Kervégan begins with Hegel’s term “objective spirit,” the public manifestation of our deepest commitments, the binding norms that shape our existence as subjects and agents. He examines objective spirit in three realms: the notion of right, the theory of society, and the state. In conversation with Tocqueville and other theorists of democracy, whether in the Anglophone world or in Europe, Kervégan shows how Hegel—often associated with grand metaphysical ideas—actually had a specific conception of civil society and the state. In Hegel’s view, public institutions represent the fulfillment of deep subjective needs—and in that sense, demonstrate that the real is the rational, because what surrounds us is the product of our collective mindedness. This groundbreaking analysis will guide the study of Hegel and nineteenth-century political thought for years to come.

Prologue: The Actual and the Rational

PART I The Law: The Positivity of Abstraction

Preliminary: The Objectivity of Willing

1 Law: Its Concept and Actualizations

2 Between Nature and History: The Law

3 Contract: The Legal Conditions of the Social

PART II The Vitality and Flaws of the Social

Preliminary: The Archeology of Society

4 “Citoyen” versus “Bourgeois”? The Quest for the “Spirit of the Whole

5 The State of Law: Civil Society

6 “Ethicality Lost in Its Extremes”

PART III The State and the Political

Preliminary: The Enduring Myth of the Philosopher of the Prussian State

7 Tocqueville-Hegel: A Silent Dialogue on Modernity

8 A Theory of Representation

9 Beyond Democracy

PART IV Figures of Subjectivity in Objective Spirit: Normativity and Institutions

Preliminary: Strong and Weak Institutionalism

10 The Truth of Morality

11 The Conditions of Political Subjectivity

12 Subjects, Norms, and Institutions: What Is an Ethical Life?

Epilogue: The Passion of the Concept

Translator’s Note

Bibliography

Index