Science of Logic
I.1. Determinateness (Quality)
Section summary
A short preview of Section One. Indeterminate being has, in its very indeterminacy, a quality; it therefore passes into determinate being, which as finite transcends itself into being-for-self, the infinite relation of being to itself.
Being is indeterminate immediacy; it is free from all determinateness as contrasted with Essence, and similarly from all that it can hold within itself. This unreflected Being is Being as it is immediately only in itself.
Since it is indeterminate it lacks all quality; but the character of indeterminateness in itself belongs to it only in contradistinction from that of being determinate or qualitative. Determinate Being as such opposes itself to Being in general, and hence it is just the latter’s indeterminateness which constitutes its quality. Hence it will be shown that primary Being is in itself determinate, and therefore,
Secondly passes over into Determinate Being, and is Determinate Being; which however transcends itself as finite Being, and passes over into the infinite relation of Being to itself, namely,