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22

The will that is in and for itself is truly infinite, because its object is itself, and hence for it this object is not an other, nor a limit; rather, in it the will has simply returned into itself. Further, it is not mere possibility, predisposition, capacity (potentia), but the actually infinite (infinitum actu), because the determinate being of the concept, or its objective externality, is itself its inwardness.

If, therefore, one speaks only of the free will as such, without the determination that it is the will that is free in and for itself, one speaks only of the mere predisposition to freedom, or of the natural and finite will (§ 11), and thus, whatever the words and the opinion may be, not of the free will at all. – Since the understanding grasps the infinite only as something negative and hence as a beyond, it supposes itself to be doing the infinite all the more honor the further it pushes it away into the distance and removes it from itself as something alien. In the free will, the truly infinite has actuality and presence – it is itself this Idea present to itself.

DE ES

Comments

3 responses to “22”

  1. Hegel (Notes) Avatar
    Hegel (Notes)

    [zu § 22] Slavery falls within this opposition

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

    Infinity has rightly been represented under the image of a circle, for the straight line goes out and ever further out, and designates the merely negative, bad infinity, which, unlike the true infinity, has no return into itself. The free will is truly infinite, for it is not merely a possibility and a predisposition, but its outer existence is its inwardness, itself.

  3. Hegel (Simple) Avatar
    Hegel (Simple)

    § 22: True infinity

    A will that wants itself is infinite. What does that mean?

    We usually imagine the infinite as something very far away. A line that goes on and on and never arrives. Or the space beyond the stars. The farther away, the more sublime, or so we think.

    But such an infinite always has a limit: us. It stands over against us, outside, beyond. It is only what we are not. This is a bad infinity, only half an infinity.

    The better image is the circle. It has no beginning and no end. It runs into no outside limit, because it returns into itself.

    The free will is like this. What it wants is itself. Nothing foreign stands over against it, so it has no barrier. It is infinite, and not somewhere far away, but here and now.

    It is also not merely a possibility. A potential can unfold, or not. This will is already real. What it is on the outside is exactly what it is on the inside.

    This affects the way we talk. When people simply say “free will”, they usually mean only choice, that is, the potential for freedom. That is the natural will, which we already know. Only the will that wants freedom is free in the full sense.

    Summary: The true infinite is not far away. It returns into itself like a circle. The free will is like this: It has itself as its object, and so it has no limit from outside.

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