, and gives itself out to be, originality.
For this particularity, upon closer examination, really keeps firmly to the common highway of
culture, and can never boast of having arrived at the pure Idea of philosophy by leaving it; for if it
had grasped this Idea, it would know [erkennen] it again in other philosophical systems, and ipso
facto it would then be unable to label itself with the name of a personal philosophy, even though it
must of course, preserve its own living form. What the particular originality has created of its own
upon that highway, is a particular form of reflection, seized upon from some singular, and hence
subordinate, standpoint. This is easy enough to do in an era that has cultivated the understanding in
so many aspects, and has, in particular, fashioned it into philosophy in so many ways. An
assemblage of such original tendencies, and of the manifold efforts after a form and system of one’s
own, offers us the spectacle of the tortures of the damned, rather than that of the free upsurge of the
most various living shapes in the philosophical gardens of Greece. Either they are for ever bound to
their own limited position; or they must seize on one position after another, marvelling unstintedly
at them all, and casting one after the other away.
As for the labour of enlarging a particularity of this kind into a system, and setting it forth as the
whole, this is a hard labour in good sooth, and the particular originality must surely come to grief
over it, for how could what is limited be capable of extending itself into a whole, without ipso facto
flying to pieces itself? The very quest for a particular principle is already committed to the goal of
possessing something of one’s own, something that satisfies one’s self alone, and renounces any
pretension to the objectivity of knowledge or to its totality. And yet the whole is, more or less,
present in objective form, at least as raw material, as a mass of knowledge; it is hard to do it
violence and to follow the thread right through it consistently with one’s own peculiar concept; but
at the same time, given that it [the whole] is indeed there, one is never permitted to stage it
approvingly without coherence [with one’s principle]; the cleverest way, it seems, is not to bother
oneself on that account, and to set up one’s own peculiar principle as the only thing that matters,
leaving the rest of knowledge to bother itself about its coherence with the principle. It seems, of
course, that this is a lower task altogether; to give to the basic principle its objective scientific
range. But if, on the one hand, this range is not to be lacking, and on the other hand, one wants to
spare oneself the effort of bringing the manifold array of knowledge into coherence with itself and
with the limitedness of the principle, the way of proceeding that unites both of these requirements is
that of “provisional” philosophizing, i.e., that which sums up what is present not in terms of the
needs of a system of knowledge, but on the following ground: that it seems that what is present can
have its use then too – to exercise our heads, for why else should it be there?
In this respect the Critical Philosophy has performed an exceptionally important service. To wit, it
has been proved therein – to express the matter in its own words – that the concepts of the
Understanding only have their application in experience, that Reason as cognitive through its
theoretical Ideas only involves itself in contradictions, and that its object must be given to
knowledge generally by sensibility. All this is useful for getting us to renounce Reason in
[philosophic] science, and give ourselves over to the most crass empiricism. The crudest concepts
dragged into experience, and an intuition polluted by the rudest offspring of a spiritless reflection,
have been given out as “inner and outer experience” and “actual facts of consciousness.”
Everything has been tumbled together under this heading upon an assurance received from
anywhere, that it does occur in consciousness; and all this comes to pass by appeal to the Critical
Philosophy, which has proved that experience and perception are necessary for cognition, and
which allows Reason no constitutive relationship to knowledge, but only a regulative one. Apart
from the fact that unphilosophy and anti-science [Unwissenschaftlichkeit], which philosophy used
to regard with easy contempt, have taken on a philosophical form for their justification, the Critical
Philosophy has in this way brought about even greater benefits; to wit, it has reconciled healthy
common sense, and every limited consciousness, with philosophy – along with their finest blooms,
which are at times called the highest moral interests of humanity.
But if subjectivity, without regard for the further difficulty which it faces in setting itself forth as a
system, because the Critical Philosophy has now made at least one great range of finite forms
suspect or unusable, – if it is afflicted with insight into its limitedness, and by a kind of bad
conscience, and is ashamed to set itself up as absolute, how can it be preserved and made valid in
spite of its own better knowledge and the Idea of Philosophy that floats before its mind? In the first
place, we must start with a form that is recognized as finite. It must represent nothing but what is, to
all appearances, an arbitrary starting point, worth nothing indeed upon its own account, but it has to
be granted for the moment because its utility will become evident soon enough. It is granted for the
time being, on request, in a provisory, problematic hypothetical way, without any special
pretensions; it will soon legitimate itself later on. – If we once arrive at what is true having started
from it, our gratitude for the sign post will recognize [erkennen] that arbitrary starting point as a
necessary one, and see that it has been verified. However the true needs no leading reins to guide us
to it; but must bear within itself the power to step forth on its own account; and the limited [starting
point] is itself recognized here for just what it is, that is to say it does not have the stuff of its own
subsistence in it, but is understood to be only something hypothetical and problematic, even though
in the end it is due to be verified as a veritably true [being]. It is evident therefore that the salvation
of finitude was the principal concern. But what is not supposed to be hypothetical later on, cannot
be hypothetical in the beginning I either; or else what is hypothetical at the beginning cannot
become categorical later on. It might, of course, come forward as absolute straight away, but since it
is, quite rightly, too timid for that, we need a roundabout way to sneak the Absolute in.
Making out that a finite starting point of this kind is a hypothesis for the time being only introduces
one more deception. For the starter comes on stage pretending to have no pretensions: whether he
comes forward modestly as a hypothetical [being] or right away as self-certain, both starts lead to
the same result: that the finite is preserved as what it is in its separateness, and the Absolute remains
an Idea, a Beyond – in other words, it is afflicted with a finitude.
The certain starting point, which is taken up in its immediate consciousness in order that it may be
certain, seems through its immediate certainty to make up for what it lacks by reason of its finitude;
and pure self-consciousness is just such a certainty since, qua starting point, it is posited as a pure
[consciousness] in immediate opposition to the empirical [consciousness]. In and for itself the
concern of philosophy cannot be with finite certainties of this kind. A philosophy which, in order to
anchor itself to a certainty, begins from the most universally valid statements or activities ready at
hand for every human understanding, is either doing something superfluous, since it must still
transcend this limitation, and suspend it, in order to be philosophy at all (and ordinary common
sense, which must thereby be led astray will take good note when its sphere is abandoned, and one
wants to lead it into self-transcendence); or else, if this finite certainty is not to be suspended as
such, but is to abide and subsist as something fixed, then it must, of course, recognize its finitude,
and require infinity. However, the infinite then comes on the scene precisely and only as a
requirement, as something thought of, only as an Idea. For although it is the necessary and
comprehensive, all-inclusive, Idea of Reason, it is still, ipso facto, one-sided, since the Idea itself
and that which thinks it [or: that which it thinks] (or whatever else the determinate was from which
the start was made) are posited separately. In this type of salvation for the limited the Absolute is
exalted into the supreme Idea, but not at the same time into the unique being, so that the antithesis
[of thought and being] remains dominant and absolute throughout the whole system of philosophy,
since this is the point from which the science of philosophy first begins: To a certain extent these
salvation programmes are what typifies our own recent philosophical culture: and almost everything
that has been accepted as philosophy in our day falls within the scope of this concept. Even the
highest manifestation of philosophy of the last generation has not overcome the fixed polarity of
inner and outer, of here [in the sensible world] and yonder [in the noumenal one]. It allows two
opposed philosophies to stand: one in which we can only approach towards the knowledge of the
Absolute, and another which is within the Absolute itself – though this latter is, to be sure, only
established under the tide of faith. In this way the antithesis of dualism is given its most abstract
expression and so philosophy is not led forth from the sphere of our reflective culture
[Reflexionskultur]. As a result the most abstract form of the antithesis is of the greatest importance;
and from this most acute extreme, the transition to genuine philosophy is all the easier. For the very
idea of the Absolute that is set up itself rejects the antithesis, because the antithesis carries with it
the form of an Idea, of an Ought, of an infinite requirement. We must not overlook how much the
study of philosophy has profited from the manifold elaboration that antithesis in general has
undergone – the antithesis which every philosophy aims to overcome – because a later philosophy
was directed against the form of the antithesis that was dominant in an earlier one, and overcame it,
even though the later philosophy fell back again, all unwittingly, into another form of antithesis; but
at the same time we must also not overlook the variety of forms that the antithesis can assume.
On the other hand, there is a prevalent manner of proceeding that has only unprofitable aspects: to
wit, that which is at pains to make philosophical ideas popular, or more precisely, common, as soon
as they appear on stage. Philosophy is, by its very nature, something esoteric, neither made for the
vulgar as it stands [für sich], nor capable of being got up to suit the vulgar taste; it only is
philosophy in virtue of being directly opposed to the understanding and hence even more opposed
to healthy common sense, under which label we understand the limitedness in space and time of a
race of men; in its relationship to common sense the world of philosophy is in and for itself an
inverted world .21 When Alexander, having heard that his teacher was publishing written essays on
his philosophy, wrote to him from the heart of Asia that he ought not to have vulgarized the
philosophizing they had done together, Aristotle defended himself by saying that his philosophy
was published and yet also not published. In the same way philosophy [now] must certainly admit
[erkennen] the possibility that the people can rise to it, but it must not lower itself to the people. But
in these times of freedom and equality, in which such a large educated public has been formed, that
will not allow anything to be shut away from it, but considers itself good for anything – or
everything good enough for it – in these times even the highest beauty and the greatest good have
not been able to escape the fate of being mishandled by the common mob which cannot rise to what
it sees floating above it, until it has been made common enough to be fit for their possessing; so that
vulgarization has forced its way into being recognized as a meritorious kind of labour. There is no
aspect of the higher striving of the human spirit that has not experienced this fate. An Idea, in art or
in philosophy, needs only to be glimpsed in order for the processing to start by which it is properly
stirred up into material for the pulpit, for text books, and for the household use of the newspaper
public. Leibniz partly undertook these labours for his philosophy himself, in his Theodicy; his
philosophy did not thereby gain a general entree, but he made a great name for himself. Nowadays,
there is a ready supply of people trained for the job. With isolated concepts, it happens
automatically; all that is necessary is to attach the concept-name to what has long been familiar in
everyday [burgerlich] life. In its origin and its realized essence [an und für sich] the Enlightenment
already expresses the vulgarity of the understanding and the vanity of its exaltation above Reason,
and there was no need to change the meaning of the concepts [Verstand and Vernunft] in order to
make them attractive and easy to grasp; but one can readily grant that the word “Ideal” carries
nowadays the general meaning of that which has no truth in it, or the word “humanity” of that
which is utterly dull. he seemingly opposite case – which is, however, just the same as this one at
bottom – occurs where the matter is “popular” already, and where popular clichés (everyday ideas),
which do not go even one step beyond the sphere of common concepts, have to be given the
outward look of philosophy by philosophical and methodical processing. just as in the first case the
assumption is made, that what is philosophical can still be “popular” at the same time, so in the
second [there is the assumption] that what is “popular” by nature, can in some way or other become
philosophic. Thus the compatibility of platitude and philosophy [is taken for granted] in both cases.
In a general way we can relate this variety of [philosophic] efforts to the spirit of unrest and
instability that is everywhere astir. This spirit is the mark of our time. After long centuries of the
toughest obstinacy, for which the casting off of an old form involved the most fearful convulsions,
it has finally brought the German spirit to the point of tying even philosophical systems into the
concept of the ever changing and the ever new; although we must not mistake this passion for
change and novelty for the indifference of play which, in its extreme insouciance, is at the same
time the most exalted and only true seriousness [Ernst]. For the restless impulse of our time goes to
work with the extreme earnestness [Ernsthaftigkeit] of limitedness [as distinct from the only true
seriousness]. Yet fate has of necessity given it a dim feeling of mistrust and a secret despair which
very soon reveals itself because the earnest limitedness is without living seriousness, so that on the
whole it cannot stake [setzen] much upon its concerns. Hence also it cannot achieve any great works
– or [only] highly ephemeral ones.
Moreover, if we wish, we can also regard this present unrest as a process of fermentation through
which the spirit strains upwards toward a new life out of the putrefaction of the deceased culture,
and springs forth again in a rejuvenated shape from under the ashes of the old. To be exact it was
against the Cartesian philosophy and the universal culture that it expresses that philosophy like
every other side of living nature had to seek a means of salvation. The Cartesian philosophy
expounded [in a philosophical form] the universally comprehensive dualism in the culture of the
recent history of our north-westerly world – a dualism of which both the quiet transformation of the
public life of men after the decline of all ancient life, and the noisy political and religious
revolutions are equally just different-coloured outward manifestations. What philosophy has done
for its salvation has been greeted with fury where it was pure and openly expressed; where it was
more covert and more mixed up [with empirical considerations], the understanding has mastered it
more easily and turned it round again into the earlier dualistic pattern [Wesen]. AU the sciences
have been founded upon this death, and the time itself has completely killed whatever was still
scientific in them, and hence at least subjectively alive. So that if it were not immediately the spirit
of philosophy itself which feels the strength of its growing wings all the more when it is submerged
and crushed together in this broad sea, the very tedium of the sciences would make the whole flat
plain unbearable – this edifice built by an understanding abandoned by Reason which at its worst
(under the borrowed title either of rational enlightenment, or of moral reason) has even ruined
theology in the end. This tedium was bound to at least arouse a yearning of the [dead] riches for a
spark of fire, for a concentration of living intuition, and, once the cognition of the dead had gone on
long enough, for that cognition of the living which is only possible through Reason.
Belief in the possibility of such an actual cognition, and not just in the negative wandering along or
the perennial springing up of new forms, is absolutely necessary if the effect to be expected from a
critique of them is to be a true one, i.e., not a merely negative destruction of these limited forms, but
one that results in a preparation of the way for the arrival of true philosophy. But in any case, even
if it can only produce the former [merely negative] effect, it is quite proper that the pretensions of
limited forms and the enjoyment of their ephemeral existence should be soured and cut short; and
he who can, may well regard [philosophical] criticism as nothing but the ever-turning wheel,
dragging down again every instant the shape that the surge had thrown up. It may be that resting
self-assured on the broad base of healthy common sense, he simply delights in this objective
spectacle of appearance and disappearance, and takes comfort and confirmation from it all the more
for his own banishment from philosophy, because by induction a priori he regards the philosophy
upon which the limited comes to grief as just another limited form. Or again, it may be that he
marvels over the coming and going of the forms in their fountain with profound sympathy and
interest, grasping it with much effort, and then watches their disappearance with a wise eye, and lets
himself drift giddily.
When criticism itself wants to maintain a one-sided point of view as valid against others that are
likewise one-sided, it becomes partisan polemic. But even the true philosophy cannot protect itself
from the outward look of polemic against unphilosophy. For, since it has nothing positive in
common with the latter, and cannot engage with it in a [positive] critique of the common ground,
only the negative activity of criticism is left – together with the construction of the inevitably
singular manifestation of unphilosophy. Moreover, since this appearance follows no rule and takes
on a different shape again in every individual, the construction of unphilosophy is the construction
of the individual in which its manifestation has occurred. Now if one group has another group
facing it in opposition, each of them is called a “Party”; but when one of them no longer even seems
to amount to anything, then the other ceases to be a party likewise. Hence, on the one hand, each
side must find it unbearable to appear merely as a party, and must not spare itself the spontaneously
appearing and disappearing semblance [of partisanship] which it acquires in the struggle, but must
enter into the battle, which [even though it creates the semblance of partisanship] is at the same
time, the emerging manifestation of the nullity of the opposed group. On the other hand, if a group
wants to save itself from the danger of the battle, and from the manifestation of its own inward
nullity, then in virtue of its declaration that the other side is only a party, it has recognized the
opposition as something [real], and has renounced for its own part the universal validity in respect
to which, what is actually [for the moment] a party, must not be a party but rather nothing at all. In
so doing it has confessed itself to be a party, i.e. to be null and void for the true philosophy.