Abstract

The article analyzes the meaning of infinite judgment within absolute knowing and tries to explain the role that this judgment plays within the last moment of the phenomenological path. The infinite judgment in question states: “the being of the ego is a thing”. The analysis starts with the conception of infinite judgment in pre-Kantian and Kantian logic, that has certainly influenced the way in which Hegel conceived of this logical structure. In order to shed light on the Hegelian conception of infinite judgment at the time the Phenomenology was written, it is necessary to examine the way in which this kind of judgment is presented in the Jena System (1804-05) which develops the logical structures at work in the phenomenological process. Finally, the negation implicit in the judgment “the being of the ego is a thing” is expounded upon: the being of the ego is a thing - the soul - that in actuality is not a thing. The paradoxical structure of this judgment, that consists of this absence-presence negation, becomes evident in this double value. This judgment expresses the moment of crisis in the structure of judgment itself. This crisis is the linguistic expression of the inconsistency immanent in the pretence of consciousness to capture its object, that is constitutively separated from it. At the same time this judgment is also the negative moment necessary for the solution of this crisis and for the passage of consciousness into absolute knowing, in which the radical separation between subject and object that characterizes consciousness is completely reconciled