G.W.F. Hegel

At a time when 'modernity' has become a deeply contested notion, G.W.F. Hegel: Modernity and Politics presents Hegel as the quintessential philosopher of modernity, highlighting his political writings that culminated in the Philosophy of Right. Fred R. Dallmayr deftly argues that, for Hegel, modernity resided in the growth of human freedom—a freedom anchored in public responsibility and social justice, the 'high road' of modernity. This outlook remains politically relevant in our globalizing age as an antidote to a 'predatory' mode of globalization that celebrates economic self-interest. With a new introduction, this revised edition interprets Hegel's 'postmodern' legacy not as the move from spirit to matter, nor from holism to particularism, but as the dissemination of the liberating spirit in the capillaries of democratic lifeworlds.