Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns
... There are evident benefits to utilising a lexicographic definition, which through offering the varied employments of freedom rather than claiming the primacy of a particular meaning (Holloway, 1955), pays respect to the rich abundance of conceptions of freedom utilised throughout the liberal tradition. Such a history of use is however beyond the scope of this thesis, due to the multitudinous employment of freedom as a term across over three centuries of political thought (Cranston, 1953, p. 27;Locke, 1690;Losurdo, 2004). Further, in acting as a report of the employment of a term, a lexicographical definition of freedom would, in its breadth, prove difficult for subsequent application to the non-human sphere and policymaking. ...
... Esta segunda acusación de Schubarth animó un debate sobre la filosofía hegeliana del derecho porque puso especial énfasis en las adiciones (Zusätze) que Gans realizara en la publicación de 1833 sobre la edición original de 1820. Más allá de la autocensura en la que habría incurrido Hegel al llegar a Berlín (Losurdo, 2004, 3), Gans añadió su interpretación al §221 donde sostiene que "en los tiempos modernos, el príncipe tiene que reconocer que en los asuntos privados el tribunal está por encima de él" (Hegel, 2000, §221), subordinación de la monarquía al derecho civil que reafirmará con sarcasmo en su adición al §280 al insistir que "en una organización acabada solo se trata de la cima de la decisión formal, y como monarca sólo hace falta un hombre que diga 'sí' y ponga el punto sobre la i, pues la cima debe ser de modo tal que la particularidad del carácter no sea lo importante" (Hegel, 2000, §280). Entre 1833 y 1839, estos § § fueron leídos en un contexto en el cual los alzamientos de 1830 -cuando Bélgica se independizó de Holanda antes que Polonia de Prusia y Rusiaaun hacían resonar las demandas por el establecimiento de una monarquía constitucional. ...
In this work we’ll present a part of the debates that configured la indirect reception of the Hegelian philosophy through the second quarter of the XIX century. For this we’ll briefly describe the experience and path of the Verein in charge of the first edition of Hegel’s works; the, we’ll analyze the disputes over the hypothetical Hegelian republicanism; and, finally, we’ll focus on the interpretation that the Young Hegelians made of that same debate in the context of Schelling’s arrival at Berlin.
En este trabajo presentaremos una parte de los debates que configuraron la recepción indirecta de la filosofía hegeliana durante el segundo cuarto del siglo XIX. Para ello describiremos brevemente la experiencia y recorrido de la Verein a cargo de la primera edición de las obras de Hegel, luego, analizaremos las disputas en torno al hipotético republicanismo hegeliano y, finalmente, nos enfocaremos en la interpretación que los jóvenes hegelianos realizaron de esa misma disputa en el contexto de la llegada de Schelling a Berlín.
... However, as noted by Avineri in a somewhat sharp tone, Hegel actually has no solution to the problems of poverty: "This is the only time in his system where Hegel raises a problem-and leaves it open" (Avineri 1972, 154). And he is not alone in his critique, since Lukács, Cullen, and other Marxist authors are even more critical of Hegel's attitude toward the poor (Lukács 1959;Cullen 1979;Losurdo 2004). This gives us a reason to ask another important question-is Hegel a classical liberal of Smithian type, or can we patch the holes in The Philosophy of Right with state interventionism? ...
From the very beginning of his philosophical journey, Hegel demonstrated time and again his interest in the questions of political economy. In his earliest writings on religion, politics and economics, Hegel expressed his concern for a topic that was to play a vital role in his later works: the phenomenon of private property. In order to present Hegel’s notes on political economy more clearly, I have divided this paper into three sections. The first one deals with Hegel’s analysis of private property, industrialisation, and capitalism. The second addresses his attitudes toward the French Revolution, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and the problem of labour. Finally, the third section is concerned with the political economy of poverty in the context of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, and in it, I point to Hegel’s emphasis that extreme and increasing poverty and pauperisation are not accidental phenomena, but are in fact endemic to the modern commodity-producing society.
This article explores the insights of the Italian Marxist philosopher Domenico Losurdo on Stalin, with a focus on his controversial work: Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend. Losurdo sheds light on the metamorphosis of Stalin’s image from a revered leader into a “human monster” and challenges the equation of Stalin with Hitler (the “twin monsters theory”). He advocates for a balanced perspective that refutes the veneration–demonisation dichotomy and offers original criticism on various facets of the “black legend”: Stalin’s alleged self-cult of personality; the common juxtaposition of Soviet Gulags with Nazi camps; and accusations of genocide against Ukrainians (known as the Holodomor) and antisemitism. The article also highlights Losurdo’s methodology, consisting of a comprehensive comparative approach that calls into question the liberal tradition to reveal parallels between its darker aspects and Nazism. Losurdo demonstrates how the twin monsters theory eventually serves to bolster liberalism’s claim of moral superiority. Moreover, his work extends beyond Stalin to provide a wider assessment and criticism of most of the contemporary historiography’s themes and approaches, revealing how history is often manipulated for political reasons.
Hegel and the Representative Constitution provides the first comprehensive historical discussion of the institutional dimension of G. W. F. Hegel's political thought. Elias Buchetmann traces this much-neglected aspect in unprecedented contextual detail and makes the case for reading the Philosophy of Right from 1820 as a contribution to the lively and widespread public debate on the constitutional question in contemporary Central Europe. Drawing on a broad range of primary source material, this volume illuminates the wider political discourse in post-Napoleonic Germany, carefully locates Hegel's institutional commitments within their immediate cultural and political context, and reveals him as something closer to a public intellectual. By exploring this indispensable thinker's demand for the constitutional protection of popular participation in government, it contributes beyond Hegel scholarship to shed new light on the history of democratic theory in early nineteenth-century Europe and encourages critical reflection on questions of representation today.
This chapter analyses how the basic features of socialist democracy in the Soviet Union began to emerge in the 1920s and especially 1930s. There are four features: (1) the first and faltering attempts to promote electoral democracy, and especially the campaign for universal, multi-candidate, and contested elections in the later 1930s; (2) the substantial and abiding contribution to consultative democracy through the primary party organisations (PPOs) in the workplace, collective farm, and neighbourhood; (3) in relation to the 1936 constitution, the identification of freedom from exploitation (and thus socio-economic well-being) as a core human right, along with proactive and substantive rights; (4) and the inescapable and dialectical role of the leadership of the Communist Party in socialist democracy. These features would come to be developed much further by other socialist countries. The chapter also deals with the increasing usage of the term “socialist state,” as a qualitatively different form of the state. The concern here is with Stalin’s reflections in response to debates concerning the state’s withering away, and his identification in an all-important speech to the eighteenth congress of 1939 of a second stage of socialism in which socialist state structures have attained relative maturity and stability. After summing up the features of such a “socialist state,” I address the contradiction in which the terminology of “socialist state” began to the deployed precisely when it was becoming clearer that the distinction between state and society was blurring and could no longer be applied. In short, the organs of governance were increasingly standing—as Engels had already proposed—in the midst of society.
This dialogue begins with the question of “concrete Marxism,” which is at the foundations of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” The concrete is analysed in terms of Marx’s dialectic between freedom and necessity, as also in Marx’s early work on Epicurean materialism and in Engels’s “Dialectics of Nature” and “Anti-Dühring.” We include a discussion of Hegel’s dialectic between the actual and the rational. Subsequently, we move to the relationship of socialist construction to the (non-socialist) past and a socialist future. We adduce examples from Marx’s “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” as well as the Chinese concept of mingyun (destiny/future) and explore the implications of Lenin’s critique of “left wing” impatience with the past. The issue here is the mistake of a “leftist” effort to make the leap—through sheer voluntary effort—into communism as an over-compensation for practical deficiencies and, on the other hand, the possibility for revolutionary socialism of appropriating and transforming the positive advances of bourgeois culture and civilisation. We conclude with some preliminary observations on the communist prospect, emphasising the concrete form of the dialectic of productive forces and relations of production and the reasons why this form highlights the importance of the former as a motive force.
With contributions from six leading scientific countries of the Global North and from the general European Higher Education Area, this book questions the predominant view on academic freedom and pleads for a holistic approach. While academic freedom has been a top agenda point for the global scientific community in recent years, the public and academic discourse has often been marked by a negative interpretation of the term understood merely as exemption from state intervention and censorship. The contributions in this edited volume demonstrate, however, that this is not where the story ends: the ability to exercise academic freedom not only involves the freedom of expression in its abstract sense but should involve the capability to determine research agendas and curricula independently from market pressures or threats of career sabotage, and to resist workplace misconduct without fear of losing future career chances. Providing a differentiated picture of contemporary structural limits to academic freedom in advanced democracies, this volume will be of great interest for not only scholars of higher education, but for the entire academic community.
Based on the principle that universals are valid if they are concrete universals, this article provides a comparison between Western liberal and Chinese Marxist approaches to human rights. It does so in three steps. First is the analysis of the foundations, or roots, of the Western liberal emphasis on an individual’s mastery over a “right” understood in terms of private property, and the Marxist tradition’s emphasis on anti-hegemonic sovereignty in light of anti-colonial struggles for national liberation. Second is the contrast between the development of the Western approach to the core human rights in terms of freedom of expression, movement, and assembly, and the Marxist emphasis on the right to socioeconomic well-being, or common prosperity. Third is the comparison between the fruits of either tradition, one in terms of identity politics, and the other in the emphasis on civil, political, cultural, and environmental rights. The article concludes by asking whether the two approaches are able to come to an understanding of each other, and proposes that such an understanding may need to take place in light of the concept and reality of concrete universals.
This study offers a comparison between the “rooted universals” of Western liberal and Chinese Marxist approaches to human rights. I begin with sovereignty, which is redefined in formerly colonized countries as anti-colonial sovereignty, predicated on mutual non-interference in the affairs of other states. From here, I analyze the Western liberal tradition, which arose from a unique legal tradition and its connection with private property, leading to a restricted emphasis on civil and political rights. The Chinese Marxist tradition differs, basing itself on anti-colonial sovereignty and emphasizing the core right to socioeconomic well-being, from which flow a range of further rights. The article closes with the point that it is necessary to understand and appreciate these different traditions in a global situation.
Human rights is in China a component of socialist democracy. However, due to inordinate Western interest in and misrepresentation of Chinese human rights, I deal with the topic in this chapter. The first part distinguishes between false and rooted universals. A false universal forgets the conditions of its emergence and asserts that its assumptions apply to all, while a rooted universal always factors in the possibilities and limitations of contextual origins. In this light, we find that Western human rights arise from the connection between ‘right’ and ‘mastery’, so that a right became an individual’s mastery over property. Initially closely connected with slavery, a right as private property was extended to other property, such as life, freedom, speech, political opinion, and religion—in short, civil and political rights. For the rooted universal of Chinese Marxist human rights, the prerequisite is sovereignty: not Westphalian, but anti-colonial or anti-hegemonic sovereignty. With this prerequisite, the core Marxist human right is the right to socio-economic well-being for all. Not only does this right inform a range of policies, from the BRI to minority nationalities, but from the right to socio-economic well-being flows a range of other rights, such as civil, political, cultural, and environmental rights. The chapter closes by considering the implications of Chinese Marxist human rights for the universal category of human rights.
Rad nastoji da prikaže osnovnu strukturu Džejmsonovog koncepta dijalektičke kritike onako kako je on razvijen u delima Marksizam i forma i Političko nesvesno. Namera rada je da se pruži analiza svojevrsnog konstitutivnog dualizma, na osnovu koga Džejmson prilazi tradiciji dijalektičkog mišljenja, poput „filozofija – istorija“, „hegelijanstvo – marksizam“, „kritika – razumevanje“, te njegovog ukidanja. Polazeći od činjenice izvanredne analitičke moći ovog koncepta, rad nastoji da afirmiše Džejmsonov projekat revitalizovanja kritike kao neprevaziđenog načina marksističke intervencije unutar sveta kasnog kapitalizma.
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