The Development of Something

Quality Undermines Itself

The category something (Etwas) develops out of quality, which itself progressed from existence as such.

In existence its determinateness has been distinguished as quality; in this quality as something existing, the distinction exists – the distinction of reality and negation. Now though these distinctions are present in existence, they are just as much null and sublated. Reality itself contains negation; it is existence, not indeterminate or abstract being. Negation is for its part equally existence, not the supposed abstract nothing but posited here as it is in itself, as existent, as belonging to existence. Thus quality is in general unseparated from existence, and the latter is only determinate, qualitative being (Hegel 2010, 88/21.102-3).

Quality is the determinateness of existence. Through quality, existence is either specified in terms of reality or negation. Crudely put, quality determines that which is real and that which is not there, whereas existence determines that which is but in a sense that minimally involves non-being (since what purely “is” is being). Hegel emphasizes that determinateness exists. It is not to be thought of as something separate from existence or as that which lacks existence, since even to qualify something as not being there counts, in Hegel’s eyes, as equally as qualifying something as being real. Indeed, the two are logically inseparable.

Now though these distinctions are present in existence,
they are just as much null and sublated.

Hegel presses the idea that reality contains negation and vice versa, and in so doing must designate them as sublated. Insofar as each is contained in the other, it has thereby rendered itself a moment of it. This signals that more is at play than merely reality and negation since their mutual containment points towards a higher context. Genealogically, their ancestor, so to speak, is existence and so it would be their natural common identifier. However, it has been discovered that this is essentially but one side of quality. The higher context, therefore, must be that which contains both in their present arrangement.

Something Emerges

This sublating of the distinction is more than the mere retraction and external re-omission of it, or a simple return to the simple beginning, to existence as such. The distinction cannot be left out, for it is. Therefore, what de facto is at hand is this: existence in general, distinction in it, and the sublation of this distinction; the existence, not void of distinctions as at the beginning, but as again self-equal through the sublation of the distinction; the simplicity of existence mediated through this sublation. This state of sublation of the distinction is existence’s own determinateness; existence is thus [being-within-itself] (Insichsein);¹ it is existent, something (Hegel 2010, 89/21.103).

The determination of quality as a distinct category breaks down when it is treated as absolute or taken to hold independently of context. The distinction, rather, has sublated itself into a moment. Now, while Hegel then warns that this does not yield a complete return to the beginning of existence as such, there is a return to existence in the development. The qualitative distinction has proved to necessarily follow from existence. What remains, then is to understand precisely this movement of return.

existence in general, distinction in it, and the sublation of this distinction;
the existence, not void of distinction as at the beginning, but as _again_
self-equal _through the sublation of the distinction_; the simplicity of
existence _mediated_ through this sublation

Existence is returned to through the sublation of distinction (or determinateness), but it is important to emphasize exactly that it is through the developments of quality that this occurs.

There is a small but significant difference between existence as such and existence that is returned to through the mediation of quality. This is the simple fact that the second existence (returned) is mediated whereas the first is immediate. This point is significant once the whole development is viewed together.

To briefly recap: Quality is a development of existence, indeed, it is the existent determinateness. Likewise, existence is determined, or qualified, through it. However, when quality is looked at more closely, it becomes apparent how its two forms reality and negation form moments of one another. This then showed that neither form is absolute and independent, and furthermore, that quality itself proves to be a moment. But what is quality a moment of?

There is nowhere for determinateness to go, so to speak, than back to where it came from, namely, existence. In fact, this is already built into determinateness, since it was understood that determinateness is existent.

The distinction therefore is existence’s own distinction. The difference of existence or the existent difference. The development thus traced is one whereby determinacy is emitted from existent being and then, from within this determinacy, it is reabsorbed back into its source. Yet it is not annihilated upon its return, but made itself a moment that contained within another as that being’s own.

This generates an internality to existence that is not evident in its immediacy. This internal being that is differentiated within itself as such is being-within-itself or something.

This state of sublation of the distinction is existence's own determinateness;
existence is thus [ _being-within-itself_ ] (_Insichsein_); it is _existent_,
_something_.

Three things should be noted in the development of the category something so far. First, with internality, a sense of context has been achieved. With context, layers and depth in the logic become possible. Second, a sense of ownership has been introduced into the logic: quality is now understood to belong to something. Determinateness is no longer free-standing but inherent within a specific context. Finally, ownership hints at the idea—however minimal—of singularity. Determinateness becomes individual and particular to an specific context.

The Negation of Negation

Something is the first negation of negation, as simple existent self-reference. … As something, the negative of the negative is only the beginning of the subject – its in-itselfness is still quite indeterminate. It determines itself further on, at first as existent-for-itself and so on, until it finally obtains in the concept the intensity of the subject. At the base of all these determinations there lies the negative unity with itself. In all this, however, care must be taken to distinguish the first negation, negation as negation in general, from the second negation, the negation of negation which is concrete, absolute negativity, just as the first is on the contrary only abstract negativity (Hegel 2010, 89/21.103).

What is the negation of negation? This pattern of a term or movement that is applied to itself—like the vanishing of the vanishing—must also refer to itself being applied. Said otherwise, negation qualifies that which is not, but when applied to negation itself this essentially means that not is not. This looks like a paradox since negation cannot be negated by negation without wholly undermining itself: to negate negation would mean that negation ceases entirely such that nothing is actually negated. It would be like trying tell oneself to stop over-thinking by focusing on the need to stop, which is futile. Is this what Hegel has in mind?

Rather than an outright contradiction, Hegel focuses on the element of self-reference when first dealing with the negation of negation. There is an identity of the two negations, but necessarily there must be difference, since the first negation negates the second. But what the first negation negates is, unavoidably, itself. However, because it is negated, negation itself ceases to be merely negation. The negation of negation, then, is a compound logical term that distinguishes a being with qualities of its own; layered and internal to it. To borrow from Hegel’s example, “squirrel-ness” would be something merely qualitative and generic while “a squirrel” would actually be some thing. Something is the determination that allows one to pass from generalities—whether it is existence, life, thought, God, etc.—to a being that holds its determination as its own.

Hegel states that something is the beginning of the subject. The subject belongs to the the concept much later in the development of the logic, so what Hegel says here is highlighting what is to come. But something is the beginning of the subject insofar as the subject later will employ primitives that are developed at this stage of the logic, namely, internality, context, depth and negative unity. The negative unity being specifically the negation of negation. Note, however, that something does not equal the subject nor any mature terms like living being or a thinking mind. Even though something is the most minimal form of a being that is in itself, this determination is still utmost general and abstract.

Something is an existent as the negation of negation, for such a negation is the restoration of the simple reference to itself – but the something is thereby equally the mediation of itself with itself. Present in the simplicity of something, and then with greater determinateness in being-for-itself, in the subject, and so forth, this mediation of itself with itself is also already present in becoming, but only as totally abstract mediation; mediation with itself is posited in the something in so far as the latter is determined as a simple identity (Hegel 2010, 89/21.103-4).

It is found that the negation of negation is not accidental or optional to something but vital to its very existence. When looked back at the development of existence and quality, negation of negation at first really only signifies the return back to existence from quality; but this return enriches existence from merely being an immediate oneness of being and non-being to a mediated unity of reality and negation. But what turns existence particularly into something is not only the moment of return but also that the entire development of existence is through existence—the qualifying and subsequent sublation of its determinateness. Essentially, the existence that mediates itself with itself is something. This is the potency in the self-reference of the negation of negation whereby existence ceases to be mere existence and in so doing actually becomes more existence—this more is the posited mediation of existence with itself; the process of its determinateness unveiling itself and rendered unified as a simple identity: something.

Hegel also points back to the category becoming as the site where a similar mediation of itself with itself occurred. However, this mediation was utterly abstract in the sense that the constituents of that mediation could not be coherently wed together. In something, by contrast, the mediation is relatively concrete inasmuch as the constituents form a coherent whole: negation of negation negotiates the process whereby an existent refers to itself in its determinateness without being completely beholden to it through an ownership that is essentially of itself with itself. What is missing from that phrase, as will be made apparent in developments to come, is that this mediation of itself with itself is inert without negativity.

Collapse into Being and Return to Becoming

This mediation with itself which something is in itself, when taken only as the negation of negation, has no concrete determinations for its sides; thus it collapses into the simple unity which is being. Something is, and is therefore also an existent (Hegel 2010, 89-90/21.104).

It important to note the shift in focus here. Hegel attends to the mediation that inheres in something, rather than discussing something as such. He then goes on to claim that as sheer negation of negation it is not distinguished against any other elements; like becoming, it is currently the highest context of the development; but unlike becoming neither it to its moments nor its moments between themselves exhibit contradiction and the resolution is a collapse (fällt) to being. Why does the mediation collapse into being? And why does the negation of negation have no “determinations for its sides”?

The negation of negation has no determinations for its sides because it is the total mediation of existence to quality to existence. And, furthermore, this mediation does not suffer the contradiction of sheer becoming, rendering it coherent and complete. In other words, the negation of negation spells out the movement latent in existence whereby it ceases to be understood merely as existence but, rather, as something. For this reason, the mediation effectively ceases, since there is no further determination left at this point; the movement has successfully shown that self-mediating existent determinateness picks out something and, following this, the mediation unravels into being.

Something _is_, and _is_ therefore also an existent.

This sentence appears to sum the current development unless it is read speculatively: something, particularly when focused on its mediation, collapses into being, and, re-running the development of pure being again, existence is (once more) developed. It is thus seen how the development of something loops back to the beginning of the logic.

Further, it is in itself (an sich) also becoming, but a becoming that no longer has only being and nothing for its moments. One of these moments, being, is now existence and further an existent. The other moment is equally an existent, but determined as the negative of something – an other. As becoming, something is a transition, the moments of which are themselves something, and for that reason it is an alteration – a becoming that has already become concrete (Hegel 2010, 90/21.104).

While the logic appears to loop back to the beginning, it is only the mediation of something that undergoes this. Something as such, must be kept in view. Indeed, it in the context of something that its mediation collapses into being and re-develops from therein. Now, Hegel claims that from this context, the development of becoming is modified: becoming under the negation of negation does not have being and nothing for its moments, but existence. As existence, the developments of quality and something follow such that the becoming of something is made up of a pair of something as its moments. This is confirmed when Hegel writes:

As becoming, something is a transition, the moments of which are themselves
something

However, two difference emerges between these two something-as-becoming moments. First, Hegel claims that both moments are equally existence, or qualitative determinateness, but that one of them is determined as the negative of something. This negative is called the other (Anderes). Why is one of them determined this way?

While Hegel does not provide a direct reason in the development here, it can be inferred from the logic of becoming that its two moments must be differentiated. As becoming is the movement of two immediately different elements, and existence does come in two forms, then one of these forms must be different from the other. Insofar as becoming here takes place, two identical moments are precluded.

Second, as the movement of becoming in the context of something is no longer that of vanishing moments but of somethings, there is no vanishing of the vanishing but, rather, an alteration (Veränderung). The becoming of something therefore, alternates or changes between its two moments, something and other.

Overengineered Development of the Other? (Niklas)

Hegel’s account of the development of the other or the culminating progress at the end of something raises a number of issues. First, he invokes the category becoming but modifies its moments. The becoming that was developed specifically did so with being and nothing as its moments. There is no reason why swapping out these moments would not also alter the context that they inhabit. In fact, given how intimately bound moments are within their context in the Logic one would assume that it would.

Second, something is momentarily designated as becoming, which itself has moments that are differentiated. On the one hand, there is no clear reason why a later category should take on the logic of a former one. It is as if one were to put on a shirt as an adult that one wore as a child—it does not fit! On the other hand, if something does have moments, then why must these be differentiated? Why can the moments not simply be two somethings? And, furthermore, one has at hand not two somethings but three, namely, the two moments and the one that contains the two others as its moments.

The argument here is error prone and unconvincing, but there is a solution.

The mediation of something collapses into being and it is sufficient to just let that mediation re-develop back to something while the first something is still the case. The second something will be an other because it is what is specifically mediated by an other something, unlike the first something which emerged immanently from existence as such.

Why is the first something still held in view? The first something is still the case precisely because it is the category with internality and what is focused in the final development is not something as such but its being-within-itself, which is what collapses into being. Given being is once more at hand, as pure being, it will (re-)develop to something once more, but as mentioned above, it is now understood that this something is mediated by another and so is immediately an other.

This development is simpler and takes much less for granted, while attaining the same result and, moreover, shows why an other is an other at the moment of its arrival.

Further Commentary

Burbidge

John Burbidge writes that something is the integrated unity of the determinate quality “some” and the basic reality “thing”. “In this synthetic act of integrating a being with its quality, speculative reason negates the negation” (Burbidge 1981, 47). Based on this, Burbidge claims, thought discovers an active process of relating, which subsequently leads to the discovery of the other.

It is not simply the case that a being is qualified immediately; it becomes qualified; a movement of thought is involved. But this distinguishes between what it was before, and what it becomes. The first is something; the second is qualified, but in some way different form the first. It is something else, an other (Burbidge 1981, 47).

Speculative reason has brought two terms, a being and quality together into the concept something by making explicit the process where one leads to the other. However, Burbidge notes, this does not achieve a unity but the exact opposite: “The analysis of the process has resulted in distinguishing two contrasting moments: something and something else. Thought no longer has a simple concept, but wavers between two” (Burbidge 1981, 48). Consequently, thought has introduced a more radical contrast instead of the intended integration.

Burbidge’s account on something is sparse and uses terms, such as synthesis and “thing”, which may assume too much. However, his high-level view of the development is nonetheless instructive.

Houlgate

Stephen Houlgate writes that both forms of quality are, while sublated, definite and irreducible. However, he adds that with each differing from its other—reality differing from negation—the two sides are also the same: “each is what the other is. In differing from the other, therefore, each relates not just to an other, but to itself. It encounters itself in the other” (Houlgate 2022, 170).

There are two senses in which this can be understood. In the first sense, as both forms of quality, the difference between reality and negation is one in which quality relates to itself. And, in the second sense, as reality and negation both contain one another, “the difference between them is one in which each individually relates to itself in the other: reality relates to itself in negation and vice versa” (Houlgate 2022, 170).

In both cases, Houlgate claims, a new logical structure has emerged: neither just immediate nor just determinate, but what is explicitly self-relating. As something, being takes the form of a difference between sides, each of which is the same and thereby it relates explicitly to itself.

Note that being can be explicitly self-relating, only because it contains a difference between moments that are the same, a difference that is “sublated”. Self-relating being cannot, therefore, occur immediately: it cannot simply be there, just like that. It can arise only through the mediation of difference and its sublation (Houlgate 2022, 170).

Through this division and self-relating, existence is a space of “ownness” or minimal “selfhood”, such that this sublation of quality can be said to be existences’s (Dasein) own determinacy. From this, self-relating existence achieves a logical interior previously unavailable to prior categories, such that it is the being that is “within itself” (in sich).

It is when being is self-relating in this way, Houlgate writes, that “it is what it is by itself” (Houlgate 2022, 170). He stresses that this is really the first time in the logic that being is itself rather than mere immediacy or determinacy. This being is then cast as a determinate being or something. However, something is not merely that which relates to itself (this is what quality is), rather, something is that which is constituted: “there is no something prior to the emergence of self-relation: there is not first something which then relates to itself. Rather, there is quality which relates to itself, in so doing, proves to be self-relating being or ‘something’” (Houlgate 2022, 173).

On the derivation of the other (see Hegel 2010, 89-90/21.104), Houlgate finds that the remark concerning becoming is not justified by the current development of something. However, he reads it as a anticipatory remark on what something will later prove to be. Notably, something does not prove to be change (Veränderung) until later. Nevertheless, there is an immanent logical reason for the development of other, Houlgate writes:

This becomes apparent when we recall that quality, which gives rise logically to something, comprises the two moments of reality and negation, and when we render fully explicit the fact that each moment relates to itself in differing from the other (because each is contained in the other from which it differs). It is thus not just quality as such that proves to be self-relating, but reality and negation as well. Recall, too, that the difference between reality and negation is not simply eliminated in something, but is “sublated” – that is, cancelled and preserved – in it. Something must, therefore, be both self-relating reality and self-relating negation, and so must take two different forms at the same time. … Negation does so, because it is contained in the reality from which it differs. In relating to itself, negation, like reality, constitutes self-relating being or something; as such, it is no longer simple negation, but the negation of negation. Yet this something differs from the previous something in one obvious respect: it is, explicitly, self-relating negation, rather than self-relating reality (or quality as such). It thus has a negative, rather than affirmative, “accent”. … There must be something because quality is self-relating; there must be something and an other, however, because quality itself takes the twin forms of reality and negation (Houlgate 2022, 176).

Houlgate’s argument here depends on reality and negation relating to itself in differing from the other, but it is not clear if this step is actually taken in the logic. To be more precise, such a step amounts to a movement of return for each of the moments in question, such that reality relates to negation which relates again to reality. But this kind of movement of return only first emerges with something, namely, with existence returning to itself. It is doubtful whether such self-relation is the case with reality and negation as such, and if they should be understood to have any internality.

Furthermore, while each category could be loosely said to relate to itself in differing form its other—considering reality and negation—this kind of distinguishing cannot strictly advance the logic. This is because such relational logic belongs properly to the logic of essence. It is in necessity, for example, that one begins to see patterns of “identity of being with itself in its negation” (Hegel 2010, 488/11.392). In contrast, the case with reality and negation must be simpler; they each point to the other and contain (or conceal) the other in itself, but that is sufficient for their sublation.

Therefore, Houlgate’s derivation of the other rests on assumptions that might not hold. Reality and negation might not be self-relating out of which something and other develop concurrently.

McTaggart

John McTaggart writes that something is “the explicit introduction of plurality … a rudimentary form of plurality of substance, rather than plurality of attributes” (McTaggart 1910, 23-4). The latter requires a conception of a thing with a plurality of attributes, which McTaggart thinks is at this stage not developed in the logic. Therefore, there must be a plurality of somethings: “Each of these ise dependent for its nature on not being the others” (McTaggart 1910, 25).

McTaggart reading rests on the argument that negation does exist, through inverting the fact that something cannot have qualities (as properties).

…it may be said, if this Something is x, there must, by the results we have already reached, be some y, which is not, but it does not follow that y exists. If an existent object is red, it must be not-green, but it does not follow that any green object exists. Thus, it is urged, there might, for anything we have proved to the contrary, be only one existent Something, whose definite nature consisted in the fact that it was x, and was not y, z, etc (McTaggart 1910, 24).

If something cannot have qualities, but, rather, is the quality, then there must be a plurality of the former.

The introduction of plurality is problematic since it appears to employ quantitative logic, which is developed later in Hegel’s Logic, and would thus violate the presuppositionless development. Instead, Hegel’s argument might be more minimal, namely, that qualitative determinateness necessarily connects reality to negation (and vice versa) but that these are moments of something, whose mediation further necessitates the emergence of an other. There no need to evoke plurality here, save for trying to apply the logic to a concrete situation, but in that case one would no longer be developing the matter but instantiating what has already been developed.

Bibliography

Authors
Filip Niklas (2025)

Contributors
Ahilleas Rokni (2025)

Notes