Hegel's Philosophy of MindHegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy
Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy
At this point, perhaps, having rounded off by a liberal sweep the scope of
psychology, the ordinary mental philosophy would stop. Hegel, instead of
finishing, now goes on to the field of what he calls Objective Mind. For
as yet it has been only the story of a preparation, an inward adorning and
equipment, and we have yet to see what is to come of it in actuality. Or
rather, we have yet to consider the social forms on which this preparation
rests. The mind, self-possessed and sure of itself or free, is so only
through the objective shape which its main development runs parallel with.
An intelligent Will, or a practical reason, was the last word of the
psychological development. But a reason which is practical, or a volition
which is intelligent, is realised by action which takes regular shapes,
and by practice which transforms the world. The theory of Objective Mind
delineates the new form which nature assumes under the sway of
intelligence and will. That intellectual world realises itself by
transforming the physical into a social and political world, the given
natural conditions of existence into a freely-instituted system of life,
the primitive struggle of kinds for subsistence into the ordinances of the
social state. Given man as a being possessed of will and intelligence,
this inward faculty, whatever be its degree, will try to impress itself on
nature and to reproduce itself in a legal, a moral, and social world. The
kingdom of deed replaces, or rises on the foundation of, the kingdom of
word: and instead of the equilibrium of a well-adjusted soul comes the
harmonious life of a social organism. We are, in short, in the sphere of
Ethics and Politics, of Jurisprudence and Morals, of Law and Conscience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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