The Genealogy Of Modern Freedom: From Rousseau, Hegel To Marx

On the academic background of political philosophy, this thesis tries to research on the evolution of freedom understanding, from Rousseau to Hegel and then to Marx. According to the research,"freedom"is supreme theme of modern political philosophy, which attracts some modern political philosophers, such as Rousseau, Hegel and Marx. Rousseau's moral community which is based on moral freedom, Hegel's modern state which is based on specific freedom and Marx's communism based on"the free development of every individual is the prerequisite for free developments of all human beings"provide different theoretical concepts from each other. It is the disparities that promote the deepening and the development of this theme.This thesis is composed of three sections.The first section starts from Rousseau's criticism and transformation on Hobbes's natural state and further explains Rousseau's understanding of the double meaning of freedom. It also covers Rousseau's isolated situations later in his life as a result of the failure of freedom achievement. Specifically, in order to rectify the modern political society that is filled with slavery and inequality, Rousseau resorts to natural state and stresses on the natural foundation of freedom and equality. However, natural state has become the past because of historical contingency and irreversibility. Therefore, getting back to the natural state of freedom and equality is impossible. On the other hand, Rousseau resorts to moral community that is based on the principle of the general will and establishes the foundation of moral freedom and equality. But Rousseau denies that history is a meaningful process and denies that acquirement of pre-knowledge of historical terminal point and destination is possible. Therefore, the establishment of the moral community relies on the unknown opportunity and this amounts to announcing the thoroughly failure of this appeal. As freedom can't be achieved in any society, Rousseau chooses to retire from society and becomes a lonely roamer. It points to the fact that Rousseau himself does not instruct revolution. Nonetheless, Rousseau's political philosophy is full of the teachings of instigating revolution. His abstract concept of moral freedom and moral community, based on the rule of the general will, eventually guides the"absolute freedom and terror"of the French Revolution.The second section provides a brand-new interpretation of Hegel's concept of freedom on a basis of a detailed interpretation of"Elements of the Philosophy of Right". Hegel refuses Rousseau's moral freedom that is based on the principle of the general will, because it exists as an abstract universal form, which is just the root reasons of"absolute freedom and terror"of the French Revolution. Therefore, unlike Rousseau, Hegel does not repel the principle of particularity. Hegel thinks that the real freedom is the unity of universality and particularity. So Hegel uses the principle of conceptual dialectic in Logics and deduces freedom that is the basic prescription of will and the concept or substance of will into non-prescriptive will, and then into prescriptive will, and finally into to real free will. In specific, through the reflection of the French revolution, Hegel criticizes the freedom of non-prescriptive will, namely Rousseau's moral freedom which is guided by the abstract universal principle. Through the reflection of the British Industrial Revolution, Hegel reveals that the limit freedom of urban society that is dominated by particular principle of the freedom of prescriptive will finally achieves specific freedom of the modern state as the unity of universality and particularity.Depending on Marx's important works, the third section deeply discusses Marx's particular understanding and argument on freedom. Hegel's view of state is the starting point for Marx to further advance the thought of freedom. Marx questions Hegel's view of state, because the state isn't the one that freedom itself achieves in real life, but the tool of the private interests, serving as a state of class. Hegel treats that urban society that is dominated by particularity as the unity of university and ethical particularity. While in the opinion of Marx,"the state couldn't save urban society in itself", and"the secret of the state is in the urban society". This is the real disparity between Marx's theory on freedom and Hegel's. On the basis of it, Marx begins to explore the obstacles and the realization of freedom in urban society itself. In different periods, Marx has different expressions: the alienation of money and human liberation based on the aufhebung of it in the period of"Thinking about Jewish problems"; the alienation of labor, the alienation of private property and the corresponding underlying roots of them——the alienation of communication and Communism based on the aufhebung of"private property, namely alienation of human themselves"in"The manuscripts of philosophy and economics in 1844"; and in"Capital", the oppression of surplus value, also known as exploitation and the elimination of exploitation,"the free development of every individual is the perquisite for that of all persons"of Communism. Marx's understanding of communism is based on the knowledge that the capitalist society will perish due to its inevitable conflicts. Marx moves the freedom realization from kingdom, which is Hegel's speculative state, to earth and named it as"Communism".In a nutshell,"freedom", which is the supreme theme of modern political philosophy, has not been yet, even with every hard exploration. Instead, political philosophers come up with new answers in new ways and put forward new questions.