The Dawn of Rational Intersubjectivity in Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit

Abstract

This article aims to explore the Hegelian views on humanity’s emancipation from the natural condition and the gradual process of social rationalization. In the context of an immanent determinative movement from abstract to concrete, the dialectical process passes through the concepts of natural spirit, consciousness and self-consciousness, until the concept of rational spirit becomes its terminal station. Given that Hegel himself locates the prelude to the right-oriented or just relation already in the rational mutual recognition of the particular self-consciousnesses, i.e. at the terminal point of a dialectical deduction that starts from the concept of natural spirit and moves through the concepts of consciousness and self-consciousness, this article tries to reconstruct in broad lines the key points of this process. According to Hegel, the total transit through all these three evolutionary stages is crowned by the ability of spirit to come to terms with the objective completion of its concept, that is to think of itself not only as a subjective structure, opposite to an external object, but as homogenous to objectivity, in the meaning of the thing itself (die Sache selbst). The moment of rational intersubjectivity is of cardinal importance for this completion, which grants spirit the ability for intelligent theorizing and just practical conduct.