THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

itself. Every particular thing, as the particular thing that it is, is one. This is the “abstract
unity” that excludes plurality. Qua tree, the tree is one. It is, in other words, one thing.
If we ask about the composition of the tree, then a number of properties, matters, or
things emerge, each of which, in relation to itself, is one. If we then try to make sense of
the relation between the properties, matters, or things, on the one hand, and the tree qua
tree, on the other hand, then, according to Hegel, the only notion of unity available to us,
since we only admit abstract identity, is unity via aggregation. This conception of unity,
however, “renders for every inexplicable” the “whole range of natural structures.” 102
In order to overcome this impasse, Hegel argues that we must grasp identity as
concrete identity, as identity that includes difference. We must recognize that every thing
essentially consists in its relation to what it is not, and thus that there is an important
sense in which both “A = A,” and “A ≠ not-A” present distortions of the true nature of A.
While on the one hand, A is not not-A, there is another sense in which A cannot be fully
abstracted from not-A, since not-A partially constitutes it as what it is. This might all
seem to be nonsense. However, a serious consideration of teleology as the fundamental
102 These two options – abstract identity and mere conjunction – present what we might call an
Hegelian antinomy. These categories are opposites, and yet both rest upon the same basic assumption,
upon the common rejection of concrete identity or the unity of identity and difference. The problem of
these oppositional categories can be seen in relation to the Pantheism Controversy. In fact, Paragraph 573,
the paragraph quoted above, primarily focuses on this controversy. In our conception of the relationship
between God and the world, there seem to be two equally problematic options. On the first option, God
and the world present two distinct things that are merely conjoined or externally related. While this avoids
pantheism, it makes God finite, since he stands over/against creation. It also runs the risk of making the
world genuinely independent of God, and thus itself a kind of God. On the second option, we might say
that “God = world in its entirety.” Here we move from external conjunction to abstract identity. Hegel
argues that most people move back and forth between these two extremes. In contrast, he argues that we
must conceive a conception of God’s relation to the world that unites or preserves both the difference
between God and creation as well as their unity. Here there are host of options that partially explain the
relation – ground/grounded, reality/appearance, cause/effect, etc. Ultimately, however, Hegel holds that
none of them suffice, and he settles for a conception of God as the highest form that emerges in the material
world. It should also be noted, that in discussing the Pantheism Controversy and the relation between God
and the world, Hegel’s point is primarily illustrative rather than traditionally theological. The relation
between God and the world ultimately presents a kind of non-clarified self-conception of the relation
between the political sphere and all subordinate aspects of life and the world.
97