THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

crucial ways. 71 Moreover, we are not yet in a position to unpack all of the jargon
employed here. For the moment, we should simply note that Bradley explains the
identity of distinction and connection – or, as he also describes it in this passage, the unity
of analysis and synthesis, the relation of the one and the many, and the principle of
diversity and unity – in terms of a process or action that consists in “self-explication” and
“self-completion.” Bradley associates this action with the process of thought and the
activity of the self. In this solution to the problem, Bradley follows a general solution
laid down by Hegel. 72
71 These differences include: (1) On Bradley’s view, we can never completely grasp how unity
relates to plurality – or how identity related to difference – and therefore we can never fully grasp the
nature of the Absolute. After explaining the general nature of the Absolute in terms of the structures of
experience, including cognition and volition, Bradley argues that we cannot conceive the ultimate unity of
experience that binds together these various features. Bradley says: “And I would urge next that the unity
of these aspects is unknown. By this I certainly do not mean to deny that it essentially is experience, but it
is an experience of which, as such, we have no direct knowledge. We never have, or are, a state which is
the perfect unity of all aspects; and we must admit that in their special natures they remain inexplicable.
An explanation would be the reduction of their plurality to unity, in such a way that the relation between
the unity and the variety was understood. And everywhere an explanation of this kind is beyond us”
(Appearance and Reality, pp. 414 – 415). Bradley argues that we cannot ultimately conceive the
relationship between unity and plurality. The structures of experience – and particularly emotion – point us
in that direction, but our desire to conceive the Absolute ultimately remains frustrated. By contrast, Hegel
believes (a) that we can conceive the relationship between unity and plurality in general, and (b) that more
specifically we can conceive the Absolute. (2) There is a second difference between Hegel and Bradley.
Bradley takes the claim that reality does not contradict itself as his fundamental principle. Thus Bradley
says: “Ultimate reality is such that it does not contradict itself; here is an absolute criterion” (p. 120). By
contrast, Hegel argues that contradiction – or at least what appears to be a contradiction from the standpoint
of the understanding – constitutes the heart of reality and all genuine things. Hegel says: “contradiction is
the root of all movement and vitality; it is only in so far as something has a contradiction within it that it
moves, has an urge and activity” (Science of Logic, p. 439). In speaking of the Kantian antinomies, Hegel
makes the same point: “That true and positive meaning of the antinomies is this: that every actual thing
involves a coexistence of opposed elements” (Encyclopedia Logic, paragraph 48Z). This difference has
enormous implications for the respective philosophical systems of Bradley and Hegel. Among other
things, it leads Bradley to emphasize unity and the Absolute at the expense of diversity. Bradley conceives
the Absolute as that which overcomes all contradictions. It presents a unity in which “appearances…lose
their distinctive natures” (Appearance and Reality, p. 403).
72 For instance, compare the passage above with the following passage from “Preface” to the
Phenomenology: “The Substance is, as Subject, pure simple negativity, and is for this very reason the
bifurcation of the simple; it is the doubling which sets up opposition, and then again the negation of this
indifferent diversity and of its antithesis” (p. 10). Here Hegel describes the genuine object – the substance
that is subject – in terms of a process that involves the “bifurcation of the simple” and the return from the
diversification established by the bifurcation back to the simple. In other words, Hegel explains the
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