Religion, Law, and Republic in Hegel Political Forms in the Early Theological Writings (original) (raw)
Related papers
2010
This paper explores Hegel's distinctive account of the relationship of religion and politics, focusing on the manner in which it articulates the aims and assumptions of modern political thought while supporting cross-cultural dialogue and the possibility of a differentiated global culture. The paper details first how, for Hegel, the institutions of modern political life depend for their legitimacy and stability on an enabling culture whose underlying structure is religious. Second, it explicates the manner in which Hegel, via a distinctive reception of Protestantism, fashions a specifically modern notion of the common good, one committed to diversity and to ongoing processes of collective self-reflection. Third, it argues that while Hegel accepts modern notions of the separation of church and state, he does so with recourse to a political culture that is not only defined through religion but for which the very church-state separation is understood as a social construction whose ...
The Expository Times, 2014
This book is chiefly concerned with Hegel’s religious view in the face of politics and social transformations. Accordingly, concepts regarding an individual’s place in time and space (society), which constitute the conceptualisation and function of religion are carefully examined (e.g., Chapter 4, 5 & 6). Rapid and interrelated changes in intellectual, social and political life challenged religion’s justification, its ethical value, and its role in providing social cohesion (p. 1). What is fascinating is that Lewis suggests that Hegel’s philosophy of religion also offers some special insight into recent debates about the cognitive science of religion from the perspective of Hegelian philosophy.
In a systematic model of thought like that laid out by Hegel, the dislocation of the objects of study from their treatment is never a merely external matter of organizational or architectonic requirements. Rather, the positioning expresses the speculative validity of the arguments, and -unless read superficially -suggests a possible heuristic basis for their further investigation and development. No exception in this respect is the matter of the relation between state and religion, understood here as the higher, complex specification of the relation between politics -or ethical life -and religion. This question is obviously also present, albeit with another slant and emphasis, in the early writings, but the present contribution will limit its focus to the Berlin period. Hegel dedicates two precise points in his system to this relation, namely the two long Anmerkungen to paragraph 270 of the Outlines of the Philosophy of Right and paragraph 552 of the 1830 edition of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. (In the 1827 edition the Anmerkung on the state-religion relation appears, with minor modifications, in paragraph 563.) Maintaining the systematic approach, Hegel returns to the argumentproblematizing and enriching it with historical references and qualifications -in the Berlin lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, the Philosophy of Right and the Philosophy of
Carl Schmitt’s historical significance and contemporary relevance are widely acknowledged. However, scholars have yet to reach a consensus interpretation of his political theory, partly because of Schmitt’s terse writing and fluid thinking, and partly because of his notorious yet nuanced relationship with National Socialism. This paper identifies one unifying strand in Schmitt’s thought by explicating a cryptic statement in his final book, Political Theology II (1970): “The thematic development of my political theology from 1922 takes a general direction which departs from the ius reformandi [right of reformation] of the sixteenth century, culminates in Hegel and is evident everywhere today, from political theology to political Christology.” An analysis of Schmitt's explicit references to Hegel shows that Schmitt specifically endorses Hegel's thesis that human beings actualize the idea of freedom through a distinctly religious submission to a modern, Germanic state. According to Schmitt, Hegel successfully creates a mythical foundation for state sovereignty (one that Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan was ultimately too rational to provide). By situating this approbation of Hegel in historical context and its place in Schmitt's oeuvre, I argue that Schmitt’s “political Christology” is morally troubling. Our appraisal of Schmitt's political thought must take into account the practical implications of his heterodox, theoretical yet avowedly religious extremism.
Conscience and Religion in Hegel’s Later Political Philosophy
In recent years, commentators have devoted increasing attention to Hegel's conception of conscience. Prominent interpreters like Frederick Neuhouser have even argued that many points of contact can be found between Hegel's conceptions of conscience and moral subjectivity and historical and contemporary liberalism. In this paper, I offer an interpretation of an underexamined 1830 addition to the Philosophy of Spirit concerning the relation between religion and the state which proves particularly resistant to the kind of liberal interpretation of conscience which Neuhouser provides. I assess the significance of the argument that Hegel provides for the "inseparability" of ethical and religious conscience in relation to recent interpretation. I conclude by arguing that we can identify a kind of consistency between the Philosophy of Right and the later writings and lectures, but that Hegel's conception of conscience is incompatible with contemporary political liberalism.