THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

This section does not explain the meaning of these terms, but rather it demonstrates the
need for such an explanation.
While Section Two demonstrates the centrality of the structure of the will for an
interpretation of the Philosophy of Right, Section Three argues that the structure of the
will presents the highest development or instantiation of the structure of the notion. The
will presents one specific instantiation of a more general set of structures, a set of
structures Hegel uses to describe all genuine objects. 19 Like the will, all genuine objects
consist in the unity of the universal and the particular, the unity of the infinite and the
finite, and the unity of the indeterminate and the determinate. Thus Section Three
demonstrates the intimate connection between this central theme of Hegel’s immanent
metaphysics and the basic structure of his political theory. Section Three also introduces
Hegel’s doctrine of the notion. It briefly examines the relationship between Hegel’s
doctrine of the notion, Spinoza’s conception of substance, and Kant’s account of
apperception. Moreover, Section Three introduces the most general character of the
notion, the structure that characterizes the notion as the unity of identity and difference.
2) The Structure of the Philosophy of Right and the Structure of the Will
In paragraphs five through seven of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel characterizes
the will or the self in terms of three moments. 20 Although these paragraphs have received
19 In this dissertation I will use the term “genuine object” as more or less equivalent to the term
substance. I avoid the term substance because Hegel uses this term to describe one particular conception of
the nature of genuine objects. In other words, he uses it to describe one model for understanding what
objects are. In more systematic terms, we can define a genuine object as an object whose existence does
not depend upon the way that any mind external to the object (whether human or divine) cognizes it or the
world. Thus genuine objects have their own inherent principle of individuation. As Hegel ultimately
argues, such objects actively individuate (or differentiate) themselves from their environment.
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