ON ABSTRACT CRITIQUE AND REAL CRITIQUE OR CRITIQUE IN HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT

The primary element of the social is living in an ethos , involved with the world, with others, and with ourselves. Drawing on Hegel, this article shows the social critical aspect of this approach. Ethical life is neither blind obedience to a destiny nor remaining in a vicious circle in which only customs are repeated, but it contains a degree of recognition and appropriation that allows us to see and alter these determinations when they no longer make the world intelligible, when they are not rational. These positions are elaborated by confronting the readings that Habermas and Honneth advanced of Hegel.