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5

The will contains α) the element of pure indeterminacy or of the pure reflection of the ego into itself, in which every limitation, every content immediately present by nature, needs, desires, and drives, or given and determined by any means whatsoever, is dissolved; the boundless infinity of absolute abstraction or universality, the pure thinking of itself.

Those who regard thinking as a particular, distinct faculty, separate from the will as a likewise distinct faculty, and who even go so far as to consider thinking as detrimental to the will—especially the good will—immediately show from the outset that they know nothing at all of the nature of the will; a remark that will often have to be made regarding the same subject. — If one side of the will as determined here—this absolute possibility of being able to abstract from every determination in which I find myself or which I have posited in myself, the flight from every content as a limit—is that toward which the will determines itself, or is held fast by representation as freedom itself, then this is negative freedom or the freedom of the understanding. — It is the freedom of emptiness, which is elevated to actual shape and passion; remaining merely theoretical, it becomes in the religious sphere the fanaticism of pure Indian contemplation, but turning toward actuality, it becomes in the political as well as the religious sphere the fanaticism of the destruction of every existing social order and the removal of individuals suspected of favoring an order, as well as the annihilation of any organization that seeks to emerge once again. Only by destroying something does this negative will have the sense of its own existence; it may well imagine that it wills some positive state, e.g., the state of universal equality or of a universal religious life, but in fact it does not will the positive actuality thereof, for this immediately brings about some order, a particularization of institutions as well as of individuals; it is, however, from the annihilation of particularization and objective determination that the self-consciousness of this negative freedom arises. Thus, what it imagines it wills can in itself be only an abstract representation, and its actualization can only be the fury of destruction.

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2 responses to “5”

  1. Hegel (Notes) Avatar
    Hegel (Notes)

    [zu § 5] 1. Will in general.
    positing oneself as universal – thinking, the positing of the universal as such; willing myself as universal – I [as] object of thinking – I as being – whoever has not thought himself is not free – whoever is not free has not thought himself, that is, not in such a way that this thinking-of-oneself, this being universal – should be precisely his being –

    [zu § 5 Anm.] α) The animal omits this or that out of fear, lets something else hold sway within it – man, through determination out of himself, for the sake of a purpose that is his own – for the sake of something positive that he wills – man can kill himself –
    The animal [has] a negative content, – remains negative – a determination foreign to it, to which it only grows accustomed – is depressed, unfaithful to its nature –
    Man, in that he renounces – for the sake of a purpose – gives up this, which he would like to have – but he remains himself, unbowed –
    Can also be will-less, let himself be compelled, of this later, to what extent compulsion –
    β) formal consideration – not for the sake of a purpose and for the sake of content – of content only later
    γ) freedom of emptiness, which fixes itself, posits its being solely in this abstraction – freedom of the understanding – everything determinate is – a limit, a limitation.
    Formal. Rapturous enthusiasm for a [?] determinacy. Other. Appearance – isolated for itself – recalled in the note – determinacy, appearance, torment [?] to determine.

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

    Contained in this element of the will is the fact that I can free myself from everything, give up all ends, abstract from everything. Man alone can let everything fall, even his own life: he can commit suicide; the animal cannot do this; it always remains merely negative, caught within a determination alien to it, to which it merely becomes habituated. Man is the pure thinking of himself, and only in thinking does man possess this power of giving himself universality, that is, of extinguishing all particularity, all determinacy. This negative freedom, or this freedom of the understanding, is one-sided, but this one-sidedness always contains an essential determination within itself: it is therefore not to be discarded; but the defect of the understanding is that it raises a one-sided determination to the sole and highest one. Historically, this form of freedom occurs frequently. Among the Indians, for example, it is held to be the highest thing merely to persist in the knowledge of one’s simple identity with oneself, to remain in this empty space of one’s inwardness, like the colorless light in pure intuition, and to renounce every activity of life, every end, every representation. In this way man becomes Brahman: there is no longer any difference between finite man and Brahman; every distinction has rather vanished in this universality. This form appears more concretely in the active fanaticism of political as well as religious life. To this belongs, for example, the time of Terror of the French Revolution, in which every distinction of talents, of authority, was to be abolished. This age was a trembling, a quaking, an intolerance toward everything particular; for fanaticism wills something abstract, no articulation: wherever distinctions come forth, it finds this contrary to its indeterminacy and abolishes them. This is also why the people, during the Revolution, destroyed again the institutions that they themselves had made, because every institution is contrary to the abstract self-consciousness of equality.

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