Hegel's overcoming of being and becoming distinction by unity through dialectics is bollocks. For Kierkegaard, the self, as the relation that relates itself back to itself, is not contained within itself; it must have been posited by another. Now, this other—this and—also relates to that which has posited the entire relation: this third term is the human self. Unlike, for example, Hegelian idealism, for which: “Insofar as this and establishes a relation, it is thereby an immediately exclusive negative unity, opposed to the members of the opposition (the relation), itself one term, the other being the opposition as such—in other words, relating to itself” (L&M, p. 60), Kierkegaard maintains that although this third term stands in relation to the relation, it is not that relation itself: “What this formula in fact expresses is the dependence of the whole relation, which is the self” (TD, p. 58), which can only be by relating itself to that which has posited the whole relation. Yet at every instant of its existence, the self is in the process of becoming, for “the self κατὰ δύναμιν (in potentiality) does not actually exist and is only what is to be” (TD, p. 85).
Kierkegaard’s definition of becoming is as follows:a) Becoming does not presuppose, unlike change in general, the prior existence of that which has become. It is through the thing as it has become that one retroactively affirms that it is, for otherwise it would not be the becoming of this particular thing, but possibly of another kind of thing.b) Now, the movement of becoming is not in the essence but in being; yet this being must exist, otherwise it would not be this particular thing that becomes.c) This being that has become is the real; and when it is non-being, it is the possible. Thus, the change involved in becoming is the passage from the possible to the real.d) No necessary thing can become, and no thing that has become is necessary, for everything that becomes is change, whereas the necessary cannot change in any way, since it is. (MP, p. 114)One will note the similarity with the Aristotelian definition, with the exception of this last point; unlike Aristotle, who holds that everything necessary is possible (O2, 13, 10–14), Kierkegaard maintains that nothing necessary is possible. The real and the possible form a dyad that is opposed in act, but never in essence. No being becomes through necessity, except necessity itself, for the essence of the necessary is to be. Otherwise, the real and the possible would change their essence by becoming necessary, and it is precisely from this that becoming is excluded. (MP, pp. 113–115)“The change involved in becoming is reality; the passage is effected through freedom. No becoming is necessary—neither before it occurs, for then it could not become, nor after, for then it would not have become.” (MP, p. 115)
