Baština (Jan 2017)
The French bourgeois revolution in works of Hegel and Burke
Abstract
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Edmund Burke, two prominent philosophers, influential in their countries, left very interesting and inspiring records about the French Revolution, an event which, indisputably had great resonance in the world. Hegel was a supporter of new ideas, changes in society and intellectual elevation of the individual in relation to the church. In contrast, Burke was of conservative beliefs, tradition supporter, praised the natural right of rulers and priests. In accordance to their convictions they interpreted the revolution that began in France in 1789. Hegel speaks about revolution as the dawn of humanity and the event that led to a new era of freedom and equality, Burke saw in the revolution criminal activity, the tyranny, the road to misery instead of happiness. Hegel believed that the revolution was due to the great influence of the church on daily life which denied many freedoms of the mind, i.e. individuals, but as the monarch did not accept the reforms, the revolution was a very real sequence of events. Burke's opinion is in this segment also the contrary, so he says that the overthrow of the monarch is an unnatural act, attacking in the same time the revolutionaries because he considered that France had a good foundation for the restoration of the monarchy. Hegel emphasizes the major impact of educators and that revolution was philosophic, on the other side Burke attacks educators and their concept of rights as one of the basic source of revolutionary danger, so this interpretation, which is the essence of his writing, was a small counter-revolution on the French bourgeois revolution. In the eyes of Hegel and other German idealists, the French Revolution not only abolished feudal absolutism and replaced it with economic and political system of the middle class which was the bearer of revolutionary changes, but ended those which were started in the sixteenth century by the German Reformation, it liberated individual as master of his own life, who relies on himself, so it declared final power of mind over reality. British philosopher, however, considers the changes in France as an unscrupulous attack on freedom, which disappeared at the beginning of the revolution. The only thing these two thinkers agree with is the fact that during the revolution there was tyranny, and that the long-term situation was unsustainable, so it needed new political principles that in practice were carried out by the military leader, Napoleon Bonaparte. He spread the liberalism of the revolution to the whole Europe.
