Not Good For Man

Peter J. Leithart
October 19, 2009
Category: Theology - Creation

It is not good for man to be alone.  Hegel says, It is impossible.

“I have my self-consciousness not in myself but in the other.  I am satisfied and have peace with myself only in this other – and I am only because I have peace with myself; if I did not have it, then I would be a contradiction that falls to pieces.  This other, because it likewise exists outside itself, has its self-consciousness only in me, and both the other and I are only this consciousness of being-outside-ourselves and of our identity; we are only this intuition, felling, and knowledge of our unity.  This is love, and without knowing that love is both a distinction and the sublation of the distinction, one speaks emptily of it.  This is the simple, eternal idea.”

Williams explains: “Our thinking . . . is ultimately radical loving: ecstasy, being-outside-ourselves.”


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