Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
Summary
Ever since the publication of Benedetto Croce's What is Living and What is Dead of the Philosophy of Hegel, commentators on Hegel's philosophy traditionally conclude their studies with an assessment of the merits of Hegel's project. This study will be no different.
In this book, I have argued for a systematic reading of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. This reading is both consistent with Hegel's own self-understanding of his project and offers a more robust interpretation of the Philosophy of Right, providing a clear advance on existing studies of this important text. A principal target throughout has been Allen Wood's influential non-systematic reading of the Philosophy of Right in his Hegel's Ethical Thought. He tells us that his approach ‘is, admittedly, to read him in some measure against his own self-understanding; it is nonetheless the only way in which most of us, if we are honest with ourselves, can read him seriously at all’. One reason why we should read Hegel against his self-understanding is that, for Wood, providing a systematic reading of the Philosophy of Right ‘would also dictate that you write a book not about Hegel's ethics but about his logic’. Thus, it has been a clear task of this book to argue that this view is incorrect. A systematic reading that interprets the Philosophy of Right within the wider context of Hegel's greater philosophical system is possible without spending most of our time detailing the system rather than uncovering the arguments of the Philosophy of Right.
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- Hegel's Political PhilosophyA Systematic Reading of the Philosophy of Right, pp. 129 - 132Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2009