Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

Becoming Citizens of Hegel’s State { 67

ing gulf between his vision of the state and Prussian realities, and the same was

true of Schulze, his bureaucratically well-positioned disciple.^84 Gans, however,

was theorizing at a professionally and personally more treacherous fault line—

between an imagined progressive Prussia and the Prussia that eventually, with

the Lex Gans, expressly excluded him.

The Performativity of Hegelian Discourse

What about Hegel’s thought could encourage the young intellectuals of the

Verein to attribute such power and agency to theoretical endeavors? It is evi-

dent enough why they were attracted to Hegel’s vision of politics, but why were

they so ebulliently hopeful that their efforts to reconceptualize Jewish history

with wissenschaftlich rigor would actively help realize, and integrate Jews into,

Hegel’s state? How did Hegelian discourse help sustain the Vereinler’s vision

that their modest work as researchers and part-time teachers was politically

transformative? Whence came such overvaluation of the power of thought? To

answer these questions requires an analysis of both performative and substan-

tive aspects of an array of Hegelian texts. Although these elements are thor-

oughly intertwined, I will discuss the performative thrust of Hegel’s thinking

first, then specific substantive components of Hegel’s thought that animated the

Verein’s project.

Hegel was not considered a dynamic lecturer, yet the lecture was his major

genre. Of the four books he published—Phenomenology of Spirit ( 1807 ), Sci-

ence of Logic (first edition, 1812 – 16 ), Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in

Outline (first edition, 1817 ), and Philosophy of Right ( 1821 )—the latter two were

intended as synopses for Hegel and his students to use in his courses. Signifi-

cantly, the balance of Hegel’s oeuvre has come down to us in the form of post-

humous reconstructions of his far-ranging lectures, based on his manuscripts

and his students’ notes and transcripts. Certainly, most philosophers lecture,

but the intimate connections Hegel maintained between even his “books” and

his verbal performances in the lecture hall were not dictated merely by the exi-

gencies of academic life. Rather, they exemplify part of the performative thrust

of Hegel’s style of thought.^85

Ernst Behler remarks on links between Hegel’s Encyclopedia and his lecture

performance: “Through the voice of the lecturer the encyclopedia was sup-

posed to attain a vivid enactment.... To see a lively element in these texts, one

also should consider that Hegel reworked them until the end of his life and con-

stantly gave them new shape.”^86 The fact that Hegel, in the most systematic of

his texts, the Encyclopedia, explicitly defers to the supplement of oral presen-