INTRODUCTION
The âFalse Dawnâ of the Anthropology
Not many commentators have responded to the strange beauty of the Anthropology.1 Yet it forms a central moment in the development of the Philosophy of Spirit. For we meet here the first human being within the system: the first man as he awakes, rises to his feet, begins to walk and speak. The Anthropology marks the birth of the living creature called man and as such constitutes his first appearance in the exposition of the Encyclopedia.
In all probability, the lack of interest shown by the commentators for this initial moment of the Philosophy of Spirit can be explained by the disappointment its first reading produces. The twenty-five paragraphs that comprise its development force the reader to follow a long and steep path that leads only to a definition which, on the face of it, appears rather impoverished, and indeed far from original. Under the heading â âthe knowledge of manâs genuine reality â of what is essentially and ultimately true and realâ2 â not very much is revealed: man is a being whose essence consists of âthe upright posture, the formation of the limbs . . . , especially the hand, as the absolute instrument, of the mouth, laughing, weeping, etc.â, and finally âspeechâ.3 Does such a rich development justify only this sort of conclusion? Isnât this simply the rediscovery of the most traditional of all definitions of the human as âanimal rationaleâ, midway between the animals and God?
The Addition to §396 establishes the boundaries of this situation. The animal, Hegel says, âdoes not have the power to actualize within itself the genus in its true formâ.4 Its immediate, abstract individuality remains permanently in contradiction with its generic universality. Now the universality in question is further characterized by Hegel as âdivine reasonâ, âfulfilled from time immemorialâ.5 What is âproper to Manâ is to maintain itself between, on the one hand, the animalâs incapacity, and, on the other, the perfect actualization which is divine. For this reason Man is âperfectly able to present the genusâ.6
What does âperfectly able to present the genusâ mean? If we examine Hegelâs response to this question, we find a second reason for disappointment. It is largely in §396 that his response is developed, in an exposition of the ânatural course of the ages of lifeâ. The pace here is striking: Hegel presents human life with a sombre briskness. From the dawn of birth to the eternal night, first the child, then the youth full of ideas and projects, give way to the mature man ripe but disenchanted, broken in by social obligations, finally to the old man exhausted and drivelling.7
Childhood is the immediate and natural unity of the individual and the genus. But it is necessary, Hegel says, âthat this immediate and therefore non-spiritual, purely natural unity of the individual with its genus and with the world generally, must be sublated (aufgehoben); the individual must go forward to the stage where he opposes himself to the universal. . . .â8
This opposition to universality defines the period of adolescence. The young man feels âstirringâ in himself âthe life of the genusâ which âseeks satisfactionâ. However, Hegel states, the youth believes wrongly that this satisfaction is to be attained by transforming the genus itself and by actualizing his own ideal. Only the mature man is able to recognize âthe essential nature of the world already in existence, completedâ.9 Through work, the mature man âfinds his place in the world of objective relationships and becomes habituated to it and to his tasksâ.10 He makes himself thereby âconformable and adequate to the universalâ and it is in this fashion that he can âpresent perfectly the genusâ. But by this very fact his vitality begins to wane and he becomes an old man.
âAbandon hope, all who enter hereâ: Is this not the covert inscription which decorates the pediment of the Hegelian Anthropology? What is the end of youth if not a dismissal of the ideal? To live out oneâs life to the end, by deferring to the force of circumstances, would amount to renouncing any introduction of the new and unexpected into the realm of the actual. Man, to the degree that he only âcreates what is already thereâ,11 will be condemned to verify the absence of the future. As the ages of man pass by in their course, the future disappears in the false light of distant horizons.12
The role of habit
A close reading of the Anthropology may reveal however that the procedures of habit serve not only as a force of death but also as a force for life. Because, if habit represents the dulling of life which gradually weakens the power of resistance and dynamism itself, it constitutes at the same time, in the course of its development, the vitality and persistence of subjectivity. Hegel declares: âHabit is, like memory, a difficult point in the organization in mental organization; habit is the mechanism of self-feeling, as memory is the mechanism of intelligence.â13 He continues: âThe form of habit applies to all kinds and grades of mental activity.â14
The exposition of habit15 is a moment which marks a decisive turn in the economy of this section. By focusing on its transitional position we will be able to give a new and wholly different slant to the reading of the Anthropology, eclipsing the apparent poverty of its conclusions.
It is critical to make habit a turning point, and this for three fundamental reasons. First, if we do this, we can open up an original perspective on the history of subjectivity, where this history has the double sense of the dialectical constitution of the individual subject and the evolution of the concept of âsubjectâ itself. Reversing all âpragmatic anthropologyâ, Hegelian anthropology returns us to the founding Greek moment of the âsubstance-subjectâ.16 Second, habit emerges as the fundamental anthropological determination in so far as it is a âmechanism of self-feelingâ. This mechanism, by its very structure, presupposes a particular modality of the reduplication of the negative. Third, habit fashions the human âas a work of art of the soulâ,17 a transformation which will bring us back to plasticity.
The Greek moment of the substance-subject
How can we justify our claim that the Hegelian Anthropology finds its seminal conception in this moment? In the first place, there is the fact that Hegel explicitly asserts that he intends to locate his analyses outside the framework of both empirical psychology and rational psychology,18 and that he will be guided in his presentation of âthe concrete knowledge of spiritâ by the De Anima of Aristo...
