The concept of “historical judgment” as a category of Hegel’s philosophy of law

The authors of the article proceed from the fact that in the Hegelian philosophy of law, the discursive content of the notion “court of history” has not received a detailed explication, and it must be reconstructed on the basis of the entire context of Hegel’s philosophy. Hegel’s spiritual understanding of history is inextricably linked with his understanding of the role of Christianity in the history of mankind and in the formation of history itself as an integral process. According to the authors, in his Christology, Hegel connects together religious issues, the definition of the meaning of history and his interpretation of the essence of law and state. Thus, following Hegel, one can philosophically understand history (“Geschichte”) as the highest court and rationally interpret the concept of the highest court as a category of philosophy of law. History, which contains the mystery of the “Sacred History”, turns out to be the highest instance of law and state.

Royal Wet Nurses in Seventh- and Early Eighth-Century China: Historiographical Evaluation and Narrative Construction

The women who served as wet nurses to powerful and in some cases notorious members of the Tang royal family appear in written materials in various capacities in relation to prominent historical actors. An analysis of historical narratives involving these women indicates that their portrayals were strongly influenced by the historian’s mode of moral assessment, in particular, the historical judgment meted out upon their controversial charges. The manipulation in historical narrative of royal wet nurses thus elucidates a fascinating example of the operation of “praise and blame” in traditional historiography. Wet nurses are used as narrative pawns to emphasize the historical judgment of their famous former charges and become a vehicle or mouthpiece for historical evaluation.

El juicio y la banalidad del mal en Hannah Arendt. The Trial and Banality of Evil in Hannah Arendt

Este artículo discute sobre la posibilidad de realizar juicios morales e históricos y sobre cómo éstos trascienden al mero juicio legal, ilustrado a través de la obra de Hannah Aren- dt: Eichmann en Jerusalén: un estudio sobre la banalidad del mal. Asimismo, se profundiza en la teoría arendtiana de la banalidad del mal y la relación que ésta tiene con los diferentes tipos de juicio implícitos en el proceso de Jerusalén, así como la incapacidad de ejercer un juicio, y las consecuencias que eso conlleva al imposibilitar la re exión y las respuestas personales ante los con ictos morales. Se relaciona el juicio histórico con la pregunta sobre el impacto de las acciones individuales en la historia. This paper discusses the possibility of making moral and historical judgements, and if these transcend the sheer legal judgment by using the works of Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jeru- salem: A Study of Evil’s Banality. In addition, I consider Arendt’s theory of the banality of Evil and the relationship of this with other kinds of judgments implicit in the alleged process of Jerusalem. I also consider the incapacity of casting judgment, and the consequences that this bears when incapacitates for re ection and personal responses to moral con ict. I also relate the historical judgment with the question about the impact of individual actions in history.

Brotherhood in Dispossession: State Violence and the Ethics of Expectation in Turkey

The category of minority has been constitutive of the concept of the people in Turkey, distilling those who do not belong to the history and destiny of the nation from those who do. Minority, in this sense, is not simply a demographic classification, nor merely a matter of legal recognition. It carries the weight of a historical judgment, which scaffolds political community by delineating which populations, languages, and religions remain beyond the framework of collective obligation and responsibility. This essay examines comments delivered by a pro-Kurdish political party and a largely Kurdish mothers-of-the-disappeared group during Turkey’s Gezi Park protests of 2013. These moments of public address participated in the broader spirit of state critique on display during those demonstrations. They were noteworthy, however, for recasting the Gezi events as a late occurrence in a longer history of state violence, prefigured by a century of dispossession experienced by those who have been classed as minorities or threatened with that designation. The essay asks how these invocations of history enabled interventions into imagined futures. The commentaries were not primarily aimed at repudiating the historical judgment of minority as discriminatory or contrary to law, but instead sought to delocalize the judgment vested in the category of minority, to see in that judgment an increasingly generalized economy of state violence, and to view it as prefiguring a political community to come.

Arminius on Justification

Much attention has been drawn to Jacob Arminius’s (1560–1609) views on predestination, especially given the eventual rejection of those views by the Synod of Dort (1618–1619). However what some may not realize is that Arminius’s doctrine of justification, especially as it relates to the role and function of faith, was also a source of contention. Historically Reformed theologians viewed faith as purely instrumental in justification, whereas Arminius construed it as foundational. The difference between the two positions can be illustrated in the difference between two prepositions: justification per (through or by) faith vs. justification propter (on account of) faith. Arminius’s views were subsequently rejected by three Reformed confessions, the Canons of Dort, the Irish Articles (1615), and the Westminster Confession (1647). This essay therefore argues, pace much of the recent literature on the subject, that Arminius’s doctrine of justification is Protestant, in that it is not Roman Catholic, but it is not Reformed according to the definitions set forth by its historic confessions—this is a historical judgment, not a dogmatic one.