Freedom through Bildung: Rhetoric, “Second Nature,� and “Ethical Life� in Hegel’s Political Theory

Hegel’s political theory has experienced a wide range of receptions, including critiques for legitimizing Prussian authoritarianism or for subjecting the individual to a general will in a manner deemed totalitarian. But in recent decades its liberal and positive communitarian aspects, especially its absolute foundation in the concepts of freedom and free will have been highlighted (see Beiser, Hegel 202-05 and 216-17 for a good summary). A key for adjudicating between such evaluations, or, more significant, for isolating elements of Hegel’s political theory that have contemporary relevance, involves understanding Hegel’s modernization of what he calls “Sittlichkeit,” usually translated as “ethical life,” which forms the major third section of the lectures on The Philosophy of Right (1821). In Sittlichkeit individuals find their identity only within an objectively existing structure of cultural meaning. I will be arguing that this fundamental aspect of Hegel’s political theory needs to be understood in terms of a conception of rhetorical Bildung, i.e., a conception of transformative education that leads the individual into a world of foreign discourse that they learn to take on as their own. second nature.