{"id":903235,"date":"2026-09-17T16:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/?page_id=903235"},"modified":"2026-09-17T18:18:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T16:18:52","slug":"does-hegel-underestimate-the-self-movement-of-the-spheres","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/does-hegel-underestimate-the-self-movement-of-the-spheres\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Hegel underestimate the self-movement of the individual spheres?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In brief:<\/strong> In the most important case \u2013 the economy \u2013 the charge does not hold: Hegel did not overlook the self-movement of civil society<\/a> but was the first to describe it as necessary, together with the contradiction it cannot resolve. With the natural sciences the case is different: there philosophy does not lay claim to that self-movement at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. The economy: diagnosed, not underestimated<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u00a7 243<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 246<\/a> are the place. \u00a7 243<\/a> describes how, along with the accumulation of wealth, \u201ethe dependence<\/em> and want<\/em> of the class tied to this labour\u201c grows. \u00a7 244<\/a> calls the result the rabble<\/a> and notes that its emergence \u201ebrings with it, at the same time, the greater ease of concentrating disproportionate wealth in a few hands\u201c. And \u00a7 245<\/a> draws the balance:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It becomes evident, here, that, in the face of the excess of wealth<\/em>, civil society is not wealthy enough<\/em> \u2013 that is, does not possess enough, of its own peculiar resources, to check the excess of poverty and the production of the rabble.<\/p>\nGroundlines, \u00a7 245<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That is no marginal remark but an aporia: Hegel examines both conceivable remedies \u2013 direct support and the provision of work \u2013 and rejects both, the first because it detaches subsistence from labour, the second because it enlarges the overproduction in which the evil consists. The system fails on itself, and he says so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The difference from Marx<\/strong> therefore lies not in the diagnosis but in the conclusion. Marx knew this analysis precisely and carried it further; his conclusion is the abolition of civil society. Hegel\u2019s answer is mediation through the corporation<\/a> and the state<\/a> (\u00a7 250<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 256<\/a>, \u00a7 257<\/a> ff.) \u2013 an answer whose adequacy can be disputed and which he himself does not present as a resolution of the contradiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Hegel could not know is the empirical escalation: the global industrial capitalism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The logical structure he had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. The natural sciences: a category mistake on both sides<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here the charge demands something Hegel does not claim. The philosophy of nature is not a better physics; it presupposes empirical research (Encyclopaedia \u00a7 246 note), and Hegel expressly calls it \u201eutterly improper\u201c to demand of the concept that it construct the contingencies of nature (\u00a7 250 note). The self-movement of the particular sciences is therefore not underestimated but not disputed at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What philosophy lays claim to are the determinations with which the particular sciences work without examining them \u2013 causality, force, law, life, end. More fully: Is Hegel\u2019s claim to a system across all the sciences not presumptuous?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Where the charge does hit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At two points, and there plainly. In \u00a7 249 note the philosophy of nature denies that the sequence of stages in nature is a history in time \u2013 an addition his own procedure did not require, and one the theory of evolution has refuted (see Is Hegel\u2019s philosophy of nature the Achilles heel of the system?<\/a>). And the construction of the state in \u00a7 272<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 286<\/a> considerably underestimates the self-movement of political life: parties, associations, mass media and a bureaucracy with interests of its own do not appear there, or are treated as a disturbance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The principle \u2013 that each sphere has its own immanent movement and that the task is to comprehend it rather than to regulate it \u2013 is untouched by this. It is precisely the principle that allows those mistakes to be named.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources.<\/strong> Groundlines \u00a7 182<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 187<\/a>, \u00a7 189<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 208<\/a> (the system of needs), \u00a7 241<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 248<\/a> (poverty, rabble, colonisation), \u00a7 250<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 256<\/a> (the corporation), \u00a7 272<\/a>\u2013\u00a7 286<\/a>. \u2013 Encyclopaedia (1830) \u00a7 246 note, \u00a7 249 note, \u00a7 250 note. \u2013 On the aporia of poverty compare Hegel\u2019s own lecture transcripts on \u00a7 244<\/a> f. as well as Karl Marx, Kritik des Hegelschen Staatsrechts<\/em> (1843). \u2013 In the glossary: Civil Society<\/a>, Poverty<\/a>, The Rabble<\/a>, Police and Corporation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n