BULLETIN OF THE HEGEL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN

Miscellenea

Time for Hegel

Stephen Houlgate

In section 82 of Being and Time Heidegger calls Hegel's account of time 'the most radical
way in which the ordinary [or vulgar] understanding of time has been given form
conceptually' (BT 480). For Heidegger, in the vulgar conception 'the basic phenomenon
of time is seen in the "non?"; by contrast, Dasein's own 'ecstatico-horizonal temporality
temporalizes itself primarily in terms of the future* (BT 479). Hegel's problem, it seems, is
that he has no time for the future.
As Heidegger explains in his 1924 lecture on the concept of time, Dasein is futural
because it is essentially possibility — 'the possibility of its certain yet indeterminate past
(CT 12). That future pastness is, of course, Dasein's death. Dasein is thus oriented
towards the future because it is being-towards-death — the death that is certain to come,
one knows not when.
The vulgar interpretation of time represents a flight both from Dasein's death and
from its futural temporality, since it places the present at the centre of concern. Time, for
the vulgar understanding, is simply 'a sequence of "nows" which are constantly "present-
at-hand", simultaneously passing away and coming along' (BT 474). The past and future
are thus understood to be no more than the now that is no longer or is not yet. The future
in particular is hereby distorted: for it is not thought to be the certain though
indeterminate possibility in relation to which our present existence is first constituted, but
is conceived as present existence that is yet to come.
Hegel is regarded as a proponent of the vulgar conception of time because he
understands time 'primarily [...] in terms of the "now"' (BT 483). Indeed, Heidegger
claims, Hegel's account is merely a paraphrase of the first thematic presentation of the
vulgar concept of time that has come down to us, namely that contained in Aristotle's
Physics (BT 500).

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 TIME FOR HEGEL

II

In his essay, 'Ousia and Grammi in Margins of Philosophy, Derrida sets out to complicate
Heidegger's story. He agrees that the metaphysical texts of Hegel and Aristotle contain
what Heidegger calls a 'vulgar' conception of time that gives priority to the present. He
also argues, however, that both Hegel and Aristotle at the same time provide resources
for a critique of that conception — a critique that in some ways anticipates Heidegger's
own. This is because Hegel and Aristotle both conceive of time as that which is not itself
something present, but rather non-presence and non-being. Derrida also maintains,
however, that this non-vulgar conception of time is inseparable from the vulgar
conception. This is especially clear in Aristotle.
According to Aristotle, the popular view of time (which he does not seriously
challenge) reduces time to almost nothing, because it understands time's, component
parts to be the past and the future, which by definition are not present. The 'now' is not
itself a part of time, for Aristotle, but is simply the boundary between the absent past and
future. Time, therefore, is essentially non-presence and non-being. This, in Derrida's
view, is where there is a certain similarity between Aristotle and Heidegger.
Derrida notes, however, that Aristotle's non-vulgar conception of time is itself
inextricably tied to his vulgar conception. This is because Aristotle can determine time's
non-presence to be non-being, only if he already assumes that being entails presence. As
Derrida puts it, 'as soon as being and present are synonymous, to say nothingness and to
say time are the same thing' (OG 51).
Derrida ends his essay by suggesting that every conception of time must
presuppose this identity of being and presence, however non-vulgar or non-metaphysical
that conception may pretend to be. This is true of Heidegger's concept of ecstatic
temporality in Being and Time as much as any other: for in its very orientation towards the
future rather than the now, ecstatic temporality is still conceived as primordially 'present'
(albeit as not-a-thing) and as that from which Dasein 'falls' into everydayness and vulgarity
(OG 63).
Yet, although Derrida complicates Heidegger's story, he still remains a faithful
disciple of Heidegger: for in other texts he, too, claims that the concept of presence
presupposes a certain orientation to the future, to that which is to come (the a-venir).1 In
contrast to Heidegger, Derrida thinks that there can only ever be one conception of time
— dominated by the idea of presence. Nevertheless, he believes that this idea of presence
is itself always constituted by the trace of an absolute past and an absolute future (see OG
66).
More importantly for my purposes, Derrida believes (with Heidegger) that both
Hegel and Aristotle presuppose the idea of being as presence from the outset, even if he
argues (against Heidegger) that their thought of time in another respect anticipates
Heidegger's own. As Derrida puts it, in metaphysics

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 BULLETIN OF THE HEGEL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN

one already knows, even if only in the naive practice of discourse, what time must
be, what past [...] or future [...] must mean, in order to reach the conclusion of time's
bare existence or nonexistence. And past and future are thought as attenuating
affections overtaking the presence which is known to be the meaning or essence
of what is (beings). This is what will not budge from Aristotle to Hegel (OG 52;
see also p. 50).

For Derrida, time is that which is always thought 'on the basis of presence' (OG 51).
Hegel and Aristotle are no different in this regard (and nor, indeed, is Heidegger in Being
and Time). Indeed, in Derrida's view, as in Heidegger's, Hegel does nothing but make
explicit what is implicit in Aristode's idea of ousia as presence (OG pp. 51, 41).
In the rest of this paper, I want to challenge the idea that Hegel merely repeats or
paraphrases Aristode. I do not wish to challenge the view that Hegel equates being with
presence. What I do wish to maintain, however, is that, unlike Aristotle, Hegel does not
simply presuppose that being is presence, but rather argues that being is presence and time
by starting from nothing but space.

Ill

Certain differences between Hegel and Aristode are obvious. For example, Aristode
understands time from the start to be inseparable from change and movement (Pb 371),
whereas Hegel considers time in the abstract as the negativity of space. The difference
that interests me, however, is more subde. It is the difference in the way Hegel and
Aristode conceive of the relation between being and non-being or negation.
As I suggested a moment ago, Derrida notes that both Hegel and Aristode see an
intimate relation between being and non-being in time. In his view, both could be said to
conceive of time as being nothing but non-being. Aristode suggests that, if time consists of
the past and the future, on either side of the present, then it must consist in that which
itself has no share in being or ousia (Ph 370; OG 51). Similarly, Hegel declares that time is
'being which, inasmuch as it is, is not, and inasmuch as it is not, if (EN §258). This
similarity is what leads Derrida to claim that 'Hegelian dialectic is but the repetition, the
paraphrastic reedition of [Aristotle's] exoteric aporia' (OG 43).
In my view, however, Hegelian dialectic is not just a repetition of Aristode's
aporia, because Hegel introduces an idea that is foreign to Aristode: the idea that the now
or the present is self-negating or self-sublating. As Hegel puts it in the Jena Logic of 1804—5,
'the now is immediately the opposite of itself, the negating of itself (das sich Negieren)' (JL
207; see OG 41); and, as he words it in the 1830 Encyclopaedia, the now is the immediate
'vanishing [Verschwinden] of its being into nothing and of nothing into its being' (EN
§259).
But surely Aristode accepts this idea, too — implicidy, if not explicitiy. After all,
doesn't Aristode recognise that the present now ceases to be and thereby comes to be

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 TIME FOR HEGEL

what is past? (Ph 370). Of course, he does; but it is interesting to note that he shies away
from ever saying or implying that the present now actually negates itself'into a now that is
past. To the extent that Aristode conceives of the now as a negation, he focuses on the
way in which it negates or differs from other nows, not itself. For Aristode, what is of
primary concern is the fact fhat the present now is different from the now that is past
and the now that is to come (see Ph 372).
To my mind, it is clear that Aristode does not regard the present now as different
from itself. The now, he says, is 'indivisible' (Ph 376); it serves to divide time into the past
and the future, but it is not divided against itself. The now is the 'boundary' of the past
and the future (Ph 377); as such, it separates the two and belongs to neither. The present
now is thus not the past or future now, but simply the present now that it is. Yes, the
present now ceases at some point; but when that happens, it comes to be that which is no
longer the now that is present. Equally, the new now that is present is simply.not the now
that is past. Nowhere does Aristode say that the present now is not the very now that it
itself is.
As I see it, Aristotle must restrict himself to this idea that the present is simply not
the past or the future, and must avoid the claim that it is self-negating. This is because
this latter claim is clearly contradictory: it states that the present now is not, precisely in so
far as it is, and is, precisely in so far as it is not. In the Physics Aristotle makes it quite clear
that there cannot be any real contradiction in the nature of time. He maintains that the
now 'is the end of that which is past and the beginning of that which is to come', but he
insists that 'the "now" is not the beginning and the end of the same thing' (Ph 376). It
cannot be, because, 'if it were, it would be at the same time and in the same respect two
opposites' — and that is clearly not permitted by the laws of logic. Of course, the specific
contradiction that Aristotle wants to avoid is the claim that the now is in the same respect
the end and beginning of botfi the past and the future. But note that he must also avoid
another contradictory claim: namely, that the now is in the same respect both the
beginning and end of itself.
By the way, the 'aporetic' idea with which Aristotle begins — namely, that the
being of time itself consists in non-being — is not, strictly speaking, contradictory, since
the being and non-being referred to are, as it were, on two different levels. As we know
from Plato's Sophist, there need not be a fundamental contradiction in talking about that
which 'is' non-being (Soph 241 D). There is a contradiction, however, in talking about that
which is non-being in precisely the same respect in which it is being; and Aristode avoids
any such claim.
Derrida toys with the idea that Aristotle understands the now to be self-negating
or self-sublating, but it quickly becomes apparent that he sees no real idea of . ^ n e g a t i o n
in Aristode. Aristode's 'now', Derrida writes, is 'the impossibility of coexisting with itself;
but Derrida immediately qualifies this statement: 'with itself, that is, with an other self, an
other now, an other same, a double' (OG 55). The real point for Derrida's Aristotle is

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 BULLETIN OF THE HEGEL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN

thus that the now cannot coexist with any other now. What its relation to itself may be is
left unclear.
The problem, from Hegel's point of view, is that the quality of negating another is
what specifically characterises space, rather than time (EN §257 Addition). In so far as a
point is not any other point, it is simply a point in space; but in so far as that spatial point
destroys itself and so is not the very point it is, it is in time. By understanding the present
now simply as the 'boundary' or 'termination' of what is not present (namely, the past and
the future), Aristotle is thus modelling time on space and missing what is distinctive
about time as such: the immediate . ^ n e g a t i o n or negativity of the now (see Ph 377, 370).
Since Heidegger and Derrida both argue for a seamless continuity between
Aristotle and Hegel, it would appear that they do not see any great significance in Hegel's
emphasis on the self-negation of the now. Heidegger, indeed, does not initially recognise
at all that Hegel understands the now to be self-negating. The Hegelian move from space
to time, as Heidegger conceives it, occurs, not because the spatial point becomes the self-
negating now, but rather because it differentiates itself from other points. As Heidegger
puts it, the point 'posits itself for itse/f[...] [and thereby] differentiates itself from this one
and from that one: it is no longer this and not yet that'. In other words, 'the point "gives
itself airs" before all the other points' (Der Punkt 'spreisf sich auf gegeniiber alien anderen
Punkten) (23X482). To be fair to Heidegger, he does go on to note that time for Hegel is
'intuited becoming', and that this signifies 'a transition from Being to nothing or from
nothing to Being'. But, for Heidegger, the fact that Hegel understands the now to be self-
negating evidently does not distinguish his position significantly from that of Aristotle.
Derrida sees clearly from the start that Hegel is the philosopher of self-negating
being. He writes that for Hegel 'pure spatiality is determined by negating properly the
indetermination that constitutes it, that is, by itself negating itself (OG 41). Yet, once
again, this is not held to mark a significant difference between Hegel and Aristotle. As I
noted a moment ago, the claim made by Derrida's Aristotle is that the now cannot
coexist with other nows. Notwithstanding this, Derrida still insists that Hegelian dialectic
merely repeats certain Aristotelian insights. Derrida, it seems, just doesn't see much of a
difference between negating oneself and negating another.
And why should he? Is not Hegel just as much a philosopher of presence as
Aristotle? Why should it matter that Hegel understands the now to be self-negating,
rather than the boundary of the past and the future?

IV

The significance of Hegel's idea becomes apparent when we recall why Hegel thinks of
the now as self-negating: he thinks of the now in this way, because he understands time
itself to be nothing but the self-negation or negativity of space. But why should this be
important? Because it shows that, pace Heidegger and Derrida, Hegel does not take
presence or the now for granted at the start, but begins from nothing but space. This is

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 TIME FOR HEGEL

not the occasion on which to explain why Hegel thinks negativity is immanent in space.2
What I wish to emphasise here is simply this: Hegel does not begin — implicitly or
explicitly — from the idea of being-as-presence, because he does not begin by taking
time for granted at all. He begins (in the philosophy of nature) from the simple idea of
space as sheer externality, and he argues that being-as-space must take the form of time
and presence because it necessarily destroys itself.
Though the point appears to be lost on both Heidegger and Derrida, this way of
proceeding clearly distinguishes Hegel's account of time from that of Aristotle, who does
indeed take presence and time for granted at the start. As Derrida shows, the 'aporetic'
idea — apparently endorsed by Aristotle — that time is non-being can be derived from
the fact that the parts of time are not present, only if being is assumed from the outset to
entail presence. In addition, there is a circularity to Aristotle's conception of time, which
again shows that he takes presence for granted. The now is defined as the boundary of
the past and the future; but the past and the future are themselves understood,
respectively, to be the now that is no longer or the now that is not yet. At no point does
Aristotle explain why being should take the form of the present now in the first place; he
simply assumes that it does. Hegel, by contrast, does explain this: being is time and
nowness, because space negates itself into non-being and so temporalises itself.
Note that, for Hegel, the self-negation of space gives rise to all three dimensions
of time: the past and the future, as well as the present (IH 128-9). Space takes the form
of time because it destroys itself and disappears; and, in so far as it is this process of
disappearing, space is presence. Yet space is presence, only as becoming non-being or the
past. The present is thus inseparable from the past. But is it also inseparable from the
future. This is because all being is destined not to be, and, in the words of the
Encyclopaedia, 'the being of the non-being which is contained in the present is the future'
(EN §259 Addition). The future, in other words, is the non-being with which the present
is 'pregnant' (triichtig).
So, it is quite true that Hegel understands being to be presence; indeed, he insists
that 'only the present is' (nur die Gegenwart ist) (EN §259 Addition). Yet Hegel understands
the present to be equiprimordial with the past and the future, because he conceives of the
present as immediately self-negating and so always heading towards its own non-being.
Furthermore, Hegel demonstrates that being must be time and presence because it is
nothing but space that destroys itself.
Yet why should any of this matter? Why might it now be important to let Hegel,
too, have his time? Because he shows two very important things:
First, against Derrida, Hegel shows that philosophy does not in every case 'already
know [...] what time must be' (OG 52). This means, in turn, that philosophy is not always
already ahead of itself"in its understanding of presence. Philosophy can discover that being is
time — and what time is — without taking this for granted, by simply letting being
determine itself of its own accord to be time.

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 BULLETIN OF THE HEGEL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN

Second, against Heidegger, Hegel shows that the temporality of Dasein is not the
originary time of which Hegelian time is merely a vulgar derivative. O n the contrary, the
truly primordial time is the self-negating presence that being itself proves to be. This time
characterises all things — including the non-thing that is Dasein — and is presupposed,
along with space and materiality, by Dasein's ecstatic temporality.
Whether Heidegger or Derrida would find these conclusions convincing, I do not
know. It depends, I suppose, on how willing they are to give time to Hegel.

Stephen Houlgate
University of Warwick

Bibliography

Aristotle, Physics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. J. Barnes, 2 vols. (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1984), vol. 1 (Ph).

Jacques Derrida, 'Ousia and Gramme. Note on a Note from Being and Time', in Margins of
Philosophy, trans. A. Bass (Brighton: Harvester, 1982), (OG).

Jacques Derrida, Specters ofMarx, trans. P. Kamuf (New York: Roudedge, 1994).

G.W.F. Hegel, Jenaer Systementwiirfe II: Logic, Metaphysik und Naturphilosophie, ed. R.-P.
Horstmann (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1982) (JL).

G.W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of Nature. Being Part Two of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical
Sciences (1830), trans. A.V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970) (EN).

G.W.F. Hegel, Enqyklopadie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830). Zweiter

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1962) (BT).

Martin Heidegger, The Concept of Time, trans. W. McNeill (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992) (CT).

Stephen Houlgate, An Introduction to Hegel. Freedom, Truth and History, 2 nd edition (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2005) (IH).

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 TIME FOR HEGEL

Plato, Sophist, trans. S. Bernardete (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984, 1986)
{Soph).

Notes
1
See, for example, Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx, trans. P. Kamuf (New York: Routledge,
1994), p. 167: If the messianic appeal belongs properly to a universal structure, to that
irreducible movement of the historical opening to the future [I'avenir], therefore to experience
itself [...]'.
For a detailed discussion of Hegel's derivation of time from space, see Stephen Houlgate, An
Introduction to Hegel. Freedom, Truth and History, 2°d edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), pp. 122-30.

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