Prelude

Everything that exists is a symbol of the absolute self. This means that everything that exists is, in a way, this self itself. All the partial moments of existence are only the reproduction and revelation of the self itself. All its fullness and inexhaustibility rested on existence. Being repeats it and reconstructs it. But the very thing is at the same time the greatest incomprehensibility and even unknowability. Therefore, everything that exists, being a symbol of itself, is always fraught with something incomprehensible and unknowable. No matter how distinct and clear the logic that accompanies it, it is at the same time something mysterious and inexplicable once and for all.

Let all people who have normal thinking be convinced of the correctness of the multiplication table; let it be absolutely certain, obvious, let it be verified by an innumerable number of physical and non-physical facts. However, no one will ever answer the question: why two times two is four, and two times three is six. In fact, it is impossible to answer the question: why one and one two. One and two have a certain semantic content, and by virtue of this content, the sum of two units is equal to two. But why this numerical content leads to such a result – no one has ever explained and is unable to explain.

And in mathematics this incomprehensibility of the last foundations is especially noticeable. Let in logic and in philosophy in general people make a lot of fog; And there, if people reasoned more scientifically – let us even assume this vulgar judgment – then everything would be clear to everyone and nothing mysterious would remain. But mathematics is already a real science, and no one doubts its reliability. And yet many of its statements give a decidedly miraculous impression, especially some intricate solutions of higher mathematics. That a new theorem follows from a given axiom or theorem, or from a series of them, is understandable, i.e., the content of this conclusion is clear here. But why thought requires this particular conclusion and not another, no one can explain. As we delve into the content of mathematical analysis, we quickly begin to notice that mathematicians are not doing their own human work, that they are describing their visions of some world they do not understand; And their whole task is to eliminate everything human, subjective, accidental, in order to obey this mysterious command to reason in this way and not otherwise, in order to copy as much and as accurately as possible from the incomprehensible picture revealed to them.

The same must be said about all human knowledge, and in particular about logic. No matter how obvious, convincing and clear it is, behind it there is a certain abyss of incomprehensible, illogical, mysterious things, what it feeds on and where it gets its structure from, but about which it can neither be talked about nor thought. Just as no biologist can ever explain the bizarre forms of plants and animals that go far beyond the biologically investigated factors, and just as no explanation can destroy our wonder at the various bizarre forms of plants and animals, so logic will never explain to us its logical forms and make us stop wondering at them, however clear and obvious they may be in themselves.

We will be able to state this from the very first steps of logical thought in general.

I. The Mystery of the First Conception of Thought

1. The Thing itself is unknowable and prelogical. But let us want to record the very first, most primitive movement of thought after this very moment. First of all, what kind of movement will it be?

a) Let's start "from below", with things. What is the most primitive, the most abstract, the most necessary in a thing? Here is a branch of lilac. It can be of different colors, which means that color is not something basic. It can be of different sizes. This means that size is also not something original. And so on and so forth. Coming to the very first thing that characterizes this branch of lilac, we are confronted with one category, which in any case must be in it, no matter how and by what the lilac itself is defined. This is precisely her being. Lilac must first of all be there for us to assert something about it. Lilac is – this is the first thing, even the palest and most abstract – without which lilac is nothing and which is, as it were, the basis and pivot for all its real properties and qualities and for its entire concrete life. Being, i.e., the first positing, is what the whole life of a given thing will afterwards be based on, and this is the final foundation for every thing during its entire existence. Lilac is something. But to be that something, it must first just be. This lilac bloomed a few days ago and will bloom for another two weeks. But in order to blossom and fade, it must first just be. This lilac bush is a simple one, and that's a Persian lilac. But to be plain or Persian, lilac must first just be. Here I have a lilac flower with three or four petals, but after a long search I found a lilac flower with five petals. However, in order to have three, four, or five petals, lilacs must first just be. And so on and so forth.

Being, or, what is the same thing, positing, affirmation, is obviously the very first, the most fundamental thing that a thought affirms, without which nothing else exists.