Coraggio e politica negli scritti giovanili di Hegel

The contribution addresses the relation between political life and courage – Muth, but above all Tapferkeit – in Hegel’s writings in Bern, Frankfurt, and in his early period in Jena. This evolution knows three phases. At first, courage is the virtue of the republican citizen-soldier; it expresses political freedom in the highest sense, because it disposes individuals to sacrifice themselves for the universal. In a second phase, during the Frankfurt period, the republican principle of courage is relativized and criticized in light of the new model of totality provided by the ideas of love and reconciliation. Finally, in the Essay on Natural Law and in The System of Ethical life, Hegel introduces a new notion of political courage which, due to its universal and impersonal nature, eludes the criticism of the Frankfurt period: this is the notion that will have an important role in his mature writings.