Hegel and Nietzsche attempt to explain identity in their unique ways. Whereas Hegel emphasizes the need for sense-certainty to be the primary way of identifying a person's sexuality, Nietzsche believes that the two primary forms of sexuality must be allowed to co-exist as they depend on each other. Hegel experimented with an aim to elaborate on his idea. It involved writing a truth on a piece of paper with the goal of determining how long the fact will remain so. During the experiment, which was conducted at night, Hegel wrote the words "it is night time" on a piece of paper (Wang).
Hegel notes that whereas the statement may seem to be true, it can only be relevant to that particular region. That is because, when he was writing that truth, it was daytime in another place. What Hegel tried to mean was that on matters of sexuality, it is not possible to determine a truth that is valid universally (Wang).
Nietzsche compared personal identity to a master-slave situation. He observed that a person could not claim to be a master in the absence of slaves. Similarly, a person cannot be a slave if they are not under the authority of a master. For a person to claim a given sexual identity, there have to be alternative identities. In the absence of these alternative identities, the issue of personal identity would be irrelevant.
Hegel's philosophy comes closest to my philosophy of personal identity. It is not possible to establish a personal identity on a universal platform. That is because different societies hold different beliefs on similar matters. Therefore, the determination of individual identity must be dealt with at the society level.
Work Cited
Wang, Yang. "Hegel On Identity | Knowledge, Education, And Identity". Scholarblogs.Emory.Edu, 2015, https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/basicproblems002/2015/02/22/hegel-on-identity/. Accessed 21 Apr 2018.
