Comments on: 82

By: Hegel (Simple)

Hegel (Simple) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:51:22 +0000

§ 82: Wrong is only a semblance

In a contract, right shows itself. But it shows itself only because two people happen to agree. In wrong, this breaks open. The particular will sets itself against right. Then suddenly there are two kinds of right: right itself, and the right that someone claims for himself.

What should we make of this?

The right of the individual against right is only a semblance. It looks like right, but it is not. And a semblance does not last. It vanishes as soon as you take it seriously.

What happens to right?

Right restores itself. It negates its own negation. An example: Someone steals a handbag. The police find him, and he has to give it back. Now it shows: right really holds. It is not just a pious wish.

Before, right was simply there, without a test. After the wrong, it has proved itself. It has become actual because it has held its ground against its violation.

Summary: Wrong is a semblance of right. Right restores itself by canceling this semblance. In this way, it becomes actual and valid.

By: Eduard Gans (Additions)

Eduard Gans (Additions) — Wed, 29 May 1833 13:18:25 +0000

Right in itself, the universal will, as essentially determined through the particular, stands in relation to something unessential. It is the relation of essence to its appearance. Even if the appearance is in conformity with essence, yet viewed from another side it is again not in conformity with it, for appearance is the stage of contingency, essence in relation to the unessential. In wrong, however, appearance passes over into mere semblance. Semblance is determinate being that is inadequate to essence, the empty separating-off and positedness of essence, such that in both the difference exists as [mere] diversity. Semblance is therefore the untrue, which vanishes in wanting to exist for itself, and in this vanishing essence has shown itself as essence, that is, as the power over semblance. Essence has negated the negation of itself and is thus confirmed. Wrong is such a semblance, and through its vanishing right receives the determination of something fixed and valid. What we have just called essence is right in itself, over against which the particular will, as untrue, sublates itself. If earlier it had only an immediate being, it now becomes actual, in that it returns out of its negation; for actuality is that which is efficacious and preserves itself in its otherness, whereas the immediate is still receptive to negation.

By: Hegel (Notes)

Hegel (Notes) — Fri, 06 Dec 1822 08:06:32 +0000

The making-itself-count of right in itself –
I remain owner against wrong – I, empirically, have this determination as it were as a contingent one – but its nature is that other; the essential subject is now [not] the single personality, but right in itself –
Particular will, because will is also right – determinate being of the will, of freedom.
Particularity – necessary – falls into the contingent, into arbitrary choice – the point where morality, culpability, begins –
Necessity not opposed to culpability – [as] excluding it.
Semblance – the universal's being posited – as a particular –
proving itself, through the sublation of the particular will, [in its return] to itself.