Hegel and "identity"
I'm reading Hegel's Philosophy of Rights, and I'm sort of confused about the following passage:
For the good as the substantial universal of freedom, but
as something still abstract, there are therefore required determinate
characteristics of some sort and the principle for determining them,
though a principle identical with the good itself. For conscience
similarly, as the purely abstract principle of determination, it is
required that its decisions shall be universal and objective. If good
and conscience are each kept abstract and thereby elevated to in-
dependent totalities, then both become the indeterminate which
ought to be determined. — But the integration of these two relative
totalities into an absolute identity has already been implicitly
achieved in that this very subjectivity of pure self-certainty, aware
in its vacuity of its gradual evaporation, is identical with the abstract
universality of the good. The identity of the good with the sub-
jective will, an identity which therefore is concrete and the truth cf
them both, is Ethical Life.
2 things are confusing to me:
1) What does he mean by "substantial universal?" Does he mean 'most important universal attribute?'
2) When he says "identity," is he just talking about like the explicit intrinsic characteristics--i.e. a more clear description of what the good is, rather than an abstract one?
For the good as the substantial universal of freedom, but
as something still abstract, there are therefore required determinate
characteristics of some sort and the principle for determining them,
though a principle identical with the good itself. For conscience
similarly, as the purely abstract principle of determination, it is
required that its decisions shall be universal and objective. If good
and conscience are each kept abstract and thereby elevated to in-
dependent totalities, then both become the indeterminate which
ought to be determined. — But the integration of these two relative
totalities into an absolute identity has already been implicitly
achieved in that this very subjectivity of pure self-certainty, aware
in its vacuity of its gradual evaporation, is identical with the abstract
universality of the good. The identity of the good with the sub-
jective will, an identity which therefore is concrete and the truth cf
them both, is Ethical Life.
2 things are confusing to me:
1) What does he mean by "substantial universal?" Does he mean 'most important universal attribute?'
2) When he says "identity," is he just talking about like the explicit intrinsic characteristics--i.e. a more clear description of what the good is, rather than an abstract one?
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