I

Vieweg’s book is one of the most thorough and comprehensive interpretations of PR. This is why, although it is structured as a commentary to Hegel’s text, it will be useful principally to those who are already familiar with Hegel’s philosophy of right and the history of its effects. The central, deeply intertwined claims of the book are, first, that Hegel’s practical philosophy is possibly the most significant philosophical account of human freedom and its actualization in the modern state (I), and, second, that Hegel’s practical philosophy cannot be adequately understood if detached from its logical-metaphysical background, as attempted by many so-called ‘non-metaphysical’ interpretations (II). The development of (I) and (II) leads Vieweg to assert further that: (III) Hegel’s philosophy has to be recognized as an essential discussion partner in the contemporary philosophical discourse, and (IV) that a ‘Hegelian turn’ in philosophy is not only necessary but imminent (19). Vieweg’s book is a decisive contribution to this Hegelian turn. I should say at the outset that I am sympathetic to all these claims, which are examined in more detail in the second part of the review.

The book is organized into eight chapters, each of which contributes to the development and defence of the four claims identified above. Chapter one deals with the notorious Preface to PR and its most ‘scandalous’ theses about the overlapping of ‘rational’ and ‘actual’ and philosophy as the ‘Owl of Minerva’, always arriving after the day’s events. Thus the book sets the stage by showing that just those theses are the pillars of a sound and complex philosophy of freedom, deserving an equally sound and complex interpretive approach rather than the repeated superficial dismissals they have drawn on themselves.

Chapter two introduces the main concepts with reference to the Introduction of PR, thereby showing the inseparability of philosophy of right and logic. Very appropriately, the ground of this inseparability is shown to be the Hegelian idea that ‘a philosophy of the free will and action […] can only rest on conceptual thinking’ (53). There is no freedom without thinking and no thinking without freedom. The inquiry into the logical structures and presuppositions of thought is not a metaphysical relict, but the very groundwork of a sound reflection on human agency and freedom. Thus, the reconstruction of the logical framework (whereby the reference is clearly mostly to the subjective logic: cf. 26 and 238) is an integral part of the interpretation of PR.

Chapter three presents the first section of PR, namely abstract right, showing how its central principle, the right of the person, is not only the general groundwork of the whole philosophy of right, but also of human dignity and human rights, including rights of the ‘third generation’ (such as sustainability and environmental rights). Particularly relevant is here Vieweg’s discussion of the ‘second coercion’ theorem: ‘Coercion is only justified as second coercion’, that is as re-establishment of right and autonomy against crime and heteronomy (first coercion). Vieweg rightly emphasizes that ‘here lies the central thought of a legitimation of state punishment in the form of a theory of action’ (138). This thought consequently reappears with a substantial role in the later discussion of the state. Chapter four discusses the right of the particular subject and its consciousness, that is, ‘Morality’, as a ‘theory of subjective freedom and free moral judgment and action’ (150), connecting the different determinations of morality to the logical articulation of the forms of judgement.

Chapter five opens the second half of the book, which is dedicated to ethical life. Vieweg introduces the concept through its logical foundation, thus revealing the dynamic, open character of the Hegelian ethical life, too often dismissed as the locus of a static oppressive domination of the universal over the individual. The last three chapters deal each with one of the three stages of ethical life: family, civil society and state. Chapter six argues for the modernity of Hegel’s concept of family, bringing the Hegelian spirit against the Hegelian letter in the conception of the role of women, where Hegel seems to abandon the dialectical method in favour of naturalistic (under)determinations (259). The conceptual distinction of civil society and state, which are examined in chapters six and seven respectively, is a characteristic mark of Hegel’s idea of modernity. Noteworthy here is Vieweg’s discussion of Hegel’s attitude toward the market and the capitalist economy, political economy, work, solidarity, welfare and social state, developing along its lines a sharp critique of neoliberalism and de-regulated globalization, but rejecting at the same time the socialist alternative. ‘Neoliberal and socialist conceptions come together in the conceptually untenable primacy of the economic realm’ (334), thus violating the distinction of civil society and state (and, we may add, Hegel’s idealistic assumption).

Only at the level of the state, treated in the final chapter, can the ethical idea find its actualization. This chapter contains a detailed passionate defence of the Hegelian concept of the state against still widespread misunderstandings and trivializations of it as an absolute ethical, or even totalitarian one. Against them, but also in some points against the Hegelian letter, Vieweg once again employs the logical foundation of the Hegelian discourse, leading to completely opposite results, which will surely sparkle further controversies (especially with regard to the Hegel-immanent invalidation of the Hegelian doctrine of hereditary monarchy). Vieweg defines the Hegelian conception of state as ‘epistocratic-meritocratic’ (438): since the ultimate foundation and justification of practical life is thought, the general will has to be expressed by free, educated citizens. Hegel’s state is accordingly not a totalitarian-authoritarian one, but one based on constitutional legitimacy, the division of powers, (limited) democratic representation and Bildung, and enabling religious and political pluralism, and even a right to resistance grounded through the second coercion theorem. After the ‘right within the state’, Vieweg goes through Hegel’s discussion of the ‘right between states’, showing its proximity with Kant in envisaging the aim of international relationships as being an enduring state of peace. This opens the way to the last section, dealing with world history and the thesis of the end of history, that is ‘modernity as the beginning of a truly humanly shaped and free existence’ (520).

II

The book is clearly written and, provided one is acquainted with Hegel’s philosophy, it is relatively easy to follow both in its general structure and in particular arguments. Minor gripes about some of the editing especially in the footnotes and the absence of an index of concepts aside, the book is a significant achievement that cannot be ignored by anyone interested in Hegel’s practical philosophy, independent of the stand the reader might take on Vieweg’s controversial theses. Vieweg’s achievement merits the wider audience that translation into other languages would secure for it.

Vieweg makes a decisive contribution to the long and controversial history of the effects of Hegel’s practical philosophy. From the very beginning, this is a history of conflicts, with the splitting into the so-called ‘right’ and ‘left’ Hegelianism and the misuse of Hegelianism in twentieth century totalitarianisms. Later on, while philosophers like Popper dismissed Hegel as an enemy of the open society, theorists of the Frankfurt School emphasized the dialectical, critical aspects of Hegel’s philosophy. More recently, Hegel’s practical philosophy has played a central role in, amongst others, Fukuyama’s thesis of the ‘end of history’, the debate between libertarianism and communitarianism, and, as an attempt to overcome this debate, in Rawls’ idea of ‘political liberalism’. Much of the recent scholarship has seen in the bewilderment and confusions inevitably tied to Hegel’s logic and metaphysics a formidable obstacle to the reception of Hegel’s practical philosophy. Consequently, attempts have been made to reactualize the practical philosophy by interpreting it as independent of the logic-metaphysical groundwork, and more in general by reading Hegel’s philosophy as a prosecution and completion of Kant’s transcendental criticism of metaphysics. This view has been defended by different authors (among others Honneth, Neuhouser, Pinkard, Pippin) in very different forms. These range from the claim that Hegel’s logic and metaphysics should be abandoned if Hegel is to be a philosophical discussion partner at all, to the idea that Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit or practical philosophy can be presented, understood and appreciated on their own, even though they are strongly connected to his logic and metaphysics, up to the thesis that the practical realm has to exhibit its rationality autonomously in order for the Hegelian claim of the metaphysical constitution of actuality to make sense at all.

Vieweg’s book is successful in showing that Hegel’s practical philosophy cannot be adequately appreciated and understood if one renounces its logical-metaphysical groundwork, for the simple reason that a theory of freedom requires a theory of the concept. Only on this basis does Hegel’s practical philosophy reveal its full potential to contribute substantively to current discussions, from the theory of personality and action to socio-economic critique, from philosophy of human rights to applied ethics, from international justice to individual morality, from religious pluralism to work and social welfare, and counting. This ambitious program, although it is in general conceptually and philologically sound, raises a series of far-reaching and challenging questions. I will address only two of them.

Vieweg’s reading of Hegel is different both from standard metaphysical-theological readings and from the post-Kantian non-metaphysical readings (including culturalist, deflationary, semantic and pragmatist ones). Against the former Vieweg makes a strong claim for the relevance of Hegel’s philosophy to contemporary debates, and against the latter he defends this claim not despite, but on the basis of Hegel’s logic and metaphysics. Vieweg claims that Hegel’s philosophy is able to stand on its own feet, and nothing, if not minimal reformulations, should be added to or removed from it in order to obtain a logically consistent and practically attractive philosophy of freedom. More precisely: nothing can be added or removed. That is, from the standpoint of Vieweg’s interpretation, non-metaphysical readings seem to be not only incomplete or weak, but substantially wrong (cf. 22, 33 and 232).

While this is consistent with the Hegel-immanent approach of Vieweg, it puts the author in the position of assuming that the endorsement of Hegel’s practical philosophy—and thus its actualization—is dependent on the acceptance of the logical-metaphysical groundwork. This position is difficult because it has to deal with the fact that our contemporary, analytically inspired understanding of logic is something completely different from the Hegelian one. This only leaves the alternative of either dismissing the analytic understanding of logic and metaphysics and championing the Hegelian one, or attempting to find a common ground. Vieweg seems to choose the first option, as he makes short work of analytic logic and of a good part of contemporary philosophy in general (26–30). In this way he isolates Hegelian philosophy from practically all later philosophical attempts, claiming that the former, if correctly interpreted, provides a self-sufficient account of the various dimensions of freedom, agency, morality, state, etc. In other words, Vieweg puts himself in an isolated position, and asks the reader to follow him there, in order to finally actualize the Hegelian project. This is, however, a very demanding commitment to request even from the most sympathetic reader. One can thus get the impression that Vieweg’s style of argumentation, which is brilliant throughout the book, turns in several points to militant tunes as a rhetorical captatio benevolentiae, which might sound out of place in a book on Hegel.

Vieweg’s project would have been more appealing and its claims more sharply defined if the author had invested more in pointing out the possible convergence points between Hegel’s understanding of logic and metaphysics and the analytic one. As a matter of fact, a significant part of recent scholarship (Butler, Quante, Stekeler-Weithofer, Stern, Westphal, just to name a few) has shown that it is possible, and actually rewarding, to take Hegel’s logic seriously while at the same time opening a dialogue with the analytic tradition(s). By being open to this challenge, Vieweg’s project, without giving up the radicality of its claim, would have been less demanding, more open to future contributions from different perspectives, and more supportive of the idea of a high capacity of Hegel’s philosophy to contribute to contemporary discussions. Of course, it might be the case that Vieweg denies the possibility of any common ground at all, in which case, however, one is left with the question of how to relate Hegel’s philosophy to its successors. Hegel’s practical philosophy may be internally rehabilitated, but if we do not show the connections with the philosophy of our own time, the risk is that Hegel only survives in splendid isolation.

The second point I want to make follows on from the above and concerns world history. The rehabilitation of Hegel’s philosophy of right as a philosophy of freedom for our time is incompatible with the traditional and still widespread view of the world-spirit as a transcendent metaphysical entity, a quasi-godly mega-subject determining the necessity of the course of history. Vieweg rightly points out the falsity of this conception and interprets the world-spirit as the ‘fabric constituted by the relationships between states’ (509). Thus we can abandon the idea of the actualization of a metaphysical necessity external to human beings but determining their actions, and instead speak of a thoroughly immanent process of actualization of freedom in history, which can only be reconstructed by a retrospective rational look. Actualization of freedom is not a pre-established universal necessity, but a social product.

A possible (if not necessary) consequence of this interpretive shift is that the progressive actualization of freedom risks being tied to the contingent factor of cultural diversity, resulting in Eurocentrism or culture-relativism. Vieweg faces this problem by stressing the Kantian universalistic and irenic elements in Hegel’s philosophy of history. Kantian elements are to be sure present in Hegel’s philosophy of history from the very beginning. It is not clear, however, which explanatory weight and exegetic accuracy the ascription of a robust Kantianism to Hegel’s late philosophy of history can have. Hegel is not optimistic at all about Kant’s idea of a ‘perpetual peace’, and the notion of peace in general is not a central one in his philosophy of history.

What is more, Vieweg’s interpretation seems quite optimistic as to the possibility of accommodating with relative ease issues such as cosmopolitanism, interculturalism, pluriversum, etc. (503–504) in Hegel’s philosophy of history, and of making this latter more attractive in this way. It takes more than a bit of interpretive charity to interpret Hegel’s discussion of the difference in ethical customs between different historical-geographical realms in terms of an intercultural exchange among peers at the global level. Vieweg convincingly shows that Hegel’s conception of the modern (Western) state is concretely pluralistic. But it seems that concrete pluralism is only possible in the framework of rational liberal institutions. What about peoples who have developed different political forms on the basis of different customs, where, for example, subjective freedom and rights in the Hegelian sense play a minor role? Do they represent less advanced stages on the path to the rational liberal state, or viable alternatives to it? Are they still in the grip of a history that for the Western world is already finished, as Fukuyama maintained, or did they choose different yet legitimate paths? And, if the latter is the case, is Hegel’s system able to envisage any kind of exchange amongst peers with them? These are open questions. I believe that Hegel’s practical philosophy has a lot to say even on these issues, but I also think that Hegel’s view of international politics and world history is more problematic than Vieweg’s irenic depiction.

The issues I have tried to raise are two aspects of the same question: even if one assumes that Hegel’s philosophy of right is a consistent, attractive and up-to-date philosophy of freedom (which to me Vieweg succeeds in showing), what spaces does it open to confront other perspectives? Is the Hegelian system self-sufficient and without really viable alternatives, or is there a concrete possibility of the existence of a space of difference, not necessarily reducible to the Hegelian system? In Hegelian terms: does the Hegelian system relate to different views of philosophy and of the world in the fashion of an absolute or of a determinate negation? If the former is the case (and Vieweg’s letter gives this impression in some points), then the claim for a forthcoming Hegelian turn is established on quite a weak basis, and ultimately requires some utopian compensation, to which Vieweg as a matter of fact inclines in the conclusion (523). If the second is the case (which I think would be more in Vieweg’s spirit), then we had better abandon crusades, and work against the untenable and profoundly non-Hegelian conclusion that two hundred years of history and philosophy bear no weight. To be fair, this is not Vieweg’s own conclusion. Yet a book with such ambitions as Vieweg’s one would have gained in argumentative depth and conviction power if the author had distanced himself more clearly from the tempting but misleading idea that the contemporary world and philosophy are immediately transparent to a Hegelian gaze and, where they are not, then all the worse for them.

The ultimate evidence of the value of Hegel’s philosophy is the ability to seriously confront the other from itself without teleological expectations as to the outcome of this confrontation. This is the real challenge for the Hegelian turn, and out of this concern the issues I raised here are not intended so much as a criticism of Vieweg’s praiseworthy project, but rather as urges to develop it further in an even more Hegelian spirit.