THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

The etymological meaning of the Judgement (Urtheil) in German goes deeper, as
it were declaring the unity of the notion to be primary, and its distinction to be the
original partition. And that is what the judgment really is [emphasis added]. 139
It [judgment] is thus the original division [Teilung] of what is originally one; thus
the word Urteil refers to what the judgment is in and for itself. 140
The first passage mentions both the “unity” and the “distinction” involved in judgment.
Similarly, the second passage speaks of the “division” of that which is “originally one.”
So both passages emphasize the role of division and unity in judgment. However, in
contrast to what Hegel describes as our initial impression of judgment, these passages
insist that the unity of judgment precedes the division. Judgment does not consist in the
synthesis of a given duality, but rather it consists in the analysis of a given unity.
Here Hegel seems to embrace the second conception of judgment, the conception
that (1) construes the world or experience as an immediately given unity, and (2) explains
judgment in terms of analysis. To a certain extent, Hegel accepts this conception of
judgment, though he modifies it in a number of important ways. There is a sense in
which experience presents us with an immediately given unity. However, Hegel argues,
we cannot cognize this unity as it is immediately given to us. The conscious mind cannot
grasp immediate or pure unity. Hegel expresses this point in the Preface to the
Phenomenology. In the following passage, Hegel criticizes certain trends in the
philosophy of his time, trends that he identifies with Schelling’s philosophy. Hegel says:
Nowadays we see all value ascribed to the universal Idea in this non-actual form,
and the undoing of all distinct, determinate entities (or rather the hurling of them
139 Encyclopedia Logic, paragraph 166. In this point, Hegel follows a claim made by Holderlin in
the “Judgment and Being” fragment. For further discussion of this fragment, see Dieter Henrich’s
“Hölderlin über Urteil und Sein: Eine Studie zur Enstehungsgeschichte des Idealismus,” in Konstellationen,
Chapter Nineteen of Henrich’s “Between Kant and Hegel,” and Chapter Three in Henrich’s Der Grund im
Bewußtsein. See also Manfred Frank’s Unendliche Annäherung, Chapter 27.
140 Science of Logic, page 625.
135