THE STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION IN HEGEL’S JENA WRITINGS
THE STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION IN HEGEL’S JENA WRITINGS

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the status and the evolution of the concept of struggle for recognition in Hegel’s „Jena system outlines“ („Systementwürfe“) prior to his Phenomenology of Spirit. Hegel’s elaboration of this concept reflects his emancipation from his own earlier philosophical and political conception. The latter has often been described in terms of a „metaphysics of substance“, in which the ontological priority of the state or of the people as an organic whole is established at the expense of the individual and its freedom. On the contrary, the principle of the struggle for recognition developed in the system outlines is the unlimited endeavor of the individual consciousness towards its complete realization, i.e. the very freedom of the consciousness. The struggle for recognition and the dialectics it brings into play allow us to interpret the state itself as a product of the activity of the individuals which constitute it.

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