THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

The essential requirement for the science of logic is not so much that the
beginning be a pure immediacy [which we have seen to be impossible], but rather
that the whole of the science be within itself a circle in which the first is also the
last and the last is also the first. 152
In this manner philosophy exhibits the appearance of a circle which closes with
itself, and has no beginning in the same way as the other sciences. To speak of a
beginning of philosophy has a meaning only in relation to the person who
proposes to commence the study, and not in relation to the science as a science. 153
Thought does not have a beginning because there is nothing outside of thought. In some
sense, this means that we, as individuals who are trying to think thought, can begin
anywhere. However, whatever we take as our beginning – i.e. whatever we take as given
or immediate – will ultimately show itself to be the result of thought, to be mediated.
Here again the basic hermeneutic process involved in interpretation helps to
illustrate this rather abstract discussion. From the standpoint of our conscious awareness,
interpretation begins with the awareness of certain parts. We take these parts as given
and we start adding or relating them to other parts in our attempt to attain a sense of the
whole. As an example, we might consider the process of meeting a new person. As the
person says and does various things, we start synthesizing these utterances and actions
into a comprehensive picture. As we continue to build a more comprehensive picture of
who the person is, we often go back to revise, clarify, or simply reaffirm our
interpretation of certain things they said or did. In this process of going back to the
details, we realize the implicit guiding assumptions – preconceptions about the person as
a whole – that first determined our original, and apparently immediate, experience of
these details. We recognize the mediation in what we first took as immediate.
152 Science of Logic, p. 71.
153 Encyclopedia Logic, paragraph 17.
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