4. The substance of the Preface is a
polemic directed against those, including some at that time suffering under the
new repressive measures like Fries, who, in Hegel's view, had advocated a
superficial philosophy that gave priority to feeling, vanity and the
particularity of opinions. Of course it would be easy to pass off Hegel's
critique as a product of mere, but sweet, revenge on a contemporary who has
previously had better connections, who had beaten Hegel to two previous
positions and who Hegel obviously believed to be a philosophically untalented
light-weight. While there may be an element of this in Hegel's remarks, such an
interpretation would be too reductive, misses the more general
aim of Hegel's critique and the fact that his standpoint is deeply
embedded in his general
understanding of philosophy and of the
tasks of a contemporary political philosophy. Apart from
preliminaries, the Preface can be divided into two main parts. The first
is the polemic against this allegedly superficial philosophy
responsible for the denigration of
contemporary philosophy and the second
part concerns the proper relation of political philosophy to
reality. Let us start with the preliminaries. Hegel is preparing a
textbook for his own lectures. But this is not an ordinary compendium
because such a one would
normally contain only that which was
well known and Hegel's remarks
are simply too extensive. Apparently, Hegel's teaching practice
was to slowly dictate the numbered paragraphs and to follow
these with his further explanatory remarks. In both respects, Hegel
went beyond the bounds of what would at that time been considered the "well known".
This is not simply the result of an innovative licence that, Hegel admits, is
conceded to philosophy but primarily because of what he calls the
"speculative mode of cognition". For Hegel, the necessity of this
method is vital: not only does it distinguish his Philosophy of Right from
other compendiums, it also the only thing to save philosophy from its shameful
contemporary decline. What is the cause of this decline? The inadequacy of the
old rules of logic (definition, classification, inference) that Hegel associates
with "Verstand" or " reason as "understanding" were so
obvious that they were cast aside and in their place was substituted
"arbitrary pronouncements of the heart, of fantasy and of contingent
intuition. " Yet these replacements could never be a fully adequate
substitute. Reflection inevitably requires the relations of thought. Therefore
there is an unconscious recourse to the same old categories of Verstand. Now
the problems with Verstand have already been rehearsed. Verstand tends to
decontextualise, is prone to formalism and fails to pursue the essential truth.
Its product is not the presentation of new unheralded truths but the re-heating
of "the same old brew", the infernal contestation of these truths
from opposed parties and a lamentable inability in such a jumble to distinguish
anything really enduring from the rest. Against the jumble, Hegel offers his
new scientific, speculative method and the standpoint of "Vernunft"
allegedly demonstrated in the Science of Logic. Awkwardly for us, Hegel
presupposes familiarly with this method and omits to demonstrate it consoling
his readers with assurance that this work is obviously "based on the
logical spirit". The features of Hegel's dialectical or speculative method
is that it operates dynamically; it systematically attempts to render implicit
context and connections explicit, it reveals not just the existence of
contradictions but how these contradictions at a given level of
self-consciousness are positively resolved at a new higher level; not content with
formalism it endeavours to discover the essential truth of a proposition by
embedding it in a concrete whole. Hegel goes on to show the importance of the
unity of form and content in his discussion of the truths of ethics and rights
in § 5. He says there that in these matters
the truth is old but it is not sufficient to possess it in
public laws, morality and religion: it must be comprehended as well.
"Comprehension" here means understanding the right of the later in
their total context as moments of an immanently rational totality. The rational content must be given a rational form for free
thinking. This thought cannot be satisfied with authority of any type
(tradition, democratic or subjective feeling) but only by the knowledge that
that this truth and truth itself is inherently the same.
5. It is worthwhile to note here that Hegel
is especially severe on the protestations of freedom of thought and subjective
critique. Not only does Hegel question the motives of those indulging in
critique of the state; he also rebukes them with the charge of vanity, empty
ratiocination and arbitrariness because they want to ignore the immanent work
of reason actualising itself in the myriad activities of the existing
institutions in favour inventing yet another theory. Against this Hegel
propounds what he takes to be the correct method. Just as philosophy is content
to seek the rational within nature as it is, beyond the surface in its immanent
laws and essence, the same task lies before the philosophical exploration of the
ethical world. However, he also notes the fundamental difference between the
two realms. The measure of the laws of nature is external to us and our
cognition of them neither adds anything to them nor advances them. The
"law of right", on the other hand, derives from humans and therefore
it may either accord or conflict with our own "inner light". Here
Hegel explicitly recognises the normative question that confronts us in this
ethical domain. For Hegel, this question has become more important and urgent
as contemporary culture has become more critical of tradition and existing
institutions. In such a milieu, the philosophical task is to grasp "the
rationality of right" or to "comprehend the thought of right".
This is not what "everybody knows at first hand" but a
"scientific knowing of the thing". The key phase for Hegel here seems
to be "that which is universally acknowledged and valid". It is
again worthwhile to point out the celebrated dual criteria that Hegel will
shortly repeat in his most famous formulation. The rationality of right
consists not just in that which is "universally acknowledged" as
might be the case for traditional institutions or those resulting from –democratic.
collective assent. It also requires "validity" (Gultigen)
and this validity seems to lie in an immanent reason ultimately accessible to
scientific knowing. As already mentioned Hegel builds this dual perspective
into his own terminology. You will note that he here underlines the genuinely
rational right by referring to it as that right which "has being in
and for itself". This terminology connotes the unity of two perspectives
referred to last week. The "for itself" refers to the perspective of
the immediate, contemporary consciousness: that is of the historical actor who
acclaims or reveres the particular positively enacted laws. The "in
self" refers to the perspective of the phenomenological philosophical
observer who can view this right from the higher perspective of spirit's fully
realised self-consciousness. It is the unity of these two perspectives
that Hegel gains his ultimate standard for immanent rationality. Thus, it is
not enough that that positive right is enacted or has achieved the acclaim of
contemporary citizens but it must also be rational in accord with the immanent
standard of the rationality of thought as comprehended by philosophical
science. And it is only when contemporary self-consciousness has come to this
knowledge that the unity of the "in itself" and the "for itself"
is achieved. Hegel insists that despite the contemporary climate that has
problematised the question of ethical truth and degraded philosophy to the
level of mere opinion, of "each individual's heart, emotion and
enthusiasm" genuine philosophy and the correct method must go beyond such
superficiality.
6. Hegel saves his sharpest barbs for
the hypocrisy of this superficial subjectivism. Not only does it fail
to comprehend the complex balance and inner articulation of contemporary,
ethical rationality; it adopts the language of piety, spirit and the people to
attack the law that in its universality and determinacy is the very essence of
rationality. The law is its main target precisely because it is the main enemy
of those who assert their right to do as they please over all claims of duty
and right. Hegel claims that this licence cannot be tolerated by the state that
has accredited philosophy with a public role. This role includes the demand for
a "deeper education and “insight" that cannot be met by sophism. We
know from Plato that the latter is ultimately bent on the destruction of all
the immanent products of ethical reason. While Hegel
is quite happy to abuse Fries and his other philosophical
opponents, he wants to rescue philosophy itself from such attacks. To
decry the possibility of a scientific philosophy of politics is to
reduce all thought to the same level. The contemporary discrepancy
between the conception of philosophy as understood by Hegel's
polemical targets and the role
attributed to it by public authorities
compels Hegel to state most forcefully his now famous definition of
Philosophy and the limits of its role.
7.
As
indicated immediately above, Hegel views philosophy as the exploration of the
rational and this means not the setting up of a theoretical world, or utopia
"beyond" the contemporary society but the "comprehension of the
present and the actuality (Wirklichkeit). Again we note here the double-barrel
formulation that is soon followed by his famous formulation: 'What is rational
is actual; and what is actual is rational." (Was venuftig ist, das ist
wirklich: und was wirklich ist, das ist vernuftig.)P20. The translator
has rendered "wirklich" as "actual" rather than
"real" because he wants to make clear that the "present",
which we would normally consider as existing to be "real", is not so
for Hegel. For him, social facts and institutions may indeed be
"existing" but not "actual"(wirklich) or real in the
metaphysical sense of possessing an immanent rationality in tune with the inner
truth of spirit. We have some confirmation of this reading of Hegel's famous
Dopplesatz from the manuscript of his Heidelberg lectures from 1817. You will
remember that Hegel was required to submit the 1820 manuscript to the censor
and he did revise the manuscript for that purpose. We cannot know for sure what
this revision amounted to but it is noticeable that the Heidelberg Manuscript
uses an alternative formulation of the Dopplesatz that stresses that the future
instantiation of the rational, that the rational must happen (was vernunftige
ist, muss geschehen (Heidelberg Lectures, pp 221, 242). This suggests that
Hegel may have thought it advisable to tone done the future orientation of this
formulation that stresses the necessity for the rational to come into existence
and replace it with the more ambiguous formulation stressing the rationality of
the "wirklich". The task of philosophy follows from this insight
that, Hegel tells us, it shares with "every ingenuous consciousness."
That is, to consider the natural and spiritual world from the standpoint of their
rationality. Clearly not everything in the existing world is rational and there
is a level of accidentality and particular content in both worlds over which philosophy
has neither command nor the capacity to prescribe. However, the task of
philosophy is to concentrate on that rational thread; what Hegel calls the
"immanent substance" in "the semblance of the temporal and the
transient", the "the eternal" in the "present"P20.
Here we are introduced to the terminological distinction between the
"actual" and the existent. Hegel calls a concept concrete when it
gives reality and existence to itself as Idea. The rational only becomes actual
(Wirklich), for Hegel, when it gives itself an external reality. This process
of the concept giving itself an external reality means that it assumes
empirical shape and takes on a variety of forms. However, the role of
philosophy is only to track the "inner impulse" of this development,
to comprehend its immanent rational course without adding anything extra of its
own.
8.The Philosophy of Right therefore
deals with the state "as an inherently rational entity." However,
this rationality is not that of traditional philosophy--sub specia
aeternitartis -but one historically determinant. The philosophical task is
constrained by the historical location of the philosopher who can do not more
than comprehend his own time in thought. This is the "reconciliation with
actuality" that philosophy offers to those, Hegel tells, who "have
received the inner call to comprehend". It should
be reiterated that reconciliation is not the product of resignation but of thoughtful
affirmation. This is why Hegel characterises it as "delight in the
present". This follows from the fact that thought has found itself in the
present and can therefore acknowledge this present as justified by its immanent
rationality. This affirmation is essentially modem because it is in accord with
the autonomy of a modem subjectivity that since the Reformation must be the formal
arbiter of its own judgements. While Hegel endorses this final confirmation of
spiritual freedom, he refuses to see this subjective autonomy lose contact with
the actual. To do so would be to fall into the error of subjectivism and
extreme particularity that Hegel views as the source of the greatest stupidity.
This is why philosophy cannot issue instructions about how the world ought to
be. Knowledge of the actual is the last flower of cultural development. Spirit
is always first preoccupied with the construction of the "real
world." Only then does it reflectively turn to its full intellectual
comprehension. This is why philosophy is the Owl of Minerva that can only
recognise but not "rejuvenate." The philosopher is constrained to
reflect upon the product of past spiritual endeavour and discover its rational
thread. He cannot anticipate this activity without risking entanglement in
merely subjective musings that bear no relation to unfolding rationality.
9. A final word about Hegel's
polemics. However justified he was in defending his conception of philosophy
against opponents, his decision to use the Preface as the opportunity for a
public attack on them was ethically questionable. They were already under great
political pressure: either dismissed from their jobs, suspended form teaching
or under very intense scrutiny by the
regime. Hegel undoubtedly felt that some of these people were responsible for
their own current difficulties. They had endangered the aspiration of the
moderates. This could be viewed as in part a
strategy to quarantine the reform agenda of the moderates. Nevertheless, he
provides ammunition for the most Conservative elements of the Prussian
reaction. Hegel’s critique was also opportunistic and therefore quite
unprincipled. He was ready to sacrifice political opponents
to harsh repressive measures.
Lecture 5:
1. So far we have noted the idiosyncratic
nature of Hegel's project in political philosophy. He chose to retain the
traditional normative stance of political philosophy but only with a radically
re-interpreted understanding of this normativity. This new configuration
requires that Hegel's theory specify not only a normative standard but also to
specify the total structure of the society that is rational from the practical
perspective of the realisation of that normative standard. In other words,
Hegel maintains that the intelligibility and validity of the norms will depend
on a concrete historical context. Therefore political philosophy must specify
in a general way a complex empirical institutional setting. However, because Hegel
must be concerned with "the actual" rather than with the "merely
existing" configuration of institutions and laws, his account must be both
historically concrete but also sufficiently "abstract" to avoid
identification with a particular structure of existing institutions.
2. Hegel departs from the concept of
right (das Recht). This starting point is an empirical facticity that is both
historical concrete and at the same time highly abstract. Right is not an
institutionally sanctioned positive norm but is necessarily related to what
should be. For Hegel, the notion of right serves his purposes perfectly because
it is understood as a willed end, the historical actuality of a definite type
of claim and expectation. His theory will pose the question: under what
conditions can this demand be met? And the theory will recognise only what
makes a non-accidental contribution to the realisation of this end. The
totality of these conditions Hegel will call "right". He tells us in
the Introduction that the subject matter of the book is the "Idea of
right": this is the concept of right and its actualisation (P25). This
starting point is arbitrary in the sense that it is something that is taken as
given without the demonstration of its coming to be. However, Hegel has chosen
it carefully because it will allow him to demonstrate its unity with the
configuration of under-girding conditions and therefore its immanent rational
development. What Hegel will call "the necessity of the thing (Sache)'. In
this way the arbitrary starting point will ultimately be demonstrated to be not
arbitrary at all. Hegel theoretical deduction will finally turn back on itself
in a circular fashion in order to prove the necessity of this beginning, to
demonstrate that what was initially taken as "given' is finally presented
as a "result" of a philosophical analysis that demonstrates its
immanent rationality. We start with the most abstract modem expression of
spirit only to finally end with its most concrete and actualised form.
3. At the first opportunity Hegel
distinguishes his position from that of the Historical School. As we have
noted, Hegel views the task of a philosophy of right as not to deal with the
historical emergence of right but with the actualisation of its Idea: with the
necessity of the thing in and for itself. Thus while historians focus on the
historically relative, political philosophy must keep its eyes on the actual:
observing its immanent rational development. Hegel has already informed us that
the quest for the rational in the ethical world must recognise its distinctive
features. Whereas the measure of nature remains
eternally external to it, in the spiritual realm that is the basis of right,
the absolute is the bearer of its own measure. Hegel will call this absolute
the "really free will". And this free will must bring its own
normative perspective into play in order either to "own" or reject
the contemporary standard of right. In this domain of spirit, the freedom of
the will is both substance and its destiny. This free will actualises its
freedom by producing from within itself the objective conditions of the
realisation of that freedom. Here normativity is not fixed but the product of
freedom, of the self-conscious activity of the will. Hegel says that the
precise location and point of departure of right is the free will. This free
will is no mere psychological faculty but the whole person in its conscious
practical relation and fundamental commitments to its surrounding world. This
means that Hegel already presupposes a particular historical type of
individuality: one for whom freedom is an ultimate commitment, one who wills to
be free in the rational choice and realisation of its own particular ends. Yet
he initially takes the free will in its givenness as the arbitrary
starting-point and will only in the course of the analysis reveal all its
mediating factors. Hege1 theoretical construction clearly presupposed that the
intended reader, the addressee of this philosophy, is just such a free will
that should freely recognise him/herself in this characterisation. This does
not mean that Hegel was unaware of the elitist character of the philosophical
audience even in his own time. He was already sufficiently conscious of this
fact to speak of these addressees as an "isolated priesthood".
However, he was still sufficiently close to the enlightenment and its public
ideals to be able to believe that such critical and discontented individuals
were the enlightened ones who could speak in a "universal voice."
These "free wills" make demands in the name of the slumbering
majority who were still not sufficiently self-conscious of their own true
nature and potentiality. While Hegel is just as likely to heap scorn on the
vanity of these "free wills" who can be taken in by the pseudo philosophy
of Fries and others, he still views them as the natural audience of his own
authentic philosophy. His Elements of a
Philosophy of Right poses the
question of what socio-political arrangements can allow such free wills to find
satisfaction in the world and mesh with their ultimate value commitments and
convictions.
4.
Hege1 then goes on to clarify the relationship between this free will and
Spirit. We already know that in its most general comprehensive meaning spirit
is the inter-subjective symbolic medium. Hegel summaries this when he says that
"spirit is thought in general" (§4 Add H, G-P35). In its most
comprehensive sense this means that the realm of spirit is one of idealisation
and communication. The individuals of the spiritual world are coordinated on
the basis of constitutive rules of language and mores. These rules and norms
circumscribe what should be done and the limits of appropriate behaviour and
aspiration. Hegel views this ideational medium as the decisive difference
between systems of nature and spirit. As we have seen, life is constituted by
internal oppositions. However, these oppositions are always contained within
the domain of survival and instinct, they never enter the domain of
self-reflection. While aware of this decisive difference, Hegel does not want
to locate life and spirit in direct opposition. Indeed, he will maintain that only
on the foundation of struggles for life between natural desiring subjects does
a qualitatively new type of struggle occur. The struggle born out of natural
desire and the conflict of satisfactions has its sequel and conclusion not only
in the physical conflict or annihilation of the parties but in the symbolic
realm of signs that Hegel will call recognition. The figure of recognition is
the key to the orchestration of the world or spirit and the theoretical means
of moving beyond the dualisms that had dogged post-Kantian philosophy.
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