ilchinealach reviewed Hegel: Elements of the Philosophy of Right by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (Camb.Texts in the Hist.of Political Thought)
Review of 'Hegel: Elements of the Philosophy of Right' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
there's stuff here that would be deeply radical when compared with lot of people who get paid for their big thinks in our degraded age. hegel's primary aim here is to deconstruct the idea of individual, or abstract, right, for example the robinsonian myth that everyone in a society should seek to enrich themselves as individuals in order to ensure the enrichment of all. hegel knows that individual enrichment does not equate to communal enrichment and in order for a society to function, individual instances of them have to be equal to the broader ideal; i.e. desiring freedom as an individual, or subjectively, is not enough, the state that freedom tends towards has to be adequate to that desire
i guess this is where the idea that hegel's philosophy was far more radical than he was as an individual originates because his posited solution is not democracy or even a …
there's stuff here that would be deeply radical when compared with lot of people who get paid for their big thinks in our degraded age. hegel's primary aim here is to deconstruct the idea of individual, or abstract, right, for example the robinsonian myth that everyone in a society should seek to enrich themselves as individuals in order to ensure the enrichment of all. hegel knows that individual enrichment does not equate to communal enrichment and in order for a society to function, individual instances of them have to be equal to the broader ideal; i.e. desiring freedom as an individual, or subjectively, is not enough, the state that freedom tends towards has to be adequate to that desire
i guess this is where the idea that hegel's philosophy was far more radical than he was as an individual originates because his posited solution is not democracy or even a republic, but maybe something like proudhon would think up in terms of a series of civic institutions with electors from various social/guild/confessional settings
system is as impressive as ever, just not sure about the conclusions.