Articulations of Nature and Politics in Plato and Hegel

196 Pages·2020·1.82 MB·English

by  Vicky Roupa

Articulations of
Nature and Politics in
Plato and Hegel
Vicky Roupa
Articulations of Nature and Politics
in Plato and Hegel
Vicky Roupa
Articulations
of Nature and Politics
in Plato and Hegel
Vicky Roupa
Department of Philosophy
The Open University
Milton Keynes, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-52126-4 ISBN 978-3-030-52127-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52127-1
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A
cknowledgements
Many individuals have helped me develop the ideas presented here and
have offered comments on drafts of earlier versions of this book. I would
like to thank colleagues and faculty at the University of Sussex where my
research for this project started. I am particularly grateful to Alison Stone
and Tanja Staehler for their careful reading of my work, their encourage-
ment, and valuable comments. Thank you to the philosophy department
at the University of Hertfordshire for offering me the opportunity to lec-
ture on Plato’s Republic and Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, and for
engaging with my research, especially Brendan Larvor, John Lippitt, Jane
Singleton and Daniel D. Hutto. I am also thankful to the philosophy fac-
ulty at the Open University, and especially the Head of Department,
Manuel Dries, for extending resources that allowed me to complete my
research and writing.
Earlier versions of portions of this book have been presented at various
conferences and colloquia. An earlier version of Chap. 2 was delivered at
the 2015 ‘Thinking in the Open’ Open University philosophy conference.
Chapter 4 was presented at the 2005 Hegel Society of Great Britain annual
conference on ‘Hegel and the Greeks’. Chapter 5 has been presented at
the Social and Political Thought graduate/faculty seminar at the University
of Sussex, and Chap. 6 has been presented at the conference ‘Hegelian
Philosophy: A Renaissance?’ at the University of Sheffield. I would like to
thank the organisers and participants of these conferences for their helpful
comments, especially Thom Brooks, Fabian Freyenhagen, Allegra de
Laurentiis, Stephen Houlgate, Alfredo Ferrarin, Kimberly Hutchings and
Maureen Eckert.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A big thank you to my editor, Brendan George, for his support of this
project, and to the publishing team of Palgrave Macmillan for their effi-
ciency and hard work. Finally, my gratitude goes to Persephone for chal-
lenging me and for many discussions on this book, on life, on everything.
c
ontents
1 Articulations: Of Nature and Politics 1
Part I Redefining the Natural: Language and Logic 21
2 Naming as Technē in Plato’s Cratylus 23
3 Producing the Categories of Being: The Sophist 43
4 Producing the Categories of Being: The Science of Logic 63
Part II Redefining the Natural: Society and Politics 93
5 The Question of Nature in the Republic 95
6 Between Two Paradigms of Politics 129
7 Embodying the Political 153
vii
viii CONTENTS
8 Conclusion: Towards Finitude and the Fragility of Sense 175
Index 187
A 1
bbreviAtions
writings by Hegel
GW Gesammelte Werke, ed. the Academy of Sciences of
North Rhineland- Westphalia in association with the
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Hamburg:
Felix Meiner Verlag, 1968 ff).
W G. W. F. Hegel: Werke in zwanzig Bänden, ed. Eva
Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel (Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp, 1969–1972). References to this edition
are given in the form W 5: 20, indicating volume
and page number.
Brown Lectures on the History of Philosophy 1825–6, ed.
Robert F. Brown, trans. R.F. Brown and J.M. Stewart
with the assistance of H.S. Harris. 3 vols. (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2006).
EL Encyclopaedia Logic, trans. T.F.  Geraets,
W.A.  Suchting, and H.S.  Harris (Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1991).
1 References to Plato’s dialogues are given parenthetically to the standard Stephanus pages.
All Greek cited has been transliterated. I have employed ē for eta, ō for omega and i for iota
subscript. References to Hegel’s works are given by paragraph number (§) wherever appli-
cable, otherwise the page of the English translation is given first, followed by the page num-
ber in the German edition. Remarks are cited ‘R’, additions ‘A’.
ix
x ABBREVIATIONS
Haldane & Simson Lectures on the History of Philosophy, trans.
E.S.  Haldane and Frances H.  Simson. 3 vols.
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995).
HHS Hegel and the Human Spirit: A Translation of the
Jena Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit (1805–6)
with Commentary, ed. Leo Rauch (Detroit: Wayne
State University Press, 1983).
LFA Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T.M. Knox. 2
vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).
LNR Lectures on Natural Right and Political Science: The
First Philosophy of Right, trans. J. Michael Stewart
and Peter C.  Hodgson (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1995).
LPR Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Peter
C. Hodgson, trans. P.C. Hodgson, R.F. Brown, and
J.M. Stewart with the assistance of H.S. Harris
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
‘NL’ ‘On the Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Law, on
its Place in Practical Philosophy, and its Relation to
the Positive Sciences of Right’ in Political Writings,
ed. Laurence Winant Dickey, trans. Hugh Barr
Nisbet (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1999).
PM Philosophy of Mind, trans. A.V. Miller and W. Wallace,
revised with introduction and commentary by
Michael Inwood (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007).
PN Philosophy of Nature, trans. A.V. Miller (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2004).
PR Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. Allen Wood,
trans. H.B.  Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991).
PS Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1977).
PSS Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, ed. and trans.
M.J. Petry. 3 vols. (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1978).
PW Political Writings, ed. Laurence Winant Dickey,
trans. Hugh Barr Nisbet (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1999).
SL Science of Logic, trans. A.V. Miller (London: Allen
and Unwin, 1969).