Does Bevir's The Logic of the History of Ideas Improve Our Understanding of Hegel's Philosophy of Right?

Abstract

Mark Bevir's The Logic of the History of Ideas has received considerable attention recently. This article highlights a new problem with his weak intentionalism. Bevir's weak intentionalism holds that on occasion the meanings readers ascribe to texts may trump the meanings the authors express in texts. The article uses the example of Hegel's theory of punishment. The received wisdom is that Hegel is a pure retributivist. Yet, this strays far from his text and stated views. We might think we should keep to this text to uncover Hegel's views. However, Bevir's weak intentionalism has us side with how he has been read over what Hegel has said. This view is problematic as our meanings may well stray far from the texts, words or spirit. Thus, Bevir's weak intentionalism can fall victim to straying from the text when trying to interpret it.

Notes

NOTES

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Political Studies Association, University of Leicester, England. My sincere thanks to Gary Browning, Viv Brown, James Connelly, and, especially, Mark Bevir, Bob Stern, and an anonymous referee for this journal for their helpful suggestions on different drafts of this article.

1.  Mark Bevir, The Logic of the History of Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Subsequent references are cited in the text.  See Thom Brooks, review of The Logic of the History of Ideas, by Mark Bevir, International Journal of Philosophical Studies 10 (2002): 505–6; Vivienne Brown, “On Some Problems with Weak Intentionalism for Intellectual History,” History of Ideas 41 (2002): 198–208; Kevin E. Dodson, “Methodological Reduction, Perspectival Objectivity and Regulative Ideals,” Philosophical Books 43 (2001): 164–69; Tamar Szabó Gendler, “Comments on Mark Bevir's The Logic of the History of Ideas,” Philosophical Books 43 (2001): 170–76; Jorge J. E. Gracia, “The Logic of the History of Ideas or the Sociology of the History of Ideas,” Philosophical Books 43 (2001): 177–86; Russell L. Hanson, review of The Logic of the History of Ideas, by Mark Bevir, History of Concepts: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Iain Hampsher-Monk, Karin Tilmans, and Frank Van Vree, and The History of Political and Social Concepts: A Critical Introduction, by Melvin Richter, American Political Science Review 96 (2002): 795–97; Robert B. Pippin, review of The Logic of the History of Ideas, by Mark Bevir, Mind 110 (2001): 163–68; and Robert Stern, “History, Meaning, and Interpretation: A Critical Response to Bevir,” History of European Ideas 28 (2002): 1–12.

2.  See Mark Bevir, “The Errors of Linguistic Contextualism,” History and Theory 31 (1992): 276–98; Mark Bevir, “Objectivity in History,” History and Theory 33 (1994): 328–44; Mark Bevir, “Ideology as Distorted Belief,” Journal of Political Ideologies 1 (1996): 107–22; Mark Bevir, “Meaning, Truth and Phenomenology,” Teorema 16 (1997): 61–76; and Mark Bevir, “Mind and Method in the History of Ideas,” History and Theory 36 (1997): 167–89. See also his defences of his Logic: Mark Bevir, “Taking Holism Seriously: A Reply to Critics,” Philosophical Books 43 (2001): 187–95; Mark Bevir, “How to Be an Intentionalist,” History and Theory 41 (2002): 209–17.

3.  See Brooks, review of The Logic of the History of Ideas, 506; Pippin, review of The Logic of the History of Ideas, 167.

4.  Stern, “History, Meaning, and Interpretation,” 12.

5.  For example, see David E. Cooper, “Hegel's Theory of Punishment,” in Hegel's Political Philosophy: Problems and Perspectives, ed. Z. Pelczynski (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 151–67; Allen W. Wood, Hegel's Ethical Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 108–24.

6.  G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. A. W. Wood, trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Hereafter abbreviated as PR; subsequent references are cited in the text: remarks will be noted by R and additions by A, each following the appropriate paragraph number.

7.  See Thom Brooks, “Is Hegel a Retributivist?” Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 49/50 (2004): 113–26.

8.  The next section will try to highlight the problem this dichotomy of text versus its meaning has for interpreting historical texts. To foreshadow, meanings can often take on a life of their own independently of the text. Thus, there is a real problem of received wisdom about a text bearing little (or inaccurate) relationship to the text. This problem is particularly acute when we examine Hegel's written text on punishment and the meanings that scholars have falsely ascribed to it, in part, a product of over-reliance upon received wisdom on the subject.

9.  Quentin Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas,” in Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics, ed. J. Tully (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), 63–64. (Cited in Bevir, The Logic of the History of Ideas, 41.)

10.  Several times Bevir argues that there cannot be a logic of discovery for the history of ideas. Bevir, The Logic of the History of Ideas, 82, 85, 87.

11.  For a more detailed discussion of Hegel's theory of punishment, see Brooks, “Is Hegel a Retributivist?”.

12.  Wood, Hegel's Ethical Thought, xiii.

13.  One controversial aspect I would stress is that the activity of will is central to this discussion, not the physical acquisition of property (PR §55R, §217R).

14.  G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 43.

15.  See Cooper “Hegel's Theory of Punishment,” and Wood, Hegel's Ethical Thought.

16.  See Thom Brooks, Hegel's Political Philosophy: A Systematic Reading of the Philosophy of Right (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), chap. 4.

17.  G. W. F. Hegel, Hegel's Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller (Amherst: Humanity Books, 1969/99).

18.  Hegel, Science of Logic, 107.

19.  See G. W. F. Hegel, “System of Ethical Life” (1802/3), in Hegel's System of Ethical Life and First Philosophy of Spirit, ed. and trans. H. S. Harris and T. M. Knox (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1979), 118: It is laughable to regard everything under the form of this abstraction as legal right; right is something entirely formal, (α) infinite in its variety, and without totality, and (β) without any content in itself.

20.  Hegel, “System of Ethical Life,” 132, 139–40.

21.  G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on Natural Right and Political Science, §46R.

22.  Hegel, Science of Logic, 465; (emphasis added). A similar view is expressed by T. H. Green (see Thom Brooks, “T. H. Green's Theory of Punishment,” History of Political Thought 24 [2003]: 685–701).

23.  A defence of this reading can be found in Brooks, Hegel's Political Philosophy.

24.  Wood, Hegel's Ethical Thought, 5.

25.  Bevir, The Logic of the History of Ideas, 75.

26.  For an interesting view, see Stephen Makin, “How Can We Find Out What Ancient Philosophers Said?” Phronesis 33 (1988): 121–32.