Hegel on Tragedy and the World-Historical Individual’s Right of Revolutionary Action

This chapter analyzes overlooked connections between Hegel’s theory of tragedy and his account of revolutionary action from a world-historical perspective. Although commentators have recently noticed parallels amid Hegel’s discussion of tragedy and his philosophy of action or his philosophy of history, they haven’t yet turned to questions concerning Hegel’s thought and revolutionary action with his theory of tragedy in mind. In fact, relatively little has been said in recent years about the prospect of a right of revolutionary action in Hegel’s ethical thought, let alone from the perspective I take here. This may be because Hegel holds the state in rather high esteem, infamously proclaiming it “the march of God in the world” (PR 258a), and therefore unsurprisingly rejects the idea that freedom of speech could license incitement to rebellion (PR 319r). My aim in this chapter is to offer an interpretation of Hegel that affirms a right of revolutionary action, overcoming these and other barriers while responding to recent accounts in the literature