Selves-As-Citizens: Redressing the Private-Public Distinction Hannah Sine Faculty mentor: Aron Edidin New College of Florida
Utilizing Hegelian thought and dialectic methods, I consider the implications of compartmentalizing public and private life in our notions of the citizen. Inspired by relational concepts of personhood in feminist philosophy, I reconstruct Hegel's understanding of personhood as presented in the Elements of the Philosophy of Right. This view of personhood is used in the syllogism of the Ethical Life, thereby influencing the subsequent development of his concept of the citizen. I make use of Hegel's framework to call attention to the arbitrary division between citizenship and personhood, demonstrating the shortcomings of this modularized notion of persons; notably, in its failure to maintain a continuous conception of the self. Through further implementation of his syllogistic structure, I argue that the self and citizen are similar structures which can be successfully integrated into a coherent concept of self, thereby developing a contemporary, relational view of selves-as-citizens.
Hannah Sine is a philosophy student at New College of Florida, not far away from her hometown of Naples, Florida. After graduation she plans to pursue a doctoral program in Philosophy and eventually become a professor.
