05.10.2013 Views

THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

telos, and the telos can only be conceived as it emerges in terms of the division between<br />

the self and its other. Thus we must conceive the development of the object as a unified<br />

process that unites or grounds unity (the telos) and difference (the distinction between the<br />

self and its other). We must, in other words, grasp the moment of unity and the moment<br />

of difference as abstractions from a more basic, unified activity. The object is this<br />

activity, and thus the object is the unity of identity and difference.<br />

5.1) No Discrete Plurality Given Prior to Judgment<br />

The extended argument that runs from Section 5.3 to Section 5.5 of Chapter Three<br />

rests upon one premise that may seem questionable – namely, on the premise that the<br />

world presents us with a manifold, not a discrete plurality. 184 In this context, we have<br />

defined a “manifold” as that which is continuous and undifferentiated, and we contrasted<br />

it with a discrete plurality, with that which is differentiated in itself. Although a manifold<br />

is undifferentiated, it nonetheless has the potential to be differentiated.<br />

The truth of this premise may not seem evident. After all, as Hegel himself<br />

admits, this premise goes against our common or initial conception of judgment, a<br />

conception that conceives judgment as a synthesis of given differences or given<br />

particulars. This conception of judgment assumes that differentiation, difference, and<br />

plurality precede the acts of judgment, and thus that our “immediate” or pre-cognitive<br />

experience presents us with a discrete plurality. 185 This common conception of judgment,<br />

184 Or, to state the point more accurately, insofar as we try to conceive what is presented to the<br />

mind prior to all our conceptual activity, we must conceive this giveness as an undifferentiated continuum,<br />

not as a differentiated plurality.<br />

185 At first glance, this naïve conception of judgment might seem to be closely related to what<br />

Wilfrid Sellars, in Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, designates as the “Myth of the Given.” In a<br />

188

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!