This paper reconstructs what the famous sentence "what is rational is actual /and what is actual is rational" specifically means within the Hegel's Philosophy of Right. The two traditional and antithetical interpretations of these words share one main point: both transpose them on the level of the Philosophy of History. Haym does this from a conservative perspective. He regards the Hegelian saying as an immediate justification for existence. Gans and, more recently, Ilting do this from a liberal perspective. They find (...) the idea of the progressive realization of rationality in history in the Hegelian saying. The latter interpretation seems to be attested in some alternative formulations provided by Hegel in his lectures (where "real" and "actual" are linked by "wird" or "muß sein", not by "ist"). Hegel's words, however, do not directly refer to the Philosophy of History. They concern in the first place the structure of ethical life (Sittlichkeit). This is confirmed by the recurring reference to the category of “idea”. Ethical life is the process through which ethical substance – i.e. the ensemble of the substantial determinations that structure everyone’s life – is realized through the self-conscious action of individuals. This action is the objectifying of the spirit and is always a finite action. Through this very manifold contingency, the "brightly coloured covering" of men's being busy, the substance emerges as the "universal way of their acting". This process turns into a whole series of specific differences that structure several spheres of action and existence, whose compresence must be governed. As it is always open to error and not logically deducible, this process turns the identity of rational and actual, in the Philosophy of Right, into an ethical-political problem. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to consider the connection between the structure of consciousness and absolute knowing, starting from the notion of Unruhe, “restlessness”. This word has two different meanings in the Phenomenology: 1) in the Introduction, Hegel uses it in order to define the experience of natural consciousness; 2) in the last chapter, it refers to the dialectical movement of the Concept. These two different meanings are strictly connected. The Unruhe that Hegel recognizes in every experience of consciousness (...) implies an original conception of the relation between consciousness and its objects and between consciousness and truth. These aspects have been pointed out by the french interpretations of the Phenomenology, from Kojève and Hyppolite up to Lacan and Foucault. This restlessness of consciousness derives from the spiritual element (Geist) that appears progressively in every experience of consciousness itself. This first meaning of Unruhe is therefore based on the second one. Then absolute knowing, that is, the overcoming of every difference between consciousness and its object, doesn’t imply the disappearing of restlessness. On the contrary, Unruhe actually finds in absolute knowing its strongest expression, as essential restlessness of the Concept. The Unruhe that every consciousness goes through is therefore the sign of its belonging to the life of Spirit. (shrink)