Abstract

Derrida’s discovery of „supplementary“ logic as the basis of Rousseau’s thinking is assessed in the historical contexts both of modern philosophy and metaphysics between Leibniz and Hegel. Rousseau’s supplementary proposition proves not to be identical with the modern propositional function, but with the „infinite proposition“ („das unendliche Urteil“) in Hegels Science of Logic. It is shown that this proposition structures Hegel’s concept of disunion („Entzweiung“) in the productive overcoming of Rousseau’s anthropological critique of representation as developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit.