The Philosophy of Spirit (Jena Lectures 1805-6)
PART I. Spirit according to its Concept
This relation is usually what is referred to as the state of nature, the free, indifferent being of individuals toward one another. And the [concept of] natural right should answer the question as to what rights and obligations the individuals have toward one another according to this relation, which is the element of necessity in their behavior as independent self-consciousnesses according to their conception. Their only interrelation, however, lies in overcoming (aufzuheben) their present interrelation: to leave the state of nature. In this interrelation they have no rights, no obligations towards one another, but acquire them only in leaving that situation.
What is posited thereby is the concept of freely interrelated self-consciousnesses – but only the concept itself. Since it is only a concept, it is still to be realized; i.e., it is to transcend (aufzuheben) itself in the form of a concept and approach reality, in actuality, it itself occurs unconsciously in the dissolution of the problem and in the problem itself – unconsciously, i.e., so that the concept does not intrude into the [realm of the] object.
The problem is this: What is right and obligation for the individual in the state of nature? The concept of this individual is taken as the basis; out of this concept the full notion is to be developed. I bring to it the definition of right. I show the individual to be a bearer of rights, a person. But this demonstration occurs within me; it is the movement of my thought, although the content is the free Self. This [conceptual] movement, however, does not leave this demonstration as it is; i.e., it is [itself] the movement of this concept.
Right is the relation of persons, in their behavior, to others. It is the universal element of their free being – the determination, the limitation of their empty freedom. I need not spell out this relation or limitation for myself and produce it; rather, the object, in general, is itself this creation of right, i.e., the relation of recognition. In recognition (Anerkennen), the Self ceases to be this individual; it exists by right in recognition, i.e., no longer [immersed] in its immediate existence. The one who is recognized is recognized as immediately counting as such (geltend), through his being — but this being is itself generated from the concept; it is recognized being (anerkanntes Seyn).
Man is necessarily recognized and necessarily gives recognition. This necessity is his own, not that of our thinking in contrast to the content. As recognizing, man is himself the movement [of recognition], and this movement itself is what negates (hebt auf) his natural state: he is recognition; the natural aspect merely is, it is not the spiritual aspect.
The individuals, as they are toward one another [in the state of nature], do not yet recognize one another; rather, their being is disturbed. One individual, say, has disturbed the situation through his [taking] possession [as just described], although this is not yet property. The right of possession immediately concerns things, not a third party. Man has the right [in the state of nature] to take possession of as much as he can, as an individual. He has the right – this is implicit in his concept of what it is to be a Self, by which he is the power over all things. But his taking possession also acquires the significance of excluding a third party. What is it in this significance that binds the other person? What may I take possession of, without violating the rights of the third party? Such questions, as well, cannot be answered. Taking possession is the empirical [act of] seizure, and this is to be justified through recognition. It is not justified merely by virtue of its having occurred.
[It is as] in-himself that the immediate person takes possession. There is this contradiction, that the immediate comprises the content, the subject, whose predicate is [presumably] to be its right. A thing is my property because it is recognized [to be such] by others. But what is it, exactly, that others recognize? It is that which I have, which I possess. The content [of “property”] therefore emanates from my possession. Can I therefore have whatever and as much as I want? I cannot take it from a third party and expect recognition [as owner], because what he has is already recognized [as his]. Yet in that I take possession of something immediately – i.e., as something belonging to no ones – I exclude him, in himself. And thus, in taking possession, the question of recognition comes up again: I take that which could have become his. It merely could become his possession, but it is mine in actuality. His possibility comes after my actuality. He must recognize me as actual.
What do I possess, however? (a) My body; (b) the thing I already have, in my mouth or in my hand. Yet I possess not only this, but also that which I have marked with my desiring, my glance, as something wanted, grasped for. Children maintain they have a right to something because they saw it first, or wanted it first. Adults, although they can do nothing else, become angry because someone else got there first.
Besides my having grasped something immediately, however, an existent thing is shown to be mine by means of some sign, e.g., my very working on it. Whatever is designated as mine the other person must not do damage to. The designation, however, is at the same time contingent: e.g., an enclosed plot of ground with, [as] a boundary, nothing more than a furrow drawn around it, is designated as mine – and yet not [i.e., “mine” is not a predicate intrinsic to that sign]. The sign has an unlimited range: putting up a stake on an island signifies that I wish to take possession of it; likewise, in working on a metal cup I cannot separate from it the form I have given it. But in the case of a cultivated field or tree I have worked on, where does the imposed form begin and where does it end? The inner side of each clod of earth is left untouched, or moved very slightly, and similarly with the underside, [it is] not moved much, etc.
The sensory immediate, to which the universal is applied, does not correspond to this universal, is not encompassed by it. It is a “bad infinite” division.
The sensory immediate is not in itself universal; there is always a contradiction in regard to this content. [Example:] the conformity to the needs of a family, or of an individual, contradicts the concept of pure Self, or of equality, which is the basis of right. There is nothing in itself to be determined here; related to individuality, however, it is the aspect which belongs to chance. There is no reason in it; reason is yet to be introduced in such a way that nothing belongs to someone as the result of direct taking, but only through a contract; i.e., this direct taking of possession does not occur, and is not excluded in itself, but is recognized. The exclusion, in itself, is rather what is not right, and what should not occur, since the excluded is thereby not present as actual consciousness, nor do I thereby relate myself to such a one.
Thus what must happen first is recognition: the individuals are love, this being-recognized, without the opposition of the will – (i.e., wherein each would be the entire “conclusion,” [and] wherein they enter only as characters, not as free wills). Such recognition is to come about. There must become for them what they [already] are in themselves. Their being for one another is the beginning of it.
They are therefore such individuals, the one having excluded from his possession, and the other, the excluded, having become so for himself. They themselves are thus immediate for one another. The conclusion is that each does not know his own essence in the other, as character, but knows his own essence in himself; he is for himself – the one, however, as excluded from being, the other as excluding. They are thus juxtaposed and for one another, so that the one finds himself much more negated (negirt) by the other as an essence, a being. If, however, he is not for the other, he is on the other hand for himself.
The movement thus begins, here, not with the positive aspect of knowing oneself in another and thereby seeing the self-negation of the other; but on the contrary, with not knowing oneself in the other, and rather seeing his, the other’s, being-for-self in the other. The conclusion therefore begins with the independence of the polar parties in their being-for-themselves, so that the independence of each is [established] for the other. And indeed [it happens] first on the side of the excluded party, since he is a being-for-himself, because he is not for the other – since through the other’s [action] he is excluded from being. The other, however – the family – is quietly and impartially for itself.
The excluded party spoils the other’s possession, by introducing his excluded being-for-himself into it, his [sense of] “mine.” He ruins something in it, annihilating [i.e., negating] it as desire, in order to give himself his self-feeling (Selbstgefühl) – yet not his empty self-feeling, but rather positing his own Self in another, in the knowing of another. The activity does not concern the negative aspect, the thing, but rather the self-knowledge of the other. A distinction in the knowledge of the other is thereby posited, which only puts one in the existence of the other. He [the excluded] is also angered thereby; he is divided in himself, and his exclusion from being is turned into an exclusion of knowledge. He becomes aware that he has done something altogether different from what he intended. His intention (Meynen) was the pure relating of his being to itself, his impartial being-for-himself.
Thus angered, the two parties stand opposed to one another – the one as the insulter, the other as the insulted. The insulter did not intend insult to the other in taking possession, but the insulted did relate himself to the insulter: what the insulter annihilated was not the intrinsic form of the thing, but the form of the other’s labor or activity. Thus the fact that the excluded party has restored himself does not produce the equality of the two, but rather a new inequality. Equality [demanded] that both parties posit themselves in the thing, [asserting themselves with respect to it]. But [here we have] the higher inequality of the positing of the one in the being-for-himself of the other. The first posited [i.e., asserted] himself in the unowned thing, the other in the thing already possessed.
This inequality is to be overcome, negated (aufzuheben). It must already be overcome in itself, however – and the activity of both is only so that this may become [true] for both. The overcoming (Aufheben) of the exclusion has already occurred; both parties are outside themselves, both are a knowledge, are objects for themselves. Each is conscious of himself in the other – as one who is negated (aufgehobenes), to be sure – but in the same way the positive aspect is on the side of each. Each one wants to count as something for the other. It is the aim of each to look upon himself in the other – each is outside himself. Each one is the conclusion, one pole of which is outside him – superseded (aufgehoben) in the other – and each is in himself. But both egos, the one in me and the one superseded in the other party, are the same. I provide content for myself as end; i.e., I am positive to myself. My ego is likewise to be positive; i.e., my positive aspect is now enclosed in myself, and has only now become my end.
Thus the inequality has the form that (a) the one party has only overcome (aufhob) the being of the other, while the other has negated the being-for-himself of the first; and that (b) each knows himself outside himself: the one (namely the insulted) has lost [something of] his existence, the other has restored his existence to himself – but this restoration occurred at the expense of the other, [and] is conditioned thereby: it is not an immediate, free acquisition.
Their roles are thus exchanged: for himself, the insulter is satisfied (not in himself, since his being-in-himself is conditioned); the second party is now the annoyed one, in a state of tension – an alien being-for-himself has intruded itself into his being-for-self. He resolves not to expose his existence any further, but rather to arrive at a knowledge of himself, i.e., to become recognized . The actual being-for-himself as such is to be posited, not as a [mere] form of the thing (since this form has nothing permanent in it), nor by means of language (since the knowledge is [to be] actual). It is will, the being-for-himself as such. Its actuality has the significance of being recognized by the other, to count as absolute for him. In order to count as absolute, however, it must present itself as absolute, as will, i.e., as someone for whom his existence (which he had as property) no longer counts, but rather this: as his known being-for-himself, that has the pure significance of self-knowledge, and in this way comes into existence.
Such presentation, however, is the self-executed negation of the existence that “belongs” to him. It is the directedness of the will to itself, to the extreme of its individuality. (Character is only directed to itself as universal.) To him as consciousness it appears that in this he must intend the death of the other, although it is his own death that is at issue – suicide, in that he exposes himself to danger.
Thus he looks upon his negated external existence. This existence is most his own, converting the being-negated (Aufgehobenseyn) of that alien element into his own being-for-himself that is most his own, because it is reason. This restoration is the reception of his existence in the abstraction of knowing. The [element of] cunning is the knowing, the being-in-himself, self-knowledge, as the knowledge of will [as] mere drive. In the drive the extreme poles have the form of equivalence, indifference, the form of being, not yet a knowing.
The knowing will is to be fulfilled (a) as the will of love, with the knowledge of the immediate unity of both poles, of their unity as selfless; (b) in recognition, with the polar extremes as free Selves. The former is the fulfilment of the universal extreme, the latter of the particular, i.e., making this the total conclusion. This conclusion has in it the extremes in the form of being-for-themselves. The previous cognition [now] becomes recognition. The two know themselves as being-for-themselves – they are separated in this way [by what they have in common]. The movement is the life-and-death struggle. From this, each proceeds in such a way that he sees the other as pure Self, and it is a knowledge of the will; and so that the will of each is cognizant, i.e., reflected completely in itself in its pure unity. The driveless will, the determination enveloped in itself to know being as something not alien.
This knowing will is now universal. it is the state of being recognized; juxtaposed to itself in the form of universality, it is being, actuality in general – and the individual, the subject, is the person. The will of the individual is the universal will — and the universal is the individual. It is the totality of ethical life (Sittlichkeit) in general, immediate, yet [as] Right.