THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

object. In contrast to Jacobi, however, Hegel believes that we can rationally grasp the
structure of this relation.
4) The Systemfragment: The Structure of Life and Mind
In the Systemfragment Hegel defines life in terms of the relation between
connection and distinction, and he defines mind (Geist) in terms of the relation between
unity and plurality. 240 Speaking of the structure or nature of life, he warns: “Life cannot
be viewed as unification or relation alone, but rather it must also be viewed, at the same
time [zugleich], as opposition.” 241 He goes on to express the nature of life, more
succinctly, as the “connection of connection and disconnection,” and as the “connection
of synthesis and analysis.” 242 Thus, on Hegel’s view, life consists in unification and
opposition, connection and disconnection, synthesis and analysis.
All of these terms should be familiar from the discussion of the structure of
judgment in Chapters Three and Four. In those chapters, I argued that judgment consists
in the unity of (a) an act of connection or synthesis and (b) an act of disconnection or
240 In this work, Hegel provides some guidance about how mind and life are distinct but also
related. On the one hand, mind and life have the same basic structure in the sense that both consist in the
unity of unity and plurality or the unity of connection and disconnection. However, as we discussed in
Chapter Two, they are also different insofar as mind is truer than life. This means that mind involves a
higher form of unity in a greater degree of plurality. Moreover, it should be noted that mind presupposes
life in the way that form presupposes matter. Life presents the plurality that is articulated and unified by
mind. Thus mind is a relation that includes life as one of its moments. It is a relation that includes, and
emerges out of, the relation that constitutes life. Finally, mind has a higher degree of awareness or
reflexivity (in the sense of relation to itself). Mind is more aware of life than life is of itself. Moreover
mind is more aware of itself than life is of itself. However, as discussed in Chapter Four, life does involve
a degree of self-awareness or reflexivity.
241 Werke 1. Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp. 1986. P. 422.
242 Werke 1, p. 422. Similarly, in the Differenzschrift, Hegel says: “the necessary division
(Entzweiung) is a factor of life, that determines itself as an eternal opposition to this division, and in the
highest degree of life the totality is only possible through the reconstitution out of the highest division”
(Werke 2, pp. 22).
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