Robespierre-Kant: A Study of the Relationship between Absolute Freedom and Terror and Kant's Philosophy of Ethics Based on the Hegel's Phenomenology of spirit

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Ph.D. of Philosophy, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

Abstract

In Phenomenology of the Spirit, Hegel depicts the dialectical structure of the history of European human consciousness. In all the transitions of consciousness to different outcomes, he has recognized the necessity and dialectical relation and follows it in all fields of history and fields of thought in different currents. In the chapter on the spirit, we encounter two very important currents in social history, namely the French Revolution, and in the history of thought, that is, Kant's philosophy of morality, which appear in two consecutive sections. And it's as if Hegel found a close connection between Robespierre's assassination rule and Kantian philosophy of morality. Where Robespierre's abstract freedom, in order to create absolute freedom in the realization of his generalized partial will, destroys any institution or detail as a factor in disrupting the realization of his free will, and begins a period of tyranny and terror. It is as if such a claim of a common will that tolerates no detail or opposition becomes the internal tyranny of Kant's general moral law (the realization of which is the only way to attain freedom) in order to destroy nature, desires, customs and objective institutions, and so on. And it creates fear and anxiety due to endless contradictions, and the moral person, like the revolutionary person, is trapped within his abstract will by the complete elimination of objectivity, which, according to Hegel, will have dangerous consequences.

Keywords

References

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Journal of Philosophical Investigations
Volume 15, Issue 37 - Serial Number 37
Special Issue: Interaction Between Sciences and Philosophy (In Persian)
2021
Pages 627-653

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