THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

Here we see the basic structure of Hegel’s dialectic. 273 We have a set of oppositional
terms, in this case, unity and plurality. Empiricism takes plurality as basic, and it
attempts to explain unity in terms of plurality. Or, we might say, empiricism attempts to
create unity out of plurality. Conversely, Kant’s philosophical system, at least in its
practical dimension, takes unity as basic, and it attempts to explain plurality in terms of it.
As the essay progresses, Hegel argues that we must begin with the relation between unity
and plurality. He argues that this relation itself precedes or grounds both plurality and
unity.
In the first section of the essay on natural right, Hegel discusses the empirical
approach to dealing with natural right, an approach that moves from plurality to unity.
He says:
Insofar as this empirical science deals with the plurality of principles, laws,
purposes, duties and rights, none of which are absolute, there must at the same
time arise the conception and the need for an absolute unity and an original simple
necessity for all these disconnected determinations. 274
The empirical science of positive right begins with the plurality of laws, rights, duties,
principles etc. Hegel argues that this plurality suggests the need for unity. Among other
things, he argues that the need for unity arises from the possibility for conflict, from the
possibility of applying multiple principles, laws, duties, rights, or purposes to the same
substance, God, etc.) to plurality. This conception comes to the fore in Kant’s practical philosophy, where
he moves from the pure unity of the “I” to the determination of the empirical self. In its account of how
the “I,” abstracts from all particularity and determines the maxims upon which self acts, Kant’s philosophy
moves from unity to plurality, from universal to particular, etc.
273 Compare this with the account of the dialectic in Section Three of Chapter Six. The
remarkable similarities between the basic dialectical strategy of the natural right essay and the Philosophy
of Right (see Sections Four and Five of Chapter Six) point to the deep continuities in Hegel’s philosophy
from the earliest essays of the Jena period through the final works written in Berlin.
274 Werke 2, p. 442.
256