Fine – Political Investigations

Robert Fine0415239079, 9780415239073, 0415239087, 9780415239080, 0861049152, 9780861049158, 9780585337951, 9780203995471

In this highly innovative book Robert Fine compares three great studies of modern political life: Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Marx’s Capital and Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism, and argues that they are all profoundly radical texts, which jointly contribute to our understanding of the modern world. Fine maintains that these works are far more revealing when read together than in opposition, and draws a direct parallel between Hegel’s critique of social forms of right and Marx’s critique of social forms of value. Fine shows how fruitfully their work can and should be combined.Hannah Arendt was in turn critical of what she saw as the historicism of both Hegel and Marx, but Fine argues that her study of the origins of totalitarianism directly picks up on their insights into the modern potential for fanaticism and destructiveness. Arendt never disavowed any of the nineteenth century thinkers who prefigured the catastrophes to come, but Fine shows her indebtedness to Hegel and Marx.

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Table of contents :
BOOK COVER……Page 1
TITLE……Page 4
COPYRIGHT……Page 5
CONTENTS……Page 8
Acknowledgements……Page 10
Abbreviations……Page 12
Introduction……Page 14
1 Reading and misreading Hegel’s Philosophy of Right……Page 18
2 The idea of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right……Page 37
3 Hegel and Kant natural law and the science of right……Page 54
4 State and revolution Hegel Rousseau Marx……Page 74
5 Right and value unity of Hegel and Marx……Page 92
6 Totalitarianism and the rational state Arendt……Page 113
7 State and revolution revisited Arendt……Page 135
8 Kant’s cosmopolitan ideal and Hegel’s critique……Page 145
9 Arendt’s critical cosmopolitanism……Page 164
Bibliography……Page 179
Index……Page 185