Essays on Hegel's Philosophy of Subjective Spirit

The Psychology of Willand the Deduction of Right

The Psychology of Will and the Deduction of Right Rethinking Hegel’s Theory of Practical Intelligence Richard Dien Winfield Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit is perhaps the most neglected part of his system, and no portion of that work has lingered in deeper oblivion than its concluding section “Practical Intelligence.” That section, however, is doubly significant. First, Hegel’s account of “Practical Intelligence” provides an important contribution to comprehending will as it falls within the philosophy of mind. Second, that account brings the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit to closure and ushers in the Philosophy of Objective Spirit. In so doing, the theory of practical intelligence consummates the philosophy of mind and provides the conceptual prerequisites for normative conduct, the topic of Objective Spirit. The theory of practical intelligence thereby constitutes the derivation of the concept of right, the reality of the free will. This means that practical intelligence comprises the will that is not yet truly free, yet furnishes individuals all they need to freely determine themselves. To understand practical intelligence the different dimensions of willing and the separate accounts Hegel provides for them must be distinguished . Generally, the Philosophy of Right addresses the reality of the free will, whereas the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit addresses the will as psychologically determined. The introduction to the Philosophy of Right, however, restates the development of practical intelligence as it appears in 201 202 / Richard Dien Winfield the Philosophy of Spirit. This account is not part of the Idea of Right, but rather recapitulates the concluding section of the philosophy of mind that provides what Hegel calls the deduction of the concept of right.1 Further, the psychological account of will as practical intelligence must not be confused with the logical account of will provided in Hegel’s Logic and Science of Logic.2 Logically speaking, will is a subject that strives to make itself something which unites subjectivity and objectivity by transforming what confronts it so as to conform to the subject’s own determination. As such, will has a determinacy, its aim, which is to be made objective. Because will’s aim initially lacks objectivity, the will is subjective and finite, bounded by the objectivity that lies beyond it. Thus will presupposes the self-subsisting independence of the objectivity it sets out to annul. By urging itself on to unify subjectivity and objectivity, will extinguishes its own activity , which only proceeds so long as that unification has not been attained.3 Will as mind adds to these logical determinations a natural and psychological concretization. With respect to mind, objectivity comprises a natural world containing the living subject whose own subjectivity has a living, animal-embodied being in the world. That embodiment combines the individual’s physiological species being with the psychological dimensions of mind, which have physiological ramifications of their own. If the involvement of mind and body in volition is evident, whether will as mind is practical intelligence is controversial. This question, which Hegel answers affirmatively, is sometimes confused with whether will necessarily involves thinking, whether will is practical reason. If will does involve thought, then it becomes problematic to attribute will to nonrational animals or children who have yet to develop linguistic intelligence. Because, however, intelligence includes intuition and representation as well as thought, the identification of will with practical intelligence bears upon a more fundamental divide distinguishing intelligence from psyche and consciousness. Then will may be attributed to both dumb animals and prelinguistic children, who lack reason but intuit and imagine. Granting these possibilities, why should will be practical intelligence and not just an engagement of psyche and consciousness? Underlying this question is the more fundamental question of how will can comprise something irreducible to desire and reason. The famous absence of any word for “will” in classical Greek philosophy reflects the common dogma of Plato and Aristotle that mind can do nothing independent from our desires or our reason.4 How, then, can action, goal-directed behavior, proceed without subordination to desire or reason? If will is practical intelligence, volition’s irreducibility to desire and reason must thereby be explicable. The Psychology of Will and the Deduction of Right / 203 To determine whether will is practical intelligence requires establishing whether will constitutively involves not just psyche and consciousness, but intelligence. Intelligence unites the features of psyche and consciousness , such that mind relates to its own content as both subjective and objective. This occurs in...