{"id":900467,"date":"2024-05-30T07:50:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T05:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/?p=900298"},"modified":"2026-08-24T10:30:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T08:30:26","slug":"301","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/301\/","title":{"rendered":"301"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The estates<\/em> element has the determination that the universal concern should come to existence not only in itself<\/em> but also for itself<\/em> \u2014 that is, that the moment of subjective formal freedom<\/em>, public consciousness as the empirical universality<\/em> of the views and thoughts of the many<\/em>, should attain existence in it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The expression the many<\/em> (\u03bf\u1f31 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03af) designates empirical universality more correctly than the common and current expression all<\/em>. For if it is said that it goes without saying that at least children, women, and so on, are not meant among this all<\/em>, then it is all the more self-evident that one ought not to employ the wholly determinate expression all<\/em> where the matter concerned is still something wholly indeterminate. \u2014 So unspeakably many crooked and false representations and turns of phrase concerning the people, the constitution, and the estates have, in general, come into currency in opinion, that it would be a vain effort to try to list, discuss, and correct them. The representation which ordinary consciousness usually has before it, with regard to the necessity or usefulness of the participation of the estates, is chiefly something like this: that the deputies from the people, or indeed the people itself, must understand best<\/em> what serves its good, and that it has the undoubtedly best will towards this good. As for the former, the case is rather that the people, in so far as this word designates a particular part of the members of a state, expresses that part which does not know what it wills<\/em>. To know what one wills, and still more to know what the will that is in and for itself \u2014 reason \u2014 wills, is the fruit of profound cognition and insight, which is precisely not the affair of the people. \u2014 The guarantee that is supposed to lie in the estates for the universal good and public freedom is not to be found, on some reflection, in their particular insight \u2014 for the highest civil servants of the state necessarily have deeper and more comprehensive insight into the nature of the institutions and needs of the state, as well as greater skill and habituation in these affairs, and are able<\/em> to do what is best without the estates, just as they must continually do what is best in the assemblies of the estates \u2014 but it lies rather, in part, in an addition of insight on the part of the deputies, chiefly into the conduct of civil servants standing at a greater distance from the eyes of the higher authorities, and in particular into more urgent and more specific needs and deficiencies which they have before them in concrete perception; and, in part, in that effect which the anticipated censure of the many \u2014 and indeed a public censure \u2014 carries with it, namely, to apply the best insight in advance to affairs and to the drafts to be submitted, and to arrange them only in accordance with the purest motives \u2014 a compulsion that is equally effective for the members of the estates themselves. As for the especially good will<\/em> of the estates towards the universal good, it has already been remarked above (Remark to \u00a7 272<\/a>) that it belongs to the view of the rabble, to the standpoint of the negative in general, to presuppose an evil or a less good will on the part of the government \u2014 a presupposition which, if it were to be answered in the same form, would in the first instance have the consequence of the recrimination that the estates, since they come from individuality, the private standpoint, and particular interests, are inclined to use their effectiveness for these at the expense of the universal interest, whereas the other moments of the power of the state are already, of themselves, placed on the standpoint of the state and devoted to the universal end. As regards, then, the guarantee in general which is supposed to lie especially in the estates, every other of the institutions of the state likewise shares in being a guarantee of the public welfare and of rational freedom, and among these there are institutions \u2014 such as the sovereignty of the monarch, the hereditary succession to the throne, the judicial constitution, and so on \u2014 in which this guarantee lies to a far greater degree. The distinctive conceptual determination of the estates is therefore to be sought in the fact that in them the subjective moment of universal freedom, the proper insight and the proper will of the sphere that has in this exposition been called civil society, comes to existence in relation to the state<\/em>. That this moment is a determination of the Idea developed into totality \u2014 this inner necessity, which is not to be confused with external necessities<\/em> and utilities<\/em> \u2014 follows, as everywhere, from the philosophical point of view.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The estates element has the determination that the universal concern should come to existence not only in itself but also for itself \u2014 that is, that the moment of subjective formal freedom, public consciousness as the empirical universality of the views and thoughts of the many, should attain existence in it. The expression the many […]<\/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-900467","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\/900467","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=900467"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":901105,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900467\/revisions\/901105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}