manifestation of individuality, the executive is a manifestation of
particularity, and the legislature is a manifestation of universality, each
also embodies aspects of the other ‘moments’ (so, for example, the monarch
acts as an individual, but in his person represents the universal interest,
where that interest involves the interest of a state comprising different
particular groups). Thus, the conception of the universal that Hegel is using
here is concrete in the sense that it cannot be conceived as something
separable from the categories of particularity and individuality, but not in
the sense that it somehow ties together individuals into a totality, as might
be suggested if we read Hegel as the British Idealists are sometimes read, as
basing their social holism on the holistic model of the concrete universal.
V
Looking at the accounts of the concrete universal associated with the British
Idealists that we have considered so far, therefore, we have found little reason
to take these accounts to be genuinely Hegelian; and while Hegel’s position
could be said to have philosophical value in offering a potential solution to
certain familiar metaphysical problems (concerning the question of indivi-
duation, or the relation between substances and their attributes, for
example),
65
the conceptions of the concrete universal taken from the British
Idealists that we have discussed up to now may only seem to be of interest to
those few with a commitment to their characteristic philosophical views (such
(Die Gewalten des Staates mu
¨
ssen so allerdings unterschieden sein, aber jede muß an
sich selbst ein Ganzes bilden und die anderen Momente in sich enthalten. Wenn man
von der underschiedenen Wirksamkeit der Gewalten spricht, muß man nicht in den
ungeheuren Irrtum verfallen, dies so anzuhnehmen, als wenn jede Gewalt fu
¨
r sich
abstract dastehen sollte, da die Gwalten vielmehr nur als Momente des Begriffs
unterschieden sein sollen.)
(Werke, Vol. VII, pp. 434–5)
And x272, p. 305:
The constitution is rational in so far as the state differentiates and determines its
activity within itself in accordance with the nature of the concept. It does so in such a
way that each of the powers in question is in itself the totality, since each contains the
other moments and has them active within it, and since all of them, as expressions of
the differentiation of the concept, remain wholly within itself ideality and constitute
nothing but a single individual whole.
(Die Verfassung ist venu
¨
nftig, insofern der Staat seine Wirksamkeit nach der Natur des
Begriffs in sich unterscheidet und bestimmt, und zwar so, daß jede dieser Gewalten
selbst in sich die Totalita
¨
t dadurch ist, daß sie die anderen Momente in sich wirksam
hat und entha
¨
lt und daß sie, weil sie den Underschied des Begriffs ausdru
¨
cken,
schlechthin in seiner Idealita
¨
t bleiben und nur ein individualles Ganzes ausmachen)
(Werke, Vol. VII, p. 432)
65
For further discussion, see my ‘Individual Existence and the Philosophy of Difference’, in
Oxford Handbook to Continental Philosophy, edited by Brian Leiter and Michael Rosen
(Oxford, 2007).
142 ROBERT STERN
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