헤겔의 ‘시민사회’론 (Hegel’s Theory of ‘Civil Society’)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 서울대학교 철학사상연구소
· 수록지 정보 : 철학사상 / 30호 / 95 ~ 129페이지
· 저자명 : 백종현

초록

헤겔의 시민사회론은 “외면적 국가”의 국면인 근대 ‘시민사회’에 대한 비판적 분석이자 근대의 정치－경제적 시민사회가 이성성을 현실화해 진정한 국가로 고양해 가는 과정에 대한 서술이다. 가사(oikonomia)에 매이지 않은, 자유롭고 독립적인 공민(citoyen)들만이 시민으로서 공공의 일(res publica)에 참여할 수 있는 그리스－로마적 국가(polis, civitas)에서 ‘시민사회(civilis societas)’는 곧 ‘국가’로 이해되었다. 그러나 근대 산업사회의 구성원은 “자기 자신의 이익을 자기의 목적으로 삼는 사인(Privatperson)”으로서의 ‘시민(bourgeois)’이다. 이들을 성원으로 갖는 ‘시민사회’는 아직은 보편적 의지의 현실태인 진정한 의미에서 국가라 할 수 없다. 그러나 개인들이 시민사회의 체험을 통해 단지 이기적으로 자신을 보존하는 것이 아니라, 그들의 특수한 목적을 보편적인 목적으로 고양시킴으로써 하나의 전체가 될 때 ‘국가’는 비로소 구체적으로 실현된다. 헤겔의 시민사회론은 그 과정을 서술한다. 헤겔은 근대적 ‘시민사회’를 다수의 인격들로 특수화한 개별자들이 “절대적 통일” 없이 “원자론의 체계”를 이루고 있는 “비상국가”의 형태로 본다. 시민사회는 상호간에 ‘나’를 목적으로 ‘너’를 수단으로 삼는 이기적인 개인들의 “전면적인 상호 의존체계”로, 거기에는 “만인의 상호의존의 전면적인 뒤엉킴”이 있다. 각 개인은 자신의 생존과 안녕 및 권리 확보를 의도하되, 그러나 그것은 만인과의 연관성 속에서만 실현된다. 그래서 시민사회는 ‘필요욕구의 체계’로서 ‘정치경제 체제’, “자연적인
필요욕구와 자유로운 의사에 의해 조정된 체계”인 “법률”에 기반한 ‘사법 제도’, 필요 충족의 사적 행위가 타인에게 손상을 입히거나 불법을 저지를 우연성에 대한 배려와 특수 이익으로부터 공동 이익을 도모하기 위한 ‘경찰행정 및 직업단체’ 등의 “세 요소”를 갖는다. ‘시민사회’는 아직 윤리적 현실태는 아니지만, 시민사회에서의 개인의 자각과 발전 체험이 ‘국가’를 보편 속에 특수가 묻혀버린 가족의 연장선상에 있는 ‘족장 국가’가 아니라 특수와 보편의 구체적 통일체인 ‘입헌 국가’로 성립 가능하게 한다. 시민사회의 도야과정에서 “개인들과 계층들의 관계, 그리고 개인들 상호간의 관계, 또 개인들의 중심과의 법적 관계”의 규정이 생기고, 이 규정의 보편화가 ‘국가의 틀’ 곧 헌법을 이루는 것이다. 그런 의미에서 시민사회는 가족과 함께 국가의 토대이다. 국가는 가족과 시민사회의 지양적 통일체, “개별적 전체”로서, 국가는 이를테면 가족적 시민사회 내지는 시민사회적 가족이다.

영어초록

Hegel’s theory of civil society is not only a critical analysis of a modern ‘civil society’ state, but also a description of dialectic processes where a political-economic society actualizes its rationality.
Hegel describes a ‘civil society’ as the form of state where individuals particularized into a number of persons organize ‘the system of atomistics’ without ‘absolute unity’. It is a kind of system of all-round interdependence where all selfish individuals mutually regard ‘I’ as the purpose and ‘You’ as the means, so there is an interlinked dependence of each on all. Each individual of a civil society intends to maintain his/her life, wellbeing and guarantee of rights. All these are only actualized in connections with all people; at this very moment, a individual becomes a member of the bourgeois. They consider this ‘society of bourgeois’ as a ‘state’.
So, the state as a civil society has ‘three elements’: The first one is the ‘system of political-economy’ as a ‘system of natural needs’; The second one is the ‘administration of justice’ based on ‘law’ that is an adjusted system by natural needs and free will; and the final one is the ‘police and corporation’ that intends to promote the public interest against the private interest by means of considering some cases that are necessary and sufficient personal acts that injure others or infringe upon a law.
Insofar as a civil society fundamentally demands that its needs should be a system filled with labor, therein, a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labor, and enable one man to do the work of many gradually comprise the central core of labor. At one time, as a subject of labor, man who ascribed his/her products to himself/herself, as a result, became fallen to outskirts of the machinery as the means of labor. So, in a ‘civil society’ mediated by products of labor, it is an unavoidable conclusion that human beings are estranged and alienated.
Social contractors think that a ‘civil society’ organized by individuals who take part in the contract, namely the bourgeois, will constantly guarantee their ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’, but it is a mere illusion; in actually, they are not free and equal in their civil society. Although a ‘civil society’ achieved an accumulation of wealth in proportion to an advancement of industry like in modern western industrial society, there appeared several negative results, such as disproportionate wealth being concentrated in a few hands, the rabble coming out, and so forth. A ‘civil society’ where, on the one hand, there always appears an overproduction, and on the other hand, a scarcity of necessities, is confronted with a severe problem; that it may display an excess of wealth, this ‘civil society’ is not wealthy enough to deal with an excess of poverty and formation of a rabble. The police of state settles such an irrationality by universal social policies institutionally.
A ‘civil society’ is the hard way of, or the process of education of a divided spirit into individuals, therein, by imposing this limitation and finitude upon itself in the shape of natural needs and the continuum of this external necessity, and, in the very process of adapting itself to these limitations, by overcoming them, finally it gains its objective existence within them.
In the process of being organized for ‘civil society’, ‘administration of justice’ and ‘police and corporation’ promote an ethical idea to be actualized, namely, they make a consequential moment by which ‘justness_[das Rechte]’ becomes the actual as ‘the law[das Recht]’ and ‘the right[das Recht]’. Consequently, a ‘civil society’ is not only a market-society where all selfish individuals take part according to their will for their profit, but also a politics-society that has self-regulation and institutions to manage the public interest. That is, it means that a ‘civil society’ makes a step forward into an ‘ethical society’.
A ‘civil society’ is not an ‘ethical society’ yet. However, individuals’ awakening and experiences of growth in a ‘civil society’ make it possible for a state to be not a ‘patriarchal state’ based on a family system, but a ‘constitutional state’. In other words, in the process of being educated for a ‘civil society’, there appear a lot of regulations concerning the relations between individuals and classes, and those between individuals; further, the legal relationships of individuals to them, and of these estates to one another and to their centre, and all such regulations make a ‘framework of state’, namely constitutions. In this ‘state’, finally, each individual becomes a person, i.e. citoyen, by acquiring his/her concrete freedom.
As has been above mentioned, Hegel’s theory of state is an earnest theory of relations between essence and appearance, the universal and the particular, the total and the individual, and so forth.

참고자료

· 없음