Genealogy Of Hegel's Freedom

This dissertation aims to manage the genealogy of Hegel's freedom.Freedom is a concept that is used to explain human being's action. According to Kant, action is concerned with human being's will, which being different from human being's thinking. The latter is concerned with human being's knowing. They both are faculties of our mind, that is, the faculty of cognition and the faculty of desire. But Kant thinks that they belong to different realms, so will and thinking are separated from each other. Hegel discusses the meaning of the concept of will basing on the critique of Kant's view of this matter. So, in the first chapter, I analyze Hegel's concept of will. I differentiate three moments of the determination of will: objective freedom, subjective freedom, and the realized freedom. I consider that just as his study in philosophy, Hegel reconstructs theories of freedom before him and takes them as moments of his system. The moment of objective freedom is the reconstruction of the theory of natural rights, while the moment of subjective freedom is the reconstruction of Kant's transcendental philosophy. After disclosing the abstractness and one-sidedness of the first two moments of freedom, Hegel puts forward his original theory of realized freedom. Hegel's theory of freedom is constituted by these three moments.In chapter 2, I discuss the moment of objective freedom of Hegel's theory of freedom. First I summarize the common characters of the theory modern natural rights. Then I explain Hegel's reconstruction of the theory of natural rights as the objective freedom in his own system of freedom. It consists of the part of "abstract right" in Philosophy of Right. Objective freedom is the freedom that is gained from the objective matter, which manifests as person's possession of the matter. Human being's will is the particular will that is determined by natural pulse and desire in the moment of objective freedom. So I also call objective freedom as natural freedom. Person's possession of the matter already implies other particular will's recognition. The wills can generalize their rights of possession of matter through contract. But because of the particularity of will in this objective(natural) moment, person's possession of matter, even person itself will be encroached by Wrong. It is necessary to negate this crime to re-establish the general law. But this general law can not be measured by particularthings such as arbitrary object or external things, neither can it be reached through revenge or retaliation. Only subjective morality is its criterion.I discussed the subjective moment in Hegel's theory of freedom and in chapter 3. German idealism distill and summarize the theory of natural rights, and form the concept of arbitrariness, which is the start-point of the theory of freedom of German idealism. Arbitrariness is determined by natural impulse, but it already shows subject's independence from natural impulse. But from the point of view of German idealism, the basic signs of real freedom are self-determination and generalization. For this end, will need not only to be independent from particular sensible impulse and objects, but also to all sensible impulse and objects. Starting from this point, Kant proposal his transcendental theory of freedom. Freedom consists in obeying pure formal moral law. Thus, the foundation of freedom is subject it-self, and freedom of this subject is subjective freedom. According to Hegel, Kant brings forward the purest expression of subjective freedom. He analyzes and evaluates Kant's expression in the part of "morality" in Philosophy of Right. Hegel points out that if we only localize in the subjective realm, freedom will be the empty and formal one, and in the real world I will not be free and have to obey the necessary natural law of causation. If we want to gain real, substantial self-determination, we could not stick around the internal world of subject.I put forward the inter-subjective concept: recognition, and try to use it to explain Hegel's realized freedom. I point out that Hegel's realized freedom, or freedom of unity of objective-subjective freedom, is a kind of inter-subjective freedom. According to Hegel, realized freedom is not pure self-determination without any Other. In fact there are others in freedom that limit me. But in this limit I am still free, self-determinative. This means that Other is not a random other, but another subject, another self. I and the Other recognize each other. Thus realized freedom has an inter-subjective structure. In fact, there is a hidden theme of inter-subjectivity in German Idealism. I trace the origin of Hegel's inter-subjective freedom back to Rousseau, Kant, and Fichte, and discuss the inter-subjective structure of Hegel's theory of self-consciousness.In chapter 5,1 analyze the inter-subjectivity of realized freedom. In the third part of "ethical life" in Philosophy of Right, Hegel takes it as the life in modern national system and law. These modern national system and law are the objectivity and fixing of general freedom. Modern nation pervades inter-subjective structures, and it is anethical substance. The inter-subjectivity of modern national system and law exhibits concretely in family the members, father, mother, and children recognize each other— children also gain independent recognized personality, in civil society the recognition of needs and labor of private persons, in national political structure the recognition of the power of the sovereign, the executive power, and the legislative power. Individual's freedom consists in participating above-mentioned modern national system of family life, system of material life in civil society, and modern political system, being a member of these systems, sharing power. This participation exhibits as the particular rights he owes, and recognition of others' rights. The members recognize each other in this organic state.In chapter 6, I analyze the process of the forming of modern national system. Hegel discusses this thesis in last part of Philosophy of Right and his lectures on the philosophy of history. He points out that modern national system and law do not exist from the very beginning, but have along process of development and appear at last in modern time. There were national systems and laws from the beginning of nation in history, and these systems and laws were different. But according to Hegel, these systems and laws appeared in history are not accidental, and they have a tendency of perfect and reach real objective and fixed rationality in modern time. This is the process of world history. But Hegel's analysis of inter-subjectivity of recognition is limited in nation-state. He denies the possibility of forming a community of recognition in a broader inter-nations realm. As the logical result of German Idealism, Marx and Engels criticize Hegel's theory of freedom. They disclose the idealistic character of Hegel's theory, point out the alienated situation that is weakened by Hegel. They also deepen Hegel's thought of world history. They think that the forming of a community of recognition consists not only in the development of rationality in time, but also in the expanding of a community in space, integrating more and more factors into this community.In the last part of conclusion, I sum up the genealogy of Hegel's freedom.