Is the Principle of Freedom Property in Hegel ? (original) (raw)
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PERSONHOOD AND PROPERTY IN HEGEL'S CONCEPTION OF FREEDOM
Pólemos Issue XI, No. 1, 2018
For Hegel, personhood is developed primarily through the possession, ownership, and exchange of property. Property is crucial for individuals to experience freedom as persons and for the existence of Sittlichkeit, or ethical life within a community. The free exchange of property serves to develop individual personalities by mediating our intersubjectivity between one another, whereby we share another’s subjective experience of the object by recognizing their will in it and respecting their ownership of it. This free exchange is grounded in the abstract right to property which is defined by the liberal institution of private property. Like all legal/juridical rights, the abstract property right and its related institution are productions of the state, which can also claim priority over them. This prioritization reveals the dialectic inherent in the both the conception and exercise of the right, in which the private right to property at the level of civil society confronts the public right of the state, resulting in both the preservation and uplifting of the right, and, at the same time, its cancellation or annihilation.
The Substantial Subject: The Logic and Appearance of Freedom in Hegel
2024
While it is widely agreed that Hegel’s philosophy is a philosophy of freedom, the significance and scope of Hegel’s theory of freedom is disputed. Most scholarly work on this topic has been devoted to the socio-political philosophy of the Philosophy of Right. But Hegel also speaks of freedom in a way which extends beyond the concerns of his socio-political thought. This dissertation demonstrates how Hegel’s theory of freedom is more fully grasped when it is understood as a comprehensive philosophy which also involves an ontology (a logic of being) and a phenomenology (a direct experience of this logic). The free state which Hegel outlines in the Philosophy of Right is still only a limited manifestation of a freedom which also pervades other aspects of human experience. A way of thinking which is “free” (in the sense that it does not restrict itself by assuming false methodological limitations) is itself essential to our capacity for rational self-determination. Moreover, this “speculative” perspective has only been achieved through the gradual cultivation (Bildung) of the free personality throughout history. This dissertation therefore investigates why Hegel thinks that freedom is at issue in abstract philosophical thought (in his logical works) as well as in concrete historical phenomena (in the Phenomenology of Spirit). This logic and appearance of freedom explicates Hegel’s statement in the Preface of the Phenomenology that the absolute is not only substance, but also subject. Having shown that both the ancient freedom of the “social substance” and the modern freedom of the “pure I” are untenable on their own terms, Hegel advances a logical and phenomenological theory of freedom in which these one-sided truths are reconciled with each other. The “substantial subject” of Hegelian freedom more fully actualizes the purely subjective freedom of the Enlightenment, enabling true individual self-determination. Freedom appears not just as the right to make arbitrary choices, but as substantial thought and conviction.
The place of property in Hegel's Concept of the State
1962
The problem of this thesis will be: first ,to establish the meaning which Hegel gives to the word 'property'; second, to trace the movement of property from abstract right through morality to the ethical life, and to decide what role property plays in each phase of this movement. We will also be inter-es~ed in the connection between property and capital which is £ound in the section on the ethical life. This study will limit itself to the social implications of property {the different role which property plays in such social institutions as the family, civil society, and the state) and the philosophical justi£ication for private property. It will not, except where related to these two aspects, deal ' with the legal_or economic questions concerning property, nor will this study treat in any detail Hegel's metaphysics, his epistemology, or his philosophy of religion.
Hegel’s Philosophy of Right after 200 Years, eds. D. Moyar, S. Rand, K. Walsh-Padgett, London: Routledge 2022., 2022
The conception of property at the basis of Hegel's conception of abstract right seems committed to a problematic form of "possessive individualism." It seems to conceive of right as the expression of human mastery over nature and as based upon an irreducible opposition of person and nature, rightful will and rightless thing. However, this chapter argues that Hegel starts with a form of possessive individualism only to show that it undermines itself. This is evident in the way Hegel unfolds the nature of property as it applies to external things as well as in the way he explains our self-ownership of our own bodies and lives. Hegel develops the idea of property to a point where it reaches a critical limit and encounters the "true right" that life possesses against the "formal" and "abstract right" of property. Ultimately, Hegel's account suggests that nature should precisely not be treated as a rightless object at our arbitrary disposal but acknowledged as the inorganic body of right.
Unravelling Hegel's Ethical Life in 'Philosophy of Right'
Unravelling Hegel's Ethical Life in 'Philosophy of Right', 2017
This paper attempts to deconstruct the idea of freedom and ethical life, and will look parts of the introduction and the first sixteen paragraphs (§ 142-157) of Part III of the Philosophy of Right. Guided by the following research question: to what extent does Hegel’s conception of ethical life (sittlichkeit) in his Philosophy of Right allow for subjective freedom?, this paper aims to analyse the extent to which ethical life leaves room for subjective freedom. In order to understand ethical life, we must first understand the concept of freedom in terms of positive and negative freedom, and objective and subjective will. This will be discussed in depth using the first and second part of Philosophy of Right, as well as how Part III is the dialectical synthesis of the former two parts and concretises the actuality of freedom in ethical life. Next, the paper will look into the influences of this concretisation of freedom, and how this contributes to an ethical life. Lastly, I will critically evaluate ethical life with the objective formulations of freedom as described by Hegel in order to see whether his normative project is idealistic.
Hegel's Non-Metaphysical Idea of Freedom (La idea no-metafísica de la libertad de Hegel)
2016
The article explores the putatively non-metaphysical ‐ non-voluntarist, and even non-causal ‐ concept of freedom outlined in Hegel’s work and discusses its influential interpretation by Robert Pippin as an ‘essentially practical’ concept. I argue that Hegel’s affirmation of freedom must be distinguished from that of Kant and Fichte, since it does not rely on a prior understanding of self-consciousness as an originally teleological relation and it has not the nature of a claim ‘from a prac tical point of view’.
MA dissertation: On the Impossibility of Freedom in Hegel's Philosophy
According to Hegel, the development of consciousness is determined by God the absolute and the process of development must be rational and necessary, which provides little room for individual's freedom. However, like other philosophers, due to the consideration on the problem of retribution of ethical responsibility to individuals, Hegel tries to argue that individual's freedom is still compatible with his deterministic philosophy of history. However, based upon Kosch's interpretation of Kierkegaard's two senses of freedom, this paper argue that under Hegel's philosophy of history freedom is impossible. For under Hegel's philosophy he must deny the individual's freedom as capacity to form intentions that are independent from determination by prior events (including mental states), and therefore individuals cannot posit choices on their own. However, without the ability to posit choices, individuals cannot have real freedom. Therefore individual's freedom is incompatible with Hegel's philosophy of history. If we think individual's freedom really exist, than we must reject Hegel's philosophy. This paper only argues that the Hegel's philosophy must imply there is no individual freedom, instead of proving the existence of individual's freedom or denying the system of Hegel's philosophy.
A Reading Essay on Hegel’s View of Right
Kaygı. Uludağ Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Felsefe Dergisi, 2014
In this study, Hegel's view of right shall be comprehensively taken in hand which Hegel had mentioned in his Philosophy of Right and the concept of the constitutional state idea shall be emphasized in reference to the present problems pursuant to Hegel's judgments. In this regard, to what extent the forming of a state which is subject to the constitution can provide opportunities for us to cope with the existing problems shall be tried to put forward. Primarily, the concept of universal put forth by Hegel shall be addressed and the importance of thinking upon the possibility of a universal right shall be emphasized. Later on, Hegel's approach towards right shall be explained, thus creating the framework of the concept of right. Lastly, an evaluation shall be carried out depending on Hegel's ideas and what meanings of Hegel's statements which may hold in today's world shall be tried to set forth.
The Problem of Nature in Hegel's Philosophy of Right
Hegel Bulletin, 2021
The notion of being-at-home-in-otherness is the distinctive way of thinking of freedom that Hegel develops in his social and political thought. When I am at one with myself in social and political structures (institutions, rights and the state) they are not external powers to which I am subjected but are rather constitutive of my self-relation, that is my self-conception is mediated and expanded through those objective structures. How successfully Hegel may achieve being-at-home-in-otherness with regard to these objective structure of right in the Philosophy of Right is arguable. What is at issue in this paper is however to argue that there is a blind spot in the text with regard to nature. In Ethical Life the rational subject's passions and inclinations are brought into the subject such that she is 'with herself' in them; with regard to external nature no such reconciliation is achieved or even attempted. In Abstract Right external nature is effectively dominated and subsumed into the will and it is never something that one is with oneself in. It remains outside the model of freedom that Hegel develops in the Philosophy of Right. There is something troubling about this formulation, since it excludes nature from freedom, but also something that is accurate, as it reflects the unresolved attitude of moderns to the natural world.
Irrationality and Egoism in Hegel's Account of Right
British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2018
Many interpreters argue that irrational acts of exchange can count as rational and civic-minded for Hegel – even though, admittedly, the persons who are exchanging their property are usually unaware of this fact. While I do not want to deny that property exchange can count as rational in terms of 'mutual recognition' as interpreters claim, this proposition raises an important question: What about the irrationality and arbitrariness that individuals as property owners and persons consciously enjoy? Are they mere vestiges of nature in Hegel's system, or do they constitute a simple yet valid form of freedom that is not only a part of Hegel's rational system of right, but its necessary starting point? I will argue the latter: The arbitrary, purely egoist self-definition of property owners is the simplest possible type of freedom for Hegel, which he dissects in order to show how the very arbitrary self-definition implicitly relies on an identity between persons, and hence foreshadows the more social forms of freedom Hegel will discuss later in his book. I make this argument by highlighting Hegel's references to his discussion of atoms and freedom in his Logic of Being.