Sharif Digital Repository

While the action in society is at stake, it seems that, I merely do something in my personal sphere, but its consequences will not remain ultimately in my personal sphere. It goes beyond of my personal realm and obviously affects other persons and their choices. This claim is one of the most central claims of Rousseau’s philosophy of right. But if it is so, or in some more technical sense, it is the case that there is some mutual dependence between individuals in social life, then my sphere of freedom would not be merely mine. Consequently, a new question would be of some central importance: What is permissible for me, meanwhile I am living in state of society? Rousseau concludes in response... 

For both Fichte and Hegel, self-consciousness is an intersubjective concept; that is, for them, self-consciousness is necessarily constituted between, at least, two subjects. In Foundations of Natural Right, Fichte introduces summons and recognition as necessary conditions of self-consciousness, without which, i.e. an other who is calling upon the subject, the subject cannot be conscious at all. Hegel, in Phenomenology of Spirit, also says self-consciousness is desire which is satisfied only in another (self-) consciousness. Based on these ideas, I try to show that self-consciousness can be defined as having the both in view; the self (I) and the other (not-I), at the same time. In this...