Commentary on Hegel’s Antimetabole:

“What is rational is real and what is real is rational.”

Andy Blunden June 2019

One of Hegel’s most famous passages is found in the Preface to The Philosophy of Right, and is
repeated in the Introduction to the Encyclopaedia:

“What is rational is real;

And what is real is rational.”

Hegel goes on to explain:

“... Against the doctrine that the Idea is a mere idea, figment or opinion, philosophy
preserves the more profound view that nothing is real except the Idea. Hence arises the
effort to recognise in the temporal and transient the substance, which is immanent, and the
eternal, which is present. The rational is synonymous with the Idea, because in realising
itself it passes into external existence. It thus appears in an endless wealth of forms, figures
and phenomena. It wraps its kernel round with a robe of many colours, in which
consciousness finds itself at home.”

What does Hegel mean by “the Idea”?

The Idea is the intelligible narrative which lies within the “many coloured robe” of chance events
and incidental characters and is manifested in it. It is by ferreting out this narrative that we make
sense of historical events. The Idea is not some kind of pre-determined law covering the relevant
events which could not have been otherwise, but unfolds in the course of history itself. Further, the
Idea exists in the events themselves and not “in the eye of the beholder.” It is real. It is the task of the
philosopher to discern the Idea within the turbulence of immediate events, each of which, taken on
its own, is contingent and inessential. The Idea is to be understood in terms of the working out (or
resolution) of problems and contradictions within the existing social situations, so the first task is to
discern these contradictions and interpret events in terms of the possible resolution or ‘unfolding’ of
these contradictions. The ‘Idea’ here is the same as the concept as found in the Logic— the final
grade of the Logic of the Concept, the unity of a concept with its reality.
What does Hegel mean by “real”?
Frederick Engels’ explanation is worth recalling:

“But according to Hegel certainly not everything that exists is also real, without further
qualification,” [and citing Goethe] “In accordance with all the rules of the Hegelian method
of thought, the proposition of the rationality of everything which is real resolves itself into
the other proposition: All that exists deserves to perish.” (Ludwig Feuerbach, 1886)

In terms of the categories of the Logic, one should expect to find a consensus of all sane,
cooperative and honest people about “what exists,” which more or less means the simple facts.
‘Existence’ appears very early in the phase of Reflection and lacks stability or ‘meaning’ – just the
facts as they are at a moment. ‘Actuality’, on the other hand, is the highest grade of Reflection,
immediately preceding the Concept. The German word being translated as “real” is wirklich, and
Wirklichkeit is the German word for “Actuality.” What is real (or actual, i.e., acting or having effect) is
the whole range of facts which are connected by definite lines of causality to ‘what is going on’, the
essential meaning (or content) of the current conjuncture, the facts which will turn out to have
significance and stability. The foremost indicators of actuality are the effectiveness of the given

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formation ‒ its having real effects in the world, and the stability of the formation ‒ its tendency to
withstand changes in circumstances and other challenges to its existence. Eventually, when a
circumstance loses its reality and perishes, its truth is manifest.
What does Hegel mean by “rational”? “Rational” is a translation of the German vernünftig, an
adjective from the noun, Vernunft, meaning Reason. So vernünftig can also mean ‘reasonable’. For
Hegel, what is necessary and intelligible in the unfolding of historical events is synonymous with
‘Reason’. Reason and Logic, for Hegel, are not something standing aside from or above history
providing a standard or template against which historical events and social formations can be
judged. On the contrary, the subject matter of the Logic is the norms which are produced by the
historical development of human life and in the long run, regulate human life. The Logic, i.e. the
rational, is abstracted from history and the development of human life. All systems of ethical life
unfold according to their own logic, and invariably develop internal contradictions which are the
motor of social change. What happens in history, then, is the logic of history, clothed in accidental
and contingent events, the only way in which history can exist.
So the form of the maxim as an antimetabole is meaningful. To search for what is rational in an
historical juncture is not to bring an outside standard of rationality to bear on the events, to equate
one thing with another, but on the contrary, to judge history by its own standards – not the standard
of the immediately given social formation, but rather the ‘pure essentialities’ of human development,
abstracted from analysis of the whole sweep of science, history and personal experience. The Logic,
the standard of rationality, has to be drawn from the historical reality itself.
So what is rational in the existing fabric of events has to be discovered by analysis, since the
rationality of events itself has to be extracted from the analysis of the facts. What is demanded of the
philosopher is a kind of hermeneutic circle in which one must make a provisional analysis and try to
discern the rationality within the events, but then the events have to be examined again in the light
of a provisional analysis, and in the light of the unfolding of the events themselves, until analysis can
identify the meaning contained in the events and the underlying contradictions.
Understanding the current social and political conjuncture is a matter of judgment, and requires
discernment and an understanding of the essential problems and contradictions at work in the
existing social situation. So far as possible the philosopher wants to understand why a given event
occurred, to make it intelligible, and learn from events the new aspects of the dialectic brought to the
surface by the latest events.
Why was Trump elected in the US (‘because he got more delegates to the Electoral College’ is not
a valid answer)? Which aspects of the event are accidental? (the Russian meddling? his TV persona?
his wealth? his abusive manners?) and what is the reality of the event? (The degeneration of the
GOP? The class resentment of the ‘white working class’? The rejection of politics-as-usual?) But
whatever you decide, you must see the essential features of events (the election of a man-child as US
President) as manifesting real features of the conjuncture, real changes and historical tendencies.
However, there is no demand to make a judgment of the totality of a social formation or event.
For example, it is possible to see that it would have to have been a conservative government to ban
guns in Australia in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre. If a progressive government had
attempted it, the conservatives would have blocked it. This does not justify the conservative
government, but it does tell us that reforms which offend conservative sensibilities can be achieved if
conservative leaders can own the reform as their own.
More pertinently to reading The Philosophy of Right, currently, the UK, Spain, Belgium, Holland,
Denmark, Norway and Sweden are all constitutional monarchies and yet these seven countries are all
exemplary modern liberal democracies, not mediaeval hang-overs. Crazy as it seems, this is a reality:
constitutional monarchy has shown itself to be a consistent and stable aspect of modern, capitalist
Europe. We have to ask ourselves: what is rational in this reality? For example, we might observe that
an absolute monarchy can ‘wither away’ by reducing the monarch to a ceremonial figure, perhaps

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more effectively than by replacing the monarch with an elected President who holds exclusive
executive power.
Conversely, sometimes there are ‘crazy’ features of the existing state of affairs which we can say
are not real. I think it is possible to say that the existing level of inequality which now has six men
holding as much wealth as the poorest half of the world is not rational, and consequently cannot be
real. This is not to say that it is accidental; on the contrary, the ever-growing inequality in the
distribution of wealth is a well-understood tendency embedded in the dominant, capitalist mode of
production; but it is reasonable to conclude that such an extremity of maldistribution is in
contradiction to widely recognized social mores. Such an extreme of inequality is something which
has developed since about 1980, and expresses a contradiction in the existing world system which
cannot last.
Is Hegel’s claim conservative? Does it demand that we accept that the existing state of affairs is
rational and necessary and that arguments against it are vain? Not at all. In the Philosophy of Right,
for example, Hegel claimed to demonstrate that the historical situation of his own country contained
contradictions which could only be resolved by the replacement of the absolute monarchy with a
constitutional monarchy along the lines set out in his book. The book was a critique of the existing
regime. It demonstrated the rationality of numerous features of that social formation, including
features which were disappearing, such as the corporations.
Is this a ‘linear’, inevitable and ‘progressive’ conception of history, in which a logical narrative
unfolds itself according to a predetermined plan? No. The logic of events is not given in advance.
Even though the structure of the Encyclopaedia, begins with the Logic, then Nature and then Spirit,
as if everything had to follow the Logic, remember Hegel’s insistence that the Encyclopaedia is a
circle, a circle of circles. The Logic is a product of human development as well as what drives its
internal dynamics.
Hegel claims to show in the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, how a living, thinking creature
emerges out of inanimate Nature and how that creature, a human being, perceives in the world
around them not only objects and other subjects, but meaning, signposts if you will. This, according
to Hegel, means that the human being is essentially free – not born free, but in essence free. Through
the construction of a ‘second nature’ in the form of artefacts, symbols and institutions they are able
to regulate the activity of themselves and that of others, always seeking to realise their own freedom.
The Philosophy of Right, or the Philosophy of Objective Spirit, investigates the shapes of those
institutions which are necessary if humanity continues to seek the freedom to determine their own
destiny.
However, a close inspection of the Philosophy of Right shows that there are many independent
conditions necessary for the realization of freedom, and beginning from condition of communities
living close to Nature. It is not possible for universal freedom to be realized in a ‘linear’ way. The
various constituents for a free society mature independently at different rates and interact with one
another in complex ways. According to Hegel, the development of the ethical life depends on the
independent development of the conditions for personal rights and on the development of moral
subjects; the development of the State in turn depends on the development of the nuclear family and
a mature civil society, not to mention all manner of ‘externalities,’ from invasion by rival sates and
natural disasters to the peculiarities of cultural development and natural conditions. Nonetheless,
there is a logic which can be discerned in historical developments.
Finally, there is a further nuance to the maxim of the rational and the real, in which vernünftig is
perhaps better translated as ‘reasonable’. In his chapter on Morality, Hegel shows that if, following
Kant, an individual moral subject tries to determine ‘for themself’ what is good and right, even with
the best intentions, they are as likely to come to Evil as to Good. The good life for a moral subject
requires the critical assimilation of and obedience to the existing, culturally determined customs and
laws of their own community. The is nothing inevitable about these norms, which will be culturally
variable, but they nonetheless embody the wisdom of an entire historical community. The moral

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subject must therefore determine their own pursuit of the Good within the constraints of the
customs and laws of their community, in this or that role as determined by those same customs and
laws.
There is no doubt that Hegel does here adopt a conservative position. Laws and customs are
changed, of course, but according to Hegel only by the social and political mechanisms sanctioned by
the community. His only exceptions are slavery, domination by a foreign power, or a state which has
become deformed and tyrannical. In each of these cases Hegel sanctions unlimited struggle against
the state. However, in our times, it seems to me that a concept of collective civil disobedience is
consistent with what we can take from Hegel.