Abstract: Hegel argues that families own property privately, but also collectively: the family’s property belongs to a single family, but it belongs to all of its members, including future generations. This seems to require a change in the way that Hegel initially conceptualizes property, Eigentum, which he defines as an expression of an individual person’s will. In order to incorporate family property, Hegel makes two amendments to this initial concept. He proposes that families be thought of as persons in their own right, which allows him to maintain that family property is privately owned. He also introduces a different term for a family’s property, Vermögen, translated as resources, wealth, assets, or capacities, which allows him to assert that family property is collectively owned. Hegel then uses this same term, Vermögen, in his chapter on civil society, where he talks in terms of a “universal property” that has explicitly collective connotations. In this talk I examine what Hegel means by family property and how he tries to reconcile the private and the collective aspects of this concept. I argue that Hegel ultimately cannot make full sense of family property, specifically of its expression in inheritance law, and that he leaves open the possibility that family property be redistributed beyond the borders of the family.
Post-Kantian European Philosophy Seminar Convenors: Jack Wearing, Joseph Schear, Manuel Dries, Kate Kirkpatrick and Mark Wrathall
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