I'm trying to write a paper and I've tried to reconstruct an argument about this on my own with no luck so far. It's about Hegel's criticism of Spinoza.
As far as I understand, Hegel's main critique of Spinoza's ontology is that it denies the actuality(not sure if that's the right word) of determinate things. A cup of coffee, for example, is ontologically dependent on Spinoza's Substance, as is everything else that you and I encounter in life. This kind of ontological dependence, though, results in everything being reduced to Substance: giving us a static, lifeless universe where change is impossible, not totally unlike Parmenides' universe.
I understand that Spinoza's system was actually valuable in that it avoided Cartesian dualism by unifying thought and extension in one higher category of thing i.e. substance, but failed to create room for the possibilty of change. With that in mind, I'm lead to believe that Hegel's task would be to retain the unification of thought and extension achieved in Spinoza, while finding a way to allow for change.
This is where I get lost. I know it has something to do with negation, but I cannot fathom how Hegel is able to overcome this problem. The root cause of the problem seems to me like the fact that Substance, insofar as it encompasses the whole cosmos, cannot be negated by anything else that is on the same ontological playing field. But doesn't Hegel's Absolute, which is analogous to Spinoza's Substance as far as I can tell, run into the same problem?
I would appreciate any help with this, because I'm a little stumped. Please correct any misunderstandings in my interpretation; I'm sure there are many.
