4 - Hegel's Political Anthropology

Summary

Hegel himself would never have welcomed my introduction of the expression ‘political anthropology’. In the systematic outline supplied by his Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, the section entitled ‘Anthropology’, the doctrine of the natural determinations of the soul, assumes its carefully delineated place under the rubric of ‘subjective spirit’, whereas the political dimension belongs firmly within the domain of ‘objective spirit’ under the title of ‘right’. I should like, therefore, with the help of a few general points, to locate and identify the theme of the following discussion more precisely. This will require us to make a number of distinctions that might otherwise, without detailed examination of the relevant context, merely cause unnecessary confusion. But I draw these distinctions only in order to press on to the heart of the matter at issue.

Ignoring Hegel's specific terminology, it should immediately be obvious to the contemporary reader that my title intends to refer to Hegel's theory of man as a political animal. This expression so emphatically recalls Aristotle that some differentiation of terms is required. Aristotle's claim concerning man as the political animal plausibly emerges from the broader teleological development of his fundamental concept of action. From the original analysis of action and its characteristic structures, we pass to the consideration of political institutions, which themselves provide the necessary context and condition for our collective praxis.