Is it possible to actually own anything?

Question

Do you really think that anything you possess is yours?

Answer 1

Yes, my thoughts and my emotions. They are only mine.

Answer 2

Yes, but only in the context of a society with generally respected laws. An individual in an isolated environment would not "own" anything but those things called "self".

Answer 3

You answered your own question when you used the word " possession ". The normal understanding among humans, language, presupposes reality. You have used the normal understanding and I think you know we " own " somethings.

Answer 4

What we do possess is our body, thoughts, and mind. The things that we buy aren't really ours because someone else made those things. For example, even though we have clothes, they might be designed by someone else.

Answer 5

Not if you think of it on a really philosophical level. I mean during this lifetime its mine to possess as long as I want but our possessions can outlive us all.

Answer 6

So, as strange as it sounds, this makes me think of the disney pocahontas song. I believe that it makes a good point that you can only own something if you really understand everything about it.

Answer 7

yeah. but when you have things stolen, you're kind of reminded that you really shouldn't care so much for material things. We "own" things in the sense of the word, but as the old saying goes "you can't take it with you when you die". but then of course, you won't be around to own anything, to need anything. yes. i think yes.

Answer 8

You own nothing, only do you really own the thought of owning something. Otherwise, "anything" owns you.

Answer 9

Might makes right or humans are ends in themselves,not merely a means to a personal end? It is a spiritual question. We ARE action.

"We take possession of a thing [a] by directly grasping it physically, [b] by forming it, and [c] by merely marking it as ours.

Addition: These modes of taking possession involve the advance from the category of singularity to that of universality. It is only of a single thing that we can take possession physically, while marking a thing as mine is taking possession of it in idea. In the latter case I have an idea of the thing and mean that the thing as a whole is mine, not simply the part which I can take into my possession physically.

§ 55

[a] From the point of view of sensation, to grasp a thing physically is the most complete of these modes, because then I am directly present in this possession, and therefore my will is recognisable in it. But at bottom this mode is only subjective, temporary, and seriously restricted in scope, as well as by the qualitative nature of the things grasped. — As a result of the connection which I may effect between something and things which have already become my property in other ways, or into which something may otherwise be accidentally brought, the scope of this method is somewhat enlarged, and the same result is produced by other means also."

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/property.htm#PR54

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/li_terms.htm

"(4) Just as private property is only the perceptible expression of the fact that man becomes objective for himself and at the same time becomes to himself a strange and inhuman object; just as it expresses the fact that the manifestation of his life is the alienation of his life, that his realisation is his loss of reality, is an alien reality: so, the positive transcendence of private property – i.e., the perceptible appropriation for and by man of the human essence and of human life, of objective man, of human achievements should not be conceived merely in the sense of immediate, one-sided enjoyment, merely in the sense of possessing, of having. Man appropriates his comprehensive essence in a comprehensive manner, that is to say, as a whole man. Each of his human relations to the world – seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking, observing, experiencing, wanting, acting, loving – in short, all the organs of his individual being, like those organs which are directly social in their form, are in their objective orientation, or in their orientation to the object, the appropriation of the object, the appropriation of human reality. Their orientation to the object is the manifestation of the human reality, [For this reason it is just as highly varied as the determinations of human essence and activities] it is human activity and human suffering, for suffering, humanly considered, is a kind of self-enjoyment of man. "


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm#44CC6

Answer 10

Only your own thoughts and dreams and many of them may not even be yours alone!

Answer 11

You can, however, having control over it is a completely different thing. Ownership never means control.