THE MATURE FOUNDATION OF THE GOOD LIFE: SPIRIT AND FREEDOM

Abstract

In the trajectory that ran from the Tübingen essay through the Berne fragments to its conclusion in the Life of Jesus and repudiation in the Neufassung des Anfangs, we witnessed the death of an idea of the good life rooted in the logic of absolute self-creation or Selbsttätigkeit. In Hegel's mature philosophy, we witness the birth of a new one rooted in spirit or Geist. The idea of spirit is the logical conclusion to his youthful insight into the preeminent place of participation. The beginning of the path to spirit is marked, as we have seen, by the radicalization and hypostasization of the insight first expressed in his youth as the need to be at home in the world. While the development of the idea of spirit and its mature elaboration is a story unto itself, it is not one in which we need engage if we are interested in exploring Hegel's idea of the good life. Of his mature works, only the Philosophy of Right (1821) need receive our full attention.