Srivats mentions the concrete universal. What is that? In the Phenomenology of Spirit it is defined as the "I" of reason that sees itself as all reality.

This concrete universal is arrived at, first, at the end of the Consciousness section. So the Consciousness section is very much a self-contained whole. In it we see the universal develop from its most rudimentary form in Sense-certainty, step by step, to this "I" which is all reality.

And, in fact, the so-called concrete universal, the "I" of reason that sees itself as all reality, is the final moment of all the moments of the Phenomenology. And the final moment of the Phenomenology itself, the Preface or Scientific Cognition would in itself be this "I" of reason that sees itself as all reality.

And this is why the final moment of Hegel's system is Spirit, the psychological idea, rather than Logic, the theological idea. Ultimately Hegel's metaphysics takes the form of this concrete universal, of the "I" of reason that sees itself as all reality.

One can see that this is quite different from Spinoza's metaphysics. For Spinoza Substance is primary, Attributes are secondary, and Modes are of almost no significance at all. In Hegel, in contrast, the Mode as the "I" of reason that sees itself as all reality, is ultimate.

John