Commentary on Subjective Spirit, Chapter 32
The Same Thing Three Times: The Spiral Staircase of Willing
Hegel warns at the start that in psychology everything is interlocked. An example of this shows how the three parts of subjective spirit connect — and it is willing.
In the Anthropology it appears as natural impulse: what someone wills, they have, the way they have their temperament. It is a condition one finds, and one relates to it — or falls prey to it (§ 408).
In the Phenomenology it appears as desire (§§ 426–429). Now it is directed at an object, and consciousness knows about it — but it only knows that it desires, not why. The object gets consumed, the lack returns.
In psychology it appears as will that sets itself purposes (§§ 469ff.). Here the content is no longer found, but determined — and willing becomes teleological: spirit relates to things as means to ends it gives to itself.
What changes here is not the object, but the form of relation: suffering — knowing that — determining what.
The same figure could be shown for feeling (sensation — self-feeling — practical feeling) and for cognition (awakening — perception — thinking). This is what Hegel means when he says everything is interlocked: these are not themes that occur repeatedly, but the same matter at three stages of its appropriation. [KF]