Instructions

Note: this assignment is for students in Group III only.

Due Mon., Nov. 28 (originally Tues., Nov. 22).

Please respond to the following in two pages or less (double spaced). (Needless to say this should be your own original work.)

In the first Zusatz to §163 (p. 241), Hegel says that slavery as an institution has disappeared in Europe because of “the principle of Christianity itself”: the master regards the slave as a “thing” (Sache) rather than as a person; whereas Christianity regards every human under the form of the universal, and “the principle of personhood is universality.” Consider this statement in relation to the following passage from the Remark to the same section (translation slightly modified):

Since the actual [Wirkliche] is still only in itself or immediately the unity of essence and existence, it can be effective [wirken]; but the singularity of the concept is simply the effective [Wirkende], and no longer, indeed, as [in the case of] the cause [Ursache], with the semblance [Schein] of effecting an other: rather, [it is] the effective of itself. (p. 240)

In the light of this, explain how the passage about slavery depends on Hegel’s understanding of universality: i.e., on the concrete, as opposed to abstract, universal. In particular: why does using someone else to do my necessary work — to produce my effect, so to speak — show that I am regarding the other merely as actuality — as a thing (Sache) and, therefore, as a cause (Ursache) — rather than as a universal concept? How am I regarding myself when I do that? Why is it slave, rather than the master, who will emerge as free (self-acting, autonomous) from this relationship?