ABSTRACT
After Hobbes, Hegel is the most frequently recurring author in Schmitt's works. This chapter deals with Schmitt's Hegel and Hegel's Schmitt. Hegel's “political” is certainly different from Schmitt's. It incorporates a substantial dimension linked to the notion of ethical life. Hegel's “political” is political productivity, perhaps harsh but devoid of nihilistic destructiveness. Hegel adds to the usual Hobbesian description of the state of nature as a dangerous condition, a consideration linked to the theme of freedom as a consequence of the Fall. The Hobbes-Hegel-Schmitt axis also passes through another significant junction of modern political thought: the analogy between the consent occasioned in the pact and the fear/trembling when faced with death in the struggle for recognition, which suddenly manifests itself and gives rise to the original master-slave political relationship anticipating and informing despotic power.
