A Study On Hegel's Individuality Theory

In the dissertation, the "individuality" refers to an individual person existed as the social individual. The dissertation aims to reveal the"historic individuality"by comprehensively investigating"individuality"in the Philosophy encyclopedia of Hegel. Therefore it may sense and criticize the intellectual thinking mode which fetters human on individuality and the human of views. Meanwhile, the theoretical significance contained in historic individuality seeks some inspirations for the existence of real individual person.Hegel's individuality theory is contained his theoretic system, but not a definite concept or conclusion, so we found the essential principles that runs through the system is the essential principles of the individuality theory through investigating the Philosophy encyclopedia of Hegel, and it is also the expressions concentrating on Hegel's dialectical thinking mode. So, we investigate the following principles in the first chapter: First, "the truth is all". Hegel thought that the truth should be all of the organic life movement process and"entity is subject"movement is also the same process. Second, the concept of "life" has double meanings: one is the life concept of logical link; second is the life concept in teleology principle."The teleology principle","truth is all"and"entity is subject"is internally interrelated. It is telos that unifies internality and externality, purpose and means, subjective and objective, results and reasons to itself. These principles are the internal logic of Hegel's individuality theory. Third, the dialectical relationship between spirit and life, this is the basic relationship that we must differentiate clearly when investigating individuality theory. Fourth, alienation is the channel between spirit and life."Alienation"is the clue that runs through Hegel individuality theories, various stages in individuality development is the movement of alienation and sublation of alienation.The second chapter discusses"self-consciousness"in the detail phase of individuality movement."Self-consciousness"just is the"individuality"hidden in Hegel concept system and is the individuality reality. Starting from "self-consciousness", not by Hegel's narration from consciousness and sense-certainty, it is because a person who has "self-consciousness" that can be called the true meaning of a person. Individuality is the social individual, the social universality is spirit, and the spirit reflects itself with self-consciousness in individuality. Individual can't be called a person until individual is conscious of his own reason and justifies himself. In this sense, self-consciousness is the individuality reality and the starting point of individuality. The main content of individuality in self-consciousness phase is conflict and regression between perceptual consciousness as objectivity and self-consciousness as subject . At this stage, the individual acquired new perceptual consciousness and broke the bondage of original spirit universality by labor. The perceptual consciousness conflicts with self-consciousness reflection, then it sublates perceptual consciousness and regresses to self-consciousness, thereby new knowledge and habits are built up, individual gains its realistic development.The third chapter discusses"reason" as the principle of individuality. Hegel's"reason"is not the concept in the sense of traditional epistemology, but is an important link in its"spiritual life"movement. It has the double meaning of cognition and existence. We review the thought of Hegel's reason by Hegel's criticisms of the empiricism, the transcendentalism and the contractual theory which are representative thoughts in Hegel's times. The criticisms on the three laws actually are expounded Hegel's own rational views by criticizing abstract intellectuality, abstract practice and abstract individuality. Hegel replaced experiences with perceptual consciousness, which made the pure external materials become consciousness objectization; replaced abstract logic rule with self-consciousness returned itself, thus unified form and content ; It criticized the atomic person in the contractual theory by reason as spiritual reality. Habit is the dead spirit and it is not the basis for individuality; Individual is shaped by society but the society is not formed by atomic person. Hegel's"reason"is"individuality truth", and is self-consciousness returned itself from perceptual consciousness. It contains intellectuality of cognitive link, while it eventually achieved itself on existence level. That is to say, the completion of reason is that the individual is conscious of his own sociality when the rational individual consciously regards himself as the individual in the ethical entity as well as moral consciousness is achieved by reason. That is the consciousness from subjective spirit to objective spirit.The chapter 4 discusses "spirit", it is the internal universality of individuality. Individual can only truly achieve himself in the society."Spirit"is the foundation and the essence of individuality. In the "spirit" stage, we will reveal the alienation of social spirits to the individual consciousness, namely that the individuality consciousness by alienating the consciousness embryo that has not been assimilated by social spirit, then individual become social spiritual individual. We reveal the alienation of spirit to individuality through the links of morality, ethic and state. Morality represents the individuality consciousness, it is the individual spirit's performance, and is the unification of individual with spiritual universality; ethic is the basic unit of socialization, it prescribed the individuality by the family blood relationship, and it determined morality. State is the highest link in objective spirit. The state laws determine ethic and morality, that is to say, state prescribe individual by laws, and state is the subject that civilize individual representing the social universality. There are two logical levels of movement: morality, ethic and state are one logical level; family, civil society and state are another one. We will distinguish the relations among them.Chapter 5 discusses"the historic individuality"viewpoint. Hegel's theory of individuality lies in"historic". Hegel considers that individual as a historic person, individuality is prescribed by historic."Self-consciousness","Reason"and"Spirit"are the factors that compose different aspects of the historic integrity. They are interrelated and interactional in terms of individual development."Self-consciousness"is recognition for"Reason";"Reason"is the reality of"Spirit", and is the moral state of an era, and the consciousness for its own national spirits and national idea;"Spirit"is the source of civilizing individual and the"seed"of individuality, and is the precondition of the potential reason for individual realization. The historic provision to individuality embodies in reason and intellectuality, the two aspects respectively indicate the provision of historical fore-and-aft development to individual and the historically lengthways development of individual. The former is prescribed by the movement of Spirit, which has changed the social relations, so it changed the entitative bases of human; and the latter is prescribed by the conceptions of leading individual reason, the historical development of conceptions prescribes the arising and developing relations between spirit and habit of individual, consequently it made individual develop continually and acquire new habits. The former determinates the latter in the two aspects. Conception is acquired in the process of civilizing individual by society, and the development of conception depends on the historical movement of Spirit. In other words, the development of individuality itself is still under the background of Times Spirit. Therefore, Spirit is still the stable and developmental source for individual, the historical concreteness of individual is formed by the historic of spirit movement.Hegel's theory of historic individuality does not scientifically grasp the real person due to its idealistic abstract principle, However, it still has great significance to the issue of human individual. For it not only transcends the previous intellectual thinking mode, but also influences profoundly on Marx later. Marx's historical materialism is the scientific principle and guiding ideas on the issue of human today, which just comes from the criticism and inheritance on Hegel's theory. Historic individual is a historical state and a historical materiality prescribed by the development of history. The essence throughout the theory of"historic individuality"is the dialectical thinking mode. The viewpoint of historic and the dialectical thinking mode are the inseparable and basic position when we study individuality.