Freedom And Tradition In Hegel

Freedom and Tradition in Hegel stands at the intersection of three vital currents in contemporary ethics: debates over philosophical anthropology and its significance for ethics, reevaluations of tradition and modernity, and a resurgence of interest in Hegel. Thomas A. Lewis engages these three streams of thought in light of Hegel’s recently published Vorlesungen über die Philosophie des Geistes. Drawing extensively on these lectures, Lewis addresses an important lacuna in Hegelian scholarship by first providing a systematic analysis of Hegel’s philosophical anthropology and then examining its fundamental role in Hegel’s ethical and religious thought. Lewis contends that Hegel’s anthropology seeks to account for both the ongoing significance of the religious and philosophical traditions in which we are raised and our ability to transcend these traditions. Pursuing the implications of the integral role of practice in Hegel’s anthropology, Lewis argues for a more progressive interpretation of Hegel’s ethics and a “Hegelian” critique of Hegel’s most problematic statements on political and social issues. Lewis concludes that Hegel offers a powerful strategy for reconciling freedom and tradition. This fresh interpretation of Hegel’s work provides a challenging new perspective on his ethical and religious thought. It will be of significant value to students and scholars in religious studies, philosophy, and political theory.

The legal regulations and formal rules of democracy alone are not enough to hold a society together and govern its processes. Yet the irreducible ethical pluralism that characterizes contemporary society seems to make it impossible to impose a single system of values as a source of social cohesion and identity reference. In this book, Lucio Cortella argues that Hegel's theory of ethical life can provide such a grounding and makes the case through an analysis of Hegel's central political work, the Philosophy of Right. Although Hegel did not support democratic political ends and wrote in a historical and cultural context far removed from the current liberal-democratic scene, Cortella maintains that the Hegelian theory of ethical life, with its emphasis on securing a framework conducive to human freedom, nevertheless offers a convincing response to the problem of the ethical uprootedness of contemporary democracy.

Human freedom is the central theme of modern political philosophy, and G. W. F. Hegel offers perhaps the most profound and systematic modern attempt to understand the state as the realization of human freedom. In this comprehensive examination of Hegel's philosophy of freedom, Paul Franco traces the development of Hegel's ideas of freedom, situates them within his general philosophical system, and relates them to the larger tradition of modern political philosophy. Franco then applies Hegel's understanding of liberty to certain problems in contemporary political theory. He argues that Hegel offers a powerful reformulation of liberalism that escapes many of the problematic assumptions of traditional liberal doctrine and yet avoids falling into the romantic and relativistic excesses of a substantial communitarianism. Devoting the major portion of his attention to Hegel's masterpiece the Philosophy of Right, published in 1821, Franco provides a clear and nontechnical guide to the challenging arguments Hegel presents. Franco establishes the necessary context within which to understand the work and draws on Hegel's other writings, including the unpublished lecture notes, to illuminate it. For the Hegel specialist as well as the reader with a more general interest in political philosophy and modern intellectual history, this book offers significant insights into Hegel's ideas on the theme of human liberty.

Showing the relevance of Hegel's arguments, this book discusses both original texts and their interpretations.

DIVTranslated into English for the first time, this work portrays a different side of Hegel -- not just as a philosopher preoccupied with abstract ideas but a man deeply enmeshed and active in the pressing, concrete political issues of his time./div

While many interpreters hold that Hegel avoided the traditional problem of free will, Yeomans argues both that the problem is unavoidable, and that the two versions of the Logic fruitfully engage the tensions between explicability and both the control and alternate possibilities constitutive of free agency.

Investigates the role of family in Hegel’s phenomenology.

Publisher Description

Hegel's philosophy has often been misunderstood. This volume offers a new interpretation of Hegel's thought, challenging traditional readings and reconsidering Hegel in terms of his understanding of his own philosophy. Robert Bruce Ware shows why Hegel believed that in grasping the essence of its age, a philosophy also indicates the direction of subsequent intellectual development. Contrary to received interpretations, Ware argues that the significance of Hegel's philosophy could not have been fully appreciated prior to the dramatic intellectual developments that have characterised the twentieth century. This interpretation involves a hermeneutic reciprocity, whereby Hegel on the one hand provides a philosophical foundaton for contemporary developments, while at the same time the latter assist in the clarification of Hegel's philosophy. The result is not only a clearer understanding of Hegel, but a deeper insight into the intellectual revolutions of our day. This book is unique in connecting Hegel to the tradition of analytic philosophy though the foundations of mathematical logic. Though these would seem to be unlikely companions, the author show that they serve to illuminate one another. Ware's application of set theory does much to clarify some of Hegel's more difficult claims, while remaining fully accessible to the non-specialised reader and engaging to a broad philosophical audience.

Alan Patten presents an original interpretation of Hegel's idea of freedom and offers answers to a number of central questions about his ethical and political thought. Freedom is the value that Hegel most admired and the core of his social philosophy.