Negative Freedom as Politics of Spirit in Hegel

Abstract

This article aims to present negative freedom as a moment of vitality in the formation of absolute freedom, represented by moral conscience, as a necessary process of realization in political representation based on Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit. In the first moment, we will present the understanding of absolute freedom and the unfolding of its concept as universal will. In the second moment, we will discuss the conception of negative freedom as an experience of the French Revolution and its result as terror. The experience of negative freedom is understood as the possible means for the solution of contradiction, destruction, and death. These means originate from the political representation of the French Revolution. The hermeneutics presented leads to the positive exaltation of negative freedom as the way towards a possible solution of the problems inherent to a representation of absolute freedom as rational.