Hegel and Spinoza on Freedom and Right

In this dissertation, I aim to explore Hegel’s political thought from a novel perspective, and even suggest that it may have unrecognized origins. In particular I propose that, as in his theoretical philosophy, Hegel can productively be read as navigating a prominent Spinozist challenge in his practical philosophy, too. Understood as such, Hegel appears both less liberal and more compelling as a political thinker than otherwise, I suggest. By ‘liberal’ I mean here a tendency emphasizing the freedoms and rights of the individual. In trying to clarify a neglected philosophical dialogue between Hegel and Spinoza, who I argue are both keen to think about politics from a more social perspective—and who will then ultimately emphasize the freedoms and rights of the community in at least a number of key cases, on my interpretation—I contribute to current scholarship not just by outlining how Hegel came to engage Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise at the very beginning of his philosophical career, but also primarily by reconstructing and negotiating Hegel’s and Spinoza’s relevant views in tandem (along with those of several related thinkers). Spinoza’s political thought has been relatively neglected by historians of philosophy working in the Anglophone context, and thus there is already significant work to be done here. Across the four chapters of this dissertation, I aim to provide a deeper account of some of Spinoza’s political-philosophical views than is normally on offer, in order to then illustrate how Hegel may be seen as responding to Spinoza, which in turn always requires an interpretation of Hegel’s views on some given matter in each case. For instance: several studies have recently emerged focusing on what views Spinoza may have held concerning a right of revolution; but drawing upon claims developed throughout the dissertation concerning Hegel’s and Spinoza’s expressivist notions of freedom and their realist notions of right, I reject in a final chapter prominent interpretations of Spinoza’s views on the matter, and suggest that Spinoza indeed offers a qualified right of revolution—all to the end of then showing how Spinoza anticipates Hegel in this respect, where I must again carefully position my interpretation among others who have demurred here. In short, I argue in this dissertation that Hegel’s political philosophy is better understood, and reveals itself to be more progressive, when reconstructed as responding at least partly to Spinoza’s. I conclude with an Epilogue showing, on the basis of at least one prominent and neglected case—that of Martin Luther King, Jr.—how framing Hegel’s thought as I do in this dissertation also allows us to get a better grasp on important but neglected later engagements with it