THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

description, or the third sub-act, presents the most intuitive or basic meaning of attention.
In order for some thing or facet of reality to exist for the mind, the mind must focus its
attention on the thing or the facet. This act of attention involves the distinction of this
thing from its background or environment. The second and third sub-acts present the
necessary conditions for this more basic act. In order to focus our mind on something as
distinct from its environment, we must have a basic sense of the spatial and temporal
continuity of the thing. In distinguishing the thing from its environment, we must
distinguish it from the space it does not occupy. This act also implicitly involves
determining the space it does occupy. Thus we must be able to conceive the thing in
relation to the structure of space. Moreover, since we cannot become aware of something
that lacks temporal persistence, we must be able to identify the temporal boundaries of
the thing. In order to be able to focus on a thing, we must be able to place it in a spatial
and temporal network. 205
In order to place something in a spatial and temporal network, we must
distinguish between the subject and the object, a distinction that, in this context, relates to
the difference between two kinds of transformations. There are two distinct kinds of
transformation that occur in our experience. First, there are transformations in the object
205 Of course we can focus on things that have a temporal but not a spatial existence. In such
cases, Hegel might follow Kant’s argument in the Refutation of Idealism. Kant argues that our
“consciousness” of our selves as “determined in time” ultimately depends upon the existence of external
objects in a spatial framework (B275). Now the starting point for this argument can be construed either as
(a) the mere awareness or consciousness of mental states as they pass in time, or (b) as the objective
determinations of the temporal sequence and the mental states in it – i.e. as a kind of knowledge.
Regardless of Kant’s argumentative strategy, Hegel might claim that the mere awareness of the passing of
mental states in time already presupposes the implicit objective determinations of the temporal sequence.
These, in turn, rest upon the existence and persistence of objects in a spatial framework. If this basic
outline of an argument works, then Hegel could argue that the possibility of acts of attention focused on
merely temporal entities ultimately rest upon other acts of attention that are directed towards spatial
entities. In other words, merely temporal forms of awareness are ultimately dependent upon forms of
awareness that are both spatial and temporal.
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