THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

distinction (and relation) between the subject and the object. Hegel describes the basic
acts of attention as follows:
Quote Five: The unity of mind with the object, which in sensation and feeling is
immediate and therefore undeveloped, is still mindless. Therefore, intelligence
puts an end to the simplicity of sensation, determines the sensed object as
negative towards it, and thus separates itself from the object, yet at the same time
posits it in its separateness as its own. Only by this dual activity of removing and
restoring the unity between myself and the object do I come to apprehend the
content of sensation. This takes place, to begin with, in attention. 197
In the first sentence, Hegel describes the state prior to the acts of attention as the
“immediate” and “undeveloped” unity of mind with the object. This is a state of
“sensation” or “feeling,” a state that Hegel describes as “mindless.” In order to properly
understand this first sentence, we must distinguish between how things are for the mind
and how things are in themselves. Prior to the act of attention, the states of sensation or
feeling are nothing for the mind. The most minimal awareness of the feeling or sensation
requires attention. However, sensation and feeling exist prior to the act of attention.
Prior to the act of attention, sensation and feeling would exist for the mind as pure
simplicities, and as pure simplicities, they are nothing for the mind. However, even at
this point, they are not simple in themselves. In themselves, feeling and sensation
contain a relatively developed structure that includes an articulated plurality within unity.
However, the mind cannot recognize them as such until it has articulated them for itself,
until it has performed the acts of attention. Similarly, the acts of attention are the acts
whereby the mind distinguishes the objective from the subjective. Prior to these acts, the
object is distinct from the subject, though mind does not recognize this distinction.
197 Philosophy of Mind, paragraph 448Z. Shortly after this passage, Hegel expresses the same
point again. He says: “Therefore, in attention there necessarily occurs a division and a unity of subjectivity
and objectivity.” Here we see, once again, the problem of the unity of identity and difference. In order to
grasp either subjectivity or objectivity, we must grasp them both in their “difference” and in their “unity.”
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