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Hegel's Concept of Freedom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

G. H. R. Parkinson
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Extract

The concept of freedom is one which Hegel thought of very great importance; indeed, he believed that it is the central concept in human history. ‘Mind is free’, he wrote, ‘and to actualise this, its essence – to achieve this excellence – is the endeavour of the worldmind in world-history’ (VG, p. 73). Those who already have an interest in Hegel will doubtless be interested in his views on a topic which he thought so important; on the other hand, the many philosophers who are either indifferent to or hostile to Hegel may point out that it does not follow that, because the subject of freedom interested Hegel, his views about this subject are of general interest. It will be the aim of this paper to show that they are of general interest; in the meantime, it may be recalled that Isaiah Berlin has argued (Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford, 1969, p. 144) that Hegel's concept of freedom is one of a type, called by him the concept of positive freedom, which is ‘at the heart of many of the nationalist, communist, authoritarian and totalitarian creeds of our day’. It will surely be worth while to see to what extent this is true of Hegel, and to what extent Hegel's views about freedom are true.

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Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 5: Reason and Reality , March 1971 , pp. 174 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1971

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References

page 174 note 1 Abbreviations:

A = Ästhetik, ed. Bassenges (Frankfurt am Main, n.d.)

E = Encyclopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften, ed. Lasson, 4th ed. (Leipzig, 1930).

GPE = Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie: Vol. I, Einleitung, ed. Hoffmeister (Leipzig, 1940).

PG = Phänomenologie des Geistes, ed. Hoffmeister, 6th ed. (Hamburg, 1952).

Phil. Rel. = Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion, ed. Lasson (Leipzig, 1925–7).

PR = Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, ed. Hoffmeister, 4th ed. (Hamburg, 1955). References to the Zusäze are to the 3rd ed. of Lasson (Leipzig, 1930).

VG = Die Vernunft in der Geschichte (vol. 1 of Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte), ed.Hoffmeister, 5th ed. (Hamburg, 1955).

WL = Wissenschaft der Logik, ed. Lasson (Leipzig, 1923).

To secure consistency in the rendering of Hegel‘s technical terms, I have made my own translations. I have profited greatly from previous translations, notably

W. Wallace, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind (Oxford, 1894), and T. M. Knox, Hegel's Philosophy of Right (Oxford, 1952).

page 175 note 1 More specifically, it will be necessary to talk about the dialectic when the structure of the Philosophy of Right is discussed; later, reference will be made to Hegel’s views about the self-estrangement of mind, and about the world-mind.

page 177 note 1 It is well known that ‘Volk’ and ‘Geist’ are terms which do not have a single equivalent in English. ‘Geist’ is often translated as ‘spirit’, and the theological overtones of this term are sometimes appropriate. (E.g. VG, p. 58: the old religions call God ‘Geist’), But when Hegel discusses the ‘Philosophic des Geistes’, he is for much of the time concerned with what would be called ‘the philosophy of mind’. As to ‘Volk’, this is usually rendered as ‘nation’ by Wallace and Knox in their translations. But Hegel also uses the term ‘die Nation’ (e.g. PR, par. 181; E, par. 549, Lasson, ed. p. 459Google Scholar; VG, p. 64), and it seems appropriate that this should have a separate English equivalent. It must be allowed, however, that Hegel regards the terms ‘Volk’ and ‘Nation’ as closely related. Thus he says (VG, p. 64), ‘Die Völker … sind Nationen’.

page 177 note 2 This seems to be the force of his assertion (WL, II p. 390) that the end (Zweck) is the ‘truth’ of both mechanism and chemism (i.e. explanation in chemical terms), but that mechanical causality (which here includes chemism also) still appears in the end relation, though as subordinate to it and ‘sublated’ (aufgehoben).

page 178 note 1 It should be added that Hegel’s account of mechanism and chemism contains a hint of his solution of this further problem, in that he says that teleology involves self-determination (Selbstbestimmung), which is wholly removed from the external determination of mechanism (WL, II p. 387; cf. E, par. 203).

page 178 note 2 Each work refers to the other for supplementation: see PR, par. 4 and E, par. 487.

page 178 note 3 For arguments of this type, see Sabine, G. H., A History of Political Theory, and ed. (London, 1948) p. 530Google Scholar; Lasson, G., Introduction to his edition of the Philosophy of Right, pp. xlii ff.Google Scholar

page 179 note 1 Hegel is careful to say (PR, par. 32, and Zusatz 19) that his order of presentation is logical and not temporal. He points out that the concept of the family presupposes a number of concepts dealt with earlier in the Philosophy of Right, e.g. that of property, but he says that it is not the case that private property came first in time, followed by the family. However, his way of making this point is confused, and appears to be mistaken. He seems to suggest (end of PR, par. 32; cf. Knox translation, p. 318) that in certain societies there could be families, but no private property. But it is hard to see how there could be such families, if private property is a necessary condition of the family. Hegel might reply that these are not genuine families, just as he says that there are certain institutions, commonly called ‘states’, which are by his definition imperfect states (‘urwollkommenen Staaten’; PR, Zus. 154 to par. 260). But this concedes the point, namely that there can, strictly speaking, be no family before there is private property. If Hegel is to distinguish between a temporal and a logical order, he will have to say that although the concept of private property is logically prior to that of the family, the family and private property are simultaneous as institutions. Only when that organisation which consists of parents and children has property of its own is it possible to speak of a ‘family’ in Hegel’s sense.

page 179 note 2 PR, par. 5. Cf. E, par. 445, where Hegel says that it is wrong to suppose that there could be will without intelligence, or intelligence without will. The latter remark might be taken to mean that all thinking—even theorising—is purposive; in the Philosophy of Right, however, (Zus. 4 to par. 4) Hegel explains the remark that one cannot think without a will by saying that in so far as we think, we are active.

page 180 note 1 Critique of Pure Reason, B 131. A connection with Kant is suggested by the remark (PR, par. 15 ad fin.) that for Kant freedom is connected with the formal element in willing, and is indeed nothing but formal self-activity.

page 180 note 2 Cf. E, par. 475, which refers to impulse and passion (Leidenschaft).

page 180 note 3 Hegel distinguishes (e.g. PR, par. 7) between object (Gegenstand), end (Zweck) and content (Inhalt). Perhaps he means that when I will something (e.g. to drink a glass of water) the object of my will is the drinking of the water, the end is to alleviate thirst, and the content is the desire to drink.

page 181 note 1 It is no doubt for this reason, among others, that Knox and Wallace translate ‘an sich’ as ‘implicitly’ (e.g. PR, par. 11; E, par. 476), and Knox renders ‘der an und für sick seiende Wille’ as ‘the will whose potentialities have become fully explicit’ (PR, par. 22). Hegel himself draws a connection between ‘Ansichsein’ and potency, dunamis, and between ‘Fürsichsein’ and act, entelecheia, when he discusses development in GPE, pp. 101ff. He insists, however, that ‘Fürsichsein’ means more than the making explicit of potentialities; it also involves self-awareness (op. cit., p. 108; WL, 1 p. 148).

page 182 note 1 The importance of the inhibition of impulses is stressed in VG, p. 57. Here, Hegel says that a man is independent, ‘not because a movement begins in him, but because he can inhibit (hemmen) the movement, and so break his immediacy and his belonging to nature (Natürlichkeit)’.

page 183 note 1 Compare his remarks on teleology cited earlier, to the effect that the end is the ‘truth’ of both mechanism and chemism.

page 184 note 1 Cf. Phil. Rel., III p. 36Google Scholar, and GPE, p. 110.

page 183 note 2 Hegel often says that to be free is to be ‘bei sich’: e.g. PR, par. 23; VG, p. 55; GPE, pp. 110, 229, 233; E, par. 23; PG, p. 152. He may mean that to be free is to be independent (thus, in VG, p. 55 he contrasts being ‘bei sich’ with being dependent, abhängig); but there may also be some implication of being ‘at home’, of having returned to oneself from previous self-estrangement. It is interesting that Marx, in his 1844 Manuscripts, equates ‘bei sich’ and ‘zu House’, when he says, ‘Der Arbeiter fühlt sich daher erst ausser der Arbeit bei sich und in der Arbeit ausser sich. Zu Hause ist er, wenn er nicht arbeitet, und wenn er arbeitet, ist er nicht zu Haus’. (Marx/Engels, Werke, Dietz, ed., Berlin, 1968: Ergänzungsband, pt. 1. p. 514).Google Scholar

page 183 note 3 On the freedom of the rational will, cf. E, par. 469; VG, p. 144; A, 1. pp. 104 ff.

page 185 note 1 The philosophy of subjective mind is contained in Section 1 of Part III of the Encyclopaedia, and in much of the Introduction to the Philosophy of Right. The philosophy of objective mind is discussed in Section 2 of Part III of the Encyclopaedia, and in the bulk of the Philosophy of Right. There will be no occasion in this paper to discuss in detail the third and culminating part of the Hegelian philosophy of mind, the philosophy of absolute mind, which concerns art, religion and philosophy.

page 185 note 2 See, e.g., Hyppolite, J., Introduction à la Philosophic de l'histoire de Hegel (Paris, 1948) p. 35.Google Scholar

page 186 note 1 On this issue, the reader may be referred to Walsh, W. H.’s lucid essay, Hegelian Ethics (London, 1969).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 186 note 2 It is perhaps in the context of subjective freedom that one is to understand Hegel's remark that in the state (or more exactly, in the mind of a people, the Volhgeist) ‘the absolute ought is no less an is’ (E, par. 514). Popper has declared the coniusion of ‘ought’ with ‘is’, the attempt to transcend the dualism of facts and standards, to be one of Hegel, 's major errors (The Open Society and its Enemies, 5th ed., London, 1966, II. p. 394).Google Scholar It does not seem likely, however, that this confusion is present here. Hegel seems to be saying (Walsh, op. cit., p. 38) that a genuine morality is ‘internal rather than foreign’ to the persons it embraces; or, as Hegel puts it in the Encyclopaedia, in the state ‘self-conscious freedom has become nature’ (E, par. 513).

page 189 note 1 The reference is to Spinoza, Ep. 58, to Schuller. Cf. The Correspondence of Spinoza, trans. Wolf, A. (London, 1928) p. 295.Google Scholar

page 190 note 1 See, e.g., VG, p. 71; also Lectures on the History of Philosophy, trans. Haldane and Simson (London, 1892–5) 1 p. 409.

page 191 note 1 It is not one of the aims of this paper to criticise Hegel's historical determinism; rather, the aim is to see how Hegel reconciles it with his view that human beings (or at any rate, some human beings) are free. It may be noted, however, that Hegel does not succeed in showing why changes occur, and must occur, when they do; all that he does is show how, in his view, new ideas remedy logical defects in old ones. Marx, of course, gave his answer to this problem, and it is interesting to note in passing that Hegel would reject the thesis that the ideas put forward by moralists and philosophers, etc., are determined by economic factors. He says that there is only one mind, one principle which is manifested in the politics, philosophy, religion, art, ethics, trade and industry of a period; these various forms are only branches of one main stem - ‘the substantial mind of a period, of a people, of an age’ (GPE, p. 148).Google Scholar

page 191 note 2 In E, par. 552, he says that religion is the basis of the ethical life (Sittlichkeit) and of the state, and that it has been a monstrous error of his era to try to see these inseparables as separable from one another.

page 191 note 3 First published, Oxford, 1958; reprinted in Four Essays on Liberty.

page 193 note 1 This is why he came to reject the ideals of the classical Greek polis: see, e.g., E, par. 48a; GPE, pp. 63, 144, 245.

page 194 note 1 A, II p. 568.

page 194 note 2 Hegel is often accused of idealising the Prussian constitution; but he clearly did not think that this constitution was perfect. See, e.g., Knox, T. M., ‘Hegel and Prussianism’ in Philosophy (1940) pp. 51–63, 313–4Google Scholar; Bloch, Ernst, Subjekt-Objekt, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt am Main, 1962) pp. 249 f.Google Scholar

page 194 note 3 Or rather, the bulk of it – the last chapter providing an exception.