Hölderlin and the Hegelian logic

Critical considerations on Felipe Martínez Marzoa’s interpretation

Abstract

In this article I will discuss some points about the interpretation on the Science of logic outlined by F. Martínez Marzoa in Hölderlin y la lógica hegeliana. The premise of this booklet is that Hölderlin would be the «undeclared interlocutor» of this work, which would have been conceived by Hegel as an assumption
of his critic to Fichte in Judgment and Being. Within this interpretation, the «Doctrine of the Concept» appears as the logical place of self-suppression of reflection that Hölderlin had considered original and irreducible. Throughout these pages, I intend to prove: 1) that the aforementioned self-suppression does not imply the simple negation of reflection and the consequent affirmation of an areflexive absolute, but rather the affirmation of the absolute as reflection; 2) that the negativity of the Concept is distinguished both from the nothingness of the Being, as from the negation of the Essence, configuring a kind of «topic of reflection»; 3) that this does not prevent to understand reflection as something present at the very beginning of Logic, although not in the category of Being itself. Assuming these three points implies to accept that Hölderlin’s position would not get simply integrated into the Science of logic (turning the poet into a kind of «essential (not external) critic of the work)», but surpassed in the genuine sense of the hegelian Aufhebung.