The Nature of the Self: Recognition in the Form of Right and Morality (Quellen Und Studien Zur Philosophie)

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Paul Cobben The Nature of the Self

≥

Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie Herausgegeben von Jens Halfwassen, Dominik Perler, Michael Quante

Band 91

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

The Nature of the Self Recognition in the Form of Right and Morality by

Paul Cobben

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

앝 Printed on acid-free paper which falls within 앪 the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.

ISBN 978-3-11-021987-6 ISSN 0344-8142 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cobben, Paul. The nature of the self : recognition in the form of right and morality / by Paul Cobben. p. cm. − (Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie, ISSN 0344-8142 ; Bd. 91) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-3-11-021987-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Self (Philosophy). 2. Mind and body. 3. Recognition (Philosophy). 4. Ethics. I. Title. BD450.C57 2009 126−dc22 2009004216

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. 쑔 Copyright 2009 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in Germany Cover design: Christopher Schneider, Laufen. Printing and binding: Hubert & Co., Göttingen

Contents The Nature of the Self. Recognition in the form of Right and Morality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 1 The Human Self as the Unity of Mind and Body . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The immediate unity of mind and body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Consciousness: looking for the independence of the outside world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Self-consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Is the transition from the natural into the legal status possible? Self-consciousness and the legal status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Violence, power and the legal status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Self-consciousness and the overcoming of exclusion . . . . . . . . . The Lord/Bondsman relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The historical reality of the lord/bondsman relation . . . . . . . . The Unhappy Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The mind/ body unity as an historical reality . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 12 12 15 17 22 28 31 33 37 42 44 48 53 58

Chapter 2 The Greek World: The Origin of the First Self . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The polis as the unity of the Human and Divine Law . . . . . . The abstract work of art: the representation of the pure self in the public domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The polis as a harmonic unity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Repression of the deed: the living work of art . . . . . . . . . . . . . The representation of the deed: the spiritual work of art . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Retrospection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Roman Empire as the result of the Greek World . . . . . . .

60 60 61 63 68 69 71 75 77 79

Chapter 3 The Realm of Culture: The Genesis of the Second Self Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

81 81

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Contents

The Fall of the Roman Empire and the experience of the person The genesis of the moral individual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Embodiment of the “pure Being” in the real Individual: the self-conscious reality of the Unhappy Consciousness . . . . . . . . The meaning of the moral individual in the objective world . . The realization of the moral individual in the objective world: the process of culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The absolute Freedom: the second self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Retrospection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

81 83 87 89 90 96 97

Chapter 4 The Realm of Morality: Making the Third Self Explicit Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The point of departure of the Realm of Morality: the Rousseauian Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The inner contradiction of the Napoleonic Law: the Kantian Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The sublation of the inner contradiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Hegelian reflection on the Napoleonic Law: Conscience as the origin of the third self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The development of Conscience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a. Conscience as the Unhappy Consciousness that repeats Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . b. Conscience as the Unhappy Consciousness that repeats Self-consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conscience that becomes aware of itself as Unhappy Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The meaning of the “absolute Spirit” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Retrospection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

100 100

Chapter 5 Honneth’s Criticism of Hegel’s Metaphysics . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The “Phenomenology of Spirit” and the question of “The Nature of the Self ” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The relation of mind and body as the primordial form of recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The development of freedom from the inside perspective . . . . The transition from a monological into a dialogical approach . The absolute Spirit as the presupposition of the dialogical relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Absolute Spirit and metaphysics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

118 118

101 102 104 105 106 106 107 110 113 115

118 121 121 122 123 126

Contents

VII

Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Recognition between metaphysics and empiricism . . . . . . . . . . 131 Honneth’s project in relation to the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophy of Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 Chapter 6 The program of the Philosophy of Right as elaboration of the Phenomenology’s project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The conceptual design of the Philosophy of Right . . . . . . . . . The abstract Right as the formal Notion of the first self . . . . . Morality as the formal notion of the second self . . . . . . . . . . . Conscience as the formal unity of right and morality . . . . . . . Conscience in the ‘Philosophy of Right’ vis--vis conscience in the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The formal unity of the three forms of the self following from the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The actualization of the Human Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 7 The Family: The Institutional House of the First Self . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The species life of animals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The family in the Philosophy of Right: animal life in the form of freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The social organism of the family vis--vis the conceptual framework of the ‘Philosophy of Right’ and the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’‘ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The education of the children in the family of the revised ‘Philosophy of Right’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a. The socialization of the child in the contingent tradition of the family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . b. The process in which the child develops awareness of the contingence of the family tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Retrospection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Excursus: The Development of the Child to a Real Person in Confrontation with Jrgen Habermas’s Reception of the Stages of Moral Consciousness developed by Lawrence Kohlberg . . .

136 136 137 139 141 142 142 143 148 150 150 150 151 152 155 155 158 164 166

Chapter 8 The Civil Society: Developing the Institutional House of the Second Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

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The development of the second self ’s embodiment in the ‘Philosophy of Right’: civil society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The process of Culture in Civil Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Culture in the socialized production System as part of the System of Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Institutionalizing the second self: the community of moral subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Criticism of the development of civil society in the light of the Phenomenology of Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The revised concept of Culture in Civil Society . . . . . . . . . . . . The free market and the exclusion of individuals . . . . . . . . . . . The market and the moral subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Moral subjectivity and lifelong partnership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The market and the good life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Retrospection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 9 The State: The Embodiment of the Third Self . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The development of the third self ’s embodiment in the ‘Philosophy of Right’: the State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Criticizing the state of the ‘Philosophy of Right’ in the light of the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The revision of the citizen and the Monarch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The development of the third self as the presupposition of the revised state . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jurisdiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . International Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The political cooperation between nation states . . . . . . . . . . . . Concluding remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Author index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Subject index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

176 178 182 187 190 193 198 199 200 205 209 211 211 211 216 217 220 223 224 225 227 232 235 238 240

The Nature of the Self. Recognition in the form of Right and Morality Introduction This book is about the nature of the human self; i. e., it is not focussed on sources that contributed to a specific historical reception of the self 1, but rather, aims at a systematic, conceptual development of the self. However, it is not self-evident that the human self has a nature, nor that this nature can be systematically developed. Moreover, the turn of phrase “nature of the self ” is ambiguous: It can concern a nature that is opposed to culture, or a nature that expresses an essence that transcends variations in time, i. e., a logical nature. The first option, the nature of the human self that is opposed to culture, is the position that is represented by the gene-theory. The genetheory conceives of the human self as a living organism that is comparable with other living organisms. In this context, the conception of the human self coincides with the insight into the specific human genes. This approach, like all scientific theories, does not satisfy as a philosophical conception of the nature of the self. The scientific framework of the genetheory, i. e., the framework that defines the meaning of a living organism, is not, itself, subject of the gene-theory: The theory is not self-referential, it cannot explain its own existence, but is, rather, presupposed to what is accepted as existence. Since the scientific practice cannot be excluded from the nature of the human self, the problem has to be solved of how the living organism can be combined with the ability to conceptualize itself as a living organism. In other words, the philosophical conception of the nature of the self has to solve the mind/body problem: How can the human self be understood as the unity of mind and body without reducing the mind to the body, or vice versa? In Chapter 1, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit 2 is introduced as a systematic philosophical attempt to develop the unity between mind and 1 2

Therefore, this book is not meant as a replacement of Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self, (Harvard University Press, 2005) but rather, as its completion. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by A.V. Miller, Oxford, 1977.

2

The Nature of the Self. Recognition in the form of Right and Morality

body (preserving, as well, the own nature of the mind as the body). To conceptualize the immediate unity between mind and body, Hegel makes use of the metaphor of the lordship/bondsman relation: The lord represents the mind that also has a body; the bondsman represents the body that also has a mind. In this way, the mind/body problem is reformulated as the problem of how to contemplate the adequate unity of lord and bondsman. The transformation of mind/body into lordship/bondsman is not just a matter of changing terms. The transformation incorporates the Aristotelian insight that the adequate unity between mind and body can only be conceived of at the level of society. For Aristotle, the human self, the animal rationale, essentially is a social self, a self that lives in the framework of a state. This is reflected in the metaphor of the lordship/bondsman relation that makes it clear that the body of the mind essentially is a social organism. A mind that also has a body is a mind that is objectified in a social organism. Conversely, the body that also has a mind is a body that is part of a social organism. In this respect, lordship and bondsman are Hegel’s translation of the Aristotelian logos and state. Hegel, however, transcends the Aristotelian conceptual framework when the relation between lord and bondsman is understood as a relation of recognition.3 By this move he combines the social (communitarian) freedom of Aristotle with the subjective (libertarian) freedom of Kant.4 If the lord is recognized by the bondsman, he not only represents the unity of the social organism (the lord represents the law of the state that is actualized by the actions of the bondsman), but also the subjective freedom of the bondsman (the bondsman is free insofar as he is the “lord” of his body: He recognizes this freedom in the lord of the social organism, i. e., he recognizes this lord as the objective reality of his own freedom). The basic idea of recognition follows from the observation that it is impossible to conceive of the unity of mind and body at the level of the 3

4

Paul Ricoeur remarks in the introduction of his book, The Course of Recognition: “My investigation arose from a sense of perplexity having to do with the semantic status of the very term recognition on the plane of philosophical discourse. It is a fact that no theory of recognition worthy of the name exists in the way that one or more theories of knowledge exist.” (Preface, p. ix) In fact, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is a systematic theory of recognition. Cf. Williams (1997): “My thesis is that the concept of recognition is crucial to Hegel’s project of mediating modern individualist subjective freedom (Kant) and classical ethical substance (Plato, Aristotle).” (p. 114/5).

Introduction

3

individual. If the mind is understood as the autonomy of the individual, this autonomy gets lost when the individual is also a corporeal individual. The individual remains dependent on his body; the death of the body implies the death of the entire individual. The autonomy of the mind is only thinkable at a social level, i. e., as the law (logos) of the social organism. The lord represents the autonomy of an immortal individual: the individual that is institutionalized as a social organism. In himself, the individual is not autonomous, i. e., he is not the “lord” of his body. But insofar as the individual can recognize his individual mind/body relation in the social mind/body relation, i. e., as the lord that represents the autonomy of the social organism that is actualized by the actions of the bondsmen, his autonomy is no longer an illusion. The lordship/bondsman relation is the elementary model of the free society. The lord represents the human autonomy, the human capability to transcend the (instinctual) laws of nature and replace them by the human law of the state. The bondsman represents the citizens who actualize the human autonomy by observing the human law as it positively appears. Therefore, the lordship/bondsman model combines two forms of recognition. The first form I will call the horizontal recognition that concerns the relation between the citizens. This first form of recognition is, in principle, symmetrical: In their observation of the same law, the citizens are free and equal. The horizontal recognition stands for the dimension of right. The second form I will call the vertical recognition that concerns the relation of the citizens to the lord, i. e., to the representation of their autonomy. This relation, in principle, is a-symmetrical because it is the relation in which the citizens, as corporeal individuals, are related to their absolute essence (that will be developed as their conscience). The vertical recognition stands for the dimension of morality, the dimension in which the citizens are absolutely unequal: In this dimension, they are non-exchangeable, unique individuals. Therefore, the lordship/ bondsman relation is the elementary model of the unity of right and morality, the unity of horizontal and vertical recognition. The immediate form of the lordship/bondsman relation is not inadequate because the relation between lord and bondsman is a-symmetrical (the vertical recognition is fundamentally a-symmetric) but rather, because it is still characterized by a discrepancy between the inside and outside perspective. When it is possible, from an outside perspective, to describe the Aristotelian state in terms of the lordship/bondsman relation, this does not imply that it is also possible from the inside perspective. From the inside perspective, the citizens cannot make a difference be-

4


tween themselves and the lord because they immediately identify themselves with the lord. The lord is only real as the contingent (traditional) law of the state. Therefore, the citizens are neither aware of the vertical recognition (in their consciousness there is no room for other traditional laws) nor of the horizontal recognition (the citizens are absorbed by their social roles: These are not mediated by free choice). Only when the discrepancy between the inside and outside perspectives can be overcome does the lordship/bondsman model cease to be an external attempt to understand the unity of mind and body. The external perspective from which the model is formulated must become part of the model itself. We, i. e., the author and the readers of this book, are also human beings in which mind and body are united. Therefore, if we, from a meta point of view, design a model to understand the unity between mind and body, we must recognize in the model all the meta considerations we made about the unity of mind and body. Only under that condition, can we accept the model as a necessary one. The process in which the inside and outside perspectives are brought together results in the development of the consciousness of the bondsman. The consciousness of the bondsman becomes more and more aware of the reality in which he is living. This process is discussed in the subsequent part of Chapter 1. Since the consciousness of the bondsman is already a moment of the entirety of the social organism he is living in, the development of this consciousness can be reconstructed as a necessary process. At the moment, however, that the consciousness wants to know what is the content of the social law, it is not possible to determine this content by a necessary deduction: The content of the social organism is contingent (Aristotle’s model of the state is compatible with a multitude of traditions). Insofar as the consciousness of the bondsman is already a moment of the social organism all the time, this social organism is a contingent organism, i. e. an organism that has historical existence. Not all historical organisms can be identified as organisms in which the consciousness of the bondsman is living. The institutional differentiation of the organism must enable this consciousness to pass through the development in which it will become aware of the reality it is living in. Hegel identifies this social organism as the polis of the ancient Greek world. Chapter 2 elaborates how the polis can be conceived of as the historical social organism in which the immediate unity of right and morality, i. e., the immediate unity of horizontal and vertical recognition, is objectified.

Introduction

5

Since the institutions of the polis allow a learning process in which the consciousness of the polis experiences the contingent content of the law, the Greek world will, sooner or later, decline. Ultimately, the consciousness cannot recognize the social organism, precisely because it is a contingent organism, as the expression of its moral identity. What remains is a social order that is one-sidedly characterized by the horizontal recognition of right. Hegel identifies this order as the Roman Empire that derives its unity from the property right of Roman Law. The Roman citizens are the formal persons who recognize one another as free and equal. Hegel calls the formal person of the Roman Law the first self. For the first time, the human self has actualized itself as an autonomous self. The actions of the person are not determined by tradition, but by the free will of the persons themselves. In the first self, the unity of mind and body for the first time appears as an individual. The person is the free will (cf. mind) that is embodied in the social organism of the family (cf. body). The person is the “lord” of the family whose labor is oriented to the reproduction of the family. Although the first self is a necessary stage in the development of the nature of the self (the human self must transcend tradition, otherwise the independence of his mind is not done justice) the adequate unity of mind and body is not yet attained. The persons are atomized selves, that lack a common “lord” who represents their moral identity.5 They only practically express their moral identity in the private domain, i. e., in the labor of the family. Therefore, it remains coincidental whether or not the persons can actualize their moral identity. The Roman Empire has no inner harmony, a shared definition of good life, and will sooner or later decline. Chapter 3 discusses the Realm of Culture that covers a period in European history that begins after the decline of the Roman Empire, and ends with the French Revolution, i. e., it is the period of the Middle Ages. After the first self has been developed in the ancient Greek and Roman world, the second self is developed in the Middle Ages. In the second self, the dimension of right is reunited with the dimension of morality. In the second self, the immediate unity of right and morality of the Greek world is transformed in the self-conscious unity of right and morality. 5

Although the Roman Emperor (the “lord and master of the world” [292/3]) is “the titanic self-consciousness that thinks of itself as being an actual living god” (293) he is a person like the others, a formal self, that has no real power over the content, i. e., over the substantial world of which he is supposed to be the ruler.

6


The idea of the second self is simple: To prevent the risk that the social law is not in harmony with the moral identity of the person, the second self wants to make the social law the expression of his moral identity. This attempt seems to be reasonable when the moral identity is “cultivated”: It is no longer the moral identity that is immediately given and that belongs to the private domain, but it has been socialized and rationalized and has lost its particular character. The second self wants to make his cultivated moral identity the content of the social law. According to Hegel, the “absolute freedom” of the citizen of the French Revolution is the historical reality of the second self: He does not accept any tradition and demands that the social law is in absolutely accordance with his enlightened moral self. It is, however, impossible to meet the demand of the citizen, not only because all citizens want to do the same and cannot accept that the other citizens determine the content of the social law, but also because the citizens contradict themselves: Since the moral identity transcends all positive determinedness, they have to reject any positive shape of the law. Therefore, the subjectivism of the French Revolution necessarily ends in the revolutionary terror in which the citizens try to prevent each other’s attempt to actualize the social law. Also, although the second self cannot, evidently, be the adequate actualization of the unity of right and morality, it is certainly a necessary stage in the development of the nature of the self. A free, moral self cannot tolerate a given social organism; his freedom is only real if this organism expresses his moral identity. The terror of the French Revolution, however, has shown what are the bloody consequences of a policy that is immediately moralized. This is understood by Jean Jacques Rousseau when he differentiates between the social law and its transcendent moral legitimation. The social law is legitimate insofar as it can be considered as the expression of the “volont gnrale”, the general will. This concept remains transcendent because it must accurately be distinguished from the “volont de tous”, the will of all, that can be positively deduced from the real will of the citizens. Chapter 4 discusses Hegel’s reception of this Rousseauian reflection on the French Revolution in the Morality-Chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit. The problem is, on the one hand, how to preserve the transcendent character of the general will, and on the other hand, at the same time understand the existing legal order as a manifestation of the general will. Hegel rejects Kant’s solution because of his distinction between a noumenal and a phenomenal world. Since the general will is situated in the noumenal world, and the legal order in the phenomenal world, the problem

Introduction

7

is only shifted: how to think of the relation between the noumenal and the phenomenal world. Hegel’s own solution is elaborated as the third self, the conscientious individual. The third self (as reflection on the French Revolution) belongs to the modern world (Hegel’s own era) and pretends to express the adequate relation between right and morality. The conscientious individual is related to the transcendent dimension of the absolute Spirit, i. e., to the absolute essence of his freedom. This relation reflects the citizen’s relation to the general will in Rousseau. At the same time, the conscientious individual tries to actualize his moral freedom in the objective world, i. e., in the social order in which he is living. Therefore, the adequate relation between right and morality is conceived of as the relation between objective and absolute Spirit. In Chapter 5 the three forms of the self are compared to the three forms of recognition that Axel Honneth distinguishes in “The Struggle for Recognition”.6 The comparison is complicated because Honneth relates to the young Hegel whose concept of recognition, according to Honneth, is influenced by the “presuppositions of the metaphysical tradition” and has to be reconstructed “in the light of empirical social psychology”.7 It is examined which meaning Honnth’s arguments have for the Phenomenology of Spirit. The conclusion is that the three forms of the self are not metaphysical in the sense of Honneth. It took the social experience of the Ancient, the Mediaeval and the Modern world to be able to formulate the human self adequately. The insight into the third self presupposes the insight into the first and second self. The individual who wants to acquire adequate insight into the human self has to repeat, at an individual level, the social experience of European history. In other words, this individual must participate in a social organism whose institutions allow the repetition of this social experience. In Chapter 6, it is argued that it is exactly this consideration that is the basis of the project of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. 8 The ethical life that is developed in this work as the unity of Family, civil Society and State, is an attempt to integrate the development of the first, second and third self in the institutional framework of one social organism. Fam6 7 8

Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition. The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts, Polity Press, Cambridge 1995. Ibidem, p. 68. Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, translated by T.M. Knox, Oxford University Press 1967.

8


ily, Corporation and State are presented as the adequate institutional embodiment of the first, second and third self. Chapter 7, 8 and 9 consist of a detailed survey of the way in which the development of, respectively, the first, second and third self in the Phenomenology of Spirit, returns in the development of, respectively, family, civil society and state in the Philosophy of Right. My thesis is that the logical structure of the Philosophy of Right cannot be understood if one does not acknowledge that it has been Hegel’s intention to resume the three periods of European history (Antiquity, Middle Ages and Modernity) with the three corresponding forms of the self as the constituting logical moments of ethical life. From Hegel’s viewpoint, the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophy of Right do not represent different positions. The historical order is only transformed into a systematic order. Curiously enough, however, the Phenomenology of Spirit is not only a criterion for the positive understanding of the Philosophy of Right’s composition, but at the same time, a criterion to criticize this composition. In the Philosophy of Right, the concept of conscience is reduced in comparison with the Phenomenology of Spirit: Since the Philosophy of Right discusses the objective Spirit, the dimension of the religious conscience is explicitly excluded. The content of conscience is reduced to what can be actualized at the (historical) level of objective Spirit. This reduction has huge consequences for all three domains of ethical life. The ethical life of the family is reduced to natural life in the form of freedom; the freedom of civil society is reduced to economic freedom; the ethical life of the state is reduced to the mono-cultural nation state. Chapter 7, 8 and 9 not only reconstruct Hegel’s composition of the Philosophy of Right, but also the version that would result from a position in which conscience is not reduced. In this version, consequently, also the three domains of ethical life are not reduced: It offers room to multi-culturality, to moral and political freedom and to states that are embedded in a system of international law. In this version, the relation between absolute and objective Spirit is conceived of as the relation between human rights and democracy. My thesis is that this alternative version of the Philosophy of Right, based on the full consequences of the Phenomenology of Spirit, elaborates a conceptual framework that is better suitable for the understanding of contemporary multi-cultural and globalized society than other proposals, especially the popular theories of Jrgen Habermas9 and John Rawls.10 9 Jrgen Habermas, Faktizitt und Geltung, Frankfurt/M., 1992.

Introduction

9

My interpretation of the Philosophy of Right is in accordance with Robert Williams when he brings to the light “the concept of recognition as crucial to the systematic unity of the book” (p.27).11 I also agree with R. Williams when he states that “Hegel does not fundamentally change his position concerning recognition …” (p.2) and observes in this respect a continuity between the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophy of Right. The distinction that Williams makes between a self-subverting form of recognition (“clearly demonstrated in the case of master and slave”) and an “affirmative mutual recognition in the other that is central to ethical life” (characterizing the “mature” Hegel), however, has to be refuted. Williams illustrates his distinction between two forms of recognition in his criticism of Alexandre Kojve: “although Kojve made the struggle for recognition central to his interpretation of Hegel, the irony is that Kojve’s work obscures and distorts Hegel’s concept of recognition. However, for Hegel, recognition is a general concept of intersubjectivity, wider than master and slave. […] In contrast to Kojve, Hegel’s master and slave is but an important first phase of unequal recognition that must and can be transcended.” (p.10) Williams is certainly right that Kojve’s concept of recognition is distorted (“Kojve thinks the concept of recognition primarily on the basis of an ontology of negation and finitude” (p.11) and that the recognition that is expressed in the metaphor of master and slave has to be developed. But he is mistaken if he thinks that this development ultimately implies the overcoming of “unequality” in the concept of recognition. As mentioned before, recognition remains characterized by its two (“horizontal” and “vertical”) dimensions. Ultimately, the “unequality” remains preserved in the a-symmetry between absolute and objective Spirit. I share Williams’ criticism of Jrgen Habermas and Axel Honneth when he remarks: “Unfortunately, in Honneth’s and Habermas’s interpretation, the early Hegel is sharply distinguished from the mature Hegel. […] Honneth repeats Habermas’s line that in Hegel’s mature thought, the concept of recognition is displaced by a monological conception of self-reflective subjectivity” (p.15).12 He rightly supports Ludwig Siep’s 10 John Rawls, Laws of Peoples, Harvard University Press, 1999. 11 Robert Williams, Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition, University of California Press, 1997. 12 Honneth (1995) remarks: “In this sense, the new (and, methodologically speaking, certainly superior), conception found in the Phenomenology of Spirit repre-

10


reading of Hegel: “Siep believes recognition is important for Hegel’s practical philosophy because it allows Hegel to renew the classical tradition of practical philosophy on a postmodern, postliberal, intersubjectivesocial basis” (p.21). But, I think that his conclusion needs some specification: “This reading supports Habermas’s contention that recognition is an important counter-discours of modernity” (p.21) Hegel’s concept of recognition is superior to the concept of recognition as it is elaborated in Habermas’s Theory of communicative Action. Habermas has never succeeded in the reconciliation between the domain of recognition and the domain of nature. His new paradigm remains characterized by a Kantian dichotomy: the dichotomy between truth and objectivity, the “object of knowledge” and the “object of experience”, intersubjectivity and nature.13 Also Williams’s criticism of Michael Theunissen needs some specification and correction. Theunissen “does attempt to show that intersubjectivity is derivative from a pre-social, or transcendental monological subject, and that objective Geist, while supposedly the consciousness of individuals, nevertheless comes to have self-consciousness and self-relation, thereby creating an asymmetry and a heteronomous relation between objective Geist, ethical substance and independent individuals. This asymmetry finds expression in a pantheistic conception of the substance/accidents scheme: Self-conscious, self-relating objective Geist, is identified with absolute Geist, the ultimate subject that is, at the same time, ethical substance. In this scheme, individuals are reduced from independent free beings to mere accidents of substance” (p.16). Williams is right when he defends the intersubjectivity of Hegel’s project against Theunissen (“I will show that Hegel by no means restricts recognition to abstract right and property, but clearly indicates that the concept of recognition is the general structure of ethical life”, p.17). sents, in effect, a fundamental turning-point in the course of Hegel’s thought. As a result, the possibility of returning to the most compelling of his earlier intuitions, the still incomplete model of the ‘struggle for recognition’, is blocked.” (p. 63) Later on he adds: “Neither in Hegel nor in Mead does one find a systematic consideration of those forms of disrespect that, as negative equivalents for the corresponding relations of recognition, could enable social actors to realize that they are being denied recognition.” (p. 93) I will show that, in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the ‘denied recognition’ appears in the form of the Unhappy Consciousness. The Unhappy Consciousness is not overcome by a ‘struggle for recognition’, but rather by a process of experience in which the consciousness becomes aware of the social source of his unhappiness. 13 Jrgen Habermas, “Wahrheitstheorien”, in: Vorstudien und Ergnzungen zur Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Frankfurt/M., 1984, pp. 127 – 186.

Introduction

11

But, in my opinion, the central point is that Theunissen identifies objective and absolute Spirit. Precisely because Hegel wants to solve the problem of how to devise a community of independent individuals, he has to introduce the absolute Spirit in distinction from the objective Spirit. The a-symmetrical relation between the individuals and the absolute Spirit grounds the intersubjectivity between individuals that have a symmetrical relation to one another at the level of the objective Spirit. The identification of objective and absolute Spirit totally ignores Hegel’s project. The revised Philosophy of Right raises the same questions as Rawls’s Political Liberalism 14 : how to think of a community of persons with different moral opinions. It shows, however, that Rawls’s conception of the moral person remains unreflected. The concept of the moral person already presupposes a structure of basic institutions all the time. An atomized moral person is a contradiction in itself; the attempt to construct an “overlapping consensus” between atomized moral persons is totally superfluous. The fundamental failure in Rawls’s and Habermas’s theory converge: neither of them has developed an adequate conception of the unity between mind and body. They conceptualize a human self without identity. The revision of the Philosophy of Right makes it possible to give an answer to the justified criticism of the Philosophy of Right, itself. In reading Hegel’s analysis of civil society, for example, Marx’s criticism of Hegel and his alleged alliance with capitalism becomes obvious. The revision, however, will clarify that Hegel, especially in his analysis of the System of Needs, betrays his own principles and is too much impressed by the contingent reality he is confronted with. Also Siep’s criticism that Hegel one-sidedly remains committed to the primacy of the general and the Christian culture is overcome in the revised version in which the moral individual transcends the labor system, and in which multi-culturality gets the room it deserves.15

14 John Rawls, Political Liberalism, Columbia University Press, 1993: “… how is it possible for there to exist over time a just and stable society of free and equal citizens, who remain profoundly divided by reasonable religious, philosophical and moral doctrines?”. (p .4). 15 Ludwig Siep, “Recognition between Individuals and Cultures”, [manuscript].

Chapter 1 The Human Self as the Unity of Mind and Body Introduction From a philosophical point of view, a scientific fact cannot entirely express what makes a man into a man. Scientific facts depend on scientific theories: It is only in the framework of scientific theory that facts are defined. Theory gives facts their scientific value. Therefore, if man is scientifically defined as a specific organism with a specific genome, he does not coincide with his existence as an organism. To his existence also belongs the scientific theory that he develops in order to represent his specific organism. In this chapter, it is discussed what it means to conceive of man both as an organism and as the scientific reason for whom this organism exists. The problem to be solved is the age-old problem of the relation between mind and body. This problem cannot be solved by reduction, as it is done by David Hume and Ren Descartes. While Hume reduces mind to body when he maintains that all ideas must be reduced to impressions, Descartes reduces body to mind when he assumes that the res extensa essentially is a clear and distinct idea. In this reduction, either the mode of being of the mind, or the mode of being of the body disappears, so that the relation between two modes of being is revealed as a problem that does not comply with reality. But neither can the problem be solved in Kant’s way. Although Kant has understood the one-sidedness of Hume’s empiricism and Descartes’s rationalism, and was in search of a synthesis of both approaches, his solution does not escape from repeating the problems of a scientific definition of man. Although Kant’s project essentially is an anti-reductionist one because, in his view, mind and body have their own domain (namely in the noumenal and the phenomenal world), his criteria for the synthesis of mind and body remain external to these domains. Kant’s definition of man as a unity of mind and body does not elucidate its own necessity. For a philosopher, it is not sufficient to propose a scientific model of the relation between mind and body. A scientific model is “subjective” in the sense that it is not unconditional. This is not only because alternative

Introduction

13

models are possible, but also because the criterion of its verification (experimental perception) embodies a specific (conditional) view on the relation between (the world of the) mind and (the world of the) body. This subjectivity can only be overcome if it has been proven that the model is not one of the many possible models, but is exclusive. The being that is modeled as a unity of mind and body must, at the same time, be able to accept the model that constitutes his unity as a necessary one. The conception of the unity between mind and body has to be unconditional. Of course, it is not evident that an unconditional model of the unity of mind and body is possible. All candidate models have to be tested. But what guarantee have we that the process of testing will ever end? I think that this dilemma can be overcome by a methodological approach that allows the systematic construction of the unconditional model. I will summarize the central steps of this systematic construction: 1. The unity of mind and body must (hypothetically) be determined as an immediate unity. In that case, the model of the unity between mind and body necessarily has to be accepted by the mind that is constituted by the model. Because this mind is by definition immediately unified with the body, it has no room for another interpretation; 2. From an outside perspective, however, the immediate unity of mind and body is a contradiction (between form and content). Insofar as it concerns a relation between mind and body, the terms of the relation are (formally) distinguished. Insofar as it concerns an immediate relation, however, this distinction disappears because, in regard to their content, mind and body are immediately identical. As a matter of fact, an immediate relation is no relation; 3. The process of construction consists of the steps that mediate between the inside perspective in which mind and body are immediately one, and the outside perspective in which mind and body have domains that are explicitly distinguished. Each stage of the process is a revision of the model that conceptualizes the unity of mind and body. The distinction between mind and body that is implicitly presupposed in the model of their immediate unity is, step by step, made more explicit; 4. If the stages in the process are logically interconnected, i. e., if each stage is logically deduced from the preceding one, the process can result in an unconditional model of the unity between mind and body: a model that combines the unity of mind and body with their distinction, and a model that has a necessary status for the mind that is conceptualized by the model itself.

14

Chapter 1 The Human Self as the Unity of Mind and Body

In this chapter, I will discuss how Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit can be interpreted as the systematic development of the unity between mind and body based on the aforementioned methodological assumptions.16 This means that this development has a necessary nature, i. e., all stages of the mind/body unity can be logically deduced.17 Of course, Hegel illustrates these stages with historical examples. But even when it has become clear that the body of the mind has to be understood as a social organism and, consequently, can be unambiguously related to a specific period in (European) history, history remains only an illustration. Hegel reconstructs which stages the (European) reader of the Phenomenology of Spirit has to pass through to develop an adequate insight into the unity of mind and body.18 But these stages are logical stages that have appeared in a spe-

16 Wildt (1984) rightly remarks that “the Phenemenology of Spirit has to be understood beforehand as a theory of the Self and of Self-Experience.” [“die Phnomenologie des Geistes von vornherein als Theorie des Selbst und der Selbsterfahrung zu verstehen [ist].”](p. 374). 17 This logical deduction is a “dialectical deduction”. What this dialectical logic precisely means, will become clear in the next section. Anyhow, the dialectical logic does not come down to a violation of the law of non-contradiction, as Popper seems to think. On the contrary, Hegel has developed his dialectics to overcome contradictory relations and to safeguard the law of non-contradiction. 18 This remark seems to correspond to Terry Pinkard’s opinion: “Accordingly, the Phenomenology is supposed to take its readers, the participants in the modern European community’s form of life, through the past “formations of consciousness” of the European “spirit” – the ways in which that “spirit” has both taken the “essence” of things to be, and the ways in which it has taken agents to be cognitively related to that “essence” – and demonstrate to them that they require the kind of account which the Phenomenology as a whole provides, that the Phenomenology’s project is therefore not optional for them but intrinsic to their sense of who they are.” (Terry Pinkard, Hegel’s Phenomenology. The Sociality of Reason, Cambridge 1994, p. 17). The topic of the Phenomenology of Spirit, however, is not the adequate understanding of European history, but rather the adequate understanding of “substance” (what, for Hegel, equals the adequate understanding of the unity of mind and body). Although this understanding is actualized in European history, this history remains an illustration (i. e., a contingent manifestation form) of the fundamental (logical) structures of substance. Therefore, I cannot agree to his thesis that “the three introductory sections” show that “a kind of knowledge that would be independent of social practice” is impossible. (p. 21). Also Philip Kain (Hegel and the Other, New York, 2005) seems the be the victim of the same misunderstanding when he writes: “What sense does it make to call the absolute of one era “absolute” if it differs from the absolute of another era? The answer requires us to see that for Hegel reality itself is actually constructed by culture.” (p. 19).

The immediate unity of mind and body

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cific (contingent) manner in European history. Principally these stages can also be experienced in other cultures. Actually, in the contemporary globalized world, the experiences of European culture are more or less shared by all other cultures.

The immediate unity of mind and body Gene theory determines the organism as a differentiated life process, that is ultimately directed by the genes. For the time being, I will abstract from these differentiations and determine the organism as a kind of black box of which it is only relevant that it is something naturally given. Unlike the gene theorist’s view, however, I consider this ‘something’ not to be an object of scientific reason, but rather the object of a mind that forms an immediate and natural unity with it, i. e., with the body that is conceived of as black box. I want to know under what conditions this relation between mind and body can be determined as a necessary one.19 This unity cannot be obtained by a scheme that functions as an external link between mind and body. The connection by an external scheme remains accidental. Mind and body must be defined in a way in which they have only existence if they are taken together. They must be conceived of in a complementary relationship, in the relative opposition between form and content.20 The mind has to be conceptualized as the form of the body. The body has to be conceived of as something Robert Pippin (Hegel’s Idealism. The Satisfactions of Self-consciousness, Cambridge, 1989) elaborates an opposite interpretation. According to him, the Phenomenology of Spirit has to be read as a “direct variation on a crucial Kantian theme, the ‘transcendental unity of apperception’.” (p. 6). As a consequence, Hegel’s project would be totally a priori: “As we have also seen, now in great detail, Hegel rejects the possibility of such reliance on pure intuitions, the possibility of considering the characteristics of a pure intuited manifold.” (p.133). We will see, however, that the concept of life is central in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Its central theme can be formulated as the unity of mind and body. Good introductions in the Phenomenology of Spirit are, for example, Ludwig Siep (2000) and Stephen Houlgate (2006). 19 Insofar as the relation between mind and body is not yet understood as a necessary one, I will indicate this relation as a form of the natural consciousness. 20 In a relative opposition, the terms of the opposition are internally related and cannot be determined without the other. Examples are: general/particular, parents/child.

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that borrows its unity from the mind that functions as its form. The mind is the form that is only real because the body is its content. In this way, mind and body relate to one another in a non-relation: Distinct from one another, both terms have no meaning. This relation can be illustrated by Berkeley’s esse est percipi. The body only exists insofar as it is perceived by the mind. Outside its perception, the mind has no existence. This relation is an epistemological relation that is in no way distinguished from the object that is known. It is about a knowledge that is totally immersed in its object. Just because of its immediacy, this relation cannot be understood as an interpretation (for example by means of some scientific model). It is about a knowledge that is completely in unity with its object and that knows its object absolutely. If the unity of mind and body is determined in this way, the conclusion is justified that, from a subjective point of view, i. e., from the mind’s view, mind and body are a necessary unity. Without one another, mind and body do not exist at all. But this mind is a very poor one. If it could express itself, it could not even say “I” (let alone: “I am I”). The relation between mind and body expresses a pure existence that lacks any determination. The immediacy of the mind/body relation would be disturbed by any closer determination. In its unity with the body, the mind is totally undetermined for itself. The inside and outside perspective are still distinguished. From an outside perspective, the independence of the mind/body unity is clear. The unity is distinct from other unities. From an inside perspective, however, the unity has no independence because it cannot make any distinction. On the other hand, only from the inside perspective is the mind/ body unity a necessary one. The subjectivity of this necessity can only be overcome if the mind/body unity is closely specified and has the opportunity to internalize what, from the outside perspective, has become clear: The mind/body unity must not only be determined as pure existence, but also as determined existence, i. e., as an independent one. The mind/body unity that is for itself an independent unity, can be identified with the result of development that Hegel discusses in the first part of the subjective Spirit: Anthropology or the Soul. The soul is Hegel’s terminus technicus to indicate the immediate unity between mind and body.21 At the level of the soul, however, it is not yet possible to distin21 Hegel defines the soul as the “allgemeine Immaterialitt der Natur, deren einfaches ideelles Leben” [as nature’s “universal immaterialism, its simple ‘ideal’ life”.] (Enz. § 389), i. e., the soul is the form in which nature has its unity.

Consciousness: looking for the independence of the outside world

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guish mind and body. The soul is determined by the natural processes in which its body is involved. At this level, it makes no sense to describe the mind/body unity as a black-box, because the soul only exists insofar as it is naturally determined, i. e., the mind has no ability to abstract from the particular content in which it is involved. This inability has been overcome when the soul is fully developed. At that level, the soul has emancipated itself from its being-submerged-in-nature. The soul is transformed into a mind that can abstract from particular determinations and has an abstract unity for itself. This abstract unity is expressed in the distinction that can be made between an inner and outer world. The soul that has freed itself from nature is for itself insofar as it can distinguish itself from the outside world. The soul has been transformed into the “subject of the judgement” “in which the ego excludes from itself the sum total of its merely natural features as an object, a world external to it – but with such respect to that object that in it it is immediately reflected into itself. Thus soul rises to become Consciousness”. (Enz. § 412) 22 Therefore, “consciousness” is the mind in an immediate unity with its body. But in this relation, as the mind is undetermined, its body is, so to speak, a black-box. The mind, however, is determined in its relation to the outside world; for itself, the mind/body unity is independent. In the second part of the subjective Spirit, the Phenomenology of Spirit (Enz.,§ 413 ff.), Hegel examines whether the outside and inside perspective of consciousness are compatible. In the next sections, however, I will not refer to this second part of the subjective Spirit, but to the elaborated version of the Phenomenology of Spirit, i. e., to the book that has the same title as this second part.

Consciousness: looking for the independence of the outside world In its independence, the mind/body unity is related to the outside world. It is exactly this relation that threatens the mind/body unity. Insofar as the unity only exists by excluding an outside world, it is dependent on this outside world and, consequently, loses its independence. In that case, the immediacy of the inside perspective can also get lost. If the mind per22 “in welchem es die natrliche Totalitt seiner Bestimmungen als ein Object, eine ihm ußere Welt, von sich ausschließt und sich darauf bezieht, so daß es in derselben unmittelbar in sich reflectirt ist, das Bewußtseyn.” (Enz. § 412).

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ceives the determinedness of its body (because of any interaction between the body and the outside world) it becomes aware of the distinction between the body and itself, so that their immediate unity is broken down. Therefore, the problem that has to be solved is: How can the mind/body unity relate to an outside world without threatening the unity of mind and body from an inside perspective? A living organism is related to the outside world because of its needs. In its attempt to satisfy its needs and to reproduce itself, it is involved in the outside world. In contrast to a lifeless thing, the organism is actively related to the outside world. While the lifeless thing passively undergoes the working of external forces of nature and loses its unity by an ongoing process of erosion, the living organism actively preserves the boundaries between the outside world and itself. This time the outside world does not appear as a force of nature that is undergone by the organism, but as a stimulus to which it actively reacts. The reactions of the organism can be interpreted in the framework of its striving for self-conservation. The model to conceive of the organism’s relation to the outside world cannot be maintained if the organism also has a mind at its disposal. We defined the mind as the form from which the organism borrows its conscious unity, i. e., its undetermined existence as it is understood from an inside perspective. If the organism also has a mind, the stimuli that are received by the organism can be interpreted as immediate determinations of the mind, as are the simple ideas of impressions in the sense of Hume.23 The mind, however, that exists in a multitude of determinations loses its 23 Hume’s definition of “impression” is not unproblematic. (Cf. An Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 17 ff ). Hume distinguishes between an impression (for example, the impression red) and the simple idea of an impression (for example, the idea red). An idea is a determination of the mind and, therefore, something that has a general way of existence. The idea red is related to the impression red. The impression red is something “real”, i. e., something that exists in space and time and has, therefore, a particular way of existence. But at the same time the impression is experienced and, in that sense, also a determination of the mind. This time, however, the determination of the mind is “immediate”: In its experience of the impression, the mind is in an immediate unity with reality. As a consequence, the experienced expression has a higher intensity than the simple idea. The problem is, however, how it is possible to discern qualitative different impressions (red, blue, pain etc.). An immediate relation excludes qualitative differences. A relation is immediate and, by implication, qualitatively undetermined; or a relation is qualitatively determined and, by implication, not immediate. A relation that is immediate, and at the same time qualitatively determined, is logically impossible.


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unity and, consequently, cannot be understood as the form in which the organism has its conscious unity. The mind as the conscious unity form of the organism has to be distinguished from the many stimuli in which the mind has a determined content. The mind must become aware of the stimuli as coming from outside, from an outside world, in distinction from the mind/body unity. The way to think of stimuli as coming from outside is elaborated by Immanuel Kant. As originating from an outside world, the stimuli24 have a spatial form, the form of existing-beside-one-another. As stimuli not only originating from outside but also determining the mind, they have the form of time, the form of existing-after-one-another.25 Stimuli situated by the mind in time and space are a multitude that are distinguished from the immediate mind/body unity. This does not mean, however, that the mind/ body unity has developed an adequate relation to the outside world and has transformed its pure existence into a determined existence. The mind/body unity remains beside the multitude of spatio-temporal stimuli. The multitude of stimuli do not constitute an independent world. Qualitatively, the stimuli remain undetermined. It is true that the stimuli have a spatio-temporal form, but this form belongs to any stimulus. Which stimuli are involved remains unclear.26 The stim24 Of course, Kant does not speak about stimuli, but rather about the “pure manifold” by which Intuition is affected. 25 Robert Pippin (2001), defends the thesis that Hegel “rejects the possibility of such reliance on pure intuitions, the possibility of considering the characteristics of a purely intuited manifold.” (p. 133) For Hegel, “there are no possible differences, no possible determinacy in any manifold means, unless already thought in certain non-sensible ways.” (p. 139) We will see, however, how Hegel understands the intuited nature as life, i. e., as a manifold that brings itself to unity. Hegel’s introduction of life is in no way “opaque”. (p. 138). 26 This is the point that is central at the level of Sense-Certainty, i. e., at the level of the first form of the mind/body relation that Hegel discusses in his Phenomenology of Spirit. Something that is sensory-given in time and space cannot be qualitatively determined in an immediate relation: All kinds of qualities can be immediately given. It is true that Hegel, at the level of Sense-Certainty, does not speak about stimuli, but rather about real things like “tree” and “house”. This, however, is not essential for what is at stake in this relation. The main point is the conclusion that something that is immediately given for the senses cannot be qualitatively identified. The I, the subject of Sense-Certainty is not presented as a mind that is in an immediate unity with its body. It is not even mentioned at all that the subject has a body. This is only explicated at the level of Self-consciousness. From the outside perspective, however, it is clear that the subject of Sense-Certainty has a

20


uli only reflect the internal dividedness of the organism. Any of the endless series of stimuli to which the organism is receptive can be taken into account. The determination of the stimuli only exists in the endless change of qualities, without having the possibility to concentrate on specific qualities. Only when the spatio-temporal stimuli have their own unity (distinct from the unity of the mind) can the mind/body unity adequately relate to them as to an objective world. Only then can the mind perceive itself as consciousness, i. e., as being related to an objective (outside) world. John Locke’s proposal for the solution of this problem will not do. He interprets the stimuli as properties, and thinks that these properties, thanks to the workings of the mind, can be understood as properties of an identity, i. e., as a complex idea in which the simple ideas of the properties are unified. In this way, however, the unity of things in the outside world is not an objective one, but rather a unity that is subjectively constituted. For the same reason, the unity of things in the world cannot be grounded on a priori schemes that belong to the mind or to the language in which the mind expresses itself: Also in that case, the unity remains external, i. e., subjectively constituted. The subjectivity of the unity that is ascribed to the things in the objective world can only be overcome by considering the radical revolution in the conception of nature that is introduced by modern science.27 The world of modern science no longer consists of things with properties, but rather of forces of nature. Modern science’s conception of nature has objectivity because it is the physical force that manifests itself in nature (or rather as nature). Compared to the conception of nature considered up until now, a certain reversion has been performed. Points of departure are no longer the perceived stimuli or properties, invoking the problem of their unification. For modern science, nature’s own body: After all, it is impossible to have sense experiences without the body. Precisely because the body is, at this level, for the mind only a black-box, it is not necessary to explicitly thematize the body. 27 The problems in Locke essentially correspond to the problems Hegel discusses at the second stage of Consciousness: Perception. It is impossible to identify an external thing by perception of properties. To succeed, the properties have to be conceived of as properties that, at the same time, include other properties (the number of properties of a thing can endlessly be enlarged) and exclude other properties (it must be possible to distinguish the properties of the one thing from the ones of the other). Worded differently, if the outside thing can only be identified by means of properties, it cannot be identified at all. The unity of the thing is not itself a property that can be perceived.


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unity is the point of departure: Nature consists of physical forces, i. e., of selves, unities that manifest themselves in a sensory form. What is perceived is already perceived as the expression of an inner unity all the time. Observations are no longer immediate, but rather mediated: Observations have developed into experimental observations that verify the law hypotheses formulated by the scientists. The inversion of modern science can be illustrated by an example from classical mechanics. The point masses introduced by classical mechanics are not spatio-temporal stimuli that have to be unified with other stimuli. The point mass that is experienced in time and space is considered to be a manifestation of gravitation; it is the manifestation of a unity that is already objectively working in nature all the time. In the experimental observation of a point mass in time and space, it appears that gravitation, i. e., the unity that is hypothetically assumed by the scientist, is an objective unity of nature itself. How objective, however, is the unity of the physical force itself ? What exactly is the ontological status of the physical force, or, to apply this question to the elaborated example, what is the ontological status of gravitation?28 Science determines gravitation in its law hypothesis: Under the influence of gravitation a point mass is involved in a certain movement, i. e., its time and space coordinates are put in a certain relation to one-another. The possibility to explain the point mass’s position in time and space as the result of the gravitational force depends on the definition of gravitation. Gravitation appears in its working on a point mass: It causes the time and space coordinates of the point mass to be put in a relation that can be described in a mathematical form. In other words, experimental observation does not result in the appearance of an objective self, but rather in the appearance of an objective self that is projected in nature by a subjective self, namely the scientist. This illustrates what Kant means with the Copernican turn of modern science.29 The unity of the object of experience is constituted by the subject of experience, i. e., the scientist.30 The preceding development has shown that if the mind/body unity is understood as an immediate one, it is not possible that the mind, from an 28 This example is discussed by Hegel at the level of the third stage of Consciousness, Understanding. Cf. The Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 93. 29 Cf. I. Kant, Critics of pure Reason, B XVI. 30 The Copernican turn is formulated by Hegel in terms of the “tautological movement” of Understanding. (PhoS, p. 95).

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inside perspective, relates to an objective reality that has an independent existence. From an inside perspective, the mind’s objective reality appears as constituted by the mind itself, and, in this sense, as a subjective reality. The positive result of this development is the mind that has become reflected in itself. It has been transformed from an undetermined existence into a being-in-itself, an “I”, or a “self ”. This development, however, was accompanied by a reduction: while, from an outside perspective, the mind was determined in immediate union with an independent organism, it seems that this organism, from an inside perspective, has become totally invisible. It seems that the mind can only conceive of itself as a being-in-itself in relation to an independence that is its own projection, i. e., in relation to an otherness that it has constituted, itself. To cancel the discrepancy between the inside and outside perspective we have to prove under what conditions the mind can still, from an inside perspective, relate to an objective world. Since, from an outside perspective, the independent reality has been determined as an independent organism, the question now is: Is the vision that the mind formulates from its inside perspective, namely that its objective world is constituted by itself, compatible with its position from the outside perspective, namely that the objective reality has to be understood as organism, i. e., as independent life? In the next section, I will discuss how this problem can be solved. We have to learn that the distinction between mind and body we made until now, remains too external, remains a distinction of Understanding. Departing from a body that is also a mind, we tried to think of their inner unity. We will see that mind and body already are a living unity all the time. The distinction between both has to be understood as the self-distinction of self-conscious life.

Self-consciousness The attempt to conceive of the mind/body unity in relation to an independent outside world has failed. From the inside perspective, the sensory perceivable world has been destroyed. As the “self ” or the “I”, the mind has emancipated itself from nature and has become a formal self that only accepts an independency that it has constituted, itself. This self looks like Descartes’s cogito. Like the cogito, it is a formal being-in-itself. Also the cogito seems to presuppose that the formal structure of being-in-itself is the only acceptable form of independence. (The formal being-in-itself

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of the cogito seems to allow a multitude of cogitos, although it is unclear where the other cogitos come from). The difference, however, between the mind that has developed itself into a formal self and the cogito is not only that, for the mind, other formal selves are not yet developed, but also that, from an outside perspective, the formal self of the mind is related to an independent organism, i. e., a body. The formal self of the mind also has a body (although it is ignorant of this fact). Therefore, the mind will not escape from confrontation with other organisms. Before it is possible to go into the mind’s confrontation with other organisms, another problem has to be solved. It has to be clear what it means to speak about an organism that is not finding its unity in the mind. Until now we conceived of the organism as a black box existing in an immediate unity with the mind. To maintain this unity towards the outside world, we had to understand in what way the mind is able to grasp the outside world as an independent world to exclude it from itself as the immediate mind/body unity. Meanwhile, it appears that nature can only be excluded as the otherness if the mind can understand itself as a pure self. Only then is its unity not threatened by otherness when the distinction with otherness is constituted by itself. Nature only has an own self, insofar as this self is assigned to it by the mind. This is also expressed by Descartes. The existence of the mind can only be conceived of as a pure existence, as pure self-determination. The distinction that the mind knows is constituted by itself. This conclusion evokes two problems. In the first place, there is the problem of dualism. If the mind is conceived of as a purely spiritual self, separated from natural reality, what meaning can it still have to speak about a relation between mind and body? And, in the second place, what meaning can still be given to the concept of organism? Until now, the organism was determined in its immediate unity with the mind. How can the organism’s independence be determined when it does not take its unity from the mind? Since the organism belongs to the world that is sensorially given, it is subjected to laws of nature. But this observation does not allow us to assign a self to the organism. This is only possible when the organism is also understood as life. It is true that the working of living organisms is also subjected to the laws of nature, but something else is added. An organism can be interpreted as a relatively stable system of forces, comparable, for example, to a planetary system. The working of the forces are brought into line in such a way that they maintain the unity of the system they

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are part of. It makes sense to represent the working of an organism by a teleological model: as if the working of the forces of nature in this case are oriented on the maintenance of the organism’s unity; as if the forces of nature strive after the survival of the organism. In that sense a practical self can be assigned to the organism, separated from the mind. As pure self, the mind can only separate itself from nature when nature has been grasped as living nature, as nature having a practical self that is separated from the self of the mind. But how do we solve the first problem mentioned above? Can the pure self relate to its body? It is true that from, an outside perspective, the pure self is related to a living organism, but this living organism is, from an inside perspective, unknown. Moreover, this living organism is not its own body, but an organism of the outside world. But of course, from an outside perspective, the pure self still has its own body. The immediate unity of mind and body was the point of departure we started with. The question is whether the pure self can ever experience its body without losing its purity. Just because the pure self is in immediate unity with its body, it cannot escape from experiencing it. As an organism, its body is needy, i. e., it is dependent on the outside world when reproducing itself. As we have seen before, this dependence manifests itself in stimuli to which the organism actively reacts. At the level of consciousness, this reaction threatened to undermine the mind’s unity. This unity could only be saved by perceiving the stimuli as part of an outside world, i. e., by perceiving them in the form of time and space. But the pure self ’s experience of the stimuli, i. e., the experience of self-consciousness, is not compatible with this form of time and space. Because the pure self as purely being-in-itself does not allow any relation to an outside world, it can, nevertheless, when experiencing an outside world (because of its corporeality) experience it only in an absolute negative form, i. e., in the form in which the pure self is totally threatened in its existence as being-purely-in-itself. The involvement of the pure self in the strange organism can only be conceived of in the form of pure negativity31: To res31 Josifovic (2008) adequately formulates: “As consciousness the new form in which subjectivity performs itself preserves, furthermore, the relation to the entire domain of what sensually appears, but in such a way that the entire content of this domain remains at the same time related to the unity of consciousness, and can, as a consequence, from the perspective of the constituting identity (as Self-consciousness) only represent an otherness or a difference.” [Als Bewusstsein behlt

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cue its own existence, the pure self has to destroy the existence of the strange organism.32 The pure negativity towards the strange organism can be articulated more closely in terms of neediness. Insofar as the body of the mind/body unity is needy, it is related to an outside world that is determined as a strange organism. The experience of neediness, however, contradicts the purely-being-in-itself of the pure self. Therefore, there is no room for a closer differentiation of neediness. Neediness as such is threatening, not some particular form of it. Therefore, the pure self turns against neediness as such. Only when it can eliminate neediness as such, can it maintain its pure existence. Up to a certain level, the elimination of neediness in relation to a strange organism is possible. The relation of neediness between the own organism of the mind/body unity and the strange organism implies that the integrity of the own organism is somehow threatened by the strange organism. If this would not be the case, then the own organism is not (practically) related to the strange organism at all. The threat of the strange organism can have an active form (if the own organism is subjected to the needs of the strange organism) or a passive form (if the strange organism is an object of the own needs, resulting in the experience of being dependent on the strange organism for satisfying the own needs). Both forms of the threat can be overcome when the own organism kills the strange organism and can make it its prey for satisfying its needs. Then the own organism has repaired its independence towards the outside world and is no longer related to any strange organism. After a while, however, the needs will return, and once again a relation to strange life arises to which the new needs are directed. In this variation of needs being satisfied and arising once again, the mind/body unity experiences the life process of its own organism by the strange life. Theredie neue Vollzugsweise der Subjektivitt weiterhin die Bezogenheit auf die gesamte Sphre des sinnlich Erscheinenden bei, jedoch derart, dass smmtliche Inhalte dieser Sphre zugleich auf die Einheit des Bewusstseins bezogen sind, somit aus der Perspektive der sich konstituierenden Identitt (als Selbstbewusstsein) nur ein Anderssein oder einen Unterschied darstellen.] p. 75. 32 Hegel calls this negative relation to the outside organism “Desire”: “The simple ‘I’ is the genus or the simple universal, for which the differences are not differences only by its being the negative essence of the shaped independent moments; and self-consciousness is thus certain of itself only by superseding this other that presents itself to self-consciousness as an independent life; self-consciousness is Desire.” (109).

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fore, it is impossible to eliminate the relation to strange life: This would only be possible if the mind/body unity could totally ignore its own body. If the relation to strange life cannot be eliminated, the identity of the pure self seems to be based on illusion. The presupposition of the pure self is that the own body is totally satisfied.33 It is, however, typical of an organism that this total satisfaction is impossible: After satisfaction, inevitably follow new needs. The attempt to conceive of the mind in a unity with an independent organism seems to have failed, because the result is a logical contradiction. If the mind has to be understood as a pure self that can only exist by totally excluding from itself the materiality of its organism, the demand cannot be made at the same time that the mind forms a necessary unity with its body. These conflicting points of departure make mind and body incompatible. The impression is aroused that those who conceive of man as a corporeal being that is also a spiritual being, inevitably have to admit to taking a Kantian position in which mind and body have their own realms. From a noumenal point of view, man is considered to be a spiritual being, but from a phenomenal point of view, however, a corporeal one. In that case, it is not possible to unify both points of view in a way that makes their unity understandable as a necessary one. If, however, the organism is considered to be a living one, the claim that man is separated into two different beings (mind and body) can hardly be maintained. If the organism dies, the pure self (man as spiritual being) seems to be automatically involved in its decay. This observation, however, in no way solves the problem of the unity between mind and body. If the mind disappears together with the body, the mind is made a kind of epiphenomenon adhering to corporeal functioning. In effect, the mind is reduced to the body. The mind loses its independence, im33 Self-consciousness as Desire has, so to say, synthesized the pure manifold all the time: in its own unity, the pure manifold is sublated. Cf. Josifovic (2008): “In this sense, one would … maintain that the way in which subjectivity performs itself is Desire, i. e., if it leaves its immediate identity (as abstract I or motionless tautology), and orients itself to the manifold of the world of experience, but in such a way that it negates the independent existence of the world of experience and wants to maintain itself as truth towards the difference.” [Man wrde in diesem Sinne … festhalten, dass die Art und Weise, auf die sich die Subjektivitt vollzieht, wenn sie aus ihrer unmittelbaren Identitt (als abstraktes Ich oder bewegungslose Tautologie) heraustritt und sich auf die Mannigfaltigkeit der Erfahrungswelt einlsst, so jedoch, dass sie das selbststndige Bestehen der Erfahrungsgegenstnde negiert und sich als Wahrheit gegenber dem Unterschied behaupten will, Begierde ist.] p. 80.

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plying that there cannot be a question of a real relation between mind and body. The mind that is reduced to a property of an organism no longer has an own self at its disposal that enables to relate to the body. If the problem of the relation between mind and body can be solved, mind is not only a property. The preceding exposition teached that the problem of the unity between mind and body cannot be solved insofar as the mind/body unity is related to an outside organism. Inside and outside perspective cannot be brought into harmony. From the inside perspective the body is excluded, but from the outside perspective the mind is in unity with the body. Therefore, the outside world confronts the mind/body unity to what it wants to exclude, namely a natural world. If the unity of mind and body can be solved at all, the mind/body unity must not relate to an outside organism, but rather to an outside world that is a mind/body unity, as well.34 In the symmetrical relation between two mind/body unities, it seems to be possible that the inside and outside perspective correspond to one another. The inside perspective in which the body is excluded as an inessential reality, seems to be affirmed by the outside perspective that focuses on the mind/body unity’s relation to the outside world. In the framework of the symmetrical relation just mentioned, the outside world is a mind that excludes the body as well. The outside world is the reality of what the mind/body unity subjectively thinks to be. The problem is, however, that the conceptualization of the symmetrical relation between two mind/body unities is not trivial, and even seems to be impossible. An outside mind cannot immediately be made the object of the mind. The being-object-of-the-mind is mediated by its body. But how can a mind that makes an embodied mind its object differentiate between a embodied mind and a strange organism in general? Rather, it seems to be obvious that it perceives the strange mind/body simply as a strange organism. As a consequence, it would deal with the strange mind/body unity as it would deal with any strange organism: It would try to destroy the strange organism in order to rescue its existence as pure self. Since the relation between the two mind/body unities is symmetrical, both unities would try to destroy each other. The result

34 Cf. “Self-consciousness achieves its satisfaction only in another self-consciousness.” (110).

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would be a struggle of life and death ending up in the death of one of the two unities.35 The attempt to develop the adequate relation between mind and body as the symmetrical relation between two mind/body unities seems to definitely fail when the struggle results in the death of one of them. Nevertheless, there is a tradition in philosophy in which the struggle of life and death between individuals or between groups is presented as a struggle for recognition. In this tradition, the struggle between individuals can result in a situation in which the struggle is overcome because the individuals constitute a symmetrical relation of recognition, i. e., a relation in which the individuals relate to one another as self-consciousnesses. Thomas Hobbes, for example, has the opinion that the so-called “legal status” (in which the individuals recognize one another as persons who participate in a legal order) can be conceived of as a transition from the “natural status” (in which the individuals relate to one another in a struggle of life and death).

Is the transition from the natural into the legal status possible? According to Thomas Hobbes, the “natural status” can be described as a struggle of all against all. The goal of the struggle is the maintenance of the own life. While defending the own life all is permitted, even the killing of the others. This is the consequence of the ius naturale, the law of nature that ultimately comes down to kill or be killed.36 The natural status, however, can be sustained when the individuals enter into a social contract. In that case, they submit to a ruler under the condition that he succeeds in overcoming the mutual struggle. Therefore, in the transition from the natural status into the legal status, one absolute ruler is ex35 In my opinion, Hegel’s formulation of the struggle is somewhat confusing: “Similarly, just as each stakes his own life, so each must seek the other’s death, for it values the other no more than itself; its essential being is present to it in the form of an ‘other’, it is outside of itself and must rid itself of its self-externality.” (114) It is only from an outside perspective that the struggle can be conceived of as a struggle for recognition. From an inside perspective, the distinction between a strange organism and a strange self-consciousness cannot yet be made. That the self-consciousness “values the other no more than itself ” can only be said from an external reconstruction of this relation. We will see that only the fear of death results in self-consciousness’s awareness of its body. 36 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, London, 1959, p. 66.

Is the transition from the natural into the legal status possible?

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changed for another: The power of death is replaced by the power of the social ruler. The profit that is achieved by this transition is the social order. This order creates room for the labor that produces the riches dedicated to life. In the social contract, the struggle for survival is continued by other means: The social order can be a more effective means to guarantee the survival. The means fails if the ruler cannot maintain the social order. Under these circumstances, the legitimacy of the ruler is undermined and the subjects have the right to chase him away. The distinction between nature and culture seems to be paper thin. The peace to be brought about by culture can be threatened at any moment. The return to the natural status remains always possible, and ultimately depends on the calculation made by the individuals. Hobbes’s construction, however, is based on a false presupposition. If the individuals in the natural status have the opportunity to calculate and ask themselves whether or not a contract with a ruler means an improvement, they have, in fact, already left the natural status. If the natural status is characterized by the practical struggle of life and death, there is no room for calculation or for reflecting the other’s position as a potential contract partner. Whoever is able to reflect, and knows the difference between a relation of struggle and a relation of contract, is already part of a cultural order all the time. Therefore, Hobbes’s conception of the transition from the natural into the legal status has failed. The reflecting selfconsciousness cannot be at the same time the presupposition and the result of the transition.37 Maybe the natural status can be left otherwise. Maybe a legal status can be created that is not the result of a contract, but rather follows from a purely practical development. In that case, the legal order does not presuppose a self-consciousness that already has the ability to reflect and make free choices. The animal world seems to offer a lot of examples of a living-together without a developed self-consciousness. Maybe these examples can help to construct alternative ways for overcoming the natural status. Innumerable animal species live together without having a legal order. Their peaceful cohabitation is not trivial: Animals also have the possibility to struggle even when they belong to the same species. Therefore, their 37 Cf. PhR § 75 comment: “The intrusion of this contractual relation, and relationships concerning private property generally, into the relation between the individual and the state has been productive of the greatest confusion in both constitutional law and public life.”

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living-together presupposes a principle that banishes the struggle and allows them to coordinate their conduct. The cohabitation of the members of a flock not only implies that they can live in each others neighborhood, but also that they have the ability to coordinate action. Only this coordination gives the flock its unity as a flock. The behavior of animals that coordinate action and form a flock can be described as the realization of a general law. For, action coordination only has a meaning under the assumption of a general action goal that is served by it, for example, the survival of the flock. This general goal can be interpreted as a general law that is realized by coordinated action. If it concerns the animals of a flock, the origin of such a general law can be explained from innate instincts. It can be put forward that these animals from a natural predestination are predetermined to live in a flock, although it does not have to be clear in advance which position they will take within the flock. In some flocks the struggle for leadership can break out in which the strongest succeeds. Even in that case, the existence of the flock as such is not the result of the physical power of a triumphing leader. The struggle is not about the constitution of the flock, but rather about the individual that will exercise the leading role in the flock. If the base of the flock’s living-together is interpreted in terms of a general law, this does not make the flock a legal society. It is true that the legal status enables one to distinguish between actions that do or do not correspond to the law. But this distinction gets the legal meaning only if it is known by the actors. An animal of the flock can disobey the law. But it can only experience its breach of the law if its behavior is practically punished; for example, when it went too far from the flock and is, because of that, caught by a predator. A law can only become the law of a legal order if it is known by the actors, and the actors know what action is legal and what is illegal, what action observes the law and what action does not. Legal order presupposes reflecting self-consciousness and cannot be situated in a natural order. Once again, the conclusion runs that the legal status is not preceded by a natural one.38 Although the relation 38 Wildt (1984) seems to suggest that in Hegel the legal status is preceded by a natural struggle: “Oppositely, one has to say that Hegel, in this expression, affirms the appearance again that the struggle is at all possible as a relation of pre-ethical and, at the same time, self-conscious human subjects, i. e., as Robinsonate.” [“Umgekehrt muß man jedoch sagen, daß der Kampf als ein Verhltnis vorsittlicher und zugleich selbstbewußter menschlicher Subjekte berhaupt mçglich ist

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of the struggle can be overcome at the level of living nature in the form of instinctual laws in which the struggle is transformed in cooperation, these instinctual laws have no legal status. The laws of the legal status have to be self-conscious. Until now, we assumed that the mind/body unity can only exist if it is able to exclude the strange organism. We concluded that this demands that the struggle of life and death with the strange organism is overcome, and suggested that this goal could be achieved in a symmetrical relation to another mind/body unity, i. e., in a “legal status”. We have argued that the constitution of the legal status cannot be conceived of as a temporal transformation of the natural status. The mind/body unity can only exist if it has been participating in a legal order all the time. As participant of the legal order, the mind/body unity is no longer confronted with a strange objectivity, i. e., the strange organism that has to be excluded. Objectivity has lost its strangeness because it has been transformed in the law that is known by the mind. Therefore, the objectivity is no longer practically excluded, but recognized as an objectivity that has lost its otherness. Insofar as it can be known by the mind, objectivity and mind must in some way or another be “the same”. The attempt to overcome the contradictions in which the mind/body unity gets involved, has led to a fundamental change in its determination: The negative exclusion of strange objectivity has turned into a positive reception of an objectivity that is knowable. This change, however, has not been performed from an inside perspective. This perspective will be elaborated in one of the next sections. Before doing this, however, I will, in the next section, go into the essential characteristics of the legal status.

Self-consciousness and the legal status The actors’ knowledge of the general law of action is a sufficient precondition to identify this general law with the legal status. The law can be ascribed to an original lawgiver or be conceived of as having a divine origin; it can have been transformed into law-instinctual behavior that, without legal order, would also have been performed; it can serve the interest of many people or that of only one individual. To be valid as a legal order it is sufficient that the law is known as law. Being known, the law – also als Robinsonade.”]. p. 377. However, we will see that all stages of the development of consciousness are abstractions of the concrete totality of the polis.

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loses its purely practical status. If it is also understood that the law is practically valid, the law counts as a legal law. Without this insight, the general law is exercised as a blind law of nature that not only models the actions, but also determines them. Only when the actor is self-conscious and understands to observe the law does he no longer coincide with his practical actions. Only then, not only the possibility arises not to observe the general law (incidentally this could have been the case before), but also the possibility to know that the own actions do not correspond to the general law. Only then can the actor be made responsible for his actions, and will it make sense to subject him to jurisdiction. The responsible actor who does not observe the general law commits injustice and has to bear the consequences of his behavior. Whoever commits injustice lets himself in for the sanctions of the jurisdiction. This overcomes in two ways the blindness of the general law that is only natural. Not only will the violation of the general law lose its innocence, but also the sanctions that punish the violation. The general law that is known, is also known by the power that maintains the general law. Therefore, the sanctions on violation of the law are no longer practical punishments of mindless behavior (the animal that ventures too far from the flock is seized by hostile claws) but are self-conscious actions. In both cases, the offender against the general law brings a hostile power upon himself. But when the general law has become legal, the hostile power has lost its blindness. The punishment for the breach of the law is no reaction of nature, but a self-conscious action that could not have come off (for example, in case the offender is granted mercy). In both cases, the hostile power that has been aroused can lead to the same results. The offender who is killed by the blind power of nature can die under legal conditions, as well (when he is punished by death). Therefore, the decisive distinction between the natural and the legal status is not the effect of the power that realizes the general law, but the character of the general power: Is this power blind or self-consciousness? From the outside perspective, it cannot be judged whether the animal of the flock observes the general law because his instincts do not leave him other possibilities, or because he has knowledge of the sanctions that illegal actions can evoke.

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Violence, power and the legal status The general law is neither a legal law on the basis of its origin, nor on the basis of its content. Also, a general law that is enacted by a cruel dictator to serve his own interest can become a legal law. Of course, no plea is needed to observe that the legitimacy of this kind of legal law is highly problematic. If these laws can be called legal, then these legal laws, at the least, are not fair. But why it is nevertheless about legal law? Must the law as legal law be separated from any moral notion, and is it, therefore, a neutral means that can be used by everyone to exercise power, also by a cruel dictator? Still, what is the difference between the blind violence of nature and the random will of a cruel dictator? Indeed, insofar as the will of the dictator has the form of a random will, the difference is not essential. At the moment, however, that the dictator, in the exercise of his power, appeals to a general law, this power execution has lost a bit of its arbitrariness and is characterized by the very beginning of reasonableness.39 Power execution based on random will, is not distinguished from violence. Whoever becomes the victim of this power execution, does not know where he stands. There is no way to anticipate the ruler, because the victim does not know what the former wants. Therefore, this form of power execution is not effective to enforce the subjects to coordinate their actions. Because the power has not any general criterion at its disposal, it only gets validity in the here and now, i. e., it can only ad hoc enforce an action by immediately threatening with violence. The fear that is evoked by the exercised violence, or by the threatening of violence, is the only ground to obey the ruler. The first step to restrain the random will of the dictator is made at the moment that the power is exercised in the name of a general law that is generally known (i. e., not only by the dictator). At that moment, the dictator commits himself to a norm. If the dictator observes the norm 39 Vgl. J. Hollak, Recht en Macht (Wijsgerig Perspectief 11 (1970/71): “Wil ze (i. e. de macht) zich dan ook als deze vorm blijvend handhaven, dan zal ze niet alleen de aan haar macht nu onderworpenen maar ook zichzelf moeten binden aan de, aan haar innerlijke tegenstelling van geboden en verboden geweld ten grondslag liggende regel alsook deze inhoudelijk moeten rechtvaardigen, daar ze anders zou terugvallen tot haar fase van puur geweld”. (p.322). [“If it (i. e., the power) wants lastingly maintain itself in this form, then it has to bind not only those who are subjected to its power, but also itself to the rule that underlies its inner contradiction of demanded and forbidden violence. Moreover, it has to justify the content of this rule, because it will otherwise fall back in its phase of pure violence”.]

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of a general law, the subjects know where they are standing. They know how to behave for preventing the exercise of violence against them. Only in this way does it become possible to enforce action coordination. Only in this way is the most elementary condition satisfied to enforce social order. This grounds the dictator’s interest to observe the general law himself, although he, as dictator, is not obliged to. Because the law is generally known, the subjects immediately know whether the ruler observes the law that he has enacted (or at least has approved). If it appears that the ruler does not observe the law, it offers the subjects no advantage to observe the law themselves. For, they do not know whether this is sufficient to ward off violence. Therefore, by not observing the law, the ruler undermines the social order and risks that the power gets the shape of the exercise of pure violence. The publicity of the law does not make it a fair one. Publicity, for example does not need to imply that all are equal for the law. Only the continuity of the law is guaranteed, because a public law cannot be changed from day to day. Taken in itself, however, publicity is compatible with all content, however unfair it may be. Public law can discriminate between women and men, white and black, nobility and ordinary people. The public law could even shamelessly formulate that the only important interest is the interest of the dictator. It may be clear that the public law cannot have all content. If it is not more attractive to observe the law than not to observe it, the viability of the law cannot be explained. Therefore, we can ask ourselves whether minimal conditions can be formulated to which a viable law has to correspond. What minimal guarantees has the law to offer to make obedience to the law more attractive than its violation? According to Thomas Hobbes, the law applies with the minimal condition we are looking for when it enables one to avert death. In the meantime, however, we presented the arguments against Hobbes’ position. The institution of the legal status necessarily implies that the ruling general law is known by the self-conscious individuals. Knowledge of the law characterizes the distinction between the natural society of the flock and the human society of the legal status. Therefore, a human society exists of self-conscious individuals, not of individuals who are purely natural. For self-conscious individuals, the purely physical survival can never be a sufficiently legitimate basis of the ruling power. This would result in a remarkable contradiction. How can a status that lacks room for selfconsciousness (a society in which survival is the highest criterion) offer a solution to an individual who is confronted with the legitimate prob-

Violence, power and the legal status

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lems just because of his self-consciousness? Therefore, the conclusion must follow that an individual living in a social order (i. e., a self-conscious individual) can only affirm the legitimacy of this order if it guarantees his survival as self-conscious individual. What, however, is the consequence of the aforementioned condition? Is a legal order able at all to guarantee the survival of a self-conscious individual? Whoever is self-conscious, is conscious of his own independence. The self-consciousness distinguishes between itself and the outside world. The outside world is a strange independence, but at the same time it is considered continuously by the self-consciousness. In that sense the outside world only has independence for the self-consciousness, and the real independence is transferred to the self-consciousness. The outside world can never be more important than the self-consciousness, because the distinction between the self-consciousness and the outside world is only brought about by the self-consciousness, itself. But also, a potential dictator belongs to the outside world. How can the self-consciousness ever conform to a dictator without doing violence to itself ? Is it not typical of the self-consciousness to put itself in the center of the world? How can the self-consciousness maintain itself and at the same time tolerate a dictator in the center? This paradox can only be overcome if self-consciousness thinks that putting a dictator in the center of the world is compatible with putting itself in the center of the world. In other words, self-consciousness must immediately identify itself with the dictator. But why would it do so? The last question starts from the wrong assumptions. It presupposes that self-consciousness coincides with the self-conscious individual who is more or less able to make his autonomous choices. We will see that such an individual will only originate when the legal order has passed through a development. In the elementary definition of self-consciousness, the individual, autonomous choice is not yet at stake at all. The distinction between action in the framework of a flock and self-conscious action in the framework of a legal order is determined by the general law on which the action is based: Does or does not the actor know the general law? Action that is determined by instinctual laws belongs to the natural status; if the general law is known, the natural status has been overcome and transformed into the legal status. Therefore, the question is not whether self-consciousness would conform to a dictator, but rather, it must be observed that there is only a question of a self-consciousness if action is per-

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formed according to a known general law. Self-consciousness has conformed to a dictator all the time, i. e., to a known general law.40 The observation that self-consciousness has always conformed to a dictator can also be expressed otherwise: For self-consciousness, the law primarily has the status of natural right, i. e., the law rules immediately and has an absolute, divine status. Although the law is known, this in no way means that there is room for the consciousness not to accept the law. Therefore, it is true that at this stage, right is a form of power exercise that, up to a certain level, can be called reasonable (the ruling law is known, random will is prevented) but from an outside perspective, the power exercise has been externally imposed. The factual laws of nature (determining instinctual action) are replaced by laws that are factual, as well, namely the laws of a holy tradition. The elementary legal status can be illustrated by the position of Aristotle, who defines the human being as the animal rationale. To understand the human being we have to conceive of him as an animal that also has a mind at his disposal. The animal strives after the survival of his species. His actions are programmed according the laws of his instinct. As a rational animal the human being has a “logos”. This means that his striving after survival is not programmed according instinctual laws, but rather according to self-conscious laws, the laws of the state in which he is living. Therefore, the state is conceived of as the objectification of the human species, as social organism in which man gives shape to his striving for survival as a self-conscious being. Aristotle characterizes the state as the second nature, as an objective reality that replaces the objective reality of the first nature, i. e., the nature of the body. Both forms of objectivity are expressed in the ruling of laws. In the case of the first nature, these laws are naturally given; in the case of the second nature, the laws are established by men. Therefore, the laws of the second nature can change, i. e., the human being is an animal that can go through a historical development. In Aristotle’s view, the contradiction between mind and body that could not be solved at an individual level, is overcome. The mind has 40 Houlgate (2006) is right when he remarks that not “ … all such life and death struggles in history issue in relations of dominance and subservience.” (69) But he seems to suggest that sometimes (although not always) relations of dominance and subservience are the result of life and death struggles. Central in Hegel’s position is, however, that a natural life and death struggle is incompatible with the existence of self-consciousness.

Self-consciousness and the overcoming of exclusion

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got an own body in the organism of the state. This organism is not determined by nature because the body of the mind is understood as second nature, i. e., as a nature whose laws are determined by the mind.

Self-consciousness and the overcoming of exclusion The exposition of the elementary legal status in the two preceding sections becomes totally superfluous if it remains unclear how the self-consciousness that has to exclude the strange organism can develop into a self-consciousness with a positive relationship to external objectivity. We started with the immediate unity of mind and body. Only when all stages of the development of this relation are necessary will the mind/ body unity be preserved. Moreover, we know now that the transition from a self-consciousness that excludes the strange organism into a selfconsciousness that has a positive relation to a social organism, can neither be the result of a struggle nor of any other temporal development. Rather, it must be shown that the self-consciousness has to integrate conditions that from the outside perspective are clear, but, from the inside perspective, remained hidden until now. Transitions of this kind are logical ones. They change the conceptual determination of self-consciousness in order to overcome the discrepancy between the inside and the outside perspective. From an outside perspective, the self-consciousness that wants to exclude the strange organism, is also itself an organism: It is a mind that is in immediate unity with its body. Because of this body, external forces can work on self-consciousness and ultimately cause its death: Sometime the mind/body unity will be confronted with an external power that it cannot overcome, i. e., the absolute power of death. According to Hegel, the absolute power of death can be experienced by the mind in a relation that he qualifies as the “fear of death”.41 The fear of death plays a key role in the solution of the mind/body problem. To elucidate this claim we need a closer analysis of the concept. The mind, that before had no awareness at all of its body, experiences in the fear of death its life as such, i. e., it is related to its own organism as such. Because of this, the 41 It must be clear that this “fear of death” is not the existential fear of death of a real individual. The real individual has to be developed as the concrete unity of mind and body. But the “fear of death” will appear to be a sublated moment in the real individual.

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mind knows the independence of its own organism: The mind knows it in its finitude and mortality. But at the same time, the mind is not absorbed in this finitude and mortality. Because of its knowledge, the mind distinguishes itself from the finitude and mortality of its organism. Neither is the mind the essence of the organism, for in that case it would be conceived of as a kind of (essential) property. The fear of death is, rather, the experience in which the mind not only relates to the organism as an independent being, but also, at the same time becomes aware of its own independence that is distinguished from the independence of the organism. The mind has a transcendental openness to its organism and, therefore, can be receptive to the own nature of the organism, i. e., it is able to understand the organism as an independent self. At the same time, however, the mind experiences that the self of its organism is not pure. The self of the organism is sunk in nature, i. e., it is not a self for itself, but only for the mind. And just because the mind conceives of its organism as this impure, practical self, it can become aware of itself as the pure self, i. e., the self whose determinations are self-determinations. If the fear of death can be understood in this way, it is the key for the solution of the problem we formulated: The fear of death enables the pure self to relate to its organism in its own independence. The mind/ body problem is not solved by raising the question of how mind and body can be brought together in an inner unity, but only by the assumption of an organism that is already an inner unity of mind and body at all times. Only a mental organism is able to develop an explicit insight into the relation between mind and body, namely by means of the fear of death it suffers. The problem is not how the pure self can relate to an independent organism. There is only a question of a pure self insofar as it has brought about a relation to its organism. In that sense, the purelybeing-for-itself of the mind’s self is the really-being-for-itself of the organism that has been brought to its pure concept. Only in the fear of death can the pure self be explicitly distinguished from the independent self of its organism. To understand Hegel’s concept of the fear of death, we have to analyze his understanding of the organism. Like the force of lifeless nature, the organism has the form of a self: It is a unity manifesting itself.42 The

42 Cf. “But for us, or in itself, the object which for self-consciousness is the negative element has, on its side, returned into itself, just as on the other side conscious-


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difference, however, is that the self of the organism is an objective self, not a self that is constituted by the scientist. Independent from scientific reason, the organism shows its unity by performing the life functions it needs to maintain its organism. At the moment of the fear of death, Hegel describes the mind/body unity as “a conscious forced back into itself ” (117). The organism of the mind/body unity is no longer able to express its life functions: These are forced back into the unity of the organism, making that the mind/body unity experiences the unity of its life, as such. In that sense the mind/body unity taken as an organism is, in its fear of death, the really-being-for-itself.43 It is typical for the mind/ body unity taken as a mind that it can experience the fear of death.44 In the fear of death, the mental organism is the pure self, the pure being-for-itself that knows its organism as itself in the form of otherness. In the fear of death the mind/body unity is transformed into a self-relation: The mind perceives itself as the pure self that is related to its self in the form of otherness, i. e., to its organism that is forced back into itself. In the fear of death, the mind is related to an organism that is not strange, i. e., to its own organism that it can recognize as itself in the form of otherness. An animal can experience the fear of death when it is confronted with an absolute power, the power of death. It can try to escape from this power and flee, or it can resist this power and fight, or it is killed because there is no room for fleeing or fighting. The self-conscious organism, however, processes the fear of death in its own way. Before we considered the fear of death, the mind was related to a strange organism that it wanted to exclude. In that relation it had no awareness of its own organism, its own body. Its body was, so to speak, an unknown means, unnoticed servness has done. Through this reflection into itself the object has become Life.” (106). 43 Cf. “ … for it has experienced the fear of death, the absolute Lord. In that experience it has been quite unmanned, has trembled in every fibre of its being, and every thing solid and stable has been shaken to its foundations. But this pure universal movement, the absolute melting-away of everything stable, is the simple, essential nature of self-consciousness, absolute negativity, pure being-for-itself, which consequently is implicit in this consciousness.” (117). “In that experience it has been quite unmanned” is the translation of “Es ist darin innerlich aufgelçst worden”. A better translation would have been: “Its differentiated life experiences have been transformed in an inner experience of unity”. 44 We will still see that this experience of the fear of death will get shape by representing the fear of death in a lord: “This moment of pure being-for itself is also explicit for the bondsman, for in the lord it exists for him as its object.” (117).

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ing the mind. The mind was a lord, served by an unnoticed servant. When, however, the body is subjected to an absolute power, the mind can no longer ignore the reality of its body, it sees through the finitude of its organism and becomes aware of its own mortality. This knowledge of the mortality is a relation of the pure self to its organism. The pure self has torn away from the practical relations of its organism. In that sense, the pure self is free: It has freed itself from the natural determinations. Because of this freedom, the pure self is able to have an open relation to its organism: It conceives of its organism in its own nature, i. e., as a finite organism. The mind knows that it only relates to its organism insofar as this relation is put forth by itself. The finite organism only appears insofar as the pure self has distinguished itself from it and relates itself as pure self to its real self, i. e., to its real being-for-itself. Insofar as it is now possible for the pure self, having experienced the fear of death, to relate to an independent organism, i. e., its own organism, the problem of the unity of mind and body is solved from an inside perspective. From an outside perspective, however, the solution has still not been found. The fear of death is not only temporal, i. e., linked to the moment in which the fear of death is experienced, but also dependent on an absolute power (death) that is practiced on the organism from outside. If the fear of death is dependent on the working of an absolute power, neither the independence of the pure self, nor the independence of the organism has been adequately expressed. Faced with the absolute power of death, both lose their independence. To understand the adequate unity of mind and body at least two problems have to be solved. Insofar as the fear of death plays a role, it must not just have a temporal validity. With the temporality of the fear of death, in some sense death itself has to be overcome. For the unity of mind and body may not lose its independence on behalf of the absolute power of death. At first sight, it seems impossible to satisfy both demands. However, we have already seen that the key for solving the problem can be found in Aristotle. He also makes an attempt to conceive of the unity of mind and body. Because he does not situate the problem at the level of the individual, but at the level of the human species, he offers an entrance to overcome death: The individual dies, but the species survives. The way in which the relation between mind and body gets shape in the fear of death can be connected with Aristotle’s conception of the animal rationale when the absolute power that causes the fear of death has the form of another self-consciousness. Under this assumption, the rela-


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tion of the fear of death is transformed in Aristotle’s state organism if the following conditions are fulfilled. The pure self that in its fear of death is related to its organism as to the self in the form of the otherness, objectively contemplates in the other self-consciousness, the self that it thinks to be itself. As the source of its fear of death, the other self-consciousness has absolute power over the first self-consciousness. Therefore, the other self-consciousness is also the source of the experience in which the first self-consciousness knows itself as the “lord” of its body.45 The lord of the body, whom the pure self subjectively thinks to be, therefore, objectively appears in the other self-consciousness.46 The first self-consciousness can recognize the other self-consciousness and practically expresses this recognition. In its actions it no longer expresses the instinctual laws of its organism, but the legal laws that are imposed by the recognized lord. By serving the legal law of the recognized lord, the first self-consciousness has become part of a state organism that corresponds to Aristotle’s conception.47 By recognizing the other self-consciousness as the lord of the body, the pure self is recognized as the absolute power over reality. By observing the lord’s law, human autonomy is expressed. The state organism can be understood as a reality in which the relation of the fear of death is objectively, i. e., institutionally embodied. The relation of the fear of death no longer gets lost by the death of the individual or by an external absolute power.

45 Cf. Josifovic (2008): “To prove itself as the true identity towards its appearance, the subject has to prove itself as the lord of its body.” [“Um sich als wahrhaftige Identitt gegenber seine Erscheinung zu erweisen, muss es sich als Herr ber seinen eigenen Kçrper erweisen.” p. 81]. 46 Robert Pippin (2001) has no right when he states that the “significance of human labor … is initially merely the avoidance of death.” (162) or that “self-determination, viewed as originating in the “fear of death,” is wholly undetermined by any specific telos or preset value, some absolute of greater value than life.” (162). Precisely the opposite is true: The labor in service of the lord is an attempt to realize the absolute essence: self-consciousness. 47 Although Josifovic (2008) analyzes the structure of the fear of death differently, his conclusion is the same: In the fear of death, self-consciousness learns that the unity of the species is its essence. (Cf. p. 123.).

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The Lord/Bondsman relation We have seen that the mind/body relation, mediated by the fear of death, has been transformed in the lord/bondsman relation. 48 While the mind, at the individual level, can only exclude the body, at the social level inclusion of the body appears to be possible. It seems that the lord can be interpreted as the institutionalized mind and the bondsman as the institutionalized body, i. e., as the body that functions in the framework of a social organism. At the social level, mind and body seem to be distributed over two distinguished social roles: lord and bondsman. However, to avoid misunderstandings, this explanation of the lord/bondsman relation needs some essential refinements. To begin with, until now we have characterized the mind as the pure self. In no way is it possible to assert that the lord is the social objectification of the mind. Just because the mind is pure, it cannot be absorbed in any objectification. Rather, the lord is a specific historical representation of the mind. The mind can be embodied in a social organism, but the mind as mind, i. e., the pure self, remains separated from this organism. Secondly, lord and bondsman cannot one-sidedly be conceived of as social roles. The Marxist tradition, for example, to interpret lord and bondsman respectively as the ruling and the oppressed class, is not compatible with Hegel’s intentions.49 Lord and bondsman are, rather, technical and metaphorical terms that are useful to express the mind/body unity as a dialectical relation. As a dialectical unity, mind and body can be represented as the dialectical unity of lord and bondsman. But once again, the mind can never be identified with its realization in a dialectical unity. As pure self, the mind remains transcendental, a free self that is not determined by natural relations. The crux of the development of the adequate unity between mind and body is exactly localized in the problem that the mind, on the one hand, is free, i. e., a transcendental 48 Hegel introduces the lord/bondsman relation as “two opposed shapes of consciousness; one is the independent consciousness whose essential nature is to be for itself, the other is the dependent consciousness whose essential nature is simply to live or to be for another. The former is the lord, the other the bondsman.” (115). 49 The bondsman is not “forced by the master to work on things” (p. 69) as Houlgate (2006) puts forward. The bondsman serves the lord in a relation of recognition (that is only practically expressed): for the bondsman, the lord is immediately his own essence. His submission to the lord is self-submission.

The Lord/Bondsman relation

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being, and on the other hand, is embodied in the dialectical relation between mind and body.50 Thirdly, the turn of phrase in which it is said (apparently also by Hegel51) that the bondsman recognizes the lord as his lord can be misleading. In no way does the recognition at this level concern an inter-subjective relation between individuals in which the bondsman (one-sidedly) recognizes another individual as his lord. To speak about recognition at this level makes sense only from an outside perspective. The mind has recognized its body as its own self in the form of otherness. This recognition is institutionalized in the lord/bondsman relation. From an inside perspective, this recognition is no relation at all. The recognition of the lord is practically expressed when the bondsman serves the lord, i. e., acts according the legal law. At this level, however, the relation between the legal law and the bondsman is immediate. The legal laws have the form of traditional values and norms on which the actions of the bondsman are immediately (i. e., without any critical distance) based. We will see that the lord, initially, is not a worldly ruler, but rather a god, i. e., a representation of the bondsman’s absolute essence. Keeping in mind the aforementioned warnings, the lord/bondsman relation can be conceived of as Hegel’s basic model for the conception of the unity of mind and body. From an outside perspective, the model is characterized by two forms of recognition, a vertical one and a horizontal one. The vertical recognition concerns the relation between the pure self and the social organism. The social organism is recognized as the histor50 Therefore, I totally disagree with Pippin (“What is the Question for which Hegel’s Theory of Recognition is the Answer?”), when he states: “Being spiritual beings is an historical achievement of certain animals; not the manifestation of an immaterial or divine substance. Said much more simply: The Left-Hegelians were right.” (p. 13) Consequently, I also reject his thesis that “There is no supernaturalism or ‘noumenalism’ in such an account and it is completely non-dualist.” (p.14). 51 Hegel characterizes the recognition between lord and bondsman as “a recognition that is one-sided and unequal.” (116). Therefore, this relation has nothing to do with inter-subjectivity. “To begin with, servitude has the lord for its essential reality; hence the truth for it is the independent consciousness that is for itself.” (117). That the lord is the essential reality is only practically expressed by the bondsman, namely by his labor in service of the lord. Even if the bondsman has developed self-consciousness (thanks to his labor activities), this does not result in a recognition of the lord: He only “sees” his own being in the lord: “It is in this way, therefore, that consciousness, qua worker, comes to see in the independent being [of the object] its own independence.” (118).

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ical embodiment of the pure self. As pure self, the individual is absolute, an end in itself. Therefore, the vertical recognition has to do with the domain of morality and (as we will see later on) human rights. The horizontal recognition is situated within the social organism. The social organism is realized by members who observe a legal law. All members are absolute equals insofar as they are moral individuals. Because of this absolute equality, they will express themselves as free and equal citizens of the social organism. Therefore, the horizontal recognition has to do with the domain of right. Thus, the lord/bondsman relation, with its two dimensions of recognition, is an elementary model to integrate the domains of right and morality (of human rights and democracy). From an inside perspective, however, the domains of right and morality are still undeveloped. The individuals are totally involved in the practice of the social organism.52 They cannot differentiate between their social role and their absolute value as pure selves. Neither they can differentiate between their social role and their freedom and equality as citizens. Only when the pure self is integrated in the inside perspective, when the contradiction between outside and inside perspective is overcome, can the social organism be conceived of as the adequate unity of right and morality, of democracy and human rights.

The historical reality of the lord/bondsman relation Although in the lord/bondsman relation the mind/body unity has not yet found its adequate form, it can be illustrated by historical societies. The absolute power with which the mind is confronted can be a natural power. Also a natural power can be recognized by the mind as its lord. In that case, the natural power is considered as a spiritual power, as a god who immediately represents the pure self of the mind. Hegel gives several examples of natural powers that are worshipped as gods53 : god as light (the sun), god as flower or god as animal (the tribes that represent their absolute unity in their totem animal54). The most suitable historical 52 But, of course, this does not mean that the individuals consider themselves to be things, as Williams (1997) maintains: “Thus the slave sinks to the level of a mere commodity, not only for the master, but also for himself.” (p. 65). 53 This is discussed at the level of Natural Religion, p. 416 ff. 54 Cf. “The actual self-consciousness of this dispersed Spirit is a host of separate, antagonistic national Spirits who hate and fight each other to death and become conscious of specific animals as their essence;” (420).

The historical reality of the lord/bondsman relation

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illustration of the lord/bondsman relation, however, is elaborated at the level of the Egyptian world (in the religion of the artificer). In this case, the lord is the pharaoh, the ruler who is not only the king, but also the god. Because the pure self this time is represented by a human being, the bondsmen (i. e., the Egyptians) can go through a learning process in which they discover that they are in fact themselves the lord. Originally, there is no room for any learning process. It is only relevant that the labor process serves the godhead. It is of no importance how the service is specified within the framework of the labor system. Labor expresses the idea that the social order has power over nature.55 Social order is the power over nature as such. Therefore, the obedience of the social order is not subjected to any reflection: It is immediately evident what has to be done. There is no room for alternative positions. This learning process has to do with the continuity of the social order that results in a change of the labor process. To understand this change, a closer look at the nature of the labor process may be helpful. Labor is not an action that is immediate and natural, but mediated by the social order and fitting in a whole of labor division. Therefore, labor presupposes the intelligibility of nature. Only when nature is, in principle, understandable is it possible to maintain a labor system in which nature is worked. The labor system purely practically expresses a certain insight into nature, namely the insight that nature can be worked in the form of a specific labor organization. The purely practical status of this insight becomes clear at the moment that individuals who are working in the labor system are not necessarily aware of this insight. They only do what is asked from them in the framework of the labor system. The stability of the labor system enables its continual evolution. The ongoing working of the nature contributes to the development of a deeper insight into the mechanism of nature. Deeper insight enables the progressing division of labor; progressing division of labor enables deeper insight.56 The result of this development is that the individual worker at-

55 In contrast to Jrgen Habermas (“Arbeit und Interaktion”, in: J. Habermas, Technik und Wissenschaft als “Ideologie”, Frankfurt/M., 1971), who separates labor and interaction as categories that are fundamentally different, Hegel shows how these categories cannot be separated. 56 Cf. Karl Marx, who understands the development of labor division as well as a “natural “ (naturwchsig) process. “Da diese Entwicklung [der Produktivkrfte, P.C.] naturwchsig fr sich geht, d. h. nicht einem Gesamtplan frei vereinigten Individuen subordiniert ist …” (Deutsche Ideologie, Berlin 1969, p. 72). (Since

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tributes the power over nature ultimately not to the social order, but to himself. For him, nature has no more secrets. Within the framework of the social order he is able to subject nature to the desired actions without being confronted with surprises.57 This shift of power from the “lord” of the social order to the worker (the “bondsman”) is expressed in the differentiation of the worker’s selfconsciousness. His self-consciousness no longer projects the image of his identity in the “lord” of the labor system, but expresses his self in the concepts in which his knowledge of nature is contained. These concepts are not schemes that are externally (theoretically) applied to nature, but determinations that are mediated by labor activities. For the worker’s selfconsciousness, these concepts can, therefore, get validity as the essence of nature.58 By these concepts, the freedom of the pure self, originally represented by the “lord” of the labor system, has obtained a specific historical content. The concepts in which nature is interpreted do not express the concept of nature as such, but only the concept of nature as it is developed in the framework of a specific (historical) labor system, i. e., in the framework of a specific social organism. Therefore, the freedom of the pure self, being the precondition of the social order’s constitution, is hidden behind certain historical ways of expression adopted by the self.59 The bondsman who has recognized himself in his lord, the worker who thinks that his concepts of reality are absolute, i. e., are the essence of reality itself, has fallen into the illusion of having totally realized his autonomy. He is no longer relating to a god or to any external reality. He has the illusion that the only reality is the product of his self-conthis evolution takes place naturally, i. e. is not subordinated to a general plan of freely combined individuals …). 57 In this sense, the bondsman has developed some freedom. This is the freedom of the production system as such, not the freedom that can be located in an individual as Houlgate (2006) maintains: “Accordingly, he will understand himself to be capable of all kinds of labour and not to be dependent on, or slave to, any one of them.” (p.70). 58 Cf. “It is essential, however, in thus characterizing this shape of self-consciousness to bear firmly in mind that it is thinking consciousness in general, that its object is an immediate unity of being-in-itself and being-for-itself.” (120) Hegel calls this thinking consciousness “stoicism”. 59 According to Hegel, stoicism is at the level of the Legal status (corresponding to Roman Law) historically illustrated: “The non-actual thought of it [i.e. personality, P.C.] which came from renouncing the actual world appeared earlier as the Stoical self-consciousness.” (290).

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scious action. The pure self seems to have totally realized itself, and the notion that the social organism is only an historical reality seems to have become totally out of sight. All independent reality that could have represented the pure self has perished.60 Therefore, the real, historical existence of the social organism makes, in the long run, the discrepancy between the outside and inside perspective explicit, and highlights why the social organism until now is not determined in a way in which both perspectives can be reconciled. From the outside perspective, the social organism must be understood as a specific historical unity of right and morality. The pure self (the moral self ) realizes itself as the legal self that participates in a specific social organism. It is only important that the moral self expresses itself in the social organism; therefore, the closer determination of this social organism is irrelevant, i. e., is only a matter of contingency. From the inside perspective, however, the moral self coincides with the historical determination of the social organism: The real self has concretized itself in the determined concepts that within the framework of a specific social organism get validity as the concepts of nature as such. The objective reality that, from the inside perspective, appears as an absolute one, appears, from the outside perspective, only as an historical one. To overcome the discrepancy of the outside and inside perspective, it has to be discussed as to how the unity of mind and body can be developed in a way that, also from an inside perspective, the mind/body unity can perceive itself as the pure self that realizes itself in a contingent legal order. This development will be elaborated in two stages. In the first stage (the stage of the Unhappy Consciousness) the mind/ body unity will get insight into itself as the pure self (or as the “lord”). In the second stage (the stage of “Reason”) the mind/body unity will understand the objective reality to which it is related as a social organism in which it has to realize itself, i. e., it gets insight into itself as the “bondsman”.61 60 Robert Pippin (2001) misunderstands stoicism. The stoic self-conscious does not struggle “to understand the significance of his labor”. (p. 164). The stoic selfconsciousness is determined because it is mediated by labor. But the stoic selfconsciousness itself has no awareness of this mediation. Neither does it make sense that “this position leaves it undetermined what I am to think (except that I am to think it) and so is empty, tedious.” (164). The stoic self-consciousness is rather characterized by the determinations of his thoughts, just because his thoughts are mediated by labor. 61 The mind/body unity will develop the insight into itself as the unity of lord and bondsman: “Its true return in itself, or its reconciliation with itself will, however,

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The Unhappy Consciousness The first stage, in which the pure self is made perceptible for the inside perspective, is performed in the movement that gives the pure self its own embodiment and liberates it from its absorption by the social organism. The occasion for the learning process that the mind/body unity can go through has, again, to do with death. Like the fear of death enabled the mind/body unity to differentiate its immediate unity and to relate as pure self to its body, so the “death” of the social organism brings about here that the immediate unity of the pure self with the social organism (or rather, the being submerged of the pure self in the social organism), is broken: The pure self can loosen itself from the social organism. We saw how the lord initially represented the pure self and how, later on (at the level of stoicism) he seemed to have been absorbed in the alleged autonomy of the bondage. At the moment that the social organism perishes (dies) it also becomes clear from the inside perspective of the mind/ body unity that the autonomy is only appearance. The reality of the social organism appears to be not dependent on the autonomous action of the individual, but on an elusive power that transcends reality. It is this elusive power that disturbs the harmony of the alleged autonomy and makes the individual unhappy. This results in the Unhappy Consciousness, i. e., the consciousness that in some form becomes aware of what we already identified as the constituting moment of self-consciousness, namely the fear of death, i. e., the experience of the own finitude.62 The Unhappy Consciousness is aware of its finitude (its mortality) but at the same time it transcends this finitude precisely because it is aware of the elusive power that transcends this finitude. Its unhappiness exists in its inability to bring together the consciousness of its finitude and transcendence.63 display the Notion of Spirit that has become a living Spirit, and has achieved an actual existence, because it already possesses as a single undivided consciousness a dual nature.” (126). 62 Cf. “Consciousness of life, of its existence and activity, is only an agonizing over this existence and activity, for therein it is conscious that its essence is only its opposite, is consciousness only of its own nothingness.” (127). 63 We will see that Hegel, in the Spirit and Religion Chapters, in which he reconstructs the historical reality of the social organism in European history, implicitly and explicitly discusses several forms of the Unhappy Consciousness. He implicitly refers to the Unhappy Consciousness at the level of the Ancient Greek world, when the individual experiences the death of the family member. Explicitly, the Unhappy Consciousness is discussed at the level of the Roman Empire, where the “death” of the social organism, i. e., the decline of the Roman Empire, is experienced.

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The transcendental power is not totally elusive for the individual. At least, it is clear that the power is an absolute one, i. e., a power in which the real world is grounded, a power over the real world. Moreover, the power can be determined as an identity because it has turned out that it can appear in a real social organism. Grounding the identity of the social organism, the transcendent power must itself also be an identity. But, at the same time, it is obviously not necessarily linked to its appearance in the social organism: Its identity is a transcendental, pure identity. Any closer determination, however, escapes the individual. The individual has no possibility to represent it in an external power (as he earlier made the lord the representation of the pure self ), because it is not an external power that caused the decline of the social organism. The decline concerns the social organism as such, not the replacement of the one social power by another. The individual can maintain the pure identity only as an inner representation without any qualification. The determinedness of the representation is only felt: The inner representation of the pure identity is connected with the feeling of an absolute loss.64 The social organism in which the individual is thought to be at home (in his alleged autonomy) has declined and appears to be absorbed by the indefiniteness of the inner representation of the absolute identity. In that sense, the repHegel interprets the self of the Roman Empire as the stoic self that, after the decline of the Empire, develops into the Unhappy Consciousness: “Hence it is only the Stoic independence of thought, which passes through the dialectic of the Sceptical consciousness to find its truth in that shape which we have called the Unhappy Self-consciousness.” (454) Hegel describes consciousness’s experience of the decline as follows: “It is the consciousness of the loss of all essential being in this certainty of itself, and of the loss even of this knowledge about itself–the loss of substance as well as of the Self, it is the grief which expresses itself in the hard saying that ‘God is dead’ “. (455). The third form of the Unhappy Consciousness appears when the results of the French Revolution are reflected. Here, Hegel develops a concept of conscience that can be considered as the highest form of the Unhappy Consciousness. The original description of the Unhappy Consciousness in the Self-consciousness Chapter (p. 126 ff.) discusses the elementary logical structure of Self-consciousness. These structures, however, are formulated in metaphors that refer to the medieval history, i. e., to the historical period after the decline of the Roman Empire. 64 From an outside perspective, this inner representation of the pure self in the form of the feeling of an absolute loss, is the first step to internalize the lord: “Consequently, the duplication which formerly was divided between two individuals, the lord and the bondsman, is now lodged in one. The duplication of the consciousness within itself, which is essential in the notion of Spirit, is thus here before us, but not yet in its unity: the Unhappy Consciousness is the consciousness of a self as a dual natured, merely contradictory being.” (126).

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resentation is the empty remembrance of the absolute loss, the loss of an absolute home. The individual can try to determine the pure identity more precisely by giving the inner representation all kind of qualities. In that case, however, it gets entangled in the dialectics that characterize Consciousness. 65 An absolute identity cannot be externally determined. The only determination that does justice to an absolute identity is self-determination. At this stage, however, the individual is not able to conceptualize the pure identity as self-actualization. The pure identity is his internalization of a reality that has gotten lost. The determinations that the individual can ascribe to this pure identity are factually his own ones, i. e., the determinations of a finite being. Therefore, the absolute identity can be determined as something that escapes to any nearer fixation. As an internalization of the individual, the pure identity is affected by determination. But as soon as these determinations are specified, they must be taken back because they are determinations of the finite individual. Hegel qualifies this undetermined determination of the pure identity as “devotion”, i. e., as “only a movement towards thinking”. “Its thinking as such is no more than the chaotic jingling of bells, or a mist of warm incense, a musical thinking that does not get as far as the Notion, which would be the sole, immanent objective mode of thought.” (131). But the pure self 65 Consciousness tried to identify something that is sensory given in time and space, i. e., it tries to link the changeable sensory world to the unchangeable mental world of identifications, and learned that all identification can only be conceived of as self identification of the mind (Ich=Ich). This process is, as it were, internalized by the Unhappy Consciousness when it tries to identify the pure self that it internalized as the Unchangeable. For, it can perform this identification only in an attempt to link this Unchangeable with the Changeable, i. e., its consciousness of the finite world. Hegel illustrates this attempt with the attempt of the Christian belief to identify its absolute god as Christ and as Holy Spirit. “Thus there exist for consciousness three different ways in which individuality is linked with the Unchangeable. Firstly, it again appears to itself as opposed to the Unchangeable, and is thrown back to the beginning of the struggle which is throughout the element in which the whole relationship subsists. Secondly, consciousness learns that individuality belongs to the Unchangeable, itself, so that it assumes the form of individuality into which the entire mode of existence passes. Thirdly, it finds its own self as this particular individual in the Unchangeable. The first Unchangeable it knows only as the alien Being who passes judgement on the particular individual; since, secondly, the Unchangeable is a form of individuality like itself, consciousness becomes, thirdly, Spirit, and experiences the joy of finding itself therein, and becomes aware of the reconciliation of its individuality with the universal.” (128).

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that is only the inner representation of a real individual (i. e., the individual that survived the decline of the social organism), cannot be maintained as an absolute one because it will disappear with the death of the individual. Therefore, the Unhappy Consciousness has, in some form, to repeat the dialectics of Self-consciousness. It has to free its absolute essence from the finite natural world. In contrast to Self-consciousness, however, the Unhappy Consciousness knows itself to be a finite being that is distinguished from its absolute essence. As a consequence, the individual tries to find the pure self, i. e., to find an immortal individual in the real world.66 Such a search, however, is doomed to failure. It is in the nature of all real individuals to die.67 The failure to find the pure identity in the real world makes sure that the individual is thrown back to himself and he tries to realize the Unchangeable by means of his labor.68 The finite existence of the living individual is dependent on nature as the inexhaustible source of “gifts”. Insofar as these gifts are mediated by labor, labor reveals the existence of an absolute self, i. e., nature as the absolute source of life. This absolute self, however, is once again affected by the finite self, simply because it only 66 Like the activity of Desire, this search endlessly repeats itself. The Desire that killed the strange life in order to prove to be the essence of this life, will never have accomplished its proof because it is, again and again, confronted with other life. Analogously, the Unhappy Consciousness that thinks to have found an absolute self, has to repeat itself endlessly. Since a self that can be found is a living self, it will, again and again, experience that the alleged absolute self dies. 67 Hegel hints at the crusaders who search for a living god, but find an empty grave. “Consciousness, therefore, can only find as a present reality the grave of its life. But because this grave is itself an actual existence and it is contrary to the nature of what actually exists to afford a lasting possession, the presence of that grave, too, is merely the struggle of an enterprise doomed to failure.” (132). 68 In this relation, the Unhappy Consciousness can be considered as the self-conscious repetition of the bondsman who serves his lord. This time, however, the bondsman remains distinguished from the lord whom he actualises in his labor. Here, the lord appears as the absolute source of life, as the nature that enables life to continue by its gifts. These gifts, however, are mediated by the labor of the bondsman. “The fact that the unchangeable consciousness renounces and surrenders its embodied form while, on the other hand, the particular individual consciousness gives thanks [for the gift], i. e., denies itself the satisfaction of being conscious of its independence, and assigns the essence of its action not to itself but to the beyond, through these two moments of reciprocal self-surrender of both parts, consciousness does, of course, gain a sense of its unity with the Unchangeable. But this unity is, at the same time, affected with division, is again broken within itself, and from it there emerges once more the antithesis of the universal and the individual. “ (134).

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appears by mediation of his labor. Therefore, the individual tries to rescue the absoluteness of the pure self by sacrificing its own reality. It sets aside its own individuality by serving the pure self that it has represented: it serves its inner representation as its lord and thinks that it can realize the lord by sacrificing its own existence.69 If the individual is, however, in its real actions, not determined by the needs of its organism, but is able to serve the pure self of the representation, the lord is not the represented self, but rather the real individual, the bearer of the representation. The real individual has developed insight into its own pure self and has become able to understand itself as a moral individual, i. e., as an individual that makes its pure self, its free self, the essence of its actions. Therefore, the movement that the mind/body unity has experienced from the inside perspective is a double one with two opposite directions. On the one hand, it is the purely practical movement in which the pure self, mediated by the fear of death, has objectified, and is absorbed by the social organism. On the other hand, the pure self returns to itself from its objectification in the social organism, i. e., to the mind/body unity of the individual. This movement of objectification and sublation of objectification has resulted in a real self-consciousness. Now the individual understands that its absolute essence is a pure self. It understands that it is a moral individual70 that can only do justice to its pure self if this self is not contradicted by the contingent reality to which it is related. From an outside perspective, it is already clear under what conditions the contingent reality does not contradict the real self-consciousness. The contingent reality must be a social organism that is realized in actions that 69 Here Hegel refers to the medieval monks who tried to be united with their god by sacrificing their nature and mental existence. “It renounces them, partly as identified with the truth it has attained regarding its own self-consciousness independence–inasmuch as what it does is foreign to it, a thinking and speaking of what is meaningless to it; partly, as identified with external possessions–when it gives away part of what it has acquired through work; and partly, also, as identified with the enjoyment it has had–when, in its fastings and mortifications, it once more completely denies itself that enjoyment.” (137). 70 It may seem confusing to already speak at this level of a moral individual, especially since it still takes a long time before Hegel, in the Phenomenology of Spirit, reaches the Morality Chapter. As indicated in footnote 63, however, the Unhappy Consciousness is related to the individual insofar as it is not absorbed by social relations: the divine law in the Greek world, the belief in the medieval world, and conscience in the modern world. We will see that these moments in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right are systematically developed as moments of Morality.

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can be understood as self-expression of the pure self.71 Having developed the individual into a moral individual, we can examine whether this can become also clear from the inside perspective, and what are the consequences for the determination of the social organism.

Reason At the level of Reason, it is investigated under what conditions the moral individual can exist, i. e., under what conditions the contingent reality to which it is related does not contradict its pure self. At the level of observing Reason it is discussed whether the moral individual can be real in a theoretical relation to the contingent reality. The contingence of reality comes to the fore in its being sensory-given. Therefore, the question is whether a reality that is given for the senses can be in harmony with the pure self of the moral individual. The moral individual has to recognize its pure self in the outside reality; the outside reality must be conceived of as an expression of the pure self. Insofar as scientists interpret lifeless nature as the expression of natural laws, they consider lifeless nature to be a self, i. e., a self that is formulated as a force of nature. At the level of consciousness, however, we have seen that the self of the force of nature is not the self of an independent outside nature, but a self that refers back to the self of the scientist (cf. Kant’s Copernican turn). It is only the living nature that has an own self. The self of the living nature, however, is not pure, but participating in the life process of the organism or the species. Therefore, the only chance for the moral individual’s observing Reason to recognize its pure self in the outside nature, must be situated in its relation to a self-conscious being, i. e., to the living self that also has a pure self. However, the question is whether this pure self can be perceived by observing Reason. Hegel’s answer is negative. The actions of the real human individuals are no expression of the pure self. The pure self, rather, manifests itself in the actions of pure thinking. But observing Reason has no entrance to this pureness: It is dependent on its observation. In the end, Hegel ridicules the project of observing Reason in his reference to phrenology. The wish to observe the pure self “is expressed by saying that the being of Spirit is a 71 There would be a reality that is, so to speak, in harmony with the Kantian Categorical Imperative.

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bone.” (208) The contradiction in which observing Reason is involved becomes clear: What is pure cannot, by definition, be observed. Since it has been clear that the reality of the moral individual cannot be conceived of in a theoretical relation to reality, Hegel performs the transition to active Reason. At this level, it is discussed whether the reality of the moral individual can possibly be conceived of in a practical relation to reality. The reason for this attempt is obvious: What fails at the level of theoretical reason, i. e., the realization of the moral individual in relation to another moral individual, may be possible at the practical level. At least, individuals who live together in a social organism are no “things” for one-another. Therefore, the question that is raised at the level of active Reason runs: Can the moral individual realize itself in a social organism? Since it concerns the realization of a moral individual that has to recognize its essence in the contingent reality, the question can also be formulated as follows: Can the moral individual understand the social organism as a reality that mediates its relation to another moral individual, so that, in the social organism, the moral individuals make the other moral individuals their subject? At the level of self-consciousness we witnessed the birth of the social organism. In the social organism the individuals are the “bondsmen” who serve the pure self as their “lord”. Subsequently, the moral individual was developed as the result of the decline of the social organism: as the individual who internalized the pure self as its absolute, inner essence. Therefore, the question of whether the moral individual can realize itself in the social organism comes down to the question of whether the moral individual can return to its origin. Can the individual who acquired his moral self-consciousness by leaving the social organism, return to the social organism without losing its self-consciousness? When the contingent reality of the moral individual is determined as social organism, then it is no longer a strange independence that contradicts the absoluteness of the moral individual. As we saw before, the social organism can be conceived of as the pure self in the form of otherness. Therefore, the relation between the moral individual and the social organism can be characterized as “pleasure”: The social organism only affirms the identity of the moral individual. This time, however, the pure self is not the self of the lord, but the pure self of the moral individual, itself. The moral individual is, so to speak, the bondsman who knows his own pure self as his lord. Moreover, the pure self is not only the pure self of one moral individual, but also the pure self of other moral individ-

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uals. The moral individuals realize their pure self because they practically participate in a social relation to other moral individuals. They know that their pure self is not only their inner essence, but also the essence of the objective world. The pure self is realized in the social organism that is produced by the actions of the moral individuals. In this relation, however, the uniqueness of the pure self, the moral identity, gets lost. Actually, the reality of the social organism only exists insofar as a shared legal law is valid. What is realized remains restricted to what actualizes this shared law. To realize itself the pure self has to determine itself. This determination is performed in a social organism. This makes it precisely clear that the pure self has lost its uniqueness or its moral freedom: All moral individuals appear in a social role that is determined by the social organism. Here, the tension between right and morality is most elementally shown. The moral individual who wants to realize himself in a legal order seems to have given up his absolute moral identity and to have exchanged it for the positive social role of the legal subject. The freedom of the moral individual (implying that all determination is free self-determination) seems to contradict the positive determination of the social organism.72 This discrepancy between morality and right is expressed by Hegel in terms of “Pleasure and Necessity”. (217 ff.) The pleasure of the moral individual who again finds his home in the social organism is disturbed by chilly necessity. The unique individuality of the moral individual gets lost in the general structures of a given social law. At the level of “The law of the heart and the frenzy of self-conceit” (221 ff.) the moral individual tries to save his unique individuality by making the law of the social organism his own law, i. e., the law of the heart. This attempt, however, has to fail. Also the other moral individuals will try to make the law of the social organism their own law. The result is a struggle between the moral individuals that cannot be won (unless the others are eliminated as moral individuals). Therefore, Hegel speaks about “the frenzy of self-conceit”: The law of the social organism cannot be determined from the one-sided subjective point of view. The potential struggle between the moral individuals can be overcome at the level of “Virtue and the way of the world”. (228 ff.) The moral individual can only tolerate the social organism if he accepts that he has not the power to enforce the “law of the heart”. (And even 72 Here Derrida’s “double-bind-relation” is thematized. Freedom has to realize itself to be real, but gets lost as freedom in its realization. Cf., J. Derrida, “Prjugs, devant la loi”, in: J. Derrida a.o., La facult de juger, Minuit, Paris, 1985, p. 121.

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if he would have had the power, the enforcement of his “law of the heart” would not result in the realization of the moral essence). The moral individual has to accept that the social organism is a contingent reality (way of the world) that can only maintain its existence when it is actively supported by the actions of the moral individuals. Although the moral individuals know that the social organism is a contingent reality, they have to recognize it as the realization of their moral essence. The moral individuals are virtuous insofar as they try to educate themselves in order to be able to observe the laws of the social organism. (This education of the moral individuals is the self-conscious repetition of the education of the bondsmen. In their practical labor, the bondsmen developed the differentiated self-consciousness of stoicism. In their self-conscious labor, the moral individuals developed a differentiated self-consciousness that they know as the self-consciousness of a contingent social organism.) If the moral individuals have developed themselves into virtuous individuals they can, from an inside perspective, reconcile with the social organism. But the price paid for this reconciliation seems to be very high. Right and morality seem to be reconciled by sacrificing morality. It is true that is was not enforced by external power and was, rather, an act of self-sacrifice, but nevertheless, morality seems only to survive as an inner awareness. The legal subjects know that the social organism has legitimacy only because they have recognized it in their role as moral individuals. But this moral recognition seems to have no consequence for the reality of the social organism. Until now, the social organism has not been specifically qualified. It is clear that the social organism only survives by the actions of its members: it survives as long as they observe the laws of the social organism. Until now, however, these laws remained undetermined. Therefore, although it has been concluded that the moral individuals have to accept the social organism as a contingent reality, the question must be raised whether the moral individuals have to accept all social organisms, irrespective of any specific determination of their laws. This question is discussed in the section “Individuality which takes itself to be real in and for itself ”. (236) At this level, Hegel definitely tries to fill the gap between inner and outside perspective. If the moral individual not only understands that, for being real, he has to recognize the social organism, but also knows in what sense the social organism has to be concretely qualified, then the reality of his individuality no longer differs from his subjective insight into this reality. Three options for qualifying the social organism are examined.

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At the level of “The spiritual animal kingdom and deceit, or the ‘matter in hand’ itself ” (237), the option is considered that the social organism is immediately given as a traditional society. Like the instinctual laws of the animal world, the laws in this case are immediately given (cf. animal kingdom) but, in contrast to the animal world, the laws are also self-conscious. The individuals immediately know which laws they have to observe (cf. spiritual animal kingdom). Therefore, the traditional content of the laws seems the be the ‘matter in hand’, itself. The ultimate goal of the individual’s actions is the realization of this traditional content; the actions of the individuals immediately correspond to the norms and values of tradition. However, insofar as the individuals are also moral individuals, they are only interested in the realization of their moral essence, the pure self. Therefore, if the individuals act according to the moral values of the given tradition, they do not really realize themselves. The norms and values could have been those of another tradition. Contingent norms and values remain externally related to the moral individuals. What the moral individuals have in common are not these traditional norms and values, but rather the moral demand that the social organism expresses their pure selves. At the level of “Reason and lawgiver” (p. 252 ff.), the second option to determine the social organism is examined. Can the social organism be the self-conscious product of all moral individuals? Is it possible to identify laws that are necessary, supported by all of them? According to Hegel, it is indeed possible to find these laws: This type of laws are called by Kant “natural laws”, i. e., laws that can be deduced from the conceptual determinations that qualify the relations between the moral individuals. Hegel mentions two examples: “Everyone ought to speak the truth” (254) and “Love thy neighbor as thyself ” (255). The first example concerns the moral essence of the individual. Only a moral individual can speak the truth because of his pure self. As pure self, the moral individual distinguishes himself from the real world as such. As pure self, he has the ability to express propositions that qualify things in themselves, i. e., to express true propositions. Whether the moral individuals can factually speak the truth, however, is dependent on many contingent conditions. The second example concerns the realization of the moral individual. Without the social organism the moral individual cannot be real. In its turn the existence of the social organism presupposes that the moral individuals recognize one another as free and equal. In this sense, they have to love their neighbors as themselves. But the commandment cannot determine what real actions the neighbor’s love imply.

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The third option to determine the laws of the social organism, discussed as “Reason as testing laws” (256) is a combination of the first two options. On the one hand, the point of departure is a traditionally given social organism, and on the other hand, the laws of this organism are tested: Are they or are they not an adequate realization of the moral individuals? But which criterion does reason have at its disposal to perform the test? Because the social organism is a contingent, independent reality, reason cannot impose its own norms and values. The criteria to test the social organism can only be derived from the social organism itself. Reason can test whether the norms and values of the social organism are consistent, whether the social organism is a viable self. This kind of testing, however, can never result in an unambiguous determination of the social organism’s laws. Consistent law systems can exist in a multitude. “Property, simply as such, does not contradict itself; it is an isolated determinedness, or is posited as merely self-identical. Non-property, the non-ownership of things, or common ownership of goods, is just as little self-contradictory.” (258). The examination of the three options has learned that it makes no sense to look for the most adequate determination of the social laws. The moral individual is not unambiguously linked with a specified social organism. The concrete social organism essentially is a contingent reality. However, this does not justify the conclusion that the moral individual is indifferent to the determination of the social laws. It is obvious that a social organism can offer more or less openness to moral freedom. At least it can be investigated under what conditions the social organism gives room to moral freedom.

The mind/ body unity as an historical reality What is the result of the preceding development? We have observed that, from the inside perspective (via Unhappy Consciousness, Observing and Active Reason) it has become clear what, from an outside perspective, was already known: The existence of the individual as mind/body unity has to be understood as a relation in which the pure self is related to an independent social organism in such a way that it is aware of being the essence of this organism, i. e., that it knows that this organism is the objectification of its freedom. From the inside perspective, however, it is not possible to determine the content of the social laws. Therefore, the conclusion is that the real self, i. e., the mind/body unity, can only adequately

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be determined by its participation in a contingent, historically given, social organism: The laws of the social organism are already determined all the time. However, not all social organisms will do. They must correspond to the minimal conditions that create room for moral freedom. Which these minimal conditions are is already discussed. The institutions of the social organism must guarantee the development of the moral individual, i. e., they must produce the Unhappy Consciousness. Moreover, the institutions must enable the moral individual to strive after his realization, i. e., the moral individual must be involved in a learning process that passes through the stages of observing and active reason. In other words, the search of the moral individual for the social organism in which it is adequately realized is projected in the social organism, itself. The contingent, historical organism that is adequate to the moral individual cannot be determined. What, however, can be determined is a dynamic structure that institutionalizes the search for the adequate social organism. In the next chapter, we will see that, according to Hegel, this contingent, historical organism can be identified with the ancient Greek world.

Chapter 2 The Greek World: The Origin of the First Self Introduction In this Chapter the law of the social organism, in which the individual (as the mind/body unity) is real, is nearer determined as the law of a social organism that is historically found, namely as the Human Law of the polis, the city-state of Ancient Greece.73 This determination of the social organism by means of an historically given (contingent) content in some way joins with the attempt that was made at the level of The spiritual animal kingdom and deceit, or the ‘matter in hand’, itself. But the choice of the Greek city-state is not coincidental. Previously we discussed some examples of the historical reality of the lord/bondsman relation, such as the example of the Egyptian world in which the lord of the world (the pharaoh) was worshipped as a god. The Human Law of the Greek world, however, institutionalizes a social organism that (at least initially) has no gods.74 The Human Law stands for the type of society in which the “bondsmen” have recognized themselves in the “lord”, i. e., a society that is characterized by the relation of stoicism. The citizens of the Human Law think to be autonomous; they think that their freedom coincides with its expression in the Human Law. Referring to the ancient Greek tragedies (especially those of Sophocles) Hegel argues that the Human Law presupposes another law, the Divine Law or the Law of the Family. The existence of this second law, according to Hegel, is no historical coincidence, but is implied by the existence of the Human Law. In the Divine Law, the pure self of the citizens is institutionalized, i. e., the Divine Law is the embodiment of the Unhappy Consciousness. Therefore, the Divine Law can be considered as the institutionalized reality of the moral individual. In the Greek world the domains of right and morality are separately institutionalized in, respectively, the Human and the Divine Law. More73 The Ancient Greece appears as the origin of western culture, i. e., the culture that produced the philosophical question on which the Phenomenology of Spirit is based. 74 The original lawgiver, for example, is Solon, a human being.

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over, the moral domain (the Divine Law) initially does not concern the living, but the dead individual. The unreality of the moral individual, however, contradicts his absoluteness. Therefore, the polis is involved in a development in which the moral individual tries to realize himself in the social organism of the Human Law. We will see that, in this attempt, the moral individual passes through the same stages as the moral individual that tried to realize himself at the level of Reason. Therefore, the moral individual will experience once again that the laws of the social organism are contingent. This time, however, the experience is not a hypothetical construction, but an historical reconstruction.

The polis as the unity of the Human and Divine Law The lordship/bondsman relation is transformed in the relationship of stoicism when the bondsman can identify himself with the lord. The cultivation the bondsman has undergone in his service has resulted in a reality that no longer seems to have secrets for the bondsman. The distinctions in the bondsman’s thinking seem to coincide immediately with the distinctions of reality. In his thoughts, the bondsman supposes to have become immediately the lord of reality. It is exactly this form of stoicism that characterizes the consciousness and the action of the citizens in the polis: “ … the action is the transition from thought to actuality merely as the movement of an insubstantial antithesis whose moments have no particular, distinctive content and no essentiality of their own” (281). In this action, the pure self disappears behind its historical expression in the specific historic law of the polis, the Human Law. Although the actions of the citizens according the Human Law of the polis are free (the law is a product of human freedom) this freedom is not yet expressed as such in Human Law. The purity of the free self, the freedom that makes it possible to realize oneself in many ways, remains hidden behind the factual realization in the ruling Human Law. This means that the citizen only appears as an instrument of the state. Ultimately, the state can ask the citizen to sacrifice his life for the salvation of the state. This does not do justice to the inward freedom of the citizen, to his pure self that makes him a member of an absolute, supra-temporal moral order which is distinct from the worldly order of the state. This is a blessing for the state because it does not need to fear the subversion of its authority by the pure self. The family is the social organism in which the moral individual is embodied.

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Chapter 2 The Greek World: The Origin of the First Self

If the pure self is not expressed at all in the polis, it would be no more than a void illusion. Maintaining that the Human Law is an expression of human freedom would cease to have any meaning. As a result, the law would only exist, and could have a natural as well as a divine origin. The human origin of the Human Law can only be understood if this freedom belongs to the reality of the polis. According to Hegel, in the Greek world it is not the state but the family that does justice to the pure self. The family is not dealing with citizens but with real individuals which it keeps alive and educates to become citizens. Also, these activities seem to have nothing to do with the individual’s participation in the pure self. This changes, however, with the death of the individual. For the state, the death of the individual is a relative loss, the loss of one of its many citizens. Conversely, for the family, the death of the individual is an absolute loss. Because the family has to educate its members to their ethical role, it principally does justice to them as free individuals, i. e., as individuals who participate in the pure self. The submission to the ethical role is essentially self-submission. The absolute loss of the family leads to a process of experience which is structured like the Unhappy Consciousness. The absolute essence of the deceased individual can only be held in the memory of the family and is thus separated from the objective world. This separation denies the absoluteness of its essence. Therefore, the family searches for the dead one in the real world. However, it can only find the body of the lost individual. In its “work,” i. e., in the burying of the body, the family tries to reunite the dead body, by sacrificing its corporeality (the body is given back to “the bosom of the earth”) (271) with its absolute essence. This reunion, however, is the result of the family’s actions. In its entombing of the dead family member, the family does justice to the pure self of the deceased. This justice, however, gets no place in the real world. The deceased, who is honored by the family, has taken a place in the underworld. Individual and community, the right of the pure self and the right of the citizens of the state, do not need to be opposed if they are separated and allocated to different worlds. Hegel formulates the deceased’s right of entombing as the family’s duty, i. e., as the Divine Law that is valid alongside the Human Law. The stability of the Human Law is saved because the moral dimension is banished to the underworld.

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The abstract work of art: the representation of the pure self in the public domain The definite banishment of the pure self to the underworld will fail. The pure and real self are internally united. This internal bond will inevitably lead to the penetration by the pure self into the public consciousness and, consequently, to the undermining of the state’s stability. This is expressed in the development of the polis that can be characterized as the return of the repressed. The freedom of the pure self is the implicit presupposition of the polis. The pure self will invade the public domain of the polis step by step. Ultimately, the pure self can claim its place as the formal person. If this occurs, however, the polis is destroyed. The development of the polis immediately reflects itself in the religion in the form of art, in which the self-consciousness of the polis is represented. Without the threat of this decline, the polis would be in perfect harmony and the motive to represent this harmony would be absent. This changes when the harmony is in danger. “Since the ethical nation lives in immediate unity with its substance and lacks the principle of the pure individuality of self-consciousness, the complete form of its religion first appears as divorced from its existential shape”75 (425). Apparently, the religious representation has a double meaning. On the one hand, the representation already expresses the decline of the polis, for the religious consciousness is a manifestation of the principle of pure singularity. Without the emergence of self-consciousness, there would be no need for religion. On the other hand, the decline of the polis can be delayed when its absolute essence is represented by the religious consciousness. The religious representation contradicts the actual decline. For the religious consciousness, the polis still has an absolute essence, even though the facts show otherwise. Here, religion functions as an ideological consciousness, which is dedicated to the status quo. From a certain point of view, the polis is itself the perfect work of art. It is not only a work that embodies human freedom, but also it is the only existence of this freedom. Freedom has no other mode of being. To be 75 “Indem das sittliche Volk in der unmittelbaren Einheit mit seiner Substanz lebt und das Prinzip der reinen Einzelheit des Selbstbewußtseins nicht an ihm hat, so tritt seine Religion in ihrer Vollendung erst im Scheiden von seinem Bestehen auf ” (490/1). The English translation is obviously wrong. The point is not that the religion is divorced from the ethical substance, but that the religion only gets existence when the polis threatens to become ruined.

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free means to be a citizen of the polis. To be a citizen of the polis means to be free. There is no way to be free outside the polis. The citizen has no conscience or subjective identity to differentiate between his public and subjective role. In this sense, freedom only exists insofar as it is practically performed. Any reflection on this freedom, any subjective notion of the citizen about the fact that he is free, would destroy the specific sense of freedom that is meant here. The polis would no longer be substantial, for its substantiality would be denied by subjective thinking. This means, in other words, that the polis, as a work of art, is the exclusive medium for this type of freedom to appear in. The polis is, in this sense, the ultimate society of artists. The harmony of the polis, however, is disturbed at the moment that the repressed pure self threatens to return and to invade the public consciousness. Then, the harmonious consciousness of the citizen will be undermined and the Human Law will decline. The decline can be warded off if the Human Law is represented as an absolute entity. Because the polis itself is a work of art the ideal medium to represent the polis is another work of art. The work of art we are looking for is identified by Hegel as the statue of the god and the temple, the house of the god. The statue of the god is an idealized human being and represents, in Hegel’s interpretation, the citizen. The ethical substance, in which the citizen has realized himself, is represented by the temple.76 The temple is the world of the god, like the ethical substance is the world of the citizen. It is essential that the god and the temple are works of art that represent the divine world, i. e., a world that has a stable, absolute existence. The works express a specific logical relationship, namely, the relationship of stoicism. For the stoic consciousness, there is only one form, one kocor, which is both the law of nature and the law of the self. Therefore, there is no real distinction between nature and self. Correspondingly, the statue and the temple are both forms of one and the same absolute substance. Thus, there is also no actual distinction between them. They represent, to recall a quotation I mentioned before, “the movement of

76 “The first mode in which the artistic spirit keeps its shape and its active consciousness farthest apart in the immediate mode, viz. the shape is there or is immediately present simply as a thing. In this mode, the shape is broken up into the distinction of individuality, which bears within it the shape of the self, and of universality, which represents the inorganic essence in reference to the shape, its environment and habitation” (427).


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an insubstantial antithesis whose moments have no particular, distinctive content and no essentiality of their own” (281). However, in the long run, the moments of the pure self, the coming to self-consciousness at the level of family in a process of experience that was structured in the form of Unhappy Consciousness, cannot remain hidden from the public consciousness. The result will be that the undermining force of pure self can no longer be repressed by representing the polis as an absolute entity and, consequently, that the polis declines. The decline of the polis, however, can, for the time being, be postponed when the moments of the pure self are not expressed in the form of self-consciousness but in the form of representation, i. e., as the abstract works of art. If the moments are represented as absolute works of art that have their own existence beside the statue and the temple that originally represent the harmonic unity of the polis, the undermining force of the pure self is, so to speak, fixated. It is true that the pure self that exists for the family beside the objective world (as the subjective memory of the deceased) returns in the public consciousness, but because this return has the form of the abstract works of art it is compatible with the independent reality of the Human Law. Human Law is also represented by abstract works of art that exist alongside the other works and represent their own absolute reality. The penetration by the pure self in the public consciousness is done justice by Hegel when he says that the sculptor does not recognize the activity of his actions in the statue.77 The sculptor objectifies his pathos in the statue, like the citizen objectifies his pathos in the Human Law. 78 The pathos of the artist, however, is not identical with its expression in the work of art but also encompasses the moment of freedom.79 The self 77 “Since his work comes back to him simply as joyfulness, he does not find therein the painful labour of making himself into an artist, and of creation, nor the strain and effort of his work” (429). 78 The term pathos shows up for the first time at the level of the ethical world, when Hegel discusses the objective reality of the polis. “The substance does appear, it is true, in the individuality as his ‘pathos’…” (284). Apparently, pathos is the absolute ethical content insofar as it is experienced by the citizen. 79 It is at the level of religion in the form of art that Hegel uses the term ‘pathos’ for the second time. Here, the term has a negative meaning. As the pure form of the self, the individuality has lost all content. This loss, however, is no emancipation, is not yet liberation from substantial ties. The loss of the absolute content is experienced as an absolute emptiness. Or, rather, the absolute being is experienced in the mode of its total absence. This time, the negative, formless, but absolute content is called pathos. It is the pathos of the pure self in which all form has

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of the artist has dissociated itself from its being immediately determined by the substance. The work of art is the result of the struggle between the pure activity of the artist and his pathos. Insofar as the sculptor does not recognize his activity in the work, the work as well as the polis it represents loses its absolute status. The substance of the polis can regain an absolute representation if the activity of the artist is also represented in the work. According to Hegel, this happens in the hymn, the second form of the abstract work of art he discusses. At this level, the god is represented in the medium of the expressed language. In this medium, the work of art remains, in its objectification, bound to the self. Therefore, the separation between the self and the substance has been avoided. The hymn is not a thing like a statue or a temple which, once produced, keeps the activity of the self outside itself. The hymn only exists in and by the performance of the people. Here, the religious self-consciousness is “pure thought, or the devotion whose inwardness in the hymn has at the same time an outer existence” (430). The reverse side of this alliance between the existence of the work of art and the activity of the self is that the existence of the work of art is fleeting. The hymn is, in Hegel’s terminology “a vanishing existence” (432). The work’s objectivity is too much confined in the self and, therefore, “falls short of attaining a lasting shape and is, like Time, no longer immediately present in the very moment of its being present” (432). Now it becomes clear what Hegel implicitly already indicated by using the term Devotion. In the hymn, the theoretical moment of the Unhappy Consciousness is objectified. In the hymn, the god is represented as an unchanging but impalpable being. The unhappiness of the Unhappy Consciousness is due to the contradiction in which it is involved. Because its ‘god’ remains impalpable, i. e., it does not appear in the real world, this been concentrated. The pure self relates itself to the formless essence, as “the pure activity.” “This pure activity, conscious of its inalienable strength, wrestles with the shapeless essence. Becoming its master, it has made the ‘pathos’ into its material and given itself its content, and this unity emerges as a work, universal Spirit individualized and set before us” (427). This makes clear in what sense the work of art is an individualisation of the general spirit. Individuality has been the pure form of the absolute substance itself. Individuality and substance, however, disintegrate and are transformed into the relationship between the pure self and its pathos. The specific form of this relationship is objectified in the specific form of a work of art. Since the work of art gives a renewed and positive reality to the absolute content, as well, the work of art can be characterized, indeed, as the individualisation and representation of the general spirit.


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‘god’ is (negatively) determined by the real world and, therefore, is not absolute. To rescue the absoluteness of this ‘god’, the Unhappy Consciousness looks for its reality. As we saw in the previous chapter, Hegel illustrates this search with the example of the medieval crusades that tried to find the reality of god in the holy land. The crusaders, however, only found a grave (no real self has an eternal life). Consequently, the Unhappy Consciousness makes other attempts to reconcile the absolute self with the real world. By sacrificing its real self, it tries to become unified with the pure self. If, however, the Unhappy Consciousness succeeds in overcoming its real self, the Consciousness itself appears to be the absolute essence of the real self. The development of the abstract work of art is structured in accordance with the Unhappy Consciousness: The pure self that is represented in the hymn must be reconciled with the real world. In the abstract Cult, the third form of the abstract work work of art, the real self is raised “into being the pure divine element” (433) by ritual actions: “a soul that cleanses its exterior by washing it, and puts on white robes, while its inward being traverses the imaginatively conceived path of works, punishments, and rewards, the path of spiritual training in general, i. e., of ridding itself of its particularity, as a result of which it reaches the dwellings and the community of the blest” (433). Like the search for the real self that is divine, the attempts of the abstract Cult will fail. The ritual actions cannot really change the real self into a divine self. Therefore, a second attempt has to be made in the actual Cult, the fourth form of the abstract work. The actual Cult is the action that can be understood as a spiritual movement, “because it is this twofold process, on the one hand, of superseding the abstraction of the divine Being (which is how devotion determines its object) and making it actual, and, on the other hand, of superseding the actual (which is how the doer determines the object and himself ) and raising it into universality” (433/4). The central action of the actual Cult is an act of sacrifice. On the one hand, the divine Being is sacrificed: “The animal sacrificed is the symbol of a god; the fruits consumed are the living Ceres and Bacchus themselves” (434). On the other hand, the actual is sacrificed to divine Being: “with the pure surrender of a possession which the owner, apparently without any profit whatever to himself, pours away or lets rise up in smoke” (434). The result of these sacrifices is the transformation of the divine Being “into self-conscious existence, and the self has consciousness of its unity with the divine Being” (435).

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In the unity of self and divine Being, the devotion is “robbed of its outer existence”. The Cult replaces this defect and “produces a dwelling and adornments for the glory of god” (435). Once again, it appears that the labor in which the self sacrifices itself for the god ultimately shows that the real self is the essence of god: “The dwellings and halls of the god are for the use of man, the treasures preserved therein are his own in case of need; the honor and glory enjoyed by the god in his adornment are the honor and the glory of the nation, great in soul and in artistic achievement” (435).

The polis as a harmonic unity In the first section, we saw that the loss of family members resulted in a dialectic movement structured according to the Unhappy Consciousness. As a result of this movement, the family appeared as the essence of the pure self. The pathos of the family is expressed in the Divine Law. The duty of the Divine Law guarantees that the pure self of the deceased member remains preserved in the memory of the family. In this sense, the Divine Law is, so to say, the institutional house of the pure self that is distinguished from the domain of the state. The separation between Human and Divine Law seemed to protect the state from the undermining force of the pure self. The pure self, however, is the presupposition of the freedom of the state’s citizen. Therefore, the penetration by the pure self into the public consciousness cannot be prevented; this penetration can only be postponed by representing the relation between citizen and polis in works of art, i. e., as the fixed relation between statue and temple. As a product of the artist, however, the work of art also presupposes the pure self and is, itself, undermined in its absoluteness. To repair the absoluteness of the work, the pure self is represented in its turn as an abstract work of art, structured according the moments of the Unhappy Consciousness. This time, the result of the dialectic movement shows the state as the appearance of the pure self. The pathos of the state (expressed in the Human Law) is no longer separated from the pathos of the family, but is explicitly understood as the realization of the pure self. Now, also the individuals themselves can conceptualize the polis as a harmonic unity in which all the moments of Reason are objectified.80 The 80 From the outside perspective, this was already clear. In Chapter 2, it has been ela-

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pure self that is institutionalized in the family relates to the objective world of the state in which it can recognize its own essence. If the relation is theoretically considered, it appears as the reality of the observing reason: “What observation knew as a given object in which the self had no part, is here a given custom, but a reality which is, at the same time, the deed and the work of the subject finding it” (276). From a practical perspective, it is the reality of the active reason: “The individual who seeks the pleasure of enjoying his individuality, finds it in the Family, and the necessity in which that pleasure passes away is his own self-consciousness as a citizen of his nation. Or, again, it is in knowing that the law of his own heart is the law of all hearts, in knowing the consciousness of the self as the acknowledged universal order; it is virtue, which enjoys the fruits of sacrifice, that brings about what it sets out to do, viz., to bring forth the essence into the light of day, and its enjoyment is this universal life.” (276/ 7). From a totalizing perspective, it is the reality of the matter in hand: “Finally, consciousness of the ‘matter in hand’, itself, finds satisfaction in the real substance which contains and preserves in a positive manner the abstract moments of that empty category. That substance has, in the ethical powers, a genuine content that takes the place of the insubstantial commandments which sound Reason wanted to give and to know; and thus it gets an intrinsically determinate standard for testing, not the laws, but what is done.” (277).

Repression of the deed: the living work of art The harmonic unity of the polis is only guaranteed when the citizens commit no deeds in the pregnant sense, i. e., deeds that are unconditionally free: Their actions have to be in accordance with the prevailing Human Law. This guarantee fails, however, at the moment that the Human Law is understood as an expression of the pure self. The pure borated that the individuals as mind/body unity can only exist under the condition that the moral individual can recognize himself in the objective world. Under what condition, in its turn, this recognition is possible is developed at the level of Reason. Therefore, the conception of the polis as the reality of the human individual presupposes that the polis is the concrete reality of all the moments that were passed through to conceive the unity of mind and body. “All previous stages of consciousness are abstract forms of it [i.e., the substantial reality of the polis, P.C.].” (264).

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self is basically a free self that is able to commit any action or, at least, actions that are not in accordance with the prevailing Human Law. Therefore, the harmony of the polis is dependent upon restrictive conditions that must be imposed on possible actions. These conditions can be specified for the different relations that the free individual can take upon himself towards the polis, i. e., they can be specified for the different moments of the objectified Reason that compose the polis. We will see that these conditions are represented in the living and the spiritual works of art. In the living work of art, the first moment of the objectified Reason, i. e., the observing Reason, is represented as an absolute, everlasting relationship. At this level, the statue is unified with its precondition, the pure self, and has developed into a “living statue” expressed by living individuals. The two forms of living art represent, respectively, the Divine and the Human Law as separated entities. In this separation, the external, theoretical relationship between the Laws is reflected, which characterizes the form of the observing Reason. We have seen that the Divine Law is the “house” of the pure self. By means of the Divine Law, the pure self is given an institutional body. The pure self and its incorporation, mind and body, are represented in “the mystery of bread and wine, of Ceres and Bacchus” (438). Ceres stands for the feminine principle of the body: the “simple essence as the movement, partly out of its dark night of concealment up into consciousness, there to be its silently nourishing substance; but no less, however, the movement of again losing itself in the nether darkness, and lingering above only with a silent maternal yearning” (437). Bacchus stands for the masculine principle of the mind. As the “moving impulse” he is: “nothing but the many-named divine Light of the risen Sun and its undisciplined tumultuous life which, similarly let go from its [merely] abstract Being, at first enters into the objective existence of the fruit, and then, surrendering itself to self-consciousness, in it attains to genuine reality–and now roams about as a crowd of frenzied females, the untamed revelry of Nature in self-conscious form.” (437/8). The Human Law is the mediated “house” of the pure self, in which its mediated existence as citizen has been given a second nature in the objective institutional body of the state. This mediated unity of mind and body is represented in the athlete of the Olympic Games, the “inspired and living work of art that matches strength with its beauty; and on him is bestowed, as a reward for his strength, the decoration with which the statue was honored, and the honor of being, in place of the god in stone, the highest bodily representation among his people of

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their essence” (438.) In the representation of the athlete, it becomes clear how the religious consciousness regulates the actions of the free citizen (and postpones the decay of the polis). The freedom of the citizen remains encased in natural boundaries: Mind and body appear as strength and beauty, i. e., as cultivated nature.

The representation of the deed: the spiritual work of art At the level of the active reason, however, the citizen cannot accept boundaries that are set by an external, natural world. The active reason wants to relate itself to an external world that it can recognize as the result of is own action. Therefore, this world can only be a social world. This is illustrated by the moments of the active reason as they appear in the harmonic unity of the polis. The first moment of the active reason, Pleasure and Necessity, considered within the harmonic unity of the polis, is described by Hegel as follows: “The individual who seeks the pleasure of enjoying his individuality, finds it in the Family, and the necessity in which that pleasure passes away is his own self-consciousness as a citizen of his nation” (276). If, however, the individual becomes aware of his pure freedom, he will no longer accept the self-consciousness of the Human Law and will resist it as a strange necessity. Once again, the stability of the polis is threatened. To ward off this threat, the moment of Pleasure and Necessity is represented as an absolute relation in the first form of the spiritual work of art, namely, the Epic. In the spiritual work of art, the representation of the pure self is no longer separated from the representation of its objective expression like in the living work of art.81 In the spiritual work, the self is represented as the self expressing itself. Therefore, speech is its medium: “The perfect element in which inwardness is just as external as externality is inward is once again speech… “ (439). At the level of the Epic, however, the self that expresses the speech, the minstrel, is still distinguished from the self that is expressed in the speech. What is expressed is “Mnemosyne, recollection and a gradually developed inwardness, the remembrance of essence that formerly was directly present” (441). Here, Hegel is making reference to Homer’s Iliad. In this work, the expression of the self is still 81 “In the Bacchic enthusiasm it is the self that is beside itself, but in corporeal beauty it is spiritual essence” (439).

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the result of the synthetic representation of the minstrel: “It is no longer the actual practice of the Cult, but a practice that is raised, not yet indeed into the Notion, but at first into picture-thinking, into the synthetic linking-together of self-consciousness and external existence.” (440). In the Epic, Pleasure is represented by human action, i. e., the actions of the heroes. The actions of the heroes, however, are managed by the gods: “The universal powers have the form of individuality and hence the principle of action in them; what they effect appears, therefore, to proceed entirely from them and to be as free an action as that of men. Consequently, both gods and men have done one and the same thing. The earnestness of those divine powers is a ridiculous superfluity, since they are, in fact, the powers or strength of the individuality performing the action; while the exertions and labor of the latter is an equally useless effort, since it is rather the gods who manage everything.” (441/2). However, over the many gods hovers the universal self, the might of Necessity. “They are the universal, and the positive, over against the individual self of mortals which cannot hold out against their might; but the universal self, for that reason, hovers over them and over this whole world of picture-thinking to which the entire content belongs, as the irrational void of Necessity . . .” (443). As long as the universal self of Necessity remains undetermined, it remains unclear how the unity of society can be concretized. Therefore, the empty self of Necessity has to be transformed into the determined law of society. We have already seen how the polis can exist as the harmonic unity of two laws, the Human and the Divine Law. This harmony is guaranteed insofar as the Divine Law restricts itself to the underworld so that its action does not interfere with the action of the Human Law, i. e., when “no deed has been committed.” In this case, all can accept the Human Law so that there is no need for “the law of the heart” to be revealed as “the frenzy of self-conceit.” The law of the heart can be understood as a constituting moment of the harmonic totality of the polis: “Or, again, it is in knowing that the law of his own heart is the law of all hearts, in knowing the consciousness of the self as the acknowledged universal order” (276). Principally, however, the deed is unavoidable because the pure self of the family and the real self of the polis do not immediately coincide. (Their reciprocal relation has to be developed). This is exemplarily illustrated by Creon’s ban to entomb Polynices, who sacrificed the interest of the state for his own interest. The clash between the two laws is post-

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poned because in the Tragedy, their ultimate harmony is represented as an absolute one. This appeal to the tragedy seems to be strange because Hegel also describes the “deed” and the decline of the harmonic unity of the polis in terms of the Tragedy, in particular, Sophocles’ Antigone. In the tragedy, however, the clash between the two laws is accompanied by a process that Hegel calls the “depopulation of Heaven” (449). It is this process that, for the time being, can retain the appearance of harmony. First, the “Chorus of the Elders” representing the people praises a multitude of gods: “Lacking the power of the negative, it is unable to hold together and so subdue the riches and varied abundance of the divine life, but lets it all go its own separate ways, and in its reverential hymns it extols each individual moment as an independent god, first one and then another” (444). The clash between the two laws, however, is reflected in the religious representation: “If, then, the ethical substance, in virtue of its Notion, splits itself as regards its content into powers which were defined as Divine and Human Law, or law of the nether and of the upper world–the one of the Family, the other the State power, the first being the feminine and the second the masculine character–similarly, now, the previously multiform circle of gods with its fluctuating characteristics confines itself to these powers which are thereby brought closer to genuine individuality.” (445). Both characters–the actor of the Human Law and the actor of the Divine Law–are one-sided: They only know the content of their own law. Therefore, their consciousness is intrinsically connected with the side of not-knowing: “Therefore, the two sides of consciousness which have, in actuality, no separate individuality peculiar to each, receive, when pictorially represented, each its own particular shape: the one, that of the revelatory god, the other, that of the Furies who keep themselves concealed. In part, both enjoy equal honor, but again, the shape assumed by the substance, Zeus, is the necessity of the relation of the two to each other.” (447/8). In the “deed,” the one-sidedness of the ethical powers becomes manifest, resulting in the decay of these powers: “The action, in being carried out, demonstrates their unity in the natural82 downfall of both powers and both self-conscious characters. The reconciliation of the opposition with itself is the Lethe of the underworld in death; or the Lethe of the 82 “Natural” is the translation of “gegenseitig”. A better translation would have been ‘reciprocal’.

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upper world as absolution, not from guilt (for consciousness cannot deny its guilt, because it committed the act83) but from the crime; and also the peace of mind following atonement for the crime.” (448). The downfall of the ethical powers is reflected in the completion of the depopulation of Heaven: “The self-consciousness that is represented in the Tragedy knows and acknowledges, therefore, only one supreme power, and this Zeus only as the power of the state or of the heart, and in the antithesis belonging to knowing [of knower and known], only as the father of the particular that is taking shape in the knowing; and also as the Zeus of the oath and the Furies, the Zeus of the universal, of the inner being dwelling in concealment.” (449). Self-consciousness, which has kept Zeus as its only god, has lost its specific content. Zeus has become the representation of the pure form of self-consciousness. Therefore, self-consciousness is no longer able to rescue the ethical substance by sacrificing its self-conscious action. The pure self is explicitly separated from the contingent reality. The third moment of the active reason, Virtue and the way of the world, ceases being a constituting moment of the reality of the polis.84 Self-consciousness, “the simple certainty of self, is, in fact, the negative power, the unity of Zeus, of substantial being and of abstract Necessity; it is the spiritual unity into which everything returns” (449/50). This negative power of self-consciousness is represented in the Comedy: “The self-consciousness of the hero must step forth from his mask and present itself as knowing itself to be the fate both of the gods of the chorus and of the absolute powers themselves, and as being no longer separated from the chorus, from the universal consciousness” (450). In contrast to the self of the gods, the self of self-consciousness is not imagined. Moreover, the self of self-consciousness is not dependent on a substantial being: It is only involved in a substantial power insofar as it acts its part by putting on its mask. But the self “quickly breaks out again from this illusory character and stands forth in its own nakedness and ordinariness, which it shows to be not distinct from the genuine self, the actor, or from the spectator” (450). This play between the self of the mask and the genuine self is the exhibition of “the ludicrous con83 A better translation would have been ‘deed’. 84 We have already seen how Hegel characterized Virtue and the way of the world as a constituting moment of the polis: “It is virtue, which enjoys the fruits of sacrifice, that brings about what it sets out to do, viz., to bring forth the essence into the light of day, and its enjoyment is this universal life” (276).

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trast between [the self ’s] own opinion of itself and its immediate existence, between its necessity and contingency, its universality and its commonness” (451). The self that has emancipated itself from the ethical substance is the free self with the capacity for reasonable thinking.85 Its gods are no longer coincidental individualities that reflect the divers powers in the ethical world. Reasonable thinking develops their individualities into the simple Ideas of the Beautiful and the Good in which return, at the highest level of abstraction, the Divine and Human Laws. (In the Beautiful the individual gets a universal meaning and in the Good the community encompasses the interests of the individuals). Insofar as the gods have a natural side, “they are clouds,86 an evanescent mist, like those imaginative representations” (451/2). Because of their abstractness, the thoughts of the Beautiful and the Good are empty so that any individual has the opportunity to give them his or her own meaning and make them the result of his or her coincidental, contingent individuality: “Therefore, the Fate which up to this point has lacked consciousness and consists in an empty repose and oblivion, and is separated from self-consciousness, this Fate is now united with self-consciousness. The individual self is the negative power through which and in which the gods, as also their moments, viz. existent Nature and thoughts of their specific character, vanish. At the same time, the individual self is not the emptiness of this disappearance but, on the contrary, preserves itself in this very nothingness, abides with itself and is the sole actuality.” (452).

Conclusion The religion of the work of art is the religion of freedom in its immediate form. It is the religion of the ancient Greek people that has objectified the free self in the polis: The polis is the concrete totality of all moments of the free self. In the immediate form of the polis, however, freedom as such (i. e., the free self in its pure form) is not objectified. The pure 85 J. Heinrichs, Die Logik der ‘Phnomenologie des Geistes’, Bonn, 1974. He thinks that the transition of the Greek religion into reasonable thinking corresponds to the transition from Unhappy Consciousness to Reason, see p. 441. However, we have seen that Reason is already represented by the living and the spiritual work of art. 86 Here, of course, Hegel is referring to Aristophanes’ Comedy, The Clouds.

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self is the hidden presupposition of the polis. The reality of the polis is only a specific historical form of the polis that exists beside a multitude of other poleis. In the struggle between the poleis, each polis can become ruined. Their decay appears as an external power, as the empty self of Fate. In fact, the decay of the polis is caused by an internal power, i. e., by the penetration of the ethical life of the polis by the pure self. The development of the polis is the process in which the empty self of Fate is recognized as the pure self of the real individual. The pure self will be understood as the Fate of ethical life. In the end, the only reality is the reality of the contingent self that knows that in its part as persona, it is the master of this reality. The development of the polis is an ongoing learning process that is performed by means of religious representations: All the constituting moments of the ethical life, the moments of the free self, are successively represented by a work of art.87 This representation mediates a raising of the conscious, which results in the explication of the pure self as the presupposition of the polis.88 At this point, the decay of the polis is over. The religion of the work art first appears at the moment the pure self of the individual threatens to penetrate the public domain of the polis. The decay of the polis is warded off by representing the relation between individual and community as an absolute and harmonious relation: in the representation of the statue of the god and the temple. The statue and the temple, however, cannot repress the pure self because they only represent the objective appearance of individual and community, not the free activity that is presupposed by them. Therefore, the pure self is represented as an absolute being in the abstract work of art. The development of the abstract work of art results in the living work of art in which the representation of the pure self is immediately united with its reality: 87 W. Jaeschke, Vernunft in der Religion, Stuttgard 1986. He interprets the abstract, living and spiritual works of arts as historical stages of the religion of the work of art (see p.208). Although within the development of the spiritual work of art there seems to be some chronological succession, the religious forms represent the moment of the polis which are real at the same time. Therefore, it is not necessary that the logical development totally coincides with a chronological one. 88 R. Bubner, “Die “Kunstreligion” als politisches Projekt der Moderne” in A. Arndt a.o. (Ed.) Hegel Jahrbuch 2003, Glauben und Wissen. Erster Teil, p. 310: “Die Generalformel einer Entwicklung der Substanz zum Subjekt erzeugt in der spezifischen Anwendung auf das Religionskapitel, das wir diskutierten, die Eigentmlichkeit, daß in der griechischen Lebensform das Substantielle eingebter, weitergereichter und durch Tradition besttigter Sittlichkeit bereits durch sthetische Transformation vom Ansichsein zum Frsichsein emporgehoben ist.”

Retrospection

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In the athlete of the Olympic Games, the statue of god has become a living god. In the athlete, however, the pure self remains embedded in natural relations. It is only at the level of the spiritual work of art that the self can be expressed as a spiritual one, i. e., as a self that transcends the natural relations. In the Epic, Tragedy and Comedy, the pure self is successively represented as the abstract self of Fate, the self-conscious self of Zeus, who is the only one supreme power, and the pure self of the real individual that understands itself as the Fate of the world.

Retrospection We have seen that the polis can be reconstructed as a free state, i. e., as a social organism borne by free citizens who think that they, by observing the law, can objectify their pure freedom. This alleged autonomy, however, can only be maintained when the pure self of the citizen can be kept outside the public consciousness: For this pure self, the real social organism must appear as a contingent order. The pure self is not only embodied in a social organism that is distinguished from the state, namely the family, but is also placed in another world, i. e., the underworld. The objectification of the pure self is separated from the objectification of the real self. Both objectifications are distributed over family and state, over the Divine and Human Law. The stability of the polis is continuously threatened by the freedom of the pure self. This threat is warded off when the public consciousness represents the social organism as an absolute reality: In two works of art, in the temple and the statue of god, citizen and polis are represented as an absolute relation. The representation of the polis in the works of art, however, cannot definitely repress the pure self. The works of art themselves are also a product of the pure self: They are products of free artists. In its pureness, the pure self is a being that remains elusive and, therefore, it can only become a subject of self-consciousness in the form of the Unhappy Consciousness. By representing the forms in which the Unhappy Consciousness tries to realize itself in its turn as an absolute work of art, the potential undermining working of the pure self can be warded off. In this case, the forms of the Unhappy Consciousness are represented alongside the absolute representation of the polis. Ultimately, it appears that not the ab-

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solute work of art, but the real individual is the appearance of the pure self: The real self is a moral individual. As long as the moral individual is in harmony with the state, it is convinced that it realizes its freedom in the state, i. e., it is related to the state as the realized observing and active Reason. Because of the contingent character of the state organism, however, the harmony cannot stand firm. The individual has the freedom to perform actions that are not in harmony with the Human Law 89 and undermine its order. To regain the stability of the polis, the inharmonious relation between individual and polis is again represented in a work of art and fixated as an absolute relation. Insofar as the individual relates to the polis in the form of the observing Reason, this relation is represented in the living work of art; insofar as the individual is related to the polis in the forms of active Reason, these relations are represented in the spiritual works of art. At the level of the comedy, however, it is the representation of the work of art itself that reveals that the work of art represents a contingent reality as if it were a divine one. Then the individual can become aware of the contingence of the social organism in which he is living. Consequently, the Human Law loses its legitimacy as the alleged expression of the individual’s freedom. This works out in the decline of the Greek world. The attempt to synthesize the moral and legal dimension has failed; Divine and Human Law exclude one another. This conclusion corresponds with the conclusion that was drawn at the level of the Animal Kingdom. The moral individual cannot adequately realize itself in a social organism that is contingently given. This time, however, the conclusion is not drawn on the basis of a hypothetical reconstruction of a social organism, but on the basis of the reconstruction of an historical social order. Therefore, the decline of the polis does not lead to the lawgiving Reason, like the reaction was to the failure of the Animal Kingdom, but to the reconstruction of a new historical social order: a social order in which the deficiency of the Greek society is overcome and in which a new attempt is made to the adequate realization of the moral individual. Hegel identifies the Roman Empire as this new social order.

89 Hegel’s example of this individual is Antigone.

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The Roman Empire as the result of the Greek World According to Hegel’s reconstruction, the social organism of the Roman Empire is characterized by the property right of Roman Law. The Roman citizen is a formal legal person, who owns property. Insofar as the formal person is free, he is a moral individual that tries to realize its pure self. By the decline of the Greek World, the moral individual has learnt that the social organism is a contingent reality and has no absolute ground. Insofar as he played a social role, he was not realizing an absolute essence, but only wearing a mask. The characters of the tragedy, recognizable by their masks, appeared to be dependent on real individuals. Therefore, if the moral individual can realize himself, he has to turn to the real individual, not to the social roles of the state organism. Since the real individual has existence in the social organism of the family, it appears that it is not a contingent social organism (the state) but a self constituted social organism (the family). The person of the Roman Law is, from the inside perspective, the moral individual that realizes his pure self in the social organism of the family. On the one hand, the person is free, i. e., he has a pure self; on the other hand, the person owns property, i. e., he has the right to impose his will on the properties he owns. The consumption of the properties is not dedicated to the survival of the person’s physical organism, his body, but rather to the survival of the social organism of the family, i. e., of the social organism in which the person expresses his free will. The person is, so to speak, the lord who serves himself as bondsman in the consumption of his properties. Because of this reason, Hegel also calls the person the first self. Until now, the moment of the lord (the moral dimension) and the moment of the bondsman (the legal dimension) were distributed over distinguished institutions. In the person, however, the moments are for the first time united in a single individual. Therefore, the person is a self, an individual unity of mind and body. As the unity of the lord-moment and the bondsman-moment the person is, like the citizen of the polis, a manifestation of the relation that Hegel indicates as stoicism. In their actions, the citizens of the polis perform “the transition from thought to actuality merely as the movement of an insubstantial antithesis” (281). The actions in which the persons consume their properties can be described likewise. This time, however, thought and actuality have not the generality of the Human Law and the state organism, but the subjectivity of the person’s thought and the

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family organism. The general stoicism of the polis is, so to speak, concentrated in the individuality of the person. From an outside perspective, the persons are a multitude of contingent family organisms. The contents that are realized in the distinguished families are in no way organically tied with one another. The persons are only formally related as the legal persons of the property right who recognize one another as free and equal persons. Insofar as the persons coexist as real families, their external relation is represented by the Roman Emperor. Like the other individuals, the Roman Emperor is a person; but he is a self “beside itself ” (293), i. e., his content only represents the externally-being-together of the contingent multitude of families. This external coherence is also expressed in the religion of the Roman Empire. The Roman gods exist as a pantheon in which they are assimilated in an external unity.90 The Greek world was structured as the double relation of recognition, as the being-together of right and morality. Morality was institutionalized as the Divine Law; alongside morality, right was institutionalized as the Human Law. In the Roman World right and morality, Human and Divine Law, are integrated in the reality of the person. On the one hand, the persons recognize one another as the free and equal persons of the Roman Law; on the other hand, the moral dimension is internalized by the person and practically expressed in the particularity of the family life. This internalization and practical expression, however, result in the decline of the pureness of the moral content. In Chapter 4, we will discuss the return of the pure self in the Realm of Culture. The development of this world will lead to the genesis of the second self.

90 Cf. “In this, the reality of the ethical Spirit is lost, and having lost all content, the Spirits of national individuals are gathered into a single pantheon, not into a pantheon of picture-thought whose powerless form lets each Spirit go its own way, but into the pantheon of abstract universality, of pure thought, which disembodies them and imparts to the spiritless Self, to the individual person, a being that is in and for itself.” (454).

Chapter 3 The Realm of Culture: The Genesis of the Second Self Introduction As is the case in the polis, also in the Roman Empire the absolute freedom of the pure self remains an implicit presupposition. The pure self remains submerged in the practical execution of freedom, i. e., in the way in which the person expresses his freedom in his property. Therefore, the discrepancy between inside and outside perspective also at this time continues to exist. From the outside perspective, the property order is a contingent order: an historical form of a social organism. From the inside perspective, the self only exists insofar as it participates in a property order. Just like in the polis, also in the Roman Empire the concealed presuppositions come to light: not by the death of the individual, but by the “death” of the social organism, i. e., the decline of the Roman Empire. Because of its contingent unity, the decline of the empire is as necessary as the natural death of the individual. Sooner or later, the Empire has to fall because of opposed internal power positions. For the person, the Fall of the Roman Empire means the loss of his reality as person, i. e., the property order declines. Just as the family of the polis preserves the pure memory of the deceased family member, tries to find, again, his reality and arrives at the self-consciousness of the Divine Law by means of the dialectics of the Unhappy Consciousness, so the person preserves the meaning of the declined Empire as a “pure Being”, tries to find, again, its reality and develops by means of the dialectics of the Unhappy Consciousness the consciousness of the “pure Belief ”. We have to dwell on this development of the “pure Belief ” and to elaborate how exactly the person survives the Fall of the Roman Empire.

The Fall of the Roman Empire and the experience of the person The decline of the property order does not necessarily mean the decline of the persons who were the bearers of the property order. The individual can survive the implosion of the legal order. But what are the consequen-

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Chapter 3 The Realm of Culture: The Genesis of the Second Self

ces for his freedom? Does the decline of the property order in which the freedom is realized, also imply the annihilation of freedom? To answer this question, we first have to discuss the consequences of the decline of the property order for the self-consciousness of freedom. The individual who, as person, participates in the property order can think to be autonomous. After all, he can have his property at his disposal. By the decline of the property order, however, the individual experiences the boundaries of his autonomy. The decline only happens to him, and surely is no result of his autonomous action. Therefore, the reality of his autonomy appears to be dependent on a power that transcends his autonomy. This does raise the question of what exactly is the nature of this power and how it is related to the alleged freedom of the individual. The external power to which the individual is related and that has become fatal for the property order (the power that, for example manifested itself in the power of the Ostrogoths who undermined the property order of the Roman Empire) cannot be understood as the overwhelming power of nature that immediately threatens the free self-consciousness. As a person, the individual has experienced that nature, in principle, is no obstacle to his freedom. Obviously, nature cannot only manifest itself as a medium in which he can realize his freedom, but also as a medium that resists his freedom. Because nature is factually appearing as a violent power, the second sight of nature, i. e., nature that is in harmony with freedom, can only be maintained as a inner representation of the individual. His second sight seems to be only a recollection of something that has ever existed. The recollection, however, is certainly not just an inessential fiction. Nature as the power that transcends society cannot only be a blind destiny. There has been a time in which it tolerated a free society (in the age of the polis and the Roman Empire). Therefore, it is not as much an absolute power that, per se, resists freedom, but an absolute power that has at its disposal the chance of the free individual to realize his freedom. In this sense, the absolute power of nature is the essence of freedom.91 In this case, the external violence that ruins the property order shows not so much the unreality of the individual’s freedom, but rather that the reality of the conditions under which he can practically realize his freedom transcends his autonomy. Therefore, the individual can rescue his freedom by representing the absolute power as an inner being that has the absolute power to permit (or forbid) the actualization of his freedom. By this rep91 In fact, here the pure self appears again.

The genesis of the moral individual

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resentation, the individual has the awareness that the reality in which he cannot realize his freedom is not the only possible one. At the same time, the represented absolute power transcends the alleged autonomy of the individual. After all, the individual has experienced that he is not able to guarantee for himself that he can realize his freedom in the real world. In this sense, the inner representation stands for an absolute power on which the individual knows himself to be dependent. It is this power that has the real conditions at its disposal under which he has the possibility to realize his freedom; this power is the ground of the property order in which he can realize his freedom.

The genesis of the moral individual The individual who has made the absolute being his inner representation seems to have emancipated himself from the legal order. His freedom has received its own place that does not coincide with the freedom he has as a person in the framework of the legal order. The individual has become a moral individual who is free because he relates to a pure inner being that he considers the be the ground of his own freedom. This freedom seems to be due to any individual, independent of the fact as to whether or not he participates in a legal order. Accordingly, Jrgen Habermas sharply distinguishes between the moral individual and the legal subject. As legal subject the individual belongs to a real legal community, but as moral individual he belongs to mankind. As moral individuals, all natural individuals are equal, as legal subjects only those individuals are equal who are also persons and belong to a legal community; the moral point of view is universal, the legal point of view is restricted to a specific legal community.92 However, Jrgen Habermas’ way to distinguish moral individuals and legal subjects is not tenable. The moral individual not only, in a genetic sense, presupposes the legal community, but also systematically. Right and morality are not related in an external “relation of completion”93, like Habermas thinks, but are internally linked. Rightly, Habermas puts forth that the moral point of view is a universal one. Whoever speaks about human individuals has to involve morality in his considerations. But why is this the case? Because the moral 92 J. Habermas, Faktizitt und Geltung, p. 139 ff. 93 J. Habermas, Faktizitt und Geltung, p. 137, “Ergnzungsverhltnis”.

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individual is not measured to a specific legal community, but to himself: any moral individual inwardly relates to an absolute being (that later on will be developed as the conscience). But, why is it necessary to attribute such an inner being to all individuals? The opinion that all individuals are moral individuals may have a universal validity, but on this basis it is not necessarily a universal point of view. Habermas is right when he maintains that each human individual is a moral one. But to ground this position, the universality of the moral individual cannot, just like that, be opposed to the particularity of the legal subject. As legal subject, i. e., as the person of the property order, the individual is thought to be autonomous. As autonomous subject, the individual can, in a certain sense, claim an absolute status: Reality seems to coincide with the reality he realizes in his autonomous action. No power seems to limit his actions. At the moment, however, that the property order gets ruined, this power, after all, appears to exist. It is this power that the moral individual makes the content of his inner representation. This inner being is absolute because it transcends the alleged absolute power of the autonomous person. Therefore, the independence of the moral individual, expressing itself in his inner relation to an absolute being, is linked with the presupposition of the property order. Without having experienced the alleged autonomy of the property order, the moral individual cannot be related to an inner being to which he attributes an absolute meaning. The real legal community is a particular community and, therefore, cannot be understood as the presupposition of a universal moral individual. The moral individual, however, is universal because any individual with a human self-consciousness is also a moral individual.94 The human self-consciousness is only real in a legal community and can only develop into a real moral individual when the legal community has developed into a property order in which the individual, as a legal person, thinks to be autonomous. Therefore, the reality of the moral individual in some sense presupposes the reality of the property order. That the moral individual who has been developed up to now is internally involved in the property order can also be shown by considering the moral individual, himself. The inner being to which the individual is related can be considered as the representation of the absolute essence that the person, in his alleged autonomy, thought to be himself. If this represented essence is absolute, it is, in the same sense, absolute as the 94 This has been developed in the chapter on Self-consciousness.

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person thought himself to be absolute. The person could imagine to be autonomous as long as he had the opinion that the property order was nothing other than the realization of his freedom. In the decline of the property order, however, the opposite has appeared to be the case. The property order certainly appeared to be dependent on an “outside”. This “outside” already was, in the form of the determinedness of the person, a moment of the property order all the time. What exactly the particular determinedness of the person is and to what extent the consumption of the property is able to express it, remains, under the conditions of the property order, a private affair that is, consequently, from the view of the legal order an accidental one. The accidental existence of the property order is made explicit when the property order becomes ruined. The person can survive this decline if he conceives of the accidental content as the contingent reality of an absolute being. By the representation of an absolute being the legal subject is transformed into a moral individual. The property order gives nature, only in general, the form of freedom by making nature its property. The specific content of nature, however, remains undetermined. The property law is a purely formal law that makes the content of the legal act a private affair. This, however, makes it principally possible that the content is not compatible with the formal law order and, as the “outside”, turns against law. The represented inner being is absolute insofar as it is the essence of all reality to which it is related. It does not stand a reality that has its own independence. This demand, however, contradicts the determination that, until now, is given to the inner being: As a being that is only inner, it is related to an independent outer reality, so that it cannot be really absolute. This is the starting point for a development process that the moral individual has to go through in his attempt still to rescue the absoluteness of his inner being. It must become clear in what way the outer reality does not contradict the inner being, i. e., in what way the outer reality can be conceived of as appearance of the absolute inner being. At first sight, this demand seems to be impossible because the absolute being is introduced as the inner being of the free individual to escape a reality that was not compatible with the freedom of the individual. How could this reality still be interpreted as the appearance of a inner being? The conditions to fulfill this demand, however, can be clear if one considers how the decline of the property order has given rise to the representation of an inner absolute being. The inner absolute being is the “outside” of the freedom that initially conceived of itself as the absolute being. If the free individual could

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get hold of the “outside” as an “inside” he would kill two birds with one stone: He would not only be able to conceive of the inner being of his freedom as his own freedom, but would also still have the opportunity to realize its inner being. The realization should be performed in a legal order in which freedom not only formally gets shape (as in the property order) but also really: The legal order should guarantee that the natural content also is an expression of freedom by ending the banishing of this content to the private domain. The law that expresses freedom should immediately validate the particularity of the individual (that is understood as the content of freedom) as the content of the law. The aforementioned conditions will be fulfilled by the citizens of the French Revolution. They not only have put their subjective freedom in the place of the inner absolute being, but also they want to express their subjective freedom as the content of the law of society. This means that the formal realization of freedom in the property order has been replaced by the substantial realization of freedom in a political order in which the citizens immediately want to realize their subjective freedom. The formal realization of freedom by the first self (the person) has been replaced by the substantial realization of freedom by the second self, i. e., the subject that wants to realize his subjective freedom. How the transition from an inner absolute being to which the individual is related (a relation that historically can be situated after the Fall of the Roman Empire) into an absolute being that is understood as a subjective microcosm that wants to realize itself in the political order (a relation that historically can be situated as the aspiration of the citizens of the French Revolution) can be really performed, in no way is clear. Hegel tries to interpret this development as the rise and inner dynamics of Medieval Christianity. He discusses this development as structured according the stages of the Unhappy Consciousness. 95

95 In his first introduction of the Unhappy Consciousness at the level of Self-consciousness, Hegel illustrates this consciousness already with the examples of Medieval Christianity. However, it is only at the level of the Realm of Culture that this historical reality is explicitly interpreted.

The Embodiment of the “pure Being” in the real Individual

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The Embodiment of the “pure Being” in the real Individual: the self-conscious reality of the Unhappy Consciousness In the elementary, logical expression of the Unhappy Consciousness in Chapter 2, we witnessed how the Unhappy Consciousness was the result of the decline of the social organism. The Unhappy Consciousness survives the social organism because it represents the hidden pure essence of the social organism (the pure self that previously was recognized as the lord) as an inner absolute being (the “unshakable being”). The decline of the social organism is historically exemplified with the Fall of the Roman Empire. Therefore, also the representation of the inner absolute being can be historically exemplified. The inner absolute being is represented by the absolute self, the god, of the Judeo-Christian religion. Insofar as the god remains a purely subjective, inward representation alongside the objective reality, his absoluteness is, according to Hegel, only a belief. But the subjectivity of the belief is overcome in the historical development of Christianity. Just as we have seen before, this time the elusive absolute being of the Unhappy Consciousness also gets its embodiment in the real self. The logical stages of the development of the Unhappy Consciousness can be exemplified as historical stages in the development of Medieval Christianity. The individual that represents his absolute being as the pure self of a god gets involved in the dialectics of consciousness.96 To rescue the absoluteness of his pure god, the representation must overcome its abstractness, i. e., it must be possible to determine the absolute self of the god. If, however, the individual represents his god as a real self (as the Son of God, Christ), it remains unclear how the pure and real self of the god can be brought together: The represented god is absolute as finite, as well. The individual can try to solve the problem by representing his god as the “Holy Spirit”. In that case, it is not the real individual that makes his god finite, but it is the god himself who only exists in communion with the real self. In the representation of the holy spirit, however, the individual is thrown back to himself: He, himself is the real self without which the pure self of the god has no existence. 96 As we have seen in Chapter 2, Hegel’s original introduction of the Unhappy Consciousness is illustrated with examples from the medieval world. These medieval forms are not repeated in the Realm of Culture. In contrast to Hegel, I give these medieval examples of the Unhappy Consciousness a place in the Realm of Culture. These forms can be understood as the previous history of the Belief.

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Having arrived at this self-consciousness, the Unhappy Consciousness gets involved in the dialectics of Self-consciousness. 97 It leaves the theoretical relation to an inner self and turns to a practical relation to the objective world. In this world it seeks a real self that can be understood as the real existence of an absolute self. This search is expressed in the Crusades to the Holy Land to find Christ, the living God. The crusades, however, are doomed to fail. It is in the nature of the real self the be mortal. Consequently, the crusaders can only find an empty grave.98 In the next step to realize the pure self, the individual repeats the lord/ bondsman relation. He now tries to realize the pure self of his god by sacrificing his real self. This is possible because the individual is a member of the community of the (Roman Catholic) church. This community exists insofar as the individuals serve (as “bondsmen”, i. e., as monks) their god (the “lord”). In their service, the pure self of the god gets real existence. The individuals, however, strive after the existence of their god as a pure self, and think to reach this goal by totally sacrificing their real self. They try to negate the existence of their body by fasting, and to negate the existence of their mind by the endless repetition of ritual prayers. If the individuals, however, succeed in their intention, they themselves are the pure self, not their god. The power to totally discipline their mind and body presupposes that the individuals are free, i. e., have a pure self. Just like the pure recollection of the deceased family member got its embodiment in the living family (by mediation of the dialectics of the Unhappy Consciousness) so the pure recollection of the declined social organism gets its embodiment in the living individual (as well mediated by the dialectic of the Unhappy Consciousness). Initially, the living family members of the polis were harmoniously related to the objective reality of the Human Law. They recognized this objectivity as the realization of their inner being (they recognized the moments of observing and active Reason). In contrast to the family of the polis, the real individual of the Realm of Culture is not related to a social organism, and certainly not

97 The dialectics of Self-Consciousness is performed in the form of the Unhappy Consciousness. 98 The experience of the crusades repeats the relation of Desire in the form of Unhappy Consciousness. Self-consciousness tries to find again and again its pure essence (the pure self of the God) as a living self. But all living selves appear to be mortal.

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to a social organism to which he is harmoniously related.99 The social organism has decayed and the objective reality appears as a contingent one.

The meaning of the moral individual in the objective world The moral individual who has understood that the absolute inner being is his subjective essence is related to a contingent objective world (the reality that is left after the decline of the Roman Empire). If his subjective essence, the Lutheran God in which he is inwardly involved, really is an absolute essence, it cannot remain purely subjective. To affirm the absoluteness of the subjective essence, it has to be realized in the objective world. But insofar as the objective world is a contingent reality, it remains accidental whether or not this realization is possible. Just because the contingent world is an independent existence, there is no guarantee that the moral individual can realize himself in this world. This guarantee is only given under the condition of the first stage of the Revealed Religion, the religion of the Realm of Culture. Like the Belief of the moral individual, also the Revealed Religion refers to the Christian religion. At the level of the Revealed Religion the Christian god, however, is not thematized from the viewpoint of the moral individual, but as the god of the objective world.100 In the first stage of the Revealed Religion, god is represented as the Father, the creator of the objective world.101 This god has created the world in its contingent 99 To a certain extent, the family in the polis can be compared to the religious community in the Realm of Culture. Like the reality of the Divine Law has been developed in the family, so the reality of the Belief is developed in the institutions of the Church. As a subject of Belief, the individual will have a judgment on the institutions of the realm of Culture. But this independent position, with respect to the social institutions, is not dependent on institutional actions within the framework of the church. The subject of Belief has internalised the relation to the absolute Being: In the transition from Catholicism into Protestantism, the subject of Belief no longer needs the mediation of the priests. 100 Cf. “The content itself which we have to consider has partly been met with already as the idea of the ‘unhappy’ and the ‘believing’ consciousness; … The consciousness of the community, on the other hand, possesses the content for its substance, just as the content is the certainty of the community’s own Spirit.” (464). 101 This first moment of the Revealed Religion corresponds to the Unhappy Consciousness in the form of Consciousness. The inner representations of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit return. (“There are thus three distinct moments: essence, being-for-self which is the otherness of essence and for which essence is,

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existence. Therefore, the objective world is reconciled with the pure self of God the Father. As creation of God the Father, the objective world principally is understood as the creation of a pure self. As a consequence, the moral individual, in principle, has the possibility to realize his subjective essence in the objective world. The function of the first stage of the Revealed Religion is comparable to the first stage of the Religion of Art in the polis. Just like the moments of the Unhappy Consciousness (namely those moments that resulted in the embodiment of the recollection of the deceased family member in the living family) were introduced in the public domain by their representation in the abstract works of art, so the representation of God the Father introduces the moments of the Unhappy Consciousness (namely those moments that resulted in the embodiment of the recollection of the declined social organism), in the public domain of the Realm of Culture.

The realization of the moral individual in the objective world: the process of culture The absoluteness of the subjective essence can only be confirmed when it is realized in the objective world. The moral individual must be able to once again find his subjective essence in an objectivity that is structured like the stages of observing and active Reason. This realization of the moral individual is mediated by the second and third stages of the Revealed Religion. In the second stage of the Revealed Religion, the Realm of the Son (Christ) in the objective world is not only represented as a creation of God, but also as a world in which God himself appears, namely in the form of his Son, Jesus Christ. Because this Son is a human being, at this stage the religious representation makes clear that the objectivity of the human world, in itself, expresses the pure self of the divine and being-for-self, or the knowledge of itself in the ‘other’.” (464)) And, the absolute self appears again as “devotion”, as a being that escapes enduring existence: “the being-for-self that shut itself out from essence is essence’s knowledge of its own self. It is the word which, when uttered, leaves behind, externalized and emptied, him who uttered it, but which is as immediately heard, and only this hearing of his own self is the existence of the Word.” (465). This time, however, the absolute self is the God of the community, not just the inner representation of the individual.

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being.102 From this religious conviction, the moral individual derives the certitude that he can find again his subjective essence in the objective world, namely in the objective human world, the social organism.103 After the Fall of the Roman Empire, the institutions of the social organism have to be rebuilt. But the process of rebuilding cannot onesidedly be understood as a more or less coincidental, practical process in which the real individuals constitute a new social organism by serving a lord in their role as bondsmen. Because the individuals are also moral individuals, they do not accept whatever tradition of the social organism. For the moral individuals, the social organism has legitimacy only insofar as they can recognize it as the objectification of their subjective essence. The moral individuals judge the social organism. They consider it to be good if it corresponds to subjective pure self, and they consider it to be bad if does not.104 This judgment gives rise to the dialectics of culture between the individuals and the social organism. As well, the individual as the social organism is cultivated in a process that can only end when the moral individual can recognize the social organism as an adequate objectification of his pure self. The first stage of the process of cultivation has the structure of observing Reason. The moral individual tries to recognize his subjective essence in a (social) world that is objectively given. As we have seen before, the dialectics of observing Reason repeats (in its own, mediated form) the dialectics of Consciousness and Self-consciousness. Firstly, the moral individual tries to recognize his essence in the social organism as an immediately given identity (cf. the Sense-Certainty). In this immediate relation, however, the social organism remains undetermined (all real social organisms can be immediately given). In the second attempt, the social organism is determined in relation to the individual. 102 Cf. “Spirit is thus posited in the third element, in universal self-consciousness; it is its community. The movement of the community as self-consciousness that has distinguished itself from its picture-thought is to make explicit what has been implicitly established. The dead divine Man or human God is in himself the universal consciousness; this he has to become explicitly for this self-consciousness.” (473). 103 The Realm of the Son has the same function in the Realm of Culture, as the living work of art has in the polis: It represents the integration between the moral individual and the objective world. 104 Cf. “Now, self-consciousness holds that object to be good, and to possess intrinsic being, in which it finds itself; and that to be bad in which it finds the opposite of itself.” (302/3).

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Also in this relation, however, the social organism cannot be identified. On the one hand, the individual is a corporeal individual who tries to satisfy his needs in relation to the social organism (the social organism appears as Wealth, 305).105 On the other hand, the individual is a spiritual individual who sacrifices his corporeal existence and realizes (as the “lord” that is served by his body as the “bondsman”) the social organism, itself (that in this relation appears as State Power, 305).106 Like the Perception was not able to identify the Thing by bringing together the two points of view concerning the Thing (the Thing is One and Also), so the moral individual is not able to identify the social organism by bringing together the two viewpoints (the social organism is State Power and Wealth). Therefore, it appears, thirdly, that the unity of the social organism must not be attributed to the social organism itself, but to the judging individual (cf. Understanding). In his attempt to understand the social organism’s unity as the result of the judging individual, the moral individual repeats the dialectics of Self-consciousness (in the form of observing Reason). In the first stage, the stage of the language of flattery, the moral individual identifies the unlimited monarch (Louis XIV)107 as the one who represents the unity of the social organism. He has this position because he is surrounded by individuals (the noblemen) who are saying to him all the time, in their language of the flattery, that he is the unlimited monarch.108 The identity that is dependent on the language of the flattery, however, gets ruined by the ambiguity of the noblemen. The noblemen do not coincide with their service (as “bondsmen”) to their “lord”, the monarch. Insofar as they recognize the unlimited monarch, they are moral individ105 Hegel has in mind the feudal nobility that is rewarded for its service to the feudal sovereign. 106 Hegel means the feudal sovereign. 107 Cf. “The result is that the Spirit of this power is now an unlimited Monarch: unlimited, because the language of flattery raises power into its purified universality; this moment being the product of language, of an existence which has been purified into Spirit, is a purified self-identity; a monarch, for such language likewise raises individuality to its extreme point; what the noble consciousness divests itself of as regards this aspect of the simple spiritual unity is the pure intrinsic being of its thinking, its very ‘I’.” (310/1). 108 In the relation of Desire, the pure self has to prove again and again the he is the essence of nature by negating nature. Here, the noblemen have to proof again and again that the unlimited monarch is the essence of the social organism by negating themselves and by expressing the judgment that the monarch is the essence. In this sense, Desire is repeated in the form of observing Reason.


uals who are sacrificing themselves for the social organism. But they are also corporeal individuals who want to satisfy their needs. Therefore, it remains unsure whether their service concerns the State Power (so that the language of flattery is completely honest) or the Wealth, i. e., the reward they receive for their service. At any moment, what is meant as State Power can turn into its opposite, Wealth, the good can change into the bad, the being-in-itself into the being-for-self. This ongoing possibility of change is expressed in the language of disruption. 109 The language of disruption seems to make clear that nothing in reality is what is seems to be. Reality, the social organism seems to lose its substantiality. This becomes absolutely clear when the individual experiences that it is related to a contingent world. Whether the individual is rewarded for his serving the social organism, he has not under control himself. Whether he can profit from the Wealth that is produced by the social organism is not dependent on his own decision, but on a strange being, on the will of the monarch who can or cannot endow him Wealth. Therefore, the individual experiences the highest possible alienation. The reality that he should be able to recognize as the reality in which his freedom is realized appears as a reality in which wealth is an external thing and, in which, consequently, it is totally accidental whether he can realize his essence. The experience of the highest possible alienation makes the moral individual give up the relation form of observing Reason. 110 He has experienced having no opportunity to find again his essence in the objectively given social organism and returns as the pure Insight (321 ff.) to himself. As the pure Insight (that repeats the relation form of stoicism), the moral individual takes on a rationalistic position. He is related to a contingent world, but considers his pure concept as the essence of this reality. Therefore, in some sense the pure essence of the moral individual has realized itself, for it is nearer determined. This nearer determination, however, is a conceptual determination that remains alongside the contingent, sensual reality. [The position of the pure Insight is represented by Ren Descartes for whom the mathesis universalis is the essence of all reality.]

109 Cf. “language of this disrupted consciousness” (316), the translation of “Sprache der Zerrissenheit”. 110 Cf. “But this expendable, selfless being, or the self that has become a Thing, is rather the return of that being into itself; it is being-for-self that is explicitly for itself, the concrete existence of Spirit.” (316).

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As long as the pure Insight is related to a contingent reality his claim to be the essence of all reality is contradicted. After all, the contingent reality has its own independence. As the Enlightenment, the pure Insight turns against the contingent reality and tries to transform it into a reality that only expresses its own pure insight. In this attempt, it repeats the relation form of active Reason. This repetition only makes sense when the moral individual presupposes the validity of the third stage of the revealed religion, the stage of the Holy Spirit in which the internal unity between god and mankind is represented. Mankind is not only the Son of God, but also realizes, in and through his actions, God’s own essence.111 Under the condition of this religion, the moral individual can assume that he is able to realize his absolute inner essence. Firstly, the moral individual repeats the relation of Pleasure and Necessity when it turns as Enlightenment against Superstition. He understands the contingent reality as a traditional order that is based on accidental opinions that are only legitimized by Superstition. Enlightenment thinks to be able to subject this kind of world without much resistance. It needs only to confront Superstition with its arguments to make it sure of its right. It thinks that its enlightened activity can only result in the pleasure of its triumphing argumentation that experiences no resistance at all.112 From the outside perspective, reality is not only contingent, but also is a social organism that can survive because it is grounded in the second stage of revealed religion. In this religion, human reality is represented as the son of god, i. e., the social organism is interpreted as a contingent reality in which the pure self has given shape to itself. Since Enlightenment results from the moral individual’s attempt to realize himself, it is by revealed religion not confronted with Superstition, but with its own presupposition. After all, also the moral individual has made the pure self his absolute essence (albeit that this essence until now was an inner essence). In 111 Cf. “Spirit is thus posited in the third element, in universal self-consciousness; it is its community. The movement of the community as self-consciousness that has distinguished itself from its picture-thought is to make explicit what has been implicitly established. The dead divine Man or human God is, in himself, the universal consciousness; this he has to become explicitly for this self-consciousness.” (473). 112 Cf. “But this silent, ceaseless weaving of the Spirit in the simple inwardness of its substance, Spirit concealing its action from itself, is only one side of the realization of the pure insight.” (332).


its confrontation with the (alleged) Superstition it also becomes clear for Enlightenment, itself, that it is confronted with its presupposition. Enlightenment and Superstition relate to one another as the “satisfied” and the “unsatisfied” Enlightenment. 113 The pure Insight that turns against the contingent reality develops into the satisfied Enlightenment. It tries to express the essence of the contingent reality in general laws that, in their turn, express the pure matter, and thus seems to finalize its Enlightenment project. The alleged superstition, however, remains confined in the reality of a contingent social organism whose essence, as the “beyond” (jenseits) of the divine pure self, remains elusive. Basically, however, both positions are each others opposite and in this sense they pass into one another. The “beyond” of the alleged Superstition (faith) is, as pure thinking, pure identity, pure matter. The other way around, the pure matter of the satisfied Enlightenment is, as Thing-in-itself, a “beyond”. The passing of both positions into one another is performed in the Realm of Utility, in which all in the world is only a being-in-itself insofar as it is for an other.114 The satisfied Enlightenment is related to a contingent reality, and experiences in its relation to the unsatisfied Enlightenment that the contingent reality only exists distinct from the pure self. The unsatisfied Enlightenment is related to the pure self, and experiences in its relation to the satisfied Enlightenment that its pure self only exists distinct from the contingent reality. Actually, the hidden unity of the Realm of Utility is the real individual, i. e., the individual that unites the moral and the legal individual. The satisfied Enlightenment, by making the unsatisfied Enlightenment its object, is related to the legal individual, i. e., the member of the social organism that knows that this organism is legitimated by the pure self of God. Obviously, the unsatisfied Enlightenment is related to the moral individual by making the satisfied Enlightenment its object. Therefore, in the confrontation between satisfied and unsatisfied Enlightenment, the real individual can develop the awareness to be, as well, the essence as the appearance of the world. By expressing himself in the social organism, the real individual is the being-in-itself. This being-in-itself only exists in113 Cf. “ … but there is this difference, the latter is satisfied Enlightenment, but faith is unsatisfied Enlightenment.” (349). 114 Cf. “What is useful, is something with an enduring being in itself, or a Thing; this being-in-itself is at the same time only a pure moment; hence it is absolutely for an other, but equally is for an ‘other’ merely what it is in itself; these opposed moments have returned into the indivisible unity of being-for-self.” (354).

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sofar as it is for another, i. e., the pure self of the god. The pure self of the god, however, is the inner pure self of the real individual. Therefore, the real individual appears as the autonomous individual, i. e., the individual that exists by realizing his inner essence.

The absolute Freedom: the second self Hegel discusses the autonomous individual as the absolute freedom (355 ff.) that characterizes the citizens of the French Revolution. The autonomous individual is the moral individual who has the certitude that he can realize his absolute essence as legal individual, i. e., in the social organism in which he has realized himself. For the autonomous individual, the world is nothing else than the self-realization of his inner essence. He is the autonomous author of the law that is realized in the social organism. The world where the autonomous individual is living is a world without alienation, a world in which he can feel totally at home. The transcendental world of the pure self is united with the real world of the social organism. “The two worlds are reconciled and heaven is transplanted to earth below.” (355) At the level of the absolute freedom, the moral and the legal dimension are, for the second time, united in the individual. Therefore, the absolute freedom can be called the second self 115, or the moral subject. In contrast to the first self, the formal person of the Roman Law, the content of the second self is not contingent, but posited as the expression of subjective freedom. The law of the social organism is the autonomous law of the second self. Therefore, the absolute freedom can be interpreted as the historical realization of the lawgiving Reason. The lawgiving Reason was discussed as a hypothetical attempt to determine the law of the social organism from the perspective of the particular consciousness. This attempt failed because only laws at a very high abstraction level could be formulated. The absolute freedom, however, does not content itself with such abstract laws because it intends to be the lawgiver of a real social organism. As a result, the French Revolution ends in terror: If all citizens want to impose their specific law, being the expression of their subjective freedom, they exclude one another and can only fight a struggle of life and death. This makes explicit that 115 “The second self is the world of culture which has attained its truth, or it is Spirit that has recovered itself from its dividedness–absolute freedom.” (384).

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the that the absolute freedom repeats the second stage of active Reason, The law of the heart and the frenzy of self-conceit. The revolutionary citizens who want to realize their “law of the heart” are seized by the subjectivism of “self-conceit” and are confronted with a strange necessity. The realization of the social organism’s law presupposes that all serve the same “lord”. This is not possible when the distinction between the moral and political domain is not respected. The immediate moralization of politics inevitably leads to terror.116

Retrospection In the Realm of Culture, the structures of the Greek world are repeated and brought to self-consciousness. The many poleis with their contingent ethical content return as the families that have their self-consciousness in the formal legal person of the Roman Law. Like the Human Law of the polis, the Roman Law is structured to conform to the relation of stoicism, which implies that the freedom’s pure self remains immersed in the practical performance of freedom. In contrast to the polis, however, in which the citizen is not aware of the particularity of the ethical content, this awareness is developed by the person, who knows that the freedom that he realizes in his family organism has a particular content that is distinguished from the content of other family organisms. At the level of the Realm of Culture, it is thematized how the person develops insight into the contingent content of his freedom (like the Greek citizen developed insight into the contingency of the polis’s ethical life) and how he tries to overcome this contingency in a doubled process of culture (in which, as well, the person, as his world, is cultivated). As in the polis, the return of the repressed pure self in the Realm of Culture also is mediated by death. This time however, not by the death of the family member, but by the “death” of the social organism. The remembrance is retained as the inner representation of the absolute “pure Thing”. Just as, at the level of the polis, the remembrance of the deceased family member is embodied in the Divine Law of the family, so the remembrance of the declined social organism is embodied in the faith of 116 In this sense, the Sharia is a form of terror and in some sense, also an insult to god: after all, as an absolute being, he may not be distinguished from the finite reality.

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the individual. In both cases, the embodiment is mediated by the dialectics of the Unhappy Consciousness. The development of the Realm of Culture is characterized by the movement in which the faithful individual is integrated with the objective world. In the first step of this process, mediated by the first stage of the Revealed Religion, the faithful individual becomes part of the public domain. In the second step, the faithful individual really integrates with the objective world by means of a process of culture. This process is structured according to the dialectics of observing and active Reason and mediated by, respectively, the second and third stage of the Revealed Religion (the realm of the Christ and the realm of the Holy Spirit). The development of the Realm of Culture is the self-conscious repetition of the movement performed in the polis in which the Divine Law is integrated with the objective world of the Human Law. In the first step of this process, mediated by the first stage of the Religion of Art (the abstract work of art) the Divine Law becomes part of the public domain. In the second step, Divine and Human Law are synthesized in a process that was also structured according the dialectics observing and active Reason and, this time, respectively mediated by the second and third stage of the Religion of Art (the living work of art and the spiritual work of art). In the Greek world, the moral dimension had its place in the underworld and the legal dimension in the real world of the Human Law. The first (immediate) attempt to integrate both dimensions in one individual resulted in the first self of the Roman Law. In the first self, however, the moral dimension remains implicit: It is only practically expressed in the freedom of the person to subject his property to his free will. In the Realm of Culture, the moral dimension has its place in the faithful individual who, initially, is externally related to the institutions of the legal order. The second (self-conscious) attempt to integrate the moral and legal dimension resulted in the second self, the absolute Freedom of the French Revolution. The self-conscious unity of right and morality, however, fails and leads to the revolutionary terror. The failure of the second self can be explained in terms of the discrepancy between the outside and inside perspectives. From the inside perspective, the second self tries to realize his subjective freedom in the law of the social organism and he thinks this law to be nothing else than the expression of his absolute essence. From the outside perspective, however, the second self immediately identifies the absolute moral dimension with the contingent dimension of the social organism. That this imme-

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diate identification is false appears in the terror of the French Revolution. All citizens want to realize their subjective freedom in the social law; this makes explicit that they only realize a contingent content that is not compatible with the content of the others. The failure of the second self shows that the historical experiment still has not succeeded in finding the adequate unity between mind and body. In the next chapter, the third attempt is discussed that will result in the third self, the self of the conscience.

Chapter 4 The Realm of Morality: Making the Third Self Explicit Introduction The culture of the French Revolution is, according to Hegel, “the grandest and the last” (362) culture. As the absolute freedom, the moral individual is no longer related to an external, traditional world. The moral individual thinks that it can produce the entire world out of his subjective freedom. This leads to a position in which the dimension of right is totally swallowed up by the dimension of morality. For this reason, the second self of the absolute freedom can be interpreted as the reversal of the first self of the Roman Empire: The Roman Law represents a world in which the moral dimension is totally swallowed up by the dimension of right. In the Realm of Morality, the realm in which the third self will be identified as conscience, it is developed as to how the dimensions of right and morality can be conceived of in an adequate unity. Therefore, in the third self, the first and second self are brought together in an harmonic synthesis. In contrast to the polis and the Roman Empire, the Realm of Morality is not a third historical episode in the European history. (Because the French Revolution took place during Hegel’s lifetime, such a third historical stage could not be formulated by Hegel without having the pretension to be a fortune-teller.) After the “grandest and last” culture of the absolute freedom, all historical experiences are finished with that are necessary to conceptualize the philosophical insight into the adequate relation between the dimensions of right and morality. Therefore, the Realm of Morality is characterized by philosophical reflection. By means of the philosophy of Rousseau, Kant and Hegel, himself, in the Realm of Morality, are discussed as to what conclusions can be drawn from the experiences of the French Revolution.

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The point of departure of the Realm of Morality: the Rousseauian Reflection After the terror of the French Revolution, society is not lastingly disrupted: soon Napoleon appears on the stage to restore social order. Therefore, the question is raised of how the citizens of the Revolution, whose absolute freedom resisted tradition, as such, were able to comply with Napoleon’s government. The principle argument to conceive this transition is discussed in Chapter 2 at the level of active Reason, when the Law of the heart or the frenzy of self-conceit (221) is developed into the next stage: Virtue and the way of the world. (228) When the citizens experience that it is impossible to impose their subjective law on the social organism because this is an independent, contingent reality, they conclude that they can only realize their subjective freedom (and, consequently, let survive the social organism) by freely chosen, virtuous submission to an existing objective reality, the way of the world. The “grandest culture” of the citizens, however, has made clear that the way of the world is no anonymous destiny, but rather the absolute freedom of the other citizens. In the end, it was the freedom of the others that manifested itself as the absolute power of death, the guillotine of the French Revolution. 117 Therefore, if the virtuous citizens accept the contingent law of the way of the world (represented by the contingent seize of power by Napoleon) they know that this law is the contingent expression of an underlying absolute essence, namely the absolute freedom of the citizens. In other words, the citizens have understood what, from the outside perspective, was already clear at the level of the lordship/bondsman relation. The absolute essence of the social organism is the pure self, that is represented by the lord. The representation of the lord appears as the contingent social law that is realized by the service of the bondsmen. The insight of the citizens is formulated in the philosophy of JeanJacques Rousseau, who conceives the pure self, the absolute essence of the social organism, as the volont gnrale. According to Rousseau, the

117 Cf. “The sole work and deed of universal freedom is therefore death, a death too which has no inner significance or filling, for what is negated is the empty point of the absolute free self. It is thus the coldest and meanest of all deaths, with no more significance than cutting off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water.” (360).

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legal order is only legitimate insofar as it expresses the universal will; only under that condition does it do justice to the autonomy of all.118 Like the Human Law and the Roman Law, the Napoleonic Law, insofar as it is understood as the expression of the general will, is the third shape in which the relation of stoicism appears in European history.119 In the Human Law of the polis, stoicism appears in its immediate form as the autonomous action by which the citizens realize a common traditional content. In the Roman Law, stoicism appears in its self-conscious form as the autonomous persons who practically realize their subjective freedom in their property. The stoicism that appears in the Napoleonic Law synthesizes the two preceding forms. The autonomous citizens realize a common traditional content, but they know this content as the expression of the pure self, i. e., they have insight in the historical contingency of this content.

The inner contradiction of the Napoleonic Law: the Kantian Reflection In contrast to the polis and the Roman Empire, at the level of the Napoleonic Law the pure self is no hidden presupposition because it is explicitly expressed by the volont gnrale. Yet, the pure self also, in this case, causes a problem. The absoluteness of the pure self (the volont gnrale) contradicts the finitude of the social organism. It is true that the social organism is conceived of as the finite expression of the pure self, but this relation, as such, is not expressed in the social organism. From the outside perspective, there is no difference between a social organism whose citizens do or do not conceive it as the expression of the pure

118 The self has overcome the absolute freedom; it no longer demands that its actions immediately coincide with the universal will: “For consciousness, the immediate unity of itself with the universal will, its demand to know itself as this specific point in the universal will, is changed round into the absolute opposite experience. What vanishes for it in that experience is abstract being or the immediacy of that insubstantial point, and this vanished immediacy is the universal will itself which it now knows itself to be in so far as it is a pure knowing or pure will.” (362/3). 119 In this sense, the Realm of Morality can be considered as a new historical episode after the French Revolution, but not as a Realm that passes through a real development.

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self. Hegel discusses this contradiction as Dissemblance or duplicity (374) in which section he refers to Kant’s practical philosophy.120 At this stage, it is made explicit that Hegel designed the metaphor of the lordship/ bondsman relation with reference to Kant’s categorical imperative. The citizens of the Napoleonic Law not only interpret their world in terms of the lordship/bondsman relation (the volont gnrale is the lord who is served by the citizens who realize the social organism of the Napoleonic Law) but also want to observe the categorical imperative. After all, the Napoleonic Law can only be interpreted as expression of the pure self if the actions of the citizens can be considered to be free ones. Since the citizens are real individuals, i. e., unity of mind and body, the assumption that their actions are free and, consequently correspond to the categorical imperative, presupposes that these actions do not contradict the citizen’s self-realization as corporeal beings. Therefore, Kant’s first postulate of the practical Reason must be formulated, i. e., “the harmony between morality and nature”. Free action must be compatible with the satisfaction of needs.121 To guarantee the reality of the Napoleonic Law, however, it is not sufficient to postulate the principle harmony between morality and nature. The citizens must be able to realize this harmony in their actions, i. e., they must be able to will this harmony. Since the citizens are a unity of mind and body, their will is as well determined by reason as by nature. Therefore, the possibility to realize the harmony between morality and nature is dependent on the fulfillment of Kant’s second postulate of the practical reason: “the harmony of morality and the sensually determined will”.122 But, also under the condition of the second postulate there is no guarantee that the Napoleonic Law can be realized. The determination of the will results in conceptual contents that are realized in actions. These actions must result in the reality of the social organism. The determinations of the social organism must correspond to the conceptual de120 The relation Dissemblance or duplicity is a form of scepticism: It makes it clear that the citizens are not autonomous with regard to the content of their actions. 121 Cf. “The harmony of morality and Nature–or, since Nature comes into account only in so far as consciousness experiences its unity with it–the harmony of morality and happiness, is thought of as something that necessarily is, i. e. it is postulated.” (367). 122 Cf. “The first postulate was the harmony of morality and objective Nature, the final purpose of the world; the other, the harmony of morality and the sensuous will, the final purpose of self-consciousness as such.” (369).

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terminations of the will. Therefore, the third postulate concerns “the harmony between thinking and being”.123 In the end, however, the postulates do not succeed in their attempt to clarify the reality of the Napoleonic Law because they cannot sublate the contradiction that also characterizes this version of stoicism. On the one hand, the pure self is determined as an absolute being that absolutely transcends the domain of nature. At the same time, however, the pure self is realized in the finite reality of the social organism; i. e., without nature the pure self does not appear at all and can not be determined.

The sublation of the inner contradiction The two preceding forms of stoicism, the Human and Roman Law, declined because they were confronted with a contradiction. The positive content of the laws contradicted the underlying freedom that transcends any determination. The contradiction became manifest by the return of the repressed pure self that was mediated by death (respectively the death of the family member and the death of the social organism). At the level of the Napoleonic Law, all repression has been overcome: the “grandest and the last” culture has eliminated all external reality. Therefore, it is not necessary that the pure self returns by making undone its repression. The pure self is already part of the Napoleonic Law’s consciousness all the time, namely in the form of the volont gnrale. (As a matter of fact, also this time the occurrence of the pure self in the Napoleonic Law’s consciousness was mediated by death: the death of the living self as the result of the French Revolution’s terror).124 The double movement of the Unhappy Consciousness in which the pure self respectively became embodied and got involved in the objective world (the movement we witnessed, as well, at the level of the Human Law as the level of Roman Law) does not come off this time. This does not alter the fact that 123 Cf. “While, however, the first postulate expresses the harmony of morality and Nature, as a harmony that simply is, because in it Nature is this negative aspect of self-consciousness, is the moment of being, this implicit harmony, on the other hand, is now essentially posited as consciousness. […] This [consciousness, P.C.] is then henceforth a master and ruler of the world, who brings about the harmony of morality and happiness, and at the same time sanctifies duties in their multiplicity.” (370). 124 Cf. “ … the terror of death is the vision of this negative nature of itself.” (361)

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the pure self once again practices an undermining force that leads to a version of the Unhappy Consciousness. We have seen that the undermining force of the pure self, at the level of the Napoleonic Law, results from the reflection of the Dissemblance or duplicity. As the absolute essence of the world, the pure self is not compatible with its appearance in a finite social organism. This contradiction can be overcome at the level of Conscience. We will see that this level is structured according to the stages of the Unhappy Consciousness.

The Hegelian reflection on the Napoleonic Law: Conscience as the origin of the third self The social organism that is understood as the expression of the volont gnrale is, for the citizen, nothing else than the objectification of his own individuality as unity of mind and body. Volont gnrale and social organism are the objective expression of his mind and body. Therefore, when the reflection of Dissemblance or duplicity shows that the pure self and the social organism contradict one another, the citizen cannot accept this contradiction because this would mean that his own being contradicts itself. Consequently, the citizen concludes that the contradiction is not essential. It only appears as the result of an external reflection on the objectified relation between mind and body. From his inside perspective, the contradiction does not exist at all. Inwardly he persists in the unity of mind and body. The citizen who inwardly persists in the unity of mind and body has passed to the relation of Conscience. As Conscience, the citizen has the certitude that the social organism, i. e., the reality to which he is related, is nothing else than the objectification of his absolute essence.125 Conscience is, so to speak, for itself the lord (the pure self ) who realizes himself as bondman in the social organism. From the outside perspective,

125 Cf. “But as moral pure self-consciousness, it flees from this disparity between the way it thinks [of these moments] and its own essential nature, flees from this untruth which asserts that to be true which it holds to be untrue, flees from this with abhorrence back into itself. It is a pure conscience which rejects with scorn such a moral idea of the world; it is in its own self the simple Spirit that, certain of itself, acts conscientiously regardless of such ideas, and in this immediacy possesses its truth.” (383).

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however, Conscience is a subjective being that, as Unhappy Consciousness, is related to the contingent reality of the social organism. The development of Conscience will consist of the step-by-step realization of the Unhappy Consciousness leading to the result that Conscience (as absolute Spirit) is not only subjectively, but also objectively, i. e., from the outside perspective, the essence of reality. This will accomplish the project of the Phenomenology of Spirit. The human being can absolutely be understood as the unity of mind and body.

The development of Conscience From the inside perspective, the conscientious citizen thinks to have complete moral autonomy at his disposal. Nothing can disturb the absolute conviction of Conscience. From the outside perspective, however, the picture looks different. The conscientious citizen appears as the individual who has internalized the lord and who matters not much to the social organism’s reality. The individual is immediately convinced that the absolute content of his self-consciousness, i. e., the content of his Conscience, immediately coincides with the content of objective reality in general. This conviction, however, remains, for the time being, an inner one and does not matter at all to the social organism’s reality. The question is whether the inner conviction of the conscientious individual can resist the social organism’s reality that he excludes. Therefore, the development of the conscientious individual discussed by Hegel under the title “Conscience. The ‘beautiful soul’, evil and its forgiveness” (383) can, as a matter of fact, be considered as the systematical research to the question of whether the individual in this form is thinkable at all. We will see that the development of the conscientious individual is structured according the stages of the Unhappy Consciousness and repeats, like the Unhappy Consciousness, the moments of Consciousness and Selfconsciousness. a. Conscience as the Unhappy Consciousness that repeats Consciousness The conscientious individual who repeats the development of Consciousness wants to find the content of his Conscience in the reality to which he is immediately related. In this context, this immediate reality is not an object (like in the elementary form of Sense-Certainty) but an action

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that is immediately given in the framework of the existing social organism. Therefore, the individual thinks that this immediately given action expresses the reality of his Conscience. 126 The action that is immediately given, however, is only an example of many actions that are immediately given. This necessitates a nearer identification of the action that expresses the content of the Conscience. This is done by the individual by claiming that especially that action expresses the content of Conscience that does so according to his subjective conviction.127 The subjectivism into which the conscience’s content relapses can be overcome when this conviction is recognized by others.128 b. Conscience as the Unhappy Consciousness that repeats Self-consciousness The individual whose conviction is recognized by the others has an intersubjective way of existence that is separated from the given reality of the social organism. Since this individual considers his self-consciousness (the conviction of his conscience) essential and the given reality inessential, he repeats, respectively, the three stages of the development of self-consciousness: Desire, Lordship and Bondage and Stoicism. The individual repeats Desire because he can only retain the conviction of his conscience as the absolute essence (and consequently, can persist in his autonomy) when he demonstrates that the objective reality to which he is related is inessential. Therefore, the individual understands the action in which he expresses his inner nature, his drive or desire as 126 Cf. “Action qua actualization is thus the pure form of will–the simple conversion of a reality that merely is into a reality that results from action, the conversion of the bare mode of objective knowing [i.e. knowing an object] into one of knowing reality as something produced by consciousness.” (385). 127 Cf. “This immediate concrete self-certainty is the essence [of the action]; looking at this certainty from the point of view of the antithesis of consciousness, the content of the moral action is the doer’s own immediate individuality; and the form of that content is just this self as a pure movement, viz. as [the individual’s] knowing or his own conviction.” (387). 128 Cf. “This being-for-another is, therefore, the substance which remains in itself or unexplicated, which is distinct from the self. Conscience has not given up pure duty or the abstract in-itself; duty is the essential moment of relating itself, qua universality, to another. Conscience is the common element of the two self-consciousnesses, and this element is the substance in which the deed has an enduring reality, the moment of being recognized and acknowledged by others.” (388).

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an action that constitutes the social organism. Under that condition his action contributes to the realization of the absolute content of conscience. Consequently, the action realizes the individual’s duty.129 The needy nature of the individual, however, appears in a multitude of actions. Therefore, towards the others who dispute that his actions are dutiful, the individual again and again has to bring up points of view that show that his actions serve the general good the best. (Analogously, the elementary Desire had to prove again and again that his pure self is the essence of the (living) natural objects.) Precisely because of this, because of the possibility to find again and again a new point of view to illustrate that his action expresses his duty, the individual can preserve the illusion of his autonomy.130 Because the individual, on the one hand, thinks himself to be totally free to determine what is the content of his duty but, on the other hand, has to manifest himself in a particular action, a discrepancy can arise about the individual’s own opinion with regard to his duty and the opinion of the others. After all, the others judge the individual on the basis of the actions he performs. If this discrepancy is acknowledged by the individual, he arrives at the repetition of the lordship/bondsman relation, but this time in a version in which he takes on, as well, the role of the lord as the role of the bondsman. The individual realises that he, being dependent on his actions, remains tied to the external reality and, therefore, plays the role of the bondsman. At the same time, the individual, as conscience, performs the role of the lord. He remains autonomous insofar as his subjective conviction remains dependent on that action that he decides to be the expression of his conscience.131 The moral content of the individual that has internalized the lordship/ bondsman relation, however, remains elusive for the others. If they consider the action that is really performed by the individual to be the expres129 Cf. “But action is called for, something must be determined by the individual, and the self-certain Spirit in which the in-itself has attained the significance of the self-conscious ‘I’, knows that it has this determination and content in the immediate certainty of itself. This, as a determination and content, is the natural consciousness, i. e. impulses and inclinations.” (390). 130 Cf. “In the strength of its own self-assurance it possesses the majesty of absolute autarky, to bind and to loose. This self-determination is therefore without more ado absolutely in conformity with duty.” (393) 131 Cf. “What ought to be there, is here an essentiality solely by its being known to be self-expression of an individuality; and it is this being known that is acknowledged by others, and which as such ought to have an existence.” (395).

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sion of his conscience, the individual always has the possibility to maintain that the moral content is not expressed in this action, but is determined by his expressed conviction that the moral content appears in a specific action. Moreover, the individuals are not distinguished from one another, so that it must be assumed that the other individuals also have internalized the lordship/bondsman relation. They could get involved in a mutual struggle if one of them identifies the moral content with a particular action: Regularly the other would identify the moral content with another action. This mutual struggle, however, would be senseless because it is not the objectivity of the action that makes it a moral one, but rather the judgment that the individuals pass on the action. This makes it possible that the individuals can reconcile. They can recognize themselves in the others with respect to the opinion that it is the individual’s moral judgment that makes or does not make the action of the expression of conscience. This reconciliation implies the individuals’ emancipation from their roles as bondsmen. The objectivity to which they are related no longer has the quality of an external action, but exists of the intersubjectively shared judgment on the moral content of the action. The overcoming of their role as bondsmen induces the individuals to repeat stoicism. 132 Once again they can cherish the illusion to be completely autonomous. From the inside perspective, the natural reality has been totally sidetracked. The content of the duty is no longer realized in the medium of nature, but in the medium of speech. The individuals have the opinion that the realization of their duty is nothing else than expressing their conviction concerning the content of their duty towards others. The objectivity of the duty is derived from the individuals’ mutual recognition that they are convinced that the expressed conviction on the content of the duty is true. Hegel indicates them as the self-satisfied individuals who are absolutely convinced of their own excellence and who can persevere in this conviction because they confirm one another in their being excellent.133

132 Cf. “The declaration of this assurance in itself rids the form of its particularity. It thereby acknowledges the necessary universality of the self.” (397). 133 “The spirit and substance of their association are thus the mutual assurance of their conscientiousness, good intentions, the rejoicing over this mutual purity, and the refreshing of themselves in the glory of knowing and uttering, of cherishing and fostering, such an excellent state of affairs.” (398).

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Conscience that becomes aware of itself as Unhappy Consciousness From an outside perspective, the individuals lose themselves in their pure subjectivism (or, as Hegel expresses it, in their “solitary divine worship” (397)). They can only retain the illusion of their autonomy as long as they suppress the natural reality, and this repression only holds as long as the individuals conserve their collective delusion. In reality, however, they repeat the relation of scepticism, for, although the reality of their action transcends their autonomy, they have the illusion to be able to determine autonomously whether or not they perform their duty. Sooner or later, the individuals experience the contradiction in which they have ended up. Once the speech will fall silent and the spell is broken that maintained their illusion, this results in a position in which the individuals repeat the Unhappy Consciousness. When the sounds of the assuring speech have faded away, the individuals must observe that they have lost their conscience’s content.134 Their pride has gone before the fall, and leaves the individuals in a situation in which they have to endure their deepest deceptions. They suffered the greatest possible loss. While they just celebrated their boundless autonomy, they now are left behind with nothing. For them, there remains nothing else than the sorrow of an absolute loss. Although the individual tries to ward off this sorrow by escaping reality and to lose himself as “beautiful soul” (400) in the pureness that he retains against the evil world, in the end he learns, from an inside perspective, what he, as conscientious individual, from the outside perspective, already was all the time: an individual who is related to a strange outside world and can only realize the absolute content of his conscience if he succeeds in eliminating the strangeness of the outside world. If the individual has been persuaded of the impossibility to retain his absolute essence as an inner unreal being, he has to identify himself as an individual who is mind and body, as well. On the one hand, he understands himself as essentially autonomous; on the other hand, he understands that he is also corporeal. At the same time, he acknowledges that his autonomy and his corporeality are not compatible. He can only maintain his autonomy if he is able to realize his absolute essence. 134 Cf. “The absolute certainty of itself thus finds itself, qua consciousness, changed immediately into a sound that dies away, into an objectification of its being-forself; but this created world is its speech, which likewise it has immediately heard and only the echo of which returns to it.” (399).

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This realization, however, can only be performed by means of the linguistic action that belongs to the individual insofar as he is corporeal. Because every real action necessarily is a finite one, the realization of the absolute essence necessarily implies the decline of its absoluteness. This dilemma can also be expressed in terms of the lordship/bondsman relation. As we saw before, the awareness of the individual is no longer that he plays the role of the lord (because he transcends all action) as well as the role of the bondsman (because he is tied to the real action). Now the individual understands, on the one hand, that he has to be as the lord as well as the bondsman because the lord cannot be real without the bondsman; but, on the other hand, he has experienced that both positions exclude one another. The necessary conclusion seems to be that, even though Hegel develops the individual as the unity of mind and body, the individual can not be conceived of without contradiction, This conclusion, however, is rash. The development is accomplished by the research of the conditions under which the individual can be understood, after all, as unity of mind and body. The question of whether the ‘lord’ moment can be compatible with the ‘bondsman’ moment can be discussed as an inner dialogue in which it is investigated how both moments relate. The problem is, however, that in this exercise it remains unclear what is the objective value of such an inner dialogue. Because all individuals comprise both moments, the dialogue can also be constructed as a dialogue between two individuals who each take on one of the moments. For convenience’s sake, I will indicate these individuals respectively as the ‘lord’ and the ‘bondsman’.135 The lord thinks that whoever performs the good cannot dirty his hands by real action. All real action serves a particular interest and has lost the pureness of the good. The bondsman takes on the opposite position. He thinks that action is necessary because otherwise the good remains unreal. Therefore, the lord judges that the bondsman performs the bad and that he is hypocritical because he claims to perform the good. The bondsman reacts by maintaining that his position is not distinguished from that of the lord at all. Also the lord performs a real action when 135 As “lord”, consciousness transcends all specific content; as “bondsman”, however, it is linked with a specific content: “Conscience, which in the first instance is only negatively directed against duty as this given specific duty, knows itself to be free from it; but since it fills the empty duty with a specific content from itself, it is positively aware that it, as this particular self, makes the content.” (400).

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he expresses his judgment on the bondsman. Moreover, also the lord is hypocritical because he pretends, while really acting, to do the good.136 The lord, however, cannot accept this recognition of the bondsman137 because this would imply the concession that the good is contaminated by real action. The explicit refusal of the lord to accept the recognition of the bondsman, however, makes that the lord is not only bad and hypocritical from the bondsman’s subjective point of view, but also from an objective point of view. He is bad because he tolerates other criteria for himself than for the bondsman. While demanding for himself that his position transcends his real action, this does not apply to the bondsman. Moreover, he is hypocritical because, having a position that is not distinguished from the one of the bondsman at all, he pretends to take another position. Therefore, it is the lord who hinders the bondsman to manifest himself objectively as an individual that transcends his real action. After having objectified his badness and hypocrisy by his attitude of rejection towards the bondsman, the lord, however, is able to understand what position he takes, after all. Once he has said that he, himself, is not to be judged, but the bondsman has to be judged on his real action, the lord admits that his position is unbearable. He then accepts, after all, the bondsman’s hand that is held out. Lord and bondsman reconcile, objectively expressing by this that all individuals comprise the moment of the lord, as well as that of the bondsman.138 Both moments cannot be separated. Whoever wants to keep clean hands, yet soils his hands for the reason that he sides against the one who thinks that without action the good remains empty, and who thinks to realize the good by real action, must understand that the good never coincides with real action. It is true that the reconciliation between lord and bondsman has shown that both moments presuppose one another (the one moment nec136 Cf. “The conscience that judges in this way is itself base, because it divides up the action, producing and holding fast to the disparity of the action with itself. Further, it is hypocrisy, because it passes off such judging, not as another manner of being wicked, but as the correct consciousness of the action, setting itself up in this unreality and conceit of knowing well and better above the deeds it discredits, and wanting its words without deeds to be taken for a superior kind of reality.” (405) 137 “But the confession of the one who is wicked, ‘I am so’, is not followed by a reciprocal similar confession.” (400). 138 Cf. Wildt (1984) “Hegel grounds the possibility of confession and reconciliation in the experience of equality of the subjects.” [“Hegel begrndet die Mçglichkeit von Bekenntnis und Verzeihung in der Erfahrung der Gleichheit der Subjekte.”] (p. 369).

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essarily implies the other), but this observation is neutral with regard to the question of the individual’s real existence. It is only obvious that, if the conscientious individual exists, this conscientious individual can realize the good only by finite action. Precisely because he is tied to real action, the actual realization of the good transcends his autonomy. The autonomous individual is not the lord who produces the bondsman out of himself, thus being the creator of his own corporeality. His corporeality (and, consequently, his being situated), is already predisposed to his autonomy all the time and, therefore, confines his autonomy. The realization of the absolute good can only be performed by the absolute good itself that can use the conscientious individual as a means for this end. The conscientious individual can do no more than try to realize the good, insofar as his powers permit him to do so. Whether or not he succeeds, transcends his autonomy and can only be understood as the mercy granted by the absolute good, itself: In that sense, the absolute good has to be understood as an actor, i. e., as the absolute Spirit. 139

The meaning of the “absolute Spirit” The conclusion that the mind/body unity has to be concretized as the relation between the absolute Spirit and the social organism may be felt as a disillusionment. Is not the meaning of this conclusion that human freedom, the unity of mind and body, can ultimately only be based on religion? Is human freedom dependent on the belief that the pure self is a god who can or can not be merciful to us? If we reflect on the preceding development, this conclusion appears to be wrong. The absolute Spirit is not invented by the conscientious individual, but was the presupposition of the historical world all the time. We have seen that the social organism of the Human Law could only exist thanks to its foundation in the religion of the work of art. Also the development from the Roman Law to the Napoleonic Law presupposed a form of religion, this time the revealed religion. We have examined the nature of religion and identified both religions as representations of the pure self. Therefore, religion can be understood as an historical example of the lord, i. e., the pure self that is rec139 Cf. “The word of reconciliation is the objectively existent Spirit, which beholds the pure knowledge of itself qua universal essence, in its opposite, in the pure knowledge of itself qua absolutely self-contained and exclusive individuality–a reciprocal recognition which is absolute Spirit.” (p. 408).

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ognized as the essence of the social organism. If the conscientious individual understands the social organism where he is living as an objective reality in which the absolute Spirit has realized itself (in a finite form), he only has become aware of the relation that principally is already expressed in the lordship/bondsman relation all the time. The free individual serves as bondsman, the pure self that is represented as a lord. If the conscientious individual conceives of the absolute Spirit as the ground of this world, he has understood what religion represented: the pure self. The absolute Spirit is the pure self that appears in history. At this level, the metaphor of lord and bondsman can cause misunderstandings. The free individual is no bondsman of the absolute Spirit in the sense that he is one-sidedly used as a means that realizes the end of the absolute Spirit. Precisely because the individual has understood that the absolute Spirit is the essence of religion, he has understood that the god is his own pure self. In his relation to the absolute Spirit, the individual has understood his finiteness. On the one hand, he has conceived of the pure self as his absolute essence, and on the other hand, he knows that he can only realize this absolute essence in the form of an historical social organism, i. e., in a finite manner. We have witnessed that the individual’s insight in his finitude is mediated by an historical process. This insight itself, however, transcends the historical process. Only when this insight has been developed, can it become clear that the religious representation of the pure self also reflects the social organism whose pure self it represents. (We have observed that the social organism and the religious representation are interconnected.) In other words, only then can it become clear that religion represents the (absolute) pure self in a finite form. This comes to the fore in the systematical place of religion in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Although it is obvious that Europe’s historical development cannot be understood without religion, and although it is obvious, as well, that the religion of the work of art is an integral part of the Greek world, like the revealed religion is an integral part of the Realm of Culture, Hegel discusses the religion forms only after the Realm of Morality, i. e., after having developed the individual’s relation to the absolute Spirit. Hegel’s considerations seem to be plausible.140 Only when religion can be understood as expression of the absolute Spirit, and only when it is understood that this expression is finite, does the contingence of the religious representation become acceptable: 140 Later on, I will raise the question of the religion’s systematical place again. See Chapter 7, Retrospection.

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Religion can be conceived of as the representation of the lord that necessarily has a contingent form. This contingent form will be sublated at the level of the philosophical notion, the absolute Knowledge, that Hegel discusses in the last chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit, following on the chapter on Religion. It is true that Hegel also has the opinion that, at the level of the conscientious individual, the relation to the absolute Spirit is already reached (so, before the systematical discussion of Religion). But at this stage, the absolute Spirit can only be formally determined. Only when it has been shown, at the level of Religion, that the absolute Spirit really manifests itself in history (i. e., in historical religion forms), can the content of the absolute Spirit be developed: the absolute Notion that all appearing reality presupposes.

Retrospection At the level of the second self, the absolute freedom, the moral individual had in mind the immediate realization of his freedom in the social organism. From an outside perspective, however, this attempt resulted in an inadequate realization of freedom. The absolute freedom is performed by the contingent individual who tries to makes his subjective freedom the measure for all. In this relation the moral and legal order are not compatible: the legal order is sacrificed to the moral one. At the level of the third self, conscience, the realization of the conscientious individual’s freedom is mediated by the absolute Spirit. Therefore, right and morality appear as the relation between social organism and absolute Spirit. At this level, the relation between right and morality, seen from the inside perspective, is no longer contradicted by the outside perspective. This time, neither right is absorbed by morality, nor is morality absorbed by right. It is true that the moral dimension (the absolute Spirit) is objectified in the social organism, but this means in no way that the separation between right and morality disappears. The difference between absolute Spirit and social organism is maintained (as a kind of “ontological difference”): The absolute Spirit transcends the social organism. This transcendence is objectively expressed in the process of world history. World history makes explicit that all social organisms are only contingent, i. e., they decline and are followed by other social organisms.141

141 The Phenomenology of Spirit discusses world history at the level of religion.

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The social organisms in history appear as a multitude of contingent entities, like the Human, the Roman and the Napoleonic Laws. Although these organisms are not related to one another in a teleological process, they can, retrospectively, be hierarchically ordered. We have seen how the Human, the Roman and the Napoleonic Laws respectively produced the first, the second and the third self. In the first self, the pure self remains implicit and is only practically expressed; in the second self, the pure self has become self-conscious; in the third self, the pure self is understood as the absolute Subject of reality, the absolute Spirit. Moreover, the world of the second self cannot be developed without the experiences of the first self, and the world of the third self cannot be developed without the experiences of the first and second self. Since the adequate relation between right and morality is only accessible for the third self and the third self can only be developed when the experiences of the first and second self are passed through, the conditions can be formulated to which a social organism must respond to allow its citizens the adequate realization of their freedom: The institutions of this social organism must enable its citizens to reproduce the experiences of as well the first, and the second and the third self. This conclusion results in criteria to test contingent (historical) social organisms. The completion of the Phenomenology of Spirit has produced the criteria that can be applied by the “Reason as testing laws”. We will see in the next chapters that the project of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right can be considered as the elaboration of the “Reason as testing laws” applied to Hegel’s own time. The Philosophy of Right tests to which extent the institutions of Northwestern Europe can be considered as institutions that correspond to the criteria developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit. To what extent should these institutions allow their citizens to reproduce the experiences of the first, the second and the third self ? 142 Before going into the project of the Philosophy of Right, however, I will discuss Axel Honneth’s criticism of Hegel’s concept of recognition. According to Honneth, this concept is too metaphysical and needs support from empirical sciences. It is true that this critcism is not oriented to

142 Cf. Smith (1989): “As we shall see later, there is an inner teleology to moral growth whereby the life-cycle of the individual moral agent, in some sense, recapitulates the experience or history of the entire species. Nothing is ever lost or forgotten, but is incorporated into a richer conception of the self. For Hegel, as for Freud later on, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”. p. 129.

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the Phenomenology of Spirit, but I will show that this work provides in the adequate elements for a reconstruction of Hegel’s answer to Honneth.

Chapter 5 Honneth’s Criticism of Hegel’s Metaphysics Introduction In his book, “The Struggle for Recognition”, Axel Honneth reverts to the concept of recognition that has been developed by the young Hegel. At the same time, however, he claims that we cannot appeal to this concept just like that, because it remains connected to the “presuppositions of the metaphysical tradition”. Hegel’s “speculative thesis that the formation of the practical self presupposes mutual recognition between subjects” has to be reconstructed “in the light of empirical social psychology”. (68) The thesis that there exist “various forms of reciprocal recognition”, needs “an empirically supported phenomenology”, “one that allows Hegel’s theoretical proposal to be tested and, if necessary, corrected.” (69) At the end, it has to be examined whether “the third thesis, according to which the sequence of forms of recognition follows the logic of a formative process that is mediated by the stages of moral struggle” (69) “can withstand empirical doubts” (70). Although Honneth does not expressly relate himself to the Phenomenology of Spirit (“in which the topic of a ‘struggle for recognition’ was restricted to the issue of the conditions for the emergence of ‘self-consciousness’” [145]), I will investigate in this chapter whether I have to take to heart the objections that Honneth expresses against the young Hegel if I relate myself to the concept of recognition in the Phenomenology of Spirit, and want to make it productive for our era. Is this concept a metaphysical one, and does this mean that we can only sensibly relate to this concept if it can stand an empirical test?

The “Phenomenology of Spirit” and the question of “The Nature of the Self ” In the introductory chapter, the question of the “nature of the self ” is not immediately related to the Phenomenology of Spirit, and developed from the central question of this work. Rather, it was observed that contempo-

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rary thinkers like Jrgen Habermas and John Rawls seem to determine the human individual, in the footsteps of Kant, in an ambiguous manner. On the one hand, the human being is a reasonable or moral individual and borrows his uniqueness from this qualification (he is a discourse partner who is not exchangeable or has a unique plan of life); on the other hand, he is a corporeal individual who is distinguished from the others by his corporeal identity. However, it remains unclear how his moral or reasonable identity has to be conceived of in a unity with his corporeal identity. As a corporeal individual, the human being seems to be the bearer of mental powers. But how the human being can be understood as the unity of mind and body is not thematized. It is only clear that the corporeal identity does not determine the mental one, and that the mental identity does not determine the corporeal one. In the preceding chapters it is examined whether the unity between mind and body can be understood by conceptualizing their mutual relation as a “relative contradiction”, i. e. as a form/content distinction: The mind is understood as the form in which the body gets its unity. It was investigated under which conditions the inner unity between mind and body that was formulated from an outside perspective, could also be understood from an inside perspective. If this investigation is successful, then the mind/body unity can be understood as a unity in itself, i. e., as a unity that independently exists. Therefore, this investigation can also be formulated as the question of whether the unity of mind and body can be conceived of as a substance. Such a project is as well distinguished from the project of Descartes, who separated mind and body by assigning them to different substances, as from the one of Spinoza who transformed mind and body by means of the attributes of thinking and extension into moments of the unique divine substance. As the Cartesian project, this project does justice to the unique individual, but this time it does not result in the dualism between mind and body. The project is closely related to Hegel’s project in the Phenomenology of Spirit, but initially has another objective. After all Hegel does not raise the question of whether the unity of mind and body can be conceived of as substance, but rather the question of whether it has a meaning at all to speak about the existence of a substance. Ultimately, his answer is positive. It makes sense, if we understand substance as subject, as the absolute Spirit. This seems to bring Hegel’s project into the neighborhood of Spinoza: Substance is eminently the divine substance.

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Chapter 5 Honneth’s Criticism of Hegel’s Metaphysics

Hegel begins his project with the consciousness of the Sense-Certainty, i. e., the consciousness that tests whether an object that is immediately given as a sensory one can be understood as substance. The result of this test is negative, because what is sensorially given exists of a multitude that can only be brought to an unity in a external way. The unity that consciousness tries to find refers back to the unity of consciousness itself, i. e., to a pure self. Therefore, the determination of consciousness can only be understood as self-determination. However, this conclusion does not imply, according to Hegel, that the pure self has to be understood as the Cartesian cogito. After all, it was only possible to draw this conclusion because consciousness is related to nature. This relation to nature presupposes that consciousness is already a corporeal consciousness all the time. Therefore, Hegel explicitly thematizes in the chapter on Self-consciousness the question of whether the pure self can be conceived of in unity with a living organism. This means that the question of whether it makes sense at all to speak about the existence of substance, has been evolved to the question of whether the unity of mind and body can be conceived of as a unity. That the project of the preceding chapters, unlike the Phenomenology of Spirit, immediately begins with the question of whether the unity of mind and body can be conceived of as substance, makes clear that the objective of this project is in no way a divine substance, an absolute spirit that cannot accommodate an independent human subject. It is true that this objective has the consequence that the setting of the Phenomenology of Spirit is not copied, but this deviation only concerns the presentation. With regards to the content, it has no meaning at all. While Hegel, in the Consciousness-Chapter, raises the question of whether the natural multitude can be understood as a unity by itself , I raise the question of whether the relation to the natural multitude does not affect the mind/body unity. Also this affection can only be prevented if the natural multitude can, by itself, be understood as a unity that is distinguished from the mind/body unity. While in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the corporeality of consciousness is only thematized at the level of selfconsciousness, I brought this corporeality into question from the beginning. In this way, I hope that I have clarified from the outset that Hegel’s project is, in principle, not metaphysical in the sense of Habermas and Honneth: as an absolute Spirit in which the independence of the real human individual gets lost. We will still see, however, that it is necessary to differentiate between a formal and a substantial concept of the absolute Spirit.

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The relation of mind and body as the primordial form of recognition We have seen that the central step that is performed in the Phenomenology of Spirit to conceive the unity of mind and body is thematized under the title, fear of death. In the fear of death, the pure self recognizes itself in the organism that makes it a real individual. The organism is the real self that in the fear of death is recognized by the pure self as the self of which itself is the essence. In the fear of death, the relation between mind and body that is conceptualized as a relative contradiction becomes self-conscious. The pure self recognizes itself in its body as a self in the form of otherness. The fear of death is the elementary experience in which the mind is at itself in the other as other. The inner experience of the fear of death is objectified in the lordship/ bondsman relation that, therefore, can also be understood as the institutionally objectified fear of death. In the lord, the pure self is objectified as an institutional self that is the essence of a social organism. In the bondsman, the organism is objectified as a social organism. The fear of death is objectified in the labor that the bondsman performs in service of the lord. Considered from an outside perspective, the mind/body unity that is objectified in the lord who is recognized by the bondsman, is a free unity. Unlike the natural organism, the social organism is not determined by externally given natural laws, but by man-made laws that are symbolized in the lord. From an inside perspective, these laws appear as not free, as the traditional laws that are already given all the time. The entire further development of the Phenomenology of Spirit exists in examining under which conditions the laws can, also from an inside perspective, become valid as self-made.

The development of freedom from the inside perspective In order to assure, also from an inside perspective, the insight into the freedom of the social organism, the law that commands this organism has to be explicated as a free law. In terms of the lordship/bondsman metaphor: Freedom must not only practically be expressed by replacing the natural action of an organism with action in service of the lord, but also it must become clear that the lord is a pure self, a self that is freely related to

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the social organism. It has to be clear that the social organism is a contingent reality in which the free self has expressed itself in a specific way. In other words, the free self must not be absorbed in the specific way in which it has objectified itself. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, the first step to develop freedom from the inside perspective is performed at the level of the Unhappy Consciousness, the position in which, so to speak, the bondsman has internalized the pure essence of the social organism (the pure self of the lord). The second step is performed at the level of Reason, where the Unhappy Consciousness wants to find again the (social) reality as expression of his internalized pure self. From the outside perspective, it is clear at once that this second step has to fail. As a contingent reality, the social organism cannot at the same time be understood as the expression of many free selves. Therefore, the result of the development of Reason is that the single self gets the insight that the social organism remains an external contingent reality. The law of the social organism cannot be determined from the perspective of the single self.

The transition from a monological into a dialogical approach Referring to Jrgen Habermas’s terminology, the failure of Reason to determine the law of the social organism can also be formulated as the failure of a monological approach. The single self (the bondsman who has internalized the pure self ), is monologically related to the objective reality that it tries to determine as the expression of its particular freedom. This monological approach contrasts with the dialogical approach that was already addressed in the case of the constitution of the lordships/bondsman relation. After all, the social organism can only exist if the lord for all symbolizes the social organism, and if the actualization of the law immediately coincides with the actualization of their own essence. This dialogical approach, however, gets lost if, at the level of Unhappy Consciousness and Reason, it is thematized as to how the single self can become aware of the actualization of his freedom. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, the Spirit-Chapter takes up again the dialogical approach of the lordship/bondsman relation. Point of departure is the contingent organism that all participants immediately understand as the actualization of their free essence. Hegel identifies this organism as the Human Law of the Greek polis that is realized in the actions of the free citizens. This transition to an historical dimension implies that

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the question of whether the unity of mind and body can be conceived of as a substance has become, in a certain way, empirically testable. The response to this question appears to be dependent upon the answer to another question: Can the Human Law of the polis sensibly be understood as a social organism in which the lordship/bondsman relation has got real shape? And, subsequently, can the Human Law be understood as substance? The relation between the lordship/bondsman relation and the Human Law that is established here, can raise the question of why Hegel, after his discussion of the lordship/bondsman relation, does not immediately switch over to the Spirit-Chapter, leaving out the passages regarding the Unhappy Consciousness and Reason. This, however, can effectively be explained. The Human Law can only be understood as substance if it can be clarified that the pure freedom of the Greek citizens does not submerge in the Human Law’s practical actualization of freedom. The Greek citizen has to acquire insight into the contingency of the Human Law. In other words, he has to endure the experiences of the Unhappy Consciousness and Reason. This means that not only the lordship/ bondsman relation, but also the Unhappy Consciousness and Reason must be found again in the historical reality of the polis. We have seen that this, according to Hegel, is indeed the case: In the polis, the Unhappy Consciousness can be found again in the relations of the Divine Law, the law of the family, and Reason can be found again in the relation between Human and Divine Law.

The absolute Spirit as the presupposition of the dialogical relation In the Spirit-Chapter, the question is thematized under which conditions the social organism that is understood as a dialogical relation can be understood as a substance. This comes down to the question of whether the social organism can be conceived of in a unity with the pure self. However, the social organism is now identified as the Human Law of the polis, i. e., as an historical organism. We have seen how Hegel describes the development of the polis as the process in which the pure self of the Divine Law penetrates the Human Law. Again, the result of this development is that the law of society is understood as a contingent law, leading to the decline of the polis. The insight into the contingency of the Human Law does not mean that the so-

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cial organism cannot be understood as a substance at all: Hegel presents the Roman Empire as a social order in which the contradiction of the Greek world has been solved. The Roman Empire’s solution of the contradiction between the tradition of the Human Law and the pure self is the formal Roman property law. Thanks to this law, the citizens of the social organism are free and equal persons who are not bound to any tradition. Each person has the right to determine his own tradition at the level of the family. The person is, so to speak, the lord of his family. The many families are united by a formal law that gives all citizens the right to express their particular freedom in the private domain. Hegel shows that, in the long term, the Roman Empire has to decline because the many traditions that it contains do not display an internal coherence. Therefore, the survival of the Empire is dependent on the balance of power between the families. If this power balance is disturbed and, consequently, the decline of the Roman Empire is brought about, the persons experience that the reality of their freedom does not coincide with the existence of the Roman Empire. It appears that the essence of the social organism is a pure self that also cannot manifest itself. The person who has internalized the pure self is the Unhappy Consciousness that this time does not exist beside the Human Law, but wants to actualize its inner essence as the Human Law. We have seen how Hegel thematizes the self-actualization of this form of the Unhappy Consciousness at the level of the Realm of Education. Here, the Unhappy Consciousness is the moral person who wants to immediately actualize himself as the Human Law. Once again the question has to be raised as to whether the unity of mind and body can be understood in this relation as a substantial unity. It appeared that this was again not the case. After all, this development ended in the absolute freedom and the terror of the French Revolution: if all want to sublate the contingency of the Human Law by making it the immediate expression of their moral self, the result will be that the Human Law will be ruined. The contradiction of the Realm of Education (the general social organism that has to be the expression of the particular freedom), is sublated at the level of Morality: By understanding the essence of the social organism, in accordance with Rousseau, as the volont gnrale, the social organism can still be understood as the moral self-expression of all, but now at the level of a pure being. The attempt to conceptualize this pure being (in accordance with Kant), in unity with the real social organism, however, fails. This results

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in the conclusion that the pure self and the social organism can only be understood as a substantial unity if they are already comprehended as an inner unity all the time. This position demarcates the inner certainty of Conscience, the third form of the Unhappy Consciousness that is discussed in the Spirit-Chapter. We have examined how conscience, in the development in which it actualizes its subjective certainty, repeats in a self-conscious manner the dialectical movement of Consciousness and Self-consciousness, and acquires the explicit insight into itself as Unhappy Consciousness. Then, Conscience becomes aware that it has to understand its pure essence (its “lord”), as the absolute Spirit that realizes itself in and by the social organism. What this self-realization of the lord (the absolute Spirit), exactly means can easily evoke misunderstandings. The introduction of the absolute Spirit does not mean that the real human being (as unity of mind and body), is reduced to a marionette, to be tools in the hands of an absolute power. After all the point of departure of the Spirit-Chapter was human freedom: the human who is not one-sidedly understood as a natural being, but also as a spiritual being who is autonomous and has, therefore, objectified himself in the Human Law. This Human Law has been understood as an historical, dialogical relation, i. e., as a relation that for the particular individual appears as a contingent reality. Therefore, the question has to be answered of how this contingent reality (the Human Law’s collective actualization of freedom), can be reconciled with the particular freedom of the individual. The response to this question resulted in the three forms of the self that can be considered as closer determinations of the institutional structure of the Human Law: Only under the condition of these closer determinations can the Human Law be reconciled with the particular freedom. The institutional structure of the first self (the person) has to guarantee that each individual has room for the particular determination of his freedom (for a particular tradition). The institutional structure of the second self (the “absolute freedom”), has to guarantee that the Human Law is no contingent reality, but is explicitly posed as the reality that has been brought about in and by the actions of socialized individuals, and that, consequently, becomes valid as a dialogical reality. The institutional structure of the third self has to guarantee that the dialogical reality is effectively brought about. It must guarantee that all comprehend the dialogical reality as expression of their pure freedom. This means that they have to understand this reality as self-expression of the absolute Spirit.

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The insight into the three forms of the self can hardly be called a metaphysical insight. They determine the conditions under which the social organism can be reconciled with the particular freedom. Because Hegel makes certain historical conditions the presupposition to acquire these insights, they have, in some sense, an empirical basis. Neither can it be maintained that the development of these historical conditions imply a metaphysical conception of history: as if history is ruled by a necessary teleology. It is only implied that if the unity of mind and body is adequately understood as substance (i. e. as well from the inside as from the outside perspective), the involved historical stages must have been gone through. Like Habermas, Hegel could distinguish between development logic and development dynamic: The logical reconstruction of the historical process may well be distinguished from its actual dynamic.

Absolute Spirit and metaphysics Nevertheless, Hegel seems to make a step that justifies the criticism of Habermas and Honneth. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, the Spirit-Chapter is followed by the chapter about Religion. In this chapter, the formal concept of the absolute Spirit that is introduced at the end of the SpiritChapter, is transformed in the substantial concept of the absolute Spirit that is elaborated in the final chapter, absolute Knowing. While the absolute Spirit first was the formal condition that had to be fulfilled to comprehend the unity of the particular freedom and the Human Law, it now seems to be transformed into a real self, a god who is the true actor of the historical process. Is this step acceptable? Does it not come down that Hegel establishes that, departing from the particular freedom, it is not possible to comprehend it adequately in unity with the Human Law, and that, therefore, an appeal to a supra-human power is unavoidable? Does not the transition to religion mark the point that only the absolute Spirit can be understood as a substance? Does this concept of the absolute Spirit as the absolute subject substance not definitely make clear that the human individual, the unity of mind and body cannot be understood as substance? Is not the human being reduced here to a tool of the absolute Spirit? To understand which step Hegel is making here, it is good to return once again to the lordship/bondsman relation. At this stage, the thesis was elaborated that the unity of mind and body can only be comprehended as a substantial unity in the domain of society. In this domain, the relation

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between mind and body is objectified as a social organism that is understood as the expression of an institutional self, i. e., the lord. The lord represents the pure self that is actualized in the social organism in a particular, historical manner. The actualization of the social organism is performed by the labor of the bondsman who works in the service of the lord. Considered from the outside perspective, the lord has two functions. On the one hand, he represents the unity of the social system: He is, so to speak, the king who symbolizes the norms and values that determine the tradition of the ruling social system. On the other hand, he represents the legitimacy of the ruling power: He is, so to speak, the god, the transcendent being that is the basis of the ruling power. This transcendent being is a pure self. Because this transcendent being is actually the essence of the bondsman, the power of the king is legitimate. From the inside perspective, initially both roles totally coincide. The pure freedom of the bondsman totally remains absorbed in the practical action by which he actualizes the social organism. Nevertheless, the bondsman does not totally coincide with his social action. If this would be the case, he would not distinguish himself from an animal that lives in a social connection. The bondsman is also a selfconscious being. This is expressed by Hegel when he says that the bondsman recognizes the lord as his essence. This recognition means, firstly, that the lord may not be one-sidedly interpreted as an external power of nature that physically forces the bondsman to do what he wants. Secondly, this recognition means, positively, that for the bondsman, the lord represents his own absolute essence: In this sense, the lord is the representation of a goddess. Therefore, the recognition of the lord by the bondsman has nothing to do with the recognition of the one human individual by the other. It is not necessary at all that the lord represents a human individual. He, rather, represents an absolute power with which the human individual is confronted (which power, just by recognizing it as a lord, is no external power). Therefore, it is no option at all, that the relation between lord and bondsman (to do justice to democratic freedom), actually should be a symmetrical one. In his recognition of the lord, the bondsman recognizes that the values that regulate his practical action are absolute ones. The lordship/bondsman relation teaches that, for the bondsmen who actualize in their actions the Human Law, this law never is a contingent reality. This is expressed by them when they represent the lord for whom they “work” as an absolute power. For that reason, the exercise that was executed in the Spirit-Chapter with regard to historical forms of the

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Human Law (Antiquity, Middle Ages, Modernity), still is an abstraction. After all, we saw that the Spirit-Chapter was preceded by an attempt (by means of the development at the level of Unhappy Consciousness and Reason), to comprehend the pure freedom of the singular self in unity with the Human Law. This attempt failed because, for the pure freedom of the singular self, the Human Law is a contingent reality, with which it is, consequently, not internally linked. At that stage, the transition to the SpiritChapter was made. Point of departure of this chapter was a contingent, historically observed Human Law, i. e., the law of the polis, of the Greek society. The choice for the Greek society was made because it could be reconstructed as a society in which the relation forms of the Unhappy Consciousness and Reason could be found again. In this way, the search for the unity of the singular self ’s pure freedom and the Human Law was continued otherwise: as the search that was actually performed in a contingent, historical process. The historical setting of the Spirit-Chapter remains abstract because it initially remains implicit what is already clear at the level of the lordship/bondsman relation all the time. It is true that, in relation to the pure freedom of the singular self, the specific tradition of the Human Law appears as a contingent tradition, but at the same time, the pure freedom of the singular self cannot have existence when it does not participate in the social organism. The what of the tradition may be contingent, but this contingency does not concern the that of the tradition. In a real historical society, the singular self expresses this necessary relation between itself and society by representing the social organism as an absolute self, i. e., by its religious representation. In the Spirit-Chapter, this religious dimension is not yet explicitly thematized. The abstraction of the Spirit-Chapter becomes explicit when Conscience, at the end of the chapter, performs the transition from a formal concept of the absolute Spirit. Here it becomes clear, from an inside perspective, what, from an outside perspective, was already clear at the level of the lordship/bondsman relation: The singular self can only actualize its freedom in the historical reality of the Human Law in which it already participates all the time. It is true that the Human Law as an historical reality is a contingent one, but formally, as an expression of freedom, it is not. In the formal concept of the absolute Spirit, the Human Law is understood as a specific historical expression of pure freedom. At that stage, it is not only understood that the essence of the divine being is the pure human freedom, but also that the Human Law has to be understood by the bondsman as self-expression of this essence. It is true that the human

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being actualizes the Human Law in and by his action, and that this action actualizes at the same time his particular freedom, but that he is able at all to express his actions in a Human Law in which all express their freedom, transcends his particular freedom. He positively expresses this notion of his own finitude when he understands the Human Law as the self-expression of an absolute subject whose essence is the human freedom. The Phenomenology of Spirit discusses this absolute subject in the chapters about Religion and absolute Knowledge.

Religion We have seen that, at the level of religion, the social organism is represented as an absolute being. Therefore, the essence of the goddess can only be understood as the general human freedom if, in the social organism, justice has been done to the free self. We have seen that this is only the case after the French Revolution. Since in the Spirit-Chapter several forms of the social organism are gone through, this could be the basis for a reconstruction of the religious representations that correspond to these forms. Only together with these religious representations can the historic reality of these forms of the Human Law be understood, so that the abstraction of the Spirit-Chapter is overcome. Unlike Hegel, I have discussed the society forms of the Spirit-Chapter in connection with the corresponding religion forms. I will explain the reason for this later on in this chapter. In his reconstruction of the religion forms, however, Hegel goes a step further. At the level of the Religion of Nature, he reconstructs the religion forms that precede the Greek society, i. e., that precede the society in which human freedom has at least objectified itself in a Human Law. These religion forms correspond with relations that were discussed before, at the level of Consciousness and Self-consciousness. At this level, human freedom still is absorbed in relations of nature. This can also be formulated in terms of the lordship/bondsman relation (which, for a matter of fact, is not done by Hegel, himself ): The action of the bondsman is still linked with the natural organism (it has not yet obtained a institutional form in a social organism), and the lord is, at this level, the power of nature that is represented as a divine power. This results in the forms of the so-called religion of nature. In the first form of the religion of nature (god as light), the natural reality of Sense-Certainty (the many sensory given objects), is represented

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as a divine being. In the second form (god as flower or god as animal), the object of Perception (the thing with many properties), and Understanding (the force), are respectively represented by a flower and an animal as a divine being. Finally, in the third form (the religion of the artificer), the world of the lordship/bondsman relation is represented as a divine relation, namely the relation between pharaoh and pyramid. (From these religions of nature, by the way, an extra argument can be borrowed for my alternative presentation of the Consciousness Chapter: The attempts to comprehend the outside world as a unity are repeated here by the representation of the outside world as a goddess. Since the goddess is the absolute essence of the representing self, here it becomes explicit that it is about comprehending the representing self as substance.) At first it may seem strange that, in the Religion-Chapter, Hegel reverts to religion forms that precede the Greek world. Why discuss these forms, when the Spirit-Chapter historically only begins at the Greek world? At second glance, there are, at least from Hegel’s perspective, good reasons for this move. Due to the introduction of the religion of nature, not only do the forms of the Unhappy Consciousness and Reason have their religious representation (we have seen how this happened at the level of the religion of art and the revealed religion), but also the forms of Consciousness and Self-consciousness. Consequently, all forms of consciousness that are gone through in the development that was oriented to the comprehension of the mind/body unity, have their religious representation. Moreover, these representations are thus reconstructed, that they are placed in a dialectical coherence. Together, they form a development in which it is more and more adequately explicated under which conditions the unity of mind and body can be comprehended as a substantial unity. This development is completed in the formal concept of the absolute Spirit in which it is comprehended that the human being can express the substantial unity of mind and body when he actualizes himself in a Human Law that he can, at the same time, understand as self-expression of a pure self. This formal concept of the absolute Spirit is transformed into a substantial one when the dialectical coherence of religion forms (and the societies that correspond to these forms), can be understood as moments of the self-expression of the pure self. Then, substance is understood as ‘subject’. However, this subject is not the human subject, the substantial unity of mind and body, but rather is the divine subject that in his self-realization produces the entire reality. With this last step, an absolute subject is introduced that is linked with

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the metaphysical position that is rightly rejected by Habermas and Honneth. Hegel, however, does something else. Although Hegel also completes his project with a substantial concept of the absolute Spirit and, consequently, comprehends substance as subject, this subject is distinguished from the metaphysical subject against which Habermas and Honneth turn themselves. In Habermas’s and Honneth’s interpretation, the absolute Spirit is factually historicized: Objective and absolute Spirit coincide. In this case, it becomes impossible indeed to distinguish a development logic and dynamic: The self-actualization of the absolute Spirit is identified with a contingent historical process. However, as remarked before, Hegel could also have made the distinction between development logic and dynamic. Not just the religion forms, but the religion forms that are brought to concept, their conceptual structures, are part of Hegel’s substantial concept of absolute Spirit. The substantial concept of absolute Spirit does not coincide with the historical process, but rather enables conceptualization of the contingent historical process as such. The insight has been acquired that the substantial unity of mind and body can only be conceived of as an historical process in which the pure freedom more or less realizes itself in the social organism. The insight into this process, as such, is not historical, even though it is recognized that there are historical conditions that enable us to have access to this insight.

Recognition between metaphysics and empiricism The rejection of the historical interpretation of the absolute subject has no implications for the fundamental (necessary) status of the three forms of the self. We have seen how these three forms followed from the project in which it was tried to comprehend the unity of mind and body as a substantial one. Point of departure of this project is a fundamental form of recognition, a form of recognition that precedes the one that expresses itself in the three forms of the self: the recognition of the body by the mind. We have seen how this project, in the SpiritChapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit, resulted in the question of how the unity of the pure self and an empirical Human Law (the social organism) can be conceptualized. In the response to this question, the three forms of recognition were developed that Hegel expresses as the three forms of the self.

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Although these three forms are developed in a reflection on the contingent European history (Antiquity, Middle Ages, Modernity), and, consequently, represent insights that could only be developed on the basis of an historical process of experience, they express necessary relations. They express the necessary forms to which the institutional structure of the Human Law has to correspond to be valid as the actualization of the pure self. It is true that this means that the appearance of these three forms of the self in a real society can only be mapped if they are linked to empirical data that are borrowed from that society (this is elaborated in the next chapters), but the relevance of these three forms as such is not based on empirical testing. Although Axel Honneth, in his “The Struggle for Recognition”, relates to works that Hegel has written earlier than the Phenomenology of Spirit, the three forms of recognition he distinguishes (Love, Respect and Solidarity), strongly recall the three forms of the self that Hegel has developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit. This is especially true because, for Honneth, the three forms of recognition have their institutional reality in family, civil society and state. In the next chapters, it will be made clear that this is also the case for the three forms of the self. If Honneth’s three forms of recognition can indeed be related to the three forms of the self in the Phenomenology of Spirit, and if Honneth implicitly presupposes the unity of mind and body, this would mean that his project, as formulated at the beginning of this chapter, has to be reformulated. The testing, “in the light of empirical social psychology” for which Honneth is looking, must concern the concrete historical appearance of the three forms of the self, not the “metaphysical” framework in which these forms are developed. I think that this reformulation is only supported if it is more closely viewed what the empirical testing to which he is appealing actually implies. Then, it appears that this testing already presupposes the normative framework of the three forms of recognition all the time. The way in which Honneth formulates his program is already an indication for this: “But before I can outline at least a few of the essential features of the social theory I have in mind, two presuppositions must first be systematically clarified, presuppositions that are inherent but not developed in Hegel’s and Mead’s theories of recognition. First, the three-part division that both authors appear to make among forms of recognition needs a justification that goes beyond what has been said thus far. The extent to which such a distinction actually fits anything in the structure of social relations is something that must be demonstrated–independently of the texts discussed until now–by showing that this way of distinguishing phenomena can be brought into approximate agreement with the results of empirical research. In what

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follows, this demonstration is to take the form of a phenomenologically-oriented typology that aims to describe the three patterns of recognition in such a way that they can be checked empirically against the data from individual sciences. Central here will be evidence for the claim that the various forms of reciprocal recognition can, in fact, be mapped onto different levels of the practical relations-to-self in the way suggested, in vague outline, in Mead’s social psychology. On the basis of this typology, one can approach the second task that Hegel and Mead bequeathed to us in failing to clarify a crucial implication of their theoretical ideas. Both thinkers were in fact equally unable to identify accurately the social experiences that would generate the pressure under which struggles for recognition would emerge within the historical process” (p.93)

In this program, the metaphysical presuppositions on which Hegel bases his three forms of recognition remain intact. Consequently, the program is presented as a completion to Hegel: It is about an elaboration of presuppositions that are “inherent in Hegel’s theory of recognition”. If the three forms of recognition are once made the point of departure, it can empirically be examined if and how they can be found again in empirical societies, and to which development processes they belong. In the meantime, we have seen that the completions that are demanded here are, in some form, present in the Phenomenology of Spirit, and we will see that this is also the case for the Philosophy of Right. Only in the last chapter of “The struggle for Recognition”, does Honneth go into the entirety of his social theory and give formulations that concern the entirety of the three forms of recognition: “The concept of ‘ethical life’ is now meant to include the entirety of inter-subjective conditions that can be shown to serve as necessary preconditions for individual self-realization.” (173) These formulations are striking because they seem to come very close to what I presented here as the result of the Phenomenology of Spirit. Also the three forms of the self could be described as “the entirety of inter-subjective conditions that can be shown to serve as necessary preconditions for individual self-realization”. But it remains a riddle as to why Honneth, after his criticism of Hegel’s metaphysical roots, thinks to be entitled to speak about “necessary conditions”, and all the more, because he stated in a previous page: “Our approach departs from the Kantian tradition in that it is concerned not solely with the moral autonomy of human beings, but also with the conditions for their self-realization in general. Hence, morality, understood as the point of view of universal respect, becomes one of several protective measures that serve the general purpose of enabling a good life. But in contrast to those movements that distance themselves from Kant, this

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concept of the good should not be conceived of as the expression of substantive values that constitute the ethos of a concrete tradition-based community. Rather, it has to do with the structural elements of ethical life which, from the general point of view of the communicative enabling of self-realization, can be normatively extracted from the plurality of all particular forms of life.” (172) It remains unclear how such an extraction can result in necessary preconditions. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel showed how these necessary conditions can be deduced from the question of how the unity of mind and body can be comprehended as a substantial unity. Honneth seems to presuppose this unity. He does not understand that the necessary preconditions of individual self-realization precisely follow from Hegel’s deduction. In his theory of the three forms of recognition, therein fails the fundamental form of recognition that is able to base the inner unity of these three forms: the recognition of the body by the mind.

Honneth’s project in relation to the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophy of Right We witnessed the kinship between Hegel’s project in the Phenomenology of Spirit and the project of Honneth. The three forms of the self that Hegel develops in this work can be understood as: “the entirety of inter-subjective conditions that can be shown to serve as necessary preconditions for individual self-realization”. The big difference is that Hegel establishes the necessity of the preconditions, and Honneth does not. In the preceding chapter, we also saw that the Phenomenology of Spirit solves a deficit that Honneth observes in the young Hegel, when he discusses his third thesis (“the sequence of forms of recognition follows the logic of a formative process that is mediated by the stages of moral struggle”). In the Spirit-Chapter, the three forms of the self are developed in relation to the European history, so that it responds to Honneth’s demand that “stages of moral struggle” “can withstand empirical doubts”. A reconciliation between the positions of Hegel and Honneth, however, would not be possible if the transition that is made in the Phenomenology of Spirit from the formal concept of the absolute Spirit to the substantial one, should be one-sidedly interpreted historically. In that case, this transition would mark a form of “metaphysics” that is rightly criticized by Honneth. After all, the consequence of this transition would be that the ethos of

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“concrete tradition-based communities” would be one-sidedly interpreted as the self-expression of an absolute subject and, consequently, would be ruined as contingent ethos. The historical interpretation of the substantial concept of the absolute Spirit, however, is false. Nevertheless, this historical interpretation of the substantial concept of the absolute Spirit may be adequate for the Philosophy of Right. Just because the religious self-conscious fails in this work, there seems to be no room for the learning process that results in the insight into the contingency of the ethos of “concrete tradition-based communities”. In the next chapters, I will elaborate how the Philosophy of Right builds on the Phenomenology of Spirit, how the Philosophy of Right places the three forms of the self in a systematic coherence, and how the actualization of this systematic coherence can be conceived of in our era. It will appear that the historical interpretation of the substantial concept of the absolute Spirit plays a role in the Philosophy of Right. As a consequence, the ethos that Hegel elaborates for his era threatens to be made absolute.143 Ethical life is not explicitly developed as a contingent historical appearance of the three forms of the self. Especially this contingent status asks for a contribution of the empirical sciences (empirical psychology, social psychology), to develop the concrete content of ethical substance. In the next chapters it will also be discussed as to how a contemporary version of the Philosophy of Right will look when, in line with Honneth, we abstain from the substantial concept of the absolute Spirit that is onesidedly interpreted as an historical one. In this elaboration, there is room for contingency and positive sciences. Moreover, it will appear that, in contrast to Hegel, the appeal to religion forms that correspond to the development in the Spirit-Chapter (religion of art and revealed religion), is in one way or another necessary. It is precisely these religion forms that play a role in putting the social objectivity in perspective. Anticipating this discussion, I already have combined, in the preceding interpretation of the Phenomenology of Spirit, unlike Hegel, the polis and the Realm of Education with their corresponding religion forms, i. e., religion of art and revealed religion.

143 Erzsbet Rzsa (2005) shows that, in this respect, there is a discrepancy between the preface and the main text of the Philosophy of Right.

Chapter 6 The program of the Philosophy of Right as elaboration of the Phenomenology’s project Introduction In this chapter, I will show that the program that Hegel elaborates in his Philosophy of Right can be completely understood as the elaboration of a project that is inspired by the Phenomenology of Spirit. The relation between both works not only implies that the Phenomenology of Spirit can elucidate what is at stake in the Philosophy of Right, but also can serve as a critical touchstone. Does Hegel remain true to his own project? I will put forward the thesis that it has been Hegel’s intention to remain totally true to the position he has developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit. But I also want to make clear that the relation between both works is complex: Starting from the Phenomenology of Spirit, it is possible to write a Philosophy of Right that responds much better to the demands of our era. In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel is sometimes so much led by the reality of his time, that it is at the cost of the critical potency that has already been developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Partly, the fact that Hegel has been led by his own time is unavoidable. In the introduction of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel, himself, already indicates that a philosopher cannot surpass his era.144 This is not only about a form of modesty, but also about a boundary that Hegel has methodologically justified. The institutions of the rule of law cannot, once and for all, be developed by a philosopher who takes in the standpoint of eternity, but essentially have an historical form. They are the result from the Reason as testing laws, i. e., from the reason that, on the base of universal criteria, tests in what sense existing institutions can be interpreted as expressions of freedom. My criticism on Hegel does not concern the historical determinedness of the institutions in the Philosophy of Right, but rather, the universal cri144 “It is just as absurd to fancy that a philosophy can transcend its contemporary world as it is to fancy that an individual can overleap his own age, jump over Rhodes.” PhR, p.11.

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teria that underlie his testing. Although Hegel derives his central arguments from the Phenomenology of Spirit, I will show that there is some tension between both works. Ultimately, in his reception of these criteria in the Philosophy of Right, Hegel has been influenced too much by the reality of his time. Consequently, the realization of human freedom has been conceived of too much from the primacy of labor, i. e., from the economic domain. At the same time, it cannot be put just like that, that this making labor absolute (what comes down to conceiving the spiritual existence of man too much from his corporeal existence) is innocent of the Phenomenology of Spirit. In principle, this making labor absolute is innocent of the project of the Phenomenology of Spirit: After all it is again and again argued that the pure self cannot be absorbed by the social organism. But the methodological organization of the work, in which the religion forms corresponding to the historical forms of the social organism are discussed afterwards, promotes making labor absolute in the Philosophy of Right. In the Philosophy of Right, the methodological distinction between objective and absolute Spirit is made a real one. The relation to the absolute Spirit is only discussed at the level of world history, not at the level at which the real social institutions are developed. After all, these institutions are not real because they are developed from the objective Spirit’s point of view. Their reality is only in sight when the relation to the absolute Spirit is developed.

The conceptual design of the Philosophy of Right Hegel formulates the program of the Philosophy of Right in § 1: “The subject-matter of the philosophical science of right is the Idea of right, i. e., the concept of right, together with the actualization of that concept.” The concept of right is more closely elaborated in the first two parts: Abstract Right and Morality. The actualization of the concept of right is more closely elaborated in the third part: Ethical Life. I will show how, in the first part (abstract Right) the formal concept of the first self from the Phenomenology of Spirit returns and how, in the second part (Morality), the formal concept of the second and third self from the Phenomenology of Spirit return.145 Therefore, the concept of right appears as the for145 Rightly Erzsbet Rzsa (2007) states: “The second self, i. e., the individual as essential moment of the substance, as well as the sublation of the first self are thought determinations of Hegelian philosophy that can also be recognized in

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Chapter 6 The program of the Philosophy of Right

mal unity of the three forms of the self, as the formal unity of Right and Morality. In Chapters 7, 8 and 9, I will discuss how Hegel’s concept of right applies to the institutions that he finds in the modern world of his time: To what extent can they be conceived of as expression of freedom?146 Insofar as the contingent institutions from his era can indeed be conceived of as expression of freedom, he includes them in his Philosophy of Right as institutions of Ethical Life. I will show how Hegel, in the three sections of Ethical Life (Family, Civil Society and State)147 reverts to the Philosophy of Right.” [Das zweite Selbst, d. h. das Individuum als wesentliches Moment der Substanz, wie auch die Aufhebung des ersten Selbst sind Gedankenbestimmungen der hegelschen Philosophie, die auch in der Rechtsphilosophie zu erkennen sind.] (p. 78). 146 In contrast to Alan Patton (1999), I do not think that Hegel makes “a priori claims about the social and institutional conditions under which human personality and subjectivity can be developed and sustained.” (p. 204). 147 Honneth (2003) remarks: “ … how much the idea of a social differentiation of three spheres of recognition owes to a kind of social-theoretical transformation of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Just as Hegel spoke with regard to the “ethical” (sittlich) order of modern society of three institutional complexes (the family, civil society, and the state), whose internal constitution as spheres of recognition allows the subject to attain the highest degree of individual freedom through active participation, the same basis idea is to be found in my own reflections in the form of a differentiation of three differently constituted spheres of reciprocal recognition.” p. 143/4. However, Honneth distinguishes two differences with Hegel’s approaches. In the first place, the struggles for recognition at the three levels “essentially function only to motivate the transition to the next level of ethically constituted institutions.” (p. 144). Secondly, Honneth reproaches Hegel a “concretism” that makes that “the borders between the institutional complexes on the one side, and the spheres of recognition on the other, break down altogether.” (p. 146). I do not think that this conclusion can be maintained. The three forms of the self represent three forms of recognition that are relatively independent. Moreover, it is rather Honneth’s “concretist” reading of Hegel than Hegel himself, who identifies the three forms of the self with the contingent institutions. Honneth (2000) interprets Right and Morality in the Philosophy of Right as “two definitions of individual freedom, which independently of each other had already exerted, in his view, considerable influence upon the practical selfconception of society”. (p. 34) I have tried to clarify that Right and Morality are internally linked in Hegel’s concept of recognition. In this sense, recognition reconciles the complementary perspectives of Nancy Fraser and can become clear what according to Honneth remains unclear: “it remains completely unclear why the capitalist social order is now to be investigated specifically from the two perspectives of “economy” and “culture,” when it would seem equally possible to analyze the object filed from other perspectives, such as “morality” or “law”. [“law”

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the Phenomenology of Spirit. On the one hand, they are designed as actualization of the three forms of the self (as Family, Corporation and State) and revert to Antiquity, Middle Ages and Modernity (respectively Ethical World, World of Culture and Morality); on the other hand, these actual forms of the self, as in the Phenomenology of Spirit, can be understood as ways in which the spiritual animal kingdom, the Reason as lawgiver and the Reason as testing laws get shaped.

The abstract Right as the formal Notion of the first self The first self, the formal person of the Roman Law, is a free individual who expresses his freedom in the free use of his property. The law guarantees that the individual is recognized as owner of his property. The persons recognize one another as equal: All have the equal right to dispose of their property. The formal property law guarantees the horizontal recognition of the law by which all individuals are valid as equal.148 From the view of Roman Law, the content that is given by the individual to his freedom is accidental: The persons are contingent individuals and the property they have at their disposal is a contingent fact. At the level of abstract Right, Hegel tries to determine the first self in a way that refrains from all historical contingencies. The person is no longer a real individual to which the Roman property law is attributed, but a formalized relation: a free will that is only real insofar as it expresses itself in property.149 This relation is the first moment of abstract Right: Property. (§ 41 ff.). To what individual the free will is attributed does not matter, for each (human) individual has a free will. Moreover, in what property the free will expresses itself is of no importance, either. It will do to simply determine the property as thing, i. e., as “something” that can sensually appear. The formal notion of the first self is only then adequately expressed when inside and outside perspective do not contradict one another. Therefore, if the person, for himself, expresses his freedom in the thing, this must be also true from the outside perspective. This is guaris here the translation of the German Recht and can, therefore, also be translated as right, P.C.] p.156. 148 Cf. R. Williams (1997): “My thesis is that for Hegel, right is grounded in mutual recognition.” (p. 138). 149 Since the free will wants to find itself in the objective reality (cf. the property), abstract Right repeats the relation forms of observing Reason.

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anteed when the person’s relation to the thing is principally mediated by exchange. If all property is the result of exchange between persons, the person has a free relation to his property.150 (This is the second moment of abstract Right: Contract (§ 72 ff.)) The property that expresses his freedom can basically be exchanged to another property, so the person is not tied to any specific property. If the person’s reality is dependent on property exchange, his existence is only guaranteed if the property exchange is possible. Therefore, in contrast to the person of the Roman Law, the existence of the person is not dependent on the existence of an historical property order, but rather on the nearer qualification of the thing. Until now, the quality of the thing is undetermined. The exchange between two undetermined things, however, cannot express the person’s subjective freedom with regard to the thing. The existence of the person remains dependent on a accidental, undetermined thing.151 Only when the exchange process shows that it is the person who decides to relate to a particular thing because its particular quality attributes to the actualization of his subjective freedom, is the freedom of the person with regard to the thing objectified. At the level of abstract Right, however, there is no room for this particular relation to the thing. On the one hand, the persons are free and equal, i. e., totally exchangeable; on the other hand, even if the persons could have particular preferences with regard to the thing, it would be accidental as to whether or not the thing would be qualified to play a role in the subjective actualization of freedom. In the third moment of abstract Right, the Wrong (§ 82 ff.) it is made explicit for the person that the subjective actualization of his freedom remains accidental. This accidental actualization can only be overcome when the transition is made to the second self of Morality.

150 Therefore, A. Patton (1999) is right when he understands property “as a mediator of recognition” (p. 159). The weakness that he observes in Hegel’s approach a priorism) (p. 123) makes no sense: We have seen that Hegel’s development of recognition and his actualization of recognition has, on the one hand, a logical dimension (unity of inside and outside perspective) and, on the other hand, an empirical dimension: the examination of how recognition is actualised in a specific era. 151 Cf. the conclusion of the observing Reason: “The being of Spirit is a bone.” (208).

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Morality as the formal notion of the second self Morality in the Philosophy of Right can be conceived of as the pure form of the second self of the Phenomenology of Spirit, the absolute freedom. We have characterized the absolute freedom as the morality that has absorbed the domain of right: As absolute freedom the, moral individual wants immediately to make himself the lawgiver of the social organism. In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel develops the pure form of the second self by abstracting from the contingent relations. He develops the relations to reality that the moral self (the “subject”) has to take on to understand reality as one in which he can express his freedom. The first moment of Morality (in the Philosophy of Right) Hegel characterizes as Purpose and Responsibility (§ 115 ff.). In this relation it is expressed that reality, first of all, has to be understood as the result of selfconscious action. The intended content of action (purpose) has to be actualized in the action’s result, so that the moral individual can take responsibility for his action.152 Hegel indicates the second moment of Morality (in the Philosophy of Right) as Intention and Welfare (§ 119 ff.). This moment makes it clear that the action for which the “subject” takes responsibility has to be closer determined as an action that serves the welfare of the “subject”. This presupposes the subject’s insight in his welfare: Only then can he purposefully make welfare the dedication of his action.153 In the third moment of Morality, Good and Conscience (§ 129 ff.), it is discussed that the subjective welfare can only be actualized when it is in harmony with the welfare of the others. (§ 134) Therefore, the “subject” has the duty (cf. Conscience) to fill in the actualization of his welfare in a way that he also actualizes the welfare of the others, i. e., he has to realize the good.154

152 This moment refers to the first moment of active Reason in the Phenomenology of Spirit: Pleasure and Necessity. This time, however, pleasure (as purpose) is, so to speak, developed as a positive moment of the moral individual in his entirety, the conscientious individual. 153 This moment refers to the second moment of active Reason in the Phenomenology of Spirit: the law of the heart and the frenzy of self- deceit. This time, however, the law of the heart (as intention) is, so to speak, developed as a positive moment of the moral individual in his entirety, the conscientious individual. 154 This moment refers to the third moment of active Reason in the Phenomenology of Spirit: Virtue and the way of the world. This time, however, virtue (as conscience)

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Conscience as the formal unity of right and morality The conscience that Hegel introduces in the Philosophy of Right can be understood as the unity of abstract Right and Morality, i. e., as the unity of the formal notion of the first and second self. After all, we have not only seen that morality in its most concrete determination (the third moment) has been transferred to conscience, but in his determination as conscience, at the same time, is returned to abstract Right. For, conscience demands the actualization of the good155, i. e., conscience demands to actualize moral freedom in the form of right. In the next chapters, we will see how Hegel, in the development of the third part of the Philosophy of Right, understands ethical Life as the actualization of conscience.156 Conscience, as the unity of the formal notion of the first and second self, is confronted with the institutions that Hegel finds in his era in an attempt to actualize Reason as testing laws. Insofar as Hegel thinks to be able to understand them as actualization of conscience, he includes them in the Philosophy of Right as institutions of ethical Life. We will see how the state, as the dialectical unity of family and civil society, can be understood as the actualization of conscience, unifying in itself the actualization of the first and second self.

Conscience in the ‘Philosophy of Right’ vis--vis conscience in the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ Until now, I carefully avoided linking conscience in the Philosophy of Right, with the third self of the Phenomenology of Spirit that Hegel also characterizes as conscience. The conscientious individual of the Phenomenology of Spirit is related to the absolute Spirit. He understands the social organism as the contingent self-expression of the absolute spirit, and knows that he can only indirectly take care of the realization of the is, so to speak, developed as a positive moment of the moral individual in his entirety, the conscientious individual. 155 Cf. “The good is the Idea as the unity of the concept of the will with the particular will. In this unity, abstract right, welfare, the subjectivity of knowing and the contingency of external fact, have their independent self-subsistence superseded, though at the same time they are still contained and retained within in it in their essence.” (§ 129). 156 Ethical life is “the good become alive” (§ 142), the concrete identity of the good with the subjective will (§ 141).

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good: by serving the institutions of the social organism in which he lives. Essentially, this conscience is distinguished from the one of the Philosophy of Right that is determined as a conscience that actualizes itself in the social organism. Obviously, Hegel did not want to discuss in the Philosophy of Right the relation to the absolute Spirit. This relation is only touched on at the end of the Philosophy of Right, namely at the level of world history, when the transition to the absolute Spirit is performed.157 The curtailment that Hegel displays concerning the concept of conscience in the Philosophy of Right 158 has dramatic consequences for the entirety of the further development.159 The adequate notion of the relation between right and morality, the Reason as testing laws adequately applied to the institutions of our era, has to revert to the concept of conscience in the Phenomenology of Spirit.

The formal unity of the three forms of the self following from the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ If we depart from the Phenomenology of Spirit, the formal unity of the three forms of the self look different. Once again conscience, as the third form of the self, can be understood as the unity of the first and second self. We have seen that the individual who is conceived of as the unity of mind and body, at the level of conscience, could be understood for the first time in a way in which inside and outside perspective coincide. As conscience, the individual is related to the absolute Spirit that he understands as the pure self manifesting itself in the social organism. He has the certitude that he indirectly actualizes his freedom by observing the laws of 157 “The element in which the universal mind exists in art is intuition and imagery, in religion feeling and representative thinking, in philosophy pure freedom of thought. In world history this element is the actuality of mind in its whole compass of internality and externality alike.” PhR § 341. 158 “The religious conscience, however, does not belong to this sphere at all.” (§ 137 A). 159 Fred. Neuhouser maintains: “Indeed, one of the persistent aims of this book has been to show that the normative standards that inform Hegel’s social theory can be made plausible and compelling in detachment from his secular theodicy simply by articulating how they have their source in the idea of practical freedom …” (p. 270). I will invert Neuhouser’s critcism. The problem of the Philosophy of Right is that it is too much detached from Hegel’s secular theodicy. Hegel’s “comprehensive metaphysical vision” (p. 270) precisely consists of the adequate articulation of the ideal of practical freedom.

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the social organism in which he is living. Also from the outside perspective, the perspective of world history, the actualization of freedom is understood in this way. Since outside and inside perspective coincide, this concept of conscience can be immediately valid as the formal, absolute concept of conscience. There is no need to abstract from historical conditions. The first and the second self belong to the previous history of conscience. They determine the fundamental structures of the society forms that the individual must have passed through to have the ability to develop insight into conscience. At the level of conscience, the individual knows that he can actualize his freedom only in a finite way, namely by participating in the social organism of which he is part. The first and the second self impose a nearer determination of the social organism in which conscience can actualize his freedom. The social organism has to be thus structured so that it enables the conscientious individual to pass through the relation forms of the first and second self; or better, that it has already passed through them all the time, so that his insight in the social organism as one in which he can actualize his freedom is conditioned by this social organism itself. The conscientious individual can only pass through the relation form of the first self when the social organism corresponds to the demand that it is already given all the time as an objective reality. Since this demand means that conscience has to find his freedom immediately in the reality that is objectively given, it comes down to understanding the social organism as objectification of observing Reason. Since the social organism that is immediately given is real as property, the relation in which the first self appears can, like in the Philosophy of Right, be understood as the relation between person and property, i. e., as the free self who takes the given thing as the expression of his freedom. In contrast to the Philosophy of Right, the relation between person and property is this time already understood all the time as a moment of the surpassing conscience. As conscience, the individual knows that his free essence, in the form of immediacy, is realized in the relation between person and property. The freedom of the person is only practically expressed in the property. His pure self, the self that transcends any actualization, is absorbed in the practical process. It is true that the person in the use of the property can show that he is the lord of the thing, but this lordship is only expressed because the person is, so to speak, his own “bondsman”. In the “labor” of the use of the property, the person practically expresses


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his subjective freedom, i. e., the thing appears as use value that is consumed by the person. This consumption, however, does not satisfy immediately given “natural” needs, but rather the needs that are defined by the norms and values of the immediately given social organism. The pure self of the person is not expressed in the “labor” of the use of the property. This would only be the case if, at the same time, the factual use of the property expresses that the person has the freedom to use the property otherwise. The person’s independence from the particular use of the property (his freedom vis--vis the thing) can appear when the property only functions as a token of the person’s freedom. The property, in its function as token, abstracts from the physical qualities of the thing without which the thing could not have any use value. It is only important insofar as it refers to the undetermined freedom of the person: it only represents the that of his freedom. The problem is, however, how the thing can appear as token in the objectifying relation that characterizes the first self, i. e., the self of the abstract Right. 160 Can the token be found in the given objectivity of the world? As in Hegel’s version of the abstract Right, the transition of the relation of Contract can also be made in this revised version. If the possession of property is principally mediated by exchange on the base of an exchange contract, this cannot only make explicit that the persons recognize one another as proprietors, but also that the quality of the property is inessential. Principally, everything can be exchanged to everything else. The property is only a token for recognition, i. e., the representation of the person’s freedom. While the second moment of the abstract Right in the revised Philosophy of Right is once again the Contract, the third moment of abstract Right differs from the original version and can not be identified as the Wrong. For, the problem that has to be solved at the level of the second moment is not that the exchange between persons remains accidental. It is true that the content of the commodities that are exchanged between the persons is not determined. Consequently, it remains accidental whether or not the exchanged commodities are qualified to satisfy the needs that are defined by the norms and values of the social organism in which the person practically expresses his freedom. But this state of affairs does not result in the Wrong, i. e., the possible contradiction between the formal (general) will of the free and equal persons and their particular 160 In the abstract Right, the relations of observing Reason appear in their true form: Objective reality is developed as expression of the free self, i. e., the person.

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will. The problem of the revised abstract Right is rather that it does not allow bringing together the general freedom of the formal persons and the content of their particular will. At the level of abstract Right both dimensions exclude one another. Either the will of the person is determined as a particular will that is expressed in the thing as a particular use value, or the will of the person is determined as a free will that is expressed in the thing as a general exchange value. But the thing that appears as use value does not appear as exchange value, and vice versa. This problem can only be overcome by the second self that is discussed at the level of Morality. The conscientious individual can only pass through the relation form of the second self when the social organism corresponds to the demand that it is produced by the individual himself: He must be the lawgiver of the social organism. As in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, the first moment of Morality can be characterized as Purpose and Responsibility (§§ 115 – 118). If the social organism is the product of the free individual, it is overcome that the content of the social law is accidental; at the same time, the content can be freely determined. As in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, also the second moment of Morality can be determined as Intention and Welfare (§§ 119 – 128). At this level is formulated as to what criteria the free content of the social law is subjected: In the social law, the welfare of the individual has to be actualized. The approval of this demand, however, is not unproblematic. When it is assumed that each subject can have knowledge of his subjective freedom and, based on this knowledge, can try to actualize his welfare in a social organism (for example a family organism), then the question remains as to whether the realization of the welfare of the one subject is compatible with the one of the other. Therefore, in his Philosophy of Right, Hegel adds the demand that also the welfare of the others has to be actualized, and elaborates this demand as the third moment of Morality, as Conscience that has the duty to actualize the general good (§§ 129 – 140). This move, however, is highly problematic. In a certain sense, the subjective identity that tries to express his subjective freedom is given. The subject cannot assume at random any identity, but has to discover by life experience what his very identity is. This contingence of subjective identity makes the possible harmony between the actualization of subjective welfare by many subjects a rather accidental affair. The accidentalness of this harmony can only be overcome when the many subjective identities can be conceived of as moments of a shared social organism. But this is only possible when their contingence, in one way


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or another, is abolished. The problem of abstract Right returns in a specific form at the level of Morality. The particular and the general actualization of freedom can, on the one hand, not be brought together, but on the other hand, do presuppose one another. The particular realization of freedom is not possible when it is not in harmony with the actualization of freedom of all. But if it is in harmony with the general actualization of freedom, it seems to decline as particular freedom realization. Therefore, at the level of the second moment of Morality, only the demand can be formulated that the particular as well as the general freedom, that the particular welfare as well as the general welfare, has to be actualized. Both demands, however, cannot be unified in the conscience that is determined as the duty to actualize the general good, as is done in the Philosophy of Right. We have seen that conscience in the revised Philosophy of Right has been differently determined. The conscientious individual knows that the social organism in which he is living is a contingent self-expression of the absolute Spirit, and he knows that he can only indirectly contribute to the actualization of the absolute good by serving the institutions of the social organism in which he is living. By now we have seen to which nearer determinations this social organism has to respond: to the structures of abstract Right and Morality. We have also seen what are the consequences of these determinations: The demand has to be made upon the social organism that it actualizes right and morality in an adequate unity; room must be made for both subjective and general actualization of freedom. Moreover, it is clear that the subjective actualization of freedom may not be reduced to a moment of the general good; neither may the absolute good161 be reduced to the general good. Only when the conscientious individual actualizes himself in a social organism that is structured according the revised abstract Right and the revised Morality, can he also realize in this organism the self-insight of being a conscientious individual. Precisely because the social organism institutionally distinguishes between the particular and the general actualization of freedom can it meet the demands raised by the conscientious individual: The social organism has to be a contingent realization form of the absolute Spirit (it actualizes the absolute good in the form of the 161 Hegel maintains: “The good is thus freedom realized, the absolute end and aim of the world.” (§ 129) This absolute good may not be confused with the general good that is realized in the particular state.

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general good). But the self-actualization of the absolute Spirit has to go together with the realization of subjective freedom.

The actualization of the Human Self We have elaborated what it means to understand the human self as the unity of mind and body. This unity can only be conceived of in the framework of a social organism that can be described by means of the metaphorical lordship/bondsman relation. This metaphor elucidates that the unity between mind and body gets shape in the form of two kinds of recognition: a vertical recognition (the recognition of the lord) that makes the individual a moral individual; and a horizontal recognition (the mutual recognition of the bondsmen as free and equal). To think of the adequate unity of mind and body comes down to thinking of the adequate unity of Right and Morality, which relation Hegel conceptualizes as the relation between objective and absolute Spirit. The adequate conceptualization of the relation between right and morality has succeeded if the inside perspective of this relation coincides with the outside perspective. According to Hegel, this adequate relation expresses the absolute Notion of man as unity of mind and body, i. e., this Notion transcends all historical actualization forms. Since the moral individual is an absolute self, human beings, as moral individuals, are absolutely equal. This equality is principally expressed in a social organism in which all individuals are free and equal persons, i. e., the social organism is principally a democratic one. Therefore, in the adequate unity of right and morality, at the same time the elementary unity of human rights162 and democracy has been expressed. The adequate unity of right and morality, of democracy and human rights, is an absolute criterion to test contingent social organisms: To what extent do they adequately express human rights and democracy, morality and right? In the second part of this book we will test the social organism of the modern, globalized world. To exercise this test we can appeal to two examples163 : on the one hand, the example of European 162 We will see how the institutions of the rule of law (Rechtsstaat) are developed as the unity of Right and Morality. Insofar as they express the moral dimension, I will claim that they are related to human rights. 163 Although Honneth (1995) seems to accept the structures of recognition that correspond to the three selves, he states that Hegel’s line of thought “is tainted by

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history that Hegel has elaborated in the Phenomenology of Spirit, and on the other hand, the example of the Philosophy of Right, in which Hegel has synthesized the experiences of European history to conceptualize the adequate institutions for his era. We have to repeat Hegel’s attempt for our time. But we have to avoid the curtailment as it is represented by the Philosophy of Right, in comparison to the Phenomenology of Spirit.

metaphysical premises that can no longer be easily reconciled with contemporary thought.” (p. 67). He concludes: “ … an empirically supported phenomenology is thus needed, one that allows Hegel’s theoretical proposal to be tested and, if necessary, corrected.” (p. 69) We have seen, however, that the three forms of the self result from the making more explicit of the conditions that allow us to conceive of the unity of mind and body. Since the problem of the unity of mind and body is not even raised by George Herbert Mead, his “translation of Hegel’s theory of intersubjectivity into a postmetaphysical language” (p. 70) is redundant. But, of course, the historical appearance of the three forms of the self has to be tested. This test is performed by Hegel in the Phenomenology of Spirit, as well as in the Philosophy of Right.

Chapter 7 The Family: The Institutional House of the First Self Introduction In this chapter, I will elaborate the institutional actualization of the first self for our era, i. e., I will confront the conceptual determinations of the first self with institutions of our globalized world and examine which institutions can be considered as an adequate realization of the first self. To prepare for this attempt, however, I will first go into Hegel’s attempt in the Philosophy of Right to elaborate the institutionalization of the first self for the nineteenth century. I will criticize the result of Hegel’s attempt, i. e., the family. This criticism does not concern the features of the family that typically seems to belong to the Nineteenth Century, but is more elementary. I will show that Hegel, by giving the family a natural content, confuses natural and ethical immediacy. As a consequence, his concept of family does not meet the criteria for the first self that Hegel himself has developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit. This criticism will appear helpful for the positive construction of the first self ’s institutional embodiment.

The species life of animals In contrast to human beings, the species life of animals is not institutionalized. It is only practically performed in the process in which the species reproduces itself. At least in the case of mammals, this reproduction process can be described in a kind of “dialectical” structure. Insofar as the female individual produces offspring, it is, from an outside perspective (as such, in itself ), a being that belongs to a species. The relation to the species becomes “for” the female individual in its relation to the male individual. In the sexual intercourse, the membership of the species is expressed by the actions of the individuals, themselves. Moreover, the relation between the male and the female individual can be interpreted as a relation in which the species in its generality is related to the individual exemplar of the species. The relation between the sexes is a general relation of the species. But the consequences of this relation, pregnancy, is

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objectified in a particular female individual. The male individual represents the moment of generality; the female individual, on the other hand, represents the moment of particularity. Finally, the offspring expresses the species life as it is in and for itself. From the outside perspective, the offspring has been produced by his parents; from the inside perspective, the offspring “recognizes” its parents and acts in accordance with them.

The family in the Philosophy of Right: animal life in the form of freedom Hegel’s construction of the family in the Philosophy of Right can be conceived of as a social organism in which the animal reproduction can get shape in the form of freedom. The individuals who constitute the social organism of the family are not natural individuals, but free and equal persons who can make a free decision for marriage. This decision is, first of all, the formal decision to constitute “one person”. (§ 162) Moreover, the content that is actualized in the social organism of the family is not a natural one (the decision to marry is not motivated by sexual interests), but an ethical one. The formal decision to marry implies, at the same time, the substantial decision to share one identity that is expressed in the love between the marriage partners. (§ 163) Therefore, the social organism of the family is the concrete person: the person who is free and equal in his relation to other persons and real in the shared love between the marriage partners. The love between the partners is objectified in their children. (§ 163) The labor that is done in the family organism exists of raising the children to adulthood. The product of the family is the children that have been raised into free and equal persons. Therefore, in the family, the natural reproduction of the species has been transformed in the ethical reproduction of the free and equal persons. But also, Hegel’s interpretation of the natural individuals in logical terms (the male individual standing for the moment of universality and the female individual standing for the moment of particularity), returns in the social organism of the family and gets its free, ethical meaning in the gender roles of the marriage partners. (§ 166) These gender roles are structured according the lordship/bondsman relation. The woman recognizes in her husband her free essence, i. e., her “lord”:

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The man is the free person who represents the family in the social domain (the civil society as the multitude of families). (§ 178) The woman is the “bondsman” of her husband insofar as she actualizes in her labor the freedom of the “lord”: In the “labor” of the family, the free and equal persons are reproduced.164

The social organism of the family vis--vis the conceptual framework of the ‘Philosophy of Right’ and the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’‘ I will not interfere with the discussion as to how Hegel’s concept of the family is related to the historical family institutions in the Europe of the Nineteenth Century. I limit myself to the question of whether his concept of the family corresponds to the criteria that he himself has formulated in the Philosophy of Right. 165 Since ethical life in general is determined as the unity of abstract Right and Morality, the family, as the immediate form of ethical life, has to be structured as the unity of first moment of abstract Right and the first moment of Morality, i. e., as the unity of Person/Property and Purpose/Responsibility. We have observed that the social organism of the family can be considered as the concrete Person. Moreover, it is evident that this concrete person, according to Hegel, has his own (family) property. (§ 170) Therefore, it is in no way problematic to interpret Hegel’s concept of the family as the actualization of the first moment of abstract Right. But we must check, later on, whether property functions as use value or only as exchange value. It is, however, problematic to interpret Hegel’s concept of the family as the actualization of the Purpose/Responsibility relation. Although this relation seems only to demand that the social organism of the family is the result of free action (of course, the marriage is constituted by the free decision of the partners), the actions that are performed by the partners cannot be considered free in this sense. The role patterns that Hegel ascribes 164 Cf. “From the physical point of view, the presupposition–persons immediately existent (as parents) –here becomes a result, a process which runs away into the infinite series of generations, each producing the next and presupposing the one before.” (§ 173). 165 Steinberger (1988) states that “ … Hegel […] has shown […] that something like marriage is necessary to the unfolding of Objective Spirit, but has failed to prove that only marriage can do the job.” (p. 187) Of course, it is not Hegel’s claim to identify historical institutions with the Objective Spirit.

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to the man and the woman, i. e., a pattern that is based on a biological qualification, makes that their action is inspired by their “pathos” (their character as man or woman), rather than that it is a free action. It is true that, compared to the polis, the relation between man and woman has changed. Although also in the polis the man is linked with the moment of generality (the Human Law), and the woman to the moment of particularity (the Divine Law), their actions are fundamentally different from those of the marriage partners in the Philosophy of Right. The actions of man and woman in the polis are one-sided because they only observe one of the two laws. In the marriage of the Philosophy of Right, this one-sidedness seems to have been overcome. The Human and Divine Law are, so to speak, unified in the love of the marriage partners. In their love the partners share their identity. Therefore, the actions of man and woman can no longer be one-sided. If the woman acts, she acts at the same time in the name of her husband, and vice versa. Man and woman both represent in their actions the entirety of their shared identity. However, if we compare the way in which the division between Human and Divine Law is overcome in the family of the Philosophy of Right, to the way in which it is overcome in the Phenomenology of Spirit, it is immediately clear that the actions of the marriage partners cannot be considered to be free ones. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, the overcoming of the division between the two laws is performed in the transition from the polis into the Roman world. This transition results in the formal person of the Roman Law that Hegel characterized as the first self. The first self as it appears in the Roman Law seems to coincide with the first self as it is embodied in the marriage of the Philosophy of Right. On the one hand, in both cases the first self is real as the family organism that appears in the property of the family; on the other hand, the family organisms relate to one another as the free and equal persons. Nevertheless, this similarity is deceitful. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, the transition from the polis to the Roman Law implies what Hegel calls a “ruin of ethical substance”. (289) The person of the Roman Law has emancipated himself from the tradition of the polis (or better, since the different poleis have different traditions from the traditions of the polis). As person the individual has internalized the pure self that was remembered by the Divine Law. This internalization, however, is only immediately performed: It is not known by the individual, but only practically expressed in the family life. As a consequence, the content of family life is purely contingent;

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it is no longer embedded in a shared tradition. This exactly is indicated by the formula “loss of ethical life”. In the Philosophy of Right, however, this “disappearance of ethical life” has not been performed within the family.166 After all, the man and the woman have their traditional gender role.167 The “loss of ethical life” is only discussed at the level of the Dissolution of the family, i. e., at the moment that the children have left the family and relate as free and equal persons in the civil society. (§ 177) These persons do not share a common tradition and are no longer determined by the tradition of their original family. This does not mean, however, that the persons in the civil society are able to understand the traditional content of the family as a contingent one. On the one hand, it appears that the persons that create new marriages observe the same traditional gender roles as in their original family. On the other hand, as we will see in the next chapter, Hegel considers the commodities that belong to the family property not as use-values to satisfy the needs of the contingent norms and values of the family, but as use-values that satisfy natural needs. These natural needs are only socialized by the culture of the market. From the perspective of the Phenomenology of Spirit, one would expect the construction of a Philosophy of Right in which each family has its own contingent tradition (like the contingent traditions of the different poleis). Within these families, the education of the children would be a twofold process: In the first stage, the children would be socialized in the contingent tradition of the family; in the second stage, the children would be involved in a learning process in which they develop insight in the contingency of the family tradition as such (cf. the citizens of the polis who, mediated by the religion of the work of art, developed insight in the contingency of the polis’s ethical life).

166 It is only in the transition into the civil society that Hegel speaks about “the disappearance of ethical life”. (§ 181). 167 Therefore, I agree with Steinberger (1988): “But, more strongly, I would suggest that the two–the theory of gender and the theory of marriage–are, in fact, flatly contradictory.” (p. 188). For a criticism of Hegel’s conception of the gender values see also Hardimon (1994), p. 185).

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The education of the children in the family of the revised ‘Philosophy of Right’ a. The socialization of the child in the contingent tradition of the family In the Phenomenology of Spirit, it has been developed that the individual, as unity of mind and body, can only be conceived of as the member of a social organism that corresponds to structures that can be represented by means of the metaphor lordship/bondsman. Therefore, the child who is socialized in the social organism of the family must have passed through all stages of the natural consciousness that Hegel developed from Sense-Certainty up to and including the lordship/bondsman relation. Whether a psychological development in this sense is realistic can only be established by scientific research.168 Since it is not within my competence to practice this research, I restrict myself to the attempt to repeat this development of the natural consciousness in terms of the psychological development of a child. Evidently, this reconstruction has only the status of a research hypothesis. I depart from the newborn child and assume that he already has an elementary consciousness of the “I” all the time. I assume that the newborn baby already has a notion of his own being-in-himself, so that he can distinguish between himself and the outside world. Moreover, I presuppose that this elementary consciousness of the “I” also embraces an elementary form of an (inner) freedom, i. e., it can retain itself as an elementary consciousness of the “I” and is not determined by the outside world. The “I” can hold the boundary between the world and itself. The outside world appears in the form of variable impressions; through these variable impressions the “I” remains at itself. Subsequently, I assume that the baby finds himself already in a family situation. For example, he has a father and a mother taking care of him and, together with, for example, some brothers or sisters, he is part of a common household. Initially, the newborn child is absorbed by the above-mentioned consciousness of the “I”. He has no knowledge of his own body and no more 168 Thomas Kesselring tries to explain that the Piaget’s development psychology is structured like the stages of Consciousness and Self-consciousness. Cf. Thomas Kesselring, Entwicklung und Widerspruch. Ein Vergleich zwischen Piagets genetischer Erkenntnistheorie und Hegels Dialektik, Frankfurt/M., 1981; Thomas Kesselring, Die Produktivitt der Antinomie. Hegels Dialektik im Lichte der genetischen Erkenntnistheorie und der formalen Logik, Frankfurt/M., 1984.

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self-knowledge than that he is an “I”, distinguished from the outside world. The only “substantial” knowledge he has, are the various impressions of the outside world. Considered from the outside perspective, it is clear that the baby can only relate to the outside world because he has a body, rather than because of his ability to identify objects in the outside world by means of sensual perception. The newborn baby has not yet reached the stage of this “theoretical” knowledge. Rather, his relation to the outside world is practical. As corporeal being, the baby is needy: He is hungry, thirsty and needs protection against the cold. The perception of the outside world is at first the practical experience of this neediness: a feeling of hunger, thirst and coldness. In its experience of the neediness, the I-Consciousness of the baby is determined by the outside world. A baby who is hungry coincides with his feeling of hunger. He cannot distinguish between himself and this feeling. The feeling of hunger appears to be an overpowering obsession. Therefore, the experience of neediness is the experience of a lack of freedom. In this relation, the distinction between the “I” and the outside world cannot be retained. The experience of neediness is overcome at the moment that the need is satisfied. A child who is given the breast has overcome the hostile outside world. From the feeling of being dominated by the outside world he has returned to a positive self-awareness. Therefore, the breast of the mother (the “mamma”) can become the symbol of the consciousness of the “I” that was previously totally undetermined. However, if the consciousness of the “I” can be symbolized, the relation to the outside world has been submitted to a change. The satisfaction, i. e., the presence of the mother’s breast, is only temporary. After the satisfaction, the feeling of neediness returns, until the new need is also satisfied. Therefore, the self-awareness is mediated by a feeling of negativity, by the feeling of being dependent on a outside world. Because of this, the consciousness of the “I” is actualized as a process, i. e., as a being determined by the needs and the return to the own identity by the overcoming of this being-determined. This makes that the own identity is experienced as the identity of an organism. An organism is free insofar as the maintenance of its identity is due to itself; insofar as it satisfies its needs. This freedom is lacking, however, insofar as this self-maintenance is dependent on given means of satisfaction. This makes the consciousness of the “I” somewhat ambivalent. The consciousness of the “I” is free, but this freedom can only be maintained if the external reality has a quality that is able to satisfy the needs of the I. Since the “I” has not the ability


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to determine the quality of the external world, it lacks, in this sense, freedom. The experience of the lack of freedom is based on the naturally given neediness; in this relation freedom is impossible. In his neediness the child is confronted with a power that it cannot overcome. As a natural organism he can never break the power of the outside world. In his neediness, he remains dependent on the outside world and, in the long run, he will even decline by its power. Ultimately the child dies (although we may hope that this will only happen at an older age). Not the free will has the ultimate control over the body, but death. Therefore, freedom seems to be incompatible with corporeality. The child, however, is not a mere natural organism that is related to a natural environment. He is cared for by his parents and lives in the context of his family. The life environment of the child is, so to speak, an artificial organism: a life community that is created by the actions of the parents. The goal of the life community is, amongst others, to guarantee that the needs of the community’s family members are satisfied. Good parents will do their utmost best to make sure that their children lack nothing. If they succeed, the child is not related to an outside world manifesting itself as a strange power that leaves it accidental whether his needs are or are not satisfied, but rather to an outside world in which he recognizes his own essence. His parents have taken care that his world is an extension of himself in which all his needs are satisfied. Therefore, nothing seems to hinder the child’s awareness of the “I”. The only reason for the existence of the world seems to be to serve the child. The world to which the child is related is the social organism of the family in which his parents have expressed their subjective freedom. (Later on, I will discuss how this has to be understood.) Consequently, the child’s needs that are satisfied cannot be considered as immediate natural needs (the needs of a biological organism), but rather as the cultural needs in which the free subjective identity of the parents expresses itself. In this sense, the natural organism of the child is already socialized all the time: The needs that he can satisfy and that are developed in the course of his growing up are already the cultural needs of the social organism of the family all the time. Therefore, the child cannot distinguish between the actualization of his “I” and the actualization of the free subjectivity of his parents, i. e., he can immediately recognize his parents as his “lord”, as representation of his own essence.169 169 Here, it has no meaning at all to maintain that the child’s recognition of the pa-

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Partly, the freedom of the child is only appearance. The child thinks to be free because he identifies himself with his guardians. Actually, however, the relation between the child and his parents is totally a-symmetrical. The child conforms to the family life that is constituted by his parents. But at the same time, it cannot be maintained that this relation lacks any freedom. The child is not subjected to the parental authority because he has been driven by instinctual actions. Neither is he subjected because he has been forced by his parents. The child obeys because he identifies himself with his guardians. His submission, like the submission of the bondsman to the lord, is self-submission. This is exactly the germ of his freedom. The child who grows up in the context of the family becomes more and more familiar with its norms and values. He learns to speak the language in which he can make all the distinctions that are necessary for the family life. He approaches, more and more, the role that is expected of him. The child internalizes the demands of his parent, so that the life in the family becomes something totally obvious. Because of that, the authority of the parents vis--vis the child loses its externality. The child no longer identifies with the guardians, but experiences family life as the actualization of his own freedom. He thinks that he is doing nothing other than practicing the norms and values that follow from his own conviction. He is convinced that his life is totally in harmony with himself. Therefore, the disciplining in the family to which the child is subjected appears as self-discipline and self-expression. b. The process in which the child develops awareness of the contingence of the family tradition The freedom of the child that has socialized himself in the social organism of the family is freedom only in appearance. The social content he has appropriated is constituted by his parents. Although the process of socialization presupposes that the child is free (he is able to observe cultural norms and values), his pure self is absorbed by the norms and values that he practically performs in the family. Like the citizen of the polis, the rents has to be preceded by a struggle of life and death. The reality of the child is not first a natural organism that is afterwards socialized. He already realizes himself in the form of freedom all the time. Yet, it makes sense to put forth that the fear of death is institutionalised in the social organism of the family: Without the family the child would die.


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child can only become aware of his pure freedom when he develops insight into the contingency of the family norms and values. I will show that the stages of this process of development can be reconstructed according to the format of the religion of the work of art. As in the polis, the pure self will appear as the undermining force of the family tradition.170 We have experienced that, at the level of the polis, the pure self got its embodiment in the family, i. e., in its Divine Law. Later on, I will elaborate that, also in the revised Philosophy of Right, the pure self (in its immediate form) gets its embodiment in the family. This time, however, the pure self that is embodied is not the pure self of the deceased family member, but the pure self of the parents. The persons that constitute the family organism can express their subjective freedom in the norms and values of the family they create. Therefore, the norms and values of the family have a totally different status for the parents than for the child. That the norms and values of the family express the subjective freedom of the parents, is indirectly experienced by the child who is growing up. Since the parents express their subjective freedom in the family organism, all families have different, contingent norms and values. The difference between the norms and values is experienced by the child when he is confronted with other families. The experience of the contingence of the family norms and values threatens to undermine the child’s confidence in his own family. For the first time, he has the suspicion that there is some difference between his identity and the one of his parents. The child, however, had identified himself with his parents and had been convinced that his destiny lies in the unconditional care of his parents. Therefore, the experience of contingence does not immediately result in the child’s loss of basic trust, or in an identity crisis. The child, rather, tries to ward off the undermining forces, and repairs the conviction that his own family expresses his own absolute identity. His confrontation with other families does not make his own family an exchangeable one. The child’s consciousness of the absolute meaning of his own family is represented by the image of his family. The child makes his parents and his parental house the representation of his absolute identity (like the citizens of the polis represented their absolute identity in the statue of the god and the temple). 170 Once again, this reconstruction of the child’s development is purely hypothetical.

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By representing the family, the child can develop a self-conscious insight into the family relation. To maintain his image of the family as the expression of his subjective identity, the child is obliged to assimilate more and more determinations in his image until the moment when he must admit that the family organism is a contingent entity that fails to give shape to his subjective identity. We will see that the stages of the representations can indeed be structured like the stages of the religion of the work of art. The child was urged on the representation of the family because he was confronted with other families having other values and norms. This diversity practically expresses the pure self of the persons: They all have the subjective freedom to constitute a family organism in which their subjective norms and values are embodied. If, however, the child represents the family organism in which he is living by means of the image of his parents and his house, he represents the subjective particularity of the family organism. But this particularity is not represented as the product of the pure self of his parents. Therefore, to retain the image of the family as the representation of his absolute identity, the child must integrate the pure self of his parents in his image of the family. Since his parents express their pure self in the language in which they utter their subjectivity, the child must make this language the image of the family, as well. Insofar as this language functions as an image of the family, the pure self has become part of the child’s consciousness of it.171 We will see that this penetration of the pure self, in the end, contributes to the revelation of the contingency of the family organism. The pure self that is embodied in the speaking voice of the parents has “a vanishing existence” that “falls short of attaining a lasting shape and is, like Time, no longer immediately present in the very moment of its being present”.172 Therefore, the child passes through the Unhappy Consciousness: The representation of his absolute essence slips away. The representation can only be brought back when the free self of the parents is synthesized with the social organism of the family. The representation of this synthesis finds the child in the “ritual” actions of the parents, i. e., 171 Cf. the hymn at the level of the religion of the work of art: The hymn represents the pure self of the artist who produced the work of art (the statue of the god). With the hymn, the pure self penetrates in the public consciousness of the polis (likewise here, in the family, in the form of the human voice). 172 Here, I repeat the qualifications that Hegel gives to the hymn at the level of the religion of the work of art.


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in the actions in which the parents symbolize the reproduction of the family’s social organism. These actions are performed in the festivities and ceremonies in which the family life is central: birthdays, funerals, season’s celebrations, baptismal ceremonies, Mother’s and Father’s days, etc.173 Insofar as these actions concern the institutional reality of the family, they are involved in an objective existence, i. e., in an existence that survives the vanishing existence of the speaking voice. Insofar as these actions are symbolic, they concern the family organism as such and are, in this sense, free. In the “ritual” actions, however, the synthesis between the subjective freedom of the parents and the family organism remains external. Because these actions are only “ritual”, they exist over and above their real actions and cannot guarantee the absolute existence of the family organism. This existence seems to be guaranteed only if the externality of the relation between the free action and the family organism is overcome. The free action must necessarily be oriented to the actualization of the family organism. This demand seems to be impossible: The freedom of the action contradicts the demanded necessity. The aforementioned contradiction can be overcome when the free action that has to actualize the family organism is not attributed to the parents, but to the child himself. Because the child accepts the norms and values of the family as his absolute essence, he can have the conviction that he realizes his freedom when he observes the norms and values in his actions. Therefore, the child turns to a new stage in his development: He tries to actualize the norms and values of his family. He takes up the role of the “bondsman” who tries to observe the norms and values of his “lord”. By sacrificing himself to this lord, i. e., to these norms and values, he tries to actualize his free essence.174 By totally observing the norms and values of the family, the model child learns that he is the “lord” of these norms and values: Their real existence is dependent on his freedom. At this stage, the child becomes aware of his free identity, of his independence from his parents. But at the same time he still identifies himself with the norms and values of his original family: He has appropriated these norms and values as his own ones. Consequently, the objective reality of the family organism has become a reality in which the child recognizes his own inner essence. This relation to the objectivity of the family determines how the child 173 Cf. the abstract Cult in the Greek world. 174 Cf. the actual Cult of the Greek world.

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relates to the broader objectivity of the social world. The child expects to get back his free essence in the social reality: He identifies himself with sport heroes, pop stars and movie stars.175 Sooner or later, the child will experience the limitations of the identification with his youth heroes. They become stiffened icons in which he cannot recognize the freedom of his identity. Therefore, the child tries to understand the broader objective world as the world in which he can recognize his free essence, because this world is mediated by his action. Since the actions of the broader social world are outside the scope of the child (who only acts in the domain of the family), this understanding of the broader social world can only be achieved be means of representations. Like the Ancient Greek citizens who represented their social world in the spiritual works of art (Epic, Tragedy and Comedy), so the modern child portrays his world in distinct spiritual works of art. In both cases, the representations must ward off the outside world that threatens the norms and values of the original family. In the multicultural society, collectively shared stories such as the Iliad, and the tragedies and comedies of the Ancient Greek world, fail. Nevertheless, in the public domain of the multicultural society, stories circulate (in the form of books, movies, theatre pieces, television programs, songs, musicals), that can have the same educative function as the spirituals works of art, namely making the children aware of the contingency of the norms and values of their original families. These stories can teach (as in the Epic), that if all individuals persist in their original norms and values while acting in the public domain, they make the blind destiny master of the world. Or they can make it clear (as in the tragedies), that, although the subjectivity that is expressed in the family organism excludes the inter-subjectivity that is expressed in the public domain, at the same time they presuppose one another. Or, ultimately, they show (as in the comedies), that the stories are only constructions in which the protagonists play their roles. Under the masks of their roles, however, they remain the ordinary individuals who all have their own family norms and values. Probably this explains the popularity of (real-life) soaps and programs like Idols, i. e., programs in which the actors are unskilled, “ordinary” people. The stories teach the children that all attempts to attribute to the norms and values of their own family a status that surpasses contingency, 175 Cf. the living work of art in the Greek world, in which the observing Reason was represented.


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are in vain. The norms and values express the subjectivity of their parents to which the children are related as to a contingent fact. The awareness of this contingency ends in the “ethical” dissolution of the family: At the moment that the child himself realizes that the norms and values of his original family are contingent, his relation to these norms and values becomes external. As a consequence, he is no longer a member of the social organism of the family. Although the child may factually still live with his original family, it loses for him the meaning of an ethical institution in which he shares the norms and values with his family members. In Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, the ethical dissolution of the family has another meaning: “The ethical dissolution of the family consists in this, that once the children have been educated to freedom of personality, and have come of age, they become recognized as persons in the eyes of the law and as capable of holding free property of their own and founding families of their own, the sons as heads of new families, the daughters as wives. They now have their substantive destiny in the new family; the old family, on the other hand, falls into the background as merely their ultimate basis and origin, while, a fortiori, the clan is an abstraction, devoid of rights.” (§ 177) Also according to Hegel, the ethical dissolution of the family has to do with the growing up of the children and the external relation they develop towards the original family. In Hegel’s view, this externality is practically expressed in the new families that are constituted by the children. The externality does not concern the awareness that the norms and values of the original family are contingent. On the contrary, it appears that the new families essentially have exactly the same norms and values as the original family. Hegel not only indicates that the man and woman in the new families have the same gender roles as in the original family (“the sons as heads of new families, the daughters as wives”), but he also seems to assume that the grownup sons and daughters are immediately prepared to constitute a new family. The notion fails that the children can only constitute their own family when they have developed their own subjective norms and values. Once again it appears that Hegel confuses ethical immediacy with natural immediacy. Ethical immediacy expresses non-exchangeable subjectivity and appears in a multitude of forms. In the Philosophy of Right, the ethical immediacy is not only confused with natural immediacy because it has apparently only one form of appearance, but also because this single form is, as we have seen before, deduced from natural (biological) relations.

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In our view, the adequate constitution of new families is only possible when the grownup children have passed through a learning process in which they develop insight into their own subjectivity. In this case, they can overcome the contingency of the norms and values of the original family and constitute a family organism in which norms and values are observed that express their own subjectivity, not the one of their parents (although the children can, of course, discover that their own norms and values do not differ from the ones of their parents). Since this learning process takes place at the level of civil society, it can only be discussed in the next chapter, in which the civil society is systematically developed. Although the systematic exposition of the institutional embodiment of the three selves has to get shape after one another, it is clear that the exposition is a logical one, so that the distinct parts already presuppose one another all the time. After the development of civil society, we have, so to speak, to return to this chapter (that concerns the first self ): Only the persons who are educated at the level of civil society are prepared for the adequate constitution of new families.176

Retrospection In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel understands the family as the social organism in which the animal reproduction gets shape in the form of freedom. As a consequence, the ethical content of the family is not developed as the ethical life in the form of immediacy, i. e., as the domain in which the contingent subjectivity of the free individuals is expressed. The ethical immediacy is confused with the natural immediacy: Natural relations are transformed into ethical relations that are still determined by nature.177 This determination of the family not only contradicts subjective freedom because it confines the tradition of family life to the one that is determined by nature, but also because this confined tradition offers no 176 Also in the Philosophy of Right, the persons develop their subjectivity only at the level of civil society. This subjectivity, however, is not brought down to the family relations. In this respect, Hegel seems to be influenced by the Phenomenology of Spirit, in which the three forms of the self belong to distinct historical periods and are not developed as moments in the framework of a concrete entirety. 177 In fact, Hegel returns to his position of the Jena Lectures of Philosophy. Cf. Honneth (1995): “Hegel now makes use of ‘recognition’: In love relationships, he writes in a marginal remark, it is the ‘uncultivated natural self ’ that is ‘recognized’.” (p. 37).

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room for the actualization of subjective freedom at all. According to Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, there is only a place for subjectivity outside the family: at the level of civil society. Departing from the Phenomenology of Spirit, the embodiment of the first self in the social organism of the family must be understood otherwise. The family members themselves must be able to understand the ethical life of the family as a contingent tradition in which the life partners express their subjective freedom. In this revised conception of the family, the education of the children becomes more complicated. Education is not only the process in which the children are socialized in the tradition of the family, but also the process in which they develop insight into the contingent status of this tradition. Moreover, the education process has to be continued at the level of civil society, where the children must develop insight into their own subjective identity. Only when this condition is fulfilled, are they in the position to constitute their own marriage. Although the revision of the concept of family is inspired by the Phenomenology of Spirit, this work is at the same time responsible for the confusion in the Philosophy of Right. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel discusses the religion forms that belong to the historical worlds only afterwards, when the transition to the absolute Spirit has been performed. The separation between religion and the objective world returns in the Philosophy of Right, because this work is meant as the systematic development of the objective Spirit. However, it is precisely this separation that prevents the adequate development of the first self ’s embodiment. In Chapter 8, I will examine the embodiment of the second self in civil society. At this level, I can discuss the continuing education process in which subjective identity is developed. Before the elaboration of this program, however, I will first make an attempt to make my reconstruction of the child’s moral development more plausible. In an Excursus, I will compare this reconstruction with Habermas’s reconstruction of Kohlberg’s stages of moral consciousness.

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Excursus: The Development of the Child to a Real Person in Confrontation with Jrgen Habermas’s Reception of the Stages of Moral Consciousness developed by Lawrence Kohlberg Introduction In his discourse ethics, Jrgen Habermas develops an alternative for Kant’s categorical imperative, his so-called Principle of Universalization, abbreviated by him as “U”: Every valid norm has to fulfill the condition that “All affected can accept the consequences and the side effects its general observance can be anticipated to have for the satisfaction of everyone’s interests (and these consequences are preferred to those of known alternative possibilities for regulation).”178 Together with the “Principle of discourse ethics” “D”, that implies that: “Only those norms can claim to be valid that meet (or could meet) with the approval of all affected in their capacity as participants in a practical discourse”179, “U” is the core of Habermas’s ethical theory. “D” indicates that the highest moral law, like the categorical imperative, aims at testing certain norms on their moral content. As in Kant, it is about the universalizability of norms. This time, however, universalizability does not mean an absolute freedom that transcends all content, but rather, a generality that is understood as rational consensus. Therefore, dependent on this consensus, the test can result in norms that have a defined content. In “U”, the demands that the content of the moral norms has to satisfy are specified more precisely: Action that is prescribed by a moral norm must have a result that does justice to the subjective interest of all. From the fundamental determinations of the moral subject as they are developed up until now, Habermas’s discourse ethical findings are hardly surprising. Also, the determination of the concrete person (the moral subject) ended in the conclusion that real freedom is only possible if there has been justice done to the subjective interests of all (cf. “U”). Moreover, at the level of the formal determination of the free person, it became clear that that free persons relate completely symmetrically to one another, so that no person can do anything without the consent 178 Cf. Jrgen Habermas, “Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Program of Philosophical Justification”, p. 65. In: Jrgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, Polity Press 1992. 179 Ibidem, p. 66.

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of all. (cf. “D”). Nevertheless, both approaches diverge at an essential point. While it came to the fore in our exposition that it is possibly problematic whether the symmetry between the formally determined persons is compatible with the demand that justice has been done to the subjective interest of every person, it seems that for Habermas there is no problem at all. Habermas’s secret is the discourse theory of truth and rightness, based on his conception of discourse. A norm is just when all involved have reached rational consensus about it. Rational consensus is distinguished from consensus that is only factual and can only be accomplished if certain conditions are satisfied. It can only be accomplished as the result of a reasonable argumentation process between all involved. The reasonability of the argumentation is guaranteed if the argumentation partners relate freely and equally (symmetrically) to one another. Moreover, they must be prepared at all times to exchange the paradigmatic presuppositions of their argumentation to other paradigmatic presuppositions. It is not difficult to recognize that precisely the discourse theory of rightness hides the problems observed by us. As soon as the discussion partners relate themselves to concrete contents, they do no longer relate symmetrically to one another. They have a determined relation to the content that is, especially in its determinedness, distinct from the relation other partners take to the content. From this it follows that the discourse theory of rightness is untenable, and that the problems observed by us return also to Habermas. He should have asked himself whether “U” and “D” are compatible. Until now, the distinction between our approach to the moral subject and the one of Habermas has in no way been articulated sufficiently sharply. To make this clear, I still have to make some remarks about what is at stake in Habermas’s thought enterprise. As it has already been mentioned before, “U” can be understood as the discourse ethical translation of Kant’s categorical imperative. Accordingly, so also can “D” be understood as the discourse theoretical transformation of the Kantian concept of autonomy. It can even be defended that the whole Theory of communicative Action can be interpreted as a discourse theoretical transformation of Kantian Reason.180 But Habermas does not only want to develop another philosophy, but also undermine the status of traditional philosophy as such. Philosophy has lost its autonomy. Therefore, “U” and “D” do not have the status of philosophical insight, but rather 180 Cf. Paul Cobben, “Communicatief handelen als theoretisch grondbegrip”, ANTW, 81.4, 1989, pp. 241 – 263.

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have for Habermas the status of what he calls “hypothetical reconstruction”. (116) Habermas tries to reconstruct which concept of moral law and which concept of autonomy are active in our cultural tradition. Rational reconstructions remain to have a hypothetical status, and can only retain their attractiveness if they are indirectly supported by scientific, i. e., empirically testable theories. (116/7) Our attempts to get to grips with the essential determinations of the moral subject by conceptual analysis will be a thorn in Habermas’s side. After all, this kind of project tries to maintain philosophy’s autonomy. Yet, Habermas’ appeal to scientific (and, consequently, testable) theories, offers an exquisite chance to deepen the confrontation with our approach. In his article “Moralbewußtsein und kommunikatives Handeln” (“Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action”181), Habermas confronts himself with the development stages of the moral consciousness as they are conceived of by Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg has the opinion that the development of the moral consciousness (at least insofar as it is characteristic for our culture), necessarily goes through six stages. It is about a developmental psychological theory that pretends that it can be empirically tested. In the article just mentioned, Habermas tries to interpret development stages in terms of the discourse ethics. If this is possible, discourse ethics can profit from the empirical testing by which Kohlberg’s theory is supported. Also in our approach, the moral consciousness can only be generated if it goes through some number of development stages. In this case, however, the development stages do not have the status of a scientific hypothesis, but are developed in the framework of an attempt to understand how a free person can be conceived of as a corporal individual at all. Therefore, philosophical insights are pretended. But also, philosophical insights are not apart from the empirical reality. Therefore, it is worth the effort to examine whether the development stages that are distinguished by Kohlberg can also be explained in terms of philosophical development stages. In the following exposition, the discourse ethical interpretation is compared to the philosophical one. This makes it possible to articulate more precisely the import and scope of both approaches.

181 Jrgen Habermas, “Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action”, in: Jrgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, Polity Press 1992.


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The interpretation of the development stages of Kohlberg Habermas tries to interpret the moral stages distinguished by Kohlberg in the framework of his Theory of communicative Action. In the consecutive stages, the communicative action is more and more explicated, until finally the sixth and highest stage of communicative action is completely crystallized as the “action oriented toward reaching understanding”182 of the discourse. Like Kohlberg, Habermas divides the stages into three phases, each of which in turn is comprised of two stages: the pre-conventional, the conventional and the post-conventional phase. I will start with the discussion of the pre-conventional phase and will, subsequently, examine how this phase can be interpreted by our philosophical approach. The pre-conventional phase is characterized by the lack of thematizing social reality. The moral subject (the child) is, in his actions, immediately related towards (the actions of ) his direct family members. The relation to others is not at stake. Moreover, at this level, action has a purely egocentric perspective: Empathy in the other’s position is still impossible. In the first stage of this phase, the child does what his guardian tells him to do, acting from a feeling of loyalty towards this guardian. The child is obedient because he cannot imagine not to be. In the second phase, the child only does something if he gets something in return that is in his interest. In our approach, the consecutive stages of the moral consciousness can be interpreted as well as a process of explication. This time, however, it is not about the explication of communicative action, but rather about an explication of the reality of freedom. But also, in this case, the first phase of the development process can be called pre-conventional. In this phase, the I-consciousness is not yet that far developed that it is aware of a social reality. The world to which it is related is a natural one, not a social one. In the first stage of this phase, the child is only related to the immediately given, natural reality and it is one-sidedly oriented to the actualization of its I-awareness. It can only maintain this awareness, as long as it has overcome its needy relation to nature. Therefore, the “mamma” (the breast of the mother) can become a symbol of the I-awareness. In this stage, the action of the child is oriented to being not related to natural reality; he does not want to know about his neediness, because this threatens his I-identity. 182 Ibid, p. 160.

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In the second stage of the pre-conventional phase, the moral consciousness has experienced that it cannot overcome its relation to nature. It experiences what it means to be a living organism. It is constantly confronted with its own neediness and its action is oriented to the satisfaction of its needs. Now, nature appears as an independent power that has the structure of an organism; nature appears as the process in which the child sometimes can satisfy his needs and sometimes not. The second phase that Habermas (with Kohlberg) distinguishes is the conventional phase. In this phase, the social reality no longer remains kept out of range. The moral subject knows that his action takes place in the social context and is, therefore, linked with conventions. His motive to act is no longer inspired by the power of the guardian or by the advantage a certain action brings, but by the duty to respect the prevailing tradition. In the first stage of the conventional phase (i. e., in the third stage of the moral consciousness), the moral consciousness identifies itself with the specific role it has in society. It thinks to have the duty to fulfill the role society has in mind. In the second stage of the conventional stage (i. e., in the fourth stage of the moral consciousness), it no longer acts one-sidedly from the specific role that has been assigned to it, but relates itself to the social system in its entirety. It understands that that society can only survive if it has certain underlying norms. It considers it to be its duty to observe these norms because they are legitimized by the universal will. Also, the conventional phase can be distinguished in our approach. The moral subject that cannot realize its freedom as a natural organism tries to reach its goal in the framework of the family community. In this relation, the objective reality is no longer a given natural being-at-itself, but the traditional reality of the family. In the first stage of this conventional phase, the child identifies himself with the head of the family. He obeys the head of the family as an undisputed authority, and by this, takes on his role as a member of the family. He experiences the fulfillment of this role as his immediate duty because, without this role, he would be deprived of his identity. Precisely because the child conforms himself to the tradition of the family, he passes step by step through a development by which he reaches the second stage of the conventional stage. Step by step, he gets involved in the life of the family. He develops a language with which he can make all distinctions that are relevant in this world. For him, the world loses all its strangeness. Therefore, a change can take place in his conception of the family’s essence. The reality of family life is no longer conceived of


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as dependent on the family head’s authority, but gets its ground in the insight that the child has developed in family life. The child completely knows his reality: he has appropriated this reality and feels as at home in it as a fish does in the water. Reality has removed all its strangeness and is, for the child, nothing other than the real appearance of his own insight. The child no longer acts on the basis of the authority of the family head, but on the basis of his own insight, i. e., his insight into the nature of reality. The child knows that he lives in a specific family community. He acts in correspondence to his insight into how a member of the family should behave. In the post-conventional phase, the moral subject is able to discuss society as such. He is explicitly able to distinguish between the subjective, inter-subjective and objective world. Therefore, he not only knows that social conventions are changeable, but also he can distinguish between the norms that are factually valid in the social world and those that should be valid according to his subjective insight. In the first stage of the post-conventional insight (i. e., the fifth stage of the moral consciousness), the moral subject wants to discover the highest principles of justice and wants to test (in a scientific discourse), to what extent the norms that are actually valid correspond to these highest principles of justice. The “Theory of Justice”, as it has been developed by John Rawls, can be considered a model of this stage. In the second stage of the post-conventional phase (i. e. the sixth and highest stage of moral consciousness), the moral consciousness no longer thinks that the highest principles of justice can be identified by a theoretical construction. It is only certain that the highest principles of justice are the result of a procedure as described by Habermas in his concept of the practical discourse. Therefore, the moral subject strives for the creation of the conditions under which the practical discourse can be performed. Also in our approach, a post-conventional phase can be distinguished. In this phase, the child is confronted with other families and discovers the contingence of the tradition of his own family life. For the first time, the child is forced to conceive of his subjective identity independently from his family life. He opposes family life as a changeable traditional reality. Because of this, he seems to have lost all moral certainty. Yet this does not imply that the child relapses into moral skepticism. He has felt completely at home in the family. He has experienced the family affection resulting in his opinion to be really free. Family has made him what he is, including the one who is now opposing the family. Now the child knows that he can never again be absorbed by family life and that he has an independent

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identity. At the same time, he knows that he never would have become who he is without the family. Therefore, he once again turns to the family and examines which principles underlie the tradition of the family, and hopes after all to find in these principles the actualization of his freedom. The stage in which the moral consciousness identifies these principles with the family rituals that raise up the life of the family members above actual life and link it with the continuity of changing generations, corresponds to the first stage of Kohlsberg’s post-conventional consciousness. Now moral consciousness understands family life as appearance of universal principles. The transition into the sixth and highest stage of moral consciousness, however, has not been made. If the moral consciousness of the child concludes that the family rituals are after all only valid in the contingent family community, then he does not conclude that the principles that underlie family have to be understood as the result of a practical discourse, but he turns away from the family and no longer tries to actualize his freedom in it. The child leaves the parental house and tries to keep the universality of his freedom by actualizing his freedom outside the family, namely in his role as the person who actualizes himself in the symmetrical exchange of properties. We will still see how the grownup child later founds his own family and no longer has to consider the real family life as an external, contingent reality, because he can make it the expression of his subjective freedom. In the next chapter, I will elaborate under what conditions this subjective freedom can be developed. At least the grownup children will have to participate in the public discussion of civil society. Concluding considerations Habermas claims that his Theory of communicative Action, and the related discourse ethics, acquires indirect scientific support with the help of the stages of moral consciousness that Kohlberg distinguishes. On the one hand, these stages of the moral consciousness can be interpreted in terms of the Theory of communicative Action, and, on the other hand, they can be experimentally tested. However, if it is right that the stages of moral consciousness developed by Kohlberg can be equally well interpreted in our approach, there seems to be a problem. Which approach is affirmed by Kohlberg’s scientific experiments? Are the stages formulated thus abstractly that they are compatible with at least two and possibly more approaches? Then it has little meaning to claim that a theory is in-


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directly supported by scientific experiments. At best, it can be maintained that the experiments do not contradict the theory. Yet, the preceding argumentation does not imply that Kohlberg’s scientific and empirically testable theory is, in the same way, related to the theory of Habermas as to our approach. In the last case, the stages of moral consciousness are deduced in an immanently philosophical reasoning: They resulted from the attempt to reconcile freedom and corporeality. If a developmental psychologist comes to similar formulations of the stages and can connect them with the moral development of real children with the help of experiments, this can certainly be interpreted as an affirmation of the philosophically developed stages of the moral consciousness. However, I think that the relation between the Theory of communicative Action and Kohlberg’s development psychology remains that obscure, that the affirmation of Habermas’s theory by Kohlberg’s psychology, does not succeed. Habermas makes two important remarks about the relation between his theory and the one of Kohlberg: “A nonfoundationalist self-understanding of this kind does more, however, than simply relieve philosophy of tasks that have overburdened it. It not only takes something away from philosophy; it also provides it with the opportunity for a certain navet and a new self-confidence in its cooperative relationship with the reconstructive sciences. A relationship of mutual dependence becomes established. Thus, to return to the matter at hand, not only does moral philosophy depend on direct conformation from a developmental psychology of moral consciousness; the latter in turn is built on philosophical assumptions. I will investigate this interdependence by using Kohlberg as an example.”183

Later on in the article, Habermas maintains: “What follows has the limited purpose of making a plausible case for the foregoing hypotheses about the ontogenesis of speaker and world perspectives, on the basis of existing empirical studies. At best, a hypothetical reconstruction of this kind can serve as a guide to further research. Admittedly, my hypotheses do require distinctions not easy to operationalize, distinctions between (a) communicative roles and speaker perspectives, (b) implementations of these speaker perspectives in different types of interactions, and (c) the perspective structure of an understanding of the world that permits a choice between basic attitudes to the objective, social and subjective worlds. I am aware of the difficulty that results from the fact that I have to bring

183 Ibid., p. 119.

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these distinctions from the outside to bear on material derived from previous research.”184

Here, Habermas speaks about a certain navet of non-foundationalist philosophy towards the reconstructive sciences. If he wants to stress with this the methodological independence of science, then, of course, there is nothing against it. I simply do not understand what it has to do with the self-understanding of philosophy that is or is not “foundationalist”. Also, a philosophy that acknowledges philosophically based insights leaves room to the specificity of scientific research. Whoever thinks that the development stages of the moral consciousness in a specific culture can be deduced from a philosophical ground position, does not realize, himself, that the philosophical conceptualization of reality leaves plenty of room for an historical concretizing that can only be made accessible by scientific research. However, the way in which Habermas makes a problem of the relation between philosophy and science is highly dubious. On the one hand, he speaks about a “mutual dependency” between science and philosophy, and, on the other hand, he acknowledges that the analytic points of view of his philosophy are externally related to science. This means that the relation between science and philosophy cannot be determined at all. Firstly, the “mutual dependency” leads to a circularity in which nothing can be determined with certainty, even though Habermas makes the impressive revelation that he has “reservations about the circular character” of the mutual testing of philosophy and science that he “considers to be unfounded”. (p. 117) Secondly, one can ask oneself what this circularity means when the relation between philosophy and science is understood in this external way. Why, considering this externality, should the philosophical presuppositions of the scientific hypotheses (in this case: the development stages of moral consciousness), have anything to do with the theory of communicative action? Why, considering this externality, should the theory of communicative action be precisely related to Kohlberg’s scientific theory? Who can conclude that there are no better candidates? Habermas’s misconception of the relation between philosophy and science is expressed when he discusses the universal status of the stages of moral development. According to Habermas, Kohlberg opposes all kinds of relativistic approaches, and persists in universalistic stages by “(a) reducing the empirical diversity of existing moral views to variation 184 Ibid., p. 141.


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in the contents, in contrast to the universal forms, of moral judgment, and (b) explaining the remaining structural differences between moralities as differences in this stage of development of the capacity for moral judgment.” (p. 117). Of this exists the “consonance between psychological theory and normative theory” (p. 117), i. e., between what I indicated as philosophy and science. The finding of universal forms, however, is not a matter of science. With the help of scientific testing it can never be proven that a form is universal. Universal forms follow from philosophical standpoints. An example would be our philosophical position from which we have deduced universal development stages of the moral consciousness. If Kohlberg introduces universal forms, this means that he is, at that moment, active as a philosopher, not as a scientist. Kohlberg’s philosophical position can or cannot coincide with the one of Habermas. But in both cases there is no matter of an indirect affirmation of Habermas’s theory. The development stages that can be philosophically deduced always have a logical, not psychological status. For example, they show the logical steps that have to be passed through by a free individual who is still absorbed by natural relations and who wants to develop into an explicitly free individual, or they show the logical steps that have to be passed through by the individual who has the potency to make himself understandable towards others and who wants to actualize this potency. These logical steps can be the criteria for the formulation of psychological development stages that are passed through by a concrete individual. This, however, asks for a certain cultural realization. Only in this transition does science come into sight. One could maintain that philosophy that is based on the results of fruitful scientific research is indirectly affirmed. But also, in this case, there is no matter of “mutual dependency” between philosophy and science.

Chapter 8 The Civil Society: Developing the Institutional House of the Second Self Introduction In this chapter, I will elaborate the institutional actualization of the second self for our era, i. e., I will confront the conceptual determinations of the second self with institutions of our globalized world and examine which institutions can be considered as an adequate realization of the second self. To prepare this attempt, however, I will first go into Hegel’s attempt in the Philosophy of Right, to elaborate the institutionalization of the second self for the Nineteenth Century. I will critique the result of Hegel’s attempt, the Corporation (or, what Hegel calls, the second family). This criticism does not concern the features of the Corporation that typically seem to belong to the Nineteenth Century, but is more elementary. I will show what are the consequences of Hegel’s confusion at the level of the family (where he confused natural and ethical immediacy). At the level of civil society, there is no room for subjective freedom in its pregnant meaning: It is reduced to a subjectivity that is totally socialized. As a consequence, Hegel’s concept of Corporation does not meet the criteria for the second self that Hegel himself has developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit. This criticism will appear helpful for the positive construction of the second self ’s institutional embodiment.

The development of the second self ’s embodiment in the ‘Philosophy of Right’: civil society Systematically, the second self has to be conceived of as the mediated (selfconscious) unity of right and morality. Therefore, one would expect that the civil society is constructed as the unity of the second moment of abstract Right, i. e., Contract, and the second moment of Morality, i. e., Intention and Welfare. Insofar as the civil society is understood as the domain of the multitude of families, it is not difficult to recognize the relation of the Con-

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tract. The families are the “concrete persons” who recognize one another as free and equal. Their mutual recognition becomes real in the Contract, i. e., at the moment that the families exchange their properties. The civil society, as the multitude of families, seems to correspond to the Roman Law in which the legal persons recognize one another as free and equal. Also the persons of the Roman Law are family heads, and in this sense, “concrete persons”: They reproduce themselves by the free consumption of the family’s property and they express their mutual recognition by the exchange of properties. The comparison between the civil society and the Roman Law allows a further elaboration insofar as Hegel characterizes the relations between the persons in both cases as a “disappearance of ethical life”. The Roman Law has been constituted after the decline of the ethical life that was actualized in the Greek world. The Roman families no longer share their norms and values, and are only related insofar as they exchange properties. At the level of civil society, the free and equal persons have left family life: The family is only represented as the commodities that are produced by the family and that can be exchanged with the commodities of other families. The “disappearance of ethical life” leads to the decline of the Roman Empire because it is not guaranteed that the persons can harmoniously live together. In Chapter 4, it is discussed which developments this decline induced: The pure self that was absorbed by the practical freedom of family life returned in the form of an inner representation, and was embodied in the Belief. The judgment that the Belief passed on the (objective) institutional world, induced, in its turn, a process of culture in which the persons were completely socialized. This resulted in the absolute freedom of the French Revolution, i. e., in the revolutionary citizens who want to immediately actualize their alleged autonomy. At the level of civil society, however, the “disappearance of ethical life” cannot lead to the decline of civil society. Civil society is already a moment of the entirety of the ethical life in which the conscientious individual has actualized his freedom all the time. The person is the conscientious individual who is aware that he actualizes his freedom in the civil society: He knows that his actualization of freedom, at the level of civil society, has a mediated form, i. e., the mediated unity of right and morality. Therefore, the person of the civil society is also an autonomous moral subject who wants to actualize his subjective freedom. The person of the Contract is, at the same time, the subject of Intention and Welfare.

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Chapter 8 The Civil Society

The problem is, however, that it is not evident that the persons of the civil society can be the subjects of Intention and Welfare, as well. Whereas the formal (free and equal) persons do not exclude one another, this may be different for the subjects of Intention and Welfare. The actualization of the welfare of the one can exclude the welfare of the other. Therefore, the persons of the civil society, like the persons of the Realm of Culture, must pass through a process of culture that guarantees that they can strive after their subjective welfare without excluding one another. We will see that this process results in the Corporations. The Corporations make possible what failed, at the level of absolute freedom, in the Realm of Culture: the harmony between the moral individuals that actualize their subjective freedom. In the next section, I will discuss the process of education in the civil society, and show that it is structured like the process of culture in the Realm of Culture.

The process of Culture in Civil Society We have seen that the moral individual of the Realm of Culture was related to an objective institutional world. In his process of culture, the moral individual repeated the stages of observing and active Reason. Also the person of civil society is related to an independent, objective world, namely the commodities that he finds at the free market. His process of culture concerns his relation to these commodities, and repeats once again the stages of observing and active Reason. 185 Since the observing Reason repeats, in its turn, the stages of Consciousness and Self-consciousness, the person’s process of culture begins with a relation that is structured as the Sense-Certainty (in the form of observing Reason): The commodities that he finds at the market are immediately given, contingent entities. Therefore, it is completely accidental whether these commodities can or cannot satisfy the person’s welfare. This can become clear only when the person’s specific relation to the commodity is considered. The commodity must have use-value for the person, i. e., it must have specific qualities that are able to satisfy his welfare. As a consequence, however, the objectivity of the commodity is broken down. Its existence disintegrates into two distinct points of view: on the one hand, 185 Of course, this ‘repetition’ does not concern the status of dialectics: The absolute position that has to be developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit, is already developed in the Philosophy of Right all the time.

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the subjective point of view of the person for whom the commodity, as use-value, exists of a multitude of qualities; on the other hand, the objective point of view of the market. In this objective view, the commodity has exchange-value, i. e., a general value that is equal for all persons of the market. Like the Perception (the second moment of Consciousness) was not able to bring together his two points of view (the One and the Also), or, like the moral individual (of the Realm of Culture) was not able to reconcile State Power and Wealth, so the person fails to bring together the points of view that divide the commodity in use-value and exchange-value. This is only possible from a point of view in which Understanding is repeated. The person can restore the unity of the commodity when he realizes that the use-value, as well as the exchange-value, must be reduced to himself. The exchange-value of the commodity is no objectivistic quality beside the use-value, but is intrinsically twined with the use-value: Exchange-value has to be understood as use-value as such. (§ 63) Exchange-value and use-value are related as being essence and appearance. The commodity has a general value on the market (exchange-value); but it can only have this exchange-value when this exchange-value is expressed in some (specific) use-value. Without use-value, the commodity has no exchange-value. Therefore, at this level the person is related to the commodity like Understanding (the third moment of Consciousness) is related to nature: Objectivity is conceived of as a supra-sensual force (cf. exchange-value) that is expressed in the sensual manifestations of the force (cf. use-value). Since, however, the value of the commodity (both exchange-value and use-value), depends on the evaluating person, the commodity has its unity in the evaluating person (as in the Realm of Culture, State Power and Wealth appeared to have their unity in the judging individual). After having repeated the stages of Consciousness (in the form of observing Reason), the person repeats the stages of Self-consciousness (in the form of observing Reason). If the unity of the commodity is dependent on the person’s evaluation, its objectivity is only guaranteed as long as the process of evaluation is continued. This means that the exchange of commodities must be overcome as an accidental action. In that case, the families are not households that are, in principle, self-supporting, only exchanging the commodities that they do not need for their own consumption, but households whose consumption is structurally mediated by the exchange on the market. They maintain the objective world that corresponds to their evaluating activity by repeating again and

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again the exchange of commodities. (Cf. the Desire that maintains its certitude to be the essence of all reality by repeating again and again the negation of nature, or the (Realm of Culture’s) moral individual who maintains the objectivity of the unlimited Monarch by repeating again and again his language of flattery.) Even if the person’s consumption is structurally mediated by the market, it remains possible that the person has needs that are not satisfied by the exchange process. This means that his welfare is not adequately actualized. The adequate integration of Contract, and Intention and Welfare, demands further steps. Only when the person is totally socialized and the families have become moments of a production system that is essentially mediated by market exchange, can the actualization of the person’s welfare be guaranteed. This total socialization, that Hegel considers the proper Culture of civil society, is performed in a relation in which the lordship/ bondsman relation is repeated (in the form of observing Reason). The total socialization of the person presupposes that the family is no longer the institution in which the labor activities are localized. Labor must have the shape of a social production system, i. e., a labor system in which labor essentially is mediated by exchange. In Marxist terminology, one would say: Labor must have become a commodity at the market. The person who sells his labor as a commodity on the market gets involved in a relation that can be described in terms of a lordship/bondsman relation. By selling his labor force, he places himself (as “bondsman”), in the service of an employer (as “lord”), who organizes the labor process. The goal of the labor process is not the immediate satisfaction of the needs of a family, but rather the production of commodities that can be sold at the market (and indirectly satisfy the needs of the families).186 The mechanism of the market is determined by the two relation forms that constitute it: Contract, and Intention and Welfare. As the persons of the Contract, the individuals are exchangeable, i. e., their actions are formal and general; as subjects of Intention and Welfare, the individuals are particular, i. e., they strive after their particular welfare. Therefore, Hegel can maintain that the moment of generality and the moment of particularity are the constituting coordinates of the market. (§ 186) These moments, however, are externally related, so that the process of 186 Later on we will see that this relation can, in some respect, be compared to the Marxist relation between wage labor and capital. In principle, however, this comparison cannot be made because Hegel does not sustain the doctrine of labor value.

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their integration has the form of a continuous turn. The moment of generality turns into the moment of particularity, and the moment of particularity turns into the moment of generality. This continuous movement appears in the supply and demand of the market. On the one hand, the persons of the market offer a particular supply, i. e., a use-value. On the market, this particular supply turns into a general exchange-value. On the other hand, the persons of the market sell the commodities that correspond to their demand. In this case, the general exchange-value of the commodities turns into the particular use-value. This turn from usevalue into exchange-value, and vice versa, matches with the language of disruption in the Realm of Culture. The competition at the market evokes innovations: not only concerning the development of new products, but also in the field of technological improvements. This innovation is at the center of the process of culture that Hegel discerns in civil society. When Hegel introduces, in § 190 of the Philosophy of Right, the concept of human need, he distinguishes it from animal need. The animal need is naturally given and, therefore, fixed: “An animal’s needs and its ways and means of satisfying them are both alike restricted in scope.” As a spiritual being, man transcends the animal’s natural fixation: “Though man is subject to this restriction too, yet at the same time he evinces his transcendence of it and his universality, first by the multiplication of needs and means of satisfying them, and secondly by the differentiation and division of concrete need into single parts and aspects which in turn become different needs, particularized and so more abstract.” What is remarkable here is that Hegel interprets human needs as a prolongation of animal needs.187 Human needs can be understood as a multiplication and differentiation of “natural needs”. (§ 195) Such an opinion one would sooner expect in Marx (who understands the needy man in his relation to nature), than in Hegel. For, Hegel emphasizes that the reality of man as a spiritual being is only conceivable within a culture community (of which the lord/bondsman relation is the basic model). According to that view, human need has not to be conceptualized, as in the case of animals, in relation to the first nature, but in relation to the “second nature” (§ 151): the norms and values of the family 187 This conclusion is in line with Houlgate (2006): “Instead of simply having a natural need for food, therefore, they may want a particular kind of food prepared in a particular way, for example. In this way, Hegel explains, the needs and wants of human beings become more and more specialized and refined.”

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community that determine which needs are valid in it. Once again, however, it becomes clear that Hegel identifies the contingence of the family community (for the children, the norms and values of the family appear as traditional facts), i. e., its finitude, with its naturalness in the form of freedom: Traditional facts are equated with natural immediacy that is taken up in the form of freedom. We already saw what the consequences are : The contingence of the family community is not discussed, so that the norms and values of the family community seem to be given once and for all and, moreover, the same for all families, i. e., there is no room for multi-culturality.

Culture in the socialized production System as part of the System of Needs The competition on the market has consequences for the production process: It is subjected to the ongoing division of labor and technological improvements. This changes not only the nature of the objective side of the labor process (the technology of the machines), but also its subjective side, the worker. He passes through a process of culture that is differentiated in theoretical and practical education. The theoretical education that Hegel equates with Understanding and language is not only understood by him as the “multiplicity of ideas and facts” developing itself in line with the ongoing division of labor, but also as “a flexibility and rapidity of mind, ability to pass from one idea to another, to grasp complex and general relations, and so on.” (§ 197) Therefore, the theoretical development of education consists of the development of an increasingly differentiated scientific insight into reality, and of the power to integrate this insight more and more self-evidently in an immediate view on the world. According to Hegel, labor’s practical education “consists first in the automatically recurrent need for something to do, and the habit of simply being busy; next, in the strict adaptation of one’s activity according not only to the nature of the material worked on, but also, and especially, to the pleasure of other workers; and finally, in a habit, produced by this discipline, of objective activity and universally recognized aptitudes .” (§ 197) Therefore, practical education results in a socializing of action that has become a second nature, and that makes it possible to function trouble-free in a labor system that is based on scientific and technological insights.

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The ongoing scientification of the labor system not only results in a growth of social wealth (because specialized labor is more productive), but also in the exclusion of some to participate in this wealth: “despite an excess of wealth, civil society [is] not rich enough” (§ 245) This last observation relies on a series of presuppositions. The first presupposition is that the division of labor makes it less and less complicated, so that less and less education is needed (compare Marx who makes labor of the assembly line the standard of labor belonging to the modern production system).188 For that reason, the potential supply of labor grows bigger and bigger. On the other hand, the technological development of the labor system leads to a higher and higher productivity, lowering the demand for labor. Both factors together bring about that the supply of labor surpasses the demand. The consequence is a surplus of laborers who can in no way be integrated in the System of Needs. On the one hand, the potential supply of labor cannot be integrated by creating extra jobs (this would only further disturb the market relations, because it would generate a supply of goods for which there is no demand).189 On the other hand, the demand on the market cannot be enlarged by putting an unearned income to the unemployed person’s disposal, because this makes the unemployed one-sidedly dependent and deprives them of their self-esteem as human beings, i. e., of the freedom that manifests itself in the System of Needs as the freedom to acquire income through one’s own labor.190 188 Karl Marx (1969): “Es ist ein Produkt der manufakturmßigen Teilung der Arbeit, ihnen die geistige Potenzen des materiellen Produktionsprozesses als fremdes Eigentum und sie beherrschende Macht gegenberzustellen.” (p. 382). (It is a result of the division of labour in manufactures, that the labourer is brought face to face with the intellectual potencies of the material process of production, as the property of another, and as ruling power.). 189 “As an alternative, they might be given subsistence indirectly through being given work, i. e., the opportunity to work. In this event, the volume of production would be increased, but the evil consists precisely in an excess of production and the lack of an proportionate number of consumers who are themselves also producers …” (§ 245). 190 “… the burden of maintaining them at their ordinary standard of living might be directly laid on the wealthier classes, or they might receive the means of livelihood directly from other public sources of wealth (e. g. from the endowments of rich hospitals, monasteries and other foundations). In either case, however, the needy would receive subsistence directly, not by means of their work, and this would violate the principle of civil society and the feeling of individual independence and self-respect in its individual members.” (§ 245).

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The consequences implicated in the culture of the System of Needs cannot be true. An institutional order departing from the realization of freedom for all, cannot end in the conclusion that some are superfluous without contradiction. This can only mean that somewhere Hegel assumes presuppositions that are not correct, or with regard to which, at least it has to be observed that it concerns presuppositions based on historically contingent data. But what data are involved? That the civil society is not rich enough for all cannot mean that it is principally impossible to produce enough for all. The modern production system raises productivity and, therefore, is better equipped than ever to provide society with at least a minimum existence. The not-being-richenough has to be related to the mechanism of the market: it must be proved that the play of supply and demand is functioning in a way that some necessarily become superfluous. Hegel has exactly this in mind when he assumes that some players on the market can offer no more than unskilled labor. If the ongoing scientification of the labor system, interrelated with the ongoing division of labor, makes that unskilled labor (the mechanical labor) can be replaced by machines, it will lose the competition with the machine at the moment that the quantity of the unskilled labor that can be replaced by the machine191 is higher than the quantity required for the production of the machine. Here it comes to the fore that Hegel’s appeal to Adam Smith192 has left its traces: The people’s being superfluous, the being-not-rich-enough of civil society, only has a meaning if his doctrine of the labor value can be appealed to.193 However, this appeal has, in turn, only meaning if mechanical labor, i. e., labor that principally can be replaced by machines, can be made the standard for human labor in general. Such a one-sided view of labor has a certain validity in a society in which unskilled labor factually 191 “Further, the abstraction of one man’s production from another’s makes work more and more mechanical, until finally man is able to step aside and install machines in his place.” (§ 198). 192 Hegel refers to Smith, Say and Ricardo, see § 189. 193 If the labor force of the worker can principally be replaced by machines, the worker is reduced to a “thing”, i. e., he is only a commodity. This is the central observation on which Marx’s criticism of capitalism is based. After all, Marx’s criterion for criticism is Kant’s categorical imperative: capitalism reduces man to a mere means. In Hegel’s system, the “not-being-rich enough” refers to the end of observing Reason: “Der Geist ist ein Knochen”, i.e, the reduction of the worker’s freedom to a “thing”. For this reason the systematical transition to active Reason has to be made.

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has some dominance, but cannot sustain the argument that civil society is not rich enough in principle. Distinct from Marx and Smith, Hegel is not one-sidedly connected to the doctrine of labor value. He emphatically maintains that the value of a service in which someone’s personality or spiritual powers are called upon cannot just be compared to the value of things.194 Hegel’s argumentation that some are superfluous because they cannot get a job in the System of Needs, appears not to be principal. Factually, the supply of unskilled labor may surpass the demand, but precisely because they are spiritual beings, people are able to educate themselves, and thus offer an alternative supply that matches the demand of the market. The reification that is performed in the labor process is a self-reification. The workers are self-conscious to participate in a dynamic process in which the self-reification can be performed again and again differently and more differentiated. The reification in the labor process is mediated by a contract between persons and, therefore, is based on a relation of law. The culture of the labor process contributes to the reality of formal law.195 It results in a socialization of the person’s nature, leading to the fact that the person not only formally, but also really can participate in a social order structured according to general rules of law. Insofar as the persons are totally socialized, they have replaced their natural needs and drives196 by actions that completely correspond to the System of Needs: The formal persons of the Contract have completely socialized the actions in which they actualize their welfare. This means that they are also in their real actions free and equal: Their real actions are exchangeable because they have been transformed in inter-subjective actions that function as a moment in the rationalized System of Needs.

194 “Counsel’s acceptance of a brief is akin to this, and so are other contracts whose fulfilment depends on character, good faith, or superior gifts, and where an incommensurability arises between the services rendered and value in terms of cash. (In such cases the cash payment is called not ‘wages’ but ‘honorarium’.)” (§ 80). 195 “As the private particularity of knowing and willing, the principle of this system of needs contains absolute universality, the universality of freedom, only abstractly and therefore as the right of property. At this point, however, this right is no longer merely implicit but has attained is recognized actuality as the protection of property through the administration of justice.” (§ 208). 196 See: Introduction Philosophy of Right, § 19.

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Under this condition, the social presuppositions are fulfilled for the functioning of what Hegel calls the Administration of Justice. 197 The Administration of Justice institutionalizes what we call today private Law. It not only formulates the generalized action patterns as positive rules of laws, but also takes care for the maintenance of these rules of law. On the one hand, this Administration of Justice has been made possible because the persons have cultivated their nature; on the other hand, it is the Administration of Justice that contributes to the process of culture and makes it possible. The integration of Contract, and Intention and welfare has its institutional shape in the Administration of Justice. And, like the System of Needs that it contains, the Administration of Justice is also a dynamic system that develops itself in time, for example, under the influence of technological improvements. The Administration of Justice (§ 209 ff.) can be characterized as the domain in which the person practically actualizes the general good. It institutionalizes the System of Needs that produces all commodities for the “good life”, i. e., the ethical community in which all families are united. Therefore, the existence of the Administration of Justice is dependent on “the particular will that wills the general as such”, i. e., on the “lord” of the ethical community. In the next chapter, we will see that this lord is institutionalized as the third self who manifests itself in the state power. The System of Needs that is institutionalized in the framework of the Administration of Justice can be considered as the immediate, positive actualization of the freedom of the persons. By participating in the System of Needs, they practically satisfy their needs in the form of freedom. This immediate form of the actualization of freedom is once again structured as the relation of stoicism (in the form of observing Reason), i. e., the freedom of the pure self is absorbed in its practical manifestation: The pure self as such is not expressed. However, insofar as the persons are also moral subjects, they are also conscientious individuals, i. e., they know themselves as the pure selves who cannot content themselves with the actualization of the immediate good in the System of Needs, but who have to actualize the absolute good in which they can recognize themselves as pure selves. To reach this goal, the person passes through the stages of active Reason.

197 This moment matches with the pure Insight of the Realm of Culture: it repeats the relation of stocism (in the form of observing Reason).

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Institutionalizing the second self: the community of moral subjects Insofar as the individuals know themselves as pure selves, i. e., as persons who also have a conscience, they know that they are not exchangeable. They have an absolute value that cannot be objectified in whatever historical System of Needs. As free individuals they transcend the positive laws of any real social organism. They are not dependent on the historical organism, but rather, the other way around; the social organism is a specific form in which they actualize their pure selves. To this absolute value of the individuals justice is done at the level of the institution that Hegel calls Police. (§ 231 ff.) The Police, in the Philosophy of Right, is an institution with a much broader mission than that which we nowadays call police. Its main task is to guarantee that none of the absolute individuals is excluded from the System of Needs that is institutionalized in the framework of the Administration of Justice. The police have to organize the institutional facilities that offer each person the chance for real participation in the social system. The police not only take care of the daily functioning of the System of Needs (maintenance of the public order, organization of the infrastructure, prevention of monopoly positions, inspection of labor conditions, quality examination of commodities, etc.), but also organize the facilities that enable the persons to enter the System of Needs. According to Hegel, the individuals have become more and more “sons of the civil society”. (§ 238) Therefore, it belongs to the tasks of the police to bring about the institutions of education in which the young persons can gain the certificates that are necessary to participate in the System of Needs. (§ 239) However, even if the Police is a perfectly functioning institution, it cannot guarantee that all persons have entrance to the market. Just because the market is free, it has its own necessity, the law of supply and demand. Those persons who are not able to generate a supply that corresponds to a demand of the market (who have not, for example, the demanded professional qualifications), will be excluded. Therefore, the Police institutionalizes a relation form that we encountered before as the first stage of active Reason, i. e., Pleasure and Necessity. The absolute value of the persons who are also moral subjects is not compatible with a social organism in which they are only moments. The Pleasure of the persons

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to actualize their moral freedom in the System of Needs is confronted with the Necessity of the free market.198 The actualization of freedom that is dependent on the law of the market remains accidental and is, therefore, inadequate. According to Hegel, this problem can be solved at the level of Corporations (§ 250 ff.), institutions that have features of mediaeval guilds, modern companies, trade unions and professional organizations. The basic idea is that persons who belong to the System of Needs can be divided as participants of different branches. Each branch forms a corporation in which the participants relate to one another as in a “second family”. (§ 252). As in the first (normal) family, the welfare of the participants of the corporation coincides. The Corporation is a social organism in which the participants share the norms and values of the branch they belong to. The work of the second family is not (as is the work of the first family), the reproduction of the free person, but rather the reproduction of the free society. In the multitude of Corporations, the production system is organized as an organic entirety in which each Corporation is an organ. The production system as such produces all commodities that are needed for the good life, i. e., the ethical life that is explicitly institutionalized at the level of the State (cf. next chapter). As in the first family, the participants of the Corporation do not relate to one another as persons. They share the love for their profession (professional ethics), and know that it is their collective goal to perform the production of their branch. Once the individual is a member of the Corporation he remains a life long member. The Corporation will take care of his income and family when external disasters prevent him doing this himself. (§ 252) Therefore, the market relations (including the additional dependence on its chance), are overcome between the participants of a Corporation. The Corporation guarantees the social security. In distinction from the first family, however, the access to the second family is mediated by freedom.199 On the one hand, the individuals are not members of the Corporation on the basis of their birth (for example, because they have to practice the profession of their parents), but by free 198 Therefore, the Police repeats the Epic that discussed the difficulty to subsume the many gods in one community, or it repeats the Struggle of Enlightenment with Superstition at the level of the Realm of Culture: the difficulty to subsume the many subjects of the Belief in one worldly community. 199 Therefore, Houlgate (2006) has no right when he remarks that the corporations are “essentially the same as guilds.” (p. 204).

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decision. The individual must decide that he is willing to become a member of a Corporation, and the Corporations must decide that they accept the individual as a member. On the other hand, both decisions must be rooted in rational arguments. The individual must make his choice for a profession because he understands that he has the subjective capacities for it. And the Corporation must accept an individual as its member on objective grounds. The Corporation must need new members for the economically considered production of its commodities, and the individual must be objectively qualified (by the demanded certificates), for the branch of the Corporation. At the level of the Corporation, the second stage of active Reason, The law of the heart and the frenzy of self-conceit, is repeated.200 The law of the market is replaced by a self-made and self-conscious law, the law that dominates the social organism of the Corporation. For the individual, the law of the Corporation can be identified as the law of the heart. The individual has cultivated his immediate nature on the market and by means of education. By transforming his immediate nature, he has appropriated it as his free, subjective nature. It is this subjective nature that he can actualize in the framework of the Corporation as his law of the heart. At the state level, the actualization of subjective freedom of the one (his law of the heart) would exclude the actualization of the subjective freedom of the others (the other laws of the heart). All individuals would make the law of the state their subjective law, and would experience that their intentions are not compatible. They would become aware of the “frenzy of self-conceit”, the hubris of the one-sided subjective autonomy that, at the level of the Realm of Culture, led to the absolute freedom, to the terror of the French Revolution. At the level of the Corporation, however, the confrontation between incompatible subjectivities can be avoided. Because there are many Corporations, the individuals can choose the one that corresponds to their subjective freedom. Moreover, the Corporations do not exclude one another, but are rather moments of the production system in its entirety. Although not all individuals can become a member of a Corporation, at least the ones who participate in them seem to have the possibility to actualize their subjective freedom. However, since we have seen that the Administration of Justice, as the Police and the Corporation, presuppose, as 200 The Corporation repeats, as well, the Tragedy that thematizes two “laws of the heart” that are still determined by natural qualifications: the Human and the Divine Law.

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well, the existence of a state in which the particular will, that wills the general as such, is institutionalized, the adequate actualization of freedom demands the development of the institutions of the state. This will be the subject of the next chapter. Before we can turn to this chapter, however, we must examine what criticism Hegel’s conception of civil society evokes, and discuss the possible alternatives.

Criticism of the development of civil society in the light of the Phenomenology of Spirit Although the development of the civil society, as it is performed in the Philosophy of Right, can be elucidated from the background of the Phenomenology of Spirit, it is precisely the last work that can also help to criticize this development. The program that follows from the Phenomenology of Spirit is not consequently elaborated in the Philosophy of Right. The main point of criticism we have already encountered at the level of the family, where Hegel reduced ethical immediacy (in which the subjectivity is expressed that is not exchangeable, and that has many forms of appearance), to natural immediacy in the form of freedom (in which only the pathos of man and woman are expressed, without giving room to a multitude of forms). This reduction returns in a certain form at the level of civil society, when the persons at the market are presented as persons who initially have natural needs. It is these natural needs that are cultivated until they are totally socialized and integrated in the social production system. The consequence of this reduction is the disappearance of moral subjectivity at the level of civil society. There is only room for exchangeable, socialized persons, not for unique subjects. This comes explicitly to the fore when Hegel maintains that some form of (mechanical) labor can be replaced by machines. This not only means that some people are factually reduced to things, but also, since Hegel speaks about the civil society that is not “rich enough” (§ 245)201, that for some this reduction is unavoidable.202 Of course, one could object that there may be principal 201 The problem of poverty is clearly discussed by Hardimon (1994), p. 236 ff. 202 I disagree with Fred. Neuhouser (2000) when he remarks: “Finally, there is no reason that Hegel’s theory need make outlaws, or even social outcasts, of the minority of individuals who lead more idiosyncratic lives at the margins of bourgeois respectability.” (p. 268).

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limits to the supply of unskilled labor that the market can absorb. But that argumentation also cannot be proved. Firstly, the modern production system is characterized by a dynamics in which the demand of products and services can be infinitely differentiated, so that the demand for labor is not principally clamped down.203 And secondly, it is always possible to adjust the labor supply by education. Hegel’s thesis that the civil society is not rich enough for all appears to arise from making the distinction between theoretical and practical education absolute. Influenced by the reality of his era, Hegel has been seduced to separate both forms of education, and so creates room for a Marxist analysis avant la lettre. In that analysis, the distinction between theoretical and practical education is transformed into the separation between spiritual and manual labor (a separation that Marx characterizes as the highest form of labor division).204 Then, the ultimate consequence of practical education is the ability to make oneself part of the mechanical labor process. This makes man an appendage of the machine, and reduces labor to purely physical effort.205 Only under that condition does the doctrine of labor value have a certain validity. To Hegel, however, it has to be objected to that this form of manual labor is incompatible with his theory of the realization of freedom. In human labor, theoretical and practical education have to remain connected. It is true that Hegel seems to resume the moral subjectivity at the level of Police, and Corporation, but this resumption remains insufficient. These institutions do not only not change the fact that some are excluded (because the market mechanism principally excludes them), but also restrict the subjective freedom to economic freedom: In the Corporation, the individuals are recognized as professionals, not as unique subjects. 203 According to Houlgate (2006), Hegel also assumes this infinite differentiation: “… it is evident that there is no limit to what people might want or need in the future.” (p. 199) However, for Hegel, the production system operates in the framework of the good life. 204 Karl Marx, Deutsche Ideologie, “Die Teilung der Arbeit wird erst wirklich Teilung von dem Augenblicke an, wo eine Teilung der materiellen und geistigen Arbeit eintritt.” (p. 31). (Division of labour only becomes truly such from the moment when a division of material and mental labour appears.). 205 Karl Marx, Das Kapital, “Alle Arbeit ist einerseits Verausgabung menschlicher Arbeit im physiologischen Sinn, und in dieser Eigenschaft gleicher menschlicher oder abstrakt menschlicher Arbeit bildet sie den Warenwert.” (p. 61). (On the one hand all labour is, speaking physiologically, an expenditure of human labour power, and in its character of identical abstract human labour, it creates and forms the value of commodities.).

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They have the freedom to choose and develop their professions, but not the freedom to actualize their subjective freedom as such; they are appreciated colleagues, not ends in themselves. Although Hegel rightly maintains that good workmanship is to be framed in an ethical community (i. e., a community with shared views on the good life), at least two fundamental objections can be made against his attempt to understand this community as a “Corporation”. First, in his opinion, the corporations have a mediating function in the development of the highest form of the ethical community, the good life as it is shaped at state level. The corporations can have this function because Hegel thinks that they together form an organic unity: the production system in its entirety that is in the service of the good life at state level. This assumption is based on a presupposition that was criticized before, namely the assumption that the commodities and services produced by the production system can be understood as the ongoing differentiation of the natural individual’s needs, which have their unity in his natural organism. The differentiation of the production system flows from the immoderate differentiation of the scientific and technological knowledge in reaction to the immoderate differentiation of the demand on the market. This demand has no organic limits on itself, neither of the individual (whose needs are not natural, but cultural), nor of the state (production is oriented to the world market, not to the state organism). The internal immoderation of the production system’s rationality, i. e., the rationality of Understanding 206, leads to a second fundamental objection against the Corporation: Any attempt to understand the labor community immediately as a moral community, in accordance with contemporary business ethics207, neither does justice to morality, nor to the rationality of the production system. A company selects people because of their professional qualities, and enters into a contract with them that is principally redeemable. In that sense, the employee is not a moral individual. In the other way around, the moral individual does not derive the norms and values in which he expresses his subjectivity from the particularity of a production branch. At the end, Hegel’s reduction (making the economic domain absolute at the cost of ethical immediacy), is caused by a methodological demar206 The rationality of Understanding exists of the endless repetition of analysis and synthesis without inner unity. 207 P. Ulrich, Ch. Sasarin, Facing Public Interests. The Ethical Challenge to Business Policy and Corporate Communications.

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cation. In the Philosophy of Right, he only discusses the objective Spirit, not the absolute Spirit. Only at the end of the Philosophy of Right is the absolute Spirit in sight because, at the level of world history, it is when the transition from objective to absolute Spirit is performed. Therefore, in the Philosophy of Right, the concept of conscience is not determined as a relation to the absolute Spirit (as is the case in the Phenomenology of Spirit).208 In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel explicitly distinguishes the conscience that he develops at the level of Morality from the religious conscience. The demand of the moral conscience is to actualize the general good, a duty that can be accomplished by participation in the institutions of ethical life. The duty of the religious conscience is to actualize the absolute good. This duty transcends objective Spirit and is not thematized in the Philosophy of Right. It is precisely this limited concept of conscience that prevents the adequate examination of subjective freedom. The welfare and the good that are under discussion at the level of civil society are only the welfare and the good that can be objectified in the socialized production system. Welfare is not thematized as the appearance of the subjective norms and values in which subjective freedom expresses itself; the good is not thematized as the historical appearance of the absolute good. In the next sections, we will see that this is only possible when the Philosophy of Right is rewritten, departing from the concept of conscience that is developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit, i. e., from a position in which the religious conscience is not excluded.

The revised concept of Culture in Civil Society The revised process of culture at the level of civil society, starts from real individuals, i. e., conscientious individuals, who want to realize their second self. Once again, the individuals relate to one another in the institutional form of the Contract: They recognize one another as free and equal persons, and they actualize this recognition by the exchange of commodities. Once again, the individuals are also moral subjects who want to actualize their welfare. But in this revised version of the process of culture, this welfare is not discussed in terms of natural needs that have to be so208 Maybe we have to make an exception for the conscience of the Monarch, see Chapter 9.

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cialized. The initial determination of the welfare has to do with the immediate ethical life of the family. Later on, it shall become clear that the ethical life of the family can be understood as the objectification of the shared subjective norms and values of the marriage partners who have constituted the family. The process of culture, however, does not start from the position of these marriage partners, but from the position of their grown up children. As we have witnessed in Chapter 7, these children have experienced that these norms and values are contingent, i. e., different from the norms and values of other families. For the time being, however, this does not mean that the grown up children dissociate themselves from these norms and values. Although they know that they are contingent, they have, for the moment, no reason to adopt other norms and values than those of their original family. Therefore, they consider these norms and values as their own ones, and if they have the intention to actualize their subjective welfare, they want to recognize these norms and values in the objective world. As in the Philosophy of Right, the revised process of culture begins with the repetition of the stages of observing Reason and, more particularly, with the relation forms of Consciousness and Self-consciousness in the form of observing Reason. Therefore, the initial situation of the process of culture can be characterized as the grown up children who want to actualize their subjective welfare immediately: They want to recognize the norms and values of their original family in the commodities they find at the market, i. e., they expect that these commodities immediately correspond to their family life. The commodities must be able to satisfy the needs that belong to the immediate ethical life of their families (cf. Sense-Certainty). The commodities on the market, however, have general exchange value, i. e., they can satisfy the needs of some families, but not necessarily the needs of all of them. Therefore, for the grownup children, the objectivity of the commodities on the market falls apart in use-values and exchange-values, i. e., in commodities that can–and those that cannot–satisfy their subjective welfare (cf. Perception). It depends, from the family’s point of view, on whether or not the objective world actualizes its subjective welfare. The grownup children can restore the unity of the commodity when they succeed in bringing together the two points of view. The exchange value of the commodity is no objectivistic quality beside the use-value, but is intrinsically intertwined with the use-value: exchange-value has


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to be understood as use-value as such. Exchange-value and use-value are related as essence and appearance. The commodity has a general value on the market (exchange-value); but it can only have this exchange-value when this exchange-value is expressed in some (specific) use-value.209 Without use-value, the commodity has no exchange-value. Therefore, at this level, the grownup child (as moral subject), is related to the commodity, like Understanding is related to nature: Objectivity is conceived of as a supra-sensual force (cf. exchange-value) that is expressed in the sensual manifestations of the force (cf. use-value). Since, however, the value of the commodity (both exchange-value and use-value) depends on the evaluating person, the commodity has its unity in the evaluating person. It is the grownup children themselves who, as family members, decide whether the commodities have value at all. According to them, the commodities in themselves, i. e., as objective entities, have no intrinsic value. After having repeated the stages of Consciousness (in the form of observing Reason), the grown up child (as moral subject) repeats the stages of Self-consciousness (in the form of observing Reason). Insofar as the commodities are properties that are exchanged on the market by free and equal persons, they belong to a world that is inessential for the grownup children. In the public domain of the market, the commodities have exchange-value. This exchange-value, however, is factually determined at the market, i. e., it is uncoupled from the validating activity of the grownup child. Therefore, from an outside (objective) perspective, reality falls apart in two domains: the private domain of the family and the public domain of the market. From the inside perspective of the grownup child, however, the public domain of the market is inessential. For the grownup child, the commodities have only value as a result of his own validating activities. Since the commodities on the market have an exchange-value that is independent from his validating activity, they are indifferent to them; in fact, they are non-existent. Therefore, the grownup child can imagine himself to be an autonomous self-consciousness who produces a world by his autonomous validating activities (cf. the pure self ). The alleged autonomy, however, is disrupted at the moment that the family requires the commodities of the market to satisfy its needs. Then, it is confronted with a strange objectivity that it cannot neglect. The fam209 Of course the relation between use-value and exchange-value is not determined in a Marxist way.

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ily can overcome this strange objectivity when it is able to buy (or acquire by exchange), the commodities that can satisfy its needs (because they have, inside the framework of the family use-value). But in this case, the strange objectivity will sooner or later return when the family needs other commodities from the market. It seems that this return can be prevented when the satisfaction of needs is structurally mediated by the market, i. e., under the conditions of a fully developed free market: capitalism. In a fully developed free market, the production process is no longer centered in the family, but in organizational units (factories) whose workers are gathered by mediation of the market. Therefore, the family can no longer exchange its surplus products, i. e., the products it does not need for its own consumption. The only products of the family are the family members themselves. The only commodity it can exchange is the labor force of the family members. So, the family sells the labor force of the family members and buys the commodities that can satisfy the needs of the family. The labor force is bought by the factories that produce commodities for the market, i. e., commodities that have to be sold to the families. Under these conditions, the commodities on the market have become a moment in the consumption process of the families. They have lost their strange objectivity because they are produced to be sold at the market, i. e., in the end they are produced for the consumption of the families.210 Even under the conditions of a fully developed market, however, the autonomy of the family members cannot be completely restored. One the one hand, the immediate ethical life of the family can generate needs that do not correspond to commodities that are supplied by the market; on the other hand, it can be the case that the family cannot afford to buy the commodities of the market. The question is how the demand in the private domain of the family can be geared to the supply in the public domain of the market. Insofar as the family members sell their labor force to the factories, they enter a labor process in which they repeat the lordship/bondsman relation in the form of observing Reason. They serve their “lord”, i. e., the organizer of the labor process, by performing the tasks that are demanded by the labor process. Once again, this labor process is involved in the dynamics of the free market. These dynamics result in a development of the 210 The endless repetition of the exchange process in order to restore autonomy matches with the relation form of Desire (in the form of observing Reason).


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labor process (new products, ongoing division of labor, new technologies), and a cultivation of the workers. The process of cultivation, however, differs fundamentally from the process of culture as it is elaborated in the Philosophy of Right. The central difference is that the process of culture can never lead to the complete socialization of the worker. Although his mind and body can be better and better trained to accomplish the job, although the job may become more and more specialized, under all circumstances the worker remains a moral individual. The cultivation results in better practical skills and better insight into the objective nature of the labor process, but the worker will never coincide with his labor activities. The cultivation, rather, creates the possibility to make a distinction between the subjective norms and values of the family and the objective world of labor. While the subjective norms and values of the family are originally completely immersed in the labor process within the family, the differentiation between the family and the labor process,211 also enables the worker to differentiate between his subjective norms and values and the normative demands of labor itself. The more the labor process is objectified in machines and labor division, the more insight the worker can develop into the pure identity of his subjective norms and values. Once again the process of culture prepares the individuals to live under the conditions of the Administration of Justice. They learn what it means to act according to rules that have an inter-subjective validity. After all, the culture in the labor process finishes the education of the grown up children. Thanks to the process of culture, they have the ability to act as real persons, i. e., to actualize their freedom and equality because they observe the rule of law that is equal for everybody. In contrast to the Philosophy of Right, however, the process of culture does not solve the problem of how to harmonize the demand of the families and the supply of the market. The socialization of the worker in the labor process does not imply at all that that the needs of the families are also socialized. By becoming aware of the subjectivity of the family norms and values, the individuals understand that the needs of the family are subjective. Although these subjective needs can only be satisfied by mediation of the market, this does not mean that the market can satisfy all subjective needs. The problem is not so much that the market would not be able to respond to the diversity of the family needs because the supply on the market is qualitatively and quantitatively limited. New demand gen211 Vs. Habermas, no separation between labor and interaction, cf. footnote 55.

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erates new supply. The problem is, rather, whether the families have enough money to effectuate their demand on the market. In other words, can the families satisfy their needs with the money that they receive in exchange for their labor force? Has the production system the ability to actualize the good life, i. e., can it satisfy the needs of all individuals?

The free market and the exclusion of individuals As long as it remains accidental whether the individual can or cannot sell his labor force on the market, it is clear that the actualization of the good life cannot be guaranteed. For the individuals who fail in finding a job, the objective world remains a hostile world in which they cannot recognize themselves.212 The market reduces them to a commodity without value. Therefore, also in the revised version of the civil society, the transition to the relation forms of active Reason has to be made, to begin with, to the first moment, Pleasure and Necessity. As in the Philosophy of Right, this moment gets shape in the institution of the Police, that must safeguard that all individuals will at least have the chance to participate in the market. It is up to the individuals themselves to take their chances, i. e., the “pleasure” to actualize their welfare. But this time, the failure of the Police has nothing to do with the mechanization of labor, as is the argument in the Philosophy of Right. The problem is not that some individuals can only supply unskilled labor while it is cheaper to replace unskilled labor by machines. Labor that is purely mechanical cannot be accepted in a free society, because it reduces individuals to things. The point is not that all forms of simple labor must be banned, but rather that in those cases in which unskilled labor is performed, the workers may not be reduced to things. They are not only persons on the market, but also in the labor process: By doing their unskilled job they remain colleagues who have to be respected as persons. This has consequences for the value of their labor force. This value cannot be equated with the costs of replacing machines. All workers, included the unskilled workers, are persons and moral subjects. Therefore, they must earn enough to actualize their welfare. If it is cheaper to leave the unskilled labor to the machines, unskilled labor is simply no option for

212 Cf. Der Geist ist ein Knochen, “the being of Spirit is a bone.” (208).

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persons. To find a job, the unskilled persons must be schooled in other professions. But, even if the unskilled labor is eliminated by machines and the Police offer adequate opportunities for training and retraining, the free market cannot guarantee an acceptable job for all, because the criteria for what is “acceptable” are contradictory. On the one hand, an acceptable job must guarantee an income that permits the actualization of the person’s welfare, and on the other hand, the market determines the incomes according the law of supply and demand. The criteria of the market are normally not compatible with moral criteria for welfare: the moral criteria are not deduced from the market, but from the norms and values of the family. From the incompatibility of criteria it does not follow that civil society is not “rich enough” for all; not only because, even if some are excluded, the criteria remain incompatible, but also because the participation of all is the basic principle of a society in which all are free and equal persons. An acceptable job for all is, so to speak, the basic demand that the market has to satisfy. The conclusion concerning the contradicting criteria can only be that the mechanism of the market is not sufficient to solve the problem, i. e., how to conceive of a civil society in which a multitude of moral subjects can actualize their welfare.

The market and the moral subject The moral subject that wants to actualize his welfare on the market seems to be in an underdog position. He has learnt that the norms and values from his original family are contingent and subjective. So, which weapons has he to defend them against the objective power that is exercised by the law of the market? Only if the subjectivity of these norms and values can be overcome does it seem to be possible to resist the pressure of the market. The anxiety concerning the survival of the norms and values, however, is premature. After all we have seen that the embodiment of the second self starts from the conscientious self that knows that it objectifies itself in the form of the second self. Therefore, the subjective norms and values have an absolute ground in the conscience of the individual. But until now, the grownup children are not aware of this absolute ground. Therefore, we have to elaborate the institutional learning process in which the grownup children can discover this absolute ground. The public domain of the free market is not only the domain of economic exchange, but also the domain in which the individuals are in-

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volved with one another as moral subjects. More particularly, there can be, for example, public discussions about subjective norms and values, or the individuals can inform themselves about the norms and values of the others by mass-media, movies, books, etc. This confrontation can have effects of several kinds. The individuals can conclude that the multitude of norms and values puts them all in perspective, so that, in fact, it is irrelevant in which norms and values the individuals express their subjectivity. This kind of relativism, however, would not only contradict freedom itself (we have seen that the moral dimension is a necessary moment of freedom), but also cannot explain the social reality of the individuals: If they live in a world that is characterized by a multitude of subjective norms and values, it must be clear how this multitude can be reproduced. Therefore, in the end, only two other possible reactions are meaningful. On the one hand, the individual can experience that the norms and values of his original family are indeed also his own. On the other hand, he can discover that the norms and values that express his subjectivity are different, and identify them as the norms and values he is confronted with in civil society. In both cases, the norms and values lose, from the perspective of the individual, their contingent status. If the individual is convinced that the norms and values express his own subjectivity, he understand them as the appearance of his absolute essence, i. e., he understands them as the manifestation of his conscience. To get its social meaning, the new conviction of the individual has to be institutionally objectified. The individual must express his subjective norms and values in the family organism, i. e., the grownup child must marry and create his own family. The marriage, however, cannot be the marriage as it is conceived of in the Philosophy of Right. We have seen that the gender roles in this conception do not leave room for subjective norms and values. In these gender roles, a specific tradition is made absolute. If, however, the complementary gender roles are given up and both partners are themselves already “complete” moral subjects, the problem has to be solved as to how it is still possible to think of a lifelong relationship between partners.

Moral subjectivity and lifelong partnership If the complementary role division between man and woman is given up and if one tries to think of a relationship between complete individuals, a new problem immediately arises. Why should individuals, who are com-

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plete in themselves, share a subjective identity? Would there be any reason for the individual to constitute a household together with another individual? Could the general conditions be met for the maintenance of an institution which has, amongst other things, the task to raise and educate children? At first glance, a relationship between partners who are not complementary seems to be contradictory. If a relationship between partners implies a shared subjective identity, it must be possible to conceptualise this identity as an harmonious unity. How is this harmony thinkable if the participating partners are not complementary? There is only one alternative. The love of the partner must not concern the other in his specific gender role, but the other individual as such. In that case, the partners experience a full openness for one another. Their relationship is not dialectical in the sense that the identity of the partner has a meaning that is only relative to his own identity. The identity of the other partner becomes meaningful in itself. The shared identity with the partner is constituted, so to say, by suspending his own identity. The one partner makes the identity of the other partner his own. The asymmetry of this kind of relationship can be avoided if both partners perform the same movement, i. e., if both partners make the other partner’s identity their own. This alternative of totally sacrificing one’s own identity may seem rather unrealistic. But I think that the alternative gives an adequate description of two individuals who have fallen in love. If I am in love, the loved one, in the first place, is not a woman or man, but an irreplaceable, unique individual. I will be obsessed by the loved one and not be able to keep her out of my mind. Moreover, I will be prepared to please her in all possible ways. For me, the loved one would be the centre of the world. The question is however, whether love has any objectivity.213 Is it not the saying that love makes one blind? What can be the meaning of appro213 This problem cannot be solved by institutionalizing the partner relationship in marriage, as R.Winfield seems to think: “By itself, however, lovers’ concern and sharing remains purely contingent upon personal feeling, whose own durability is itself accidental. Marriage, on the other hand, upholds the rights and duties of spouses even when their passion has lapsed.” (R. Winfield, The just Family, New York, 1998, p. 84) The question is that, even if the “passion has lapsed”, the partners must still want to “join immediately together in their unique individuality”. (p. 82) If “passion has lapsed”, the way Winfield characterizes the positive freedom of marriage no longer holds: “Accordingly, marriage can be said to contribute a positive freedom in which the immediacy of romantic love becomes

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priating the partner’s identity if there is no adequate knowledge of it? Is it possible at all to have complete knowledge of a unique identity? Does it ever make sense to assume that one knows his own identity, let alone the identity of another person? Although all pretended absolute insight in an individual identity must be refuted, the lover necessarily has a notion of the beloved’s identity. This notion, however, must not be understood as an intellectual insight, but rather as the experience of beauty. For the lover, the beauty of the partner is the representation of the partner’s absolute identity. In the experience of beauty he feels the totality of the personality which he wants to make his own. To speak about beauty as the representation of an absolute identity corresponds to Hegel’s concept of beauty. According to Hegel, in beauty the absolute appears in the form of the sensible.214 The experience of beauty can be interpreted as the intuition of the absolute. At the same time, however, beauty is only a representation of the absolute, and is in no way the concrete realisation of it. The experience of beauty, for example, has a subjective dimension: Both partners have their own representation. Although this subjective dimension may be considered as a shortcoming, it is the only way to do justice to the absoluteness of the individual identity. Simply because beauty is a subjective image of an absolute identity, it can tolerate the existence of an alternative image of the absolute identity, namely the image the partner has. Besides the advantage just mentioned, the subjectivity of the representation of the absolute identity also has a disadvantage. This comes to the fore when the beauty of the partner withers and it loses its magic power. This explicates that the alleged absolute identity of the partner is dependent on the identity of the lover. The partner’s absolute identity is only real when (in the form of her beauty), it is experienced by the other partner. This may seem to be the end of the absoluteness of the identity. But in fact, the absoluteness of the identity now turns to the other partner. The awareness that the absolute love for the partner was a subjective interpretation does not undermine the absoluteness of the feeling of being in love. If, however, the beloved partner no longer is identified as the source of love, the lover himself remains left as the only alternative source. Therefore, the former lover understands that only an inmediated by an objective bond, formally recognized by spouses and outsiders alike to empower spouses with juridical entitlements that are not simply expressions of the passions of individuals.” (p.85) Romantic love that has lapsed cannot be “mediated by an objective bond”. 214 G.W.F. Hegel, sthetik, p. 179 (Stuttgart).

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dividual who has an absolute identity can fall in love. Only an individual who already owns an absolute identity can absolutely make his partner’s identity his own. In accordance with Hegel, I will refer to this absolute identity as “conscience”. (Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 382) Let us consider the new situation in which the magic power of love has collapsed, and the partners are pushed back into the intimacy of their conscience. The attempt to comprehend the shared identity in terms of the receptiveness for the beauty of the partner has failed. Once again, the partners appear in complete isolation, delivered to the mystery of their private conscience. Yet the introversion of the private conscience cannot be accepted. If conscience stands for the absoluteness of one’s identity, it must overcome its one-sided subjective status. An identity which has no real existence, cannot be maintained as an absolute one.215 From the inside perspective, the real existence of the absolute identity seems not to be problematic. The individual who claims to know his absolute identity evidently will act in accordance with his insight. Therefore, he will claim that the actions in which his existence is real, expresses his conscience. From the outside perspective, however, things are different, because the immediate unity between conscience and the expression of conscience in actions has no validity. The external observer is confronted with a multitude of actions, and must ask himself which actions are expressing the other’s conscience. Is, for instance, the other expressing his identity by walking? Therefore, the subjective conviction to express his own identity by subjective action only makes objective sense if the conviction is acknowledged by others. In this way, the first step can be made to restore the identity, which is shared by both partners. In the mutual acknowledgement by both partners that the conviction is right that the subjective actions express the absolute subjective identity, they enable one another to give their claim for an absolute identity some objectivity, namely as the claim which is inter-subjectively shared. (Cf. the transition from Consciousness in to Self-consciousness) Even in case of a shared claim, however, it remains unclear where the content of this claim comes from, and on what grounds the reached consensus is based. If, for instance, identity is physically determined because the individual decides to express the most intimate subjective feelings, du215 In the following paragraphs, I interpret the dialectics of ‘Morality’ (Phenomenology of Spirit) in the light of the partner relationship of man and woman. As is discussed in Chapter 6, this dialectics repeats Consciousness, Self-Consciousness and Unhappy Consciousness.

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rable consensus is impossible. The one partner has to indicate which feelings express his identity. But each time the other partner thinks he knows the relevant feelings, it can be too late, because the feelings have already changed. It is impossible to deduce an absolute identity from a multitude of feelings. All synthesis of feelings into a unity can only be provisional. Therefore, the partners can only maintain their absolute identity if they assume that it has a spiritual origin. (Cf. Desire) As a consequence, subjective identity should be understood as free self-determination, which surpasses its subjective status because it is acknowledged as free self-expression. But even then the absolute subjective identity is not safeguarded. Once again, subjective identity appears as dependent on (mutual) recognition, i. e., consensus. The progress which has been made consists of the demand that not only the that of conscience’s conviction, but also the what of its spiritual content must be recognized by the partner. But as long as recognition only has an inter-subjective status, it still remains unclear what is the objective ground of the consensus between the partners and, in connection to this omission, whether the consensus is more than a temporary one. The subjective identity has existence as long as, and as far as, the mutual recognition actually is expressed. In that sense, the subjective identity is dependent on time-spatial activities, i. e., on speech-acts. (Cf. Stoicism) This dependency excludes its absoluteness. The conclusion seems to be justified that the idea of an absolute subjective identity must be dropped. The acts which mediate its existence, at the same time deprive it of its absoluteness. Only one escape is possible. The partners must realise that their subjective identity, i. e., the identity which makes them soul mates for one another, has already been given all the time. (Cf. the transition to the Unhappy Consciousness) Real action is not oriented to the constitution of an absolute identity, but on the striving for knowing the absolute identity. This learning process is embedded in a practical relationship in which the partners, as mutual lovers, are already involved all the time. The choice of the partners to form one shared subjective identity does not create the soulmateship, but can, at best, formalize the soulmateship which already existed all the time. The choice for one shared subjective identity is divided in itself. By their choice, the partners do not become one individual, but they are expressing that the process of developing insight into their subjective identity cannot be performed without the partner. The appropriation of one’s subjective identity is the ongoing striving for clarifying one’s life history. On the one hand, this clarification presupposes that the own life has been

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already been lived all the time (including the participation in civil society), and, on the other hand, it presupposes that the recognition by the partner is looked for. Of course, the acknowledgement of an interpretation by the partner is not the criterion of its truth. Yet, it can be maintained that without this acknowledgement the interpretation cannot be true. The objectivity of the own subjective identity can only be known, insofar as it is continuously expressing itself in the relationship with the partner. Mortal men are not able to have absolute knowledge of their absolute subjective identity. But the continuity of the relationship with the life partner, and the associated acknowledgement of the attempt of interpreting the own life history, can be a hint for the truth of this interpretation.

The market and the good life If the existence of the many families, having their own subjective norms and values, is guaranteed, the problem has to be solved as to how the families can live together in one society. Insofar as the welfare of all families can be actualized, the society objectifies the good life. Since the actualization of the good life is mediated by the market, the definition of the good life can be considered as a normative standard for the functioning of the market. The market must not only produce all commodities that are needed to satisfy the needs of all families, but also take care that all families have an income that allows them to buy what is needed for the satisfaction of their welfare. We have already observed that the normative standard for the market cannot be deduced from the law of the market itself. The norms and values of the families are independent from the market. It is neither the market that constitutes the unity of the many families, nor is the market the “material base” for the unity of the good life. Therefore, the transition to the good life cannot be made at the level of the System of Needs as it is laid down in the Philosophy of Right. In this work, the norms and values of the family are replaced by the norms and values of the second family (the Corporation), i. e., replaced by norms and values that are deduced from the production system. This undermines the independence of the domain of the family. Moreover, the development of the Philosophy of Right assumes that the Corporations are part of the organic unity of the production system, i. e., it assumes that the unity of the good life (that is explicitly discussed at the level of the state), is preceded (at the level of civil society), by the “material”

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unity of the production system (the “Verstandesstaat”216). The production system of modern society, however, produces for the world market. This means that the production system, out of itself, has no unity that precedes the good life as it is defined at state level. Nor are the branches in the production system organically linked to one another. If somewhere in the world new demand is created, then, in principal, new branches can be developed without limitations prescribed by the market system. The normative standards for the production system must in some way or another be deduced from the norms and values of the families. This, however, is only possible when a number of mediations can be performed. On the one hand, it must become clear how the multitude of norms and values of the distinct families can brought together in an encompassing system of norms and values. On the other hand, it must be understood how the norms and values are related to the production system. It is evident that the norms and values of the distinct families are restricted by the modern production system: Only those norms and values are permissible that respect the separation between the private domain of the family and the public domain of the System of Needs. 217 But the attempt to bring the various norms and values of the families together, can initially be performed apart from the System of Needs. Although, in principle, each family can have its own norms and values, in reality many families will share its norms and values with other families. Therefore, it is possible to divide civil society into groups of families that share norms and values.218 Insofar as these groups are institutionalized in ideological associations like denominations, cultural organizations, journals, ideological clubs (humanists, socialists, liberals) etc., the first step has been made to transform the various norms and values in an encompassing system: The many families are structured in a limited number of ideological associations.219 216 Cf. § 183 “the state as the Understanding envisages it.” 217 In an allusion to Rawls one could say: not all values and norms belong to “reasonable comprehensive doctrines”. 218 Which groups exactly exist and how they emerge in a “struggle for recognition” has to be observed by empirical sociology. 219 These “ideological associations” can, for example, be interpreted as cultural minorities. In this sense, the freedom and equality of the French Revolution has prepared the contemporary multi-cultural society. Of course, these cultural minorities differ from the national minorities Kymlicka (1995) has in mind when he writes: “On the contrary, national minorities often claim an ‘inherent’

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The ideological associations can be compared with the Corporations in the Philosophy of Right, insofar as they have the function to create a “local” generality, i. e., a generality that still is distinct from the encompassing system. At the same time, the ideological associations are fundamentally different from the Corporations because they are disconnected from the production system. This disconnection is necessary since, on the one hand, it prevents the family from losing its independence and being absorbed by production relations, and on the other hand, that the production is moralized and its rationality is undermined. Moreover, the ideological associations, unlike the Corporations, are not organically involved in a coherent system. As a consequence, not only is the number of ideological associations open, but also the number of participants each of them can accept: No individuals are excluded, as was in the case of the Corporations. In the ideological associations the multi-culturality of modern society is explicitly objectified. Although the ideological associations exist beside the production system, they cannot just leave the production system to itself. From the perspective of the ideological association, the concept of the good life can be determined, namely as the life in which the norms and values of the association can be actualized. Therefore, the ideological association can formulate normative standards for the production system. These standards, however, remain as a moral “ought”, externally related to the production system. The ideological association can only formulate a political program that elaborates which measures have to be taken to subject the production system to its normative standards. The moral freedom of the associations can only be actualized if their political program is realized. Since the distinct ideological associations also have distinct political programs, their programs cannot immediately be made the program of the state power that unites the ideological associations. In some way or another, the distinct political programs must be mediated to the unity of an encompassing political program. In contemporary society, this process of mediation gets its shape in the institutional framework of political parties.220 A political party can represent the politright to self-government, which they see as pre-dating their incorporation into the larger state, and as enduring into the infinite future.” (p. 142) He mentions the example of “residents of Indian reservations”. 220 Cf. Fred. Neuhouser: “Thus, liberal critics are clearly right in arguing that Hegel’s theory, without going so far as legally to prohibit radical social critique, fails to recognize it as having a value in the modern world that would warrant its being specially protected or encouraged, or even thought worthwhile.” (p.

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ical program of an ideological association. All political parties together must, in some way or another, determine the encompassing political program of the state. In the next chapter we will see how this task is institutionalized in the parliament. If the moral dimension of labor is determined at state level by mediation of political parties, the production organizations (the companies) are guarded against an immediate moralization of the production. This prevents the development of factories and companies that are, for example, Catholic, Islamic or Humanist. The companies would be restricted by ideological demands. As a consequence, the rationality of the free market would be undermined. Yet, the moralized production that is implicated by the Corporations of the Philosophy of Right does justice to an aspect that cannot be neglected: In the Corporations, the moral dimension of labor is sustained by the workers themselves. They know that they realize their own welfare in the Corporations. This evokes the question of whether a moral dimension of production that is externally imposed by politics can be effective at all. Can this kind of morality motivate the workers? Do politics not lack the knowledge that is demanded for the implementation of normative standards in the production process? The aforementioned problem can be solved when, as in the Philosophy of Right, the branches of the production process participate in the elaboration of the normative standards insofar as these concern their own branch. This, however, is only possible when two conditions are fulfilled. On the one hand, the elaboration of the normative standards must be mediated by the general normal standards as they are fixed at political level. On the other hand, the elaboration may not be done by a party of the market, i. e., individual companies or factories that belong to the branch. Rather, it must be the responsibility of the branch organization as such that does not itself operate at the market, and represents all individual companies or factories that belong to that branch. Therefore, the Corporations of the Philosophy of Right can keep their function in the revised civil society if they are interpreted as branch organizations that control and develop the normative standards of their members. In the Philosophy of Right, it belongs to the task of the Corporations to take care of the professional education of its members. In contemporary society, however, the institutions of education are normally (at least in Europe), organized by the state (state universities and schools), or by 265). By means of the political parties, it is possible to recognize “radical social critique”.

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ideological associations (for example, Christian universities and schools, financially supported by the state). It is precisely because these universities and schools are not “common” players on the market (their “product”, the output of certified students, is controlled by the state, i. e., by education authorities), that they are extremely suitable for integrating normative standards in their education program, i. e., the normative standards that are formulated at state level. Insofar as the education programs are specialized in specific professional abilities, the normative dimension of the program can be developed in cooperation with the concerned branch organization, i. e., the revised Corporation. In contrast to the assumption in the Philosophy of Right, employees do no longer work their whole life in the same enterprise. They may not even work lifelong in the same branch. If the individuals change their labor situation, especially with the switch over to a new branch of production, they may need complementary education. Insofar as the complementary education has a normative dimension, it is important that it is organized again by the universities and schools in cooperation with the branch organizations.

Retrospection We have discussed how Hegel develops the Corporation as the institutional embodiment of the second self. This embodiment presupposes that the contradiction between the freedom and equality of the persons and the uniqueness of the moral subjects is overcome by a process of culture in the modern production system. The culture of the production system socializes the moral individuals and makes them suitable to participate in the legal order of a social organism. This social organism is subdivided in Corporations in which the individuals can actualize their moral particularity. We observe that Hegel’s conception of the embodiment of the second self does not adequately do justice to the moral subject. Ultimately, he is sacrificed to the labor system. As an alternative to Hegel’s concept, I developed the ideological association. These associations are not mediated by the culture of the production process, but rather by a learning process in the public domain of civil society. By mediation of public discussion, the individuals develop insight into their subjective norms and values. Mediated by political parties, the ideological associations formulate the normative framework of the production system, i. e., the shared norms

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and values of the good life. In the next chapter, it will be discussed how the good life is institutionalized in the state, and how the state can be considered as the embodiment of the third self.

Chapter 9 The State: The Embodiment of the Third Self Introduction In this chapter, I will elaborate the institutional actualization of the third self for our era, i. e., I will confront the conceptual determinations of the third self (as elaborated at the level of Morality in the Phenomenology of Spirit), with institutions of our globalized world, and examine which institutions can be considered as adequate realizations of the third self. To prepare this attempt, however, I will first go into Hegel’s attempt in the Philosophy of Right to elaborate the institutionalization of the third self for the Nineteenth Century. I will criticize the results of Hegel’s attempt, the Nation State (or, what one could call in a variation on Hegel, the third family). This criticism does not concern the features of the State that typically seem to belong to the Nineteenth Century, but is again more elementary. I will show what are the consequences of Hegel’s confusion at the level of the family (where he confused natural and ethical immediacy), and at the level of civil society (in which subjective freedom is reduced to a subjectivity that is totally socialized). As a consequence, Hegel’s concept of State does not meet the criteria for the third self that Hegel himself has developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit. For the citizens, the third self seems to coincide with the objective reality of the Monarch. Therefore, their conscience is restricted to its objective appearance and is not conceived of in its relation to the absolute Spirit. This criticism will appear helpful for the positive construction of the third self ’s institutional embodiment.

The development of the third self ’s embodiment in the ‘Philosophy of Right’: the State Systematically, the third self has to be conceived of as the adequate unity of right and morality. Therefore, one would expect that the State is constructed as the unity of the third moment of abstract Right (Injustice), and the third moment of morality (Good and Conscience). To make Injustice a

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Chapter 9 The State: The Embodiment of the Third Self

moment of the State, however, seems a bit strange. But this becomes understandable if we call to mind what Hegel meant by Injustice. At the level of abstract Right, it remained undetermined whether the particular and the general will were in harmony. Therefore, Injustice could not be excluded: particular and general will could contradict one another. That was precisely the reason that the transition to Morality had to be made: The particular will could not remain undetermined. At the level of the State, however, the adequate unity of Right and Morality has been developed. Therefore, the harmony between the particular and general will can be guaranteed. As the moment of the State, Injustice is sublated, i. e., the particular and the general will are in harmony. The State is the particular will who wills the general will as such. The State is an institutionalized self: the Monarch. The Monarch is the individual who, in his institutional role as Monarch, wills the general will as such. (§ 279). For the citizens of the State, the Monarch represents the objectification of their freedom. The State is the reality of the good life, the actualization of the (general) Good. The conviction that the State is the actualization of the Good is subjectively expressed in the patriotism of the citizens. This patriotism functions as the Conscience of the citizens who are convinced that this Conscience is actualized in the ethical life of the State. (§ 268) In the relation between the Monarch and the citizen, the lordship/bondsman relation has got its definitive shape. The citizen acts in service of the Monarch. But he knows that he, by this service, actualizes his own freedom. After all, the Monarch represents the good life: in his recognition of the Monarch, the citizen recognizes his own freedom. As representation of the citizen’s freedom, the Monarch is an individual who plays, as does the “lord”, an institutional role. In this institutional role, the Monarch is, so to speak, an immortal individual: not only because the institutional role survives when the Monarch dies, but also because the monarchy is hereditary, i. e., the reproduction of the monarchal family guarantees that the monarch is succeeded. (§ 280) But, in contrast to the “lord” of the initial lordship/bondsman relation, the Monarch is not only the (institutionalized) symbol of the citizen’s freedom, but also the developed reality of this freedom. He is the adequate reality of the third self and, therefore, the adequate unity of the first and second self. We have seen that the embodiment of the first self, the family, could be interpreted as the immediate actualization of freedom. In the family, the moments of the free person, i. e., generality, particularity and singularity, are actualized in the immediate unity of the family organism: the gender role of man (moment of generality), and woman (moment of par-

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ticularity), are unified in the mutual love (moment of singularity). In the embodiment of the second self, the Corporation, the actualization of freedom has become self-conscious. The moment of generality has become self-conscious as the free and equal person of the free market; the moment of particularity, as the welfare that is expressed in the commodities of the market. And, the moment of singularity has become self-conscious in the unity of both preceding moments: In the Corporation, the free persons have decided to actualize their welfare in cooperation with the other members of the Corporation. This cooperation is self-conscious in the mutual respect that the corporation members express to one another as skilled professionals. In the Philosophy of Right, the many Corporations are understood as the “organs” of a coherent production system. (“Verstandesstaat”) This production system is in the service of the good life that, at the level of civil society, is only a practical unity. It is only at the level of the State that the unity of the good life is as such intended: the Monarch is the particular will who wants the good life as such. Therefore, the embodiment of the third self, the Monarch, has to be understood as an institutional whole that is presupposed to the institutions of civil society and that explicates the unity that remains implicit at the level of civil society. The institutions of the state (the Constitution, § 259) are differentiated in three powers (§273) in which the moments of the Person have their “true” existence, i. e., they are not only self-conscious (like the institutions of civil society), but also explicitly realized as moments of the good life’s unity. In the Legislature (§ 198 ff.) the moment of generality has its “true” existence. It explicitly formulates the laws of the good life as the laws of the state. The Legislature is the institution that is presupposed to the Administration of Justice, i. e., to the institution that guarantees the reality of the free and equal persons. Thanks to the Legislature, the state has a coherent system of laws that allows the citizens to understand themselves as the free and equal citizens of the state organism. In the Executive (§ 287 ff.) the moment of particularity has its “true” existence. Thanks to the Executive, all actions of ethical life (resulting in particular existence), are manifestations of the good life. The Executive is the institution that is presupposed to the system of production (including Police and Corporations). It not only guarantees, in general, that the production of welfare is in harmony with the actualization of freedom, i. e., it is a moment of the good life, but also it is particularly responsible for the well-functioning and coordination of Police and Corporations. More-

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over, the Executive is, in some sense, responsible for the Administration of Justice because it not only contains what we call nowadays the Government, but also Jurisdiction, i. e., juridical actions that try to correct “normal” actions. Finally, Legislature and Executive are united in the Crown (§ 275 ff.), the “true” existence of the moment of singularity. This not only means that both these powers are intertwined (the Executive is based on the laws of the Legislature, as is the existence of the Legislature as institution based on actions of the Executive), but also that they are the moment of an encompassing power: The Monarch, i. e., the representative of the Crown, is, as well, President, Leader of the Government and Chief Justice. Although the good life, as it is objectified in the state, is mediated by the subjective freedom of the free market, it remains an historical manifestation of freedom. In the language of the Philosophy of Right, the good life objectifies the Spirit of a People. Therefore, the State does not seem to be considered as the adequate realization of the third self. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, the third self is developed as the conscientious individual who is related to the absolute Spirit. The conscientious individual knows that the actualization of his freedom has a contingent, historical form. In that sense, the ethical life cannot be the “absolute end and aim of the world” (§ 129) as it is stated in the Philosophy of Right. In the Philosophy of Right, this problem is solved by the differentiation between the conscience of the citizens and the conscience of the Monarch. As conscientious individuals, the citizens are the patriots who are convinced that it is their duty the observe the laws of the state. The obedience of this duty coincides with the actualization of their freedom. At state level, the moral “ought”, i. e., the duty to realize the good, has been completely fulfilled. The Monarch, however, is the conscientious individual who is aware of the finitude of ethical life. The Monarch can, so to speak, distinguish between the general good that is actualized in the state, and the absolute good that principally transcends any historical realization. The Monarch is the conscientious individual who is related to the absolute Spirit and, therefore, knows that the objective world of the state is only a finite manifestation of the absolute Spirit. In the Philosophy of Right, the conscience of the Monarch is mentioned in § 285: “The third moment in the power of the crown concerns the absolute universality which subsists subjectively in the conscience of the monarch and objectively in the whole of the constitution and the laws.” Although this formulation makes it dubious whether the Monarch really transcends the objective world of the state, this transcendence seems

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to be presupposed in the “right to pardon criminals”: “The right to pardon criminals arises from the sovereignty of the Monarch, since it is this alone which is empowered to actualize mind’s221power of making undone what has been done and wiping out a crime by forgiving and forgetting it.” (§ 282) Moreover, also the “majesty” of the Monarch seems to indicate his transcendence: “The personal majesty of the monarch, on the other hand, as the final subjectivity of decision, is above all answerability for acts of government.” (§ 284) The transcendence of the state and the relation to the absolute Spirit is explicitly discussed at the level of International Law (§330 ff.) and World History (§ 341 ff.): In the relations between the states, the transition from objective into absolute Spirit has been made. Therefore, it is at this level that the conscience of the Monarch can be compared with the conscience as it is developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit. The relations between states are essentially conceived of as relations between the Monarchs of the states: “The state’s tendency to look abroad lies in the fact that it is an individual subject. Its relation to other states, therefore, falls to the power of the crown.” (§ 329) This means that the relations between states depend “on different wills each of which is sovereign.” (§ 330) Precisely because of the sovereignty of these wills, they are free to recognize one another or to refuse this. If they do recognize one another, their relation is structured like the “beautiful soul”, one of the moments of conscience in the “Phenomenology of Spirit”. As long as the Monarchs recognize one another, they can persevere in the illusion of their absolute autonomy. This autonomy, however, is only real insofar as the Monarchs continue to express their mutual recognition. When, however, this process is broken off, the contradiction in which they are involved becomes clear. The Monarch is autonomous insofar as he has realized himself in the good life of the state. Also, the other Monarch is autonomous insofar as he has realized himself in the state: But this time it is about another state. Therefore, the conclusion must be that, insofar as the Monarch has realized himself in the good life of the state, his autonomy cannot be recognized by the other Monarch. As expression of the Monarch’s conscience, the states exclude one another: They cannot both be an absolute reality. The mutual exclusion of states is discussed at the level of world history. Since there exists no international legal order, the states are related as in a “state of nature” (§ 333) i. e., when the states do not succeed in arranging agreements, the ultimate consequence is war. The struggle of 221 In German: “Macht des Geistes”.

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world history, however, has not only a destructive result. Although all states strive after their own survival, world history can be conceived of as a process in which freedom is actualized more and more adequately. This is the “cunning of Reason” that is active in history, behind the back of the world leaders. In the “cunning of Reason”, it is expressed that it is ultimately the absolute Spirit that manifests itself in world history, not blind destiny. In the Philosophy of Right, world history is classified in four Realms: the Oriental Realm, the Greek Realm, the Roman Realm and the Germanic Realm. These four realms correspond to the four stages of world history as they are discussed in the Religion Chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit 222. Once again, world history is interpreted as a process in which the absolute Spirit comes to itself in a progressive development of religion forms. And, once again, these religion forms are attributed to distinct states in distinct historical periods, i. e., states which are essentially mono-cultural. In contrast to the Phenomenology of Spirit, however, the transition to the absolute Spirit is not performed by the conscience of the individual. Even the Monarchs do not understand that their actions can be interpreted as manifestations of the absolute Spirit.

Criticizing the state of the ‘Philosophy of Right’ in the light of the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ I will abstain from a closer discussion of how the institutions of the state are elaborated in the Philosophy of Right. It will be sufficient to criticize the aforementioned main features of the development of the state, inspired by the Phenomenology of Spirit. In the next section, this criticism will be the starting point of an alternative construction of the state. In the elaboration of the institutions of this revised state, it will be possible to return to some aspects of the state institutions as they are developed in the Philosophy of Right. The central criticism of the concept of state in the Philosophy of Right, concerns the relation between the citizen and the Monarch. On the one hand, the citizen has a conscience that, in comparison with the conscience 222 The Religion Chapter distinguishes between the natural religion (that comprises the Oriental religions), the Greek religion of art developing in the Roman pantheon of gods, and the Christian revealed religion that ends in (German) Lutheranism.

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of the Phenomenology of Spirit, is reduced: The citizen is a patriot, i. e., he has the duty to actualize the good life of his state. On the other hand, the Monarch only represents the actualized good life. It is true that, in some aspects, the conscience of the Monarch transcends the actualized good life, but even in this case, conscience is reduced in comparison with the Phenomenology of Spirit: The conscience of the Monarch is not related to the absolute good, to the absolute Spirit. The relation to the absolute Spirit is only practically developed in the process of world history. As the “cunning of Reason”, the absolute Spirit manifests itself in world history. The reduction of conscience implies that the good life of the state absorbs, so to speak, the pure self. There is no room for subjective freedom that transcends the historical actualization of good life.223 Subjective freedom remains reduced to the social System of Needs: subjective freedom in the field of consumption and labor. At the level of world history, it becomes clear why religion is excluded from the institutional framework of ethical life. It is obvious that Hegel presupposes states that are, generally speaking, mono-cultural, i. e., states in which the citizens share their religion. Therefore, religion becomes only relevant when the state is transcended at the level of world history.

The revision of the citizen and the Monarch As in the Philosophy of Right, the embodiment of the third self can be understood as the relation between citizen and Monarch if “citizen” and “Monarch” are terms that are respectively related to the “bondsman” and the “lord” of the bondsman/lord relation. The citizen/monarch relation has to be understood as the adequate form of the bondsman/lord relation, i. e., as the adequate unity of right and morality, the adequate unity of horizontal and vertical recognition. Since we have already seen (in Chapter 6) that the adequate unity of right and morality coincides with the adequate unity between objective and absolute Spirit, this last unity must also characterize the citizen/monarch relation. As in the Phi223 I think that Fred. Neuhouser (2000) assigns more self-reflexivity to the social members than Hegel intends to do: “That is, Hegel’s ideal requires that social members have a general grasp of the purpose of each of the social spheres to which they belong, and of how the three principal institutions constitute a complete and coherent whole.” (p. 253).

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losophy of Right, this is possible when the citizen recognizes the “monarch” as a person who represents the social organism in which his freedom is actualized. Once again, the citizen is understood as the third self, the conscientious individual. This time, however, the conscience of the citizen cannot be identified with his patriotism. As in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the citizen is, as a conscientious individual, related to the absolute Spirit. For the revised citizen, the social organism of the state that is represented by the “monarch” does not coincide with the adequate actualization of his conscience. The revised citizen knows that he can actualize his freedom only in the form of objective Spirit, i. e., as the good life that is only an historical realization form of the absolute good. The good life remains distinguished from the absolute Spirit. Therefore, the “monarch” is not absolute insofar as he represents the unity of the good life in which the citizen actualizes his freedom, but rather insofar as he represents the absolute ground of the state’s unity, the absolute Spirit. The “monarch” who represents the absolute Spirit can be interpreted as the president of the constitutional state. Insofar as the state organism is an historical entity, its law is subjected to changes that are especially related to developments in the domain of civil society. However, insofar as this law is also legitimized as the embodiment of the third self, it is also founded in the absolute Spirit, i. e., it has a supra-historical essence. In our era, we know this supra-historical essence as the so called “human rights”, as the absolute moral rights that are attributed to human beings as such. These are the rights whose conceptions are developed at the level of the revised abstract Right and the revised Morality. (cf. Chapter 6). The human rights can get a specific formulation in the Constitution of the state. This is the first step to actualize the human rights in the objective world. In the Constitution, the human rights are related to an historical state organism. The Constitution gives the human rights not only a positive formulation as the fundamental rights of the Constitution, but also reconciles them to the normative framework of the positive law that is valid in an historical state organism. The president who represents the Constitution plays an institutional role that is distinguished from his natural existence. Since this institutional role expresses that the existence of the state is legitimized by the absolute Spirit, it has the majesty that the Philosophy of Right attributes to the monarch. The majesty, however, cannot be an argument to make the function of the president an hereditary one. It is only important that

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the Constitution guarantees that the function of the president is, under all circumstances, fulfilled. This could be done by determining the presidency as a constitutional monarchy. An argument for this solution would be that it at least becomes clear that it is irrelevant what are the personal qualities of the president. But it is an illusion to think that an hereditary president can claim a status that is more “absolute” than, for example, an elected president. In both cases, it is the Constitution that determines how an individual is selected for the presidency. Nature can not only not guarantee that a president has offspring (so that constitutional rules are needed to determine who in this case will be the successor), but even when offspring are available, it is, for example, not a law of nature that the eldest son will be the successor224 : The constitution determines which family relations are relevant. As the representative of the absolute Spirit, i. e., as the representative of the Constitution, the president cannot be the leader of the government. As a finite reality, the good life and its government are distinguished from the absolute Spirit: they have an independent, contingent existence. Nevertheless, however, the good life is not totally separated from the absolute Spirit: in its absoluteness the absolute Spirit has to manifest itself in the good life. As manifestation of the absolute Spirit, the laws that constitute good life can be considered as contingent appearances of human rights. Therefore, the Constitution determines that the president has to take care for the powers that constitute good life. The president is not himself the leader of these powers, but he has to install them as relative independent powers. As the absolute ground of the powers of good life, the president represents, in the eyes of the citizens, not only the human rights, but also democracy: By installing the powers of good life that is in accordance to the human rights, the president guarantees the existence of a democratic legal order. In contrast to the Philosophy of Right, the powers of the good life cannot be identified as, respectively, Legislature, Executive and Crown, but rather as the trias politica of Montesquieu. Although the state nowadays also has a legislative power, this power cannot be a moment of the Crown or the Presidency. As the power that constitutes the framework of the social organism of the state, it has a relative independency: On the one hand, the legislative power formulates his laws in correspondence with 224 This was precisely the conflict between Eteokles and Polyneikes: for the Divine Law they were both son of the king (even twins), who could claim to be his successor. For the Human Law, however, only the eldest son has this right.

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the Constitution; on the other hand, the laws integrate the developments at the level of civil society. The second power of the present day state, the Government, has the same task as the Executive, insofar as the Government is responsible for the existence of the institutional framework in which the laws of the legislative power are actualized. Jurisdiction, however, does not belong to the task of the Government, but is, rather, the third power of the social organism of the state. The power of Jurisdiction guarantees the unity of the state organism as such: It judges whether the laws of the legislative power are in harmony with the Constitution, and whether the actions of the Government and the citizens are in harmony with the laws. Once again, the three powers of the state can be considered as the institutional objectification of the three moments of the person (generality, particularity and singularity). But this time, these powers cannot (like the Monarch) be considered as the “absolute end and aim of the world” that is only practically legitimized at the level of world history. The three powers are embedded in, and legitimized by, the Constitution that is represented by the President. In the next section, I will discuss how the conscience of the citizen can be developed in accordance with the conscience as it is developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit. After all, the third self of the Phenomenology of Spirit is the presupposition of the revised concept of the state.

The development of the third self as the presupposition of the revised state In Chapter 8, we have seen that the cultivated persons can organize themselves in ideological associations in which they share subjective norms and values. If these ideological associations elaborate what these values and norms imply with respect to the conception of good life, they can be the base of political parties. Only when all political parties are represented in the legislative power that determines the legal framework of good life, does society do justice to subjective freedom. In contemporary states, this representation is institutionalized in several variations of parliamentary democracy. I abstract from the different forms in which democracy gets shape, and observe that the central point is that all, or at least the most important, ideological associations are represented by political parties in the parliament. The political parties have to rationally discuss the legal frame-

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work of good life. Insofar as they do not succeed in reaching a rational consensus, they have to come to a compromise. To guarantee that these compromises are reached, the parliament commits itself to institutional rules (for example, voting procedures in which the majority determines the ultimate decision). In this context, however, I am especially interested in the parliament as an institution of education. It plays a central role in the education of the citizens. Without the parliament, they cannot develop the conscience as it is discussed in the Phenomenology of Spirit. The relation between the political parties in the parliament is structured like the relations between the monarchs, as I discussed in one of the previous sections. As long as the political parties do not disagree, they can have the illusion to be totally autonomous. They are the “beautiful souls” who affirm to one another this alleged autonomy and lose themselves in the expression of each other’s excellence. At the moment, however, that this mutual recognition fades away, they have to face the reality in which they are situated. They all have their political program in which their subjective norms and values are actualized. Insofar as the parties consider their norms and values as the good, they are absolute and they have to be realized. But insofar as the good is identified as the actualization of specific (subjectivist) norms and values, it is disputed by other parties on the basis of other (subjectivist) norms and values, and declines as the (absolute) good. The contrast between the parties can only be overcome in a learning process that makes clear that all political programs are historical manifestations of an absolute concept of freedom (as developed in Chapter 6). This insight makes it possible to be tolerant towards other political programs. Moreover, the learning process has to elucidate that the political parties, as members of the parliament, are already functioning all the time within a legal framework that transcends the specific political conceptions of good life. Therefore, the political process appears, like the process of world history in the Philosophy of Right, as the manifestation of the absolute Spirit. In contrast to the Philosophy of Right, however, where the monarchs were not aware of their relation to the absolute Spirit, the political parties have explicit insight into the legislative power as a power that gives a specific historical interpretation of the absolute concept of freedom, i. e., the political parties embody the third self. Since the learning process of the political parties in the parliament is reflected in the discussions of the mass media in the public domain, all citizens can reproduce this learning process and understand themselves as citizens of a state in which the third self is embodied.

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Once the citizens have developed insight into the conscience at state level, they understand the entirety of their conscience. At the level of the family, the conscientious individuals actualize their conscience in the form of immediacy. As in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the conscientious marriage partners actualize their conscience by repeating the stages of Consciousness and Self-consciousness (cf. pp. 106 – 109). At the level of the System of Needs, the conscientious individuals actualize their conscience in the form of mediation. As in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the conscientious persons on the market actualize their conscience by repeating the stages of observing Reason (cf. 194 – 196). It is true that we have presented this stage of the actualization of conscience as a learning process in which the grownup children acquired insight in the norms and values of their original family in distinction from the reality of the production system. But this learning process remains important for the persons who have founded their own family. In their participation in the System of Needs, they actualize the norms and values of their family by their specific supply and demand on the market, and by their specific contribution to the discussions in civil society. Moreover, they can develop these norms and values under influence of the confrontation with newly developed products and services or new ideological positions and opinions. At the level of the revised Police and Corporation (the ideological Association), the transition is made to the ultimate form of conscience (as it gets shape at the level of the state). As in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the moral subjects actualize their conscience by repeating active Reason. At the end, they learn at the level of Jurisdiction, that their conscience is related to the absolute Spirit. The three domains of ethical life, family, civil society and state, institutionalize together the complete learning process of conscience in accordance with the learning process as it is developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit. As a consequence, in the revised Philosophy of Right, the moral “ought” is conserved at the level of ethical life. In the original Philosophy of Right, the moral “ought” is overcome because the three moments of the moral subject (Purpose and Responsibility, Intention and Welfare, Good and Conscience), are realized at the level of ethical life: In the social organism of the family, the purpose of the partners is realized so that they are responsible for their actions; in the social organism of the Corporation, the intention is realized so that the actions of the Corporation’s members serve their welfare; in the social organism of the state, conscience (patrio-

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tism) is realized so that the state coincides with good life.225 In the revised Philosophy of Right, however, Purpose is not absorbed by the social organism of the family, but remains distinguished from this organism because it is expressed by the partners insofar as they actualize conscience in the form of immediacy. Likewise, Intention is not absorbed by the social organism of the Corporation. Intention appears as the actualization of conscience in the form of mediation, i. e., as the subjective norms and values that are explicated in distinction from the production system. Conscience, finally, is not absorbed by the social organism of the state because it is not narrowed to patriotism. By the discussions in the parliament and the corresponding discussions in the public domain, the citizens learn that the realized good life is an historical manifestation of the absolute good, i. e., the tension between conscience and good life is conserved.

The Government Like the Executive in the Philosophy of Right, the Government is the moment of state power in which the moment of particularity is objectively institutionalized, i. e., the Government guarantees that the real actions of the citizens are performed within the framework of the general laws as they are determined by the legislative power. The Government, however, is not only an instrument of the legislative power, i. e., a bureaucracy of civil servants who only execute what is told by the legislative power, but also is a relative independent power. Although the Government is dependent on the legislative power, this last power is, in the other way around, also dependent on the Government. The political parties in the parliament can try to formulate their conception of good life, based on their subjective norms and values, and translate this conception in a systematic system of laws. This system of laws, however, cannot coincide with the system of law that underlies the State’s reality of good life. Not only because the system of law is a compromise between many political parties (the dominance of one party would contradict subjective freedom), but 225 Nevertheless, I do not think that Peter Steinberger’s (1988) conclusion can be maintained: “In this regard, I believe that Hegel’s intention to view political society as an ethical community is emblematic of the degree to which his political thought is so very different from the superficially similar views of more orthodox liberals, including Kant himself.” (p. 244) The realization of good life in world history is distinguished from the absolute good. My criticism of Hegel is that only the philosopher seems to know this distinction, not the citizen himself.

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also because of the dynamics of modern society. The dynamics of civil society results in an ongoing process of differentiation, with respect to the ideological associations, as well as with respect to the production system. Neither these ideological associations, nor the companies of the production system form an inner organic unity which the lawgiver could anticipate (as the Corporations in the Philosophy of Right are considered as “organs” of a production system). They are part of a global market of opinions and commodities that can endlessly expand their differentiation. Therefore, the process of lawgiving needs the continuous input from the developments in the practical world, i. e., it needs some input from the Government. Insofar as good life is realized, it is based on the institutional structure that has been actualized by the Government according to the existing law system. The real good life, however, is a dynamic system in which, on the one hand, the application of the existing legal rules is not a mechanical process, but rather a process that asks for interpretation and putting priorities. On the other hand, the new development of good life (originating in civil society) continuously transcends the framework that is foreseen by the lawgiver, so that the Government can only function when there is some discretional power. Because of these two reasons, the Government is a political body that has to formulate an action program that is sustained and controlled by the parliament. Since it is, in the first place, the Government that is confronted with developments that transcend the framework of the law, it is obvious that the Government can take the initiative for the formulation of law proposals, and submit them to the parliament.

Jurisdiction In the revised Philosophy of Right, the moment of singularity is not objectified in the power of the President. We have seen that the President represents the absolute ground of the state, not state power itself. Nevertheless, also the revised Philosophy of Right needs a power in which the moment of singularity is objectively objectified. Since the legislative power in the Government are relatively independent, their mutual harmony is not guaranteed, and cannot be guaranteed by one of these two powers: In that case, they would lose their relative independence. Therefore, the harmony can only be safeguarded by a third power, namely Jurisdiction. Jurisdiction judges whether the actions in the State are in accordance with

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the law. It judges not only the actions of the Government, but also the actions of the legislative power itself (are the laws in accordance with the Constitution?), the citizens, the family members and the persons of the market. The Administration of Law that was already discussed at the level of civil society, is part of the power of Jurisdiction (in contrast to the Police that is part of the Government).

International Law Since the citizens are conscientious individuals who are related to the absolute Spirit, i. e., who know that the state they are living in is only an historical form of good life, the modern state is not only practically related to other states. The citizens know that it is their absolute duty to actualize human rights in the good life of a democratic state. Because this moral demand concerns all human beings, the citizens are not only related to their fellow citizens, but to all. At the same time, however, the citizens know that the moral demand can only be actualized in an historical state that is distinguished from other states. The awareness of the historical finiteness of the own state implies an internal relation to other states: Domestic and international law are intertwined. Insofar as all states are legitimized by human rights, international law exists and can made explicit by international treaties in which the human rights are recognized. By this recognition, the states, at the same time, recognize one another as equal, i. e., as historical forms of good life. This mutual recognition of states excludes illegitimate states, i. e., states in which the human rights are internally violated, or states that do not recognize all legitimate states as equal. The possible existence of illegitimate states seems to imply that only under the condition of a world Government can the actualization of freedom be guaranteed. A world Government, however, cannot be defended on principle grounds. It is true that if a world Government exists, the conclusion must be that the world citizens obviously recognize this world Government as a legitimate state, but this does not mean that the world Government is the most adequate form to actualize freedom. The existence of a world Government only factually expresses that there are no illegitimate states that can threaten the realization of freedom. But it cannot principally prevent this threatening. Since the actualized good life is an historical existence (be it in the form of a world state or in the form of many states), good life principally exists as a multitude of good lives. In

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that sense, a world government will always be an historical accident that can be overcome. The point is that the adequate realization of freedom (“eternal peace”) is only guaranteed if all citizens can participate in a state that they can recognize as the actualization of good life. Normally this implies a multitude of states. If the adequate realization of freedom gets shape in a multitude of states, institutional mechanisms are presupposed that prevent or overcome the existence of illegitimate states. In the contemporary world there were examples of military interventions (called humanitarian interventions), against regimes that violated human rights. Even if these interventions are based on mandates of the United Nations, they remain very problematic. Since no world Government exists, these kinds of actions are only possible thanks to opportunistic coalitions that evoke the suspicion that they are, rather, the result of power politics. Moreover, even the mightiest nation does not have the power to enforce human rights. Intervention makes sense only when it sustains internal, oppositional powers that can be helped by an internal regime change. Military intervention to overthrow a dictatorship has to be motivated by the request of a majority, representing internal opposition to that dictatorship.226 The most important mechanism for the creation of eternal peace has nothing to do with exceptional situations that ask for military intervention, but rather with the regular international relations that are the result of the world market. Since, at the national level, the markets function in the normative framework that is politically defined, the nation states are inclined to demand that the import products are produced under comparable normative conditions (for example concerning health, labor times, minimum wages, prohibition of child labor, responsibility for the environment, etc.). This may result in a convergence of the normative frameworks of all states that participate in the world market. Moreover, the world market can contribute to a convergence of normative frameworks in a different manner. The world market has created multicultural societies. Therefore, the process of lawgiving is mediated by more and more ideological associations and, consequently, different cultural influences. In this sense, the practical process of world history, the confrontation between mono-cultural states as discussed in the Philosophy of Right, 226 The invasion of Iraq has shown that, even if the protection of human rights had been the main argument for intervention, an external imposition of a democratic order makes no sense. A government that is not able to guarantee the lives of its citizens is not in the position to defend the values of human rights.

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is internalized in the national state and has become a self-conscious process. But the integrating mechanisms of the world market will not be sufficient for the creation of eternal peace. Precisely, the relative independence of the world market leaves room for developments that escape the normative political frameworks. Multi-nationals can operate world wide and try to play the national states off against one another. The immoderate expansion of the production process can generate struggles for the scarce raw materials and energy sources. The burdening of the environment can undermine the very conditions of existence for all civilized communities. In their attempt to ward off these problems, the national states can, as well, identify themselves with some multi-nationals (which ultimately will lead to war), or politically cooperate. The political cooperation between the states transcends the mechanisms of the world market. In the next section, I will discuss the structures of political cooperation.

The political cooperation between nation states The intertwinement between domestic and international law has consequences for the foreign policy of the nation state. Even if an international power to enforce international law does not exist, the nation state cannot avoid observing some rules of international law without contradicting itself.227 The presupposition of the modern nation state that all human beings have human rights, has a positive and a negative implication for national policy in its relation to international law. The negative implication is that national policy may not destroy foreign legal communities, insofar as they can be considered a specific historical form in which the freedom of moral persons has been realized. The positive implication is that national policy must promote the development of free legal communities when there are human individuals who do not participate in a free legal community. The free legal community not only makes those who are outside, to a certain extent, insiders (because they are recognized as bearers of human rights), but also makes those who are inside, to a certain extent, outsiders. 227 “International law has recognized powers and constraints, and rights and duties, which transcend the claims of nation-states and which, while they may not be backed by institutions with coercive powers of enforcement, nonetheless have far-reaching consequences.” (Held, 1996, p.101).

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Just because the participants in the legal system are also conscientious individuals, they do not coincide with their role as legal persons. As conscientious individuals, they are also outsiders, critically relating themselves to the operating conception of the good life. It is because of this outside position that the free legal community is an open and dynamic society which must again and again integrate newly developed views: not only new technological inventions, but also new cultural costumes, originating from one of its cultural subgroups. Modern society has to integrate colliding opinions about, for example, sexuality, abortion, euthanasia, the relation between state and religion, the meaning of the public domain, the relation between men and women. Because of its openness to cultural diversity, the modern nation state has made the international dimension part of its internal functioning. The self-reflexivity of the modern state not only concerns the awareness of being a specific historical state among other states, but also (and especially), the insight of being involved in an ongoing process of change, provoking the ongoing necessity for critical discussions about how to handle these changes. For that reason, national law is not locked in itself, but is rather open for international dimensions.228 This openness is given shape in international law.229 On the one hand, nation states may enter into treaties, which give international courts the competence to review national legislation and jurisprudence (for example the European Court); on the other hand, they can, with the help of the UN, intervene in foreign legal communities. The problem is, however, that the legitimacy of international law remains dependent on national law.230 Nations can withdraw from international treaties, if they do not want to accept decisions of international courts concerning their legislation and jurisprudence.231 And the legitimacy of interventions 228 On the one hand, this international dimension is recognized by Francis Fukuyama (Francis Fukuyama, State Building. Governance and World Order in the Twenty-First Century, Profile Books, 2005, p.154). But he confronts this position with the idea that the will of the people is the highest authority (ibidem, p.155). 229 This opinion, however, is disqualified by Francis Fukuyama as a European illusion: “The problem with the European position is that while such a higher realm of liberal democratic values might theoretically exist, it is very imperfectly embodied in any given international institution.” (Fukuyama, 2005, p.156). 230 “The “international community” is a fiction insofar as any enforcement capability depends entirely on the action of individual nation-states.” (Fukuyama, 2005, p.157). 231 Fukuyama gives a couple of examples concerning the United States: “Much of this centered on European charges of American unilateralism on issues like the


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in a state which has terminated its UN membership seems to be very dubious. Once again, international law seems to have no legitimacy without the existence of a world state. Nevertheless, I think this conclusion is premature. We have not only seen that the world state is not a necessary precondition for international law, but also that it is not even its most adequate institutional form. Essentially the existence of international law is not dependent on the existence of a world state. As soon as reason is the legitimisation of the legal order, domestic law can potentially be developed into international law: the universality of reason can be translated into the universality of law, i. e., into law without boundaries. If national law is understood as the expression of universal values (human rights and democracy)232, it is a small step to recognize other legal systems, which understand themselves as the expression of these universal values, as well.233 International law is created from the moment that the shared universal norms are formulated in a treaty text (like the UN declaration for human rights), and subscribed to by a number of countries. In that case, international law is not dependent on the existence of a central world power, but rather on the explicit self-submission of nation states to the shared universal values. Under these circumstances international law is not an external power, imposed upon the nation states, but rather an objectification of what was treatment of al-Qaida prisoners in Guantnamo Bay, the American abrogation of the antiballistic missile treaty, Washington’s failure to join the International Criminal Court, and, earlier, the Bush administration’s announcement that it was withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. The most serious rift, however, emerged over Washington’s intention to attack Iraq in order to effect “regime change” and eliminate its WMD.” (Fukuyama, 2005, p.142). 232 Habermas’s discourse theory of law is an example of this position. “Erst nach dieser Weichenstellung kann ich das System der Rechte mit Hilfe des Diskursprinzips so begrnden, daß klar wird, warum sich private und çffentliche Autonomie, Menschenrechte und Volkssouvernitt wechselseitig voraussetzen .” (Habermas, 1992, p. 111/2). (“Only after this preliminary spadework can I ground the system of rights with the help of the discourse principle, so that it becomes clear why private and public autonomy, human rights and popular sovereignty, mutually presuppose one another.”, Habermas (1996), p. 84). 233 Of course, this view opposes John Rawls’s “Fact of Reasonable Pluralism” (John Rawls, The Law of Peoples, Harvard University Press 2000, p.124). However, if Rawls remarks that “They cannot argue that being in a relation of equality with other peoples is a western ideal.” (p.122), it appears to be possible to speak about ‘equality’ independent of the cultural context. In my Das Gesetz der multikulturellen Gesellschaft (Paul Cobben, 2002, Wrzburg), I develop freedom and equality as absolute values, which precede all cultural differences.

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already implied in domestic law all the time. The question can be raised whether this way of institutionalizing international law is the best alternative. Can it be argued that the world state is a better solution? International law, that is not enforced by the power of a world state, seems to be powerless. If it is not powerless, it seems to be dependent on a coincidental coalition of states. In that case, particular states would, under the guise of international law, only strive after their own interests. I think, however, that the powerlessness of international law does not necessarily need to be a disadvantage. The powerlessness of international law has a reverse side. Because international treaties seems to be without enforceable obligations, they are less affected by the constraints of domestic law, i. e., they offer more room to the universal, moral point of view.234 Norms for protection of the environment or minorities can correspond to higher, i. e., more universal standards than would be possible in the domain of domestic law. In international treaties, nation states can show their moral superiority without having to be afraid of its practical consequences. In the end, there is no power to enforce international treaties, even if there are international courts. But, and this is the point I want to make here, in a mediated way international treaties do have a practical meaning. They can be an important factor in domestic public discussions, and ultimately result in an adjustment of domestic law. In this mediated way, international law can be enforced by particular nation states. The high moral standard of international law can influence the development of domestic law. The other way around, the development of domestic law can influence the development of international law. Because nation states are becoming more and more globalized and multicultural, international relations are becoming, as it were, more and more internalized in domestic law. Domestic law has to deal with many cultural groups that have their own values and norms, and with economic processes which are essentially part of a globalized market. Therefore, the gap between domestic and international law becomes narrower, so that, as in the EU, domestic law can become part of a continental law system.

234 For Francis Fukuyama, the lack of enforceable obligations is only a disadvantage: “A great deal of both international and national law coming out of Europe consists of what amounts to social policy wish lists that are completely unenforceable. Europeans justify these kinds of laws by saying they are expressions of social objectives; Americans reply, correctly in my view, that such unenforceable aspirations undermine the rule of law itself.” (Fukuyama, 2005, p.157).


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Domestic and international law are not only interdependent, but can also strengthen one another. Domestic law can be influenced by the less restricted moral orientation of international law; international law can profit from the internalized international law structures of domestic law. Because of these dialectics between domestic and international law, the existence of a multitude of nation states in no way contradicts the existence of international law. Therefore, the world state can be redefined as the process in which international law is developed in its dialectic relation to a multitude of domestic law systems.235

235 Instead of this dialectics between domestic and international law, Thomas Pogge proposes an intermediary position: “What I am proposing instead is not the idea of a centralized world state, which is really a variant of the pre-eminent-state idea. Rather, the proposal is that governmental authority – or sovereignty – be widely dispersed in the vertical dimension. […] Thus, persons should be citizens of, and govern themselves through, a number of political units of various sizes, without any one political unit being dominant and thus occupying the traditional role of the state.” (Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, Cambridge, 2004, p.178) However, these political units must derive their legitimacy from a central body. I think that this central body can only be identified as the state.

Concluding remarks We have examined the nature of the self. In Chapter 1, we stated that the human self cannot be determined by science. Because the human self is the actor of science, he transcends all scientific objectification. The human self has a nature that has insight into his nature, i. e., the human self is self-reflective. Therefore, it is not sufficient to determine the human self as a natural self (a “body”) that has also the capacity for science (i. e., has also a “mind”), but our definition of the mind/ body-unity must coincide with the self-insight of the human self into his existence as unity of mind and body. The first step to develop the adequate conception of the unity of mind and body has been made by Aristotle. Only when the body is understood as a social organism can it be prevented that the mind is reduced to an epiphenomenon of the body; only in the relation between mind and social organism can both terms of the relation maintain their relative independency. The second step to develop the adequate conception of the unity between mind and body has been made by Hegel. Only when the relation between mind and social organism is understood as a relation of recognition is the general freedom of the mind (expressing itself in the law of the social organism), compatible with the particular freedom of the mind (expressing itself in the subjective freedom of the individual). In the relation of recognition, two forms of recognition are combined: on the one hand, the horizontal recognition that makes that the individuals recognize one another as the free and equal persons of a shared law; on the other hand, the vertical recognition that makes that the individuals recognize that their subjective existence has its ground in an absolute being. Recognition unites the dimensions of right and morality. The third step to develop the adequate conception between mind and body implies the elaboration of the relation of recognition. The horizontal and vertical recognition of right and morality have to be developed into an institutional entirety in which the free and equal legal persons are reconciled with the absolute value of the moral subjects. Therefore,

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this institutional entirety guarantees the adequate actualization of democracy and human rights. In the first part of the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel develops under what conditions the social organism has to correspond in order to generate citizens who can understand this social organism as the unity of right and morality. This development, however, cannot result in the determination of a concrete social law. A real social organism remains a contingent reality. In the second part of the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel presents a contingent social organism, i. e., the Ancient Greek world, as the social organism that fulfills the structural conditions of the relation of recognition. As the unity of the Divine Law and the Human Law, the Greek world embodies the (immediate) unity of morality and right. Since the absolute value of the moral subject contradicts the exchangeability of the legal person, the immediate unity of right and morality in the Greek world can only exist as long as the Human and Divine Law remain separated, i. e., are assigned to different worlds. The separation between these worlds, however, cannot be maintained, and the Roman Law appears as the truth of the Greek world. The Roman Law represents the world of the first self in which the relation of recognition is one-sidedly actualized. The first self is the legal person whose actualization as a moral subject remains accidental. Since the moral subject has an absolute value, this accidentality of is realization has to be overcome. Historically, the moral subject is done justice during the French Revolution, when the second self realizes himself in the form of the absolute freedom. The second self is the moral subject that makes his moral content the content of the social law. The second self, however, excludes the others. Therefore, the second self is as much one-sided as the first self. His attempt to realize himself as a moral subject is incompatible with the existence of a multitude of legal persons. The insight into the adequate actualization of recognition results from the philosophical reflection on the French Revolution by Rousseau, Kant and Hegel. The adequate actualization of recognition presupposes the existence of the third self, the conscientious individual. The third self knows that he cannot immediately realize his moral subjectivity in the legal order, because this moral subjectivity transcends all historical objectification. Nevertheless, he can understand the (legitimate) legal order as a finite (historical) attempt to actualize his moral subjectivity. The third self can understand the history of states as the ongoing process that is oriented to a better realization of the moral subject.

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Concluding remarks

Hegel’s Philosophy of Right elaborates how the three forms of the self can be brought together in the institutional framework of the legitimate social order. This framework enables the individual to repeat the historical learning process in which the three selves are developed. Therefore, the institutions that are developed in the Philosophy of Right, in principle, express the adequate realization of recognition, i. e., the adequate unity of Right and Morality. In the ethical institutions of family, civil society and state, the three forms of the human self are, in principle, actualized. Hegel’s actual elaboration of the systematic unity of the three selves, however, has to be criticized. His systematic development remains too much influenced by European history. The first and second self are not adequately developed as moments of the third self. As a consequence, the institutions of the Philosophy of Right fail to do sufficient justice to the conscientious individual. Hegel, however, offers the conceptual tools for an adequate elaboration of the unity of the three selves. This results in a revised version of the Philosophy of Right, in which, for example, mono-culturality, the primacy of economics and the lack of a democratic public domain are overcome. The adequate actualization of recognition coincides with the adequate realization of the unity between Right and Morality. This unity appears in an institutional order in which the three forms of the self get shape. My thesis is that only an ethical order that does justice to the adequate institutionalization of the three forms of the self can be considered as a legitimate order, i. e., as a legitimate actualization of human rights and democracy.

Literature G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A.V. Miller, Oxford University Press, 1977. G.W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right. Translated with notes by T.M. Knox, Oxford University Press, 1967. G.W.F. Hegel, Enzyklopdie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830), Hamburg, 1999. G.W.F. Hegel, sthetik, Stuttgardt, 1970. Rdiger Bubner, “Die “Kunstreligion” als politischers Projekt der Moderne”, in A. Arndt u. a. (Ed.) Hegel Jahrbuch 2003, Glauben und Wissen. Erster Teil. Paul Cobben, “Communicatief handelen als theoretisch grondbegrip”, ANTW, 81.4, 1989, pp. 241 – 263. Paul Cobben, Das Gesetz der multikulturellen Gesellschaft, Wrzburg, 2002. Jacques Derrida, “Prjugs, devant la loi”, in: Jacques Derrida a.o., La facult de juger, Minuit, Paris, 1985. Francis Fukuyama, Our Posthuman Future. Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, London, 2002. Francis Fukuyama, State Building. Governance and World Order in the TwentyFirst Century, Profile Books 2005. Nancy Fraser/ Axel Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition? A political-philosophical Exchange. Verso, London, New York, 2003. Jrgen Habermas, “Arbeit und Interaktion”, in: Jrgen Habermas, Technik und Wissenschaft als “Ideologie”, Frankfurt/M., 1971. Jrgen Habermas, Faktizitt und Geltung. Beitrge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des demokratischen Rechtsstaats, Frankfurt/M., 1992. Jrgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms. Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996. Jrgen Habermas, “Wahrheitstheorien”, in: Jrgen Habermas, Vorstudien und Ergnzungen zur Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Frankfurt/M., 1984. Jrgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, Polity Press 1992. Jrgen Habermas, Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur. Auf dem Weg zu einer liberalen Ethik?, Frankfurt/M., 2002. Halbig/Quante/Siep (ed.), Hegels Erbe, Frankfurt/M., 2004. Michael O. Hardimon, Hegel’s Social Philosophy. The Project of Reconciliation, Cambridge University Press, 1994. Johannes Heinrichs, Die Logik der ‘Phnomenologie des Geistes’, Bonn 1974. David Held, Democracy and the Global Order, Polity Press, 1996 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, London, 1959. J. Hollak, “Recht en Macht” (In: Wijsgerig Perspectief 11, 1970/71).

236

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Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition. The Moral Grammer of Social Conflicts, Polity Press, Cambridge 1995. Axel Honneth, Suffering from Indeterminacy. An Attempt at a Reactualization of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Van Gorcum 2000. Stephen Houlgate, An Introduction to Hegel. Freedom, Truth and History, Blackwell Publishing, 2006. David Hume, Enquiries concerning Human Understanding and concerning the Principles of Morals, Oxford University Press 1975. Walter Jaeschke, Vernunft in der Religion, Stuttgard, 1986. Sasa Josifovic, Hegels Theorie des Selbstbewusstseins in der Phnomenologie des Geistes, Wrzburg 2008. Philip Kain, Hegel and the Other, State University of New York Press, 2005. I. Kant, Critics of pure Reason, edited ad translated by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood, Cambridge University Press, 1998. Thomas Kesselring, Entwicklung und Widerspruch. Ein Vergleich zwischen Piagets genetischer Erkenntnistheorie und Hegels Dialektik, Frankfurt/M., 1981. Thomas Kesselring, Die Produktivitt der Antinomie. Hegels Dialektik im Lichte der genetischen Erkenntnistheorie und der formalen Logik, Frankfurt/M., 1984. Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship. A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford University Press, 1995. Dietmar Kçhler (Ed.), Klassiker Auslegen: G.W.F.Hegel, Phnomenologie des Geistes, Berlin, 2006. Andreas Kuhlmann, Politik des Lebens. Politik des Sterbens. Biomedizin in der liberalen Demokratie, Berlin, 2001. Niklas Luhmann, Sozial Systeme, Frankfurt/M. 1987. Karl Marx, Deutsche Ideologie, (Marx Engels Werke 3), Berlin, 1969. Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Berlin, 1969. Domenico Lusordo, Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns, Duke University Press 2004. Frederick Neuhouser, Foundations of Hegel’s Social Theory. Actualizing Freedom, Harvard University Press, 2000. Alan Patton, Hegel’s Idea of Freedom, Oxford University Press, 1999. Terry Pinkard, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. The Sociality of Reason, Cambridge University Press 1994. Robert B. Pippin “What is the Question for which Hegel’s theory of Recognition is the Answer?” Robert B. Pippin, Hegel’s Idealism. The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness, Cambridge University Press, 2001. Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, Cambridge 2004. John Rawls, Political Liberalism, Columbia University Press 1993. John Rawls, Laws of Peoples, Harvard University Press, 1999. Paul Ricoeur, The Course of Recognition, Harvard University Press, 2005. Erzsbet Rzsa, Versçhnung und System. Zu Grundmotiven von Hegels praktischer Philosophie, Munich, 2005.

Literature

237

Erzsbet Rzsa, Hegels Konzeption praktischer Individualitt. Von der “Phnomenologie des Geistes” zum enzyklopdischen System, Paderborn, 2007. Ludwig Siep, Der Weg der Phnomenologie des Geistes. Ein einfhrender Kommentar zu Hegels “Differenzschrift” und “Phnomenologie des Geistes”, Frankfurt/M. 2000. Ludwig Siep (Ed.), Klassiker Auslegen: G.W.F. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Berlin 2005. Steven B. Smith, Hegel’s Critique of Liberalism, University of Chicago Press, 1988. Peter J. Steinberger, Logic and Politics. Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Yale University Press, 1988. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self, Harvard University Press, 2005. P. Ulrich/ Ch. Sasarin, Facing Public Interest. The Ethical Challenge to Business Policy and Corporate Communications, Dordrecht, 1995. Robert R. Williams, Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition, University of California Press, 1997. Andreas Wildt, Autonomie und Anerkennung. Hegels Moralittskritik im Lichte seiner Fichte-Rezeption, Stuttgardt, 1982. R. Winfield, The just Family, New York, 1998.

Author index Antigone 73, 78 Aristophanes 75 Aristotelian 2f. Aristotle 2, 4, 36, 40f., 232 Bacchus 67, 70 Berkeley, Georg 16 Bubner, Rdiger 76

Kant, Immanuel 2, 6, 12, 19, 21, 53, 57, 100, 103, 119, 124, 133, 166f., 184, 223, 233 Kesselring, Thomas 155 Kohlberg, Lawrence 165f., 168–170, 172–175 Kçhler, Dietmar 236 Kojve, Alexandre 9 Kymlicka, Will 206

Ceres 67, 70 Cobben, Paul 167, 229 Copernican 21, 53 Creon 72

Locke, John 20 Luhmann, Niklas 236 Lusordo, Dominico 236

Derrida, Jacques 55 Descartes, Ren 12, 22f., 93, 119

Marx, Karl 11, 45, 181, 183–185, 191 Montesquieu, Charles 219

Fraser, Nancy 138 Fukuyama, Francis 228–230 Habermas, Jrgen 8–11, 45, 83f., 119f., 122, 126, 131, 165–175, 197, 229 Halbig, Christoph 235 Hardimon, Michael 154, 190 Heinrichs, Johannes 75 Held, David, 62, 112, 227 Hobbes, Thomas 28f., 34 Hollak, Jan 33 Homer 71 Honneth, Axel 7, 9, 116–118, 120, 126, 131–135, 138, 148, 164 Houlgate, Stephen 15, 36, 42, 46, 181, 188, 191 Hume, David 12, 18

Napoleon 101 Neuhouser, Frederick 217

143, 190, 207,

Patton, Alan 138, 140 Pinkard, Terry 14 Pippin, Robert 15, 19, 41, 43, 47 Plato 2 Pogge, Thomas 231 Polynices 72 Quante, Michael 235

Jaeschke, Walter 76 Josifovic, Sasa 24, 26, 41

Rawls, John 8f., 11, 119, 171, 206, 229 Ricardo, David 184 Ricoeur, Paul 2 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 6f., 100f., 124, 233 Rzsa, Erzsbet 135, 137

Kain, Philip

Sasarin, Ch. 192

14

239

Author index

Say, Jean-Baptiste 16, 26, 30, 65, 68, 127, 180, 184, 201, 206 Siep, Ludwig 9–11, 15 Smith, Adam 184 Smith, Adam 184f. Smith, Steven 116 Solon 60 Steinberger, Peter 152, 154, 223

Taylor, Charles 1 Theunissen, Michael Ulrich, P.

10f.

192

Wildt, Andreas 14, 30, 112 Williams, Robert 2, 9f., 44, 139 Winfield, Richard 201 Zeus

73f., 77

Subject index Abortion 228 Absoluteness 52, 54, 61f., 67f., 85, 87, 89f., 102, 111, 202–204, 219 Action 2f., 5, 30–36, 41, 43, 45–48, 51–53, 55–57, 61f., 65, 67, 69–74, 78f., 82, 84, 89, 94, 102f., 106–113, 121f., 125, 127, 129, 141, 150, 152f., 157f., 160–162, 166, 169f., 179f., 182, 185f., 203f., 213f., 216, 220, 222–226, 228 – Communicative Action 10, 166–169, 172–174 Actualization 6, 50, 82, 107, 122–125, 127, 131f., 135, 137, 139–142, 144, 146–148, 150, 152, 157f., 161, 165, 169, 172, 176–178, 180, 186, 188–190, 198f., 205, 211–214, 217f., 221–223, 225f., 233f. Administration of Justice 189-191, 193, 201, 217, 218 Adulthood 151 Affection 120, 171 Affirmation 173, 175 Animal 2, 29f., 32, 36, 39f., 43f., 57, 67, 127, 130, 150f., 164, 181 Animal Kingdom 57, 60, 78, 139 Antiquity 8, 128, 132, 139 Antithesis 51, 61, 65, 74, 79, 107 Appearance 21, 30, 41, 48f., 68, 73, 76, 78, 85, 95, 105, 132, 135, 149, 158, 163, 171f., 179, 190, 193, 195, 200, 211, 219 Argumentation 94, 167, 173, 185, 191 Artist 64–66, 68, 77, 160 Association 109, 207, 209 – Ideological Association 206–209, 220, 222, 224, 226

Asymmetry 10, 201 Authority 61, 158, 170f., 228, 231 Autonomy 3, 41, 46, 48f., 77, 82–84, 102, 106–108, 110, 113, 133, 167f., 177, 189, 195f., 215, 221, 229 Baby 155f. Basic Trust 159 Beautiful 75 Beauty 70f., 202f. Being 5, 10, 12f., 15, 17, 20, 22, 24–28, 31, 36, 38–40, 43, 46, 48–51, 53, 56, 58, 63, 65–67, 70, 73f., 76f., 80–93, 95–97, 102–110, 112f., 124f., 127, 129, 140, 147, 150, 155f., 160, 169f., 179, 181–185, 194, 198, 202, 207, 228f., 231f. – Divine Being 67f., 91, 128, 130 – Human Being 4, 36, 45, 60, 64, 90, 106, 119, 125f., 129f., 133, 148, 150, 181, 183, 218, 225, 227 Belief 50, 52, 81, 87, 89, 113, 177, 188 Birthday 161 Body 1–5, 11–28, 31, 36–44, 47f., 52, 58, 60, 62, 69–71, 79, 88, 92, 99, 103, 105f., 110f., 113, 119–121, 123–127, 130–132, 134, 143, 148f., 155–157, 197, 224, 231f. Breast 156, 169 Capital 180 Capitalism 11, 184, 196 Care 142, 155, 157, 159, 186–188, 205, 208, 219 Category 69

Subject index

Categorical Imperative 53, 103, 166f., 184 Character 6, 32, 73–75, 78f., 153, 174, 185, 191 Child 173-177, 179, 186, 198 Christ 50, 87f., 90, 98 Christianity 86f. Citizen 3–7, 11, 44, 60–62, 64f., 68–71, 77, 79, 86, 96f., 99, 101–103, 105f., 116, 122–124, 154, 158f., 162, 177, 211–214, 216–223, 225f., 231, 233 Cogito 26, 27, 124 Coherence 80, 124, 130, 135 Comedy 74f., 77f., 162 Commodity 44, 178–180, 184, 194–196, 198 Community 11, 14, 62, 67, 75f., 84, 88–91, 94, 134, 157, 170–172, 182, 186–188, 192, 223, 228 – Culture Community 181 – Legal Community 83f., 227f. Competition 181f., 184 Condition 4, 15, 22, 28, 32, 34f., 37, 41, 52f., 57–59, 69f., 82f., 85f., 89, 94, 102f., 108, 111, 116, 118f., 121, 123, 125f., 130f., 133f., 138, 144, 149, 165–167, 171f., 186f., 191, 196f., 201, 208, 225–227, 233 – Inter-subjective Condition 137, 138 – Precondition 35, 50, 74, 137, 138, 233 Confession 112 Conscience 3, 8, 49, 52, 64, 84, 99f., 105–112, 115, 125, 128, 141–144, 146f., 187, 193, 199f., 203f., 211f., 214–218, 220–223 – Religious Conscience 8, 143, 193 Consciousness 4f., 10, 14f., 17, 20f., 24, 31, 36, 39, 41–43, 46, 48–53, 61, 63–65, 67–75, 77, 81, 86–89, 91–94, 96, 102–108, 110–112, 120, 125, 129f., 155f., 159f., 165f., 168–175, 178f., 194f., 203, 222

241

– Unhappy Consciousness 10, 47–52, 58–60, 62, 65–68, 75, 77, 81, 86–90, 98, 104–107, 110, 122–125, 128, 130, 160, 203f. Consensus 11, 166f., 203f., 221 Constitution 30f., 46, 122, 138, 164, 204, 213f., 218–220, 225 Consumption 79, 85, 145, 177, 179f., 196, 217 Contingence 53, 78, 114, 146, 158f., 171, 182 Contingency 47, 75, 97, 102, 123f., 128, 135, 142, 154, 159f., 162–164 Contract 28f., 140, 145, 176f., 180, 185f., 192f. Contradiction 11, 13f., 26, 31, 33f., 36, 44, 54, 66, 102–105, 110f., 119, 121, 124, 145, 161, 184, 209, 215 Conviction 91, 106–109, 158f., 161, 200, 203f., 212 Corporation 8, 139, 176, 178, 188f., 191f., 205, 207–209, 213, 222–224 Corporeality 24, 62, 110, 113, 120, 157, 173 Criminal 215, 229 Crown 214f., 219 Crusade 67, 88 Crusader 51, 67, 88 Cult 68, 72 – Abstract Cult 67, 161 – Actual Cult 67, 161 Culture 1, 11, 14f., 29, 60, 90f., 96–98, 100f., 104, 138f., 154, 168, 174, 177f., 180–182, 184–186, 193f., 197, 209 – Realm of Culture 5, 80f., 86–91, 97f., 114, 178–181, 186, 188f. Custom 69 Daughter 163 Death 3, 28f., 31f., 34, 36f., 39–41, 44, 48, 51, 62, 73, 81, 96f., 101, 104, 157f. Decay 26, 71, 73, 76 Deception 110

242

Subject index

Decision 93, 151f., 189, 215, 221, 228 Decline 5, 48f., 51, 54, 63–65, 73, 78–82, 85, 87, 89, 111, 115, 123f., 147, 157, 177, 221 Delusion 110 Demand 6, 26, 31, 40, 57, 85, 102, 134, 136, 142, 144, 146f., 152, 158, 161, 166f., 180f., 183–185, 187, 190–193, 196–199, 204, 206, 208, 222, 225f. Democracy 8, 44, 148, 219f., 229, 233f. Dependency 174f., 204 Desire 25f., 51, 88, 92, 107f., 180, 196, 204 Destiny 82, 101, 159, 162f., 216 Devotion 50, 66–68, 90 Dialectics 14, 50f., 81, 87f., 91f., 98, 178, 203, 231 Dialogue 111 Dictator 33–36 Dictatorship 226 Disappearance of ethical life 154, 177 Discourse 2, 119, 166–169, 171, 229 – Practical Discourse 166, 171f. Discourse Ethics 166, 168, 172 Disillusionment 113 Dissemblance or Duplicity 103, 105 Duty 62, 68, 107–111, 141, 146f., 170, 193, 214, 217, 225 Education 56, 154f., 165, 178, 182f., 187, 189, 191, 197, 208f., 221 Egyptian 45 Embodiment 8, 44, 48, 60, 87f., 90, 98, 150, 159, 164f., 176, 199, 209–213, 217f. Employee 192, 209 Enlightenment 94f., 188 – Satisfied Enlightenment 95 – Unsatisfied Enlightenment 95 Epic 71f., 77, 162, 188 Essence 1, 3, 7, 14, 25, 38, 41–44, 46, 48, 51f., 54–58, 62–64,

66–71, 74, 79, 82, 84f., 87–96, 98, 101, 105–108, 110f., 113f., 121f., 124f., 127–130, 142, 144, 151, 157, 160–162, 170, 179f., 195, 200, 218 Europe 114, 116, 152, 208, 230 European 14f., 228, 230 European Court 232 Euthanasia 228 Exchange 140, 145f., 152, 167, 172, 177, 179–181, 193–196, 198f. Executive 213f., 219f., 223 Experiment 99, 172f. Faith 95, 97, 185 Fall 33, 46, 66, 81, 86f., 91, 110, 160, 163, 194f., 201, 203, 215 Family 5, 7f., 48, 60–62, 65, 68f., 71–73, 77, 79–81, 88–90, 97, 104, 123f., 132, 138f., 142, 146, 150–155, 157–165, 169–172, 176f., 180–182, 188, 190, 194–197, 199–201, 205–207, 211f., 219, 222f., 225, 234 Fate 74–77 Father 74, 89f., 155, 161 Fear 33, 61 – Fear of death 28, 37–42, 48, 52, 121, 158 Finitude 9, 38, 40, 48, 102, 114, 129, 182, 214 Force 18, 20f., 23f., 37f., 53, 65, 68, 105, 127, 130, 159, 179f., 184, 195f., 198 Freedom 2, 6–8, 40, 44, 46, 55, 58–65, 68, 71, 75, 77f., 81–83, 85f., 93, 96–98, 100–102, 104, 113, 115f., 121–129, 131, 136–147, 151f., 155–159, 161–164, 166, 169f., 172f., 177f., 182–186, 188–192, 197, 200f., 206f., 209, 212–214, 216, 218, 221, 225–227, 229, 232f. – Subjective Freedom 2, 86, 96, 98–102, 115, 140, 145f., 148, 157, 159–161, 164f., 172, 176–178, 189, 191–193, 211, 214, 217, 220, 223, 232

Subject index

Frenzy of Self-conceit 101, 189 Funeral 161

55, 72, 97,

Generality 79, 150f., 153, 166, 180f., 207, 212f., 220 Generation 152, 172 Genesis 80f., 83 Gene-theory 1 God 5, 43–46, 49–52, 60, 64, 66–68, 70, 72–77, 80, 87–91, 94–97, 113f., 126f., 129f., 159f., 188, 216 Good 15, 58, 75, 91, 93, 108f., 111–113, 126, 130, 134, 141–143, 146–148, 157, 183, 185f., 192f., 212, 214, 217f., 221, 223, 225 – Good and Conscience 141, 211, 222 Government 101, 207, 214f., 219f., 223–226 Gravitation 21 Greece 60 Guardian 158, 169f. Guild 188 Harmony 5f., 27, 48, 53, 63f., 70, 72f., 78, 82, 103f., 141, 146f., 158, 178, 201, 212f., 220, 224 Heaven 73f., 96 Hero 72, 74, 162 History 14, 36, 49, 87, 114–116, 126, 144, 204f., 216, 233 – European History 5, 7f., 14f., 48, 100, 102, 132, 134, 149, 234 – World History 115, 137, 143f., 193, 215–217, 220f., 223, 226 Household 155, 179, 201 Hunger 156 Husband 151–153 Hymn 66f., 73, 160 Hypocrisy 112 Identity 5f., 11, 20, 24, 26, 41, 46, 49–51, 54f., 64, 91f., 95, 119, 142, 146, 151, 153, 156f.,

243

159–162, 165, 169–172, 197, 201–205 Identity Crisis 163 Illusion 3, 26, 46, 62, 108–110, 215, 219, 221, 228 Immediacy 16f., 102, 105, 144, 150, 163f., 176, 182, 190, 192, 201, 211, 222f. Inclination 108 Income 183, 188, 199, 205 Individual 3, 5, 7, 10f., 28–31, 34–37, 40–46, 48–54, 56–58, 60–62, 68–73, 75–93, 95f., 98, 103, 106–116, 119–121, 125–127, 133f., 136–139, 141–144, 146–148, 150f., 153, 155, 162, 164, 168, 175, 177, 179f., 183, 186–193, 197–204, 207–209, 212, 214–216, 218f., 222, 225, 227f., 232–234 – Moral Individual 11, 44, 52–61, 69, 78f., 83–85, 89–96, 100, 115, 119, 141f., 148, 178–180, 192, 197, 209 Individuality 50, 52, 55f., 63–66, 69, 71–73, 75, 80, 92, 105, 107f., 113, 201 Infrastructure 187 Injustice 32, 211f. Insight 1f., 7, 14, 32, 38, 45, 47, 52, 56, 97, 100–102, 114, 121–123, 125f., 131f., 135, 141, 144, 147, 154, 159f., 164f., 167f., 171, 174, 182, 197, 202–204, 209, 221f., 228, 232f. – Pure Insight 93–95, 186 Institution 5, 7, 11, 34, 59, 79, 89, 91, 98, 116, 136–138, 142f., 147–150, 152, 163, 176, 180, 187f., 190f., 193, 198, 201, 208, 211, 213f., 216f., 221, 227f., 234 Intention and Welfare 141, 146, 176–178, 180, 186, 222 Interest 31, 33f., 72, 75, 111, 151, 166f., 169, 192, 230 Internalization 50, 80, 153 Intervention 226, 228

244 – Humanitarian Intervention Intimacy 203

Subject index

226

Jurisdiction 32, 214, 220, 222, 224f. Justice 5, 50, 52, 61f., 65, 102, 119, 127, 129, 166f., 171, 185–187, 189, 192, 197, 202, 208f., 213f., 220, 233f. Knowledge 2, 10, 14, 16, 31f., 34, 38, 40, 46, 49, 90, 113, 146, 155f., 192, 202, 208 – Absolute Knowledge 115, 129, 205 Labor 5, 11, 29, 41, 43, 45–47, 51f., 56, 68, 72, 121, 127, 137, 144f., 151f., 180, 182–184, 187, 190–192, 196–198, 208f., 217, 226 – Child Labor 226 – Division of Labor 45, 182–184, 197 – Labor Division 45, 191, 197 – Labor Organization 45 – Labor Process 45, 180, 182, 185, 191, 196–198 – Unskilled Labor 184f., 191, 198f. Language 20, 66, 92f., 149, 158, 160, 170, 182, 214 – Language of Disruption 93, 181 – Language of Flattery 92f., 180 Law 2–6, 9, 14, 21, 23, 28–37, 41, 43f., 55–62, 64, 69f., 72f., 77, 85f., 95–99, 101–105, 113, 116, 121–124, 127f., 138f., 143, 146, 153, 163, 166, 168, 185–189, 199, 205, 213f., 218–220, 223–225, 228–233 – Divine Law 52, 60–62, 68, 70, 72f., 80f., 89, 97f., 123, 153, 159, 189, 219, 233 – Human Law 3, 60–62, 64f., 68–73, 75, 77–80, 88, 97f., 102, 104, 113, 122–132, 153, 219, 233 – International Law 8, 215, 225, 227–231

– Law of the Heart 55f., 72, 97, 101, 141, 189 – Law Proposal 224 – Law System 58, 224, 230f. – Natural law 53, 57, 121 – Positive Law 187, 218 – Roman Law 5, 46, 79f., 96–98, 100, 102, 104, 113, 139f., 153, 177, 233 – Rule of Law 136, 148, 185f., 197, 230 Legislature 213f., 219 Legitimacy 29, 33, 35, 56, 78, 91, 127, 228f., 231 Lethe 73 Life 8, 14–16, 19, 22f., 25f., 28f., 31, 36f., 39, 41, 48, 51, 53, 61, 67, 69f., 73f., 80, 96, 116, 134, 146, 150f., 153, 157f., 161f., 164f., 170–172, 177, 188, 194, 204f., 207, 209 – Ethical Life 7–10, 76, 97, 133–135, 137f., 142, 152, 154, 164f., 177, 188, 193f., 196, 212–214, 217, 222 – Good Life 5, 133, 186, 188, 191f., 198, 205–207, 210, 212–215, 217–221, 223–226, 228 – Plan of Life 119 Lord 2–5, 39–49, 51f., 54, 60f., 79, 87f., 91f., 97, 101, 103, 105f., 108, 111–115, 121f., 124f., 127, 129, 144, 148, 151f., 157f., 161, 180, 186, 196, 212, 217 – Lord/bondsman relation 42–45, 60, 88, 181 Loss 49f., 62, 65, 68, 81, 110, 154, 159 Love 57, 132, 151, 153, 164, 188, 201–203, 213 Machine 182, 184, 190f., 197–199 Majesty 108, 215, 218 Majority 221, 226 Market 154, 178–185, 187–192, 194–199, 205f., 208f., 213f., 222, 224–227, 230

Subject index

245

Marriage 151–154, 165, 194, 200f., 222 Mask 74, 79, 162 Matter 2, 13, 47, 95, 104, 106, 129, 137, 139, 173, 175 – Matter in Hand 57, 60, 69 Memory 62, 65, 68, 81 Metaphor 2, 9, 49, 103, 114, 121, 148, 155 Metaphysics 118, 126, 131, 134 Middle Ages 5, 8, 128, 132, 139 Mind 1–5, 11–28, 31, 36–40, 42–44, 46–48, 50, 52, 58, 60, 69–71, 74, 79, 88, 92, 99, 103, 105f., 110f., 113, 115, 119–121, 123–127, 130–132, 134, 143, 148f., 155, 170, 182, 184, 197, 201, 206, 212, 215, 232 Modernity 8, 10, 128, 132, 139 Monarch 92f., 180, 193, 211–218, 220f. Monasteries 187 Morality 1, 3–7, 44, 47, 52, 55f., 60, 80, 83, 98, 100, 103f., 115f., 124, 133, 137–143, 146–148, 152, 176f., 192f., 203, 208, 211f., 217f., 232–234 Mother 155f., 161, 169 Multi-culturality 8, 11, 182, 207

Norm 33, 43, 57f., 127, 145, 154, 158–164, 166f., 170f., 177, 181f., 188, 192–194, 197, 199f., 205–207, 209, 220–223, 229f. Notion 33, 47–50, 64, 72f., 115, 129, 139, 141–143, 148, 155, 163, 202

Naturalness 186 Nature 1–3, 5f., 10, 14, 16–24, 28f., 31–33, 36–40, 42, 45–48, 51–53, 64, 70f., 75, 82, 85, 88, 92, 103–105, 107–109, 113, 118, 120, 127, 129, 164, 169–171, 179–182, 185f., 189, 195, 197, 215, 219, 232 Necessity 12, 16, 55, 69, 71–75, 94, 97, 134, 141, 161, 187f., 198, 228 Need 10, 18, 25f., 34, 37, 39, 42, 52, 61–63, 68, 72, 89, 92–94, 103, 116, 118, 132, 144f., 154, 156f., 170, 179–182, 185f., 189–198, 205, 209, 224, 230 Neediness 25, 156f., 169f.

Parents 15, 151f., 157–161, 163f., 188 Parliament 208, 220f., 223f. Particularity 67, 80, 84, 86, 97, 109, 151, 153, 160, 180f., 185, 192, 209, 212f., 220, 223 Partner 29, 119, 151–153, 165, 167, 194, 200–205, 222f. – Discussion Partner 167 Party 208, 223 – Political Party 207 Pathos 65f., 68, 153, 190 Patriotism 212, 218, 223 Peace 29, 74 – Eternal Peace 226f. Perception 13, 16, 20, 92, 130, 156, 179, 194

Objectivity 10, 20, 31, 36f., 66, 88, 90, 109, 135, 145, 161f., 178–180, 194–196, 201, 203, 205 Offspring 150f., 219 Organism 1, 4–6, 12, 15, 18–20, 22–28, 31, 37–42, 52f., 58f., 78–80, 95, 97, 116, 120–123, 146f., 151, 153, 156f., 159–162, 164, 170, 187, 192, 200, 212f., 218, 220, 223 – Natural Organism 121, 129, 157f., 170, 192 – Social Organism 2–7, 14, 36f., 42–44, 46–49, 51–61, 77–79, 81, 87–98, 101–108, 113–116, 121–129, 131, 137, 141–148, 151f., 155, 157f., 160f., 163–165, 187–189, 209, 218–220, 222f., 232f. Origin 30f., 33, 54, 60, 62, 105, 163, 204

246

Subject index

Pharaoh 45, 60, 130 Phase 9, 33, 169–171 – Conventional Phase 170 – Post-conventional Phase 169, 171 – Pre-conventional Phase 169f. Philosophy 7–11, 28, 52, 100f., 103, 116, 133–138, 141–147, 149–155, 159, 163–165, 167f., 173–176, 178, 181, 185, 187, 190, 193f., 197f., 200, 205, 207–209, 211, 213f., 216–219, 221–224, 226, 234 Pleasure 54f., 69, 71f., 94, 141, 182, 187, 198 Police 187–189, 191, 198f., 213, 222, 225 Polis 4f., 31, 60–66, 68–82, 88–91, 97f., 100, 102, 122f., 128, 135, 153f., 158–160 Possession 55, 56, 71, 149 Power 5, 29f., 32–34, 36f., 39–41, 44–46, 48f., 55f., 69, 72–77, 81–84, 88, 92, 101, 113, 119, 124–127, 129, 157, 170, 182f., 185, 191, 199, 202f., 213–215, 219–221, 223–227, 229f. Prayer 88 Pregnancy 150 Presidency 219 President 214, 218–220, 224 Presupposition 7, 26, 29, 63, 68, 76, 81, 84, 94f., 102, 113, 118, 123, 126, 132f., 152, 167, 174, 183f., 186, 192, 220, 227 Principle of Universalization 166 Professional 187f., 191f., 208f., 213 Profit 29, 67, 93, 168, 231 Property 5, 10, 20, 27, 29, 38, 58, 79–82, 85, 98, 102, 124, 139f., 144f., 152–154, 163, 177, 183, 185 – Property Order 81–86, 140 Psychology 135, 173 – Development Psychology 155, 173 – Social Psychology 7, 118, 132f., 135

Punishment 32, 67 Purpose and Responsibility 146, 222

141,

Realm 26, 90f., 98, 100, 102, 216, 228 – Realm of Culture, see Culture – Realm of Education 124, 135 – Realm of Morality 100–102, 114 – Realm of Utility 95 Reason 12, 14f., 20f., 39, 47, 53f., 57f., 61, 68–70, 72, 75, 79, 100, 103, 112, 122f., 127–130, 136, 139, 157, 183f., 190, 194, 201, 212, 224, 228f. – Active Reason 54, 58f., 69, 71, 74, 78, 88, 90, 94, 97f., 101, 141, 178, 184, 186f., 189, 198, 222 – Cunning of Reason 216f. – Kantian Reason 167 – Lawgiving Reason 78, 96 – Observing Reason 53f., 69f., 78, 91–93, 139f., 144f., 162, 178–180, 184, 186, 194–196, 222 – Practical Reason 103 – Reason as testing Laws 58, 116, 136, 139, 142f. – Theoretical Reason 58 Recognition 1–3, 7, 9–11, 28, 41–44, 56, 69, 80, 112f., 116, 118, 121, 127, 131–134, 138, 140, 145, 148, 157, 164, 193, 204–206, 212, 225, 232–234 – Horizontal Recognition 3–5, 44, 139, 148, 232 – Mutual Recognition 9, 109, 118, 139, 148, 177, 204, 215, 221, 225 – Struggle for Recognition 11, 13, 14, 32, 122, 136, 137, 210, 240 – Vertical Recognition 3f., 43f., 148, 217, 232 Reconciliation 10, 47, 50, 56, 73, 109, 112f., 134 Reconstruction 28, 61, 78f., 117, 126, 129, 155, 159, 165, 168 – Hypothetical Reconstruction 78, 168, 173

Subject index

Reification 185 Relation 2f., 7f., 10–19, 21–31, 36–43, 51–55, 57f., 60f., 68–73, 76–80, 83f., 86, 88f., 91–95, 97, 100–103, 105, 108–111, 113–116, 119–130, 132–134, 136f., 139–141, 143–146, 148, 150–153, 155–158, 160f., 163f., 167, 169f., 173–178, 180–182, 185–187, 193–196, 198, 207, 211f., 215–217, 219, 221, 225–233 – Dialogical Relation 123, 125 – Market Relation 183, 188 Religion 44, 48, 63, 65, 75f., 80, 87, 89, 94, 113–115, 126, 129–131, 135, 137, 143, 154, 159f., 165, 216f., 228 – Religion of Art 90, 98, 130, 135, 216 – Religion of Nature 129f. – Religion of the Artificer 45, 130 – Revealed Religion 89f., 94, 98, 113f., 130, 135, 216 Remembrance 50, 71, 97 Repetition 7, 51, 56, 88, 94, 98, 108, 178, 192, 194, 196 Representation 3, 42f., 49–52, 63, 65f., 70–78, 82–85, 87, 89f., 97, 101, 113–115, 127–130, 145, 157, 159f., 162, 177, 202, 212, 220 Research 106, 111, 132, 155, 173–175 Revolution 20, 101 – French Revolution 5–7, 49, 86, 96, 98–102, 104, 124, 129, 177, 189, 206, 233 Reward 67, 70, 93 Right 1, 3–11, 29, 36, 41, 43f., 47, 52, 55f., 60, 62, 79f., 83f., 94, 98, 100, 115f., 124, 133–155, 159, 163–165, 172, 176–178, 181, 185, 187f., 190, 193f., 197f., 200f., 203, 205, 207–209, 211–219, 221–224, 226f., 229, 232–234

247

– Abstract Right 10, 137, 139f., 142, 145–147, 152, 176, 211f., 218 – Human Rights 8, 44, 148, 218f., 225–227, 229, 231, 233f. Role 4, 30, 37, 40, 42, 44, 55f., 62, 64, 79, 91, 108f., 111, 127, 135, 140, 152, 158, 161f., 170, 172f., 200, 212, 218, 221, 228, 231 – Gender Role 151, 154, 163, 200f., 212 Roman emperor 5, 80 Roman Empire 5, 48f., 78–82, 86f., 89, 91, 100, 102, 124, 177 Satisfaction 15, 26f., 51, 69, 103, 156, 166, 170, 180, 196, 205 Scepticism 107, 114, 175 School 208f. Science 21, 116, 133, 135, 137, 174f., 232 – Empirical Science 120, 139 – Modern Science 20f. – Reconstructive Science 173f. Scientification 183f. Sculptor 65f. Self-consciousness 5, 10, 15, 19, 22, 24–32, 34–41, 43f., 46–49, 51f., 54, 56, 63, 65f., 69–72, 74f., 77, 81f., 84, 86, 88, 91f., 94, 97, 103f., 106f., 118, 120, 125, 129f., 155, 178f., 194f., 203, 222 Self-expression 53, 108, 124f., 128–130, 135, 142, 147, 158, 204 Self – First Self 5, 41, 60, 79, 86, 96, 98, 100, 116, 125, 137, 139, 144f., 150, 153, 164f., 212, 233 – Human Self 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 11, 15, 16f., 152, 153, 236, 238 – Pure Self 23–27, 38–55, 57f., 60–72, 74, 76–82, 87f., 90–92, 94–97, 101–105, 108, 113f., 116, 120–125, 127, 130–132, 137, 143–145, 153, 158–160, 177, 186, 195, 217

248

Subject index

– Real Self 40, 47, 52, 58, 63, 67f., 72, 77f., 87f., 121, 126 – Second Self 5–7, 80f., 86, 96, 98–100, 115f., 125, 137, 140–144, 146, 165, 176, 187, 193, 199, 209, 212f., 233f. – Self-awareness 156 – Third Self 7f., 99f., 105, 115f., 125, 137, 142, 186, 210–214, 217f., 220f., 233f. Sense-Certainty 19, 91, 106, 120, 129, 155, 178, 194 Similarity 153 Singularity 63, 212–214, 220, 224 Soap 162 Socialization 155, 158, 180, 185, 197 Social Security 188 Society 2f., 8, 11, 30, 34, 57, 60, 64, 72, 78, 82, 86, 101, 123, 126, 128f., 132, 138, 144, 170f., 184, 188, 198f., 205–208, 220, 223f., 228 – Civil Society 7f., 11, 132, 138, 142, 152, 154, 164f., 172, 176–178, 180f., 183–185, 187, 190f., 193, 198–200, 205f., 208f., 211, 213, 218, 220, 222, 224f., 234 – Multicultural Society 162 Son 87, 89–91, 94, 163, 187, 219 Soul 16f., 67f., 204 – Beautiful Soul 106, 110, 215, 221 Soulmateship 204 Species 29, 36, 40f., 53, 116, 150f. – Human Species 36, 40 Speech 71, 109f., 204 Spirit 1f., 6–10, 14f., 17, 19, 21, 44, 48–50, 52f., 60, 64, 66, 80, 89, 91–94, 96, 105f., 108f., 113–122, 126, 129, 131–137, 139–143, 149f., 152–155, 164f., 176, 178, 190, 193, 198, 203, 211, 214–218, 220–222, 233 – Absolute Spirit 7, 11, 106, 113–116, 119f., 123, 125f., 128, 130f., 134f., 137, 142f., 147f.,

165, 193, 211, 214–219, 221f., 225 – Holy Spirit 50, 87, 89, 94, 98 – Objective Spirit 8f., 11, 137, 152, 165, 193, 218 – Spirit-Chapter 122f., 125–131, 134f. – Subjective Spirit 16f. Spiritual 23, 26, 43f., 57, 60, 67, 70f., 74–78, 92, 98, 125, 137, 139, 162, 181, 185, 191, 204 State 2–4, 7–9, 29, 36f., 41, 43, 60–63, 68–70, 72, 74, 77–79, 109, 132, 137–139, 142, 145, 147f., 152, 188–190, 192, 205–231, 233f. – Democratic State 225 – Nation State 8, 211, 226–231 – State Power 73, 92f., 179, 186, 207, 223f. Statue 64–66, 68, 70, 76f., 159f. Status 2, 13, 21, 28f., 31f., 34–36, 45, 63, 66, 84, 131, 135, 155, 159, 162, 165, 167f., 174f., 178, 200, 203f., 219 – Legal Status 28–37, 46 Stoicism 46–48, 56, 60f., 64, 79f., 93, 97, 102, 104, 107, 109, 186, 204 Strangeness 31, 110, 170f. Struggle 7, 9f., 28–31, 36f., 47, 50f., 55, 66, 76, 96, 109, 118, 132f., 138, 158, 188, 206, 215, 227 – Moral Struggle 118, 134 Subject 1, 10, 17, 19, 21, 29f., 32–34, 41, 46, 54–56, 69, 77, 83–86, 89, 94, 96, 98, 112, 116, 118–120, 126, 129–131, 135, 137f., 141, 146, 166–171, 177f., 180f., 186–188, 190f., 193, 195, 198–200, 207, 209, 215, 222, 232f. Subjectivity 9, 13, 16, 20, 24, 26, 43, 79, 87, 138, 142, 157, 160, 162–165, 176, 190–192, 197, 199f., 202, 211, 215, 233

Subject index

Substance 2, 10, 14, 43, 49, 63–66, 69f., 73–75, 89, 94, 107, 109, 119f., 123f., 126, 130f., 135, 137, 153 Superstition 94f., 188 Supply 181, 183–185, 187, 191, 196–199, 222 Survival 24, 29f., 34–36, 79, 124, 199, 216 Suspicion 159, 226 System 8, 11, 23, 45f., 127, 170, 180, 182–184, 186–193, 198, 205–207, 209, 213, 222–224, 228f. – Labor System 15, 49, 50, 184, 186-188, 213 – System of Needs 11, 182–188, 205f., 217, 222 Teleology 116, 126 Temple 64–66, 68, 76f., 159 Terror 6, 96–99, 101, 104, 124, 189 Theory 1f., 10–12, 14f., 43, 132–134, 143, 149, 154, 166–169, 172–175, 190f., 207, 229 – Theory of justice 171 Thesis 2, 8, 14, 19, 43, 118, 126, 134, 136, 139, 191, 234 Thing 14, 18–20, 39, 42, 44, 54, 57f., 64, 66, 72, 92f., 95, 130, 139f., 144–146, 184f., 190, 198, 201, 203 – Pure Thing 97 Thirst 156 Threat 25, 63, 71, 77, 225 Token 145 Trade Union 188 Tradition 4–7, 10, 28, 36, 42, 57, 76, 91, 101, 118, 124f., 127f., 133–135, 153–155, 158f., 164f., 168, 170–172, 200 Tragedy 73f., 77, 79, 162, 189 Transcendence 48, 115, 181, 214f. Treaty 229 Truth 10, 26, 43, 49, 52, 57, 96, 105, 167, 205, 233

249

Understanding 8, 14, 18, 21f., 38, 92, 124, 130, 144, 162, 169, 173f., 179, 182, 192, 195, 206 Unity 1–7, 9, 11–27, 30f., 37–44, 46–49, 51f., 58, 60f., 63, 65–74, 79–81, 92, 94f., 98–100, 102f., 105f., 111, 113, 119–121, 123–128, 130–132, 134, 138, 140, 142f., 147–149, 152, 155, 176f., 179, 192, 194f., 201, 203–207, 211–213, 217f., 220, 224, 232–234 – Substantial Unity 124–126, 130f., 134 Universalizability 166 University 1, 7, 9, 11, 18, 229 Value 12, 28, 41, 43f., 57f., 111, 127, 134, 145f., 152, 154, 158–164, 177, 179, 181f., 185, 187f., 191–195, 197–200, 205–207, 209f., 220–223, 226, 228–230, 232f. – Exchange-value 183, 185, 198, 199 – Labor Value 180, 184f., 191 – Use-value 154, 178f., 181, 194–196 Violence 33–35, 82 Virtue 55, 69, 73f., 101, 141 Volont de tous 6 Volont gnrale 6, 101–105, 124 Wage 180, 185, 226 Wealth 92f., 179, 183 Welfare 141f., 146, 178, 180, 185, 188, 193f., 198f., 205, 208, 213, 222 – General Welfare 147 – Particular Welfare 147, 180 Will 3–6, 10f., 13–15, 17, 19f., 22f., 25f., 28, 30–33, 35–37, 39, 43f., 46–48, 51f., 55, 59, 61, 63–65, 67, 70f., 76, 79f., 84, 86, 89, 93, 98–100, 102–107, 110f., 114–118, 120, 124, 129, 132f., 135–139, 142f., 145f., 148, 150, 152, 154, 157, 159f., 162, 165,

250

Subject index

168–170, 172f., 176, 178, 180, 184, 186–188, 190, 193, 196–198, 201, 203, 206, 208, 210–213, 215f., 219f., 226–228 – General Will 6f., 102, 212 Work 7, 9, 37, 42f., 45f., 52, 62–69, 71, 76, 78, 101, 117f., 127, 132, 134–137, 165, 182–184, 188, 190, 197, 205, 209 – Work of Art 63–71, 75–78, 90f., 98, 113f., 154, 159f., 162 World 5–7, 12f., 15, 17–20, 22–27, 29, 35, 46, 49–52, 55, 57, 60, 62, 64–67, 69, 71–75, 77–80, 83,

87–91, 93–98, 100, 103–105, 110, 113f., 116, 124, 130, 136, 138f., 145, 147f., 150, 153, 155–157, 161f., 165, 169–171, 173, 176–179, 182, 192, 194f., 197f., 200f., 206f., 211, 214, 216, 218, 220, 224–231, 233 – Ancient Greek World 4, 48, 59, 162, 233 – Egyptian World 45, 60 – Underworld 62f., 72f., 77, 98 – Way of the World 55f., 74, 101, 141 Worship 110 Wrong 35, 63, 113, 140, 145

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