Law and Violence: Hegelian Variations
Jean-François Kervégan
Hegel-Studien Band 57 (2024)

Abstract: After pointing out the ambiguity of the German word Gewalt, which means both “violence” and “power”, the paper first examines, starting with Aristotle, the relationship between violence and rationality, which in contemporary thought has been subject to a series of critical inquiries, for example in Adorno, Levinas, and Derrida. It then focuses on the relationships between violence and law, which are the subject of Benjamin’s Zur Kritik der Gewalt. In order to escape from the “magic circle” criticized by Benjamin, it examines the way in which Hegel, in his Logic, Phenomenology of Spirit and Rechtsphilosophie, reconsiders the relationships between Macht, Gewalt, and Zwang: indeed, violence is the opposite of law, but it is also what enables it to be instituted.

https://meiner.de/periodika/hegel-studien/hegel-studien-band-57.html