Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

52 } Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany

tion of the relationship between religion and state in his 1822 foreword to his

former student Hermann Friedrich Wilhelm Hinrichs’s first book, Die Religion

im Inneren Verhältnisse zur Wissenschaft (Religion in its inner relation to sci-

ence).^34 In addition to Hegel’s 1817 Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences

in Outline, these are the key Hegelian texts in dialogue with which the Vereinler

worked out their program and theorized the Verein’s historical, cultural, and

political significance.^35 In order to tease out the philosophical politics that the

Vereinler pursued through their association, I propose to look less at the schol-

arship they produced and more at how certain aspects of Hegelian theory that

imbue their programmatic writings, speeches, meeting minutes, and correspon-

dence allowed them to understand their pursuits as a form of participation in

“the state.” Through recourse to a Hegelian philosophical politics, the Vereinler

attempted to negotiate the emerging terms of Restoration Prussia and invent a

place for themselves in it as Jews.

It is important, as a first step, to appreciate the extent to which Hegel’s and

the Vereinler’s political hopes were aligned, their very different positions vis–à-

vis the Prussian state notwithstanding. The Vereinler drew on Hegelian theory

to interpret and try to intervene in the political and intellectual scene in Berlin

in these years, only to see their hopes disappointed; the same was largely true

of Hegel. As Laurence Dickey, Terry Pinkard, and others note, Hegel came to

Berlin in 1818 confident that the Prussia he had been summoned to help shape

would fulfill the era of progressive reforms begun under the leadership of Hard-

enberg and Stein. Dickey notes that when Hegel came to Berlin there were “few

signs... of the coming political and religious reaction.”^36 And Pinkard argues

that “Hegel was not coming to Berlin merely to hold a job doing something he

liked; he was coming to achieve his modernist program, which hinged on phi-

losophy’s becoming the unifying element of the modern university, which was

itself a necessary institution if the post-revolutionary world was to succeed in its

own aspirations.”^37

Delivered on October 22 , 1818 , Hegel’s inaugural address at the University

of Berlin reflects his confidence in the basic alignment between his theoretical

vision of the modern state and the trajectory he believed Prussia to be follow-

ing. This address is important in relation to the Verein for at least two reasons:

it exemplifies the crucial function that Hegel understood the institution of the

university and the academic work pursued there, above all philosophy, to have

in realizing the ethical state; and it exemplifies the way that Hegel invited his

students to collaborate with him in the politically saturated project of Wissen-

schaft. Like his admirers in the Verein, Hegel in his early Berlin years believed

that whatever gap yawned between his progressive liberal political vision and