THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

Quote Seven: This state of indifference [i.e. a state prior to the analytical acts of
attention] is, to a certain extent, a relapse into a state of barbarism. The savage
attends to practically nothing; he lets everything pass him by without fixing his
attention on it. Only by training the mind does attention acquire strength and
fulfill its function. The botanist, for example, observes incomparable more in a
plant than one ignorant of botany does in the same time. The same thing is
naturally true in regard to all other things. A man of great intelligence and
education has at once a complete intuition of the matter in hand; with him
sensation bears throughout the character of recollection.
In this passage, Hegel criticizes the primitivism inherent in certain critiques of analytical
thought, critiques that construe analysis as a process that impoverishes the immediate
richness of experience. The sentence about botany provides an illustration that supports
Hegel’s conception of the relation between analysis and the content of experience. As
she walks in the woods, the trained botanist sees more than does the person not trained in
botany. The botanist learns to analyze, break down, and identify the various kinds of
plants and the various parts that distinguish these different kinds. These analytical
capacities inform or enrich her “immediate” experience, providing it with a greater
fullness of detail. When someone who does not possess knowledge of botany walks
through the woods, she merely sees a lot of trees. Perhaps she notices the difference
between the deciduous trees and the evergreens. Or maybe she sees the difference
between the trees that form the upper canopy and those that form the lower story. These
are relatively basic distinctions, however.
Hegel says the conclusions drawn from the example of botany apply to all other
objects. Thus he argues that we must generalize this lesson. The non-botanist still has a
rich experience as she walks through the woods. Maybe she listens to various birdcalls.
Or maybe she remembers an earlier conversation. In both cases, however, it is only her
analytical skills – her ability to distinguish between bird sounds or the phonetics of the
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