ISSN 1393-614X Minerva - An Internet Journal of
Philosophy Vol. 10 2006
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Race and Racism in Hegel – An Analysis Sandra Bonetto |
Abstract
Many
of Hegel’s critics have argued that the philosopher provided a basis for modern
racism and established a role for race in history by correlating a hierarchy of
civilisations to a hierarchy of races, notably in the Encyclopaedia and
the History of Philosophy. Following a detailed analysis of Hegel’s
comments on race and racial diversity, I maintain that these allegations can
not be supported.
There is no effective struggle against racism once
one creates a false image of it, for then anti-racism becomes a mirror image of
the racist myth. Pierre-Andre Taguieff
(1984: 71-72)
Many
of Hegel’s critics, from Popper to Bernasconi, have argued that the philosopher
provided a basis for modern racism and established a role for race in history
by correlating a hierarchy of civilisations to a hierarchy of races, notably in
the Encyclopaedia and the History of Philosophy. Hegel has thus
frequently been labelled a ‘racist’.
Popper,
for instance, sees in Hegel the founder of German racialism and discerns a
close connection between Hegel and racialist Nazism, arguing effectively, as
Kaufmann puts it, that “the Nazis got their racism from Hegel” (Kaufmann, W.,
1996: 102). As far as Popper is concerned, “Hegel + Haeckel is the formula for
modern racism” (Popper, K., 1950: 252).[1] Bernasconi regards Hegel as “a precursor of
the mid-nineteenth century tendency to construct philosophies of history organised
around the concept of race, such as we find in Robert Knox and Gobineau”
(Bernasconi, R., 2003). Knox believed that ‘race is everything’, so that
literature, science, art — in a word, civilization — depends on it. Similarly,
Gobineau, who is often regarded as the ‘father of modern racism’, used
anthropology, linguistics and history to formulate a theory in which race
virtually explained everything in the human experience. The decisive events of
history, he argued in his Essay on the Inequality of Human Races (1854),
are determined by the ‘iron law of race’, so that human destiny is decreed by
nature and expressed in race. Gobineau also favoured racial purity, suggesting
that there should be no crossbreeding between races in order to maintain survival.
By linking Hegel’s name with that of Knox and Gobineau, Bernasconi clearly
implies that the philosopher was responsible for contributing to a distorted
perception of race and thus helped to make racism more respectable.
The
present study seeks to investigate the accuracy of these claims by means of a
detailed analysis concerning Hegel’s comments on race and racial diversity.
1. Hegel on Race and Racial
Diversity
In
his Encyclopaedia, Hegel discusses race and racial diversity (Rassenverschiedenheit)
under the heading of ‘Anthropology’, which treats of the mind in union with the
body — it “starts from mind which is still in the grip of Nature and connected
with its corporeity, mind which is not as yet in communion with itself, not yet
free” — and more particularly under the heading ‘The Natural’ or ‘Physical
Soul’ (Enc.III, §391). Anthropology, then, deals with the merely immediate
consciousness still imprisoned in natural bonds. Hegel then addresses the
racial diversity within the human race or species (des Menschengeschlechts)
in relation to physical and spiritual or mental differences (Enc.III §391,
Addition). While Hegel employs the concept of race in the anthropological sense
as a classification of (large) human populations, primarily on the basis of physical
characteristics, it remains to be seen whether he elaborates causal
relationships between biological and cultural attributes, and thus whether his
history of philosophy is organised around the concept of race in a taxonomic
sense, i.e. for the purpose of establishing a hierarchy of races as a means of
assigning inferiority to some races (as biological units) and superiority to
others. Simply having a concept of race does not a racist make, nor does the
attempt to account for racial differences. Neither does the rejection of the
concept of race necessarily imply anti-racism. Bernasconi himself notes, for
instance, that Herder explicitly rejected the concept, arguing that “there are
neither four nor five races, nor are there exclusive varieties on earth”, yet
this did not stop him
from
citing Camper’s studies on the angle of the head which places the head of
Africans and Kalmucks closer to apes than Europeans, and which allegedly was
nature’s means of discriminating the varieties of creation as they approximate
to the most perfect form of beauty in human beings (Bernasconi, R., 2001: 28).
Moreover,
negative value judgements concerning various cultures or cultural practices,
however ill-informed and arrogant we might find them today, do not automatically
amount to racism. For racism, as far as I understand it, is motivated by an
unreasonable or irrational hatred and/or fear of the ‘other’ qua
‘other’, coupled with the desire either to dominate, discriminate against or
exclude that ‘other’ (e.g. by favouring the establishment of laws or social
practices to this end). In other words, racism is different from ethnocentrism.
As D’Souza notes, “racism, unlike ethnocentrism, is not a universal phenomenon.
Only a few human groups have deemed themselves superior because of the contents
of their gonads” (D’Souza, D., 1995: 27). All groups and peoples experience the
inherent belief that the world revolves around them, that they are ‘civilised’
and other societies are ‘barbarian’. For example, the Chinese character for the
word ‘
Nevertheless,
as McCarney notes, the “obnoxious and shocking” character of Hegel’s aspersions
on non-European peoples, with their residue of “cultural prejudice,
complacency, and arrogance” (McCarney, 2000: 142; cf.151), must be
acknowledged. Whether or not they make Hegel a racist or a precursor of
theories of history based on a hierarchy of races remains to be seen. As
McCarney suggests, “reading Hegel simply via selected paragraphs from his Philosophy
of History, as an arrogant rejection of everything that is not Western and
European, may itself do more harm than good” (Ibid.). What is required is a
more sharply differentiating insight into a) Hegel’s concept of race, and b)
his concept of ‘spiritual development’ or ‘progress’.
Race,
understood by Hegel as the “immediate soul” not yet separated from its “natural
mode”, is “subordinate to the concept of spirit, thought and freedom”. Racial
differences are
qualities because they belong to the natural
soul, the mere Being of Spirit (dem bloßen Sein des Geistes); but the
concept (der Begriff) of Spirit, thought and freedom, is higher than
mere Being, and the actual concept is closer to rationality precisely because
it is not qualitatively determined…These differences do not therefore affect
rationality itself, but rather the mode of its objectivity, and do not
establish an original difference with regard to freedom and right among the
so-called races (BS, Werke XI, p.531; my translation).
In
Hegelian usage Rasse/Geschlecht (race) may be regarded as cognate with Nation
insofar as it denotes a group of individuals that are descendants of the same
family, house, or tribe, united by common ancestry or blood relationship.
However, Rasse is used in an additional, broader sense to denote a large
human population. Hegel employs the concept of race — adopted from contemporary
anthropology — primarily as a means of classifying human populations into a few
groups on the basis of their visible characteristics, thus limiting the
criteria to such traits as skin pigmentation, colour and form of hair, shape of
head, stature, and so forth. The term Rasse, in this sense, signifies a
particular (large) human population in its sheer natural mode, when considered
in terms of its external or physical characteristics or physiognomic
appearance. Racial differences qua differences concerning the merely
‘natural soul’, according to Hegel, are determined by the geographic part of
the world a people inhabits, that is, by external factors, notably locality,
climate and terrain. Thus, while there is only one human species (Gattung or
Menschengattung),[2] there
are natural differences between various populations within the species
determined by geographical factors. The concept of race is employed to
distinguish them in terms of these differences, which are said to be fixed, due
to unchanging natural circumstances. Geography and climate, locality and
terrain also partially determine the ‘national character’ or common mentality
of a people:
The
unchangeableness of climate, of the whole character of the country in which a nation
has its permanent abode, contributes to the unchangeablness of the national
character. A desert, proximity to the sea or remoteness from it, all these
circumstances can have an influence on the national character (Enc. III, §394,
Addition).
Hegel
was undoubtedly influenced by Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois, in which,
as Plamenatz points out,
you will find a great deal ... about how the
quality of the soil, the abundance or scarcity of water, the distribution of
mountains, rivers and plains, the nearness or distance of the sea, the presence
or absence of good natural harbours, affect the ways in which men live
(Plamenatz, J., 1963: 5).
Montesquieu
argued further, “the laws have a lot to do with the manner in which different
people procure their subsistence” (as cited in Ibid.). And how people procure
their subsistence “has as much to do with geography as with climate” (Ibid.,
6). But, Montesquieu maintained, geography and climate are not part of the
social process — they merely constitute an unchanging physical environment. In
other words, since geography and climate do not change, they can not determine
the course of social change. Hegel, as we shall see later, makes a similar
point in relation to ‘spiritual progress’.
According
to Hegel, racial differences (Rassenverschiedenheiten) are ‘natural
differences’ insofar as they are determined by natural factors.
According
to the concrete differences of the terrestrial globe, the general planetary
life of the nature-governed mind specializes itself and breaks up into the
several nature-governed minds, which, on the whole, give expression to the
nature of the geographical continents and constitute the diversities of race
(Enc. III, §393).
The
difference between the races of mankind (Menschenrassen) is still a
natural difference, that is, a difference that, in the first instance, concerns
the natural soul. As such, the difference is connected with the geographical
difference of those parts of the world where human beings are together in
masses (i.e. the continents, Enc. III §383, Addition).
Because
the “nature spirit has the diversity of the earth as immediate differentiation
within it”, Hegel argues, it “dissolves into particular spirits of nature,
which wholly express the nature of the geographic parts of the world and
constitute racial diversity” (Enc.III, Ibid.). In short, “spirit in nature” —
the “object treated by Anthropology” — “falls asunder into the general
differences of the races of mankind (Menschenrassen)” (Ibid.). Thus,
Hegel states, “the first stage in anthropology is the qualitatively determined
soul which is tied to natural forms (racial differences, for example, belong
here)”. And racial differences are the “differences of the universal mind in
Nature as determined by the Notion” or Idea (Enc. III, §394, Addition).
Hegel
notes that contemporary physiology distinguishes between the Caucasian, the
Ethiopian, the Mongolian, and the American races, and that the physical or external
differences between them are shown mainly in the formation of the skull and
face:
The
formation of the skull is defined by a horizontal and vertical line, the former
running from the outer ear-ducts to the root of the nose, the latter form the frontal
bone to the upper jawbone. It is by the angle formed by these two lines that
the head of the animals is distinguished from the human head; in animals this
angle is extremely acute. Another important factor, noted by Blumenbach,
concerns the greater or less prominence of the cheekbones. The arching and
width of the forehead is also a determining factor (Enc. III, §393, Addition).
It
is important to note, however, that Hegel vigorously and consistently rejects
and condemns explanations of human behaviour, ability and intelligence based on
external, physical appearances. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel
had ridiculed physiognomy and phrenology (or crainoscopy), and in the Encyclopaedia
he explicitly opposes these pseudo-sciences — popularised during the latter
half o the 18th century by Lavater (1741-1801) and Gall (1758-1828),
together with his pupil Spurzheim (1776-1832), respectively — which claimed to
be able to explain human behaviour through what Hegel regards as ‘exterior and
accidental’ details, such as the characteristics of the body or the form of the
head.
To
try to raise physiognomy and crainoscopy (phrenology) to the rank of science
was ... one of the vainest fancies, still vainer than a signatura rerum,
which supposed the shape of a plant to afford indication of its medicinal
virtue (Enc. III, §411).
While
anatomists like Cuvier believed, for instance, that the physiognomic appearance
of the Negroes “approaches that of the beasts” (Cuvier, G., 1812: 105), Hegel
makes the point that all human beings, on their “purely physical side”, are not
“greatly different from the ape” (Enc. III, §411, Addition). What distinguishes
man from ape is rather “the mind- or spirit- pervaded aspect” of his body, i.e.
the head, which is the “true seat of the mental or spiritual” (Enc.III, § 411,
Addition). But this, in turn, does not translate into phrenological or other
pseudo-scientific beliefs concerning differences in skull shapes and sizes
vis-à-vis mental abilities. Indeed, in relation to phrenology, Hegel asserts,
“it must be regarded as a thorough denial of reason to give out a skull-bone as
the actual existence of conscious life...” (PhM, 365). In other words, a
skull-bone tells us nothing about the mind and intelligence of an individual
human being:
When ... a man is told, “You (your inner being) are so
and so, because your skull-bone is so constituted”, this means nothing else
than that we regard a bone as the man’s reality. To retort upon such a
statement with a box on the ear … removes primarily the “soft” parts of his
head from their apparent dignity and position, and proves merely that these are
not the true inherent nature, are not the reality of mind; the retort here
would, properly speaking, have to go the length of breaking the skull of the
person who makes a statement like that, in order to demonstrate to him in a
manner as palpable as his own wisdom that a bone is nothing of an inherent
nature at all for a man, still less his true reality (PhM, 365).
Unlike
many early nineteenth century anatomists, notably Camper, Soemmering and
Cuvier, Hegel did not regard cranial capacity as a marker of racial or cultural
hierarchy. Again, attempts by these anatomists to demonstrate that Africans
(the Ethiopian race), on the basis of the shape of their skull, are closer to
the apes than to human beings, do not conform to Hegel’s belief that we can
know nothing of the ‘inner being’ of a man on the basis of his skull bone.
There is, in short, no ‘cruel law’, which seems to have condemned to an eternal
inferiority the races of ‘depressed and compressed skulls’, as Cuvier believed.
Rather, “the skull-bone by itself is such an indifferent object, such an
innocent thing, that there is nothing else to be seen in it or thought about it
directly as it is, except simply the fact of its being a skull” (PhM, 365).
In
relation to physiognomy, Hegel basically defends the view that we can not judge
a book by its cover – “there is no art to find the mind’s construction in the
face”.[3] It
is worth quoting Hegel at length on this point:
Every man has a physiognomic appearance, appears at
first sight as a pleasant or unpleasant, strong or weak, personality. According
to this appearance one instinctively forms a first, general impression about others.
However, it is easy to be mistaken in this, since this externality,
characterised mainly by immediacy, does not perfectly correspond to mind or
spirit but only in a greater or less degree. Consequently, an unfavourable,
like a favourable, exterior can conceal a personality different from what that
exterior might at first lead one to expect. The biblical saying: Beware of
those whom God has marked, is, therefore, often misused; and a judgement based
on physiognomic expression has accordingly only the value of an immediate
judgement, which can just as well be untrue as true.[4]
For this reason, the exaggerated regard formerly shown to physiognomy about
which Lavater created such a stir and which, it was said, promised to be
profitable in the highest degree, for the much vaunted knowledge of human
nature, has rightly been dropped. Man is known much less by his outward
appearance than by his deeds. Language itself is exposed to the fate of serving
just as much to conceal as to reveal human thought (Enc. III, §411, Addition).
While
racists typically claim that differences of culture, status, and power
concerning a variety of groups of common ancestry are due “mainly to immutable
genetic factors and not to environmental or historical circumstances” (D’Souza,
D., 1995: 27), Hegel maintains that racial diversity is due to geographical
circumstances as well as historical, cultural or spiritual developments.
Whereas natural or environmental circumstances are 'given’ or ‘fixed’ external
determinants (they are also accidental insofar as no one can choose into which
natural environment he/she is born), spiritual circumstances, while partly
influenced by nature, are made or created by individuals and peoples. “The
general consciousness of man includes two distinct provinces, that of nature
and that of the spirit. The province of the spirit is created by man
himself...” (LPWH 44). Hegel emphasises, for instance, that “world history is
rooted in the soil of the spirit, not in that of nature” (LPWH 46, Addition) - Weltgeschichte
is primarily and essentially the product of human thoughts and deeds, not of
nature, and hence not of race. There is no ‘iron law of race’ that determines
cultural and spiritual progress as far as Hegel is concerned.
In
the Encyclopaedia, we are told that racial diversity
descends
into specialities, that may be termed local minds (Lokalgeister) — shown
in the outward modes of life and occupation, bodily structure and disposition, but
still more in the inner tendency and capacity of the intellectual and moral
character of the several peoples (Enc. III, §394).
The
different ‘local minds’ are not longer determined merely by physical or natural
factors, but rather by intellectual and moral ones. These ‘local minds’ are
‘national minds’ insofar as they designate various families or tribes (nation
in the sense of natio), and so constitute naturally determined ethical
units. Race is no longer an appropriate term to use to describe the latter,
since they represent the initial transition from ‘mere nations’, naturally
united through descent, to peoples that are united through a common spirit or Volksgeist,
the product of a peoples concrete arrangements in the realms of religion,
tradition, customs, and the like. A people, then, derives its (moral,
intellectual, and eventually political) character — its spirit or Geist
— from its own deeds, “for the deeds represent the end it pursues” (LPWH 55).
The
spiritual differences between various peoples, according to Hegel, partly
corresponds to the concrete geographical differences of the continental
landmasses they inhabit, but more importantly and significantly to their
progress in adopting the ‘consciousness of freedom’ and actualising it in concrete
socio-political institutions. As noted earlier, Hegel believes that extreme
natural conditions are not conducive to spiritual development, so that the
torrid and cold regions of the globe do not provide a good basis for spiritual
advancement — they do not make a fertile soil for freedom to take root — as its
inhabitants are primarily concerned with their immediate survival in harsh
environments.
In the extreme zones man cannot come to free movement;
cold and heat are here too powerful to allow Spirit to build up a world for
itself. Aristotle said long ago, ‘when pressing needs are satisfied, man turns
to the general and more elevated’. But in the extreme zones such pressure may
be said never to cease, never to be warded off; men are constantly impelled to
direct attention to nature, to the lowing rays of the sun, and the icy frost.
The true theatre of history is therefore the temperate zone; or rather, its
northern half, because the earth there presents itself in a continental form,
and has a broad breast, as the Greeks say (LPWH 14).
Based
on this view concerning climate and terrain, Hegel argues that the true theatre
of world history is the ‘temperate zone’ since humans inhabiting this part of
the globe do not have to content with the vagaries of nature to the same extent
as their fellow humans in the torrid and cold regions. They are free from
nature to a greater extent and thus liberated to a greater degree to engage in
contemplation and reflection. So, it is for this reason that the consciousness
of freedom — the essence and absolute end and aim of Spirit — shows greater
development in the temperate zone, according to Hegel.
Nature,
in contrast to spirit, is a quantitative element whose power must not be so
great as to render it omnipotent in its own right. Extreme conditions are not
conducive to spiritual development. Aristotle has long since observed that man
turns to universal and more exalted things only after his basic needs have been
satisfied. But neither the torrid nor the frigid zone permits him to move
freely, or to acquire sufficient resources to allow him to participate in
higher spiritual interests. He is kept in too insensible a state; he is
oppressed by nature, and consequently cannot divorce himself from it, although
this is the primary condition of higher spiritual culture. The power of the
elements is too great for man to escape from his struggle with them, or to
become strong enough to assert his spiritual freedom against the power of
nature (LPWH 155).
These
natural forces, as McCarney rightly notes, are “too powerful for human beings
in general — for white Europeans no less than for black Africans” (McCarney,
J., 2003). This implies that, as soon as
man steps outside an unduly harsh natural environment, spiritual advancement
becomes possible, as is evidenced, for instance, by those black Africans who
have done so and become skilled workers, clergymen and doctors, who have led
rebellions in South America, or those former slaves who have established a
state (einen Staat) ‘on Christian principles’ in Haiti.
Hegel’s
basic point is this: the more liberated from nature and the natural condition (Naturzustand),
the greater will be man’s spiritual progress. Once a man’s basic needs are met,
his mind is liberated to contemplate what is ‘higher’. The greater the
‘consciousness of freedom’, as manifest in concrete socio-political
institutions and practices, the less dependant on or influenced by nature a
people is said to be. Again, the influence of Montesquieu is apparent, for he
argued that, the further a people are from nature, or, in other words, the more
elaborate and sophisticated their institutions and methods of work and thought,
the less these institutions and methods can be explained as effects of climate
and geography (Plamenatz, J., 1963: 7). The measure of progress for Hegel is,
therefore, freedom and its concrete appearance in the world, and this
necessarily implies, firstly, freedom from nature. For life in the ‘state of
nature’ is not the proper life for man as far as Hegel is concerned. Indeed,
freedom, in the Hegelian sense, is not attainable in such a natural condition.
2. ‘
While
Popper makes unsupportable claims concerning Hegel’s connection with Nazi
racism, which was mainly, but not exclusively, directed against the Jews,
Bernasconi focuses on Hegel’s comments on black Africans in his attempt to
convince us of his contribution to modern racist tendencies in the construction
of philosophies of history. I will now consider both of the above allegations
in turn.
While
it is certainly possible to criticise Hegel’s lack of knowledge about various
aspects of African culture and even accuse him of exaggerating certain sources
in accordance with his own perspective concerning world-historical development,
I believe it is very difficult to argue that his position is based on a biased
form of racism or intolerance. The ‘freedom-centric’ Hegel criticises “Africa
proper” — “the land South of the Sahara desert” — in the History of
Philosophy, not because he regards black Africans inhabiting this part of
the world as racially (i.e. biologically or genetically) inferior, but because
of his strong opposition to practices that run counter to freedom — the essence
of humanity — notably tyranny, despotism, slavery, cannibalism, and polygamy.[5] Hegel saw in Sub-Saharan
Reason
must maintain that the slavery of the Negroes is a wholly unjust institution,
one which contradicts true justice, both human and divine, and which is to be
rejected.[6]
There is no
room for slavery in the modern state: “in rational states, slavery no longer
exists” (LPWH 184).
When
Hegel asserts that “a man counts because he is a man” in his Rechtsphilosophie,
he is referring to human beings as such, so that the concept of Mensch
necessarily includes the Negroes. The concept of Mensch sublates all
particular determinations, without, however, negating them. Unlike some 19th
century religious leaders who supported slavery and who had accepted the
‘scientific’ explanation that identified Negroes as an animal and not a human
species, Hegel nowhere implies support for such a view. Indeed, in the Encyclopaedia,
Hegel explicitly opposes those who sought to declare and, indeed, prove the
natural intellectual superiority of one Menschengattung (race) over
another, so that some may be “dominated like animals” (Enc. III, §393).
Hegel
clearly stresses the relationship of the ‘African consciousness’ with its
geographical situation. The African mentality is still imprisoned in nature —
the demands of living in a harsh natural environment are such that
consciousness has not been able to free itself sufficiently from nature to make
spiritual progress. This might be regarded as an arrogant understanding on
Hegel’s part, but it does not amount to racism, as there is no suggestion that
the Negroes of
However,
Hegel mentions the fact that many Negroes — notably those who have left
not
only have they, here and there, adopted Christianity with the greatest
gratitude and spoken movingly of the freedom they have acquired through
Christianity after a long spiritual servitude, but in Haiti they have even
formed a State on Christian principles (Enc. III, 393).
This,
it seems to me, refutes Bernasconi’s claim that, for Hegel, only certain races
— notably the Caucasian race — “produce peoples” (Bernasconi, R., 2003) and
consequently states that figure as historical subjects. The Haitian state
founded by African Negroes (who were former slaves) qua Staat belongs to
history proper. The various African national groups — i.e. tribes or tribal
kingdoms — do not, because they are not states, and in history, as understood by
Hegel, “we have to do with individuals that are peoples, with totalities that
are states”, and not with naturally determined peoples, tribes, descent or
kinship groups, families or nations (in the sense of natio). Indeed,
Hegel also mentions various peoples belonging to the Caucasian race that, in
his day, no longer constituted Völker als Staaten — e.g. Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales, and thus, for the time being, had not ‘historical role’ in
their own right. (
While
Hegel maintains, in the Encyclopaedia, that it is in the ‘Caucasian
race’ that
Mind
first attains to absolute unity with itself. Here for the first time mind
enters into complete opposition to the life of Nature, apprehends itself in its
absolute self-dependence, wrests itself free from the fluctuation between one
extreme and the other, achieves self-determination, self-development, and, in
doing so, creates world-history (Enc. III, §393, Addition),
it
is precisely in its movement away from nature — achieving “complete opposition
to the life of nature” — that the peoples inhabiting the temporal zone of the
globe create world-history, which is ‘rooted in the soil of the spirit’. It is
clear that spiritual development and not biological or genetic
determinations are important here.
Moreover,
in designating the Greeks and Romans, who were a “conflux of the most various
nations”, including members of the ‘Ethiopian race’ (i.e. black Africans), and
also the Jews and Germanic peoples as world-historical, Hegel does evidently
not use the category of race in the manner suggested by Bernasconi. What makes
people historical, in a general sense, is its transition from a) Nation
to Volk, and b) from Volk to Staat, i.e. its becoming a Volk
als Staat (PR §331):
In
its existence as a nation (Volk) the substantial aim is to be a state
and preserve itself as such. A nation with no state formation (a mere nation)
has strictly speaking no history – like the nations which existed before the
rise of states and others which still exist in a condition of savagery (Enc.
III, §549).
What makes a
people world historical is determined by its effect on other peoples in terms
of instituting a universal principle. Thus, a nation
is
only world historical in so far as its fundamental element and basic aim have
embodied a universal principle; only then is its spirit capable of producing an
ethical and political organisation. If nations are impelled merely by desires,
their deeds are lost without trace (as with all fanaticism), and no enduring
achievement remains. Or the only traces they leave are ruin and destruction
(LPWH 145).
In
Hegel’s day, the peoples of ‘
It
might also be noted that Hegel is clearly concerned to include rather than
exclude Africa in his considerations on history, despite the fact that Africa
proper stands only “an der Schwelle der Weltgeschichte” (on the doorstep
of world-history). But why include
Hegel
does include some relevant historical knowledge and other information
about Africa, which represents a serious advance over many of his successors.
Thus, we can at least find in his works references to “
With
regard to Popper’s allegation regarding Hegel’s anti-Semitism, it is clear from
textual evidence that the philosopher consistently rejected the view that the
Jews were a ‘foreign people’ or ‘race’ or that they should be excluded either
from public life or from political participation in the state. Hegel’s advocacy
of Jewish emancipation (and ridicule of those who opposed it) need to be
examined here in order to emphasise that racism is essentially incompatible
with Hegel’s philosophy of history as well as with his political Weltanschauung.
While
Hegel assessed various aspects of Judaism negatively, especially in his early
theological essays (just as he assessed various aspects of ‘
obviously outraged at the treatment of Catholics
in Ireland; even his view that Catholicism itself was incompatible with a
modern rational constitution did not blind him to what he took to be the
obvious injustice of the treatment of the Irish (Pinkard, T., 2000: 502).
When
Hegel saw himself confronted with a groundswell of popular opinion against
Jewish emancipation, he spoke out in favour of emancipation; at a time when
Fries and Savigny emphasised the ‘alieness’ (Fremdartigkeit) of the Jews,
Hegel stressed that “they are, above all, human beings (Menschen)” (PR
§270; Addition), as well as fellow citizens with equal civil and political
rights. Indeed, he explicitly rejects the emphasis on the Jews as “ein
fremdes Volk” — a foreign people — and, therefore, as un-German (undeutsch).
In
the Philosophy of Right, Hegel supports equal civil rights for Jews as a
rational imperative of the modern state (§270; Hegel’s Notes). By contrast,
Hegel’s contemporary Fries — the ‘ultra liberal’ — had argued against Jewish
emancipation and called for the “rooting out root and branch” of Jewry (Judentum)
in Germany, “since of all societies and states, secret or public, it is plainly
the most dangerous to the state” (Fries, J.F., 1818: 18). Indeed, Fries argued
that Jews should once again be made to wear “a special mark on their clothing”
to set them visibly apart from the rest of the (German) population. As
Bossierée wrote to Goethe (9 October 1817; see B.II, 418), Fries had thrown
himself not only into “Teutonismus” (teutonsim), but also “Judenhaß”
(hatred of the Jews). Fries, of course, claimed to be misunderstood: he did not
hate the Jews, he said, but only wanted to “reform Jewishness” (das Judentum). According to Pinkard, Fries
maintained that “he had not spoken of hatred for the Jews themselves, nor of
depriving Jews of their rights, but had spoken out only “against Jewishness as
a degenerate social formation in the life of the German people.” However,
Pinkard continues,
people like Hegel and his friends were not taken
in by Fries’s distinction between only hating Jewishness and not hating Jews,
and this was finally the last straw for Hegel with Fries… as far as Hegel was
concerned, Fries had now come to stand for the worst elements of the new German
movement… (Pinkard, T., 2000: 397).
And
Hegel was by no means alone in his negative assessment of Fries. As his friend
Boisserée wrote to Goethe about Fries (October 9, 1817):
since things have gone badly for him in philosophy,
he has thrown himself into astronomy for ladies, after that into a makeshift
physics, and now finally into teutonism and hatred of the Jews, all of this
just to earn his keep.
For
Hegel, it would be simply irrational to deny Jews equal rights of citizenship —
i.e. full legal equality with the non-Jewish population — because it would not
only make the ideas of freedom of conscience and worship, and “careers open to
talent” (which he supports) meaningless, but paradoxically preserve (erhalten)
the isolation with which they [the Jews] have
been reproached, and this would rightly have remained in isolation with which
they have been reproached, and this would rightly have brought blame (Schuld)
and reproach upon the state which excluded them; for the state would thereby
have failed to recognise its own principle as an objective institution with a
power of its own…While the demand for the exclusion of the Jews claimed to be
based on the highest right, it has proved in practice to be the height of folly,
whereas the way the governments have acted has proved wise and honourable (PR
§270, Addition).
Hegel
undoubtedly has Fries in mind when he points to the illogicality attached to
the demand for the exclusion of the Jews on the basis that they are exclusive.
According to Fries (1818: 3),
The
Jews can become subjects to our government, but as Jews they can never become
citizens of our people, for as Jews they want to be a distinct people, and so
they necessarily separate themselves from our German national community (von
unserer deutschnationalen Gemeinschaft).
Fries,
like Savigny, conceived of the Jews —
as did the Nazis — as community
aliens (Gemeinschaftsfremde; also: Volksfremde, by which the
Nazis meant Blutsfremde —
blood aliens). Yet, he opposed their emancipation, which alone would ensure the
end of their alleged exclusiveness.
This, of course, implies that they can really never be part of “our German
national community” (unsere deutschnationale Gemeinschaft). Hegel,
however, believes that
In
our day the tie between members of a state in respect of manners, education,
language, may be rather loose or even non-existent. Identity in these matters,
once the foundation of a people’s union, is now to be reckoned amongst the
ancients whose character does not hinder a mass from constituting a public
authority... Thus dissimilarity in culture and manners is a necessary product
as well as a necessary condition of the stability of modern states (FS, Werke
I, 447-8).[7]
Hegel
argues further that
The granting of civil rights gives those who
receive them a self-awareness as recognised legal (rechtliche) persons
in civil society, and it is from this root, infinite and free from all other
influences, that the desired assimilation in terms of attitude and disposition
arises (PR §270 Addition).
This
does not mean that the Jews should relinquish their faith. As Pinkard notes,
Hegel ... openly declared … that to be true to
themselves, modern states were rationally compelled to grant full emancipation
to Jews, and not to make this emancipation conditional on their conversion to
Christianity (Pinkard, T., 2000: 534).
Hegel’s
idea of Jewish emancipation — unlike
that of Fichte — does not imply
that in order to become citizens of the modern state the Jews should give up
their Jewishness. This is not what Hegel has in mind: like all other citizens,
the Jews as citizens should simply identify with the state of which they are
members in terms of ‘attitude and disposition’, not by means of religious
conversion. As far as Hegel is concerned, Jews are to be regarded as citizens
of the Jewish faith (Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens), and, as such, are
subject to civil laws. And civil laws, the young Hegel wrote,
Affect
every citizen’s security of person and property, and this has nothing at all to
do with his religious opinions. Thus, whatever his faith, it is the state’s
duty to protect his rights as a citizen... (ETW 22).
Hegel
thus stands on the side of religious toleration and Jewish emancipation. He
also criticised the exaggerated emphasis on Jews being an alien people, nation,
or race (ein fremdes Volk; eine fremde Nation; eine fremdartige Rasse),
or a corporate political group, rather than a particular religious party (eine
besondere Religionspartei) — which
was bandied about in the anti-Semitic literature of the day (see PR §270;
Hegel’s Addition). The Jews, as far as the state is concerned, are another
‘religious party’, like the Mennonites, Quakers and Anabaptists, which should
be tolerated and granted equal civil rights, even if they refuse — on religious grounds — to perform “formal duties”,
such as military service, which the Jews, of course, did not. As Wood notes, “Hegel here refers to
Chancellor Hardenberg’s ‘Edict Concerning the Civil Relations of the Jews’ (11
March, 1812), which declared that Jews were to enjoy full equality of civil and
political rights in Prussia” (Wood, A., 1995, 459). What the
anti-emancipationists seem to forget, Hegel asserts further, is that the Jews
are above all Menschen, not some “neutral, abstract quality” (PR §270,
Hegel’s Note). And “der Mensch”, Hegel argued in his Encyclopaedia,
is implicitly rational; herein lies the possibility
of equal justice for all men and the futility of a rigid distinction between
races which have rights and those which have none (Enc. III, §393).
In
forgetting this fact — i.e. that Jews
are human beings — Fries and his
followers implicitly deny their universal or common humanity. Hegel, on the
other hand, emphasised that
the nature of a human being consists precisely in the
fact that he is essentially universal in character, not an abstraction of the
moment and a single fragment of knowledge (PR §132).
Indeed,
in viewing the Jews as nothing more than an “abstract, neutral quality”, men
like Fries are conveniently enabled to project all sorts of imagined and
irrational determinations onto the Jews, and, consequently, to accuse and
condemn them a priori for whatever
they want to accuse them of and condemn them for, unmediated by proofs. For Hegel, this kind of abstraction amounts
to “a delusion powered by suspicion” — i.e. the worst kind of fanaticism, which
inevitably ends (as during the Middle Ages, “during the sway of the Roman
Emperors, and under Robespierre’s Reign of Terror”) —
in “frightful barbarity” (PH 427).
This fanaticism, as Hegel defines it in the Philosophy
of Right, “wills only what is abstract, not what is articulated, so
whenever differences emerge, it finds them incompatible and cancels them” (PR §
5).
Considering
Hegel’s actual attitude towards the Jews, we can conclude that Popper’s
arguments are without foundation.
This
study attempted to assess the validity and accuracy of the claim that Hegel was
a racist or that he contributed to a distorted perception of race. Having
explored his concept of race and racial diversity, we must conclude that this
allegation can not be supported. While we need not agree with Hegel’s
conception of history as the progressive development of freedom in the world,
reaching its (temporary) apex in the European consciousness, a racist
interpretation thereof is, in my opinion, invalid. I’ve attempted to
demonstrate that Hegel opposed much of the anthropological and physiological
‘wisdom’ of his day concerning the concepts of race and racial diversity.
Selected
Bibliography
Bernasconi,
Robert, “Hegel at the Court of the
―
“A Reply to McCarney”, in Radical Philosophy 119, May/June 2003;
internet version.
―
“Kant and the Invention of Race”, in Race, Bernasconi, R. [Ed.] (
Cuvier,
Georges, Recherches sur les ossements fossils (1812), vol. I.
D’Souza,
Dinesh, The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society (New
York: The Free Press, 1995).
Fries,
J. F., Über die Gefährdung des Wohlstandes und Characters der Deutschen
durch die Juden (Heidelberg: Mohr & Winter, 1818).
Hegel,
G.W. F., Werke in zwanzig Bänden, eds. Eva Moldenhauer & Karl Markus
Michel (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970).
―
Berliner Schriften 1818-1831, Werke XI (1997); [BS; cited
by page number]
―
Frühe Schriften, Werke I; [FS]
―
Early Theological Writings, trans. T.M. Knox (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1971); [ETW; cited by page number].
―
Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, Part III; Hegel’s
Philosophy of Mind, trans. William Wallace [Zusätze trans. A.V.
Miller] (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971); [Enc.III; cited by paragraph].
Enzyklopädie
der philosophischen Wissenschaften
III, Werke X, (1999); [Enz.III].
―
Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, trans. H.B. Nisbet
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975); [LPWH; cited by page
number].
Vorlesungen
über die Philosophie der Geschichte,
Werke XII (1999); [VPG]
―
The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New York: Dover, 1956); [PH; cited by page number].
―
Elements of the Philosophy of Right, trans. H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1991); [PR; cited by paragraph].
―
Phenomenology of Mind, trans. J.B. Baille (London: Allen & Unwin,
1966); [PhM; cited by page number].
Phänomenologie
des Geistes, Werke III.
― ‘Prefatory Lectures on the Philosophy of Law’,
trans. Alan S. Brudner, Clio, vol. 8, no. 1, 1978.
―Hegel:
The Letters, trans. by Clark Butler & Christiane Seiler (Indiana
University Press: 1984); [Let.; cited by letter number].
― Briefe von und an Hegel, ed. by
Johannes Hoffmeister (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1953 -1969); Band I 1785 –1812; Band II 1813
– 1822; Band III 1823 – 1831; [B,
cited by volume and letter number].
Kaufmann,
Walter, “The Hegel Myth and its Method”, in Steward, Jon (ed.), The Hegel Myth
and its Legends (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1996).
―
[Ed.] Hegel’s Political Philosophy (New York: Atherton, 1970).
McCarney,
Joseph, Hegel on History (
―
“Hegel’s Racism? A Response to Bernasconi”, in Radical Philosophy 119,
May/June 2003; internet version.
Pinkard,
Terry, Hegel: A Biography (
Plamenatz,
John, Man and Society: From Montesquieu to the Early Socialists, vol. II
(New York: McGraw Hill, 1963).
Popper,
Karl, The Open Society and its Enemies (Princeton University Press,
1950).
Pierre-Andre,
“Les Presuppositions Definitionelles d’un Indefinissable: Le Racisme”, in Mots,
No. 8 (1984).
[1]
It is interesting to note, however, that the National Socialists themselves had
little or not time for Hegel. Hitler explicitly condemns the philosopher in his
Table Talks of 1940, and the Nazis “regretted” that Hegel did not recognise
“the Jewish question” as a problem of race and did not accentuate the “natural
side” of the “people” better. See W. Schönfeld, Die Geschichte der
Rechtswissenschaft im Spiegel der Metaphysik (Stuttgart: 1943), p. 510; K.
Larenz, “Die Bedeutung der völkischen Sitte in Hegels Staatsphilosophie”, Zeitschrift
für gesammte Staatswissenschaft 98, no. 1 (1938), p. 135.
[2]
Gattung denotes the human species in a spiritual sense, as well as in
the technical parlance of biological classification. Humanity, according to
Hegel, is a genus — the genus.
[3] Shakespeare, William, Macbeth,
Act I, Scene IV.
[4]
Consider the “curse of Ham”, Genesis 9:18-27; this is here clearly
rejected by Hegel.
[5] Hegel rejects polygamy
because he regards monogamous marriage as “one of the absolute principles on which
the ethical life of a community is based” (PR §167). Moreover, “the woman must
come into her right just as much as the man. Where [there is] polygamy, [there
is] slavery of women” (VPR 1, 301).
[6] Hegel, G.W. F.,
‘Prefactory Lectures on the Philosophy of Law’, trans. Alan S. Brudner, Clio,
vol. 8, no. 1 (1978), p. 68.
[7]
As cited by Shlomo Avineri, “Hook’s Hegel”, in Kaufmann, Walter (ed.), Hegel’s
Political Philosophy, p. 74.
Copyright © 2006
Minerva
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but fair and good faith use with full attribution may be made of this work for
educational or scholarly purposes.
Sandra Bonetto is an Irish philosopher teaching a
number of philosophy courses, including ethics and political philosophy, to adult
learners at
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