PRESENTOR On Our Birthright: An Exploration of Hegel’s Two Agencies Diego Lavado, Texas A&M University
Introduction Hegel’s philosophy of history causes controversy because it can be understood as a direct call for passiveness in our actions. Since the higher purpose of the Spirit in world history is the achievement of universal freedom, all of our actions should be seen working towards that ideal. Thus, freedom emerges as the realization of the passiveness in our actions led by the imminent goal of the modern state. This idea of passiveness is far away from the actual call Hegel tries to make in his philosophy of history. It is true that Hegel understands history not as the selfish caprice of one’s will but as Reason’s substantial characteristic to show itself in reality. However, even though Hegel knows there is Reason in history, he understands that nothing can be achieved without passion. Passion is what decides determinant moments in world history that rule the course of our lives. According to Hegel, these moments are carried by two kinds of agencies: one of the individual with passion and the other from the self-conscious individual that asserts his freedom through self-governance. In these two agencies, world history achieves its rationality in the actions of men and women that, through passion and self-governance, claim their birthright of freedom in a necessary process of struggle. For this reason, this essay will explore Hegel’s two kinds of agencies as a call for action to pursue our birthright in the necessary struggle individuals will face in world history. First Agency: On the Universal Objective and the Individual Will Hegel sees the first kind of agency as the freedom of the individual with selfgovernance in an activity. This activity of the individual will is understood in its purpose that puts a universal objective1 into action. Thus, the idea of achieving something is innate to every human if we will accomplish anything. As an example of the process of putting one’s will into action for a universal objective, Hegel explains how to build a house. He illustrates how the different elements (rocks, Hegel understands a universal objective as the “realization of the universal Idea in an immediate actuality and the elevation of the singular [agency] into universal truth”(Hegel and Rauch 28). This universal truth is found in the achievement of freedom of selfgovernance after the agent thinks about the determinations of his actions that are not merely private. 1
58
