The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 (of 4): Hegel's AesthetikHegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Philosophy
The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Aesthetics
But over and above this, on closer inspection, we find that it is
universally the rational--that is to say ethical relations in practical
life, truth in thought--which constitutes the content of freedom. But,
furthermore, inasmuch as freedom itself is in the first instance only
subjective, not wholly carried into effect, there must remain for
the individual an element of unfreedom, a somewhat purely objective
opposed to it as a necessity of Nature; and it is accompanied likewise
with the demand to secure a reconciliation of this opposition. From
the reverse point of view a similar contradiction is apparent in the
internal domain of the subjective consciousness itself. We have, on
the one hand, that which is universal and self-subsistent in its own
right, in other words the universal dictates or principles of justice,
goodness, and truth. On the other there are the various impulses of
mankind, all the emotions, preferences, and passions which exercise
their power over the heart of each man and woman individually. This
opposition no less than the other excites conflict and contradiction,
and in this strife man becomes subject to every conceivable longing,
the profoundest grief, and, in a word, to every kind of worry and
discontent. It is the prerogative of the spiritual life of mankind
to be a veil severed and broken asunder, tossed as it must be on the
waves of contradiction. The animal creation lives at peace with itself
and its environment. Man is unable to find a complete refuge in that
which is exclusively inward, the soul as such, pure thought, in the
world of legal obligation and its _universality._ He is dependent also
upon his sensuous existence, his emotions, and all that appeals to his
heart and soul. It is the part of philosophy to give expression to this
contradiction in thought, as it extends throughout its all-embracing
compass, and to overcome the same with a reconciliation equally
comprehensive.
In the immediacy of everyday life, however, man seeks to secure an
_immediate_ satisfaction. Perhaps the most obvious example of such
a resolution is to be found in the domain of animal wants and their
satisfaction.
The states of hunger, thirst, fatigue on the one hand, and feeding,
drinking, sleep on the other, with all such similar states, illustrate
the contradictions and resolutions to which we here refer.
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