THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

within themselves, then they are objects that in one sense are one and in another sense are
many. In this case, the distinction between ways of cognizing the object and the object in
itself does not fully explain the relationship between the unity and the plurality of the
object, since the unity and the plurality exist in the object itself.
This raises the question: must we conceive a collection as a collection of entities?
Is it possible to conceive a collection as itself comprised of collections, which in turn are
also comprised of collections? If cognition proceeds merely by way of synthesis, from
part to whole, then any collection we have a cognitive relation to must ultimately be
composed of things that themselves have a kind of unity. 175 If there were no such things,
then any conception of a collection would require an infinite synthesis. However, if
cognition begins with an act of analysis, one that explains or articulates the parts in terms
of the whole, then it may be possible to conceive the world as consisting in collections of
collections. Of course, one might argue that this conception of cognition presupposes at
least one objective unity – namely the unity of the whole with which we begin.
3.2) Two Ways the Object Exists
When we speak of the sense in which the object is one and the sense in which it is
many, it is natural to assume that we are speaking of two different ways in which the
object may be conceived or considered. In addition to the problems raised in Section 3.1,
however, there is another complex but fundamental problem with this approach. In
175 Of course this claim raises the possibility of a difference between objects as we conceive them
and the world as it is in itself. Our failure to synthesize an infinite sequence doesn’t establish the
impossibility of such a synthesis. In fact, philosophers like Leibniz and Kant argue that it is just this
difference that distinguishes our finite intellect from God’s infinite intellect. However, it seems the
argument might be stated without relation to our epistemic capacities. It seems there might be something
genuinely impossible about a universe in which (a) everything was infinitely divisible (divided?) and (b)
the reality of the whole always rested on the reality of the part. On related issues, see Robert Stern’s Hegel,
Kant and the structure of the object.
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