For episode 27, see here
The Theory of the Nation State: The Moderns
XXVIII. Hegel: Dialectic and Nationalism
A. The typical conclusions of the Enlightenment:
1. Hume showed ambiguities of "reason."
2. Rousseau set up reasons of the heart (sentiment) against reasons
of the head.
3. Immanuel Kant sharpened contrast of science and morals (and between
theoretical and practical reason) to preserve both.
4. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel sought unifying synthesis through
transcending analytic logic of science.
B. Hegel proposed dialectic to demonstrate logical relationship between
fact and value.
C. Revolution seen by many, including Hegel, as destructive, doctrinaire
attempt to remake society and human nature.
1. Therefore necessity of reconstruction of continuity of national
institutions.
2. But was to be reconstruction of stability by the creative forces
of the nation.
D. The nation, not the individual, is the significant unit of history via the
genius or spirit of the nation -- Volksgeist.
E. Hegel's political philosophy built around the dialectic and the theory
of the nation state as the embodiment of political power. (These two
did not necessarily entail each other.)
F. The historical method:
1. Method of studying history also could be applicable to other
social studies.
2. Mode of deriving from the order of historical events standards
of valuation with which to access significance of particular
stages in evolution (a philosophy of history).
3. Assumed single pattern or law of development that can be
exhibited by a proper arrangement of subject matter.
4. Order is not imposed but immanent.
5. Standards progressively revealed in evolution of morals,
law, etc., provides historically objective standard of values
to fill vacant place of natural law.
6. Hegel sought to show necessary stages by which reason
approximates the Absolute.
7. Understanding and reason were faculties of analysis and
synthesis respectively and dialectic unites the two.
8. Understand "breaks up" organic wholes, it is the philosophic
basis of indivualism.
i. fosters illusion that men can remake society
ii. misses organic creative continuous growth
9. Only reason can see below historical detail to perceive forces
that really control events and thus understand that the process
should be as it is.
G. In study of religion, following Herder and Lessing, saw succession of
world religions as progressive revelation of religious truth.
H. Thought Western civilization product of Greek free intelligence and
deeper moral and religious insights of Christianity.
I. The process of development of the spirit of a people:
1. Period of "natural" happy but largely unconscious spontaneity
(thesis).
2. Period of painful frustration and self-consciousness in which
the spirit is "turned inward" and loses its spontaneous
creativeness (antithesis).
3. Period in which spirit " returns to itself" at a higher level
embodying insight gained from frustration (synthesis).
4. The total process is "thought."
J. Hegel saw freedom as existing only within bounds of a nation state.
1. The state is the expression (de facto power) of national unity and
a national aspiration to self-government.
2. The state is consistent with any lack of uniformity which does not
prevent effectively unified government (such as class differences).
3. With Machiavelli saw no higher duty for the state than its own
strengthening and preservation.
4. The state is the realm in which the Idea of Reason materializes
itself (The German Constitution, 1802).
K. Realization of national spirit contributes to progressive realization of
the world spirit and is the source of dignity and worth that attaches
to private concerns of individuals.
1. Freedom is voluntary dedication to that realization.
2. National monarchy is the highest form of constitutional government.
L. Dialectic and historical necessity (The Philosophy of Right, 1821).
1. Dialectic is the new method.
2. History of a people records the growth of a single national
mentality that expresses itself in all phases of its culture.
"The individual is for the most part only an accidental variant of the culture
that created him and insofar as he is different his individuality is more
likely to be capricious than signficant."
3. Dialectic is the opposition of forces moving in orderly equilibrium
and emerging in a pattern of progressive, logical development.
4. Contradiction means fruitful opposition between systems that
constitutes an objective criticism of each and leads continually to
a more inclusive and coherent system. (Dialectic could manifest as
evolution or revolution.)
M. Hegel claimed dialectic as logic of reason to supersede logic of
understanding.
1. Dialectic both moral judgement and causal law of historical
development.
2. Unites relativism with the absolutism.
N. Dialectic offered no criterion of rightness except success of outcome.
O. Hegel: individualism and theory of the state.
1. Individualism had no hold in Hegel's Germany and the same with
sense of national unity.
2. Hegel's Philosophy of Right deals with the relationships between
individual and the social and economic institutions.
3. Placed state as on a level of political evolution above civil
society (the result of the end of feudal law and institutions).
4. Revolution's ideals of liberty and equality made state a mere
matter of private interest, a utilitarian device for satisfying private
needs elevating abstract individualism over society and state.
5. The individual's best interest lies in being a member of society and
the state.
6. Individualism indifferent to moral and spiritual development of
personality by falsifying the nature of social institutions through
regarding them only as accidental and mere utilitarian devices to
satisfy irrational needs
7. Hegel shared the "Greek notion" of citizenship not in terms of private
rights but of social functions.
P. Hegel saw individual motives as capricious and sentimental, with civil
civil society as a realm of mechanical necessity, a result of irrational
forces of a society.
1. Society, apart from the state, is governed by non-moral causal laws
and hence ethically anarchical.
2. Only the state embodied ethical values and ought therefore to be
absolute.
3. Individual attains moral dignity only as he devotes himself to
the state.
4. Hegel's theory of freedom implied nothing definite in the way of
civil or political liberties but he did not reject them in practice.
5. The state depends on civil society as the means of accomplishing
the moral purpose it embodies.
6. The state is absolute but not arbitrary, it must rule through law and
law is "rational."
7. Civil society consists of corporations and the legislature is where
they meet the state.
8. The legislature only advisory to the ministry of the governing class
or "universal class."
Q. Hegel's constitutionalism not liberal (i.e., democratic procedures)
but based on orderly bureaucratic administration not subject to
to public opinion but to the public spirit of an official class that
stands above conflicts of economic and social interests.
R. Hegel united Rousseau's general will (the manifestation of the
spiritual force forming the core of reality) and Burke's religious
vision of history as a "divine tactic."
S. Replaced eternal system of unchangeable natural law with a
rational unfolding of the Absolute in History.
1. Reason manifested itself in social groups not individuals.
2. Society seen as system of forces rather than community of
individuals.
3. Highlighted importance of historical study of institutions but
left individual actions as merely a "reflection" of social forces.
4. Can be seen as giving rise to Marxism (a direct link), the English
liberalism of Oxford idealists and the Italian fascists.
Next week: Liberalism -- Philosophical Radicalism
The Theory of the Nation State: The Moderns
XXVIII. Hegel: Dialectic and Nationalism
A. The typical conclusions of the Enlightenment:
1. Hume showed ambiguities of "reason."
2. Rousseau set up reasons of the heart (sentiment) against reasons
of the head.
3. Immanuel Kant sharpened contrast of science and morals (and between
theoretical and practical reason) to preserve both.
4. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel sought unifying synthesis through
transcending analytic logic of science.
B. Hegel proposed dialectic to demonstrate logical relationship between
fact and value.
C. Revolution seen by many, including Hegel, as destructive, doctrinaire
attempt to remake society and human nature.
1. Therefore necessity of reconstruction of continuity of national
institutions.
2. But was to be reconstruction of stability by the creative forces
of the nation.
D. The nation, not the individual, is the significant unit of history via the
genius or spirit of the nation -- Volksgeist.
E. Hegel's political philosophy built around the dialectic and the theory
of the nation state as the embodiment of political power. (These two
did not necessarily entail each other.)
F. The historical method:
1. Method of studying history also could be applicable to other
social studies.
2. Mode of deriving from the order of historical events standards
of valuation with which to access significance of particular
stages in evolution (a philosophy of history).
3. Assumed single pattern or law of development that can be
exhibited by a proper arrangement of subject matter.
4. Order is not imposed but immanent.
5. Standards progressively revealed in evolution of morals,
law, etc., provides historically objective standard of values
to fill vacant place of natural law.
6. Hegel sought to show necessary stages by which reason
approximates the Absolute.
7. Understanding and reason were faculties of analysis and
synthesis respectively and dialectic unites the two.
8. Understand "breaks up" organic wholes, it is the philosophic
basis of indivualism.
i. fosters illusion that men can remake society
ii. misses organic creative continuous growth
9. Only reason can see below historical detail to perceive forces
that really control events and thus understand that the process
should be as it is.
G. In study of religion, following Herder and Lessing, saw succession of
world religions as progressive revelation of religious truth.
H. Thought Western civilization product of Greek free intelligence and
deeper moral and religious insights of Christianity.
I. The process of development of the spirit of a people:
1. Period of "natural" happy but largely unconscious spontaneity
(thesis).
2. Period of painful frustration and self-consciousness in which
the spirit is "turned inward" and loses its spontaneous
creativeness (antithesis).
3. Period in which spirit " returns to itself" at a higher level
embodying insight gained from frustration (synthesis).
4. The total process is "thought."
J. Hegel saw freedom as existing only within bounds of a nation state.
1. The state is the expression (de facto power) of national unity and
a national aspiration to self-government.
2. The state is consistent with any lack of uniformity which does not
prevent effectively unified government (such as class differences).
3. With Machiavelli saw no higher duty for the state than its own
strengthening and preservation.
4. The state is the realm in which the Idea of Reason materializes
itself (The German Constitution, 1802).
K. Realization of national spirit contributes to progressive realization of
the world spirit and is the source of dignity and worth that attaches
to private concerns of individuals.
1. Freedom is voluntary dedication to that realization.
2. National monarchy is the highest form of constitutional government.
L. Dialectic and historical necessity (The Philosophy of Right, 1821).
1. Dialectic is the new method.
2. History of a people records the growth of a single national
mentality that expresses itself in all phases of its culture.
"The individual is for the most part only an accidental variant of the culture
that created him and insofar as he is different his individuality is more
likely to be capricious than signficant."
3. Dialectic is the opposition of forces moving in orderly equilibrium
and emerging in a pattern of progressive, logical development.
4. Contradiction means fruitful opposition between systems that
constitutes an objective criticism of each and leads continually to
a more inclusive and coherent system. (Dialectic could manifest as
evolution or revolution.)
M. Hegel claimed dialectic as logic of reason to supersede logic of
understanding.
1. Dialectic both moral judgement and causal law of historical
development.
2. Unites relativism with the absolutism.
N. Dialectic offered no criterion of rightness except success of outcome.
O. Hegel: individualism and theory of the state.
1. Individualism had no hold in Hegel's Germany and the same with
sense of national unity.
2. Hegel's Philosophy of Right deals with the relationships between
individual and the social and economic institutions.
3. Placed state as on a level of political evolution above civil
society (the result of the end of feudal law and institutions).
4. Revolution's ideals of liberty and equality made state a mere
matter of private interest, a utilitarian device for satisfying private
needs elevating abstract individualism over society and state.
5. The individual's best interest lies in being a member of society and
the state.
6. Individualism indifferent to moral and spiritual development of
personality by falsifying the nature of social institutions through
regarding them only as accidental and mere utilitarian devices to
satisfy irrational needs
7. Hegel shared the "Greek notion" of citizenship not in terms of private
rights but of social functions.
P. Hegel saw individual motives as capricious and sentimental, with civil
civil society as a realm of mechanical necessity, a result of irrational
forces of a society.
1. Society, apart from the state, is governed by non-moral causal laws
and hence ethically anarchical.
2. Only the state embodied ethical values and ought therefore to be
absolute.
3. Individual attains moral dignity only as he devotes himself to
the state.
4. Hegel's theory of freedom implied nothing definite in the way of
civil or political liberties but he did not reject them in practice.
5. The state depends on civil society as the means of accomplishing
the moral purpose it embodies.
6. The state is absolute but not arbitrary, it must rule through law and
law is "rational."
7. Civil society consists of corporations and the legislature is where
they meet the state.
8. The legislature only advisory to the ministry of the governing class
or "universal class."
Q. Hegel's constitutionalism not liberal (i.e., democratic procedures)
but based on orderly bureaucratic administration not subject to
to public opinion but to the public spirit of an official class that
stands above conflicts of economic and social interests.
R. Hegel united Rousseau's general will (the manifestation of the
spiritual force forming the core of reality) and Burke's religious
vision of history as a "divine tactic."
S. Replaced eternal system of unchangeable natural law with a
rational unfolding of the Absolute in History.
1. Reason manifested itself in social groups not individuals.
2. Society seen as system of forces rather than community of
individuals.
3. Highlighted importance of historical study of institutions but
left individual actions as merely a "reflection" of social forces.
4. Can be seen as giving rise to Marxism (a direct link), the English
liberalism of Oxford idealists and the Italian fascists.
Next week: Liberalism -- Philosophical Radicalism
No comments:
Post a Comment