Being a self of one's own in the social world: developing a Hegelian account of the marginalised self

Mogomotsi, Olerato Kau

Being a self of one's own in the social world: developing a Hegelian account of the marginalised self

Thesis / Dissertation

2026

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

This dissertation provides a novel Hegelian account of what it is to be a marginalized individual in the social world. Here, I defend a metaphysical conception of marginality as being a form of what I term unjust provisionality. To be a marginalized self will be explicated as being unjustly damned to provisionality—where one is marginalized through being precluded from having aspects of one's particular individuality attain actuality in the prevailing social order. Beyond the philosophical treatments of marginality as an ethical issue (of being treated unjustly), I see Hegel as providing us the opportunity to consider the metaphysical aspects of being marginalized—where the social reality of a self and the possibilities of being oneself in the social world are implicated. I develop my account through an extensive exegesis of the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophy of Right. Through this exegesis, I focus on Hegel's articulation of the attainment of Individualität (mired in the context of the dynamic between Sittlichkeit and the Idea) to outline what Hegel takes to be the conditions for the possibility of having a concrete identity in the social world. I end by an extensive defence of the unjust provisionality thesis, by demonstrating why it should be preferred from a conception of marginality inferred from Honneth's critical theory. Finally, I demonstrate that my Hegelian account of marginality has significant advantages over a Butlerian-Foucauldian subjectivation approach to conceptualizing marginality—in that it can account for how power as dominance/subordination produces individuals differentially in relation to power as experiencers of distinct forms of unjust provisionality