To see why, we need to look more closely at the way in which Hegel
himself draws a contrast be tween universals that are abstract and universals
that are concrete. This we will do in the next section, at the end of which we
will return to consider the issue we have just raised, concerning the extent to
which Hegel’s co nception of the concrete universal is holistic.
III
The distinction between the abstract and the concrete universal principally
arises in the course of Hegel’s discussion of the Concept or Noti on
(Begriff)
30
and the different levels of judgement and syllogism that are
associated with that discussion, as this occurs in the first part of Book III of
the Logic. Hegel’s central aim here is to demonstrate that
The progression of the Concept is no longer either passing-over or shining
into another, but development; for the [moments] that are distinguished are
immediately posited at the same time as identical with one another and
with the whole, and [each] determinacy is as a free being of the whole
Concept.
31
The ‘moments’ of the Concept are universality, particularity and
individuality; and the claim here is therefore that these categories have a
peculiar kind of interrelation (of development [‘Entwicklung’]) that was not
seen eithe r with the categories of Being (where the ‘dialectical process’ was
one of ‘passing over into another’ [‘U
¨
bergehen’]) or Essence (where it was
‘shining into another’ [‘Scheinen in Anderes’]): ‘in contrast, the movement of
the Concept is development’. Hegel’s reasons for wanting to argue for this
relation between the moments of the Concept, I would claim, stem from his
conviction that many of the problems of philosophy are bound up with the fact
that this relation has been misconceived hitherto, where the categories of
universality, particularity and individuality have been set apart from one
another.
32
Now, Hegel’s main aim in drawing the contrast between the ‘abstract’ and the
‘concrete’ universal is related to the way in which the relation between the
categories of universality, particularity and individuality should be viewed:
30
‘Notion’ or ‘Concept’ are the two terms used for the translation of Begriff: in quotations, I
follow the usage of the translation referred to, although in my text I use ‘Concept’.
31
Hegel, Encyclopaedia Logic, x161, p. 237:
Das Fortgehen des Begriffs ist nicht mehr U
¨
bergehen noch Scheinen in Anderes,
sondern Entwicklung, indem das Unterschiedene unmittelbar zugleich als das
Identische miteinander und mit dem Ganzen gesetzt, die Bestimmtheit als ein freies
Sein des ganzen Begriffes ist.
(Werke, Vol. VIII, p. 308)
32
For further discussion, see my Hegel and the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ (London, 2002) 18–21.
126 ROBERT STERN
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