Table Of ContentNatural Law
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G. W. F. Hegel
Natural Law
The Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law,
Its Place in Moral Philosophy,
and Its Relation to the Positive Sciences of Law
Translated by T. M. Knox
Introduction by H. B. Acton
Foreword by John R. Silber
PENN
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia
Copyright © 1975 University of Pennsylvania Press
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Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4011
Published originally under the title: UBER DIE WISSENSCHAFTLICHEN
BEHANDLUNGSARTEN DBS NATURRECHTS, SEINE STELLE IN DER PRAKTISCHEN
PHILOSOPHIE, UND SEIN VERHALTNISS ZU DEN POSITIVEN
HECHTSWISSENSCHAFTEN
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 75-10123
ISBN 0-8122-1083-2
Contents
Foreword, by John R. Silber 7
Introduction, by H. B. Acton 9
Translator's Note 49
The Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law, Its Place
in Moral Philosophy, and Its Relation to the Positive
Sciences of Law 53
Index 135
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Foreword
Perhaps no other philosopher poses greater difficulties for his
readers or promises greater rewards for diligent study than Hegel.
In writing of the dividends to be derived from the "supreme
thought-treasure" of Hegel's works, John N. Findlay has rightly
praised Hegel's "stock of invaluable methodological principles by
which one's own thought may be guided."
Among these principles is Hegel's concern to preserve the unity of
thought and reality, his concern to avoid the bifurcation of the
abstract and the concrete, the ideal and the actual. Hegel's thought
exemplifies a singleminded concern to avoid what Whitehead later
would call "the fallacy of misplaced concreteness." Acutely aware
of the philosophical and scientific tendencies to ignore the level of
abstraction involved in our description of things, our habit of
accepting some reduced and thereby distorted account of the object
of thought in lieu of a genuine explanation, Hegel was concerned to
comprehend—that is, to transcend a merely manipulative
understanding of the world. He was contemptuous of accounts of
the world that are merely possible, or that are incomplete and
arbitrary descriptions of parts of the world distorted by isolation.
He insisted on a philosophical account that could claim to be more
than arbitrary, exhaustively concrete, and absolute in its
comprehensive interrelatedness.
Nowhere are these central concerns more clearly evidenced in
brief scope than in Hegel's essay on Natural Law. Appearing at the
very beginning of Hegel's prolific philosophical life, this essay
provides a useful prologue, both in content and in methodology
(which are for Hegel quite inseparable), to what follows. In this
early essay are readily apparent Hegel's demonstration of the
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8 FOREWORD
incompleteness of both formalism and scientific empiricism and his
insistence on a pure empiricism and a complete formalism,
sustained by concepts that are genuinely absolute. Hegel's intentions
stand out in bold relief as he struggles for the movements of thought
by which to fulfill them. It is easier, I believe, to understand the full
import of Hegel's mature formulations of his basic position when
one attends their emergence in this brilliant formative work that,
despite its brevity, reveals the comprehensiveness characteristic of
Hegel's most extensive writings.
The reader should find substantial assistance in the following
introduction by H. B. Acton, which offers a useful commentary on
the historical and philosophical background of the Natural Law and
an exposition and analysis of many of its central issues. In section I,
Acton places the Natural Law in its immediate historical context and
then, in section II, traces Hegel's early philosophical development.
In section III, Acton examines Hegel's treatment of natural law
within the context of "pure" as opposed to "scientific" empiricism.
Hegel's struggle with the formalism of Kant's theory of morality is
discussed in section IV, and is followed in section V by a detailed
discussion of the relation of the ethical life and the role of law in civil
society that distinguishes Hegel's political philosophy from that of
Fichte. In section VI, Acton illuminates Hegel's organic view of the
ethical life and his conception of the individual as simultaneously a
part and a whole of a society. A discussion of Hegel's view of history
concludes the introduction.
Acton's introduction should bring the Natural Law within the
grasp of the beginning student of Hegel while providing a level of
scholarship and insight to interest the mature philosopher. This
splendid introduction is, lamentably, the last work of Professor
Acton, who died soon after its completion.
The translation, by Sir Malcolm Knox, Professor Emeritus of the
University of St. Andrews, brings Hegel's ideas faithfully into
English. His mastery of Hegel's thought has been indispensable to
the success of this translation.
John R. Silber
Introduction
I
Hegel's essay The Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law
appeared in two consecutive parts (December 1802 and May 1803)
of the Kritisches Journal der Philosophie.l This Journal ran from
January 1802 until May 1803 and was edited by "Fr. Wilh. Joseph
Schelling and Ge. Wilhelm Fr. Hegel" who between them wrote all
the contents. The general aims of the Kritisches Journal are stated in
an announcement of its forthcoming publication in the Literatur-
Zeitung (December, 1801) and in the Introduction to the first issue
entitled "On the Essence of Philosophical Criticism in General, and
its Relation to the Present condition of Philosophy in Particular."
The announcement refers to "the categorical nature of philosophy,"
to its "points of contact with the whole of culture" and to "the true
rebirth of all sciences through philosophy," while the Introduction
expresses hostility to any philosophical claims on behalf of "the
healthy human understanding," by relation to which philosophy is
said to inhabit "a world in reverse" (verkehrte Welt) .2 The "Idea of
the Absolute" is presented as rejecting the opposition between idea
and reality, between what should be and what is, and the opposition
involved in the conception of "an infinite demand." The authors
seem not only to be rejecting the philosophy and categories of
Common Sense, but also to be hinting at disagreement with Kant
and Fichte. Critical Philosophy, as Schelling and Hegel see it, rejects
the categories of Common Sense and is no longer satisfied with any
"polarity of the inner and the outer" or of "here and beyond." The
dualism of Descartes is also attacked and said to be "a dualism in the
culture of the modern history of our northwestern world, the decline
of a whole mode of aging life, of which the quieter transformations
of the public life of men and the noisy revolutions in politics and
religion are only variegated manifestations."
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