[Xmca-l] Re: Thoughts on culture & liberty

[Larry Purss]

I am posting a fragment that I think may be relevant. It comes from  Robert
Pippen's article titled "What is the question for which Hegel's Theory of
Recognition is the Answer?".

The question is the nature of freedom?
Pippen states that Hegel is rejecting any causal account of freedom.
However Pippen cautions we should not go too far in any "objective" or
"social theory" of freedom. Why?
Pippen's answer is that Hegel never looses focus on the *relation between *my
individual views of what I will or should ethically do [my intentions and
reasons] *and* the actual action.
Hegel acknowledges a person can have various reflective "attitudes towards"
what I should do or about the claims that others have on me that should
lead me to do. Hegel grants that I sometimes  act accordingly on such views
and sometimes I do not act accordingly on such ethical views.

But, and this is key, *this relation* is not a causal relation but an
*expressive
relation*.  An action is an expression of subjective will. Hegel gives the
example of the relation of the artist to his/her art work.  In some "sense"
the artist causes the work such as a statue to be made, but what makes the
work "his" is that this work expresses "him" and his artistic intentions.

AND what makes the the "him"