Hegel's logic of essence (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel)

The topic of my dissertation is Hegel's treatment of one problem inherent in the traditional idea of an essence: the task of knowing what a thing is requires the complementary task of ascertaining somehow what the thing is not. Defining something ostensibly involves an appeal to the law of non-contradiction: an entity can be either A or non-A, but not both—at least not in the same respect. One defining trait of classical rationalism is its allegiance to this principle.; Against classical rationalism, Hegel points out that the operations of identification and differentiation involved in the activity of essence-ascription entail an inescapable contradiction at the level of the thinking subject. That is, the subject cannot separate from each other the two opposite, complementary operations of identification and differentiation: to identify is always already to differentiate, and vice versa. The very attempt to preserve the principle of contradiction results in its violation.; Now, this is an insoluble problem if we take our bearings by a ‘static’ understanding of identity and difference. That is, if we consider each of them to be formal monads which are in rigid separation from each other, Hegel's exhibition of their contradictory internal relation would ostensibly result in the outright skeptical rejection of essence-talk.; Against this, in the Doctrine of Essence Hegel sets himself the task of acknowledging the phenomenon of contradiction, but in a way that does not issue in skepticism. The nerve of Hegel's argument is an expressivist/teleological reconstruction of the concepts of identity and difference, such that the internal relation between them can also be seen as preserving (instead of obliterating) an intelligible distinction between the two. The fact that identity contradicts itself through a self-differentiation does not issue in a sweeping denial of the principle of contradiction: not all self-differentiations fulfill the original identity. In this respect, Hegel can still pay respect to the foundational axiom that a thing can be only itself and not the other, while at the same time allowing for the notion of an internal contradiction between identity and difference.