Free Will and Statehood

The guiding question of this commentary on Fernanda Gallo's Hegel and Italian Political Thought. The Practice of Ideas, 1832-1900 is the following: When a systematic philosophy of the state (here, Hegel's Staatswissenschaft) is being primarily employed to lead political action aimed at a specific goal (here, the unification of Italians into one state), what are the practical gains, and what are the theoretical losses, if any? My comments centre on Southern Italian Hegelianism as represented by Bertrando Spaventa. In particular, I discuss Spaventa's interpretation of the metaphysical notions of “right,” “will” and “freedom” and their relation to the political concepts of “people,” “nation” and “state.” Gallo's book details the significance of all these notions in Spaventa's vision of a unification of historically diverse Italian peoples into one “nation” and into a state-of-right (Hegel's Rechtsstaat). The reflection I offer on those juridical and political key-concepts in Hegel's own 1820 Philosophy of Right is meant to enhance the appreciation and assessment of Spaventa's philosophy as much as of the political strategy he pursued in the historical context described in Gallo's study.

Free will · Hegelianism · History of political thought · Political philosophy · Politics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought

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