"Tím hůře pro skutečnost." Cynický rozměr Hegelovy dialektiky

Abstract

The Open Society and Its Enemies, extended beyond the narrow confines of the specialist genre. The praise of war as a means of strengthening the state or the admiration of “world historical” personalities such as Caesar or Napoleon – all encapsulated in the shocking statement: what is real is rational – are read as a clear exaltation of the status quo, that Prussian state in which history found its culmination and Hegel his coveted position of power. The statement “So much the worse for reality,” with which Hegel allegedly answered a criticism of his dissertation on planetary orbits, extends this cynical moment to his theoretical philosophy as well. In the article, I will first touch on why this topic is, right from the start, factually wrong; in the next part, I will focus on the conceptual side of the problem. My thesis is that Hegel‘s cynicism is real, but its function is primarily didactic, manifesting a complicated logical structure of our speech concerning that which “is.”

Keywords

• g. w. f. hegel
• dialectics
• cynicism
• fallibilism
• reality