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The Organismic State Against Itself: Schelling, Hegel And The Life Of Right, Joshua D. Lambier

Joshua D Lambier

Focusing on the political thought of Schelling and Hegel – beginning with the early texts (1796–1802), then moving briefly to Hegel’s well known Philosophy of Right (1821) – this essay revisits the Romantic-Idealist theory of the organic state by returning to its genesis in the turbulent political, cultural and scientific debates of the post-Revolutionary period. Given the controversial nature of its historical (mis)appropriations, the organic idea of the state has become synonymous with totality and closure. This essay argues, however, that the contemporary rejection of organicism relies on narrow interpretations of Romantic and Idealist notions of organic life, interpretations that …