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35

The universality of this will that is free for itself is formal universality – the self-conscious, otherwise contentless, simple relation to itself in its individuality; the subject is, to this extent, a person. It lies in personality that I, as this person, am, in every respect (in inner caprice, drive, and desire, as well as in immediate external existence), determinate and finite, yet am, absolutely, a purely self-related being, and thus know myself, in my finitude, as the infinite, universal, and free.

Personality only begins where the subject has not merely a self-consciousness of itself in general as something concrete and determinate in some way, but rather a self-consciousness of itself as a wholly abstract I, in which all concrete limitation and validity is negated and invalid. In personality, therefore, there is knowledge of oneself as an object – but as an object raised by thinking into simple infinity and thereby purely self-identical. Individuals and peoples do not yet have personality so far as they have not yet arrived at this pure thought and knowledge of themselves. Spirit that is in and for itself is distinguished from spirit as it appears in that, at the very same determination at which the latter is only self-consciousness – consciousness of itself, but only according to the natural will and its still external oppositions (Phenomenology of Spirit, Bamberg and Würzburg 1807, p. 101 f., and Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, § 3441 – spirit has itself as its object and end as an abstract and indeed free I, and is thus a person.

  • Encyclopedia, 3rd ed., § 424
  1. Encyclopaedia, 3rd ed. § 424 ↩︎

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2 responses to “35”

  1. Hegel (Notes) Avatar
    Hegel (Notes)

    [zu § 35] What is meant by ‘person’?
    The loftiness of the person, the highest [instance of] personality – God’s personality – One may believe in God, define [him] however one wishes; if personality is lacking, that is not sufficient.
    Person and subject are different – subject also individual. Self-subsistent singularity as such, in itself, ideality of the determinations –
    Person, the entitlement within free will
    α) I will this or that, needs, whim, notion. No one has respect for that – [it is only a] particular will.
    β) That my particular will should hold good, be respected – to be entitled; – a particular will [that is] also an entitled one
    αα) If the content is a matter of right, [if] I have acquired, purchased this or that title etc. in such and such a way – circumstances, determinations already established as matters of right – in general through some further concrete determination – conquered, bought in such and such a way – such determinations then occur to us – yet the question is: these determinations themselves, wherein do they have their rightfulness? All concrete conditions forgotten
    ββ) The further determination of my (- particular will indeterminate, will as such, which is thus also a particular one -) will is that it wills itself, its freedom – a particular end, to be sure – but the side of it [that matters] is that it wills only itself. The determinacy is my universality.

    [zu § 35 Anm.] I will – α) indeterminate – will as such, determinacy is universality, freedom – β) particular, determinate – not determinate, – universally free – a thinking [being] – my universality – this the absolute entitlement on which everything else depends – not Tituli etc., such that my will would first have to conform to them, [find] support in them as limitations, a will that would have to restrict itself to such Titulos – but rather they [are] only determinations that are consequences –
    The determinacy of the will by virtue of which it is right, [is] that this particular [moment]: “I will this or that,” belongs to freedom – and [that] I, [being] this within it, will not to be limited in my free will.
    Person – something bad, contemptible, because [it is] abstract self-consciousness – desire – also mine – but not a determination of the universal
    The fruitfulness of this concept of right.

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

    The will that is for itself, or the abstract will, is the person. The highest achievement of a human being is to be a person, and yet the mere abstraction ‘person’ already carries something contemptible in the very expression. The person is essentially different from the subject, for the subject is only the possibility of personality, since every living thing whatsoever is a subject. The person is thus the subject for which this subjectivity exists, for in the person I am purely and simply for myself: it is the singularity of freedom in pure being-for-self. As this person I know myself to be free within myself and can abstract from everything, since nothing stands before me but pure personality; and yet as this one I am something wholly determinate: so old, so tall, in this space, and whatever further particularities there may be. The person is thus at once the highest and the utterly lowest; there lies within it this unity of the infinite and the simply finite, of determinate limit and of what is altogether limitless. It is the loftiness of the person that can endure this contradiction, which nothing natural has within it or could bear.

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