Hegel Reconsidered: Beyond Metaphysics and the Authoritarian State (Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, 2)

Much of contemporary philosophy, political theory, and social thought has been shaped directly or indirectly by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, though there is considerable disagreement about how his work should be understood. He has been described both as a metaphysician and characterized as an ironic narrator who anticipated the character of philosophy after metaphysics. His position is equally ambiguous with regard to his political thought. He has been construed both as an enemy of the liberal state and as a friend of freedom. This volume's revisionist reassessment, building on the scholarship of Klaus Hartmann, explores these ambiguities in favor of a non-metaphysical reading of Hegel's arguments. It also shows how the foundations of his political thought support a liberal democratic state. This reappraisal of Hegel's arguments resituates him as a philosopher who anticipates the difficulties of post-modernity and offers a basis for reassessing ontology, aesthetics, and revolution. Philosophers and those doing work in political theory will find this volume of great interest. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-18 The Hegelian Project....Pages 19-42 Hegel’s Metaphysics, or the Categorial Approach to Knowledge of Experience....Pages 43-56 Hegel’s Critique of Kant and Pre-Kantian Metaphysics....Pages 57-78 On the Theoretical Form of Hegel’s Aesthetics....Pages 79-101 The Cogency of the Logic ’s Argumentation: Securing the Dialectic’s Claim to Justify Categories....Pages 103-117 The Meta-Ontological Option: On Taking the Existential Turn....Pages 119-142 The Logic of Contingency....Pages 143-161 Constitutionalism, Politics and the Common Life....Pages 163-186 Revolution as the Foundation of Political Philosophy....Pages 187-209 Sittlichkeit and Post-Modernity: An Hegelian Reconsideration of the State....Pages 211-224 Klaus Hartmann and G.W.F. Hegel: A Personal Postscript....Pages 225-229 Back Matter....Pages 231-259