CU Course on Hegel,
Part 7
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The 12 Courses of the CU (linked)
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The Philosophy of
Right
In the
second paragraph of his Preface to the
Philosophy of Right (download linked below) Hegel wrote: “A compendium proper, like a science, has
its subject-matter accurately laid out … its chief task is to arrange the
essential phases of its material.”
This much
can apply to our “Communist
University”, in relation to this course on Hegel, and to the other 11
courses (see above for the full “compendium”).
But Hegel
wants to emphasise where his own compendium becomes the exception to the
general rule, so in the next paragraph he says:
“This treatise differs from the ordinary
compendium mainly in its method of procedure. It must be understood at the
outset that the philosophic way of
advancing from one matter to another, the general speculative method, which is the only kind of scientific proof
available in philosophy, is essentially different from every other… True, the
logical rules, such as those of definition, classification, and inference are
now generally recognised to be inadequate
for speculative science. Perhaps it is nearer the mark to say that the
inadequacy of the rules has been felt rather than recognised, because they have
been counted as mere fetters, and thrown aside to make room for free speech
from the heart, fancy and random intuition… In my Science of Logic I have developed the nature of speculative science in detail.”
And Hegel says that he is now going to apply this new kind
of Logic in his new book on the Philosophy of Right, of which this document is
the Preface.
Is it the Philosophy of Right and Wrong? Or is it the
Philosophy of Rights, as in Human Rights? You be the judge.
When reading Marx’s Capital, we too are apt, like Hegel’s
contemporaries, to “fall back upon the old-fashioned method of inference and formal
reasoning” , i.e.
the pre-Hegel method. Whereas Marx is using the Hegel method, so that if we are
not aware, then we may be seriously baffled by some of what Marx is arguing as
he “advances from one thing to another”.
This is why
we study Hegel in the first place – so as the better to understand Marx.
The linked document of Hegel’s is readable and full of good
things to discuss. Therefore it can stand as a discussion text without more
elaboration.
But one thing that we can say at this moment is that Hegel
is clearly investigating, as a philosopher, how it is that people's minds
become made up about things, both as individuals and as society, and how it is
that minds are later changed again. This is how politics is done. Hegel’s work
is of direct, practical interest to political people.
“The ingenuous mind
adheres with simple conviction to the truth which is publicly acknowledged. On
this foundation it builds its conduct and way of life. In opposition to this
naive view of things rises the supposed difficulty of detecting amidst the
endless differences of opinion anything of universal application.”
In the next instalment of this part we will take one more of
Andy Blunden’s lectures, and in the next part, take the remaining three of
Andy’s lectures, for what is in them that can help us with Marx. In the final
two lectures we will look at other commentaries and relevant texts, including
from Evald Ilyenkov, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and Ron Press.
Please
download and read this text via the link:
Preface to
the Philosophy of Right, 1820, Hegel (5511 words)
Further reading:
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