Thursday, November 10, 2011
If the state is god working himself out through self actualization, then the individual as a citizen is a part of the state is part of god's self actualization. So any action by the citizen should be a motion of the state and therefore representative of God's self actualization. This means that we essentially give god himself, because according to Hegel we form ourselves from others perception of us, and this means that god is getting himself from us and what we believe about him. Hegel runs on the idea here that the world was created by god and that the world was his way of defining himself, so in his idea of us we all believe in this so we all try to act in a way that would be an accurate portrayal of God as he believed in him.
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ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Caroline!
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about how every individual is essential to God's self-actualization. Do you think, though, that we must believe in him to do this? I would argue that we are equally helpful for God's self-actualization whether or not we believe in him, because either way we are helping him discover himself, even if we don't know it. I don't know how we would know how to act to help him most, because even if we don't believe in him and are completely immoral, we'll still be helping him because we are the "negative" side of sublation, and eventually telos. Although both individuals and society will be moral when telos is reached, we will still be a helpful part of the process if we are immoral.
Do you guys agree?
Also, what do you all this tells us about our own self understanding?
Awesome post!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Emily... I might even argue that God learns more about Himself if we don't follow Him-- like we learn more about ourselves in difficult times than if everything is doing well. There can be no progress without conflict.
It's kind of interesting that God created us and we are who he's self-actualizing through-- like the master/slave dialectic, could you argue that He is such a part of us that he can't really gain anything from the sublating?
I would agree that he those that are defiant in the light of "God" help most if self actualization is what we are here to create. Though I believe that i would then ask: How do we find purpose in our life beyond for God? Is that a good enough reason to live?
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