Individuality: Action and Judgement

C. Individuality Which Takes Itself to Be Real In and For Itself (§394-437)

In this section Hegel attempts to fill the space left open when he rejected the physical sciences as a way to judge or determine the character of an individual. Hegel considers actions, or one action, and to what extent these can be used to determine the inner person.

Hegel's determination is that action arises from the inner self (desire -> will -> action), and so we can regard it as a more pure representation of the inner. He also holds that as each action comes from this inner self, so each action can be thought to represent the same inner self (§402). That said, actions can only be judged in an external manner, as their consequences occur in the external world and are contingent (§403-409).

A person is most concerned with his own action and circumstance, and is will to demand of others that they be so concerned. Each individual is like this, and so, in a way, universalizes their self-concern (§417-419).

Hegel challenges Kant in "Reason as Lawgiver" by attempting to show that reason cannot give us an ethical system born out of itself (universalized imperatives). Instead, reason can only judge systems as to the extent of their consistency (§420-428). However, we will soon realize that opposing theories can be internally consistent (§431). Therefore genuine effort must be expended in deciding what should be done. This is a continual process in the imperfect (and imperfectable?) practical laws of a society, unlike the true divine law (§437).

Observing Reason

C. (AA) Reason
V. The Certainty and Truth of Reason
A. Observing Reason (§231-308)

In this long section Hegel shows how our reason observes and interacts with the inorganic and the organic. When observing the inorganic we naturally try to find physical laws that explain what we experience. In general these can be found, but at this point reason fails to fully distinguish what is in nature and what is in our observation of nature, and fails to see nature as emanating from a single essence.

When regarding the organic, Hegel identifies only a few "laws" that govern the living: instincts to sensibility, irritability, and reproduction. These relatively fewer limitations, and their more tenuous hold on living beings, are meant to leave room for genuine freedom:

...as regards law and necessity, when observation connects the organic with the merely given differences of the inorganic, the elements, zones, and climates, it does not get beyond the idea of a 'great influence.'

In my opinion this is the first real uphill battle Hegel has yet had to fight (the objections that we see him consider here are much more formidable than elsewhere).

Hegel proceeds to claim that the fuzziness of the connection between the outer world and the individual means that there are no laws connecting them in regards to the cognition of the individual. I myself am pretty fuzzy on how he gets to this claim. Does he need this to have freedom of thought? And thus will? What are the "Laws of Thought?"