(a) The Formal Mechanical Process: Section 2

In this section, we will consider the move from communication to action and reaction. Before we examine that move, however, let’s briefly summarise the moment of communication. Communication is the moment when a mechanical object posits their determinateness as a universal determinateness – when their determinateness is communicated as the identical determinateness of every other mechanical object. Communication is the first moment of the formal mechanical process, and we can see how there is something processual about it. It has the semblance of dynamism and movement; because there is a determinateness that is being communicated amongst mechanical objects. This is also why it is a formal process, the process of the communication of a determinateness is merely formal since what is being communicated is merely the identical determinateness of all mechanical objects. There is no real change between the objects because what is being communicated is simply their own determinateness. Imagine if a pair of twins were throwing a ball between themselves; any description of the event would involve an account of the change that occurs when the ball goes from one twin to the other; but the change would be merely formal since the movement of the ball does not amount to the determination of something new but merely to a repeated identical determination.

Developing Difference - From Communication to Action

Communication develops into a moment of particularity, what Hegel calls, action and reaction — no doubt with Newton’s third law of motion in mind. Why is this development necessary? Could one have not just dwelt on the universal identity of mechanical objects in communication? If we had done that, we would not be doing justice to the difference that is exhibited between the mechanical objects. Even though there is nothing new when the twins are throwing the ball between each other, there are still two differnt individuals throwing a ball. The ball does not merely go from A to A, but goes from A¹ to A². There is, then, a minimal difference at work and it is this minimal difference that must be expressed in the next moment. So let us begin with the moment of action as the first instance of when the difference of the mechanical object is expressed. Hegel writes the following:

what is communicated is, as a universal, positive in the particular objects and only particularizes itself in their diversity. So far, then, what is communicated remains what it is; it merely distributes itself to the objects or is determined by their particularity (Hegel 1991, 717).

When a mechanical object communicated its determinateness to other mechanical objects it does so to a plurality or a diversity of mechanical objects – the mechanical objects that are the recipients of this communication are the moments of particularity within the formal mechanical process. They are the particulars because they stand apart from the mechanical object that is communicating its determinateness to them, and even though the determinateness is identical to them, it is nevertheless from a different origin. The particularisation of communication, then, occurs at the moment of its determining the other mechanical objects. The hitherto universal determinateness determines the particular mechanical objects and thereby particularises itself. It is in this sense that the “communicated remains what it is” (Hegel 1991, 717) – the determinateness itself does not change into something else, it is merely particularised by the plurality of objects that receive its communication. Let’s consider an example of the communication of moral beliefs within society. The moral belief pervades society and, in doing so, is taken up by particular members of society. In being taken up by particular members of society it remains the same moral belief, “thou shalt not kill”, but is a moral belief that is held by a plurality of people and is not merely an abstract universal. The process, then, is that of grasping that a determinateness can remain the same whilst developing from a universal to a particular. There is not one mechanical object that is permanently designated as the one that communicates the universal determinateness and one mechanical object that is designated as that which is particularised; rather, it is better to understand mechanical objects as layered; and that one layer is their moment of universality where their determinateness is immediately communicated from to the other; and that another layer is their moment of particularity where the communication of the determinateness between different objects expresses a latent difference. Moreover, it is crucial not to think of these layers as being exclusive of each other, rather they relate to each other, as we will now see.

This process of the universal being particularised in the plurality of mechanical objects has the effect of determining the mechanical object that communicated the determinateness into the mechanical object that is exerting an action. The mechanical object becomes an active mechanical object, this is what Hegel has to say about the active object:

but the active object only becomes a universal; its action is primarily not a loss of its determinateness but a particularization, whereby the object which at first was the whole of that individual determinateness in it, is now a species of it, and through this the determinateness is posited for the first time as a universal (Hegel 1991, 717).

The determinateness of the active object now undergoes a conceptual development since it is no longer the sole originator of the communicated determinateness, which was a universal, but is now one of many objects that participates within it. In the beginning of the formal mechanical process, it was like the genus of the determinateness, but upon distributing the determinateness it has become a species of it – one of many instances of that determinateness. The very same mechanical object that was a universal is now a particular. The origin of the moral belief, the active object, which was the universal source of the belief, has now become one of many objects that holds that belief and so has become particularised. It is through this moment of particularisation that the communicated determinateness, which began life as a universal, is now neither merely a universal or a particular, but a determinate universal. This is what Hegel means when he writes that the determinateness “is posited for the first time as a universal” (Hegel 1991, 717) . Obviously, the determinateness started off as a universal, as we saw in communication, but is was still only an abstract universal. The way a moral belief like “thou shalt not kill” is an abstract universal if nobody holds it – that doesn’t mean it’s not true or even real, but it lacks a degree of concreteness if it does not find expression in particularity. But the moral belief becomes a determinate universal when it is held by many particulars – it is both a universal belief in that it aspires for universality – it is wrong to kill in any and all circumstances – and a particular belief insofar as it is held by a plurality of people.

Every Action Has An Equal and Opposite Reaction

So far, then, we have contemplated the moment of action. Action is the conceptual moment of the communicated determinateness being particularised into particular objects, thereby rendering the mechanical object that communicated it a particular object, since it is now one of many objects that have this universal determinateness, which concludes with raising the determinateness to the level of a determined universal since it is a universal determinateness that is expressed through a plurality of mechanical objects. But this is only one side of moment of particularity in the formal mechanical process, the side of action. But every action has an equal and opposite reaction, to paraphrase Newton, and so we move onto the next side of the moment.

The moment of reaction looks more closely at the particular mechanical objects and how they react to the active object. There are three steps to follow, so we’re going to break them down, one by one. First, as Hegel writes:

The manner in which this first appears, is that the second object has taken up into itself the entire universal, and so is now active against the first. Thus its reaction is the same as the action, a reciprocal repulsion of the impulse (Hegel 1991, 717).

Earlier, when we were looking at what followed from the distribution of the communicated determinateness we focused on the object that was doing the communication, what we have come to call the active object. Now, we are looking at what happens to the object that receives the communication. This object, is now determined by this universal determinateness and takes on the determinateness of communicating the universal determinateness. Upon being determined thus, it follows that this second object communicates this determinateness, in turn. As such, the second object reacts and in doing so becomes an active object, fulfilling the same conceptual movement as the first active object.

Second, Hegel writes:

Secondly, what is communicated is the objective element; it therefore remains the substantial determination of the objects along with the presupposition of their diversity; thus the universal specifies itself at the same time in them, and each object therefore does not merely give back the whole action, but has its specific share (Hegel 1991, 717).

The determinateness that is communicated by the second object is exactly the same as the determinateness that was communicated by the first object. The event of twin A¹ throwing the ball is exactly the same as the event of twin A² throwing the ball. Or, put otherwise, the moral beleif remains the same, whether it is communicated by the state or by particular citizens - the only difference is between reading it on the government website and hearing it expressed by someone, but that is a merely formal difference that does not amount to a substantive difference in the meaning of the belief. Not only that, but the second object both communicates the universal determinateness as well as communicating it as a particular. Each object, then, not only communicates the universal determinateness or the “objective element”, as Hegel euphemises, but are also distributing it as a determinate universal. To return to our example of moral beliefs, then, when someone is the unconscious recipient of the moral maxim, “thou shalt not kill”, they are also the unconscious communicator of that maxim in a general sense and also in a specific sense as that particular person communicating the maxim.

And finally, the third moment of reaction:

But thirdly, reaction is a wholly negative action in so far as each object through the elasticity of its self-subsistence expels the positedness of an other in it and maintains its relation-to-self. The specific particularity of the communicated determinateness in the objects, what was before called a species, returns to individuality, and the object asserts its externality in face of the communicated universality. The action thereby passes over into rest. It shows itself to be a merely superficial, transient alteration in the self-enclosed indifferent totality of the object (Hegel 1991, 717).

The final moment of reaction is the acknowledgement that the mechanical objects are indifferent to external determinateness and so whilst the universal determinateness is communicated and distributed to them, and whilst they in turn communicate and distribute the external determinateness, they do so indifferently. The second object, the reactive object, does not respond to the external determinateness with its own determinateness, but it simply takes it up and communicates it as if it weren’t it’s own determinateness. Now, this picture is complicated by the fact that each object does communicate its own specific share – the whole point of the logic of action and reaction hitherto has been to underscore this fact. But if we look closely at the determinateness of the reactive object we will see that it is identical to the determinateness of the active object. The specificity of the reaction is an entirely formal one, it is the empty specificity of two identical objects relating to each other. Yes, object 1 is acting on object 2 and object 2 responds by acting in an equal way upon object 1, but the substance of the activity is tautological, it is the same determinateness being passed between two objects and it is the fact that the same determinateness is being posited between the objects that renders the entire exchange a tautology. The only difference that can be specified is that one action is done by object 1 and one action is done by object 2, and there is some significance in that difference, but it doesn’t amount to much. The reactive object, then, having communicated the determinateness in turn and particularising itself into an active object, in turn, returns into itself as an individual that is indifferent to the communicated universal. Hegel calls this individuality, rest.

Bibliography

Authors
Ahilleas Rokni (2025)

Editors
Filip Niklas (2025)