THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

structures can also be found, though in a less developed form, in inorganic nature. 54 Thus
unlike Kant, Hegel does not limit structures or activities of apperception to the realm of
the “self-conscious understanding.” Instead, he takes Kant’s conception of apperception
and puts it to use in a rather Leibnizian fashion. Leibniz argues that various mental
phenomena – specifically perception and appetition – provide crucial examples that help
us to conceive the basic structure of all genuine objects or monads. Similarly, Hegel
argues that various mental activities and structures associated with apperception
constitute the basic structure of all genuine objects. 55
54 In this passage Hegel argues that the notion emerges at the level of organic life, thus apparently
denying the existence of the notion at the inorganic level. However, in the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel
consistently speaks of the notion in relation to inorganic phenomena. As we discussed at the end of section
3.3, and as we will discuss at greater length in Chapter Two, genuine things or notions come in degrees.
Some things are more real or genuine than others. In things that are more real the structures of the notion
are more evident and more highly developed. In things that are less real these structures are less evident
and less highly developed. These structures exist in inorganic matter, as evidenced by Hegel’s discussions
in the Philosophy of Nature. However, presumably because of the relatively undeveloped manner in which
the structures of the notion exist in nature, Hegel here says that the notion first emerges at the level of
organic life. Another thing should be noted about this passage. Hegel says that the notion, as exhibited in
organic life, is “blind…unaware of itself and unthinking.” Organic nature does involve certain
representational and conceptual structures, and in this sense, the notion at the level of organic nature should
not be characterized as blind. However, these representational and conceptual structures are not fully
articulated or developed, they have not reached the degree of development evident in self-consciousness.
In these sense, the notion at the level of nature may be characterized as “blind” or “unthinking.”
55 This particular appropriation of Kantian apperception can already be seen in Hegel’s criticism of
Fichte in the Differenzschrift. In speaking of the superiority of the Schellingian system over the Fichtian,
Hegel says that in Schelling’s system, “both the subject and the object are determined as the subjectobject.”
By contrast, he argues, Fichte only acknowledges a “subjective subject-object” (Werke II, p. 94).
Hegel uses the phrase “subjective subject-object” to designate the Kantian (and Fichtian) conception of
apperception. In apperception, the self becomes aware of the unity of itself amidst the plurality of its
representations. It becomes aware of itself as the bare “I think” that can accompany all of its
representations. In this sense it becomes aware of the unity of itself as the I think, the “I = I” or the “A =
A,” and it also becomes aware of the unity of the subject and the object, in the sense that every
representation of the object is a representation of the object for the subject. At the same time, though, the
possibility of the “I think” accompanying all my representations depends upon the categories or forms of
judgment and, among other things, on the distinction between the subject and the object. Here we become
aware of the difference between the subject and the object, of the fact that the I is always the I in relation to
some not I (the representation of the object). Hegel uses the phrase “subjective subject-object” to describe
this recognition that subject (I = I) determines both itself and the object by distinguishing itself from the
object while also relating itself to it. Hegel praises Schelling for grasping the importance of the objective
subject-object – i.e. for grasping the fact that all objects possess the structure of apperception, though in a
less developed form than the subjective subject-object. Like the “I think” in Kantian apperception, all
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