{"id":903068,"date":"2026-09-17T10:50:37","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T08:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/?page_id=903068"},"modified":"2026-09-17T16:30:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:30:37","slug":"is-hegels-system-hierarchical","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/is-hegels-system-hierarchical\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Hegel\u2019s system hierarchical?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In brief:<\/strong> It has an order, and the order is directed \u2014 but it is more a circle than a ladder. What comes first is the poorest, not the most important; what comes last is the richest, but it contains everything earlier. And at one point the order really does become a ranking of human beings \u2014 that is where the real problem lies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The order: from the poorest to the richest<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hegel formulates the principle in passing in the philosophy of nature, and there it is at its clearest:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In a system the most abstract is the first, the true of each sphere the last; but equally it is only the first of a higher stage.<\/p>\nEncyclopaedia (1830), \u00a7 249 Addition<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In the Groundlines<\/em> the same holds: the more abstract a right, the more limited \u2014 and hence the lower. \u00a7 30<\/a> says so expressly, and from it follows the consequence that matters most to lawyers: in case of collision the later takes precedence. Whoever takes the order of the book for an order of worth is reading it backwards (at length: Why does property come before human dignity in Hegel?<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And \u00a7 32<\/a> Remark records that this order is conceptual<\/em> and not temporal: the family logically presupposes the concept of property \u2014 historically it was there first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why \u201eladder\u201c is the wrong image<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A hierarchy in the ordinary sense has a summit from which everything else is governed. Hegel\u2019s system does not. His own image is the circle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What is essential for science is not so much that a pure immediate be the beginning, but that the whole of it is a circuit within itself, in which the first is also the last and the last also the first.<\/p>\nScience of Logic I<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The beginning is accordingly not the foundation but that which is only grounded at the end \u2014 see Where does a system begin that may presuppose nothing?<\/a> To this comes that the earlier does not disappear in the later: property<\/a> and contract<\/a> continue to hold in the state<\/a>; they are only no longer the last word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where the hierarchy becomes uncomfortable<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Three places. In \u00a7 347<\/a> one nation at a time has the right to be the bearer of world history: \u201eAgainst this its absolute right [\u2026] the spirits of the other nations are without right.\u201c In \u00a7 351<\/a> there follows from this the treatment of others \u201eas barbarians, with the consciousness of an unequal right\u201c. And in \u00a7 166<\/a> the position of woman in the family<\/a> is fixed conceptually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here the order of stages really is a ranking \u2014 and one of human beings, not of concepts. That cannot be defused by pointing out that it is all a circle. How this edition deals with it is set out in What does Hegel say to readers from non-European traditions?<\/a> and Does Hegel exclude women from the state?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer in one sentence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The system is graded, not stacked: each stage is the truth of the previous one and the beginning of the next. As an order of concepts that is a methodological claim which can be tested. As an order of peoples and sexes it is an overreach that does not sit with Hegel\u2019s own concept of recognition<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources.<\/strong> Groundlines \u00a7 30<\/a> and Remark, \u00a7 32<\/a> Remark, \u00a7 33<\/a>, \u00a7 166<\/a>, \u00a7 347<\/a>, \u00a7 351<\/a>. \u2013 Science of Logic I, \u201eWith what must the beginning of science be made?\u201c \u2013 Encyclopaedia (1830) \u00a7\u00a7 15\u201318, \u00a7 249 Addition. \u2013 Literature.<\/strong> Ludwig Siep (ed.), Klassiker Auslegen<\/em>, Berlin 1997; critically on world history Susan Buck-Morss, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History<\/em>, Pittsburgh 2009. \u2013 In the glossary: sublation<\/a>, concrete universality<\/a>, world history<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n