Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
Karl Marx, 1843
(Marx’s commentary on § 257 - 60 have been lost)
§ 261. In contrast with the spheres of private rights and private welfare (the family and civil society), the state is from one point of view an external necessity and their higher authority; its nature is such that their laws and interests are subordinate to it and dependent on it. On the other hand, however, it is the end immanent within them, and its strength lies in the unity of its own universal end and aim with the particular interest of individuals, in the fact that individuals have duties to the state in proportion as they have rights against it (see § 155).
The foregoing paragraph advises us that concrete freedom consists
in the identity (as it is supposed to be, two-sided) of the system
of particular interest (the family and civil society) with the
system of general interest (the state). The relation of these
spheres must now be determined more precisely.
From one point of view the state is contrasted with the spheres
of family and civil society as an external necessity, an authority,
relative to which the laws and interests of family and civil society
are subordinate and dependent. That the state, in contrast with
the family and civil society, is an external necessity was implied
partly in the category of ‘transition’ (Übergangs)
and partly in the conscious relationship of the family and
civil society to the state. Further, subordination under the
state corresponds perfectly with the relation of external necessity.
But what Hegel understands by ‘dependence’ is shown by the following
sentence from the Remark to this paragraph:
§ 261.... It was Montesquieu above all who, in his famous work L’Esprit
des Lois, kept in sight and tried to work out in detail both
the thought of the dependence of laws in particular, laws concerning
the rights of persons - on the specific character of the state,
and also the philosophic notion of always treating the part in
its relation to the whole.
Thus Hegel is speaking here of internal dependence, or the essential
determination of private rights, etc., by the state. At the same
time, however, he subsumes this dependence under the relationship
of external necessity and opposes it, as another aspect, to that
relationship wherein family and civil society relate to the state
as to their immanent end.
‘External necessity’ can only be understood to mean that the laws
and interests of the family and civil society must give way in
case of collision with the laws and interests of the state, that
they are subordinate to it, that their existence is dependent
on it, or again that its will and its law appear to their will
and their laws as a necessity!
But Hegel is not speaking here about empirical collisions; he
is speaking about the relationship of the ‘spheres of private
rights and private welfare, of the family and civil society,’
to the state; it is a question of the essential relationship
of these spheres themselves. Not only their interests but
also their laws and their essential determinations are dependent
on the state and subordinate to it. it is related to their laws
and interests as higher authority, while their interest and law
are related to it as its ‘subordinates’. They exist in their
dependence on it. Precisely because subordination and dependence
are external relations, limiting and contrary to an autonomous
being, the relationship of family and civil society to the state
is that of external necessity, a necessity which relates by opposition
to the inner being of the thing. The very fact that the laws
concerning the private rights of persons depend on the specific
character of the state and are modified according to it is thereby
subsumed under the relationship of external necessity’, precisely
because civil society and family in their true, that is in their
independent and complete development, are presupposed by the state
as particular spheres. ‘Subordination’ and ‘dependence’ are the
expressions for an external, artificial, apparent identity, for
the logical expression of which Hegel quite rightly uses the phrase
‘external necessity’. With the notions of ‘subordination’ and
‘dependence’ Hegel has further developed the one aspect of the
divided identity, namely that of the alienation within the unity.
On the other hand, however, it is the end immanent within them,
and its strength lies in the unity of its own universal end and
aim with the particular interest of individuals, in the fact that
individuals have duties to the state in proportion as they have
rights against it.
Here Hegel sets up an unresolved antinomy: on the one hand external
necessity, on the other hand immanent end. The unity of the universal
end and aim of the state and the particular interest of individuals
must consist in this, that the duties of individuals to the state
and their rights against it are identical (thus, for example,
the duty to respect property coincides with the right to property).
This identity is explained in this way in the Remark [to § 261]:
Duty is primarily a relation to something which from my point
of view is substantive, absolutely universal. A right, on the
other hand, is simply the embodiment of this substance and thus
is the particular aspect of it and enshrines my particular freedom.
Hence at abstract levels, right and duty appear parcelled out
on different sides or in different persons. In the state, as
something ethical, as the interpenetration of the substantive
and the particular, my obligation to what is substantive is at
the same time the embodiment of my particular freedom. This means
that in the state duty and right are united in one and the same
relation.
§ 262. The actual Idea is mind, which, sundering itself into
the two ideal spheres of its concept, family and civil society,
enters upon its finite phase, but it does so only in order to
rise above its ideality and become explicit as infinite actual
mind. It is therefore to these ideal spheres that the actual
Idea assigns the material of this its finite actuality, viz.,
human beings as a mass, in such a way that the function assigned
to any given individual is visibly mediated by circumstances,
his caprice and his personal choice of his station in life.
Let us translate this into prose as follows:
The manner and means of the state’s mediation with the family
and civil society are ‘circumstance, caprice, and personal choice
of station in life’. Accordingly, the rationality of the state
[Staatsvernunft] has nothing to do with the division
of the material of the state into family and civil society.
The state results from them in an unconscious and arbitrary way.
Family and civil society appear as the dark natural ground from
which the light of the state emerges. By material of the state
is meant the business of the state, i.e., family and civil society,
in so far as they constitute components of the state and, as such,
participate in the state.
This development is peculiar in two respects.
1. Family and civil society are conceived of as spheres of the
concept of the state, specifically as spheres of its finiteness,
as its finite phase. it is the state which sunders itself into
the two, which presupposes them, and indeed does this ‘only in
order to rise above its ideality and become explicit as infinite
actual mind’. ‘It sunders itself in order to...’ It ‘therefore
assigns to these ideal spheres the material of its finite actuality
in such a way that the function assigned to any given individual
is visibly mediated, etc’. The so-called ‘actual idea’ (mind
as infinite and actual) is described as though it acted according
to a determined principle and toward a determined end. It sunders
itself into finite spheres, and does this ‘in order to return
to itself, to be for itself’; moreover it does this precisely
in such a way that it is just as it actually is.
In this passage the logical, pantheistic mysticism appears very
clearly.
The actual situation is that the assignment of the material of
the state to the individual is mediated by circumstances, caprice,
and personal choice of his station in life. This fact, this actual
situation is expressed by speculative philosophy [der Spekulation]
as appearance, as phenomenon. These circumstances, this caprice,
this personal choice of vocation, this actual mediation are merely
the appearance of a mediation which the actual Idea undertakes
with itself and which goes on behind the scenes. Actuality is
not expressed as itself but as another reality. Ordinary empirical
existence does not have its own mind [Geist] but
rather an alien mind as its law, while on the other hand the actual
Idea does not have an actuality which is developed out of itself,
but rather has ordinary empirical existence as its existence [Dasein].
The Idea is given the status of a subject, and the actual relationship
of family and civil society to the state is conceived to be its
inner imaginary activity. Family and civil society are the presuppositions
of the state; they are the really active things; but in speculative
philosophy it is reversed. But if the Idea is made subject, then
the real subjects - civil society, family, circumstances, caprice,
etc. - become unreal, and take on the different meaning of objective
moments of the Idea.
2. The circumstance, caprice, and personal choice of station in
life, through which the material of the state is assigned to the
individual, are not said directly to be things which are real,
necessary, and justified in and for themselves; qua circumstances,
caprice, and personal choice they are not declared to be rational.
Yet on the other hand they again are, but only so as to be presented
for the phenomena of a mediation, to be left as they are while
at the same time acquiring the meaning of a determination of the
idea, a result and product of the Idea. The difference lies not
in the content, but in the way of considering it, or in the manner
of speaking. There is a two-fold history, one esoteric and one
exoteric. The content lies in the exoteric part. The interest
of the esoteric is always to recover the history of the logical
Concept in the state. But the real development proceeds on the
exoteric side.
Reasonably, Hegel’s sentences mean only the following:
The family and civil society are elements of the state. The material
of the state is divided amongst them through circumstances, caprice,
and personal choice of vocation. The citizens of the state are
members of families and of civil society.
‘The actual Idea is mind which, sundering itself into the two
ideal spheres of its concept, family and civil society, enters
upon its finite phase’ - thus the division of the state into
the family and civil society is ideal, i.e., necessary, belonging
to the essence of the state. Family and civil society are actual
components of the state, actual spiritual existences of will;
they are the modes of existence of the state; family and civil
society make themselves into the state. They are the active
force. According to Hegel they are, on the contrary, made by
the actual Idea. It is not their own life’s course which unites
them into the state, but rather the life’s course of the Idea,
which has distinguished them from itself; and they are precisely
the finiteness of this idea; they owe their existence to a mind
[Geist] other than their own; they are determinations
established by a third party, not self-determinations; for that
very reason they are also determined as finiteness, as the proper
finiteness of the ‘actual idea’. The purpose of their existence
is not this existence itself, but rather the Idea separates these
presuppositions off from itself in order to rise above its ideality
and become explicit as infinite actual mind. This is to say that
the political state cannot exist without the natural basis of
the family and the artificial basis of civil society; they are
its conditio sine qua non; but the conditions are established
as the conditioned, the determining as the determined, the producing
as the product of its product. The actual idea reduces itself
into the finiteness of the family and civil society only in order
to enjoy and to bring forth its infinity through their transcendence
[Aufhebung]. It therefore assigns (in order to
attain its end) to these ideal spheres the material of this its
finite actuality (of this? of what? these spheres are really its
finite actuality, its material) to human beings as a mass (the
material of the state here is human beings, the mass, the state
is composed of them, and this, its composition is expressed here
as an action of the Idea, as a parcelling out which it undertakes
with its own material. The fact is that the state issues from
the mass of men existing as members of families and of civil society;
but speculative philosophy expresses this fact as an achievement
of the Idea, not the idea of the mass, but rather as the deed
of an Idea-Subject which is differentiated from the fact itself)
in such a way that the function assigned to the individual (earlier
the discussion was only of the assignment of individuals to the
spheres of family and civil society) is visibly mediated by circumstances,
caprice, etc. Thus empirical actuality is admitted just as it
is and is also said to be rational; but not rational because of
its own reason, but because the empirical fact in its empirical
existence has a significance which is other than it itself. The
fact, which is the starting point, is not conceived to be such
but rather to be the mystical result. The actual becomes phenomenon,
but the Idea has no other content than this phenomenon. Moreover,
the idea has no other than the logical aim, namely, ‘to become
explicit as infinite actual mind’. The entire mystery of the
Philosophy of Right and of Hegelian philosophy in general
is contained in these paragraphs.
§ 263. In these spheres in which its moments, particularity
and individuality, have their immediate and reflected reality,
mind is present as their objective universality glimmering in
them as the power of reason in necessity
(see § 184), i.e.,
as the institutions considered above.
§ 264. Mind is the nature of human beings en masse and their nature is therefore twofold: (i) at one extreme, explicit individuality of consciousness and will, and (ii) at the other extreme, universality which knows and wills what is substantive. Hence they attain their right in both these respects only in so far as both their private personality and its substantive basis are actualised. Now in the family and civil society they acquire their right in the first of these respects directly and in the second indirectly, in that (i) they find their substantive self-consciousness in social institutions which are the universal implicit in their particular interests, and (ii) the Corporation supplies them with an occupation and an activity directed on a universal end.
§ 265. These institutions are the components of the constitution
(i.e., of rationality developed and actualised) in the sphere
of particularity. They are, therefore, the firm foundation not
only of the state but also of the citizen’s trust in it and sentiment
towards it. They are the pillars of public freedom since in them
particular freedom is realised and rational, and therefore there
is implicitly present even in them the union of freedom
and necessity.
§ 266. But mind is objective and actual to itself not merely
as this (which?), necessity ....
but also as the ideality and the heart of this necessity. Only
in this way is this substantive universality aware of itself
as its own object and end, with the result that the necessity
appears to itself in the shape of freedom as well.
Thus the transition of the family and civil society into the political
state is this: the mind of those spheres, which is the mind of
the state in its implicit moment, is now also related to itself
as such, and is actual to itself as their inner reality. Accordingly,
the transition is not derived from the specific essence of the
family, etc., and the specific essence of the state, but rather
from the universal relation of necessity and freedom. Exactly
the same transition is effected in the Logic from the sphere
of Essence to the sphere of Concept, and in the Philosophy of
Nature from Inorganic Nature to Life. It is always the same categories
offered as the animating principle now of one sphere, now of another,
and the only thing of importance is to discover, for the particular
concrete determinations, the corresponding abstract ones.
§ 267. This necessity in ideality is the inner self-development
of the Idea. As the substance of the individual subject, it is
his political sentiment [patriotism] in distinction therefrom,
as the substance of the objective world, it is the organism of
the state, i.e., it is the strictly political state and its constitution.
Here the subject is ‘the necessity in ideality’, the ‘Idea within
itself" and the predicate is political sentiment and the
political constitution. Said in common language, political sentiment
is the subjective, and the political constitution the objective
substance of the state. The logical development from the family
and civil society to the state is thus pure appearance, for what
is not clarified is the way in which familial and civil sentiment,
the institution of the family and those of society, as such, stand
related to the political sentiment and political institutions
and cohere with them.
The transition involved in mind existing ‘not merely as necessity
and realm of appearance’ but as actual for itself and particular
as ‘the ideality of this necessity’ and the soul of this realm
is no transition whatever, because the soul of the family exists
for itself as love, etc.
[see §§ 161 ff.]
The pure ideality
of an actual sphere, however, could exist only as knowledge [Wissenschaft].
The important thing is that Hegel at all times makes the Idea
the subject and makes the proper and actual subject, like ‘political
sentiment’, the predicate. But the development proceeds at all
times on the side of the predicate.
§ 268. contains a nice exposition concerning political sentiment,
or patriotism, which has nothing to do with the logical development
except that Hegel defines it as ‘simply a product of the institutions
subsisting in the state since rationality is actually present
in the state’, while on the other hand these institutions are
equally an objectification of the political sentiment. Cf. the
Remark to this paragraph.
§ 269. The patriotic sentiment acquires its specifically
determined content from the various members of the organism of
the state. This organism is the development of the Idea to its
differences and their objective actuality. Hence these different
members are the various powers of the state with their functions
and spheres of action, by means of which. the universal continually
engenders itself, and engenders itself in a necessary way because
their specific character is fixed by the nature of the concept.
Throughout this process the universal maintains its identity,
since it is itself the presupposition of its own production.
This organism is the constitution of the state.
The constitution of the state is the organism of the state, or
the organism of the state is the constitution of the state. To
say that the different parts of an organism stand in a necessary
relation which arises out of the nature of the organism is pure
tautology. To say that when the political constitution is determined
as an organism the different parts of the constitution, the different
powers, are related as organic determinations and have a rational
relationship to one another is likewise tautology. It is a great
advance to consider the political state as an organism, and hence
no longer to consider the diversity of powers as [in]organic,
but rather as living and rational differences. But how does Hegel
present this discovery?
1. ‘This organism is the development of the Idea to its differences
and their objective actuality.’ It is not said that this organism
of the state is its development to differences and their objective
actuality. The proper conception is that the development of the
state or of the political constitution to differences and their
actuality is an organic development. The actual differences,
or the different parts of the political constitution are the presupposition,
the subject. The predicate is their determination as organic.
Instead of that, the Idea is made subject, and the differences
and their actuality are conceived to be its development and its
result, while on the other hand the Idea must be developed out
of the actual difference. What is organic is precisely the idea
of the differences, their ideal determination.
2. But here the Idea is spoken of as a subject which is developed
to its differences. From this reversal of subject and
predicate comes the appearance that an idea other than the organism
is under discussion. The point of departure is the abstract Idea
whose development in the state is the political constitution.
Thus it is a question not of the political idea, but rather of
the abstract Idea in the political element. When Hegel says,
‘this organism (namely, the state, or the constitution of the
state) is the development of the Idea to its differences, etc.’,
he tells us absolutely nothing about the specific idea of the
political constitution. The same thing can be said with equal
truth about the animal organism as about the political organism.
By what means then is the animal organism distinguished from
the political? No difference results from this general determination;
and an explanation which does not give the differentia specifica
is no explanation. The sole interest here is that of recovering
the Idea simply, the logical Idea in each element, be it that
of the state or of nature; and the real subjects, as in this case
the political constitution, become their mere names. Consequently,
there is only the appearance of a real understanding, while in
fact these determinate things are and remain uncomprehended because
they are not understood in their specific essence.
‘Hence these different members are the various powers of the state
with their functions and spheres of action.’ By reason of this
small word ‘hence’ [‘so’] this statement assumes the appearance
of a consequence, a deduction and development. Rather, one must
ask ‘How is it’ [‘Wie so?’] that when the empirical fact
is that the various members of the organism of the state are the
various powers (and) their functions and spheres of action, the
philosophical predicate is that they are members of an organism
[?] Here we draw attention to a stylistic peculiarity of Hegel,
one which recurs often and is a product of mysticism. The entire
paragraph reads:
|
The patriotic sentiment acquires its specifically determined content
from the various members of the organism of the state. This organism
is the development of the Idea to its differences and their objective
actuality. Hence these different members are the various powers
of the state with their functions and spheres of action, by means
of which the universal continually engenders itself, and engenders
itself in a necessary way because their specific character is
fixed by the nature of the concept. Throughout this process the
universal maintains its identity, since it is itself the presupposition
of its own production. This organism is the constitution of the
state. |
1. The patriotic sentiment acquires its specifically determined
content from the various members of the organism of the state
... These different members are the various powers of the state
with their functions and spheres of action.
2. The patriotic sentiment acquires its specifically determined
content from the various members of the organism of the state.
This organism is the development of the Idea to its differences
and their objective actuality ... by means of which the universal
continually engenders itself, and engenders itself in a necessary
way because their specific character is fixed by the nature of
the concept. Throughout this process the universal maintains
its identity, since it is itself the presupposition of its own
production. This organism is the constitution of the state. |
As can be seen, Hegel links the two subjects, namely, the ‘various
members of the organism’ and the ‘organism’, to further determinations.
In the third sentence the various members are defined as the
various powers. By inserting the word ‘hence’ it is made
to appear as if these various powers were deduced from the interposed
statement concerning the organism as the development of the Idea.
He then goes on to discuss the various powers. The statement
that the universal continually engenders itself while maintaining
its identity throughout the process, is nothing new, having been
implied in the definition of the various powers as members of
the organism, as organic members; or rather, this definition of
the various powers is nothing but a paraphrase of the statement
about the organism being ‘the development of the Idea to its differences,
etc.’
These two sentences are identical:
1. This organism is ‘the development of the idea to its differences
and their objective actuality’ or to differences by means of which
the universal (the universal here is the same as the idea) continually
engenders itself, and engenders itself in a necessary way because
their specific character is fixed by the nature of the concept;
and
2. ‘Throughout this process the universal maintains its identity,
since it is itself the presupposition of its own production.’
The second is merely a more concise explication of ‘the development
of the Idea to its differences’. Thereby, Hegel has advanced
not a single step beyond the universal concept of the Idea or
at most of the organism in general (for strictly speaking it is
a question only of this specific idea). Why then is he entitled
to conclude that ‘this organism is the constitution of the state’?
Why not ‘this organism is the solar system’? The reason is that
he later defined the various members of the state as the various
powers. Now the statement that ‘the various members of the state
are the various powers’ is an empirical truth and cannot be presented
as a philosophical discovery, nor has it in any way emerged as
a result of an earlier development. But by defining the organism
as the development of the idea, by speaking of the differences
of the Idea, then by interpolating the concrete data of the various
powers the development assumes the appearance of having arrived
at a determinate content. Following the statement that the patriotic
sentiment acquires its specifically determined content from the
various members of the organism of the state’ Hegel was not justified
in continuing with the expression, ‘This organism. . .,’ but rather
with ‘the organism is the development of the idea, etc.’
At least what he says applies to every organism, and there is
no predicate which justifies the subject, ‘this organism’.
What Hegel really wants to achieve is the determination of the
organism as the constitution of the state. But there is no bridge
by which one can pass from the universal idea of the organism
to the particular idea of the organism of the state or the constitution
of the state, nor will there ever be. The opening statement speaks
of the various members of the organism of the state which are
later defined as the various powers. Thus the only thing said
is that the various powers of the organism of the state, or the
state organism of the various powers, is the political constitution
of the state. Accordingly, the bridge to the political constitution
does not go from the organism of the Idea and its differences,
etc., but from the presupposed concept of the various powers or
the organism of the state.
In truth, Hegel has done nothing but resolve the constitution
of the state into the universal, abstract idea of the organism;
but in appearance and in his own opinion he has developed the
determinate reality out of the universal Idea. He has made the
subject of the idea into a product and predicate of the Idea.
He does not develop his thought out of what is objective [aus
dem Gegenstand], but what is objective in accordance
with a ready-made thought which has its origin in the abstract
sphere of logic. It is not a question of developing the determinate
idea of the political constitution, but of giving the political
constitution a relation to the abstract Idea, of classifying it
as a member of its (the idea’s) life history. This is an obvious
mystification.
Another determination is that the specific character of the various
powers is fixed by the nature of the concept, and for that reason
the universal engenders them in a necessary way. Therefore the
various powers do not have their specific character by reason
of their own nature, but by reason of an alien one. And just
as the necessity is not derived from their own nature still less
is it critically demonstrated. On the contrary, their realisation
is predestined by the nature of the concept, sealed in the holy
register of the Santa Casa (the Logic). The soul
of objects, in this case that of the state, is complete and
predestined before its body, which ‘ is, properly speaking, mere
appearance. The ‘concept’ is the Son within the ‘Idea’, within
God the Father, the agens, the determining, differentiating
principle. Here ‘Idea’ and ‘Concept’ are abstractions rendered
independent.
§ 270. (1) The abstract actuality or the substantiality of
the state consists iii the fact that its end is the universal
interest as such and the conservation therein of particular interests
since the universal interest is the substance of these. (2) But
this substantiality of the state is also its necessity, since
its substantiality is divided into the distinct spheres of its
activity which correspond to the moments of its concept, and these
spheres, owing to this substantiality, are thus actually fixed
determinate characteristics of the state, i.e., its powers.
(3) But this very substantiality of the state
is mind knowing and willing itself after passing through the forming
process of education. The state, therefore, knows what it wills
and knows it in its universality, i.e., as something thought.
Hence it works and acts by reference to consciously adopted ends,
known principles, and laws which are not merely implicit but are
actually present to consciousness; and further, it acts with precise
knowledge of existing conditions and circumstances, inasmuch as
its actions have a bearing on these.
(We will look at the Remark to this paragraph, which treats the
relationship of state and church, later.)
The employment of these logical categories deserves altogether
special attention.
(1) The abstract actuality or the substantiality of the state
consists in the fact that its end is the universal interest as
such and the conservation therein of particular interests since
the universal interest is the substance of these.
That the universal interest as such and as the subsistence of
particular interests is the end of the state is precisely the
abstractly defined actuality and subsistence of the state. The
state is not actual without this end. This is the essential object
of its will, but at the same time it is merely a very general
definition of this object. This end qua Being is the principle
of subsistence for the state.
(2) But this (abstract actuality or) substantiality
of the state is its necessity, since its substantiality
is divided into the distinct spheres of its activity which correspond
to the moments of its concept, and these spheres, owing to their
substantiality, are thus actually fixed’ determinate characteristics
of the state, i.e., its powers.
This abstract actuality or substantiality is its (the state’s)
necessity, since its actuality is divided into distinct spheres
of activity, spheres whose distinction is rationally determined
and which are, for that reason, fixed determinate characteristics.
The abstract actuality of the state, its substantiality, is necessity
inasmuch as the genuine end of the state and the genuine subsistence
of the whole is realised only in the subsistence of the distinct
spheres of the state’s activity.
Obviously the first definition of the state’s actuality was abstract;
it cannot be regarded as a simple actuality; it must be regarded
as activity, and as a differentiated activity.
The abstract actuality or the substantiality of the state ... is... its necessity, since its substantiality is divided
into the distinct spheres of its activity which correspond to
the moments of its concept, and these spheres, owing to this substantiality,
are thus actually fixed determinate characteristics of the state,
i.e., its powers.
The condition of substantiality is the condition of necessity;
i.e., the substance appears to be divided into independent but
essentially determined actualities or activities. These abstractions
can be applied to any actual thing. In so far as the state is
first considered according to the model of the abstract it will
subsequently have to be considered according to the model of concrete
actuality, necessity, and realised difference.
(3) But this very substantiality of the state is mind knowing
and willing itself after passing through the forming process of
education. The state, therefore, knows what it wills and knows
it in its universality, i.e., as something thought. Hence it
works and acts by reference to consciously adopted ends, known
principles, and laws which are not merely implicit but are actually
present to consciousness; and further, it acts with Precise knowledge
of existing conditions and circumstances, inasmuch as its actions
have a bearing on these.
Now let’s translate this entire paragraph into common language
as follows:
1. The self-knowing and self-willing mind is the substance of
the state; (the educated self-assured mind is the subject and
the foundation, the autonomy of the state).
2. The universal interest, and within it the conservation of the
particular interests, is the universal end and content of this
mind, the existing substance of the state, the nature qua state
of the self-knowing and willing mind.
3. The self-knowing and willing mind, the self-assured, educated
mind attains the actualisation of this abstract content only as
a differentiated activity, as the existence of various powers,
as an organically structured power.
Certain things should be noted concerning Hegel’s presentation.
1. Abstract actuality, necessity (or substantial difference),
substantiality, thus the categories of abstract logic, are made
subjects. Indeed, abstract actuality and necessity are called
‘its’, the state’s, actuality and necessity; however (1) ‘it’
- i.e., abstract actuality or substantiality - is the state’s
necessity; (2) abstract actuality or substantiality is what is
divided into the distinct spheres of its activity which correspond
to the moments of its concept. The moments of its concept are,
‘owing to this substantiality ... thus actually fixed determinations,
powers. (3) Substantiality is no longer taken to be an abstract
characteristic of the state, as its substantiality; rather,
as such it is made subject, and then in conclusion it is said,
‘but this very substantiality of the state is mind knowing and
willing itself after passing through the forming process of education’.
2. Also it is not said in conclusion that the educated, etc.,
mind is substantiality, but on the contrary that substantiality
is the educated, etc., mind. Thus mind becomes the predicate
of its predicate.
3. Substantiality, after having been defined (1) as the universal
end of the state, then (2) as the various powers, is defined (3)
as the educated, self-knowing and willing, actual mind. The real
point of departure, the self-knowing and willing mind, without
which the end of the state and the powers of the state would be
illusions devoid of principle or support, inessential and even
impossible existents, appears to be only the final predicate of
substantiality, which had itself previously been defined as the
universal end and as the various powers of the state. Had the
actual mind been taken as the starting point, with the universal
end its content, then the various powers would be its modes of
self-actualisation, its real or material existence, whose determinate
character would have had to develop out of the nature of its end.
But because the point of departure is the Idea, or Substance
as subject and real being, the actual subject appears to be only
the final predicate of the abstract predicate.
The end of the state and the powers of the state are mystified
in that they take the appearance of modes of existence of the
substance, drawn out of and divorced from their real existence,
the self-knowing and willing mind, the educated mind.
4. The concrete content, the actual determination appears to be
formal, and the wholly abstract formal determination appears to
be the concrete content. What is essential to determinate political
realities is not that they can be considered as such but rather
that they can be considered, in their most abstract configuration,
as logical-metaphysical determinations. Hegel’s true interest
is not the philosophy of right but logic. The philosophical task
is not the embodiment of thought in determinate political realities,
but the evaporation of these realities in abstract thought. The
philosophical moment is not the logic of fact but the fact of
logic. Logic is not used to prove the nature of the state, but
the state is used to prove the logic.
There are three concrete determinations:
1. the universal interest and the conservation therein of the
particular interests as the end of the state;
2. the various powers as the actualisation of this end of the
state;
3. the educated, self-assured, willing and acting mind as the
subject of this end and its actualisation.
These concrete determinations are considered to be extrinsic,
to be hors d’oeuvres. Their importance to philosophy is
that in them the state takes on the following logical significance:
1. abstract actuality or substantiality;
2. the condition of substantiality passes over into the condition
of necessity or substantial actuality;
3. substantial actuality is in fact concept, or subjectivity.
With the exclusion of these concrete determinations, which can
just as well be exchanged for those of another sphere such as
physics which has other concrete determinations, and which are
accordingly unessential, we have before us a chapter of the Logic.
The substance must be ‘divided into the distinct spheres of its
activity which correspond to the moments of its concept, and these
spheres, owing to this substantiality, are thus actually fixed
determinate characteristics of the state’. The gist of this sentence
belongs to logic and is ready-made prior to the philosophy of
right. That these moments of the concept are, in the present
instance, distinct spheres of its (the state’s) activity and the
fixed determinate characteristics of the state, or powers of the
state, is a parenthesis belonging to the philosophy of right,
to the order of political fact. In this way the entire philosophy
of right is only a parenthesis to logic. It goes without saying
that the parenthesis is only an hors d’oeuvre of the real
development. Cf. for example the Addition to § 270.:
Necessity consists in this, that the whole is sundered into the
differences of the concept and that this divided whole yields
a fixed and permanent determinacy, though one which is not fossilised
but perpetually recreates itself in its dissolution. Cf also
the Logic.
§ 271. The constitution of the state is, in the first place,
the organisation of the state and the self-related process of
its organic life, a process whereby it differentiates its moments
within itself and develops them to self-subsistence.
Secondly, the state is an individual, unique and exclusive, and
therefore related to others. Thus it turns its differentiating
activity outward and accordingly establishes within itself the
ideality of its subsisting inward differentiations.
Addition: The inner side of the state as such is the civil
power while its outward tendency is the military power, although
this has a fixed place inside the state itself