HEGEL LETTORE DI MONTESQUIEU. L’EMERGERE DEL «POLITICO» COME «PUNTO DI VISTA DELLA SUPREMA UNIVERSALITÀ CONCRETA»

In his non-philosophical writing on the Württemberg Assembly (1817), Hegel announces the emergence of a completely new element, the political one. The aim of my paper is to show how Hegel, far from considering this element as non-philosophical, progressively integrates it into the system of the objective spirit, to the point of indicating the «Political» as such as the «point of view of the supreme concrete universality» (1820, Rph § 303 A). My thesis is that Montesquieu’s theory of the principle of government is the medium through which Hegel integrates the political element into his own system. I take into consideration the notebooks of the courses on the philosophy of right between 1817 and 1820 and I show how Hegel gradually changes his judgement with respect to Montesquieuian theory, at the same time using it to develop his own system. In two years, Hegel goes from uncritically accepting the Montesquieuian theory of the principle of government, according to which honour is the principle of monarchy and the Gesinnung is «unessential», to criticise honour as the principle of feudal monarchy. By doing so, however, he preserves the speculative core of the theory of the principle of government, and uses it to conceptualise a comprehensive theory of the Gesinnung, which, in 1819, is considered «essential in the State». Finally, as highest ethical expression, politische Gesinnung allows for the integration of the political Element in the system of practical philosophy.