Selfhood and Idea: An Investigation into the Structural Isomorphism Obtaining between the “I” and the Idea in Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind

Philosophy, it is true, cannot help but paint its “grey in grey,” but the richness and depth of its content—the wealth of its kingdom—is not thereby limited to an arbitrary and lifeless palette of abstract acrylics. Nor again, does the philosopher, when he philosophizes, converse with a cortège of ghostly, ethereal shades. On the contrary, man philosophizes only insofar as he directs his gaze not to any “spectral woof of impalpable abstractions, or unearthly ballet of bloodless categories,” but to the Absolute. It is the Absolute which constitutes the subject-matter of philosophy. This brief declaration is the credo of the Hegelian system. The following paper investigates Hegel’s conception of the “I” and the relations it bears to the Absolute (i.e., the Idea), and argues that there is a profound structural isomorphism between the “I” and the Idea in Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind. To substantiate this claim, this essay brings to light relevant passages and themes found in Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind, Phenomenology of Spirit, Science of Logic, and Philosophy of Nature, as well as by incorporating past metaphysical readings and interpretations of Hegel’s thought.