Distinction Ontology takes the form of an immanent unfolding of the concept and, in this respect, follows a Hegelian mode of inquiry. Concepts are not introduced as ready-made definitions that are then connected to one another. Each determination arises and acquires its content through the development of the preceding one.
The main difficulty for the reader is the expectation that change will occur at the level of the system. We are prepared to follow the addition of any number of elements, levels, relations, and functions, no matter how complex, as long as the original concepts retain their familiar meanings. A system may be completely reorganized while the entities that compose it remain what they were taken to be from the outset.
An immanent transition has a different character. The preceding determination is not preserved as an unchanging element to which the next one is added. Through its own development, it becomes other than it was. What changes is not merely its place among other elements, but the concept itself and, with it, the very nature of what is at issue.
The later form therefore does not stand beside the earlier one as another part of the system. It preserves what has already been achieved, but transforms the meaning of that achievement. What at first appeared as an independent and final determination is later disclosed as a moment of a more developed concept.
A static reading sees only the finished fold of this movement. Its different moments appear as things that exist all at once: there is movement, there is form, there is locality, there is consciousness. Since all of them are already familiar, the transition between them seems unnecessary. This is where the difficulty arises: the familiar meaning of a concept is mistaken for an understanding of it, bringing the movement of thought to a halt.
Words such as “movement,” “locality,” and “consciousness” should therefore be read primarily as markers within the unfolding. In particular, the term “consciousness” is not intended here as a final definition of consciousness. It marks a position at which the concept in development acquires a new determination.
To understand, then, is not to identify the ready-made entities that compose the system, but to follow what changes within the concept itself at each transition.