Hegel thus conceives of the concrete universal as ‘the universal of the
Notion’, in so far as it involves a dialectical relation to particularity and
individuality, whereas the abstract universal does not.
What this means can be seen by looking at the examples Hegel gives of
each kind of universal, particularly as these are presented in his discussion of
the hierarchy of judgements and syllogisms.
36
At the most basic level of the
qualitative judgement and the qualitative syllogism,
37
the universal is an
accidental property of an individual, which fails to differentiate it from other
individuals:
When we say: ‘This rose is red’, the copula ‘is’ implies that subject and
predicate agree with one another. But of course, the rose, being something
concrete, is not merely red; on the contrary, it also has a scent, a definite form,
and all manner of other features, which are not contained within the predicate
‘red’. On the other hand, the predicate, being something abstractly universal,
does not belong merely to this subject. For there are other flowers, too, and
other objects altogether that are also red.
38
Thus, with a universal such as ‘red’, there is a clear distinction we can draw
between the universal and the individual that possesses that property, and
that universal and the other properties it possesses, so there is no dialectical
unity here between these elements. At the next level, in the judgement and
syllogism of reflection, we get a closer interrelation: for here we predicate
properties of individuals that we take to belong to other individuals of the
same kind, where being of this kind then comes to be seen as essential to
the individual, and where some properties are seen as essential to any
member of the kind. Thus, in the case of a judgement such as ‘All men are
mortal’, we treat being a man as an essential property of each individual man,
and not a mere feature that these individuals happen to have in common,
such as possessing earlobes.
39
Here, then, we have a closer interconnection
between the universal and the individual, in so far as the universal is now
seen as an essential property of the individual; and we also have a closer
connection between the universal and the particular properties that make
36
For the sake of simplicity and brevity, I deal with the hierarchy of judgements and syllogisms
together, and so have not here explicitly mentioned ‘the judgement of the concept’ (Das Urteil
des Begriffs), which has no corresponding syllogism, and forms the transition from the level of
judgements to that of syllogisms.
37
Or the judgement and syllogism of existence (Dasein) as they are called in the Science of Logic.
38
Hegel, Encyclopaedia Logic, x172 Addition, p. 250 (where the translators use ‘object’ as their
rendering of ‘Gegenstand’ as opposed to ‘Objekt’):
Wenn wir sagen: »diese Rose ist rot«, so liegt in der Kopula »ist«, daß Subjekt und
Pra
¨
dikat miteinander u
¨
bereinstimmen. Nun ist aber die Rose als ein Konkretes nicht
bloß rot, sonder sie duftet auch, hat eine bestimmte Form und vierlerlei andere
Bestimmungen, die in dem Pra
¨
dikat »rot« nicht erhalten sind.
(Werke, Vol. VIII, p. 324)
39
Cf. ibid., x175 Addition, p. 253 [Werke, Vol. VIII, p. 327].
128 ROBERT STERN
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