Abstract
On August 27, 1801, a meeting was held at Jena University to dispute the twelve theses that G.W.F. Hegel had presented for the habilitation. It was, by chance, his thirty-first birthday. The theses have long been neglected as a blind spot in the studies on Hegel in spite of their great importance among his works. The purpose of this article is to shed light on these theses so that they may be given the recognition they deserve.
Little attention has been paid to Hegel's habilitation-theses for the following four probable reasons:
1. The theses have been generally believed to be the résumé of his habilitation-dissertation on the planetary orbit written in 1801. But the dissertation itself was poorly accepted by the public at that time, because the discovery of the Ceres as a planet disproved his theory.
2. Since theses usually used some texts as their material, the fact that Hegel's habilitation-theses lacked such resources could have been a negative factor.
3. The day before the meeting mentioned above, Hegel prepared an address of appreciation, which is still existent, and it is assumed from the address that the dispute was to be held rather ceremoniously. Besides, the proponent of Hegel was F.W.J. Schelling who by then had earned a great reputation. These two factors caused many scholars to think that Hegel did not write the theses for habilitation with serious intention but rather for the sake of formality.
4. Hegel wrote the twelve theses in Latin, which is unfamiliar to the Japanese readers. But even for the Western readers, there are other difficulties. For example, there is a difficulty in distinguishing the German ‘Sittlichkeit’from‘Moralität’in Latin‘moralitas’. (eg. Theses X and XII) Hegel made a clear distinction between the two during his Jena period. But, as‘Sitte’in German corresponds to‘mos’or‘mores’in Latin, both ‘Sittlichkeit’and‘Moralität’coincide with‘moralitas’in the Latinlanguage.
In this article the author presents evidences against the reasons above except the fourth one in an attempt to restore Hegel's habilitation-theses to their proper place.
