Abstract

Any book which brings Hegel into discussions of contemporary political and social theory is welcome, and Pinkard’s book does just that. This is not to say that the book is primarily about Hegel, for actually Hegel is rarely mentioned. What this book does is to bring the spirit of Hegel’s social and political philosophy into current debates about liberalism, democracy, and community. In particular, Pinkard makes the Hegelian distinction between civil society and the political state the cornerstone of his treatment of liberalism and democracy. This distinction apparently has been either overlooked or confused by writers such as Nozick and Rawls, who in any case tend to underemphasize the role of the political state in their writings.