The logical structure of civil society in Hegel's "Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts"

This work presents an interpretation of Hegel's account of civil society as an argument establishing the sovereignty of the state. Against standard English language studies, I maintain that Hegel's decisive contribution to the problem of sovereignty must be interpreted in terms of the dialectical logic that provides the basic categories for his general philosophical system. I argue specifically that, for Hegel, the conceptual development of civil society shows the institutional sphere of the state to be the true ground of both public and private life. Only through these institutions is each person able to be genuinely free. The account of civil society does this by showing that the activities by which families pursue their private interests necessarily give rise to an intersubjective unity of wills that is the legitimating foundation for the state's system of interrelated institutions. The key to properly explicating Hegel's account of civil society lies then in understanding the dialectical structure that governs this account.

In Part I, I develop a general account of the basic elements of Hegel's political theory including its method of normative justification and its theory of freedom, as well as explicate the general conceptual structure that governs Hegel's account of civil society. In Part II I set forth the logical structure of civil society in view of the problem of sovereignty. I then examine both the subjective activities basic to this realm as well as the objective structures to which they give rise. Finally, I conclude by discussing the general structure of Hegel's account in terms of the problem of sovereignty itself.