Idealism, Politics and History
Sources of Hegelian Thought

Through a series of linked studies, this text provides a wide-ranging analysis of the meeting of two vital themes in the French Revolutionary period.

George Armstrong Kelly (Author)

9780521143226, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 10 June 2010

404 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm, 0.76 kg

In Idealism, Politics and History, Mr Kelly provides a wide-ranging but careful scholarly analysis of the meeting of two vital themes in the French Revolutionary period: intellectual and moral perceptions of history, and the patterns of political systems. He argues that a close exploration of the former is critical to our understanding of political philosophy at the end of the Age of Reason. The author traces his central preoccupations in a series of linked studies of Rousseau, Kant, Fichte and Hegel. Each essay is in its own right an important contribution to the history of political ideas. Cumulatively, they furnish a context of thought in which Hegel's system of thought can be clarified and reinterpreted. Mr Kelly thus succeeds not only in conveying an appreciation of the connection between philosophy and politics in Hegel, but in tracing the stages of an entire school of interpretation.

Preface
Part I: Introduction
Part II. J.-J. Rousseau: The Land of Chimeras and the Land Prejudices: 1. History, anti-history and the moral ego
2. Images of integration
Part III. Immanuel Kant: The Rationalization of the Chimera: 1. Introduction: the German political consciousness
2. Morality, knowledge and historical vision
3. Humanity, time and freedom
4. The ambivalence of progress
5. Problems of politics
6. The teleology of practical reason
Part IV. J.G. Fichte: The Chimera Dogmatized: 1. Fichte: introduction and tendencies
2. Metaphysics and consciousness
3. Legality and morality
4. History as logic: the logic of history
5. Cosmic nationalism
6. Education and the future community
Part V. G.W.F. Hegel: The Chimera Preserved: 1. Hegel denies the potency of the future
2. A political context
Part VI: Epilogue: The Future Unredeemed
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP]