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Abstract

This dissertation offers a systematic investigation of the concept of contingency in Hegel's Science of Logic. The point of departure is Hegel's antinomical thesis that the contingent is necessary and the necessary is contingent, a determination that has thus far received no adequate formal reconstruction in the scholarly literature. The dissertation makes a threefold contribution. First, it systematically unfolds the formal structure of contingency as a necessary contradiction between formal possibility and formal actuality. Second, it demonstrates that contingency in its real sense constitutes an indispensable presupposition for the necessary relation between real possibility and real actuality. Third, it analyzes the conceptual resolution of the modal contradiction through the transition to absolute actuality and, ultimately, to the concept itself. In this light, contingency is shown to be not an irrational remainder of reality, but rather a structural condition of necessity as such. In dialogue with existing scholarship — particularly the contributions of Henrich, Houlgate, Utz, and Burbidge — the present work supplements Hegel research with a formal and systematic dimension that has hitherto been absent. The findings reveal that concrete freedom in Hegel is only conceivable against the horizon of absolute contingency.