Hegel's Philosophy of MindHegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy
Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy
An appeal is sometimes made to the sense (feeling) of right and morality,
as well as of religion, which man is alleged to possess,—to his benevolent
dispositions,—and even to his heart generally,—i.e. to the subject so far
as the various practical feelings are in it all combined. So far as this
appeal implies (1) that these ideas are immanent in his own self, and (2)
that when feeling is opposed to the logical understanding, it, and not the
partial abstractions of the latter, _may_ be the _totality_—the appeal has
a legitimate meaning. But on the other hand feeling too _may_ be onesided,
unessential and bad. The rational, which exists in the shape of
rationality when it is apprehended by thought, is the same content as the
_good_ practical feeling has, but presented in its universality and
necessity, in its objectivity and truth.
Thus it is on the one hand _silly_ to suppose that in the passage from
feeling to law and duty there is any loss of import and excellence; it is
this passage which lets feeling first reach its truth. It is equally silly
to consider intellect as superfluous or even harmful to feeling, heart,
and will; the truth and, what is the same thing, the actual rationality of
the heart and will can only be at home in the universality of intellect,
and not in the singleness of feeling as feeling. If feelings are of the
right sort, it is because of their quality or content,—which is right only
so far as it is intrinsically universal or has its source in the thinking
mind. The difficulty for the logical intellect consists in throwing off
the separation it has arbitrarily imposed between the several faculties of
feeling and thinking mind, and coming to see that in the human being there
is only _one_ reason, in feeling, volition, and thought. Another
difficulty connected with this is found in the fact that the Ideas which
are the special property of the thinking mind, viz. God, law and morality,
can also be _felt_. But feeling is only the form of the immediate and
peculiar individuality of the subject, in which these facts, like any
other objective facts (which consciousness also sets over against itself),
may be placed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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