{"id":900445,"date":"2024-05-30T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/?p=900276"},"modified":"2026-08-24T10:30:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T08:30:23","slug":"279","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/279\/","title":{"rendered":"279"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

2. Sovereignty \u2014 at first merely the universal<\/em> thought of this ideality \u2014 exists only as the self-certain subjectivity<\/em>, and as the abstract, and to that extent groundless, self-determination<\/em> of the will, in which the ultimate moment of decision resides. This is the individuality of the state as such, which is itself thereby only one<\/em>. But subjectivity, in its truth, exists only as subject<\/em>, and personality only as person<\/em>; and in a constitution matured to real rationality, each of the three moments of the concept has its own distinct configuration, actual for itself<\/em>. This absolutely decisive moment of the whole is therefore not individuality in general, but an<\/em> individual, the monarch<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The immanent development of a science \u2014 the derivation of its entire content<\/em> from the simple concept<\/em> (for otherwise a science does not even deserve the name of a philosophical science) \u2014 displays the peculiarity that one and the same concept, here the will, which at the beginning is abstract because it is the beginning, preserves itself, while its determinations condense \u2014 likewise solely through itself \u2014 and in this way it acquires a concrete content. Thus it is the basic moment of personality, at first abstract in immediate right, which has developed itself through its various forms of subjectivity, and which here, in absolute right, the state \u2014 the fully concrete objectivity of the will \u2014 is the personality of the state<\/em>, its certainty of itself<\/em>: this ultimate moment, which supersedes all particularities within the simple self, cuts short the weighing of reasons and counter-reasons between which one can forever vacillate back and forth, and by the words “I will” resolves<\/em> them and initiates all action and actuality. \u2014 Personality and subjectivity in general, however, further, as an infinite relating of itself to itself, has strictly only truth<\/em> \u2014 and indeed its nearest, immediate truth as a person, a subject existing for itself; and that which exists for itself is likewise strictly one<\/em>. The personality of the state is actual only as one person<\/em>, the monarch<\/em>. \u2014 Personality expresses the concept as such, while the person also contains the actuality of the concept, and the concept, only with this determination, is Idea<\/em>, truth. \u2014 A so-called moral<\/em> person \u2014 a society, a community, a family \u2014 however concrete it may be in itself, has personality only as a moment, abstract within it; it has not thereby attained the truth of its existence. The state, however, is precisely this totality in which the moments of the concept attain actuality according to their distinctive truth. \u2014 All these determinations have already been discussed for themselves and in their configurations throughout the whole course of this treatise, but they have been repeated here because, while one readily grants them in their particular configurations, one fails to recognize and grasp them precisely where they occur in their true position \u2014 not in isolation, but according to their truth, as moments<\/em> of the Idea. \u2014 The concept of the monarch is therefore the most difficult concept for ratiocination, i.e. for the reflective consideration of the understanding, because the understanding remains fixed in isolated determinations and hence knows only reasons, finite points of view, and derivation<\/em> from reasons. It thus represents the dignity of the monarch as something derived, not only in form but also in its very determination; whereas his concept is, on the contrary, not something derived, but rather that which absolutely begins from itself<\/em>. The conception that comes closest to the truth here is therefore that which regards the right of the monarch as grounded in divine authority, for this contains the unconditioned character of that right. But it is well known what misunderstandings have attached themselves to this notion, and the task of philosophical consideration is precisely to comprehend this divine element.<\/p>\n

Popular sovereignty<\/em> can be spoken of in the sense that a people is in general something self-sufficient externally<\/em> and constitutes its own state, as does the people of Great Britain; but the people of England or Scotland, Ireland, or of Venice, Genoa, Ceylon, etc., are no longer sovereign peoples, since they have ceased to have their own princes or supreme governments. \u2014 One may likewise say of internal sovereignty<\/em> that it resides in the people<\/em>, provided one is speaking of the whole<\/em> in general \u2014 just as it was shown earlier (\u00a7 277<\/a>, 278<\/a>) that sovereignty belongs to the state<\/em>. But popular sovereignty, taken in opposition to the sovereignty existing in the monarch<\/em>, is the usual sense in which people have, in more recent times, begun to speak of popular sovereignty; and in this opposition, popular sovereignty belongs among those confused notions grounded in the wild<\/em> conception of the people<\/em>. The<\/em> people, taken without<\/em> its monarch and the articulation<\/em> of the whole that is necessarily and directly bound up with this, is the formless mass which is no longer a state, and to which none of the determinations pertain that are present only in a whole formed within itself<\/em> \u2014 sovereignty, government, courts of law, magistracy, estates, and the like. Once such moments, which relate to an organization, to the life of the state, emerge within a people, it ceases to be this indeterminate abstraction which, in a merely general conception, is called the people<\/em>. \u2014 If by popular sovereignty is understood the form of the republic<\/em>, and more specifically of democracy (for by republic one comprehends various other empirical admixtures which, in any case, do not belong in a philosophical consideration), then what is necessary has in part already been said above (in the Remark to \u00a7 273<\/a>), and in part such a conception can no longer be spoken of in relation to the Idea as developed here. \u2014 In a people that is conceived neither as a patriarchal tribe<\/em>, nor in the undeveloped condition in which the forms of democracy or aristocracy are possible (see the Remark to the same paragraph), nor in any other arbitrary and unorganized condition, but is thought of as a totality developed within itself, truly organic, sovereignty exists as the personality of the whole, and this, in the actuality corresponding to its concept, as the person of the monarch<\/em>.<\/p>\n

At the stage previously noted, at which the division of constitutions into democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy was made \u2014 the standpoint of a substantial unity still remaining within itself, which has not yet arrived at its infinite internal differentiation and deepening \u2014 the moment of the ultimate, self-determining decision of the will<\/em> does not emerge for itself as an immanent<\/em> organic moment of the state in its distinctive actuality<\/em>. It is true that, even in those less developed configurations of the state, an individual apex must always be present \u2014 either, as in the monarchies belonging to that stage, existing for itself, or, as in aristocracies, and above all in democracies, arising among statesmen and generals according to the contingency and particular<\/em> need of the circumstances<\/em>; for all action and actuality has its beginning and its accomplishment in the resolved unity of a leader. But, enclosed within the still solid union of the powers, such subjectivity of decision must be, in part, contingent in its origin and emergence, and in part subordinate altogether; hence the unmixed, pure act of decision \u2014 a fate determining from without \u2014 could lie nowhere else than beyond such conditioned apexes. As a moment of the Idea, it had to enter into existence, but rooted outside human freedom and the sphere that the state encompasses. \u2014 Herein lies the origin of the need to seek, from oracles<\/em>, the daimon<\/em> (in the case of Socrates<\/em>), from the entrails of animals, from the devouring and flight of birds, and so forth, the ultimate decision<\/em> on great affairs and on the important moments of the state \u2014 a decision which human beings, not yet having grasped the depth of self-consciousness and not yet having advanced from the solidity of substantial unity to this being-for-itself, did not yet have the strength to see as lying within<\/em> human being itself. \u2014 In the daimon<\/em> of Socrates<\/em> (cf. above, \u00a7 138<\/a>) we can see the beginning of the will, previously transposing itself only beyond<\/em> itself, coming to locate itself within itself and to recognize itself there \u2014 the beginning of a self-knowing<\/em>, and thus truthful, freedom. It is this real freedom of the Idea \u2014 since it consists precisely in giving to each of the moments of rationality its own present, self-conscious<\/em> actuality \u2014 which thus assigns to the function of a consciousness the ultimate self-determining certainty that constitutes the apex in the concept of the will. But this ultimate self-determination can fall within the sphere of human freedom only insofar as it holds the position of an apex set apart for itself<\/em>, exalted above all particularity and condition<\/em>; for only in this way is it actual in accordance with its concept.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2. Sovereignty \u2014 at first merely the universal thought of this ideality \u2014 exists only as the self-certain subjectivity, and as the abstract, and to that extent groundless, self-determination of the will, in which the ultimate moment of decision resides. This is the individuality of the state as such, which is itself thereby only one. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,13],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-900445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paragraph-en","category-uncategorized","tag-concept"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900445","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\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":901082,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900445\/revisions\/901082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}