Fine - Political Investigations

189 Pages·2001·0.63 MB·English

by  Robert Fine

POLITICAL INVESTIGATIONS
In this fascinating new book Robert Fine recasts three great studies of modern
political life: Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Marx’s Capitaland Hannah
Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism. The originality of this book lies in its radical
reinterpretation of these individual texts which frees them from their intellectual
isolation and reads them together as a living unity. In Fine’s account all three
emerge as formative works of critical theory which succeed in sustaining the great
promises of modern politics – freedom, equality, solidarity, the new – alongside
the grubbier reality of domination and violence. They are all revealed as empirical
works which analyse the actual forms of political modernity, as scientific works
which link external appearances to internal processes, as dynamic works concerned
with the movement, trajectory and potentiality of politics and as equivocal texts
which not only unmask the illusions of political life but also the illusions of
unmasking itself. Political Investigationsoffers a clear and engaging read for students,
academics and all who work and take pleasure in social and political thought. It
also significantly reviews present-day understandings of the relation between
normative political philosophy and empirically-based social theory.
Robert Fineis Convenor of the MA in Social and Political Thought and Director
of the Centre for Social Theory at the University of Warwick. He is author of
Democracy and the Rule of Law: Liberal Ideals and Marxist Critiques (Pluto) and
Beyond Apartheid: Labour and Liberation in South Africa(Pluto). He is co-editor
of Social Theory after the Holocaust(Liverpool University Press).

POLITICAL
INVESTIGATIONS
Hegel, Marx, Arendt
Robert Fine
London and New York
First published 2001
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 2001 Robert Fine
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Fine, Robert
Political investigations : Hegel, Marx, Arendt / Robert Fine.
p. cm.
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Liberty. 2. Equality. 3. Solidarity
4. Authoritarianism. 5. Totalitarianism. 6. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich, 1770–1831. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts.
7. Marx, Karl, 1818–1883. Kapital. 8. Arendt, Hannah. Origins
of totalitariansim. I. Title.
JC585 .F544 2001
320.1′01–dc21 00-069033
ISBN 0-203-99547-3 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0–415–23907–9 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–23908–7 (pbk)
To my uncle, Harry Blacker,
who put a smile on our faces and knew
what is important in life
and to my daughter, Shoshi Fine,
with all my love.

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
1 Reading and misreading Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 5
2 The idea of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 24
3 Hegel and Kant: natural law and the science of right 41
4 State and revolution: Hegel, Rousseau, Marx 61
5 Right and value: unity of Hegel and Marx 79
6 Totalitarianism and the rational state: Arendt 100
7 State and revolution revisited: Arendt 122
8 Kant’s cosmopolitan ideal and Hegel’s critique 132
9 Arendt’s critical cosmopolitanism 151
Bibliography 166
Index 172
vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I should like to acknowledge the patience and support of Mari Shullaw at
Routledge, and of copy-editor Tom Chandler; also, the immeasurable help I have
received from many friends/colleagues/students in the Centre for Social Theory,
the MA in Social and Political Thought, the Sociology Department and the
University of Warwick more generally. By name I would like to offer thanks to
Alan Norrie, Alison Diduck, Charlie Turner, David Hirsh, David Seymour, Gill
Frith, Gillian Rose, Gillian Bendelow, Glyn Cousin, Gloesha Challice, Howard
Caygill, Istvan Pogany, Kakia Goudeli, Lawrence Welch, Maria Pia Lara, Marion
Doyen, Mike Neary, Peter Wagner, Simon Clarke, Simon Williams, Vic Seidler.
And a special mention for family – Gillian Bendelow, Shoshi Fine, Tessa
Watkinson, Sylvia Stern, Tony Fine and to the warm and wonderful Cuccuru
family.
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