Self-consciousness and the Idea. From Logic to Subjective Spirit

In this chapter, I discuss Hegel’s account of self-consciousness from the standpoint of the relationship between logic and the philosophy of subjective spirit. I contend that while representation reduces the ‘I’ to the finitude of my particularity, self-consciousness in its truth is in fact an infinite form of the Idea. I submit that outright self-consciousness is the subjectivity of the Idea emerging from life. Yet, I also maintain that the universal ‘I’ of pure thought must necessarily realize itself in the finite form of an embodied ‘I’, that is, of my own spiritual subjectivity. Finally, I challenge the assumption that, pace Hegel himself, this correlation between the Idea and its spiritual realization would be ultimately able to elude the form of dualism Fichte introduced between transcendental and empirical self-consciousness.