Michael J. Thompson is Associate Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at William Patterson University. His most recent books include The Domestication of Critical Theory, Political Judgment and the Crisis of Modernity and Twilight of the Self: The Eclipse of Autonomy in Modern Society.

This book explores the relation between Hegel's metaphysics and his political, social, and practical philosophy. The essays seek to explore what normative insights and positions can be obtained from examining Hegel's distinctive view of the metaphysical dimensions of political philosophy.

Introduction

Michael J. Thompson

Part I: The Relation of Hegel's Metaphysics and Political Theory

1. The Course of God: Reading Hegel

Peter J. Steinberger

2. The Metaphysics of Spirit and Hegel's Philosophy of Politics

Andrew Buchwalter

3. Speculative Logic as Practical Philosophy: Political Life in Times of Crisis

Angelica Nuzzo

4. Metaphysics and the Poverty of Liberal-Positives Political Thought

Eric Goodfield

Part II: Ontology, Metaphysics and Practical Reason

5. The Metaphysical Infrastructure of Hegel's Practical Philosophy

Michael J. Thompson

6. The Metaphysics of Rational Action: Kantian and Aristotelian Themes in Hegel's Absolute Idealism

Sebastian Stein

7. Against the Post-Kantian Interpretation of Hegel; A Study in Proto-Marxist Metaphysics

Michael Morris

8. Objective Spirit: Hegel's Normative Social Ontology

Kevin Thompson

Part III: Metaphysics, History and the Structures of Ethical Life

9. Family Structures as Fields of Historical Tension: A Case Study in the Relation of Metaphysics and Politics

Christopher Yeomans

10. Hegel's Metaphysics of Marriage: Teleology, Ontology, and Sexually Embodied Freedom in the Philosophy of Right's Account of the Family

Joshua D. Goldstein

11. Tiger Stripes and Embodied Systems: Hegel on Markets and Models

David Kolb

12. Hegel and the End of a Particular Historical Development

Matthew Smetona