Philosophy and War: Hegel's Therapeutic Movement of the Spirit
In addition to Axel Honneth's thesis on the therapeutic function of the concept of ethical life in Hegel's philosophy, I want to underline two mo- ments which, to my mind, show Hegel's views on the therapeutic dimension of both philosophy and the war against the pathology of civil society more clearly. In this context, (a) philosophy performs a corrective function by fos- tering the individual's virtue conceived as an ethical duty of care both for oneself and for others. The main aim of Hegel's practical philosophy is hence to return the individual from abstract subjective concepts to his concrete everyday intersubjective practices, and to show him the way to understand himself and the social world as originally related to each other; (b) one of the main problems for the moral development of individuals consists in their propensity to perceive the good in particularist and selfish terms: in this con- text events such as natural disasters or wars can be seen as performing a therapeutic function by teaching individuals to view the good in more prin- cipled and general terms. The revival of Hegels philosophy at the beginning of the 21st century didnt bypass the vicinity of his philosophy of spirit with the psycho- analytical theory in regard the the therapeutic dimensions of his philo- sophical concepts. This paper should contribute to that investigations on the ground of answering the following question: What can the subla- tion (Aufhebung) of moral consciousness within Hegel's philosophy mean for philosophical practice regarding therapeutical dimensions of ethical life (Sittlichkeit)? 1 Although my answer is purely theoretical, I maintain that Hegel's insights into the nature of the human spirit and its processuality, as well as the inherent tendency of the individual as such for self-realization, can be of great benefit to the conceptual foun- dation of philosophical praxis as a new paradigm in the human pursuit of philosophy. Hegel's philosophy essentially speaks about the ways of human relation to the world, about the individual's healthy views on the world and about the contingent conditions of the human existence. Hegel's therapeutic inquiry thus lies in enabling the individual to feel 'at 1 This paper was written as part of project no. 179049 funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia.