The Actual and the Rational Hegel and Objective Spirit

Description

One of Hegel’s most controversial and confounding claims is that “the real is rational and the rational is real.” In this book, one of the world’s leading scholars of Hegel, Jean-François Kervégan, offers a thorough analysis and explanation of that claim, along the way delivering a compelling account of modern social, political, and ethical life. ​Kervégan begins with Hegel’s term “objective spirit,” the public manifestation of our deepest commitments, the binding norms that shape our existence as subjects and agents. He examines objective spirit in three realms: the notion of right, the theory of society, and the state. In conversation with Tocqueville and other theorists of democracy, whether in the Anglophone world or in Europe, Kervégan shows how Hegel—often associated with grand metaphysical ideas—actually had a specific conception of civil society and the state. In Hegel’s view, public institutions represent the fulfillment of deep subjective needs—and in that sense, demonstrate that the real is the rational, because what surrounds us is the product of our collective mindedness. This groundbreaking analysis will guide the study of Hegel and nineteenth-century political thought for years to come. Contents......Page 6 Preface. Hegel without Metaphysics?......Page 8 Prologue. The Actual and the Rational......Page 18 Part I. The Law: The Positivity of Abstraction......Page 36 Preliminary. The Objectivity of Willing......Page 38 1. Law: Its Concept and Actualizations......Page 50 2. Between Nature and History: The Law......Page 90 3. Contract: The Legal Conditions of the Social......Page 116 Part II. The Vitality and Flaws of the Social......Page 140 Preliminary. The Archeology of Society......Page 142 4. "Citoyen" versus "Bourgeois"? The Quest for the "Spirit of the Whole"......Page 156 5. The State of Law: Civil Society......Page 182 6. "Ethicality Lost in Its Extremes"......Page 217 Part III. The State and the Political......Page 242 Preliminary. The Enduring Myth of the Philosopher of the Prussian State......Page 244 7. Tocqueville-Hegel: A Silent Dialogue on Modernity......Page 247 8. A Theory of Representation......Page 266 9. Beyond Democracy......Page 286 Part IV. Figures of Subjectivity in Objective Spirit: Normativity and Institutions......Page 312 Preliminary. Strong and Weak Institutionalism......Page 314 10. The Truth of Morality......Page 318 11. The Conditions of Political Subjectivity......Page 347 12. Subjects, Norms, and Institutions: What Is an Ethical Life?......Page 365 Epilogue. The Passion of the Concept......Page 386 Translator's Note......Page 402 Bibliography......Page 406 Index......Page 416