THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

There is a second, more important reason why the “I” cannot simply be one of our
many representations. If the “I” were simply one of our representations, then we would
have no way of ascribing the other representations to this particular representation. If, at
one given moment, we had the representations “the cup is on the table,” and “I,” then we
would simply have a bundle of representations, and there would be no basis for ascribing
the representation “the cup is on the table” to the other representation “I.” Insofar as both
were merely representations, we might as well ascribe the “I” to “the cup is on the table.”
So the “I” is not some separate representation that could be abstracted from the
other representations. Likewise, Hegel argues that the “I” cannot be some distinct thing
or substance that lies behind or beyond or under all of our representations. We can state
Hegel’s objection to this conception of the “I” on a number of different levels. At the
most general level, he objects to this conception of the “I” because of the conception of
the relation between the infinite and the finite that it presupposes. As we have already
seen, the “I” is not a part of our experience. It is not, in other words, one of our
representations. This means that any conception of the “I” as substance must construe
the “I” as something that transcends experience. Hegel rejects the transcendent, in this
sense, because, he argues, we cannot grasp the relationship between the transcendent and
the immanent. Stated differently, and in more general terms, if we construe the infinite as
transcendent, we cannot grasp the relationship between the infinite and the finite. Thus,
as Hegel argues throughout his philosophy, we must grasp the finite as contained in the
infinite, or to put the point somewhat differently, we must grasp that which is often
conceived as transcendent as a process or activity that exists within immanence.
intuition…Yet this I is no more an intuition than it is a concept of any object: rather, it is the mere form of
consciousness” (Critique of Pure Reason, A381—2).
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