[10th Paragraph]
What does this lead to? Because such talk calls itself philosophy, it almost counts as a disgrace to speak about the state philosophically. Honest people grow impatient as soon as they hear of it.
And it does not surprise Hegel that the governments have taken notice. He is writing in 1820. Shortly before, the German states began to monitor the universities. For in Germany, philosophy is not a private matter, as it was with the ancient Greeks. Professors in the service of the state teach it in public. The governments trusted these professors. This trust, says Hegel, was often poorly repaid.
Shallow thinking seems harmless at first. After all, it does not touch anything essential. But of its own accord it leads to the principles of the Sophists. We know them from Plato: right is whatever each person holds and feels to be right. Destruction follows from such principles. They destroy conscience, love, right between people, and in the end public order.
That is why the state need not simply accept such things just because someone holds a teaching post. No one today takes seriously the old joke: “To whom God gives an office, He also gives understanding.”
In short: for Hegel, bad philosophy about the state is not harmless. It attacks the principles that our life together rests on. That is why the governments must not look away.
Hegel’s text: Preface, paragraph 10 →