{"id":903085,"date":"2026-09-17T12:23:46","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T10:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/?page_id=903085"},"modified":"2026-09-17T12:23:47","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T10:23:47","slug":"is-hegels-reason-that-of-the-solitary-thinker","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/is-hegels-reason-that-of-the-solitary-thinker\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Hegel\u2019s \u201ereason\u201c that of the solitary thinker?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In brief:<\/strong> No \u2014 in Hegel reason is not the achievement of an individual who withdraws and thinks. It is bound to recognition<\/a>, to language, to institutions and to a time. The thinker who takes himself for the origin of his thoughts is in Hegel a figure of morality<\/a> \u2014 and not a good one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The argument from recognition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The analysis of lordship and bondage<\/a> shows that a self-consciousness is actual only if another recognizes it as such. Whoever makes himself his own authority has none. Hegel\u2019s formula for spirit<\/a> is therefore not that of the solitary I but \u201ethe I that is We, and the We that is I\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the philosophy of right this has a sober form. That someone counts as a person is, according to \u00a7 209<\/a> Remark, a result of cultivation<\/a>, not a property he brings with him:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It belongs to cultivation, to thinking<\/em> as consciousness of the individual in the form of universality, that I be apprehended as a universal person<\/em>, in which all<\/em> are identical.<\/p>\nGroundlines, \u00a7 209<\/a> Remark<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The argument from time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Preface to the Groundlines<\/em> contains the sentence that philosophy is \u201eits own time comprehended in thoughts\u201c, and the remark that it is as foolish to fancy that a philosophy goes beyond its present world as to think that an individual overleaps his time. The thinker thinks out of a situation he has not chosen, with a language he has not made, about relations that were there before him. That is no limitation of reason but its condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is also why philosophy in Hegel always comes too late \u2014 see the owl of Minerva<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The figure he writes against<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Solitary thinking has a name in the Groundlines<\/em>: the conscience<\/a> that lets nothing count but itself. \u00a7 137<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 140<\/a> show how it turns into hypocrisy as soon as it becomes the sole authority: what I hold to be good is good because I hold it to be good. Hegel calls this not freedom but the \u201esummit\u201c of subjectivity, which turns into its opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in \u00a7 2<\/a> Remark he wards off the related figure in the doctrine of right: the manner of \u201emaking natural or intensified feeling, one\u2019s own breast<\/em> and enthusiasm<\/em>, the source of right\u201c \u2014 the most convenient method and \u201eat the same time the most unphilosophical\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does not follow from it<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Not that the individual should submit. \u00a7 132<\/a> expressly determines the \u201eright to recognize nothing that I do not see to be rational\u201c as \u201ethe highest right of the subject\u201c. It is only, Hegel adds, a formal<\/em> right: the insight may be true or mere opinion, and against it stands the right of the objective. Both hold, and the relation of the two is the real subject of the second part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor that truth is a matter of majorities. \u00a7 317<\/a> f. treat public opinion<\/a> with a famous double verdict: it deserves to be respected as much as it deserves to be despised. Thinking in common is in Hegel not the same as the opinion of many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The test<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It can be made on one\u2019s own reading. Whoever examines whether a transition in the Groundlines<\/em> follows is doing something he must do alone \u2014 and does it on a text, with concepts and in a language he has from others. It is precisely this relation that Hegel means when he determines reason not as a faculty but as a relation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources.<\/strong> Phenomenology of Spirit, chapter IV A. \u2013 Groundlines, Preface; \u00a7 2<\/a> Remark, \u00a7 132<\/a> and Remark, \u00a7 137<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 140<\/a>, \u00a7 187<\/a>, \u00a7 209<\/a> Remark, \u00a7 315<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 320<\/a>. \u2013 Encyclopaedia (1830) \u00a7\u00a7 424\u2013437. \u2013 Literature.<\/strong> Ludwig Siep, Anerkennung als Prinzip der praktischen Philosophie<\/em>, Freiburg 1979; Robert B. Brandom, A Spirit of Trust<\/em>, Cambridge (Mass.) 2019; Terry Pinkard, Hegel\u2019s Phenomenology. The Sociality of Reason<\/em>, Cambridge 1994. \u2013 In the glossary: recognition<\/a>, intersubjectivity<\/a>, public opinion<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n