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4 responses to “287”

1. 

   Hegel (Encyclopedia 1817)

   1. May 1817

   Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1817), § 440:

   § 440. The external moment — that the government, as the universal in individual actuality, stands opposed to the extreme of singularity, which in its abstract determination has merely the collective form of an aggregate of many and thus sometimes bears the false name people — gives rise to the false determination that the constitution is a contract, namely the arbitrary agreement of different persons concerning an arbitrary and contingent matter. The connection is rather a substantial and absolute one; from it alone do all rights and their actuality first proceed; and the constitution is rather this: that the self-comprehension and self-actuation of substance is withdrawn from arbitrary choice.

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2. 

   Hegel (Encyclopedia 1827)

   25. May 1827

   Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1827), § 541:

   § 541. The preservation, i.e., the continuous actualization of the state in general and of its constitution, is the government. Its organization is the universal part of the constitution, that is, the part which relates to the universal ends standing above the determination of the family and of civil society. This organization has its rationality, and thereby its perfection, in that it is differentiated into powers, as their distinctive characters are determined by the concept, and yet, in virtue of the concept’s subjectivity, interpenetrate equally into a spiritual unity.

   Since the nearest categories of the concept are those of universality and singularity, and their relation is that of the subsumption of singularity under universality, in the state a distinction has been made between legislative and executive power, such that the latter divides again into governmental or administrative power and judicial power, according to the application of the laws to universal or to private affairs. Further, for their relation, the division of these powers has been regarded as the essential thing, that is, their independence from one another, apart from the aforementioned connection of the subsumption of the particular under the universal. In these determinations the elements of the concept are not to be mistaken, but they have been combined by the understanding into a relation of unreason, instead of into the living spirit’s self-conjunction with itself. That the affairs of the state’s universal interests be organized, in their necessary difference, as separated from one another — this division is the one absolute moment of the depth and actuality of freedom; for freedom has depth only insofar as it has developed into its differences and attained to their existence. To make the business of legislating — and, in fact, with the very notion that at some time a constitution and the fundamental laws (in a condition into which an already-present development of the differences is inserted) would first have to be made — into an independent power, and indeed

   into the first, with the further specification that all participate in it, and to make the power of government into a power dependent on it and merely executive — this presupposes the lack of the knowledge that the true idea, and thereby the living and spiritual actuality, is the concept that closes together with itself, and thus is the subjectivity which contains universality within itself as only one of its moments. Individuality is the first and the highest all-pervading determination in the organization of the state. Only through the power of government, and through its comprehending within itself the particular affairs — to which also belongs the legislative business, itself particular and, taken by itself, abstract — is the state one. — As everywhere, so here too the logical relation is essential and alone true; whatever disorganizes its unity disorganizes actuality just as much.

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3. 

   Hegel (Encyclopedia 1830)

   19. September 1830

   Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1830), § 541:

   § 541. The living totality, the preservation, that is, the continuous production of the state in general and of its constitution, is the government. The naturally necessary organization is the emergence of the family and of the estates of civil society. The government is the universal part of the constitution, that is, the part which has the preservation of those parts as its deliberate purpose, but which at the same time grasps and puts into effect the universal ends of the whole, which stand above the determination of the family and of civil society. The organization of the government is likewise its differentiation into powers, as their distinctive characters are determined by the concept, but which, in virtue of the concept’s subjectivity, interpenetrate into an actual unity. Since the nearest categories of the concept are those of universality and singularity, and their relation is that of the subsumption of singularity under universality, it has come about that in the state legislative and executive power have been distinguished, but distinguished in such a way that the former on its own should exist as the absolutely supreme power, while the latter divides again into governmental or administrative power and judicial power, according to the application of the laws to universal or to private affairs. The division of these powers has been regarded as the essential relation, in the sense of their independence from one another in existence, yet together with the aforementioned connection of the subsumption of the powers of the singular under the power of the universal. In these determinations the elements of the concept are not to be mistaken, but they have been combined by the understanding into a relation of unreason, instead of into the living spirit’s self-conjunction with itself. That the affairs of the state’s universal interests be organized, in their necessary difference, also as separated from one another — this division is the one absolute moment of the depth and actuality of freedom; for freedom has depth only insofar as it has developed into its differences and attained to their existence. To make the business of legislating, however (and especially with the notion that at some time a constitution and the fundamental laws — in a condition into which an already-existing development of the differences is inserted — would first have to be made) into an independent power, and indeed into the first, with the further specification of the participation of all in it, and to make the governmental power into one dependent on it and merely executive — this presupposes the lack of the knowledge that the true idea and thereby the living and spiritual actuality is the concept that closes together with itself, and thus is the subjectivity which contains universality within itself as only one of its moments. Individuality is the first and the highest all-pervading determination in the organization of the state. Only through the power of government, and through its comprehending within itself the particular affairs — to which also belongs the legislative business, itself particular and, taken by itself, abstract — is the state one. — As essential as everywhere, and alone true, is the rational relation of the logical as against the external relation of the understanding, which arrives only at subsuming the singular and the particular under the universal. What disorganizes the unity of the logically rational disorganizes actuality just as much.

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4. 

   Karl Marx

   31. May 1843

   The ordinary explanation of governmental power. As peculiar to Hegel one can only note that he coordinates governmental power, police power, and judicial power, whereas otherwise administrative and judicial power are treated as opposites.

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