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21

The truth of this formal universality, however – a universality that is undetermined in itself and finds its determinacy in that material – is the universality that determines itself, the will, freedom. In having universality, itself, as the infinite form, for its content, object, and end, it is not only the will that is free in itself, but equally the will that is free for itself – the true Idea.

The self-consciousness of the will, as desire, drive, is sensuous, just as the sensuous in general denotes externality and hence the being-outside-itself of self-consciousness. The reflecting will has the two elements, that sensuous element and thinking universality; the will that is in and for itself has the will itself as such for its object, in its pure universality – a universality which consists precisely in this, that the immediacy of naturalness, and the particularity with which naturalness is likewise afflicted as it is brought forth by reflection, are sublated within it. But this sublating, and this raising into universality, is what is called the activity of thinking. The self-consciousness that purifies and raises its object, content, and end to this universality does so as the thinking that asserts itself within the will. Here is the point at which it becomes clear that the will is a truly free will only as thinking intelligence. The slave does not know his essence, his infinity, his freedom; he does not know himself as essence – and his not knowing himself thus means that he does not think himself. This self-consciousness, which grasps itself as essence through thinking and thereby precisely divests itself of the contingent and the untrue, constitutes the principle of right, of morality, and of all ethical life. Those who speak philosophically of right, morality, and ethical life while wishing to exclude thinking, and who appeal instead to feeling, to heart and breast, to enthusiasm, thereby express the deepest contempt into which thought and science have fallen, inasmuch as science itself, sunk in despair over itself and into the utmost lassitude, thereby makes barbarism and thoughtlessness its own principle and, so far as lies in its power, would rob human beings of all truth, worth, and dignity.

DE ES

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2 responses to “21”

  1. Hegel (Notes) Avatar
    Hegel (Notes)

    [zu § 21] Culture — form — universality, and thereby determinate distinction
    Form of universality — subjected[?] to an other
    Transition from the principle [of] happiness to the principle of freedom —
    both moments, universality and determinacy — unification in thought. In happiness only determinacy remains within the universal, not this or that drive — determinacy that is in and for itself — universal determinacy, which is nonetheless determinacy — is freedom — will — ideal determinacy —
    α) happiness is end — object
    and β) of satisfaction — of enjoyment — universality passes over into universality within itself —
    Enjoyment is α) as feeling — is only form, is indeed present in everything — a moment, an addendum, that I am it in this my particularity
    β) state, enduring existence — but is supposed to be a lasting, fixed one, that is, itself universal within itself at every time — more independent
    αα) thus not a single immediate mode of state
    ββ) effortless like Croesus — toil-free[?], rich, and so on — is contrary to spirit; the possibility of external change — on the contrary, activity through itself — universality as the overreaching of subjectivity beyond objectivity.
    γ) satisfaction — whatever content, however determined, thereby vanishes — only the form of the drive.

    [zu § 21 Anm.] To hold fast only to the universal concept — not yet wanting to think along with it — that is, wanting to have it in its concrete representation —
    α) To have as an object — to will something — the will itself in its universality — culture — is elevation to universality.
    The immediacy of naturalness and particularity sublated, so that determinacy remains —

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

    Truth in philosophy means that the concept corresponds to reality. A body, for example, is the reality, the soul the concept. Soul and body, however, ought to be adequate to one another; a dead person is therefore still an existence, but no longer a true one, a concept-less being-there: this is why the dead body decays. So too the true will consists in this, that what it wills, its content, be identical with it — that is, that freedom will freedom.

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