THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

apperception, actually provides the basic model for conceiving this relation. Thus Hegel
does not criticize Kant for his failure to provide an account of the relationship between
understanding and intuition, but rather he criticizes Kant for his failure to realize the
radical implications of this account.
In Glauben und Wissen and throughout his mature philosophical corpus, Hegel
repeatedly praises Kant for his conception of the “I” as an essentially active, rule
governed process, a process that includes both identity and difference, both unity and
plurality, within its original synthetic unity. For instance, Hegel says:
This original unity of apperception is called synthetic because of its doublesidedness,
because in it the oppositional [Entgegengesezte] is an absolute unity.
This absolute synthesis is absolute insofar as it is not an aggregate formed from
plurality [Mannigfaltigkeit], and insofar as it does not come after the manifold as
a later addition to it. If this absolute synthesis is divided and its oppositional
terms reflected upon, then the one term is the empty “I,” the concept [Begriff – in
the Kantian, not the Hegelian sense], and the other is plurality, body [Leib],
material, or whatever you will. 266
Transcendental apperception includes opposition within its “absolute unity.” In the first
sentence, Hegel describes the unity of apperception as both “absolute” and “original.”
The meaning of these terms becomes apparent in the second sentence, where Hegel
distinguishes the unity of apperception, as original and absolute, from a form of unity that
is secondary and derivative. In a secondary or derivative unity, plurality or the aggregate
ontologically precedes the unity. Hegel distinguishes the “absolute synthesis” from this
secondary or derivative form of unity, claiming that the unity of apperception does not
“come after the manifold as a latter addition to it.” Absolute unity precedes but also
includes the division contained within it. In terms drawn from the discussion of
266 Werke 2, p. 306.
250