Freedom as Subjectivity: Hegel’s Three Moments—Reason, the Other, and Desire

Foradi, Ahmad; Athari, Hossien

doi:10.30465/os.2025.52794.2067

Freedom as Subjectivity: Hegel’s Three Moments—Reason, the Other, and Desire

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Ahmad Foradi ¹

Hossien Athari ²

¹ PhD Candidate (Political Thought), Faculty of Law and Political Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

² Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.

10.30465/os.2025.52794.2067

Abstract

Introduction
This paper advances a systematic reading of G. W. F. Hegel’s concept of freedom by articulating it as a triadic process constituted through Reason, the Other, and Desire. Against readings that reduce Hegelian freedom to a mere variant of Kantian moral autonomy or that portray Hegel as defending a monolithic notion of state-centered voluntarism, I propose that freedom for Hegel is a historically mediated achievement that unfolds through moments whose mutual tension and resolution explain how individual subjectivity becomes genuinely free. The argument proceeds from the observation that Hegel accepts, transforms, and ultimately supersedes Kant’s normative account of freedom as obedience to self-legislated universal law. Where Kant privileges the formal universality of duty against contingent desire, Hegel reconceives universality as the realized content of Spirit: a historically formed rationality that both integrates and rearticulates desire and intersubjective recognition. The paper thus reframes the central Hegelian question—how can the individual be at once particular and universal—into an analytic schema of three interrelated moments: (1) Reason (Vernunft) as the conceptual and normative ground that furnishes universality; (2) the Other (Alterity) as the intersubjective condition for self-certainty and recognition; and (3) Desire (Will/Drive) as the natural, motivating force whose legitimation is secured through rational integration

Materials & Methods
This study employs a close, interpretive method centered on systematic textual analysis of primary Hegelian texts—chiefly Phenomenology of Spirit and Elements of the Philosophy of Right—read in dialogue with canonical Kantian expositions of autonomy and selected anglophone and Persian secondary literature. The methodological stance is hermeneutic-analytic: concepts are traced through their intra-systemic development (following Hegel’s own dialectical logic) and then reconstructed as moments within a coherent conceptual topology. Criteria for selecting the three moments derive from (a) the recurring triadic structures in Hegel’s phenomenological stages (awareness → self-awareness → reason) and (b) the structural problems Hegel poses for Kantian dualisms (reason vs. sensibility; individual vs. community). Evidence is marshalled by (i) close readings of key passages (e.g., the master–slave chapter, the account of ethical life in the Philosophy of Right, and passages on will and duty), (ii) comparative argumentation showing where Hegel accepts and where he transforms Kantian claims, and (iii) interpretive synthesis that demonstrates how the three moments operate together to produce what Hegel calls “true freedom.
Discussion & Result
The analysis yields four principal results. First, Reason (Vernunft) in Hegel is not a purely formal faculty abstracted from historical content; rather, it is a historically achieved rationality that becomes explicit through institutional forms, discursive practices, and ethical life (Sittlichkeit). Whereas Kant posits reason as the a priori source of moral law, Hegel locates reason within the process whereby subjectivity recognizes its own laws only after undergoing historical formation. This reading dissolves the polar opposition between formal universality and contingent content. Second, the Other is not merely an external constraint on individual will; recognition by another self is the precondition for self-certainty. The master–slave dialectic is read as exemplary: self-consciousness requires an encounter with alterity to resolve its ontological insufficiency. The Other thus serves both as a limit and as the medium by which the self discovers that its norms are social and intersubjective rather than isolated products of pure will.
Third, Desire (Will/Drive) is reinterpreted. Hegel refuses the Kantian suggestion that desire is simply an irrational obstacle to freedom. Instead, desire is an essential, motivating moment that must be rationalized—transformed not abolished. Hegelian freedom requires that desires be subsumed under rational norms that are nevertheless concretely informed by human needs and historical life. The result is a synthesis in which desire, when integrated into rational forms, participates in freedom rather than contradicting it. Fourth, the triadic interplay yields a dynamic conception of freedom: freedom is the realized unity of particularity and universality an achieved synthesis rather than a presupposed state. In practical terms, this means that lawful institutions, ethical customs, and democratic forms of recognition are not external limitations on freedom but the very conditions that render freedom substantive and realizable. The paper thus offers a corrective to readings that either reduce Hegel to authoritarian collectivism or else depoliticize his account into pure moral formalism
Conclusion
The paper concludes that Hegel’s concept of freedom can be most productively understood as a triadic process in which Reason, the Other, and Desire are mutually constitutive. This triadic schema clarifies how Hegel both inherits and transforms Kantian autonomy: by historicizing reason, by insisting on intersubjective recognition, and by revaluing desire as a force that must be rationally integrated rather than suppressed. The implication for contemporary political theory is twofold. Normatively, Hegel supplies resources for a conception of freedom that is neither atomistic nor totalizing one that locates liberty within social practices and institutions that enable recognition and the rational fulfillment of wants. Methodologically, the triadic frame suggests a mode of reading canonical texts that attends to intra-philosophical development rather than reductive simplification. The study thus proposes a balanced Hegelian model for thinking political freedom that recovers its ethical depth and historicity while preserving the normative force of autonomy.

Keywords

Hegelian freedom

reason

the other

desire

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