Abstract

This dissertation advances an argument which concludes the necessity of a clear separation between public sphere and private domain if rational human freedom and dignity are to be realized. More precisely, it argues that, under the conditions which human life exists, in order for humans to rationally satisfy their individual and group needs, a clear distinction between public and private constitution and function is presupposed. Thus humans cannot actualize their potential without a viable private sphere, where some activities have meaning and value only if they occur wholly out of the public eye, and without a public realm, where certain forms of expression are conducive to human fulfillment. Moreover, this thesis concurs that the interpenetration of public activity and private function has been an ingredient in the destruction of both spheres. ;The dissertation also offers an account, drawn from several primary sources, of the demise-transformation of both public and private arenas. One element of that destruction has been the emergence of the modern individual, the personality whose self-absorption leads him to interpret all events, both public and private, in terms of intimacy. Intimacy is shown to be a romantic fiction, an illusion based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the self. Further, two modern appraisals of the status of the individual and society are shown to be inadequate. Finally, Hegel's account of community, where the "I" discovers the "We," after realizing the self in the other, is offered as a potential solution to the modern predicament