{"id":4339,"date":"2021-12-17T17:17:01","date_gmt":"2021-12-17T16:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/?p=4339"},"modified":"2026-03-06T17:29:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T16:29:16","slug":"15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/15\/","title":{"rendered":"15"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>According to this determination, the freedom of the will is <em>arbitrariness<\/em> [<em>Willk\u00fcr<\/em>]\u2014in 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 <em>in itself<\/em> as an end, is at the same time determined as possible in relation to that reflection, arbitrariness is <em>contingency<\/em> as it exists in the form of the will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>The most common notion of freedom is that of <em>arbitrariness<\/em>\u2014the midpoint of reflection between the will as determined merely by natural drives and the will which is free in and for itself. When one hears it said that freedom in general consists in <em>being able to do what one wants<\/em>, such a notion can only be taken as a complete lack of intellectual cultivation, in which there is as yet not the slightest inkling of what the will that is free in and for itself, Right, Ethical Life [<em>Sittlichkeit<\/em>], etc., actually are. Reflection\u2014the <em>formal<\/em> universality and unity of self-consciousness\u2014is the will\u2019s <em>abstract<\/em> certainty of its freedom, but it is not yet the <em>truth<\/em> of that freedom, because it does not yet have itself as its own content and end; the subjective side is therefore still something different from the objective side; the content of this self-determination remains, for that reason, purely finite. Arbitrariness, instead of being the will in its truth, is rather the will as <em>contradiction<\/em>. \u2014 In the controversy carried on especially at the time of <em>Wolffian<\/em> metaphysics, as to whether the will is actually free or whether the knowledge of its freedom is only a delusion, it was arbitrariness that was kept in view. <em>Determinism<\/em> correctly countered the certainty of that abstract self-determination with the <em>content<\/em> which, as something <em>found at hand<\/em> [<em>vorgefundener<\/em>], is not contained within that certainty and therefore comes to it <em>from the outside<\/em>\u2014even if this &#8216;outside&#8217; is drive, representation, or a consciousness filled in such a way that the content is not the product of the self-determining activity as such. Since only the formal element of free self-determination is immanent in arbitrariness, while the other element is a given, arbitrariness may indeed be called a delusion if it is supposed to be freedom itself. Freedom in all reflection-philosophy\u2014as in the <em>Kantian<\/em> and then the <em>Friesian<\/em> total shallowing [<em>Verseichtigung<\/em>] of the Kantian\u2014is nothing other than that formal self-activity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to this determination, the freedom of the will is arbitrariness [Willk\u00fcr]\u2014in 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paragraph-en","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4339"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4341,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4339\/revisions\/4341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}