Category: Paragraph

41

First Section. Property The person must give itself an external sphere of its freedom in order to be as Idea. Because the person is, in this first and still wholly abstract determination, the will that is infinite in and for itself, that which is distinguished from it, and which can constitute the sphere of its…
42

That which is immediately different from the free spirit is, for it and in itself, the external as such – a thing, something unfree, impersonal, and without rights. Thing, like the objective, has opposite meanings: on the one hand, when one says, that is the point – it is the thing, not the person, that…
43

The person, as the immediate concept and hence also as essentially a single individual, has a natural existence, partly within itself, partly as one to which it relates as to an external world. – Here, in the case of the person, which is itself still in its first immediacy, the discussion concerns only these things…
44

The person has the right to place its will into any thing, which thereby becomes mine; the thing, since it has no such purpose in itself, receives its determination and soul from my will – the absolute right of appropriation which human beings have over all things. That so-called philosophy which ascribes to immediate individual…
45

That I have something in my own external power constitutes possession, just as the particular aspect, that I make something mine out of natural need, drive, and arbitrary will, is the particular interest of possession. But the aspect that, as free will, I become objective to myself in possession and thereby first become an actual…
46

Since in property my will becomes objective to me as a personal will, and thus as the will of a single individual, property acquires the character of private property, while common property – which by its nature can be possessed in separate portions – acquires the determination of a community that is in itself dissoluble,…
47

As a person, I am myself immediately a single individual; in its further determination this means, first of all: I am alive in this organic body, which, as regards its content, is my universal, undivided, external existence – the real possibility of all further determinate existence. But as a person I have, at the same…
48

The body, insofar as it is immediate existence, is not adequate to spirit; in order to be spirit’s willing organ and animated instrument, it must first be taken into possession by spirit (§ 57). – But for others I am essentially a free being in my body, as I immediately have it. Only because I…
49

In relation to external things, the rational factor is that I possess property; the side of particularity, however, comprises subjective aims, needs, arbitrary will, talents, external circumstances, and so forth (§ 45); on this depends possession merely as such, but this particular side is not yet, within this sphere of abstract personality, posited as identical…
50

That the thing belongs to whoever happens to be first in time to take possession of it is, since a second party cannot take into possession what is already another’s property, a determination that is self-evident and superfluous.
51

For property, as the existence of personality, my inward representation and will that something should be mine is not sufficient; taking possession of it is also required for this. The existence which that willing thereby acquires includes recognizability for others. – That the thing of which I can take possession be ownerless is (as with…
52

Taking possession makes the matter of the thing my property, since matter is not, on its own account, its own. Matter offers me resistance (and this is all it is — to offer me resistance), i.e. it displays its abstract being-for-self to me only as to an abstract spirit, namely as sensuous (sensuous representation perversely…
53

Property has its more precise determinations in the relation of the will to the thing; this relation is: α) immediately, taking possession, insofar as the will has its existence in the thing as something positive; β) insofar as the thing is something negative in relation to the will, the will has its existence in it…
54

A. Taking Possession Taking possession is, in part, immediate physical seizure; in part, formation; and in part, mere marking.
55

α) Physical seizure, on its sensuous side — in that I am immediately present in this possessing, and my will is thereby equally recognizable — is the most complete mode, but is on the whole only subjective, temporary in duration and limited in scope, as well as highly restricted by the qualitative nature of the…
56

β) Through formation, the determination that something is mine acquires an externality subsisting on its own account, and ceases to be restricted to my presence in this space and at this time, and to the presence of my knowing and willing. Formation is, in this respect, the mode of taking possession most adequate to the…
57

The human being, according to his immediate existence in himself, is something natural, external to his concept; it is only through the formation of his own body and mind, and essentially through his self-consciousness apprehending itself as free, that he takes possession of himself and becomes the property of himself as against others. This taking…
58

γ) Taking possession which is not actual on its own account, but merely represents my will, is a sign placed upon the thing, the meaning of which is meant to be that I have placed my will in it. This mode of taking possession is, in respect of its objective scope and its meaning, very…
59

B. The Use of the Thing Through taking possession, the thing acquires the predicate of being mine, and the will has a positive relation to it. In this identity, the thing is equally posited as something negative, and my will, in this determination, is a particular will — need, inclination, and so forth. But my…
60

The use of a thing by immediate seizure is, on its own, a single act of taking possession. But insofar as such use is grounded upon a continuing need, and consists in the repeated use of a self-renewing product — perhaps even restricting itself for the sake of preserving that renewal — these and other…