Abstract

This book invites comparison with Emil Fackenheim’s The Religious Dimension in Hegel’s Thought in that it seeks to illuminate the whole of Hegel’s thought from the perspective of a dimension which is taken to be central. In this case it is the political dimension and reference to the whole of Hegel has both a diachronic and a synchronic sense. For the two central theses of the book are that Hegel’s development is the key to understanding his mature system and that his metaphysics is crucial for an understanding of his political thought. While we are not told just what to understand by Hegel’s metaphysics, in practice it seems to mean not just the logic, which Hegel himself identifies with metaphysics, but the whole of the system other than the theory of objective spirit. For it is argued in various places that the logic, the philosophy of nature, the theory of subjective, and the theory of absolute spirit, especially the philosophy of history and of religion form the context in which alone Hegel’s political thought is properly understood. Thus it is the whole of Hegel’s system as well as the whole of his development which stand in the relation of reciprocal illumination to his political theory.