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THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

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option presents judgment as the result of two acts of synthesis, while the second option<br />

presents it as the result of two acts of analysis. Second, in both cases the rules that<br />

determine the judgments are themselves judgments. In other words, the principles<br />

themselves involve unity and plurality, identity and difference. On the first option,<br />

difference or plurality is simply given, and the principles show how to consider this<br />

plurality as a unity. On the second option, unity is immediately given, and the principles<br />

show us how to consider this unity as a plurality. In both cases, we have rules that relate<br />

unity and plurality.<br />

At this point it may be helpful to restate the issue under consideration. Judgment<br />

involves apparent acts of synthesis and analysis. It involves connecting and<br />

differentiating, a moment of identity and a moment difference. The subject and predicate<br />

terms present the result of analysis or the act of differentiating. They present the<br />

difference in the judgment. The copula presents the act of synthesis or connecting. It<br />

presents the identity in the judgment. The question under consideration, at this point, is<br />

the following: can the act of synthesis and the act of analysis be fully differentiated or<br />

disambiguated? Can we resolve the “contradiction” in the structure of judgment by<br />

saying that in one sense the subject and predicate are different, and in another sense they<br />

are one? If these two senses can be fully distinguished, then the structure of judgment<br />

consists in nothing more than the recognition of these two senses. In other words, if we<br />

can fully distinguish between these two senses, then the structure of judgment consists in<br />

two moments – the moment of identity or synthesis and the moment of analysis or<br />

difference. 134 Here there is no problem involved in grasping the “unity” of these two<br />

134 Of course, in the accounts of judgment presented above, judgment does not truly consist in<br />

synthesis and analysis. On the first account, the apparent act of analysis proves to be a less thoroughgoing<br />

130

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