THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

Before examining these issues, we should note Hegel’s cursory remarks about the
solution to the riddle posed by this form of unity. In order to grasp the will as a unity that
contains two moments as genuinely one but also distinct, we must grasp the will as a
process that constitutes itself. In this regard, the structure of language misleads us.
When we speak of the will, when we say, for instance, “the will determines itself,” we
treat the will as a substratum or subject that exists prior to the act of determination.
Hegel associates language with the understanding, and he associates both with a
conception of the world that explains actions in terms of objects or stable states. This
tendency of language and the understanding prevents us from grasping the structure of
the will and the structure of the notion more generally. It prevents us from grasping the
form of genuine unity that contains but does not efface plurality.
In order to grasp the structure of the will and the structure of the notion, we must
employ speculation, a mode of thought that explains objects in terms of their own
activity. Hegel says, “the will is not something complete and universal prior to its
determining itself.” Likewise, he says: “the will is not a will until it is this self-mediating
activity, this return to itself.” The will determines itself. In this sentence, “the will” is
the subject and the object of the verb. Hegel argues we can only conceive the will if we
grasp its nature as subject and object in relation to the more basic act of determination. In
an ontological or explanatory sense, the act of determination precedes the subject that
does the determining and the object that is determined. The same order of priority holds
for all genuine objects. Here we can see the sense in which Hegel differs from Leibniz
and Aristotle. Both philosophers place great emphasis on purposive action as one of the
central categories with which we describe substance. However, both philosophers
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