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Part 1_Towards a Critique of

Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
Created @August 24, 2022 10:19 AM

Class ELE RMPM

Type Notes

Part 1: The State §§ 261 - 271

Private Rights vis-a-vis the State
The State is an external necessity and a higher authority to the family and civil society;
and to private rights and private welfare.
The Laws and interest of the State are higher than the family and civil society.
The strength of the State lies in its unity and its universal end for the particular interest
of individuals.
The Individual has duties to the state; as they have rights against it.

Concrete freedom is identified from particular interest (family and civil society); and
general interests (the state)

The State is contrasted from the spheres of Family and Civil Society, as an External
Necessity and Authority. The Laws and interests of family are subordinate and
dependent on the State.

Part 1_Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 1

 Montesquieu in his Spirit of the Law worked on:
The dependence of laws: Laws concerning the rights of people with regards to the
State;
Notion of treating the part in relation to the whole.

Internal dependence - essential determination of private rights, etc. by the state.

External Necessity - The Laws and interests of family and civil society must give
way to the laws and interests of the State. Family and Civil Society are subordinate
to the State.

The existence of the Family and Civil Society are dependent to the State

Subordination and dependence are external relations, contrary to an autonomous being.

Subordination and dependence are the expressions for an external, artificial, apparent
identity for the logical expression of External Necessity. Divided Identity. → Alienation
within unity.

The strength of the State lies in its unity and its universal end for the particular interest
of individuals.
The Individual has duties to the state; as they have rights against it.

Unresolved Antimony: External Necessity/Immanent End.

The Duties of individuals to the state and their rights against it are identical (the duty to
respect property coincides with the right to property).

Duty is substantive (highly important), absolutely universal; Right is the embodiment of

Duty’s importance. From this aspect, particular freedom arises. In the State, duty and
right are united in one and the same relation.
[From duty to the state, comes right, and from these rights, comes particular freedom.
Duty and right come from the same relation]

The actual Idea is mind. Sunders itself to Family and Civil Society. Family and Civil
Society is the finite phase, and its end is to enter its infinite actual mind [omniscience].

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 The Idea assigns the material [Family and Civil Society as components and actors of
the State] to its finite actuality mediated by circumstance, caprice, personal choice of
station in life [vocation]
[When Hegel says “Idea” does he refer to the “State” or to the abstract concept of
“Idea”]

The State Mediates the family and civil society through circumstance, caprice [impulse],
and personal choice of station in life. → Then the State has nothing to do with the
division of the material of the state into family and civil society.
[Where is the mediation from the State there?]
The State results from the family and civil society in an unconscious and arbitrary
way.
Material → Family and Civil Society as components of the State, and actors of the State

^ Peculiar in two respects.

1. Family and Civil Society are spheres/parts of the State to its finite phase. The State
sunders itself into two (Family and Civil Society). The State assigns material* and the
functions are mediated.
The concept of “Actual Idea” (mind as infinite & actual} is described by Hegel as acting
acording to a determined principle towards a determined end. And it sunders itself into
finite spheres so it can be whole again (it can be itself again)
[Introduced Hegel’s Flaw of circular logic]
[Marx is critiquing Hegel’s use of Mysticism]

The assignment of material of the State to the individual is mediated by circumstance,

caprice (impulse), and personal choice of life, is Speculative Philosophy. These are
merely the appearance of the Phenomenon.

Ordinary empirical existence does not have its own mind [Geist] but rather an alien
mind as its law.
Idea does not have an actuality which is developed out of itself, but rather has ordinary
empirical existence as its existence [Dasein].

The Family and civil society are the presuppositions of the state; but in speculative
Philosophy it is reversed. [The State is the presupposition for the Family and Civil

Part 1_Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 3

 Society]. If the former logic is followed, then civil society, family, circumstance, caprice
etc. become unreal and take on different meaning.

2. Circumstances, caprice (impulse), Personal Choice (vocation), are not things that are
not directly real; they are not declared to be rational. But they are a result and product of
the “Idea”. The difference is not in the content, but in the way of considering it. The
content lies in the exoteric. The history of the esoteric is to recover the history of the
Logical Concept of the State. But real development is on the exoteric side.
Exoteric:

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 State as Manifestation of Idea or Product of Man

"The Actual Idea is mind which, sundering itself into two ideal spheres of its concept,
family and civil society, enters upon its finite phase"

The division of the state into family and civil society is necessary, Family and Civil
society is the essence of the state.

Family and Civil society are actual components of the state.

Family and Civil society are the modes of existence of the state; Family and civil
society make themselves into the state

Family and Civil Society are the active force

But according to Hegel, Family and Civil Society are made by the actual Idea.

Family and Civil Society owe their existence to the Geist [mind]. Their determinations
are established by the geist, not their own mind.

Family and Civil Society are the finiteness of the Idea. Their existence is so they can
rise above and become infinite actual mind.

The Political State cannot exist without the natural basis of the family, and the artificial
basis of civil society.

Part 1_Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 4

 The actual idea reduces itself into the finiteness of the family and civil society to
bring forth its infinity through their transcendence [Aufhebung/Synthesis].

Material of the state - human beings

The State is composed of Man.

The composition of man is the action of the idea.

The state issues from the mass of men existing as members of families and of civil
society;
[;achievement of the Idea.]

→ The Idea assigns these spheres the material of its finite actuality to human beings as
a mass
→ The function assigned to the Individual is visibly mediated by circumstances, caprice
etc.

Empirical actuality is not rational because of its own reason, but because the empirical
fact has significance other than itself. The fact is not the starting point, but the Mystical
Result.

The Idea has no other aim but to become an infinite actual mind.

Mind is the objective universality of Family and Civil Society as the power of reason in
necessity.
Mind is the nature of human beings, Mind is twofold
i. Explicit individuality of consciousness and will
ii. Universality which knows and wills what is substantive.
Family and Civil Society directly acquire their substantive self-consciousness in social
institutions (i)
Family and Civil Society indirectly acquire their rights through the Corporation whose
activity is directed on a universal end (ii)

Mind is objective; but also the ideality and heart of necessity. Through this, substantive
universality is aware of itself as its own object and end.

Part 1_Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 5

 Transition of the family and civil society to the political state: The mind of the Family and
Civil Society (which is also the mind of the state) is their inner reality.
The Transition is not derived from the essence of the family nor the state, but from the
universal relation of necessity and freedom.

[The transition of Family and Civil Society as the State was born out of necessity and
freedom]

The necessity in ideality is the inner self-development of the Idea. Political Sentiment is
the substance of the objective world, it is the organism of the state i.e. the political state
and its constitution.

[Constitution as the organism of the state?]

Since there are “necessity in ideality” and “idea within itself” it resulted to “Political
sentiment” and “Political Constitution”

Political Sentiment is the subjective

Political Constitution is the objective substance of the state.

The logical development of the Family → Civil Society → State, is thus an appearance.

It is not clear how familial and civil sentiment/ family and societal institutions are
related to political sentiment and political institutions.

The Transition involved in mind existing as the ideality of necessity and the soul of this
realm is no transition. Because the soul of the family exists for itself as love. The Pure
ideality of an actual sphere could exist only as knowledge (Science)

Hegel makes the Idea as the subject, and makes the actual subject (like political
sentiment) the predicate. but development proceeds at all times on the side of the
predicate.

The Political Sentiment

Political Sentiment/Patriotism - a product of the institutions subsisting in the state since
rationality is actually present in the state; on the other hand, these institutions are an

Part 1_Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 6

 objectification of the political sentiment.

Patriotic Sentiment is determined from the various members of the organism of the
state. The state is the development of the Idea to its differences and their objective
actuality. Through the different members of the state and their various powers, the state
is able to engender itself in a necessary way. Through this process, the universal
maintains its identity, since the members of the state and their various powers is its own
product.

[Hegelian Dialectic] [various parts of the state as an organic relation with the state]

The constitution of the state is the organism of the state. Marx claims that this notion is
pure tautology.

“This organism is the development of the Idea to its differences and their objective
actuality” - it says “Idea” Instead of State.
For Marx, the different parts of the political constitution are the presupposition/subject;
the predicate is their determination as organic.
Instead, Hegel makes the “Idea” as subject and their difference and development as the
result.
[Reversal of Subject and Predicate]
When Hegel says “This organism is the development of the Idea to its differences” -
Hegel does not specify about the specific idea of the political constitution.
There is only the appearance of a real understanding, while in fact they remain
uncomprehended because they are not understood in their specific essence.

How is it that the subject “Various Members of the organism of the state are the various
powers, and their functions and spheres of actions”,
And the predicate is “They are members of an organism”

Marx is critiquing Hegel’s repetitive but non advancing statements on the “Idea as an
organism”

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 Why is Hegel entitled to conclude that “This organism is the constitution of the state”
Why not “this organism is the solar system”

“various members of the state are the various powers” is an empirical truth, and is not a
philosophical discovery.

Hegel wants to achieve a universal determination of the organism as the constitution of

the state. But Marx believes that there is no bridge where the idea of the organism can
progress as the organism of the state.

Hegel has done nothing to resolve the constitution of the state into the universal
abstract idea of the organism.
But in his opinion, he has developed the determinate reality out of the universal Idea.
Hegel does not develop his thought out of what is objective, but what is objective
to a ready-made thought which has its origins in the abstract sphere of logic.

Hegel’s Mystification.
Hegel seals his concepts to the prison of abstract logic (Catholic Metaphor)
Concept → Son
Idea → God the father
Differentiating principle → Agent

Abstract Actuality/Substantiality of the State 3 facts

1. The end of the state is the universal interest and the conservation of particular
interests
2. The substantiality of the State is also its necessity since it is divided into the distinct
spheres, and these spheres are the determinate characteristics of the state i.e. its
powers.
3. The substantiality of the state is mind knowing. It wills itself through the process of
education.
The State knows what it wills and knows its universality, hence it acts in reference to its
conscious end, known principles, and laws. It acts with precise knowledge of existing
conditions and circumstances.

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 Marx agrees that the universal end of the state is on the subsistence of particular
interests. For Marx the state is not actual without this end. But this is merely a general
definition of this object.

Analysis

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
actualization of this abstract content only as a differentiated activity, as the
existence of various powers, as an organically structured power.

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 actualization of this end of the state;

3. the educated, self-assured, willing and acting mind as the subject of this end and its
actualization.

Substantiality as being defined as the universal end of the state. Various Powers as the
educated, self-knowing and willing mind, without which the state and the power of the
state we be illusions devoid of principle. Various powers are the final predicate of
substantiality.

Had the actual mind been taken as the starting point, with universal end its content,
then the various power its mode of self actualization, whose character would develop
out ot the nature of its end.

Instead, the point of departure is the “Idea”.

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 The end of the state and the powers of the state are mystified, that they have the
appearance of modes of existence but are divorced from their real existence.

The Philosophical task is not the embodiment of thought in determinate political realites,
but the evaporation of thought these realities in abstract thought.

Hegel does not use logic to prove the nature of the state, but uses the state to
prove his logic.

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