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138

This subjectivity, as abstract self-determination and pure certainty of itself alone, volatilizes, within itself, every determinacy of right, duty, and existence, inasmuch as it is the judging power that determines, from itself alone, what is good with respect to a content, and at the same time the power to which the good — at first only represented and something that ought to be — owes its actuality.

The self-consciousness that has in general arrived at this absolute reflection into itself knows itself, within it, as one to which no existing and given determination can, or should, do anything. |135| As a more general configuration in history (in Socrates, the Stoics, and the like), the direction of searching inward, within oneself, and of knowing and determining out of oneself what is right and good, appears in epochs when what counts as right and good in actuality and custom cannot satisfy the better will; when the existing world of freedom has become untrue to it, it no longer finds itself in the duties that are in force, and must seek to win the harmony lost in actuality only in ideal inwardness. Once self-consciousness has thus grasped and won its formal right, everything now depends on the character of the content that it gives itself.

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3 responses to “138”

  1. Hegel (Notes) Avatar
    Hegel (Notes)

    External condition of its emergence –
    Standpoint of abstract conscience, of abstract subjective freedom within itself.
    This the principal standpoint and the sickness of this age.
    Dissolution – of reverence toward the existing objective [order] in customs – reflection – one wants to see it only in the form that I, this [particular one], will it.
    Complete instability of the inner [life]; only external force, police, common advantage.

  2. Eduard Gans (Additions) Avatar
    Eduard Gans (Additions)

    Let us examine this volatilizing more closely, and, seeing that all determinations must dissolve into this simple concept and again proceed from it, we find that it consists first of all in this: that everything we recognize as right or as duty can be shown by thought to be something null, limited, and by no means absolute. On the other hand, subjectivity, just as it volatilizes all content within itself, may also in turn develop that same content out of itself. Everything that arises in ethical life is brought forth through this activity of spirit. On the other hand, the defect of this standpoint is that it is merely abstract. If I know my freedom as substance within me, then I am inactive and do not act. But if I proceed to actions, if I seek principles, then I reach for determinations, and the demand then is that these be derived from the concept of the free will. If, therefore, it is right to volatilize right and duty into subjectivity, it is, on the other hand, wrong if this abstract foundation does not in turn develop itself. Only in times when actuality is a hollow existence, devoid of spirit and of steadfastness, may the individual be permitted to flee back from actual into inward life. Socrates arose in the time of the corruption of Athenian democracy: he volatilized what existed and fled back into himself, in order to seek there what is right and good. In our time too it occurs, more or less, that reverence for what subsists is no longer present, and that man wants to have what is valid as his own will, as that which he himself has recognized.

  3. Hegel (Simple) Avatar
    Hegel (Simple)

    § 138: Conscience as judge over everything

    Conscience has an enormous power. It can call everything into question: every law, every duty, every custom. It asks: Does this hold for me? Do I see its point? And it alone decides what is good.

    At the same time, it is the power that first makes the good actual. Without a person who decides and acts, the good remains a mere thought.

    When do people withdraw into themselves like this?

    In history, this happens at certain times. It happens when the existing order has become hollow. When what counts as right no longer satisfies a better will. So it was with Socrates in Athens. So it was with the Stoics in Rome. The world outside had become untrue to them. So they looked for what is right within themselves.

    They had a right to do this. But one question remains open: What content does conscience then give itself? Does it really find the good out of itself?

    Summary: Conscience can dissolve everything that holds, and it decides for itself what is good. That is why people withdraw into themselves in hollow times. It remains open what content conscience finds.

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