“Rational Actuality” and Philosophy

Abstract

Authoress tries to explain Hegel's dictum “what is rational is actual; and what is actual is rational” from “Preface” to the Elements of the Philosophy of Right. She claims that we can understand Hegel's dictum about “rational actuality” only in the context in which it appears, t.i. on the basis of what Hegel says about philosophy in the “Preface” itself. The rational core of Hegel's “worry” about philosophy represents Hegel's attempt to determinate minimal conditions with which a thinking can be recognized as philosophy. The first condition concerns procedure of philosophical examination, the second actuality of philosophy. Only on the basis of such understanding of philosophy, we can, authoress claims, properly explain dictum about “rational actuality”, t.i. its two poles – 'rational' and 'actual'.