Absolutely Contradictory Self-Identity

The real world must be a world in which things mutually act upon one another. The form of reality is conceived as the mutual relation between things, as the result produced through their mutual interaction. Yet for a thing to act must mean that the thing negates itself; it must mean that the thing as such vanishes. That things form a single world through their mutual interaction must mean, conversely, that things are conceived as parts of a single world. For example, that things act upon one another in space must mean that things are spatial. At the extreme, if we conceive of something like physical space, physical forces may be regarded as changes of that which is spatial. However, if things are thoroughly conceived as parts of a holistic One, the acting thing disappears, the world becomes static, and reality itself vanishes. The real world must thoroughly be a One-of-the-Many; it must be a world of the mutual determination of individual things. Therefore, I say that the real world is an absolutely contradictory self-identityNote.

Such a world must be a world that moves from the created to the creating. It is not a world conceived as a One-of-the-Many founded upon the interaction of immutable atoms, as in classical physics. If conceived in that manner, the world would merely be a repetition of the identical world. Nor can it be conceived as a teleological world representing the development of a holistic One. If that were so, individual things would not mutually act upon each other. It must be a world that cannot be conceived either simply as a One-of-the-Many or as a Many-of-the-One. It must thoroughly be a world that moves dialectically and self-negatingly from the created to the creating, wherein that which is given is always that which has been created. We cannot posit a holistic One at its base as a substratum, nor can we posit an individualistic Many. A creative world that truly moves by itself as phenomenon-qua-reality must be such a world. What exists in reality is being as something thoroughly determined, yet as something thoroughly created, it is ever-changing and perishing; we can call this being-qua-nothingness. Therefore, I call this the world of Absolute NothingnessNote, and as a world of infinite motion, I have also termed it a world of determination without a determiner.

Such a world of contradictory self-identity must always be a world in which the present is conceived as determining itself. It is not a world causally determined from the past—that is, not a One-of-the-Many; nor is it a world teleologically determined from the future—that is, not a Many-of-the-One. Originally, time can neither be conceived solely from the past nor solely from the future. If we conceive of the present merely as an instantaneous point on a continuous line, there is no present, and consequently there is no time. The past has already passed away in the present yet has not yet passed away; the future has not yet arrived yet has already appeared in the present. Past and future stand in opposition as the contradictory self-identity of the present, and it is precisely thus that time is constituted. And because it is a contradictory self-identity, time moves from the past to the future, from the created to the creating.

The instant must be conceived as a point of linear time. However, just as PlatoNote already conceived the instant (exaiphnes) as lying outside of time, time is established as a continuity of discontinuityNote. Time is the contradictory self-identity of the Many and the One. It is not that time simply exists and things move within it; rather, the world forms itself as an absolutely contradictory self-identityNote, and therein time is constituted. The present is not a mere point; the present is that which possesses depth and width—it is the place of the self-determination of the contradictory self-identity of past and future. It is a historical present.

That the past in the present has already passed away yet has not yet passed away, and that the future has not yet arrived yet has already appeared, may seem inconceivable when viewed from the perspective of abstract logic. But if we reflect upon our actual life, we see that it is always so. Our present is never a mere geometrical point without duration. Our present is always pregnant with the past, bearing memory, and pregnant with the future, bearing anticipation and purpose. If the past were simply dead and gone, it could have no bearing upon our present action. If the future were entirely non-existent, our present action would possess no direction or meaning. The present is the living focal point where the bygone past and the approaching future cut into one another and interact. It is precisely in this tension of absolute opposites that concrete time breathes and unfolds.

As stated above, the world that moves from the created to the creating as an absolutely contradictory self-identity must also be a world of poiesisNote. When speaking of making or production, people usually think merely of a subject making an object. But true production cannot be conceived merely from the side of the subject, nor merely from the side of the object. If it were merely subjective, it would remain an arbitrary psychological fantasy; if it were merely objective, it would be nothing more than a mechanical physical change. Production must be the self-formation of the historical world itself. AristotleNote distinguished poiesis from theoria and praxis, regarding it as the bringing forth of form in matter. Yet in the historical world, matter is not a mere passive substance; matter itself is historical, already bearing form. And as LeibnizNote suggested through his concept of expression, each individual being expresses the universe from its own perspective while forming the world.

Just as time is thoroughly unrepeatable and singular, and the present, as the space of time, moves from present to present whereby time is constituted through the self-determination of the present, so too does the world move from the created to the creating as a contradictory self-identity. In this movement, humanity exists as homo faberNote—the maker of tools. We do not merely contemplate the world; we act within it through tools. And it is in this very act of making that we truly perceive and know reality. This is what I call acting intuitionNote. We do not first see and then act, nor do we act blindly without seeing; rather, we see by acting, and act by seeing.

When I say that we cannot conceive either the One or the Many at the base of the world, that the Many and the One are mutually negating, and that reality moves from the created to the creating, many people may feel that this does not describe the world of reality. People are accustomed to presupposing either an immutable substance underlying the world, as in materialism, or a spiritual unity, as in idealism. But both views are abstract constructions of the intellect. The concrete world in which we actually live, breathe, and act is neither pure matter nor pure mind. It is a world where we, through acting intuitionNote and poiesisNote, confront things, transform them, and are in turn transformed by them. KantNote located the synthesis of knowledge in the transcendental unity of apperception, but that remained an intellectual synthesis within consciousness. LotzeNote attempted to unite mechanism and teleology, but his synthesis remained an external compromise. True synthesis must be the bodily, creative self-determination of the historical world itself.

In a world that moves by itself as the absolutely contradictory self-identity of the Many and the One, the subject and the environment constantly stand in mutual opposition, and the world is conceived as self-forming through self-contradiction. Here, as in Leibniz'sNote philosophy, each individual thing is a monadNote. The monad expresses the whole universe from its own particular perspectiveNote. However, for Leibniz, the relation among monads was guaranteed beforehand by a transcendent God through pre-established harmony. For us, there is no pre-established harmony given outside of time. The harmony, or rather the contradictory unity of monads, is achieved dynamically in the historical present through mutual negation and poiesis. The monadNote is not a closed windowless capsule; it is an acting, bodily historical presence.

In a world where neither the One nor the Many can be conceived at the base, and which moves from the created to the creating as an absolutely contradictory self-identity, the individual thing determines itself expressively. PlatoNote posited transcendent Ideas as the eternal archetypes of all things, viewing sensible things as mere shadows or copies. But for us, the Idea is not a static archetype residing in a transcendent heaven. The Idea is the dynamic forming principle immanent in the historical world. An individual thing is not a mere copy of an Idea; it is a creative historical agent through whose bodily action the Idea itself is generated and renewed.

Without seeing things self-contradictorily, there is no desire; and without form, there is no action. In animal life, seeing remains dim, like a dream. But in human life, we possess a perspectiveNote through which the world reflects itself in us. And this perspective is realized through our historical bodyNote. Our body is not merely an anatomical organism; it is an organ equipped with historical tools and cultural forms. When we grasp a tool, our bodily sense expands into the tool, and the world offers itself to us as that which can be formed and transformed.

As stated above, an individual thing is thoroughly creative as an individual thing; it is an individual thing as a creative element of the creative world, forming the world while simultaneously forming itself. It is not that individual things are formed within a pre-existing world; rather, the contradictory self-identity of individual things constitutes the world. Each individual thing is a center of the world, and because every individual thing is a center, the world is a centerless center—an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. This is the paradoxical structure of the historical world.

The world of absolutely contradictory self-identity that infinitely moves from the created to the creating from form to form is thoroughly formative—that is, subjective. In opposition to this, an infinite environment always stands. In Bergson'sNote philosophy, creative evolution was conceived as the surging forward of the élan vital. Bergson captured the indivisible continuity of time as pure duration. However, because he viewed duration predominantly as psychological and biological, he failed to grasp the spatial and contradictory character of the historical world. The historical world is not merely duration; it is the dialectical clash between duration and space, between the subject and the historical environment.

If we conceive of the world either solely from the Many or solely from the One, the movement from the created to the creating is impossible. Whether we view the world mechanistically or teleologically, such a movement cannot occur. In a mechanistic world, everything is determined by past causes, and nothing genuinely new can ever be created; the future is merely a mathematical rearrangement of the past. In a teleological world, everything is predetermined by a future purpose, and genuine contingency and freedom are extinguished. Only where the past and the future collide in the contradictory self-identity of the present can true creation occur.

Thus, the world that moves from itself by virtue of self-contradiction as the absolutely contradictory self-identity of the Many and the One is always self-contradictory in the present. The present is the place of contradiction. From the standpoint of abstract logic, a contradiction cannot exist; a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect. But reality itself is contradictory. Living reality exists precisely because it contradicts itself. Death is contained within life, and life springs forth from death. The present is this boundless field of tension where opposites coincide.

When the mode of production of the historical world is non-productive, when the identical production is merely repeated, time appears as the linear progression ordinarily imagined. The present becomes empty of content; it lacks form. But in such a state, history has essentially come to a halt. Genuine historical time does not march along an empty homogeneous line; it pulsates with qualitative density. When a crisis occurs, when a society faces a revolutionary turning point, the present is charged with immense tension, and time reveals its true dialectical depth.

In a truly contradictory self-identical historical-social world, the past and the future are always self-contradictorily co-present in the present; we can say that the world is self-contradictorily a single present. Unlike Bergson'sNote duration, this co-presence is not a simple organic continuity. It is a presence that contains absolute negation within itself. The past that has perished and the future that has not yet come into being face each other across the abyss of the present and demand an absolute decision.

In the historical world, the past is not simply that which has vanished; as Plato said, non-being is being. In the historical present, the past and the future stand in contradictory opposition, and it is precisely from this contradictory opposition that historical action is born. What we call memory is not a passive archive stored in the brain; it is an active historical force that shapes the present. And what we call hope or ideal is not an abstract daydream; it is an active vector pulling the present toward realization.

For the past and the future to stand in self-contradictory opposition in the present, the present must possess form. This form is the mode of production of the historical world. From the individual perspective, we call this bodily action through acting intuition; from the social perspective, it is the cultural, political, and economic institution. HegelNote rightly recognized that objective spirit embodies itself in laws, customs, and institutions. But whereas Hegel subordinated these forms to the self-development of the logical Concept, we regard them as the living forms of historical poiesis.

The historical present, which embraces contradiction within itself as the contradictory self-identity of the past and the future, can be said always to contain within itself that which transcends it—the transcendent. It always touches the eternal. The eternal is not something located at the end of infinite time, nor is it an unmoving timelessness above time. The eternal touches time at each and every present moment. Wherever an individual acts decisively with their whole being, there the eternal cuts into time. That is why history is always open to the transcendent.

In this manner, that the subject and the environment stand in mutual opposition in the historical world, and that the subject forms the environment while the environment forms the subject, means that the past and the future stand in opposition in the present, moving from the created to the creating as a contradictory self-identity. In the historical world, there is nothing that is merely given. That which is given is already that which has been created. The environment too must thoroughly be that which has been historically created. Therefore, that the subject forms the environment in the historical world does not mean that form simply molds passive matter. The material world itself forms itself in a contradictory self-identical manner. In the world of the historical present as absolutely contradictory self-identity, various forms that determine themselves—that is, various modes of production—are established. These are what we consider historical species—namely, various human societies. A society must be a mode of poiesis. Therefore, society must essentially include that which is ideal. Therein lies the distinction from biological species. As long as it is ideally productive—that is, as long as it is poietic in a profound sense—it is a living society.

When I speak of being ideally productive, I do not mean detaching oneself from the historical-material ground and becoming merely cultural. That would mean the forming subject separates from its environment, leading to the destruction of the subject; it would mean the Idea degenerates into a mere ideal. The subject forms the environment. Although the environment is created by the subject, it does not belong solely to the creating subject; it stands in opposition to and negates the subject. Our life is poisoned and dies by the very things it has made. For the subject to go on living thoroughly, it must continually be reborn; it must become globally productive as a species of the historical world of absolutely contradictory self-identity. It must become an ideal constitutive power of the historical world. That which it produces must possess world-historical significance—that is, it must create a world-historical environment. Only such a subject endures. That a subject becomes globally productive as a historical species does not mean the subject vanishes, nor that it loses its particularity and becomes a mere abstraction. In the mode of production of the world of absolutely contradictory self-identity, wherein the infinite past and future are enveloped in the present, diverse subjects unite in a single world environment while each remains poietically ideal and touches the eternal. It is neither a world of abstract universality where all subjectivity and particularity are negated, nor a world where all subjects are teleologically subsumed into a single mega-subject. While the subjective survival of a species is often thought not to coincide with culture, a subject that is not in some sense ideally productive will not be able to survive in world history. The Idea must be the principle of subjective life. However, culture that has become detached from the subject is that which has already become merely environmental as something created, lacking the power to create that which creates. To view the world merely as something created is the superficial culturalist perspective.

The world that moves from the created to the creating as an absolutely contradictory self-identityNote is a world in which the past and the future unite mutually negatingly in the present. It is a world where the present contradictorily self-identically possesses form, and forms itself from present to present. The world is always a single present moving from the created to the creating. As contradictory self-identity, the form of the present is the world's mode of production. Such a world is the world of poiesisNote. In such a world, seeing and acting stand in contradictory self-identity: to form is to see, and from seeing one acts. We see things through acting intuitionNote, and because we see things, we can form them. When we act, we depart from the individual subject. However, we do not act from outside the world; at that very moment, we must already be within the world. To act must be to be acted upon. If our acting is not merely mechanical or teleological, but formative, then to form must be to be formed. We must act formatively as individual things of the world that forms itself.

That the past and the future unite mutually negatingly in the present, and that the world forms itself contradictorily self-identically as a single present, can be understood as consisting of the contradictory union of the infinite past and future. To say this means that such a world, on the one hand, must be conceived like Leibniz'sNote world of monadsNote—as a world of the mutually negating union of innumerable individual things, each thoroughly determining itself. The monad moves thoroughly from within itself; the present bears the past and is pregnant with the future, constituting a single temporal continuity, a single world. Yet the relationship between such individual things and the world can ultimately only be, as Leibniz said, expression-qua-representation. While the monad mirrors the world, it is a single vantage point of perspectiveNote. As the absolutely contradictory self-identityNote of the Many and the One, we can say, conversely, that a single world expresses itself innumerably. A world of the mutually negating unity of innumerable individual things must, conversely, be a world in which a single world self-negatingly expresses itself innumerably. In such a world, things stand in expressive mutual opposition. It is a world where past and future are mutually negatingly united in the present. It is a world where the present always contains within itself that which transcends itself, where the transcendent is immanent, and the immanent is transcendent. In a mechanical world from the past to the future, as well as in a teleological world from the future to the past, there is no objective expression. The world of objective expression must be a world where the Many being thoroughly the Many is the One, and the One being thoroughly the One is the Many. In the contradictorily self-identical present (historical space), where that which has passed away has already entered into nothingness yet remains being, and the future has not yet arrived yet has already appeared, things confront each other and mutually act expressively and formatively. There, they do not confront and act upon each other causally as necessity from the past, nor teleologically as necessity from the future. Only in a world that moves contradictorily self-identically as a single present from present to present, forming itself from the created to the creating, can this be said.

The movement from form to form in the self-forming world might perhaps be thought of as leap-like or unmediated. It might even be thought that the action of the individual thing is absent. But my thought is the exact opposite. The individual thing must thoroughly determine itself expressively; it must act formatively and expressively. The form possessed by the world must appear as the mutually negating unity, the contradictory self-identity, of such individual things. Conversely, the expressive activity of innumerable individual things must be the self-expression of the world of absolutely contradictory self-identity in innumerable manners. Therefore, the more an individual thing is thoroughly individual and expressive, the more it is creative. Here, the creative does not mean creating something out of nothing in a divine sense; it means that as an element of the world's self-formation, through its own self-negation, it creates the world. To act is to express, and to express is to create.

In a world of absolutely contradictory self-identity wherein each and every individual thing, thoroughly as an individual, determines itself expressively, when the individualistic Many is conceived self-negatingly merely as a set of points, that is the spatial world of geometry and classical physics. Conversely, when it is conceived as a continuous flow wherein all multiplicity is dissolved into an indivisible unity, that is the world of psychological duration. But neither represents concrete historical reality. Concrete reality is the contradictory self-identity of both: space that contains time, and time that spatializes itself. It is historical space-time, the place where bodily action occurs.

That we act in this world means that we form things. When I say that we see things through acting intuitionNote and act because we see things, it means that the individual thing, as stated above, thoroughly forms the world expressively. Our seeing is not a passive reception of sensory impressions from outside, as empiricism asserts. Sensory impression is already an abstraction. In concrete experience, we grasp things as tools, as obstacles, as materials for our creative action. We see a hammer not as a bundle of sensations (wood, iron, weight), but as that with which to strike and drive a nail. Seeing is already imbued with bodily intention and historical action.

To see things through acting intuition must mean to grasp things according to the world's mode of production. To see things in this sense is to mirror the world. Hegel'sNote dialectic conceived the development of reality as the self-unfolding of the concrete Concept (der konkrete Begriff). In Hegel, the Concept moves from abstract in-itself to alienated out-of-itself, returning to concrete in-and-for-itself. However, in Hegel, the ultimate agent remained the logical Concept, and history was subordinated to the closed circularity of Absolute Spirit. For us, the concrete concept is not a logical abstraction; it is the living mode of historical production in which bodily actors reshape the earth.

If the concrete concept is conceived, as stated above, as the mode of production of the world moving contradictorily self-identically, then we can indeed say that the rational is the real, and the real is the rational. But this rationality is not the intellectual rationality of abstract logic; it is the dialectical rationality of bodily poiesis. It is the logic of historical action. The real world possesses logos, but this logos is an incarnate logos, a logos that acts through tools, language, and historical institutions.

The individual thing is an individual thing by thoroughly forming itself expressively. However, that means the individual thing possesses its selfhood in self-negation, existing as an angle of the world that forms itself. The individual is not an isolated, self-enclosed atom. It exists only in relation to other individuals and to the holistic world. In asserting its individuality, it negates other individuals; yet in negating others, it affirms them as the conditions of its own existence. The individual lives only by dying to its narrow egoistic self and participating in the universal life of the historical world.

The world of absolutely contradictory self-identity unites the past and the future mutually negatingly in the present; the world forms itself as a single present, infinitely productive and creative from the created to the creating. In this world, life is not merely biological maintenance; it is historical self-transcendence. While biological life reproduces the species within fixed natural limits, historical life breaks through nature to build culture, technology, and art. History is the arena where life transcends mere life.

Even the world of biological life, as stated above, is already contradictorily self-identical. Yet by thoroughly realizing contradictory self-identity as moving from the created to the creating, the historical world surpasses biological life to become the human world. In biological life, the organism and the environment are united instinctually; the animal does not separate itself from its environment to objectify it. But in human life, through the intervention of tools and language, the environment is objectified as a world, and the self is objectified as a subject facing the world. Here, the tension of contradictory self-identity reaches its full depth.

The past and the future unite contradictorily in the present; the world forms itself from present to present as a contradictory self-identity—that is, the world is productive and creative. The human body is not merely a biological body; it is a historical bodyNote. A biological body functions through innate instincts; a historical body functions through acquired skills, cultural habits, and technological tools. When a pianist plays a piano, the piano is not an external physical object; it has become an extension of the pianist's historical body. The boundary between subject and object is erased in the fluid rhythm of artistic creation.

We see things through our poietic-bodily self, and in the poietic-bodily self that acts from seeing things in this way, seeing and making stand in contradictory self-identity. To see things poietically and bodily does not mean that we first possess a mental blueprint and then mechanically execute it with our hands. Rather, in the very process of working the material—whether stone, wood, or language—the material speaks to us, reveals its grain, and guides our hands. The sculptor sees the statue emerge from the marble through the chisel. The maker is taught by the made.

In the world of absolutely contradictory self-identity, that which is given to us must be given as a task. We are tasked with forming something in this world. We are not passive spectators cast into an indifferent universe; we are called upon to act. Every historical situation presents itself to us as an imperative, demanding our response and responsibility. To exist historically is to be summoned by the present to create the future out of the materials of the past.

As individual things of the world of absolutely contradictory self-identity, our selves are expressive; we act because we see things through acting intuition and poietic-bodily action. From the created to the creating, we are created by the past, yet we create the future. This double movement constitutes our existential freedom. Freedom is not an unconstrained, arbitrary whim of the isolated ego; true freedom is the realization of our historical destiny as creative co-workers of the historical world.

Where does the ground of the establishment of such a society lie? As already stated, it must lie in the movement from the created to the creating—that is, in the contradictory self-identity of the subject and the environment. Society is fundamentally centered on poiesis. It is through collective labor, technological invention, and institutional creation that human beings band together to form a common world. Society is not an aggregate of isolated individuals bound by an artificial social contract; society is the historical body of humanity.

The world that forms itself as a contradictory self-identity must, on the one hand, move from the environment to the subject. We called this biological and vital; even when reaching the human level, we never escape it. We are always rooted in the earth, subject to climate, geography, and bodily vulnerabilities. But on the other hand, the historical world moves from the subject to the environment. Humanity reshapes geography, constructs cities, builds networks, and alters the biosphere. These two vectors—from environment to subject, and from subject to environment—interpenetrate in the contradictory self-identity of history.

The world that forms itself from the created to the creating must, as moving from the created, be materially productive. Society must possess an economic structure; it must be a materially productive mode. But that does not mean the world is mechanical, nor merely teleological. It means the world is self-forming as a single present. There, historical formation must already be operating as contradictory self-identity. The world must touch the Absolute in a contradictorily self-identical manner. At the foundation of the establishment of society, something religious is at work. Therefore, primitive society is mythic. In primitive society, myth is a living reality governing the human world (Malinowski, *Myth in Primitive Psychology*). Ancient religion is said to be a social institution rather than a religion in the modern private sense (William Robertson SmithNote). I believe that at the root of social formation, something DionysianNote is at work. I find great interest in Jane Harrison'sNote idea that the gods were born from Dionysian dance (*Themis*). It is often thought that when a certain people inhabits a certain geographical environment, a certain culture is formed. It goes without saying that the geographical environment is a momentous factor in cultural formation. Yet the geographical environment does not form culture on its own, nor does an ethnic people exist potentially prior to historical formation. An ethnic people, too, must be that which is formed by forming. When the world forms itself as a contradictorily self-identical present, it is the world of life, the world of infinite forms, the world of species. In animals, this is instinctual; in human beings, it is dämonischNote. And just as in animals, as long as it moves from the created to the creating creatively and formatively, it is a living species. A historical people must be such a demonic formative power. That it moves from the created to the creating means that although the created thing is made by the species, in making that which creates it is ideal and worldly; it means the formation of the species is in the character of a historical mode of production. To advance in this direction contradictorily self-identically is nothing other than the direction of historical development.

As can already be conceived in the instinctual behavior of animals, our action arises from our mirroring the world self-contradictorily—that is, it arises from our being historically embodied. And that means our action arises socially. The personal opposition between I and Thou also emerges from social development. A child's self-consciousness must develop out of social relations. This is because society is established as the self-formation of the contradictorily self-identical present. Just as biological life possesses a biological body—what is commonly called the physical body—as a contradictorily self-identical formation, so too does historical life possess a historical body through acting intuition—namely, society. Acting intuition is our grasping, as individual things of such a world, the world that forms itself as a contradictory self-identity in terms of its mode of production. It is what Hegel called conceptual comprehension (begreifen). It is grasping reality poietically. Such a historically embodied society founded on acting intuition, being grounded upon absolutely contradictory self-identity, must thoroughly surpass itself self-contradictorily. Yet even when it thoroughly surpasses itself, it does not abandon its real ground. Were it to abandon it, it would become nothing more than an abstract world. We cannot negate the reality of acting intuition merely from the standpoint of abstract logic. Negation must proceed from the self-contradiction of reality itself. That which is given is given historically and individually. The contradiction of life lies in the very place where life is established. And no matter how far one goes, it remains a contradiction. In human beings, this contradiction reaches its apex. From the standpoint of contradiction, one can never escape contradiction. This is why religious thinkers conceive of original sin. As descendants of Adam who ate of the forbidden fruit, we are born bearing original sin.

The world that forms itself as a contradictorily self-identical present is a world of the contradictory self-identity of the Many and the One. As individual things of such a world, we who thoroughly determine ourselves must be an infinite desire, a will to live. And the world must be that which gives birth to us while simultaneously killing us. The world confronts us with infinite pressure; it bears down upon us relentlessly. We live by fighting against it. For the abstract intellectual self, reality may perhaps be conceived as merely given data. But for us as individual selves, that which is given must be given as an existential question of life and death. The world must be that which demands of us our life and death. The world given to the individual self is not a generic world, but a singular, unique world. The more we are individual, the more this holds true. And conversely, the more the world is unique in a contradictorily self-identical manner, the more the individual becomes truly individual. Therefore, the individual can be said to be an individual by confronting absolutely contradictory self-identityNote—that is, by confronting the Absolute. The individual is an individual precisely where its own life and death serve as mediation. And that means it is mediated by acting intuitionNote. The emergence of biological species must also be due to such a process.

The individual constantly confronts absolutely contradictory self-identityNote—that is, that which interrogates its very life and death. As long as a single mode of production is established contradictorily self-identically, the individual lives. Needless to say, various modes are always possible therein; this is why diverse species arise. In the world of the absolutely contradictory self-identity of the Many and the One, as long as contradiction is resolved, a species is established. As long as it is based upon acting intuitionNote, we can say that species-life is established. Both species and life are already dialectical (they are conceptual). As long as the individual lives through the species, and the species lives through the individual, it is the life of a species. Life is always precarious and vibrating; as long as it vibrates, there is life. Dialectical development must not mean negating the given from the outside; rather, the given itself is self-contradictory, surpassing itself from within itself. Even biological life is neither purely mechanical nor purely teleological. What is considered a fixed species today was established as the result of infinite dialectical development, and it too must one day change and perish. Even if a species is called fixed, it is always vibrating within a certain range. It simply means that it has acquired a normative form.

To speak of an animal as possessing acting intuition or being conceptual might be dismissed as an exaggeration. However, even biological life is formative as the self-determination of the contradictorily self-identical present; seeing and acting must be inseparable. For example, even something like an animal's eye was formed as the result of infinite contradictorily self-identical formation, and it must be inseparable from the species-life of the animal itself. Where reality is grasped contradictorily self-identically, there exists acting intuition. That means the creative mode of production of reality is grasped therein. The species of biological life must also have arisen through such a dialectical process. For this reason, in its deep ground, we can conceive of the Idea. The Idea is not an abstract ideal; like that of HegelNote, it must be a dialectical formative activity. Intuition separated from action is either an abstractly conceived phantom or a mere fantasy. Life is oscillating. There are always infinite directions, and it must be infinitely imaginative. The more life is contradictorily self-identical, the more this can be said. The deeper we are individually, the more imaginative and creative we become.

Our species-life, too, arose as the result of infinite dialectical development. But if we act merely conventionally and species-bound, that is the mechanization of the self, and at the same time the death of the species. When the species loses its creative poiesis, it calcifies and becomes extinct. The human species preserves its vitality only by continually transcending itself through cultural creation, artistic expression, and philosophical reflection. To remain human is to continually resist the dead weight of mere biological inertia.

Even biological life must be formative. Therein, acting intuition must already be included. Formative activity based on acting intuition means that the individual, confronting that which is transcendent, forms itself while forming the environment. It is not that an organism passively adapts to a pre-existing niche; rather, the organism actively carves out its Umwelt (surrounding world), modifying its environment even as it is modified by it. The beaver builds its dam, the bird weaves its nest, and the human being constructs civilizations. In all these cases, acting intuition operates as the dynamic hinge between organism and environment.

The world that moves from the created to the creating as an absolutely contradictory self-identity must be a world that forms itself as a single contradictorily self-identical present. Such a world must thoroughly be a historical world. It cannot be reduced to a timeless mathematical manifold. In historical reality, every event is unique, irreversible, and charged with existential weight. We do not stand above history as detached observers; we are thrown into history, and our very thoughts are historical actions.

In the self-formation of the world of absolutely contradictory self-identity, on the plane of consciousness where time is thought to be negated, the world is thoroughly vacillating. There, one might even think that acting intuition is lost. But true acting intuition is never lost; it merely deepens. When consciousness is confronted with radical doubt, when all habitual coordinates collapse, the self is thrown into the abyss of Absolute Nothingness. And it is precisely from this abyss that authentic acting intuition leaps forth anew.

As I have said repeatedly, my concept of acting intuition does not mean the merely instinctual or the merely aesthetic. Needless to say, instinct may be called its rudimentary, unevolved state, and art may be considered its culmination in one specific direction. But acting intuition is fundamentally the universal mode of concrete human existence. In scientific experimentation, in moral decision-making, in political leadership, and in everyday craftsmanship, acting intuition is the living foundation upon which human consciousness operates.

When moving from animals to human beings, we become social. As stated above, in society there is already the individual. Society is established around poiesis. Without tools, without production, without the cooperative transformation of nature, human society cannot exist. And through this poietic activity, individual personalities emerge. The individual is not an atomic unit prior to society; the individual and society arise simultaneously as the contradictory self-identity of the Many and the One.

When the world forms itself as the contradictorily self-identical present of past and future, we constantly confront that which questions our life and death as an absolutely contradictory self-identity—that is, we confront the unique, singular world. The world is not an indifferent background; it is an absolute presence that places us under existential trial. In every ethical dilemma, in every historical crisis, we are called to bear witness and take responsibility for the future of the world.

The more the acting-intuitive self is thoroughly individual, and the more the present is thoroughly absolute present, the more our cognition can be called objective. For example, when a physicist conducts an experiment, the physicist does not merely sit and daydream; the physicist manipulates apparatus, measures variables, and observes outcomes through bodily action. The apparatus is an extension of the physicist's historical body. Scientific objectivity is not achieved by fleeing from the body, but by disciplining the body through rigorous experimental poiesis.

The world that forms itself as an absolutely contradictory self-identity unifying past and future—that is, as the absolute present—is thoroughly logical. The abstract form of the self-formation of such a world is what is known as formal logic. But formal logic is merely the static shadow cast by concrete logic. Concrete logic is the dialectical logic of the historical world itself, the logic of topos wherein being and non-being interpenetrate.

The more we are individual as formative elements of the world, the more we collide with the unique world that forms itself contradictorily self-identically. As the absolutely contradictory self-identical present, where time is negated, we encounter eternity in the depth of each moment. Each moment is an aperture opening onto the infinite. The historical present is not a fleeting fragment doomed to oblivion; it is the arena where time and eternity intersect.

As stated above, all our actions arise acting-intuitively; they arise because the individual mirrors the world (hence they are expressive). Even our cognitive activity must thoroughly be historical and embodied. When we formulate an abstract concept, that concept is inscribed in language, spoken by physical vocal cords, or written upon physical paper. Thought cannot dissociate itself from its material and historical embodiments without dissolving into empty fantasy.

My concept of acting intuition does not mean moving unmediatedly from one merely passive intuition to another without the mediation of the logic of judgment. Rather, in the world of the contradictorily self-identical present, the judgment itself is an act. When we make a judgment—'A is B'—we are not merely linking two mental concepts in the intellect; we are determining reality from a specific historical perspective. The copula 'is' expresses the living tension of contradictory self-identity.

In the world of absolutely contradictory self-identity, subject and object do not merely stand in passive opposition, nor do they smoothly mediate one another; it is a life-or-death battle. In the world of absolutely contradictory self-identity, the intuitive and the acting are fused in an inescapable dialectical struggle. To see is to risk oneself; to act is to transform the world at the cost of one's own blood and sweat.

When the world forms itself as a contradictorily self-identical present, the past has already passed away, yet it exists contradictorily in the present; it is non-being-qua-being. Moving from the created to the creating, that which has been made becomes the maternal ground and constraint for what is now to be made. The artist must respect the grain of the wood; the statesman must reckon with the customs and historical grievances of the people. Reality yields only to those who obey its historical gravity.

What we call formative here must mean grasping the world creatively as an individual thing of the world of absolutely contradictory self-identity. Grasping reality as historical creative activity is what I mean by acting intuition. We do not understand the world by standing outside it as an uninvolved spectator; we understand the world by participating in its ongoing creation. Understanding is poiesis.

The historical world centered on poiesis, at the very tip of its creation, confronts the infinite past and the infinite future. And as an opposition in the absolutely contradictory self-identical present, this confrontation appears as the opposition between the subject and the environment. At every creative frontier, the creator stands alone against the wilderness of the unknown, bearing the inheritance of millennia while venturing into uncharted possibilities.

From the standpoint of creation, the past and the future must stand in absolute mutual opposition. Yet this is not a mere static opposition; as a contradictorily self-identical opposition, moving from the created to the creating, it must press upon the ground of our individual self, moving us from the depths of our soul. In the standpoint of acting intuition, that which confronts us intuitively as the historical past must be that which seeks to negate our individual self from the very ground of its life. Such is that which is truly given to us. That which is given to our individual self acting-intuitively is neither merely material nor merely negative; it must bear down upon us demonically. That which truly presses upon our soul must tempt us with abstract logic and seduce us under the mask of absolute truth. Against that which bears down upon the ground of our individual self as the absolute past, we who stand in the standpoint of the absolute future are thoroughly formative through acting intuition; as creative elements of the creative world, we are thoroughly creative (we always possess our selfhood in that which is transcendent; see the conclusion of this treatise). Therein lies the true ground of idealism.

To see the world acting-intuitively conversely implies forming the world acting-intuitively. The past is the past in order to negate itself and go toward the future; the future is the future in order to negate itself and become the past. If the world, as the absolute past, were thoroughly to strip our individual self of its life acting-intuitively, the world would become uncreative, negating itself. Intuition itself is a self-contradiction. As long as the world lives—that is, as long as it is creative and productive—the world cannot help falling into self-contradiction. Our acting self is born from the depths of such self-contradiction of the world. That the world bears down upon the individual self intuitively as the absolute past must not be mechanical nor teleological; it must demand the surrender of our soul. It must press upon us not as an object of mere comprehension, but as an object of faith, as that which instigates action. It must possess rationality; otherwise, it would not move our individual self, nor could it be said to be given to our acting self. In the absolutely contradictorily self-identical present, that which moves us as that which has been made must confront us with the force of abstract logic ('Because it was so, you must do so'). From the standpoint of abstract logic, the world is conceived as determined. Where our acting self confronts itself from the past, there is abstract logic. This is called reflection. But our acting self, as a formative element of the contradictorily self-identical world, grasps the mode of production of the historical world acting-intuitively and poietically; therein lies concrete logic. Without the past, there is no future. Our action must thoroughly be grounded upon the past. From the standpoint of that which is determined, our action must be abstractly logical. That the contradictorily self-identical world thoroughly confronts us acting-intuitively must include moving us abstractly logically. But this is formative thoroughly as the past in the absolutely contradictorily self-identical present. Concrete logic takes abstract logic as its mediation in the self-formation of the contradictorily self-identical present, while abstract logic has the meaning of logic only as the mediation of concrete logic. Otherwise, it is a mere empty formalism.

When I say that we grasp reality acting-intuitively, it does not mean that abstract logic is bypassed; rather, the more we are individual and creative as formative elements of the contradictorily self-identical world, the more that which is given acting-intuitively in the absolutely contradictorily self-identical present must move us logically. And that the world thoroughly forms itself contradictorily self-identically is concrete logic. In this sense, art too is concretely logical. I view art from the standpoint of the historical formation of humanity, not the latter from the former.

That what is given intuitively moves us logically may seem contrary to common sense. What I am asserting may perhaps be regarded as forced. However, conventional notions concerning intuition or the 'given' have been conceived from the standpoint of the intellectual, cognitive self, not from the standpoint of the concrete historical-social self—that is, not from the standpoint of the active, poietic self. From the standpoint of the logic of judgment, that which is given is considered irrational, and intuition is thought to reject logic. But as concrete human beings, we are born into the historical and social world as poietic and active agents, and no matter how far we go, we never escape this standpoint. That which is given is given historically and socially; that which is seen intuitively is seen actively and poietically, moving us expressively. As something given in the world of the contradictorily self-identical present, it must press upon our individual self. Society is established as the self-formation of the world of contradictory self-identity. No matter how primitive it may be, society is never merely instinctual, nor merely a homogeneous whole; it must be the contradictory self-identity of the Many and the One. As individual selves, we constantly confront that which is an absolutely contradictory self-identityNote—that which is transcendent. As MalinowskiNote pointed out, even in primitive society the individual must already be included. It is qualitatively different from animal herding. Primitive society is bound tightly by totems and taboos. Yet there nonetheless exists individual freedom, and therefore there exists guilt and transgression.

What is given to us as concrete human beings is not the momentary sensation of the psychologist; it must be given socially, given as that which envelops us. It is given with compulsive force as the self-formation of the world of contradictory self-identity, given as the self-determination of what I call the dialectical universal. It is demanded from the past through social conventions. Even if logically termed particular, as long as we are historical and social, as long as we are species-beings, we cannot help being moved essentially by it. It may perhaps be called pre-logical, as Lucien Lévy-Bruhl suggested. Yet even Plato'sNote logic was, at its foundation, nothing other than participation (methexis) in the Ideas. Mere abstract logic is in fact not true logic. Concrete logic must be the contradictory self-identity of both dimensions. Needless to say, for logic to become true logic, mythic elements must be negated and overcome. Society advances dialectically from the created to the creating. Yet no matter how far it advances, at its deepest ground it can never cease to be a process of acting intuitionNote grasping reality poieticallyNote as historical and social formation. As long as it is concrete logic, this holds true. But to say this does not mean positing something mystically intuitive at the base of logic. It means pressing relentlessly toward true reality poietically and practically. It means grasping the mode of production of the world that forms itself as an absolutely contradictory self-identityNote. There, we must continuously negate that which oppresses us mythically. We must transcend what is merely particular and merely historical. There, one may think that what is intuitively given is negated. But that does not mean, as abstract rationalists believe, that the historical past is wiped away or that the particular becomes merely a sub-case of the universal. Primitive society is already established as a contradictory self-identity. And our society advances thoroughly from such a standpoint. Indeed, precisely because it is contradictorily self-identical, it develops from the created to the creating.

What is historically given is given world-historically in the absolutely contradictorily self-identical present; the more we are an individual self, the more it presses upon our life so deeply that we cannot negate it. It is not something we can arbitrarily accept or reject; it constitutes the very marrow of our existence. We are born into a language, a tradition, a moral ethos. Through acting intuitionNote, we inherit this historical gift, not as dead weight, but as the springboard from which our own freedom leaps forth.

HegelNote stated that in order for personality to be an ideal existence, it must possess property. Concrete personality must be of the nature of the historical bodyNote. Society is the historical body of humanity, formed in the dialectic of moving from the created to the creating. Property, tools, and monuments are not lifeless external objects; they are the externalized organs of human freedom. A person without a historical body, without tools and property, would be a disembodied ghost, incapable of historical action.

The historical world, from the origin of biological life to human beings, is the contradictory self-identity of the Many and the One. And it moves from the created to the creating. In biological life, the individual thing still remains subsumed under the biological species. But in human life, the individual thing awakens to itself as an individual through acting intuition. In this awakening, the individual encounters the infinite horizon of history, where every deed reverberates across generations.

In such a sense, the cultural process must be ethical. It can also be said that cultural development is mediated by the state as substantial freedom. As individuals within society as an ethical substance, we achieve true freedom not by lawless self-assertion, but by dedicating ourselves to the common good. As Jane HarrisonNote showed in her studies of ancient Greek ritual (*dromenon*), the holy community precedes individual reflection. Ritual action unites the tribe into a single beating heart. And modern ethical life, at its best, preserves this sacred solidarity in the conscious form of law and justice.

The world of absolutely contradictory self-identity is ideal and contains that which is intuitive in the process of its self-formation from the created to the creating. However, I do not locate the self-identity of the world within itself. A world that possessed its self-identity complacently within itself would be a closed, stagnant world. The historical world is an open adventure because it is grounded in that which surpasses it.

The world of absolutely contradictory self-identity does not possess its self-identity within itself. As contradictory self-identity, it is always transcendent to this world. For this reason, as determination without a determiner, its self-formation is an infinite opening. It is grounded in Absolute NothingnessNote. Absolute Nothingness is not the negation of being; it is the bottomless abyss out of which all being, all time, and all creation continually arise.

As formative elements of the contradictorily self-identical present where past and future co-exist self-contradictorily in the present, we must stand under such a covenant from the very beginning of life. We are always confronted with the absolute demand of the present. We cannot postpone our decision. In every choice, we wager our soul. The present is an existential courtroom where eternity judges time.

Religion does not ignore the standpoint of morality. On the contrary, the true standpoint of morality is grounded by religion. However, this does not mean entering into religion through the mediation of self-power moral striving (jiriki sazen). In the moral standpoint, there is still the self that strives to become good; there is still the dualism of virtue and vice. But when the moral self encounters its own absolute finitude, when it realizes its radical incapacity to achieve absolute goodness through its own power, it is driven to despair. There, as ShinranNote proclaimed in the TannishōNote, the paradox of faith shines forth: 'Even a good person can attain rebirth in the Pure Land, how much more so an evil person.' In the depths of absolute self-negation, the self is grasped by Absolute Other-Power (Tariki).

The Eastern religion of Absolute Nothingness teaches sokushin zebutsuNote—'this very mind is Buddha.' This is neither mentalism (idealism) nor mysticism. Logically, it must mean the contradictory self-identity of the Many and the One. That 'all is one and one is all' does not mean that differences are obliterated into a homogeneous soup. It means that precisely as individual, finite, and flawed, the mind is immediately one with the absolute ground of reality. In Zen, the ultimate truth is not found in a distant heaven, but in carrying water and chopping firewood. Immanence and transcendence coincide.

The world that forms itself ideally from the created to the creating as the absolutely contradictory self-identity of the Many and the One is a world that possesses its self-identity in that which is transcendent. Therefore, this world is always religious in its depths. When we create, when we love, when we sacrifice ourselves for truth or justice, we are participating in the absolute self-expression of the divine. The historical world is the self-revelation of Absolute Nothingness.

Because the world is an absolutely contradictory self-identity, possessing its self-identity in that which surpasses itself, and because we are individual things by confronting the transcendent One, the more we are individual, the more we move from reality to reality while always surpassing this world of reality—being reflective and contemplative. When the world possesses its self-identity in that which surpasses itself, the world is expressive, and we, as individual things of such a world, are expressive in our activity. And when the world, as a contradictorily self-identical formation, unifies the past and the future in the present, we are reflective. Reflection must mean that past and future unite in the present. The standpoint of pure thought is that in which past and future are negated in the present, grasping the infinitely moving world as a single present. In the standpoint of thought, the world is grasped expressively as a single present. The contradictorily self-identical world is grasped there as possessing self-identity within itself. That is, the self-contradictory world is grasped non-contradictorily. For this reason, the standpoint of thought is thoroughly self-contradictory. And therein, thought and practice stand in perpetual opposition, establishing the standpoint of pure knowledge. The more the world is ideal and formative as a contradictory self-identity, the more we, as individual things, become contemplative and theoretical. The world, which from infinite past to infinite future never possesses self-identity within itself, is conceived as a syllogistic universal possessing self-identity within itself. Therein, scientific knowledge is established.

The world that forms itself as an absolutely contradictory self-identity in the manner described above is always conceived logically as a syllogistic universal in its contradictorily self-identical present. That the world constantly possesses the moment of self-negation within itself is the very reason why the world is contradictorily self-identical. Otherwise, it would not be a world of contradictory self-identity. However, to grasp the world of absolutely contradictory self-identity thoroughly from such a standpoint—that is, to view it immanently and self-identically—must mean abstracting from it. Concrete logic must contain abstract logic as its negative moment, but one cannot think concretely-logically from the standpoint of abstract logic. The world of absolutely contradictory self-identity can never possess self-identity within itself. It must be included as a moment of the ideal formation of history moving from the created to the creating. Where our self grasps reality as a historical, poietic self, there is concrete logic. There, we may say that the world in which we are enveloped as the contradictory self-identity of the Many and the One illuminates itself. Our consciousness self-contradictorily becomes the consciousness of the world. Therefore, we can say that we mirror reality through practice, or that things verify themselves. Even though knowledge begins with abstract analysis, from what standpoint and how it proceeds must arise from self-awareness of what position one occupies, moving from the created to the creating. Knowledge must be a historical process. I call such self-awareness of historical life dialectical logic. Hence, science too is dialectical. However, because science conforms strictly to the standpoint of 'from the created,' it must be termed environmental. To view the world of historical life solely from that standpoint cannot escape being abstract.

Our biological body is already technological as historical life. As Aristotle said, bodily development is nature's poiesis. But in our social life, it becomes truly technological. Our body is conceived as a historical bodyNote. From such a standpoint, our historical life can be said to be thoroughly technological. But conversely, that historical life is technological must mean, contradictorily self-identically, that it is thoroughly ideational and formative. Therefore, it develops from species-formation to ideational formation. Only in this sense can the particular be said to be immediately the universal.