Idealism and the metaphysics of individuality

Abstract

What is arguably the central criticism of Hegel’s philosophical system by the Continental tradition, a criticism which represents a unifying thread in the diverse work of Schelling, Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Adorno, is that Hegel fails to do justice to the notion of individuality. My aim in this article is to counter the claim that Hegel’s idea of the concrete universal fails to properly explain the real uniqueness of individuals. In what follows, I argue that while the Continental critique (as it is particularly expressed by Adorno) is prima facie attractive, it is ultimately misguided.This is because the critics of Hegel fail to correctly understand (1) his principal argument in ‘Sense-Certainty’; (2) crucial features of his logico-metaphysics; and (3) his notion of wholeness. I contend that carefully explicating these important parts of the Hegelian system not only shows that Hegel’s metaphysical commitments are not those that do not leave meaningful room for or make adequate sense of individuality, but that they also reveal a sophisticated treatment of the interdependency between the categories of individuality, particularity and universality in a way which conceives of individuality robustly.