Hegel, Logic and Speculation by Paolo Diego Bubbio;Alessandro De Cesaris;Maurizio Pagano;Hager Weslati;

Author:Paolo Diego Bubbio;Alessandro De Cesaris;Maurizio Pagano;Hager Weslati;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK

9

Hegel’s Conception of Personality and the Tension between Logic and Realphilosophy

Lauri Kallio

Introduction

In this chapter, I discuss four different topics: (1) the role of personality in Hegel’s system; his definitions of both (2) logical and (3) realphilosophical personality; and (4) the tension between the two.

One can justifiably say that personality is not a substantial theme for Hegel. He provided a systematic definition of personality only in his Outlines of Philosophy of Right, where personality is defined as the elementary legal concept (OPR, §35–§36). According to Hegel’s definition, ‘the will that is abstract or for itself is the person. The highest thing for a human being is to be a person’ (OPR, §35 A). The fact that Hegel thematized personality only occasionally in his works does not mean that personality has no importance for his philosophy. Quite the opposite: Hegel suggested in the chapter ‘The Absolute Idea’ at the end of his Science of Logic that the category of personality is applicable for the description of the highest stage of the development of spirit. The essence of Hegel’s conception of personality is thus logical. Besides the philosophy of right and the logic, the theme of personality is also present in other parts of Hegel’s realphilosophy, although he seldom uses the term ‘personality’.

In order to clarify the proper content of this chapter, I present two introductory questions. One asks how to conceive the relationship between personality and subjectivity. It is clear that Hegel’s concept of subjectivity covers partially the colloquial conception of personality. Hegel also occasionally uses the term ‘person’ ‘in a critical one-sided-sense in which the accidental and arbitrary particularity of the individual’s self-consciousness (and will) is stressed at the expense of what is more universal’ (Hicks 1990: 54).

Thus, the question is whether Hegel’s concept of personality is eventually identical with his concept of subjectivity. My answer is negative. It is clear that Hegel’s conception of personality has some affinity with his conception of subjectivity. He discusses the same phenomena with reference to both personality and subjectivity. Yet in this chapter, I argue that this does not imply mere repetition. Personality implies an essentially higher stage of speculation than subjectivity. According to Hegel ‘“person” is essentially different from “subject”, since “subject” is only the possibility of personality; every living thing of any sort is a subject’ (OPR, §35 A).

Another introductory question concerns the difference between person and personality. Does this difference express something essential? It appears to me that the term ‘personality’ primarily refers to logic. The term ‘person’, on the contrary, encompasses reality. Thus it is primarily a realphilosophical category. Yet it would be misleading to describe the difference between personality and person as absolute. I would describe it as a difference in determination: the concept of person contains more determinations than the concept of personality.

Logical personality

As mentioned above, Hegel discusses the category of personality in the last section of his Science of Logic. Hegel’s logic culminates in the subjective logic or the doctrine of the concept. The concept has three moments: the universal, the particular and the singular.

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