Domenico Losurdo’s Hegel und die Freiheit der Modernen (Hegel and the Freedom of the Moderns) is an intellectually dense and methodically expansive work that scrutinizes and dismantles longstanding stereotypes surrounding Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, particularly the reductionist portrayal of him as merely a theorist of conservative restoration. Losurdo revisits Hegel’s philosophy through a historically grounded analysis that places the thinker within the turbulent social and political contexts of 19th-century Europe, where issues of personal autonomy, economic justice, and the legitimization of revolutionary actions were at the forefront of modern thought. The book seeks to unearth the layers of Hegel’s complex engagement with freedom as a core component of modern life, examining how his ideas on personal privacy, individual rights, and the economic interventions of the state formed a substantive response to the unique challenges posed by modernity.
In confronting the foundational myth that Hegel was aligned with the conservative forces of the Prussian state, Losurdo reconstructs Hegel’s intellectual landscape, revealing a philosopher whose commitment to human freedom was central to his work, albeit often misrepresented or obscured by political forces and later interpreters. Through an exhaustive review of Hegel’s letters, lectures, and unpublished manuscripts, Losurdo presents a portrait of a philosopher who maintained a delicate balance between endorsing revolutionary ideals and advocating for the rule of law, suggesting that Hegel saw law as a necessary instrument for actualizing freedom rather than restricting it.
The book addresses Hegel’s often-overlooked stances on issues of poverty and class struggle, where he asserted that the right to life and sustenance could override property rights, a radical stance that hinted at his support for economic justice and, by extension, state responsibility. Losurdo’s study of Hegel’s writings on the French Revolution further elucidates this complexity, revealing Hegel’s appreciation for the revolution’s role in advancing the rights of individuals and dismantling entrenched feudal privileges while simultaneously acknowledging the need for order and institutional stability in the revolutionary process. Thus, Hegel emerges not as a passive supporter of political restoration but as a sophisticated and critical observer of revolution, whose caution was born from an awareness of the social disruptions that unrestrained revolutionary fervor could entail.
Losurdo pays special attention to the modes of censorship that affected Hegel and his contemporaries, exploring how this climate of repression compelled Hegel to employ a veiled language and adopt a style marked by a strategic ambiguity. This element of self-censorship, Losurdo argues, was not simply a personal compromise but a necessary tactic that enabled Hegel to convey subversive ideas in a politically constrained environment. The book demonstrates how Hegel’s “between-the-lines” writing style became an intellectual strategy, a way of asserting progressive ideas without falling afoul of censorship laws, thus preserving his philosophical integrity within the limits imposed by the state.
Through Losurdo’s painstaking scholarship, Hegel und die Freiheit der Modernen illuminates the dialectical nature of Hegel’s thought, where freedom is not merely a theoretical abstraction but an embodied practice situated within historical and social structures. By situating Hegel’s work within the specific political constraints and social upheavals of his time, Losurdo recasts him as a thinker whose commitment to freedom, justice, and equality went hand-in-hand with his pragmatic understanding of statecraft and social order. The book thus not only reframes Hegel’s philosophical legacy but also serves as an incisive critique of the tendency to reduce complex historical figures to simple ideological labels.
In its depth and breadth, Hegel und die Freiheit der Modernen challenges readers to engage with Hegel’s work on its own terms, stripped of the distortions imposed by later political agendas. It is a critical intervention that reframes Hegel as an intellectual forefather of modern social thought, whose ideas remain deeply relevant for contemporary discussions on the role of the state, the nature of rights, and the demands of economic and social justice in a free society. This work stands as a definitive statement on Hegel’s enduring relevance and a rigorous plea to reconsider how we interpret the philosophical giants of the past in light of the historical conditions that shaped their thought.
Simon Gros 
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