Hegel's Practical Philosophy
Rational Agency as Ethical Life

Using a detailed analysis of key Hegelian texts, Robert Pippin reveals the bearing of Hegel's claims on many contemporary issues.

Robert B. Pippin (Author)

9780521728720, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 30 October 2008

320 pages
22.7 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.51 kg

'Robert Pippin is a fine philosopher and he has delivered a fine book.' The Philosophical Quarterly

This fresh and original book argues that the central questions in Hegel's practical philosophy are the central questions in modern accounts of freedom: What is freedom, or what would it be to act freely? Is it possible so to act? And how important is leading a free life? Robert Pippin argues that the core of Hegel's answers is a social theory of agency, the view that agency is not exclusively a matter of the self-relation and self-determination of an individual but requires the right sort of engagement with and recognition by others. Using a detailed analysis of key Hegelian texts, he develops this interpretation to reveal the bearing of Hegel's claims on many contemporary issues, including much-discussed core problems in the liberal democratic tradition. His important study will be valuable for all readers who are interested in Hegel's philosophy and in the modern problems of agency and freedom.

Acknowledgements
Part I. Spirit: 1. Introduction: leading a free life
2. Naturalness and mindedness: Hegel's compatibilism
3. On giving oneself the law
4. The actualization of freedom
Part II. Freedom: 5. The freedom of the will: Psychological dimensions
6. The freedom of the will: social dimensions
Part III. Sociality: 7. Hegelian sociality: recognitive status
8. Recognition and politics
9. Institutional rationality
10. Concluding remarks.

Subject Areas: History of Western philosophy [HPC], Philosophy [HP]