THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

words, as Hegel’s discussion of judgment progresses, it considers various increasingly
adequate or true conceptions of the meaning of the copula.
At various points in his discussion of judgment, Hegel makes it clear that the
progression of his discussion follows the development of the various possible meanings
of the copula. For instance, in his discussion of the categorical judgment – the first of the
judgments of necessity – Hegel says: “Here, therefore, the copula has the meaning of
necessity, whereas in the others [i.e. preceding kinds of judgment] it merely signifies
abstract, immediate being.” 124 Here Hegel mentions two possible meanings of the
copula, each of which includes a number of sub-variations. The earlier forms of
judgment – including the judgments of existence and the judgments of reflection –
employ the copula to express “abstract, immediate being.” In this sense, the copula
expresses a mere togetherness that derives from spatial proximity or some subjectively
determined external end. 125 This passage makes it clear that Hegel acknowledges various
meanings of the copula, meanings that determine his categorization of the kinds of
judgment.
Hegel ends his discussion of judgment with an account of the notional judgment,
the judgment that presents the “determinate and fulfilled [erfüllte] copula.” 126 Notional
124 Science of Logic, p. 651.
125 Judgments of existence involve mere togetherness in space or experience. Discussing the
positive judgment, the first of the judgments of existence, Hegel says the following: “For example, in the
proposition: the rose is fragrant, the predicate enunciates only one of the many properties of the rose; it
singles out this particular one which, in the subject, is a concrescence with the others; just as in the
dissolution of the thing, the manifold properties which inhere in it, in acquiring self-subsistence as matters,
become individualized” (Science of Logic, p. 633). In the positive judgment, the various properties of the
thing have a “self-subsistence” of their own. In other words, they are taken as distinct things that merely
exist together. The copula merely expresses this existing togetherness. In judgments of reflection, the
copula express the relation of the properties to some externally or subjectively determined end.
126 Science of Logic, p. 662.
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