Continental Philosophy

Hegel - Spirit and Absolute Truth

Primary Source:

• Solomon, From Rationalism to Existentialism, pp. 39, 45-63 (Handout)

Background:
From the Routledge Online Encyclopedia:

Hegel was the last of the main representatives of a philosophical movement known as German Idealism, which developed towards the end of the eighteenth century primarily as a reaction against the philosophy of Kant, and whose main proponents, aside from Hegel, include Fichte and Schelling. The movement played an important role in the philosophical life of Germany until the fourth decade of the nineteenth century. Like the other German Idealists, Hegel was convinced that the philosophy of Kant did not represent the final word in philosophical matters, because it was not possible to conceive a unified theory of reality by means of Kantian principles alone. For Hegel and his two idealistic predecessors, a unified theory of reality is one which can systematically explain all forms of reality, starting from a single principle or a single subject. For Hegel, these forms of reality included not only solar systems, physical bodies and the various guises assumed by organic life, for example, plants, animals and human beings, but also psychic phenomena, social and political forms of organization as well as artistic creations and cultural achievements such as religion and philosophy. Hegel believed that one of the essential tasks of philosophy was the systematic explanation of all these various forms starting from one single principle, in other words, in the establishment of a unified theory of reality. He believed this because only a theory of this nature could permit knowledge to take the place of faith. Hegel's goal here, namely the conquest of faith [this is important for when we read Kierkegaard], places his philosophical programme, like that of the other German Idealists, within the wider context of the philosophy of the German Enlightenment.

The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) is Hegel's most influential work. It serves as an introduction to his philosophical system by means of a history of the experience of consciousness. [The reading covers:] the various ways in which consciousness deals with itself and its objective manifestations [in ‘consciousness’, ‘self-consciousness’, ‘reason’ and ‘spirit’]. It is in this context that Hegel presents some of his most famous analyses, such as the account of the master-servant relationship, his critique of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, his diagnosis of the strengths and weaknesses of the ancients' ideas of morality and ethical life and his theory of religion. The conclusion of the Phenomenology of Spirit forms what Hegel calls ‘absolute knowledge’. Hegel characterizes this knowledge also as ‘comprehending knowledge’, aiming thereby to highlight that this knowledge is only present when the subject of the knowledge knows itself to be identical under every description with the object of that knowledge. Comprehending knowledge therefore only occurs when the self knows itself to be ‘in its otherness with itself’, as Hegel puts it at the end of the Phenomenology of Spirit.

Questions:

• How does Hegel philosophically and methodologically relate the past to the present?
• What are the three stages to the subject/object relationship according to Hegel?
• Explain Hegel’s master/slave dialectic. What purpose does this example fulfill?
• What is Hegel’s notion of the ‘spirit’ and how does it relate to Kant’s ‘transcendental ego’?

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