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The State As A Community Of Persons In Hegel; A Critique
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The summary of his political purpose could rightly
be regarded as an effort to reconcile freedom and authority which is
accomplished when the state emerges and imposes its laws (in the form of
the constitution) upon the lesser associations in which the individuals
are involved. Sequel to this he upholds a standardized organic system
which is directly contrapuntal to Rousseau’s absolute democracy.
More
over, his desire includes portraying the state as an unrivalled and
magnificent institution that invests its government with standards of
absolute reason and laws that are universally valid. To this end he sets
out to reconstruct political philosophy in general. Little wonder then,
the outcome of such an ambitious venture was his elegant work “The
Philosophy of Rightâ€- a work that is difficult to comprehend. It was as a
result of this incomprehensibility of this material that many people
described him as a fellow that embraced an abstract philosophy.
Hegel’s
aim was to set forth a philosophical system so comprehensive that it
would encompass the ideas of his predecessors and create a conceptual
framework in terms of which both the past and future could be understood
philosophically. Such an aim would require nothing short of a full
account of reality itself. Thus, Hegel conceived the subject matter of
philosophy to be reality as a whole. This reality, or the total
developmental process of everything that is, he referred to as the
Absolute.
According to Hegel, the task of philosophy is to chart the
development of the Absolute. This involves first, making clear the
internal rational structure of the Absolute; second, demonstrating the
manner in which the Absolute manifests itself in nature and human
history; and, third, explicating the teleological nature of the
Absolute, that is, showing the end or purpose towards which the Absolute
is directed.
[1]G.W.F.Hegel,Philosophy of Right, trans.by T.M. Knox,(London: Clarendon Press),1967,p.183
[2] Reich is a noun meaning; German state or empire(esp. formally):example: the third Reich (i.e. Germany under
Hitler’s rule (1933-1945)
[3] H.Marcus, Reason and Revolution, Great Britain Brothers Limited.1969). p.13
[4]Loc. Cit
[5] G.H.Sabine,A History of Political Theories,4th ed. London: Oxford and IBN,1973.p.576
[6] Loc.Cit.
[7] M.I. Nwoko, Basic World Political Theories, Nigeria: Claverianum press, 1988. p.154
[8] G.W.F Hegel, The Philosophy of Right, p.10
[9]
Entelechy is that that has potentials; especially future prospect. The
Aristotelian “entelechy†was a form of vital force that converted all
possibilities (teleological propensities) into actualities. It was the
guiding spirit that accounted not only for the maintenance of life, but
for its development, as in progression from egg to adult organism.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® Encyclopedia 2005 © 1993-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
[10] G.W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right. p.260
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