Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and the Critique of Western Modernity

This year marks the 180th anniversary of the writing of *Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right*. Domestic and international scholarship on this work has yielded rich results. Although debates have arisen over Hegel’s critique of the philosophy of the state, the shift in materialist standpoint, political philosophy, and its place in intellectual history, a certain consensus has also been reached on the whole. Marx once said, “Mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.” [1]1 Karl Marx, *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*, Preface. Social practice is constantly developing; under different historical conditions, the problem domains we attend to also differ. Standing 180 years later, how to re-understand the academic value and contemporary significance of this work on the basis of intellectual history and the Eastern and Western contexts remains a topic worthy of further reflection.

今年是《黑格尔法哲学批判》写作180周年。国内外学界关于这一著作的研究也取得了丰硕的成果，在黑格尔国家哲学批判、唯物主义立场转变、政治哲学及其思想史地位等方面虽然引发了一些争论，但总体上也达成了一些共识。马克思曾说，“任务本身，只有在解决它的物质条件已经存在或者至少是在生成过程中的时候，才会产生”。社会实践是不断发展的，在不同的时代条件下，我们关注的问题域也存在差异。站在180年后的今天，如何基于思想史和东西方语境重新理解这部著作的学术价值和时代意义，仍是值得进一步思考的课题。

The Dual Revolution and the Spirit of the Age: The Context of the Emergence of the *Elements of the Philosophy of Right*. Eric Hobsbawm once called the era in which Marx lived “the Age of Revolution” (1789–1848), that is, the age of the British Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution. If Britain conquered the world through economics, then France reshaped the world through politics. Compared with Britain and France, Germany suffered from a “temporal dislocation”: Britain and France had already completed their bourgeois revolutions, while Germany was still under the feudal system; Britain had already completed the Industrial Revolution, while Germany had not yet begun; the bourgeois systems of Britain and France had already exposed various ills, while Germany was still struggling to catch up; Britain and France had already transformed into a society ruled by wealth, while Germany still emphasized the science of the state, i.e., national economics. Therefore, compared with Britain and France, Germany was not a contemporary of world history, but a fellow traveler in philosophy and thought. As the synthesizer of German classical philosophy, Hegel, on the basis of the “invisible hand” and the “world spirit on horseback,” [2]2 “World spirit on horseback” is a phrase often attributed to Hegel, referring to Napoleon Bonaparte as the embodiment of the world spirit advancing history through military conquest. completed a speculative understanding of the British economic revolution and the French political revolution, grasping the dominant spirit of that age in an idealist manner. In the *Elements of the Philosophy of Right*, this is concentratedly expressed in the relationship between “civil society” (bürgerliche Gesellschaft) and the state, which also constitutes one of the core problem domains of the *Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right*.

双元革命与时代精神：《法哲学原理》的出场语境。霍布斯鲍姆曾将马克思生活的时代，称为“革命的年代”（1789—1848），即英国工业革命和法国革命的时代。如果说英国通过经济征服世界，那么，法国则通过政治重塑世界。与英法相比，德国则出现了“时代错乱”：英法已经完成了资产阶级革命，而德国还处于封建制度之中；英国已经完成了工业革命，德国还没起步；英法资产阶级制度已经暴露出了各种弊端，德国却还在奋力追赶；英法已经转化为社会对财富的统治，而德国却强调国家学即国民经济学。因此，与英法相比，德国不是世界历史的同时代人，而是哲学和思想上的同路人。作为德国古典哲学的集大成者，黑格尔以“看不见的手”和“马背上的精神”为基础，完成了对英国经济革命和法国政治革命的思辨理解，以唯心主义的方式把握了那个时代的主导精神，而在《法哲学原理》中则集中表现为“市民社会”（civil society/bürgerliche Gesellschaft）与国家的关系问题，这也构成了《黑格尔法哲学批判》的核心问题域之一。

From Identity to Separation: The Evolution of the Relationship between Civil Society and the State. According to Marx’s investigation, in ancient Greece, the state and civil society were not initially separated but were united as one; the state was civil society, and civil society was the political state. “In Greece, the republic (respublica) was the real private affair of the citizens… Here the political state as such is the sole true content of the life and will of the citizens.” [3]3 Karl Marx, *Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right*. In the Middle Ages, this identity reached its peak: “The spirit of the Middle Ages can be expressed as follows: the estates of civil society and the political estates were identical, because civil society was political society, because the organic principle of civil society was the principle of the state.” [4]4 Ibid. Only in the modern period did the political state gradually separate from civil society; the landmark event for this was the French Revolution. “Only the French Revolution completed the transformation of political estates into social estates, or rather, turned the estate distinctions of civil society into merely social distinctions, i.e., distinctions of private life without political significance. This completed the process of the separation of political life from civil society.” [5]5 Ibid. At the level of the political state, as citizens, everyone is a sovereign individual; at the social level, as burghers, everyone acts as a private person, and the differences between them no longer appear as political differences at the level of the state, but as social differences at the private level. In the *Elements of the Philosophy of Right*, Hegel treats civil society as a specific sphere independent of the family and the state, and explicitly states that “civil society is formed in the modern world.” [6]6 G.W.F. Hegel, *Elements of the Philosophy of Right*, §182 Addition. This judgment itself presupposes the separation of civil society from the political state. From this perspective, Hegel’s philosophy of the state is itself a result of reflecting on modern society and the French Revolution.

从同一到分离：市民社会与国家关系的演变。据马克思考证，在古希腊时期，国家与市民社会一开始并不是分离的，而是合为一体，国家就是市民社会，市民社会就是政治国家，“像希腊那样，respublica（国家，共和国。原意是公共事务）是市民的现实私人事务……在这里，政治国家作为政治国家是市民的生活和意志的真正的惟一的内容”。到了中世纪，这种同一达到了顶峰，“中世纪的精神可以表述如下：市民社会的等级和政治意义上的等级是同一的，因为市民社会就是政治社会，因为市民社会的有机原则就是国家的原则”。只是到了近现代，政治国家才逐渐与市民社会分离开来，它的标志性事件就是法国大革命，“只有法国革命才完成了从政治等级到社会等级的转变过程，或者说，使市民社会的等级差别完全变成了社会差别，即没有政治意义的私人生活的差别。这样就完成了政治生活同市民社会分离的过程”。在政治国家层面，作为公民，每个人都是有主权的人；而在社会层面，作为市民，每个人又都是作为私人进行活动的，他们之间的差异不再表现为国家层面上的政治差异，而是表现为私人层面上的社会差异。在《法哲学原理》中，黑格尔将市民社会看作与家庭和国家相独立的具体环节，并明确指认“市民社会是在现代世界中形成的”，这一判断本身就是以市民社会与政治国家的分离为前提的。从这个角度来说，黑格尔的国家哲学本身就是对近现代社会和法国大革命反思的结果。

From Political Community to a System of Mutual Dependence of Needs: The Deepening of the Connotation of Civil Society. What is the civil society that Hegel speaks of? This involves two layers of logical transformation. The first is the transformation from the ancient city-state political community to the modern bourgeois political community. Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Ferguson, and others also mentioned civil society, but here civil society referred more to a bourgeois political community different from the aristocratic political community of the past. The second is the transformation from the bourgeois political community to an economic exchange association. Adam Smith, based on the logic of division of labor and exchange, elaborated the transformation from natural needs to social needs: previously, the satisfaction of needs relied mainly on one’s own labor, but now it no longer relies on oneself; instead, it must rely on the labor of others mediated by exchange. Thus, the whole society evolves into an interwoven and interdependent system of needs composed of labor, division of labor, exchange, and demand. Lukács pointed out that “the study of Smith constitutes the turning point in Hegel’s intellectual development.” [7]7 Georg Lukács, *The Young Hegel*. In terms of the theory of civil society, this judgment is correct. Around 1800, Hegel read Smith’s *The Wealth of Nations*; in the *Jena Lectures* of 1803–1804, he explicitly mentioned Smith and characterized the society Smith described as a “system of labor and the mutual dependence of needs.” [8]8 G.W.F. Hegel, *Jena Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit* (1803–1804). According to Habermas’s investigation, Hegel had not yet used “civil society” to refer to modern society at that time; this was accomplished in the *Elements of the Philosophy of Right*. The author of the English preface to Ferguson’s *An Essay on the History of Civil Society* points out that Hegel’s “bürgerliche Gesellschaft” likely came from the German translation of Ferguson’s “civil society.” “Hegel read and used Ferguson’s work, and with the help of the German translation of Ferguson, made the concept of ‘bürgerliche Gesellschaft’ a prominent concept in German academic circles.” [9]9 Preface to the English edition of Adam Ferguson’s *An Essay on the History of Civil Society*. However, there is a key difference in connotation between Ferguson’s “civil society” and Hegel’s “bürgerliche Gesellschaft.” In the *Elements of the Philosophy of Right*, Hegel states that civil society refers to “the mediation of need and the satisfaction of the individual through his own labor and through the labor and satisfaction of the needs of all others – the system of needs.” [10]10 G.W.F. Hegel, *Elements of the Philosophy of Right*, §188. From this perspective, Hegel reconstructed the connotation of civil society on the basis of Smith.

从政治共同体到相互依赖的需要体系：市民社会的内涵深化。什么是黑格尔所说的市民社会？这里面涉及两层逻辑转换。一是从古代城邦政治共同体到近代资产阶级政治共同体的转换。霍布斯、洛克、卢梭和弗格森等也都提到了市民社会，但这里的市民社会更多地是指与过去贵族政治共同体不同的资产阶级政治共同体。二是从资产阶级政治共同体到经济交换结合体的转换。斯密基于分工和交换逻辑，阐述了从自然需要到社会需要的转变：之前需要的满足主要是依靠自己的劳动，而现在不再是依靠自己，而是要以交换为中介依靠他人的劳动，于是，整个社会就演化为由劳动、分工、交换和需求组成的相互交织、相互依赖的需要体系。卢卡奇指出，“对斯密的研究构成了黑格尔思想的发展转折点”。就市民社会理论而言，这一判断是正确的。在1800年前后，黑格尔阅读了斯密的《国富论》，在1803—1804年《耶拿讲稿》中也明确提到了斯密，并将斯密描述的那个社会定位为“劳动和需要相互依赖的体系”。据哈贝马斯考证，此时黑格尔还未使用“市民社会”来称呼现代社会，这一点是在《法哲学原理》中完成的。弗格森《市民社会史》英文序言作者指出，黑格尔的“bürgerliche Gesellschaft”可能来自弗格森的“civil society”的德语翻译，“黑格尔阅读和使用了弗格森的著作，并在弗格森德文译本的帮助下，使‘bürgerliche Gesellschaft’概念成为了德国学术圈的显学”。不过，弗格森的“civil society”和黑格尔的“bürgerliche Gesellschaft”在内涵上却存在关键差异。在《法哲学原理》中，黑格尔指出，市民社会是指“通过个人的劳动以及通过其他一切人的劳动与需要的满足，使需要得到中介，个人得到满足——即需要的体系”。从这个角度而言，黑格尔是以斯密为基础重构了市民社会的内涵。

However, Hegel’s purpose was not to agree with Smith, but to surpass him, or rather, to propose a German philosophy of the state and governance scheme different from those of Britain and France, based on the Germanic context. Smith believed that the universalization of exchange would inevitably form an “invisible hand” independent of any individual will; under its effect, the whole society would ultimately achieve the harmonious development of individual interest and the general interest. Therefore, Smith adhered to the principle of *laissez-faire* and opposed state intervention in civil society. Hegel, on the other hand, believed that the “invisible hand” meant that individual reason could not only fail to control civil society, but would instead be manipulated by it, turning civil society into a battlefield of all against all. Therefore, Germany could not follow the principle of liberalism; it had to take the opposite path, namely, to overcome the antinomy of civil society by means of state-collective reason. This is also the internal logic behind Hegel’s proposition that the state determines civil society. Hegel’s philosophy of the state is itself a critique of political economy. In this regard, if one does not understand the British Industrial Revolution and classical economics, nor the historical changes in Western European society, it is still quite difficult to enter the context of the *Elements of the Philosophy of Right*.

不过，黑格尔的目的并不是要赞同斯密，而是要超越他，或者说是要基于日耳曼语境提出一种不同于英法的德国国家哲学和治理方案。斯密认为，交换的普遍化必然会形成一种不以任何个人意志为转移的“看不见的手”，在后者的作用下，整个社会最终会实现个人利益与整体利益的协调发展。因此，斯密坚守“自由放任”原则，反对国家对市民社会的干预。而黑格尔则认为，“看不见的手”意味着，个人理性不仅无法控制市民社会，反而会被其所操控，将市民社会演化为一切人反对一切人的战场。因此，德国不可能遵奉自由主义原则，必须走相反的道路，即借助国家—集体理性来克服市民社会的二律背反，这也是黑格尔提出国家决定市民社会的内在逻辑。黑格尔的国家哲学本身就是一种政治经济学批判。就此而言，如果不懂得英国经济革命和古典经济学，不理解西欧社会的历史变迁，想进入《法哲学原理》的语境还是比较困难的。

From the Critique of the “Copy” to the Critique of the “Original”: Marx’s Theoretical Approach. After encountering the problem of material interests, Marx became skeptical of Hegel’s rationalist conception of the state. In order to clarify the historical relationship between the state and civil society in Europe, Marx read a large number of historical-political works, wrote the five notebooks of the *Kreuznach Notebooks*, and on this basis directly directed his critical thrust against Hegel’s philosophy of the state and right, completing the *Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right*. However, at this time Marx had not yet read the “civil society” section of the *Elements of the Philosophy of Right*, but began directly with the chapter on “the state”; moreover, since Marx had not yet studied classical political economy, he clearly lacked the economic background needed to enter into Hegel’s theory of civil society—this was only completed later. In Marx’s view, Hegel’s state is nothing but the incarnation of absolute spirit in the real world; when he uses idealist state philosophy to sublate the objective inversion of civil society, this is itself a kind of logical mysticism. Therefore, Marx’s critique of Hegel begins first with the critique of the “copy,” i.e., the philosophy of the state. By employing Feuerbach’s method of inverting subject and predicate, he reveals the speculative essence of Hegel’s philosophy of the state and right, completing the transition from general idealism to philosophical materialism. However, as Marx himself says, “the abstraction of the state as such belongs only to modern times… the abstraction of the political state is a modern product.” [11]11 Marx, “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law,” *MECW* vol. 3, p. 31. Hegel’s philosophy of the state is merely the speculative product of modern abstraction; therefore, it is insufficient to remain solely in the realm of philosophy. The critique of the “copy” must be advanced to the critique of the “original,” i.e., the modern political state itself. In Marx’s view, the modern representative state is in essence “the constitution of private property.” [12]12 Marx, *Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right*, *MECW* vol. 3, p. 79. Whatever kind of civil society exists, there will be a corresponding state; the separation of the two necessarily leads to the political alienation of human beings themselves. Therefore, to eliminate this alienation, the separation between the state and civil society must be eliminated; to eliminate the latter, the right to vote must be expanded, developing Lockean representative democracy into a genuine people’s democracy in Rousseau’s sense. At this point, Marx realized that although Hegel saw the paradox of modern civil society, he used conceptual logic to resolve real contradictions—this is an idealist philosophical inversion. As a backward Prussian kingdom, Germany had not yet experienced an English- or French-style civil society, either politically or economically. Hegel sought to construct, on the basis of backward Germany, a philosophy of the state different from that of England and France, in the hope of overcoming the paradoxes that had emerged in English- and French-style civil society. This is in essence nothing but a beautiful aspiration produced by Germany’s temporal dislocation. [13]13 “Temporal dislocation” (时代错位, *Zeitverschiebung*) refers to Marx’s argument that Germany’s political and economic backwardness relative to England and France meant that Hegel’s philosophy of the state was an anachronistic attempt to solve problems that had not yet fully developed in Germany. Hegel did not understand that the state born on the foundation of modern civil society can only be the modern bourgeois political state, not the state he posited as the incarnation of absolute spirit; more importantly, this kind of state not only cannot resolve the internal contradictions of civil society, but on the contrary further reinforces the dominant logic of modern civil society, degenerating into a protective shield for private property.

从“副本”到“原本”批判：马克思的理论进路。遭遇物质利益难题之后，马克思对黑格尔理性主义国家观产生了质疑。为了搞清楚欧洲历史上的国家与市民社会的关系，马克思先后阅读了大量历史—政治书籍，写下了5个笔记本的《克罗茨纳赫笔记》，并在此基础上，直接将批判矛头指向了黑格尔的国家与法哲学，完成了《黑格尔法哲学批判》。不过，此时马克思并没有阅读《法哲学原理》的“市民社会”部分，而是直接从“国家”章开始的，再加上此时马克思尚未研习古典政治经济学，导致马克思明显缺乏进入黑格尔市民社会理论的经济学背景，而这些恰恰是在后来才完成的。在马克思看来，黑格尔的国家不过是绝对精神在现实世界中的化身，当他用唯心主义国家哲学来扬弃市民社会的客观颠倒时本身就是一种逻辑的神秘主义。因此，马克思对黑格尔的批判首先是从对“副本”即国家哲学的批判开始的，他借助于费尔巴哈的主谓颠倒方法，揭示了黑格尔国家与法哲学的思辨本质，完成了从一般唯心主义到哲学唯物主义的转变。不过，就像马克思所说的那样，“国家本身的抽象只是现代才有……政治国家的抽象是现代的产物”。黑格尔的国家哲学不过是现代抽象的思辨产物，因此仅仅停留在哲学领域还是不够的，必须将对“副本”的批判推进到对“原本”即现代政治国家本身的批判。在马克思看来，现代代议制国家在本质上是“私有财产的政体”，有什么样的市民社会，就会有什么样的国家，二者的分离必然导致人自身的政治异化。因此，要消除这种异化，就必须消除国家与市民社会的分离，而要消除后者，就要扩大选举权，将洛克式的代议制民主发展为卢梭意义上的真正的人民民主制。到了这里，马克思意识到，黑格尔虽然看到了现代市民社会的悖论，但他却用观念逻辑来解决现实矛盾，这是一种唯心主义的哲学颠倒。作为落后的普鲁士王国，日耳曼在政治和经济上都尚未经历英法式的市民社会，黑格尔力图基于落后的德国来建构一种不同于英法的国家哲学，以期来克服英法式市民社会出现的悖论，这在本质上不过是德国时代错位所造成的一种美好期冀。黑格尔不理解在现代市民社会基础上诞生的国家只可能是现代资产阶级政治国家，而不可能是他所设定的作为绝对精神化身的国家；更重要的是，这种国家不仅解决不了市民社会的内在矛盾，反而会进一步强化现代市民社会的主导逻辑，沦为私有财产的保护罩。

In sum, the *Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right* is an early work of Marx’s, in which many ideas were still being gestated, formed, and developed. However, from the perspective of Marx’s later intellectual development and the historical trajectories of England, Germany, and France, the ideas revealed in this work still possess a contemporary value that cannot be ignored. On the one hand, it elucidates the evolutionary logic of the individual–civil society–state structure of Western modernization. Although Hegel and Marx held opposite views on some issues, they were highly consistent regarding the evolutionary logic of modern Western society: modern civil society constitutes the social foundation of Western modernity, and the individual–civil society–state structure constitutes the internal structure of modern Western society. In Marx’s words, modern civil society could only be nurtured within the Christian world of the West; only through the civilizing influence of Christianity could it be possible to sever all blood- and semi-blood, patriarchal and semi-patriarchal relations, liberate the individual from the community and from various bonds, and give birth to the atomistic individual in the modern sense; likewise, only on the foundation of modern civil society could the modern Western political state be born. On this issue, Marx’s important advance lies in the following: although Hegel had read Ricardo, he understood civil society only in Smith’s sense as a system of mutual dependence based on needs—that is, he defined the essence of civil society in terms of social needs. Marx, by contrast, advanced the narrow sense of civil society (distinct from the broad sense of civil society as “the totality of material relations of life”) to the height of a critique of the capitalist mode of production, completing the essential determination of modern society and Western modernity. Ironically, however, Hegel’s claim that the state intervenes in civil society was later realized in practice in the New Deal, Keynesianism, and the welfare state. Yet the “state” there was not Hegel’s “state,” but the bourgeois political state. Even more paradoxically, neither Smith’s logic of civil society nor Hegel’s logic of the state has been able to resolve the paradox of civil society itself. Even today, when Western state power is once again “exporting” itself forcefully, it still cannot transcend Marx’s judgment of that time: it is not the state that determines civil society, but civil society that determines the state!

总之，《黑格尔法哲学批判》是马克思的一部早期著作，其中很多思想还处在酝酿、形成和发展之中，但从后来马克思的思想发展和英德法的发展历程来看，这部著作所揭示的思想依然具有不可忽视的当代价值。一方面，它阐明了西方现代化的个人—市民社会—国家结构的演进逻辑。黑格尔和马克思虽然在一些问题上存在相反的认识，但就西方近代社会的演化逻辑而言还是具有高度一致性的，即近代市民社会构成了西方现代性的社会基础，而个人—市民社会—国家构成了西方近代社会的内在结构。用马克思的话来说，近代市民社会只有在西方基督教世界中才能孕育出来；只有经过基督教的教化，才有可能斩断一切血缘—半血缘、宗法—半宗法式的关系，把个体从共同体和各种束缚中解放出来，孕育出现代意义上的原子式个人；同样，也只有在近代市民社会的基础上，才能孕育出西方现代意义上的政治国家。在这一问题上，马克思做的重要推进在于：黑格尔虽然读过李嘉图的著作，但他只是在斯密的意义上把市民社会理解为相互依赖的需要体系，即基于社会需要来定位市民社会的本质；而马克思则把狭义的市民社会（区别于作为“物质的生活关系的总和”的广义市民社会）推进到资本主义生产方式批判的高度，完成对现代社会和西方现代性的本质定位。但讽刺的是，黑格尔所说的国家对市民社会的干预，在后来的罗斯福新政、凯恩斯主义和福利国家的实践中变成了现实，然而，那里的“国家”并不是黑格尔意义上的“国家”，而是资产阶级政治国家；更吊诡的是，不论是斯密的市民社会逻辑还是黑格尔的国家逻辑都未能解决市民社会自身的悖论问题，即便是在西方国家权力再次强势“输出”的今天，依然未能超脱马克思当年的判断：不是国家决定市民社会，而是市民社会决定国家！

Web editor: Paul

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