Hegel: An Analysis of Pure Nothingness and Being

Hegel was of the opinion that being and nothingness are two sides of the same thing. They create each other, so to speak, because without being, nothingness cannot exist and vice versa. In this way, nothing and being generate becoming between them. Roughly speaking, becoming is the process that describes the whole of existence. You can imagine that nothingness is one side of the coin and being is the other side, and together they make up the coin.

"Pure being and pure nothingness are therefore the same thing."

Georg W. F. Hegel

Imagining pure nothingness is fairly easy. Of course, I only say "to some extent" here because it is usually easy to imagine a picture of a cloudless spot in the sky or what you see when you look into a lake and see neither the ground nor the reflection above it. Of course, this is not pure nothingness because you can still see the atmosphere or the water in the lake. Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that pure nothingness is like seeing a blank sheet of paper. Of course, this is again not empty, because firstly it is a sheet of paper and secondly it is white.

Pure being, on the other hand, is more difficult to grasp. After all, everything that exists is being. However, if we had pure being, or if we imagined pure being. So, to stay true to the previous examples, we could say that we are looking at a piece of the sky. This time, however, it is not cloudless, but absolutely filled with clouds. Because in this example, the cloud would be the being, whereas before the cloudless sky was nothing. However, if the entire sky is filled with clouds, we would no longer be able to identify them as clouds. It would simply be white. The same applies to the sheet of paper. If we were to draw on the sheet with a pen and fill it so full that there was no longer any white to be seen, we would no longer recognize what we had painted as something painted. It would simply be the entire sheet and therefore empty again.

It is therefore nothingness that gives rise to being and being that gives meaning to nothingness. For pure being and pure nothingness are the same thing. They are opposites that are not actually opposites. As mentioned at the beginning, we should see being and nothingness much more as two sides of the same coin. It is like Ying and Yang which create each other. We humans often see life and death as opposites, just like ourselves and others. In my experience, however, this can make life unnecessarily tedious. Just as the tree in the forest that filters the air you breathe belongs to your respiratory system, everything that exists belongs together. It is understandable that this may sound a little confusing at first. That's why I encourage you to try it out over the next few days. When you see something, try to imagine the opposite or the contrast. If you succeed, try to see which coin you are looking at these two sides of.

Do you see it similarly to Hegel or do you have a completely different perspective? Let us know your opinion on this topic in the comments.