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In Hegel's Idea of the Good Life, Joshua D. Goldstein presents the first book-length study of the development and meaning of Hegel's account of human flourishing. This volume will be welcomed by philosophers and political theorists seeking to engage with the details of Hegel's early and mature social thought.

By bringing Hegel's earliest writings into dialogue with his Philosophy of Right, Goldstein argues that Hegel's mature political philosophy should be understood as a response to his youthful failure to build a sustainable account of the good life upon the foundations of ancient virtue. This study reveals how Hegel's mature response integrates ancient concerns for the well-ordered life and modern concerns for autonomy in a new, robust conception of selfhood that can be actualized across the full expanse of the modern political community.

Hegel's Idea of the Good Life: From Virtue to Freedom, Early Writings and Mature Political Philosophy

Acknowledgments.- Abbreviations, works, and translations.- Introduction.- The Development and Decline of an Aristotelian Idea of the Good Life, 1793 to 1800.- The Human Spirit and Folk-Religion: The Tübingen Essay of 1793.- A Purpose Apart from Religion.- The Human Spirit.- The Folk-religion Project.- Discovering The Community: The Berne Fragments of 1794.- A Return to the Social World.- Community and the Human Spirit.- Participation and Satisfaction.- The End of The Human Spirit: The Life of Jesus of 1795.- The Volkserzieher's Project.- The Volkserzieher's Solution to the Problem of Participation.- The Collapse of Self-legislation and the Human Spirit.- Freedom and The Completion of Aristotelian Virtue, 1821.- The Mature Foundation of the Good Life: Spirit and Freedom.- From the Human to the Spiritual Foundations of the Good Life.- The Human Spirit's New Experience and Activity within the Good Life.- The Condition of Freedom and the New Question of the Good Life.- The Living Form of the Good Life.- The Institutional Form of the Good Life.- The Experiential Form of the Good Life.- The Living Instances of the Good Life.- The Idea of the Good Life.- The Shape of the Good Life.- Enchantment and Banality.- Vitality and the New Virtue of Freedom.- Works Cited.- Index.