Political and World-historical Courage in Hegel’s Philosophy

Đorđe  Hristov

doi:10.2298/FID2204982H

Autori

Đorđe Hristov University of Belgrade, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2298/FID2204982H

Ključne reči:

courage, war, contract theory, monarch, world-historical individual, Hegel, Hobbes

Apstrakt

The aim of this article is to develop a distinction between two types of courage in Hegel’s philosophy: political and world-historical, in order to show the limitations of the former. The concept of political courage, or Tapferkeit, features in Hegel’s political philosophy, and signifies the wartime form of mutual trust required of the modern citizen for defense of an established constitution. World-historical courage, on the other hand, relates to the personal virtue of the ‘great individual’, which acts as a force of destruction against decaying constitutions. The article shows that political courage for Hegel serves as an alternative to the idea of the contract as the foundation of state unity. However, when placed in comparison with world-historical courage, political courage does not fully correspond to its concept as defined by Hegel. I begin with Hegel’s critique of Hobbes, his rejection of the social contract theory, and his introduction of the concept of Tapferkeit as an alternative principle of political unity. In the next step I show that world-historical courage differs but also shares many similarities with political courage, which taken together reveal the limitations of the latter. In the end, I argue that only in the instance of Hegel’s conception of total war do political and world-historical courage coincide.

Reference

Aristotle (1995), Politics, Ernest Barker (trans.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Avineri, Shlomo (1972), Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Berry, Christopher J. (1981), “Hegel on the World-Historical”, History of European Ideas 2 (2): 155–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-6599(81)90037-1.

Brooks, Thom (2007), “No Rubber Stamp: Hegel’s Constitutional Monarch”, History of Political Thought 28 (1): 91–119.

Dickey, Laurence (1987), Hegel: Religion, Economics and the Politics of Spirit, 1770–1807, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gordon, Rupert H. (2000), “Modernity, Freedom, and the State: Hegel’s Concept of Patriotism”, The Review of Politics 62 (2): 295–325. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670500029478.

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1892), Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol I, Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane (trans.), London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.

–. (1953), Reason in History, Robert S. Hartman (trans.), New York: The Liberal Arts Press.

–. (1975), Natural Law: The Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law, Its Place in Moral Philosophy, and Its Relation to the Positive Sciences of Law, T. M. Knox (trans.), Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

–. (1977), Phenomenology of Spirit, Arnold V. Miller (trans.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

–. (1990), Lectures on the History of Philosophy, The Lectures of 1825–1826, Vol III, Robert F. Brown, J. M. Stewart (trans.), Berkeley: University of California Press.

–. (1991), Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Hugh Barr Nisbet (trans.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

–. (1995), Lectures on Natural Right and Political Science: The First Philosophy of Right, J. Michael Stewart, Peter C. Hodgson (trans.), Berkeley: University of California Press.

–. (2001), The Philosophy of History, John Sibree (trans.), Kitchener: Batoche Books.

Hobbes, Thomas (1998), Leviathan, John C. A. Gaskin (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hristov, George (2022), “Roman Courage and Constitution in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right”, Hegel Bulletin 43 (2): 242–266. https://doi.org/10.1017/hgl.2022.2.

Jaeger, Hans-Martin (2002), “Hegel’s Reluctant Realism and the Transnationalisation of Civil Society”, Review of International Studies 28 (3): 497–517. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210502004977.

Kierkegaard, Søren (1983), Fear and Trembling/Repetition, Kierkegaard’s Writings VI, Howard V. Hong, Edna H. Hong (trans., eds.), Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Livy (1982), Rome and Italy: Books VI-X of the History of Rome from Its Foundation, Betty Radice (trans.), London: Penguin.

–. (2006), History of Rome: Books 1–5, Valerie M. Warrior (trans.), Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

Machiavelli, Niccolò (1996), Discourses on Livy, Harvey Mansfield, Nathan Tarcov (trans.), Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Moyer, Dean (2019), “Hegel’s Fact of Reason: Life and Death in the Experience of Freedom”, Argumenta 4 (2): 117–142.

Oquendo, Angel R. (1999), “Freedom and Slavery in Hegel”, History of Philosophy Quarterly 16: 437–464.

Patten, Alan (2002), Hegel’s Idea of Freedom, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Plato (1991), The Republic of Plato, Allan Bloom (trans.), New York: Basic Books.

Pippin, B. Robert (2011), Hegel on Self-Consciousness, Desire and Death in The Phenomenology of Spirit, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Polybius (1979), The Histories, Volume III, S. Douglas Olson (ed.), S. Douglas Olson, William R. Paton (trans.), Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Rabieh, R. Linda (2006), Plato and the Virtue of Courage, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.

Riley, Patrick (1973), “Hegel on Consent and Social-Contract Theory: Does He ‘Cancel and Preserve’ the Will?”, The Western Political Quarterly 26 (1): 130–161. https://doi.org/10.1177/106591297302600.

Sallust (2010), Catiline’s Conspiracy, The Jugurthine War, Histories, William W. Batstone (trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schmid, Thomas W. (1985), “The Socratic Conception of Courage”, History of Philosophy Quarterly 2 (2): 113–129.

Smith B. Steven (1983), “Hegel’s Views on War, the State, and International Relations”, The American Political Science Review 77 (3): 624–632.

Schnädelbach, Herbert (1987), „Hegel und die Vertragstheorie“, Hegel-Studien 22: 111–128.

Taylor, Charles (1975), Hegel, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Yonover, Jason M. (2021), “Hegel on Tragedy and the World-Historical Individual’s Right of Revolutionary Action”, in Mark Alznauer (ed.), Hegel on Tragedy and Comedy: New Essays, New York: SUNY Press, pp. 241–264.