pervading a system of differences and realized only in them’,
51
on the
grounds that individuals within the state are ‘the true particularisation of the
human universal’:
52
that is, they are each different types of human being
(doctors, workmen, architects and so on), which makes them aspects of the
more general kind, which cannot be embodied individually but only
collectively. Bosanquet uses this idea of ‘the human universal’ to argue that
on the one hand individuals or groups of particular types of individual
cannot ultimately be opposed to one another,
53
and that individuals cannot
ultimately be isol ated from each other.
54
It may thus appear that for British Idealists such as Bradley and
Bosanquet, their holistic view of the concrete universal (as being, in Royce’s
words, ‘a perfectly concrete whole’ in which individuals are ‘embraced’)
provides part of the background to their social holism; and in so far as
Hegel is also a social holist, can it not also be argued that his social holism
incorporates a holistic conception of the concrete universal in a similar
manner? If so, this would imply that my analysis of Hegel’s position in the
previous section is mistaken.
In fact, I think that even in the case of the British Idealists, it is less clear
that the holistic model of the concrete universal straightforwardly underpins
their social holism in the way that this objection assumes; but whatever the
rights and wrongs of that interpretative issue (which we cannot go into fully
here), I think that in the case of Hegel, no such role for the holistic model of
the concrete universal can be found. While I think that it is indeed true that
Hegel is a social holist in a way that involves his conception of the Concept,
and thus his account of universality, particularity and individuality, this is
nonetheless not a holism based on the idea that individuals form parts of a
totality because they share some common nature that holds them together
into a whole: there is consequently no place here for this holistic concepti on
of the concrete universal. As I see it, the key to Hegel’s holism with regard to
the relations of individuals to the state lies in his account of the will , where
individuals are brought into unity through the structure of the will, rather
than any underlying universal nature (such as ‘Englishness’ or ‘humanity’),
that holds them together qua individuals of the same kind.
55
51
Bernard Bosanquet, ‘The Philosophical Theory of the State’ and Related Essays, reprint
edition, edited by Gerald F. Gaus and William Sweet (South Bend, Indiana, 2001) 174.
52
Ibid., 176.
53
Cf. ibid., 169:
Assuming, indeed, that all the groupings are organs of a single pervading life, we find
it incredible that there should ultimately be irreconcilable opposition between them.
That they should contradict one another is not more or less possible than that human
nature should be at variance with itself.
54
Cf. ibid., 175: ‘[A]ctual individuals are not ultimate or equal embodiments of the true
particulars of the social universal. We thus see once more that the given individual is only in
making, and that his reality may lie largely outside him’.
55
The case for arguing that the social holism of the British Idealists is also not best seen as being
grounded in the holistic model of the concrete universal would also begin here, with the role
136 ROBERT STERN
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