The Problem of Nature in Hegel's Philosophy of Right

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Simon Lumsden
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Philosophy Of Right ◽  
Objective Structures ◽  
External Powers ◽  
At Home

Abstract The notion of being-at-home-in-otherness is the distinctive way of thinking of freedom that Hegel develops in his social and political thought. When I am at one with myself in social and political structures (institutions, rights and the state) they are not external powers to which I am subjected but are rather constitutive of my self-relation, that is my self-conception is mediated and expanded through those objective structures. How successfully Hegel may achieve being-at-home-in-otherness with regard to these objective structures of right in the Philosophy of Right is arguable. What is at issue in this paper is however to argue that there is a blind spot in the text with regard to nature. In Ethical Life the rational subject's passions and inclinations are brought into the subject such that she is ‘with herself’ in them; with regard to external nature no such reconciliation is achieved or even attempted. In Abstract Right external nature is effectively dominated by and subsumed into the will and it is never something in which one is with oneself. It remains outside the model of freedom that Hegel develops in the Philosophy of Right. There is something troubling about this formulation, since it excludes nature from freedom, but also something accurate, as it reflects the unresolved attitude of moderns to the natural world.

Hegel's Ethical Thought

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (01) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Houlgate
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Major Elements ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Philosophy Of Right ◽  
Practical Dimension

It is often assumed that Hegel's philosophy contains no practical dimension, no doctrine of how human beings should live, but is concerned exclusively with showing that human existence, as the product of reason, is already fully rational. As a consequence, even though Hegel's social and political thought (which is set out mainly in his Philosophy of Right) has been the subject of extensive and detailed study over the years, few commentators have ever tried to develop a Hegelian ethical theory to place alongside those of Aristotle, Kant and Mill. In his book, Hegel's Ethical Thought, Allen Wood has set himself the task of remedying this situation and, in my view, has succeeded in producing one of the most thoughtful, informative and provocative accounts of Hegel's Philosophy of Right to date. Wood's achievement is extraordinary. He offers a coherent and sophisticated account of virtually all the major elements of Hegelian “objective spirit”, including freedom, happiness, recognition, right, property, punishment, morality, conscience, civil society, poverty, the state and history; and in the process he engages Hegel in a fascinating and highly instructive dialogue with a whole host of thinkers, including Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Fichte, J F Fries and J S Mill, in a way that exceedingly few commentators have succeeded in doing (or have even tried to do). As a result, I believe that Wood has shown conclusively that Hegel is an ethical theorist who is every bit as sophisticated as Aristotle, Kant and Mill, and whose contribution to ethical theory can no longer continue to be disparaged or ignored (as is largely the case) by contemporary students of the subject.

scholarly journals Comunidade (Gemeinde) entre Lógica e Política nas Lições sobre a Filosofia da Religião de Hegel

Problemata ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 214-233
Author(s):  
Rodrygo Rocha Macedo
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
The State ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Political Role ◽  
The Will ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
Philosophy Of Right

This article aims to explain how the political project of State that Hegel outlines in the Philosophy of Right (1821) is recovered by the concept of “community” (Gemeinde) in the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (1821-1832) with the use of syllogisms of creation and redemption of world as they are presented in the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences (1830). Once the rational State is grounded on different dimensions of human life, it recognizes them as its own, materializing a viable collective project only when individual freedoms are warranted. According to Philosophy of Right, the effectiveness of the State occurs through the collecting of previous stages concerning the actualization of freedom. It is applied to the will, which paves the way for morality and ethical life. On the other hand, Hegel, in the classes that constitute the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, will focus on the concept of “community”. In the same way as the State, the community is also a social arrangement, with its own rites and rules, whose participants acquire a sense of belonging and unity. By evidencing similar purposes to the State, the community's goal is to maintain the group based on a constituted and collectively assimilated order. Whether the community has a political role, therefore, this aspect is best seen when Hegel's political theory is connected with the philosophy of religion in accordance with the elements "freedom", "finite", "infinite", "concept" and “truth" identified in Hegel’s logic.

O Abstracto e o Concreto na Filosofia Política de Hegel

2001 ◽  
Vol 9 (17) ◽  
pp. 257-268
Author(s):  
Manuel J. do Carmo Ferreira ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Philosophy Of Right ◽  
The Individual ◽  
True Relationship

Hegel’s political thought, gathered in Philosophy of Right, is perceived as a doctrine of social relations, differentiated and structured by the abstraction/formalisation - concretion/realization’s scheme. Right, Morality and Ethical Life are seen as moments of a socio-historical process of identification of the individual by his insertion in a manner of a more true relationship, since it is simultaneously universal and concrete.

Without the Power to Drink or Contract

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-48
Author(s):  
Warren Swain
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Consumption ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Current Position ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law ◽  
Over Time

Intoxication as a ground to set aside a contract is not something that has proved to be easy for the law to regulate. This is perhaps not very surprising. Intoxication is a temporary condition of varying degrees of magnitude. Its presence does however raise questions of contractual autonomy and individual responsibility. Alcohol consumption is a common social activity and perceptions of intoxication and especially alcoholism have changed over time. Roman law is surprisingly quiet on the subject. In modern times the rules about intoxicated contracting in Scottish and English law is very similar. Rather more interestingly the law in these two jurisdictions has reached the current position in slightly different ways. This history can be traced through English Equity, the works of the Scottish Institutional writers, the rise of the Will Theory, and all leavened with a dose of judicial pragmatism.

Ibn Khaldun’s Theory of Social Change

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fida Mohammad
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Ibn Khaldun ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Compare And Contrast

In this article I shall compare and contrast Ibn Khaldun’s ideas aboutsociohistorical change with those of Hegel, Marx, and Durkheim. I willdiscuss and elaborate Ibn Khaldun’s major ideas about historical andsocial change and compare them with three important figures of modemWestern sociology and philosophy.On reading Ibn Khaldun one should remember that he was living in thefourteenth century and did not have the privilege of witnessing the socialdislocation created by the industrial revolution. It is also very difficult tocategorize Ibn Khaldun within a single philosophical tradition. He is arationalist as well as an empiricist, a historicist as well as a believer inhuman agency in the historical process. One can see many “modem”themes in his thinking, although he lived a hundred years beforeMachiavelli.Lauer, who considers Ibn Khaldun the pioneer of modem sociologicalthought, has summarized the main points of his philosophy.’ In his interpretationof Ibn Khaldun, he notes that historical processes follow a regularpattern. However, whereas this pattern shows sufficient regularity, itis not as rigid as it is in the natural world. In this regard the position ofIbn Khaldun is radically different from those philosophies of history thatposit an immutable course of history determined by the will of divineprovidence or other forces. Ibn Khaldun believes that the individual isneither a completely passive recipient nor a full agent of the historicalprocess. Social laws can be discovered through observation and datagathering, and this empirical grounding of social knowledge represents adeparture from traditional rational and metaphysical thinking ...

The Mystery of Freedom

2020 ◽  
pp. 192-206
Author(s):  
Pilar López de Santa María
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Different Parts

Freedom is the focus of the first of the writings included in The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics. The attention that Schopenhauer devotes to the subject does not stop here, however, since freedom appears recurrently in different parts of his system. It is linked to his theory of knowledge, metaphysics, aesthetics, and the denial of the will. This chapter follows that track and examines the presence in different contexts of Schopenhauerian thought of a freedom that is so undeniable as unexplainable. In this way will be shown Schopenhauer’s transition from the freedom of the voluntas to the freedom of noluntas [non-willing] and the state of great liberation that occurs because the will frees itself from itself. It is a transition that begins and ends at the same point: mystery

Using digital technology for collective ethnographic observation: an experiment on ‘coming home’

2010 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Cordelois
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technology ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
Functional Coupling ◽  
Home Automation ◽  
Ethnographic Approach ◽  
Ethnographic Observation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Collaborative Analysis ◽  
The Impact ◽  
At Home

In this article, we use digital technologies (the Subcam and Webdiver) to capture, share and analyze collectively specific user experience. We examine the transition between ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ when people come home, and the steps needed to build the ‘being-at-home’ feeling. Understanding what ‘being at home’ means for the subject is part of our larger project of analyzing the impact of home automation. We provide a model which describes the relation between the home and its inhabitant as instrumental ‘functional coupling’, which, when achieved, provides the ‘at home’ feeling. This article illustrates how digital tools can make the ethnographic approach a collaborative analysis of human experience.

Bad Habits: Habit, Idleness, and Race in Hegel

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Rocío Zambrana
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Life ◽  
Second Nature ◽  
Philosophy Of Right

Abstract Recent discussions of Hegel's conception of second nature, specifically focused on Hegel's notion of habit (Gewohnheit), have greatly advanced our understanding of Hegel's views on embodied normativity. This essay examines Hegel's account of embodied normativity in relation to his assessment of good and bad habits. Engaging Hegel's account of the rabble (Pöbel) in the Philosophy of Right and Frank Ruda's assessment of Hegel's rabble, this essay traces the relation between ethicality, idleness and race in Hegel. In being a figure of refusal in its affirmation of idleness, the rabble disallows the progressive revision of the project of modernity central to Hegel's philosophy. Hegel's discussion of the rabble is thus key to assessing the production of race within Hegel's notion of ethical life.

Deontological foundations of selflessness

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-17
Author(s):  
Wiktor Wolman
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Moral Norm ◽  
Ethical Perspective ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Subject

The article is a part of the broad current of the philosophy of responsibility. It analyses and describes the basic elements of human activity in the anthropological and ethical perspective. A particular feature discussed in the article is selflessness, which is analysed in the perspective of the main ethical currents. In personalistic philosophy, responsibility and selflessness result from the will, whereas in deontological philosophy they result from the moral norm adopted by the subject. The concept that describes the nature and fundamental elements of an act is the theory of supererogatory act. According to it, a selfless act is a free, conscious act resulting from the realization of a norm immanent to the subject.

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