Tag: Actualization

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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.

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…

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…

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…

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

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Since the substance of the thing, in itself, which is my property, is its externality, i.e. its lack of substantiality — it is not, as against me, an end in itself (§ 42) — and since this realized externality is the use or utilization I make of it, the entire use or utilization is the…

Only a partial or temporary use, and likewise a partial or temporary possession (as itself the partial or temporary possibility of using the thing), belonging to me, is therefore distinct from the ownership of the thing itself. If the entire compass of use were mine, while the abstract ownership were to belong to another, then…

The thing, in use, is a single thing, determinate in quality and quantity, and related to a specific need. But its specific usefulness is, at the same time, quantitatively determinate and comparable with other things of the same usefulness, just as the specific need which it serves is at once need in general, and, according…

The form given to possession, and the sign, are themselves external circumstances, without the subjective presence of the will, which alone constitutes their meaning and value. But this presence — which is the use, utilization, or other manifestation of the will — falls within time, with respect to which objectivity consists in the continuance of…

C. Alienation of Property I can alienate my property, since it is mine only insofar as I place my will in it — so that I may release my thing altogether from myself as ownerless (derelict) or surrender it to another’s will to be possessed — but only insofar as the thing is, by its…