THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

instantiate their telos fully. Or, to state a slightly different point with the same
implications, there is some point in the history of each object when it fails to instantiate
its telos fully. Objects develop by striving to instantiate their telos. Even if they do fully
instantiate their telos, much of their history consists in the time when they have not yet
fully instantiated their telos. This means that our conception of the object must allow us
to make sense of the object as an incomplete instantiation of the telos. As we will see,
this forces us to revise our original conception of the object as the functional unity of
plurality.
If an object fails to instantiate its telos fully, then there must be some features of
the object that do not have the proper functional relation to the telos that constitutes the
object. However, if the object has some features that do not have the proper functional
relation to the telos that constitutes its unity as an object, then it cannot be the proper
functional relation to the telos alone that constitutes the unity of the object. If the object
only consisted in those features that had a functional relation to its telos, then, by
repulsion is as essential a moment as attraction, that unity is not attained here. This subdued, crepuscular
unity does not become free” (paragraph 262Z). Hegel describes gravity as the striving of matter for unity
with itself. In one sense, unity is the telos of matter. However, Hegel also admits that the achievement of
this telos would be the end of matter. In its telos, matter would fuse into a single point. Thus, Hegel
concludes, “repulsion is as essential a moment as attraction.” In other words, the striving of gravity
depends upon both (a) its telos and (b) that which opposes its telos. Hegel’s final comment seems to
oppose gravity to other, higher kinds of objects. He says, “unity is not attained here,” and he concludes that
“matter is not free.” Since mind ultimately can become free, this might seem to imply that mind can
achieve its telos. It’s not clear, however, that Hegel’s metaphysics allow for this. Moreover, in various
places throughout his philosophy, he associates the achievement of the telos with old age and death. He
seems to imply that the achievement of the telos ultimately undermines the activity that constitutes the
object. In speaking of the individual’s telos as constituted by a particular sphere of work, Hegel says the
following: “The very fact, however, that his activity has become so conformed to his work, that his activity
no longer meets with any resistance from its objects, this complete facility of execution, brings in its train
the extinction of its vitality; for with the disappearance of the opposition between subject and object there
also disappears the interest of the former in the latter. Thus the habit of mental life, equally with the
dulling of the functions of his physical organism, changes the man into an old man” (Philosophy of Mind,
paragraph 397Z). Here the individual’s action consists in her attempt to conform herself to some predetermined
sphere of work, to some trade or task. The successful achievement of this task consists in
overcoming the difference between the individual as she is (here the subject) and the demands of the task
(the object). However, in achieving this telos, the vitality of the individual ceases. At the very least,
passages like this illustrate Hegel’s ambivalence about the notion of a fully instantiated telos.
182