the most appropriate expression which the Hegelian treatment of time receives, lies in his defining it as "the negation of a negation" (that is, of punctuality). Here the sequence of "nows" has been formalized in the most extreme sense and levelled off in such a way that one can hardly go any farther.xxx Only from the standpoint of this formal-dialectical conception of time can Hegel produce any connection between time and spirit.
[433] (b) Hegel's Interpretation of the Connection between Time and Spirit
If Hegel can say that when spirit gets actualized, it accords with it to fall into time, with "time" defined as a negation of a negation, how has spirit itself been understood? The essence of spirit is the concept. By this Hegel understands not the universal which is intuited in a genus as the form of something thought, but rather the form of the very thinking which thinks itself: the conceiving of oneself—as the grasping of the not-I. Inasmuch as the grasping of the not-I presents a differentiation, there lies in the pure concept, as the grasping of this differentiation, a differentiation of the difference. Thus Hegel can define the essence of the spirit formally and apophantically as the negation of a negation. This 'absolute negativity' gives a logically formalized Interpretation of Descartes' "cogito me cogitare rem", wherein he sees the essence of the conscientia.
The concept is accordingly a self-conceiving way in which the Self has been conceived; as thus conceived, the Self is authentically as it can be—that is free.1 'The "I" is the pure concept itself, which as concept has come into Dasein.'xxxi 'The "I", however, is this initially pure unity which relates itself to itself-not immediately, but in that it abstracts from all determinateness [434] and content, and goes back to the freedom of its unrestricted self-equality.'xxxii Thus the "I" is 'universality', but it is 'individuality'2 just as immediately.
This negating of the negation is both that which is 'absolutely restless' in the spirit and also its self-manifestation, which belongs to its essence. The 'progression' of the spirit which actualizes itself in history, carries with it 'a principle of exclusion'.xxxiii In this exclusion, however, that which is excluded does not get detached from the spirit; it gets surmounted. The kind
1 'Der Begriff ist sonach die sich begreifende Begriffenheit des Selbst, als welche das Selbst eigentlich ist, wie es sein kann, das heisst frei.' The noun 'Begriffenheit' is of course derived from 'begriffen', the past participle of 'begreifen' ('to conceive' or 'to grasp'). 'Begriffen', however, may also be used when we would say that someone is 'in the process of' doing something. This would suggest the alternative translation: 'The concept is accordingly a self-conceiving activity of the Self—an activity of such a nature that when the Self performs it, it is authentically as it can be—namely, free.'
2 '"Einzelheit"'. We take this reading from Lasson's edition of Hegel, which Heidegger cites. The older editions of Heidegger's work have 'Einzelnheit'; the newer ones have 'Einzenheit'. Presumably these are both misprints.