Hegel’s Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life (review)

2009 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-113
Author(s):  
Liz Disley
Keyword(s):  
Practical Philosophy ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Rational Agency

scholarly journals Philosophy and war: Hegel’s therapeutic movement of the spirit

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 87-104
Author(s):  
Rastko Jovanov
Keyword(s):  
Social World ◽  
Practical Philosophy ◽  
Duty Of Care ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Ethical Duty ◽  
General Terms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Therapeutic Function ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Therapeutic Dimension

In addition to Axel Honneth?s thesis on the therapeutic function of the concept of ethical life in Hegel?s philosophy, I want to underline two moments which, to my mind, show Hegel?s views on the therapeutic dimension of both philosophy and the war against the pathology of civil society more clearly. In this context, (a) philosophy performs a corrective function by fostering the individual?s virtue conceived as an ethical duty of care both for oneself and for others. The main aim of Hegel?s practical philosophy is hence to return the individual from abstract subjective concepts to his concrete everyday intersubjective practices, and to show him the way to understand himself and the social world as originally related to each other; (b) one of the main problems for the moral development of individuals consists in their propensity to perceive the good in particularist and selfish terms: in this context events such as natural disasters or wars can be seen as performing a therapeutic function by teaching individuals to view the good in more principled and general terms.

Hegel’s Jena Practical Philosophy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Nance
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Practical Philosophy ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Private Interests ◽  
Struggle For Recognition ◽  
Liberal Individualism ◽  
Community Attachments ◽  
Culminating Project ◽  
Coherent Picture

This chapter examines the development of Hegel’s Jena social and political philosophy prior to the publication of the Phenomenology, with a focus on Hegel’s engagement with Fichte. Hegel’s culminating project in his Jena practical philosophy involves synthesizing two social ideals: classical Greek communitarianism and modern liberal individualism. According to Hegel’s conception, the classical communitarian ideal threatens a form of nihilism: the destruction of free, independent subjectivity. The modern individualist ideal, by contrast, threatens atomism: the breakdown of community attachments in favor of the pursuit of private interests. Hegel’s Jena project is to avoid nihilism and atomism by synthesizing the two ideals into one coherent picture of ethical life. Two related conceptual innovations prove crucial to this project: first, the idea that human agency is formed through a struggle for recognition; and second, the idea that modern ethical life is a shape of objective spirit.

Freedom in Hegel: Contra Pippin

2015 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Englander
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Change ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Rational Agency ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Social Attachments

Abstract:The Kantian concept of self-legislation plays a central role in Robert Pippin’s influential interpretation of Hegel’s theory of freedom. I isolate two competing notions of freedom present within Pippin’s own specification of the concept: freedom as reflective transparency and freedom as self-identification with one’s deeds. The former is compatible with Hegel’s own quasi-Spinozist conception of freedom and allows for historical conceptual change. It is also consistent with Pippin’s truly Hegelian contention that the justification of “modern ethical life” must assume the form of a historical, developmental account, and that a plurality of our moral and social attachments can be integral to our freedom. The ideal of self-identification. however, and Pippin’s development of it in terms of self-legislation and a theory of the normative social conditions of rational agency, involves a dichotomous conception of freedom that is incompatible with Hegel’s. Pippin’s ultimate privileging of self-legislation thus introduces a tension into his account and prevents him from achieving his distinctly Hegelian ambitions.

Aristotle on the Truth About Practical Ends

Apeiron ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christiana Megan Meyvis Olfert
Keyword(s):  
Recent Literature ◽  
Practical Philosophy ◽  
Rational Agency ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future

AbstractAristotle holds that rational agents can think true thoughts about their practical ends. Specifically, we can think true thoughts about whether our ends are good and able to be brought about in action. But what makes these thoughts true? What sort of thing is a practical end, such that it both is good, and also may be brought about in the future? These questions are difficult to answer. They are metaphysical questions about Aristotle’s practical philosophy: they ask what practical ends are, such that they can make true certain parts of our practical thinking. What is more, key claims in Aristotle’s account of rational agency seem to make it impossible for thoughts about our practical ends to ever, in fact, be true. Given the ways in which we think about our ends, there seems to be nothing in the world to which these thoughts truthfully correspond. In this paper, I identify and solve two puzzles for Aristotle’s claim that we can think true thoughts about our practical ends. These puzzles have not been discussed in recent literature, but they have potentially wide-reaching consequences for Aristotle’s account of rational agency and motivation. My solution offers a novel account of the metaphysics of practical ends, which explains how these ends can be truth-makers for our thoughts about them. I argue that we should understand practical ends on the model of first actualities, which are also second potentialities. The idea that some actualities are also potentialities is a complicated one, but as I hope to show, it yields a straightforward and illuminating conception of practical ends. It also adds a crucial metaphysical component to Aristotle’s account of rational agency, one which shows how this account is internally consistent.

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