Abstract Right #2 - Personality and Property - par 44 PhR

Robbert Veen's Hegel Podcast

Discussion of Par 44 gets us to the great question why it is property that defines our freedom. Par. 44 explains the entitlement to acquire property, where property is the ownership of natural things that have no self-consciousness nor free will. The absolute chasm between subjective freedom and objective, natural things is also a contradiction., To make something "mine" involves changing the thing that UI acquire. There is no such thing as as a "thing-in-itself" that would remain whatever it was, above and beyond my appropriation of it. This shows the power of the human mind to give itself a world in which it expresses itself. This reality defeats any attempt at absolute realism or transcendental idealism, and certainly it takes away the mystic notion that things have some sort of inner life. The issue of ownership of sentient beings - especially dolphins and apes that have language and self-awareness - but no ownership - then becomes interesting.