In Hegel, therefore, the negation of the negation is not the confirmation of true being through the negation of apparent being. It is the confirmation of apparent being or self-estranged being in its negation, or the negation of this apparent being as an objective being residing outside man and independent of him and its transformation into the subject.
The act of superseding therefore plays a special role in which negation and preservation (affirmation) are brought together.
Thus, for example, in Hegel's Philosophy of Right, private right superseded equals morality, morality superseded equals family, family superseded equals civil society, civil society superseded equals state, and state superseded equals world history. In reality, private right, morality, family, civil society, state, etc., continue to exist, but have become moments and modes of human existence which are meaningless in isolation but which mutually dissolve and engender one another. They are moments of movement.
In their real existence this character of mobility is hidden.
It first appears, is first revealed, in thought and in philosophy. Hence, my true religious existence is my existence in the philosophy of religion, my true political existence is my existence in the philosophy of right, my true natural existence is my existence in the philosophy of nature, my true artistic existence is my existence in the philosophy of art and my true human existence is my existence in philosophy. Similarly, the true existence of religion, state, nature, and art is the philosophy of religion, nature, the state and art. But if the philosophy of religions, etc., is for me the true existence of religion, then I am truly religious only as a philosopher of religion, and I therefore deny real religiosity and the really religious man. But at the same time I confirm them, partly in my own existence or in the alien existence which I oppose to them -- for this is merely their philosophical expression -- and partly in their particular and original form, for I regard them as merely apparent other-being, as allegories, forms of their own true existence concealed under sensuous mantles -- i.e. forms of my philosophical existence.
Similarly, quality superseded equals quantity, quantity superseded equals measure, measure superseded equals essence, essence superseded equals appearance, appearance superseded equals reality, reality superseded equals the concept, the concept superseded equals objectivity, objectivity superseded, equals the absolute idea, the absolute idea superseded equals nature, nature superseded equals subjective spirit, subjective spirit superseded equals ethical objective spirit. ethical spirit superseded equals art, art superseded equals religion, religion superseded equals absolute knowledge.
On the one hand, this act of superseding is the act of superseding an entity of thought; thus, private property as thought is superseded in the thought of morality. And because thought imagines itself to be the direct opposite of itself -- i.e., sensuous reality -- and therefore regards its own activity as sensuous, real activity, this supersession in thought, which leaves its object in existence in reality, thinks it has actually overcome it. On the other hand, since the object has now become a moment of thought for the thought which is doing the superseding, it is regarded in its real existence as a continuation of thought, so self-consciousness, of abstraction.
From one aspect the existence which Hegel superseded in philosophy is therefore not real religion, state, nature, but religion already in the form of an object of knowledge -- i.e., dogmatics; hence also jurisprudence, political science, and natural science. From this aspect, he therefore stands in opposition both to the actual being and to the immediate non-philosophical science or non-philosophical concepts of being. He therefore contradicts their current conceptions.
From the other aspect the man who is religious, etc., can find his final confirmation in Hegel.
We should now examine the positive moments of the Hegelian dialectic, within the determining limits of estrangement.
(a) The act of superseding as an objective movement which re-absorbs alienation into itself. This is the insight, expressed within estrangement, into the appropriation of objective being through the supersession of its alienation; it is the estranged insight into the real objectification of man, into the real appropriation of his objective being through the destruction of the estranged character of the objective world, through the supersession of its estranged mode of existence, just as atheism as the supersession of God is the emergence of theoretical humanism, and communism as the supersession of private property the vindication of real human life as man's property, the emergence of practical humanism. Atheism is humanism mediated with itself through the supersession of religion; communism is humanism mediated with itself through the supersession of private property.
Only when we have superseded this mediation -- which is, however, a necessary precondition -- will positive humanism, positively originating in itself, come into being.
But atheism and communism are no flight, no abstraction, no loss of the objective world created by man or of his essential powers projected into objectivity. No impoverished regression to unnatural, primitive simplicity.
They are rather the first real emergence, the realization become real for man, of his essence as something real.
