1) Notion as "power of substance self-realised": I have always had a bit of trouble with this dfiition which Hegel gives, because he never really defines Substance. But if we look to Spinoza for the Notion of Substance, and give it a Hegelian interpretation, I think we see Substance as the immediate actuality of the unity of thought and matter. Such as rather unclear definition is nevetheless consistent with "principle of freedom" which means the same as "the truth of Actuality", or "what actuality turns out to be" and also "each of its constituent functions is the very total which the notion is, and is put as indissolubly one with it" and "in its self-identity it has original and complete determinateness".
All of these definitions say the the Notion is unity of Being and Essence, which retains them sublated within itself. ... or "The notion, in short, is what contains all the earlier categories of thought merged in it, etc., etc.", but still fail to say what the Notion is.
Marx's summation: "The concrete concept is concrete because it is a synthesis of many definitions..." from the Method of Political Economy, is a definition of Notion, but more a definition of concrete.
I'm not sure I have Julio's quote: Volume II, Chapter 1, is about the circuit M - C - M? But about the thesis that "generalized commodity production is the Ground of capitalist production": In other words: "Capitalism has its Being in another, generalised commodity production". Yes this is true, but it says the same thing, for Ground is but one moment in the stage of Essence.
In my opinion, Julio here talks of the concrete Notion, which is very fair, given the point Julio made above, of the concreteness of the Notion. But this is what I would call the Object of capitalism, or the "developed Notion".
The onward movement of the notion is no longer either a transition into, or a reflection on something else, but Development. For in the notion, the elements distinguished are without more ado at the same time declared to be identical with one another and with the whole, and the specific character of each is a free being of the whole notion. [Shorter Logic s. 161]
So, in summary, I think Julio's points in julio14.txt, are true, but from where I'm coming from, there is a need to focus back on to the simple moments: simple essence and the abstract Notion, or germ, as opposed to the developed moments (Ground and Object).
Wow! This sounds good! When a feudal lord extracts surplus product from the serf, by requiring them to work their surplus labour time under the direcion of the Lord, has "surplus VALUE" been produced or extracted? You say "No", and I read that Marx and Engels agree with you! The bracketed section near the end of Chapter 1, Section 1 of Capital makes it quite explicit: "To become a commodity a product must be transferred to another, ... by means of an exchange".
So, the genesis of value which Marx traces in the Section 3 "The Form of Value", of course refer only to those marginal parts of pre-capitalist societies in which exchange grows up, and it is here that the germ of what is to become capitalism is planted.
Well, this is where I was when I had my "revelation", or stroke? "designates the same reality as" was too vague for me; lots of things "desgnate a reality". I believe one is Essence, the other is Notion.