THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

anything mediated, since that which is mediated already presupposes thought. So if
thought has a beginning, that beginning must be immediate. As Hegel, says, only
“immediacy” can serve as a “beginning proper.”
Shortly after this passage, Hegel goes on to argue that nothing is free of
mediation. He says:
There is nothing, nothing in heaven or in nature or in mind or anywhere else
which does not equally contain both immediacy and mediation, so that these two
determinations reveal themselves to be unseparated and inseparable and the
opposition between them to be a nullity. But as regards the philosophical
discussion of this, it is to be found in every logical proposition in which occur the
determinations of immediacy and mediation and consequently also the discussion
of their opposition and their truth. 151
Hegel claims there is nothing immediate. Or to put the point somewhat differently, as it
is stated in the discussion of pure being, the wholly immediate or undifferentiated proves
to be indistinguishable from nothing. It is, in other words, nothing. In the discussion of
pure being, Hegel demonstrates that there is nothing without determination. Hegel also
says that the nature of the essential relation between immediacy and mediation can be
seen in the structure of the “logical proposition” – i.e. the judgment. As our discussion of
judgment demonstrated, every judgment presupposes (a) an implicit conception of the
whole as immediate; as well as (b) the dual process of mediation that occurs in analysis
and synthesis.
So Hegel argues that there is nothing immediate, nothing outside of thought with
which thought might begin. From this he argues that thought has an explicitly
hermeneutic or circular structure. Hegel says:
151 Science of Logic, p. 68.
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