The Purlieu Letter: Toward a Hegelian Theory of Conditioning

It is almost a cliché that Hegel’s philosophy is conditioned by the French Revolution. But what does this mean? What is it to think from the perspective of the revolution? It cannot simply be to constantly think and talk about the revolution nor can it consist in performing a revolution in our ways of thinking. Rather, it must imply that we revolutionize what we mean by thinking and think in a modo revolutionarii. The French Revolution therein becomes the afformative point from which one can unfold a Hegelian theory of philosophy’s conditioning.