independent it is an intrinsically [an sich] universal actual existence; that takes itself to be actual in another consciousness...[349] As constituted by its own and others recognitions, the individual consciousness is said to be in itself and for itself What are these universal. essentially universals in terms of which we must understand individuals social and in terms of which they ideally understand themselves and each other? The passage continues: This ethical [sittliche] taken in its abstract universality, is only law in Substance, the form of but it is no less immediately actual or it is thought; self-consciousness, [Sitte]. [349] custom The universals in question are which can be expressed in (the form norms, explicitly laws of thought being conceptual and propositional), at the cost of abstractness, or may remain in customs or social practices, which have the benefit of concreteness. Norms in implicit the form of communal practice are norms actualized by individual self-consciousnesses. This unity of being-for-another or making oneself a Thing, and of being-for-self, this universal Substance, speaks its [redet ihre allgemeine universal language Sprache] in the customs and laws of its nation. [351] The determinately contentful norms that are the universal element both found and made by the activity of recognitively self-conscious individuals are articulated in both the implicit immediate form of practices and the explicit mediated form of laws. The social nature of this universal element is not restricted to its normative form: ...in the universal Substance, the individual has this of subsistence [in the form universal medium] not only for his activity as such, but no less also for the of that activity; what he does the and customary practice of all. content is [351] 5. What is potentially misleading about this introductory discussion is the way in which it anticipates the fuller discussion in the chapter on Spirit. There we will encounter, officially for the first time, the three stage structural development of Spirit, from immediate implicit Sittlichkeit, in the first stage, through the middle stage in which that Sittlichkeit is shattered by the eruption of individual self-consciousnesses whose
independent actual existence; it is an intrinsically [an sich] universal that takes itself to be actual in another consciousness...[349] As constituted by its own and others recognitions, the individual is said to be in itself and for itself universal. What are these essentially social universals in terms of which we must understand individuals and in terms of which they ideally understand themselves and each other? The passage continues: This ethical [sittliche] Substance, taken in its abstract universality, is only law in the form of thought; but it is no less immediately actual self-consciousness, or it is custom [Sitte]. [349] The universals in question are norms, which can be expressed explicitly in laws (the form of thought being conceptual and propositional), at the cost of abstractness, or may remain implicit in customs or social practices, which have the benefit of concreteness. Norms in the form of communal practice are norms actualized by individual self-consciousnesses. This unity of being-for-another or making oneself a Thing, and of being-for-self, this universal Substance, speaks its universal language [redet ihre allgemeine Sprache] in the customs and laws of its nation. [351] The determinately contentful norms that are the universal element both found and made by the activity of recognitively self-conscious individuals are articulated in both the implicit immediate form of practices and the explicit mediated form of laws. The social nature of this universal element is not restricted to its normative form: ...in the universal Substance, the individual has this form of subsistence [in the universal medium] not only for his activity as such, but no less also for the content of that activity; what he does is the and customary practice of all. [351] 5. What is potentially misleading about this introductory discussion is the way in which it anticipates the fuller discussion in the chapter on Spirit. There we will encounter, officially for the first time, the three stage structural development of Spirit, from immediate implicit Sittlichkeit, in the first stage, through the middle stage in which that Sittlichkeit is shattered by the eruption of individual self-consciousnesses whose consciousness
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