Hegel’s Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Politics

The renaissance in Hegel scholarship over the past two decades has largely ignored or marginalized the metaphysical dimension of his thought, perhaps most vigorously when considering his social and political philosophy. Many scholars have consistently maintained that Hegel’s political philosophy must be reconstructed without the metaphysical structure that Hegel saw as his crowning philosophical achievement. This book brings together twelve original essays that explore the relation between Hegel’s metaphysics and his political, social, and practical philosophy. The essays seek to explore what normative insights and positions can be obtained from examining Hegel’s distinctive view of the metaphysical dimensions of political philosophy. His ideas about the good, the universal, freedom, rationality, objectivity, self-determination, and self-development can be seen in a new context and with renewed understanding once their relation to his metaphysical project is considered. Hegel’s Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Politics will be of great interest to scholars of Hegelian philosophy, German Idealism, nineteenth-century philosophy, political philosophy, and political theory.

Introduction Michael J. Thompson Part I: The Relation of Hegel’s Metaphysics and Political Theory 1, The Course of God: Reading Hegel Peter J. Steinberger 2. The Metaphysics of Spirit and Hegel’s Philosophy of Politics Andrew Buchwalter 3. Speculative Logic as Practical Philosophy: Political Life in Times of Crisis Angelica Nuzzo 4. Metaphysics and the Poverty of Liberal-Positives Political Thought Eric Goodfield Part II: Ontology, Metaphysics and Practical Reason 5. The Metaphysical Infrastructure of Hegel’s Practical Philosophy Michael J. Thompson 6. The Metaphysics of Rational Action: Kantian and Aristotelian Themes in Hegel’s Absolute Idealism Sebastian Stein 7. Against the Post-Kantian Interpretation of Hegel; A Study in Proto-Marxist Metaphysics Michael Morris 8. Objective Spirit: Hegel’s Normative Social Ontology Kevin Thompson Part III: Metaphysics, History and the Structures of Ethical Life 9. Family Structures as Fields of Historical Tension: A Case Study in the Relation of Metaphysics and Politics Christopher Yeomans 10. Hegel’s Metaphysics of Marriage: Teleology, Ontology, and Sexually Embodied Freedom in the Philosophy of Right’s Account of the Family Joshua D. Goldstein 11. Tiger Stripes and Embodied Systems: Hegel on Markets and Models David Kolb 12. Hegel and the End of a Particular Historical Development Matthew Smetona

Michael J. Thompson is Associate Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at William Patterson University. His most recent books include The Domestication of Critical Theory, Political Judgment and the Crisis of Modernity and Twilight of the Self: The Eclipse of Autonomy in Modern Society.