5 - Reason Practical in Its Own Right

Summary

All of the relevant German dictionaries we have previously consulted for philosophical purposes have failed us in one important respect. None of them so much as mentions the fact, let alone furnishes the requisite examples for the fact, that the German word eigen can be employed in both a reflexive pronominal sense as well as in a possessive adjectival sense. This is ignored even with regard to compound expressions such as Eigenliebe (self-love) or Eigenlob (self-praise), where the relevant part of the compound provides the dominant element rather than the subsidiary element of meaning. For ‘self-love’ is not the love that one finds in oneself, in contrast to the love that another feels, but the love one feels for oneself rather than for someone else, and ‘self-praise’ likewise is something one bestows upon oneself rather than upon another. The possessive sense as distinct from the reflexive sense of the word – the sense that the love I feel towards myself can only be my love, that the praise I bestow on myself can only be my praise – is so self-evident, I believe, that is not explicitly expressed in such cases at all.