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THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

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In the Systemfragment Hegel also describes mind in terms that point back towards<br />

Jacobi and forward towards his own conception of the central problem of philosophy,<br />

towards the unity of identity and difference. In a rather complex passage, Hegel makes<br />

the following claim about the nature of mind:<br />

Mind is the living unity of plurality in opposition to the same plurality in the<br />

shape which forms the plurality found in the concept of life, not in opposition to<br />

the plurality as divided from life, as dead, as mere plurality. 249<br />

Among other things, this passage explains the relationship between mind and life. The<br />

terms of this explanation closely resemble the form/matter relation in Aristotle. Form<br />

unites matter. So in this sense, form and matter can be characterized in terms of the<br />

relation between unity and plurality, as Jacobi points out. Moreover, for Aristotle, the<br />

form of one level serves as the matter for a higher level. So form and matter are relative<br />

terms.<br />

In this passage, Hegel explains the relationship between life and mind in a similar<br />

way. He describes life as the unity of “dead” or “mere” plurality. 250 So relative to that<br />

which is lifeless, life presents a unity. 251 Relative to mind, however, life presents a<br />

plurality. Mind takes the plurality provided by life and synthesizes it into higher forms of<br />

unity. As with the development of life, we can only assume that mind presents a force of<br />

division as well as of unity – i.e. that it both articulates through an act of differentiation<br />

and unites through an essentially related act of synthesis.<br />

249 Werke 1, p. 421.<br />

250 In fact, at least in his later work, life unites pluralities that are already themselves unities.<br />

Various forces constitute the unity of matter qua matter as well as the unity of various kinds of matter. Life<br />

then takes these various kinds of matter and forms them into a higher unity. See Section 2.4 of Chapter<br />

Two.<br />

251 Of course life doesn’t just present a force of unification. As Hegel specifically insists in this<br />

essay, it also presents a force of distinction. So life doesn’t simply unite lifeless matter. It also articulates<br />

or distinguishes such matter.<br />

238

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