Tag: Concept

1

Introduction The philosophical science of right has as its object the of , the concept of right and its actualization. Philosophy has to do with ideas and therefore not with what are usually called mere concepts; on the contrary, it points out their one-sidedness and untruth, as well as the fact that the concept (not…
2

The science of right is a part of philosophy. It has, therefore, to develop the Idea—which is the reason of an object—out of the Concept, or, what is the same thing, to watch its own, immanent development of the matter itself. As a part, it has a determinate starting point, which is the result and…
3

Right is positive in general: a) through the form of having validity within a state; this legal authority is the principle for the knowledge of right, the subject of positive jurisprudence. b) In terms of content, this right receives a positive element α) through the particular national character of a people, the stage of its…
4

The ground of right is the realm of spirit in general; its more precise location and point of departure is the will, which is free, so that freedom constitutes its substance and determination, and the system of right is the realm of actualized freedom, the world of spirit produced from within itself as a second…
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…
6

β) Likewise, the I is the transition from undifferentiated indeterminacy to differentiation, determining, and the positing of a determinacy as a content and object. — Whether this content is further given by nature or produced from the concept of spirit, through this positing of itself as something determinate, the I enters into existence in general;…
7

γ) The will is the unity of these two moments; — particularity reflected into itself and thereby brought back to universality; — individuality; the self-determination of the I, at once to posit itself as the negative of itself, namely as determinate and limited, and yet to remain with itself, i.e., in its identity with itself…
8

The further determination of particularization (β. § 6) constitutes the difference between the forms of the will: a) insofar as the determinacy is the formal opposition of the subjective and objective as an external, immediate existence, this is the formal will as self-consciousness, which finds an external world before it and, as the individuality returning…
9

b) Insofar as the determinations of the will are the will’s own—its particularization reflected into itself in general—they are . This content, as content of the will, is its purpose according to the form specified in a)—partly an internal or subjective purpose in representational willing, partly a purpose actualized and carried out through the mediation…
10

This content, or the distinct determination of the will, is in the first instance immediate. Thus the will is free only in itself, or for us, or it is the will in general in its concept. Only when the will has itself as its object is it for itself what it is in itself. According…
11

The will which is at first free only in itself is the immediate or natural will. The determinations of the difference, which the self-determining concept posits in the will, appear in the immediate will as an immediately present content – these are the drives, desires, [and] inclinations, by which the will finds itself determined by…
12

The system of this content, as it finds itself immediately present in the will, exists only as a multitude and manifold of drives, each of which is mine in general alongside others, and is at the same time a universal and indeterminate entity that has various objects and modes of satisfaction. [In] that the will…
13

By resolving, the will posits itself as the will of a specific individual and as distinguishing itself outwards against another. However, apart from this finitude as consciousness (§ 8), the immediate will is formal on account of the difference between its form and its content (§ 11); only abstract resolving as such belongs to it,…
14

The finite will, as the infinite I (§ 5) which reflects into itself and is with itself only on the side of form, stands above the content—the distinct drives—as well as above the further individual ways of their realization and satisfaction; at the same time, as something only formally infinite, it is bound to this…
15

According to this determination, the freedom of the will is arbitrariness [Willkür]—in which both of these are contained: the free reflection, abstracting from everything, and the dependence upon a content and material given internally or externally. Because this content, necessary in itself as an end, is at the same time determined as possible in relation…
16

The will can likewise abandon (§ 5) what it has chosen in its resolve (§ 14). With this possibility, however, of proceeding beyond any other content which it substitutes for it, and so on to infinity, the will does not escape from finitude, since every such content is distinct from the form and is therefore…
17

The contradiction which arbitrariness is (§ 15) manifests itself, as the dialectic of the drives and inclinations, in the appearance that they mutually interfere with one another, such that the satisfaction of one requires the subordination or sacrifice of the satisfaction of another, and so on. Furthermore, since a drive is merely a simple direction…
18

With regard to the evaluation of the drives, the dialectic presents the appearance that, as immanent and thus positive, the determinations of the immediate will are good; man is thus said to be good by nature. Insofar, however, as they are natural determinations, and thus opposed to freedom and to the concept of spirit in…
19

In the demand for the purification of the drives lies the general idea that they are freed from the form of their immediate natural determinacy and from the subjective and contingent nature of their content, and are led back to their substantial essence. The truth of this indeterminate demand is that the drives should be…
20

Reflection, in relating itself to the drives, brings – by representing them, calculating them, comparing them with one another and then with their means, consequences, and so on, and with a whole of satisfaction, happiness – formal universality to bear on this material, and in this external way purges it of its crudity and barbarism.…