Introduction
Reason has identified itself with the element of life, and is now active. Reason lives actively. Active Reason is the second shape of Reason. It experiences and lives life, yet its purpose is at a level above and beyond the previous shapes of self-consciousness. What I mean to say is that since self-consciousness is still a biological animal, it must eat, drink, and reproduce. Active Reason, like natural self-consciousness before experiencing the fear of death in the life or death struggle for recognition, is pure desire. It has absconded with the self-control it produced as the stoic. This shape of self-consciousness, further, has the experience of the struggle for recognition behind it, as well as the experience of lordship and bondage. Unlike natural self-consciousness, active Reason is not merely satisfied with satisfying its desire. It is concerned with verifying its certainty of being the universal substrate of all reality. This certainty is the result of a reconciliation of the unchangeable and changeable aspects of consciousness. The fear of death has compelled self-consciousness to restrain its desire, work, produce finished products, and think.
The natural self-consciousness prior to that struggle also had this certainty of self-consciousness being the basis of all reality, however, it was an instinctive, fragile, certainty. The fragility of this certainty was revealed when the entire being of self-consciousness quaked at the fear of death. As active Reason, identifying its essence with the fluid essence of life, infinity, self-consciousness has regained this certainty of self-consciousness being the basis of all reality. The satisfaction of its desire is coupled with its drive to demonstrate both to itself and other self-consciousnesses the truth of its self certainty. Active Reason, as was revealed by Reason observing the laws of psychology, lives in a world of other self-consciousnesses with personality traits. The drive of active Reason to satisfy its desire, combined with its desire to raise its certainty of its own self-consciousness as being the basis of all reality, i.e. its self-assuredness, for itself and other self-consciousnesses is a drive to seek social status. In this unshakeable self-assured search for personal advantage, at the expense of others, Reason acts in its own self-interest. Thus, active Reason is rationally self-interested.
The lord that emerged from the life and death struggle for recognition did not have this self-assuredness that active Reason now has. The bondsman has elevated himself to the status of lord, in theory. He acts in a rationally self-interested manner to convert his elevated view of himself as lord, his intention, and make it into reality, an accomplished deed.
The experience of observing, or passive, Reason has given self-consciousness an exhaustive and intuitive view of nature, organic and inorganic. Even though Reason failed to establish its certainty of being the basis of all reality by passively observing nature, and seeking to observe itself as a thing, Reason has learned how to distinguish inner and outer. Reason knows the difference between inner purpose and the outer action necessary to externalize that purpose; Active Reason knows the difference between intention and deed. Its pursuit of pleasure and social status is, therefore, a cerebral pursuit.
The dual pursuit of pleasure and social status is a fundamental activity necessary for the functioning of a well ordered state. The shapes of active Reason, starting with self-consciousness that seeks pleasure and finds necessity, will all learn from the touchstone of experience that they are fundamentally incomplete. Self-consciousness will be unable to actualize its purpose, the rational self-interest that motivates each shape of active Reason to act, into an accomplished deed. Its intentions will conflict with the nature of objective reality, as well as the very nature of self-consciousness itself. Active Reason will overcome the impasse it encounters by assuming a new shape. Each shape will pull active Reason further and further from the isolated, selfish pursuits of the individual, and closer and closer to the integrated, selfish pursuits of the member of a family, and by extension, the citizen of the state. The Ethical State is the missing piece that completes active Reason.
The journey that transforms the isolated, rationally self-interested individual that pursues pleasure and social status into the member of the family and citizen of the state, i.e. self-consciousness as Spirit, begins here. Every individual self-consciousness in the shape of active Reason treads this singular path, each believing that it is pursuing its own peculiar individual path without knowing that all roads lead to Rome. Spirit is the Milliarum Aureum, erected by Augustus Caesar, towards which active Reason marches, and whence it came.
Rational Self-Interest Seeking Pleasure and Status
Having identified its self-certainty with the essence of life, Reason sets pleasure, and the social status derived from being seen to enjoy the riches of life, as its primary teleological purpose. As self-conscious Reason, the elevation of its certainty that self-consciousness is the universal substrate of all reality is also its primary teleological goal. Thus, active Reason identifies these two primary teleological goals; it is engaged in the egoistic pursuit of maximizing the pleasure it feels from its self-satisfaction.
Self-consciousness knows itself inwardly to be reality. This inward, self-reflecting knowing, no longer has an object to which it can be correlated. Sense certainty correlated the certainty of its senses to the objective immediacy of being, perception to the thing and its properties, the understanding to the unconditioned, intelligible universal, natural self-consciousness to the infinity of life, observing Reason to itself as objective Category, i.e. the self as a thoughtform that could be objectively observed, which turned out to be the skull. Active Reason identifies itself to the essence of life, infinity, as did natural self-consciousness. Thus, following the pattern of natural self-consciousness, active Reason finds the objective correlate to its inward self-certainty in another self-consciousness.
Active Reason is certain that this other self-consciousness is in principle already itself. Therefore, active Reason does not desire to self-negation, i.e. servitude, of another self-consciousness, but rather the other's overt display of recognizing active Reason's inward certainty. It seeks social status, its egoistic pursut is constrained by what other self-consciousnesses approve. It will satisfy its animal desires, and feel pleasure from that satisfaction only if others at the very least approve of its actions. Since it seeks status, self-consciousness seeks the esteem of others.
In principle, the independent otherness of other self-consciousnesses is an empty show, a performance, devoid of essence and actuality. In principle, self-consciousness and the others are not many, but one. Active Reason need only act, and its truth will, without resistance, reveal itself. The actualization of this unity that exists in principle is for self-consciousness the enjoyment of pleasure. It gains the esteem of others, becomes one with them in principle, i.e. makes friends, and gains social status.
For active Reason, true actuality is merely the being which is the actuality of the individual self-consciousness. Thus, it leaves behind the objective knowledge, and theory, as a grey shadow which is in the act of passing out of sight. Reason plunges into life and indulges to the full the pure individuality in which it appears. The shadowy existence of science, laws, principles, which alone stand between active Reason and its true actuality, individual self-consciousness, vanishes like a lifeless mist which cannot compare with the certainty of its own reality.
The clique self-consciousness has form is the inward activity of self-consciousness, self-differentiated unity, exteralized into objective reality. The formation of this clique is for self-consciousness its accomplished deed. Its internal intention, its purpose, i.e. the rationally self-interested pursuit of pleasure and social status, has been actualized. Reason has attained the godlike and robust tranquil freedom of ataraxia. Dionysus is lead by a troop of strong sober wild tigers, accompanied by his clique, most importantly by his companion and tutor, drunken Silenus, riding a weakened drunk donkey.
Self-Interest Confronting Necessity
Reason engages in the revelry of the Now. The irresistible and imperturbable march of time does not cease. Even the most self-assured rationally self-interested self-consciousness must confront decay and perish. The absolute unyieldingness of individual existence is pulverized on the equally unrelenting but continuous flux of objective actuality.
In forming its clique, self-consciousness has externalized itself as a differentiated self-unity. This externalization of self, its purpose and intention, challenges the unyielding flux of nature. Both self-consciousness and nature are expressions of the infinite flux of life. Its clique is composed of many individuals, yet has raised itself to universality. The clique has not transcended the finite particularity that defines each member. Thus, over time, this beautiful unity must dissipate. Friends drift apart, either in life or in death.
The transition from living pleasure to lifeless necessity is an unmediated, irresistible, inversion. In successfully attaining the pleasure of satisfying its desires and acquiring the esteem of another for doing so, there is no purpose or end beyond that same acquisition. With age, the desire dissipates, and along with it, the esteem of others. Any friends that remain remain only due to the memory of youth. They long to return to those days, yet cannot, since time flows only from present to future. Those who did not belong to the clique are indifferent to this self-consciousness' externalized, and verified, certainty of being the basis of all reality.
The infinite flux of nature, the irresistable flow of the law of fractal self-similarity, is the law of necessity. Self-conscious active Reason too derives its essence from the infinite flux of life. Thus, the law of necessity is the law of its own heart. Active Reason assumes a new shape, which can called the law of the heart.
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