Abstract

The article proposes a reading of Hegel's philosophy of right through the concepts of habit, custom, institution and government. The aim of the article is to discuss, through Hegel, the philosophical-political problem of the nature of political government. While modern political theory conceives government as the executive power of the sovereign will, Hegel understands it in a different way: it is the process of unification of the different spheres that constitute the "Verfassung". However, in order to understand what these spheres consist of, it is necessary to define precisely the concept of institution in Hegel. On this basis, the essay is articulated into two directions: 1) on the one hand, it determines the Hegelian concept of institution in relation to the categories of habit and custom; as a result, it comes to show the relevance of the institution of "corporation"; 2) On the other hand, it determines the link between the concepts of "institution" and "government"; as a result, it comes to show the coexistence of two different logics of government in Hegel: the "police" and "political government".