think through rigorously, this means: the matter of thinking is for Hegel "the idea" (der Gedanke). "The idea," developed' to its highest essential freedom, becomes "the absolute Idea" (Idee). Near the end of the Science of Logic (Lasson edition, Vol. II, 484), Hegel says of the absolute Idea: "Only the absolute Idea is Being, imperishable Life, self-knowing Truth, and it is all Truth." Thus Hegel himself explicitly gives to the matter of his thinking that name which is inscribed over the whole matter of Western thinking, the name: Being.
(In our seminar, the manifold yet unified use of the word "Being" was discussed. For Hegel, Being means first, but never exclusively, "indeterminate immediacy." Being is seen here from the viewpoint of determining mediation, that is, from the viewpoint of the absolute concept, and thus with reference to the absolute concept. "The truth of Being is essence," that is, absolute reflection. The truth of essence is the concept in the sense of in-finite self-knowledge. Being is the absolute self-thinking of thinking. Absolute thinking alone is the truth of Being, "is" Being. Truth here means always that the knowable as such is known with a knowledge absolutely certain of itself.)
At the same time, Hegel rigorously thinks about the matter of his thinking in the context of a conversation with the previous history of thinking. Hegel is the first thinker who can and must
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