THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

negativity” and as “the doubling which sets up opposition, and then again the negation of
this indifferent diversity and of its anti-thesis [the immediate simplicity].” This third
moment grounds and unites the first two. The third moment presents the basic action that
constitutes the object, while the first and second moment – the simple and the bifurcation
– exist as abstractions from this more basic action.
As presented in this passage, Hegel’s proposed solution remains highly abstract,
and we need to flesh it out a bit more to see what he is actually saying. First, we should
explain Hegel’s construal of the first moment, the moment of “original or immediate
unity,” the moment that is the simple. In terms of this chapter, this moment represents
the sense in which the object is one. On Hegel’s view, the sense in which the object is
one derives from the unity of its telos. The object is one because all of its facets
contribute to some unified function that defines and constitutes the thing. Here we have
at least part of the solution to our problem. 177 The object consists in a plurality of
features that are all directed towards some unified function. Here it is “the directedness”
– or a kind of functional relation – that explains the unity of the sense in which the object
is many (the diverse functions of the plurality) and the sense in which the object is one
(the unified telos or function that constitutes the object). Moreover, this account explains
the essential nature of the relation – i.e. the sense in which the plurality and the unity
cannot exist or be conceived in isolation from one another.
The telos can only exist and be conceived in relation to the plurality. The telos is
simply a particular way of uniting the plurality. The relationship between the plurality
and the unity is somewhat more complex. The plurality can be described without direct
177 Compare with F.H. Bradley and A.E. Taylor’s remarks about purposiveness as the ground of
unity, remarks discussed in Section 1.2 of Chapter Two.
179