This paper considers the current metrological project to redefine the kilogram unit, and the International System of Units (SI) more broadly, through Hegel’s theory of measure and the distinction between measurement and measure it makes available. Hegel’s discussion of measure in the Science of Logic closely followed the inception of the metric system in the late 18th century, and the use of physical reference standards for metrical units (the meter and the kilogram) exemplifies his definition of measure as the unity of quality and quantity. I theorize the redefinition of the SI as a moment which returns to the practice of measurement to the problem of measure – to the question of how metrical units are grounded in relationships between quantity and quality. I argue that the redefinition of the kilogram through correlation with the Planck constant, rather than a physical reference object, exemplifies a dialectic of formalization and experiment constitutive of scientific practice, which displaces the immediacy of objects in order to approach ‘the concrete truth of being’ (Hegel’s characterization of measure) with adequate complexity
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