Relazione, riconoscimento e dialettica nella società civile di Hegel

The intent of my article is to show how Hegel’s Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts sets the concept of identity as not separable from that of relationship. The key terms connected to these two concepts will be those of recognition and dialectic. All this will be made clear through an analysis of the condition of civil society and of that struggle for self-recognition, which the author has constantly referred to within the fourth chapter of the Phänomenologie des Geistes. Only with the dimension of concrete struggle, and that of real and objective contradiction within modern society, can the concept of identity be discovered in its unambiguous and non-abstract form. The dialectic of the world history will remain a decisive factor: the ethical identity embodied by the State (which preserves and promotes the moment of difference) must be reaffirmed outside and beyond of Itself.