THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

in terms of our example, this interpretation holds that the water stays the same, that the
coldness is annihilated, and that the warmth is created. This interpretation treats P, S1,
and S2 as fully independent or distinct. In some sense, at least, it treats P, S1, and S2 as
three different things. In other words, it treats the water, the coldness, and the warmth as
distinct things or entities. 110 We might say that this interpretation fails to recognize that
coldness and warmth are “states of” or “properties of” the water. They are not distinct
substances, but rather they are features of the water, ways that the water exists. Of
course, this doesn’t solve our problem. It merely raises the question of what it means to
say that X is state or property of Y. It merely raises the central question of Hegel’s
philosophy, the question about the structure of the genuine thing.
110 This conception of change presents the modus operandi of the mere understanding, a
conceptual approach that “sticks to the fixity of characters and their distinctness from one another,” and
that also treats “every such limited abstract as having a subsistence and being of its own” (Encycopedia
Logic, paragraph 80). The understanding grasps identity and difference. In the case of change, it grasps
the existence of something that persists (the moment of identity) as well the existence of the features that
change (the moment of difference). However, the understanding does not grasp the deeper unity that
grounds and unites these moments, the unity from which these moments are abstracted. In his discussion of
change, Bradley seems to remain at the standpoint of the understanding. Bradley says: “The relational
form in general, and here in particular this form of time, is a natural way of compromise. It is no solution
of the discrepancies, and we might call it rather a method of holding them in suspension. It is an artifice by
which we become blind on either side, to suit the occasion; and the whole secrete consists in ignoring that
aspect which we are unable to use. Thus it is required that A should change; and, for this two characters,
not compatible, must be present at once. There must be a successive diversity, and yet the time must be
one. The succession, in other words, is not really successive unless it is present. And our compromise
consists in regarding the process mainly from which ever of its aspects answers to our need, and in
ignoring—that is, in failing or in refusing to perceive—the hostility of the other side” (Appearance and
Reality, p. 40). Here Bradley presents a perfect picture of the modus operandi of the understanding. The
understanding grasps the importance of identity and difference, but it fails to grasp the third moment, the
moment of their relation. At the same time, Bradley seems to diverge from Hegel in his account of change.
Rather than concluding that change seems contradictory from the standpoint of the understanding, Bradley
seems to conclude that it is contradictory full stop, and therefore, in some sense, not real. For this reason,
Bradley discusses change in the first part of his book, the part on appearance. In this regard, one of Hegel’s
remarks about the contradictory nature of change merits consideration. Hegel says: “The ancient
dialecticians must be granted the contradictions that they pointed out in motion; but it does not follow that
therefore there is no motion, but on the contrary, that motion is existent contradiction itself” (Science of
Logic, p. 440). Bradley holds that reality does not contain contradictions, and therefore he concludes that
change is a mere appearance. By contrast, Hegel recognizes the importance of change. In fact, he makes
change – and more specifically action – one of the central categories of his philosophy. In doing so, he
admits the existence of contradictions in reality. Or, to state the point more carefully, he admits that reality
contains phenomena that appear contradictory to the understanding.
109