Eleven Hegel and the French Revolution: An Epitaph for Republicanism
1. For some works in the comparative study of revolution, see Crane Brinton, Anatomy of Revolution (New York: Vintage, 1965); Isaac Deutscher, "The French Revolution and the Russian Revolution: Some Suggestive Analogies," World Politics 4 (1952): 493-514; Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of
France, Russia, China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). For a withering attack on the French-Russian analogy, see François Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution , trans. Elborg Forster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), chap. 1 entitled "The Revolution Is Over." [BACK]
2. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), p. 153. [BACK]
3. Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution , trans. Stuart Gilbert (New York: Doubleday, 1955), p. 20. [BACK]
4. The best study of Tocqueville's history, to my knowledge, is Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution , pp. 132-163; see also Melvin Richter, "Tocqueville's Contributions to the Theory of Revolution," Revolution , ed. C. J. Friedrich (New York: Atherton, 1966), pp. 75-121. [BACK]
5. See Steven B. Smith, Hegel's Critique of Liberalism: Rights in Context (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). [BACK]
6. G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History , trans. J. Sibree (New York: Dover, 1956), p. 446. [BACK]
7. Reinhart Koselleck, "Historical Criteria of the Modern Concept of Revolution," Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time , trans. Keith Tribe (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1985), p. 42; Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Viking, 1965), pp. 35-36. [BACK]
8. See Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, eds., Real-Encyclopedie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzlersche, 1932), 30: 1313-1316. [BACK]
9. Plato, Republic , 8: 544c; Aristotle, Politics 5: 1316a 1 ff. [BACK]
10. Aristotle, Politics 7:1329b 25-30. [BACK]
11. Polybius, Histories 6: 7-12; for a useful discussion see Robert D. Cumming, Human Nature and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 1: 95-97, 149-151. [BACK]
12. Machiavelli, Il Principe e Discorsi (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1983), pp. 379-384. [BACK]
13. Thomas Hobbes, Behemoth: Or The Long Parliament , ed. F. Tönnies, 2d ed. (London: F. Cass, 1969), p. 204. [BACK]
14. Peter Burke, "Renaissance, Reformation, Revolution," Niedergang: Studien zu einem geschichtlichen Thema , eds. Reinhart Koselleck and Karlheinz Stierle (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1980), pp. 144-145. [BACK]
15. R. G. Collingwood, The New Leviathan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1942), pp. 199-200. [BACK]
16. M. Diderot and M. d'Alembert, eds., Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts, et des Métiers , 3d ed. (Geneva: J. L. Pellet, 1778-1779), 29: 97. [BACK]
17. Koselleck, "Historical Criteria of the Modern Concept of Revolution," p. 45. [BACK]
18. Arendt, On Revolution , p. 39. [BACK]
19. Collingwood, The New Leviathan , pp. 201-202. [BACK]
20. See Karl Marx, "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction," in Early Writings , trans. T. B. Bottomore (London: C. A. Watts, 1963), pp. 51-52. [BACK]
21. Immanuel Kant, "What Is Enlightenment?" in Political Writings , trans. H. B. Nisbet, ed. Hans Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 54. [BACK]
22. Heinrich, Heine, "The History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany," in The Romantic School and Other Essays , eds. Jost Hermand and Robert C. Holub (New York: Continuum, 1985), pp. 203-204. [BACK]
23. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason , trans. Norman K. Smith (New York: Saint Martin's, 1965), p. 9. [BACK]
24. Kant, "The Contest of Faculties," p. 187. [BACK]
25. Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysical Elements of Justice , trans. John Ladd (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), p. 112. [BACK]
26. Kant, "The Contest of Faculties," p. 182. [BACK]
27. The most useful discussions are Joachim Ritter, Hegel und die Französische Revolution (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1965); Jürgen Habermas, "Hegel's Critique of the French Revolution," in Theory and Practice , trans. John Viertel (Boston: Beacon Press, 1974), pp. 121-141; see also Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955); Georg Lukács, The Young Hegel: Studies in the Relations Between Dialectics and Economics , trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1975); see also Smith, Hegel's Critique of Liberalism , pp. 85-97. [BACK]
28. G. W. F. Hegel, Briefe von und an Hegel , ed. J. Hoffmeister (Hamburg: F. Meiner 1952-1954), 1: 24. [BACK]
29. Hegel, Philosophy of History , p. 447. [BACK]
30. See J. F. Sutter, "Burke, Hegel, and the French Revolution," in Hegel's Political Philosophy: Problems and Perspectives , ed. Z. A. Pelczynski (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 52-72. [BACK]
31. Hegel, Philosophy of History , p. 451; see also his essay on "The English Reform Bill," in Political Writings , trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), pp. 325-326. [BACK]
32. Hegel, Philosophy of History , p. 35. [BACK]
33. For the corporate basis of rights in premodern Europe, see Otto Gierke, Natural Law and the Theory of Society 1500-1800 , trans. Ernest Barker (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957). [BACK]
34. For useful discussions see Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), chaps. 5-6; see also Dieter Henrich, "The Contexts of Autonomy: Some Presuppositions of the Comprehensibility of Human Rights," Daedalus (Fall 1982): 255-277. [BACK]
35. G. W. F. Hegel, Natural Law , trans. T. M. Knox (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1975), p. 70.
36. Ibid., pp. 59 ff. [BACK]
35. G. W. F. Hegel, Natural Law , trans. T. M. Knox (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1975), p. 70.
36. Ibid., pp. 59 ff. [BACK]
37. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan , ed. Michael Oakeshott (London: Macmillan, 1962), p. 103. [BACK]
38. Hegel, Natural Law , pp. 70 ff. [BACK]
39. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford: Blackwell, 1974), pp. 261-262. [BACK]
40. Hegel, Natural Law , p. 112. [BACK]
41. See Ferdinand Tönnies, Community and Association , trans. C. Loomis (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955); Sir Henry Maine, The Ancient Law (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986). [BACK]
42. See G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right , trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), p. 233, par. 33A: "In speaking of Right [Recht ] . . . we mean not merely what is generally meant by civil law, but also morality, ethical life, and world-history." [BACK]
43. G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction , trans.
H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 80. [BACK]
44. Hegel, Natural Law , p. 128.
45. Ibid., p. 92. [BACK]
44. Hegel, Natural Law , p. 128.
45. Ibid., p. 92. [BACK]
46. G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind , trans. J. B. Baille (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1971), pp. 600-601. [BACK]
47. Hegel, Philosophy of History , p. 442. [BACK]
48. Hegel, Phenomenology , pp. 602, 604, 605. [BACK]
49. Hegel, Philosophy of History , pp. 450-451. [BACK]
53. For some works advocating the revival of republicanism, see J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton: Pinceton University Press, 1975); William M. Sullivan, Reconstructing Public Philosophy (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1982); for a relentless critique of the alleged civic republican influences on American politics, see John Diggins, The Lost Soul of American Politics: Virtue, Self-Interest, and the Foundations of Liberalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). [BACK]
54. Hegel, World History , p. 54: "World history is the progress of the consciousness of freedom."
55. Ibid., p. 89; see also Hegel, Science of Logic , trans. A. V. Miller (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969), pp. 746-747. [BACK]
54. Hegel, World History , p. 54: "World history is the progress of the consciousness of freedom."
55. Ibid., p. 89; see also Hegel, Science of Logic , trans. A. V. Miller (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969), pp. 746-747. [BACK]
56. Hegel, Political Writings , pp. 220, 221, 222-223. [BACK]
57. G. W. F. Hegel, Jenaer Realphilosophie. Vorlesungsmanuskripte zur Philosophie der Natur und des Geistes von 1805-1806 , ed. J. Hoffmeister (Hamburg: F. Meiner, 1969), p. 246. [BACK]
58. Hegel, Political Writings , p. 241. [BACK]
59. Hegel, Jenaer Realphilosophie , pp. 247-248. [BACK]
60. Hegel, World History , p. 85. [BACK]
61. Shlomo Avineri, Hegel: Theory of the Modern State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 60-61. [BACK]
62. Alexandre Kojève, Introduction à la lecture de Hegel , ed. Raymond Queneau (Paris: Gallimard, 1947), pp. 95, 97, 153-154, 194-195. [BACK]
63. Hegel, World History , p. 170. [BACK]
64. For the religious roots of messianism, see Norman Cohen, The Pursuit of the Millenium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970); Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism (New York: Schocken, 1971); Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1985); for some of the secular uses to which these millenarian ideas have been put see Jacob Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (New York: Praeger, 1960); Bernard Yack, The Longing for Total Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986). [BACK]
65. Karl Löwith, Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age , trans. Robert M. Wallace (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983); for a comprehensive bibliography of some of the recent work on this debate, see the Annals of Scholarship 5 (1987): 97-106. [BACK]