THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

follows that a general statement of the universal, considered in abstraction from the
particular, must always be revised in light of the different particulars that instantiate it.
With regards to the telos of an object, there are thus at least two kinds of
questions we can ask. First, we can ask about the degree to which a particular object
instantiates the telos that determines its kind. Second, we can ask about the degree to
which the telos that determines its kind instantiates the more general telos of all objects.
The first question considers the degree of truth of the object within its kind, while the
second question considers the degree of truth that the kind itself possesses. Even if an
individual fully instantiates the telos of its particular kind, there is always some sense in
which it fails to achieve its more general telos. In other words, there is always a gap
between the telos of a thing qua particular kind of thing – as a fungus, an oak tree, a snail,
a chimpanzee, or a state – and the telos of the thing qua thing – i.e. as the striving of the
thing to integrate the greatest degree of complexity in the most developed form of unity. 94
This gap manifests itself in different ways in different kinds of things. When we
consider the telos of a particular kind of thing, that telos will always suggest but fail to
instantiate some more developed form of unity. Alternatively, it will suggest the manner
for incorporating a greater degree of diversity, but it will fail to do so. Thus each
particular kind of telos presents a specific kind of failure, a failure that already suggests
94 Hegel makes this point in the following passage. He says: “God alone is the thorough harmony
of notion and reality. All finite things involve an untruth: they have a notion and an existence, but their
existence does not meet the requirement of the notion. For this reason they must perish, and then the
incompatibility between their notion and their existence becomes manifest” (Encyclopedia Logic,
paragraph 24Z). Death consists in the triumph of diversity over unity. It consists either in the imposition
of the external environment on the organized unity of the thing, or else in the loss of control by the unity
over the diversity integrated within it. Among other things, death points to the “untruth” of objects like
plants, animals, and states when considered in relation to the scale of truth. God represents the pinnacle of
this scale, and only he is immortal. However, here we should remember that the term “God” simply
designates the process of history, the collective process by which human work or social activity transforms
the natural world through a continuous and unending process.
83