Tag: Concept

The truth of this formal universality, however – a universality that is undetermined in itself and finds its determinacy in that material – is the universality that determines itself, the will, freedom. In having universality, itself, as the infinite form, for its content, object, and end, it is not only the will that is free…

The will that is in and for itself is truly infinite, because its object is itself, and hence for it this object is not an other, nor a limit; rather, in it the will has simply returned into itself. Further, it is not mere possibility, predisposition, capacity (potentia), but the actually infinite (infinitum actu), because…

Only in this freedom is the will unqualifiedly with itself, because it relates itself to nothing but itself, so that every relation of dependence on something other thereby falls away. – It is true, or rather it is truth itself, because its determining consists in being, in its determinate being – that is, as something…

It is universal because all limitation and particular singularity are sublated within it – limitation and singularity which consist solely in the difference between the concept and its object or content, or, in another form, in the difference between its subjective being-for-itself and its being-in-itself, between its exclusive and resolving singularity, and its universality itself.…

With regard to the will, the subjective denotes, in general, the side of its self-consciousness, of its singularity (§ 7), as distinguished from its concept as it is in itself; hence its subjectivity means α) the pure form – the absolute unity of self-consciousness with itself, in which, as I = I, it is simply…

The will, α) insofar as it has itself for its own determination and is thus in conformity with its concept and truthful, is the will that is unqualifiedly objective; β) but the objective will, taken as without the infinite form of self-consciousness, is the will submerged in its object or condition, whatever that condition may…

The absolute determination, or, if one prefers, the absolute drive, of the free spirit (§ 21) is that its freedom should be its object – objective in the sense that it is the rational system of itself, and in the sense that this should be immediate actuality (§ 26) – in order that it may…

The activity of the will, in sublating the contradiction between subjectivity and objectivity, translating its ends out of the former determination into the latter, and yet remaining with itself in objectivity, is – apart from the formal mode of consciousness (§ 8), in which objectivity is only immediate actuality – the essential development of the…

That a determinate being should in general be the determinate being of the free will – this is right. Right is thus, in general, freedom, as Idea. The Kantian definition (see Kant’s Doctrine of Right, Introduction – cf. Metaphysics of Morals, Part I: Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrine of Right, Introduction to the Doctrine…

Right is something sacred in general, solely because it is the existence of the absolute concept, of self-conscious freedom. – The formalism of right, however (and further of duty), arises from the difference in the development of the concept of freedom. As against a more formal, i.e. more abstract and therefore more restricted right, the…

The method according to which the Concept develops itself out of itself in science, and which is only an immanent progression and production of its determinations—a progression that does not happen through the assurance that various relations exist, nor through the application of the universal to such material taken up from elsewhere—is here likewise presupposed…

The determinations in the development of the Concept are, on the one hand, themselves concepts; on the other hand, because the Concept is essentially Idea, they are in the form of existence, so that the resulting series of concepts is at the same time a series of shapes — and it is in this way…

Division of the Work According to the sequence of stages in the development of the Idea of the will that is free in and for itself, the will is A. immediate; its concept therefore abstract – personality – and its determinate being an immediate external thing; – the sphere of abstract or formal right; B.…

Part One. Abstract Right The will that is free in and for itself, as it is in its abstract concept, is in the determinacy of immediacy. According to this it is its actuality – negative in relation to reality, relating itself only abstractly to itself – a will singular in itself, that of a subject.…

The universality of this will that is free for itself is formal universality – the self-conscious, otherwise contentless, simple relation to itself in its individuality; the subject is, to this extent, a person. It lies in personality that I, as this person, am, in every respect (in inner caprice, drive, and desire, as well as…

Personality contains in general the capacity for rights, and constitutes the concept and itself the abstract basis of abstract, and therefore formal, right. The command of right is therefore: be a person and respect others as persons.

The particularity of the will is indeed a moment of the whole consciousness of the will (§ 34), but it is not yet contained in abstract personality as such. It is therefore indeed present, but as still distinct from personality, the determination of freedom – as desire, need, drives, contingent inclination, and so on. In…

In relation to concrete action and to moral and ethical relations, abstract right, as against their further content, is only a possibility; the determination of right is therefore only a permission or warrant. The necessity of this right is, for the same reason of its abstraction, limited to the negative – not to violate personality…

3. The concluding and immediate singularity of the person relates to a nature it finds already present, to which the personality of the will, as something subjective, is thereby opposed; but this will, being in itself infinite and universal, finds the restriction of being merely subjective contradictory and null. It is the active power that…

Right is, in the first place, the immediate existence which freedom gives itself in an immediate way,a) possession, which is property; the freedom here is that of the abstract will as such, or, equivalently, of a single person relating only to itself.b) The person, distinguishing itself from itself, relates to another person, and indeed the…