THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

particular. I argued that the structure of the will presents a highly developed form of
certain basic structures common to all genuine objects, and I argued that in the most basic
terms, these structures might be described in terms of the unity or relation between
identity and difference. In the Systemfragment Hegel construes life as (a) the unity of
connection and disconnection, (b) as the unity of synthesis and analysis, (c) as the unity
of unification and opposition, (d) as the unity of the infinite and the finite, and (e) as the
unity of the indeterminate and the determinate. This demonstrates certain crucial
similarities between the structure of life and the more highly developed structure of the
will (or the mind). It also suggests that the problem of explaining the structure of the will
– as the unity of the infinite and the finite and as the unity of the indeterminate and the
determinate – is closely related to the more basic problem of explaining the unity of
identity and difference.
In another passage from the Systemfragment, Hegel describes the “individual” in
terms highly reminiscent of Jacobi. 245 He says:
The concept of individuality includes the opposition to an infinite manifold and
the connection to the same in itself; a human is an individual life insofar as it is
different from the elements that comprise it and the infinity of individual life
outside of it; it is only an individual life insofar as it is one with all the elements
that comprise it as well as the infinity of life outside of it. 246
Here Hegel states the paradox of identity and difference in terms of what appears to be an
outright or unmitigated contradiction. 247 Hegel claims that (1) the individual is different
245 Of course Hegel wrote the Systemfragment a year before Jacobi published his essay, Über
Unternehmen des Kritizismus, die Vernunft zu Verstande zu bringen, so these similarities aren’t a matter of
direct influence.
246 Werke 1, p. 419-420.
247 An unmitigated contradiction takes the form: “A is B” and “A is not B.” This should be
carefully distinguished from the kind of “contradiction” crucial for Hegel’s philosophy, a kind of
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