Apologist for the Prussian state? Proto-totalitarian? Or liberal? This course will cut through the misconceptions and present Hegel's political philosophy in its full complexity and subtlety, by means of a close reading of his Philosophy of Right (1821).
This is Hegel's major work in moral and political philosophy and contains a philosophical defence of modern social institutions, specifically the family, civil society (including the market), and the state. In the process, we will be able to decide whether and to what extent we agree with Hegel's famous claim that 'what is rational is actual; what is actual is rational'.