It is not without reason that Hegel’s theory of the state is the part of his doctrine of objective spirit that has received the most attention: the topic of “Hegel and the state,” ever since Rosenzweig’s book by that name (Hegel und der Staat, 1920) and even since Haym’s Hegel und seine Zeit, has been one of the most written-about subjects within Hegelian studies. One of the most critical topics as well, for the rather unattractive image of Hegel as the “philosopher of the Prussian state” has persisted, despite efforts to rectify it. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there is no interpretation in this vein, no matter how absurd, that has not been proposed by some commentator or another: Hegel as a precursor to Hitler, to Lenin or Stalin, but also to liberal democracy, and so on and so forth. The following chapters will neither seek to denounce this fable once again—though the following preliminary section will discuss it—nor offer a systematic interpretation of Hegel’s political philosophy, which would require an entire work.1 I will instead deal with three specific issues that provide a way to access what is most innovative and stimulating for contemporary thought in Hegel’s philosophy2: his diagnosis of modernity through the silent dialogue between Tocqueville and Hegel (chap. 7); the problem of political representation, which has become central since the end of the eighteenth century and on which Hegel’s unique views shed caustic light (chap. 8); and finally, his critique of democracy, in which we can find elements that anticipate what, much later, would be called the crisis of representative democracy (chap. 9).
1. The elements of such an interpretation are presented in the introduction to my translation of the Philosophy of Right, “L’institution de la liberté,” in Hegel, Principes de la philosophie du droit, trans. Kervégan (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2013), 1–109.
2. An example of a fruitful reactualization of Hegel’s political philosophy can be found in Axel Honneth’s books Suffering from Indeterminacy, and Freedom’s Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).