Hegelian preservation relies on a Greek modality of qualified non-being distinct from absolute absence.

Evidence

This negativity manifests itself as virtuality. 2Εις, in so far as it is something possessed and held in reserve, falls outside the scope of that category called by Hegel ‘abstract negativity’; it is rather instead a negation which preserves that which it negates (/λλ ωσις without corruption). From this it follows that negation is in fact a modality of what the Greeks knew as the µ4 6ν – that which might not be – the non-existent as a problematic way of being: distinguishing it from the κ 6ν – that which is not – signifying the absolute lack of being. The negative adverb µ indicates a case where negation is accompanied by a doubt, as opposed to the adverb κ which denies a certain fact. Hegelian negativity, the nature of a being which is suppressed ‘but has not definitively disappeared’, of a ‘state midway between being and nothing’, requires this modality of the µ4 6ν which is one of the central meanings of virtuality. In the logical process of the Aufhebung, the essential idea of a mode of preservation – a form of preservation identified by Hegel in several different places through the Latin adverb virtualiter – is clearly associated with the Aristotelian concept of ις. 2Εις describes the manner in which substance entertains the reality of its future actualizations as if they were its ‘possessions’ or properties. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 480

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies that Hegelian negativity means ‘that which might not be’ (μὴ ὄν) and preserved-without-definitive-disappearance, not total nullity — and ties Aufhebung’s virtualiter preservation to Aristotelian hexis.
• QUESTION: If the virtual negation of the enemy ‘preserves’ while repressing, then which social arrangements keep the enemy in the μὴ ὄν reserve vs push it into the destructive explosiveness?