Hegelian Resources for Contemporary Thought

Hegel and contemporary practical philosophy: Beyond Kantian Constructivism, 2020

Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, 2010

This fresh and original book argues that the central questions in Hegel's practical philosophy are the central questions in modern accounts of freedom: What is freedom, or what would it be to act freely? Is it possible so to act? And how important is leading a free life? Robert Pippin argues that the core of Hegel's answers is a social theory of agency, the view that agency is not exclusively a matter of the self-relation and self-determination of an individual but requires the right sort of engagement with, and recognition by, others. Using a detailed analysis of key Hegelian texts, Pippin develops this interpretation to reveal the bearing of Hegel's claims on many contemporary issues, including much-discussed core problems in the liberal democratic tradition. His important study will be valuable for all readers who are interested in Hegel's philosophy and in the modern problems of agency and freedom.

Ethics in Progress, 2024

This brief introduction sets the stage for the central aim of this issue of Ethics in Progress devoted to Hegel: to underscore the enduring relevance of his thought, in particular his Philosophy of Nature and his Realphilosophie, in addressing contemporary challenges. While Hegel may appear to some as an abstract thinker, seemingly surpassed by the demands of our era, the core elements of his philosophy – particularly the dialectical method, his reflections on the complex relationship between Natur (nature) and Geist (spirit), and key concepts such as Anerkennung (recognition) and Wille (will) – continue to provide a vital conceptual framework for addressing pressing issues of our time. These include the environmental crisis and the evolving dynamics between humanity, nature, and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. Consequently, this issue strives to approach Hegel through the lens of our contemporary experience, not to distort or “denaturalize” his thought, nor to fall into the trap of anachronism, but to breathe new life into the concept. By doing so, it invites the reader to listen anew to what Hegel’s philosophy might still teach us today.

G. W. F. Hegel, ed. Knowles, D. , 2010

there is at present, amongst Hegel scholars and in the interpretative discussions of Hegel's social and political theories, the flavour of old-style 'apology' for his liberal credentials, as though there exists a real need to prove he holds basic liberal views palatable to the hegemonic, contemporary political worldview. such an approach is no doubt motivated by the need to reconstruct what is left of the modern moral conscience when Hegel has finished discussing the flaws and contradictions of the Kantian model of moral judgement. the main claim made in the following pages is that the critique of 'subjective' moralities is neither the sole nor even the main reason for the adoption of an immanent doctrine of ethics. this paper will look to Hegel's mature theory of action as motivating the critique of transcendentalism rather than merely filling in the hole left when one rejects Kant and it will discuss what the consequences of this approach are for the role of the moral conscience within the political sphere, arguing that Hegel's own conditions of free action would not be met unless the subjective moral conscience was operative in the rational state.

An Ethical Modernity? Hegel’s Concept of Ethical Life Today – Its Limits and Potential. Eds. Tereza Matějčková and Jiři Chotaš (Brill), 2019

While the idea of philosophy as conceptual analysis has attracted many adherents and undergone a number of variations, in general it suffers from an authority problem with two dimensions. First, it is unclear why the analysis of a concept should have objective authority: why explicating what we mean should express how things are. Second, conceptual analysis seems to lack intersubjective authority: why philosophical analysis should apply to more than a parochial group of individuals. I argue that Hegel’s conception of social ontology, focused on his concept of “ethical life” (Sittlichkeit), helps to explain how concepts (and their explication) have both objective and intersubjective authority in the social domain. Hegel claims that modern institutions are the product of self-conscious purposes, so that they are conceptually constituted. Concepts do not just represent these objects and so depend on a contingent relation to them. As many contemporary social ontologists agree, this means that our concepts of these institutions are uniquely epistemically “transparent.” They have objective authority. Concepts have intersubjective authority in the modern world as well, according to Hegel. However, I show that this feature of Hegel’s account does not rely on the solution to a philosophical problem. Rather, since the concepts of modern ethical life are “essentially contested,” their content depends on the practical and political agreement of modern subjects. This means that concepts can only have objective authority if some prior intersubjective agreement has been reached. The role of philosophy as conceptual analysis is thus importantly dependent on political developments.

European Journal of Philosophy, 2012

Ethics&Politics, 2019

In this contribution I defend the thesis that Hegel's notion of species (Gattung) is not merely the name given to a group of self-reproducing living beings but rather it is at the basis of the Hegelian naturalistic conceptions of self-conscious life, sociality and world history. I maintain that self-reflection and self-referring negativity are the main characteristics of the self-conscious life and they determine the features of both the individual self-consciousness and the entire human species by shaping social practices and world history as acts of actualized freedom. Therefore, the definition of human species goes far beyond the description of its natural features and depends on the fact that self-consciousness is able to determine itself by negating external powers or conditioning. The main argument of this contribution is that human species and its historical evolution can be defined by means of this self-referring negativity and by self-consciousness' capacity to place the external reality under an order of values and concept autonomously yielded.

This paper has in view the relationship between emotions and justice which has been increasingly found in the literature in the past years. The core idea we find in this debate is that the descriptive validity of a social theory depends on the analyses of the constitutive role of emotions on social spheres. On the other hand, I want to suggest that Hegel can contribute towards a "normative" potential of those analyses through the approach of the formative character of institutions, oriented by what can be understood as the institutional mediation of individual freedom through the idea of socially inclusive, "decentralized will". In this paper, I will focus on the discussion of these ideas regarding the civil society, where I develop my argument in three short steps. Firstly, I will briefly suggest in what sense Hegel could help us in discussing the relation between ethical life ("Sittlichkeit") and affective relations. In a second step I will point out a specific emotional component in the sphere of civil society, namely, the relationship between passions and interests. Finally, I will connect this idea to a peculiarity based on Hegel's model of solidarity -as we find in the work of Axel Honneth -related to the concept of the formation of Will ("Willensbildung"), arguing that solidarity depends not only on rational guided actions, but also in how far an institutional framework enables a volitional dimension that is justified, on one hand, by the satisfaction of individual needs and, on the other, by the sentiment of cooperation.

Crisis and Critique , 2017

This article examines the resources which Hegel’s thought could offer to the current theory of the normative rationality, in particular by means of the concept of ethicity (Sittlichkeit). The examination concerns at first Hegel’s theory of the “abstract law", which develops an original vision of the relationship of law and right(s). Relationships between legal and moral normativity are then studied, about which Hegel’s arguments converge to a certain extent with those of legal positivism. Finally, the article analyzes Hegel’s institutional theory of the ethical "dispositions”, which tries to overtake the opposition between subjectivist and objectivist visions of the society. Une version française est parue dans Raisons politiques, 1 (2016), p. 69-85. Ce texte, remanié, constitue le chap. 11 du livre Explorations allemandes (Paris, CNRS Editions, 2019).

While preliminary steps towards fruitful dialogue between Hegel scholars and those working in the philosophy of action have been taken, many paths remain uncharted. This essay serves as both a summative document of past interaction and a promissory note of things to come. We begin with some general words regarding thephilosophy of action before singling out reasons for exploring Hegel’s thought in relation to it.We next present a brief overview of studies conducted to this day, followed by a thematic appraisal of the contributions appearing in the other essays in this volume, whose aim is to provide an in-depth account of Hegel’s writings on human action as they relate to contemporary concerns in the hope that it will encourage further dialogue.