12 - Hegel's Organicist Theory of the State: On the Concept and Method of Hegel's “Science of the State”

Summary

Hegel's “organicist” theory of the state is usually, and surely rightly, regarded as the expression of a specific political outlook on his part. But this understanding of Hegel's theory all too easily can lead us to overlook the theoretical insights that originally motivated the organicist approach and the theoretical insights that this approach itself may have made possible. One should at least attempt to determine the theoretical value, from Hegel's own standpoint, which this organicism possessed for his theory of the state. It is at least possible to show that this organicism derived from a philosophical conception that was not merely, or indeed principally, developed in relation to the domain of political philosophy but was governed by an ideal of knowledge that also was implicitly decisive for Hegel beyond the context of his political philosophy. In the published text of the Philosophy of Right, this ideal repeatedly finds expression in the use of the term that already stands programmatically in the original title of the work, namely, “science of the state” [Staatswissenschaft], or “political science,” as the word is often rendered in English. Hegel thus clearly was attempting to maintain the program that is expressed by the explicit use of the word “science” [Wissenschaft] in the titles of all the principal works that he published himself: the program of a “philosophical science” in general. It is entirely in line with this program that the “Philosophy of Right” should be pursued and presented as a “science of the State.”