Challenging the association of Hegel with political realism: the contribution of Hegel’s methodological insights to a critique of realism and a richer understanding of war and statehood

This paper challenges the association of Hegel with political realism. Many approaches rely predominantly on the Philosophy of Right’s third part (the State) and on the Phenomenology of Spirit’s ‘master‒slave’ dialectic, classifying Hegel as a political realist who praises the state, glorifies war and dismisses international law. However, this oversimplifies Hegel’s thought and misinterprets his methodology. The thesis of this paper is that these misperceptions can be avoided once: (i) Hegel’s corpus is considered coherently; (ii) the context of his philosophical thought is taken into account; and (iii) his insights cease to be applied in a descriptive or prescriptive way. Hegel’s contribution will be revisited by way of treating the Phenomenology of Spirit as the point of departure to comprehend the Philosophy of Right. Approaching the Philosophy of Right through the Phenomenology’s emphasis on the forms of consciousness, spirit (Geist) and ethical life (Sittlichkeit), reveals the intellectual wealth of Hegel’s methodology while exposing the methodological flaws of realism.