Quantum

Abstract

We now commence what is, by far, the longest,¹ most maddening chapter in the SL – Quantum. At the end of chapter 4, Hegel derived Quantum. Quantum becomes Number – “quantity with a determinateness or limit in general.” (202) Quantum/Number will melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a pair of terms unfamiliar to the modern ear – Extensive and Intensive Quantum, sometimes called Extensive and Intensive Magnitude. Intensive Quantum is also called Degree. Degree is indeed the ladder to all high design. Quantum’s intensity will yield Quantitative Infinity and the infinitely small or large number, which can never be named. When we reach this unnameable thing, Quantum has recaptured its Quality. Quality is independence from outside determination. Whereas as the middle chapter of Quality saw Being chasing away its own content, the middle chapter of Quantity will do the opposite – it will recapture some measure of its content.