2.3 The tragic character of Meinecke’s Staatsräson

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter 1
2. Contents 5
3. Preface 7
4. Introduction 11
5. 1. The Ideal of a unity
6. Introduction 47
7. 1.1 Nations, the national state and cosmopolitanism 53
8. 1.2 The universal and the national 55
9. 1.3 The reconciliation of cosmopolitanism and the national state? 68
10. 1.4 The tradition of the ideal 75
11. Conclusion 78
12. 2. Struggling with a world view
13. Introduction 81
14. 2.1 Prelude 84
15. 2.2 Staatsräson according to Meinecke 87
16. 2.3 The tragic character of Meinecke’s Staatsräson 98
17. 3. A conscience akin to God
18. Introduction 113
19. 3.1 Staatsräson as a ‘solution’ 114
20. 3.2 The statesman’s conscience 124
21. Conclusion 132
22. 4. A world view in the making
23. Introduction 135
24. 4.1 The individualizing view 139
25. 4.2 Pietism and Neoplatonism 145
26. 4.3 Reason and Unreason 151
27. 4.4 Traditionalism and historicism 153
28. 4.5 The prelude to Meinecke’s historicism 157
29. 4.6 Science or world view 162
30. Conclusion 172
31. 5. Harmony regained
32. Introduction 175
33. 5.1 Polarities and harmony 180
34. 5.2 Meinecke’s Umdeutung of Goethe 192
35. 5.3 Goethe and the daemonic 196
36. 5.4 Harmony and dissonance 200
37. 5.5 Meinecke and the crisis of historicism 204
38. Conclusion 221
39. 6. The authority of the personality
40. Introduction 225
41. 6.1 A controversial study 231
42. 6.2 A catastrophic synthesis 234
43. 6.3 Nature, chance, fate 239
44. 6.4 Kultur as cure 245
45. 6.5 Apotheosis 252
46. Conclusion 260
47. Final conclusions 263
48. Bibliography 271
49. Index 296