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THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

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structure of judgment, in Chapters Three and Four, showed how the structure of judgment<br />

rests upon the unity of the sense in which the subject is the predicate (identity), and the<br />

sense in which the subject is not the predicate (difference). In the context of the structure<br />

of judgment, I showed how the problem of the unity of identity and difference can be<br />

restated as (a) the problem of the unity of connection and distinction and as (b) the<br />

problem of the unity of synthesis and analysis. These reformulations of the phrase helped<br />

to forge further connections between Hegel’s text and the central phrase of my<br />

interpretation, “the unity of identity and difference.”<br />

Chapters One through Four presented a systematic reconstruction, an explanation,<br />

and at least a partial defense of Hegel’s ontology in terms of the phrase, “the unity of<br />

identity and difference.” In contrast to the explanatory and justificatory function of these<br />

chapters, this chapter has a more straightforwardly exegetical function. It will<br />

demonstrate (1) the central role that the unity of identity and difference plays in Hegel’s<br />

philosophy, particularly in his earlier essays from the Jena period. 213 It will also illustrate<br />

(2) the way that Hegel formulates a vast range of problems in terms of this phrase. 214<br />

Section Two will briefly examine Hegel and Schelling’s conception of the<br />

absolute in relation to identity and difference. In the essays discussed in this chapter,<br />

Hegel’s emphases on certain phrases, such as “identity,” “difference,” “unity,” and<br />

213 The essays examined in this chapter were all published between 1801 and 1803.<br />

214 In contrast to the previous chapters, this chapter will leave many of Hegel’s terms more or less<br />

“untranslated.” This is not to say that I will leave the terms in German, but rather that I will not seek to<br />

clarify each term before proceeding. The chapters in the body of the dissertation attempted to express<br />

Hegel’s theses and his various arguments with the highest possible degree of clarity and precision. While<br />

this procedure has many advantages, it often at least partially obscures the relation to the text. By contrast,<br />

this chapter seeks to connect a number of hypothesis and themes from the previous chapters with a host of<br />

terminological variations in Hegel’s texts. Often this has required me to write a bit like Hegel, to introduce<br />

a host of terms without specifying their exact meaning, and to present claims without providing the<br />

otherwise requisite justification.<br />

219

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