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THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

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the solution. The next highest kind of thing overcomes this failure. It provides a solution<br />

for the “problem” posed by the kind of object that falls beneath it on the scale of truth.<br />

The resolution of the inherent problem in the structure of each kind of thing provides the<br />

motion of the dialectic. It also explains the third claim expressed by Hegel’s peculiar<br />

phrase that “X is the truth of Y.” According to this claim, X is the truth of Y because<br />

objects of kind X resolve or overcome the particular kind of failure inherent in the objects<br />

of kind Y.<br />

2.5) The Completion of Truth in the Unity of Identity and Difference<br />

Hegel proclaims that, “truth is complete only in the unity of identity with<br />

difference.” Thus far we have examined the meaning of the claim “truth is complete.”<br />

We have seen (1) that Hegel ascribes truth to objects; (2) that he uses the terms “true,”<br />

“good,” and “free” more or less interchangeably; (3) that truth, goodness, and freedom<br />

consist in the correspondence between the concrete object and the inherent norm or telos<br />

that determines the kind of the object; (4) that objects of a particular kind can be ranked<br />

in terms of their degree of truth, depending on how fully they instantiate their telos; (5)<br />

that objects of different kinds can be ranked in terms of their degree of truth, depending<br />

on how fully their kinds instantiate the more general telos that determines all things qua<br />

things; and that (6) the different degrees of truth ascribed to different kinds of objects<br />

allows us to place all of these objects on one scale of truth, the highest point of which<br />

consists in an object that unites the greatest degree of diversity (all things and all other<br />

kinds) into the highest form of unity. The highest object in scale is the collective<br />

transformation of the world that constitutes human history.<br />

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