Glossary of Hegel’s Key Concepts

The Concept (Begriff) The concept is not, as in the ordinary understanding, a merely subjective idea or abstraction. It is the inner, self-moving soul of actuality; it is the logic that inheres in everything that is as its very structure. In Hegel’s Logic it is developed as the unity of universality, particularity, and individuality. For the philosophy of right this is central: right is not something made, but the unfolding of the concept of freedom itself.
The Idea (Idee) The Idea is the unity of the concept and its reality (actuality). It is the concept that has fully realized itself in objectivity. The philosophy of right as a whole treats the Idea of freedom or, what is the same thing, the Idea of right. It is reason as it gives itself existence in the world of spirit – in institutions and actions.
Freedom (Freiheit) This is the cornerstone of Hegel’s entire practical philosophy. Freedom is not mere arbitrariness (the ability to choose between A or B). True, concrete freedom is “being with oneself in an other.” The subject is free when it recognizes itself in its institutions (family, society, state) not as limited but as realized. The will is only free insofar as it wills what is rational.
The Will (Wille) The will is the foundation of right. It is the practical moment of spirit – thinking, insofar as it resolves itself and passes into action. In the philosophy of right, Hegel begins with the will in its most abstract form: as the capacity for pure self-determination (§§ 4–7 PR), which then gradually fills itself with content.
Sublation (Aufhebung) A central concept in Hegel’s dialectic with a threefold meaning: a) negating (bringing something to an end, e.g. wrong in punishment); b) preserving (retaining what was valid at a previous stage, e.g. property within the family); c) raising up (lifting to a higher stage of development). The philosophy of right is a process of sublation: abstract right is sublated in morality, and both are sublated in ethical life (i.e. negated, preserved, and raised to a higher stage).
Abstract Right (Abstraktes Recht) This is the first and most immediate stage of the realization of the free will (§ 34 ff. PR). Here the will is recognized only as a person. It concerns the pure externality of freedom. The three moments of abstract right are: a) property (taking possession of a thing); b) contract (the mutual recognition of two wills with regard to a thing); c) wrong (the negation of right, which leads to punishment).
Morality (Moralität) The second sphere (§ 105 ff. PR), which arises from the contradiction within abstract right (wrong). Here the will turns from the external thing inward. It is the sphere of subjectivity. Its central themes are purpose (what I knew), intention (the aim of my action), and conscience (subjective knowledge of good and evil). Morality is necessary but insufficient, since it can remain stuck in mere ought or in a “bad conscience.”
Ethical Life (Sittlichkeit) The third and highest sphere of objective spirit (§ 142 ff. PR); it is the truth of abstract right and morality. Ethical life is the living realization of freedom. Here the good is no longer merely a subjective ought (morality), and freedom is no longer merely an external having (right); rather, both are realized in the objective institutions of the world. Its three moments are: the family, civil society, and the state.
Externalization (Entäußerung) The act by which the will gives itself existence by placing something of itself into the external world. This is fundamental in the case of property: by placing my will into a thing (taking possession, working on it), I make it mine. It is the first form of the realization of freedom. Property is also externalized in contract.
Recognition (Anerkennung) A fundamental concept already developed in the Phenomenology of Spirit (in the struggle for lordship and bondage). Right is not a purely private condition but a social relation. My will is only truly posited as right once it is recognized by another free will. This happens explicitly in contract and is the implicit foundation of all ethical institutions.
Person (Person) The person is the bearer of abstract right (§ 35 PR). It is the subject insofar as it relates to its immediate, abstract freedom (‘I am I’). As a person, every human being is a single individual and has the capacity to hold rights. The sole command of abstract right is therefore: ‘be a person and respect others as persons.’ This is the foundation of property and contract, but it is not yet a concrete determination of the individual.
Property (Eigentum) Property is the first and most basic form of existence of freedom (§ 41 ff. PR). In order to be free, the will must give itself an external sphere in which it holds sway. This happens as the person places its will into a thing (through taking possession, working on it, using it). Property is therefore not primarily a means of satisfying needs, but the immediate reality of the person’s freedom.
Contract (Vertrag) In contract (§ 72 ff. PR) freedom enters into a relation with another freedom. It is the process in which two persons mutually recognize each other as owners and make their will over a particular piece of property a common one. Contract is the first stage at which recognition takes on an explicit legal form. It is the transition from unilateral taking possession to a common will.
Wrong and Punishment (Unrecht und Strafe) Wrong (§ 82 ff. PR) is the negation of right. It is the act by which the particular will of an individual sets itself against recognized, universal right (contract, property). Punishment (§ 97 ff.) is the negation of this negation; it is the restoration of right. It is not mere revenge or deterrence but the criminal’s own right. In being punished, the criminal is honored as a rational being (capable of violating right), and his crime is ‘sublated.’
Conscience (Gewissen) Conscience (§ 136 ff.) is the highest peak of morality. It is the subject’s own knowledge, within itself, of what is right and what is duty. It is deep subjective certainty. This subjectivity is an infinite right, but it also harbors the greatest danger: conscience can harden into mere subjectivity and turn into evil by setting up its own arbitrary will as the good.
Civil Society (Bürgerliche Gesellschaft) This is the second principal moment of ethical life (§ 182 ff. PR), following the family. It is the sphere that in the modern world stands between the family and the state. It can be understood as the sphere of economy and universal dependence. Here all individuals, as private persons, pursue their particular interests (needs, acquisition). Paradoxically, it is precisely through this self-interested striving that a universal system of provision – the system of needs – is produced.
The System of Needs (System der Bedürfnisse) This is the first part of civil society (§ 189 ff.). It is the ‘market’ in the broadest sense. Through labor and the division of labor, individuals satisfy their needs. In the process a universal mutual dependence arises. Everyone is a means to the end of everyone else, and yet within this ‘system of the understanding’ (as Adam Smith called it), something universal is unconsciously produced.
Administration of Justice (Rechtspflege) In civil society, right, which in abstract right existed only as a demand, must become actual. It must exist as positive law (a code) and attain existence through courts (adjudication) (§ 209 ff.). The administration of justice makes right accessible and objective for all individuals.
The Police and the Corporation (Polizei und Korporation) ‘Police’ (§ 231 ff.) does not, in Hegel’s sense, mean merely the power of law enforcement, but the state’s general institution of welfare (public administration). It intervenes to regulate and mitigate the contingencies of the market (poverty, crises). The corporation (§ 250 ff.) is the association of individuals according to their trade or estate. It is a ‘second family’ for the individual, giving him honor, recognition, and social security within civil society, and binding him morally to something universal.
The Estates (of Civil Society) Civil society (§ 201 ff. PR) is not organized as an amorphous mass of individuals but organically, into estates. Hegel distinguishes three principal estates: a) the substantial estate (agriculture, nobility), resting on immediate trust in nature; b) the reflecting or business estate (trade, industry, commerce), resting on formative labor and the understanding; c) the universal estate (civil servants, the ‘universal class’), whose business is care for the universal interest. These estates are not rigid castes but the ethical articulations of society, in which the individual finds his ‘estate’ and his ‘honor.’
Poverty (The Problem of Poverty) This is one of the central aporias of civil society (§ 241 ff.). The dynamic of the market (the ‘system of needs’) necessarily produces wealth on one side and poverty on the other. Poverty is not merely a lack of goods but a form of social exclusion: the poor person loses the feeling of honor, of right, and of belonging.
The Rabble (Der Pöbel) The rabble (§ 244 PR) is the direct consequence of poverty. It is not identical with ‘the poor.’ The rabble is a disposition – the inner rebellion and estrangement that arises when part of society can no longer be a member of the whole and turns against the social order. There is also a rabble of the rich. Hegel recognizes that civil society produces this problem but cannot resolve it out of itself.
Publicity (Public Opinion) In the modern world, the universal (the state) must exist for the consciousness of the citizens. Public opinion (§ 316 ff. PR) is the form in which citizens pass judgment on affairs of state. It is a great contradiction: on the one hand it contains ‘sound common sense’ and the true needs of a people; on the other it is full of ‘contingency, ignorance, and perversity.’ The true statesman must respect it, but also lead and educate it (often against it).
Freedom of the Press (Pressefreiheit) The press (§ 319 PR) is the principal means of expressing public opinion. It is necessary. But its freedom is not an abstract right to say anything whatsoever; it must stand within the context of ethical life (of the state). A press that is mere ‘opinion’ and undermines the rationality of the state is harmful. The true freedom of the press consists in serving truth and the universal.
Positive Law (Positives Recht) This is right insofar as it is posited (positum) within a state (§ 211 PR). It must become law, i.e. be codified in law-books and made generally known. Only in this way can it attain validity and become known to the citizen. Positive law derives its legitimacy from its rational content (which stems from the concept of right), but its form (the law) is necessarily bound to the specific history and culture of a people.
Jury Courts (Judicial Constitution) The administration of justice must be public. An essential part of this is the participation of the people in the form of jury courts (§ 228 PR). They represent the subjective moment of judgment (the ‘holding-to-be-true,’ similar to conscience). The judge represents the objective law. Only in the unity of judge and jury does right become concrete and living.
The Estates (in the Sense of the Legislature) This is the second meaning of ‘estates’ (besides the articulation of society) – here as part of the legislative power (§ 298 ff.). The Assembly of Estates (the parliament) is the organ in which the corporations and estates of civil society bring their interests into the state and take part in legislation. Importantly, Hegel does not favor the representation of isolated atoms (universal suffrage), but the representation of organized circles (corporations).
The Right of Pardon (Recht der Begnadigung) This is a right of the monarch (§ 282 PR). The court judges according to the necessity of the law (punishment must be). But life is more than abstract law. The state, as sovereign spirit, must have the power to break through this necessity and grant mercy. This is the highest act of sovereignty, one that sublates the ‘mechanical’ justice of the administration of justice.
The State (Staat) The state is the highest stage of ethical life and the actuality of concrete freedom (§ 257 ff.). It is neither a mere contract (as in Rousseau) nor a ‘night-watchman state’ (as liberals believe) that merely protects property. The state is the ethical totality – the unity of family and civil society. In it the citizen finds the realization of his freedom, because the universal end (the interest of the state) and his particular interest (his life and welfare) are brought into unity.
The Constitution (Internal Constitutional Law) The constitution (§ 271 ff. PR) is not a merely ‘made’ document but the organization of the state. It is the articulated structure of the rationality of the state, as this necessarily develops out of the concept of freedom itself. A constitution cannot be imported or ‘given’ to a people; it must be the expression of that people’s own spirit and historical development.
The Separation of Powers (Organic Articulation) Hegel distinguishes the powers, but he does not separate them in the sense of Montesquieu, who assumes mutually limiting, ‘hostile’ powers held in balance. That only leads to paralysis. The state is an organism, a single sovereignty that articulates itself into three moments: a) the power of the crown (the subjectivity of decision); b) the power of government (application to the particular); c) the legislative power (the determination of the universal).
The Power of the Crown (The Monarch) This is the apex of the constitution, the moment of ultimate subjective decision (§ 275 ff. PR). The monarch (in a constitutional monarchy) is the ‘dot on the i.’ He is not a ruler in the despotic sense; the laws are prepared by the government and deliberated by the legislature. But the state, as a single individual, must be able to say ‘I will.’ This final subjectivity cannot arise from elections but rests, in the modern world, on the naturalness (the birth) of the monarch.
The Power of Government (The Executive/Bureaucracy) This is the ‘universal estate’ or the civil service (§ 287 ff. PR). It is the connecting link between the universal (the law) and the particular (civil society). The power of government applies the laws to concrete cases and administers public affairs (‘police’). Its legitimacy rests not on election but on expertise and education.
The Legislative Power (The Estates) The legislature (§ 298 ff. PR) has the task of shaping the laws as universal determinations. In it the public and the consciousness of the citizens are represented. For Hegel it consists of two chambers, the decisive moment being the representation of the corporations. Individuals are present in the state not as isolated atoms (through universal suffrage) but through their ethical circles (professional estates, corporations).
External Sovereignty (Sovereignty Abroad) The state exists as an individual in the world (§ 321 ff. PR). Its sovereignty consists in being recognized by other states as independent and autonomous. This relation among states is the sphere of ‘external constitutional law.’
War (Krieg) War (§ 324 ff. PR) is the negative moment in the relation among states. Since there can be no ‘world state’ or superior judge over sovereign states (a league of nations would be merely a contract, not a state), war is the unavoidable way in which conflicts over sovereignty are decided.
World History (Weltgeschichte) World history (§ 341 ff. PR) is the highest sphere of objective spirit. It is the world’s court of judgment. The relations and conflicts among states are the field on which the world spirit (spirit in its totality) develops. History is the progressive realization of the consciousness of freedom.
The Cunning of Reason (List der Vernunft) This is the ‘motor’ of world history. The world spirit (reason) uses the passions and interests of world-historical individuals (such as Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon) to achieve its own, higher ends (those of reason). These individuals believe they are pursuing their own goals, but unwittingly they are instruments for the next step of spirit in its development toward freedom.
The World Spirit (Weltgeist) The world spirit is the subject of world history. It is the one universal spirit that unfolds itself in the various national spirits (the spirit of a particular people at a particular epoch). In world history the world spirit moves ‘from East to West’ – from the freedom of one (oriental despotism), through the freedom of some (the Greco-Roman world), to the freedom of all in the Germanic-Christian state.
The History of Philosophy (Geschichte der Philosophie) For Hegel, the history of philosophy is not a mere collection of opinions (a ‘doxography’). It is the unfolding of philosophy itself. Each system (Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Fichte, Schelling) is a necessary step of the one spirit on its way to self-consciousness. Hegel’s own philosophy claims to have sublated (preserved and completed) the previous stages. The study of the philosophy of right is therefore also a study of its history.
The Phenomenology of Spirit (Phänomenologie des Geistes) This is the ‘science of the experience of consciousness’ that Hegel placed before his Science of Logic. It is the ladder by which natural consciousness (everyday understanding) ascends from mere ‘sense-certainty’ to ‘absolute knowing’ (the standpoint of philosophy). For the philosophy of right it is decisive, since in its chapters on self-consciousness (lordship and bondage) and spirit it demonstrates the genesis of intersubjectivity and of ethical substance.
Self-Consciousness (Selbstbewusstsein) Self-consciousness is the stage at which the ‘I’ relates no longer merely to external objects (as in perception) but to itself. It is knowledge of itself. However, self-consciousness finds its satisfaction not in itself alone but only by confronting another self-consciousness and being recognized by it. Here lies the root of all right and all ethical life.
Desire (Begierde) The first, immediate form in which self-consciousness seeks to prove its independence. It wants to negate the other (the world, objects) and incorporate it (consume it). Desire, however, is unsatisfying, since it destroys the object and thus finds no lasting recognition. This necessarily leads to conflict with another self-consciousness, which is likewise desire.
Lordship and Bondage (Herrschaft und Knechtschaft) This is the famous dialectic that arises from the ‘struggle to the death’ for recognition (Phenomenology, ch. IV.A). One self-consciousness (the bondsman) fears death and submits to the other (the lord). The lord is recognized, but only by a bondsman, which is an insufficient recognition. The bondsman, however, through labor (formative activity) and fear of the lord (discipline), forms himself and becomes the true, independent consciousness. This dialectic shows that true freedom consists only in mutual, equal recognition – an insight that underlies the state.
Spirit (Geist) In the Phenomenology, spirit is not merely individual understanding. Spirit is ‘the I that is We, and the We that is I.’ It is the ethical substance of a community, the shared ethos that lives in the laws and customs of a people. The philosophy of right is the scientific presentation of precisely this spirit in its objective forms (family, society, state).
The Science of Logic (Wissenschaft der Logik) The Logic is the presentation of God as he is in his eternal essence before the creation of nature and of a finite spirit. It is the thinking of pure thought-determinations (the categories). It is the ‘realm of shadows,’ but these shadows are the basic structures of all actuality. The philosophy of right follows the same logical structure: the development from abstract right through morality to ethical life is the same movement as the development of the concept in the Logic.
Dialectic (Dialektik) The dialectic is the immanent soul of all thought and all actuality. It is not an external art of refuting propositions (as with the sophists). It is the grasping of the fact that every finite determination (e.g. ‘property’) contains within itself its own contradiction (e.g. ‘wrong’) and thereby necessarily moves on to a higher, richer determination (e.g. ‘contract’ or ‘punishment’). This is the method of philosophy. (See also Sublation.)
The Speculative (Das Spekulative) This is the third, positively rational moment of the dialectic (after the abstract, moment of the understanding, and the negatively rational, dialectical moment). The speculative grasps the unity of opposites. For example: the understanding separates subjective freedom (morality) from objective law (right). Speculative thought conceives the state as the concrete unity in which my subjective freedom finds its truth precisely in following the objective laws.
Actuality and Rationality (Wirklichkeit und Vernünftigkeit) The famous sentence from the Preface to the Philosophy of Right: ‘What is rational is actual; and what is actual is rational.’ This is not an appeal to accept everything that exists (every bad government, every wrong) as rational. For Hegel, only that which corresponds to its concept is actual (see Concept). A state that is irrational or despotic does indeed exist, but it possesses no true actuality and is condemned to decline. The sentence is a postulate of philosophical cognition: to find reason within reality.
Objective Spirit (Objektiver Geist) This is the title of the section in Hegel’s Encyclopedia that the philosophy of right elaborates in detail. Spirit (free thought) is not merely subjective (in the individual human being). It gives itself objectivity in the world. Objective spirit is freedom as it realizes itself in external institutions. Its stages are: 1. Abstract Right, 2. Morality, 3. Ethical Life.
Being (Sein) The first, most immediate category of the Science of Logic. It is pure, indeterminate thought. ‘Being’ is mere positivity, without negation or reflection. In the philosophy of right, this logical place corresponds to abstract right: property is the most immediate form of existence of freedom; it is simply there. The person is a person. It is the sphere of pure externality, before the will has reflected into itself.
Essence (Wesen) The second sphere of the Logic. ‘Being’ has collapsed into itself and shown itself to be mere semblance. Essence is the sphere of reflection, of the look ‘behind the scenes.’ Here the categories of separation prevail: identity and difference, ground and consequence, positive and negative. In the philosophy of right this corresponds exactly to the sphere of morality. Here the will is no longer in external ‘being’ (the thing) but reflected into itself (in conscience). It is the world of the inner split between ought and is, between good intention and evil.
In Itself (An sich) A central methodological term. ‘In itself’ designates the implicit or potential state of a thing. It is what something is according to its concept, even if it does not yet know this or has not yet realized it. For example, the will of a child or of a slave is free in itself, but not yet for itself (knowingly and actually). The whole of world history is the process by which spirit, which is free in itself, arrives at the realization of this freedom.
For Itself (Für sich) This designates the state of self-consciousness and actuality. Something is ‘for itself’ when it has distinguished itself from an other and related itself to itself. The person in abstract right is the first ‘being-for-self’ of the will. In its highest sense, spirit is ‘for itself’ when it grasps itself as the total actuality (in the state and in absolute knowing).
In and for Itself (An und für sich) This is the synthesis; the state of accomplished realization. What was in itself (potentially) has now also become for itself (self-conscious and actual). This is the structure of the Idea. The ethical state is freedom in and for itself: freedom is not merely an inner potential (in itself) or a subjective arbitrariness (for itself), but is objectively realized in institutions and is known and willed by the subject as its own freedom.
Ideality and Reality (Ideal/Real) This is a central conceptual pair from the Logic that describes the structure of sublation (see there). Reality (real): designates a moment insofar as it appears as a particular existence subsisting for itself. It has the form of immediate existence. Ideality (ideal): designates the same moment insofar as it is sublated. Something is ‘ideal’ when it has lost its independence and is contained only as a moment (as a non-self-subsisting part) within a higher unity (the concept or the Idea). The decisive speculative proposition reads: the real is in itself ideal. That is to say: what appears to us as independent and ‘real’ is in truth non-self-subsisting and has its truth only in the whole that carries it. Example from the philosophy of right: the family (see there) and civil society (see there) are, taken by themselves, real spheres. They seem to lead a life of their own. But in truth they are ideal moments within the state (see there). The state is their ideality: it is the truth and the sustaining substance in which family and society first have their subsistence and their meaning. They are sublated within the state (preserved, but deprived of their apparent independence).
Natural Law (Critique of Natural Law) Hegel’s 1802/03 essay (On the Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law) is fundamental for his later work. There Hegel criticizes the two principal forms of natural law: a) the empirical (e.g. Hobbes), which starts from the ‘state of nature’ of the human being and sees the state merely as a means of self-preservation; b) the formal (e.g. Kant, Fichte), which starts from the abstract autonomy of the individual and conceives the state as a mere ‘contract’ to secure formal freedom. Both fail to recognize that right has its origin neither in empirical fact nor in a formal ought, but in the living, ethical spirit of a people.
Absolute Ethical Life (Absolute Sittlichkeit) This is Hegel’s counter-concept to formal natural law in the Jena period. It is the concept of an indivisible, living unity of the spirit of a people (a national spirit). Here he was often thinking of the Greek polis. In this ‘absolute ethical life,’ right, morals, religion, and custom have not yet fallen apart into separate spheres. In the later philosophy of right (Berlin), this concept is differentiated: ‘absolute ethical life’ now unfolds into the three moments of family, civil society, and state.
Jena Philosophy of Real Spirit (Realphilosophie I & II) These are Hegel’s lectures from the Jena period (c. 1803–1806), in which he first worked out the system of nature and spirit. This is decisive for the philosophy of right, because here he develops the emergence of spirit out of a system of recognition through language, labor, and struggle. Civil society (at that time the ‘system of needs’) is already analyzed here as a sphere of estrangement and of the loss of absolute ethical life.
Substance (Ethical Substance) ‘Substance’ is what abides, what underlies. In the philosophy of right the state is ethical substance (§ 257 PR). It is the ‘unmoved’ foundation on which the individual stands. It is the totality of the customs, laws, and culture of a people. Freedom does not consist in setting oneself against this substance (like the moral hero) but in recognizing oneself within it as one’s own essence and actively helping to shape it.
Contingency (Zufälligkeit) Philosophy has to do with the necessary, the rational. Contingency is that which could also be otherwise. The sphere of civil society is marked by a high degree of contingency: whether someone becomes poor or rich depends on the ‘chance’ of the market. The task of the rational institutions – the police (in the sense of administration) and the corporation – is to mediate this contingency, i.e. to temper its hardships through rational order.
Absolute Spirit (Der Absolute Geist) This is the third and highest sphere of the philosophy of spirit (after subjective and objective spirit). It is the truth of spirit – spirit that recognizes itself in its absolute freedom. It is the completed return of spirit to itself out of its otherness (nature) and its objectivity (the state). This self-knowledge takes place in three stages: art, religion, and philosophy.
Art (Die Kunst) The first stage of absolute spirit. Art is the sensuous intuition of the Idea (the absolute). Spirit here grasps the truth not in pure thought but in a material medium (stone, color, sound, word). Art is the ‘sensuous shining of the Idea.’ In history it was (especially in Greece) the highest form of spirit’s self-knowledge.
Religion (Revealed Religion) The second stage. Here spirit grasps the truth no longer in external sensuousness but in the form of representation (see Representation) and feeling. The content is the same as in philosophy (God as spirit), but the form is still that of a ‘confrontation’ – a personal God, historical narratives (creation, incarnation), and ritual communities. For the state, religion (especially Christianity) is the substantial disposition and the consciousness of its ethical foundation.
Philosophy (Die Philosophie) The third and highest stage of absolute spirit. It is the truth of art and religion. Philosophy grasps the same absolute content as religion, but in the form uniquely adequate to it: the pure concept. It is the thinking apprehension of reason, which recognizes itself in everything (nature, right, state, art) as the absolute. Philosophy is the ‘Idea thinking itself.’
The Relation of State and Religion This is a central and contested point. The state (the philosophy of right) is the objective actuality of freedom. Religion is the subjective consciousness of this freedom (as disposition). On the one hand the state is the foundation of religion (since the church is an institution within the state). On the other hand religion is the basis of the state (since the laws have their ultimate foundation in ethical consciousness, which has been historically shaped by religion). Hegel’s position is that the state must rest on reason, not on dogma, but that the form of the state (the freedom of all) first became historically possible through the contents of the Reformation (the freedom of the Christian).
Representation (Vorstellung) A decisive concept for distinguishing religion and philosophy. Representation is thinking in images, metaphors, and narratives. It is the form of religion. For example, religion represents God as a ‘lord’ or ‘father’ who is ‘outside’ the world. Philosophy translates this representation into the concept: God is the spirit that is present in the world as its immanent reason and structure (the logos).
The Owl of Minerva (Die Eule der Minerva) The most famous sentence from the Preface to the Philosophy of Right: ‘The owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the falling of dusk.’ This defines the task of philosophy. Philosophy (the owl of wisdom) always comes too late. It cannot teach the world how it ought to be. It can only comprehend a form of life once it has already completed its actuality (such as the modern state). Philosophy paints ‘grey in grey’; it serves cognition and reconciliation with actuality, not utopia.
Reconciliation (Versöhnung) This is the ultimate goal of philosophy. It is the reconciliation of reason with actuality (see Actuality). Philosophy shows that the world (nature and history) is not alien or meaningless, but the very unfolding of reason. For the philosophy of right this means that the subject becomes reconciled with the state: it recognizes the laws of the state not as an external compulsion but as the objectification of its own freedom.
The End of History (Das Ende der Geschichte) A concept that is often misunderstood. It does not mean that nothing more happens. It means that the concept or principle of history – the consciousness of freedom – has found its definitive shape. With the modern state (which recognizes the freedom of all as its principle), the telos (goal) of world history (see World History) is achieved in itself. Further history is ‘only’ the further spreading and perfecting of this principle.
The End of Art (Das Ende der Kunst) Analogous to the end of history. This does not mean that no more works of art are created. It means that art, for us (in the modern, reflective world), is no longer the highest way in which we bring truth before ourselves. In antiquity (for the Greeks) this role belonged to art, in the Middle Ages to religion, and in modernity to philosophy. Art has become, for us, ‘a thing of the past’ insofar as its highest vocation is concerned.
Recognition (Modern Reception) While recognition (see there) is a logical link within Hegel’s system (in contract, in bourgeois honor, in the state), it has, in modern scholarship (led by thinkers such as Axel Honneth), become the central normative foundation of an entire social theory. This ‘theory of recognition’ reads Hegel’s philosophy of right as a ladder of spheres of recognition (love, right, social esteem), whose violation produces ‘social pathologies’ (disrespect).
The Non-Metaphysical Reading This is one of the most fundamental divides in current Hegel scholarship. This line of interpretation (prominent in Jürgen Habermas or, in part, in Charles Taylor) attempts to ‘rescue’ the philosophy of right (and the Phenomenology) from the Science of Logic. Its proponents argue that the insights into intersubjectivity, ethical life, and recognition retain their validity without the ‘metaphysical baggage’ of absolute spirit or the logic of the concept, and can be made fruitful for modern, post-metaphysical societies.
The Metaphysical Reading The opposing position. These scholars (such as Robert Pippin, Stephen Houlgate, or Terry Pinkard) regard the non-metaphysical reading as a fundamental error. They emphasize that Hegel’s philosophy of right remains unintelligible without the Logic as its foundation. For Hegel, freedom is not primarily a social phenomenon (as with Honneth) but a logical concept – the concept’s ‘being-with-itself.’ Only because the Logic prescribes the structure of self-determination can we grasp the state as the ‘actuality of the Idea.’
Intersubjectivity A term not found in Hegel’s own vocabulary, but used today to describe his theory of spirit. It denotes the insight (especially from lordship and bondage) that the self-consciousness and identity of the ‘I’ are not primarily given but are first constituted in relation to an other (a ‘you’). The sphere of ‘objective spirit’ (right) is therefore intersubjective from the ground up.
Communitarianism In the Anglo-American debate (of the 1980s and 90s), Hegel was invoked as a key witness for the ‘communitarians’ (e.g. Charles Taylor in his work Hegel and Modern Society) against ‘liberalism’ (e.g. John Rawls). The charge against liberalism is that it starts from an abstract, isolated individual. Hegel’s concept of ethical life (see there) serves as a counter-model: the human being is always already embedded in a community (family, people, state) that shapes his identity and his values.
The Liberal Reading An important countermovement against the communitarian appropriation of Hegel. Scholars (such as Alan Patten or Frederick Neuhouser) emphasize the liberal side of Hegel’s philosophy of right. They argue that his state is not an authoritarian, ‘organic’ whole that swallows up the individual. Rather, the state is the necessary condition for the fullest unfolding of modern subjective freedom (of conscience, of the free choice of profession, of property). The state serves the freedom of the individual by institutionally securing it.
The ‘Pittsburgh School’ A highly influential but also very specific reading, developed above all by Robert Brandom and John McDowell. They read Hegel’s Phenomenology (and in part the Logic) through the lens of analytic philosophy of language (Wittgenstein, Sellars). Core thesis: his ‘concepts’ are not metaphysical entities but social norms, constituted in the practice of inferring (‘inferentialism’) and of mutual ‘giving and asking for reasons’ in the ‘space of reasons.’
Feminist Critique This line of research (e.g. Seyla Benhabib, Carole Pateman) subjects Hegel’s conception of the family to fundamental criticism. It analyzes how Hegel confines woman to the ‘principle of feeling’ and the inwardness of the family (§ 166 PR) and denies her the capacity for ‘universality’ (and thus for full participation in the state and in science). The debate turns on whether this was merely a judgment of Hegel’s own time, or whether this exclusion is systematically necessary for the separation of family and civil society within his model.
Post-Hegelianism A collective term for the philosophy after Hegel, which defines itself essentially through its critique of his system. The most important strands are: a) the Left Hegelians/Marx: they charge Hegel with having ‘sublated’ estrangement (within civil society) only in thought (in philosophy), without actually abolishing it (economically); b) Kierkegaard: he criticizes the ‘system’ as the annihilation of the existence of the individual, and ‘reconciliation’ as a betrayal of suffering; c) Derrida/poststructuralism: they criticize ‘logocentrism’ – the concept’s claim to sublate all difference and all ‘otherness’ (e.g. wrong, madness) within a total unity.
The Rehabilitation of ‘Civil Society’ While Marx radicalized Hegel’s analysis of civil society as a site of estrangement and class conflict, there is today (e.g. in Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato) a tendency to give a positive turn to Hegel’s concept of ‘civil society’ (see there). It is read as the sphere of civic life (associative life, a free public sphere, social movements) – a necessary, pluralistic corrective against the omnipotence of the state.
Axel Honneth (The ‘Frankfurt School’) Honneth is probably the most prominent representative of the modern theory of recognition (see there). In his main work Struggle for Recognition he reads Hegel’s Jena writings and the Phenomenology as a theory of social pathologies. He identifies three ‘patterns of recognition’ necessary for a successful identity: a) love (in the family/primary relationships) → leads to self-confidence; b) right (being recognized as a person) → leads to self-respect; c) social esteem (achievement within the ‘corporation’) → leads to self-esteem. The modern debate turns on whether Honneth’s psychologized reading still does justice to Hegel’s logical claim.
Robert Pippin (The ‘Idealist’ Reading) Pippin is a key figure of the ‘metaphysical,’ or ‘idealist,’ reading (see there). For him the core of Hegel’s entire thought is the concept of self-determination. Freedom is not intersubjectivity (as with Honneth), but rational action from reasons that one recognizes as one’s own. The philosophy of right describes the institutions (the state) that are necessary for such rational, self-determined action to be possible at all.
Terry Pinkard (The ‘Social-Normative’ Reading) Pinkard, like Pippin, defends a non-metaphysical but systemic reading. For him ‘spirit’ is not a cosmic subject but the space of social norms and reasons in which we live. The philosophy of right is a reconstruction of how the norm of freedom has developed historically until it found its binding, ‘being-with-itself’ shape in the institutions of the modern state.
Alienation (The Debate with Marx) A central concept that Hegel’s student Marx took over from him. In the philosophy of right, civil society is the sphere of alienation: the human being is separated from the product of his labor, from others, and from his ‘species-being.’ The great debate (Marx versus Hegel) is: does Hegel sublate this alienation in the state and in consciousness (philosophy), while it remains real (economically)? Or does Hegel’s problem of the ‘rabble’ (see there) show precisely that he recognized the insolubility of this alienation within civil society itself?
Civic Society (The Liberal Discovery) Modern theorists (in particular Jean L. Cohen and Andrew Arato) have given a new reading to Hegel’s concept of civil society (see there). They separate it from pure economy (the ‘system of needs’) and emphasize the importance of the corporations (see there) and of the public sphere (see there). On this reading, ‘civil society’ is what today is called civic society: the space of free associations, of NGOs, of the press, and of social movements. It is the necessary, living mediation between the individual and the state.
Human Rights (Hegel’s Ambivalent Stance) Current scholarship disputes heatedly over Hegel’s stance toward human rights. Critics accuse him of subordinating individual rights (as declared in the French Revolution) to the state. Defenders (e.g. the ‘liberal reading’) counter: Hegel’s abstract right (see there) – the person’s right to property and bodily integrity – is the first and unsublatable foundation of the entire system. The state does not abolish these rights but is the only real guarantee of their existence.
Cosmopolitanism vs. the State (The Problem of Internationalism) Hegel’s theory of external constitutional law (§ 321 ff.), which recognizes war (see there) as a necessary moment and dismisses a ‘league of nations’ as a mere contract, stands in stark contrast to Kant’s ‘Perpetual Peace’ and modern cosmopolitan ideals (e.g. Habermas, Martha Nussbaum). Current debate asks: is Hegel’s thought hopelessly bound to the nineteenth-century nation-state? Or can one (e.g. with Ludwig Siep) develop a ‘Hegelian’ theory of global institutions that thinks sovereignty and recognition on a global scale?
Slavoj Žižek (The ‘Lacanian’ Reading) Žižek is the most provocative of modern Hegel readers. He reads Hegel through the lens of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. For Žižek, the most important thing in Hegel’s system is not reconciliation (see there) and the ‘sublation’ of contradictions. On the contrary: the most important thing is the contradiction itself (the ‘absolute negativity’). The state is not the harmonious solution; for Žižek the rabble (see there) is the ‘part of no part’ – the real refuse that the system produces, and which proves the untruth of the system.
The Rehabilitation of Monarchy (The Question of Decision) Hegel’s defense of constitutional monarchy (§ 275 ff.) is regarded by many as the most obsolete element of his philosophy of right. Modern scholars (e.g. following Carl Schmitt’s theory of sovereignty, or in the Pippin school) read it anew. The monarch’s ‘I will’ is not an expression of arbitrary caprice but the logical necessity that the state, as a single individual, must be able to act and make a final decision. The question is how this ‘subjective apex’ can be conceived within a modern democracy (e.g. through a constitutional court or a president).
Hegel and the ‘Other’ (Postcolonial/Feminist Critique) Building on the feminist critique (see there), postcolonial theory (e.g. Susan Buck-Morss) examines Hegel’s account of world history (see there). Hegel is criticized for describing Africa as ‘without history’ and for setting the ‘Germanic-Christian world’ as the absolute pinnacle. The debate asks: is Hegel’s system at its core Eurocentric and exclusionary (in that it devalues the ‘other’ – woman, non-European culture – as a subordinate stage)? Or does Hegel’s dialectic of recognition (lord/bondsman) offer precisely the best tool for analyzing and criticizing such relations of oppression?
Arbitrary Will (Willkür) This is the most common error in understanding freedom. Arbitrary will (the ‘free choice,’ § 15 PR) is freedom insofar as it is understood as the contingency of choosing (between A or B). It is a necessary moment of the will (particularization), but it is not true freedom. It remains bound to drives and inclinations (a contingent content). True freedom (see there) is rational self-determination, which wills the universal (the good).
Evil (Das Böse) Evil (§ 139 PR) is not an external devil or a mere deficiency. Evil is a specifically modern possibility that springs from the summit of morality (see there). It is the highest form of subjective freedom (of conscience) when it consciously decides against the recognized, universal good (ethical life) and sets its own particularity in its place. It is the self-positing of the ‘I’ as the absolute.
Subjective Freedom (The Right of Subjectivity) This is the basic principle of the modern world. It is the subject’s right to have its own insight, to possess its own conscience, and to be recognized for its actions (in morality) and its welfare (in civil society) (§ 124 PR). The French Revolution set this right loose in the world. Hegel’s entire system does not aim to abolish this subjective right (as is often charged against him), but to give it, within the state, its objective and ethical realization.
Idealism (Absolute Idealism) Another fundamental misunderstanding. Hegel’s idealism is not a ‘subjective idealism’ (as with Berkeley), which claims that things exist only ‘in our heads.’ Nor is it a ‘transcendental idealism’ (as with Kant), which posits ‘things in themselves’ as unknowable. Hegel’s absolute idealism holds that reason (the concept, the Idea) is the true actuality of the world. The Logic is the structure of this reason, which realizes itself in nature and in spirit (in the state).
Contradiction (Der Widerspruch) For the understanding (everyday reason), contradiction is an error (A cannot be not-A). In Hegel’s Logic, however, contradiction is ‘the root of all movement and life’ (Science of Logic). Every finite determination (e.g. ‘being’) contains a contradiction (it is also ‘nothing’) that drives it into movement and into sublation into a higher category (‘becoming’). Wrong is the contradiction of right that drives it toward morality.
Immediacy and Mediation (Unmittelbarkeit und Vermittlung) Nothing in heaven or on earth is merely immediate (simply given). What appears ‘immediate’ (e.g. ‘sense-certainty’ in the Phenomenology, or ‘being’ in the Logic) is always already mediated (through thought, language, negation). The state may appear to the citizen as an immediate power; in truth it is the result (the mediation) of all the stages of right, of the family, and of civil society.
Concrete Universality (Die konkrete Allgemeinheit) A decisive logical concept for understanding the state. The ‘universal’ is not (as the understanding believes) what is common to many things (e.g. ‘all human beings’). The concrete universal is the self-realizing whole. The state is such a concrete universal: it is not the sum of its citizens (an abstract universal), but the organism (the Idea) that realizes itself in its members (family, corporation) and thereby first gives them their true meaning.
The Family (The Principle of Love) The family (§ 158 ff. PR) is the first root of ethical life. It is ‘ethical life in its immediate’ shape. Its principle is love – the feeling of being with oneself in another (the spouse, the children), not as an independent person but as a member of a whole. The family is the ‘sublation’ of abstract right (of property), which is sublated in the family’s common estate.
The Syllogism (Der Schluss) The syllogism is the form of reason itself. In the Logic it is the unity of universality (U), particularity (P), and individuality (I). The whole system is a single ‘syllogism.’ The philosophy of right in its entirety is a syllogism: (U) the universal: the state (the substance). (P) the particular: civil society and the family. (I) the individual: the monarch (as the point of decision). The state is the living unity of these moments, in which the universal, through the particular, closes together into the individual.
Absolute Knowing (Absolutes Wissen) This is the end and goal of the Phenomenology of Spirit and the standpoint of the entire system (including the philosophy of right). It is not ‘omniscience.’ It is the knowledge of spirit that there is nothing that is absolutely alien or ‘beyond’ it. It is the insight that actuality (nature, the state) and thought (the Logic) are identical in their basic structure – both are the unfolding of the one concept. It is the standpoint of philosophy itself, from which this glossary could be written.