Plato and Hegel: Reason, Redemption and Political Construction

Abstract

The political philosophies of Plato and Hegel can be compared and contrasted in relation to three distinct but connected arguments. First, Plato and Hegel share a common recognition of the significance of the social world for the development of individuals. Second, they both outline political communities that are held to be able to organise social life so as to overcome the alienation and disharmony that they see as common and persistent problems of social interaction. Third, their respective political solutions for these social problems are radically different as they have distinctive conceptions of reason and its role in social life. The originality of this study resides in its focus upon the specificity of Plato’s and Hegel’s approaches to what they took to be the task of political theory, the articulation of a political community resolving the problems and tensions of social practice. Hegel self-consciously attempted to supersede Plato’s ideal community by allowing for freedom of the individual within his rational state. However his political theory is distinguished from Plato’s most dramatically by his effort to redeem the negativity of political experience by unveiling the inner rationality of the modern state, whereas Plato, contrary to Hegel’s interpretation of the Republic, sought to construct an ideal political community that was wholly removed from the tensions and negativity of contemporary states.¹