The Development of Limit

Exclusion

The category limit (Grenze) follows from the development of constitution, which in turn follows from determination. Initially, limit is defined as that which excludes any outward relations something has to an other.

Being-for-other is indeterminate, affirmative association of something with its other; in limit the non-being-for-other is emphasized, the qualitative negation of the other, which is thereby kept out of the something that is reflected into itself (Hegel 2010, 98/21.114).

Limit serves to exclude the relation (association) something has with others. Notice that negation will not eliminate the outward relation but suppress it and shift the emphasis on the inward or intrinsic being.

Something is therefore immediate, self-referring existence and at first it has a limit with respect to an other; limit is the non-being of the other, not of the something itself; in limit, something marks the boundary of its other (Hegel 2010, 98/21.114).

Limit establishes a relationship between something and other, but in such a way that the being-for-other of the other has been negated by prefixing non- to this being. The logic here is quite familiar; limit just posits the “border” that acts as the threshold where what is outside something ceases to be since it is precisely excluded.

But the same matter holds for the something vis-à-vis the other, namely, that the something ceases at the point at which the other begins. Now, it is important to keep in mind that this other is also a something in its own right, such that it also excludes its outward relation. As Hegel writes: “The limit that something has with respect to an other is, therefore, also the limit of the other as a something” (Hegel 2010, 98/21.114).

This then folds into the idea that limit does not merely exclude the non-being of the other, since this other is also a something, what it basically excludes is something as such. Limit is not then merely negating the negative—the otherness of the thing or what the thing is not—but things in general.

This has the implication that something, in limiting others to preserve its own self-reference, in the same breath ends up limiting itself.

In limiting, something is of course thereby reduced to being limited itself; but, as the ceasing of the other in it, its limit is at the same time itself only the being of the something; this something is what it is by virtue of it, has its quality in it (Hegel 2010, 99/21.114).

Hegel elaborates that limit does double work: it not only negates the being of the other, but gives something its being. In everyday situations, the things one encounters are already limited, but that this limit belongs to the thing in question. For example, my perception is limited, I cannot see what is behind that hill, or this screen is limited. There are points at which the thing ceases and goes no further, but this serves to define the thing, to give it its own enclosure, as it were. And yet, it is these limits that put the thing in touch with other things: the screen with the space around it; the “behind-the-hill” forms the background of the “hill” that is foregrounded. In this way, limit acts as a bridge that preserves the being of things, yet connects them to one another. As Hegel confirms:

Something, as an immediate existence, is therefore the limit with respect to another something; but it has this limit in it and is something through the mediation of that limit, which is just as much its non-being. The limit is the mediation in virtue of which something and other each both is and is not (Hegel 2010, 98/21.114).

Limit mediates something and other, and it is through this mediation that each of these categories become defined. In other words, a thing exists because it is limited, which, likewise, brings an other into view. However, it precisely for this reason that both also cease to be, since if something and other are connected through the limit, then they are not really limited by it as it first appears to be the case.

Being Outside its Limit

Given that limit is that through which a thing and its outside both exist, Hegel takes matter one step further and shows how a thing has its existence outside its limit.

Now in so far as something in its limit both is and is not, and these moments are an immediate, qualitative distinction, the non-existence and the existence of the something fall outside each other. Something has its existence outside its limit (or, as representation would also have it, inside it); in the same way the other, too, since it is something, has it outside it. The limit is the middle point between the two at which they leave off. They have existence beyond each other, beyond their limit; the limit, as the non-being of each, is the other of both (Hegel 2010, 99/21.114).

If a thing is because of its limit, then it is what is beyond that limit which actually serves to define what that thing is. It is in this sense that Hegel means that something has its existence outside its limit. This appears like the ordinary notion of how things are limited in virtue of other things outside them. For example, one’s desire for power seems curtailed by the fact that there are others who also desire the same, such that each externally limits the other. But for Hegel, limit is not external to something but is that through which it is; this means that it is not in fact others that limit one, but that one limits oneself in the context with others. Indeed, to continue the example: it is thanks to others that power becomes possible in the first place, let alone desired, and what is this desire if not to test one’s limits?

Limit is additionally regarded as the non-being of each something (in the context of something and other), and in this respect the limit itself forms a second other in the relation between two somethings. Not only is another thing an other to this something, but the limit has a foreign aspect to it since this something has its existence beyond it, or it is already beyond it. The limit thereby is not limiting; it is not securing the being of something vis-à-vis its non-being or the other.

To rephrase: if limit makes the thing what it is because it negates the other thing, it has already put that other thing in touch with this thing (negation here not being elimination as much as it is a form of connection through the act of defining or determining), and that in reality neither is fully limited by the other, but that, rather, the limit itself appears as the real other with respect to these things. Paradoxically, then, each thing is, precisely because of the limit, beyond itself.

The Beginning of the End

But further, something as it is outside the limit, as the unlimited something, is only existence in general. As such, it is not distinguished from its other; it is only existence and, therefore, it and its other have the same determination; each is only something in general or each is other; and so both are the same (Hegel 2010, 99/21.114-5).

Hegel establishes that something is properly determinate in being limited, but even superseding its limit, Hegel claims that it does not reduce further below than existence (i.e. a minimal form of determination, rather than utter indeterminacy).

Limit does not only isolate something from its other, but also connects the two, putting them in a logical relation. And, given this relation, something steps beyond itself, as it were, since what it is determinately, spans both it and the other.

This double identity of the two, existence and limit, contains this: that something has existence only in limit, and that, since limit and immediate existence are each at the same time the negative of each other, the something, which is now only in its limit, equally separates itself from itself, points beyond itself to its non-being and declares it to be its being, and so it passes over into it (Hegel 2010, 99-100/21.115).

Limit is commonly understood as something that exists outside something, as a border at the end of it, so to speak. But Hegel’s point here is that limit forms part of something's own being; something limits itself. However, in the same token whereby something limits itself, it is—in virtue of how limit logically establishes a relation with the outside of a thing—also beyond it. This means that something crosses the limit that it has put on itself.

If it is understood that something transgresses its own limit—and that limit plays a vital role in determining what that something is—then it is not so much a transgression against the limit as it is against its own being. The finite is the something has transcended its limit and therewith brought its being to an end.

Bibliography

Authors
Filip Niklas (2025)