The Death of Religion? Absolute Spirit and Politics in Hegel (original) (raw)
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DESCRIPTION This graduate seminar will give a philosophical grounding in the normative concepts that guide political theory. We will examine the origin and justification of basic concepts such as freedom and autonomy, equality and social justice, crime and punishment, coercion and authority of the state. We will look for the origins of concepts and principles in two sources: Nature and right (and law). Part I will be devoted to political theorists who ground their political concepts in nature, naturalized norms, and power: Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Nietzsche. We begin with the pessimistic moral psychology lying at the basis of Machiavelli and Hobbes's political writings on power and sovereignty. Among the topics we will examine: What motivates people? Do people naturally tend toward doing evil? Are they unavoidably and inherently selfish and self-interested? Other topics will include autonomy and expressive unity with nature in Rousseau; Rousseau's account of natural inequalities in a state of nature; and his account of how our psychologies in a pre-political state of nature underwent development in the political sphere. Problems arise, however, from placing natural norms at the basis of political theory. If people are inherently and unavoidably self-interested, as these political theorists think, this will effect the kinds of safeguards and checks that need to be in place to protect people from each other. Their pessimism about human nature results making political life essentially coercive. This paradox that people need to be " forced " to be free will be a continuing theme throughout our discussions. Does the state the right have to coerce humans to do what is right, in accordance with universal principles of right and freedom? Or do these unwanted implications mean we have the wrong psychological profile of human nature? Next, we look to ways that philosophers have sought to remedy problems arising on the natural approach. By contrast, Part II looks to a rational origin for political principles. We'll examine how Kant, Hegel, and Marx derive their norms out of considerations about right and law. Some basic questions will arise in connection with concerns about freedom, individual freedom, and coercion: What is a person? Does a concept of a person limit what you can do to them? Do persons have intrinsic rights, like dignity, or is this something acquired (earned)? Is their right to live free something they can lose or give up? The transition to right and law raises problems of its own, such as: Is a bias toward rationality detrimental to individualistic self-realization and self-expression? Are authoritative models of the state detrimental to individual freedom?
Philosophical Books, 2003
Scholarly research into ancient philosophy has not always been particularly good at pointing out its relevance to contemporary philosophical debate. It is one of the goals that Andreas Bächli and Andreas Graeser have set themselves to meet-in the rather unexpected medium of a concise encyclopaedia of 48 basic concepts of ancient philosophy. These are discussed in a format that combines the virtue of encyclopaedia articles, to provide concise, crossreferenced information, with the more discursive, and in this case sometimes even elegant, style of the philosophical essay. Art (τ 7 χνη /ars), beauty (τ 3 καλ 2 ν / pulchrum), cosmos (κ 2 σµος / mundus), form (µορφ 8 / forma), the good (τ 3 0 γαθ 2 ν / bonum), imitation (µ 1 µησις / imitatio), matter (6 λη / materia), nature (ϕ 9 σις / natura), quality (ποι 2 της / qualitas), the soul (ψυχ 8 / anima), time (χρ 2 νος / tempus), truth (0 λ 8 θεια / veritas), virtue (0 ρετ 8 / virtus) are among the concepts covered. The English translations suggested here can be just as misleading as the common German renderings of the terms Bächli and Graeser are dealing with; the authors point out throughout where and to what extent modern 'equivalents' of ancient terms are precisely not equivalent. This indicates already that the connections that Bächli and Graeser draw between ancient and modern philosophy do not result in a rash assimilation of both. Subject/ subiectum / 5 ποκε 1 µενον is an obvious opportunity to point out the deep gulf between both epochs. Nevertheless Bächli and Graeser insist that the philosophical literature between the sixth century and the sixth century has something to say where present philosophical disputes are concerned, and this is partly reflected even in the choice of topics; the article on meaning (σηµα 1 νειν / significatio) is a characteristic example. Another move that fits in well with this perspective of the book is a choice of texts that is against the current, aiming at a shift in the canon. While the classics, Plato and Aristotle, of course have to figure prominently, Bächli and Graeser at the same time see the tradition of Scepticism as central rather than marginal to ancient philosophy. Generally, texts that contain much of philosophical interest, but have tended to be overlooked, such as Cicero's Lucullus or Boethius's Contra Eutychen et Nestorium , are given due attention. In dealing with these texts, whether familiar or neglected, Bächli and Graeser are philosophers and also classicists rather than the other way round. Beyond the history of words, concepts and ideas, they engage in argument. The articles
We must now examine…whether just people also live better and are happier than unjust ones. I think it's clear already that this is so, but we must look into it further, since the argument concerns no ordinary topic, but the way we ought to live." -Plato, Republic, I, 352d
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In this chapter, I consider the relation of the three major spheres of ethical life that Hegel distinguishes – family, civil society, and the state – and analyse their contribution to the constitution of the "second nature" of objective spirit. Family and civil society are both analyzed by Hegel as ways of taking up and transforming our given nature such that a second ethical nature can be produced. Where the family helps bring forth such a second nature by means of “education” (Erziehung), civil society does so by means of “cultural formation” (Bildung). As I show in sections (I) and (II), these processes are characterised by Hegel as steps of an actualization of freedom insofar they liberate us from our given nature without suppressing it and bring forth a second nature that gives freedom the consistency of living reality. However, while these processes constitute forms of liberation, they are at the same time forms of social subjection, involving discipline and normalization, the subjection to the will of another, and the adaption to the given necessities of the social world. Therefore, the completion of the process of liberation seems to require a third sphere that allows individuals to relate, collectively and politically, to the second nature thus produced. In order for the second nature of spirit to be a self-constitutive actualization of freedom, ethical life thus requires a specific political dimension that I turn to in section (III). While this political process is only possible on the basis of the republican infrastructures of family and civil society, it at the same time calls these infrastructures into question. Although Hegel himself does not develop this dimension properly, his conception of second nature points towards the desideratum of a politics of second nature. I will close the discussion of this political dimension in section (IV) by pointing out the general and diagnostic dimensions that such a politics of second nature can help us elaborate.