El concepto de infinitud en el joven Hegel The notion of Infinity in the young Hegel

Abstract

Hegel’s first explicit thinking about infinity can be found in his Frankfurt writings between 1797 and 1800.  This essay concentrates on Hegel’s discussion of infinity in Glauben und Wissen, where Hegel finds in Spinoza’s conception of substance some crucial elements for his own approach. Spinoza’s presence in Hegel could go back to his stay in Tübingen, when Hölderlin, Hegel and some others read Jacobi’s Briefe. Nonetheless, Hegel’s affinity with Spinoza has its own limits, as can be seen in subsequent treatments of infinity. In the II. Jenaer Systementwürfe Hegel deals with the «true infinity» in connection with otherness as part of the speculative meaning of affirmatio. I argue that Hegel’s conception of infinity entails the dynamic Übergang from finite to infinite and that this Übergang must be something more specific than a transition from determinateness to indeterminacy.