Hegel, British idealism, and the curious case of the concrete universal

British Journal for the History of Philosophy

Volumn 15, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 115-153

  Stern, Robert ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 52049083986     PISSN: 09608788     EISSN: 14693526     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09608780601088002     Document Type: Article

References (89)

1. The following remark is typical in this respect: 'The central idea in nineteenth century Idealist philosophy is the notion of the concrete universal. The English Idealists took it over from Hegel and it played a most important part in all their work' (A. J. M. Milne, The Social Philosophy of English Idealism (London, 1962) 15)
2. The topic is not only neglected in the current general literature on metaphysics; it is also little discussed in recent specialist studies of Anglo-American Idealism. As far as I know, only the following works give the topic any consideration (and some of these only briefly): Milne, The Social Philosophy of English Idealism, esp. 15-55, 165-202
3. Lionel Rubinoff, Collingwood and the Reform of Metaphysics (Toronto, 1970), esp. 154-60 and 384, n6
4. Stewart Candlish, 'Bradley On My Station and Its Duties', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 56 (1978) No. 2: 155-70
5. Marcus Clayton, 'Blanshard's Theory of Universals', in The Philosophy of Brand Blanshard (LaSalle, 1980) 861-8
6. Anthony Manser, Bradley's Logic (Oxford, 1983), esp. 79-98
7. T. L. S. Sprigge, James and Bradley: American Truth and British Reality (Chicago and LaSalle, 1993), esp. 382-5
8. W. J.Mander, 'Bosanquet and the Concrete Universal', The Modern Schoolman, 11 (2000) No. 4: 293-308
9. Mander, 'Bosanquet and the Concrete Universal', 293
10. But for a corrective to this commonly held view, see Robert Stern, 'British Hegelianism: A Non-Metaphysical View?', European Journal of Philosophy, 2 (1994) No. 3: 293-321
11. Norman Kemp Smith, 'The Nature of Universals', Mind, 36 (1927) No. 142: 137-57, esp. p. 144, No. 143: 265-80, No. 144: 393-422
12. F. H. Bradley, Principles of Logic, 2nd edn, corrected, 2 vols (Oxford, 1928) Vol. I, p. 188
13. Bernard Bosanquet, 'The Philosophical Importance of a True Theory of Identity', reprinted in his Essays and Addresses, 2nd edn (London, 1891) 162-80, esp. pp. 165-6
14. Cf. also Bernard Bosanquet, The Essentials of Logic (London, 1895) 65: So the reference of a proper name is a good example of what we called a universal or an identity. That which is referred to by such a name is a person or thing whose existence is extended in time and its parts bound together by some continuous quality - an individual person or thing and the whole of this individuality is referred to in whatever is affirmed about it. Thus the reference of such a name is universal, not as including more than one individual, but as including in the identity of the individual numberless differences - the acts, events, and relations that make up its history and situation
15. Bosanquet, Essays and Addresses, 167
16. Kemp Smith, 'The Nature of Universals', 145
17. Cf. also Michael B. Foster, 'The Concrete Universal: Cook Wilson and Bosanquef, Mind, 40 (1931) No. 157:1-22, esp. p. 7, where he speaks about the 'well-known and paradoxical doctrine, derived from Bradley, that the concrete universal is the individual', and asks whether 'it is not simply an abuse of language to call the individual "universal" at all'. Another contemporary critic of this view is John Cook Wilson: A notable example of loose thinking about unity in diversity is the modern representation of the individual as a universal because it is a unity in the diversity of its qualities, &c. This doctrine, which is taken as advanced metaphysics, is nothing but deplorable confusion, due to a mere verbal analogy helped out by the metaphysician's inclination to paradox, and the absurdest results may be developed from it. The unity of the universal in its particulars is totally different from the unity of the individual substance as a unity of its attributes (or attribute-elements)
18. The particulars of a universal are not elements in its unity. (John Cook Wilson, Statement and Inference, edited by A. S. L. Farquharson, 2 vols, corrected edn (Oxford, 1969), Vol. I, p. 156 n1) It is likely that Cook Wilson's later reference to 'the puerilities of certain paradoxical recent authors' on the topic of universals is also a reference to this Bradleyan view (see ibid., 348)
19. Cf. Mander, 'Bosanquet and the Concrete Universal', 301: Bosanquet's understanding of the word 'universal' is a very generous one. Any connection which brings together any sort of many under one heading, any union or connection or identity, any mechanism that allows any kind of general talk, for Bosanquet, is a universal
20. Bradley, The Principles of Logic, Vol. I, p. 188
21. A more radical defence of the Bradleyean position, suggested to me by Fraser MacBride, might be to follow Ramsey in attempting to challenge the whole universal/individual distinction: see F. P. Ramsey, 'Universals' in The Foundations of Mathematics and other Logical Essays, edited by R. B. Braithwaite (London, 1931), pp. 112-34; but I take Bradley's more moderate talk of 'points of view' to suggest that he would not want to adopt that line (though I would agree that there are some intriguing parallels between the two positions that deserve to be explored further)
22. Mander, 'Bosanquet and the Concrete Universal', 296, n8
23. G. W. F. Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic: Part I of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences, translated by T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting and H. S. Harris (Indianapolis, 1991), §175, p. 252
24. G. W. F. Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic: Part I of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences, translated by T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting and H. S. Harris (Indianapolis, 1991), §175, p. 252 ['Das Subjekt, das Einzelne als Einzelnes (im singulären Urteil), ist ein Allgemeines', G. W. F. Hegel, Werke in zwanzig Bänden, edited by Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel (Frankfurt, 1970), Vol. VIII, p. 326]
25. Hegel, Encyclopaedia Logic, §175 Addition, p. 252: Das Subjekt, indem es im singulären Urteil als Allgemeines bestimmt ist, schreitet damit über sich, als dieses bloß Einzelne, hinaus. Wenn wir sagen: »diese Pflanze ist heilsam«, so liegt darin, daß nicht bloß diese einzelne Pflanze heilsam ist, sondern mehrere oder einige
26. Werke, Vol. VIII, p. 327
27. G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by A. V. Miller (Oxford, 1977) 64: Das Aufzeigen ist also selbst die Bewegung, welche es ausspricht, was das Jetzt im Wahrheit ist, nämlich ein Resultat oder eine Vielheit von Jetzt zusammengefaßt; und das Aufzeigen ist das Erfahren, daß Jetzt Allgemeines ist
28. Werke, Vol. III, p. 89
29. Ivan Soll, 'Charles Taylor's Hegel', reprinted in Hegel, edited by Michael Inwood (Oxford, 1985) 54-66, esp. pp. 63-4
30. Cf. also Michael Inwood, A Hegel Dictionary (Oxford, 1992) 303
31. For a reading that is also critical of Soil's account for claiming that Hegel (like the British Idealists) 'has clumsily conflated universals... with complex individuals', but on somewhat different grounds, see Edward Craig, The Mind of God and the Works of Man (Oxford, 1987) 211-12
32. Bernard Bosanquet, The Principle of Individuality and Value (London, 1912) 38
33. Josiah Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (Boston, 1892) 224
34. Cf. also Edward Caird, Social Philosophy of Auguste Comte (Glasgow, 1885) 109 (incorrectly cited by Royce, 499, n1): 'The universal of science and philosophy is... not merely a generic name, under which things are brought together, but a principle which unites them and determines their relation to each other'; and also John Caird (Edward Caird's brother), who Royce also cites extensively: But thought is capable of another and deeper movement. It can rise to a universality which is not foreign to, but the very inward nature of things in themselves, not the
35. Cf. Sprigge, James and Bradley, 514: [T]he doctrine of concrete universals, as propounded by such as Bradley and Bosanquet, does not really concern one special type of universal called 'concrete', which they contrast with another called 'abstract', but is presented as the correct account of all genuine universals as opposed to the more usual but inadequate account of them as merely abstract
36. th impression (Oxford, 1930) 520-1
37. Hegel, Encyclopaedia Logic, §172 Addition, p. 250 (translation modified)
38. Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 495
39. Hegel, Encyclopaedia Logic, §161, p. 237: Das Fortgehen des Begriffs ist nicht mehr Übergehen 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
40. For further discussion, see my Hegel and the 'Phenomenology of Spirit' (London, 2002) 18-21
41. G. W. F. Hegel, Science of Logic, translated by A. V. Miller (London: 1969) 602
42. ('Vom Allgemeinen, welches ein vermitteltes, nämlich das abstrakte, dem Besonderen und Einzelnen entgegengesetzte Allgemeine ist, ist erst bei dem bestimmten Begriffe zu reden', Werke Vol. II, p. 275)
43. Hegel, Science of Logic, 603
44. Cf. also G. W. F. Hegel, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind: Part Three of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, translated by William Wallace and A. V. Miller (Oxford, 1971), §467 Addition, p. 227: Only on the third stage of pure thinking is the Notion as such known. Therefore, this stage represents comprehension in the strict sense of the word. Here the universal is known as self-particularizing, and from the particularization gathering itself together into individuality; or, what is the same thing, the particular loses its self-subsistence to become a moment of the Notion. Accordingly, the universal here is no longer a form external to the content, but the true form which produces the content from itself. (Erst auf der dritten Stufe des reinen Denkens wird der Begriff als solcher erkannt. Diese Stufe stellt also das eigentliche Begreifen dar. Hier wird das Allgemeine als sich selber besondernd und aus der Besonderung zur Einzelheit zusammennehmend erkannt oder, was dasselbe ist, das Besondere aus seiner Selbständigkeit zu einem Momente des Begriffs herabgesetzt. Demnach ist hier das Allgemeine nicht mehr eine dem Inhalt äußerliche, sondern die wahrhafte, aus sich selber den Inhalt hervorbringende Form.)
45. Werke, Vol. X, pp. 286-7
46. Werke, Vol. V, p. 26)
47. Cf. Hegel, Encyclopaedia Logic, §24 Addition, pp. 56-7: [I]n speaking of a definite animal, we say that it is [an] 'animal.' 'Animal as such' cannot be pointed out; only a definite animal can ever be pointed at. 'The animal' does not exist; on the contrary, this expression refers to the universal nature of single animals, and each existing animal is something that is much more concretely determinate, something particularized. But 'to be animal,' the kind considered as the universal, pertains to the determinate animal and constitutes its determinate essentiality. If we were to deprive a dog of its animality we could not say what it is. Things as such have a persisting, inner nature, and an external thereness. They live and die, come to be and pass away; their essentiality, their universality, is the kind, and this cannot be interpreted merely as something held in common. (... wenn wir von einem bestimmten Tiere sprechen, wir sagen, es sei Tier. Das Tier als solches ist nicht zu zeigen, sondern nur immer ein bestimmtes. Das Tier existert nicht, sondern ist die allgemeine Natur der einzelnen Tiere, und jedes existierende Tier ist ein viel konkreter Bestimmtes, ein Besondertes. Aber Tier zu sein, die Gattung als des Allgemeine, gehört dem bestimmten Tier an und macht seine bestimmte Wesentlich- keit aus. Nehmen wir das Tiersein vom Hunde weg, so ware nich zu sagen, was er sei. Die Dinge überhaupt haben eine bleibende, innere Natur und ein äußerliches Dasein. Sie leben und sterben, entstehen und vergehen; ihre Wesentlichkeit, ihre Allgemeinheit ist die Gattung, und diese ist nicht bloß als ein Gemeinschaftliches aufzufassen.)
48. Cf. ibid., §177 Addition, p. 255: 'it is the Concept that forms the content of the judgement henceforth' ['und [der Begriff] ist es, welcher nunmehr den Inhalt des Urteils bildet'
49. Cf. Hegel, Philosophy of Mind, §456 Addition, p. 209, where Hegel distinguishes the genus as a concrete universal, from the particular properties of the individual: This common element is either any one particular side of the object raised to the form of universality, such as, for example, in the rose, the red colour; or the concrete universal, the genus, for example, in the rose, the plant. (Dies Gemeinsame ist entweder irgendeine in die Form der Allgemeinheit erhobene besondere Seite des Gegenstandes, wie z. B. an der Rose die rote Farbe, oder das konkret Allgemeine, die Gattung, z. B. an der Rose die Pflanze.)
50. Werke, VI, pp. 333-5
51. Cf. Hegel, Encyclopaedia Logic, §163 Addition, p. 240: When people speak of the Concept, they ordinarily have only abstract universality in mind, and consequently the Concept is usually also defined as a general notion. We speak in this way of the 'concept' of colour, or of a plant, or of an animal, and so on; and these concepts are supposed to arise by omitting the particularities through which the various colours, plants, animals, etc., are distinguished from one another, and holding fast to what they have in common. This is the way in which the understanding apprehends the Concept, and the feeling that such concepts are hollow and empty, that they are mere schemata and shadows, is justified. What is universal about the Concept is indeed not just something common against which the particular stands on its own; instead the universal is what particularizes (specifies) itself, remaining at home with itself in its other, in unclouded clarity. (Wenn vom Begriff gesprochen wird, so ist es gewöhnlich nur die abstrakte Allgemeinheit, welche man dabei vor Augen hat, und der Begriff pflegt dann auch wohl [als] eine allgemeine Vorstellung definiert zu werden. Man spricht demgemäß vom Begriff der Farbe, der Pflanze, des Tieres usw., and diese Begriffe sollen dadurch entstehen, daß bei Hinweglassung des Besonderen, wodurch sich die verschiedenen Farben, Pflanzen, Tiere usw. voneinander unterscheiden, das denselben Gemeinschaf- tliche festgehalten werde. Dies ist die Weise, wie der Verstand den Begriff auffaßt, und das Gefühl hat recht, wenn es solche Begriffe fur hohl und leer, für bloße Schemen und Schatten erklärt. Nun aber ist das Allgemeine des Begriffs nich bloß ein Gemeinschaftliches, welchem gegeülber das Besondere seinen Bestand fur sich hat, sondern vielmehr das sich selbst Besondernde (Spezifizierende) und in seinem Anderen in ungetrübter Klarheit bei sich selbst Bleibende.)
52. nd edn, revised (Oxford, 1927) 162, where he speaks of the 'the will which is above ourselves' as a universal which is not abstract, since it belongs to its essence that it should be realized, and it has no real existence except in and through its particulars. The good will (for morality) is meaningless, if, whatever else it be, it be not the will of living finite beings. It is a concrete universal, because it not only is above but is within and throughout its details, and is so far only as they are
53. Cf. G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, translated by H. B. Nisbet, edited by Allen W. Wood (Cambridge, 1991), §260, p. 282: [In the state] the universal does not attain validity or fulfilment without the interest, knowledge, and volition of the particular, and... individuals do not live as private persons merely for these particular interests without at the same time directing their will to a universal end and acting in conscious awareness of this end. (... so daß weder das Allgemeine ohne das besondere Interesse, Wissen und Wollen gelte und vollbracht werde, noch daß die Individuen bloß für das letztere als Privatpersonen leben und nicht zugleich in und für das Allgemeine wollen und eine dieses Zwecks bewußte Wirksamkeit haben.)
54. (Werke, Vol. VII, p. 407) Even here, however, Bradley's position begins to take a holistic turn, by way of an organicist analogy, where Bradley continues: It is the life which can live only in and by them, as they are dead unless within it; it is the whole soul which lives so far as the body lives, which makes the body a living body, and which without the body is as unreal an abstraction as the body without it. It is an organism and a moral organism; and it is conscious self-realization, because only by the will of its self-conscious members can the moral organism give itself reality
55. For a classic account along these lines, which attributes the social holism of the British Idealists to the holistic model of the concrete universal that is said to be found in Hegel, see L. T. Hobhouse, The Metaphysical Theory of the State (London, 1918), esp. pp. 62-6, where Hobhouse distinguishes this sort of position from his own: We are contending for individuality, for the irreducible distinction between self and others, and we have met some of the arguments directed against that distinction. But now we have admitted a 'universal' running through thousands and millions of selves. This admission, according to the idealist, will be fatal to the separateness which we have maintained. The universal for him unites the instances which fall under it just in the manner which we dispute... We come, therefore, to that theory of the universal which, as we said above, underlines the whole question. This theory is due to Hegel. (ibid., 62)
56. Bradley, Ethical Studies, 170-1
57. Bernard Bosanquet, 'The Philosophical Theory of the State' and Related Essays, reprint edition, edited by Gerald F. Gaus and William Sweet (South Bend, Indiana, 2001) 174
58. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §§5-7, pp. 37-41 Der Wille enthält a) das Element der reinen Unbestimmtheit oder der reinen Reflexion des Ich in sich, in welcher jede Beschränkung, jeder... Inhalt aufgelöst ist; die schrankenlose Unendlichkeit der absoluten Abstraktion oder Allgemeinheit, das reine Denken seiner selbst... ß) Ebenso ist Ich das Übergehen aus underschiedsloser Unbestimmtheit zur Unterscheidung, Bestimmen und Setzen einer Bestimmtheit als eines Inhalts und Gegenstands... Durch dies Setzen seiner selbst als eines bestimmten tritt Ich in das Dasein überhaupt; - das absolute Moment der Endlichkeit oder Besonderung des Ich...γ) Der Wille ist die Einheit dieser beiden Momente; die in sich reflektierte und dadurch zur Allgemeinheit zuückgeführte Besonderheit; - Einzelheit; die Selbstbestimmung des Ich, in einem sich als das Negative seiner selbst, nämlich als bestimmt, beschränkt zu setzen und bei sich, d. i. in seiner Identität mit sich und Allgemeinheit zu bleiben, und in der Bestimmung, sich nur mit sich selbst zusammenzuschließen... Dies ist die Freiheit des Willens, welche seine Begriff oder Substantialität, seine Schwere so ausmacht wie die Schwere die Sustantialität des Körpers
59. I have argued elsewhere that this issue is at the heart of Hegel's diagnosis of the way in which the French Revolution became the Terror: see Robert Stern, Hegel and the 'Phenomenology of Spirit' (London: Routledge, 2002) 157-68
60. Cf. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §24, pp. 54-5, where Hegel refers to his account of universality in the Encyclopaedia Logic as part of his discussion of the will, where he says that the free will 'permeates its determination and is identical with itself in this determination'
61. Hobhouse, The Metaphysical Theory of the State, 50
62. Hobhouse was of course a hostile witness: for a corrective, see Peter P. Nicholson, The Political Philosophy of the British Idealists (Cambridge, 1990) 205-221
63. Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State, 169
64. Cf. Dudley Knowles's recent discussion of Hegel's organicism in his Hegel and the 'Philosophy of Right' (London: Routledge, 2002), 323, where Knowles writes: 'Citizens are "not parts, but members", Hegel says (§286R), exploiting the primary sense of Glied as a bodily member or limb'. But, taken in context, it seems that Hegel is not talking here about individual citizens; for this context is a discussion of feudal monarchies where 'vassals, pashas, etc.' had a role in 'political business' and so formed part of the constitution of the state, but in an atomistic way, because 'each part [of this political structure] maintains itself alone, and in so doing, it promotes only itself and not the others along with it, and has within itself the complete set of moments which it requires for independence and self-sufficiency'
65. (Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §286, p. 328 ['So erhält und bringt jeder Teil, indem er sich erhält, nur sich und darin nicht zugleich die anderen hervor und hat zur unabhängigen Selbständigkeit alle Momente vollständig an ihm selbst'
66. Cf. ibid., §272 Addition, p. 307: W]hile the powers of the state must certainly be distinguished, each must form a whole in itself and contain the other moments within it. When we speak of the distinct activities of these powers, we must not fall into the monumental error of taking this to mean that each power should exist independently and in abstraction; on the contrary, the powers should be distinguished only as moments of the concep. (Die Gewalten des Staates müssen 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 fur sich abstract dastehen sollte, da die Gwalten vielmehr nur als Momente des Begriffs unterschieden sein sollen.)
67. 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)
68. George H. Sabine, 'The Concreteness of Thought', Philosophical Review, 16 (1907) No. 2: 154-69, esp. p. 154
69. The question of whether Bradley is an exception here is too complex to be dealt with properly in what follows: for on the one hand, while Bradley may seem to be more insistent than other Idealist writers on the abstractive nature of thought, and thus more pessimistic about its capacity to grasp the unique individuality of reality, he nonetheless also seems to have shared their view that thought is required in order to give experience a particular content, where this once again relies on a non-abstractionist account of our concepts. For an enlightening discussion of these issues, see Phillip Ferreira, Bradley and the Structure of Knowledge (Albany, 1999), where 41-4 are particularly relevant to the themes of this paper
70. T. H. Green, 'The Philosophy of Aristotle', in Works of Thomas Hill Green, edited by R. L. Nettleship, 3 vols (London, 1885-1888), Vol. III, pp. 46-91, esp. pp. 61-2
71. Green, 'The Philosophy of Aristotle', 48
72. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited by Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford, 1975), Book III, Chapter III, §1, p. 409
73. T. H. Green, 'Introductions to Hume's 'Treatise of Human Nature", Works, Vol. I, pp. 1-371, esp. pp. 37-8
74. Green, 'The Philosophy of Aristotle', 52
75. For an account of Green's awareness of Hegel's thought at the time of this essay on Aristotle, and some discussion of how that awareness may have influenced it (though with no mention of Hegel's conception of the concrete universal) see Ben Wempe, T. H. Green's Theory of Positive Freedom: From Metaphysics to Political Theory (Exeter, 2004) Ch. 1
76. John Passmore, A Hundred Years of Philosophy, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth, 1966), 86
77. Bosanquet, The Principle of Individuality and Value, 54-5
78. Novalis, Schriften. Die Werke Friedrich von Hardenbergs, edited by Paul Luckhohn and Richard Samuel, 6 vols, 3rd edn (Stuttgart, 1977- ) Vol. II, p. 526
79. Bernard Bosanquet, Logic, or the Morphology of Knowledge, 2 vols, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1911) Vol. I, pp. 60-1
80. Cf. also Essentials of Logic, 94-7
81. For further discussion of this aspect of Bosanquet's view, see Mander, 'Bosanquet and the Concrete Universal', 298-300 and 303-7
82. and W. J. Mander, 'Life and Finite Individuality: The Bosanquet/Pringle-Pattison Debate', British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 13 (2005) No. 1: 111-30, esp. section V
83. Nettleship, Philosophical Remains, 128
84. J. McT. E. McTaggart, The Nature of Existence, edited by C. D. Broad, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1927) Vol. I, Ch. VI
85. For helpful discussion of McTaggart's position, see P. T. Geach, Truth, Love and Immortality: An Introduction to McTaggart's Philosophy (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1979) Ch. III
86. McTaggart, The Nature of Existence, Vol. I, Chap X
87. As Geach observes: McTaggart accepted from the contemporary Cambridge jargon a simple dichotomy of characteristics into qualities and relations: any characteristic expressed by a one-place predicate is a quality. This is a drastic simplification of the Aristotelian categories, cutting the list down by omission of several members. (Truth, Love and Immortality, 48)
88. Similar themes are also to be found in Collingwood: cf. his discussion of 'the point of view of concrete thought' in Collingwood, Speculum Mentis, pp. 159ff
89. Brand Blanshard, The Nature of Thought, 2 vols (London, 1939) Vol. I, p. 571. Cf. also ibid, pp. 613-14: To appropriate means, at the least, to identify, and to identify means to find in something the embodiment of a universal... [I]f the thing did not present itself as the specification of any universal whatever, if it were a thing of no kind at all, I could not so much as perceive it. In all knowledge universals are being realized. And to grow in knowledge is to exchange a more generic grasp for a more specific. It is a movement in which the indefinite defines itself, the potential realizes itself, the relatively formless gains body and outline