Hegel's Philosophy of Mind — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
Georg Hegel · en
§ 483. The objective Mind is the absolute Idea, but only existing _in
posse_: and as it is thus on the territory of finitude, its actual
rationality retains the aspect of external apparency. The free will finds
itself immediately confronted by differences which arise from the
circumstance that freedom is its _inward_ function and aim, and is in
relation to an external and already subsisting objectivity, which splits
up into different heads: viz. anthropological data (i.e. private and
personal needs), external things of nature which exist for consciousness,
and the ties of relation between individual wills which are conscious of
their own diversity and particularity. These aspects constitute the
external material for the embodiment of the will.
§ 484. But the purposive action of this will is to realise its concept,
Liberty, in these externally-objective aspects, making the latter a world
moulded by the former, which in it is thus at home with itself, locked
together with it: the concept accordingly perfected to the Idea. Liberty,
shaped into the actuality of a world, receives the _form of Necessity_ the
deeper substantial nexus of which is the system or organisation of the
principles of liberty, whilst its phenomenal nexus is power or authority,
and the sentiment of obedience awakened in consciousness.
§ 485. This unity of the rational will with the single will (this being
the peculiar and immediate medium in which the former is actualised)
constitutes the simple actuality of liberty. As it (and its content)
belongs to thought, and is the virtual _universal_, the content has its
right and true character only in the form of universality. When invested
with this character for the intelligent consciousness, or instituted as an
authoritative power, it is a _Law_(150). When, on the other hand, the
content is freed from the mixedness and fortuitousness, attaching to it in
the practical feeling and in impulse, and is set and grafted in the
individual will, not in the form of impulse, but in its universality, so
as to become its habit, temper and character, it exists as manner and
custom, or _Usage_(151).