Section One: Mechanics
A. Space and Time
[1. Space in general. §§254–256]
2. Time in general. §§257–260
This thematic context allows for no misunderstanding: time is connected with space, but not the way it is in Kant and in the tradition of the philosophy of nature generally, ever since [252] Aristotle—namely, as “space and also time.” Rather, Hegel’s explanation tries to show something more—that space becomes time:
The truth of space is time, so that space becomes time; it is not we who, subjectively as it were, make the transition to time; rather, space itself makes the transition {into time}. In the usual representation {by which Hegel means: In the naïve view}, space and time are quite separate: space is there, and then we also have time. Philosophy fights against this “also.” (§257, Addendum)27
By that last sentence Hegel means: philosophy sublates the difference. In the naïve view of common sense, space and time are different, whereas for absolute thinking no such distinction may hold: Space becomes time. When thought in an absolute fashion, space “is” time. Bergson has expressed the opposite thesis, not “Space is time” but “Time is space.” Both theses are untenable; but both are on the scent of a phenomenal connection between space and time. Basically both are referring to the same thing but without understanding what they mean by their diametrically opposed propositions. And both Bergson and Hegel destroy what there is of authentic content in their theses, by sublating it not with a solid, sure truth but by a fundamental sophistry that Hegel’s dialectic lives off.
We now go into this thesis a bit further in order to clarify how time is experienced and understood in Hegel, namely, as the time of nows.—“Space becomes time.” That means: When it is thought in an absolute philosophical way, space “becomes”—i.e., comes into “being” and thus “is”—time. What does “is” mean here? Does it mean the same as in the sentence “The chalk is a book”? In that case “is” means: “The chalk has the whatness (and the thereness) of a book.” They are both thevery-same.
Let us ignore for a moment the basic inadequacy of explaining a categorial relation (e.g., between space and time) in terms of a relation between concrete things (chalk, book). Let’s use the example simply
27. [Heidegger’s glosses are recorded in Moser, p. 532.9–11.]