Ancient and Modern States

Whatever Hegel thought in his mature years of his youthful enthusiasm for the Greek polis, it is clear that in the Philosophy of Right and in the Objective Spirit in the Encyclopædia ancient models have a more than limited role to play. In a modern political organization of associated life the requirements and conditions are so different from classical Greece that it hardly makes sense to compare and contrast Aristotle's Politics with Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Unlike other parts of their philosophies, a relation here becomes especially problematic because the respective theoretical foundations of the philosophy of politics are so relative to their historical circumstances and, as Hegel himself says of the Politics, so “positive” (VGPh 225), that it appears hardly meaningful, rather than a daunting task, to examine Hegel's debt to, appropriation and discussion of, and distance from, Aristotle. To discourage us even more, it is in the context of political discussions in particular that Hegel reiterates on numerous occasions that the individual is the child of his age, and that philosophy is its own time apprehended in thought (PhR Preface; W 7: 26, Knox 11).