The Unity of Theoretical and Practical Spirit in Hegel’s Concept of Freedom

Abstract

Since early nineteenth century it has been assumed - indeed it has become something of a cliche - that, whereas Kant drew a sharp distinction between theoretical and practical reason and clearly exalted practical over theoretical, Hegel insisted on indissoluble unity of theoretical and practical. Whether that familiar picture of Kant is accurate is not something propose to examine in this essay. However, do wish to consider to what extent that familiar picture of Hegel is correct. My judgment is that it is indeed correct, but that not enough attention has been paid by commentators to precise ways in which theoretical and practical spirit are unified in Hegel's philosophy. The aim of this essay is to shed light on unity of theoretical and practical in Hegel's theory of freedom, in particular, and so perhaps to provide a foundation for future work on relation between Hegel and his German Idealist predecessors. In [section]481 of 1830 Encyclopaedia, Hegel states explicitly that actual free will is unity of theoretical and practical spirit.(1) In so far as human beings, in Hegel's view, are not just animals, but are self-conscious, thinking beings, their practical activity - or willing - must involve knowledge and understanding of what they want to achieve through such activity; and knowledge and understanding, for Hegel, are precisely what is meant by theoretical intelligence.(2) This connection between theoretical and practical activity is not simply contingent, but stems from fact that both practical and theoretical activity are modes of same basic human activity of thought. The difference between understanding and willing for Hegel is thus simply difference between theoretical and practical attitude or comportment (Verhalten) of thought itself, between thought as theoretical and thought as practical. Thought and will are not to be regarded as two distinct mental faculties, therefore; rather, the will is a particular mode of thought; it is thought as translating itself into existence, as drive to give itself existence.(3) Nevertheless, there is a difference between theoretical and practical activity - between thinking as thinking and thinking as willing - and this difference is set out clearly by Hegel in a handwritten note to [section]4 of Philosophy of Right. Theoretical intelligence, he writes, involves considering [what is], letting it be (es lassen) and - cognizing [it] as it is, knowing it as universal. Practical spirit, on other hand, entails relating negatively to world, it in accordance with a determination that is posited by me.(4) Yet, in spite of this clear difference between letting things be and negating and changing them, if theoretical and practical spirit are both modes of thought, then human beings will be required by their nature as thinking beings to engage in both theoretical and practical activity and not to neglect one for sake of other. In fact, fully developed human spirit will be explicit unity of theoretical and practical activity: will which knows itself as will, understands all that it means to be will, and wills (or lets itself be by) what it understands willing to entail.(5) II The first thing to note about theoretical intelligence, Hegel says, is that it finds itself externally determined by given content of sensation; that is to say, it sees colors, hears sounds, feels pressures, and so on, which it does not produce from within itself.(6) The second thing to note is that theoretical intelligence regards sensations it has as stemming from, and as constituting perceptions of, objects which are different from us. When touch something hard, Hegel says, I feel a pressure, but say straightaway that pressure comes from something hard.(7) This idea that what perceive is something hard is not contained in sensation itself, but, as Hegel argues in Encyclopaedia, is result of an act of consciousness whereby mind separates this [sensory] material from itself and gives it initially determination of being. …