ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a confrontation between Kant’s and Hegel’s respective forms of “practical constructivism” in political philosophy by going back to Vico’s original formulation of the constructivist principle of the verum-factum. Thereby I uncover the range of implications that different constructivist choices have with regard to the status and the aims of the moral and political theory informed by them. The crucial difference brought to the center of the discussion is the difference between what I call Kant’s “constructivism of the ideal” and Hegel’s “constructivism of the real,” namely, a constructivism based of the notion of Wirklichkeit as characterizing the activity and reality of “spirit.” Ultimately, the chapter’s interest lies in bringing this difference to bear on our present-day discussion on the function of moral, ethical, and political theory in a world of ongoing challenging global crises.
