The Various Version’s of Hegel’s Doppelsatz
1.
Transcript of Hegel’s lectures on Rechtsphilosophie 1817/18 by P.
Wannemann §134.
The national spirit is substance. What is rational, must happen, inasmuch as the
constitution in general is its (the national spirit’s) development.
G.W.F.Hegel Die Philosophie des Rechts K-H. Ilting (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1983) p.
157.
2.
Transcript of Hegel’s lectures on Natur und Staatsrecht (Natural Law and
State Law) 1818/19 by G. Homeyer
The state of law stands only on the universal spirit of the people. The constitution
therefore stands in necessary relation to the present concepts. Thus, if the spirit of the
people has reached a higher level, then the moments of the constitution that belong to
previous levels, are no longer valid. [haben…keinen Halt mehr.] They must collapse
and no power can help them. Thus philosophy learns, that only what is rational can
happen., even though external individual appearances still seem so much to fight
against it.
K-H. Ilting G.W.F.Hegel Vorlesungen über Rechtsphilosophie (Stuttgart-BadCannstatt: Fromann-Holzboog, 1973) vol. 1 page ???
3. Elements of the Philosophy of Right of 1820, Preface: K-H. Ilting vol. 2, p.70
Was vernünftig ist, das ist wirklich;
Und was wirklich ist, das ist vernünftig.
What is rational is actual;
And what is actual is rational. EPR Preface 20
4. Transcript of Hegel’s Lectures on Philosophy of Right 1822-23 by H. G. Hotho
The mere respect for what has been established has been replaced by universal
principles, just like Princes can no longer appear to act simply on passions and whims.
Earlier the whim of the prince opposed the establishement, in modern times universal
principles are what rule. (Ilting, 1973. vol. 3 p. 98)
5. Philosophy of Right, lecture transcript by K. G. v. Griesheim 1824/25
In positive legal theory laws that exist are right. In philosophic on what is rational is
adequate to the concept. Positive legal theory eyes legal authority and laws must be
positive. This aspect concerns first and foremost the legal form insofar as it is the
object of positive legal theory; content is given afterwards. The form is, that law
exists, the content can be a rational, in and for itself lawful one or it can be a very
irrational, unlawful and quite arbitrary one, that is merely imposed by external
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authority: it can be a content given by being, whose validity however says nothing
about its value. (K-H Ilting, 1973. 4 p. 82)
6.
Transcript of Lectures on Rechtsphilosophie 1831by D. F. Strauss.
What is actual, is rational. But not everything that exists is actual. What is bad, is
internally broken and nugatory. What freedom is, is to be grasped, which is how the
theoretical spirit liberates itself. What spirit does not comprehend, stands over and
against it as something other. As soon as spirit comprehends it, then it has the
substance of the thing and finds itself in it. (Ilting vol. 4 p. 923)
7.
Alexander Pope Essay on Man I 289 (re: Theodicy.)
All nature is but art unknown to thee; / All chance, direction which thou canst not see;
/ All discord, harmony not understood; / All partial evil, universal good; / And, spite
of pride, in erring reason’s spite, / One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
8.
Karl Popper in his Open Society and Its Enemies, claims that according to
Hegel ‘what is, is good’. He takes the Doppelsatz as a summary of that Hegelian
view:
Hegel [maintains] that everything that is reasonable must be real, and
everything that is real must be reasonable, and that the development of reality
is the same as that of reason. And since there can be no higher standard in
existence than the latest development of Reason and of the Idea, everything
that is now real or actual exists by necessity, and must be reasonable as well as
good. (Particularly good, as we shall see, is the actually existing Prussian state
(Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume II: The High Tide of
Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath, 5th edition (London: Routledge,
1966), p. 41.
9. Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2nd edition (London: George
Allen & Unwin, 1961), p. 702: ‘…the identification of the real and the rational leads
unavoidably to some of the complacency inseparable from the belief that “whatever
is, is right”’.
10.
‘Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte’ G.W.F. Hegel Werke
12 eds. Moldenhauer and Michels Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1986, Einleitung 12/52.
Die Einsicht nun, zu der, im Gegensatz jener Ideale, die Philosophie führen soll, ist,
daß die wirkliche Welt ist, wie sie sein soll, daß das wahrhafte Gute, die allgemeine
göttliche Vernunft auch die Macht ist, sich selbst zu vollbringen. Dieses Gute, diese
Vernunft in ihrer konkretesten Vorstellung ist Gott. Gott regiert die Welt, der Inhalt
seiner Regierung, die Vollführung seines Plans ist die Weltgeschichte. Diesen will die
Philosophie erfassen; denn nur was aus ihm vollführt ist, hat Wirklichkeit, was ihm
nicht gemäß ist, ist nur faule Existenz. Vor dem reinen Licht dieser göttlichen Idee,
die kein bloßes Ideal ist, verschwindet der Schein, als ob die Welt ein verrücktes,
törichtes Geschehen sei. Die Philosophie will den Inhalt, die Wirklichkeit der
göttlichen Idee erkennen und die verschmähte Wirklichkeit rechtfertigen. Denn die
Vernunft ist das Vernehmen des göttlichen Werkes.
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