I will take your directive Professor Selva. § 7 (along with §5-6)
describe the elements of autonomous willing (self-determination).


§5

"The will contains the element of pure indeterminacy or of the 'I''s
pure reflection into itself, in which every limitation, every
content, wheter present immediately through nature, through need,
desires, and drives, or given and determined in some other way, is
dissolved; this is the limitless infinity of absolute abstraction or
universality, the pure thinking of oneself.

...Only one aspect of the will is defined here -- namely this
absolute possibility of abstracting from every determination in which
I find myself or which I have posited in myself or which I have
posited in myself, the flight from every content as a limitation.

If the will determines itself in this way, or if representational
thought considers this aspect in itself as freedom and holds fast to
it, this is negative freedom or the freedom of the understanding --

...The human being is pure thinking of himself, and only in thinking
is he this power to give himself universality, that is to extinguish
all particularity, all determinacy.

To begin with, the will possesses a dimension of universality to the
degree that it is never bound to any particular content, but is
always free to will something else and then withdraw itself from that
content to give itself another." (The Philosophy of Right, Trans. T.
M. Knox, p37-38)

Thus to begin with, the will possesses a dimension of universality to
the degree that it is never bound to any particular content, but is
always free to will something else and then withdraw itself from that
content to give itself another.

Although the quality of universality, of being unrestricted to any
particular determination, thus underlies each and every example of
willing, it form only a single component of the will's structure.

By itself, this universal dimension comprises a purely negative
freedom to which the will cannot be reduced without contradicting its
self-determining character. For if the will be defined only in terms
of its universality, as a mere capacity to be unbeholden to all given
content, then it has no particular content of its own whereby it
could actually be self-determining.


§6

"In the same way, 'I' is the transition from undifferentiated
indeterminacy to differentiation, determination, and the positing of
a determinacy as a content and object. --This content may further be
given by nature, or generated by the concept of spirit. Through this
positing of itself as something determinate, 'I' steps into existence
in general -- the absolute moment of the finitude or
particularization of the 'I'.

...The 'I' here emerges from undifferentiated indeterminacy to become
differentiated, to posit something determinate as its content and
object. I do not merely will -- I will something. A will which, as
described in the previous paragraph (§5), wills only the abstract
universal, wills nothing and is therefore not a will at all. The
particular [thing] which the will wills is a limitation, for the
will, in order to be a will, must in some way limit itself. The fact
the will wills something is a the limit or negation."(ibid, p39-40)

To be a will, agency cannot just remain unbound to any given
determination; it must will something and thereby bring a dimension
of particularity to its universality. Accordingly, the will has the
further aspect of particularity to its universality. According, the
will has the further aspect of particularity in, in order to
determine itself, it must go beyond its negative freedom an actually
give itself a specific content. In so doing, the will does not lose
its universal character and become something other than itself.
Rather, because the will must will to be what it is, and to will it
must will something, the willing of a specific content does not
cancel the will's autonomy, but realizes it instead. It does so by
providing the will not just with determination, but with its own
particularity.


§7

The will is the unity of both these moments -- particularity
reflected into itself and thereby restored to universality. It is
individuality, the self-determination of the 'I', in that it posits
itself as the negative of itself as the negative of itself, that is,
as determinate and limited, and at the same time remains with itself,
that is, in its identity with itself and universality; and in this
determination, it joins together with itself alone. --

> "'I'[The ego] determines itself in so far as it is the self-

reference [relating..] of negativity [..to itself]. As this self-
relation, it is indifferent to this determinacy; it knows it as
something which is its own, something which is [only] ideal, a mere
possibily [better, pure virtuality, e.s.] by which it is not
constrained and in which it is confined only because it has put
itself in it. – This is the freedom of the will and it constitutes
the concept or substantiality of the will, its weight, so to speak,
just as weight constitutes the substantiality of a body" (The
Philosophy of Right, Trans. T. M. Knox, § 07).

> "Every self-consciousness knows itself (i) as universal, as the

potentiality of abstracting from everything determinate, and (ii) as
particular, with a determinate object, content, and aim. Still, both
these moments are only abstractions; what is concrete and true (and
everything true is concrete) is the universality which has the
particular as its opposite, but the particular which by its
reflection into itself has been equalized wiht the universal. This
unity is individuality, not individuality in its immediacy as a unit,
our first idea of individuality, but individuality in accordance with
its concept (see Enc., 3rd edn. §§ 163-165); indeed, individuality in
this sense is just precisely the concept itself. (...). It is the
task of logic as purely speculative philosophy to prove and explain
further this innermost secret of speculation, of infinity as
negativity relating itself to itself, this ultimate spring of all
activity, life, and consciousness". (ibid. § 07, Observation).

>

Also

"The task of proving and explaining in more detail this innermost
insight of speculation -- that is, infinity as self-referring
negativity, this ultimate source of all activity, life, and
consciousness -- belongs to logic as purely speculative philosophy
--The only thing which remains to be noted here is that, when we say
that the will is universal and that the will determines itself, we
speak as if the will were already assumed to be a subject or
substratum. But the will is not complete and universal until it is
determined, and until this determination is superceded and idealized;
it does not become will until it is this self-mediating activity and
this return into itself." (ibid, 42)


In virture of this component of particularity, it is evident that the
will cannot be concieved as a mere faculty or capacity that can be
defined prior to and independently of its actual willing of
something. To be self-determining agency, the will must have a
particular determination as part of its essence, and thus must be
concieved as actuality.

Its actuality is of a special kind, however, for it integrates both
universality and particularity.

On the one hand, as much as the will is unbeholden to any given
content, it must no less will a particular end in order to be self-
determining.

On the other hand, although the will necessarily restricts itself to
a particular content in willing something, it thereby remains self-
determined rather than determined by something else (ends given by
desire, nature, culture etc..) precisely because what it has
determined is an agency that is never bound to the particular content
it has given itself, but can always cast it aside and will another.

In these respects, the will combines universality and particularity
in its self-determination, and thereby exhibits the further dimension
of individuality that contains within it the two others.


--- In hegel@yahoogroups.com, Emmanuel Selva <emmanuel_selva@y...>
wrote:
It is the task of logic as purely speculative philosophy to prove and
explain further this innermost secret of speculation, of infinity as
negativity relating itself to itself, this ultimate spring of all
activity, life, and consciousness". (ibid. § 07, Observation).

>
> I want to have you for this task.
>
> Emmanuel Selva.

Indeed professor Selva, paragraphs 5 through 7 of the Philosphy of
Right are instructive, bringing to the fore the structure of
individuality basic to freedom along with the elements of
universality and particularity. However, Hegel's depiction of
universality (limitless infinity of absolute abstraction) leaves the
story of the overcoming of Kant and Fichte's transcendental self-
relation untold.


All the best,

Randall