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Hegel's Politics: Liberal or Democratic?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Jay Drydyk
Jay Drydyk*
Affiliation:
Trent University, Peterborough, OntarioK9J 7B8
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Extract

It probably comes as a surprise to no one that Hegel's political philosophy is difficult to interpret. But his political thought clearly poses problems which the rest of his work does not (especially), and these problems arise from apparent political ambivalence on his part towards the French Revolution, towards monarchy, towards the doctrine of popular sovereignty, towards public opinion and press freedom - well, there is scarcely a reader of Hegel who could not add some additional topic to this already lengthy list. For instance, Hegel sometimes noted how crucial it is for a state to be decisive; every state needs a reservoir of decisiveness, supplied preferably by a monarch, who ‘has become the personality of the state,’ who ‘cuts short the weighing of the pros and cons between which it lets itself oscillate perpetually now this way and now that, and by saying “I will” make its decision and so inaugurates all activity and actuality.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 99 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1986

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References

1 Hegel, G.W.F. Hegel's Philosophy of Right, T.M. Knox trans. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press 1952)Google Scholar, par. 279, remark, 181.

2 Ibid., 289. This addition comes from Hegel's lectures of 1822/23. Vorlesungen über Rechtsphilosophie 1818-1831, Karl-Heinz Ilting, ed. 4 vols. (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog 1973) 3, 764. Ilting's edition will be cited hereafter as Edition 1lting.

3 Ilting, K-H. ‘Einleitung des Herausgebers; Der exoterische und der esoterische Hegel (1924-1831),’ in Edition Ilting, 4, 59Google Scholar

4 Hegel, G.W.F. The Philosophy of History, J. Sibree trans. (New York: Dover 1956) 446.Google Scholar

5 See Ottmann, Henning ‘Hegels Rechstphilosophie und das Problem der akkommodation,’ Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 33 (1979) 227–43.Google Scholar

6 Rousseau, Jean Jacques The Social Contract and Discourses, G.D.H. Cole trans. (New York: Dutton 1950)Google Scholar bk. 3, ch. 4, 66

7 Kant, Immanuel ‘Perpetual Peace,’ Beck, Lewis White trans. in On History, Beck, L.W. ed. (New York: Bobbs-Merrill 1957) 95–7Google Scholar

8 Robespierre, Maximilien Oeuvres, 10 vols (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1910-1967) 10 352–3Google Scholar

9 Ibid., 353

10 Bentham, Jeremy A Fragment on Government, in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Bowring, John ed. (New York: Russell & Russell 1962), 1, 276Google Scholar

11 Bentham, Jeremy Plan of Parliamentary Reform, in Works 3, 437Google Scholar

12 Ibid., 446

13 Ibid., 447

14 Macpherson, C. B. The Real World of Democracy (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 1965), 1965Google Scholar

15 Ibid.

16 Some representative (early) articles by these writers are collected in Kaufmann, Walter ed. Hegel's Political Philosophy, (New York: Atherton 1970).Google Scholar

17 Ibid.

18 Of course, there remain other, more obvious reasons for abhorrence of fascism, having less to do with politics than with the sheer barbarism and extent of suffering which it has caused.

19 Hegel, G.W.F. Briefe von und an Hegel, Johannes Hoffmeister, ed. 4 vols. (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1952) 1, 12Google Scholar

20 Hegel, G.W.F. Dokumente zu Hegels Entwicklung, Hoffmeister, Johannes ed. (Stuttgart: Frommans Verlag 1936) 269.Google Scholar Translation from Lukacs, Georg The Young Hegel, Rodney Livingstone trans. (London: Merlin 1975), 43Google Scholar

21 ‘Universal interest of its own’ is intended as a paraphrase of Hegel's ‘national principle.’ See Hegel, Philosophy of Right, par. 344-52.

22 G.W.F.|Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History Introduction: Reason in History, Hoffmeister, Johannes ed. Nisbet, H.B. trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1975), 55–6, 134Google Scholar

22 G.W.F.|Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History Introduction: Reason in History, Hoffmeister, Johannes ed. Nisbet, H.B. trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1975), 55–6, 134Google Scholar

23 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, par 349, 218

24 Hegel, Reason in History, 197-8

25 Ibid., 130

26 Kainz, Howard P. Hegel's Phenomenology, Part II Athens: Ohio University Press 1983), 86Google Scholar

27 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, par. 351, 219

28 Ibid., par. 347, 218-19

29 Ibid., remark to par. 200, 130

30 See Wartenberg, Thomas E. ‘Poverty and Class Structure in Hegel's Theory of Civil Society,’ Philosophy and Social Criticism 8 (1981) 167–82.Google Scholar

31 Hegel, Philosophy of Rights, 237, an addition from the lectures of 1822/23, Edition Ilting, 3, 216

32 Hegel seized upon this point in his early critique of Kant and Fichte, Natural Law, Knox, T.M. trans. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1975), 84–92.Google Scholar Cf. Philosophy of Right on Fichte and social contract theory, par. 258, 157.

33 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, remark to par. 308, 200

34 Ibid., par. 315, 203

35 Ibid., 294, an addition from the lectures of 1922/23, Edition Ilting, 3 818

36 Hegel, G.W.F. Jenaer Realphilosophie, Hoffmeister, Johannes ed. (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1967), 267Google Scholar

37 Hegel, G.W.F. Phenomenology of Mind, ].B. Baillie trans. (New York: Harper & Row 1967), 601–2Google Scholar

38 Ibid., 604

39 Ibid., 679

40 Findlay, J.N. The Philosophy of Hegel: An Introduction and Re-Examination (New York: Collier 1958), 130Google Scholar

41 Hegel, Philosophy of History, 445

42 Hegel, G.W.F. ‘On the Recent Domestic Affairs of Württemberg, Especially on the Inadequacy of the Municipal Constitution,’ Hegel's Political Writings, Pelcznski, Z.A. ed. Knox, T.M. trans. (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1964), 243.Google Scholar A similar threat was delivered at the outset of Hegel's 1831 essay on the English Reform Bill. Ibid., 258.

43 Hegel, G.W.F. ‘Zwei Entwiirfe zur Reformbiii-Schrift,’ in Werke, 20 vols. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1969-71), 11, 553.Google Scholar

44 Hegel. Philosophy of Right, remark to par. 301, 196

45 Ibid., 277, an addition from the 1824/25 lectures, Edition Ilting, 4, 609

46 Ibid. Cf. par. 238.

47 The Corporations were to be instrumental in both respects. They were to be politicized so as to avoid degeneration into narrow self-interest groupings (ibid., 278). They were also to limit and influence the executive: ‘In these the executive meets with legitimate interests which it must respect’ (ibid., 290). Cf. Hegel's 1824/24 lectures, Edition Ilting 4, 692.

48 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, par. 272, remark, 175

49 See Solomon, Robert C. In the Spirit of Hegel (Oxford: University Press 1983), 560.Google Scholar

50 Hegel, Philosophy of History, 450. The dependency of democracy on virtue was claimed (infamously) by Robespierre, and earlier by Montesquieu. Spirit of the Laws, Thomas Nugent, trans. 2 vols. (London: Colonial Press 1900), bk. 3, sec. 3, 20. Hegel refers to Montesquieu's analysis in Philosophy of Right, par. 273, remark, 177-8.

51 Hegel, Phenomenology, 605-6

52 Hegel, Philosophy of History, 452

53 Hegel, ‘Zwei Entwiirfe,’ Werke, 11, 555. My use of ‘deficit’ amends Hegel's use of Ersparnisse, which literally means savings.

54 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, par. 251-5. Its most extensive development is found in the 1824/25 lectures, Edition Ilting, 4 617-30.

55 Hegel, ‘Zwei Entwürfe,’ Werke, 11, 555

56 Ibid.

57 “‷Liberalism″ sets up in opposition to all this the atomistic principle, that which insists upon the sway of individual wills; maintaining that all government should emanate from their express power, and have their express sanction. Asserting this formal side of Freedom - this abstraction - the party in question allows no political organization to be firmly established.

58 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, 290. Edition Ilting, 4 692.