THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

or merely framed by us.” Instead, he describes the notion as “the very heart of things,” as
that which “makes them what they are.” Likewise, he says: “To form a notion of an
object means therefore to become aware of its notion.” So the term “notion” does not
merely designate a mental concept or a process of thought, but rather it designates a
conceptual structure in the object itself, a structure that constitutes the object as an object
and that also determines its specific nature.
All genuine objects instantiate the basic structures of the notion. In the passage
just quoted, Hegel presents the notion in terms of the development of a plant. The
teleological or purposive development of the plant presents an example of the basic
structure that constitute the notion, a structure that Hegel describes in terms of the
relation between universal and particular. However, the term “notion” designates the
structures of objects that are both more basic and more complex than plants. 42 In the
Encyclopedia, the term “notion” designates the structure of all genuine objects, including
the objects of physics, chemistry, biology, anthropology, psychology, and politics. For
instance, in the discussion of mechanics in the Science of Nature, the second volume of
42 See Beiser’s Hegel, Chapter Four. Among other things, Beiser does a nice job of showing how
the organic view of the universe ultimately rests upon a teleological or “living” view of matter, one that can
be traced back to Leibniz. He also shows how the failure of purely mechanistic accounts of gravity and the
development of chemistry, with phenomena like magnetism and electricity, contributed to the plausibility
of this view. Beiser says: “According to the organic conception, the essence of matter consists not in dead
extension but in power or force, which expresses itself as motion. It is the very essence of these forces to
act or to realize themselves [emphasis added]” (p. 86). The basic structures of self-realization – i.e. the
structures that manifest themselves in more developed forms in the structure of the will that grounds
Hegel’s political philosophy – already exist at the level of matter. The various claims in this chapter about
the priority of action over the thing that acts can be understood in terms of this conception of matter, a
conception that explains matter or the thing in terms of force. Matter doesn’t simply possess force. It isn’t,
on this view, an extended something that also possesses various attractive forces, but rather the extended
something that is matter derives from more basic forces. Forces ground or constitute matter. In other
words, actions ground or constitute the object. For a more general discussion on Naturphilosophie, one that
focuses on Schelling, see also Beiser’s German Idealism: The Struggle against Subjectivism (pp. 506 –
550).
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