The philosopher as professor in Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right'

This dissertation argues that it is possible to provide a Hegelian philosophical justification for the philosopher's current social station as professor in a university. I begin with an argument that the station of philosopher as professor has become a philosophical problem. I turn to Hegel for a solution because he writes and teaches at the beginning of the tradition of the philosopher as professor in the modern university.;I focus on Hegel's Philosophy of Right (PR). I argue that within the ethical community described and defended in PR, there is a gap between the sort of person produced by the family and the sort of person needed by the executive branch of the state. The family produces an atomistic market competitor with a merely felt loyalty to the principles of his ethical community. The executive needs someone who self-consciously finds his particular satisfaction in the rational and universal good of the whole. I further argue that PR, read as a manual for a philosophy professor's lecture course on right, itself provides a bridge across that gap. PR, or the course based on it addresses itself first of all to the university student who has just emerged from the family. PR breaks down this student's self-understanding as a property-seeking atom in the market. It then methodically teaches the student to understand himself as a rational, critical, reflective member of a political community pursuing universal ends rooted in the good of the whole.;I contend that the tension Hegel describes between the family's or market's tendency to produce atomistic individuals and the political community's need for people motivated by the good of the whole is still with us. I conclude that the philosopher can justify his station as professor because as professor he can still play a unique and important role in the preparation of young people for self-conscious, reflective, critical citizenship in a modern political community. I also suggest that PR, critically revised, can provide a starting point and a model for the sort of education the philosophy professor can and should give the student.