Three Pictures of Hegel’s Holism: Mystical, Instrumentalist, Intrinsicist

The two-hundredth anniversary of the publication Hegel’s Philosophy Right allows us to provide an array exciting interpretations his work. In one interpretation, exemplified by reactions Johann Friedrich Herbart (discussed here Frederick Beiser) and Karl Marx Jacob Roundtree), holism is a product romantic or mystical metaphysics that prioritizes invisible reality Idea over visible realities. another interpretation (advanced Roundtree himself Darren Nah, Alan Patten, Paul Rosenberg), instrumental preserving individual freedoms interests embedding them in larger cultural institutional context. A third not necessarily incompatible with second (and contributions from Neuhouser, Angelica Nuzzo, Terry Pinkard), treats Hegelian whole as rational intrinsically, merely because it other ends.