Sein / Werden
Whether identity and history are a fixed state to be understood (being) or an open, self-created process (becoming); Romantics prize becoming.
In lecture order, as Marci Shore presents each view. The time opens that minute of the lecture on YouTube.
Two things distinguish humans from other creatures, on Rousseau's account: free agency, and an openness to becoming. We are underdetermined, self-creating beings rather than finished ones.
Put simply Rousseau: two things set humans apart from other creatures. We act freely, and we are open to becoming something new. Nothing fully fixes what we will be; we make ourselves.
A distinction Shore calls key and expects to keep returning: the Enlightenment asks how things are, what it is to be; the Romantics care about becoming, what we can become.
Put simply Shore calls this a key distinction she will keep returning to: the Enlightenment asks how things are; the Romantics ask what we can become. Being versus becoming.
Fichte: "to be free is nothing, to become free is heaven." Freedom is not a state you have but a becoming you live, driven by desire.
Like the Romantics, Hegel cares less about what is than about what is becoming: nothing holds still, and everything is always on its way to being something else.
3 links between claims that both use the term. Each shows the earlier claim, then the later one that answers it. “Our inference” marks a link Shore does not state outright.
RousseauTwo things distinguish humans from other creatures, on Rousseau's account: free agency, and an openness to becoming. We are underdetermined, self-creating beings rather than finished ones. L3 · 17:39
FichteFichte: "to be free is nothing, to become free is heaven." Freedom is not a state you have but a becoming you live, driven by desire. L3 · 37:08
Radicalizes Rousseau's becoming-over-being into an explicit axiom: freedom itself is a process, not a possession.Our inference
FichteFichte: "to be free is nothing, to become free is heaven." Freedom is not a state you have but a becoming you live, driven by desire. L3 · 37:08
HegelLike the Romantics, Hegel cares less about what is than about what is becoming: nothing holds still, and everything is always on its way to being something else. L4 · 14:38
Shore says Hegel takes the being-versus-becoming distinction central to Romanticism, which she recalls through Fichte's line on becoming free, and makes it central.
RousseauTwo things distinguish humans from other creatures, on Rousseau's account: free agency, and an openness to becoming. We are underdetermined, self-creating beings rather than finished ones. L3 · 17:39
HegelLike the Romantics, Hegel cares less about what is than about what is becoming: nothing holds still, and everything is always on its way to being something else. L4 · 14:38
Humans defined by becoming, not fixed nature, now generalized to all of realityOur inference
Terms that appear in the same claims.