Circularity fails as an answer to the dialectic’s relapsing into false infinity

Evidence

The question which immediately comes to mind is … to know if and how the dialectical movement itself can be prevented from falling back under the domination of finitude – finitude in the shape of false infinity, or endlessness (Endlosigkeit). Several responses, in particular the suggestion of circularity, simply stumble into this difficulty rather than resolving it. In addition, it is futile to invoke from the outside the sheer grandeur of the Absolute. Nor is the point to look around for some stopper which the false infinite might chance to run across. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1001

Categorization

  • XREF: This mirrors the critique of ‘bad infinity’ running from the Science of Logic and connects to how later readers from Derrida onward contest closure. — connects to: The dialectical process may itself generate a bad infinity rather than a true endpoint — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 999; Dialectical sublation may itself generate endless self-cancelling bad infinity — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 999; Philosophical propositions dialectically preserve, suppress, and present their cancelled form

Broader Connections