Hegel’s Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Politics (Routledge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy)

The renaissance in Hegel scholarship over the past two decades has largely ignored or marginalized the metaphysical dimension of his thought, perhaps most vigorously when considering his social and political philosophy. Many scholars have consistently maintained that Hegel’s political philosophy must be reconstructed without the metaphysical structure that Hegel saw as his crowning philosophical achievement. This book brings together twelve original essays that explore the relation between Hegel’s metaphysics and his political, social, and practical philosophy. The essays seek to explore what normative insights and positions can be obtained from examining Hegel’s distinctive view of the metaphysical dimensions of political philosophy. His ideas about the good, the universal, freedom, rationality, objectivity, self-determination, and self-development can be seen in a new context and with renewed understanding once their relation to his metaphysical project is considered. __Hegel’s Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Politics__ will be of great interest to scholars of Hegelian philosophy, German Idealism, nineteenth-century philosophy, political philosophy, and political theory. Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Introduction -- Part I The Relation of Hegel's Metaphysics and Political Theory -- 1 The Course of God: Reading Hegel -- 2 The Metaphysic of Spirit and Hegel's Philosophy of Politics -- 3 Speculative Logic as Practical Philosophy: Political Life in Times of Crisis -- 4 Metaphysics and the Poverty of Liberal-Positivist Political Thought -- Part II Ontology, Metaphysics and Practical Reason -- 5 The Metaphysical Infrastructure of Hegel's Practical Philosophy -- 6 The Metaphysics of Rational Action: Kantian and Aristotelian Themes in Hegel's Absolute Idealism -- 7 Against the Post-Kantian Interpretation of Hegel: A Study in Proto-Marxist Metaphysics -- 8 Objective Spirit: Hegel's Normative Social Ontology -- Part III Metaphysics, History and the Structures of Ethical Life -- 9 Family Structures as Fields of Historical Tension: A Case Study in the Relation of Metaphysics and Politics -- 10 Hegel's Metaphysics of Marriage: Teleology, Ontology and Sexually Embodied Freedom in the Philosophy of Right's Account of the Family -- 11 Tiger Stripes and Embodied Systems: Hegel on Markets and Models -- 12 Hegel and the End of a Particular Historical Development -- List of Contributors -- Index