Hierarchies of the Dialectic: Hegel on Identity and Difference
Hierarchies of the Dialectic: Hegel on Identity and Difference

Summary/Abstract: In my paper, I contend that it is necessary to rely on a categorial reading of Hegel’s notions of identity and difference in order to properly understand their non-hierarchical relationship in Hegelian dialectics. Many commentators reduce their speculative nature to a merely instrumental use of the terms in analyzing Hegel’s work. In this way, identity and difference are only formally employed and thus ontologically obscured, leaving room for subsequent shortcomings and hierarchizations. I maintain throughout the paper that the best way to elucidate the hierarchical question and prevent dialectical thought from such errors is by inquiring into Hegel’s speculative configuration of onto-logical categories. If anything, Hegel replaces the primacy of identity over difference with an internal linkage that determines the structure of these notions, thus granting their immanent relatedness. For him, the relationship between categories is necessarily a movement. The constitution of identity and difference, as determinations of reflexion of essence in Hegel’s Science of Logic, proves that they are equiprimordial and co-structural, hence preventing any possible hierarchy.

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