Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Professor David RoseORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Commentators oft cite the rather grand claim that for Hegel there was no concept of individual personality, subjectivity nor personal autonomy in Ancient Greece. Hegel’s claim is either taken as orthodox and making sense in the Hegelian historical system as a whole and so little discussed; or is flatly ignored as the worst kind of metaphysical obfuscation; a response a little too comfortable for liberal thinkers. Neither reaction is entirely satisfying. Not enough attention has been paid to it, especially for the vast majority of social and political thinkers who would find it at least contentious, so the present paper aims to assert its significance both for Hegelian politics as a whole and to pay enough attention to it in order to make it very difficult for those who find it a contentious statement to continue to ignore it. One wants to ask what it might mean for one’s self-understanding to be so radically different that, as a human being, I understand myself as first and foremost (and perhaps completely) not as a subjective individual. It is conceptually very difficult to be a self-conscious individual -- in even a minimal sense -- without some idea of being an atomic, individual unit. It is the claim of the following argument that a full understanding of this distinction, between ancient and modern self-understandings, would lead to a revision of Hegel’s liberal credentials, though not entirely for liberal reasons.
Author(s): Rose DE
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Philosophical Investigations
Year: 2024
Volume: 18
Issue: 48
Pages: 381--417
Print publication date: 11/09/2024
Online publication date: 09/09/2024
Acceptance date: 09/09/2024
Date deposited: 02/10/2024
ISSN (print): 2251-7960
ISSN (electronic): 24234419
URL: https://doi.org/10.22034/jpiut.2024.18459
DOI: 10.22034/jpiut.2024.18459
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
