Hegel and Derrida on State, Spirit, Community, and Ethics: Alternative to Social Contract Theory and the Dialogue
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Abstract
Although social contract theory is dominant in the study of political philosophy, the theory seems to abandon the questions of spirt, community and ethics, especially the hospitality, which are relevant to the essence of the state. Therefore, this article considers that state is indispensable to the accounts of spirit, community, and ethics of two Western philosophers, namely, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Jacques Derrida. The main argument is to show different thinking about the state as the alternative to state modelled on social contact theory and thereby to show that those two thinkers clearly have different viewpoints regarding the same topic. Hegel believes that the state is the absolute spirit. The fusion of state and the cluster of the individuals are indispensable and marks the end of history. This absolute practice aims to establish coherency, consolidation, and ethical commitment to the state. Derrida’s views in a contradictory fashion to Hegel’s proposal critiquing that the state lacks the character to be an absolute spirit. One of Derrida’s criticisms concerning a lack of absolute spirit of the state is the problem of the state’s hospitality. Derrida views that the state’s hospitality is conditional, pre-given with the element of violence imposing on the difference and the others. Therefore, Derrida proposes alternative hospitality, or, the unconditional hospitality. This Derrida’s alternative proposal leads to a deconstruction of the state as absolute spirit so for the state to buttress the other, bolster up the difference, and in effect, the state will possess a new history coupled with a difference within a state itself.
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References
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