Hegel’s Answer to the ‘Academy’ Question
Is it Permissible to Deceive a People
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21291482 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Andreja Novakovic (0000-0001-9742-8764, University of California, Berkeley 1438 University of California Berkeley, CA United States, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 107 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 331-359 |
| Publication date | 2025-06-04 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-9101 • E-ISSN: 0943-3988 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/agph-2023-0145 |
| OpenAlex | W4403433871 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 7 |
In 1780 Frederick II pushed the Prussian Academy to put forward a controversial question for a public essay contest: “Is it useful for the people to be deceived, be it by leading it into new errors or by confirming it in those which it upholds?” Although Hegel would have been too young to participate in the contest, he took two later opportunities to provide what would have been his answer. Whereas the Phenomenology of Spirit evaluates Enlightenment’s charge that religious faith is based on deception, the Philosophy of Right suggests that public opinion formation tends to lead to collective self-deception. In both versions of his answer, however, Hegel argues that it is impossible to deceive a people about its essence . In this paper I clarify what Hegel means by a people’s essence and why he thinks it impossible to deceive a people about it
Bad faith · CONTEST · Deception · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Faith · Hegelianism · Phenomenology (philosophy) · Sociology · Theology · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2024 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |