THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

little attention in the secondary literature, they provide crucial insights that explain the
structure the Philosophy of Right. 21 The Philosophy of Right contains three sections. The
first deals with abstract right, the second with morality, and the third with ethical life.
Each of these sections emphasizes and develops a different moment of the will. Thus the
structure of the will prefigures and explains the structure of the book. Moreover, the
structure of the will provides crucial insight into the basic argumentative strategy that
runs throughout the book, and it helps to explain the otherwise mysterious dialectical
20 In the Remark to paragraph five, Hegel points out that we should not think of the will as a
distinct faculty. Thus we should not take Hegel’s account of the will as an account of some feature or
distinct capacity of the self or subject. On Hegel’s view, the will is the self or subject. It is important to
distinguish Hegel’s conception of this claim from a possible Kantian interpretation of it. A Kantian might
say that the will is the self, meaning that the pure or true self is simply the capacity for self-determination
as distinct from the desires and abilities given by the empirical – i.e. none-pure or none-true – “self.” Thus
we might say that Kant reduces the self to a more or less traditional conception of the will. By contrast,
Hegel uses the term “will” in a much broader sense. He uses the term to designate the entirety of our
theoretical and practical actions as they are materially embedded. Thus he uses the term in an expansive
sense, a sense that includes what we might otherwise refer to as the subject or the self, depending on the
specific context.
21 For the purposes of my argument, it is very important to distinguish between the function of the
“Preface” (Vorrede) and the “Introduction” (Einrede) to the Philosophy of Right. Given the nature of the
development of his philosophical system, Hegel takes a low view of the kind of preliminary remarks
offered in the “Preface.” He argues that the value and even the exact meaning of such preliminary remarks
can only be established in the systematic development of the work itself. Thus, at the end of the “Preface,”
Hegel says: “But it is time to close this preface. After all, as a preface, its only business has been to make
some external and subjective remarks about the standpoint of the book it introduces” (Philosophy of Right,
13). The remarks in the “Preface” are “external” and “subjective.” They present mere opinions that have
not been developed immanently from the process of the systematic presentation. In light of these remarks,
it would be irresponsible to base too much of one’s interpretation on the “Preface.” However, the remarks
in the “Introduction” have a radically different status. The “Introduction” serves to connect The Philosophy
of Right with the material presented prior to it in the systematic development of the Encyclopedia as a
whole. The material in the “Introduction” plays a systematic and foundational role with regards to the
material presented in the Philosophy of Right. Here paragraph two provides crucial insight into the role of
the “Introduction.” This paragraph begins with the claim that, the “science of right is a section of
philosophy.” It then goes on to explain the implications of this claim as follows: “As a section, it has a
definite starting-point, i.e. the result and the truth of what has preceded, and it is what has preceded which
constitutes the so-called ‘proof’ of the starting-point. Hence the concept of right, so far as its coming to be
is concerned, falls out side the science of right; it is to be taken up here as given and its deduction is
presupposed.” The “Introduction” defines the concept of right in terms of the concept of the will. Hegel
makes this connection in paragraph four, where he says: “The basis of right is, in general, mind; its precise
place and point of origin is the will.” So the “Introduction” presents the concept of right and the concept of
the will. The justification and systematic articulation of these concepts falls within the larger scope of the
Encyclopedia as a whole. In contrast to the remarks in the “Preface,” which Hegel dismisses as relatively
superficial, the remarks in the “Introduction” provide a summary of the “foundation” for the philosophy of
right, a summary that must be filled out in relation to the full development of Hegel’s system.
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