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Hegel's Occasional Writings: State and Individual

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Peter J. Steinberger
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Extract

Perhaps the most basic and enduring theme in political philosophy is that which concerns the inherent tension between individual values and social values. Indeed, the task of reconciling, in thought, the individual and social is virtually a definition of political philosophy. Of course, in much secondary work, and some primary work as well, this basic task often gets lost in a maze of more particular considerations, including the analysis of moral principles and the elaboration of special institutional arrangements or particular causal patterns. Nonetheless, major theorists, virtually without exception, have recognized that the basic individual values (e.g., freedom, privacy, personal morality) may well be politically undesirable and, similarly, that the requirements of political life (e.g., order, obedience, ethical behavior) may significantly compromise individual goals.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , April 1983 , pp. 188 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1983

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References

1 Taylor, Charles, Hegel (New York, 1975), pp. 10–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See Avineri, Shlomo, Hegel's Theory of the Modern State (New York, 1972), p. 103CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berki, R. N., “Perspectives in the Marxian Critique of Hegel's Political Philosophy,” pp. 199–219 in Hegel's Political Philosophy, ed. Pelczynski, Z. A. (New York, 1971), especially p. 201Google Scholar; K. H. Ilting, “The Structure of Hegel's Philosophy of Right,” ibid., pp. 90–110, esp. 104; Kelly, George Armstrong, Hegel's Retreat from Eleusis (Princeton, 1978)Google Scholar; and Pelczynski, Z. A., “The Hegelian Conception of the State,” pp. 1–29 in Pelczynski, Hegel's Political Philosophy, especially p. 16.Google Scholar

3 Hegel, G. W. F., Hegel's Logic, trans. Wallace, William (Oxford, 1975), p. 142Google Scholar. This is from Henning's Zusatz to Section 96. Note that the exposition is utterly consistent with, if perhaps more felicitous than, Hegel's own exposition in the Larger Logic. See Hegel, G. W. F., Hegel's Science of Logic (New York, 1969), p. 107.Google Scholar

4 Hegel, G. W. F., Hegel's Philosophy of Right (New York, 1971), p. 32.Google Scholar

5 Philosophy of Right, pp. 105–109. (All quotations in this and the next paragraph are from these pages.)

6 Hegel, G. W. F., Natural Law (Philadelphia, 1975).Google Scholar

7 Ibid., p. 65.

8 Ibid., p. 65.

9 Philosophy of Right, p. 124; see also p. 10.

10 See Foster, M. B., The Political Philosophies of Plato and Hegel (London, 1938).Google Scholar

11 Natural Law, p. 67.

12 Ibid., pp. 72–73.

13 To clarify somewhat: it is true that, for Hegel, divisions in general must be highly developed and volatile in order for a full and strong unity to develop. However, his idea of transcendence requires, further, that those divisions lose their oppositional (i.e., dynamic and creative) character in the moment of unity; that the divisions do persist, but only as distinctions, as differences, not as oppositions; and that the achievement of unity permits the development of other, different divisions, divisions of a higher order, which then become the creative and dynamic elements of that new order. It is in this sense that oppositions are annulled yet preserved.

14 See Natural Law, p. 88; also Philosophy of Right, p. 177; and Hegel, G. W. F., Differenz des Fichte 'schen und Schelling 'schen Systems der Philosophie (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1962), p. 69.Google Scholar

15 Philosophy of Right, pp. 160–61.

16 Ibid., p. 280.

17 In the following pages, I minimize differences between the various occasional writings themselves. There can be no doubt that such differences exist, but their exact nature and relevance are unclear. The best analysis I know of is offered by Jürgen Habermas, “Nachwort,” pp. 343–370 in Hegel, G. W. F., Politische Schriften (Frankfurt, 1966)Google Scholar. But while his argument is intriguing, I think it is also a bit farfetched. This is not the place for a treatment of such problems; suffice it to say that, in my judgment, differences between the occasional writings are less serious than Habermas indicates (even on the theory-practice issue) and, further, that these differences are largely irrelevant to the argument of the present essay.

18 Avineri, Hegel's Theory of the Modern State, pp. viii, 36 and 39.

19 Marcuse, Herbert, Reason and Revolution (Boston, 1960), p. 29.Google Scholar

20 Pelczynski, Z. A., “Introductory Essay,” pp. 5–137 in Hegel's Political Writings, ed. Pelczynski, Z. A. (New York, 1964), especially p. 113.Google Scholar

21 Hook, Sidney, “Hegel Rehabilitated?” in Hegel's Political Philosophy, ed. Kaufman, Walter (New York, 1970), pp. 55–71.Google Scholar

22 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, The Government of Poland (New York, 1972), p. 3.Google Scholar

23 Pelczynski, “Introductory Essay,” pp. 28–29.

24 Hegel, G. W. F., “Proceedings of the Estates Assembly in the Kingdom of Württemberg, 1815–1816,” in Hegel's Political Writings, pp. 244–254Google Scholar. Hereafter to be referred to as “Württemberg.”

25 See Marcuse, Reason and Revolution, p. 177.

26 G. W. F. Hegel, “The German Constitution,” in Hegel's Political Writings, p. 234.

27 G. W. F. Hegel, “The English Reform Bill,” in Hegel's Political Writings, p. 318.

28 “English Reform Bill,” pp. 324–27.

29 Pelczynski, “Introductory Essay,” p. 84.

30 Philosophy of Right, p. 175.

31 Pelczynski, “Introductory Essay,” p. 80.

32 “The German Constitution,” p. 234.

33 “Württemberg,” p. 265.

34 See Philosophy of Right, p. 106.

35 “The German Constitution,” p. 154.

36 Ibid., p. 155.

37 Ibid., p. 161.

38 Philosophy of Right, p. 12.

39 Ibid., p. 39.

40 Ibid., p. 161.

41 “Württemberg,” p. 254.

42 Ibid., pp. 264–65.

43 Ibid., p. 263.

44 Ibid., p. 251.

45 Here again, as in the case of the consistency issue, Habermas's “Nachwort” is most enlightening; only in the present instance, our positions are more clearly in accord.

46 Philosophy of Right, p. 175.

47 Ibid., p. 191.

48 Ibid., p. 190.

49 Ibid., p. 190.

50 Ibid., p. 203.

51 Ibid., pp. 199–200.

52 Ibid., p. 175.

53 Ibid., p. 197.

54 Ibid., p. 192.

55 Ibid., p. 196.

56 Ibid., p. 109.

57 Ibid., p. 91–92.

58 Ibid, p. 107.

59 Marx, Karl, Critique of Hegel's ‘Philosophy of Right,’ ed. O'Malley, Joseph J. (Cambridge, 1970).Google Scholar

60 Ibid., pp. 46–51.

61 Ibid., p. 31.

62 Ibid., pp. 9–16; see also O'Malley's introduction p. xxix; Avineri, Shlomo, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx (New York, 1968), pp., 11–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rotenstreich, N., Basic Problems in Marx's Philosophy (New York, 1965).Google Scholar

63 See Avineri, Shlomo, “The Hegelian Origins of Marx's Political Thought,” Review of Metaphysics, 21 (09 1967)Google Scholar; Berki, “Perspectives in the Marxian Critique of Hegel's Political Philosophy”; and Hypollite, Jean, Studies on Hegel and Marx (New York, 1969).Google Scholar

64 Marx, Critique of Hegel's ‘Philosophy of Right’, pp. 26 and 38.

65 Ibid., p. 46.

66 Ibid., p. 42.

67 Ibid., pp. 49–50, 51, 54, and 74.

68 Ibid., p. 59.

69 See, for example, Ilting, “The Structure of Hegel's Philosophy of Right.”

70 Avineri, Hegel's Theory of the Modern State, pp. 128–29.

71 Philosophy of Right, p. 12.