The Scottish Enlightenment and Hegel’s Account of ‘Civil Society’

302 Pages·1988·16.931 MB·English

by  Norbert Waszek (auth.)

THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT AND HEGEL'S ACCOUNT
OF 'CIVIL SOCIETY'
ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D'HISTOIRE DES IDEES
INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS
120
NORBERT WASZEK
THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT AND
HEGEVS ACCOUNT OF 'CIVIL SOCIETY'
Directors: P. Dibon (Paris) and R. Popkin (Washington Univ., St. Louis)
Editorial Board: J.F. Battail (Paris); F. Duchesneau (Montreal); T. Gregory (Rome);
J.D. North (Groningen); M.J. Petry (Rotterdam); Ch.B. Schmitt (Warburg lnst., London).
Advisory Editorial Board: J. Aubin (Paris); J. Collins (St. Louis Univ.); P. Costabel (Pa
ris); A. Crombie (Oxford); l. Dambska (Cracow); H. de la Fontaine Verwey (Amster
dam); H. Gadamer (Heidelberg); H. Gouhier (Paris); K. Hanada (Hokkaido University);
W. Kirsop (Melbourne); P.O. Kristeller (Columbia Univ.); Elisabeth Labrousse (Paris);
A. Lossky (Los Angeles); J. Malarczyk (Lublin); E. de Olaso (C.l.F. Buenos Aires);
J. Orcibal (Paris); Wolfgang Rod (Munchen); J. Roger (Paris); G. Rousseau (Los Ange
les); H. Rowen (Rutgers Univ., N.J.); J.P. Schobinger (Zurich); G. Sebba t (Emory
Univ., Atlanta); R. Shackleton (Oxford); J. Tans (Groningen).
THE SCOTTISH
ENLIGHTENMENT AND
HEGEL'S ACCOUNT OF
'CIVIL SOCIETY'
By
NORBERT WASZEK
Hege/-Archiv der Ruhr Universitiit,
Bochum, F.R.G .
....
"
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
DORDRECHT ! BOSTON! LONDON
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Waszek, Norbert, 1953-
The Scottish Enlightenment and Hegel's account of
"civil society."
(International archives of the history of
ideas; 120)
Bibliography: p.
1. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831--Polit
ical and social views. 2. Enlightenment. 3. Philosophy,
Scottish--1Bth century. 4. Scotland--Intellectual
life--18th century. I. Title. II. Series: Archives
internationales d'histoire des id~es 120.
JC181.H452W37 1988 320'.01 87-22132
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-7735-4 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-2750-6
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-2750-6
Kluwer Academic Publishers incorporates the publishing programmes of
Dr W. Junk Publishers, MTP Press, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, and D. Reidel
Publishing Company.
Distributors
jor the United States and Canada: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101 Philip Drive,
Norwell, MA 02061, USA
jor all other countries: Kluwer Academic Publishers Group, P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH
Dordrecht, The Netherlands
Copyright
© 1988 by Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, re
cording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the copyright owners.
Fur Barbara, Anna, John Waszek
und dem Andenken meines Vaters:
Anton Waszek (1925-1955)
Table of Contents
Foreword by Duncan Forbes Xl
Preface xv
Chapter One. General Introduction 1
A: The Need for a Living Hegel: From 1
'Dichotomy' ("Entzweiung") to
'Reconciliation' (,'Versohnung")
B: The Whole Hegel and the Particulars 11
of Scholarship
C: Hegel and the Enlightenment 14
D: The Scottish Enlightenment 30
E: The Role of Newton 38
F: The Structure of the Present Study 54
Chapter Two. The Scottish Enlightenment in Germany - 56
Stages of Reception
A: Eighteenth Century German 56
Translations of the Writings of the
Scottish Enlightenment
B: Contemporary Reviews 65
C: The Popularizations 71
D: The Impact on Teaching 75
E: Conclusion and Outlook 78
Chapter Three. Hegel's Contacts with and Knowledge of 84
the Scottish Enlightenment
vii
viii
A: Hegel's Knowledge of English 84
B: Hegel's Reading and Indirect 101
Knowledge of the Scottish
Enlightenment - A Reconstruction of
the Dates and Extent
C: Hegel's Explicit References to the 118
Scottish Enlightenment
Chapter Four. Hegel's Account of the Market Economy 142
A: Some Presuppositions 142
B: Human Needs 146
C: Free Labour and Exchange 157
0: Social Division of Labour: The Classes 171
('Die Stande')
Chapter Five. Hegel's 'Liberalisme Interventionniste' and 180
the Legacy of Steuart and Smith
A: Introduction 180
B: Steuart and Smith 182
C: Hegel's Qualifications to Liberalism 196
Chapter Six. The Division of Labour 205
A: The Scottish Contribution to the 207
Problem
B: Hegel's Discussion of the Division of 211
Labour
Conclusion and Outlook 229
Bibliography and Bibliographical Appendices 233
Appendix I. A Bibliography of Contemporary German 252
Translations of the Writings of the Scottish
Enlightenment.
Appendix II. A Bibliography of Contemporary German 268
Reviews of the Writings of the Scottish
Enlightenment.
IX
Appendix III. A Bibliography of Contemporary German 281
Popularizations of the Theories of the
Scottish Enlightenment.
Appendix IV. All English Books and all Scottish 282
Enlightenment Authors in Hegel's Library
- An Extract from the Auction Catalogue.
Appendix V. All English Books and all Scottish 283
Enlightenment Authors in the Steiger of
Tschugg Library - An Extract from the
Auction Catalogue.
Foreword by Duncan Forbes
In the revival of interest in Hegel which has now gathered enormous
momentum and spawned literally hundreds of books and articles, the
question of his possible debt to eighteenth-century Scottish thinkers has
not been investigated in a comprehensive and thorough fashion. One
fairly well-known clue provided by Hegel himself, to Sir James Steuart's
Principles of Political Economy, has been followed up, and is elucidated
still further in Dr Waszek's book, but for the rest there is surmise,
indeterminate pointers and, in recent years a certain amount of rather
poor, misleading scholarship.
It is surprising that German scholars hitherto have not on the whole
shown themselves to be very interested in the topic of this book, given
the well-known enthusiasm for many aspects of Scottish culture in
Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and
given Hegel's well-known extraordinary receptiveness and ability to
painstakingly note and digest information and ideas from every avail
able worthwhile quarter - and we now have much more solid knowledge
about this as the result of Dr Waszek's laborious and detailed research
into this part of the background of his story, including Hegel's know
ledge of English.
The poor scholarship of recent years that has been mentioned is the
result, as so often, of looking down the wrong end of the telescope and
spotlighting the part at the expense of the whole. When Hegel was
studied in the light of Marx, especially the newly discovered young
Hegel in the light of the newly discovered young Marx - and it is
probably true to say that it was this more than anything else that rescued
Hegel from oblivion in the twentieth century - this light was bound
sooner or later to be reflected back, too brightly, onto those Scottish
thinkers, especially Ferguson and Smith, who had also shown keen
awareness of the evils of modern commercial and industrial civilisation:
the de-humanising division of labour, the alienation of the masses, the
Xl