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Hegel’s Political Epistemology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2016

Jean-François Kervégan
Jean-François Kervégan*
Affiliation:
Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne Institut Universitaire de FranceCentre de philosophie contemporaine de la Sorbonne (NoSoPhi)kervegan@univ-paris1.fr
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Abstract

This article proposes an interpretation of Hegel’s famous maxim in the Preface of the Grundlinien: ‘What is rational is actual, and what is actual is rational’, not (as usual) as a politically conservative normative statement, but as an epistemological statement concerning the way in which philosophical discourse relates to reality. My aim is to take seriously Hegel’s claim that the purpose of philosophy is not to prescribe to the social world what it has to be but to define the mode through which it may be known.

Type
Articles
Information
Hegel Bulletin , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , May 2018 , pp. 45 - 60
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Copyright
© The Hegel Society of Great Britain 2016 

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Footnotes

Translation: Oliver Feltham

References

Abbreviations

Works by Hegel unless otherwise indicated.Google Scholar
B: Briefe von und an Hegel, ed. J. Hoffmeister. Hamburg: Meiner, 1953.Google Scholar
E: Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wisenschaften (1827–30), W 8–10.Google Scholar
GW: Gesammelte Werke. Hamburg: Meiner.Google Scholar
GW 11: Wissenschaft der Logik, Band 1: Das Sein, erste Auflage (1812). Hamburg: Meiner, 1978.Google Scholar
KrV: Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Akademie Ausgabe, vol. III. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1968.Google Scholar
L: The Logic of Hegel, translated from the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences by W. Wallace. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.Google Scholar
PR: Outlines of the Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox, rev. S. Houlgate. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
RPh: Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1820), W 7.Google Scholar
RPhH: Philosophie des Rechts. Die Vorlesung von 1819/20, ed. D. Henrich. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1983.Google Scholar
SL: The Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller. New York: Humanity Books, 1969.Google Scholar
VG: Die Vernunft in der Geschichte, ed. J. Hoffmeister. Hamburg: Meiner, 1955.Google Scholar
W: Werke in zwanzig Bänden, ed. E. Moldenhauer and K. M. Michel. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1970.Google Scholar
W 5: Wissenschaft der Logik, Band 1: Die Lehre vom Sein, zweite Auflage (1832).Google Scholar
W 6: Wissenschaft der Logik, Band 2: Die Lehre vom Wesen; Die Lehre vom Begriff.Google Scholar
W 7: Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1820).Google Scholar
W 8: Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften (1827–30), I: Die Logik.Google Scholar
W 19: Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, Teil I: Griechische Philosophie. Kapitel 3: Platon und Aristoteles.Google Scholar

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