Hegel's logic of absolute idealism and his political argument: The conceptuality of actuality

Abstract

This dissertation is about the theoretical foundation of Hegel’s political argument. Its goal is to comprehend the basic structure of that argument by articulating the conceptual framework Hegel employs when he asserts that the particular set of political institutions he is arguing for is rational. Its argument is that the criterion Hegel employs in his conception of rationality is that an object is rational if and only if it is comprehended by thought in and through the holistic inferential system of concepts he refers to as the Concept (der Begriff). Hegel’s final argument in the Science of Logic is that there can be no actual object that is not “rational,” i.e., that is not constituted, in all of its determinations, by the unified activity of thinking that is the Concept. Consequently, it is argued that the rationality, and therewith the actuality, of Hegel’s rational state depicted in the Philosophy of Right derives from the fact that it is comprehended by thought in and through the totality as thought that is the Concept. Further, because the Science of Logic demonstrates the totality of actuality to be the constituted reflection of the Concept itself to itself, and because the Philosophy of Right depicts the objectivemental form of actuality in particular, it is argued that the Philosophy of Right is nothing more than the determinate reflection of the Science of Logic, the repetition of the movement of the pure logical Concept depicted therein at its highest level of determinateness. The comprehension by thought of the object of right in and through the Concept in the Philosophy of Right is therefore the Concept’s comprehension of itself, and this rational comprehension is indicated by Hegel through his presentation of the Philosophy of Right as the determinate reflection of the Science of Logic. This unified logical interpretation of Hegel’s political philosophy is opposed not only to recent “practical” interpretations which dispense entirely with Hegel’s theoretical philosophy, but also to recent transcendental interpretations which incorrectly attribute to Hegel the position that the determining activity of thought is limited to the form of the object of its cognition.