Contents

Preface: Hegel without Metaphysics?

Prologue: The Actual and the Rational

PART I

The Law: The Positivity of Abstraction

Preliminary: The Objectivity of Willing

1  Law: Its Concept and Actualizations

2  Between Nature and History: The Law

3  Contract: The Legal Conditions of the Social

PART II

The Vitality and Flaws of the Social

Preliminary: The Archeology of Society

4  “Citoyen” versus “Bourgeois”? The Quest for the “Spirit of the Whole”

5  The State of Law: Civil Society

6  “Ethicality Lost in Its Extremes”

PART III

The State and the Political

Preliminary: The Enduring Myth of the Philosopher of the Prussian State

7  Tocqueville-Hegel: A Silent Dialogue on Modernity

8  A Theory of Representation

9  Beyond Democracy

PART IV

Figures of Subjectivity in Objective Spirit: Normativity and Institutions

Preliminary: Strong and Weak Institutionalism

10  The Truth of Morality

11  The Conditions of Political Subjectivity

12  Subjects, Norms, and Institutions: What Is an Ethical Life?

Epilogue: The Passion of the Concept

Translator’s Note

Bibliography

Index