What is Negativity?
In his SCIENCE OF LOGIC, Hegel wrote: The negativity which has just been considered is the turning point of the movement of the Notion. It is the simple point of negative self-relation, the innermost source of all activity, of living and spiritual self-movement, the dialectic soul which all truth has in it and through which it alone is truth; for the transcendence of the opposition between the Notion and Reality, and that unity which is the truth, rest upon this subjectivity alone. The second negative, the negative of the negative, which we have reached, is this transcendence of the contradiction, but is no more the activity of an external reflection than the contradiction is: it is the innermost and most objective movement of Life and Spirit, by virtue of which a subject is personal and free (cited in PON, p. 20). The dialectic of negativity is the absolute method. It enables us to keep pace, not only with the development of external objective reality, but also with internal subjectiv
