Identity and Difference: Studies in Hegel's Logic, Philosophy of Spirit, and Politics

2. Double Transition, Dialectic, and Recognition

In what sort of discourse is Hegel’s thought to be discussed, evaluated, and criticized?This is not simply a question of how to translate Hegel’s obscure and complex German into English. Rather, it is a question about the discourse in which Hegel’s thought is formulated and expressed by scholars and interpreters, both critics and defenders. The question concerning the language in which speculative thought should be expressed is an issue that Hegel himself repeatedly addressed and struggled with. How should a speculative dialectical philosophy be articulated? Can it be expressed in ordinary propositional discourse without distorting it? This issue is not merely of concern to scholarly “drudges,” it is also of concern to Hegel himself; he frequently observes that the propositional form of judgment is inadequate to express speculative truth. The formulation of speculative truth in judgments leads to its distortion and misrepresentation. The truth of reason is mishandled by the understanding (Verstand). On the other hand, some believe dialectic itself is a reductive distortion of otherness and difference. Hegel’s critics believe that Hegel fails at his ambitious project of reconciling and transcending the oppositions he seeks to mediate, and that speculative dialectic is just a more subtle form of domination by a privileged, one-sided unity. These charges play out especially on the themes of other, otherness, identity, and difference. Hegel’s French students, who subsequently turned against him, charge that Hegel privileges identity over difference and reduces difference and otherness to negation, and thus to a subordinate , negative moment of identity.They point to an early Hegelian phrase, “the identity of identity and difference.” Here difference is expressed as the negative moment of dialectic (opposition to identity), 31 Chapter 2 DoubleTransition, Dialectic, and Recognition Robert R.Williams which is in turn itself negated in the second affirmative moment of negation of negation. The negation of negation (difference) allegedly reinstates the original identity, thus difference is eliminated. Further, the critics observe that here difference is thought dialectically by means of identity and thus is a difference that has been tamed. The critics seek a difference that is not subordinate methodologically to dialectical opposition in which it is mastered by, reducible to, or eliminated by identity. For example, Deleuze writes concerning Hegel that “difference is crucified . . . only that which is identical . . . or opposed can be considered different: difference becomes an object of representation always in relation to a conceived identity.”1 In contrast, Deleuze wants a difference that is not a negation or derived from a dialectical opposition that reinstates identity but an unrecognized and unrecognizable difference, a difference affirmative in itself.2 Such criticisms of Hegel’s speculative dialectic are found not only in his critics but also among Hegel scholars. Some note that in Hegel’s phrase, “identity of identity and non-identity,” the term identity appears twice; consequently, identity, they maintain, is the controlling term. Difference is thus subordinate to identity.3 This subordination leads, they allege, to Hegel’s apparent privileging of community (state) over individuals (difference) in his social and political philosophy. Perhaps the most sustained analysis and critique of Hegel’s thought on this issue by a Hegelian scholar belongs to William Desmond who charges that Hegel’s thought is at best ambiguous and at worst reductionist . According to Desmond, Hegel’s dialectical treatment of the mediation of difference (otherness) by identity threatens to reduce mediation by other to self-mediation. In Desmond’s words, “The logic of dialectical self-mediation includes a reference to what is other, but also always ends by including that other as a subordinate moment within a more encompassing self-mediating whole.”4 According to Desmond, Hegel fails to safeguard or to do justice to the other and to the inherently plural, doubled character of intermediation: “The doubleness of the self and the other is not fully recognized as the basis of a togethemess that is irreducibly plural; it becomes dialectically converted into a dualism that is to be mediated and included in a higher and more embracing process of self-mediation.”5 In what follows I want to examine and respond to Desmond’s critique, because he formulates succinctly views of Hegel that are widespread. His probing, brilliant traversal of Hegel’s thought from a sympathetic, yet divergent perspective both throws light on the problems in Hegel, which he and others have identified, and at the same 32 Robert R.Williams time...