This paper is intended to shed light on some aspects of Hegel's concept of freedom, which are rarely understood. Chaaracterizing freedom, Hegel generally starts from a fairly commonsensical understanding of it. He believed that the individual's course of action was free, when it was one that he had himself decided upon, i.e. when the individual's will had been done. In other words he conceived liberty in terms of self-determination of the individual's will (Bei-sich-Sein des Willens). However this starting point gives rise to more difficult problem: What state of the will can be called "self-determined"? To solve this problem, Hegel discerns and takes special notice of the two quite different phases of the will. One is called "the universal phase" of the will, and the other "the particular phase". Now if the will is a will at all, it has to "realize" its purpose in actal situations with particular circumstances. The will in its actuality is thus necessarily conditioned and cannot be other than a will in its particular limitation. In this sense, the will remains "a will in its particularity". But the will also shows another aspect, or ability. While refusing to passively play only the given roles, it can also as an intelligence rise above them, and even establish a new purpose; it can deliberate its possible role from a more general point of view and re-orient itself. It, indeed, find itself in limitless infinitude (der schrankenlosen Unendlichkeit der absoluten Abstraktion). In this sense the will can be called "universal". The gist of Hegel's concept, however, does not consist of the fact that he distinguishes these two phases of the will, but rather in his unique understanding of them. To put more concretely, he grasped the two phases in their complementarity and disclosed the process of their reciprocal formation. In other words, he saw that a will could be universal and properly accomplish its guiding role, only so far as it had also the concrete experiences in its particular phase. the universality separated from and opposed to the particularity is quite abstract and without any content. A will in its universal phrse can achieve truly concrete goals, only on the basis of and supported by the experiences of a particular course of its action. On the other hand a will in its particular phase also has to suitably orient itself under the guidance of the will in its universal phase. Without this guidance, it would remain only a conditioned and limited will. In order for the will to be a free, both of these phases are necessary. And when a will in its particular phase is set free under the guidance of the universal will from a narrowly limited course, and approaches the more general ones, it become a more "selfdetermined" will.
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