Hegel didn't get it. I mean it as a particular. No what we are directly acquainted with is a universal in the way that we never step into the same river twice, we only step into 'river'.
"I point it out as a 'Here', which is a Here of other Heres, or is in its own self a 'simple togetherness of many Heres'; i.e. it is a universal. I take it up then as it is in truth, and instead of knowing something immediate I take the truth of it, or perceiveit."
(( Phenomenology of Spirit A:I.110
Such abolition of the definite article in not the breakthrough that it might seem. I mean in a figurative sense for Plato would have had to shatter the Greek language to do so. Someone now will remind me that in Demotic Wazi 'pen', 'the pen', 'a pen' and 'penning' are the same word. That's as may be but it seems the case that for some philosophers the shadow is the substance and the form is the reality. Where we see a single stout figure dancing alone they see a Botero couple.
My daimon is clearing her throat.
- What is it now?
- What you see as a dual manifestation may be a duck/rabbit. The reality of the object may be comprehended dually but only lived as an actual entity.
- When you spring those Whitehead expressions on me I grow afraid, I want to hide behind the couch. Do you mean that there is a need with the absolute positing of existence for there to be the absence of knowledge or ignorance. Here I'm not talking about 'ajnana' but common or garden scientific ignorance like 'is there a Higgs boson or not, let's find out'.
- That will do for now.
