THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

of identity and difference, reason provides the solution to a host of traditional
philosophical problems, problems that rest upon the rigid distinction between identity and
difference as expressed in the rigid distinctions between spirit and matter, soul and body,
faith and intellect, freedom and necessity.
Two things must be noted about this conception of the task of philosophy. First,
Hegel does not reject the understanding in favor of reason. Both the understanding, with
its emphasis on distinctions, and reason, with its drive for unity, play an essential role in
the progress of thought. The second point is more important but also more difficult to
state. In the Differenzschrift, Hegel discusses the relationship between identity and
difference in terms of different modes of thought. He contrasts the ability of reason to
grasp the unity of identity and difference with the tendency of the understanding to
conceive identity and difference as rigidly distinct categories, and he shows how this
tendency of the understanding has lead to a host of traditional philosophical problems or
impasses. Hegel argues that philosophy too often relies on the understanding while
excluding reason, and he proclaims the need for a new direction in philosophy, one that
recognizes the importance of reason or speculation. All of this makes it sound as though
the problem of uniting identity and difference is merely a problem for thought, as though
Hegel is exclusively concerned with questions about how we conceptualize the world.
However, even in the Differenzschrift, Hegel makes it clear that the problem of uniting
identity and difference is the fundamental problem facing objects in the world.
Hegel makes both of these points in the following passage:
The sole interest of Reason is to suspend such rigid antitheses [between identity
and difference]. But this does not mean that Reason is altogether opposed to
opposition and limitation [the province of the understanding]. Life eternally
forms itself by setting up oppositions, and totality at the highest pitch of living
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