THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

themselves. In other words, it does not describe some process by which the mind first
“creates” space, time, and the external world by “projecting” its sensations out of itself.
Here Hegel’s language seems somewhat misleading, particularly his use of the word
“hinauswerfen” – or as it is translated here, “projection” – to describe the process by
which sensations receive a spatial and temporal structure. However, Hegel is not
describing the creation of space and time from out of the subject, but rather he is
describing the acts by which the mind first becomes aware of the structure of space and
time, the acts through which space and time first come to exist for the mind.
In its relation to the world, the mind is always active. It does not passively
receive anything from the world. More dramatically, Hegel claims that it is not causally
affected by the world. 200 In awareness, perception, and cognition, the mind “reaches out”
200 Hegel makes this point repeatedly throughout his discussion of psychology. For instance, he
says: “Only soul [the object of anthropology] is passive, but free mind is essentially active, productive”
(Philosophy of Mind, paragraph 444Z). And: “A host of other phrases used of intelligence, e.g. that it
receives and accepts impressions from outside, that ideas arise through the causal operations of external
things upon it, etc., belong to a point of view utterly alien to the mental level or the position of
philosophical study” (Philosophy of Mind, paragraph 445). These passages raise two absolutely crucial
questions. First, what does it mean to say that the mind is essentially active and productive, that it is never
passive? Here there are two options. First, we might interpret this as the claim that the mind or subject
creates the world, and that the apparently external world is just a projection of the mind. Second, we might
interpret this claim as an expression of the way that the mind is intentionally directed at the world, as an
attempt to take seriously the claim that the mind “reaches out to the world.” Hegel says that the mind does
not receive “impressions from outside, and that ideas do not arise “from the causal operations of external
things upon it.” We might interpret these claims in the tradition of Berkeleyan Idealism, as (1) the
acceptance of “ideas” in the mind, but as (2) the rejection of the claim that these ideas are caused by
external objects. Alternatively, we might interpret these claims as a more wholesale rejection of the socalled
way of ideas, as a rejection of an account of perception and knowledge in terms of the possession of
ideas that come from, and ideally correspond to, external objects. The general line of interpretation
presented in this dissertation clearly endorses the second interpretation of these remarks. On this view,
perception and cognition consist in the activities by which the mind reaches out and grasps the world. Thus
the mind is always active in its relation to the world. The second major interpretive question about this
passage involves Hegel’s distinction between the soul and the mind, between anthropology and
psychology. Hegel clearly denies that the category of causality applies to the mind. Reasons, not causes,
present the principle relational terms that unite mental phenomena. For instance, one belief does not cause
another belief, but rather it provides a reason for it. Similarly, my memory of seeing beer in the fridge does
not cause my belief that there is beer in the fridge, but rather it provides a reason for that belief. In these
terms, the question about the relationship between the soul and the mind, between anthropology and
psychology, becomes a question about the relationship between explanations in terms of causality and
205