Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich

Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts. Berlin: Nicolai, 1821



8vo (7 7/8 x 4 ¾ in.; 200 x 120 mm). Series half-title; very occasional light spots, a few pencilled marginal highlights. Contemporary marbled boards, spine gilt with gold-stamped red leather title label on spine, in a brown cloth drop-box; extremities rubbed.

Nordhoff (contemporary signature on title, perhaps Charles Nordhoff 1830-1901) — Hans Heilbrunn (bookplate) — Everett & Janet Frost (bookplate) — Michael Sharpe (goldstamped leather bookplate)

Borst 1361; PMM 283; see F.R. Dallmayr, G.W.F. Hegel: modernity and politics (2002), pp. 96 ff.

First edition.

Hegel's Philosophy of Right, together with his lectures on the philosophy of history, are generally considered to be the most significant of his later works and to have had a disproportionate influence. Objections made against arguments in these works became, in the hands of Kierkegaard and Marx, the starting point for the two strongest post-Hegelian intellectual movements.

Based on lectures given at the University of Heidelberg in 1817-1819, the Grundlinien is presented in a cautious style "for use in his lectures" (as stated on the title), as it was published after the Carlsbad Decrees of September 1820 which organized press censorship to supress revolutionary student organizations. But it is aimed at a popular tendency to rely on "the authority of inner feeling and emotion" and bypass the labor of reason, which Hegel saw as part of the Romantic counter-enlightenment. As he says in the preface:
"Recent self-styled philosophy has expressly stated that truth itself cannot be known, but that truth is only what each individual allows to rise out of his heart, emotion and inspiration about ethical matters, especially about the state, the government, and the constitution. In this context, how much flattering talk has been dispensed, especially in the direction of the young! And the young certainly have listened willingly enough. The saying 'The Lord giveth to his own in sleep' has been assigned to science and philosophy—and hence every sleeper has counted himself among the elect. But, of course, the insights garnered in sleep are themselves only the wares of sleep."

A beautiful, crisp copy.