To show how a particular reference and its context differ let me go back to one example I have been using..

We are observing two colleagues in a medical lab discussing a procedure. One says to the other “This should work”.. The particular reference is the ‘this’. The context that makes this reference intelligible is the wealth of shared knowledge about medicine and lab procedure.

In this way the context can be distinguished from the particular reference. And I think it should be evident enough that this context is not ontological. It refers to what the two colleagues know. As such, context enables one to understand the significance of the ‘this’ as stated. Without understanding the significance one cannot even know what the ‘this’ is referring to.

And even when talking about space and time as contexts, it is what we know about how moments function as temporal or spatial that informs any particular direct reference. A point in time signifies differently than a point in space. We need to know this difference to intelligibly say ‘now’ or ‘here’.

As for the moments of a dialectical unity, in any speculative derivation we begin with the moments given as separate and then find that they cannot be kept separate but instead mutually implicate.

This is particularly evident in Being where, for example, there is something and other which when taken as if determinately distinct opposed moments exhibit their fluidity as one moment calls forth the other. The moments as distinct cycle and show themselves as equivocal. The unity has to do with the form, not the content. The form is one, but the moments of this form are two.

We also can easily see this with being/nothing and finite/infinite. In talking about one moment we find ourselves talking about the other. But this fluidity only works if the moments can be distinguished. Only as distinguished can they then be shown to mutually implicate.

Thus, Hegel tells us that being and nothing are both absolutely the same and absolutely different. They are the same fluidity but are only the same as fluid if they can still be viewed as absolutely distinct.

So, we do not begin with a unity and then have the understanding mistakenly analyze the unity into moments. In Being, we begin with the moments and create the unity by thinking what each moment implies with respect to its opposed determination.

The deeper question you mention needs to be properly posed. It is as follows: what justifies Hegel calling his exposition a test of sense certain cognition if he does not allow this cognition to function as it normally does by employing its full capacities? What justifies an exposition of a cognition that in your words “doesn't acknowledge all its capacity” if it can only function as does ordinary sense certain cognition if it does acknowledge all its capacities?

In short, what justifies a pinched and nonfunctional conception of sense-certain cognition? What is Hegel testing if he is not testing ordinary sense certain cognition? I take this to be an important question that can be answered.

You seem to wish to deny that this question that has been raised and continues to be raised is a question worth bothering about. In my view, your explanation for why there is no problem is unconvincing. You are not seriously engaging these scholars who have and continue to raise this question.

In particular, you have not explained what accounts for the difference you note between a fully functioning sense certain cognition and one that does not work to full capacity. Who even draws this distinction? Hegel never does.

Hegel is quite content to talk as if sense certain cognition is being refuted even though nothing about direct sense reference has changed as a result of Hegel’s supposed refutation. So, we need to explain what is really happening.

This question writ large and applied to the Phenomenology in general is the question.. What is the Phenomenology about and what is really happening over the course of the exposition? These questions remain open and are acknowledge as open by Hegel scholars.