On the concrete universality of the State: Reflections from the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences and the Elements of the Philosophy of Right

Abstract

This paper provides a clear articulation of the complex relationship between the State and the civil society in the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences and in the Elements of the Philosophy of Right. First, this relationship is analysed through the role that Hegel gives to civil society within the free modern state. Second, this relationship is presented as a "relationship of subordination" by virtue of which the interests of civil society must be subordinated to the universal interests of the State. Finally, we present the political scope of this "relationship of subordination" for the understanding of the Hegelian theory of the universal estate, whose universality is always a concrete universality.