HEGEL'S GRAND

SYNTHESIS
A Study of Being,
Thought, and
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SUNY Series in Hegelian Studies
Quentin Lauer, S.J., editor
 Hegel's Grand Synthesis
A Study of Being, Thought, and History

Daniel Berthold-Bond

State University of New York Press

Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany

~ 1989 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced

in any manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles and reviews.

For information, address State University of New York Press,

State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Berthold-Bond, Daniel, 1953-

Hegel's grand synthesis: a study of being, thought, and history /
Daniel Berthold-Bond.
p. cm. - jSUNY series in Hegelian studies!
Bibliography: p.
Includes indexes.
ISBN 0-88706-955-X. ISBN 0-88706-956-8 jpbk.l
1. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. I. Title.
II. Series.
B2948.B46 1989
193-dcl9 88-15930
CIP

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Annie
 CONTENTS

ABBREVIATIONS xi

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER TWO: HEGEL'S THEORY OF TRUTH 9

1. Truth as a Tomporal, Historical Event 10

a. Hegel and Frege: Truth and Thought 11
b. The Principle of Development 12
c. The Principle of Concretion 13
d. The Question of Relativism 15
2. The uAgency" of Truth 18
a. Hegel and Heidegger: The Anthropocentric
Interpretation of Truth 18
b. Hegel's Panlogistic Interpretation of Truth 21
c. Hegel's Attempted Synthesis of
Anthropomorphism and Panlogism 22
3. The Criterion of Truth: Hegel's Twist on the
Correspondence Theory 28

CHAPTER THREE: THE "RIDDLE AND PROBLEM"

OF KNOWLEDGE 37

1. The Problem Itself 40

2. Hegel's Solution to the Problem 42
a. Criticisms of Kant 42

vii
viii CONTENTS

i. The Kantian Critical Philosophy

as Scepticism 42
ii. The Basic Issue: Is Alteration a Distortion? 43
iii. The Ding an sich as Caput Mortuum 46
b. Hegel's Positive Solution 48
i. "Removing the Curtain" 48
ii. Hegel's Epistemological Criteriology 50
3. Hegel's Idealism 57
a. Kant's "Critical Idealism" and Fichte's
"Subjective Idealism" 58
b. The "Overlapping" of Realism and Idealism 61

CHAPTER FOUR: BECOMING AND DIALECTIC 65

1. Hegel's Notion of Substance 66

a. The Influence of Aristotle 67
b. The Influence of Leibniz 69
c. The Influence of Heraclitus 71
2. The Nature of Becoming 74
a. "Mere Logical Becoming" 75
b. The Deeper Significance of Becoming 78
3. The Nature of Dialectic 81
a . Dialectic as Negativity 83
b. Dialectic as a Mode of Thought 86

CHAPI'ER FIVE: HEGEUS PHILOSOPHIC METHOD:

THE "SELF-CONSTRUCTION
OF REASON" 93

1. Introductory Remarks on Method 94

2. Method and Reason 96
3. Method as Dialectic 99
 Contents ix

a. Dialectic and the Dynamic Character

of Thought 99
b. Dialectic and the Grand Synthesis:
The Dovetailing of Categories of Thought
and Being 100
4. Method as Tuleology 104
a. Teleology and System 104
b. Teleology and Circularity 106

CHAPI'ER SIX: THE QUESTION OF COMPLETION:

HEGEL AND CHRISTIAN
ESCHATOLOGY 113

1. The Ambiguity 114

2. The Book of Revelation 118
3. Revelation and Reason 120
4. Hegel's Christian Eschatology and the Apocalyptic
Vision of a "New World" 122
a. Suffering 122
b. The Curse 124
c. The "Thbernacle of God" 124
d. The "New World" 125
5. The Ambiguity Deepens 128

CHAPI'ER SEVEN: THE QUESTION OF COMPLETION:

HEGEI:S PHILOSOPHIC
ESCHATOLOGY 133

1. The "New World" Revisited 134

2. Evidence for the Epochal Reading of Hegel's
Eschatology: Placing the "New World" in Context 138
3. Pro and Con 140
4. Other Views 143
a. The Literal (Absolutist) Interpretation 143
X CONTENTS

b. Epochal Interpretations, Hesitant

and Otherwise 146
c. Attempts at a Synthetic Interpretation 150
5. Conclusion 154

NOfES 163

BIBLIOGRAPHY 211

SUBJECT INDEX 225

NAME INDEX 231

 ABBREVIATIONS

References to Hegel's writings will be given parenthetically in the

text, and abbreviated as follows. For details, see Bibliography.

ARP On Art, Religion, and Philosophy

Diff The Difference Between Fichte's and Schelling's System
of Philosophy
Differenz Dif(erenz des Fichte'schen und Schelling'schen Systems
der Philosophie
F&K Faith and Knowledge
FrSys "Fragment of a System: in Knox and Kroner, Ea.rly
Theological Writings
GW Gesammelte Werke, Buchner-Poggeler
HPh 1,2,3 Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 3 vols.
LL Science of Logic ('1arger" Logicl
Lv "Love: in Knox and Kroner, Ea.rly Theological Writings
Phan Phii.nomenologie des Geistes
PhH Lectures on the Philosophy of History
PhM* Hegel's Philosophy of Mind/Enzyklopiidie der Philosoph-
ischen Wissenscha{ten, Part Three
PhN* Hegel's Philosophy of Nature/Enzyklopiidie, Part 'Iwo
PhR* Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts/The Philosophy
of Right
PhRel 1,2,3 Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, 3 vols.
PhS Phenomenology of Spirit
RH Reason in History
SL* Hegel's Logic ("shorter" Logic)/ Enzyklopiidie, Part One
SW Sii.mtliche Werke, Lassan-Hoffmeister
SXty 'The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate," in Knox and
Kroner, Ea.rly Theological Writings
WL 1,2 Wissenschaft der Logik, 2 vols. ("larger" Logic)
• References to these works are to sections (designated 'S'), not pages. I have indicated
where citations from these works are from Hegel's •remarks" on the text (Anmerkungen),
or from passages culled from student notes to his lectures and added to the texts by
various editors (Zusatze).
xi
 Chapter One

INTRODUCTION

Those who have no comprehension of philosophy

become speechless, it is true, when they hear the proposi-
tion that thought and being are one; none the less,
underlying all our actions is the presupposition of the
unity of thought and being.
Hegel, Encyclopa.edia of the Philosophical Sciences

Hegel's philosophy is a philosophy of discord and harmony, a

historical, metaphysical, and phenomenological exploration of the
interacting forces of strife and reconciliation. It is a philosophy of
discord because the Hegelian dialectic is impelled forward by the
inherent force of sheer "negativity;' which undermines all that is
stable, which proves all satisfaction to be ephemeral, which animates
all life by a dynamic of self-opposition and estrangement. It is this
philosophy of discord which motivates Hegel's famous description of
human history as "the slaughterbench at which the happiness of
peoples, the wisdom of states, and the virtue of individuals have been
victimized" (PhH 21), 1 and his portrayal of the path of human con-
sciousness in its pursuit of self-realization as "the pathway of doubt,
or more precisely, the way of despair" (PhS 49). Discord is an intrinsic,
dynamic element of all life, and hence not something we can avoid,
however much we may seek strategies of escape through wish-
fulfillment or self-deception. Much of Hegel's first great philosophic
work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, is devoted to exposing the way in
which all such strategies - whether that of the Master seeking to
satisfy his longing for self-assurance through domination of the Other,

1
2 HEGEI;S GRAND SYNTHESIS

or of the Stoic seeking solace from the strife and suffering of the world
through a flight into solitude, or of the Sceptic seeking by sheer force
of doubt to disarm reality of its power over him - how all such
strategies ultimately collapse, being incapable of sustaining a feeling
of harmony in the midst of the discord of alienation they inevitably
engender. Hegel is absolutely committed to the harsh proposition that
"the life of spirit is not the life that shrinks from ... the tremendous
power of the negative ... and keeps itself untouched by devastation
[Verwustung], but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in
it" (PhS 19).
Yet Hegel's philosophy is also a philosophy of harmony. He writes
in his Berlin lectures on the History of Philosophy that while "the
eternal life [of spirit) consists in the very process of continually pro-
ducing ... opposition [within itself];' it also consists in the process of
"continually reconciling it" (HPh 3:551). Just as Heraclitus found har-
mony in opposition, in the tension of the archer's bow and the union
of opposing musical tones, Hegel insists that in the very strife of
negativity there is an underlying harmony, a principle of unity and
synthesis in the midst of discord.
Hegel, like Heraclitus, finds particular forms of harmony in dif-
ferent varieties of discord, but there is one fundamental relationship
which determines the overall pattern of each particular unity-within-
opposition he describes. I refer to what Friedrich Engels called "the
great basic question of all philosophy, ... that concerning the relation
of thinking and being:•z It is this relation between thinking and being
- or self and world, consciousness and reality - that Hegel is con-
cerned to trace out in his philosophy through all of its historical altera-
tions and vicissitudes, identifying the dynamics by which the two
terms of the relation perpetually fall into discord, and seeking to
uncover and demonstrate the harmony he finds in the midst of this
discord. For although "the highest severance is the opposition between
thought and being, ... the interest of philosophy ... [consists in] com-
prehending their unity" (HPh 3:160).
Some sixty years before Engels had penned the above-cited words,
Hegel had written that "the ultimate aim and business of philosophy
is to reconcile thought ... with reality" (HPh 3:545). Thought and
reality stand in need of reconciliation, precisely because their relation
is first of all one of opposition. Every new birthpang of spirit takes
place in pain and separation, and every achieved satisfaction of spirit
breeds a new desire and hence a new sense of discord and yearning.
Yet Hegel is convinced that this discord is not a purely destructive,
nihilistic force, a purposeless havoc of anarchy, but that it masks a
 Introduction 3
( .. "
deeper unity, a secret power of reconciliation, like Milton's "hidden
soul of h~~<?~Y. . :. . t1!;91:1J~ mazes run.Ding."~ T~_ th~~~-- ~~- -~~e
u~AI!i~ ot.tiwµg}it and ~"),in the very midst of their discord
- what I will refer to as the }(egelian grand synthesis - will be the cen-
tral theme of this book.
In one of Hegel's eirliest philosophic writings, The Difference
Between Fichte's and Scheiling's System of Philosophy (1801), he suggests
that "the need for philosd>phy" arises in times of cultural upheaval and
intellectual disillusionment, where there is a perceived disunity
between human ideals air(i human reality. He writes that "disunion or
division [die Entzweiung) is the source of the need of philosophy....
[Only) when the might of lfltlion vanishes from the life of men, [does]
the need of philosophy ariJ;e" (Diff 89,91). Fifteen years later, in his
History of Philosophy, H~ echoes this insight.

It may be said that philosophy first commences when a people

has for the most part left its concrete [customary] life, ... and when
a gulf has arisen between inward strivings and external reality, and
the old fo igion, &c., are no longer satisfying.... Philosopey

--
is t conciliatio following upon the d!!!~l!~!~I!. 2LJbe real
world (HPh 1:52). --

Hegel's philosophy is guided throughout by the goal of reconciling

human consciousness with its world, of unifying thought and being.
But as these passages suggest, his philosophy is not out to show that
thought and being immediately coincide, for in fact the need of
philosophy arises only in times of the falling-asunder of the "might of
union:' Indeed, "life eternally forms itself by setting up oppositions,
and [an authentic union of consciousness and world] ... is only pos-
sible through its own reestablishment out of the deepest fission [der
hochsten 1J-ennung)" (Diff 91).4
This is crucial for our understanding of Hegel's grand synthesis,
that thought and being do not immediately coincide, but that their
unity is the result of a historical process of the human spirit struggling
with the oppositions and divisions of cultural upheaval. Hegel is not
out to show, as Parmenides was, that all change and discord is illusory,
nor as Plato was, that the world of appearance and becoming was
ultimately "unreal:' The strife of becoming is the very lifeblood of
being for Hegel, both historically and psychologically, so that any har-
mony that is to be found can only occur through process. This points
to what will be a central focus of my analysis of Hegel's basic theme
of the unity of thought and being - that both thought and being are
4 HEGEI:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

inherently processes of becoming. Hegel steadfastly holds to the prin-

ciple that neither thought nor being can be adequately described or
<:~ehended apart from its grounding in history. Both follow a
,!_~leological course of becoming and development in the world, and
Hegel's task becomes one of demonstrating that the teleological pro-
gression of being is a process which jin some sense) parallels the
Bildung of thought, so that there is no ultimate gulf between being and
thought. It cannot be overemphasized that this is no immediate iden-
tity, however, for again, it is just the consciousness of disparity
between thought and being which is the impulse towards the "labor
of transformation of spirit" jPhS 6), towards the progressive develop-
ment and enrichment of thought and being in history.
But it is only because thought has the power to "transform it[self)
into a world" jHPh 3:546), so that our thought and the being of the
world are united in a shared dialectic of development and transforma-
tion, that we are not finally alienated from the world. It is this
transformative, revolutionary power of thought that leads to the
possibility of reason becoming "conscious of itself as its own world,
and of the world as itself' jPhS 263), so that thought and being achieve
a unification.
My aim in this book is to analyze Hegel's project of demonstrating
that both being and thought are conditioned by an internal impulse to
becoming, and how this is to establish his vision of a grand synthesis
of ou t or kno d e and bein or world). My procedure will be
to look at central themes of his epistemo ogy, metaphysics, philosophy
of history, and philosophic method, tracing out and critically assessing
the hypotheses and arguments he employs to establish his position. In
Chapter Two, I will introduce Hegel's double theme of ja) the essential
unity and lb) the immanent becoming of thought and being through an
examination of his theory of truth. Chapter Three, an analysis of
Hegel's theory of knowledge, will expand on the first of these themes;
and Chapter Four, an investigation of Hegel's theory of becoming and
dialectic, will elaborate on the second. I will then turn, in Chapter
Five, to a discussion of Hegel's philosophic method, where we will see
how his radical reconception of the nature of scientific demonstration
illuminates his claim that knowing and being are united in a
teleological process of becoming.
Just as Hegel views his philosophic method as one which initiates
a pathway of development leading from initial "shapes" or Gestalten of
a problem towards a consummating resolution which these initial
phases anticipate, so too Chapters Two through Five of the present
work are best described as a "pathway• towards a culminating denoue-
 't..,rt,. ':,{" - Introduction 5

ment in the companion Chapters Six and Seven, where I will discuss
Hegel's eschatological vision. In successively articulating various
facets or "shapes" of the Hegelian grand synthesis, the earlier chapters
will be preparing the stage for the last act, in which we will explore
a certain tension which emerges in the anatomy of Hegel's grand syn-
thesis between two basic, conflicting desiderata.
The first desideratum is the description of both being and thought
as inherently teleological processes of becoming; without such a
description, Hegel feels that we cannot give an adequate account of
either knowing or being. The second desideratum is for an account of
thought (or knowledge) which will overcome epistemological
relativism and scepticism, and an account of being which will over-
come its perpetual alienation; Hegel believes that only his system of
philosophy can achieve this Au(hebung of the "never-ending striY,ing"
of spirit. I will argue that these two desiderata u"navoidably create an
internal conflict in Hegel's philosophy, for if becoming is not simply
an ephemeral, temporary feature of thought and being, but their very
essence - as indeed Hegel insists it is - then the overcoming of the
dialectic of becoming in ''.Absolute Knowledge" and in what Hegel calls
the "repose of being" seems to be self-defeating, suggesting the nega-
tion of the necessary condition for the very possibility of knowledge
and existence.
I do not feel that this is ·us ano er exam le of a dialecti _!,g).--
sion whic is to be overcome m; Hege)'s infamous prindglG..,~e
"unity of oppo,!~.~~.Li principle,whi~ u~iU §,~lP ge fµpgiJ»enJi,l
to-tli!Ea.,h::[:imtb.esi~ .oi.tbmuibt gnd.b@JpgJ. I hope to show that it is,
rrtlier, an unresolved conflict in Hegel's philosophy, reflecting a real
ambivalence between his metaphysics of becoming and his anatomy
of an absolute "conclusion of the movement in which spirit has shaped
itself" (PhS 490). In the concluding chapters (Six and Seven) I will
discuss this tension at some length, and offer an interpretation of
Hegel's philosophy in which the desideratum for an absolute consum-
mation of thought and being is set aside in favor of a less extreme doc-
trine which is consonant with his metaphysics of becoming. I will
argue that only under this interpretation, which is in conflict with the
generally accepted reading of Hegel, can we make sense of his grand
synthesis, and further, that this interpretation does not leave Hegel
completely defenseless against scepticism and the charge of
epistemological relativism, the two related "evils" he sought to avoid
by insisting on an absolute consummation of his dialectic.
The task of interpreting Hegel's eschatological language of a com-
pletion of the dialectic of becoming is a notoriously difficult one. By
6 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

and large, I believe it is fair to say that commentators have either

tended to choose all too quickly for one side or the other of the
Hegelian dilemma - either his commitment to a metaphysics of
becoming or his commitment to a closure of becoming - or to show
a tremendous hesitancy in making a choice at all. The former, in turn,
either argue (very much against the evidence, I feel) that there simply
is no dilemma - that Hegel really never was committed to a
metaphysics of becoming or else really never was committed to a
closure of becoming - or, and there seems no kinder way of putting
it, they simply ignore the dilemma. Those who maintain a stance of
hesitancy do so with every right and with the evidence very much in
their support, since, as I will try to show, Hegel himself was hesitant:
he was profo~~~qd, ~.mit~ a~b~':_ale~~-- about_!l.QlY-1,0
resolve tlie"c!il~hadgQttc;11 );!Ql~~ln~Tu. ~Y.9~ f~~_lin_g is th_!!
it ts"possi6Te to s,~. !s. R~~l whe.re he himself did not; that such
hhoice, H 'made with care, violates no philosophic principles of
Hegel's system, since the dilemma he is led into by his ambivalence
is not itself necessitated by his philosophic principles, but is more a
wayward turn; and that the reconstruction of the Hegelian system
entailed by such a choice offers us the chance to revitalize the •magic
charm:' as Hans-Georg Gadamer puts it, 5 of He gel's dialectical vision
of history which his ambivalence had placed so much into question.
The crucial note of caution here is that we must not choose too
quickly, or seek to simply brush one side of the dilemma under the
rug. We must recognize and seek to justify that the process of choice
does initiate a reconstruction of Hegel's philosophic vision; for by
seeking to resolve his ambivalence, one pole of the dilemma must be
displaced, and this will certainly have important repercussions on the
system as a whole. 6
In the Book of Revelation, the author concludes the account of his
revelation by saying:

I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy
of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add
unto him the plagues that are written in this book;
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of
this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life,
and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this
book. (Rev. 22:18-19)

To avoid this double curse when reading Hegel is not easy; we are
often faced with the danger of either adding to or leaving something
 Introduction 7

out of account in our interpretations of his philosophy. This is partly

due to what Hegel himself admits is the justified reputation of Ger-
mans for being Hnot infrequently obscure" (PhM S394 Zusatz)! But
more than that, there is much truth in John Heckman's insight that
"each generation . . . feels that it has discovered or rediscovered
Hegel!'T Hegel himself gives support for this phenomenon, for he
believes that while "the demand that the historian should proceed
with impartiality ... seems to be a legitimate demand:' it is not, since

it demands that the historian shall bring with him no definite aim
and view by which he may sort out, state, and criticize things.... A
history without such aim and such criticism would be only an
imbecile mental divagation (nur ein schwachsinniges Ergehen des
Vorstellens) ... (PhM S549 Anmerkung).

And in his History of Philosophy Hegel writes that we cannot "merely

expound on what is given, ... [for] to expound without the individual
spirit, as though the sense were one entirely given, is impossible....
Just because I make something clear to myself, I make my conception,
my thought, a factor in it; otherwise it is just a dead and external thing,
which is not present for me at all" (HPh 3:13).
If we take Hegel at his word, then it seems appropriate that each
generation should have its own discovery and appreciation of his
philosophy, for each age will be animated by new historical and
cultural perspectives. Our own age is in many ways one of disillusion-
ment and apprehension, an age struggling to find a sense of purpose
and moral identity, situated as it is in the aftermath of the Holocaust
and towards an anxiety-laden future fraught with the risk of nuclear
Armageddon. What message Hegel's philosophy holds for our age
depends upon how we interpret his eschatoloa;ical Jeognase,-e€ &be
"completion ~ the work~ .Qf §.1).i[it (PhS 486). If, as is usual, we read
:Elegel literally when he announces the "absolute end of history" (PhH
103), then we must say that history has already achieved its purpose,
and we are merely carrying out the last cycle of destiny, spiralling
downward ever closer to the final act of death. History, by this
reading, is pronouncing its last rites, and the Freudian prediction of
an ultimate victory of the death instincts over the instincts of life is
achieving its historical fulfillment.
I have already shown my hand, and declared my intention to
argue for a nonliteral reading of He..8!;,l's eschatolQ~. ~ have to
loo~ very c.~r~f~lly_ slt the..liteJ:a). (a!?.!ol!l!~.!l ~in~ wh~n. Y{e reg'-h
Chapters Six and Sey~Il, and .b~ .161-..[.dµl not to dismiss it ~hecause
8 HEGEI!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

we are uncomfortable with its implications for our modem age. It

should already be clear, however, that if we are successful in our argu-
ment for a less absolutist jless literal) interpretation of Hegel's theory
of completion, then his message for our contemporary world would
obviously be entirely different from the bleak and frankly terrifying
destiny implied by the absolutist interpretation. Hegel's message
would then stand not as a prediction of doom but as a voice of hope
for redemption from our disenchantment with the world - what
Freud calls man's NUnbehagen:' his uneasiness and discontent with his
civilization. It would stand, that is, as a challenge to resist the attitude
of indifference and despair, and to recognize that reason has the
power to transform the world, ''beget[ting] revolutions in the world as
well as in individuals" jHPh 3:8), and that it is our highest responsibil-
ity to take up and use this power conscientiously. For Hegel, it is
precisely in times such as our own, times of cultural, historical crisis
and discord - where "the might of union has vanished from the life
of men:' and "a gulf has arisen between inward strivings and external
reality" - that we must "give ear to the urgency [of spiritr and hear
its "summons" jHPh 3:553), to struggle to heal over our wounds, to
transfigure our anomie, to search out a higher harmony in the midst
of our sense of discord. By my proposed reading of Hegel, his grand
synthesis of thought and being, of inward strivings and external
reality, is not something which is now accomplished, but is rather ever
accomplishing itself, standing as a perpetual challenge to revitalize our
ideals and sense of purpose, and to remake our world accordingly.
 Chapter 1wo

HEGEUS THEORY OF TRUTH

Christ: 1b this end was I born, and for this cause

came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the
truth.
Pi.late: What is truth?
John 19:37-38

Hegel writes in his Encyclopcedia that "we tend to think it is not

worth our trouble to occupy ourselves with ... logic, ... for it [deals
with things which are so] familiar to us, ... our own thought and its
familiar forms: and these are the acme of simplicity, the ABC of
everything else." But, he continues, this is a quite shortsighted point
of view, for in fact "the problem is to become acquainted with [our
thought] in a new way, quite opposite to that in which we know [it]
already" (SL S19 Anmerkung). It is the deliberate intention of Hegel's
philosophy to disorient its readers, to dis-locate them from their usual,
commonsense way of thinking, and to initiate them into a fundamen-
tally new way of thinking. In fact Hegel's entire philosophic program
can be seen as an attempt to bring commonsense understanding -
what he calls "the natural consciousness" - to the uncomfortable posi-
tion where it no longer views its standpoint complacently, but as a
problem. A problem, that is, in Wittgenstein's sense of a Mgenuine
philosophic problem,• which he defines as "having the form, 'I do not
know my way about' ['lch kenne mich nicht aus')."1 It is in this spirit that
Hegel describes his philosophy as a path upon which "natural con-
sciousness" will experience the very "loss of its own self; ... the road
can therefore be regarded as the pathway of doubt, or more precisely

9
10 HEGELS GRAND SYNTHESIS

the way of despair" (PhS 49). It is only through the tortuous path of
discord, of the perpetual uprooting of our natural, intuitive sense of
being immediately at home in our world, that a genuine harmony can
finally emerge.
One of the most difficult and puzzling aspects of Hegel's attempt
to dislodge the commonsense understanding from its familiar world
is his theory of truth. Nothing could be further from the straightfor-
wardness and sobriety of our commonsense view of truth than Hegel's
description of "the true'' as "the Bacchanalian revel in which no
member is not drunk" (PhS 27)! While there are a large number of vex-
atious issues which are involved in Hegel's theory of truth, I wish in
this chapter to limit myself to an examination of three particularly
mystifying and labyrinthine themes, while delaying other important
aspects of his theory for discussion in later chapters. 2 These themes
are (11 Hegel's intentional posing of truth in terms of a dilemma, the
dilemma that truth is both eternal and temporal; (21 the thorny ques-
tion of the relation between human consciousness and divine Logos in
Hegel's anatomy of the "subject" (or "agent") of truth; and (31 Hegel's
attitude towards the traditional correspondence criterion of truth, and
the "twist" he effects in it. Each of these issues is crucial for under-
standing Hegel's attempt to lead the "natural consciousness" to a new
way of thinking, and each in its own way will begin the process of
initiation into the Hegelian project of a grand synthesis. For Hegel's
analysis of truth illuminates the dual commitments of his grand syn-
thesis - the unity of thought and being, and the exposition of this
unity as a dynamic process of becoming - in a very clear way.

1. Truth as a Temporal, Historical Event

If there is anything at all which could challenge Fichte's rhetorical

question, '1n two thousand years, have the philosophers not brought
forth a single principle which they might thenceforth be allowed to
assume [as settled)?"3 it may be the conviction that truth, if there is
such a thing, is eternal, not subject to change with time. Indeed, to
take exception to this doctrine generally invites the suspicion that it
is simply not truth we are talking about.
What are we to say of Hegel in this regard? His position, in good
Hegelian fashion, is ambiguous. He states flatly that truth is "not
capable of change" (HPh 1:5), that "philosophy aims at what is
unchangeable, eternal, ... its end is truth, . . . [and] truth is eternal;
it does not fall within the sphere of the transient and has no history'
 Hegel's Theory of 1>-uth 11

(HPh 1:7f). This all seems quite proper. But far from resting content
with this formulation of truth, Hegel regards it as a problem, indeed
as a dilemma. For he is equally convinced that "there is not in
philosophy ... a fixed and fundamental truth which, as unchange-
able, is apa.rt from history" (HPh 1:9)! 4 "Truth;' indeed, "is impelled
towards development, ... [it] internally bestirs and develops itself'
(HPh 1:27).
It is important to note that Hegel is not simply speaking here of
our consciousness of truth, which we can hardly doubt to be a historical
process (for we must come to learn it). No, it is truth itself which is
historical. We have an inadequate view of truth, Hegel says, if we
regard it as being "at rest,n and "not in time:' for it is "not really rest,
... [but] development, ... a progressive existence in time'' (HPh 1:33).

(a) Hegel and Frege: 'lt'uth and Thought

How are we to reconcile these two views, that truth is eternal,
changeless, and without history, and yet temporal, developing, and
not apart from history?5 Is Hegel simply toying with us here, subject-
ing us to his often remarked upon delight in the contradictory and
paradoxical? Hegel's solution, it seems to me, is in certain illuminating
ways not so different from the spirit of Gottlob Frege's important arti-
cle "The Thought: A Logical Inquiry:16 Like Frege, Hegel's analysis of
truth involves an examination of its relation to thought: 'a thought," as
Frege puts it, "is something for which the question of truth arises:'7
Frege goes on to say that a thought is eternal, something which is
"timelessly true'' (or false), 8 but that it "acts by being apprehended ... :
[its] effect is brought about by an act of the thinker without which [it]
would be ineffective. . .. "9 Thought expresses truth, and makes it
effective, and this can only occur by an act of the thinker. But this
means that truth can only occur (i.e., appear - have its effect "brought
about") in time, and hence that it must have a historical presence. For
apprehension (which makes thought effective, which in turn
expresses truth) is temporal, the result of a process of education, of
exploration, of discovery. Truth is indeed eternal - thoughts "can be
true without being apprehended by a thinker;' as Frege puts it 10 - but
truth is made concrete, or "brought into operation," only by being
apprehended, and hence by appearing in time.
Whether or not this is a legitimate interpretation of Frege's view,
Hegel seeks to resolve the above-mentioned dilemma - that truth is
both eternal and historical - along these lines. It is because truth
requires thought in order to ''bring it into operation:' or make it "effec-
12 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

tive;' that he speaks of truth as a result (see, e.g., PhS lOf; HPh 3:421f),
but a result which is itself a process (see HPh 3:526). 11 For thought,
which makes truth concrete, is itself a process, a Bildung of discovery.
Hegel thus speaks of truth as the "motion" of thought (see HPh 2:49;
1:25).
It is important to understand that Hegel is not insensitive to the
distinction Aristotle and Aquinas (for example) make between the
'order of knowing" and the "order of being:' 12 At the center of this
distinction is the insight that while knowledge is essentially temporal,
or historical, being is essentially eternal. Now while it is true that
Hegel adopts Spinoza's theory that "the order and connection of ideas
is the same as the order and connection of things;' 13 it is not true that
he ignores the distinction between the orders of knowing and being.
For he differs from Spinoza in that for him (Hegel), the "order and con-
nection of things" - the order of being, or the world in general - is
not a static substance (as he feels it is for Spinoza), but a temporally
unfolding process. Hegel thus says of the "order of being" that it is
itself something that becomes; it is the process of this becoming as a
whole that is eternal. It is just the fact that the "order of being'' is tem-
poral that the "order of knowing" can ultimately coincide with it,
according to Hegel - i.e., that categories of thought are equally
categories of being. This equating of epistemological and ontological
categories is the central principle of Hegel's idealism, which will be
discussed in the next chapter, and also amounts to the fundamental
statement of purpose of his grand synthesis. I say "statement of pur-
pose" since the principle of the mirroring of categories of thought and
being is by no means simply a dogmatic presupposition of Hegel's
idealism, but a hypothesis which Hegel seeks to argue for. He seeks
to show, that is, that only under such an hypothesis of synthesis can
we construct a theory of knowledge, a philosophy of history, and a
phenomenology of human consciousness which is heuristically
powerful enough to account for the full richness of human experience.
Let us look ·a little more closely at Hegel's posing of truth as a
dilemma. In his History of Philosophy, where he presents the dilemma
of the two ways of seeing truth in its clearest formulation, Hegel
fleshes out his resolution to this dilemma by offering two principles
which he says are intrinsic to thought: the principles of development
(die Entwicklung) and the concrete (das Konkretum).

{b) The Principle of Development

Hegel's principle of development is essentially an appropriation of
Aristotle's analysis of potency and act, as well as the teleological
 Hegel's Theory of 1tuth 13

framework within which Aristotle couches this analysis. Hegel, like

Aristotle, distinguishes between the potentia jpotentiality, capacity -
or to use Hegel's jargon, "being in itself ,U the "implicit") and actus
jactuality, fulfillment, ''being for itself;' the "explicit") of things. It is in
the nature of beings to develop, and this development is immanent
within beings from the start, as potentiality. Beings have within
themselves 'a creative seed endowed with formative properties," as
Aristotle says. 14 Now Hegel claims that not only is biological life a
teleological process of immanent development from embryo to
maturity, but that all being, and notably mental existence jcon-
sciousness), follows this course. 15 The being of consciousness, like all
being, is a becoming, an evolutionary - or better, teleological - activ-
ity of formation.
We will discuss the assumptions behind this claim in later
chapters, but for now we can content ourselves with pointing out that
one of the seemingly less controversial aspects of this claim is simply
that thought requires education, a Bildung. As Aristotle says, "the end
of knowledge is truth;' but in order to achieve this end, we must first
"develop the powers of thought:' 16 'lb truly understand what an object
is - whether it is a tree or a social ideal or our own selves - requires
the process of deciphering its meaning, of making its essence explicit
for consciousness. What the object is, is implicit in its immediate
appearance, but, as Heraclitus says, "nature loves to hide" its deeper
significance - which is only to say that we cannot simply set our eyes
on an object and know its essential nature straightaway. This fuller
knowledge requires that we make explicit what is implicit in the
object. A tree is a complex organism, governed by complex bio-
chemical and biophysical laws, and situated within a complex organi-
zation of nature; the tree cannot be fully known without a knowledge
of these complexities. A social ideal is a cultural and historical product
that cannot be understood apart from an intimate knowledge of that
culture and history. And the self is hardly a transparent possession of
consciousness. 'lb know any of these objects necessitates a labor on
the part of thought. '~ll knowledge;' Hegel says, "has no other object
than to draw out [aus sich heraus zu ziehen] what is inward and implicit
and thus [for our knowledge itself) to become objective" IHPh 1:22).

{c} The Principle of Concretion

Hegel regards this "drawing out" as the process of the education
of consciousness displayed in history - both the individual's history
and, on a larger scale, the history of human culture. History exhibits
the relation of consciousness to the world, and this developing rela-
14 HEGEI!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

tion constitutes our knowledge, our appropriation of truth. Now in

this Bildung of thought, truth is made manifest, or "operative:' as Frege
says - and this is what gives truth its historical, temporal manifesta-
tion. This is explicated in Hegel's second principle mentioned above -
the principle of concretion. 1ruth:' Hegel writes, is #the process of the
self-actualization of the Begriff [concept, notion)," that is, of thought in
general (PhN S378 Zusatz). This self.actualization is the making-
concrete of thought, its articulation and specification. Thought has to
do with universals (with categories, concepts, laws, theories), and yet
objective knowledge must be of the "concrete" (or "instantiated")
universal if it is to be more than abstract, formal knowledge (v. SL
S163; PhM S378 Zusatz). Hence commentators like Francis Ellingwood
Abbot, an important critic of Hegel's at the turn of the century, could
not be more wrong when they say that Hegel's "conception of the
Begriff" is one of "rational universality minus empirical individuality:'17
Hegel over and over again insists that a knowledge of this "empirical
individuality" is absolutely essential to make the Begriff "concrete." As
he says in a telling, if somewhat quaint, passage from his lectures on
the Philosophy of Religion, "it is the cowardice of abstract thought to
shun sensuous presence in monkish fashion" (PhRel 3:101). There are
various ways of seeing what Hegel means here.
In the sphere of self·becoming, for example, it is not enough that
a person knows abstractly ("in principle'' or "in theory:' as we say) that
he or she is a moral agent, free and responsible. To pride oneself on
one's ethical character solely within the interior solitude of one's con·
science is not enough. The person must enter into interaction with
others and must not avoid the ensuing conflicts between his or her
own conscience and the conscience of others. The person must experi-
ence the inevitable disillusionment and anxiety involved in what
Heidegger calls "being·in·the·world-amongst--others:' One must, in
short, test oneself, measure one's ideals against the given reality of the
world (its customs, norms, laws), and win-through to one's ethical
nature - make it "concrete" - in the face of the turmoil and conflict
entailed by living with others.
This principle of concretion is necessary for all thought, not just
our reflection on our ethical consciousness. We may have an abstract
(or theoretical) knowledge of the natural world, for example, by
understanding various "laws of nature:' But unless we know as well
how these laws are actually realized and articulated in nature, our
knowledge amounts to pure abstraction. While scientific knowledge
requires the universal, still, "if thought never gets further than the
universality of its ideas, ... it is justly open to the charge of formalism"
 Hegel's Theory of 'Iruth 15

(SL S12J. The universal is individuated - made concrete - in the "par-

ticularity'' of things and events, and Hegel is convinced that unless we
delve into the differentiation hidden by the universality of concepts,
our thought cannot be complete, and certainly not practical. I believe
this is also what Merleau-Ponty has in mind when he says that
"thought is the passage from the indeterminate to the determinate,
[which involves] a recasting at every moment of [our originally
indeterminate thought] in the unity of a new meaning!' 18 It is when
this delving-into-differentiation, or articulation, "returns" to the
universal, enriched by the experience of diversity, that thought
becomes truly concrete.
Where do we stand now as to the dilemma of truth? Truth is a
development, because it is made "operative" by the act of appropriation
in thought, which is itself a temporal process. And the historical
course of this appropriation is a process of making thought concrete.
"What is true is found in motion, in a processt Hegel insists, precisely
because it is "made manifest:' that is, made concrete, in the teleological
development of thought (HPh 1:25J. It should be noted that we have
here in Hegel's theory of truth the basic structure of his grand syn-
thesis of thought and being, for truth is the developing concretion of
thought in the world of history and culture, in being. Further, it is
precisely in the fact that this interactive dynamic of thought and being
is a developmental process, that we can see how Hegel's grand syn-
thesis is grounded in his metaphysics of becoming.
{d} The Question of Relativism
The synthesis we have outlined in this first section of the chapter,
the synthesis of truth as eternal and historical, is absolutely central to
Hegel's attempt to bring the "natural consciousness" to a new way of
thinking. For a mainstay of this "new way" is learning to see truth as
having a dialectical, evolutionary character - that is, as being
grounded in Hegel's metaphysics of becoming. This indicates the
tremendous importance Hegel places on history as the theater in
which truth becomes progressively manifest.
Perhaps the most troublesome question which this Hegelian
recasting of the character of truth raises is the question of relativism.
Truth is eternal, Hegel says, but as we have seen, this does not mean
that it is immune from change - indeed, it is precisely the whole pro-
cess of change, or evolution, that is eternal. But if truth is perpetually
changing, perpetually evolving, are we not condemned to relativism?
This question will be a major focus of Chapter Seven; but since our
current discussion of the temporality of truth so clearly invites the
16 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

charge of relativism, we should perhaps anticipate our later discussion

by making a few preliminary remarks here.
I believe it is Hegel's view that it is simply a prejudice of common-
sense understanding that truth must be unchanging and immutable
in order for it to have any meaning. This commitment to the immu-
tability of truth, so much a part of our usual way of thinking, effec-
tively begs the question of what truth must be like. Hegel is arguing
that this usual view is unable to do justice to the intrinsically histor-
ical, temporal character of human reality - truth cannot somehow be
"above" or ''beyond" time, without losing the very condition for its
becoming "effective" and "operative:•
Further, Hegel would be sorely troubled by the charge that he has
reduced truth to relativism. Indeed it is his feeling that the orthodox
view of the immutability of truth ultimately condemns us to scep-
ticism and relativism. For if we hold fast to the idea that truth cannot
have a historical essence, we will inevitably become disillusioned by
the fact that what one period of culture calls true is repeatedly revised
and altered by successive stages of culture. On the other hand, Hegel
is convinced that his own dialectical-historical vision of truth allows
us to see how separate cultural visions of truth are in fact united by
a common bond of inquiry, in a unified, continuous history. This is
what allows Hegel to disavow any pretension to write a philosophy
which would somehow replace previous philosophies - indeed, he
says that his philosophy shows that "no philosophy has ever been
refuted" (HPh 1:37). 19
This means that for Hegel "each [philosophy] in turn ... [is] the
one and true philosophy" (HPh l:17f), for "philosophy ... is the total-
ity of [its] forms, ... where all principles are preserved" and contrib-
ute to the "one truth" (HPh 3:546). Truths of the past are not converted
into falsehoods through the evolution of culture. They remain true, as
the vital links of our cultural heritage, as signposts marking the path
of the evolution of human knowledge. Along this path, opposing, con-
flicting truths emerge: this is the dialectical character of history and
the human mind, the Hegelian notion of "evolution through strife;• the
"Bacchanalian" character of truth. But this does not invalidate a truth,
for this conflict is the very lifeblood of knowledge and culture, the
very essence of truth itself.
Still, as we shall see, Hegel himself seems to have been uncomfort-
able with the relativistic implications of his theory of truth. This
uneasiness, in fact, leads him directly into the dilemma and conflict
I mentioned in the Introduction, between his commitment to a
 Hegel's Theory of 'lruth 17

metaphysics of becoming and his eventual suggestion of a closure of

the dialectic of becoming. For despite his theory of the intrinsic tem-
porality of truth, when he comes to sketch out his vision of an "Abso-
lute Knowledge:' he is led to speak of the annihilation {Tilgung} of time,
where philosophic thought "sets aside its time-form'' {PhS 487).
Of course, it is not obvious at this point exactly what Hegel means
by this idea of the Tilgung of time, and this is one of a whole constella-
tion of ambiguous concepts suggesting a radical, absolute completion
of history that we will have to look at very carefully in our final two
chapters. At least on the surface, however, Hegel's talk of an annihila-
tion of time seems to suggest a fundamental transformation of the
nature of truth, once "spirit has completed its work" and arrived at
Absolute Knowledge, into something which lacks the principles of
development and concretion. If this is so, then it would have lost
precisely those conditions by which it is effective and operative, a cir-
cumstance which would seem to warrant the most radical eschato-
logical conclusion - that the close of the history of human culture and
spirit is at hand.
It is just this prospect of an absolute end to history that has caused
so much criticism of Hegel's eschatology. This is particularly true,
perhaps, of Marxist critiques. Herbert Marcuse questions "the most
curious fashion" in which Hegel "bring(s] the historicity of life to a
standstill:'20 More polemically, the Marxist Raya Dunayevskaya
expresses her outrage with Hegel's (purported! termination of the
dialectic of becoming by rhetorically asking "how could he have
stopped the ceaseless motion of the dialectic just because his pen
reached the end of his [book]?"21 And more polemically yet, Julia
Kristeva, another ardent Marxist critic of Hegel, goes so far as to call
"paranoid" and "repressive" what she sees as the Hegelian abolishment
of the dialectic, since it implies a fear of finitude. 22
Thus far, however, we have seen only Hegel's strong commitment
to the dialectic of becoming, and while I have anticipated here the
dilemma and conflict that awaits us at the end of our discussion of
Hegel's grand synthesis, it is important not to lose sight of this commit-
ment, and to trace it out as fully as possible through all the meander-
ings of his epistemology and metaphysics. I will argue, in fact, when
we do arrive at the culmination of Hegel's philosophy (and of our own
analysis} in Absolute Knowledge, that the logical conclusion of this
dialectic cannot be to accept the absolutist interpretation of his
eschatological language, however much it may appear on the surface
that this is Hegel's intent.
18 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

2. The "Agency" of Truth

More must be said of Hegel's conception of truth as the "motion

of thought:' To say that truth is the motion of thought requires an
answer to the question of whose thought is being referred to. Whose
thought is it that imparts "motion" to truth? As Marx put it, "this pro-
cess must have a bearer, a subject:'23 The answer to this question is
complicated, for Hegel has both a panlogistic (even pantheistic) and a
more anthropocentric vision of the subject that thinks truth.
In one of the most well-known passages of his Phenomenology,
Hegel writes that "in my view, ... everything turns on grasping and
expressing the true not only as substance,Z-4 but equally as subject"
(PhS 10). Even more strongly, Hegel asserts that "substance is essen-
tially subject" (PhS 141 - "the living substance is being which is in
truth subject" (PhS 10). Now what is this "subject'? It is surely not
Kierkegaard's "subjectivity:' at least insofar as we see Kierkegaard's
subjectivity as finally closed off from objectivity.25 Hegel wants to
avoid the radical relativism entailed by Kierkegaard's identification of
truth with the "pathos of inwardness" at all costs. Indeed, some of the
most telling and eloquent passages of Hegel's Phenomenology are
reserved for his analysis of the narcissism of the Master, the Stoic, and
the Beautiful Soul who adopt a subjective "law of the heart" which is
often strikingly close to Kierkegaard's "pathos of inwardness:'
And yet, as for Kierkegaard, the Hegelian "subject" is the self.
substance which is subject is "movement and unfolded becoming; but
it is just this unrest that is the self'' (PhS 12). But what is this "seW?
This question amounts to the question of who, or what, is the agent
of truth - for this "subject:' this "self:' is the locus of thought, and as
we have seen, thought is the making-manifest or -operative of truth.

(a) Hegel and Heidegger: the Anthropocentric Interpretation of Truth

There is something to be said for seeing Hegel's answer to this
question - "where do we locate the agency of truth?'; "what is this
'subject: this 'self'?" - as similar to Martin Heidegger's. Heidegger, like
Hegel, says that truth has a historical existence.26 And he means by
this that "the foundation for the primordial phenomenon of truth'' is
the "being-in-the-world" of human Dasein. 27 Hence, Heidegger states
flatly that "there is truth only in so far as Dasein is and so long as
Dasein is:' and that "all truth is relative to Dasein:•za Truth does not,
however, arise with just any "existential structure" of man for Heideg-
ger - it arises only under the condition that an individual has fought-
through to an "authentic existence:'29
 Hegel's Theory of '.fruth 19

Leaving aside for the moment the question of what #authenticity"

amounts to, 30 it is Heidegger's view that truth emerges, or rather, is
"disclosed" or #revealed:' through a "modification" of the world by
Dasein's coming-to-authenticity. 31 That is, the world (the object of
consciousness! is transformed by consciousness' coming to a deeper
understanding of it. This is also Hegel's view, for he writes that "mind
itself alters its object, and by developing it, develops it into truth"
jPhM S445 Zusatzl. This view is the root of Hegel's idealism, which
must be discussed at length in a later chapter. 32 But whether or not
Heidegger can cogently be described as an idealist (as I think he canl,
the conclusion he draws from this analysis of truth is that the
"historical existence" of truth signifies the human-centeredness - the
"Dasein-relatedness" - of truth. Truth is an anthropocentric phenom-
enon, not something "eternal" in the sense of transcending human time
(human historyl. 3 3
There seem to be obvious problems with such a view as it stands.
For example, if in fact it is true that the first helium atom was formed
in the core of a ''big bang" some 15 billion years or so ago, how can this
possibly be regarded as an anthropomorphic phenomenon? A scien-
tist's speculation about this occurrence is surely anthropomorphic, but
of the event itself, the 'bbjective referent" of the scientist's proposi-
tions, it seems ludicrous to say the same thing. Insofar as Hegel shares
Heidegger's view of the anthropocentricity of truth, it seems that he
must either assert that man existed from all eternity (as Plato and
Aristotle asserted, for example!, or that he must abandon the simple
identification of truth with anthropocentricity, and regard the
prehistory of man as having a truth value only for God. 34
Two things may be said here as regards Hegel's position (Heideg-
ger's is not the samel. First of all, Hegel is not a subjective idealist but
an absolute idealist. Hence, his claim that 'all being is being for con-
sciousness" - the essential credo of all idealism - does not risk falling
into personalism, for, as we shall see, the consciousness referred to is
always in one sense transpersonal. So even if there is a prehistory of
man - a hypothesis that Hegel explicitly addresses in his Philosophy
of Nature 35 - nature is not a blind chaos, but the manifestation of a
transpersonal Logos (v. PhN S247 Zusatzl. This may save Hegel from
falling into contradiction with his claim that truth is eternal, but what
about his anthropomorphism?
This brings us to our second point, which has to do with Hegel's
doctrine of the creation of the world. This doctrine is unfortunately
one of Hegel's more abstruse conceptions, and far too complex to go
into here in depth. But in general we may say that he interprets the
first chapter of the Gospel of John in such a way that creation is "the
20 HEGEI!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

begetting of the Logos from the beginning, ... as God's eternal human
incarnation" (Diff 171). John writes:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God ....
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not
anything made that was made.
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. . ..
14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us....
17 ... and truth came by Jesus Christ [the incarnate Word). 36

The Word, or Logos, is "God as he is in his eternal essence before

creation of nature and finite mind" (LL 50) - but in this Logos is life,
the life of man. Hence man is the incarnation of the eternal Word, and
this incarnation, in Hegel's view, is the creation, "God become man''
(F&K 181). That life - human life - is in the Word "from the begin-
ning:' means for Hegel that the Creation is not in time (v. PhN S24 7
Zusatz), or rather, that it is the emergence of finite time. The Logos
does not shape a preexisting chaos, like Plato's Demiurge - a point
that some commentators fail to recognize 37 - but is inherently and
originally creation, the self-revelation of God's activity, his life as
Christ, who is the human-divine bearer of truth (v. John 1:17). We can
say, then, that truth is eternally anthropomorphic for Hegel in the sense
of his interpretation of the fourth Gospel - for the human is imma-
nent in the divine Logos "from the beginning:'38
There has been a long tradition of criticism, beginning with
Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, and Marx, to the effect that in Hegel's system
truth is an utterance of the disembodied voice of the "Idea," indifferent
to concrete human endeavors. Pierre-Jean Labarriere, for example,
speaks of the "divaluation de l'homme et du monde par surdetermination
des valeurs d'eternite ... [i.e., by the assertion of) l'absoluite de Dieu:'39
And Klaus Hedwig writes that "Hegel ... pays a great price in order
to secure the ontological foundations of this conception of eternity:
... Hegel abandons ... [and) sacrifices the inalienable dignity of the
individual."40 But in fact Hegel often cautions us against such a
misunderstanding. 'fiuth is not abstract but concrete, and this concre-
tion requires the making-determinate of truth through human culture
and human action. This, I take it, is Hegel's meaning when he writes
that "the Greeks were anthropomorphic, their gods were humanely
constituted; but the deficiency in them is that they were not anthropo-
 Hegel's Theory of 'lruth 21

morphic enough. 41 ••• [This is] because man is not [for the Greeks)
divine as man, but only as a far-away form and not as ... subjective
man" (HPh 3:4). And in his Philosophy of History Hegel says that "the
realm of Geist consists in what is produced by man. One may have all
sorts of ideas about the Kingdom of God; but it is always a realm of
Geist to be realized and brought about in man• (RH 20). We must con-
stantly be on guard against being led astray by the language of Hegel's
theological commitments, into an interpretation which ignores the
fact that this language is always a humanistic language as well. 42

(b/ Hegel's Panlogistic Interpretation of 1)-uth

Still, while it would be a mistake to read Hegel as leaving human
agency out of his account of truth, it would be equally misleading to
simply equate his position with the Heideggerian view. Heinrich
Heine's belief that the frequently theological tone of Hegel's work is
a mere symbolic code which when deciphered reveals a thoroughly
atheistic text, 43 seems unacceptable. This belief has been adopted by
one group of Marxist commentators, whose views are expressed very
straightforwardly by Kojeve when he proclaims that Hegel's philo-
sophy is "radically atheistic and finitist:'44 While I am not willing to go
quite as far as Werkmeister, who claims that "Hegel's basic orienta-
tion, his whole mode of thinking, is essentially religious:'45 I do think
we are led astray if we do not take Hegel seriously in his repeated
assertion that "the Philosophic Idea is the Idea of God" (HPh 3:11).
And as for Kojeve's characterization of Hegel's philosophy as radically
"finitist:' we must not forget that the central thrust of Hegel's criticism
of Fichte was precisely that by giving the human ego the predominant
position in his philosophy, Fichte could never overcome a radical
finitude. 46 But, Hegel says, "to break out of this [Fichtean] circle [of
finitude and limitation) is the sole concern of the philosophical need"
(Diff 131; and v. pp. 90, 134).
'l\'uth thus involves the superseding of the finite, and the agency
of truth must also be in some sense an infinite or eternal subject. This
subject is Logos - "universal thought:' the "absolute Begriff,' "nous:' or
simply "reason" (Hegel uses all these terms) - and also (or rather, this
is the same for Hegel) God.. 47 The separation of being and knowing,
world and Logos, is overcome in God, and history is for Hegel the
"uttering" or "articulation'' or "progressive unfolding• of this Logos in
the world. Hegel says at one point that "all philosophy is pantheistic,
for it proves that the rational Begriff [LoSoS] is in the world" (HPh
2:224, cf. 411). 48 Logos, nous, reason, is indeed "the cause of the world"
22 HEGEI:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

(SL SSI, the #sovereign of the world" (PhH 9), "the infinite and creative
... principle of all life" (SL S160 Zusatz). This sovereignty of the Logos
is for Hegel the same as to say that history is "God's Work" (PhH 4571,
that is, that "God rules the world" (HPh 2:24). Marx's characterization
of Hegel's philosophy as a "pantheistic mysticism"49 is directed pre-
cisely against this recurring thread in Hegel's thought.
Hence, just as it is misleading to forget Hegel's humanistic orienta-
tion when we see his absorption with theological imagery, it is equally
misleading to seek to explain away this religious language in favor of
a purely anthropomorphic reading of his philosophy. In Hegel's view,
the infinite character of spirit absolutely requires an interpretation
of human history which sees man as perpetually in transcendence
of himself - which for Hegel inescapably points to a divine, supra-
sensible character of reality. As he says very pointedly in his lectures
on The Philosophy of Art, "the world ... is a suprasensuous world"
(ARP 30).

(c) Hegel's Attempted Synthesis of Anthropomorphism and Panlogism

But we should pause before rushing to the conclusion that such

an undeniably panlogistic emphasis in Hegel's writings simply cancels
out all his talk of the anthropocentricity of the agency of truth. In the
just-cited passage from the Philosophy of Art, Hegel goes on to say that
the suprasensuous character of the world may indeed appear to
"immediate consciousness" as a ''Beyond" - as a reality which stands
opposed to the alienated reality of human life: "but;' Hegel continues,
"mind is able to heal this schism~ to see that the divine is not in discord
with human reality, but its very manifestation. For Hegel insists over
and over again that God is not a ''Beyond" - or in other words, God
is not a deistic God. God is "self-revealing;• which means for Hegel that
He exists only as becoming flesh, as incarnation - literally, as becom-
ing man (v. John 1:4, 14). Hence the essence of God "is accomplished
in the world, and not in a heavenly kingdom that is 'Beyond'" (HPh
3:21). Hegel's position is that God does not do His Work apart from
man, nor even "alongside" man, but only in and through man - i.e.,
in man as humanity in all its historical unfolding. God is manifest in
the human community, and only as thus manifest is He fully actual. 50
By now we are no doubt in a state of some confusion over how
to answer the question of who (or what) is the "agent of truth" in
Hegel's philosophy. This much we know: Hegel is like the child
alluded to in Platds Sophist, 51 "begging for both''; both the anthropocen-
tric and the panlogistic aspects of truth are crucial to Hegel. But can
this ''both ... and" escape inconsistency?
 Hegel's Theory of 'I>uth 23

Jean Hyppolite's analysis of Hegel's difficult transition from the

Phenomenology to the Logic is pertinent here, for it (indirectly)
addresses the question of the agency of truth, and poses a criticism of
Hegel's position to the effect that it is inconsistent. Hyppolite sees this
transition as effecting an abandonment of the experience of human
consciousness, 52 and a moving towards the "motion" of pure concepts
"in themselves:' This move is ultimately illegitimate in Hyppolite's
view, precisely because it abandons Hegel's insistence in the
Phenomenology that the efficacy of truth is anthropocentric. 53
Hyppolite argues that we can only make sense of the Logic
through a reconstruction - the intention of which, in my view, is to
cast out Hegel's panlogism altogether. We must "voyons d'abord que [la
Logique] nest possible que parce que cest le Soi qui sest pos~ comme itre
("ltre" or ''being" is the first category of the Logic)."54 That is, a category
cannot think itself, but can only be thought by human consciousness.55
Hyppolite seems to feel that this way of seeing the Logic is either not
Hegel's own position, or, if it is, it is in conflict with his claim that with
the Logic the experience of consciousness is no longer the center of
analysis. But I do not feel that Hegel wants to suggest that in his Logic,
the concept somehow "thinks itself." For while it is true that in the
Logic concepts are "abstracted from'' (or "freed from": be{reite von) their
temporal appearance in consciousness (PhS 491), they are still the
"productions" (die Hervorbringungen) of consciousness (PhS 486).56
Further, while it is true that Hegel criticizes Descartes and Fichte for
beginning their philosophic systems with the self, or ''I," and proposes
to begin his Logic with the more abstract category of Being, we must
remember that Hegel never tired of insisting that the Logic is itself
arrived at and made possible through the Phenomenology where the
self is of paramount importance (LL 29, 48f). The Logic is in this very
real sense conditioned upon the self. And if I am right, then by seeing
that all truth requires human thought for its actualization, we can
avoid the Marxist caricature of Hegel's panlogism as a sort
of mysticism. 51
A good way of seeing how Hegel's panlogistic and anthropocentric
emphases are brought into a synthesis is in regard to his theory of the
"List der Vernun~:· Reason or Logos has a "secret efficacy" lgeheime
Wirksamkeit) (Diff 95) which transcends the sphere of finite, par-
ticular human consciousness, and yet which acts (or is operative) only
in and through this sphere. Hegel refers favorably to the "invisible
hand" theory of Smith, Say, and Ricardo (e.g., PhR Sl89 Anmerkung),
although his own theory of the List der Vernunft encompasses much
more than the economic realm. The whole course of history is seen
as governed by a "world mind~ a Weltgeist. And while "all actions,
24 HEGEI!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

including world-historical actions, culminate with individuals as sub-

jects giving actuality to the substantial [i.e. to the world - to culture,
ethics, religion, the state, etc.]:' Hegel says that this action of individ-
uals is in unconscious service to something larger than their subjective
designs and intentions. "Individuals are the living instruments of what
is in substance the deed of the Weltgeist, ... [and this larger signifi-
cance of their deed may be] concealed from them and [need not be]
their aim and object" (PhR S348I.
An individual is more than the sum of his or her experiences -
he or she is in addition something which transcends these experiences
and binds them together. So too, Hegel believes, human history is
more than the sum of the purposes and deeds of particular individ-
uals. There is in history also a reason or nous or Logos which binds
events into an organic whole, and provides the fabric of intercon-
nectedness for isolated actions. ·~ parts of the whole," Hegel says,
"individuals are like blind men" - but they are "driven forward by the
indwelling spirit of the whole'' (HPh 3:5531. Hegel, like Augustine,
Vico, Montesquieu, Gibbon, Herder, Toynbee, and Marx, to name but
a few, finds it impossible to view history as a theater of disconnected
events, of sheer contingency and confusion. He believes instead that
we can see a universal Logos underlying and unifying events. 58 Hegel
thus agrees with Kant that Heverything in nature, in the inanimate as
well as the animate world, happens according to rules:'59 But Hegel
goes much further: he uproots this principle from the epistemological
context of "empirical realism'' that Kant confines it to, and (11 makes
it into a historical principle, and (21 claims that this principle is imma-
nent in, or constitutive of, history. 60
Thus "it is only on the surface [of the world] that the play of con-
tingency prevails - the world is the actualization of ... the rational,
the divine Logos" (PhM S396 Zusatz; cf. PhN S339 Zusatzl. But again,
this universal must be actualized by individuals. The "actual world as
'given' has been transformed by the individual" (PhS 1841; the world
"perpetually creates itself anew; it is in this ... advancement that the
individual's work consists" (PhM S396 Zusatzl.
What does this conception of the List der Vernunft tell us about the
agency of truth? There is a Weltgeist which is the universal (in the
sense of "encompassing"! subject of truth, and yet the "work" of this
Logos is equally the work of individuals, of fmite human beings.
Individuals "participate:' we might say, in a Logos which encompasses
them. We can understand this conception better by seeing that for
Hegel, human individuals are only in one sense particular beings - in
a higher sense they are universal.61
 Hegel's Theory of Truth 25

Human beings are particular for Hegel qua idiosyncrasy, qua

"natural endowment," and (very importantly for Hegel) qua their
tendency towards self-absorption (solipsism, narcissism). But it is only
"by his share in the collective work that the individual is first really
somebody, gaining ... an objective value" (PhM S396). The individual
has a "generic essence'' iuaas Individuum ist Gattung'); the "single person
attains his actual and living destiny for universality only as a member
... of [the] society [of persons]" (PhR S308 Anmerkung).
This notion of the Gattungswesen of man was taken over from
Hegel by Feuerbach and Marx, as well as by Martin Buber and others.
Marx, for example, exactly echoes Hegel when he writes that "man in
his immediate reality:' qua "private individual:' is an "illusory
phenomenon, ... a mere means and plaything of alien powers:'62 Thus
Marx says that "man, however much he may be a particular individ-
ual, ... is just as much the totality, ... a communal being:'63
Only with what Hegel calls the "sacrifice of particularity" (e.g., PhS
137-39, 212) - the renunciation of one's sense of self as a self-
sufficient, essentially isolated being - does one attain an authentic
existence. If we appeal always to "an oracle within our own breast:' the
law of the individual heart, and hence entrench ourselves in a posture
of self-sufficiency, then
we are finished and done with anyone who does not agree; we only
have to explain that we have nothing more to say to anyone who does
not find and feel the same in himself. In other words we trample
underfoot the roots of humanity. For it is the nature of humanity ...
to really exist only in an achieved community of minds (PhS 43).

Only in society, where, as Marx puts it, "my own existence is social
activity, and therefore what I create for myself I create for society,
conscious of myself as a social being,"64 can we achieve our authentic
humanity, and this authenticity is the self as a "universal self." This
universality of th~ authentic self is expressed in the very nature of
action, which is intrinsically public. In Hegel's words, action is the
conversion of our "being-for-self" into ''being-for-others": "the individ-
ual goes beyond himself in his work" (PhS 243); 0 the individual is for-
others, a universal being, in his deed" (PhS 194). "In doing something,
[the individual] brings himself out into the light of day," becomes a
public being, and "displays what is his own in the element of uni-
versality, whereby it becomes, and should become, the affair of
everyone" (PhS 251). Action is the necessarily ethical dimension of
man, since it is inherently public, and as ethical it implies the univer-
sal, communal essence of the individual.
26 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

And not only action, which is the expression of our ethical nature
and hence of the universal in us, but thought in general, directly
implies the universal nature of the self. As Kant says, "all knowledge
demands a concept; ... but a concept is always ... something univer-
sal:'65 Hegel in fact defines thought as "the renunciation of our
selfish and particular being" (SL S24 Zusatz), and hence as ·the activity
of the universal self' (PhS 18).66
In the final analysis, I think we should say that it is this "universal
self,n the individual as Gattungswesen, that is the agent of truth for
Hegel. 67 This participation in the universal character of reason is a
transcendence of the particular being of the individual which unites
him with the Weltgeist, the Logos that guides the world. This unity of
man and Logos is the work of the List der Vernunft, just as the coin-
ciding of the "individual" and "general" wills of such thinkers as
Bentham, Rousseau, and Adam Smith is the work of some sort of
"invisible hand:' Hegel's List der Vernunft unites particular and univer-
sal whether or not the individual is aware of it, although Hegel argues
that the philosophic consciousness (and also the ethical character) of
man first becomes explicit with a coming-to-awareness of this unity.
With this awareness, man attains to a vision of the identity of himself
with the Logos of the world. This is Hegel's notion of man become
divine, of human action unified with "providence:•
When Marx says that "man as man" must be affirmed against
Hegel's "man [opposed by) an alien being,"68 he forgets that Hegel had
written that the "reconciling 'Yea' in which two individuals affirm each
other [i.e., the human community) is God manifested" (PhS 409). Fur-
ther, the thrust of Hegel's whole argument against Kant, Fichte, and
Jacobi - as well as against Judaism, we may note - is that they doom
man to an unreconciled division between man and God. 69 Feuerbach
writes, again against Hegel, that •man with man, the unity of I and
Thou - is God:'70 But this view is just what I take Hegel's own position
to be when he writes of the "reconciling 'Yea'" - with the all-important
difference that this does not imply atheism for Hegel, as it does for
Feuerbach. It is not an anomalous statement in Hegel's writings when
he says that the truth of Christianity is that "the divine nature is the
same as the human" (PhS 460). This means for Hegel that we ''behold
our self in God" (PhS 461), in the elevation of our •particularity" (our
egocentrism) to the knowledge of our universal essence (our "species-
being"). It is in this sense that he tends to identify "true faith'' with
reason (e.g., F&K 142). This coinciding of man with the divine Logos,
 Hegel's Theory of 'lru.th 27

not man alone or Logos alone - for ultimately there is no such thing
as this aloneness for Hegel - is the locus of the agency of truth in
Hegel's philosophy.
This identification of the divine Logos with human reason is surely
an unorthodox Christian position. As we shall explore in Chapter Six,
it is precisely this aspect of Hegel's theological vision that Kierkegaard,
for example, credits with effecting an ·~masculation" of Christianity, 71
and that Karl Barth credits with reducing theology to anthropology
and atheism. 72
But we should not be surprised at Hegel's unorthodoxy. We have
already seen, in the first section of the chapter, that Hegel attempts
to completely recast the ordinary, commonsense preconception of the
nature of truth, so that truth becomes a historical, temporal process
of evolution. His theological unorthodoxy is in fact directly connected
with this "new way" of viewing truth. Hegel fully intends to preserve
the Christian idea that God's Word (or Logos) is the voice of Truth, but
because of his conviction that truth must be seen as a historical pro-
cess, this means that God must Himself be actually present in history:
"the reconciliation of God with Himself" - that is, the unification of
God as eternal and as temporal, as spirit and as flesh - "is accom-
plished in the world, and not in a heavenly kingdom that is beyond
[the world of human history]" (HPh 3:21). The divine Word is not
discontinuous with the Bildung of human thought in history, but its
very expression: the Word is synonymous with and continuous with
the discovery by human reason of its historically unfolding destiny.
As we shall see in Chapter Six, this theological aspect of Hegel's
grand synthesis, which envisions a harmonization of human and
divine thought manifested in the dialectic of historical being, will have
important implications for his eschatology. For Hegel will couch his
language of the "culmination" of thought and being (in Absolute
Knowledge) in the Christian imagery of an "end of all things." I will
argue, however, that just as we have seen Hegel to be unorthodox in
his appropriation of theological imagery to explicate his theory of
truth, so too we must read his appropriation of Christian eschatology
in such a way that the Biblical prophesy of the redemption of man
from the world of suffering cannot be understood in an apocalyptic
way. According to this reading, Hegel's metaphysics of becoming, his
diagnosis of the Bacchanalian nature of truth, will preclude any prog-
nosis for human destiny which somehow is to occur beyond human
history.
28 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

3. The Criterion of 'Iruth: Hegel's Twist on the

Correspondence Theory

In the first two sections of this chapter we have been introduced

to Hegel's notion that being and thought are inherently processes of
becoming. Thought is the historically developing manifestation of
truth, and this historical groundedness is equally the temporal evolu-
tion of being-in-the-world. In the current section, we will be intro-
duced to Hegel's conception of the unity of being and thought. This
conception will be fleshed out more fully in the following chapters,
when we discuss Hegel's epistemology more closely; but we will be
able to see here that with Hegel's reconstruction of the correspon-
dence theory of truth, the unity of thought and being is made funda-
mental in his philosophy.
In 1800, just one year before Hegel began his career at the Univer-
sity of Jena, Immanuel Kant published a short work under the title of
Logik. 73 In an important passage, Kant writes the following of truth:

'lhlth, one says, consists in the agreement of cognition with the

object. According to this mere verbal explanation, my cognition,
then, in order to pass as true, shall agree with the object. Now I can,
however, compare the object with my cognition only by cognizing it.
My cognition shall thus confirm itself, which is yet far from suffi-
cient for truth. For since the object is outside me and the cognition in
me, I can judge only whether my cognition of the object agrees with
my cognition of the object. Such a circle of explanation was called by
the ancients diallelus. . .. The charge was well founded indeed; but
the solution of the task in question is completely impossible for
anyone.

The problem that Kant sees lying at the heart of the correspondence
theory of truth is that the object, being "outside us:' is ultimately
unreachable by cognition. Hence, we can have no "material" criterion
of truth, as Kant puts it74 - i.e., no criterion which will allow us to
view our propositions as making "ontological commitments" to objects.
The only possible criterion of truth, Kant says, is "the agreement of
cognition with itself when abstraction is made completely from all
objects:'75
Now Hegel might appear to agree with Kant on this point, for he
writes that "truth is the correspondence of objectivity with the Begriff
[i.e., thought in general] - not of course the correspondence of external
things with my conceptions, ... for in the idea we have nothing to do
with ... external things" (SL S213). This is misleading out of context,
 Hegel's Theory of 'Ihlth 29
however, for in fact Hegel completely disagrees with Kant's analysis
of the criterion of truth. Or rather, he agrees that the criterion of truth
involves the "agreement of cognition with itself;' but not that this
entails "complete abstraction from all objects:' Hegel says that Kant is
"overawed by the object" (LL 51), intimidated by being, precisely
because he defines it as utterly alien to thought, unreachable by cogni-
tion, "in itself" impenetrable by consciousness. But, Hegel claims, in
thinking the object, '1 penetrate it, and it ceases to stand over against
me" (PhR §4 Zusatz). This fundamental principle of Hegel's grand syn-
thesis, that thought "penetrates" being and in this act removes the
appearance of estrangement and discord between consciousness and
object, means that being has no ultimate subsistence apart from its
appropriation by thought, but first emerges from the darkness and
alien-ness of its externality when it is given meaning by thought.
In the passage above, where Hegel says that the criterion of truth does
not involve the correspondence of thought with "external things;' his
point is that there is ultimately no such thing as a purely external
thing: precisely in being an object of thought, the object cannot be
"external to thought;' if by "external" we mean wholly alien,
unreachable. 76
We need, Hegel believes, to return to a less pessimistic point of
view as regards the accessibility of objects to consciousness, to a pre-
Kantian conception of the criterion of truth, where thought and thing
correspond. He writes of the "ancient metaphysicians" - both Plato
and Hegel's nonempiricist Aristotle (and the following remarks apply
equally to the seventeenth-century rationalists) - that they

had a higher conception of thinking than is current today. For it

based itself on the fact that the knowledge of things obtained through
thinking is alone what is really "true in them, i.e. things not in their
immediacy [an sich] but ... as things thought (Dinge .. . als Gedachte].
Thus this metaphysics believed that thinking is not anything alien to
the object, but rather is its essential nature (LL 45).

Against the alien object, being-in-itself cut off from being-for-

consciousness, Hegel reiterates the basic proposition of all idealism
that "what is, or the in-itself, only is in so far as it is for-consciousness"
(PhS 140). The truth of things, in short, is the "thing thought:' No
simpler equation than this could be formulated to express the goal of
Hegel's grand synthesis.
Kant claims that we can have knowledge only of objects of sensi-
ble experience, and that this knowledge is only of appearances, not of
30 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

things as they are in themselves. He also says that "while we cannot

know these objects as things in themselves, we must yet be in a posi-
tion at least to think them; otherwise we should be landed in the
absurd conclusion that there can be appearance without anything that
appears:' 77 Hegel's retort is that the real absurdity enters when we
suppose that something can appear without showing itself. The philo-
sophic attitude which enshrines a fundamental barrier between
thought and being, forcing thought back upon the subjective world of
appearance with no way to reach out to the objective world of being
except through the mists of illusion, is a form of epistemological
disease, for which Hegel seeks a therapeutic cure in his project of a
grand synthesis of thought and being. "It marks the diseased state of
the age:' Hegel says,

when we see it adopt the despairing creed that our knowledge is only
subjective, and that beyond this subjective we cannot go. Whereas,
rightly understood, truth is objective: ... [i.e.,) to think is to bring out
the truth of our object (SL S22 Zusatz).

It is Hegel's view that appearance (das Erscheinen) must be under-

stood as more than a "mere show" (Schein), and certainly not as a
"second object" emerging from the Horiginal" Ding an sich which keeps
itself veiled. Appearance is the shining-forth of essence: "the appear-
ance shows nothing that is not in the essence, and in the essence there
is nothing but what is manifested" (SL §139). 78 Hegel, the German
Idealist, here echoes Aquinas, the Catholic Aristotelian, who made it
a cornerstone of his metaphysics that "that which manifests is con-
vertible with the mani(ested."79 We can have a "material" criterion of
truth, then, so long as we.don't regard the object as utterly alien, an
'but there" with no way to "get inn past the gates of thought.
For Kant, the price of admission past these gates is that the object
loses the integrity, the purity, of its in-itself-ness. Hence, what "gets in"
to thought is not what was (and remains) "out there:' Appearance is the
distortion of essence for Kant; appearance and essence are two things
of foreign lineage to each other, with no way to translate their dif-
ferences into a common language. There simply is no language to
describe essence or being (in-itself).
Hegel seeks a wholly different way of regarding the epistemo-
logical relation of subject to object which will resolve this Kantian
predicament. To cite again the passage from his Encyclopcedia with
which we began this chapter, Hegel is seeking nothing less than
"a new way, quite the opposite of previous ways:' of "becoming
 Hegel's Theory of Thtth 31

acquainted ... with our thought" (SL S19). This new way has to do
with his metaphysical recasting of the essence-appearance distinction.
This is at the heart of the rift between Hegelian and Kantian meta-
physics and epistemology, and will be a central topic of our next
chapter. Much must be said there to uncover the arguments Hegel
uses to fortify his lnontranscendental, i.e., non-Kantian) idealist posi-
tion, but we can anticipate here by saying that the crucial issue for
Hegel is the role of the alteration of the object by thought. That thought
alters its object in the act of thinking is just what drove Kant to posit
a barrier between thought and being (in itself). Hegel's move is in
exactly the opposite direction - to regard alteration as the necessary
condition for grasping the object as it is in itself! He expresses this
remarkable doctrine with brash simplicity in his Encyclopadia, in a
passage which, as we shall see in Chapter Three, holds the key to the
secret of Hegel's grand synthesis (in its epistemological dimension):
"an alteration must be interposed before the true nature of the object
can be discovered" (SL S22).
Thus far we have seen that Hegel wishes to resurrect the cor-
respondence theory of truth from the damage he saw done to it by the
Kantian critical philosophy. But Hegel institutes a "twist" in the cor-
respondence theory. In the fashion that is so typical of him, and which
is the despair of the beginning reader, Hegel consciously undermines
his frequent endorsement of the correspondence theory by an equally
frequent penchant to argue against adopting this traditional criterion
of truth !e.g., HPh 2:150f; 3:312; SL S41).80 We already have seen a hint
of this twist, when Hegel says that truth does not involve the cor-
respondence of thought with •external things" because the object as
"given" is always already given for-consciousness. The question of the
meaning of an object would never even arise if the object were not
being thought. And this identity of being with thought (being which
is always being for-consciousness) belies the term "external" in any
ultimate sense.
What then is Hegel's revised version of the criterion of truth? He
writes is his "shorter" Logic:

We must understand clearly what we mean by truth. In common

life truth means the agreement of an object with our conception of
it. We thus presuppose an object [i.e., regard an object as "given," as
a "brute datum1 to which our conception must conform. In the
philosophical sense of the word, on the other hand, truth may be
described ... as the agreement of a thought-content with itself (SL S24
Zusatz).
32 HEGE~S GRAND SYNTHESIS

Two rather surprising circumstances may be remarked upon here.

First, it should not escape our attention how remarkably close Hegel
is to Kant in taking exception to the ordinary correspondence criterion
of truth (compare the long quote from Kant's Logic on p. 28 above).
And second, we should note how close Hegel seems to come to taking
precisely the way out of this problem with the correspondence theory
that Kant had called "far from sufficient for truth, ... a diallelus:' As
regards both of these points, we will see how misleading this closeness
to Kant is. For while this is no illusory proximity, Hegel's final
divergence from Kant is dramatic.
Let us recall Kant's words, cited above:

... I can compare the object with my cognition only by cognizing it.
My cognition thus shall confirm itself, which is yet far from suffi-
cient for truth. For since the object is outside me and the cognition
in me, I can judge only whether my cognition of the object agrees
with my cognition of the object. . ..

Hegel's own analysis of the "celebrated definition of truth, by which

it is made the harmony of object and consciousness:' addresses the
same problem.

It is well to remark that this [celebrated definition] is not to be

understood as indicating that consciousness had a conception, and
that on the other side stood an object, which had to harmonize one
with the other. [For then we would need a third term to compare the
two, and] . . . this would be consciousness itself. But what con-
sciousness can compare is nothing more than its conception, and -
not the object, but - its conception again.
It is not, as is ordinarily represented, that an object here
impresses itself upon wax [the passive, receptive subject], that a third
something compares the form of the object and of the wax, and find-
ing them to be similar, judges that the impress must have been
correct, and the concept and the thing have harmonized .... For the
truth of the object itself is that it co"esponds to thought, and not the
thought to the object (HPh 2:251£; and cf. HPh 2:1501,

This last sentence echoes Kant's "Copernican Revolution" virtually

to the word. 81 And this is the sense in which Hegel parallels so closely
Kant's own criticism of the traditional criterion of truth. But the key
to the passage is found in the first sentence, where Hegel says that we
must not see the epistemological relation in Kant's terms, where "the
 Hegel's Theory of Truth 33

object is outside me:' or 'bn the other side:' if we are to avoid the
diallelus Kant rightly sees as arising from this picture. Hegel thus
accepts what Kant finds unsatisfactory, that "cognition thus shall con-
firm itself'': Hegel says in his Phenomenology that "the criterion and
what is to be tested are present in consciousness itself'' (PhS 55), and
that 'consciousness provides its own criterion from within itself, so
that the investigation becomes a comparison of consciousness with
itself" (PhS 53). But he denies that this entails a "circle of explanation:'
as Kant charges. For, as we have seen, the truth of the object is for
Hegel the "thing thought:' and the "thing thought" is something within
consciousness, not on ''another side:' This is what Hegel means by say-
ing that truth is the ''agreement of a thought-content with itself:' for
both sides of the epistemological relation - subject and object - are
by this account on "the same side:'
We must now ask whether or not Hegel brings in ''a third some-
thing:' beyond the cognition and the object, which is to test their
correspondence, despite his criticism of this picture of the criterion of
truth. Hegel criticizes Locke's adoption of the traditional criterion of
truth, where "truth merely signifies the harmony of our conceptions
with things:' by saying that "it is quite another matter to investigate the
content itself, and to ask 'ls this which is within us true?'" (HPh
3:312). 82 This question is in fact an important key to Hegel's whole
method - a key, that is, to how he presents the necessary develop-
ment from a preliminary stage (of consciousness, of history, of cate-
gories of logic, etc.) to a higher stage. The question is in effect a
hermeneutic principle in Hegel's philosophy, since it calls for an inter-
pretation of the content of thought as it is present in consciousness.
But if this is so, isn't Hegel calling in a "third thing" - apart from the
cognition and its object - to do the comparing? Let us look at an exam-
ple of his hermeneutic principle in action, to see how this question
should be answered.
In the "Sense-Certainty" (sinnliche Gewijheit) chapter of his
Phenomenology, Hegel presents the criterion of truth employed by this
form of consciousness (naive realism) 83 as being the immediate cor-
respondence of a given, brute datum, a '"this'-'here'-'now,"' with our
sensible perception of it. Then he says:

The question must now be considered whether in sense-

certainty itself the object is in fact the kind of essence that sense-
certainty proclaims it to be [i.e., a •'this1-'here'-'now'1; whether this
notion of it as the essence corresponds to the way it is present in
sense-certainty (PhS 59).
34 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

It turns out, for Hegel, that when we ask how the •1this'-'here'-
'now'" is actually present in our perceptual experience, we find that
there is no such thing. Sheer particularity is an illusion, the • this'-
1

'here'-1now'" vanishes as soon as it is uttered or thought. Hence sense-

certainty's notion, or definition, of its object (as the brute datum) does
not correspond to the way the object is in fact experienced. In being
thought, the object is already a universal, mediated by generic
concepts.
The question that Hegel asks in the above passage (PhS 59)
preserves his idea that the criterion of truth is the correspondence of
a thought-content with itself. But it seems to ask us, the reader (or
more exactly, the •philosophic reader," "we who reflect on the process"
[PhS 59)1, to assess whether a thought meets the criterion of truth.
Hegel, however, feels that this assessment does "not involve any
alteration [of the subject in question], for we do not import into it our
own subjective ideas and fancies: ... we merely look on" (PhM S379
Zusatz). That is, consciousness will internally experience the disparity
or inconsistency within its conception of the object: "Immediate con-
sciousness will show itself ... not to be real knowledge," and "con-
sciousness suffers this violence at its own hands: it spoils its own
limited satisfaction" (PhS 49, 51).
Hegel certainly does not claim that this self-correction on the part
of consciousness is a mechanical, algorithmic process. We must
always remember that truth is something we win through to, as the
result of a laborious path of discovery. In fact consciousness always
"directly takes itself to be real knowledge" (PhS 59) - it does not at first
doubt its way of viewing things. Hegel is convinced, it is true, that in
the attempt to take one's beliefs seriously, our own experience will
undermine those beliefs insofar as they are inconsistent with that
experience. In the present case, when consciousness comes to
discover that it never in fact experiences a "'this'-'here'-'now'" - for
"'this'-'here'-'now"' instantly •evaporates; as it were, through the
unavoidable temporality of perception - it discovers that it must
revise its notion of the object of perception. But Hegel never says that
we cannot cling to an internally inconsistent way of viewing things,
although he does say that this is a deception and that our experience
will constantly cause us anxiety over such beliefs. This self-deception
is brought about in cases where we value the security and safety of
holding on to our convictions and beliefs over the risk of self-
examination and change. Hence, Hegel believes that an even greater
threat to philosophy than scepticism - which is constantly taking
accepted truths to task and examining their presuppositions - is "the
 Hegel's Theory of Truth 35

conceit that will not argue (at all] .... This conceit relies on truths
which are taken for granted and which it sees no need to re-examine"
(PhS 41).
Hegel's "philosophic spectator" is brought in to "look ont to
describe what consciousness itself verifies in every act of reflection on
its experience. Now this act of reflection by consciousness might itself
be called a "third thing:' But if it is, then Kant's own philosophy must
be seen as committing the same illicit move. For Kant says that his
conception of "criticism" amounts to an internal criticism by reason of
itself: ''For pure reason has this peculiarity, that it can measure its
powers according to the different ways in which it chooses the objects
of its thinking:'84 Criticism is reason "dealing ... only with itself and
the problems which arise entirely from within itself;' and involves
"reason [coming to] learn and understand its own power."85 For both
Kant and Hegel, human consciousness is an intrinsically self-
reflective activity. This reflection on its experience is hence no "third
thing;' but the very essence of consciousness in its act of thinking its
object. 86 Hegel's hermeneutic principle, like Kant's critical faculty of
reason, is internal to consciousness, not imposed from the outside,
except in the sense that it is also the principle which guides Hegel's
description of consciousness in the writing of his texts. 87
This at any rate is Hegel's view of the matter. And it is what makes
his way of seeing the criterion of truth cogent. Again, Hegel provi-
sionally accepts the traditional criterion of correspondence, but
reconstructs it in such a way that the object is defined as the "thing
thought;' so that both sides of the comparison are internal to con-
sciousness. This is not the comparison of "my cognition of the object
with my cognition of the object:' as Kant says it would have to be, but
the comparison of my immediate conception of the object with the
content or "essence" of the "thing thought;' which content is progres-
sively uncovered through consciousness' thinking through its experi-
ence of the object.88 Seen in the light of this internal criteriology, the
Hegelian grand synthesis may be described as the project of bringing
being "inside'' the compass of thought as it reflects on its experience,
or of thought "penetrating" the external appearance of being so as to
reconcile the opposition and discord of mind and world. '!rue, this
opposition will perpetually recur, since spirit is a continually evolving
process of reaching beyond its achieved harmony of thought and
being, and every new experience will necessarily emerge in discord,
with consciousness finding its world standing over against it. But this
experience of alienation is nothing other than the recurring challenge
to thought to transform its world, to recognize that the world of being
36 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

has no ultimate existence apart from thought, and to initiate the act
of investing the new world of being with a meaning which harmonizes
with the goals and strivings of mind.
 Chapter Three

THE "RIDDLE AND PROBLEM"

OF KNOWLEDGE

It is hard to be sure whether one knows or not.

Aristotle, Posterior Analytics

In Chapter 1\vo we saw that Hegel views truth both as a temporal,

historical process of becoming, and as the unity of consciousness and
world, or thought and being. In the present chapter, I wish to expand
on the second of these two central themes by taking a closer look at
Hegel's theory of knowledge. In this epistemological dimension of
Hegel's grand synthesis, we will be investigating the unification of
thought and being in terms of the cognitive unity of subject and
object. As with every other fact of Hegelian harmony, it will be impor-
tant to see that the unity of subject and object is a unity which arises
out of a process of discord. There is no direct, immediate apprehen-
sion of the true essence of things for Hegel, and genuine philosophic
or scientific knowledge emerges only as a result of a pathway of strug-
gle which is marked by the perpetual falling asunder of provisional
feelings of certainty. There is no "royal road to science:' no "easy-going
way" to knowledge (PhS 43): knowledge is indeed first of all a problem
- a "riddle" or "puzzle:' to use Hegel's words - and the solution to this
problem is by no means algorithmic or straightforward. In the present
chapter, we will see how Hegel looks very carefully (although, to be
sure, sometimes quite polemically) at various approaches to this prob-
lem, emphasizing the theory which he perceived as representing the
greatest challenge to his own, that of Kant. In the course of our
analysis, we will investigate the way in which Hegel works through

37
38 HEGEI:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

to his own solution to the riddle of knowledge through his absolute

idealist reconstruction of the age-old essence-appearance distinction,
and the epistemological criterion of truth which he derives from this
reconstruction.
In the period from 1795 to 1800, Hegel was composing what have
become known as his 'early theological writings.n 1 Had Hegel been
struck by cholera at the age of thirty (in 1800) instead of at the age of
sixty-one, he would have been remembered, if he was remembered at
all, partly as an obscure and somewhat unorthodox Kantian and partly
as a precursor of Kierkegaard. In these writings, Hegel echoes Kant's
double claim that (11 since human reason is inevitably led to illusions
when it seeks to transcend the sphere of finite appearances, (21 we
must take this intrinsic limitation of knowledge to heart, and when we
tum to questions of the ultimate nature of things, we should Hdeny
knowledge, in order to make room for faith:' 2 Hegel writes in 1800:

Philosophy has to stop short of religion, because it is a process

of thinking and, as such a process, implies . . . the opposition
between the thinking mind and the object of thought. Philosophy has
to disclose the finiteness in all finite things and require their syn-
thesis by means of reason. [But] it must recognize the illusions
generated by its own infinite and thus place the true infinite outside its
confines (FrSys 313).3

Hegel goes on to call the activity of reason a "false" or "bad infinite;'

and to describe religious faith as the true "elevation of the finite to the
infinite:' Faith, he says, is the only possibility of achieving an "integra-
tion" and "unity" with the Absolute (FrSys 317).
In 1798-1799, in The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate, Hegel's view
of the capacity of reason was even harsher. His scepticism about the
ability of reason to know even finite objects (Kant's "phenomena") with
certainty, and his emphasis on faith as the only possible condition for
overcoming the alienation created by this "objective uncertainty'' of
reason, may remind us today of Kierkegaard. Hegel writes in this
work that "there can be no question of a correspondence in
knowledge" between any two persons (SXty 2791, and that "[between]
the hill and the eye which sees it;' there is "an (impassable] cleft of
objectivity and subjectivityn (SXty 265). T. S. Eliot, in The Hollow Men,
writes:

Between the idea

And the reality
 The "Riddle and Problem" of Knowledge 39

Between the motion

And the act
Falls the Shadow.

For Hegel, one might say that this shadow which falls between idea
and reality, between the eye of the mind and the hill it perceives, is
the veil of obscurity which inescapably darkens the eye of reason in
its search for knowledge. But while reason is Eliot's "hollow man;'
groping impotently in this darkness and shadow-world, faith has the
power to redeem us from our estrangement and discord, granting us
a "feeling of harmony" and initiating a "living link or bond" between
man and man, man and world, and man and God jSXty 246, 255££,
264, 266, 271, 273; cf. Lv 305). Reason speaks the language of "opposi-
tion;' while faith expresses "unity" jLv 305).
While the problem of the overcoming of opposition - between I
and Thou, subject and object, man and God - that Hegel addresses
in these early writings remained a chief concern throughout his life
jthis is indeed Hegel's lifelong project of a grand synthesis of self and
world), already by 1801 4 his attitude towards how this unity is to be
secured had altered drastically. Thus he writes in his Difference essay
that it is the "task of philosophy [and hence of reason) ... to unite ...
finitude and infinity . . . [and) to construct the Absolute for con-
sciousness" jDiff 93, 94). Reason is resurrected, faith displaced
jalthough not by any means abolished or demeaned). In 1807 Hegel
boldly writes that "reason is the consciousness of the certainty of
being all truth ... and all reality" (PhS 138f). This passage is from the
Phenomenology, a work that tells the story of the liberation of con-
sciousness from scepticism through the dialectical progression of
knowledge to the point where "otherness ... [ultimately) vanishes for
consciousness" (PhS 140), that is, "the point at which consciousness
gets rid of its semblance of being burdened with something alien'' jPhS
56). In recognizing itself in what is other, human knowledge has found
its element - its 'kther" as Hegel calls it jPhS 14, 491) - in which
there is no ultimate other, no final division between mind and world,
thought and being, subject and object.5 Philosophy, the organ of
reason, has replaced faith, the organ of feeling, as the locus of Hegel's
vision of a grand synthesis.
But we have jumped to the conclusion of Hegel's epistemology,
without treading the path he follows to get there. Knowledge does
become "absolute" for Hegel, to be sure, but it is first of all a problem.
As noted in Chapter 'l\vo, Hegel very much feels that we must com-
mence our epistemological inquiries in the spirit of Wittgenstein's die-
40 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

tum that "ein philosophisches Problem hat die Form: 'Ich kenne mich nicht
aus:" #Philosophy;' Hegel says, "must begin with a puzzle'' (HPh 1:406).
In this chapter I will begin with a portrayal of how Hegel poses the
problem of knowledge, before turning to discuss his dissatisfaction
with various proposed solutions. I will then move to an analysis of his
own proposal, and finally to a presentation of the idealist position that
is its consequence.

1. The Problem Itself

In his Philosophy of Nature, Hegel distinguishes among three ways

of considering the relationship between human consciousness and the
world of nature. The first two are what he calls (somewhat
misleadingly) the "practical" and the "theoretical" approaches, cor-
responding roughly to what he refers to elsewhere as the "false
idealism'' of Kant and the "naive realism" he associates with (New-
tonian) physics. The third approach is the #speculative" or simply the
"philosophic" approach, that is, Hegel's own solution. In this current
section we will discuss the first two approaches only, which together
lead us to what Hegel calls the "riddle and problem" of the possibility
of an objective knowledge of the world (PhN, Introductory Zusatz).
The "theoretical" approach to nature is concerned with apprehend-
ing the "universal aspect of nature:' its "forces, laws and genera" as they
exist in themselves in the world (PhN S246 Zusatz). Its intention and
its method is to "stand back from natural objects, leaving them as they
are and adjusting ourselves to them;' and its point d'appui and point de
dtpart is sense experience (PhN S246 Zusatz). There is, however, an
internal tension in this approach between its desire to observe the
universal laws of nature as they are in themselves and its point d'appui.
For, Hegel argues, it is only by conceptual thought, or "ideation;' that
we can grasp the universal, and not by sense-perception.6 This tension
creates further problems, for "the more thought7 enters into our
representation of things, the less do they retain their 'naturalness:
their singularity and immediacy" (PhN S246 Zusatz). The theoretical
approach is in fact hoisted by its own petard, for (1) while it wants to
know what nature is in itself, (21 the only way to grasp the universal
characteristics of nature is by forfeiting sense-knowledge and turning
to conceptualization as the means of grasping this universality; but
then (3) "instead of simply perceiving nature, we make it into
something different: in thinking things, we transform them into
something universal" (PhN S246 Zusatz).
 The "Riddle and Problem" of Knowledge 41

The "practical" approach takes its cue from the just-mentioned

points 12) and 13), which it accepts, and seeks its solution to the
possibility of knowing nature by rejecting 11 ). That is, it asserts that
nature as it is in itself is "absolutely shut to us" and hence cannot be
the object of our knowledge (PhN S246 Zusatz). It is our very activity
of conceptualization that gives unity to nature and allows us to grasp
its laws; our concepts are the "lawgivers of nature," as Kant puts it. 8
This is point 12) above, which leads us to 13), from which the conclu-
sion is drawn that it is not objects as they exist in themselves that we
know, but only as they appear to us through the medium of our
thought-determinations.
While Hegel does not mention Kant by name in the discussion of
the "practical" approach to nature in his Philosophy of Nature, it is
clearly Kant that he has in mind here. In the Introduction to his
Phenomenology Hegel sets forth the reasoning behind this approach in
a succinct way !see PhS 46-48).9 Since knowledge is an "instrument"
or "medium" through which we grasp objects !the argument goes), our
cognition "refracts" or "transforms" its object in the very act of appre-
hending it. Further, we cannot eliminate this refraction, so as to get
at the truth of the object in itself, without at once eliminating our only
means to know the object. Hence, knowledge of the Ding an sich is
impossible. But this does not mean that we can have no knowledge at
all. Since the forms and categories of our knowledge are themselves
lawlike, the "refracted" experience of the world is not arbitrary or
chaotic, but is itself immediately shaped into universal and necessary
patterns. Thus we must be willing to pay the price of not being able
to know the world as it is in itself, but we get in return a universal
and necessary knowledge of the world as it appears to us through the
medium of our perceptual and conceptual consciousness.
For Hegel, however, this approach only further confirms the
"riddle and problem'' of the possibility of objective knowledge. For the
price we pay involves a bartering-off of precisely what we were
searching for; we want to know the world, not our thought about the
world. 10 This approach "is like attributing to someone a correct percep-
tion," Hegel says, "with the rider that nevertheless he is incapable of
perceiving what is true .... Absurd as this would be, it would not be
more so than a true knowledge which did not know the object as it
is in itself" ILL 46). The Kantian epistemology utterly precludes the
grand synthesis of thought and being which is the central motivation
of Hegel's philosophy, by exiling being into a world lying completely
beyond the reaches of thought.
We will discuss Hegel's criticism of Kant's epistemology more fully
42 HEGEi.$ GRAND SYNTHESIS

in section 2. The conclusion he draws about both the "theoretical" and

the "practical# approaches to nature in his Philosophy of Nature,
however, is that neither of them are capable of answering the "riddle
and problem'' concerning knowledge of the world: "How do we, as sub-
jects, come into contact with objects?" jPhN S246 Zusatz). The theoretical
approach cannot reconcile its two desiderata, to let nature simply pre-
sent itself as it is in itself, and to grasp nature in terms of its universal
laws - for the universal is contributed by consciousness, not served
up ready-to·hand by events in the world. And the practical approach,
in order to made good the second desideratum, gives up the first, but
thereby gives away what we were looking for, namely, some means
of "contact with objects:' The practical approach substitutes for this
'contact with objects" contact with our thought or perception of the
object, which yields only the "refracted" object.

2. Hegel's Solution to the Problem

a. Criticisms of Kant
Hegel believes that if the "theoretical" and "practical" approaches
to the "riddle and problem'' of knowledge were the only alternatives,
we would be condemned to scepticism, a breach between thought and
being which no effort of science or philosophy or religion could hope
to mend. Before turning to a discussion of his own attempted resolu-
tion to the riddle of knowledge, which is meant to liberate us once and
for all from scepticism, it would be well to look a bit more closely at
Hegel's analysis of Kant's proposed solution. For Hegel's epistemology
is in constant debate with Kant's. We may say, in fact, that Kant did
for Hegel what Hume did for Kant - awoke him from his dogmatic
slumbers.

i. The Kantian Critical Philosophy as Scepticism

The "practical" or Kantian approach to nature leads us to scep-
ticism, in Hegel's view, because the consequence of the Kantian
"Copernican Revolution" requires, as Kant says, that "our a priori
knowledge of reason ... has to do only with appearances, and must
leave the thing in itself as indeed real per se, but as not known by us:'11
This is virtually Hegel's very definition of scepticism. He writes in the
"Scepticism'' section of his History of Philosophy that "scepticism con-
summates the theory of the subjectivity of all knowledge by the fact
that in knowledge it universally substitutes for being the expression
 The "Riddle and Problem" of Knowledge 43

appearance" (HPh 2:328). The rationale for this substitution is again the
same, in Hegel's view, in both the Kantian and sceptical philosophies:
it is because our faculty of knowledge unavoidably transforms or
alters its object that we can have no access to being, the Ding an sich.
Sextus Empiricus says of scepticism that it seeks to refute the
possibility of any criterion of objective knowledge on the grounds that
any criterion we choose "could not be without an affection ['11'a0os] of
consciousness:'12 Hegel explains this sceptical position as asserting
that (1) since any criterion of objective knowledge must itself involve
the activity of consciousness (e.g., perception or conception), and that
(2) "this activity of consciousness consists in the fact that it changes the
object, and thus does not allow the objective as it is in itself to come
to use;' then (3) we can have no knowledge of the object as it is in
itself, due to the very nature of our activity of consciousness
(HPh 2:321£).
Hegel seeks to show that this sceptical argument is paralleled in
Kant's philosophy, since Kant argues that (1) we can have knowledge
only of objects of possible experience, but (2) these objects are directly
and immediately transformed by our intuitional and conceptual
representations of them, hence (3) there can be no knowledge of
things as they are in themselves. And this does indeed seem substan-
tially of a spirit with the sceptic's argument summarized above. It is
customary to regard Kant's philosophy - as he did himself - as going
beyond scepticism, in that it provides for objective knowledge by
seeking to show how the transformational character of our activity of
consciousness is itself lawlike, universal, and necessary - so that we
have an objective knowledge of appearances. For Hegel, however, this
is not an overcoming of scepticism but a capitulation to it, a resigna-
tion to the world of maya at the expense of the reality of being.

ii. The Basic Issue: Is Alteration a Distortion?

The central epistemological issue between Hegel and Kant has to
do with the alteration of the object by consciousness in its activity of
thinking that object. Both Kant and Hegel accept this altering activity
as a fact, but while for Kant this is what creates an ultimate barrier
between thought and being (in itself), for Hegel it is just this transform-
ing and recasting of the object by consciousness which allows the
essence of the object to "shine forth'' or appear in its true light. What I
wish to do in the remainder of the present section (2a) is to take a closer
look at Hegel's interpretation of the role of alteration in knowledge; at
his questioning of the Kantian view of knowledge as a medium or
instrument; and at his criticism of the Kantian Ding an sich. This will
44 HEGEI;S GRAND SYNTHESIS

allow us to develop Hegel's own positive solution to the riddle and

problem of knowledge, for this solution is constantly proffered by
Hegel in terms of a contrast with the Kantian position.
In the opening passage of the Introduction to his Phenomenology
Hegel writes:

It is a natural assumption that in philosophy, before we start to

deal with its proper subject-matter, viz. the actual cognition of what
truly is, one must first of all come to an understanding about cogni-
tion, which is regarded either as the instrument [das Werkzeug) by
which we are to get hold of the Absolute, 13 or as the medium [das
Mitte) through which one discovers it .... (This assumption leads to)
the conviction that the whole project of securing for consciousness
through cognition what exists in itself is absurd, and that there is a
boundary between cognition and the Absolute that completely
separates them.
For if cognition is the instrument for getting hold of absolute
being, it is obvious that the use of an instrument on a thing certainly
does not let it be what it is for itself, but rather sets out to reshape
and alter it . ... (Or if cognition is described as a) more or less passive
medium through which the light of truth reaches us, then again we
do not receive the truth as it is in itself, but only as it exists in and
through this medium IPhS 46).

It is fitting that the opening passage of the Phenomenolog)I directly

immerses us in the Kantian epistemology (although, as with the
passage from the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel never mentions Kant by
name here). Hegel regarded this epistemology as the single most
pointed challenge to his absolute· idealism. His analysis of this "natural
assumption" (which Kant makes the central principle of his critical
method) is that it "immediately brings about the opposite of its own
end" (PhS 46), which is the "actual cognition of what truly is." 14 We fall
into a "fear of error:' seeing that our cognition alters and hence distorts
its object, whereas "this fear of error is the error itself, ... [for it] takes
a great deal for granted ... [in supposing that] cognition is an instru-
ment or medium, ... and above all that the Absolute stands on one
side and cognition on the other ... " (PhS 47). 15
This "error," or untenable presupposition, that cognition is a
medium (which therefore distorts and separates it from its object), has
been alluded to already in Chapter Two. There we saw that Kant
disclaims the possibility of any ''material criterion of truth" because
there is this ultimate separation of the object which is "outside me''
 The "Riddle and Problem" of Knowlefl&e 45

from the cognition which is "in me:• Hegel's point here in the
Phenomenology is that this separation is inevitable if we view cognition
as an instrument or medium, but that this view is an unwarrented
assumption. Hence, it becomes his task to expose what Merold
Westphal calls the "fundamental fearfulness" and "anxiety'' of the
critical philosophy - the fear of not being able to grasp the object of
knowledge in its reality - as an ungrounded fear. 16
I do not feel that Hegel definitively proves that this is an unwar-
rented assumption and ungrounded fear, although I do feel that he
goes a long way towards showing that it is only an assumption.
Similarly, Hegel's alternative does not seem to me to possess the
necessity he attaches to it, although its merit is striking, for it provides
a way of looking at knowledge which escapes the sceptical rejoinder
to which Kant's position is open. For if alteration of the object no
longer spells the distortion and consequent loss of the essence of the
object, but rather provides the very light requisite to uncover that
essence, the sceptic loses his surest foothold.
Hegel's basic strategy in opposing the view of cognition as a
medium or instrument which necessarily distorts the essential nature
of objects jin themselves), is to rethink the significance of the altering
activity of consciousness. He several times employs the analogy of a
ray of light to illustrate his point - a ray of light is to its refraction
by a surface as the thing in itself is to the activity of consciousness.
Thus in his "shorter" Logic he writes that the essence first comes to
light through the activity of reflection [die Reflexion], and he goes on
to describe this activity in the following way:

The word "reflection" is originally applied when a ray of light in

a straight line impinging upon a surface of a mirror is thrown back
from it. In this phenomenon we have two things - first an im-
mediate fact which is, and secondly the deputed, derivated, or
transmuted phase of the same.
Something of this sort takes place when we reflect, or think upon
an object; for here we want to know the object, not in its immediacy,
but as derivative or mediated.
The problem or aim of philosophy ... is the ascertainment of the
essence of things: a phrase which only means things, instead of being
left in their immediacy, must be shown to be mediated by or based
upon something else jSL S112 ZusatzJ.

Hegel's point is that knowledge first arises with reflection. As

Plato says, "It is in the course of reflection, if at all, that the soul gets
46 HEGEI!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

a clear view of facts:' 17 To lament the absence of a knowledge of the

object prior to such reflection is a naive form of regret. For prior to
reflection, the object is not "based on anything;' signifying only a
"blank space" (PhS 471, a chimeric supposition. We might, of course,
reply that the object is based on itself (self-groundedl. But we would
have to admit that we could not say what this means, since the sup-
posed self-grounding of the object is definitionally beyond the scope
of our knowledge. But then this supposed conception (of a self-
grounded objectl is not a conception at all, for concepts belong to
knowledge, and we are not supposed to have any knowledge of the
self-grounded object. 18
I believe that this is essentially Wittgenstein's point when he
argues that to claim a conception of something without being able to
explain what it means is absurd. 19 Since an object can only be given
a content for consciousness, and hence defined, in terms of its
presence to our cognition - any other definition would be based on
nothing at all - the object in itself, if it is anything at all, is necessarily
mediated by our reflection on it. If the object cannot be made present
to consciousness - which Kant says of the object an sich - then it is
unwarrented to regard it as an object at all.
Kant writes that "there is something strange and even absurd in
the assertion that there should be a concept which possesses a mean-
ing and yet is not capable of any explanation:rzo Although Hegel never
calls attention to this passage (so far as I knowl, he would feel that in
it Kant is unwittingly condemning himself to absurdity. For Kant says
that if a concept cannot "be made sensible;' or "given an object ... in
empirical intuition ... to which it applied;' then that concept "has no
meaning and is completely lacking in content:'21 But the noumenon,
or Ding an sich, is precisely such a concept, by Kant's own repeated
definition of it!

iii. The Ding an sich as Caput Mortuum

The Ding an sich is for Hegel a "caput mortuum" (SL S44 Anmerkung;
HPh 3:4271, a "formless lump" (F&K 761 or 'empty substratum'' (SL S124
Anmerkungl, a "spectral ... abstract shadow divorced from all content"
(LL 471, It is an opaque "expression of the object when we leave out of
sight all that consciousness makes of it: [but then) ... it is easy to see
what is left - utter abstraction, total emptiness, ... a [fictitious] 'other-
world' - the negative of every image and definite thought" (SL S44l. 22
Aristotle criticized Plato for "duplicating" the world, positing on the
one hand the thing as it appears to us, and on the other the essence or
eidos of the thing which "exists apart" from the appearance, and has no
 The "Riddle and Problem" of Knowledge 47

"immanent connection'' with the appearance. 23 And Berkeley criticized

Locke for ffsupposing a two-fold existenc~ of things, "the one intelligi-
ble" - that is, the being of objects for-consciousness - and the other
an "essential reality" which is independent of our consciousness of it. 24
So too Hegel criticizes Kant for presenting a ''bifurcated world" where
essence and appearance, being an sich and being fur Bewu~tsein, are
alien to each other (see e.g., Diff 163f; F&K 75, 92££; SL SS6, 22 Zusatz,
41 &Zusatz, 45 &Zusatz, 226; PhM §415 &Anmerkung; LL 45, 63). Mere
being in itself, abstracted from all possible determinations of thought,
is an empty category for Hegel (v. HPh 3:448; F&K 221; SL SS85ff; LL 75,
82££), 25 and the Kantian "world beyond our experience" is an empty
world. Revealingly, Kant himself comes close to saying this, as for exam-
ple when he writes that "we are unable to comprehend how such
noumena can be possible, and the domain that lies out beyond the
sphere of appearances is for us empty:'26
That Kant interjects the phrase "for us" (fur uns) when he says that
the noumenal world is "fur uns leer," indicates his desire to hold out for
a positive content of noumena. But, Hegel feels, Kant is hard-pressed
to explain why we must hold out for this possibility. That is, when
Kant speaks of the noumenal world as the "unknown ground of
phenomena:'27 or as a "negative conception''28 - i.e., a conception
which has no positive content for knowledge, but which is "abstracted
from'' all our means of knowing objects as they appear - he is usher-
ing in a bifurcated world which has absolutely no support from
anything we can know, explain, or describe in such a way as to give
it an actual content.
I do not wish to suggest that Kant is without recourse against this
criticism of his epistemology. As regards the Ding an sich, a lengthy
discussion of Kant's notion of a "negative conceptff or "limiting concept"
(Grenzbegrift) would be required to do justice to his position. And in
general, an extensive retracing of Kant's whole rationale for his
"Copernican Revolution'' alone would suffice to illuminate his inter-
pretation of the activity of consciousness as a "medium'' or "instru-
ment.ff Such a discussion is out of place here, however, for I am not
seeking to adjudicate between the Kantian and Hegelian
epistemologies, but only to make clear what Hegel found amiss in
Kant, so as to provide a clearer perspective for developing Hegel's own
positive solution to the problem of knowledge. 29
Virtually all of the major nineteenth-century philosophers after
Kant took issue with his explanation of the Ding an sich, finding the
idea that an unknowable realm of being is the causal basis of
phenomena unsatisfactory. 30 An epigram attributed to Schiller sums
48 HEGEI!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

up this sentiment:

Da die Metaphysik 11or kurzem unbeerbt abging

Werden die Di.nge an sich morgen sub hasta Verkauft. 31

The challenge faced by these philosophers was to develop an alter-

native to Kant's ingenious and monumental achievement which could
return being to earth, as it were, from its exile in an unknown world,
while still avoiding scepticism and subjectivism. We are now ready to
turn to a positive statement of Hegel's attempt to achieve this task.

b. Hegel's Positive Solution

i. "Removing the Curtain"

Let us return to Hegel's notion of die Reflexion. To say that
knowledge is essentially reflective is to say that the object of knowledge
necessarily involves a "mediation'' by categories of thought. This is
Hegel's claim, and it is what he means when he says that it is not the
object in its immediacy, but as "derivated" or "transmuted" or "recast"
that we seek to know. Reflection is indeed the "translation" and
"transformation'' (Ubersetzung and Verwandlung) of "any object or event
... into its proper light" by "thinking it over" (SL SS). It is in this sense
that Hegel views thought as an act of "correction" (HPh 1:418). Thought
is not an epiphenomenon of an unchanging, immutable reality, but
actively shapes that reality.
Now why doesn't this transmutational activity spell the distortion
of the object, as Kant and the sceptics felt it did? Hegel's answer is that
the Kantian and sceptical viewpoint itself represents an inversion and
hence distortion of the nature of knowledge: it is not the immediate ob-
ject, the object regarded as purely an sich, that is the shrine of truth, but
the object as known, as mediated by the categories of thought. Without
such mediation, the object simply has no content and thus is merely an
empty category, a caput mortuum. It is only through the reflective pro-
cess of penetrating the surface of things that the essence and truth of
objects is discovered. We cannot be "content with a bare acquaintance"
with what we observe, Hegel explains, "or with the fact as it appears to
the senses; [we must] ... get behind the surface to know what is and to
comprehend it" (SL S21 Zusatz).
This "getting behind the surface'' is the activity of reflection, and in-
volves our coming to recognize the universal, or principle, or law,
 The "Riddle and Problem" of Knowledge 49

which is the true and essential nature of the phenomena we observe.

Hence, it is our own activity of consciousness laboring to uncover the
universal in things which first gives birth to the real nature of the
object. Eliot's "shadow;' falling between the idea and the reality, has lost
the mystery and impenetrability it held for reason in Hegel's early
theological stage. The shadow is merely the world of appearance, in
which reason has now found its bearings: appearance is transformed
from shadowy mystery into "its proper light;' through the labor of
reason.
The supposed mystery of being which lies enshrouded and locked
away in the object that is regarded as purely and wholly an sich, is in
fact not a mystery at all but an empty crypt. Being in itself is an illu-
sion in so far as it is regarded as hidden without hope of discovery
behind an impenetrable curtain of mere appearance. Hegel's well-
known words at the close of the "Consciousness" section of his
Phenomenology expresses this alternative to the Kantian epistemology
in a striking way.

It is manifest that behind the so-called curtain [of appearance]

which is supposed to conceal the inner world [i.e., the noumenal
world of being an sich], there is nothing to be seen unless we go
behind it ourselves, as much in order that we may see, as that there
may be something behind there which can be seen (PhS 1031.32

Hegel employs this metaphor of the 'curtain;' along with the

metaphors of a "rind" or "shell;' over and over again in his writings.
Appearance is the curtain shrouding the essence of things, or the
"rind" or "shell" covering the 'core" or "kernel" of objects (see, e.g., SL
SS50 Anmerkung, 140 Anmerkung; PhN S247 Zusatz; PhH 57; HPh
3:158, 547). But this shroud and covering is a surface-phenomenon
which is penetrable by reflective thought. One of Hegel's favorite cita-
tions is Goethe's verse depicting a point-counter-point confrontation
between what Hegel calls the "despairing creed of our time, that our
knowledge is only subjective" (SL S22 Zusatz), and a new creed of
scientific and philosophical idealism:

Ins Innere der Natur

Dringt kein erscha(fner Geist,
Zu glucklich wenn er nur
Die iiuf,ere Schale weiBt.
"Gluckseligl wem sie nur
Die iiuBere Schale weis't"
50 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

Das hor' ich sechzig Jahre wiederholen,

Ich (luche drauf, aber verstohlen:
Sage mir tausend tausend Male:
Alles giebt sie reichlich und gern;
Natur hat weder Kern
Noch Schale,
Alles ist sie mit einem Male. 33

It is only when we come to realize that nature itself does not

separate into a transparent "rind" and an opaque "core," but first
emerges in its true light through being apprehended by our own
categories of thought, that we are liberated from the illusion of an
unknowable world of being. With this realization, Hegel says, we first
of all "enter the native realm of truth" (PhS 104).
This "native realm of truth" is precisely the realm that Kant had
called "the native home of illusion:'34 Which of these two characteriza-
tions we wish to accept depends on whether we are willing to posit
an "impassable gulf between being and thought," as Hegel says of
Kant's position (SL S60 Zusatz). If Hegel is right, however, such a posi-
tion rests on an unwarrented restriction of our faculty of knowledge
to a mere medium or instrument, and a consequent misinterpretation
of the altering or recasting character of thought. This results, finally,
in a "negative conception" of a spectral world of Di.nge an sich which
holds back from us the mystery of being. If we find merit in Hegel's
arguments, then we cannot countenance any such ultimate incom-
mensurability between thought and being, for it is just the grasping of
the object by categories of thought which raises the object out of its
immediacy and gives it a rational nature.

ii. Hegel's Epistemological Criteriology

Hegel's new way of looking at the altering activity of consciousness
is what accounts for the "twist" that we saw him effecting in the tradi-
tional correspondence criterion of truth. Truth is indeed the cor-
respondence between thought and object, but not the object conceived
as the Kantian an sich - for such an object is definitionally outside the
bounds of knowledge - but rather as the "thing thought." We are now
in a position to flesh this conception out from a new perspective, by
looking at the nature of the activity of knowing itself.
Hegel goes straight to the heart of the problem that confronts his
epistemology in the Preface to his Phenomenology.

Now if we inquire into the truth of knowledge, it seems that we

are asking what knowledge is in itself. Yet in this inquiry knowledge
 The "Riddle and Problem" of Knowledge 51

is our object, something exists for us; and the in itself that would sup-
posedly result from it would rather be the being of knowledge for us.
What we asserted to be its essence would be not so much its truth
but rather just our knowledge of it (PhS 53).

Not only is this a problem for how we are to uncover the true nature
of knowledge in general, but it seems to throw a Kantian wet blanket
over our hopes to direct our knowledge to "what truly is" in its own
right. For, again, we want to know the world of reality, not simply our
thought about the world. 3 5

The object, it is true, seems only to be for consciousness in the

way that consciousness knows it; it seems that consciousness cannot,
as it were, get behind the object as it exists for consciousness so as to
examine what the object is in itself, and hence, too, cannot test its
own knowledge by that standard [i.e., the standard of the object in
itself] (PhS 54).

In this passage, Hegel levels a strong challenge against his own notion
of die Re{lexion, which, as we saw, was to get consciousness "behind
the sudace" of things to their essential nature.
Hegel's answer to his challenge is as follows:

The dissociation, or this semblance of dissociation [between

knowledge in itself and for-consciousness), ... is overcome by the
nature of the object we are investigating [viz., knowledge). Con-
sciousness provides its own criterion from within itself, so that the inves-
tigation becomes a comparison [of consciousness] with itself; for the
distinction made above falls within it .
. . . The distinction between the in itself [of the object) and the
knowledge is already present [in consciousness] in the very fact that
consciousness knows an object at all. Something is for it the in itself;
and knowledge, or the being of the object for consciousness, it for it
another moment (PhS 53, 54).

There is thus no "third thing;' as we remarked in Chapter Two,

beyond consciousness and its object, that can be brought in as a
criterion for comparing consciousness and its object. For, as Kant saw,
this "third thing'' could only be consciousness itself. The criterion is
internal to consciousness, "provided from within itself," and arises
from the very fact that consciousness "simultaneously distinguishes
itself from something [i.e., its object) and at the same time relates itself
to it" (PhS 52). There is thus what Friedrich Grimmlinger refers to as
52 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

a "notwendige Zweideutigkeif' and "Doppeltheif' internal to con-

sciousness which is the necessary grounding of the subject-object
relation. 36
Hegel gives us many examples of how this "internal criteriology:'
as we might call it, works. In fact the whole Phenomenology is itself a
long series of such examples, a series that traces out the "self-
instruction and self-education'' of consciousness which is "the very
essence of mind" (PhM S387 Anmerkung). In Chapter 'Iwo we discuss-
ed one such example, when we saw that the concept which sense-
certainty formulates of the object could not correspond to con-
sciousness' actual experience of the object. Another good example is
Hegel's discussion of Stoicism (PhS 120-22; HPh 2:236-76; cf. PhR
S138 Anmerkung & Zusatz). Stoicism in fact represents in archetypal
fashion one basic strategy of consciousness to deal with the discord
it recurringly experiences between thought and being, or self and
world, and hence illuminates in a fundamental way what is at stake
in Hegel's project of a grand synthesis. The strategy of Stoicism, as we
shall see, is a strategy of retreat and withdrawal of the self from its
world (or of thought from being), and in this way we might say that
the stoic response to discord is the psychological equivalent to Hegel's
analysis of the Kantian epistemology. For again, Hegel sees Kant's
critical philosophy as motivated by an epistemological fear of being,
and a subsequent retreat of consciousness back into itself and the
inner "world" of appearance.
The stoic, Hegel says, is utterly disillusioned with the chaos and
irrationality he finds present in the world. His response is to flee into
the security and integrity of his own thought, renouncing the world.
The aim and object of this renunciation is freedom, and the stoic thus
seeks his freedom through withdrawing form the fickleness of the
world of action. But, Hegel argues, the object of the stoic's retreat -
freedom - is undermined by his experience. In his flight from the
world of action, the stoic flees the very condition for freedom: recogni-
tion and acknowledgement by others of one's autonomy, which can be
expressed only in action. In seeking to gain freedom in thought alone,
the stoic becomes "perplexed" or "embarrassed" (°Der Stoizismus ist
darum in Verlegenheit gekommen"} when he is ''asked for a criterion'' of
his truth - "i.e. strictly speaking, for a content of [his] thought" (PhS
122; cf. HPh 2:270). For his "freedom in thought," carefully purged of
the necessity of acting out this freedom in the world, is thereby
purged of content, and is a "truth lacking the fullness (or "filling:• or
"fulfillment'': die Er{iillung] of life'' (PhS 122; cf. HPh 2:264f). In short,
the stoic's object, his freedom, is unattainable by the way he goes
 The "Riddle and Problem" of Knowledge 53

about seeking it. His life does not measure up to his lofty ideal and
criterion of freedom, so that he is literally living an untruth, an
elaborate self-deception, by his own criterion - however much he
may believe in the value of his life.
This example of Hegel's internal criteriology brings out nicely the
crucial role of experience [die ErfahrungJ in consciousness' testing of
its knowledge. It is through the stoic's own experience of his complete
withdrawal from the world that he discovers the untruth that he lives.
Knowing is linked with experience by definition for Hegel: "This
dialectical movement [of distinguishing an object and relating to it in
such a way that the truth or untruth of the object, as well as the rela-
tion of consciousness to it, is exposed] which consciousness exercises
on itself and which affects both its knowledge and its object, is
precisely what is called experience" (PhS 55).
Thus, Hegel's notion of internal criteriology always involves the
test of experience. He commences his descriptions of particular forms,
or "Gestalten:' of consciousness over and over again by describing first
"the notion which consciousness forms of itself; and then by asking
us to "see whether this notion is confirmed by [consciousness' own]
experience, and whether its reality corresponds to this experience"
(PhS 242).
It is this internal criteriology - the testing of the "object as it is in
itself for consciousness" by consciousness' own Erfahrung - which
solves for Hegel the question he poses as the ultimate "riddle and
problem" of knowledge: "How do we, as subjects, come into contact
with objects?" Hegel exactly takes over from Aristotle his theory that

thought thinks on itself because it shares the nature of the object of

thought; for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact
with and thinking its objects, so that thought and object of thought
are the same.37

Hegel writes in his "shorter" Logic that "the principle of experience

carries with it the unspeakaQly important condition that, in order to
accept and hold any fact as true, we must be in contact with it" (SL S7
Anmerkung). This "principle of experience," with its goal of a "contact"
with objects, is on the surface the same principle and goal we saw
expressed by the criterion of sense-certainty in Chapter 'Iwo. 38 But for
Hegel, this principle differs from that of sense-certainty, first, in that
the Erfahrung he refers to is not immediate but discursive, a temporal
process of discovery; and second, in that the "contact" he proposes is
not simply senuous contact, but as for Plato and Aristotle, an intellec-
54 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

tual contact, an apprehension of the object in terms of "laws, general

propositions, theory - the thoughts of the existent" (SL S7 Anmerkung).
Hegel's solution to the riddle and problem of knowledge thus
depends on his internalization of the criterion of knowledge to the
activity of consciousness itself. This can be seen as the result of his
attempt to solve the difficulties he finds with the "theoretical" and
"practical" approaches to the problem of the possibility of an objective
knowledge of the world. ''The difficulty arising from the ... assump-
tion of the theoretical [approach)," Hegel summarizes, is that "natural
objects confront us as permanent and impenetrable objects" (PhN
S246 Zusatz). And the difficulty with the "practical" approach is that,
in seeking to overcome this barrier posed by the "theoretical" position,
it declares that the object is unknowable in itself, thereby effecting the
disappearance of reality. But if we see the truth and essence of the
object as inherently and inseparably connected with categories of
thought - the fundamental premise of Hegel's grand synthesis - then
it cannot be conceived as an external, brute datum, nor, consequently,
as something which we can never know in itself, for we are in "con-
tact" with it just to the extent that we are in contact with our own
thought and experience. The object conceived as external to the con-
tribution of thought, or as wholly transcending all possible experience
of it, is like the Emperor's new clothes - wholly imaginary. The object
thus conceived is equally naked (of content) and illusory, and is first
made substantial, or garbed (if I may stretch the analogy this far) by
categories of thought. 39
I wish to add a few words of caution as regards Hegel's concept
of experience. There are at least three ways in which this concept is
open to misunderstandings. First, it is neither so close to nor so distant
from the empiricist conception as is often thought. Not so close, since
as we have seen, when Hegel writes of the "test of experience;' or "con-
firmation by" and "correspondence with'' experience, die Erfahrung is
not simply sense-experience, and its object is not conceived as a "given"
datum. Nor, however, is Hegel's concept of experience so distant from
the empiricist doctrine as is often supposed. Hegel says time and again
that "nothing is known that is not in experience'' (HPh 3:303); "the
point of departure [of philosophy] is experience" (SL S12); "there is
nothing in thought which has not been in sense and experience'' (SL
SS Anmerkung).40
The point of Hegel's idealism is not to contradict these statements
by doing away with sense-experience, but rather to suggest that this
is not enough for genuine knowledge. Sense-knowledge is prior in
terms of its immediacy, but the aim of knowledge is a "begreifendes
 The "Riddle and Problem" of Knowledge 55

Erkennen" - a cognition which is conceptual, and this is prior in terms

of a rational understanding of the object of experience. Hegel suggests
in his Encyclopcedia that concepts give us a different perspective on the
same object that we apprehend by sense (SL S31, and that it is only
with this "translation into the form of thought" (SL S51 or "reconstitu-
tion ... (of the] empirical object" by notions (PhM S246 Zusatzl, that
the immediate sense-experience is transformed into a rational appre-
hension. But while this transformed experience "may look like a dif-
ferent sort of fact" and "appear in consequence to give rise to a dif-
ferent' object;• in fact it is not and does not do any such thing. The
object of begreifendes Erkennen is the same as that of sense-knowledge,
but apprehended from a higher and fuller perspective (SL S31.
This brings us to our second point of caution. Die Erfahrung for
Hegel is not simply something that goes on inside one's head, a game
of abstractions and a play of concepts. It is preeminently an action-in-
the-world, an expression of thought - intentions, ideals, theories - in
a concrete way. Writers like Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, and Marx have
characterized Hegel's philosophy as attempting to "produce experience
out of itself," as Feuerbach puts it, 41 meaning that his epistemology
involves an illicit and incomprehensible leap from categories of
thought to categories of being.42 But Hegel's philosophy is closer to the
very opposite of this caricature, and is rather of a spirit with Merleau-
Ponty's dictum that "philosophy is merely an elucidated experience:'43
The fact that categories of thought are also categories of being for
Hegel"" - unlike for Kant, who declared that categories of thought
have no purchase on the being of things in themselves - is effected
precisely through the experience of human consciousness. Experience
is the ''education and development required to bring out into con-
sciousness what is contained (only implicitly] in thought" (SL S671.
Marx is thus wrong to include Hegel in his (inlfamous charge that
"the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the
point is to change it:'45 For Hegel no less than for Marx, consciousness
is a "revolutionary force:' as Marx terms it. 46 "Consciousness:' Hegel
says, can never simply "find itself immediately, but produces itself by
its own action" (PhS 2091. And this self-production is at once a
transformation and modification of the world for Hegel: human action
'affects not merely ... the content of consciousness, ... but affects
reality as such'' (PhS 2451.
Finally, a third word of caution. It is sometimes tempting to regard
Hegel's talk of the "translation" of immediate experience into notions,
as well as the "translation" of categories of thought into categories of
being, as all-too-easy transitions in his epistemology and logic. But
56 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

knowledge is not an easy thing to come by for Hegel. He regards the

road to knowledge as being a "pathway of doubt" and a "road of
despair" which constantly foils our impatience to arrive at certainty.
For "impatience demands the impossiblet Hegel writes, "to wit, the
attainment of the end - knowledge - without the means" (PhS 17);
"In order to [arrive at] genuine knowledge, [consciousness] must travel
a long way and work its passage" (PhS 15}. The means to knowledge
that Hegel speaks of involves "the suffering, the patience, and the
labor of the negative" (PhS 10) - that is, the "utter dismemberment"
(PhS 19) of the truisms of the natural consciousness.'7 For the attain-
ment of knowledge involves a severe disruption of beliefs and of
natural, unreflective "certainties" and convictions.
It is in this sense that Hegel compares the process of the develop-
ment of knowledge to the biblical story of the Fall (e.g., SL S24 Zusatz;
HPh 1: 105; 3:8-10; PhS 467-68; PhM S405 Zusatz). Our natural,
immediate, instinctive, commonsense beliefs are our "original inno-
cence;' from which we are alienated and estranged by the impulse to
satisfy our curiosity and doubts. This satisfaction can only be won,
however, by the "labor and culture of the spirit" which involves the
'curse" of man, "that he must work in the sweat of his brow ... [and]
bring forth in sorrow" (SL S24 Zusatz).' 8 Work, or labor (die Arbeit), is
for Hegel the necessary means to knowledge; it is both a "curse;' in that
it involves the "fall" from our natural beliefs and convictions, and the
means to "redemption," for it alone can heal our doubts by "producing
and transforming" both man and the world into a spiritual, rational
existence (SL S24 Zusatz).
The upshot of Hegel's epistemology is that ''the real nature of the
object is brought to light in reflection; but it is not less true that his
exertion of thought is my act. If this is so, the real nature [of the object]
is a product of my mind, in its character of thinking subject" (SL S23).
This passage expresses the kernel of Hegel's idealism, with its convic-
tion of a "knowledge of the world as a world actually projected out of
myself" (PhM S402 ZusatzJ, or briefly, that "the object is my idea" (PhM
S424). The Kantian curtain of appearance is withdrawn, and the
essence of objects shines forth, for this essence is none other than con-
sciousness' own work and production: the real nature of objects is the
"manifestation of mind" (PhS 486).
Here in essence we have the Hegelian grand synthesis of thought
and being. But we shall see in the next and final section of the chapter
that these idealist dicta are misleading, insofar as they do not indicate
what makes Hegel's idealism so interesting, the fact that it meant to
"overlap" the realist metaphysics. Still, Hegel is convinced that unless
 The "Riddle and Problem" of Knowledge 57

we finally accept the idealist insight that the truth of objects is the ob-
ject as thought jthe thing thought"!, our view of knowledge and of
0

being is unsatisfactory, and we could never overcome scepticism or

solve the "riddle and problem" of knowledge.

3. Hegel's Idealism

Schelling, at the age of twenty, writes that "das Hauptgeschiift aller

Philosophie besteht in Losung des Problems vom Daseyn der Welt."49 These
are not the misguided ramblings of a radical youth, but the expression
of the task of a whole philosophical age. The course of post-Lockean
philosophy was a Hegelian °pathway of doubt" and "road of despair"
about the existence of the external world. Berkeley's idealism effected
- for Hume, Kant, and Hegel, as well as many others - the Hdisap-
pearance of all external reality° jHPh 3:3641. Hume built a strong case
for the triumph of scepticism over all attempts to demonstrate con-
clusively the existence of external objects. And Kant's attempt to meet
the Humean challenge resurrected knowledge of appearances by
effecting, as Schopenhauer calls it, "the vitiation of all objectivity."50
For the post-Kantian idealists, the task of philosophy became a
reconstruction or "deduction" of the lost world, but in a way that might
avoid the empiricist metaphysics which had initiated the course of
doubt about the external world.
Hegel takes up this task by defining "the aim of knowledge" to be
"the divestment of the objective world that stands opposed to us of its
strangeness, and, as the phrase goes, to find ourselves at home in it:
which means no more than to trace the objective world back to the
notion [i.e., to thought) - to our innermost self" (SL S194 Zusatzl. A
good way of elaborating this idealist position is by seeing how Hegel
compares the activities of consciousness and of self-consciousness.51
Consciousness is for Hegel the relation of the knowing subject to an
external object, a relation where the subject is passive and the object
is a mere "thing'' or "indifferent being" jPhS 4801. Self-consciousness is
the relation of the knowing subject to him- {or her-Jself through his
(herl relation to the object: "the existence of the world becomes for
self-consciousness its [self-consciousness1 own truth and presence; it
is certain of experiencing only itself therein" jPhS 1401. Or briefly,
"self-consciousness is aware that it is in itself the objectively real
world" jPhS 2111. We may say, then, that for Hegel the transition from
the standpoint of consciousness to that of self-consciousness involves
the transition from realism to idealism. Showing the path of this tran-
58 HEGEI:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

sition is the task Hegel sets for himself in his Phenomenology. 52

There are several ways of regarding the relative merits of realism.
Fichte, for example, felt that "neither the idealist nor the realist system
can directly refute its opposite, for their quarrel is about the first prin-
ciple; ... each of the two, if only its first principle in granted, refutes
the other:•s3 Other thinkers agree that idealism and realism are found-
ed on basic, unprovable assumptions about the nature of knowledge,
but feel that these assumptions can be reconciled. 54 A more common
attitude is that one of the two systems is clearly superior, the other
being even absurd or "repugnant" to common sense. Schopenhauer,
for example, says that "true philosophy must at all costs be idealistic;
indeed it must be so merely to be honest:'55 On the other side, thinkers
in the realist camp have shown an equally vituperative attitude.
Reichenbach, for example, speaks of the idealist as suffering from a
kind of "emotional maladjustment;' and goes on to say that "the symbol
of the idealist is the man who resorts to daydreaming because he is
unable to enjoy reality.... Idealism is philosophical escapism, ... [a]
narcotic wish-fulfillment of dreams:' 56
In general I think that both the idealist and the realist tend to be
most eloquent and perceptive in their disclosures of shortcomings of
the opposing view, and less open-minded in their considerations of the
difficulties present in their own positions. For the idealist, the problem
which has come to be termed the "ego-centric predicament"57 must be
faced. If, as Hegel says, "the object is my idea:' how do we ever get out-
side the Leibnizian prison of the self - the self which has no "win-
dows" to the outside world, as Leibniz puts its - to the external world?
And the realist, who rejects the view that "the object is my idea;' must
still come to grips with an exactly parallel problem, what we may call
"the problem of representation": he must show that the interpretive act
of consciousness in its representation of objects is eliminable (i.e., not
constitutive), so that we can get at the "giveness" of reality in itself.
It is to Hegel's credit that he took each of these problems seriously,
and sought an epistemological solution which would not sweep either
of them under the rug. For Hegel, the "critical idealism" of Kant and
the "subjective idealism" of Fichte each are undermined by the ego-
centric predicament peering out from under the rug.

a. Kanfs "Critical Idealism" and Fi.chte's "Subjective Idealism"

Kant felt that all "genuine idealism" (wirklicher Idealismus) - his

own "transcendentaler' or "kritischer Idealismus" is not "genuine ideal-
ism" in his view, since it asserts the "empirical reality" of phenomena
 The "Riddle and Problem" of Knowledge 59

is open to the charge that Hegel levels against Berkeley, namely,

that it destroys the reality of the external world. 58 Kant's 'critical
idealism:' on the other hand, asserts "just the opposite of ('genuine1
idealism; in that it claims Hthat things as objects of our senses existing
outside us are given, but we know nothing of what they may be in
themselves, knowing only their appearances, that is, the representa-
tions which they cause in us by affecting our senses" (die Vorstellungen,
die sie in uns wirken, indem sie unsere Sinne a{fi.zieren). 59
There are, in Hegel's view, grievous problems with this position.
Like Saint Paul, who wrote that "the world was created by the word
of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not
appear" (Hebrews 11:3), Kant offers in the just-cited passage a causal
explanation of appearances, namely that our representations of
phenomena are caused by noumena, things which do not appear in
themselves. Hence, Kant asserts that "phenomena presuppose a
supersensible ground . . . which we must introduce as the basis of
nature as phenomenon."60
In a way, this causal explanation is an attempt to solve the "prob-
lem of representation'' mentioned above. For while our forms of intui-
tion and categories of thought are constitutive of phenomena, they are
eliminable from (do not constitute) the object which causes our
representations: the thing in itself is beyond the scope of our con-
sciousness. 61 In Hegel's view, however, Kant's causal explanation is un-
successful, resting on unwarranted presuppositions. 62 In the first
place, any such causal explanation transgresses Kant's insistence that
the principle of causality is a purely subjective condition of experience
and cannot be applied to anything which does not appear. 63 And
second, the idea that there must be an #unknown ground" of our
representations - i.e., that our "inner experience'' is possible only on
the assumption of outer objects existing in themselves 64 - is inconsis-
tent with Kant's seemingly opposite claim in his .Aesthetic that it is our
inner forms of intuition and "modes of representing objects" that are
the condition for outer appearance (i.e., for phenomena). 65 In fact, Kant
says that "if I take away the thinking subject, the whole corporeal
world must at once vanish, for it is nothi'ng save an appearance in the
sensibility of the subject and a mode of its representations:'66 How
then can the thing in itself be the condition for phenomena?
This last statement is not eliminable from Kant's philosophy,
without at once eliminating the crux of his Copernican Revolution,
which was to save us from scepticism. Schopenhauer points this out
at even greater length than Hegel, seeking to show that Kant "furtively
maneuvers round" this unavoidable identification of the object of
60 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

knowledge and its representation, so as to Hstealthily evade" its conse-

quence, that it leaves no room for a "causal nexus ... [or inference to]
the Ding an sich:'61 Schopenhauer's conclusion is that Kant's
philosophy establishes beyond dispute that "the distinction between
the representation and the object of the representation is unfounded"
- notwithstanding Kant's own tendency to attempt to evade this
conclusion.
But, if Hegel and Schopenhauer are correct in this line of argu-
ment, this lands Kant squarely in the midst of the ego-centric predica-
ment Uust as it landed Schopenhauer and Fichte). If, as Schopenhauer
says, "the world is my representation,"68 then external reality simply
disappears, being superfluous. And if we see Kant's argument for the
Ding an sich - the noumenal realm which is the causal ground of
appearance - as illicit, then he can no longer legitimately distinguish
his own idealism from that of the "genuine idealism" that he wishes to
spurn and avoid at all costs.
Hegel associates what has become known as the •ego-centric
predicament" with subjective idealism. In discussing Plato's
philosophy, Hegel writes that

the idealism of Plato must not be thought of as being subjective

idealism - that false idealism which has made its appearance in
modem times and which maintains that we ... are not influenced from
without, but that all conceptiom are derived from out of the subject. ...
It is a quite false conception ... that [true] idealism means that the
individual produces from himself all his ideas, even the most
immediate (HPh 2:43).

The point of Hegel's dispute with subjective idealism jmainly Fichte)

is that it locates what we have termed the "agency of truth'' exclusively
within the individual subject. "Fichte." according to Hegel, "says that
what is not for consciousness does not concern consciousness:' where
the consciousness in question is the individual ego jHPh 3:483f).
Hence, "what is altogether lacking is any consideration of the object
as what it is in itself; it is plainly considered [by Fichte] only in rela-
tion'' to the subject jHPh 3:503}. Such charges could be taken directly
from the platform of the ''New Realists" in their criticism of the ego-
centric predicament.
Such talk on the part of Hegel constrains us to pause before jump-
ing to the conclusion that his idealism short-shrifts the empirical
object, or simply makes it into a subjective idea. And yet we have seen
Hegel clearly state that "the object is my idea" and that "all being is
 Th.e "Riddle and Problem" of Knowledge 61

being for consciousness." How are we to reconcile his criticism of sub-

jective idealism with such claims? Or are we to charge him with
duplicity?

b. The "Overlapping" of Realism and Idealism

We have mentioned that Hegel regards the attainment of
knowledge to rest on the transition from the standpoint of con-
sciousness to that of self-consciousness, or the coming-to-discover that
the relation of consciousness to an external object is finally a relation
of consciousness to itself. But this discovery does not entail for Hegel
the superfluity of the activity of consciousness, that is, of the relation
of the self to an external object. No, "the merit and rights• of con-
sciousness "must unhesitatingly be admitted" (SL S80 Zusatz), for the
process of distinguishing the self from an independent object is the
crucial first step in the activity of knowledge (see, e.g., PhS 23, 52).
Hence "spirit lives in the difference of its consciousness and its self-
consciousness• IPhS 417), which is to say that it requires both. The aim
of knowledge, to "behold the self in the object" (PhS 417), requires first
of all an external world and an independent object.
Such a view involves an important concession to realism. Kojeve
in fact goes so far as to claim that "Hegelian absolute idealism has
nothing to do with what is ordinarily called 'idealism: And if terms are
used in their usual senses, it must be said that Hegel's system is
'realist:"69 The central passage Kojeve cites in support of this surpris-
ing claim comes from the closing pages of the Phenomenology, where
Hegel writes that the "externalization" (die Entau$erung) of con-
sciousness into the world •is still incomplete [insofar as] it expresses
the relation of [consciousness1 self certainty to the object, which
object, just because it is found in this relation [to the subject), has not
yet won its complete freedom" IPhS 492).
Other passages which might seem to support Kojeve's
characterization of Hegel's epistemology as a •realist metaphysics" 70
abound in Hegel's writings. In the Preface to the Phenomenology Hegel
defines "scientific cognition• as "demanding the surrender to the life of
the object• (PhS 32). And later in the Phenomenology Hegel disparages
the encroachment on idealism of what he calls the "principle of utility;'
the principle, namely, that "the thing in itself is nothing, but has mean-
ing only in the relation to the 1'" (PhS 481; and cf. 305). Similarly,
Hegel criticizes Kant - fairly or (as it seems to me) unfairly71 - for
"holding that both the form and the matter of knowledge are supplied
by the Ego" (SL S42 Zusatz), and hence for ignoring the ••given' in sensa-
62 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

tion" by "reducing objectivity directly to . . . and ideal factor"

(F&K 154).
But Kojeve does not cite the whole passage from which he extracts
his quote. Hegel goes on to say that when we fully regard the object
as having "won its complete freedom:' this only serves to "reinstate the
subjecf' (PhS 492). He means by this that in knowing the object in its
completeness, we find that it is the expression of spirit or mind.
Kojeve thus cuts Hegel's epistemology off at its halfway point, the
point where consciousness has moved beyond its original self-
absorption to its "surrender to the life of the object:' but without
following the process to its fulfillment - the crucial element of return
(zuriickgehen, zuriickkommen, riickkehren) into self-consciousness from
this surrender and externalization. 72 Hegel's epistemology is self-
confessedly a circular development and becoming, a "Kreis der Ent-
wicklung' and "wiederherstellende Werden,"7 3 involving the process of
externalization and return, of relation to an independent and external
object and of the appropriation of this object by self-consciousness by
which self-consciousness is "reborn" (PhS 492). This "rebirth" of spirit
absolutely requires the realist aspect of Hegel's epistemology, the sur-
render to the object, but without the reappropriation of the object of
our experience, the world would be ultimately alien and alienating.
This reappropriation is the discovery by consciousness that "the object
is its own production" (PhS 492), its idea, but its idea given full expres-
sion in the external world.
It is thus no sign of duplicity on Hegel's part when he says such
things as the following:

The influence from without ... comes therefore first in cogni-

tion .... A system of idealism cannot be based on the theory that
nothing comes to us from without.... But there follows the activity
of making this passive, [external] content one's own IHPh 2:187).
Cognition [has two sides to it]. On the one hand it [must]
supersede the one-sidedness of subjectivity by receiving the existing
world into itself ... and filling its abstract self-certainty with this
objective content. On the other hand, it [must) supersede the one-
sidedness of the objective world, ... modifying and informing it by
[thought] !SL S225).
The determinations of the object of which mind is aware are, of
course, inherent in the object, but at the same time they are mediated
and posited by thought jPhM S441 Zusatz).
 The "Riddle and Problem" of Knowledge 63

Kojeve's analysis of Hegel's epistemology is misleading because it

expresses only half of the picture, but he is right to warn us that we
are easily ·deceived by the Hegelian expression 'absoluter Idealismus:• 14
We must take Hegel at his word when he says that his own philosophy
is an attempt to make "the two methods of realism and idealism overlap
one another'' jHPh 3:164). We may sum this point up by remarking
once again that Hegel's epistemology is teleological. The end or goal of
knowledge is to "supersede the cardinal distinction between con-
sciousness and self-consciousness, and to give the form of self-
consciousness to the object of consciousness" jPhS 417). Thus the
truth of the object of knowledge is that it is a •product of thought" IPhS
417), but this is speaking from the standpoint of the end, or
accomplished telos of the whole process of the activity of knowing.
And this process demands an initially external object.
It is in this sense that Hegel says, •the object is the notion implicitly,
and thus when the notion, in the shape of End, is realized:' the object
is known as the manifestation of thought ISL S212 Zusatz}. But expli-
citly the object is an independent thing, which we must experience as
such, and only as the result of this experience can we reformulate the
essence of the object in terms of its constitution by categories and
principles of thought. ''The aim of all genuine science," Hegel says, "is
just this, that mind shall recognize itself in everything in heaven and
earth" IPhM S377 Zusatz), but the fruition of this aim is possible only
with the "influence from without" and the •surrender to the life of the
object": "the depth [of mind] is to be measured by the greatness of the
craving with which spirit seeks to find itself in what lies outside of
itself" (HPh 3:546). Hegel's grand synthesis of thought and being is a
synthesis which occurs only as a process, a pathway of thought first
of all finding itself confronted by an apparently alien world jthe initial
crisis of discord), and only through a path of confronting and immers-
ing itself in that world - "surrendering itself" to its environment jthe
denouement of this discord) - at last transforming the alien character
of being through a discovery that the world is nothing but the external
shape of mind jthe resolution of discord).
 Chapter Four

BECOMING AND DIALECTIC

All things take plar.e by strife.

Heraclitus

In Chapter Two we saw that Hegel conceives of truth in terms of

process and movement: truth is "made operative" through a temporal
and historical manifestation. And in Chapter Three we learned that
Hegel views the being of the object to be the "thing thought;• so that
thought and being are a unity. Further, since thought is itself a pro-
gressive Bildung, and thought and being are a unity, then so too is
being an evolving development of its potentialities to fruition: being is
a becoming. Becoming is in this way the middle term between knowing
and being, the connective principle which unites epistemology and
ontology in Hegel's grand synthesis. It is only because being and
knowing share in a process of becoming, a synchronous development
from potency to actualization, that there is no ultimate incongruence
and discordancy between them.
In the present chapter, we will sketch out the dynamics of the
Hegelian conception of becoming more fully, beginning with an
analysis of his theory of substance, which thus far we have neglected
in deference to his anatomy of the "subject;' but which is an equally
key foundation for his ontology of becoming. We will then turn to
investigate the intriguing distinction Hegel makes between "mere
logical" becoming and existential becoming, which is crucial for
understanding the much-disputed transition from Being to Becoming
in his Logic. These two doctrines, the ontology of substance and the
establishment of a logical/existential axis of becoming, will prepare

65
66 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

the way for an examination of Hegel's principle of negativity and his

theory of dialectic, which together are the motivating forces of becom-
ing in his philosophy.

1. Hegel's Notion of Substance

Let us begin by returning to a passage already referred to in

Chapter 'Iwo from the Preface to Hegel's Phenomenology, where he
writes that "everything turns on grasping and expressing the true not
only as substance, but equally as subject!' jPhS 10). We have already
discussed in detail the question of who, or what, this subject is in
Hegel's philosophy, but we have yet to gain a clear idea of the
character of substance. In general, we may say that subjectivity is
what accounts for the fact that substance is not an inert being, a sim-
ple, undifferentiated "is-ness:' but on the contrary a being which has
within it an impulse to development, to expression, to becoming.
The above quotation from the Preface to the Phenomenology is
followed by a description of this dynamic nature of substance.

The living substance is being which is in truth subject, or what

is the same, is in truth actual in so far as it is the movement of
positing itself, ... the process of its own becoming, the circle that
presupposes its end as its goal, having its end also as its beginning;
and only by being worked out to its end, is actual [nur durch die
Ausfuhrung und sein Ende wirklich ist) IPhS 10).
(Substance is) the essence consummating itself through its
development; ... it is essentially a result - only in the end is it what
truly is. Precisely in this consists its nature, viz., to be actual, subject,
the spontaneous becoming of itself (PhS 11).1

Hegel's view of the teleological character of becoming is clear in

these passages, and this points to a revealing affinity with the
Aristotelian doctrine of substance. Aristotle is one of three
philosophers whose theories of substance it will be fruitful to compare
with Hegel's in this section - the others being Leibniz and Heraclitus.
By seeing how Hegel's own theory is strongly influenced by these
three philosophers, as well as indicating points of divergence, we will
gain a much clearer perspective on his principle of becoming.
 Becoming and Dialectic 67

a. The Influence of Aristotle

Two main differences between Hegel's and Aristotle's doctrines of
substance are that Hegel does not distinguish between three types of
substance, as Aristotle does, and that for Hegel all substance involves
motion, which is not true for Aristotle. 2 But Hegel was very much
impressed with Aristotle's hyle-morphic conception of substance, and
he tends to gloss over these differences. There are three related
aspects of Aristotle's theory which I find especially important
for Hegel.
First, Aristotle claimed that form (eidos, morphe) inheres in or is
"immersed" in matter (hyle), 3 and that this is what accounts for motion
in substance. For Hegel, "form'' becomes "subject;' and the Aristotelian
"matter" - which he generally associates with the "substratum'' of
substance4 - becomes a somewhat vaguer notion for Hegel (although
certainly not an '1 know not what"). It remains the aspect of substance
qua substratum which persists or remains "self-identical" through
change, and although there is no univocal term which Hegel uses to
refer to it, in general I think we can say that the Aristotelian "matter''
becomes being an sich for Hegel. 5 The important point here, however,
is that the relation of inherence is adopted completely by Hegel, as well
as the notion that this is what accounts for the movement of
substance. It is only because "substance is in truth subject" that its
essence is a "movement and unfolded becoming" (PhS 12).
Second, Aristotle's hyle-morphism is what accounts for the fact
that substance both changes and persists. For his doctrine of the inher-
ence of form in matter directly involves the distinction between actu-
ality and potentiality.

The matter which changes [from one state to another) must be

capable of both [of these different) states. And since that which 'is' has
two senses, we must say that everything changes from that which is
potentially to that which is actually.6

Substance both changes (develops) and persists (remains self-

identical) through this change, in that it is from the start the poten-
tiality of what it becomes actually, so that it is throughout the change,
although in a different sense than it is at the end.
This is crucial for Hegel as well, who says of substance that it is
that which remains "self-identical;' or in a state of "simple repose" (PhS
27) and "peace with itself" (PhS 121 throughout its process of
68 HEGE:C.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

''becoming-other:' "In itself; Hegel says, substance is and remains in a

state of "untroubled equality and unity with itself" jPhS 10). And yet
as such it is mere potentiality, the unshaped and undeveloped, '1ack-
ing the sell-movement of the form' jPhS 10). Without this movement,
substance remains embryonic, unfulfilled by the articulation and
manifestation of its content. Form, or subjectivity, thus provides for
substance both 'a bond and principle of unity, and also an internal
source of development" jSL S14).
This leads us to the third respect in which Hegel's philosophy of
substance relies on Aristotle's, the respect in which their distinction
between potency and act accounts for their visions of becoming as
immanent teleology. For Aristotle, form is associated with the telos of
substance, that toward which it aims and by which it is guided in its
process of development. As such, the end and actuality of substance
is present from the start, so that a substance is initially or potentially
already defined by what it is to become. Form or telos is the inherent
principle jarche) of becoming in things, 7 the "reason" or Logos of
things, 8 "that for the sake of which" the "process of evolution" of
substance occurs, and that which determines the pattern of this evolu-
tion or development. 9
All this is true for Hegel as well. We have noted his claim that
substance is a kind of circular becoming which "presupposes its end
as its goal and has its end also as its beginning, and only by being
worked out to its end is actual." Hence, Hegel writes that the actuality
of substance is initially "hidden, and shows itself only in the end, but
in such a way that this end reveals that [it] has also been there from
the beginning" jPhS 157). Substance, the being of things, is thus a pro-
cess of internal striving to fulfill its potency, and this process is the
power or force of spirit jGeist). Spirit - which in one important sense
we can see as Hegel's name for substance animated by subject 10 -
''begins with a germ of infinite possibility, but only possibility, contain-
ing its substantial existence in an undeveloped form, as the object and
goal which it reaches only in its resultant, full reality. (This possibility
is the potentiality of spirit] which involves its actuality as a germ or
impulse: ... the Aristotelian dynamis is also potentia, power and might"·
jPhH 57). All substance is initially embryonic, merely in principle
what its full nature entails, and its life or spirit consists in a path of
self-construction and self-transcendence - this is the "power and
might" of spirit - towards its fully actual shape.
Aristotle often expresses the teleological relation of matter to form
by saying that "matter desires form," 11 as the undeveloped and
unformed desiring shape. A substance "desires" or "reaches out
 Becoming and Dialectic 69

towards" a specific form, and this form is inherent in the substance as

its "germ" or "pattern" - its "creative seed endowed with specific for-
mative properties." Desire jdie Begierde) is also an important concept
in Hegel's philosophy, although he generally confines its activity to the
being of self-consciousness, as he does with the term "striving" (das
Streben), while reserving such terms as "impulse'' (der 1Heb, die
'Inebkraft) or "impelling and guiding principle'' (die Fortleitung), or
simply "energy" (die Energie) or "power" (die Macht) or "force" (die Kraft)
for the relation of substance to its form or subjectivity.
Desire is for Hegel the universal experience of self-consciousness
of the yearning for self-completion. He sometimes even suggests that
God is not free from desire, since His creation of the world indicates
a desire for self-expression (v. HPh 2:75; PhN S247 Zusatz). It is in this
sense of reaching-out for self-completion that Aristotle says that "mat-
ter desires form'' and Hegel says that substance has an internal
impulse to develop. The Hegelian theory of substance thus con-
sciously hearkens back to Aristotle in its principles that (1) substance
is a form of motion, a process, rather than a static being-in-itself; 12)
that, at the same time, it persists through this process; and (3) that
because of this persistence through alteration, substance is not mere
change but teleological development or evolution, which is itself
analyzed in terms of the principle of power, impulse, desire. 12

b. The Influence of Leibniz

This is a good point at which to indicate another important source
of influence on Hegel's theory of substance - the philosophy of Leib-
niz. Leibniz defined substance in terms of an internal "primitive force
of activity:' 13 "continuous change:' 14 a "persistent continuous transi-
tion:'15 "continual strife:' and "inquietude and unrest:116 This is exactly
Hegel's view when he writes that substance qua spirit is "never at rest,
but always engaged in moving forward" (PhS 6), a perpetual "move-
ment and unfolded becoming:' or that ·spirit is not an inert being but,
on the contrary, absolutely restless being, pure activity, . . . [being]
which is truly actual only through the specific forms of its self-
manifestation" (PhM S378 Zusatz). It is precisely this restless
inquietude of being which accounts for the unavoidable discord of
life, for moments of stability are only fleeting, and inevitably yield
themselves up to transition, to uprootedness, to what Hegel analyzes
as the ''violence" of change.
Reminiscent of Aristotle, the internal principle of this unresting
activity is for Leibniz force (sometimes referred to as "conatus''17),
70 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

which he regards as constitutive of substance. 18 Force is the spon-

taneous internal activity of substance that preserves its identity
through change, being the principle of transition between states in the
individual thing. 19 Force also plays the role that form does for Aristo-
tle, and that subjectivity does for Hegel, in its being the moving princi-
ple behind the development of potency to actuality, 20 and that which
accounts for substances being "entelechies" - i.e., teleologically
guided. 21 Finally, force is described in terms of •appetitiont22 or "striv-
ing" and "desire''23 - just as we saw desire to be fundamental in both
Aristotle's and Hegel's anatomies of substance - which are the fun-
damental internal characteristics of all created substances and which
serve to Nexpress" or ''project"24 the potentialities of substance as
specific, determinate actualities.
Hegel highly commends this part of Leibniz's philosophy (v. HPh
3:325, 331-34). Indeed all that we have just cited from Leibniz is
appropriated by Hegel in his own theory of substance. We have seen
this to be so in Hegel's definition of substance in terms of the
"perpetual restless activity'' of subjectivity, and in terms of the
teleological flavor of the becoming of potentiality into actuality. Fur-
ther, Hegel defines subjectivity - what is for Leibniz force (or conatus
or appetition or desire I - explicitly in terms of "expression" and
"manifestation,• as does Leibniz. Thus, according to Hegel "the power
[die Kraft) of Geist is only as great as its expression [Au,8erung)" (PhS 6);
"Geist is essentially energy, active essence, the manifestation and self-
determination [which is] the element of the concrete nature [of
substance]" (RH 51). This is perhaps the most central and general prin-
ciple of Hegel's ontology, that 'being is in truth 'becoming, for "simple
being ... or abstract essence ... lacks authentic subsistence:' but also
has within itself the seed of its self-determination: "it manifests itself"
(PhS 471) and hence "transforms its [abstract being] in itself into that
which is for itself, ... consummating and completing itself" (PhS 488).
All being is self-transcendence, the process of continual
reconstruction.
We should note a crucial difference between Hegel and Leibniz
within this shared ground. Leibniz's whole doctrine of the "expression"
of potentialities of substance by force is qualified by the claim that this
expression is confined to the interiority of the individual substance.
That is, strictly speaking, there is no interaction between substances
for Leibniz, the activity of self-expression being enclosed within the
ontological confines of the individual.25 Each simple substance, or
"monad:' is a "world apart:' as Leibniz puts it. 26 This is why Leibniz
feels that there are no 'extrinsic denominations" of substance,27 mean-
 Becoming and Dialectic 71

ing that the activity of any one substance cannot causally influence
the state of any other.
For Hegel, however, expression and manifestation are an
Entiiuf,erung, an externalization or outward movement, which
necessarily involves causal relation to an "other:' The being of a
substance is always defined by Hegel in part as a "being-for-others; a
relation to other beings.

Essential correlation [absolute Verhaltnisse) is the specific and

completely universal way in which things appear. Everything that
exists stands in correlation, and this correlation is the true nature of
every existence (SL S135 Zusatz).
Once mention some substance, and you thereby create a connec-
tion [ein Zusammenhang] with other existences (SL S88 Anmerkung).

As Hegel says in his early essay on HLove" (1798), #nothing carries

the root of its own being completely in itself" (Lv 304). Hegel's point
is not that everything is determined by an external fate, but only that
existence is inconceivable as a self-enclosed "world apart:' Being is
never self-sufficient, but absolutely requires recognition (Anerkennung]
from what is other, and this recognition alters being, exposing its
"being-for-self" as always as well a "being-for-others;' a being-towards-
the-world, an existence in an environment which beckons it and
effects it. 28

c. The lnf/.uence of Heraclitus

A third, and no doubt best-known, influence on Hegel's theory of
substance is Heraclitus. Hegel leaves his reader in no doubt of his debt
to Heraclitus. "With Heraclitus," Hegel writes in his History of
Philosophy, "we see land; there is no proposition of Heraclitus which
I have not adopted in my Logic" (HPh 2:279). Hegel is equally explicit
in identifying the central insight of Heraclitus which is to be appropri-
ated by his own speculative philosophy: ''The advance made by
Heraclitus [over the Eleatics] is the progression from being as the first
immediate thought, to the category of becoming, ... which is the first
concrete, absolute [thought]" (HPh 2:279; cf. SL SSS Zusatz; LL 83).
Heraclitus asserted that ''being" and "non-being" are equally
abstract concepts, and that "being no more is than non-being" (SL S88
Zusatz). What is true is becoming, where being and non-being are
united in their opposition. This, as we shall see shortly, is precisely the
view that Hegel adopts towards the abstract categories of being and
72 HEGEL'S GRAND SYNTHESIS

nothing (see section 2 below). Definite characteristics are ephemeral

in the perpetual becoming of a thing - they are and immediately are
not as the thing changes. Heraclitus proposes the element of {ire as the
expression of this process of becoming, 29 and Hegel himself compares
subjectivity to fire in his famous Phoenix metaphor, where "spirit is
eternally preparing for itself its funeral pyre and consuming itself
upon it, but so that from its ashes is produced a new, revitalized, fresh
life'' jPhH 73). For both Hegel and Heraclitus, fire symbolizes the
perpetual change and mutation of things, where they cease to be what
they were and transform themselves into a new character. Continuous
self-transcendence is thus the central character of existence which
Hegel takes over from Heraclitus.
As striking as the similarities between Hegel and Heraclitus are,
there is also an important point of divergence, a point which, as we
shall see in a moment, will later return to haunt Hegel when he seeks
to make good the lack he finds in Heraclitus. Hegel writes that "there
is only one thing wanting in Heraclitus's notion of process; ... the -per-
manence and rest which Aristotle gives may be missed" (HPh 2:292).
Hegel does of course recognize that Heraclitus posits a unity which
permeates the perpetual flux and strife of opposites, 30 but feels that
this unity is never "reflected back into substance" (HPh 2:2921). That
is, it is a "unity which only exists in opposition" - in the ever onrushing
flux of becoming - without allowing for the permanence and rest of
substance (HPh 2:2921).
Hegel's point here is an extremely important one in his
philosophy, but easy to misunderstand. It is precisely here, where
Hegel both seeks to take over from Heraclitus his metaphysics of
beco'rning and reject his idea that becoming never finds "repose," that
the internal tension in Hegel's philosophy which I mentioned in the
Introduction arises, the tension which emerges as a result of his dou-
ble commitment to a metaphysics of becoming, on the one hand, and
on the other, to a final consummation of becoming in the "repose of
being.• We must defer analysis of this tension until our last two
chapters, but we can point out here the general lines of Hegel's
attempted resolution.
Hegel's approval of Aristotle's notion of substance has to do with
the fact that Aristotle accounts for the element of the self-identity or
permanence of substance through change. But then if Hegel is not to
be charged with inconsistency, his opposition to Heraclitus cannot be
on the grounds that the unity which Heraclitus posits as "existing only
in opposition" is simply mistaken. For Aristotle's principle of the self·
identity of substance is also a conception of self-identity in opposition,
 Becoming and Di.alectic 73

in uthe change from given states into those contrary to them:' as Aristo-
tle puts it. 31 Hegel's point must be that the Heraclitian unity is not suf-
ficient: it is only one aspect of permanence or rest which must be
accounted for. The other aspect has to do with the resolution or comple-
tion of the process of becoming - the accomplished telos. This aspect
is the ultimate "return;• as Hegel puts it, of subject into substance, or
becoming into being - becoming that has become. This is accounted
for by Aristotle, since the completion of process is essential to his
teleology, and it is this which Hegel finds missing in Heraclitus.
Hegel himself asserts his independence from the subjective
idealism of Fichte largely on these grounds. He acknowledges that
Fichte's notion of becoming is not one of sheer flux without any princi-
ple of unity - any more than Heraclitus's is. For Fichte posits the
unity of the ego as a synthetic "connective tissue" of things and
events.32 But, Hegel argues, there is no provision for the completion of
the process of becoming in Fichte, for the consummation of the
development of things and our knowledge of things. Fichte himself
admits that subjectivity points to an uinfinite progression" without
completion, a "perpetual striving" without ever reaching any final pur-
pose or telos - and claims that we can never break out of this infinite
progression. 33
It is Hegel's self-professed tQk to show that spirit "transcends ...
[and gains] a liberation ... from this endless striving, ... [and] wrests
itself out of this progress to infinity" (PhM $386 Zusatz). In Chapters
Six and Seven we will have to discuss in some detail how successfully
Hegel accounts for this element of completion, the "radical and real
achievement" of the end of the process of becoming of substance (SL
$235). I will argue there that Hegel's strong reliance on a Heraclitian
metaphysics of becoming will render his vision of an ultimate resolu-
tion of process quite problematic. Nor do I believe that we can have
recourse to an Aristotelian synthesis of becoming and completion to
resolve Hegel's dilemma. For, although Hegel finds in Aristotle a sense
of completion and repose which he feels is lacking in Heraclitus,
Aristotle never even imagined applying his principle of completion to
history, which is precisely where the dilemma becomes most pro-
blematic for Hegel. But we are getting ahead of ourselves here. For the
moment it is sufficient to be clear about what Hegel's goal is, as it
emerges out of his reflections on Heraclitus, reserving for our last two
chapters a critical analysis of the cogency of this goal. Hegel's goal is
to view substance as a process of becoming which arrives at its telos,
which arrival signals the upermanence and rest" or #repose'' of
substance in a sense he believes to be unaccounted for by Heraclitus
74 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

(and FichteJ - the sense, namely, in which substance implies self-

completion, becoming as become. 34

2. The Nature of Becoming

We have seen in section 1 that the central principle of Hegel's

theory of substance is that the truth of being is a process of becoming.
We have yet to give an explanation of the sense that ucompletion° has
in Hegel's philosophy; but, while this explanation must await a later
chapter, we can say now that we should not understand Hegel's princi-
ple of completion is such a way that it abrogates his principle of
becoming - the principle that the truth of being is becoming. The
principle of completion must be a true Hegelian ''Aufhebung' of becom-
ing, a resolution of becoming which does not simply negate it or leave
it behind. For becoming is not simply a phase or intermittent
characteristic of substance or being, but its very definition, its reality
and Logos. This ~sistence on preserving the Heraclitian metaphysics
of becoming within Hegel's vision of resolution will, at any rate, be the
reading I will argue for in Chapters Six and Seven. It is certainly not
the only possible reading - nor, indeed, is it the usual reading - for,
as we shall see, Hegel gives ample grounds for suggesting that he
finally abandons his Heraclitian heritage when he comes to work out
his eschatological vision of a completion of the dialectic of both
thought and being. I will argue, though, that the evidence for seeing
Hegel as abandoning the principle of perpetual becoming is much less
appealing and convincing than are the grounds for an opposing
reading which insists on retaining his metaphysics of becoming. But
let us turn to an examination of just what Hegel's commitments are
to the principle of becoming.
Already in 1801 Hegel had expressed the principle of becoming in
no uncertain terms: it is the highest task of philosophy "to com-
prehend the achieved existence [das Gewordensein] of the intelligible
and real world as a becoming [als ein Werden]. Its being as a product
must be comprehended as... [an] infinite activity of becoming and
producing [als unendlichen Tiitigkeit des Werdens und Produzierens)"
(Diff 91J. Hegel's mature (post-18061 philosophy incorporates this
philosophic Versuch, or desideratum, into a basic ontological law.

The notion of being ... must mean becoming; ... becoming is

precisely the explicit statement of what being is in its truth (SL SSS
Zusatz).
 Becoming and Dialectic 75

The reality and existence of the Gestalten of spirit . . . (are to be

found] only as grounded in becoming, and possess their truth only
in so far as they are and remain in it (PhS 212).
Being ... that is living . . . (and not inorganic, is not inert but a]
fluid substance of pure movement (ein f/.ilssige Substanz der reinen
Bewegung), ... a process ... and flux (Flilssigkeit] (PhS 106f).

Still, shortly after announcing the principle that the truth of being
is becoming in his "shorter" Logic, Hegel notes that the term ''becom-
ing'' is hardly self-explanatory, and taken as "mere logical becoming'' is
"an extremely poor term;' needing "to grow in depth and weight of
meaning" (SL SSS Zusatz). I wish to discuss in this section what Hegel
means by "mere logical becoming" - which despite his belittlement of
it in SL SSS, is quite important for Hegel in its own right - as well
as how he seeks to give the notion of becoming a fuller "depth and
weight of meaning."

a. "Mere Logical Becoming"

First, then, what does Hegel mean by "mere logical becoming"?
This is a conception which is unfortunately passed over by many
detractors of Hegel, an oversight which is largely responsible for their
feeling that Hegel's logic is reducible to "utter absurdity"35 by con-
troverting the principle of noncontradiction through a "primitive er-
ror" and naive confusion about logic. 36 This criticism is directed
against Hegel's assertion that becoming is to be defined as the identity
of being and nothing (SL S86-89; LL 82££1.
"Mere logical becoming" refers in general to the transition from
one abstract category of thought to another, without reference to
specific existential determinations of those categories. The concept of
becoming, taken in its "merely logical" sense, is itself such a category,
and arises from a consideration of the abstract categories of ''being"
and "nothing." ''Being," taken abstractly - as opposed to a specific
determinate being, a "Dasein:' e.g., a tree or a person or a Greek play
- is "indeterminate immediacy, ... [having] no diversity within itself'
(LL 82). As Parmenides says in his poem "On Truth," ''Being is not sub-
ject to division, for it is all alike, ... abiding in simple equality with
itself."37
But, Hegel says, such a definition of being is exactly the same as
the definition of the abstract category of "nothing"! For sheer indeter-
minacy of being amounts to saying that "nothing is to be intuited in
it" (LL 82) - "it is a blank ... featurelessness which precedes all
76 HEGEI!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

definite character" (SL S86 Zusatz), an "empty word" (LL 78), an

"inchoate thought" (SL SSS), completely unanalyzable and non!ldivis-
ible" (as Parmenides puts it) into definite characteristics. If "pure being"
were analyzable, and hence not a pure indeterminacy, it would be
determined by some quality, defined and limited by something
external to itself. But this, to cite Parmenides once again, would be to
contradict what we mean by pure being: "Being lies in selfsameness,
abiding in itself and by itself, ... whole, one, and unmovable:'38
,,Mere being," Hegel writes, "as pure abstraction, is therefore the
absolutely negative, which, in a similarly immediate aspect, is just
nothing" (SL S87). This is so because "being is an absolute absence of
attributes, and so is nothing" (SL S87 Zusatz). The conclusion is that
"being and nothing are the same" ISL SSS Anmerkung; LL 82).
This Hegelian maxim has been the source of much scorn and
incredulity, being taken as an explicit refusal to acknowledge the prin-
ciple of noncontradiction - for how can something both be and not
be at the same time? - and as revealing Hegel, as F. E. Abbot puts it,
as being either "simply idiotic" or, at best, simply "insincere:'39 But
Hegel went to some pains to show that "no great expenditure of wit
is needed to make fun of the maxim that being and nothing are the
same, or to adduce absurdities from it'' (SL SSS Anmerkung), and to
show how this "seemingly startling and paradoxical" maxim (LL 84)
escapes such absurdities.
The main source of confusion that Hegel sees as responsible for
misunderstanding this maxim of the identity of being and nothing is
that "the ordinary consciousness [i.e., common sense) brings with it to
such an abstract logical proposition conceptions of something con-
crete, forgetting that what is in question is not any concrete thing but
only the pure abstractions of being and nothing" (LL 85; v. SL SSS
Anmerkung). It is this mistake which allows the wit to say that for
Hegel "it is all th~ same whether this house is or is not or whether
these hundred dollars are part of my fortune or not'' (LL 85).40 But,
Hegel says,

there is much more to be said of these concrete objects than that they
merely are or are not. Barren abstractions like being and nothing -
(which are] the scantiest categories of thought anywhere to be found
- are utterly inadequate to the nature of these objects.... When a
concrete existence is disguised under the name of being and not-
being, empty-headedness makes its usual mistake of speaking about,
and having in the mind an image of, something else than what is in
question ... - it wants a richer and more complex conception than
 Becoming and Dialectic 77

abstract being and nothing, a pictorial conception of a concrete thing

(SL SSS Anmerkung).

When we take the abstract logical categories of being and nothing

as referring to determinate things, we see only a contradiction as
expressed by the maxim of the identity of being and not-being. But if
we confine ourselves to an analysis of the meaning of the terms taken
in their abstract immediacy, we see that they denote the same abstract
concept.
Now~what does this tell us about "mere logical becoming"? It is
because the concepts of (pure or abstract) being and of (pure or
abstract) nothing immediately •pass over into each other" (LL 83; SL
88 Anmerkung), that "the truth is neither being nor nothing, ... but,
each vanishing in its opposite, their truth is this movement . . . of
becoming" (LL 82f).
J. M. E. Mdaggart is right to point out in his Commentary on Hegel's
Logic that it is misleading to view this becoming as involving a "real
change" from one state of concrete existence to another.41 For, Mdag-
gart says, this would require what Hegel has not yet deduced at this
initial stage of his Logic, a concrete existence with determinate states.
Hegel has thus far spoken only of two abstract categories which in fact
conflate into the same meaning.42 But Mdaggart is also right to say
that Hegel is not intending to be misleading in this way.43 Hegel
himself distinguishes between real change and mere logical becoming.
Real change occurs only with determinate being (Dasein), "where
mere abstract being and nothing are replaced by a concrete existent"
(SL S87 Anmerkung), while logical becoming refers only to the
vanishing of the opposition and distinction between the abstract
categories of being and nothing. 44 Put otherwise, becoming signifies
real change of substance only when the subject of change is a concrete
thing, whereas when we have only the abstract categories of being
and nothing in view, becoming signifies only 1ogical transition" or the
,,logical deduction" of the "movement of thought" from the one
category to the other (SL S87 Anmerkung).
The ("merely") logical significance of becoming is not as empty as
it might seem, however. For while it says nothing about real change
of substance, it nevertheless points to the absolutely crucial principle
in Hegel's philosophy that "there is no immediacy without mediation"
(e.g., SL S66 &Anmerkung, 70, 75; LL 68). The categories of pure being
and pure nothing are not accurately definable simply as immediately
opposing concepts, but are mediated by each other, being essentially
connnected.
78 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

An example of how this principle of mediation is to be understood

with regard to the logical notion of becoming is the concept of a begin-
ning. "In its beginning,• Hegel writes, "the thing is not yet, but it is more
than merely nothing, for its being is already in the beginning, ... only
[this being is to be understood] with an eye to its further development"
jSL SSS Anmerkung). A beginning is mediated by its result, by its telos,
what it is to become but is not yet. Without this mediation, there
would literally be no beginning, for the very concept of a beginning
directly implies a connection with a process of development.
This example, which Hegel refers to as a "tolerably plain example
... [of] the unity of being and nothing [taken as an abstract principle
of logic)" jSL SSS Anmerkung), shows that Hegel is not guilty of trans-
gressing the principle of noncontradiction in any simplistic way. 45 For
it is in two different senses that something which begins is and is not:
it is as an immediate fact, but jqua potentiality! it is not yet what it
points to as its truth, namely, its developed nature. This is precisely
what Aristotle was saying in the passage from his Metaphysics cited
above p. 0001 when he writes that "that which 'is' has two senses, [so
that] we must say that everything changes from that which is poten-
tially to that which is actually." As we noted in our discussion of the
Artistotelian influence on Hegel's theory of substance, it is this double
character of being which accounts for the internal impulse jforce,
power! of becoming, so that it is impossible to describe being as an
inert and unchanging "repose."46

b. The Deeper Significance of Becoming

The transition from the "merely logical" significance of becoming

to the concept of becoming which has "grown in depth and weight of
meaning" parallels the shift in attention from abstract categories of
thought to concrete things. With this shift, being ldas Seinl becomes
concrete existence jdas Daseinl, nothing jdas Nichtsl becomes negation
jdie Negation! or determinate difference jder bestimmte Unterschiedl,
and logical transition becomes substantial change or development.
The shift to the concrete existent is prepared for in the Logic by the
consideration that "in the case of mere being and nothing, the distinc-
tion between the two is without a real ground, ... both determina-
tions being the same groundlessness" jSL S87 Zusatz). This is so
because both abstract being and abstract nothing are conceptions with
a total lack of determinate attributes, and hence with a total lack of
anything which could distinguish them. With the thought of a ground
 Becoming and Dialectic 79

which can support the distinction between being and nothing, there
arises the notion of a concrete thing, a being with specific, deter-
minate attributes. Dasein is the ground which is required to preserve
distinction, or difference, between determinations of a thing so that it
does not sink into a purely indeterminate being (which is the same as
nothing!, 47
What makes the concrete existent concrete is, as Hegel puts it, the
interplay or "reciprocity" of being and nothing in becoming (v. SL S89
Zusatz). This, of course, requires explanation, for neither "being'' nor
"nothing" nor "becoming" have the significance of merely logical terms
when applied to the concrete thing. "Becoming" is here substantial
change, the ontological development of the thing. "Nothing" is here
determinate negation, the distinction between what the thing is and
what it becomes or develops into. And "being" is a process of change.
Being is Da-sein, being-there, existence in a situation in the world in
which the thing is related to other things and affected by them so that
it changes its nature, thus negating its previous character.
It is in this sense that the maxim that "becoming is the unity of
being and nothing, but a unity in difference" (LL 86; SL SSS Anmerkung)
is to be understood with regard to the concrete existent. "Being and
nothing ... are no longer present in the particular actual thing as they
were as [the abstract categories of] being and nothing: they are now
developed determinations, ... the positive and the negative" (LL 85).
The thing is defined both by what it is and by what it is not. 48 This
"negative" of the thing plays several important roles: (1) it is the cru-
cially limiting factor which demarcates the thing; (2) it is the defmition
of what the thing is related to; and (3) it is the determination of the pro-
ject (the field of possibilities) which the thing can become. Hence the
"positive" character of the thing is symbiotically connected with its
"negative" character.
This connective reciprocity between the positive and the negative
may be compared to the concept of the dynamic interplay of figure
and "negative space'' in aesthetics. "Negative space" is not seen as an
absence, nor is the figure a self-enclosed image floating in empty
space. The figure does not simply displace a space which it remains
indifferent to. Negative space is rather the environment in which the
figure is presented, and is essential to the way we see the figure. The
surrounding space actively encroaches upon the figure, bringing it
into relief in a visual field, and giving a systematic, patterned order to
that field. The negative space is in this way absolutely crucial to the
positive nature of the thing we view. To regard as a contradiction in
terms Hegel's concept that the "negative'' is a positive aspect of things
80 HEGEl!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

is, I believe, to make the same sort of mistake as calling the negative
space of artworks a sheer absence.
The connective interplay of being and nothing jqua positive and
negative) is the process of the becoming of the concrete existent. It is
the very nature of life that things change: the "principle of life;' as
Hegel calls it, is that being becomes, or that the existent negates its "self-
repose," "dissolving" or "sundering" its being in itself, and ''becomes
other" than what it was jv. PhS 106-8).
Existence involves "the movement of becoming-other to itself" jdie
Bewegung, sich ein Anderes ... zu werden) jPhS 21 ), which is the ele-
ment of negation or negativity in it. This "becoming-other" has a
double significance: it is both the "concretion" jor "determination" or
"expression" or "manifestation") of the thing, and the "externalization"
of the thing. Becoming-other is concretion or expression, first of all,
because it determines and specifies the thing by actualizing its inner
possibilities. In the sphere of human existence, speech, for example,
is an act which expresses or makes manifest a person's thoughts, and
action expresses and makes manifest his or her inner intentions. So
too a natural object expresses itself by the transformation of its inner
"force' or "energy" or "power," as Hegel puts it, into action. Thus, for
example, an atom expresses its inner structure jpartly) by its bonding
activity with other atoms. This "inner power" of natural substances
can be compared to what today goes under the name of the "free
energy• of chemical particles, or the "potential energy" of force in a
mechanical system; in both cases, this is defined in terms of the poten-
tial for producing change, and is often described in terms of being a
"power" to change.
Without such expression, neither the thought nor the intention
nor the atomic structure would be "concrete;' Hegel says. This is not
to say that they are not real, but only that they lack determinacy and
specification. They are open-ended possibilities or potentialities
which could be expressed in many different ways, and they first of all
become well-defined and determinate with their manifestation.
This activity of becoming-other is also, however, an "externaliza-
tion" jEntiiu~eru.ng) of the thing, for it alters the inner nature of the
thing by bringing it into relation with other things. It defines the thing
in terms of its place in a larger context or situation: it is no longer self-
sufficient, but a part of a whole. Hence, in speaking or acting, I make
my thought or intention public, open to the assessment of others. And
by bonding with other atoms, the atom is defined in terms of its func-
tion within a new compound. Externalization is in this sense the
"abandonment" of the "simple essence'' of a thing to an external world
 Becoming and Di.alectic 81

in which it is altered (PhS 471). But this abandonment is likewise the

superseding of the "indifferent being" of the thing (PhS 471), for in
becoming defined in terms of its interrelations with other things it is
no longer indifferent to them but mutually affects and is affected by
them.
This double nature of becoming is what accounts for Hegel's con-
ception of the Entiiu.fierung, or the becoming-other of the existent, as
a principle of creation. Self-determination is "an eternal creation;'
according to Hegel (SL S214 Anmerku.ng). Self-externalization is equally
a self-formation, and since this formative activity takes place only
within the context of the intercorrelation of the existent with other
existents, self-formation is at once a contribution to the formation of
the world as a whole. In altering itself, the thing alters its surround-
ings. With "spirit becoming an 'other' to itself," Hegel writes, "and enter-
ing into [concrete] existence, it creates a world' (PhS 467).
The world is thus the result of the shaping activity of the beings
which are its members, in their process of becoming concrete. Hence,
the principle of becoming is what provides the "connection, or Logos,
that permeates the being of the whole" (HPh 2:293) - where "whole"
is not to be understood only in terms of the complete nature of the
individual but also as the being of the world. Both the individual and
the world are originally the infinite potentiality of spirit, awaiting the
determinate, concrete structuring which arises through the creative
becoming-other of beings in the world. Let us turn now to a discussion
of Hegel's conception of dialectic, in which his theory of becoming and
negativity is more fully developed.

3. The Nature of Dialectic

Probably more has been written about Hegel's theory of dialectic

than any other aspect of his philosophy. It has been ridiculed as a
"primitive schematization system,849 and praised as that which allows
Hegel to "describe as few others have done the paradoxes, the prob-
lems, and the glories of spiritual life."50 I am not going to attempt a
systematic or thorough analysis of Hegel's theory of dialectic, but wish
only to show how the principle of negativity serves to illuminate its
structure, and to say a few words about the role of dialectic in Hegel's
philosophy as a whole. 51
Dialectic is both a method of demonstration and an ontological
principle for Hegel. As method, it is meant to show the necessity of
development, or transition, from one stage of consciousness or of
82 HEGEI!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

history, or from one abstract category of logic, to a higher stage or

category. 52 "Once the dialectic has been separated from proof;' Hegel
says, "the notion of [genuinely) philosophical demonstration has been
lost" (PhS 40).
"Thus understood," Hegel writes, "the dialectical principle con-
stitutes the life and soul of scientific progress, . . . the soul of all
knowledge which is truly scientific" (SL SSl Anmerkung & Zusatz). I
will say more about the nature of dialectic as a principle of
philosophic method in Chapter Five, but here I wish to look at the
sense in which dialectic is also an ontological principle, expressing the
immanent teleological development of things from their potentialities
to actuality. In this sense, dialectic is "the indwelling tendency out-
wards" (immanente Hinausgehen) of things (SL SSl Anmerkung), the im-
pulse to externalization and concretion.
Hegel compares the "simple essence" of substance to a state of
unreflective "satisfaction" (BefriedungJ, which is, however, a "self-
consuming" state (die unendliche Bewegung von welcher jenes ruhige
Medium [simple substance] aufgezeht wird) (PhS 107-9). Substance, or
being, defined as self-repose is not yet (or is only potentiallyJ spirit,
but only a "motionless tautology" of simple self-identity, A=A. And yet,
Hegel says, "this self-identity of substance is no less negativity: its
apparently fixed existence passes over into its dissolution" (PhS 34).
Satisfaction is ephemeral, carrying within it a yearning desire, a
dialectical impulse to self-expression and self-realization.
As such, "dialectic gives expression to a law which is felt in all con-
sciousness ... and experience;' the law of the internal drive to reach
out beyond a thing's isolation and fixedness t~ a fuller self-
determination: dialectic is the dynamic of the self-transcendence of
things (SL SSl Zusatz). In history, dialectic "exhibits the ... successive
gradations in the development of ... the consciousness of freedom''
(PhH 56J. Hegel views freedom as the telos of history, and the actual
course of history as a dialectical "development of [the human] capacity
or potentiality [for freedom] striving to realize itself" (PhH 54). In logic,
dialectic expresses the "dialectical nature of the idea in general, 53
namely, that it is self-determined - that it assumes successive forms
which it successively transcends: dialectic in logic is thus the exposi-
tion of "the necessary series of pure abstract forms which the idea suc-
cessively assumes" (PhH 63). And in phenomenology, dialectic
describes the "path of the natural consciousness which presses for-
ward to true knowledge; or the way of the soul which journeys
through the series of its own configurations as though they were sta-
 Becoming and Dialectic 83

tions appointed for it by its own nature, so that it may purify itself for
the life of spirit and achieve finally, through a completed experience
of itself, the awareness of what it really is in itself PhS 49). The
phenomenological dialectic is a sort of via dolorosa which common
sense consciousness must undergo in order to attain authentic
spirituality; or it may be likened to the painful path which Plato
describes in his Republic by which the person chained to the world of
appearance becomes liberated and gradually, painfully, ascends
through intermediate forms of opinion and belief to genuine
knowledge.
There are two basic aspects of Hegel's anatomy of dialectic that I
wish to look at here: jaJ the idea that dialectic is advance or develop·
ment through negativity; and jbJ the sense in which dialectic is a mode
of thought - a way of thinking about things - that is not necessarily
employed in a speculative ji.e., truly philosophic) way, but may be
misapplied. Both of these dimensions of the Hegelian dialectic will
further illuminate the structure of his grand synthesis, since ja) the
principle of negativity will expose the important qualification that
harmony jof thought and being) can occur only through discord; and
jbJ the anatomy of dialectic as applying in different ways to different
forms of thought will expose Hegel's belief that only with the working-
through to a certain "shape" or Gestalt of thought - the standpoint of
speculative philosophy or Wissenschaft - can a reconciliation of
thought and being be achieved in its fullest sense.

a. Dialectic and Negativity

Dialectic is defined by Hegel as the power jor energy or force) of

negativity. Negativity involves, in general, the opposing of something
to its "other." When applied to epistemology, this is the "pathway of
doubt" and "loss of immediate certainty" involved in the disparity
between subject and object in the course of consciousness' experience
of the world. And when applied to ontology, negativity is the
Entii.u/$erung of substance by which it "becomes other" to itself.
As we mentioned in section 2, this Entii.u/$erung is one of two basic
features of becoming, the other being the feature of concretion. We
may say now that both of these features of becoming are due to the
principle of negativity. Negativity is externalizing, because, according
to Hegel, ''what is undifferentiated is lifeless" jHPh 2:67), and it is
precisely the immanent impulse of negativity which accounts for dif-
ferentiation. Self-identity without negativity spells the death of being
84 HEGEI:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

for Hegel, whether this being is the being of an individual existent or

the historical being of world culture. Hence, Hegel writes in his
Philosophy of History that

the nation lives the same kind of life as the individual: . . . in the
enjoyment of itself, the satisfaction of being exactly what it desired
to be, ... [and the consequent] abandonment of aspirations, ... [the
nation slips into a] merely customary life (like the watch wound up
and going on of itself), into an activity without opposition. And this
is what brings on its natural death.... Thus perish individuals, and
thus perish nations, by a natural death (HPh 74f).54

And negativity is also a making-concrete, a self-determination, in

that self-development is brought about by "the dialectical force which
deposes [the thing's) immediacy" and gives it a "specific character" (SL
§239). Specificity is thus linked by Hegel to negativity: Omnis deter-
minatio est negatio, as Spinoza says - every determination is a nega-
tion. Hegel frequently cites this dictum of Spinoza's (e.g., HPh 3:267,
286; SL S91 Zusatz; and cf. HPh 2:140), and he likes it so much because
it suggests the positive aspect of negativity. While negativity is extern-
alizing, it is also positive, for it makes the thing determinate, or indivi-
duates it.55 Determinate negation (bestimmte Negation) gives the thing
a content, which is to say that in actualizing a potentiality through its
externalization, a thing is determinately negating various other poten-
tialities, transforming the initially merely hypothetical nature of the
thing into a concrete content.
Dialectic is thus the transition of things, and of knowledge, from
potentiality or abstraction to actuality and content, but in such a way
that the arising of a fuller determination points beyond itself to a fur-
ther determination. Every determination is both a result and a new
beginning, concrete and abstract, for it occurs within a process of the
becoming of a thing (or of knowledge), and hence is concrete relative
to the origin of the process but abstract relative to the telos of the
whole process. A thing becomes more and more fully developed
through this successive dialectic of self-reconstruction.
And so too does knowledge. Negativity is the principle by which
thought disrupts its instinctive or immediate certainty, or by which
thought becomes "split up" (PhM §408 Zusatz) or "divided" (Diff 87) in-
to an opposition of consciousness to a specific object. Dialectic is thus
the very process of thinking, where thought "loses itself in" and becomes
"entangled in the contradiction" of its nonidentity with its object, 56 and
yet where this very negativity urges thought to "persevere:' to "work
 Becoming and Dialectic 85

out in itself the solution to its own contradiction" (SL §11). It is in this
sense that Kojeve calls dialectic "a series of successive 'conversions"'
whereby the relation of consciousness to the world is progressively
transformed. 57 Kant, too, is close to Hegel's insight, in that he feels that
the dialectic of reason involves thought in a search which it cannot
avoid since it is driven to the search by an inner impulse to satisfy
itself.58 But while for Kant this search precipitates thought into illu-
sion, for Hegel it leads to the insight that reality is in truth dialectical.
Kierkegaard constantly argues that Hegel's dialectic involves an
illicit forcing of movement and transition into his logic. Movement is
a "chimera" and "mirage" which is "produced only on paper" in Hegel's
dialectic. 59 Hegel's "introduction of movement into logic:' Kierkegaard
asserts, "is a sheer confusion;'60 for "the category of transition [or
becoming, or movement] is itself a breach of immanence, a leap:'61 as op-
posed to the immanent necessity Hegel associates with it. 62
Many other commentators believe the same thing. George Stack,
for example, writes that "Hegelian logic could not account for the pro-
cess of becoming or genesis, and was especially unable to account for
the transition from possibility to actuality in an individual being's
development:'63 And Calvin Schrag says flatly that "everything that
Hegel has to say about becoming and movement in his logic is
illusory:'64
Unfortunately, all of these views are based on a profound
misunderstanding - the misunderstanding that becoming is regarded
by Hegel as the movement of abstract categories of logic disembodied
from any concrete historical situation and from any existing indi-
vidual who thinks those categories. But Hegel is quite clear on this
point. He says that "the principle of development, ... [the principle of]
a capacity or potentiality striving to realize itself, [is a] formal concep-
tion [which] finds actual existence in spirit, which has the history of
the world for its theater and sphere of realization" (PhH 54). The for-
mal conception of dialectic, Hegel's logic, is but the description of the
lawlike patterns of development which are concretely exemplified and
realized in the world. 65
Hence, the suggestion that Hegel's dialectic of becoming is a
"mirage" which "takes place only on paper:' or that Hegel "could not
account for becoming" or "the transition from possibility to actuality:'
is completely unwarranted. This sort of criticism reflects, I suppose,
a distaste for Hegel's idealism in general, where the truth of the being
of objects is ultimately the "thing thought," the object for-
consciousness. This leads Kierkegaard and others to the conclusion
that becoming and dialectic only occur for Hegel "in the head" and not
86 HEGEI!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

in concrete existents in the world. But this is simply not Hegel's view,
for, as we have seen, the fact is that the exemplification and manifesta-
tion of that truth takes place in concretely situated beings in the
world. Hegel makes this point, which is the very crux of his grand syn-
thesis, endlessly. The man of "'sound common sense' ... holds the opi-
nion that philosophy is concerned only with Gedankendingen
('thought-things; or mental entities):' But, Hegel continues, while
philosophy "does have to do with these pure essences too,H its task is
to recognize how they are "concretely embodied in existing things"
(PhS 78f).

b. Dialectic as a Mode of Thought

Dialectic, as we have seen, is transition (in both thought and be-
ing) brought about by negativity. We have also noted that an aspect of
this negativity is the opposition and contradiction into which things
are thrown by their ''becoming-other:' ''.Antinomy," as Hegel says, "is the
dialectical influence in logic" (SL §48 Anmerkung). And since logic is
but the formal expression of principles which are concretely exhibited
in the world, antinomy is the "dialectical influence" in all actual things:
"contradiction is the very moving principle of the world" (SL S119
Zusatz). Contradiction, for Hegel, involves the undermining of a
thing's self-identity by the "other" to which it is related and by which
it becomes defined. In the alienating aspect of its Entiiuf,erung, a thing
exemplifies the Sartrean paradox that it "is what it is not" (its 'other')
and "is not what it is" (the simple, immediate coinciding or identity
with self).66
This brings us to an important point: Hegel says that it is just this
insight into dialectic, that negativity involves contradiction, which
characterizes scepticism. 67 In this sense, then, dialectic is a mode of
thought or way of seeing things which can lead to the ruin of
knowledge. This is a fascinating aspect of Hegel's philosophy, that it
is one and the same insight and way of thinking about things - the insight
into the dialectical force of negativity inherent in things - which
characterizes both scepticism (the ruin of knowledge) and the
speculative philosophy which is the way to what Hegel calls "absolute
knowledge:'
Hegel regards scepticism as having a profound grasp of reality,
and he says that his own "speculative logic" itself takes over "the
dialectic of scepticism, for this negativity which is characteristic of
scepticism likewise belongs to true knowledge" (HPh 2:330; and cf.
357; SL §81 Zusatz). In this sense, Hegel states that "we must undoubt-
 Becoming and Dialectic 87

edly grant the invincibility of scepticism" jHPh 2:329). But finally,

Hegel views scepticism as a sort of "paralysis" which people "give
themselves over to," an "abyss" in which all certainty is swallowed up,
and a deep despair which leads to the "decay of the world" because of
the inability to affirm and give stability to any positive value IHPh
2:329, 371, 372).68
Put very generally, the great merit of scepticism is that it sees the
contradictory character of things, that is, that any determination is
conditioned by its opposite, or that any proposition is dialectically in
conflict with equally compelling, opposing propositions. Scepticism is
"the art of dissolving all that is determinate" jHPh 2:329), and as such
it demonstrates the inherent flux and discord of reality which is so
important in Hegel's philosophy. This is for Hegel a deep insight into
the unity of opposites and the insufficiency of viewing things as sim-
ple self-identities. Hence, scepticism is "the far-seeing power [of
thought] which is requisite in order to recognize the determinations
of negation and opposition everywhere present in everything concrete
and in all that is thought" IHPh 2:365). But this "art of dissolving all
that is determinate" is also the root of nihilism, and this is the great
defect an danger of scepticism, that "it remains content with this
purely negative result of dialectic:' just as Kant did with his antinomies
and the dialectic of reason, and thus "mistakes the true value of its
result" jSL S82 Zusatz). The question now arises as to how Hegel rises
above this "purely negative result" - which, however negative, he
calls necessary and true - and in what sense dialectic can achieve this
transcendence without the simple abolishment of its insight and truth.
Hegel's solution here is to distinguish between two ways of view-
ing the negativity of dialectic, one which sees oppositions only in a
state of "equilibrium" or of "offsetting polarity," so that no mediation or
resolution of them is possible, and the other which sees the true value
of opposition as pointing to a higher unity. The first sees only discord
in the multiplicity and particularity of reality; the second finds the
Miltonian "hidden soul of harmony through mazes running;' the One
in the Many, discord resolving itself into unity. In this way, dialectic
is in one sense the characteristic of an incomplete form of thought -
what Hegel, following Kant, calls the understanding IVerstand) - and
in another sense points beyond itself to a higher form of thought,
reason IVernun(t). 69
The understanding employs dialectic to rigidly exclude the media-
tion of opposites. In this sense, dialectic sets up an "equilibrium" of
opposite determinations, so that every opposing determination has
equal value. This is just what leads to scepticism, the epoch§ or
88 HEGEI!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

suspension of judgment (which Hegel calls "paralysis#) in the face of

equally competing opposites. In this way, "dialectic is just a subjective
see-sawing" from one determination to its opposite (SL S81
Anmerkung). Hegel refers to this as the "bad infinite" (die schlechte
Unendlichkeit) of the understanding (e.g., HPh 2:268; SL SS45 Zusatz,
94 & Zusatz, 95 & Zusatz, 104 Zusatz, 194 & Zusatz) - the opposing of
one finite determination to another finite determination where the
opposition effects an equal "neutralization# of its terms. The "true in-
finite" of reason, on the other ,b.and, involves the "connective reference"
and "reciprocal dependence" of the opposites, so that their opposition
or mutual negation does not result in a neutralization, but in a "com-
pleter notion;• that is, in a concrete unity of the opposing terms (v. SL
§95 Anmerkung).
An example may help. Hegel views it as a mistake to regard
freedom and necessity as polar opposites and as equally legitimate but
exclusionary alternatives. If they were equal in this way - as the Kan-
tian antinomy has it, and as the sceptic has it - the only options for
viewing human action would be the result of completely cancelling
one term (by arbitrary fiat) 70 and thus seeing oneself either as free in
Hegel's sense of negative freedom (= nihilism), 71 or doomed to
necessity in Hegel's sense of "merely external necessity" (= tychism,
fatalism, "the irrational void of necessity" [PhS 443]1. For these are the
only senses of freedom and necessity which are left when we disallow
any "reciprocal dependence" of the one on the other. On the other
hand, by seeing that the opposition of freedom and necessity is not a
polar equilibrium of exclusionary terms, but involves the two terms
negating each other in a positive way - so that (positive) freedom
negates external necessity (fate), and (rational) necessity negates
negative freedom (nihilism) - we arrive at the completer notion of
freedom which is self-limited by the "real, inward necessity" (SL §35
Zusatz) of duty, and of necessity which is the autonomous expression
of seH-detennination.

An ethical man is aware that the tenor of his conduct is essential-

ly obligatory and necessary. But this is so far from making any abate-
ment from his freedom, that without it real and rational freedom
could not be distinguished from arbitrary choice - a freedom which
is merely potential (SL S158 Zusatz).

We are now in a position to understand the ambiguous

significance of dialectic in Hegel's philosophy. Hegel is concerned to
affirm "the merit and rights of the understanding" in his philosophy
 Becoming and Dialectic 89

(SL SSO Zusatz), for while the understanding does not rise to the
recognition of the synthesis of opposites, its analytic dissection of
things is necessary for true knowledge. This is so because it "appre-
hends existing objects in their specific differences" (SL SSO Zusatz),
which is an absolutely essential component of our definition of
objects. The understanding gives us an insight into the determinaten-
ess of objects, and as such Hegel says that it is "indispensable" and that
"no object in the world can ever be wholly [known) if it does not give
full satisfaction to the canons of the understanding" (SL SSO Zusatz).
But when the understanding employs dialectic, this leads to scep-
ticism (SL S81 Anmerkung). For the understanding apprehends things
in the fixity of their determinateness, and dialectic, which opposes
one thing to another, can only lead to exclusionary difference when
its objects are apprehended in this way. This is the heart of scepticism,
which Hegel also sees as having a large element of sophistry in it
(v. PhS 124; cf. 77f). Plato also described this use of dialectic
as sophistry:

If anyone ... imagines he has discovered an embarrassing puzzle

(in such propositions as 'the same is different and the different is the
same'), and takes delight in reducing argument to a tug of war, he is
wasting his pains on a triviality.
. . . 'Diking pleasure in perpetually parading such contradictions
in argument - that is not genuine criticism, but may be recognized
as the callow off-spring of a too recent contact with reality.
. . . Yes, my friend, the attempt to separate every thing from
every other thing not only strikes a discordant note but amounts to
a crude defiance of the philosophical Muse. 72

From the perspective of reason, however, the understanding's

employment of dialectic exhibits something very important, the expo-
sure of the one-sidedness and limitation of fixed oppositions, so that
this dialectic points beyond itself to a higher perspective. "Dialectic in
this higher sense ... does not conclude with a negative result, for it
demonstrates the union of opposites which have annulled themselves"
(PhH 2:52). The oppositions of scepticism are seen to annul
themselves from the perspective of philosophical reason. Reason sees
what Plato calls the "discordant note" struck by "the attempt to
separate every thing from every other thing:' In this way, "the result
of dialectic is positive" (SL S82 Anmerkung), for it exposes the ''bad
infinite" of the understanding's attempt to fix its distinctions at all
90 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

costs, and points to the resolution of this sceptical •tug of war" or "see-
sawing" between opposites to the unifying activity of reason. Dialectic
"constitutes the real and true ... exaltation [Erhebung] above the finite
[understanding)" jSL S81 Anmerkung).
Dialectic, then, may be employed in different ways. When
employed by the understanding, it results in the polarizing of mutually
excluding determinations which leads to the nihilism of scepticism.
When employed by reason, dialectic brings these opposing determina-
tions together in a "completer notion" which reflects the "immanenter
Zusammenhang:' the immanent connectedness jSL S81 Anmerkung), of
the opposing determinations. The interesting point is that the employ-
ment of dialectic by the understanding dialectically overcomes itself
and points beyond itself to the "higher sense of dialectic," dialectic as
employed by reason. For the analytic method of the understanding
leads to contradictions which the understanding can neither avoid nor
resolve,7 3 and thus reveals its own limitations. The dialectic of the
understanding, then, is a way of thinking which, in seeing only the dif-
ferentiation and opposition between things, becomes burdened with
a sense of discord - the "dismembered world" - without any glim-
mering of harmony. But this is a burden which thought is finally
incapable of sustaining, and which internally collapses and transcends
itself towards a rational-dialectical way of thought which sees the
interconnections and mediations between opposing phenomena, and
hence the harmony at the heart of discord. 74
In this chapter we have accomplished two things. First, we have
given a detailed description and analysis of the anatomy of Hegel's
concept of becoming, jal in its "merely logical" significance as well as
in its "deeper meaning;' and lbl in terms of its reliance on the principle
of negativity. Second, we have seen how Hegel employs his concept
of becoming to illuminate central aspects of his ontology and
epistemology - specifically, his theory of substance and his notion of
the dialectical character of thought and being.
This notion of the dialectical character of things is the locus of
Hegel's dispute with Kant's depiction of the nature of thought and
being. For while Kant would agree with Hegel that dialectic does
actually describe an important characteristic of thought, Kant views
this as the "euthanasia of pure reason:'75 or as Hegel describes the Kan-
tian view, as the "derangement of mind" jHPh 3:451). Hegel, on the
other hand, sees the dialectical character of thought not as pathology
or as the darkness of illusion, but as expressing a profound insight into
the true structure of the world. This is perhaps the most important
lesson to be learned from the present chapter. It is because the dialec-
 Becoming and Dialectic 91

tical structure of thought reflects the dialectical structure of the world

that Hegel argues that thought and being, consciousness and object,
subject and substance, do not contradict each other but mutually
illuminate each other.
This is the basic principle of Hegel's grand synthesis, and we have
now seen how this synthetic principle lies at the heart of his absolute
idealist vision and of his attempt to overcome scepticism. Thought is
not fundamentally alienated from being, but this alienation is rather
the very act of thought externalizing itself into a world, making itself
concrete, giving itself shape, and in this very act creating its world.
From the perspective of the dialectic of reason we are able to
reconceive this alienation as nourishing a deeper principle of recon-
ciliation, where thought finds itself reflected in the world, and where
discord is nothing but the act of thought coming to terms with itself.
Scepticism misconstrues the dialectical character of reality by failing
to reach beyond its doubt to this vision of reconciliation, and we might
say that Hegel's grand synthesis is his project for pointing out the way
towards a philosophic reconception where such a vision becomes
possible.
 Chapter Five

HEGEI.:S PHILOSOPHIC METHOD:

THE "SELF-CONSTRUCTION OF REASON"

It were far better never to think of investigating truth

at all, than to do so without a method.
Descartes

At the heart of Hegel's project for rethinking the relation between

thought and being is his radical reconception of the nature of
philosophic method. For, on the one hand, Hegel's new method of
demonstration is described as being internal to the self-analyzing
character of thought. The stress here must be placed on "internal;'
since Hegel is concerned to show that method is not something extern-
ally applied to its subject matter jthought), but is nothing other than
the immanent structure of thought itself. On the other hand, method
is not simply to be sought in the inward laws and processes of thought
but must be seen as having and "outward;' ontological dimension as
well. Since his philosophy is characterized throughout by his convic-
tion of the unity of thought and being, Hegel's method is both intrinsic
to thought and immanent in the world ji.e., in being) as well. 1
In this chapter, we will trace out this double character of Hegel's
philosophic method, focusing on his general conception of method as
what he calls the "self-construction of reason" jDiff 113).2 Our discus-
sion will point backwards to various central motifs of previous
chapters, recovering, most importantly, the themes of dialectic and
teleology, and showing how these guiding threads of Hegel's
philosophy help to illuminate his notion of the self-constructing, self.
shaping, self-analyzing character of reason, which is the key to

93
94 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

understanding his new method. At the same time, our discussion will
point forward to our culminating two chapters and the theme of
Hegel's attempt to resolve the dialectic of becoming in Absolute
Knowledge. For we will find, as we reach the close of the present
chapter and an investigation into the peculiarly circular character of
Hegel's new method of demonstration, that we are on the threshold
leading to the troubling concept of Absolute Knowledge. It is in seeing
how Hegel conceives of method as circling back to its origin that the
notion of a recollective cognition of the whole course of the evolution
of thought and being emerges, and it is precisely this process of
recollection which is the central principle of his anatomy of Absolute
Knowledge.

1. Introductory Remarks on Method

Hegel perhaps exaggerates when he says that "experience and

history teach us ... that peoples ... have never learned anything from
history" (PhS 6). 3 But philosophers, on the whole, have indeed exhi-
bited a peculiar susceptibility towards being unphased by certain
lessons of history. One would think that for all the times one had read
of a philosopher's claim to have "once and for all" grounded philosophy
in "the one true method" - and then invariably witnessed how utterly
unconvincing the claim appeared to its readers - that philosophers
would give up repeating this boast. But no, this boast is like a magnet
to philosophers, an apparently irresistible force luring one after
another to it.
The motivation for making this boast seems to be, at least in part,
the feeling that one's insights and arguments would lose all their force
if they were not justified by a rigorous method which, it is hoped, will
confer an air of inevitability, indubitability and absolute necessity on
them. As Hegel puts it, philosophy bereft of a systematic method "can
only be expected to give expression to personal peculiarities of mind,
having no principle for the regulation of its contents" (SL S14
Anmerkung). The result, all too often, is that insights and arguments
are forced into the mould of a method which has not generated them
at all, and this only serves to cast aspersion on whatever legitimate
value these insights may have had.
We could illustrate this by pointing to any number of examples of
philosophic claims purporting to be conclusions derived from "the one
true method" which have been refuted. Descartes, for all his genius
and for all the unquestionable philosophic merit of his method, offers
 Hegel's Philosophic Method 95

an excellent example. Various of his theories - e.g., about the nature

of the heavens, about the "animal spirits" of the body, and about cer-
tain laws of physics - which he presents as indubitable, inevitable,
and necessary conclusions, "having the force of mathematical
demonstrations" and following from "no other principle" than that of
his method, 4 have been persuasively refuted.
Hegel. of course, is no exception to the rule. He says that his
philosophy offers us "an altogether new concept of scientific pro-
cedure" which is "the only true standpoint" - "the only true method"
- and which, in leading us in a resistless, necessary course to conclu-
sions, "first truly grounds ... knowledge in its whole compass ... and
completeness" (LL 27, 54, 72). In Hegel's desire for completeness,
however, he frequently presents as absolutely necessary insights
which seem highly dubious or actually false in the light of contem-
porary views. To cite one of his more outlandish and exceptionable
arguments, Hegel seeks to demonstrate in his anthropology that racial
differences are necessary, and inevitably involve specifically differen-
tiated features of character and mental capacity (see PhM S393
Zusatz). And many of his claims about astronomy, chemistry, and
physics, so far from being necessary conclusions, or in any way based
on his method, are clearly based on the "state of the art" of nineteenth-
century science, and have since been refuted. Thus Hegel is rightly
open to the charge that, in Charles Thylor's words, while his logic "is
a tissue of powerful arguments which show the weakness of other
philosophical positions, ... [he] tries at crucial moments to force them
further,• to make them fit into the framework of his method and
thereby possess a necessity they do not deserve. 5
But let us pause. Surely no great expenditure of wit is required to
cast scorn upon this perennial boastfulness of philosophers; but while
a measure of sarcasm is not out of place, it is dangerous to get carried
away. To reject the insights and arguments of a philosophy because its
method has been misadvertised as a vessel of absolute necessity, or to
reject the method itself as worthless for the same reason, is an
unreflective and unfair response in the extreme. As for Hegel, this
response has been far wider than with any other philosopher of com-
parable stature. But his method is in many ways the least deserving
of such a response.
In the first place, few philosophers can say with as much truth as
Hegel that they have constructed "an altogether new concept of scien-
tific procedure:' Whatever its defects and excesses, it is this new
methodology which allows Hegel to express one of the great visions
of human thought and culture, and of the ultimate unity and con-
96 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

nectedness of our world in the midst of change and discord. As we

have seen, Hegel's new method of philosophic inquiry demands of us,
and opens up a way for us, "to become acquainted with ... our own
thought . . . in a new way," leading to a way of seeing the relation
between ourselves and our world which, without minimizing the
recurring rhythm of alienation and discord, also insists on the power
of mind to find purpose and meaning in its life, and to creatively
transform and gain reconciliation with its world.
Second, Hegel's claim to build a new foundation for philosophy,
while on the surface a wearisomely perennial claim, is in other ways
unique. For this new foundation does not simply purport to account
for the truths of previous philosophies while explaining more - the
usual justification given for constructing a new system - but aims to
embrace all previous philosophies and to link them together in a
single spirit. Hegel's philosophy is unique in this way, that it is not
meant to refute previous philosophies but rather to show their essen-
tial unity, the harmony throughout their various discords. Hence in a
letter to Hermann Hinrichs (a member of the Hegelian school), Hegel
corrects a misapprehension on Hinrichs's part "that the Absolute has
first comprehended itself only in my [Hegel's] philosophy; ... for every
philosophy is the self-comprehension of the Absolute:'6
When Kant, to cite but one of many possible examples, says that
"inasmuch as there is, objectively speaking, still only one human
reason, there cannot be many philosophies:' he strikes the time-worn
refrain that only his philosophy is really philosophy: "Before the advent
of critical philosophy there was no philosophy:17 But when Hegel says
that there is but "one truth," he means that 'each [philosophy] in turn
... (is] the one and true philosophy" (HPh 1:17f), for "philosophy ...
is the totality of (its] forms, ... where all principles are preserved" and
contribute to the "one truth" (HPh 3:546). The seeming hubris of the
claim to have discovered the "one true method" is, in Hegel's case,
tempered by a spirit of conciliation rare, and perhaps unparalleled, in
the history of philosophy. 8

2. Method and Reason

Perhaps the first thing that must be said about Hegel's conception
of method is that it is not something externally applied to the subject
matter of philosophy (which Hegel defines as thought in general), but
is immanent in thought: "method is not an extraneous form, but the
soul and notion of the content [of thought]" (SL §242). 9 Philosophic
 Hegel's Philosophic Method 97

method, then, is not to be sought from some other successful science,

like the geometric or axiomatic method of mathematics, or the
hypothetico-deductive or inductive methods of other theoretical
sciences, but is to be found in the very nature of the way we think. 10
Hegel claims that "in every other science the subject matter and the
scientific method are distinguished from each other" (LL 43), whereas
in (speculative) philosophy they coincide, for the method is in fact a
self-construction of the subject matter, thought or reason.
Thought, for Hegel, is defined as "the self-developing totality of its
laws, . . . [and] these laws are the work of thought itself, not facts
which it finds [outside itself] and must submit to" (SL S19 Anmerkung).
Thus method is an analysis of thought, but an analysis which is car-
ried out by thought itself, so that philosophic method amounts to a
"study of mind as self-instruction and self-education in its very
essence" (PhM S387 Anmerkung). The proper method of philosophy is
in this way synonymous with the self-analyzing activity of reason: in
the process of its self-education, reason progressively shapes and con-
structs itself into ever more comprehensive forms and categories, and
this self-constructing dialectic is at the same time the immanent
development of philosophic method.
Still, while Hegel's philosophic method is to be a "self-construction
of reason:• a Selbstproduktion and Selbstkonstruieren, we have noted
that his logic is also didactic, having the purpose of "acquainting us
with our own thought in a new way:• Hegel in fact defines logic as an
education in "how to think" ILL 226). Hence, we must not understand
his claim that thought is a self-producing method to mean that the "one
true method" is transparent in the way we think. Just as we have seen
that the guiding purpose of Hegel's philosophy, his attempt to
demonstrate a grand synthesis of thought and being, steadfastly
refuses to propose an immediate coinciding of its terms, so too
philosophic method cannot be found lying ready-to-hand in the
"immediate:' "natural" consciousness. Precisely because method is not
applied to thought from a distance, as it were, but is internal to the
"pathway of doubt" and the struggle of development which
characterizes the self-education of thought, the nature of philosophic
method must be progressively discovered, just as thought comes to
discover its real nature in the process of its evolution. For this reason,
method is not simply a tool used in our search for truth, but is in a
profound sense a search for itself, a process of self-construction and
self-analysis which is immanent in the path of self-discovery
by thought.
One of Hegel's most important aphorisms is that "das Bekannte
98 HEGEl!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

uberhaupt ist daru.m, weil es bekannt ist, nicht erkannt" (Phan 35). This
basic epistemological principle is repeated, although with no con-
scious reference to Hegel, by both Heidegger and Wittgenstein, each
of whom share Hegel's preoccupation with method and his belief that
method cannot be found ready-to-hand. Thus Heidegger writes that
"to be cognizant, to know, is not mere familiarity with concepts." 11 This
is also Wittgenstein's point when he says that "die fii.r uns wichtigsten
Aspekte der Di.nge sind durch ihre Einfachheit und Allti:iglichkeit ver-
'borgen. (Man kann es nicht bemerken, - weil manes immer vor Augen
hat). Di.e Bigentlichen Gru.ndlagen seiner Forschung fallen dem Menschen
gar nicht auf.'12 In the context of the present discussion, the point is
that while in one way we have a direct access to philosophic method,
since it is the very structure of our own processes of thought, in
another sense we require a nnew way of becoming acquainted with
our thought" in order to uncover this method - just because we feel
so familiar with our thought, and take its operations for granted. It is
in this sense that we may think of Hegel's method in the Wittgen-
steinian sense, as therapy. 13 Yet since thought is self-analyzing for
Hegel, philosophic method is not like the psychiatrist who is analyzing
someone else's psyche, but rather like the one who is engaged in self-
analysis or self-therapy. Or, to change the metaphor, method is not so
much like the author who writes a biographical text, but like the one
who is engaged in an autobiographical narrative.
Well, what is Hegel's "altogether new concept of scientific pro-
cedure'? We have just remarked that this method is to reflect the
immanent structure of thought, and thus we have the clue to the basic
character of Hegel's method in his analysis of thought. Now the
crucial thing about thought for Hegel is that it "moves;' that is, that it
is a continuous process of development. As Barth puts it, "der Begri.(f'
for Hegel "ist Ereignis.... [Es] ist nicht ein irgendwie und irgendwo vor-
fi.ndliches Brgebnis, sondern ... die unbeschriinkte Notwendigkeit seiner
... Selbstvollstreckung!'14 Concepts are events, "self-executing" events,
which is to say that thought has a necessarily historical, temporal
manifestation in which it "moves" or develops. Hegel's anatomy of this
motion of thought, which serves as the heuristic clue to the proper
portrayal of the developmental structure of his new philosophic
method, is highlighted by two central principles which we have
already introduced in our analysis of his grand synthesis - the prin-
ciples of the intrinsically teleological and dialectical character of
thought and being. We will discuss the specifically teleological
character of Hegel's method in section 4 below, turning first to Hegel's
description of his method as dialectical.
 Hegel's Philosophic Method 99

3. Method as Dialectic

A good point of departure for understanding in what sense Hegel's

new method is a dialectical method may be found by returning to the
contrast he develops between Verstand and Vernun(t. In fact, Hegel ex-
plicitly states that the goal of his method is to show that "reason ...
gives demonstration a meaning quite different from that of the
understanding'' jSL S36 Zusatz). We saw in Chapter Four that both the
understanding and reason employ dialectic, but in different ways. The
understanding's use of dialectic is to isolate and fix determinations of
thought into exclusionary oppositions, while the dialectical character
of reason lies in its unifying of opposing determinations. Further, the
categories of thought are not unchanging for Hegel, but are informed
by a teleological dynamic by which they progressively alter jdeepen)
their significance by developing in the course of the education of
mind. And, finally, the dialectical character of method implicates
thought in more than a formal way: as opposed to formal logic, and
in keeping with the project of Hegel's grand synthesis, his new method
views the principles of thought as having an ontological significance.
Let us look a bit more closely at the dialectic character of Hegel's
method, centering on ja) his portrait of the categories of thought as
dynamic and evolving, in opposition to the view of static, unchanging
categories; and jb) the nonformal, ontologically-committed logic
which results from this portrait.

a. Dialectic and the Dynamic Character of Thought

As for the first point, Hegel's basic criticism of the Kantian
"categories of the understanding" is that they are essentially "ruhende
tote Flicher der Intelligenzt inert, dead pigeonholes of the mind jDiff
80). He believes that only under the perspective of the restlessly
dialectical character of the categories of thought can we plausibly
account for the fact of the Bildung of knowledge. In this way, the
development of knowledge is not simply a learning to apply fixed
categories with more and more facility, but the actual development of
those categories into fuller and more explanatory principles. The
category of "essence" jdas Wesen), for example, which is the crucially
important "middle" category of Hegel's logic jmediating "being" and
"idea"), initially describes existents as pure self-identities, but with the
development of our knowledge of things, essence comes to signify dif-
ference within identity, and finally the unity of identity and difference
jv. LL 411ff; SL SS113-22). As a more concrete example we may look
at the exactly parallel dialectic of self-becoming, where the young
100 HEGEI!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

child is first of all completely self-absorbed, an identity-unto-itself

with all outer reality existing only for its own satisfaction; where, in
the process of self-development, we come to see ourselves as reliant
on and conditioned by others, and pass through phases of alienation
and self-doubt which invariably accompany this dependence-on-
others; and where, finally, we are capable of working through to a con-
ception of ourselves as autonomous within the bonds of a social struc-
ture (the unity of self and other). This progressive enrichment of our
knowledge involves the development of a category of thought from its
immediate, least reflective stage to a more and more reflective, con-
crete determination.
Hegel's emphasis on regarding the categories of thought as
developing, self-transforming concepts, is the source of his disillusion-
ment with Kant's "discovery of all pure concepts of the understand-
ing:'15 which Hegel calls, in one of his more polemical moods, 'an
outrage on science" (PhS 142). His point is that Kant simply "picks up
the plurality of categories ... as a welcome find, taking them from the
various [forms of logical] judgements [which had been accepted by
eighteenth century logicians], and complacently accepting them" (PhS
142). Hegel's criticism here is not new with him, but follows very
much in the tradition of the post-Kantian German idealists, almost all
of whom were quite suspicious of what seemed to them a patently
artificial "discovery'' by Kant of his twelve categories. But while Hegel
is essentially just repeating what by this time is a well-worn litany
against Kant, he develops a far more elaborate alternative conception
of the categories of thought, which he also makes much more central
to his larger methodological aims, than his predecessors did. The key
to this alternative is the commitment to analyzing the actual process
of development of our thought - by seeing thought "in gear" rather
than "idling;' as Wittgenstein puts it. 16 This analysis is incorporated
into the full sweep of Hegel's philosophy, from his logic to his
metaphysics and epistemology, from his psychology and
phenomenology to his philosophy of history, and results in an insight
into the categories of thought which persistently undermines any
appearance of fixedness and stasis, revealing them as inherently
dynamic, historical, dialectical - engaged in an evolving process of
self-construction.

b. Dialectic and the Grand Synthesis: The Dovetailing of Categories of

Thought and Being
The second point mentioned above was that the dialectical
character of method involves a nonformal appraisal of logic, so that
 Hegel's Philosophic Method 101

the principles or categories of thought have an ontological

significance. This, of course, is a direct corollary of Hegel's grand syn-
thesis of thought and being. Logic, which is first of all the science of
thought, is also in its highest, "speculative" sense, ontology or
metaphysics, the science of being: "die logische Wissenschaft ... macht
die eigentliche Metaphysik . . . aui' (WL 2:5). Hegel's logic is largely
unique in this way, although as with so many of Hegel's central ideas,
it is possible to trace this insistence on the dovetailing of the categories
of thought and being back to certain suggestions and presentiments in
the philosophy of Aristotle. Making full allowance for the differences
between Aristotle's and Hegel's aims, Aristotle may be said to have
come close to this identification of logic and metaphysics, for he felt
that "the kinds of essential being are precisely those that are indicated
by the figures of predication [i.e., the categories], ... [and] 'being' has
a meaning answering to each of these [categories)." 17 Aristotle is of a
spirit with Hegel, then, insofar as he felt that the categories of thought
not only detail the ways in which we think about things, but equally
describe the ways in which things are. But Aristotle's actual logic is
formal, for his syllogistic describes forms of demonstration or proof
which are indifferent to the content ascribed to its terms. If all B are
A, and all C are B, then all C are A (this is Aristotle's "Barbara•
syllogism), and the question of whether all B are in fact A, or all Care
in fact B does not enter into the question of the validity of the
syllogism.
Throughout his career, Hegel launched a sustained polemics
against formal logic, or "the logic of the schools; logic which he
regarded as cancelling the "life and spirit" out of thought by inten-
tionally regarding its subject matter as devoid of content (v. PhS 41).
He speaks of "the dead forms" or categories of logic 18 in which "the
spirit which is their living, concrete unity does not dwell in them,• and
says that "if logic is supposed to lack a substantial content, then the
fault does not lie with its subject matter [i.e., thought], but solely with
the way in which this subject matter is grasped" (LL 48). Hegel's point
here is essentially that since formal logic refuses to allow its proposi-
tions to make ontological commitments - hence stripping them of all
content, all "life and spirit" - it fails to uncover what is the most fun-
damental truth of thought, that it reaches out to being, seeking to find
its inner laws and principles mirrored in the world of its outer
experience.
Hegel of course does not deny the validity of formal logic - there
is not a single sentence in all of his philosophy which makes any such
denial, a fact which is not generally known, or at least not generally
acknowledged, by many of the critics of his logic. His aim is only to
102 HEGEJ.!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

show its limits, and to propose an alternative methodology which goes

beyond these limits. Thus, Hegel says of Aristotle that his logic is a
Hlogic of the understanding," and that as formal logic, it is a "master-
piece ... and absolutely valuable," but tells us very little about the
"truth of thought" IHPh 2:213, 219, 221). For the truth of thought has
to do with its content as well as its form, with what is thought about
as well as how it is thought about. The really interesting thing about
Aristotle's philosophy, Hegel says, is that Hit is not by any means
founded on this [logic] ... of the understanding" (HPh 2:223). That is,
Aristotle's metaphysics, which is what gives us his great vision of the
nature of reality, is not itself guided by his formal logic. The study of
being qua being, of substance, of causality, of motion, of potency and
act, and so on, depends on an ontological enquiry which is excluded
from Aristotle's syllogistic.
Hegel believes, then, that for philosophy to be concerned with the
"truth of thought" - the way in which thought tells us something
about the world we live in as opposed to being concerned only with
formal characteristics of propositions and rules of inference - it must
unite logic and metaphysics. As Karl Barth puts it, "die wahre Logik ist
... auch die wahre Metaphysik, die Metaphysik des das Denken und das
Gedachte in sich -vereinigenden Geistes." 19 To refuse this identification is
to abandon the explanatory value of philosophy, Hegel feels - to
abnegate philosophy's responsibility of investigating the nature of
reality, the world in which we live. Hegel views the logic of the
understanding as reducing explanation to tautology (PhS 94, 95),
which in fact is precisely what it aims to do. Camap aptly encap-
sulates the basic canon of this logic in his pronouncement that "all
sentences of logic are tautological and devoid of content."20
The motivation for the formalization of logic is largely the feeling
that metaphysical speculation only mires us in unsolvable questions.
By this view, metaphysics is on a par with mythology. 21 Hegel has
three things to say to this.
First, it is Hegel's contention that metaphysics is unavoidable even
in our most simple and direct descriptions of our sensible experience.
We cannot avoid employing theoretical terms in our portrayals of
experience. When the claim is made, as Carnap does, that "meaningful
metaphysical statements are impossible, [due to) the (very] task which
metaphysics sets itself: to discover and formulate a kind of knowledge
which is not accessible to empirical science:'22 the conception of
Hempirical science" employed here is not simply overly limited but
actually a delusion. In other words, it is not simply that "the empirical"
must be understood to embrace more than simply sense-experience in
 Hegel's Philosophic Method 103

order to legitimately describe the range and value of human experi-

ence, but that even in our description of sense-experience metaphysics
is not eliminable. As Hegel says in his Encyclopcedia, this is the "fun-
damental delusion in all scientific empiricism: it employs the
metaphysical categories of matter, force, ... infinity, etc., ... and all
the while it is unaware that it contains metaphysics" {SL S38; cf. HPh
2:155; 3:323, 456; PhN Intro. Zusatz). 23
Second, Hegel offers a different perspective on the historical
diversity of metaphysical systems than that of the analytic understan-
ding. Rather than concluding that this diversity proves the utter futil-
ity of metaphysical speculation, 24 Hegel says that we must see this
diversity as expressing different perspectives on the same ultimate
questions, perspectives which may be united in a synthetic whole, an
all-embracing system. It is the analytic tendency of the understanding
which holds these different metaphysical visions apart as isolated and
exclusionary ideas, cancelling their "living link:'
The understanding recoils from diversity, for it sees there only a
sea of particularity, without standing back far enough to see the
universal. As such it is "like an invalid recommended by the doctor to
eat fruit, and who has cherries, plums or grapes before him, but
pedantically refuses to take anything because no part of what is
offered him is fruit, some of it being cherries, and the rest plums or
grapes" {HPh 2:1811 The diversity, and consequent conflict, between
various metaphysical visions is not, Hegel argues, the symptom of a
diseased structure, but a sign of the essentially spiritual character of
human knowledge, its dialectical character of unity-in-difference.
Thus the different metaphysical systems "are not a mere collection of
chance events, of expeditions of wandering knights, each going about
fighting, struggling purposelessly, leaving no results to show for all his
efforts.... In the activity of [the] thinking mind, there is a real con-
nection; . . . it is with this belief in the [unifying) spirit [or Logos) of
the world that we must proceed to history'' {HPh 2:191. The history of
philosophy is a dialectical progression of human thought, with its dif-
fering perspectives united by common themes and a common spirit of
inquiry. 'Ihlth, as we saw in Chapter 'lwo, is made present, or
"operative;' through this historical unfolding of human thought, and is
not something which "casts off diversity like dross from pure metal:'
but "lives in this diversity alone:'
Finally, the third and perhaps main point to be mentioned is that
Hegel offers a positive alternative to the criterion of meaning and
truth employed by the analytic understanding, which discloses to us
a way of interpreting our thought so that it is not a purely formal
104 HEGEl!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

enterprise cut off from ontological commitments to the world we live

in. This, again, is Hegel's basic vision of a grand synthesis of thought
and being - of thought as the truth of its objects, of consciousness
finding itself mirrored by its world, of the ultimate harmony of
Denken and Gedachte. Thought is not the alienation of man from the
world, but "the very heart of things, their simple life-pulse" (LL 37),
and indeed without this connection of thought and world, Hegel is
convinced that man would be doomed to a life of utter estrangement
and uncertainty. Hegel's new philosophic method is in this way an
exhibition of the fundamental principle of his idealism that "the
determinations of the concept[s] [of thought] in the course of [their]
development are from one point of view themselves [simply] con-
cepts, but from another they take the form of existents:" for ,,thought
. . . transforms it[self] into an intelligent world" (HPh 3:546). The
dialectical development of the concepts of thought is at the same time
- as one and the same process of development - the dynamic unfold-
ing of the shapes of being in the world of human experience. And
philosophic method is the internal structure of this intermediated
evolution of thought and being, itself developing and transforming as
the structure it traces out develops and transforms.

4. Method as Teleology

We indicated earlier that Hegel's method, in reflecting the nature

of thought as a "self-movement," or an immanent process of develop-
ment, must not only be dialectical but also teleological. For Hegel
wishes to show that thought is not simply motion but directed motion,
a teleological development from potentiality to actuality, from the
implicit and immediate and abstract to the explicit and mediated and
concrete. There are two related features of the teleological character
of Hegel's method which call for special attention, and which will con-
clude the discussion of the present chapter: the nature of method as
system and as a circular progression.

a. Thleology and System

Karl Barth makes the claim that "Hegels Wollen und Vollbringen
selbst besteht nicht in der Erfindung der dialektischen Methode als solcher,
sondern in der Erlindung einer unfversalen Methode uberhaupt. Das ist das
Geniale [des Hegels):'25 Barth's point is that Hegel's method is not
restricted to the description and analysis of the dialectical structure of
 Hegel's Philosophic Method 105

thought and being, but enables him to draw together the disperse
threads of the manifestation and history of thought and being into a
systematic whole, an organic totality. It is a first principle of Hegel's
philosophic method that "truth is only possible as a universe or totality
of thought" (SL S14). That truth is done justice only within a system
is to say two things for Hegel: first, that truth is a whole or totality,
as opposed to being confined within singular propositions; and
second, that the parts of this totality must be structured in an organic
way, as opposed to being regarded as diverse facts which are indif-
ferent to each other. Both of these desiderata are brought together in
Hegel's conception of truth as an expression of the immanent
teleology which informs thought and reality.
"The true:' Hegel says, "is the whole. But the whole is nothing
other than the essence consummating itself through its development"
(PhS 11). It is this self-consummating character of truth regarded as
a structured, organic whole, which leads directly to the perspective of
a teleological system of explanation. Kant, in his Critique of]udgement,
argues that reason is invariably led to the ideal of an end - that is,
to teleology - by the consideration of an organic whole. But he also
argues that we can form no positive conception of this ideal, since an
end is a thing-in-itself.26 The whole line of German Idealists following
Kant and culminating in Hegel argues against this idea that in for-
mulating the ideal of action for an end, we already have formed a con-
ception of it. Moreover, Hegel feels that there is no justification for
allotting more cognitive certainty to mechanistic causality than to
teleological causality - mechanism is no less a theoretical explanation
of nature than is teleology, and more, mechanistic explanation is
incomplete and points beyond itself to the conception of a purposive
end (see SL SS195ff; LL 71lff, 737ff). Just as we saw the employment
of dialectic by the understanding (Verstand) to collapse internally and
point beyond itself to the synthetic, unifying dialectic of reason
(Vernunft), so too mechanism can never satisfy the demand of reason
for the unification of discrete phenomena into an integrated whole,
and pushes past its limits to the standpoint of teleology.
The teleological character of things, the immanent impulse
towards the development and consummation of their purpose and
essence, reveals the incompleteness and one-sidedness which
characterizes the individual stages in the course of this development.
But the teleological nature of things shows not only the incomplete-
ness of the thing vis-a-vis the completed nature of the individuum
itself, it also reveals the dependence of the essence of the individuum
on its environment. Things do not develop in a vacuum, but only in
106 HEGEI:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

interaction with other things. This is the basis of Hegel's heartfelt

belief that things cannot be fully understood - nor, indeed, can they
fully be - in isolation, but only when they are seen as jand exist as)
situated and coordinated within a system of mutual determination
and interconnection. We have already touched on this belief in the
context of Hegel's theory of substance, and as an important point of
difference between Hegel and Leibniz !Leibniz, recall, denies all
"external denominations" of things, violating Hegel's principle of the
Entiiu$erung, the externalizing character of all being). Hegel expresses
the consequence of this for our knowledge of things in the following
passage from his Philosophie der Religion:

Erkennen nennen wir dies, daS von einem Gegenstande nicht nur
gewuSt werde, daS er ist, sondern auch was er ist, und daS, was er ist,
nicht nur iiberhaupt gewuSt werde und man eine gewisse Kenntnis {of it
as a particular, isolated existent], ... sondern das Wissen von seinen
Bestimmungen, seinem {extended, relational] Inhalt habe, daS dies
Wissen ein er{iilltes, bewiihrtes sei, worin die Notwendigheit des Zusam-
menhanges dieses Bestimmungen gewuSt wird (SW 12:50).

A truly scientific knowledge of things is possible only from the

perspective which sees each individual thing in the context of a
system of its interrelations-with-others, where it loses the'appearance
of isolation it takes on when we do not understand it as a member of
an organic whole. And it is Hegel's conviction that only given the
teleological conception of a unifying purpose or End can this organic
perspective of science make sense.

b. 'Ieleology and Circularity

A further aspect of Hegel's teleological methodology is that it
reconceives philosophic demonstration in terms of a circular progres-
sion.27 A circular demonstration, in its vicious sense, has traditionally
been regarded as involving premises which presuppose the conclu·
sion that is to be established. If this were all there was to be said, then
Hegel's method of demonstration would have the circulus in probando
as its central feature. For, as we have seen, Hegel defines truth as "the
process of its own becoming, the circle that presupposes its end as its
goal, having its end also as its beginning:' And his method, which is
to give us access to truth, must also be circular. How could it be other-
wise, since Hegel's method is precisely the tracing out of the imma-
nent movement of thought, and thought is itself intrinsically circular:
thought is the dialectical development of concepts, and concepts are
 Hegel's Philosophic Method 107

defined by Hegel as "self-movements, circles" IPhS 20). 28 If any doubt

remains, he tells his reader explicitly that "this [circular] movement of
[concepts] ... constitutes the nature of scientific method in general"
(PhS 20).
Hegel's philosophy thus stands as a direct challenge to the claim
of the viciousness of circular demonstration. What allows him to do
this without falling into the commission of a naive fallacy is his com-
plete reconception of the nature of demonstration which is appropri-
ate to philosophy. The linear-geometric model of demonstration is set
aside in favor of a circular-teleological method. 29 So far, then, is Hegel
from starting with indubitable, immediately certain propositions
which are taken as indemonstrable axioms, that, in fact, he asserts the
necessity of commencing philosophic demonstration with proposi-
tions which are actually false! 'Where knowledge by thought is our
aim:' Hegel writes, "we cannot begin with the truth, because the truth,
when it forms the beginning, must rest on mere assertion" (SL S159
Zusatz). This insistence on beginning with what is false is repeated and
emphasized - even flaunted! - in each of Hegel's major works, a cir-
cumstance which indicates that he is by no means seeking to conceal
this seemingly devastating state of affairs, but on the contrary that he
actually perceives it as a source of pride. To cite just one more instance
of what we might call Hegel's principle of the "false start," a passage
again taken from the "shorter" Logic where Hegel is particularly con·
cerned with the question of the circularity of demonstration: 'Why
then, it may be asked, begin with the false and not at once with the
true, [since the Hegelian philosophy is supposed to be the expression
of absolute truth]? To which we answer that truth, to deserve the
name, must authenticate its own truth; ... the justification, or proof of
it, can only result from the detailed treatment of thought [in its pro-
cess of thinking]" (SL §83 Zusatz; and cf. S78 Anmerkung; PhS 22).
This thoroughly radical approach to demonstration is explained
by Hegel's conviction that the original propositions of thought are
immediate and hence incomplete - and, in this sense, false - and
that truth requires an "authentication," or justification, or deduction,
which can only occur as the result of our original thought·
determinations exposing themselves as incomplete. 'lruth, in other
words, arises only with the whole development of thought from its
initially incomplete and, therefore, misleading convictions to its
educated comprehension of its evolving categories and principles.
Truth can only be a result. To start with the truth would be simply to
assert a result without giving its justification, and this would have the
status of a presupposition or dogmatic pronouncement.
108 HEGEI:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

This aspect of Hegel's theory of demonstration, which asks us to

reappraise the relationship between truth and falsity, provides us with
a ground for profitably comparing his notion of method with that of
Descartes as regards philosophic method. Insofar as Descartes
modelled his method after geometry, and sought a primitive axiom, an
~chemedian point;' which would guarantee the truth of his conclu-
sions (providing correct rules of inference were followed), Hegel must
be seen as set against the Cartesian method. 3°Further, Descartes sets
about the audacious project of ridding himself of all his false beliefs
and opinions, so as to arrive at something which cannot be doubted.
In this respect, too, Descartes is of an anti-Hegelian spirit; for as we
have just remarked, error and falsehood play a crucially positive role
in Hegel's theory of truth. 31 But let us look a bit more closely at
Descartes' method of doubt, for it is not so anti-Hegelian as it might
seem at first blush.
Descartes sets about his search for certainty in an eminently
Socratic way, travelling as he does about the world, "discovering at
every turn [his] own ignorance,, but persisting doggedly after a
"knowledge of [him]self" in "the great book of the world:'32 It is this
search itself, which Descartes regards as a preliminary to science,
which is in many ways so close to Hegel's notion of science proper.
Philosophy, as Hegel says, is a "quest" (LL 701, and this quest is itself
already science: "the way to science is itself already science" jPhS 56). We
have noted that this quest is for Hegel precisely a "road of doubt." This
is the positive significance of scepticism for Hegel, which he regards
not as a doubting only for the sake of doubting - which is how
Descartes defines ancient scepticism33 - but as a seeking. Hegel ap-
provingly quotes Sextus Empiricus's assertion that sceptics are neither
,,dogmatists [nor] ... those who assert incomprehensibility," but are
those who "still continue to seek; ... for this reason the sceptics called
themselves the seekers t'ln,nxoi, and their philosophy the seeking
tT/n,nxfj:' 34 The sceptics, of course, never arrive at a positive
epistemological position which they can accept, and here Hegel is in
sympathy with Descartes's desire to surpass scepticism. But the
search itself is crucial, and so far is Hegel from looking for a primitive
axiom which will put an end to the search, that, in fact, he views truth
as resting implicitly (or potentially, or embryonically) just in the sorts
of beliefs and opinions and convictions which Descartes wishes to
discard. For "it is only out of ... error [that] truth arises" (SL S274
Zusatz/.
The peculiarly circular character of Hegel's conception of
demonstration is made evident when we see that the initial proposi-
 Hegel's Philosophic Method 109

tions of his philosophy are not false in such a way that they must be
discarded, but are instead the germ of the truth, and as such are self-
transforming, self-developing concepts rather than pure falsehoods
which are to be left behind. This, of course, is precisely Hegel's
teleological conception of knowledge and truth. Hegel follows Aristo-
tle's characterization of science as beginning with what is "better
known to us" and working through to what is ''better known in itself:'35
In this way, as Aristotle says, "the order of actual development [here,
the Hegelian Bildung of thought] and the order of logical existence [the
essence or 'end; what a thing is in its maturity or truth} are always the
inverse of each other:'36 What this amounts to, according to Hegel, is
"that because that which forms the beginning is [initially]
undeveloped, ... it is not truly known in the beginning;' but awaits
the "whole compass" of its development for its telos to appear in its
truth (LL 72). We must, again to use Aristotle's terminology, move
from the "fact" to the "reasoned fact," from immediate and isolated
determinations of thought to rationally comprehended determinations
of thought - to and not from first principles. 37
The starting point of demonstration "must in the course of science
be converted into a result~ Hegel says (SL S17). But then, "in this man-
ner philosophy exhibits the appearance of a circle which closes with
itself, and has no beginning in the same way as the other sciences
have'' (SL Sl 7). Hegel's notion of deduction or justification is thus a
"bringing-forth" of the "germ" to its fruition. The starting point of
Hegel's demonstration is not a "fixed basis;' he says, but it is "recast"
or "transformed" or "exalted" by thought in the course of its education
by experience (v. SL SSO Anmerkung). This dialectical transformation
of the abstract beginning into a concrete result shows that the process
of philosophic demonstration becomes a circle which unites starting
point and goal. The beginning is converted into a result, and the result,
or end, is seen to have been present implicitly from the start. In this
way progress is equally a return, a "retreat" or "retrogression"
(Riickgang, Ruckwartsgehen) to the beginning, which is a grounding of
the beginning by the result into which it has developed (LL 71).
Knowledge is led back to its origin, which was originally immediate
and incomplete but is now fulfilled.
With this concept of a circular path of development, where arrival
at the end is at the same time a return to the origin, we have reached
our first glimpse of Hegel's portrait of Absolute Knowledge. For Abso-
lute Knowledge - philosophic consciousness which has arrived at its
cultninating insight into the essential unity of all things - is a
retrospective or recollective appraisal of demonstration (a Riick-blicken
110 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

or Nach-denken or Er-innerung, as Hegel puts itl. We must look back on

the process of development in order to appraise its result: "the goal,
Absolute Knowing, or spirit that knows itself as spirit, [arises with) ...
the recollection [die Erinnerung) of the [shapes of spirit] ... as they
accomplish the organization of their realm'' (PhS 4931. This retrospec-
tive cognition is the comprehended history of the course of develop·
ment which arises only at the end of its logical and temporal unfold-
ing.38 This vision of the retrospective circle of knowledge is the source
of Hegel's famous 'bwl of Minerva" passage in his Philosophy of Right:
'When philosophy paints its grey in grey, then has a shape of life
grown old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but
only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the
falling of the dusk" (PhR Preface, p. 13; and cf. HPh 2:521. Absolute
Knowledge is possible only at the close of a historical progression,
when dusk is falling on the life of spirit, since only then does that
history appear as a whole, a completed circle, open for the first time
to a recollective comprehension of its meaning.
This passage from the Philosophy of Right expresses Hegel's insist-
ence that knowledge and truth are results, not something we begin
with. But it is crucial not to be mislead about the nature of the result:
the result, for Hegel, is not a simple proposition which serves as the
conclusion of a linear demonstration, but is itself the cognition of the
whole process of development. Just as with the Platonic view that
useeking and learning are in fact nothing but recollection:'39 where
recollection is not a simple result, a final ugrasping at a flash:' but a
"path of recollection,""° a process or quest, so too with Hegel. Hegel's
theory of demonstration is set firmly against the view that knowledge
and truth are wholly comprised in a conclusion, with the actual pro-
cess or pathway of arriving at the conclusion being by comparison of
little importance, something to be left behind or forgotten once we are
in possession of the conclusion. No, "we must remark that a one-sided
point of view is involved in apprehending the result of development
merely as a result; it is [itself) a process .. :• (HPh 3:5261. That is,
philosophic knowledge is a recognition of the whole compass of the
development of thought, for this self-movement and history of
thought is alone the making-manifest or the realization of truth -
nothing short of the whole circle is sufficient.
In the "owl of Minerva" passage, Hegel takes on the mantle of poet
to express his vision of recollective knowledge, just as he does at the
close of his Phenomenology, where he speaks of "the Calvary of ab-
solute Spirit, ... without which it would be lifeless and alone;' and
 Hegel's Philosophic Method 111

then closes his text with a (somewhat altered) couplet from the
Romantic poet Schiller (PhS 493). 41 It seems appropriate, then, to cite
a stanza from another poet, himself neither a Romantic nor an Abso-
lute Idealist, but absorbed as was Hegel by the imagery of circularity.
This is T. S. Eliot, and the stanza is from his Little Gidding, which may
well serve as a poetic encapsulation of the spirit of Hegel's teleological
circle.

We shall not cease from exploration,

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time,
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall. 42

Eliot expresses here the Hegelian theme of the circular nature of

our search for knowledge, describing the ultimate arrival at the end
of our quest as a rediscovery of the beginning as a transformed origin,
an origin given a new significance by the experience and knowledge
gained on the path of the search. As Viellard Baron suggests, HLa.
reminiscence n'indique pas un retour main un depassement; ... l'activite
de la pensee dans la reminiscence est done de depasser /'existence immed-
iate''43 - recollection is a going-beyond, a transcendence and recasting
of the initially immediate origin. The origin, or source, conceals an ini-
tially hidden anticipation of the ending, "the voice of the hidden
waterfall," which for Hegel is the voice of Absolute Knowledge, emerg-
ing as philosophic recollection - the "remembered gate'' - as the path
of exploration reaches its close, circling back to encompass the now
complete history of this exploration.
In our last two chapters we will have to examine very carefully
just what this portrayal of Absolute Knowledge as a circle of recollec-
tion entails. Does Hegel mean to imply that this culminating Erin-
nerung occurs as the final consummation of history, as an apocalyptic
"last day" of spirit where the final arc of the circle of development is
being closed beyond hope of future cycles of history? Does Hegel's
eschatological vision of a "close of time" mean that the "last of earth
left to discover" is now being unearthed by the archaeology of Abso-
lute Knowledge, with no further exploration possible, with nothing
112 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

left for history to accomplish? Or, on the contrary, is Hegel's point that
Absolute Knowledge occurs episodically, at the close of every epoch
of history, where the dusk of ''a shape of life" will turn into the dawn
of a new life as the cyclical, spiralling rhythm of spirit sets and rises
in a continually regenerating path of historical evolution?
I will argue that the first alternative, where the recollective circle
of Absolute Knowledge announces a final closure of history, is
untenable, standing in conflict with the very principles of Hegel's
metaphysics and epistemology which make possible his fundamental
project of a grand synthesis of thought and being. But while I will seek
to provide convincing grounds for adopting the second alternative,
where history remains as an open-ended process of development, I
will also argue that we must recognize a fundamental ambivalence on
Hegel's part with regard to this issue. The solution to the dilemma of
Hegel's eschatology is neither straightforward nor obvious, and calls
for an act of philosophic choice on the part of the reader, since Hegel
himself finally resisted choosing for us.
 Chapter Six

THE QUESTION OF COMPLETION:

HEGEL AND CHRISTIAN ESCHATOLOGY

... Behold, I will make three know what shall be in

the last end ... : for at the time appointed the end shall
be.
Daniel 8:19

We have just seen that Hegel's new method of demonstration is

meant to illustrate the dialectical and teleological development of
thought evolving into progressively deeper and richer shapes. Further,
we have emphasized throughout this work that this process of the
development of thought is conceived of as the Bildung of human
rationality in history, for thought reaches out to being, and being
articulates and instantiates the dialectic of thought on the stage of
human history. As Hegel writes in his History of Philosophy, "history is
the process of mind itself, the [progressive] revelation of itself from its
first ... enshrouded consciousness, ... in order that the absolute com-
mand of mind, 'know thyself; may be fulfilled" (HPh 3:7). 1 We have
now reached the point where we must explicitly ask the question of
how we are to read this Delphic language of the "fulfillment" of
knowledge. What is the ''.Absolute Knowledge" Hegel speaks of as the
telos of the development of thought, and what consequences does this
fulfillment have both for our view of history and for our conception
of what it means to know? If history is "the process of mind itself:' then
it would seem that with the achievement of Absolute Knowledge,
history would no longer progress. As Stephen Crites asks, "in the light
of this quasi-eschatological claim, the question is not merely, 'what

113
114 HEGEI:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

will the future be?' but 'what sort of future is, in principle, possible?'n2
And so too with knowledge: once we have fulfilled the telos, does
knowledge no longer progress? If, as Quentin Lauer suggests, 3 once
consciousness has become ~bsolute, . . . there are no more inade-
quacies in [its] awareness, ... no more hidden crannies of itself to
reveal;' what would this knowledge be like?

1. The Ambiguity

Hegel's theory of knowledge, and with it his philosophy of history,

are governed throughout by an eschatological vision. For the
teleological principle he regards as essential to a true appraisal of the
essence of thought makes a consideration of the End indispensable to
his anatomy of human knowledge and history. It is precisely the
absence of the notion of a consummation of the End that Hegel takes
as one of the fundamental failures of the German Aufklii.rung. In
speaking of Fichte, for example, Hegel writes that his predecessor's
"theory of knowledge regards the struggle of the ego with the object
as that of a continuous, [unending} process" (HPh 3:501), a process
which is "a constant progression . . . which never reaches any end"
(HPh 3:492).4
It is the aim of Hegel's absolute idealist system to show how
human knowledge can "wrest itself out of this progress to infinity, and
free itself absolutely from limitation" lfhM §386 Zusatz), by "resolving
the infinite progress into the End" (SL S242). Hegel's conviction that
truth must be more than a mere "approximation," more than something
relative to finite and subjective consciousness, leads him to posit a
"final concord" (SL S24 Zusatz) of consciousness with the totality of its
objects, a "consummation of the infinite End" of knowledge and of the
world (SL S212 Zusatz). This is in keeping with the systematic aim of
Hegel's method, which we saw in the last chapter to involve the idea
that nothing short of the whole, or totality, of the determinations of
thought can constitute truth. Hegel thus speaks of a "self-closure" of
his system, a "sich selbst zusammenschlie$end' of knowledge or spirit
(SL S242; and cf. PhS 483; PhM §379 Zusatz), where "spirit [has
reached] ... the completion of its work" or "concluded the movement
in which it has shaped itself" (PhS 486, 490). In this same vein, Hegel
is led to announce the 'absolute end of history" (PhH 103), where spirit
has fulfilled its eschatological design, the realization of its freedom
and the attainment of its complete knowledge of itself.
 Hegel and Christian Eschatology 115

There is no room for dispute that Hegel speaks of the "end of

history" and the "conclusion" of the development of spirit in Absolute
Knowledge. What is open to dispute is what Hegel means by this.
What does Hegel mean when he speaks of "the end," "the completion,U
"the conclusion;' "the consummation,U "the fulfillment:' of history and
knowledge? There seem to be two basic alternatives; either the com-
pletic,n Hegel speaks of is absolute or it isn't. That is, either Hegel's
eschatological vision is of an absolute End, where no further progress
in history or knowledge is possible, or it is an epochal conception,
where the completion he speaks of is the recurring fulfillment of suc-
cessive historical epochs, leaving the future open to progress.
It is my feeling that an ample supply of passages in Hegel's texts
may be found to support either of these basic alternatives, as well as
many passages which can be read in either way. And I feel that this
reflects a real ambivalence and ambiguity in Hegel's philosophy. We
cannot explain away one interpretation or the other and be left with
a single, clearly correct doctrine of the End. For the ambiguity
represents an internal tension in Hegel's philosophy between two
goals which he seems to find equally important but which stand in
complete conflict with each other.
On the one hand, Hegel analyzes both knowledge and being as in
their very essence dialectical and teleological processes of becoming.
Becoming is the pulse of life, the vital principle of knowing and being,
for the "satisfaction" of spirit is "that which brings on natural death"
(PhH 74). This suggests that no absolute completion of knowledge or
being would be possible without at once destroying their very essence
- without literally tolling their death-bell. Lukacs puts the dilemma
very clearly, when he charges Hegel with attempting an ·~nulment
of history:'

But this annuls the whole scheme of history elaborated by (Hegel's

philosophy): the spirit which is supposed to make history and whose
very essence is supposed to be the fact that it is the actual driving
force, the motor of history, ends up by turning history into a mere
simulacrum. 5

On the other hand, Hegel presents his philosophical system as

achieving an "absolute knowledge" and "absolute truth" which depends
for its absoluteness on being a comprehension of the whole compass
or totality of the Gestalten of spirit. This suggests that there must be
an absolute completion of knowledge and being and history, a "self-
116 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

closure" of the circle of development, a final arrival at the End and

result which is the truth of the whole. For if the future were open-
ended as regards progress in knowledge and being, the whole would
never be achieved, but would remain an unfulfilled ideal; and absolute
knowledge, the comprehension of the whole, would seem to remain
an unrealizable project. Stephen Crites expresses this dilemma (the
converse of the dilemma Lukacs addressed above) succinctly: ''But if
Hegel's Absolute is not absolute, the whole Hegelian view of Spirit and
history falls to the ground:16
This tension in Hegel's philosophy has been prefigured
throughout the course of this work. It was prefigured in our discus-
sion of Hegel's theory of truth, which attempts to unify the temporal
and the eternal, the secular and the sacred, the human and the divine;
in our discussion of Hegel's notion of substance, which seeks to syn-
thesize Heraclitian becoming with Spinozistic permanence; in our
discussion of the Hegelian epistemology, which is both committed to
the view of knowledge as a perpetual labor of development and to the
proposition that the object of consciousness is not finally an Other to
mind at all; in our discussion of Hegel's dialectic, which is both the
perpetual opposition of all that is determinate and the resolution of
this negativity; in our discussion of Hegel's teleology, where, on the
one hand, we have the perpetual process of development, and, on the
other, the constant presence and dominance of the End; and finally,
in our anticipatory discussion of the recollective circle of Absolute
Knowledge, where we noted the ambiguity between an apocalyp-
tically closed circle and a continually regenerating spiral of develop-
ment. The time has now arrived for us to address this tension head-on.
While I am convinced that a faithful interpretation of Hegel can
only result in a confirmation of his ambivalence, still, I feel that
preference should be given to the reading which emphasizes the
epochal, dialectically open-ended pole of the ambivalence as against
the absolutist pole. I say this because I feel that the reconstruction
entailed by such a choice offers us the chance to revitalize the "magic
charm" of Hegel's dialectic vision of history which his ambivalence
places so much into question. This is desirable because once the
dialectical principle of the Hegelian system is removed (as it
unavoidably is under the absolutist reading where the strife of becom-
ing is finally overcome), we have removed the very soul of Hegel's
anatomy of spirit, effecting a sort of philosophic lobotomy. Further, I
believe that only under such an interpretation can we make sense of
Hegel's central project of a grand synthesis. For while the absolutist
reading does, of course, yield a certain configuration of the grand syn-
 Hegel and Christian Eschatology 117

thesis, where thought and being have arrived at a state of final repose,
such a static configuration of spirit would be possible only at the
expense of the very definition of each of its terms, since both thought
and being are defined as having life only insofar as they are animated
by the dialectical impulse of becoming. Finally, I also believe that in
emphasizing this nonabsolutist side of Hegel's ambivalence, we need
not sacrifice knowledge and truth to the chains of utter subjectivism
and relativism that he sought so persistently to avoid. I feel, that is,
that Hegel took a wrong turn, an unnecessary and self-defeating turn,
when he came to suggest an absolute completion of history in an
attempt to escape these chains. But this will have to be shown.
I wish to begin our analysis of the question of completion in
Hegel's philosophy with a discussion of the specifically theological
dimension of his eschatological vision. Despite the attempts of some
commentators to view Hegel's Christian imagery - which is ever-
present in his writings - as a purely mythological, symbolic,
figurative covering over his basically secular and even atheistic
philosophy, I believe that Hegel took his Christian heritage seriously,
and sincerely viewed his philosophy as "the true theodicy, the
justification of God" jPhH 457, and v. 15; cf. HPh 3:7, 546). We would
be confounding the whole spirit of Hegel's philosophy if we were to
read his claim that "the philosophic idea is the idea of God" jHPh 3: 11)
as somehow merely allegorical, or his equally uncompromising propo-
sition that "religion can exist without philosophy, but philosophy
cannot exist without religion'' jPhRel 3:148) as only a mythological
trapping, or worse, as simply an artificial concession to the church. As
we saw in Chapter Two, this theological dimension is crucial to Hegel's
anatomy of truth, and any attempt to reduce it to a disguised anthro-
pomorphism would rob it of the trans-finite Logos which is essential
to this anatomy. Hence Hegel's specifically Christian eschatology is
central to his conception of the End or completion of knowledge
and history.
Hegel's Christianity is quite idiosyncratic, however, and he does
not simply take over the Christian vision of the "end of the world" and
the creation of the New Jerusalem, but has an unorthodoxy historical
interpretation of the eschatological End. As we will see, it is precisely
because of this unorthodoxy that Hegel is not necessarily committed
to the common Christian reading of an apocalyptic End - an absolute
closure of history - but can also be read as proposing a nonabsolutist,
epochal conception of the End.
A word of warning: we will find that Hegel's Christian eschatology
serves more to underscore the conflict in his philosophy between an
118 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

absolutist and a nonabsolutist conception of completion than to

resolve it. The present penultimate chapter will thus end in frustra-
tion and loss of way. Indeed, it will not be until well into our next and
final chapter that we will be led to an attempted resolution of the
dilemma of completion. This long path of disorientation and uncer-
tainty is not a gratuitous prolonging of our search, however, but is
necessary for exhibiting one of the basic contentions of my reading of
Hegel, that is, that we look in vain for an unambiguous formulation
of his eschatological vision, precisely because he is torn in two oppos-
ing directions by conflicting desiderata of his philosophy. The forth-
coming discussion of the theological dimension of Hegel's eschatology
will serve in this way as an initiation into the pathway of doubt which
he left as the legacy of his inconclusive search for a resolution to the
question of completion. Only after such an initiation will it be appro-
priate to turn, in Chapter Seven, to an analysis of several less directly
theological passages in order to support my recommendation for a
nonabsolutist reading of Hegel's eschatology.

2. The Book of Revelation

Christian eschatology is based on the biblical promise of salvation

and redemption from suffering and despair, from the irrationality and
injustice of the world. It is derived largely from the Book of Revela-
tion, but also from many of the prophetic and apocalyptic visions of
both the Old and New Testaments.7 The Book of Revelation itself,
written around A.D. 96, was addressed to a Christian community in
the throes of a brutal persecution by the Romans. It promised the
annihilation of - the pouring of the "vials of wrath" on - the imperial
cult of the Caesars, and the salvation and redemption of the faithful
in a new heaven on earth, a New Jerusalem.

1. And I saw [St. John writes of his Revelation) a new heaven and
a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed
away; and there was no more sea.
2. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down
from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her
husband.
3. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the
tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they
shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be
their God.
 Hegel and Christian Eschatology 119

4. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there
shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall
there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
5. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things
new.... !Revelation 21:l-5J8

Thus there will come a new world, where "the former things are
passed away; and "all things are made anew~9 This New Jerusalem will
redeem man from "-ed's curse - "and there shall be no more curse''
!Rev. 22:31 - and will be an eternal kingdom: as Luke prophesies,
"[God] shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom
there shall be no end" !Luke 2:33J.1°
It goes without saying that there have been many diverging inter-
pretations of this eschatological vision. 11 Yet despite this wide
divergence of interpretation, there seems to be substantial agreement
among most Christian theologians that the return of Christ !at the
apocalypse! signals the End ofhistory12 !however much they may differ
as to whether this End occurs at the outset or the end of the messianic
Millennium predicted in the Book of RevelationJ. Reinhold Niebuhr,
for example, expresses this view very clearly when he suggests that
history is but an "interim" for man, in which there is no hope for the
fulfillment of the moral and religious ideal, but that this ideal will be
fulfilled "beyond time:' 13 "not within history itself; but at "the end of
history:' 14 The End of history, Niebuhr continues, "is a point where
that which exists ceases to be: it is finis'; "the ultimate vindication of
God over history ... [cannot be] reduced to a point in history:' 15
The notion that, as the Gospel of Matthew puts it, Christ's return
will usher in "the end of the world" 124:31 - that "the field is the world
... [and] the harvest is the end of the world" 113:38-391 - has thus
generally been read to mean that redemption will be the announce-
ment of the End of history, "beyond time" ::aNiebuhr says. Karl
Lowith eloquently summarizes this basic component of Christian
eschatology in an article on "History and Christianity:'

What really begins with the appearance of Jesus Christ is not a

new epoch of secular history, called "Christian," but °the beginning of
an end. The Christian times are Christian only in so far as they are
the last time. Because the Kingdom of God . . . is not to be realized in
a continuous process of historical development, the eschatological
history of salvation also cannot impart a new and progressive mean-
ing to the history of the world, which is fulfilled by having reached
its term. The "meaning" of the history of this world is fulfilled against
120 HEGEI:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

itself, because the story of salvation, as embodied in Jesus Christ,

redeems and dismantles, as it were, the hopeless history of the world. 16

It is from this basic tenet of Christian eschatology, that there is no

historical hope for man but that the redemption and salvation of man
will occur at the End of history, or ''beyond history:• that Hegel's vision
of the consummation of the Christian telos departs. For Hegel, God's
revelation is intrinsically historical. Hence, "the history of the world,
... the process of development and realization of spirit, is the true
theodicy, the justification of God in history' (PhH 457). To say that God
is a manifest God, a revealed God, is for Hegel to say that He is
manifest and revealed in the course of human history. As we noted in
Chapter 'I\vo, any idea of a transhistorical revelation would be to
remove God into a mythological "Beyond:' a realm in which He liter-
ally would cease to be "actual" or "real."

3. Revelation and Reason

This rejection of displacing God into an unknowable "Beyond"

means, according to Hegel's interpretation, that God is not inherently
inaccessible to human reason. The prophet Isaiah's claim that Nthere
is no searching God's understanding" (40:28) is belied, in Hegel's view,
by God's revelation. This reading of revelation has been perhaps the
most criticized aspect of Hegel's unorthodoxy. For it involves a tran-
sgression of the belief in the final inscrutability and unsearchability
of God.
St. Paul writes that man should

judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will
bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest
the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of
God (I Corinthians 4:5).

But when Hegel says that "man must know God:' he means that "the
deepest things of the Godhead:' God's innermost nature and purposes,
are accessible to human reason (PhH 14). Even more strongly, God's
revelation is synonymous with the discovery by human reason of His
nature and purpose: "we must know and apprehend ... [God's revela-
tion] in reason; for it is the work of self-revealing reason and is the
highest form of reason" (HPh 1:62; and v. PhM S564 & Anmerkung).
Revelation is the manifestation of rationality, which is not discon-
 Hegel and Christian Eschatology 121

tinuous with the Bildung of human thought in history, but its very
expression. Since God's manifestation is history itself, His purpose is
"hidden" only to the extent that man does not think that purpose
through in a philosophic way - and, in this sense, God is the very
opposite of an "unsearchable" God. As we saw in Chapter Two, it is a
basic principle of Hegel's grand synthesis that human consciousness
is not finally cut off from the divine Logos, but achieves a unity with
it which is made actual in the unfolding of the historical destiny of
thought and being.
I .mentioned that this view of revelation is one of the most
strenuously opposed aspects of Hegel's departure from Christian
orthodoxy.17 Kierkegaard expresses the feelings of many theologians
when he says that this reduction of revelation to rationality amounts
to the "emasculation" of Christianity. 18 For Kierkegaard, there is an
absolute barrier between faith and reason, and between the
knowledge of God in his revelation to man and theoretical knowledge.
There can be no "objective knowledge" of God - no rational com-
prehension of His redemptive purpose. 19 God is "divinely elusive" and
indeed "invisible'' to reason by this view. 20 Reinhold Niebuhr echoes
Kierkegaard's sentiments when he writes that "History is not rational.
At least it does not conform to the systems of rational coherence
which men construct periodically to comprehend its meaning. . ..
History can be meaningful ... only in terms of a faith ... (in God]
which transcends human understanding:'21 Richard Kroner also
speaks for the majority when he alludes to "the grave danger" of the
Hegelian "dialectical reconciliation of reason and revelation;' on the
grounds that "it conjures up the immanent danger of a misapprehen-
sion of the Word of God" and "seems to imply the transference of the
center of gravity from God to man:' From this decentering of God,
Kroner suggests, it is but a step to a Godless world. 22 And Karl Barth
writes that the Hegelian "Identi{izierung Gottes mit der dialektischen
Methode" - that is, the reduction of "Vernunft und Of(enbaru11g' -
amounts to a reduction of theology to anthropology: "Die
Selbstbewegung der Wahrheit mii/!,te von der Selbstbewegung des
Menschen abgehoben sein - [as opposed to Hegel's explicit equation of
them] - um als Selbstbewegung Gottes gegenuberstehen wiirde:' Accord-
ing to Barth, the true theology must leave God's revelation "incom-
prehensible" and salvation a "mystery" if God is to remain free and if
the idea of divine Grace is to be possible. 23
It is not our place here to adjudicate between the merits of Hegel's
view of revelation and that of thinkers like Kierkegaard, Niebuhr,
Kroner, or Barth. Hegel's is surely the less orthodox view, and yet it
122 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

is no less attuned to the message of Christian eschatology. I would like

to look briefly at four main themes of this message - the meaning of
suffering and our deliverance from suffering, the nature of the Curse,
the idea of the "tabernacle of God:' and finally, the apocalyptic vision
of a "new world" - to give us a feel for the character of Hegel's Chris-
tian eschatology, and to lead in to our discussion of the question of the
ambiguous status of the completion of history.

4. Hegel's Christian Eschatology and the Apocalyptic Vision of

a "New World"

a. Suffering

The idea that with the New Jerusalem "God shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes," delivering man from his "sorrow" and "crying"
and "pain" (Rev. 21:4), can be seen as the central theme of Hegel's
analysis of the "unhappy consciousness" (ungluckliches Bewu~tsein). 24
For Hegel, the experience par excellence of the unhappy consciousness
is religious despair. It is the sense of separation from and yearning for
God, a "quenchless unsatisfied thirst after God;' an "endless longing''
(SXty 291, 200) and "infinite grief' (F&K 190; PhS 456) which is due
precisely to the sense that God is essentially incomprehensible, an
"incognizable God;' and hence unreachably beyond our fathoming.
This is the ultimate alienation and estrangement of man, his infinite
distance from God, his most desolating loss, his terrifying anxiety that
God is dead (see PhS 455). When God is felt to be incomprehensible,
men experience the irrationality of their existence, since they are cut
off from any chance of comprehending the Absolute purpose and
meaning and value of their world.
Hegel argues that it is only out of this sense of loss and grief that
man can attain his authentic nature, which is a consciousness of the
unity of the human and divine: ''The grief and longing of the unhappy
self-consciousness ... permeates [all the shapes of consciousness),
and is the ... common birthpang of [the] emergence of spirit [which
is made whole and healed from its wounds)" (PhS 456f). Only from the
"harsh consciousness of loss;• the "infinite grief" of the experience of
"the abyss of nothingness" into which we are thrown when we feel the
"Godforsakenness" of the world that follows from the inaccessibility
of God to our understanding, can the highest union emerge (F&K 190,
 Hegel and Christian Eschatology 123

191). For without this ''poetry of Protestant grief:' our existence would
fall into "the prose of satisfaction with the finite and of good
conscience about it" (F&K 61). That is, we would be content with and
complacent about the Godless world, with the world of particularity
and finitude, if we never experienced the utter pain and grief of loss
that comes with our yearning for God. Hegel believes that out of this
grief - and only out of this grief - man can rise to the consciousness
of his unity with God, by seeing that God in his revelation is rational,
and that history, which man makes, is always equally the manifesta-
tion of the divine. In this sense, man is not cut off from God's revela-
tion but is rather the agent by which this revelation is made actual,
a co-creator of the rational fabric of world history.
Of course, it remains open to interpretation whether this vision of
man's co-implication in the creation of world history which emerges
out of the unhappy consciousness is to be seen as a last rite of salvation
- a liberation from suffering which occurs at the final End of time and
by which man can henceforth recollectively discover his role in
history from the vantage-point of a post-historical redemption - or
whether, on the contrary, the liberation from despair is a perpetually
recurring event of human existence. Under the first interpretation,
which is in keeping with the apocalyptic reading of Hegel's
eschatology, despair will be overcome once and for all at the final
close of history, since the condition for the possibility of despair, man's
being-in-the-world of time, is itself overcome. Under the second inter-
pretation, salvation from the despair of estrangement would come at
the culmination of each successive epoch of history, when a culture
has risen to the perspective from which it can comprehend the pur-
pose of its destiny as more than an irrational reeling through time, but
as an expression of Absolute Spirit in its progressive historical evolu-
tion. Certainly, such an epochal overcoming of alienation necessarily
implies that despair is not something which will be "resolved" once
and for all, but is rather a perpetually regenerating fate of mankind,
as each new epoch strives with its own conflicts and discords, in its
own test of the spirit. But such a view seems to me to be the logical
consequence of Hegel's definition of spirit as having life only insofar
as it transmutes itself in the crucible of negativity and strife. Which
of these two interpretations we choose will depend, then, on whether
we believe Hegel should be willing to see spirit reaching a completion
in which it finally overcomes its own definition, its inherent nega-
tivity, and hence becomes something fundamentally other than itself,
being "redeemed" and "saved" from its own nature.
124 HEGEI;S GRAND SYNTHESIS

b. The Curse
A second aspect of Christian eschatology which Hegel's
philosophical theology is attuned to despite its unorthodoxy is the idea
that in the New Jerusalem, "there shall be no more curse" jRev. 22:3).
We have mentioned in Chapter Three that Hegel regards the Curse
which follows upon the Fall of man as expressing a necessary condi-
tion for man to rise out of his merely "natural" condition to authen-
ticity. The Curse demands that man toil with his inner conflict
between good and evil, which Hegel views as an essential labor for the
Bildung of the human spirit coming to know itself. Innocence is like
"the mere being of a stone, not even that of a child" (PhS 282), a
nonhuman indifference to moral conflict. The overcoming of the
Curse which is promised in Christian eschatology represents not a
return to innocence, but a more profound harmony in which man has
recognized his unity with God, in the sense of his responsibility to
shun the "prose of satisfaction with the finite;' and his role in transfor-
ming his inner nature and his outer existence into images of the
divine. The Curse, then, is really a disguised blessing, initiating the
path of labor by which man ascends to his authentic nature.
As with the question of how to interpret the deliverance from suf-
fering, however, we must recognize the ambiguous character of
Hegel's portrayal of the Curse. For it is not at all obvious whether the
mandate of the Curse, that man must labor and toil to rise to his
authentic nature, is meant to lead to a final destiny or rather is con-
ceived as an unending destiny. Does man achieve authenticity only at
the close of history, as a sort of posthistorical consolation or reward,
or is human authenticity perpetually being created and recreated, in
a rhythm of discovery and loss and subsequent recovery? For now, the
choice remains open, the ambiguity unresolved.

c. The "Th.bernacle of God"

A third aspect of the eschatological prophecy is that of the "taber-
nacle of God:'

And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from
God out of heaven, prepared as a bride for her husband.
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the taber-
nacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall
be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God
(Rev. 21:2-3).
 Hegel and Christian. Eschatology 125

While we have noted the ambiguity attending Hegel's presentation of

the themes of suffering and the Curse, his position with regard to the
tabernacle of God seems much more straightforward: the tabernacle
of God is the community of the Church on earth and in history. We have
already cited jin Chapter 1\vol Hegel's belief that "one may have all
sorts of ideas about the Kingdom of God; but it is always a realm of
spirit to be realized and brought about in man" (PhH 201. Hegel follows
Christ's saying that "the kingdom of God is in the midst of you" jLuke
17:211.25 As he writes in his Spirit of Christianity, 'What Jesus calls the
'Kingdom of God' is the living harmony of men; ... it is the develop-
ment of the divine among men" jSXty 277; v. 267f; PhS 4731. And in
his History of Philosophy Hegel says that "the reconciliation of God with
Himself is accomplished in the world, and not as a heavenly kingdom
that is beyond" jHPh 3:211- The human community is the witness to
God, being His manifestation in the world. Hence, the true elevation
of man to a unity with God takes place in history, and specifically,
according to Hegel, in the Christian epoch in which man sees his unity
with God through the revelation of God in His Son, who is the living
symbol of the reconciliation of the human and divine natures.
Here we see the seeds of a somewhat different ambiguity from
what we have been talking about so far: the ambiguity has been
displaced from a question of the fate of history itself - whether Hegel
is proposing a posthistorical destiny of man or a continually open-
ended course of development - to the question of whether he is sug-
gesting that the Christian epoch will be the last era of history, not
beyond history, but nevertheless beyond the need for further
historical evolution. We will see that both of these ambiguities - one
is tempted to borrow a phrase from Hegel out of its context, and speak
of an "ambiguous ambiguity"! 26 - are very real in Hegel's eschatology,
and often intertwine to add confusion to confusion.

d. The ''New World"

What, finally, are we to say of the Hegelian interpretation of the
apocalyptic vision of a new world, where "former things are passed
away" and God will "make all things new" jRev. 21:4-51? This question
brings us to the crux of the issue of completion in Hegel's theological
eschatology. From what we have just seen about Hegel's interpretation
of the tabernacle of God, it seems that the fulfillment of the Christian
Logos could not possibly take place "beyond time" or "outside of
history:' The Christian eschaton, the "new world" of prophecy, must
126 HEGEIJS GRAND SYNTHESIS

itself be subject to the dialectic of history, the dialectic of perpetual

becoming. And yet we have also seen, with regard to Hegel's appropri-
ation of the Christian themes of suffering and the Curse, that there is
some question about whether this fulfillment will be beyond history.
So too, there is a real question as to whether Hegel's frequent
reference to the emergence of a "new world" is meant to announce the
superseding of time and history. Fran~ois Chatelet, for one, says that
Hegel takes over "l'eschatologie chretienne, ... [with its assertion of the]
fin de l'Histoire . .. [and the] abolition du temps" lock, stock and barrel. 27
In fact, we will see in Chapter Seven that the majority of commen-
tators read Hegel's eschatology in this absolutist way, as entailing the
"abolition of time" so that the "new world" of Christian prophecy is to
be a post-historical world. It is this absolutist interpretation of Hegel's
eschatology which I am most opposed to, and against which I wish to
propose the alternative of an open-ended, epochal reading of history.
We will return to look more carefully at this absolutist reading in just
a moment, when we turn to a discussion of Hegel's own talk of an
"annulment" or "annihilation" (Tilgung) of time (see section 5). But first
I would like us to look at a quite different interpretation, one offered
by Karl Lowith in his splendid intellectual history of nineteenth-
century thought, From Hegel to Nietzsche. Lowith's interpretation dif-
fers from Chatelet's in two ways - first, it is an epochal rather than
an absolutist reading of the Christian End; and second, it corresponds
to the ambiguity which we saw to arise out of Hegel's conception of
the tabernacle of God, the ambiguity over the status of Christianity as
the last era of history (rather than the qualitatively different ambiguity
which arose out of the question of the deliverance from suffering and
the nature of the Curse, over the fate of history itself).
Lowith writes that "Hegel displaces the Christian expectation of
the end of the world of time into the course of the world process" and
views his own age as the "definitive conclusion" and "consummation"
of this Christian expectation. 28 But this consummation is not to be
read in the same way as Lowith characterizes orthodox Christian
eschatology, as a "redemption and dismantling of the hopeless history
of the world" (see p. 120 above). For Hegel displaces this posthistorical
redemption into the course of world history. This means, according to
Lowith, that there is no End of historical time per se, and when Hegel
speaks of the completion of history he is really intending to refer to
"the end of the history of the Christian logos:' 29 This implies that Hegel
views Christianity as something to be superseded itself, which is
indeed how Lowith interprets Hegel's talk of "the present age" (early
 Hegel and Christian Eschatology 127

1800sl being the "opening of a new era!'30 Lowith may be referring to

the close of Hegel's History of Philosophy, where he says that "a new
epoch has arisen in the world" (HPh 3:5511. We will discuss this
crucial passage - along with other passages in which Hegel speaks
explicitly of a "new world" - at more length in Chapter Seven, but
should point out here that it seems to suggest, against Lowith's inter-
pretation, that the "new epoch" is itself the age of Christianity in its
highest form. 31 For Hegel speaks of the 'World-spirit at last succeeding
in stripping off from itself all alien objective existence, and apprehend-
ing itself at last as absolute spirit;' and of "the strife of the finite self-
consciousness (man] with the absolute self-consciousness [God],
which last seemed to the other to lie outside itself, now com[ing] to
an end" (HPh 3:5511 - language which is too close to Hegel's analysis
of the unhappy consciousness, whose overcoming is to usher in a
reconciliation of man with the Christian God, to read as a superseding
or going beyond Christianity.
Hegel views the fulfillment of the Christian Logos as the "perfec-
tion of spirit" (PhS 4131, in which the human spirit gains "liberation"
and "reconciliation" from alienation (HPh 2:2, 3, 61. And he calls this
a "final concord" of man with himself, with his world, and with God
(SL S24 Zusatz). To suggest, however, as Lowith does, that Hegel
regards this consummation of the Christian spirit as merely an epoch
which, in gaining its fulfillment, is overcome and points to "the open-
ing of a new era' which will displace the Christian Logos, is hard to
accept. If, as Lowith says, Hegel really viewed his own age and culture
as the "end of the history of the Christian logos;• where "a great turning
(away from] and break with Christianity" would be made, "thus open-
ing a new (post-Christian] era:'32 then I am perplexed as to how we are
to understand Hegel's recurring references to Christianity as the
"perfection of spirit" and the revelation of absolute truth. It is hard to
envision a historical progress no longer guided by the spirit of Chris-
tianity which would not be a decline of knowledge and a decay of
truth - or how could history progress beyond perfection and the
Absolute?
Lowith's interpretation of Hegelian eschatology is certainly a
tempting one, at least for someone like myself who is convinced that
only under an epochal reading of Hegel's language of completion can
we salvage the metaphysics of be~oming which makes his anatomy of
spirit intelligible. In fact, I do accept Lowith's interpretation, with this
all-important proviso: Lowith seems to arrive at his interpretation too
abruptly, without acknowledging just how much it stands in conflict
128 HEGEI;S GRAND SYNTHESIS

with a great deal of evidence which suggests that Hegel never

intended to portray Christianity as just one more epoch of
Weltgeschichte, destined to be overcome like all other epochs. Lowith's
is a way of reading Hegel with which Hegel would have been quite
uncomfortable, because of that side of him which felt constrained to
posit a radical End of history, a fact that Lowith does not come to grips
with. If we are to accept Lowith's reading, as I believe we should, it
is important to explicitly recognize that it is a reading which stands in
fundamental tension with the other (apocalyptic) side of Hegel's am-
bivalence, a side which in fact often got the better of him in his direct-
ly theological musings on history. Hegel fell under the spell of the
Christian description of the ultimacy of its own Logos, and as a result
he compromised his Heraclitian metaphysics, against all of his own
principles. If we finally wish to accept an epochal reading such as
Lowith's, we must correct it by seeing how it is in fact a rereading and
reconstruction of Hegel's eschatology, which is necessary to recover
the integrity of the Hegelian dialectic from the spell of the radical End
which crippled it.

5. The Ambiguity Deepens

But let us not leap too quickly to this reconstruction, which will
be the work of Chapter Seven. We have yet to take up Chatelet's sug-
gestion that Hegel should be read literally when he speaks of the "new
world;' the age of the fulfillment of the Christian Logos, as the End of
time and history. Hegel does in fact speak of the "annulment" or
"annihilation" (die Tilgung) of time, and in order to assess the merits of
the literalist interpretation of Hegel's Christian eschatology we must
understand what he means by this "Tilgung:'33 The crucial passage is
in the· concluding pages of the Phenomenology, where Hegel is describ-
ing Absolute Knowledge in terms of the complete overcoming of the
antithesis of knowledge and its objects (its world).

Time is the Begriff itself that is there [da$ da ist]. 34 ••• For this
reason, spirit necessarily appears in time, and it appears in time just
so long as it has not grasped its pure Begriff, i.e., has not annulled time
[nicht die Zeit tilgt]. [Time] is the outer [shape of the Begriff) . .. ; when
[the Begriff is truly comprehended], it sets aside its time-form [hebt
er seine Zeit{orm aut) . ... Time, therefore, appears as the destiny and
necessity of spirit that is not yet complete within itself ... (PhS 487).
 Hegel and Christian. Eschatology 129

Time is the "destiny and necessity of spirit" to unfold its potentiality

into actuality, and hence "spirit necessarily appears in time.• But time
is the outer form of the Begriff, the externalization ldie Entii.uf,erung) of
thought into the world and history, and when this external unfolding
of spirit "has completed itself" and "reached its consummation" IPhS
488), the Begriff !thought, knowledge, truth in general) "sets aside its
time-form."
Perhaps the most straightforward way of reading this is to say
with Chatelet and the "literalists" that with the attainment of Absolute
Knowledge, or, in the context of Hegel's theology, with the achieve-
ment of the Christian Logos, time simply comes to an end. This would
be in keeping with the apocalyptic interpretation of Hegel's
eschatology, where the "new world" is to occur as a redemption
beyond history. Hence Lukacs says that the annulment of time
"amounts to the self-annulment of history,"35 and Dieter Jahnig charges
that "die Aufopferung menschlicher Gegenwart [through the Tilgung of
time) auf dem Altar des Endzwecks [Hegel's Absolute Knowledge) ihren
Grund in einer Beseitigung wirklicher Geschichte hat."36 But I would sug-
gest that there is another way of reading this passage, corresponding
to the nonabsolutist pole of Hegel's ambivalence, in which the "annul-
ment of time" does not refer to a final End of time. By this interpreta-
tion, the "annulment of time" refers to the eternal form of concepts,
what Hegel calls the "inward" linnerlich) form of thought as opposed
to its 'buter" or "external" lii.uf,erlich) form. This inward form of thought
is precisely the Er-innerung in which past shapes of "outer" historical
existence become grasped as comprehended history. In this sense,
when knowledge has !epochally) overcome the antithesis between its
thought and its objects, its concepts become comprehended in their
eternal significance.37 In Chapter Two we saw that truth has both a
temporal, historically developing form and an eternal, atemporal form
for Hegel. Both are essential to truth, for truth is intrinsically dual-
natured, existentially determined and hence temporal in its manifesta-
tion, and yet also transcendent of this historical manifestatiori. 38
In line with this idea, perhaps Hegel means to say that the Chris-
tian era is eternal not in the sense of being "beyond history" or at "the
end of time:' but in the sense of the "timelessness" of its truth: the
Begriff or Logos of Christianity does not "lose itself" or become under-
mined in time. Yet this truth still requires manifestation, and hence a
temporal existence. Christianity is the End or telos c;,f human history
in the sense that it expresses the ultimate purpose and meaning of
spirit, but this too must be subject to the world of time, the world of
130 HEGEI!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

change: this purpose and meaning must be worked out and evolved
in history.
This interpretation has all the marks of Hegel's infamous synthetic
principle of the unity of opposites: the Christian era is both eternal
and temporal, absolute and changing. Interestingly, it also bears strik-
ing resemblance to one common interpretation of Marx's eschatology.
When Marx describes the approaching communist revolution as an
event which will bring about the total "supersession [Aufhebung] of
self-estrangement;' and as the ultimate "resolution of the conflict" in-
herent in history, "the solution of the riddle of history"39 - he is usual-
ly read in such a way that he is not suggesting that history will come
to an End, that communist society will somehow be "beyond history:'40
Although there will be no more class conflict, which Marx and Engels
regard as the moving force of all previous history, the communist
world will continue to evolve, not beyond communism, to be sure, but
still in such a way that will give full place to human creativity and
development. If Marx is able to speak of a "resolution'' of history which
still allows for historical development, why shouldn't we permit Hegel
to do the same?
Now I think this last point is a perfectly valid one - that Marx and
Hegel do in fact face analogous situations with regard to their
eschatological visions, and that the two should ~e judged in a similar
way. I confess for my own part, however, that I am not entirely com-
fortable with this interpretation, where we must envision an ultimate
"solution to the riddle of history" which itself will not be overcome and
which nevertheless is compatible with historical development. It is
not that I cannot imagine historical change occurring under an essen-
tially unchanging guiding Logos. There has certainly been tremendous
historical change in the common era, since the beginning of Chris-
tianity, and I would be willing to accept (at least for the sake of argu-
ment) that the essential truth of Christianity has remained unchanged.
Rather, it is that this interpretation just does not seem to accord with
Hegel's central principle that the consummation of one shape of spirit
necessarily "signals the death of that shape:' "the rejection of that stage
and its transition to a higher" (PhR S243). This interpretation would
allow for historical change, but not for fundamental change, not for the
sort of change which is necessary for the evolution from one historical
epoch to another. And the most straightforward way to read Hegel's
dialectic is in terms of a commitment to fundamental change. Time
itself is for Hegel out-and-out "negativity:' the perpetual process of the
·dissolution of all existence," the subsequent "transcendence of that
existence," and the "production of a new, renovated, fresh life" (PhH 77,
 Hegel and Christian Eschatology 131

78, 73). If the fulfillment of the Christian Logos is in fact meant to be

a final, unalterable state of affairs, clearly it must somehow escape
this intrinsic "negativity" of time, and this would seem to require that
it take place beyond history, the theater of time.
The ambiguity and ambivalence in Hegel's theory of completion
is not superseded in his Christian eschatology. For (1I if Chatelet is
right that Hegel's Christian eschatology announces the "abolition du
temps;' then he seems equally correct in saying that we can make no
sense out of the Hegelian ontology and metaphysics: "['esprit, qui est
devenir [by Hegel's own definition], ne saurait etre supprime [without
violating its very definition]. [But then] l'humanite [necessarily] con-
tinuera de devenir; mais, au sein de l'Etat mondial, elle n'evoluera plus, en
ce sense qu'elle ne creera plus rien de nouveau . ... Ce que sera une telle
existence, il est egalement impossible de l'imaginer:'41 Whether or not this
is impossible to imagine, it does not seem possible to reconcile with
Hegel's ontology: spirit is a progressive becoming, a perpetual
development in its very essence, so that a nontemporal,
suprahistorical spirit would simply be a contradiction in terms. 42
But (2) if the "new world" is not to be the End of history and time,
then it seems impossible to see how it could persevere without pro-
gress, and hence without alteration. And if alteration or development
is to be allowed, then we must ask what sense it makes to speak of
the Christian eschaton as the revelation of absolute truth. The notion
of development relativizes every particular stage within the develop-
ment, and unless we are willing to speak on of "absolute" truth which
is relative to the course of development up to the present - i.e., a
"relative absolute" - then the idea of an eternal "new world" in history
seems to slip out of our grasp. 43
We have reached an impasse as to how we are to read Hegel's
eschatology, and we need to seek further to find the way to turn,
towards the absolutist or the nonabsolutist alternative. A good place
to begin our search is with a closer look at Hegel's conception of the
"new world" in some of the less directly theological passages of his
speculations about the nature of history, metaphysics, and scientific
knowledge. As we turn to these passages in our last chapter, I will
argue that while they do not completely resolve our impasse, they do
guide us in the direction of the nonabsolutist reading of Hegel's
eschatology.
 Chapter Seven

THE QUESTION OF COMPLETION:

HEGEI.:S PHILOSOPHIC ESCHATOLOGY

You yourself, honored teacher, intimated orally to me

one day that you were entirely convinced of the necessity
of new progress and new forms of the universal Spirit, ...
without, however, being able to give me any more precise
account of these forms . ... However, this conviction fi.nds
itself in flat contradiction with your systematic teachings,
which, far from demanding such a progress of the world
Spirit, on the contrary defi.nitely exclude it.
Letter to Hegel from Christian Hermann Weisse,
July 11, 1829

We have determined to seek our point of orientation in the confus-

ing terrain of Hegel's ambiguous eschatology in his conception of the
"new world:' In the first two sections of this chapter we will look at
four crucial passages, three from the Phenomenology and one from the
History of Philosophy. In three of the passages Hegel speaks of his pre-
sent age as the ushering-in of a new world, and in the fourth he speaks
of the "Calvary" or "Golgotha" (die Schadelstatte) of absolute spirit. The
"Calvary" passage, along with two of the "new world" passages, reveal
under analysis Hegel's fundamental ambiguity as regards the question
of completion. But I will argue that they also show - particularly
when read with the third "new world" passage, from the Preface to the
Phenomenology - that one side of the ambiguity has stronger claims
than the other, if consistency with the principles of Hegel's dialectic
is to be taken as the criterion for judging. This is the side which rejects

133
134 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

any radical, final End to time and history, any final resolution to
knowledge, truth, being, or history, beyond which no progress can be
made. I will not argue, however, that the Hegelian ambiguity is only
superficial, for the other side, that there is a definite completion of the
dialectic, also has support within Hegel's system. 1 As I have suggested
all along, there is a real and unresolved ambivalence in Hegel's
philosophy as regards the question of completion, which has its roots
in opposing and finally unreconcilable desiderata of his view of the
nature of knowledge and being, truth and history. 2

1. The "New World" Revisited

Let us look at the companion passages from the conclusions to the

Phenomenology and the History of Philosophy where Hegel speaks of the
"new world." In both cases, the context is Hegel's discussion of the
question of the completion of knowledge and history. First, in the clos-
ing pages of the Phenomenology, Hegel leads up to the Hnew world"
passage by saying that Absolute Knowledgs, involves "the reconcilia-
tion of consciousness [of the world] with self-consciousness:' and that
with this "unification ... [we have reached] the close of the series of
the shapes of spirit;' and the Hcompletion of the work [of spirit]" jPhS
482f, 486). The attainment of Absolute Knowledge is thus the actual
fulfillment of Hegel's long-pursued goal of a grand synthesis of
thought and being. He then speaks of the •Tilgung of time:' and goes
on to say that with Absolute Knowledge "spirit has completed itself in
itself, ... completed itself as world-spirit," and "reached its consumma-
tion; ... in this [absolute] knowing, then, spirit has concluded the
movement in which it has shaped itself'' jPhS 488, 490). Following this
evidently apocalyptic language of completion, Hegel now turns to
speak of the "new world:'

The becoming ... (or] history ... (of spirit] presents a slow-
moving succession of spirits, a gallery of images, each of which,
endowed with all the riches of spirit, moves thus slowly just because
the self has to penetrate and digest this entire wealth of its substance.
As its fulfillment consists in perfectly knowing what it is, in knowing
its substance [i.e., the history of spirit's self-externalization in the
world], this [absolute] knowing is its withdrawal into itself in which
it abandons its outer existence and gives its existential shape over to
recollection. Thus absorbed in itself, it is sunk in the night of its self-
consciousness; but in that night its vanished outer existence is
 Hegel's Philosophic Eschatology 135

preserved, and this transformed existence - the former one, but now
reborn of the spirit's knowledge - is the new existence, a new world
and a new sha-pe of spirit (PhS 4921.

Before discussing this difficult passage, let us cite the parallel

passage from the History of Philosophy as well, where Hegel elaborates
on the "new world:' or what he calls there the "new epoch:' The
passage is at the end of the last section of the History of Philosophy,
which Hegel calls the "Final Result:'

'lb know opposition in unity, and unity in opposition - this is

absolute knowledge; and science is the knowledge of this unity in its
whole development. ...
This [absolute knowledge) is then the demand of all time and of
philosophy. A new e-poch has arisen in the world. It would appear as
if the world-spirit has at last succeeded in stripping off from itself all
alien objective existence, and apprehending itself at last as absolute
spirit. ... The strife of the finite self-consciousness [man) with the
absolute self-consciousness [God], which last seemed to the other to
lie outside of itself, now comes to an end. ...
This is the whole history of the world in general up to the present
time, and the history of philosophy in particular, the sole work of
which is to depict this strife. Now, indeed, it seems to have reached
its goal, when this absolute self-consciousness, which it had the work
of representing, has ceased to be alien, and when spirit accordingly
is realized as spirit (HPh 3:55lfl,

In the Phenomenology passage, Hegel presents his v1S1on of

Absolute Knowledgs as the "fulfillment" of the historical becoming of
spirit, in which the self has a "perfect knowledge" of that history. This
knowledge is recollective, purely theoretical and no longer a praxis in
the world: it is a "withdrawal into itself in which it abandons its outer
existence:' an "absorption into itself, sunk in the night of its self-
consciousness:' But this recollective project, in which Absolute
Knowledge perfectly "penetrates and digests" the history of the shapes
or images of spirit, results in a "transformed existence" of spirit. Our
knowledge of the past is the rebirth of spirit, a "new existence, a new
world, and a new shape of spirit."
This passage may be read in two ways, reflecting the fundamental
ambiguity of Hegel's vision of completion. It may mean simply that
the past is transformed and appears in a new light - as a new world
- when it is penetrated by Absolute Knowledge. If so, then Absolute
138 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

Hegel's language at the close of the Phenomenology be any less am-

biguous than it is when he speaks of the "new world'7 However much
we may scrutinize these passages for an unambiguous statement of
Hegel's intentions, we seek in vain for anything remotely resembling
Fichte's "report, clear as the sun:' which Fichte felt constrained to
write to avoid any misunderstanding or confusion on the part of his
dull-witted readers. 9

2. Evidence for the Epochal Reading of Hegel's Eschatology:

Placing the "New World" in Context

Having set the stage for our discussion of the ambivalence and
ambiguity which attends Hegel's conception of the question of com-
pletion, I would like to turn to my argument that one side of ambiguity
- the side which does not assert an absolute End of history, but which
is epochal and open-ended - has stronger claims than the other to be
adopted. I will begin by seeking to tip the balance of the ambiguity in
the "new epoch" passage of the History of Philosophy, by arguing that
the context in which this passage occurs should lead us to adopt the
nonabsolutist version of completion. I will then turn to the third of the
''new world" passages I referred to at the beginning of this chapter, the
passage from the Preface to the Phenomenology, and argue that this
illuminates the difficult "new world" passage at the conclusion of the
Phenomenology in such a way that we should again adopt the nonab-
solutist side of Hegel's ambivalent eschatology. Finally, in section 3 I
will turn to some of the stronger assertions in Hegel's texts on both
sides of the ambiguity of the question of completion, and try to show
that while there is sufficient evidence for reading Hegel's position in
either the absolutist or nonabsolutist sense of completion, the nonab-
solutist version is to be preferred.
The whole tone of the concluding section of the History of
Philosophy, the "Final Result" section, is one of taking stock of where
we have arrived so as to look to the future. After the passage about
the "new epoch" where Hegel says of the history of the world and the
history of philosophy that "now, indeed, it seems to have reached its
goal," he goes on to say that "this, then, is the standpoint of the present
day, and the series of spiritual forms is with it for the present concludecl'
(HPh 3:552). This seems to give very strong support to the nonab-
solutist interpretation of Hegel's eschatology, where history is to have
a future progression. In this passage, at least, the completion of the
development of spirit is epochal, not absolute, and the -whole develop-
 Hegel's Philosophic Eschatology 139

ment" of spirit which Hegel refers to shortly before this sentence

would seem to mean the whole development up to now, rather than a
radically closed whole, that is, rather than the closure of history itself.
Further, in the penultimate paragraph of the History of Philosophy,
just before thanking his students for attending his lectures, Hegel
exhorts his students to "give ear to the urgency [of spirit] - when the
mole that is within forces its way on, we have to make it a reality"
jHPh 3:553). Hegel indeed speaks of the "summons" of the spirit "to
bring it forth f6lm its natural condition, ... its lifeless seclusion, into
the light of day" jHPh 3:553). This sense of urgency and this summons
would seem inappropriate if the "new epoch" were to be ''beyond
history:'
Finally, the concluding section of the History of Philosophy is inter-
spersed with passages which reaffirm Hegel's Heraclitian
metaphysics, with its emphasis on the nature of spirit as a perpetual
becoming: "[Spirit] goes ever on and on, because spirit is progress
alone. Spirit often seems to have forgotten and lost itself, but inwardly
opposed to itself, it is inwardly working ever forward" jHPh 3:546f);
"[The] eternal life [of spirit] consists in the very process of continually
producing the opposition [of subject and object, thought and being,
self and world] and continually reconciling it" jHPh 3:551). In the light
of such passages, I would argue that when Hegel speaks of the "con-
summation" or "completion• or "coming to an end" or "reaching the
goal" of spirit, that such pronouncements should be read as the fulfill-
ment of the telos of a historical epoch, not of history or knowledge
entire - a fulfillment which will give place to a new epoch, a new pro-
duction and work of spirit.
Returning now to the Phenomenology, the "new world" passage
which we have seen to yield diverging possible interpretations
depending on how we understand Hegel's talk of the "completion" and
"conclusion" of the work and self-development of spirit, finds its key,
I believe, in a passage from the Preface in which Hegel also speaks of
the "new world:' The Preface, we should recall, was written immedi-
ately after the body of the Phenomenology was completed, and it seems
quite proper to assume that Hegel had the concluding passage of his
work in mind when he returned, in his Preface, to the theme of the
"new world."

It is not difficult to see that ours is a birth-time and a period of

transition to a new era. Spirit has broken with the world it has
hitherto inhabited and imagined, and is of a mind to submerge it in
the past, and in the labor of its own transformation. Spirit is indeed
140 HEGEI!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

never at rest but always engaged in moving forward .... The vague
forboding (which our age feels) of something unknown ... [is] the
herald of approaching change.
. . . But this new world is no more a complete actuality than is
a newborn child; it is essential to bear this in mind. It comes on the
scene for the first time in its immediacy ... (PhS 6f).

This passage is frankly and straightforwardly anticipatory, a

looking-forward to a new era of history. The new world is explicitly
portrayed as in its birth-time, as opposed to being the fulfillment and
conclusion of a past epoch. There is again the reaffirmation of Hegel's
Heraclitian metaphysics, the idea that Hspirit is indeed never at rest
but always engaged in moving forward:' And finally, there is an illumi-
nating echoing of some of the more obscure language of the "new
world" passage at the close of the Phenomenology.
The concluding "new world" passage speaks of spirit becoming
"sunk in the night of its self-consciousness" jin der Nacht seines
Selbstbewu~tseins versunken [Phiin 590)!, and of its "outer existence"
becoming a "transformed existence" jaufgehobene Dasein), "reborn"
from this submersion. Similarly, the Preface passage speaks of the
"birth" of a new era of spirit as involving a Hsubmerging [of its previous
world] in the past, and in the labor of its own transformation" jder
bisherigen Welt ... in die Vergangenheit hinab zu versenken, und in der
Arbeit seines Umgestaltung [Phi.in 18)!. While there was doubt as to the
meaning of the "submersion'' and "transformation" in the concluding
passage - as to whether it was just the past which was transformed
by this sinking-inward of self-consciousness, or whether the "outer
existence" of spirit became transformed as well, pointing to a future
development - there is no such doubt about the Preface passage. The
past is HsubmergedH in self-consciousness jas recollective knowledge of
history), and the world itself is to be transformed and reborn, to "move
forward" into a new epoch. 10

3. Pro and Con

While I have been arguing that Hegel's eschatological vision of the

completion of history and knowledge can best be understood as refer-
ring to the epochal consummation rather than to the absolute conclu-
sion of spirit, I have also maintained that the ambiguity between these
two readings is not ultimately resolved in his philosophy. Let us turn
now to survey very briefly and selectively some of the stronger
 Hegel's Philosophic Eschatology 141

evidence in Hegel's texts for both of the conflicting readings of

completion.
In the Introduction to this Philosophy of History, Hegel says that
spirit "exhibits not ... mere ... development, but the attainment of a
definite result. The goal of attainment [is] determined at the outset: it
is spirit in its completeness" (PhH 55J. This is but one of many, many
passages in which Hegel makes no qualifications on the completeness
to be attained by spirit. And any such qualification is hard to find in
Hegel's talk, throughout the Philosophy of History, of Europe as "the last
stage in history" (PhH 4421: ''The history of the world travels from East
to West, for Europe is absolutely the end of history" (PhH 103J. In the
Philosophy of Mind Hegel speaks of world history following a "path of
liberation ... by which the absolute final aim of the world is realized"
(PhM S549J. This conception of an absolute End is stated very clearly
in various places, for example, in the History of Philosophy: "It may
seem as if this progression (of spirit] were to go on into infinitude, but
it has an absolute end in view" (HPh 1:35J; and the Encyclopcedia: ''This
liberation (of spirit] is not ... something never completed, a liberation
only striven for endlessly; on the contrary, mind wrests itself out of
this progress to infinity, free(ing] itself absolutely from limitation"
(PhM $386 ZusatzJ.
This view of the absolute End of history (or being in general! and
knowledge is asserted by Hegel so as to dissociate himself from the
''bad infinite'' of Fichte's never-ending progress towards knowledge,
and to attain an Absolute Knowledge which will vindicate truth from
all relativism and scepticism. But Hegel also shares Fichte's view that
being is essentially a becoming. Hence he writes that the "absolute
Idea" - reason or thought in general, viewed as the unifying of subject
and object, or the grand synthesis of thought and being - is 'eternal
creation:' "essentially a process," 'absolute negativity and for that
reason ... immanently dialectical" (SL SS214 Anmerkung, 215J. Spirit
is life, and life is "fluid" (flussigJ, so that its "self-identity," or "relation
to self; is immediately a "self-sundering" (EntzweienJ: spirit in this way
is an 'absolute unrest of self-movement" (absolute Unruhe des reinen
Sichselbstbewegens) (PhS 108, 101). Spirit has a content, Hegel says,
only because "it is its own restless process of superseding itself, or
negativity, . . . self-alienating" l(Der] Inhalt . . . ist seine Unruhe, sich
selbst aufzuheben, oder die Negativitat, ... das sich entau~emde Selbst)
(PhS 490f). It is the "necessity of externalizing" itself which alone
accounts for the "supreme freedom and assurance of [spirit's] self-
knowledge'' (PhS 491J. To think of Absolute Knowledge as an attain-
ment in which spirit had overcome all alienation and externalization,
142 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

all "unrest" and negativity, all self-superseding, would thus be to think

of a state of mind in which the very condition for having knowledge
had been overcome!
This ontology of the spirit leads Hegel to a view of knowledge, be-
ing, and history which conflicts with his view of an absolute End. He
expresses this non-absolutist, epochal view clearly in his Philosophy of
Right, in a passage we have already partially cited.

In history, the act of Geist is to gain consciousness of itself as

Geist, to apprehend itself in its interpretation of itself to itself. This
apprehension is its being and its principle, and the completion of ap-
prehension at one stage is at the same time the rejection of that stage
and its transition to a higher.
. . . The shapes which [the Weltgeist] takes pass away, while the
absolute Geist prepares and works out its transition to its next higher
stage .
. . . The history [of an epoch] ... contains la) the development
of its principle from its latent embryonic stage until it blossoms into
the self-conscious freedom of ethical life and presses in upon world-
history; and lbJ the period of its decline and fall, since it is its decline
and fall that [lcl) signals the emergence in it of a higher principle
!PhR SS343, 344, 347 Anmerkung).

This is Hegel's Phoenix theme, the central metaphor of his

anatomy of being or spirit, where spirit is 'eternally preparing for itself
its funeral pile and consuming itself upon it, but so that from its ashes
is produced a new, renovated, fresh life'' jPhH 73). This is a vision of
the eternally "restless mutation and change" of spirit (PhH 72), where
the fulfillment or "satisfaction [of attaining) ... what is desired;' the
principle or telos of a shape of spirit, "signals the death of that shape"
(PhH 74f). "For spirit;' Hegel says, "the highest attainment is self-
knowledge, ... [and] this it is destined to accomplish; but the accomp-
lishment is at the same time its dissolution and the rise of another
spirit, ... another epoch of Weltgeschichte" jPhH 71). Spirit is destined
to achieve its goal, in the recollective epiphany of Absolute
Knowledge, but this achievement is episodic, occurring at the
culmination of each epoch, where every recollective closure of the cir-
cle of an epoch reaches beyond itself to the opening of a new era,
regenerating history at each moment of its temporary fulfillment, just
as every satisfaction recreates desire at the instant of completion.
As with knowledge, which in order to be radically complete
would have to destroy the very conditions for its own possibility, so
 Hegel's Philosophic Eschatology 143

too with being and history - if being and history are to reach a radical
consummation, an "absolute final end:' they would at once undermine
the very conditions which animate the world-spirit. The final satisfac-
tion of being and history would be the final death of spirit. This is why
I feel we must sacrifice Hegel's desire to portray an absolute, radical
consummation of knowledge and history and being, and seek the value
of his philosophy in an epochal conception of the development of
Geist. Only such a sacrifice can avoid the deeper, paralyzing sacrifice
of the dialectical soul of Hegel's philosophy.

4. Other Views

a. The Literal {Absolutist} Interpretation

This proposal for a sacrificial renunciation of Hegel's absolutism
does not sit well with the usual understanding of Hegel's system. For
the majority of commentators on Hegel have read his language of the
completion of spirit literally, seeing him as committed to the absolutist
version of eschatology, and feeling that this spells the ultimate failure
(and even incomprehensibility! of his philosophy. We have already
mentioned Kierkegaard's view of the Hegelian system as an "impos-
sible" system because of the conflict between its claim to portray the
whole and its failure to complete itself. 11 Before surveying some other
authors who share this view, I would like to linge~ a bit with
Kierkegaard's critique, since in many ways it is representative of those
which followed it.
Stephen Crites, in his In the 'Iwilight of Christendom: Hegel vs.
Kierkegaard on Faith and History, has a splendid discussion of
Kierkegaard's critique of Hegel's theory of Absolute Knowledge,
centering on the concept of recollection. He points out that
Kierkegaard, in his Postscript and Concept of Dread, traces the Hegelian
concept of Erinnerung back to Platonic recollection, and says of both
that they involve a "movement backward" into knowledge: truth "lies
behind as the past into which one only enters backwards," he writes
in the Concept of Dread. Genuinely existential truth, on the other
hand, is found in the category of action (as opposed to contemplation!,
which does not involve a recollection, but a "repetition, by which one
enters eternity forwards." 12 Crites puts the difference very nicely: "Not
in the re-collected necessity of thought, but in the contingency of
historically situated action directed toward an uncollected future, a
man appropriates truth~' 13 This statement could stand as the refrain
for virtually all post-Kierkegaardian critiques of Hegel's theory of
Absolute Knowledge and recollection which see it as involving a
144 HEGEUS GRAND SYNTHESIS

radical closure of history and an abandonment of concrete individu-

ality by abstract thought.
Let me just note with regard to Kierkegaard that his category of
"repetition;' which he contrasts to the Hegelian-Platonic concept of
"recollection;' may not be nearly so incongruent with Hegel's recollec-
tion as he supposes. Kierkegaard's repetition is not the Hegelian "bad
infinite" (which Hegel opposes to the "true infinite" of Absolute
Knowledge), the simple repetition of one-after-another. This repetition
(of the bad infinite variety) characterizes the aesthetic life, the life of
Johannes the Seducer whose conquests number 1,001, each the same.
'Iruly ethico-religious repetition is a reappropriation of the past
through which the past becomes transformed and recast, opening a
future of possibility for choice and action. In this sense, "repetition is
and remains a transcendence." 14 But under the epochal reading of
Hegel's concept of Erinneru.ng which I am proposing, recollection is
also a reappropriation of the past which transcends it and gives birth
to a new world. That is, recollection points forward, just as
Kierkegaardian repetition does. It is not a "movement backward" into
knowledge, except in the same sense that repetition finds in the past
the point of departure for its future. It is only under the absolutist
interpretation of recollection that Kierkegaard's criticism (and Crites:
and all subsequent readings which see Hegel as instituting a final
completion of history) holds good.
Kierkegaard was but the first of many critics to see Hegel's talk of
the completion of history literally, and to condemn him for the
audacious claim, to use Koj~ve's words, "that there will never more be
anything new on earth:' 15 Marx and Engels also viewed Hegel's com- 0

pulsion to make a system, ... [and hence his] compulsion to make an

end to the historical process ... with some sort of absolute truth" 16 as
a central failure of his philosophy. Jean Hyppolite, who wishes to read
Hegel's philosophy as asserting "a tension [of alienation] inseparable
from existence," 17 also feels that Hegel becomes unfaithful to this prin-
ciple with his move to the Logic, where the resolution of alienation
leads to "l'immobilisme" of spirit. 18
Eric Voegelin goes so far as to call Hegel a "megalomaniacal
sorcerer; who sought "to gain power over history by putting an end to
history." According to Voegelin, Hegel was driven by a "libido
dominandi" and a Messianic obsession to become the Last Great Man,
"the Great Man who abolishes history'' itself. But, Voegelin asserts,
such apocalyptic sorcery could only be achieved through "an attack on
the dignity of man;' since it implies that the very essence of man, his
perpetual search for truth, is but "an imperfection of knowledge to be
 Hegel's Philosophic Eschatology 145

overcome" by Hegel's own perfect philosophical knowledge. 19 This

idea that Absolute Knowledge amounts to an attack on human dignity
is echoed by Dieter Jahnig when he characterizes the concept of a
final Erinnerung as an "eschatologisch-teleologischen Nihilismus" which
"demoralizes" humanity. 20
Alexandre Kojeve says that Hegel "gives up the dialectical method"
in order "to lay claim to absolute truth;' and requires that "history is
truly completed:121 But, he argues, with "the end of history, ... man
properly so-called ... disappears. In point of fact, the end of time or
history ... means quite simply the cessation of action in the full sense
of the term, . . . [and] the definite annihilation of man properly
so-called. 22 Stanley Rosen also says that Hegel's philosophy requires a
"decisive completion" and "final resolution" of history and
knowledge, 23 but suggests that "if we achieve the Hegelian science of
totality, we must cease to become human:'24 Fran~ois Chatelet, as we
have seen, views the Hegelian vision of completion as radical, but as
impossible to imagine, a "seduisante {iction:' 25 And Charles Thylor
speaks of the Hegelian "total overcoming" of alienation 26 as an expen-
diture of "enormous energy" to "make [his philosophy] yield an impos-
sible conclusion:'27 We could go on and on. 28
I share the view represented by these commentators insofar as it
points to a tension and conflict within Hegel's philosophy between his
dialectic method, with its stress on the analysis of knowledge and
being as intrinsically processes of becoming, and his absolutist con-
ception of the completion of spirit. But I would counsel a more hesi-
tant attitude toward Hegel's assertion of an absolute consummation of
his system, insofar as he can be read as proposing a less radical ver-
sion as well. As Avinieri cautions, "one should ... recognize that, con-
trary to some of the accepted views about Hegel, there always
remained a question mark beside what appears as his total absolutiza-
tion of his contemporary age:'29
I have sought to show that there is firm textual support for this
nonabsolutist alternative, and hence for the question mark that
Avinieri refers to. I believe that our assessment of Hegel's philosophy
is better served by locating the tension in his thought between two
theories of completion rather than between a single (absolutist} theory of
completion and the Hegelian dialectic and metaphysics of becoming. In
this way Hegel is not necessarily condemned to an unavoidable oppo-
sition to his own dialectical method and his own metaphysics of
becoming - in short, to all in his thought which makes his analysis
of the Bildung of knowledge and history and being so profound. 'Irue,
this condemnation would still apply if, as with the above commen-
146 HEGEI!S GRAND SYNTHESIS

tators, we were to adopt the absolutist theory of completion. But the

nonabsolutist conception of an epochal consummation of spirit is not
in any way opposed to this dialectic and metaphysics, but in fact is its
logical consequence.
Richard Kroner speaks of "die Antinomie zwischen System und
Geschichte" in Hegel's philosophy, 30 again fas with the previous com-
mentators cited) as though there were only one conception of "system''
in Hegel, and asks, almost with a sense of affront and indignation, "mit
welchem Recht Hegel, trotz [seiner} historische Resignation [i.e., his
"resignation" to the perpetual progression of history, which continually
moves beyond the results of a particular stage in history), (Ur sein
System absolute Geltung in Anspruch nehmen durfte:' 31 Hegel's "right" to
make this claim becomes much clearer if we see it as the outgrowth
of his concern to overcome epistemological and historical relativism
rather than simply as an affront to his metaphysics of becoming. The
main conflict in Hegel is between the view of history and becoming
which asserts an "absolute validity" that comes with the ultimate
fruition of the teleological development of spirit, and a second view
of history and becoming which asserts validity within a process of
development that goes "ever on and on:' When we actively advocate
the second view, and are willing as a consequence to view the #affront-
ing" first view as an unnecessary wrong turn in Hegel's system, we
will be able to move beyond indignation to a logically consistent and
philosophically profound view of the nature of history and the mean-
ing of its (episodic, perpetually reoccurring) fulfillment.

b. E-pochal Interpretations, Hesitant and Otherwise

While the most usual interpretation of Hegel's eschatological
language has been to read it literally - and hence to adopt the abso-
lutist version of completion with all its paralyzing consequences for
his metaphysics of becoming - a handful of commentators have
shown an inclination for the epochal reading. It seems to me that
these writers fall into two broad groups. On the one hand, there are
those who (like the vast majority of the "literalists" on the other sides)
adopt the nonabsolutist interpretation all too quickly, without really
acknowledging the claims of the other side of the dilemma - without,
that is, really recognizing Hegel's fundamental ambivalence. I have
already mentioned my feeling that Karl Lowith's reading is of this sort,
although in the present discussion I will take Herbert Marcuse and
Quentin Lauer as representatives of this group. 32 On the other hand,
there are those who adamantly insist on Hegel's ambivalence, and
 Hegel's Philosophic Eschatology 147

precisely because of this, show a great deal of hesitancy in developing

their nonabsolutist, epochal reading. Robert Solomon and Shlomo
Avinieri are good representatives of this group. 33 Since my own
reading is epochal, I have obviously been very much influenced by the
commentators in both of these groups, and would like to briefly sketch
out some of the more important points of difference within an essen-
tially shared perspective.
First, then, for all the undeniable brilliance and justly influential
character of Marcuse's study of Hegel !Reason and Revolution: Hegel
and the Rise of Social Theory!, Marcuse adopts an epochal reading of
Hegel's eschatology without any apparent attempt to come to grips
with the alternative reading. 34 He points to several passages in Hegel's
texts which emphasize the commitment to a metaphysics of becom-
ing, and forthwith draws the conclusion that spirit can never escape
temporality and history, since "the implications of [Hegel'sj dialectical
method destroy the very idea of timelessness" which would be implied
by a final redemption of spirit from history. 35 Yet nowhere does he
refer to Hegel's talk of the Tilgu.ng of time and his explicit insistence
on the timeless dimension of Absolute Knowledge, nor, indeed, to any
passages in which Hegel develops his absolutist apocalyptic vision. It
is not hard to find Marcuse's motivation for sidestepping the literal
reading of Hegel's eschatology. The clue is found in his statement that
"Hegel's strangely certain announcement that history has reached its
end ... announces the funeral of a class, not of history'.'36 Marcuse is
out to show that Hegel points forward to and finds his true
significance in Marx, 37 and that the Hegelian eschatology in this way
announces the impending end of the bourgeois class, pointing forward
to the "new world" of revolutionary praxis. Marxist theory was the
recognition of the true import of Hegel's theory of completion in see-
ing that "the established forms of (bourgeois] life were reaching the
stage of their historical negation'.' 38
Let me make myself clear: I am not in any way seeking to impugn
the legitiinacy of the Marxist appropriation of Hegel. Nor, of course,
am I casting aspersion on Marcuse's philosophic commitment to an
epochal reading of Hegel, for this is just the reading I wish to adopt
myself. My point here is only that Marcuse's reading is overly one-
sided; that even though he opts for the interpretation I myself am
arguing for, he does so without deriving it from a careful analysis of
the deep ambivalence in which it is situated, and hence does not gen-
uinely come to terms with the full scope of the issue. To be fair,
Marcuse is not attempting to give a systematic treatment of Hegel's
eschatology, and it may seem unfair of me to hold him to a standard
148 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

of exposition which is not intrinsic to the particular purposes of his

text. My point, however, is precisely that the Hegelian theory of com-
pletion cannot be fully understood apart from a systematic treatment
which does justice to the thoroughgoing ambiguity and tension in
which it is formulated.
Quentin Lauer, like Marcuse, is one of the very best commen-
tators on Hegel. Nevertheless, he also appears to choose the epochal
interpretation of Hegel's eschatology without really taking the abso-
lutist alternative seriously. In fact, Lauer dismisses out of hand "[the
frequent objection] raised against Hegel's Phenomenology ... that at
the end it leaves no place to go; all the experiences are in, and so con-
sciousness can now take leave of experience:' But his reason for this
dismissal is suspect. "The image which Hegel uses to illustrate the
whole movement," Lauer continues, "dispels this objection: the move-
ment of consciousness is circular; its end is not an end, because it is
a return to the beginning ... ; to be at the end is to be at the begin-
ning:'39 I say this is suspect not because it in any way violates Hegel's
methodology or epistemology. Indeed, Lauer expresses the Hegelian
commitment to circularity very concisely and eloquently.40 It is
suspect because it only acknowledges one side of Hegel's ambiguous
program, the side which insists on perpetual becoming, while glossing
over the other side, equally present in Hegel, the side which insists on
a radical closure of becoming.
It is true that Lauer never disputes Hegel's language of the com-
pleteness of spirit in Absolute Knowledge. He even writes at one point
that with Absolute Knowledge, "the human spirit has successfully
gone through all its stages, all necessary to its completeness." But he
steadfastly refuses to read this language literally, insisting that "this
does not mean that we have reached the end; rather we are at the
beginning."41 Again, as with Marcuse, my objection is not that this
epochal reading is unwarrented, but only that it is one-sided.
Let us turn now to the second group of commentators,
represented here by Robert Solomon and Shlomo Avinieri, who expli-
citly acknowledge the conflict in Hegel's philosophy between an
absolutist language of completion and a nonabsolutist, open-ended
alternative, but who finally hesitate to become fully committed to the
epochal alternative they endorse.
Solomon very clearly calls attention to the "deep tension in
Hegel's philosophy."

On the one hand, he is a philosopher whose main claim is to give us

a unified all-inclusive world-view, which he calls 'the Absolute: On
 Hegel's Philosophic Eschatology 149

the other hand, he is the philosopher of change.... Insofar as he

wants to provide us with a single and, he would add, eternal view
of a unified cosmos - 'the Absolute; Hegel has to minimize the
ultimate reality of differences and of change; insofar as he stresses
the differences and change he has to deny or at least postpone
indefinitely the Absolute. 42

Beyond this explicit statement of Hegel's ambivalence, Solomon

also seems to deny that we can find any meaningful Au(hebung of this
tension, a point I have tried to argue as well, for he speaks of "two dif-
ferent Hegels"43 and nowhere suggests that they might merge into one.
Finally, Solomon adopts the nonabsolutist interpretation of Hegel's
eschatology - although, interestingly, he calls this the "much more
radical Hegel."44 Thus he describes the guiding thread of his work to
be the "celebration" of the Hegel who denies any final consummation
of history, the "philosopher of change" who preaches the doctrine of
becoming "running on without end:'45
Thus far my approach is the same as Solomon's. But there are
some important differences as well. In the first place, Solomon makes
it clear that his choice of the nonabsolutist (or for him, radical) reading
of Hegel is just a question of emphasis; 46 he draws back from actually
advocating the epochal interpretation he emphasizes, and hence
'celebrates" the Heraclitian Hegel more as a matter of inclination than
philosophic commitment. Second, Solomon does not offer a
systematic portrayal of the question of completion; his study is
devoted to a reading of the Phenomenology, and while it is a very good,
witty, and comprehensive reading of Hegel's first major work, it
excludes by intention several other works (most importantly, the lec-
ture cycles on the History of Philosophy and the Philosophy of History,
and the "shorter" {Encyclo-,,adia] and "larger" Logics) where the issue of
completion is raised in different and often more direct ways than it is
in the Phenomenology. Finally, Solomon seems a bit bemused, even
disappointed, with the Heraclitian Hegel he chooses to emphasize, for
he believes that the Absolute which corresponds to a philosophy of
perpetual becoming, when finally arrived at, will be a "fraud, or at
most, just another stage on the journey. Or, as Alastair MacIntyre has
said of the Absolute, a la [Gertrude] Stein, 'There is no there there:"47
My own argument for an epochal reading of Hegel's eschatology,
so far from leading to the judgment of fraud, wants to suggest that
such a judgment is possible only if we expect to find an apocalyptic
closure of history in Absolute Knowledge. Since Solomon is only
emphasizing the epochal reading, while leaving Hegel's absolutist
150 HEGEI:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

language as it stands, it is not surprising that he will be disappointed

when he comes to confront the Absolute. My own counsel is that we
must actively advocate the epochal interpretation, and resolve the
dilemma which Hegel could not bring himself to resolve, by rejecting
his absolutist apocalyptic vision as incompatible with the dialectical
structure of thought and being which makes his philosophy possible.
Under such a reading, we must reject Maclntyre's and Solomon's sense
that "there is no there there'' in Absolute Knowledge, for in fact there
will be many "there's there;' as each epoch of history reaches the
culmination of its purpose and meaning in the recollective knowledge
of its past.
Shlomo Avinieri, like Solomon, is very much attuned to the ten-
sion in Hegel's eschatology. For while he argues, as does Solomon, for
an epochal reading, one where the "process of historical development
... never attains absolute dimensions;' he is certainly aware of the
opposing tendency, where "Hegel sees his own contemporary age as
the apex of historical developmentn and "history has been grasped in
its totality for the first time:'48 But while it is clear that Avinieri very
strongly supports an epochal reading, claiming that "Hegel was aware
that the future was still open in terms of the development of new
cultures;'49 he does not make clear how the future is to be open given
Hegel's insistence on his own age as the culmination of history.
I suspect that Avinieri finally wants to dismiss the absolutist
tendency in Hegel as an aberration, as is suggested when he concludes
his argument by writing that Hegel "did not wholly absolutize his own
contemporary world:' 50 But how can one only partially "absolutize"
history? Unless, of course, we mean by this curious phrase that every
epoch achieves an "absolute" completion, meaning a final culmination
of its own spirit, without implying anything about an absolute comple-
tion of history itself. If this is indeed Avinieri's meaning, then his pro-
posal finally collapses into the epochal reading without coming fully
to grips with the absolutist interpretation.

c. Attempts at a Synthetic Interpretation

Finally, to complete our sketch of alternative interpretations of
Hegel's eschatology, there is a small group of commentators who seek
to find a way to integrate the epochal and absolutist readings, purpor-
ting to discover just the sort of synthesis of the two poles of Hegel's
ambivalence which I have maintained is unintelligible. Emil
Fackenheim and J. N. Findlay are two of the most articulate and com-
mitted representatives of this group. 51
 Hegel's Philosophic Eschatology 151

Fackenheim, in his sensitive and impressive work on The Religious

Dimension in Hegel's Thought, writes that the Hegelian '"system' is
wholly misunderstood unless the usual connotation of closedness is
brought into immediate clash with a notion of total openness. Hegel's
system is by its own admission and insistence a closed circle, but it
is also totally open."52 It is Fackenheim's position that a choice for
either side of this apparent paradox at the expense of the other would
amount to a confusion and misunderstanding. Hence, his position
represents a strong chastisement of my own point of view, which
explicitly calls for such a choice.
Unfortunately, Fackenheim does not develop this argument into
the sort of consideration of the close of history which would be
necessary in order to serve as an adequate explanation of Hegel's
eschatology. In his fourth chapter, which he titles "The Hegelian Mid-
dle," and which he has promised in a footnote to the above quotation
"will be wholly devoted to . . . this vital point (of a synthesis of the
dual character of closure and openness in Hegel's system)," his concern
is not with the issue of what the openness or closedness of Hegel's
system entails either for history or Absolute Knowledge, but with
what he calls the "scandal" of the split between right- and left-wing
Hegelians. According to Fackenheim's definition of these two schools
of Hegel's followers, the right-wing school views Hegel as a "trans-
cendent metaphysician'' - that is, as someone who places reality in a
transcendent realm apart from the actual empirical world - while the
left-wing school reads him as professing a doctrine of "immanentism,"
that is, as entirely confining reality to the empirical world, while deny-
ing all transcendent reality. Hence, the issue of the openness or
closedness of the Hegelian system has been displaced from a con-
sideration of the problem of historical time, and instead takes shape
as the problem of the tension between competing metaphysics of
transcendentalism and immanentism. And Fackenheim's purpose
becomes one of showing that "the central claim of Hegelian thought
is to repudiate the need for choice between these right- and left-wing
alternatives:•s3
Now there may well be a connection between these two problems,
ins~far as the right-wing (transcendental) interpretation seems to
imply a certain closure of the Hegelian system, where thought and
being are not open to the empirical world of change; and insofar as the
left-wing (immanent) interpretation implies a complete openness to
change, since reality is swept up in the perpetual flux of the empirical
world. But it is one thing to show that Hegel seeks to unite a transcen-
dent and an immanent metaphysics - we have sought to show this
152 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

in our analysis of Hegel's theory of truth - and quite another to show

what the consequences of such a unity are for the issue of eschatology.
And these consequences are by no means obvious. For it seems
perfectly possible for the transcendentalist to maintain both that
reality is "closed" to empirical change and completely open-ended
within its own transcendent sphere, since this is still the realm of spirit,
and all spirit is perpetual becoming. This would be a non-Platonic
transcendentalism, to be sure, but there is nothing I can see which
would logically force a transcendentalist to adopt the Platonic position
that only the phenomenal world is a theater of change. Similarly, it
seems perfectly possible for the immanent metaphysician to assert
both that empirical reality is sheer flux and also governed by jan
immanent) telos which will inevitably be achieved and leave no fur-
ther course for historical evolution.
Even if Fackenheim is right that there is a certain sort of closure
entailed by the right-wing position, and a certain sort of openness
entailed by the left-wing position, this may not necessarily imply
anything for the issue of eschatology. In order for Fackenheim to trace
out his synthetic proposal to its consequences for Hegel's theory of the
End of history, he would have to show how the view that history has
a definitive completion, beyond which there can be no further
development, is compatible with the view that history has only
epochal completions which always point beyond themselves to subse-
quent cycles of evolution. And I cannot imagine the alchemical incan-
tation which could possibly convert this contradiction into a plausible
proposition. It may be, as Hegel claims in his EncyclopCBdia, that "con-
tradiction is the very moving principle of the world" jSL S119 Zusatz),
but it is equally true, as Hegel says in the Anmerkung to the same
passage, that some contradictions are simply "inane:'
J. N. Findlay, like Fackenheim, proposes a reading of the Hegelian
eschatology which is alluring in its attempt to expose the Hegelian
ambiguity as only a superficial ambiguity, and hence in its attempt to
completely solve the apparent conflict in his philosophy, by arguing
that there is a valid synthesis of the absolutist and nonabsolutist ver-
sions of completion. And Findlay, unlike Fackenheim, explicitly seeks
to apply this synthetic proposal to the issue of Hegel's eschatology
jalbeit with reference to Absolute Knowledge rather than directly to
the question of the close of history).

Hegel assumes that this progress [of knowledge] must have a fi_nal
term, a state where knowledge need no longer transcend or correct itself.
... Such a conception might seem to go too far, for surely an endless
 Hegel's Philosophic Eschatology 153

inadequacy of knowledge to its object would not destroy all meaning

and validity in such knowledge.... Hegel will, however, marvelously
include in his final notion of the final state of knowledge the notion of an
endless progress that can have no final term. For he conceives that,
precisely in seeing that the object is an endless problem, we forth-
with see it as not being a problem at all. For what the object in itself
is, is simply to be the other, the stimulant of knowledge and practice,
which in being for ever capable of being remolded and re-in-
terpreted, is also everlastingly pinned down and found out being just
what it is. 54

Findlay's point seems to be that Absolute Knowledge is the com-

prehension of the very process of the perpetual becoming of
knowledge. The Hfinal term" of knowledge - Absolute Knowledge -
is thus the philosophic apprehension of the truth that there is an
"endless progress" of knowledge "that can have no final term." This is
perhaps not as paradoxical as it may seem, if there are two senses of
finality involved: the one, which characterizes Absolute Knowledge,
being a finality in the sense of an ultimate, timeless truth, which sees
the endless "remolding" of the object of knowledge as the highest truth
and very essence of knowledge; and the other, a finality that is never
achieved due to the fact that the object of knowledge is an "endless
problem" by nature, "forever capable of being remolded:'
There is some support for this reading in Hegel's texts. For as we
have seen, Hegel's teleology is circular, so that the telos or End is
described as being more than a mere result, but present in the whole
process of development.
The real issue is not exhausted by stating [the purpose to be
achieved] as an aim (Hegel says], but by carrying it out; nor is the
result [merely] the actual whole, but rather the result together with the
process through which it [comes to be] .... The bare result is the corpse
which has left the guiding tendency behind it IPhS 2f).
The truth is the whole, but the whole is nothing other than the
essence [or telos] consummating itself through its development
IPhS 11).
We must distinguish between what is the whole process and
what is only a moment of the process; the universal, as law, also has
process within it, and lives only as a process, but it is not a pa.rt of the
process (PhN S258 Zusatz).
. . . the consummation of the infinite end, therefore, consists
merely in removing the illusion which makes it seem yet unac-
complished.... The [telos] ... is eternally accomplishing itself in the
154 HEGEI:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

world, and the result is that it ... [is) already ... in full actuality
accomplished (SL S212 Zusatz; and cf. 233 Zusatzj.

The End, then, is itself a process, and the whole is nothing other than
the dialectical development of the End. To say that the End is accomp-
lished is really no more than to say that it is ever accomplishing itself.
In my view, Findlay's alluring solution to the question of comple-
tion is not finally satisfactory, and in the same way, the above citations
from Hegel do not solve the problem. For this proposed solution
essentially collapses into the nonabsolutist version of completion,
rather than being a true synthesis of the absolutist and nonabsolutist
poles. It is not plausible, I feel, to say that Hegel both achieves his goal
of a "final term" to the progress of knowledge, "a state where
knowledge need no longer transcend or correct itself," and that he
preserves his conception of the dialectical open-endedness of
knowledge - unless, that is, we only mean that the "final term" is
perpetually reachieved with each successive epoch, and that
"knowledge need no longer transcend or correct itself" only with
respect to its shape at the close of an epoch. If the accomplishment
or fulfillment of the End will continually "stimulate" a "remolding'' of
the End, and if Absolute Knowledge means nothing other than the
insight into the perpetual development of knowledge, then when we
speak, as Hegel does, of the "absolute end of the progression" jHPh
1:35), or of the absolute "conclusion of the movement in which spirit
has shaped itself;' we can only be speaking of an "absolute" which is
always relative to a further development, and a "completion'' which is
always open-ended. And this seems an odd way to talk - and, indeed,
an unintelligible manner of speech - if we intend to preserve the
meaning of a radical sense of closure for the words "absolute" and
"completion:' It loses its oddity only if we abandon the attempt to
smuggle this absolutist meaning into the epochal connotation of the
words. All attempts to synthesize the epochal and absolutist readings
of Hegel's eschatology inevitably lead to a confusion of language,
where, as Hegel says in another context, we cannot say what we mean
to sayjPhS 60-66I.

5. Conclusion

Towards the end of his "larger" Logic Hegel writes that "negativity
... [is] the innermost source of all activity, of all animate and spiritual
self-movement, the dialectical soul that everything true possesses and
 Hegel's Philosophic Eschatology 155

through which alone it is true" ILL 835). I have sought to show that
this "dialectical soul" of Hegel's philosophy is threatened by his abso-
lutist eschatology, where spirit achieves an absolute resolution of its
dialectic of negativity and becoming. Hence, if we are to retain the
integrity of the Hegelian dialectic, we should opt for his nonabsolutist,
open-ended, epochal eschatology. If this dialectical soul were to be
excised, then the guiding aim of Hegel's philosophy, his project for a
grand synthesis of thought and being, would take on a very different
guise than the one we have seen it to wear throughout our analysis
of his epistemology and metaphysics. For our analysis has disclosed
a vision of thought and being as symbiotically engaged in a dynamic
process of evolution, where each is swept up in a restless motion of
metamorphosis, animated by an impulse or force or desire towards
transformation, reaching out towards each other in a historical court-
ship of strife and reconciliation. Over and over again, Hegel has in-
sisted that spirit only has life insofar as it is grounded in this process
of "restless mutation and change:• If the grand synthesis of thought and
being were finally to dispense with this dialectical soul, and so alter
the metabolism of its life as to achieve a final "repose" of spirit, a
harmony of thought and being which contradicted the dynamic defini-
tion of each of its terms, then we would be left with a dead synthesis
- for all satisfaction brings a natural death.
In one of the most famous passages of the Phenomenology, Hegel
says that "the wounds of the spirit heal, and leave no scars behind"
jPhS 407). This idea was already prefigured in his early Spirit of Chris-
tianity, where he wrote that from the "severed life" of spirit, "life can
heal its wounds again" ISXty 230). But insofar as Hegel's portrayal of
spirit as the Bildung of knowledge and the historical-groundedness of
being depends upon his principle that "becoming [is] the fundamental
feature of all existence" ISL S88 Zusatz), then we must not suppose that
the •wounds of spirit" ever heal over so fully that it will not bleed
again, that it will not be thrown into the negativity, the strife and con-
flict, of self-development. If we are to appreciate the depth of Hegel's
analysis of spirit, we must hold him to his view that "the life of spirit
is not the life that shrinks from . . . the tremendous power of the
negative ... and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the
life that endures it and maintains itself in it• jPhS 19). The very life
of spirit, as Hegel portrays it, depends on its immersion in the flux of
existence, in the "labor of its own transformation" IPhS 6), and ensures
that, on pain of death, it will never cease from exploration, from striv-
ing, from becoming.
What are we to say of Hegel's ideal of attaining a fulfillment of
156 HEGE:C.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

''.Absolute Knowledge" in which we are no longer 'on the pathway to

truth" but have arrived at the "absolute truth:' and in which there is a
final "vanishing" of and "liberation" from all "opposition of con-
sciousness [to its world]" (LL 60, 70, 49)? Similarly, what are we to say
of his talk of a fulfillment of being in which the "endless striving" of
becoming has been superseded, and spirit has "concluded the move-
ment in which it has shaped itself"? Hegel's ideal of a radical comple-
tion to knowledge and being must be set aside, I have argued, in order
to retain and affirm the integrity of his dialectic. The question now
becomes, what does this mean for his hope of overcoming
epistemological relativism, a hope which led him to posit his abso-
lutist ideal in the first place?
One way of approaching this question is to reformulate it in terms
of Hegel's relation to Fichte. As we have noted, Hegel argues against
Fichte on the grounds that his philosophy condemns human
knowledge and human existence to a never-ending progression
without fruition, so that our knowledge remains a mere approxima-
tion to truth and being remains forever alienated. The question is, if
we are to read Hegel in terms of his nonabsolutist doctrine of the com-
pletion of knowledge and being, then isn't he subject to the same sort
of criticism that he lodges against Fichte? For, if there is no final con-
summation of knowledge and being, then, as Hegel says, spirit "goes
ever on and on, because spirit is progress alone" (HPh 3:546), and
"spirit is indeed never at rest but always engaged in moving forward"
(PhS 7). But this is precisely what Fichte says!
We must, I think, conclude that Hegel's opposition to Fichte does
in fact backfire to a certain extent - that his criticism of the Fichtean
vision of the infinitely progressive character of spirit is in many ways
applicable to his own vision of the "eternal creation" of spirit. This is
the cost of adopting the epochal interpretation of completion, and it
would be foolish to try to explain it away. There are some important
differences between Fichte and Hegel, however, which help to lessen
the extent to which Hegel would otherwise fall into the same sort of
relativism that he charges Fichte with.
While Fichte is an idealist, and hence says that all being is being-
for-consciousness, 55 still, there is a sense in which the object of con-
sciousness, the world, or the "not-self," is a fundamentally alien Other
to consciousness. 'Irue, the "not-self" is "posited" by the self, 56 but on
the other hand there is always a sense in which the "not-self:' or world,
is infinitely opposed to the self: "the not-self ... [is in] absolute opposi-
tion ... [to] the self'; 57 "there emerges in [the self] a disparity, and
hence something alien to itself, ... [and] moreover we are unable to say
 Hegel's Philosophic Eschatology 157

anything further at all of this alien element, save that it is not derivable
from the inner nature of the self,'58 This irreducibly alien element of the
world is the ''Ansto/1' that limits the self, 59 and which is "irreconcilable"
with the self.60
For Hegel, the development of spirit also depends on a disparity
between the self and the world, a process of distinction between con-
sciousness and object. And disparity will constantly arise insofar as
spirit is a perpetually progressing development. This is the element of
discord that we have seen throughout our work to be so important to
Hegel's anatomy of spirit. But, to cite again a passage from the History
of Philosophy which we used in our introduction to frame the issue of
Hegel's grand synthesis, while "the eternal life [of spirit] consists in the
very process of continually producing the opposition" of con-
sciousness and object, it also consists in the process of 'continually
reconciling it" (HPh 3:551). This is the element of harmony in the
midst of discord, the perpetually regenerating reconciliation of oppo-
sitions which is the heart of Hegel's grand synthesis. The world is not
ultimately alien to self-consciousness (being is not finally set over
against thought), for although spirit is constantly presented with new
challenges, and will in turn constantly be re-alienated from its world,
every stage of the development of spirit has within itself the seed
of its reconciliation with the world - each epoch can "fulfill its
principle:'
Hence Hegel's epochal conception of the fulfillment of knowledge
and being is sufficient to dissociate him from the Fichtean notion of
the "irreconcilability" of the self with the "alien element" of the world,
and thus to support his vision of a grand synthesis. It is important to
note that Hegel's emphasis on the historical manifestation of the
development of knowledge and being is absent in Fichte. And it is just
Hegel's notion of history as an epochal development, where each
epoch can achieve its "principle" or telos, that allows him to vindicate
knowledge from the kind of infinitely unrealizable project that he
views Fichte's conception of knowledge as condemning us to. History
for Hegel is the theater of knowledge solving its puzzles, of reason
transforming its world, of man achieving union with the divine plan.
And the fact that the fruition of knowledge in history brings with it
the rise of new puzzles, of "new worlds" which pose new problems for
spirit, does not diminish the power of reason to "penetrate'' the world.
Nor does the fact that God's plan is a perpetual unfolding of the Logos
mean that man never attains the Kingdom of God, for this Kingdom
is not a redemption of man from history, but a redemption in history,
a harmonization of human reason and divine Logos in the continual
158 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

process of their "labor of transformation" of the world.

But is it not just Hegel's emphasis on the historical which makes
his system vulnerable to the charge of relativism? It may be that Hegel
avoids the sort of relativism he interprets Fichte's philosophy as com-
mitting us to - since knowledge does in fact overcome its opposition
to the world epochally. But there is another, deeper sort of relativism
which seems to arise with this epochal view: if knowledge and truth
are relative to the historical context in which they unfold, and if there
is always a further development of knowledge and truth on the
horizon, then there seems to be no '~bsolute'' knowledge or truth in
a sense which would transcend particular historical contexts. In this
way, Hegel seems unable to escape the position of historical relativism.
There is, I believe, no way for Hegel to avoid a certain sort of
historical relativism, if he is at the same time to remain faithful to his
metaphysics of becoming. But we must be very careful to understand
in what sense "historical relativism" is applicable to Hegel. He is very
far from the sort of total historical or cultural relativism that people
like William Graham Sumner propose.61 According to Sumner, the
sole "impelling force" of the historical development of man is his
response to pleasure and pain, and his instinct of self-preservatlon.62
From this motivation of self-preservation, man adopts habits or
customs, which are converted without further ado into mores, or nor-
matively regulating "folkways." Customs never arise consciously,
however, and folkways are "not creations of human purpose:' but are
"like the instinctive ways of animals;' adopted "without rational reflec-
tion or purpose. 63 Historical development is due to external changes
in "life conditions:' and our subsequent instinctual response, which
leads to the unconscious adaptation to new customs and mores. 64
There is thus no objective perspective from which we can distance
ourselves from the "impelling force" of our instinctual response to
pleasure and pain, or self-preservation - no rational standpoint from
which we can reflect on our needs and consciously shape our nor-
mative "folkways" or the course of our history. 65
Hegel is absolutely opposed to this sort of historical or cultural
relativism. It is true that his doctrine of the List der Vernunft postulates
that individual action is in "unconscious service" to a rational telos (see
Chapter 1\vo above). But it is just because for Hegel there is this
rational telos that he is utterly at odds with Sumner. Sumner's view of
history involves the deliberate annihilation of reason as in any sense
formative of the course of cultural development; Hegel's view of
history is that it is the very manifestation of reason. Similarly, history
is not for Hegel simply the alteration of cultures because of the
 Hegel's Philosophic Eschatology 159

external change in life conditions, but the progressive Bildung of the

purposive activity of reason. Reason, not instinct, is the revolutionary
force in history, "begetting revolutions in the world as well as in indi-
viduals" (HPh 3:8), transforming the alien world into its own image.
John Dewey, who some time after the break with his early
Hegelianism wrote that "were it possible for me to be a devotee of any
system, I still should believe that there is greater richness and greater
variety of insight in Hegel than in any other single systematic
philosopher;'66 still showed strong traces of his Hegelian heritage
when he argued in his Art as Experience67 that while genuine human
experience is prefigured in our "animal ancestry;' in the purely instinc-
tive interaction with our environment, it becomes a fully human
experience only insofar as this instinctual component is reconstructed
and given a meaning by consciousness. Otherwise experience is
"inchoate;' a literally meaningless, directionless event. So too Hegel
portrays man's relation of mere desire toward his environment, where
"he does not open his mind to ... the outer world ... as a thinking
being;• but simply seeks to "consume" things (ARP 64), as a merely
ersatz form of action, since genuine action consists in "converting" or
"transforming" this desire into a rational relation to our world, where
we gain the element of freedom which is essential to authentically
creative action. Hence both Dewey and Hegel acknowledge the
element of desire in human experience, but insist that it must be
reconstructed - or "sublimated;' in the sense of transfiguring and
redirecting _it through conscious purpose - if we are to make sense of
the intentional (or to use Dewey's phrase, the "expressive") character
of action. To ignore this element of creative intentionality in human
experience and the history which it engenders, would be to reduce
historical culture to an inchoate imbroglio of biological impulses.
This complete opposition of the Hegelian philosophy to the
extreme form of historical relativism represented by Sumner gives us
a clearer picture of the sense in which Hegel does adopt a sort of
historical relativism. Since history is the theater of the progressive
unfolding of reason, each epoch represents what Hegel calls a Gestalt
of spirit, and the fulfillment of the principle of that Gestalt gives rise
to a "new world" or new shape of spirit. Hence knowledge is relative
to the "principle" of an epoch. 68 But there is a continuity between
Gestalten, where each stage "is a link in the whole chain of spiritual
development" (HPh 2:45). History is not a discontinuous, fragmented
system, but a progressive force impelled onward by a common ~pirit.
Knowledge in its highest sense always entails a recollective rec<;ivery
of the past, which is the source and foundation for every progress and
160 HEGEI.:S GRAND SYNTHESIS

"rebirth'' of history. Each new shape of history is animated by a con-

sciousness of its heritage, united with the past by a shared participa-
tion in the universal characteristics of the human spirit. In this sense,
then, there is an eternal dimension of truth, as well as its temporal
manifestation. Reason is the universal telos of history, the "eternal life"
of spirit, as Hegel s~ys. Our knowledge develops as our world is
transformed and altered by our historical experience, and hence
knowledge is in a fundamental sense always incomplete - for
knowledge, being historically grounded, always has a future develop-
ment on the horizon - but the course of development is itself guided
by a universal and eternal Logos, nous, reason, spirit. If history were
directed solely by the mechanics of instinct and desire accom-
modating themselves to changing external conditions of the environ-
ment, we could only have an artificial and farfetched explanation of
the evolutionary dialectic of history. However much we might adopt
such a Darwinian mechanics of instinct to account for biological evolu-
tion, its application to social, cultural history leaves far too much out
of account, as Darwin himself warned time and again.
We should recall that there is a qualitative distinction for Hegel
between the form of the analytic understanding and the form of
speculative reason. Reason is the liberation of mind from the one-
sided distinctions of the understanding which inevitably lead to scep-
ticism and spiritual disenchantment with the world. Reason is the
vision of the unity within our apparently fragmented world, of har-
mony in the midst of discord, and the vision of our power to transform
the world and make it into a rational place. It is this unifying, syn-
thesizing, reconciling form of reason which is eternal, and which
makes the epochs of history a single whole or system. While this
whole or system is open-ended, it is yet a whole, for the very impulse
to development which ensures that it will be open-ended is an impulse
of reason which remains constant through the perpetual course
of transition.
Kojeve is but one of many commentators who says that in the final
analysis, Hegel's failure to close his system, to reach a tenable final
completion of being and knowledge and history, means that he cannot
refute scepticism.69 And in a sense Kojeve is right. The sceptic can
point to the absence of a definitive completion of knowledge beyond
which there will be no development, and raise his hands in despair.
But there is more to be said. As we saw in Chapter Four, Hegel himself
regards scepticism as "invincible" and "irrefutable" - insofar as it is a
statt'mind, or way of life, "something which men give themselves over
to'' jHPh 2:329). Scepticism arises from a "true, profound" insight into
 Hegel's Philosophic Eschatology 161

the nature of the world and the nature of thought, that each are
governed by a dialectical negativity: "it is the demonstration that all
that is determinate and finite is unstable" (HPh 2:331, 330). But scep·
ticism constantly threatens to become a sort of "paralysis;• an Mabyss
of self-consciousness ... [which) has swallowed up everything;' an
"insecurity" and "solitude of mind within itself;' and a "decay ... of the
world" (HPh 2:329, 371, 347, 372).
Hegel's whole philosophy is directed against this paralysis and
decay, against the "despairing creed" that thought is finally cut off from
the world of being and can only grope amongst the subjective
shadows of its own imagination. "The ultimate aim and business of
philosophy," Hegel says, "is to reconcile thought with reality" - to
show the "greatness of the craving with which mind seeks to find itself
in what lies outside of itself, ... to embrace the universe within itself,
and transform it into an intelligent world" (HPh 3:545f). Hegel's
philosophic system may fail to refute scepticism, for, as Hegel himself
says, scepticism "depends [at bottom) on the will of the individual, and
no one can . . . possibly drive another out of the negativity [of his
thought]" (HPh 2:330). But Hegel builds a strong case for displacing
the "despairing creed" of the sceptic with a vision of the power of mind
to triumph over this alienated consciousness. His epistemology and
metaphysics present us with forceful arguments for seeing the power
of mind to transform its world, to Mdivest the objective world that
stands opposed to us of its alien character, and to find ourselves at
home in it" (SL Sl94 Zusatz). This power and this discovery attest to
the historically unfolding unity of thought and being, the impulse of
thought to reach out to being, to create and re-create a harmony with
being in the midst of discord. And this discord is revealed as the womb
in which the impulse towards the evolving transformation and
reunification of thought and being is continually reborn.
 NOTES

Chapter One

1. All references to Hegel's works will be abbreviated and given paren-

thetically in the text, followed by the volume number (where applicable) and
page number (or section number - 'S' - where appropriate).
Abbreviations are listed on p. xi.

2. Friedrich Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical Ger-

man Philosophy, ed. C. P. Dutt (New York, 1978), p. 20.

3. John Milton, I.:Allegro l. 142.

4. See also HPh 3:312, and "The Spirit of Christianity and its Fate"
('SXty'J, p. 232.

5. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hegel's Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies,

trans. P. Christopher Smith (New Haven and London, 1976), p. 105.

6. I will have occasion to refer to several different interpretations of

Hegel's eschatological language, and the dilemma it evokes, in Chapter Seven,
where I will explicitly compare and contrast them in relation to my own
reading. I should note here, however, that my choice for a nonabsolutist
reading of Hegel's eschatology is certainly not unique, but is adopted (or at
least flirted with) by several other commentators. I will speak in some detail
of the views of Karl Lowith, Herbert Marcuse, Quentin Lauer, Robert
Solomon, and Shlomo Avinieri in Chapter Seven, as well as of the views of
Emil Fackenheim and J. N. Findlay, who propose a synthesis of the absolutist
and nonabsolutist readings of the dilemma. I have been influenced by all of
these writers, but remain troubled and unconvinced in different ways by the
manner in which each of them works out his interpretation.

7. This is from Heckman's Introduction to his translation (with Samuel

Cherniak) of Jean Hyppolite's Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of
Spirit (Evanston, 1974), p. xii.

163
164 NOfES

Chapter Two

1. Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen/Philosophical I1111estiga-

tio11s, facing page translation by G. E. M. Anscombe !New York, 1962), section
123.
2. Specifically, I will be deferring discussion of the following important
elements of Hegel's conception of truth: truth as a "system• or "whole~ his
theory of demonstration, and the question of the relation between truth and
falsity. See esp. Chapter Five.
3. Fichte's Science of Knowledge !Wissenschaftslehre), ed. and trans. Peter
Heath and John Lachs !New York, 1970), 1: 496 (pagination of the Gesamtaus-
gabe of I. H. Fichte]. Cf. also Descartes, Discourse 011 the Method of Rightly Con-
ducting the Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences, in The Rationalists, trans.
John Veitch !Garden City, New York [1960?]), pp. 43f: '

Of philosophy I will say nothing, except that when I saw that it had been
cultivated for many ages by the most distinguished men, ... yet there is not
a single matter within its sphere which is not still in dispute, and nothing
therefore which is above doubt. ...

4. See Shlomo Avinieri, Hegel's Theory of the Modern State !Cambridge,

1972), p. x: "For Hegel, ... history, as change, is the key for meaning:'
5. In a way, Plato also had to find an answer to this dilemma, for he
wrote in his Sophist 1249°-d):

The philosopher who values knowledge ... must refuse to accept ... the
doctrine that all reality is changeless, and he must also tum a deaf ear to the
other party who represent reality as everywhere changing. Like a child beg-
ging for 'both: he must declare that reality or the sum of things is both at once
- all that is unchangeable and all that is in change.

Still, Platds general solution to this dilemma tends towards a discrediting

of the world of temporality, which is "unreal" in an ultimate sense. Hegel is
very much opposed to this form of idealism, and it is his constant endeavor
to uncover the rational, law-like infrastructure of process, flux, change.
For a very thoughtful analysis of Hegel's concept of eternity, see Klaus
Hedwig, "Hegel: Time and Eternity,• Dialogue 9 11970-71): 139-53. Hedwig
argues that eternity for Hegel is not properly understood as occurring "outside"
of time, but is rather the "realization of time" IP· 149). Merold Westphal makes
a similar argument, suggesting that eternity "comes into time" rather than
transcending time: History and 'Ihith in Hegel's Phenomenology !Atlantic
Highlands, N.J., 1982), p. 220. Joseph C. Flay gives a critical discussion of the
concept of eternity as it emerges in the "Absolute Knowledge" section of the
 Notes 165

Phenomenology: Hegel's Quest for Certainty (Albany, 1984), pp. 243-48. Alexan-
dre Kojhre situates Hegel's theory of time and eternity with reference to Plato,
Aristotle, Spinoza and Kant: Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (Ithaca, 1980),
pp. 100-49. And see John Burbidge, "Concept and Time in Hegel," Dialogue 12
(1973): 403-22; Bernhard Lakebrink, "Hegels Metaphysik der Zeit:'
Philosophisches Jahrbuch 74 (1966-67): 284-93; Paul E. Rasmussen, "The
Meaning of Time in Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind;' Kinesis 4 (1972): 96-105.
6. Reprinted from Mind 65 (1956): 289-311, in P. F. Strawson, ed.,
Philosophical Logic (Oxford, 1967).
7. Frege, p. 20. Cf. Hegel: "The true is universal ... ; as such it can be
only in and for thought.• Reason in History (Hegel's Introduction to the
Philosophy of History, drawing on the 3rd as well as the 2nd edition), trans.
Robert S. Hartman (Indianapolis, 1953), p. 18.
8. Frege, p. 29.
9. Frege, p. 38.
10. Frege, p. 38.
11. Compare Aristotle, who says that a thing is fully actual only when it
attains its end (Metaphysics 10238 33), but that this end and actuality is the
very process of movement of the thing (Physics 201 hl3).
12. For example, Hegel's method is exactly parallel to Aristotle's in the
respect that it involves a beginning with "what is better known or familiar to
us• and a progress to what is "more knowable in itself, or 'by nature'" (Physics
184"17). Further, Hegel perpetually distinguishes between the object as it is
"for immediate consciousness" and as it is in its actual being.
For the distinction between the orders of knowing and being, see Aristo-
tle, Posterior Analytics 71h, 35-72•1; and Aquinas, Summa Theologica I, Ql6,
A3.
13. Spinoza's Ethics, Part II, Proposition VII, in R. H. M. Elwes, trans., The
Chief Works of Spinoza (New York, 1951).

14. Aristotle, Parts of Animals 640-23.

15. For Aristotle, this is true of all beings "which are by nature [i.e., which
have their principle of motion within themselves]" (v. Physics 199"7), as well
as of works of art (v. Parts of Animals 639hl5). Where Hegel goes well beyond
the intentions of the Aristotelian model is in his application of this 'principle
of development' to the course of history. See Chapter Four, section la below.
16. Aristotle, Metaphysics 993h20, 15 (emphasis added).
17. F. E. Abbot, The Syllogistic Philosophy, 2 vols. (Boston, 1906), vol. 1,
p. 269.
166 NOTES

18. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin

Smith (London, 1978), p. 31.
19. For a further discussion of this point, see Chapter Five, pp. 96, 103.
See also Quentin Lauer's Essays in Hegelian Dialectic (New York, 1977), pp.
69-72.
20. Herbert Marcuse, Hegel's Ontology and the Theory of Historicity, trans.
Seyla Benhabib (Cambridge, 1987 [first published in 1932)1, p. 311.
21. Dunayevskaya, Philosophy and Revolution (Brighton, Sussex, 1973),
p. 6.
22. Julia Kristeva, La revolution du langage poetique (Paris, 1974), p. 122.
23. Karl Marx, "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844," in Karl
Marx: Eo.rly Writings, trans. Gregor Benton and Rodney Livingstone (New
York, 1975), p. 396.
24. We are here only asking what this 'subject' (das Subjekt) is, but just a
word should be said about Hegel's concept of 'substance' (die Substanz).
'Substance' has a wide denotation in Hegel's system. It can be regarded as
'being; as 'thought; or as 'nature' - but as implicit, i.e., as not yet differentiated,
made concrete, articulated. Hegel, like Aristotle, regards substance in terms
of motion (a substance which exists 'by nature' "has within itself a principle of
motion; as Aristotle says [Physics 192bl5, 19)1. Both Hegel and Aristotle view
substance, the 'underlying nature' or 'substratum; as potentiality which has an
impulse to actualize itself. Thus it is the "innate impulse to change'' within
being, thought, and nature, that animates substance (v. PhS lOff). And this
"innate impulse to change'' is nothing other than the 'subjectivity' inherent in
substance.
25. This interpretation is warranted, I feel, by the 'Truth is Subjectivity'
chapter of Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientifi_c Postscript (trans. David F.
Swenson and Walter Lowrie [Princeton, 1974), pp. 169ff). He says there that
#objectively, there is no truth for individuals, but only approximation" (p. 169).
26. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and
Edward Robinson (New York, 1962), H397. All further references to this work
will be abbreviated as 'B&T'. The 'H' preceding page citations designates the
pagination of the 8th edition, given in the margins by Macquarrie and
Robinson.
27. Heidegger, B&T, H219.
28. Heidegger, B&T, H226, 227.
29. Heidegger, B&T, e.g., H297f.
30. See p. 25 below.
 Notes 167

31. Heidegger, B&T, e.g., H297.

32. See Chapter Three, section 3.
33. Heidegger, B&T, e.g., H227, 229.
34. Some philosophers (Heidegger included) want to say that prior to
human existence, the term 'truth' could have no meaning. But as an interpreta-
tion of Hegel this will not do. Hegel is sincere in saying that truth is eternal,
and he takes this in the biblical sense of the Logos existing before the creation.
See the following discussion, pp. 19-20.
35. See PhN S339 Zusatz #2: "Even if the earth was once in a state where
it had no living things, but only the chemical process, ... "In general, though,
Hegel did not believe in the doctrine of "evolution out of chaos,• or in a "process
of differentiation [of species] appearing in time:' Hence he writes that "the
moment the lightning strikes into matter, at once there is present a deter-
minate, complete creature, as Minerva fully armed springs forth from the
head of Jupiter~
While there are several passages in Hegel's texts bearing witness to his
influence by Schelling, who believed in an evolution of Geist from nature to
man, from blind force to self-conscious mind, in general Hegel tended toward
the doctrine that "mind is the absolute prius, ... and [thus] nature is not the
original positing agent, but is itself posited by mind" (PhM S381 Zusatz; and
see SL S244). Thus while man may or may not have had a pre-history - I find
Hegel ambiguous here - if he did, it seems to have been Hegel's preferred
opinion that it was not nature, but solely the "eternal Logos of God before crea-
tion," that constituted this prehistory.
36. See also Psalms, Chapter 8.
37. Hegel explicitly makes this point several times (e.g., SL Sl28 Zusatz).
Whatever we may think of his philosophy of nature, it is thus a misunder-
standing to characterize it, as Alexandre Kojeve does, as '\Absurd" and "paradox-
ical" because it "asserts that the world is the work of a Demiurge:' Kojeve, p.
146.
38. For further references to Hegel's doctrine of creation, see SL SS128
Zusatz, 163 Zusatz; HPh 1:75. For other interpretations of this doctrine, see
Richard Kroner's Introduction to Hegei's Eo.rly Theological Writings, ed. T. M.
Knox (Philadelphia, 1977), p. 60; Stanley Rosen, Hegel: An Introduction to the
Science of Wisdom (New Haven and London, 1974), p. 47; H. S. Harris, in his
Introduction and Notes to Hegel's Difference essay, pp. 22, 171n; and Emil
Fackenheim, The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought (Chicago and London,
1967), pp. 103, 129-33, 148, 153, 201.
39. Pierre-Jean Labarriere, "La sursomption du temps et le vrai sense de
l'histoire com;:ue," Revue de metaphysique et de morale 84 (1979): 93.
168 NOTES

40. Hedwig, p. 153. This passage concludes Hedwig's article, and it is a

very peculiar conclusion indeed, since it does not seem to be supported by his
own analysis of Hegel's conception of eternity. For example, Hedwig argues
forcefully that "eternity is never an abstraction [for Hegel], ... it is no
transcendence beyond time and history. Eternity is concrete.... • Eternity, he
continues, "carries and preserves ... within itself ... the realities of work, art,
religion, and philosophy,• which are, after all, the products of concrete spirit,
of historical individuals.
Perhaps the most sustained criticism of Hegel's purported neglect of con-
crete individuality (outside of Kierkegaard and Marxl may be found in Lukacs'
The Young Hegel: Studies in the Relations between Dialectics and Economics
(Cambridge, 1975 [first published in 1938], passim, but especially Part IVI. See
also Serge Latouche, '"lbtalite, totalisation et totalitarisme," Dialogue 13 (19741:
72, 81. Latouche, echoing the traditional Marxist line, speaks of Hegel's
"hypostasis" of spirit and a corresponding loss of lived history.
For defenses of Hegel against this charge, see Flay, pp. 250f; and Errol E.
Harris, An Interpretation of the Logic of Hegel (New York, 19831, p. 21.
41. Hegel does not regard this as peculiar to the Greeks; he writes of
Spinoza, for example, that "with him there is too much God" (HPh 3:2821.
42. W. H. Werkmeister gives an impressive argument to show that the
common criticism that "in Hegel's philosophy the empirical self, the human
individual, is 'swallowed up' in the Absolute, ... making human existence
illusory" is completely unfounded. "Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind as a
Development of Kant's Basic Ontology," in Darrel E. Christensen, ed., Hegel
and the Philosophy of Religion (The Hague, 19701, p. 102.
43. See Heine's Werke, hrsg. von Ernst Elster (Leipzig, 19221, vol. 4, pp.
148f:

... ich habe hinter dem Maestro (Hegel] gestanden, als er sie [die Musik des
Atheismus/ komponierte, freilich in sehr undeutlichen und verschn6r(elten zeichen,
damit nicht jeder sie entzi(fre - ich ,o_h manchmal, wie er sich iingstlich umschaute,
aus Furcht, man verstiinde ihn.

44. Kojeve, p. 259 (n. 411, and cf. pp. 145, 148. See also Lukacs, pp. 462,
519; Robert Solomon, In the Spirit of Hegel (Oxford, 19851, pp. 638f; and
Westphal, History and 'IJ-uth, pp. 221-23. For views on the other side (that
Hegel was not an atheist!, see Quentin Lauer, Essays, p. 12 ("Hegel's
philosophy will never be comprehended for what it is if it is not comprehend-
ed as essentially religious"!; Stephen Crites, In The 'lwilight of Christendom:
Hegel vs. Kierkegaard on Faith and History (Chambersburg, PA., 19721, pp. 41,
43; and J. Hutchinson Sterling, The Secret of Hegel (New York, 18981, p. xxii.
In an 1821 letter to Friedrich Creuzer (a colleague from Heidelberg!,
Hegel admits that "speculative philosophizing . . . permits of being led to
 Notes 169

atheism," but only by those of "ill-will." Hegel: The Letters, trans. Clark Butler
and Christiane Seiler (Bloomington, 1984), letter 389, p. 467.
45. Werkmeister, p. 102.
46. See Chapter Seven, section 5 below. See also F&K, passim, but esp.
p. 64, where Hegel characterizes Kant, Fichte, and Jacobi together as present-
ing a "false idealism,• i.e., 'an idealism of the finite:'
47. See Karl Barth, Die protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert: Ihre
Vorgeschichte und ihre Geschichte (Zurich, 19521, p. 343, where he says that
Hegel seeks a reconciliation of the individual and universal self-conscious,
which, "mit Gott schon darum nicht hadern, die schon darum weder o{fen noch
heimlich atheistisch sein kann, weil sie als die eine wahre Vernunft des Menschen
eo ipso auch Vernunft Gottes ist.•
48. This passage shows clearly that Hegel's 'pantheism' is convertible into
panlogism.
It is important to note that Hegel often offers harsh criticisms of pan-
theism (e.g., PhM S573; and see Letters, Numbers III, 301-16 and 576 (1812
and 1822], pp. 282, 5351. The crux of this criticism is that pantheistic
philosophies tend to characterize God in an entirely indeterminate way,
whereas God must be viewed as fully determinate, i.e., as existing in the world
of finituds (see e.g., HPh 2: 385-86; SL Sl47 Zusatz; PhS 471; LL 84).
As for the characterization of Hegel's philosophy as panlogistic, while this
is a very common description (and was clearly common in Hegel's lifetime!,
Hegel was somewhat reluctant to accept it. See Butler's commentary to the
Letters, pp. 5, 21, 477, 497, 541. But in none of the correspondence or texts
that Butler cites does Hegel ever deny the basic principle that the Logos is
immanent in the world rather than separate from it.
49. Marx, "Critique of Hegel's Doctrine of the State,• in Benton and Liv-
ingstone, Early Writings, p. 61.
50. See Chapter Six for a fuller discussion of Hegel's theology.
51. See p. 164, n.5 above.
52. Jean Hyppolite, Genese et structure de la Phenomenologie de l'Esprit de
Hegel (Paris, 19461, p. 565.
Kojeve says the same thing (see Kojeve, Chapter 6, esp. pp. 166-681.
53. For other discussions of the transition from the Phenomenology to the
Logic, see Malcolm Clark, Logic and System: A Study of the 'l>'ansition from
"Vorstellung" to Thought in the Philosophy of Hegel (The Hague, 1971), pp.
166-68; Friedrich Grimmlinger, "Zurn Begriff des absoluten Wissens in Hegels
Phiinomenologie:' in Geschichte und System: Festschrift far Erich Heintel zum 60.
Geburtstag, hrsg. von Hans-Dieter Klein und Erhard Oeser (Milnchen, 1972),
pp. 296f; E. E. Harris, An Interpretation, pp. 20-26; Jean Hyppolite, Logique et
170 Nal'ES

Existence: Essai sur la Logique de Hegel jParis, 1953), p. 247;' Mitchell Miller,
"The Attainment of the Absolute in Hegel's Phenomenology:' Graduate Faculty
Philosophy Journal 7 (1978): 214-16; Stanley Rosen, pp. 214f; Donald Phillip
Verene, Hegel's Recollection: A Study of Images in the Phenomenology of Spirit
(Albany, 1985), pp. 115ff; and Merold Westphal, History and Truth,
pp. 224f.
54. Hyppolite, Genese, p. 568.
55. Hyppolite, Genese, p. 568; cf. pp. 569-70. As Hyppolite says, "le judge-
ment 'l'etre est le neant [v. LL 83f, 90ff], ce n'est pas l'etre lui-meme qui le fail"
(p. 568).
Cf. Schelling (cited and translated by Jean Wahl in his 'Hegel et
Kierkegaard;' Revue Philosophique 112 [1931]: 321-80): "Ce n'est pas l'etre qui se
trouve etre le rien, mais c'est moi qui trouve qu'il est le riert' (p. 362n).
F. E. Abbot makes the same point, arguing that Hegel reifies abstract
categories of thought such as 'being' and 'nothingness; leaving out the thinker.
Abbot, vol. 2, p. 217.
And cf. Ralph Barton Perry, Present Philosophical Thndencies (Westport,
Connecticut, 1972), pp. 149, 181.
56. As Hegel says in his Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, it is human
consciousness which "drii.ckt den Begriff also solchen aus, ... und der Begriff ist
nur mit dieser Bestimmung /dee, Wahrheit" (S279 Anmerkung).

57. Hyppolite himself refers to Hegel's "image mystique' (Genese, p. 146).

It is interesting to note in this regard that Hegel says that philosophy and
mysticism have the same task - the overcoming of the finite - but that
mysticism does not reach this supersession by rational thought, which is re-
quired of philosophy, but only though intuition or feeling (which are insuffi-
ciently discursive in Hegel's view) (v. SLS82 Zusatz).
58. An excellent discussion of this question - whether or not there is a
Logos in history - is found in Isaiah Berlin's The Hedgehog and the Fox (New
York, 1953).
59. Kant's Logic, trans. Robert Hartman and Wolfgang Schwartz (Indian-
apolis and New York, 1974), p. 13.
60. Hence, Tom Rockmore is right to point out that "the price Hegel pays:'
and pays gladly we may add, "for his philosophical approach to history is that
he violates the Kantian dictum that regulative ideas can function as heuristic
aids only; since for Hegel freedom (that towards which the Logos guides
history) is "constitutive of the historical process:• "Hegel on Epistemological
Circularity and Certainty;' International Philosophical Quarterly 22 (1982): 241.
61. For discussions of this point, see Hyppolite, Genese, pp. 3lff; and
Solomon, "Hegel's Concept of 'Geist;" in Alasdair MacIntyre, ed., Hegel: A Col-
lection of Critical Essays (Notre Dame and London, 1972), pp. 125-50 (see esp.
pp. 124, 126, 129, 132, 148).
 Notes 171

62. Marx, Critique, p. 220. See also Critique, p. 226; "On the Jewish Ques-
tion," in Benton and Livingstone, ed., Early Writings, p. 234; Manuscripts,
pp. 327, 329.
Marx, of course, felt that Hegel's theory of the state precluded the true
emancipation of man from his particularity jwhich for Marx and Hegel always
involves self-alienationl into his authentic species-being. Still, Marx entirely
shares Hegel's basic assertion that it is only as a "universal self," a Gat-
tungswesen, that man is truly actual.
63. Marx, Manuscripts, p. 351; and v. p. 327.
64. Marx, Manuscripts, p. 350. Cf. Hegel, PhS 25lf, where he says that
"ethical substance" - i.e., society - is "the action of the single individual and
of all individuals, ... the action of each and everyone, the essence which is
the essence of all beings."
65. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith jLondon,
19731, Al06. Further references to this work will be abbreviated as 'CPR:
References to this and all other works of Kant, with the exception of his Logic
jsee p. 170, n. 59 abovel, refer to the standard Preussische Akademie
pagination.
66. Cf. also Hegel's conception of the nature of language, which he says
"expresses nothing but universality" jSL S20; v. PhS 60, 66, 308f, 395; and PhM
S396 Zusatzl, Compare Wittgenstein's arguments against a "private language."
67. This is supported by Hegel's assessment of the task of the
Phenomenology. In the Preface to that work, which Hegel wrote after com-
pleting the body of the work, he says that "the task of leading the individual
from his uneducated standpoint to knowledge had to be seen in its universal
sense, just as it was the universal individual (allgemeine individuum) ... whose
formative education had to be studied" jPhS 161,

68. Marx, Jewish Question, p. 226.

See Dieter Henrich, Hegel im Kontext jFrankfurt am Main, 1967), p. 197:
"Marx (wishes to substitute] ein anderes Subjekt als den Hegelschen Geist . .. fur
den Gegensatz von Begrif( und Weir - namely, a 'concrete" subject as opposed
to the "mystificatory'' subject that he feels the Hegelian Geist represents.
See also Lukacs, p. 554: "Real history, according to Hegel, is thus made to
depend on an abstract, imaginary, mystificatory 'bearer' which, it goes without
saying, can only 'make' history in an abstract, imaginary, mystificatory
fashion."
69. With regard to Kant, for example, Werkmeister shows that a fun-
damental goal of Hegel's recasting of Kantian ontology was to resolve the Kan-
tian "diremption of the human being who, living in two worlds [the empirical
and transcendental, the human and divine], can exist only in inner dishar-
mony; whereas Hegel himself is interested in the re-affirmation of the 'unity
of man:" Werkmeister, p. 100.
172 NOTES

70. Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, trans. George Eliot (New York,
19571, p. xxxvii.
71. Kierkegaard, Postscript, p. 194.
72. Barth, pp. 366-77.
73. Kant's Logic was published in 1800, four years before his death. The
following quote is from p. 55 of the Logic (emphasis added).
74. Kant, Logic, p. 56; and v. CPR, 836, 83f.
75. Kant, Logic, p. 56.
It is important to note that Kant is speaking of formal, or logical, truth in
this passage. Hence, strictly speaking it is only in regard to logical truth that
Kant finds any "material" criterion - any correspondence criterion which
would allow for our propositions to make ontological commitments - to be
impossible. The "transcendental logic" of Kant's Critique does involve the
applicability of pure concepts to objects (see CPR, 881-821, and in this sense
allows for a "material" criterion of truth. But it is an odd criterion in that the
objects which concepts refer to are phenomenal, not objects in themselves.
Logic becomes dialectical, a "logic of illusion;' when it applies concepts to
objects themselves (as opposed to the merely phenomenal object): "for logic
... lays down only the formal conditions of agreement with the understand-
ing; and ... these conditions can tell us nothing at all as to the objects con-
cerned" (CPR, 886). Transcendental logic refers concepts to Erscheinung, and
this means that the application of concepts to objects themselves is a Logik des
Scheins. In this sense (i.e., in terms of the application of concepts to objects
themselves) there is no material criterion of truth even in Kant's transcen-
dental logic.
76. We will see in Chapter Three that Hegel does believe in the external
world, and in the "influence on consciousness from without." But this "in-
fluence" is possible only because the object is not external in an extreme sense,
where it would have no affinity with categories of thought. It is in this sense
that Hegel says the external object is implicitly, or potentially, identical to our
Begriff of it (see Chapter Three, pp. 6lff).

77. Kant, CPR, Bxxvi.

78. Cf. Sartre, I:etre et le neant, 9e edition (Paris, 19431, p. 11: "Le dualisme
de l'etre et du paraftre ne saurait plus trouver droit de cite en philosophie. .. [There
is no] reel cache qui aurait draine pour lui tout l'etre de l'existent. Et l'apparence
de son cote n'est pas une manifestation inconsistante de cet etre:'
79. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Ql6, Art. 4, Basic Writings of Saint
Thomas Aquinas, ed. Anton C. Pegis (New York, 1945). Cf. Aristotle,
Metaphysics 103lb2Q: "Each thing and its essence are one and the same; ...
and to know a thing is to know its essence.•
 Notes 173

80. See Hegel's 1822 letter to Edouard Duboc ja nonacademic philosopher

in the Hegelian school), where he distinguishes his own correspondence
theory of truth from the traditional one, and from Kant's. Letters, No. 422,
pp. 492-94.
81. See CPR, Bxvi: "Hitherto it has been assumed that all our knowledge
must conform to objects. But all attempts to extend our knowledge of objects
by establishing something in regard to them a priori, by means of concepts,
have, on this assumption, ended in failure. We must therefore make trial
whether we may not have more success ... if we suppose that objects must
conform to our knowledge.•
82. This sort of question recurs perpetually in Hegel's writings. Cf. PhS
242: 'This is the notion which consciousness forms of itself.... Let us see
whether this notion is confirmed by experience, and whether its reality cor-
responds to it.•
83. In the original draft of my manuscript, I had included a lengthy
discussion of the way in which Hegel's analysis of "sense-certainty" entails a
prospective critique of modern empiricism, "sense-data" theory, 'critical
realism,• and logical positivism, looking at the views of such philosophers as
Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, A. J. Ayer, Carl Hempel, Rudolf Carnap, and
Moritz Schlick to make good my argument. jOne is even tempted to call this
Hegel's revenge on modern empiricism, to borrow the term Robert Solomon
uses in the title of his chapter on "Sense-Certainty: Hegel's Revenge jon
Russell)" - In the Spirit, pp. 32lff.).
I have decided that this would be too much of a digression, but cannot
resist citing a passage from Moritz Schlick's paper on 'The Foundation of
Fnowledge" to show just how close the logical positivist view is to the criterion
of truth that Hegel is so stridently criticizing in his "Sense-Certainty" chapter.
Schlick writes of the "immediate sensation" which is to be the foundation of
i,laowledge in such a way that it becomes virtually a mystical experience j'The
Foundation of Knowledge," trans. David Rynin, in A. J. Ayer, ed., Logical
Positivism [New York, 1959], pp. 226f):

Here everything depends on the characteristic of immediacy which is

peculiar to observation statements, to which they owe ... their value of abso-
lute validity.... A genuine confirmation (of an observation statement] cannot
be written down, for as soon as I inscribe the demonstratives "here:' "now,' they
lose their meaning.... [Thus] cognition, like a flame, as it were, licks out to
[these genuine confirmations, in immediate sensation], ... reaching each but
for a moment and then at once consuming it.

As we will see in our following discussion, nothing could be closer than

this to Hegel's portrait of the inevitably self-deceiving character of
sense-certainty.
174 NOfES

A large amount has been written on Hegel's critique of 11sense-certainty.•

Besides the work of Solomon just mentioned, some of the best commentaries
are: Werner Becker, Hegels Begrif( der Dialektik (Stuttgart, 1969), pp. 108-36
(Becker, however, finally sees Hegel as guilty of a play on words; but see
Lauer, A Reading, p. 48); Flay, pp. 29-50 jFlay gives an especially fine analysis
of the "natural attitude" and its role within the overall structure of the
Phenomenology); Hyppolite, Gen~se, pp. 81-99 (with an interesting digression
on Parmenides, pp. 89-93); Howard P. Kainz, Hegel's Phenomenology, Part I
(University, Alabama, 1976), pp. 61-64; Ytashaq Klein, "La Phinomenologie de
l'esprit et le scepticisme: Revue philosophique de Louvain, 69 (1971): 373-77
(Klein argues that Hegel's analysis of "Meaning." a key feature of the "sense-
certainty" section, is a hermeneutic principle that remains central to the entire
Phenomenology); Pierre-Jean Labarriere, Structures et mouvement dialectique
dans la Phenonmenologie de l'esprit de Hegel (Paris, 1968), pp. 73-76; Lauer, A
Reading of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (New York, 1976), pp. 41-52 (Lauer
regards Hegel's analysis as accomplishing the "shattering of the empiricist
dream" [p. 52)1; Charles Taylor, "The Opening Arguments of the
Phenomenology." in Maclntyre's Hegel, pp. 151-87 ('laylor attempts to show that
Hegel is involved in a transcendental argument); and Verene, pp. 27-38
(Verene gives special emphasis to Hegel's metaphor of the Eleusinian
Mysteries).
84. Kant, CPR, Bxxii"
85. Kant, CPR, B23.
86. See LL 777f: "But surely it is ridiculous to call this nature of self-
consciousness, namely, that the 1' thinks itself, ... an inconvenience and, as
though there were a fallacy in it, a circle. It is [in] this relationship [of self to
itself] ... that self-consciousness ... makes itself its own object. . .. A stone
does not have this 'inconvenience'; when it is to be thought or judged it does
not stand in its own way. It is relieved from the burden of making use of itself
for this task; it is something outside it [i.e., the subject that thinks it or makes
a judgment about it] that must give itself this trouble."
87. This whole topic of the "philosophic spectator" is the subject of my
article, "Hegel on Metaphilosophy and the 'Philosophic Spectator;" Idealistic
Studies 16, no. 3 (1986): 205-17.
For other discussions of this topic, see Joseph Gauvin, "Le 'Fiir uns' dans
la Phenomenologie de lesprit,• Archives de Philosophie 33, no. 4 (1970): 829-54;
Quentin Lauer, A Reading, pp. 43-44; Lukacs, pp. 474-76; and Otto Poggeler,
"Die Komposition der Phlinomenologie de Geistes," Hegel-Studien, Beiheft 3
(1966): 50-51.
88. That this thinking through of one's experience of the object is a "pro-
gressive uncovering" is important. It is wrong to regard Hegel's proposed
criterion of truth as in any way an immediate algorithm for finding disparities
between consciousness and its object. Unfortunately, Hegel himself gives
 Notes 175

strength to this misunderstanding upon occasion. For example, in his

Phenomenology, and later in his "shorter" Logic and again in his Philosophy of
Nature, Hegel scorns Kant's epistemology by saying that "even animals are not
excluded from the wisdom" that there is no final disparity between subject and
object: "for animals do not just stand idly by in front of sensuous things as if
these things possessed intrinsic being [i.e., completely apart from and
independent of the subject which beholds them], ... but fall to without fur-
ther ceremony and eat them up" (PhS 65; SL S204 Anmerkung; PhN S246
Zusatz). Hegel is letting his wit get the better of him here, for this parable
implies that the disparity between subject and object can be immediately
bridged, "without further ceremony:' But this is the very opposite of Hegel's
serious view, which he repeats endlessly, that the opposition between subject
and object can only be overcome through a long and laborious journey along
the path of our experience, for "there is no easy-going way, and no royal road"
to truth (PhS 43).

Chapter Three

1. This is the title given by Herman Nohl to his edition of the following
works, published as Hegels theologische Jugendschriften (Tiibingen, 1907): The
Life ofJesus (1795), The Positivity of the Christian Religion (1795-1800), The Spirit
of Christianity and its Fate (1798-1799), and the fragmentary manuscripts that
Nohl called Love (1798) and A Fragment of a System (1800).
See T. M. Knox, trans. G. W F. Hegel: Early Theological Writings
(Philadelphia, 1977). Richard Kroner provides an excellent introduction to this
book, situating Hegel's early writings within the context of his later
philosophical development.
2. Kant, CPR, Bxxx.
3. Similar remarks abound in Kierkegaard's writings. See, for example,
Postscript, pp. 334ff, and the many entries in his journals on the relation
between philosophy and Christianity: Soren Kierkegaard's Journals and Pa.pers,
ed. and trans. Howard and Edna Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk
(London, 1975), vol. 3, sections 3245-85, 3315, 3317. In one epigrammatic
entry, Kierkegaard suggests that "philosophy is life's dry-nurse, who can take
care of us - but not suckle us" (section 3252).
4. In his Difference essay and in his Faith and Knowledge, both published
in 1801, the year Hegel moved to Jena from his post as a family tutor in
Frankfurt, and began co-editing the Kritisches Journal der Philosophie with
Schelling.
5. As Hegel writes in his Encyclopc2dia, "[ultimately] an out-and-out other
simply does not exist for mind" (PhM S377 Zusatz).
6. Hegel shares Aristotle's view that
176 NOfES

scientific knowledge is not possible through the act of perception, , .. nor

is seeing knowing.... For perception must be of a particular, whereas scien-
tific knowledge involves the recognition of the universal. ... But the univer-
sal one cannot perceive, since it is not 'this' and it is not 'now' (.R:lsterior
Analytics s.,i>28-38, 88·13-14).

Hegel goes to great lengths to show the impossibility of dissociating obser-

vations from theory, i.e., of cogently describing observation as devoid of any
interpretive contribution of thought (see esp. PhS 139-210). Knowing
demands the contribution of thought to things, the "recasting and transmuting
of the phenomenal world into a universal [e.g., into law] - (only by this
recasting can) the kernel [essence, law] within the shell of the sense-percept
be brought to light" (SL SSO).
7. "Thought" = "da.s Denken,• which Hegel opposes to both sense-
certainty (sinnliche GewiSheit) and perception (die Wahmehmung). Thought
consciously (while sense-certainty and perception only un-consciously)
employs universal categories or concepts as contributory factors to the nature
of the object of consciousness.
8. Kant, CPR, Al26.
9. For further discussions of this passage from Hegel's Introduction, see
Ardis B. Collins, "Hegel's Redefinition of the Critical Project~ in Merold
Westphal, ed., Method and Speculation in Hegel's Phenomenology (Atlantic
Highlands, N.J., 1982), pp. 1-7; Dieter Jahnig, ''Die Beseitigung der Geschichte
durch 'Bildung' und 'Erinnerung;• Praxis 7 (1971): 64; John Smith's classic
discussion, "Hegel's Critique of Kant;' The Review of Metaphysics 26, no. 3
(1973): 440-44; and Westphal, History and 'lhtth, pp. 1-7.
10. However, see p. 179 (n. 35) below, for a remark on how this is
misleading.
11. Kant, CPR, Bxx; and v. A42, B298.
12. Adversus mathematicos, VII, cited by Hegel in his History of Philosophy
(2:321). As regards this ra8oa, compare Kant, CPR, B154f, where he argues
that the synthetic activity of our understanding directly "affects" (a(tiziert) the
intuitional content of consciousness by its act (Handlung). Further, intuition
itself "affects" its object, since its "forms• (space and time) are a priori represen-
tations in the mind (A24, A20), to which objects conform, rather than
themselves conforming to objects (v. Bxvii).
13. "The Absolute" (das Absolute), like many other Hegelian terms, is used
in a variety of ways. For example, it can have both a religious and a historical
significance, since the Absolute is both the Christian God and the Logos unify-
ing and guiding historical events (see Chapter 1\vo). Hegel also speaks of the
Absolute as signifying being and truth. Very generally, the epistemological
significance of the Absolute is for Hegel, like Schelling, that it represents the
 Notes 177

ultimate identity of subject and object, although (for Hegel at least - Hegel
has his doubts about Schelling's sincerity on this point - I this is an "identity
in difference." This "identity in difference'' may be likened to the communion
of man with Christ in the Eucharist, where there is a true unification of
human and divine which yet preserves their difference.
For a concise discussion of Hegel's use of the term "absolute," see Quentin
Lauer, A Reading, pp. 27f.
14. Hegel's point, developed in the first few pages of the Introduction, is
that the Kantian project involves an unconvincing reconstruction of truth. That
is, "what truly is" is abandoned - for it is never penetrated by our instrument
of knowledge - and yet our cognition is still held to be true, for we set our
sights lower than being (in itself) and readjust our notion of truth to the sphere
of appearances.
15. Various commentators (e.g., H. S. Harris and W. T. Stace) have noted
that Hegel's claim that Kant simply presupposes an ultimate barrier between
subject and object is not without some support in Kant's own texts. The exam-
ple most usually brought up is Kant's category of "modality,• which does in fact
seem to presuppose the nonidentity of subject and object. This is so because
the principles of modality "restrict all the categories to their merely empirical
employment,• i.e., they have "a purely logical significance, expressing the form
of thought ... [without) referring to the possibility, actuality, or necessity of
things' (CPR, B266f; and cf. B286). Hegel himself occasionally mentions this
(e.g., SL Sl43), although his preferred analysis of what he takes to be the Kan-
tian presupposition is more complex, having to do with what he sees as Kant's
taking for granted that cognition is a medium or instrument - as well as
Kant's identification of alteration of the object with loss of the object (in itself).
16. Westphal, History and Thi.th, p. 7. Westphal goes on to suggest that "a
kind of psychoanalysis seems to be called for" to achieve the exorcism of this
anxiety (compare Darrel Christensen, "Hegel's Phenomenological Analysis
and Freud's Psychoanalysis." International Philosophical Quarterly 8 (1968):
356-78). Hegel, of course, eschews any psychological method of criticism for
a phenomenological critique of the Kantian position.
17. Plato, Phaedo 65c.
18. On this whole topic, see Jean Hyppolite's article, "La critique
hegelienne de la reflexion kantienne; KD.ntstudien 45 (1953-54): 83-95.
19. Wittgenstein, sections 257ff.
20. Kant, CPR, A244.
21. Kant, CPR, A239, 240.
22. There are unmistakable similarities between Hegel's arguments
against Kant's Ding an sich and Berkeley's arguments against material
178 NOTES

substance. In his Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous I1713) Iwhere Hylas
represents Lockean realism and Philonous speaks for Berkeleyan idealism),
Hylas says that "our faculties are too narrow and few" to know "the true and
real nature of objects," and that "all we know is that we have ideas ... in the
mind . . . of the way objects appear to be~ This could be Kant speaking.
Philonous finds this doctrine to be the most "wild and extravagant" he can
imagine, and to be based on a mere "dream of some unknown nature ... " lin
The Empiricists, [no editor listed) [Garden City, New York, (n.d.l), pp. 270-73;
and cf. 'Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge; in Edwin
A. Burtt, ed., The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill [New York, 1963), sec-
tions 85-88).
Berkeley explains the "extravagance'' of this doctrine succinctly in his
1>-eatise, where he says that the notion of the real existence of substance apart
from the mind is "the very root of scepticism - for so long as men thought
that real things subsisted without the mind, and that their knowledge was not
so far real [insofar as it was not conformable to independently existing things),
... it follows that they could not be certain they had any real knowledge at
all. ... All this scepticism follows from our supposing a difference between
things and [our] ideas, and that the former have a subsistence without the
mind ... " lin Burtt, English Philosophers, sections 86-87). This is very close to
the kind of argument Hegel offers against Kant.
An important difference between Hegel and Berkeley is that while
Berkeley sometimes seems ambivalent about whether the notion of material
substance is self-contradictory or simply superfluous, Hegel always suggests that
the Ding an sich - so far as it is conceived as unknowable - is contradictory,
the fantasized projection of a "void 'Beyond'" which is in fact "nothing in itself"
(e.g., PhS 88, 205, 351-53).
We should note that in general Hegel held a rather unfavorable opinion
of Berkeley. This is mainly because Hegel wishes to extend Berkeley's dictum
that "to be is to be perceived" beyond perception to what Kant calls "ideas of
reason." The being of things defined solely by perception is inadequate, and
we need what Berkeley rejects as "abstract ideas" to fully define and explain
the being of things.
23. See Metaphysics Book 1, Chapter 9.
24. Berkeley, 1>-eatise, section 86.
25. This is why pure being in itself, which Hegel calls in his
Phenomenology "die leere Hulse des reinen Seins" (Phan 428), is directly con-
vertible with the category of "pure nothing" in Hegel's logic. Each expresses
a total lack of determinateness or positive attributes. See Chapter Four, section
2 below.
26. Kant, CPR, A255.
27. Kant, CPR, A380.
 Notes 179

28. Kant, CPR, e.g., B307.

29. For further discussion of Hegel's critique of the Kantian Ding an sich,
see Harris, An Interpretation, pp. 63-72; John Smith, pp. 448f; Solomon, In the
Spirit, pp. 295-302. For a defense of Kant against Hegel's criticisms, see
Merold Westphal, '1n Defense of the Thing in Itself." Kantstu.dien 59 (1968):
118-41.
30. See, e.g., Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, 2 vols.,
trans. E. F. J. Payne (New York, 1969), vol. 1, p. 95: "[Th speak of a transcenden-
tal] object forming the basis of representation ... helps us not at all, for we
do not know how to distinguish that object from the representation. We find
that the two are one and the same. . .. •
31. Cited in Royce, The Spirit of Modem Philosophy !Boston, 1893), p. 164.
Royce's translation: "Notice! The late metaphysic is dead without heirs, and
tomorrow/All the things in themselves shall under the hammer be sold."
32. Cf. SL S60 Anmerkung: "No one knows ... that anything is a limit or
defect, until he is at the same time above and beyond it."
33. Goethe's Zur Morphologie, vol. I, Part 3; cited in Hegel's PhN S246
Zusatz; and partially in his SL S140, and Diff. 112. The "sixty years"
presumably means simply that Goethe had heard this claim all his life (he
wrote this verse in 1820, and was born in 17491.
34. Kant, CPR, B295.
35. Actually, this way of putting it is misleading, for in Hegel's absolute
idealist system these two things coincide. Since Hegel says that the truth of
the object is the "thing thought." he cannot disparage our thought about the
world as a criterion of truth jeven though he sometimes seems to). Hegel's
point is better put by saying that we cannot dissociate knowledge of our
thought about reality from knowledge of reality itself.
36. Grimmlinger, pp. 29lf.
37. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1072h20-21. Incidentally, Hegel cites this
passage from Aristotle as the final coda to his EneyclopcBdia jPhM S577).
Plato expresses much the same thought in a more poetic manner: '1t is the
nature of the real lover of knowledge to strive emulously for true being....
His desire will not flag till he comes into touch with the nature of each thing
in itself by that part of his soul to which it belongs to lay Iioi.d on that kind
of reality by virtue of its affinity with it" (Republic 490b).
38. As Moritz Schlick puts it, the aim of arriving at "basic propositions"
or 'bbservation statements" confirmed by immediate sensation is to achieve
"an absolutely fixed point of contact between knowledge and reality" (in Ayer,
Positivism, p. 226).
180 NOfES

Hegel himself calls attention to the fact that "this principle is the same as
that which has in the present day been termed ... immediate knowledge"
(SL S7 Anmerkung).
39. On Hegel's criteriology, see Collins, in Method and Speculation, pp.
3-7; Kenley Royce Dove, "Hegel's Phenomenological Method;' in Warren E.
Steinkraus, New Studies in Hegel's Philosophy (New York, 1971), p. 35; and
Solomon, In the Spirit, pp. 307-11.
40. Kenley Royce Dove goes so far as to argue that "the wealth of human
experience actually described in the Phenomenology is a most eloquent
demonstration that Hegel's method is far more 'empirical' than that of the
philosophers who call themselves 'empiricists"' (in Steinkraus, pp. 41f).
In general, Hegel believed that strict empiricism was a one-sided form of
inquiry, unable to penetrate to the genuine conceptual structures of reality. In
a somewhat whimsical (but for all that, quite typicall reference to empiricism
in a letter to Friedrich Niethammer (who appointed Hegel Rector and Pro-
fessor of Philosophical Preparatory Sciences at Nuremberg in 18081, Hegel
writes: "Experience has proven it [they say] - experience, the empirical! You
know! And proven what? That potatoes, horseradish, teapots, energy-saving
ovens, etc., all prospered well where the sciences flourished" (Letters, No. 102
(1807), p. 136). Even of Goethe, who Hegel admired greatly, he writes (of
Goethe's work on color): "he adheres completely to the empirical, instead of
going beyond ... to the concept which will perhaps only get to shimmer
through" (Letters, No. 90 [to Schelling, 1807), p. 77).
41. Feuerbach, Sii.mtliche Werke (Leipzig, 1846-90), vol. 2, pp. 326f; cited
and trans. by Eugene Kamenka, The Philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach (New
York, 1969), pp. 70f.
42. See Feuerbach, Sii.mtliche Werke, vol. 2, p. 362f; and Kierkegaard,
Postscript, pp. 267-82 (and passim).
43. Merleau-Ponty, p. 63.
44. See, e.g., SL §82 Zu.satz, where Hegel says that the aim of speculative
logic involves the "realization'' and "translation" of subjective categories of
thought into objective categories of being. See also SL S24, where he says that
"logic coincides with metaphysics; i.e., with ontology, for it shows that
"thoughts ... express the essential reality of things:·
45. Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach:' #XI, in Benton and Livingstone, Early
Writings.
On this point, see Elena Panova, "The Identity of Logic, Epistemology, and
Ontology in Hegel and in Marxism," Hegel-Jahrbuch (1975): 501-5.
46. Marx, "Letters from the Franco-German Yearbooks," in Benton and
Livingstone, Early Writings, pp. 208f.
 Notes 181

4 7. Hence, Karl Barth is mistaken to say that Hegel provides us with "eine
Denkregel, der zufolge es Ratsel nur gibt, um alsbald von oben eingesehen und
au(gel6st zu werderl' !Barth, p. 364).
48. This is Hegel's paraphrase of Genesis 3: 14-24.
49. "Philosophische Briefe iiber Dogmatismus und Kritizismus;' in Werke,
hrsg. von Manfred Schroter IMiinchen, 1972ff), vol. 1, p. 237.
50. Schopenhauer, vol. 2, p. 289. The term "objectivity" suffered a certain
loss of clarity and distinctness at the hands of Kant. For Kant, epistemological
'bbjectivity" amounts to universal and necessary knowledge of phenomena -
which he provides for with his "Copernican Revolution." Schopenhauer is not
using the term "objectivity" in this sense, however, but in a more usual way.
That is, Kant "vitiates all objectivity" both epistemologically, in that it is solely
due to the forms of intuition and categories of the understanding of the subject
that phenomenal objects are known, and ontologically, in that the object in
itself transcends all possible experience.
51. For the relation between consciousness and self-consciousness, see
Flay, pp. 80,170,228; Hyppolite, Genese, pp. 68-70, 139-50; Labarriere, Struc-
ture et mouvement, pp. 76-80; and Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution:
Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory !Boston, 1969), pp. l 12f.
52. It is true that from one perspective self-consciousness is but a stage
in the path towards Absolute Knowledge in the Phenomenology, and, like all
preliminary stages, is sublated by a higher stage !specifically, that of Reason).
But from another perspective, we may note that Hegel describes Absolute
Knowledge as "the reconciliation of consciousness with self-consciousness:' a
"unification" which 'bloses the series of the shapes of Spirit" IPhS 482f). Th be
as accurate as possible, perhaps we should not say that the transition from
realism to idealism is effected by the simple transition from consciousness to
self-consciousness, but rather is reached through the dialectic of Reason
which culminates in the absolute standpoint where consciousness and self-
consciousness have become united.
53. Fichte, Wissenschaftslehre, p. 429. Actually, Fichte feels that we can
choose between realism and idealism, but only on moral grounds. He claims
that realism implies fatalism while idealism preserves freedom of the will !pp.
431f), and that "idealism is the only possible philosophy" in view of its
superior moral consequences IP· 439). The pragmatists also counsel us to
choose between competing systems on the basis of moral land other practical)
value considerations - although their choice is not always the same as
Fichte's.
54. See William Marshall Urban, Beyond Realism and Idealism !London,
1949).
182 NOI'ES

55. Schopenhauer, vol. 2, pp. 4, 5.

56. Hans Reichenbach, The Rise of Scientifi_c Philosophy (Berkeley and Los
Angeles, 1951), p. 254; and cf. pp. 32, 66, 269.
57. This term was given by the "New Realists" to the quagmire they saw
idealism condemned to with its claim that we cannot eliminate the contribu-
tion of thought from the object. If this is so, the argument runs, then there
would be no way to know objects, but only our thought about objects. Hence,
we could never know anything about the independently existing world. See
R. B. Perry, 'lendencies, pp. 128-32, 313; and Perry, "The Ego-Centric Predica-
ment,• Journal of Philosophy 7 (1910): 5-14.
58. See Kant's Prolegomena to any .future Metaphysics, trans. Lewis White
Beck !Indianapolis and New York, 1950), Akad, 288-89, 374. All further
references to this work will be abbreviated as 'ProI:
59. Kant, Prol, 289.
60. Kant, Critique ofJudgement, trans. J.C. Meredith (Indianapolis, 1956),
42f (henceforth 'CJ'J.
61. Kant, CPR, Bxli (nJ, B275-79.
62. Cf. also Husserl and Fichte, who seek to show that there is a fallacy
behind supposing that representation begs the question, "representation of
what?' in such a way that the "what• must be an external cause. For Husserl,
the object of representation "is the title for essential connections of con-
sciousness" - that is, "in the extended sense of the term an object ... is con-
stituted' within certain connections of consciousness • (Ideas, trans. W. R.
Boyce Gibson (New York, 1967), pp. 371, 348). Fichte says the same thing:
'7he thing comes into being through an action (of consciousness) in accord
with laws, and is nothing else but the totality of these relations unified by the
imagination, so that all these relations together constitute the thing"
(Wissenscha(tslehre, p. 443).
63. See, e.g., Kant, CPR, B280, 8289, B294.
64. See Kant, CPR, B275-79.
65. See Kant, CPR, A34ff.
66. Kant, CPR, A383.
67. Schopenhauer, vol.1, p. 447; and see the whole Appendix on
"Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy" !vol. 1, pp. 413-534).
68. Schopenhauer, vol.2, p. 3 and passim.
69. Kojhe, pp. 152, 154, 156, 158.
70. Koj~e, pp. 152, 156, 158.
 Notes 183

See also John Smith, p. 449. Smith is careful, however, to qualify his
characterization of Hegel as a "thorough-going realist" by showing that it is
only in respect of his rejection of the unknowable Ding an sich - so that our
knowledge encompasses more than "mere" appearance - that this
characterization holds true.
71. This does seem unfair to Kant, insofar as he explicitly states that the
•matter• of knowledge is given by sensation and only its "form" is given •a priori
in the mind" (CPR, B34). Hegel's point is perhaps that rightly understood,
Kant's position reduces to representationalism and hence cannot account for
any "givenness" of external objects.
72. See, e.g., Phan 39: Knowledge first involves the self-alienation of con-
sciousness •und dann aus dieser Entfremdung zu sich zurii.ckgeht"; Phan 52: "Das
Wissenscha(tliche Erkennen er{ordert, sich dem Leben des Gegenstandes zu
iJ.bergeben. ... Aber in die Materie versenkt, kommt es in sich zurii.ck, aber nicht
eher als darin, da$ die Er(ullung oder der Inhalt sich in sich zuriicknimmt"; and
PhM §442: "Das Fortschreiten des Geistes ist Entwicklung, ... (der) Obergang in
die Manifestation und Ruckkehr in sich'.'
73. See Chapters Four and Five for a full discussion of this circular
teleology, which is the animating principle of Hegel's epistemology.
74. Kojeve, p. 150.
Stanley Rosen makes the point that Hegel's idealism "rejects any solution
... (to the problem of knowledge and the existence of the external world)
which transforms objects into 'ideas' or 'thoughts'" (An Introduction, p. 48). And
J. N. Findlay says that Hegel's "so-called absolute idealism ... is not the belief
that all things exist only in and for a consciousness" jHegel: A Reexamination
[New York, 1976), p. 16). Findlay, however, goes on to say that we cannot
understand Hegel's assertion that "spirit is the truth of everything"
metaphysicall)I IP- 16). This I think is wrong. Spirit or mind is the metaphysical
reality of the world, although it does not exclude the initial externality of the
world in the knowledge-relation.

Chapter Four

1. See also PhS 488: "Substance is charged, as subject, with the ...
necessity ... of exhibiting itself as spirit. ... Until [substance) has completed
itself in itself, until it has completed itself as world-spirit, it cannot reach its
consummation as self-conscious spirit:·
2. Of the three forms of substance that Aristotle recognizes - the
"perishable sensible" jmaterial things), the "eternal sensible" (the heavens), and
the "immovable, eternal and insensible" (the prime mover) (v. Metaph)lsics
106ga30-34) - both of the eternal substances lack characteristics which are
184 NorES

present in finite substances. (11 Only mortal substances involve generation; (21
eternal sensible substance involves only "minimal motion''; and (31 in the case
of unchangeable substance, there is no motion of, but only by that substance,
and there is no potentiality (since there is no matter) (v. Metaphysics Book 12,
Chapter 6).
3. See, e.g., Generation and Corruption 321b21, 322"28.
4. See Physics 192"30 and b28; Generation and Corruption 319"20, 320"3;
Metaphysics 9838 30, 10331 10. Aristotle, however, is not always consistent on
this point. •substratum," or "underlying nature" (v. Physics 189"29, 35, 190"15),
sometimes denotes the "logical subject of predication• (e.g., Metaphysics
1017b24), and sometimes the combination of matter and form, (e.g., Physics
190"33-bl6). Still, I think it is fair to say that Aristotle's most ~sual definition
of the substratum is in terms of matter.
5. Hegel sometimes speaks of these contrasting aspects of substance in
terms of form and matter, as does Aristotle (e.g., SL Sl28 & Zusatz, 129). "Mat-
ter" at other times becomes "content," as when Hegel says that uthe process of
development" from the "implicit to the explicit" nature of a thing involves the
'alteration of form without maltlng any addition in point of content" (SL Sl61
Zusatz; cf. also PhS 81; PhM S383 Zusatz; SL S24 Zusatz). This follows Aristo-
tle's analysis of form and substratum - where the substratum does not alter
but the form or shape does. Finally, Hegel sometimes just contrasts substance
with subject, although this is somewhat misleading, since "subject;' like Aristo-
tle's "form," is not strictly speaking separable from substance for Hegel, as it
was in the case of the Platonic "eidos."
6. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1Q69b14-16.
7. Aristotle, Metaphysics 10138 18-22; Physics 193b5.
8. Aristotle, Parts of Animals 639b15.
9. Aristotle, Parts of Animals 640"12-25.

10. See, e.g., PhS 488, where Hegel says that "spirit has completed itself"
only when substance has fulfilled the process of "exhibiting itself" as subject.

11. Aristotle, Physics 1928 22.

12. For other discussions of Hegel's debt to Aristotle (specifically, with

regard to the concepts of substance and hyle-morphism, dynamis and energia),
see Werner Beierwaltes, Platonismus und Idealismus (Frankfurt am Main,
1972), p. 166; Findlay, pp. 216f, 248; E. Harris, An Interpretation, pp. 54, 176f,
190-91, 204; Marcuse, Hegel's Ontology, pp. 42-43, 91, 103-4; Marcuse, Reason
and Revolution, pp. 40£; Rosen, An Introduction, p. 143; and Westphal, History
and 'Iruth, p. 122.
 Notes 185

13. Leibniz's "Correspondence with DesBosses:' in L. E. Loemker, ed.,

Philosophical Pa-pers and Letters of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (Dordrecht,
Holland, 1969), p. 599.
14. Leibniz, Monadology, section 10, in Loemker.
15. Leibniz's "Correspondence with DeVolder." in Loemker, p. 535.
16. Leibniz, Nouveaux essais, C. J. Gerhardt, ed., Die Philosophischen
Schriften von G. W Leibniz (Berlin, 1882), vol. 5, pp. 150-53.
17. Although "conatus• or "impulsion• is strictly speaking only one aspect
of force for Leibniz - it is the "beginning and end of motion" that is the "princi-
ple of the striving• of substance (Theory of Abstract Motion, in Loemker, p. 140).
Leibniz also speaks of a "passive force,• which is basically inertia (Specimen
Dynamicum, in Loemker, pp. 436f; On Nature Itself, in Loemker, p. 503;
"DeVolder; in Loemker, p. 531).
18. See Systeme nouveau, in Gerhardt, vol. 4, p. 472; New System, in
Loemker, section 3; Nouveaux essais, in Gerhardt, vol. 5, pp. 150-53.
19. "Correspondence with Arnauld." in Loemker, p. 360; "DeVolder,• in
Loemker, p. 516; Principles of Nature and Grace, in Loemker, sections 1, 2, 3;
New System, in Loemker, section 3.
20. New System, in Loemker, section 3.
21. Systeme nouveau, in Gerhardt, vol. 4, p. 472.
22. Monadology, section 14.
23, Nouveaux essais, in Gerhardt, vol. 5, pp. 151-53.
24. "Arnauld;' in Loemker, p. 339.
25. See Monadology, section 7; New System, section 15; Discourse on
Metaphysics, in Loemker, section 14.
26. "Arnauld," in Gerhardt, vol. 2, p. 43; "Arnauld," in Loemker, p. 339.
27. First 'Jh,ths, in Loemker, p. 268.
28. Further references to Hegel's relation to Leibniz may be found in
Findlay, pp. 165-67, 210 (on atomism and substance); Flay, p. 65 Ion force);
and Harris, pp. 177, 204, 220, 263, 317 Ion teleology, pure act, substance, and
the principle of development).
29. See Heraclitus's "Fragments," in Milton C. Nahm, ed., Selections from
Early Greek Philosophy (New York, 19341, Fragments 20, 22, 26.
30. See Fragments, #59: "From all things arises the one, and from the one
all things arise; . . . thou shouldst unite all things. . . . •
186 NOTES

31. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1069b13.

32. See Fichte, Wissenscha{tslehre, pp. 121, 142, 443.
33. See Fichte, Wissenschaftslehre, pp. 115, 117, 215, 217, 270. And cf.
Hegel, HPh 3:491f; Diff 53, 55, 59.
34. Other comparisons of Hegel and Heraclitus on the nature of becom-
ing may be found in Findlay, p. 48; E. Harris, An Interpretation, pp. 97f, 204;
Rosen, An Introduction, pp. 24-25; and Andries Sarlemijn, Hegelsche Dialektik
(Berlin, 1971), pp. 32-34.
35. Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (New York, 1965), p. 327.
36. Reichenbach, pp. 69f.
37. Parmenides, "On Truth; in Nahm, ed., Selections, pp. 116f.
38. Parmenides, "On Truth," pp. 116f.
39. Abbot, vol. 2, p. 210.
40. Hegel's reference to the hundred dollars is a jab at Kant's criticism of
the ontological proof for the existence of God (Kant, CPR, B620ff). Hegel
discusses this criticism in the section on "being" in his "larger" Logic (and cf.
HPh 3:452), and his basic point is that Kant confuses - or rather simply con-
flates - the categories of being (Sein) and determinate being or existence (Da-
sein) (LL 86ff). Hegel writes: 'When it is urged against the unity of being and
nothing that it is nevertheless not a matter of indifference whether anything
[the hundred dollars in this case] is or is not, we practice the deception of con-
verting the difference between whether I have or have not the hundred dollars
into a difference between being and non-being - a deception based ... on the
one-sided abstraction which ignores the determinate being (Dasein) present in
such examples and holds fast merely to being (Sein) and non-being; just as,
conversely, the abstraction of being and nothing which should be apprehend-
ed is transformed into a definite being and nothing, into a determinate being.•

41. Adolf Trendelenburg was the first to criticize Hegel for illegitimately
introducing time, or real change, into mere logical becoming. Die Logische
Frage in Hegels System (Leipzig, 1843).
42. J. M. E. M<!Iaggart, Commentary on Hegel's Logic (Cambridge, 1910),
pp. 17-21.
W. T. Stace takes issue with M<!Iaggart here. In his Philosophy of Hegel
(New York, 1955), Stace says that "Dr. M<!Iaggart thinks that a deduction of
change would not be valid [in the section of Hegel's Logic on "Becoming"]. (But]
whether the deduction is valid or not, ... that Hegel intended to deduce
change seems to me indisputable" (p. 138n). But Stace is perhaps not entirely
understanding M<!Iaggarts's point here. Stace himself says that "being and
nothing pass into each other logically, not one after the other in time:' and cau-
 Notes 187

tions us not to confuse the category of "mere empty being" with "concrete
existence" (p. 138). This is essentially all that Mdaggart is saying, and he
points out that Hegel himself says that this is not enough to get us "concrete
change'' (Mdaggart, pp. 17ff).
Mdaggart, however, believes that "real change'' is not even a characteristic
of Hegel's category of determinate being (Dasein) (p. 20), and this does seem
to be mistaken. For while it is true that Hegel does not introduce the category
of "development" (die Entwicklu.ng) until the beginning of the third Subdivision
of his "shorter" Logic (development is not a category per se of the "larger"
Logic), this in no way means that real change does not arise until we reach this
stage of the Logic. For, as Mdaggart himself points out, determinate being
'tontains as an element, not nothing, bu.t negation" (p. 20), and negation, as we
shall see in section 3 below, simply cannot be understood apart from real
change. Negativity is precisely what accounts for the dialectical impulse to
self-transcendence in things (v. SL Sll6 Anmerku.ng). The fact that die Ent-
wicklu.ng does not appear as a category of the Logic until we reach the section
on the "Begriff' means only that we cannot understand the full significance of
change until we understand it as the teleological development of concepts or
notions. But again, this is very different from saying that real change does not
itself arise until we have this understanding.

43. Mdaggart, p. 18.

44. I think this is Sartre's point as well when he writes that "litre pu.r et
le non-etre pu.r seraient deu.x abstractions dont la reunion seu.le serait a la base ck
realites concretes" (Sartre, p. 47).

45. It is important to note that contradiction also has an ontological

significance for Hegel, which arises when we consider concrete existents.
This ontological contradiction is not as mild as the sort of contradiction Hegel
speaks of as applying to the "merely logical" categories of being and nothing.

46. The argument of the transitions from Being to Nothing to Becoming

in the Logic has been the source of much controversy. For several of the main
commentaries, see Clark, pp. 75-79; Findlay, pp. 153-59; Harris, An Inter-
pretation, pp. 95-100; Henrich, pp. 77-79 (and Chapter 3, "Anfang und
Methode der Logik~ passim); G. R. G. Mure, A Study of Hegel's Logic (Oxford,
1950), pp. 32-44; Michael Rosen, Hegel's Dialectic and its Criticism (Cambridge,
1982), pp. 143-52; and 'Thylor, Hegel, pp. 277, 232.

47. Hence, the criticism by people such as R. B. Perry that absolute

idealism involves a "leveling tendency" which renders differences or distinc-
tions 'bf no account:' is completely mistaken (see Perry, 'lendencies, p. 190).
Hegel himself writes that "if reason be reduced to mere identity without diver-
sity, it will also win a happy release form contradiction at the slight sacrifice
of all its facets and contents" (SL S48 Anmerku.ng).
188 NOfES

48. As Sartre says, "le neant ... c'est au sein meme de l'etre en son coeur, com·
me un ver," in the sense that the thing is a synthesis of negative and positive
in which the "intrastructure• of being is "habitee par une condition necessaire [of
its] . . . existence" !Sartre, p. 57). Sartre's whole analysis of being and
nothingness relies heavily on Hegel - much more heavily than he admits.
49. Reichenbach, p. 68.
50. Royce, Modern Philosophy, p. 226.
51. For references to some of the major discussions of the Hegelian
dialectic, see Hegel-Jahrbuch (1974), which is entirely devoted to the concept
of dialectic (Koln, 1975); Becker, passim; Findlay, pp. 58-82; Flay, pp. 17-28;
Errol E. Harris, "Dialectic and Scientific Method," Idealistic Studies no. 3 (1973):
1-17; E. Harris, An Interpretation, pp. 29-34, 40-42; Martin Heidegger, Hegel's
Concept of Experience !New York, 1970), pp. 113-22; Marcuse, Reason and
Revolution, pp. 146ff, 157ff, 238ff; M. Rosen, pp. 75-76, 161-63; S. Rosen, An
Introduction, pp. 266-80; Sarlemijn, passim; Solomon, In the Spirit, pp. 215-20,
228-35, 267-73; Thylor, Hegel, pp. 131-37, 216-21, 225-31.
52. I am not convinced by those commentators who claim that Hegel's
method is not dialectical at all (see especially Dove, in Steinkraus, pp. 34f; and
Walter Kaufmann, Hegel: Reinterpretation, 1exts and Commentary [Garden City,
N.Y., 1966), pp. 160-62). The argument seems to be that for Hegel dialectic is
a characteristic of reality rather than a scientific tool for deciphering it. But,
as I have stressed throughout this book, Hegel insists that thought and being
cannot be ultimately separated, and a corollary of this is that "in every other
science the subject matter and the scientific method are distinguished from
each other," while in speculative philosophy they coincide (LL 43; and see
Chapter Five, pp. 96ff, below). For a persuasive rebuttal of the Dove/Kauf-
mann claim, see Grimmlinger, pp. 291-92. See also the next two quotes (from
PhS 40 and SL S81), both of which seem hard to reconcile with the portrait
of Hegel's method as nondialectical.
53. "The Idea" (die /dee) is Hegel's term for the unity of thought and being,
or subject and object, and as such is identical with truth Iv, SL SS212 & Zusatz;
213 & Anmerkung). But again, this unity is not simply self-identical, for "the
idea itself is the dialectic which forever divides and distinguishes the self-
identical from the differentiated, the subjective from the objective, ... • !SL
S214 Anmerkung).
54. This conviction of Hegel's of the necessity of opposition or negativity
for a fulfilling life is the source of his famous dictum that ''the history of the
world is not the theater of happiness; periods of happiness are blank pages in
it, for they are periods of harmony, where opposition is in abeyance" (PhH
26f).
55. Cf. also SL Sll9 Anmerkung: "Positive and negative are supposed to
express an absolute difference. The two however are at bottom the same, ...
 Notes 189

For in opposition, the different is not confronted by just any other, but by its
other.• The other, the negative, is thus essential to the definition of the thing,
and so is at once positive.
56. The nonidentity of consciousness and object is a contradiction for
Hegel because truth is the identity of subject and object, and this identity is
implicit all along (whether consciousness ever grasps the truth of its object or
not), so that the disparity between subject and object contradicts this implicit
identity.
57. Kojeve, p. 224.
58. Kant, CPR, Bxv; Prol, pp. 332, 351, 367.
59. Kierkegaard, Postscript, v. pp. 169, 262, 279, 375f.
60. Kierkegaard, Postscript, p. 99.
· 61. Kierkegaard, Postscript, p. 262.
62. See Kierkegaard, Concept of Dread, trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton,
1973), p. 32; Tire Last Years: Journals 1853-55, ed. and trans. Ronald Gregor
Smith (London, 1965), pp. 247, 332; Postscript, pp. 123, 279f, 357.
63. G. J. Stack, Kierkegaard's Existential Ethics (Alabama, 1977), pp. 46f.
64. C. D. Schrag, "Kierkegaard's Existential Reflection on Time," Per-
sonalist 42 (1961): 159:

65. Kierkegaard's assertion that becoming must be in the form of a leap

seems to be in more danger of failing to account for transition than Hegel's
theory, in my view. It suggests that there is no sufficient reason, or ground,
or cause, for the transition internal to the being which leaps. If becoming is
a "breach of immanence," so that the motive for development is not immanent
in the thing, then the motivation or impulse of becoming must be external to
the thing. But this is precisely "the external necessity of a dreadful fate or
destiny" that Hegel talks about (PhS 279). Hegel himself does view dialectic as
a breach, an -inward breach," and "schism" of substance (SL S24 Zusatz), but
this must be immanently motivated, arising from an impulse within the
substance, else it would doom the substance to the weight of external
necessity. Kierkegaard's texts, as far as I know, never indicate that he was
aware of the distinction that Hegel makes between "merely external" and "real
inward" necessity (SL S35 Zusatz), and, as such, Kierkegaard's assessment of
Hegel's dialectic is highly misleading.
Not only that, but Kierkegaard's description of transition as a '1eap" and
"breach of immanence" is highly misleading in terms of his own philosophy.
In his Concept of Dread, for example, Kierkegaard writes that "the annulment
(Aufhebung) of immediacy is an immanent movement within immediacy"
(p. 33). Indeed this must be so for Kierkegaard's '~xistential" dialectic, for
authentic becoming - which Kierkegaard almost exclusively describes as it
190 NOfES

applies to human consciousness as opposed to natural substances - is always

based on a decision of the self made in the "isolation of his [or her] inwardness"
(Postscript, p. 68n; and v. pp. 71, 128, 182ff, 212, 218, 223, 232, 248, 264n, 389,
455ff). The category of the leap refers not to a breach of this internal motiva-
tion of self-development, but to the fact that there may be no sufficient reason
or ground for the decision outside of the self. This is why decision is called an
''objective uncertainty" by Kierkegaard (e.g., Postscript, p. 182), but it is nev~r-
theless a subjective truth, precisely because the (authentic) decision is
motivated immanently, i.e., by the self alone in "internal solitude."
66. Hegel's theory of contradiction has been much discussed. It is a cen-
tral point of focus in most Marxist commentaries (for example, both Kojeve
and Hyppolite dwell on it throughout their works). For other examinations,
see Becker, pp. 11, 26, 28, 43, 64 (Becker traces the concept of contradiction
through various categories and strategies of the Logic); Findlay, pp. 25-26,
63-66, 76-79, 192-95; S. Rosen, An Introduction, pp. 20, 22, 23, 89-92 (Rosen
includes a full chapter comparing Hegel's theory of contradiction to those of
Plato and Aristotle); Sarlemijn, pp. 95-113 (Sarlemijn situates the theory of
contradiction within the larger theme of Hegel's dialectic and relates it to the
concepts of the Au(h.ebung, Verstand, and the critique of formal logic); and
Tuylor, Hegel, pp. 105-9, 225-31, 233-39.
67. 1\vo important discussions of Hegel's thought on scepticism are
Ytashaq Klein's "La Phenomenologie de l'esprit et le scepticisme• and Thomas R.
Webb's "Scepticism and Hegelian Science; Dialogue 16 (1977): 139-62. In addi-
tion, Jean Hyppolite's discussion of the "Scepticism" section of the
Phenomenology remains one of the best concise analyses of Hegel's anatomy
of ancient scepticism (Genese, pp. 178-83).
68. Clark Butler, the editor of Hegel's Letters, relates that at a tea party
given by Goethe for Hegel in the fall of 1827, "Hegel spoke [according to
another guest, Johann Eckermann] of dialectic as the 'methodically cultivated
spirit of contradiction which lies within everyone as an innate gift which is
especially valuable for discerning truth from falsehood! Goethe replied that
he feared such skill might be used to turn falsehood into truth and truth into
falsehood. But Hegel would grant this only in the case of the mentally
deranged" (Letters, p. 711). Hegel might well have granted this possibility
for the sceptic as well, and indeed his description of scepticism in the
Phenomenology implies a sort of mental derangement: "this consciousness ...
is in fact nothing but a purely casual, confused medley, the dizziness of a
perpetually self-engendered disorder;• a "restless confusion'' and "a lost
consciousness" (PhS 124f).
69. The understanding is for Hegel that mode of thought which is analytic
in the sense of "taking and holding apart; distinguishing and fixing the deter-
minations of things and of thought (v. PhM S467 Zusatz; Diff 90; SL S80). "It
pertains to the standpoint of the understanding." then, "to divide and to
 Notes 191

distinguish, and to maintain the finite thought-determinations in their opposi-

tion" IHPh 3:521). This method of analysis regards distinctions as exclusive
IHPh 1:26), so that it is perpetually iterating the phrase "either ... or,• and
never "both ... and." A thing is either one or many, either free or necessary,
either matter or mind, but not both the one and the other. The understanding
is the mode of thought employed by Goethe's philosopher who, in analyzing
things, "cancels the living spirit out," leaving their parts lying about his
laboratory without their "living link" jFaust, Part I, Scene 4).
Reason, on the other hand, is ultimately synthetic, for while it sees the
oppositions to things, it "demands that these should be brought together"
IHPh 3:521). "The sole interest of reason is to suspend such rigid antitheses•
lsolche festgewordene Gegensii.tze aufzuheben) as the understanding produces
IDiff 90). This does not mean that reason is indifferent to opposition, for "life
eternally forms itself by setting up oppositions" IDiff 91 ). No, Hegel says, what
reason opposes is rather "the absolute fixity which the intellect [der Verstand)
gives to the dichotomy" of its determinations IDiff 91). Understanding, then,
is the realm of absolutely fixed differences and oppositions, while reason is
the realm of the unity of differences and oppositions.
An important point must be made about Hegel's view of the understand-
ing [Verstand). He calls the analytic method of the understanding the
"dismembering" and "disintegration" of the thing ISL S38 Zusatz). But it is essen-
tial not to misunderstand his point here. Specifically, it is essential not to
understand him as arguing that the method of analysis is either useless or
fallacious. For he says that "we cannot do without this division [i.e., analysis)
if it be our intention to comprehend. Mind itself ... inherently divides" ISL
S38 Zusatz). Hegel's point is that this is not enough: "the error lies in forgetting
that this is only one half of the process [of comprehending things), and that
the main point is the reunion of what has been parted.•.. Analysis establishes
the differences in things, and this is very important, ... but [if we stop here],
the consequence [is that) the living thing is killed: life can exist only in the ...
concrete [unity of the thing)" ISL S38 Zusatz).
70. The arbitrariness of this cancellation is an epistemological arbitrari-
ness: the cancellation is not based on any knowledge of the truth of one or
the other alternatives. There may, of course, be other criteria for deciding,
most importantly ethical criteria, and in this sense choice would not be arbi-
trary. This is in fact what the sceptic does - he acts as if he were free - and
this is also what Kant counsels. But since neither Kant nor the sceptic claims
that we can know that we are free - in fact, they claim just the opposite, that
we never can know this - the decision to act •as if" we were free ls
epistemologically arbitrary. Hegel cannot accept this.
71. Negative freedom lblo~ negatives Freiheit) is "the concentration of the
I into itself ... [in a life] for which all bonds become broken, ... where every
positive [significance of the world] is annihilated, ... [and where} freedom is
infinite negativity, ... the nothingness of all that is objective" IARP 100/SW
192 NOfES

10:87). Hegel is actually discussing irony in this passage from his Philosophy
of Art, but as Kierkegaard points out in his Concept of Irony, Hegel's definition
of irony as "infinite absolute negativity" (see ARP 102/SW 10:89) rightly - in
Kierkegaard's view - considers irony as intrinsically nihilistic.
Hegel views negative freedom to be self-defeating, involving a deep
'tliscontent" and "yearning" for value, which, however, in being •unable to
abandon its isolation and withdrawal into itself,• is left with only the possi-
bility of purely negative, destructive action (ARP 100/SW 10:87). Hegel sees
such a negative freedom as characteristic of the French Revolution, which he
viewed as unwittingly making freedom synonymous with the »terror of
destruction" (PhS 355-63).
72. Plato, Sophist 259c-e.
73. This of course effects a twist on Kant's famous claim that reason {as
opposed to the understanding) is "burdened by questions which, as prescribed
by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as
transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer" (CPR, Avii).
74. For further discussion of the relation between Verstand and Vemun(t
in Hegel's thought, see Clark, pp. 37f; Harris, An Interpretation, pp. 37ff
(Chapter 4): Smith, pp. 444-47; and 'laylor, Hegel, pp. 48, 86, 116.
75. Kant, CPR, A407.

Chapter Five

1. As Karl Barth puts it, "was dieses [Hegelian] System macht, ... ist nicht
Anderes als der in der Fii.lle der Geschichte durchgehend wahrgenommene
Rhythmus des Lebens selber" (Barth, p. 357).
2. This phrase occurs in the context of Hegel's argument that philosophy
must be a "self-shaping" of reason into a systematic totality, so that there is no
externally limiting ground of reason. Hegel contrasts his own method where
"reason constructs itself" to the methods of Kant and Fichte, both of which he
believes to involve •dogmatic" elements (Diff 114-116).
3. Cf. PhS 64: "Consciousness is always ... learning from experience ...
but equally it is always forgetting [what it has learned) and starting ... all over
again~
4. Descartes, .Discourse, pp. 69, 71, 75, 85.
5. 'laylor, Hegel, p. 231.
6. Letters, No. 357 [1819), p. 478.
7. Kant, Metaphysical mements ofJustice, trans. John Ladd (Indianapolis
and New York, 19651, Akad, 206f.
 Notes 193

8. I discuss Hegel's notion of the unity of philosophy in more detail in

section 3 below (see p. 103).
9. See also PhS 31f: "Science dare only organize itself by the life of the
Begriff [i.e., thought) itself. . . . [Rather than the) external attachment of
schema [to thought), science is the self-moving soul ... [or) immanent ...
unfolding . . . [of the) content" of thought.
10. Hegel is not making the absurd claim that we do not think axiomatic-
ally or inductively - or for that matter, according to any other method of
demonstrative reasoning. These methods are also intrinsic to thought - they
are ways of thinking - but their status is considered by Hegel to be different
from the method he is proposing. The difference is this: while we may think
axiomatically, or alternatively inductively, etc., when we apply ourselves to
particular sorts of questions or problems, these methods of thought are
specific to these particular sorts of questions. The dialectical and teleological
method that Hegel advocates, on the other hand, is claimed to be a universal
and necessary feature of our thought: thought is intrinsically and inescapably
dialectical and teleological.
The claim is not that when we do mathematics we think dialectically, or
that when we make an experiment in chemistry we think teleologically, but
that from a broader perspective, the perspective which regards the whole
process of the development of thought (both the thought of an individual and
of human culture in general), thought necessarily has a dialectical and
teleological character. There is, in addition, a second-level employment of this
method, in which the philosopher describes and interprets the patterns of
thought, or the course of history, or the structure of reality. This second-level
employment of the dialectical or speculative method is, of course, not by any
means a necessary way of going about the business of philosophy. While
Hegel sees hints of it in many previous philosophers, he regards himself as the
first to concisely and consistently employ it. Its advantage - providing, of
course, that Hegel is right about the nature and structure of thought - is that,
in mirroring the necessary structure of the dynamics of thought, it allows for
the true achievement of Aristotle's desideratum of "thought thinking thought."
11. Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol. 1 (The Will to Power as Art), trans. D. F. Krell
(New York, 1979), p. 59.
12. Wittgenstein, section 129.
13. Wittgenstein, section 133.

14. Barth, pp. 358f (emphasis added).

15. Kant, CPR, B102ff.

16. Wittgenstein, section 132.
17. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1017"23-28.
194 NOTES

18. Cf. LL 53, where Hegel speaks of "the dead bones of logic" which need
to be "quickened by spirit, and so become possessed of a substantial, signifi-
cant content."
See also Letters, No. 122 [1808, to Niethammer], p. 175: "Nobody knows
anymore what to do with this old logic. One drags it around like some old
heirloom only because a substitute, the need of which is generally felt, is not
yet available."
For other discussions of Hegel's critique of formal logic, see Lauer, A
Reading, pp. 142-44 (Lauer is discussing the section of the Phenomenology on
"Observation ... Logical and Psychological Laws"); Flay, p. 125; E. Harris, An
Interpretation, pp. 7, 208f, 240; and Mure, pp. 16ff, 159-61, 207, 301.
19. Barth, pp. 351f.
Aristotle, in the opening passage of his De Interpretatione, makes a point
which is very similar to one made by Hegel in his argument that linguistic
analysis has an ontological significance. Aristotle writes that "spoken words
are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of
spoken words .... [Further], the mental experiences which these [words] sym-
bolize are the same for all, as also are those things of which our experiences are
the imagei' (16"3-8, emphasis added). Leaving aside the question of the
univocality of mental experiences, the point that I wish to call attention to is
the idea that words are symbols of mental experiences and that mental experi-
ences are "images" of events in the world (a point Aristotle makes clear in his
De Anima). Towards the beginning of the Preface to the second edition of his
'1arger" Logic Hegel makes a similar point.

The forms of thought are, in the first instance, displayed and stored in
human language. Nowadays we cannot be too often reminded that it is think·
ing which distinguishes man from beasts. Into all that becomes something
inward for men, an image or conception as s1,1ch, into all that he makes his own,
language has penetrated, and everything that he has transformed into language
and expresses in it contains a category [of thought] - ... so much is logic his
natural element, indeed his own peculiar nature. If nature as such, as the
physical world, is contrasted with the spiritual sphere, then logic must cer-
tainly be said to be the supernatural element which permeates every relation-
ship of man to nature, his sensation, intuition, desire, need, instinct, and
simply by so doing transforms it into something human, ... into ideas and
purposes (LL 3lf, emphasis added).

This passage expresses Hegel's conviction that language is thought's permea-

tion of the world, of reality. I believe that this is Aristotle's point as well. But
at any rate Hegel's interpretation of the significance of linguistic analysis
should leave us in no doubt as to his assignment of a crucially metaphysical
role to language. Language is the mediation of thought and being, of con-
sciousness and object, of mind and world, and logic is the making explicit of
the structure of this mediation.
 Notes 195

20. Camap, "The Old and the New Logic;• trans. Isaac Levi, in A. J. Ayer,
Positivism, p. 143.
21. See, e.g., Carnap, "Elimination,• in Ayer, Positivism, pp. 78f.
22. Carnap, "Elimination," in Ayer, Positivism, p. 76.
23. In fact, many contemporary empiricists themselves came to realize
this - some 130 or 140 years after Hegel had written these words. Attempts
to formulate critena of empirical testability lin terms of verifiability,
falsifiability, operationism, etc.J have been persuasively undermined. !See
Carl Hempel, 'The Empiricist Criterion of Meaning," in Ayer, Positivism,
pp. 111-18, and "Empiricist Criteria of Cognitive Significance: Problems and
Changes,• in his Aspects of Scientific Explanation and other Essays [London and
New York, 1965), pp. 102-13; see also Camap, ~stability and Meaning;'
Philosophy of Science 3 [1936): 419-71, and 4 [1937): 1-40.J
This has led to an acceptance by many of the critical importance of
acknowledging "theoretical entities" to determine cognitive meaning. !See
Hempel, 'The Theoretician's Dilemma:' in Aspects, pp. 177-79, 184; also
Alonzo Church, "The Need for Abstract Entities in Semantic Analysis,"
Daedalus 80 [1951), reprinted in Contemporary Philosophical Logic, Irving Copi
and James Gould, eds. [New York, 1978), pp. 166-76; and W. P. Alston, "Onto-
logical Commitments." Philosophical Studies 9 [1958): 8-17.J
Indeed, the movement has been made away from "basic," 'bbservation
sentences" to theories as a whole, along with their "interpretive framework;'
as the locus of meaning. !See W. V. 0. Quine, Word and Object [New York,
1960), p. 4; Carnap, Meaning and Necessity: A Study in Semantics and Modal
Logic [Chicago, 1964), pp. 206-7, 221; and Friedrich Waismann, "Verifiability;'
in Antony Flew, ed., Logic and Language [Oxford, 1955), pp. 117ff.J
24. As Hegel puts it, "it is evident [this argument goes] that the greatest
minds have erred, because they have been contradicted by others.... When
it is admitted that philosophy ought to be a real science, and one philosophy
must certainly be the true, the question arises as to which philosophy it is, and
how it can be known. Each one asserts its genuineness ... " IHPh 1:16J.
25. Barth, p. 363 !emphasis addedJ.
26. Thus Kant writes in his Critique of Judgement: "Now where we con-
sider a material whole and regard it as in point of form a product resulting
from the parts and their powers and capacities of self-integration ... what we
represent to ourselves in this way is a mechanical generation of the whole. But
from this view of the generation of a whole we can elicit no conception of a
whole as end - a whole whose intrinsic possibility emphatically presupposes
the idea of a whole as that upon which the very nature and action of the parts
depend .... At the same time this is the conclusion that we should in fact have
to draw were we entitled to look on material beings as things in themselves"
!CJ 408J.
196 NOfES

And cf. CJ 42 lf: "The mechanism of nature is not sufficient to enable us

to conceive the possibility of an organized being, but ... in its root origin it
[i.e., mechanism] must be subordinated to a cause acting by design.... [Still],
this is something which our reason does not comprehend.... [And yet], for
all that, this principle [of teleology) remains in full and undiminished force,
... [for] we cannot avoid ... adopting the teleological principle of the produc-
tion of organized beings."
27. Tom Rockmore has written two very informative articles on the role
of circularity in Hegel's philosophy. He details how circularity is an important
aspect of Hegel's conception of the Begriff, of history, and of philosophy in
general, and compares it with the role of circularity in the philosophies of
Aristotle and Fichte. Rockmore, "Epistemological Circularity'' (see Chapter
1\vo, p. 170, n. 60 above); Rockmore, "Epistemology in Fichte and Hegel: A
Confrontation; in Erneuerung ckr 'It-anszendental Philosophie im Anschlu~ an
Kant und Fichte, hrsg. von Klaus Hammacher und Albert Mues, (Stuttgart-Bad
Cannstatt, 1979).

28. The concepts of thought are "circles" because all thought is

teleological for Hegel, so that the initial expression and significance of a
concept, while immediate and one-sided, contains the germ of the completed
concept as its telos. The development of the germ to fruition is the activity of
making the concept manifest and actual. With the completion of this develop·
ment, the concept illuminates for the first time the full significance of its
origin, and in this sense circles back to its beginning (which is now seen from
a different, enriched perspective).

29. See Findlay, Hegel, pp. 23, 58-60, 81; and Rockmore, "Epistemological
Circularity," pp. 235, 238.

30. Hegel shares Humes discontent with the Cartesian axiomatic method
- although he does not mention Hume's criticisms ·~ on the grounds that it
leaves no legitimate way for demonstration to develop. As Hume puts it,
"[even] if there were [a primitive axiom such as Descartes proposes to have
arrived at through his method of doubt], [we] could [not] advance a step
beyond it but by the use of those very faculties of which we are supposed to
be already diffident" (Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section 12,
Part 1, in Burtt, ed., English Philosophers, p. 679).

31. Hegel writes in his "shorter" Logic: "only out of ... error does the truth
arise; ... error, ... when superseded, is still a necessary dynamic element of
truth: for truth can only be where it makes itself its own result" (SL S274
Zusatz). The false is but the one-sided, or the incomplete, for Hegel, so that
there is no absolute falsehood (except about contingent matters of fact). Fur·
ther, error is the precondition for truth, for truth does not just pop into exist-
ence ex nihilo, but is the result of reason struggling with its errors: to com·
prehend a truth requires us to comprehend its genesis, and this directly refers
us to falsity and error.
 Notes 197

Thus Hegel's notion of error is very different from Descartes's view that
"it is in the misuse of the free will that ... the characteristic nature of error
is met with" (Mediations, in The Rationalists, p. 150; and v. Principles of
Philosophy, in Descartes Selections, ed. Ralph M. Eaton [New York, 1955),
#XXXI). Since Hegel views error as the incomplete, it is not simply a disparity
within consciousness between understanding and will, but a "disparity" within
things as well - a disparity, or incongruence, between potentiality and actual-
ity, immediacy and developed telos.
32. Descartes, Discourse, pp. 41, 44.
33. Descartes, Discourse, p. 59.
34. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Py"honism, Bk. 1, Chap. 3, Section 7;
cited by Hegel in his HPh 2:339.
35. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1095bl-3; Physics 1848 17.
36. Aristotle, Parts of Animals 6468 25.

37. Aristotle, v. Nicomachean Ethics 1095330-b7; Posterior Analytics Book

1, Chapter 13.
As Findlay remarks, "those who expect all thought-advance to be that of
the deduction of conclusions from firmly established premises are quite
incapable of dialectical thinking: in dialectic it is the insufficiency of the
premises that leads to the more sufficient conclusion" (in his forward to the
"shorter" Logic, p. xiii).
38. Cf. LL 71: "the advance [of science] is a retreat into the ground, to what
is primary and true.... This last [stage or result], the ground, is thus also that
from which the first proceeds, that which at first appeared as an immediacy
[i.e., an axiom, an undemonstrated primitive term or proposition]:'
39. Meno 81d.
40. Meno 84a. For comparisons and contrasts between Hegel and Plato on
recollection, see Jean-Louis Viellard Baron, "Hegel, philosophie de la
reminiscence; International Studies in Philosophy 8 (1976): 147, 150-52 (Baron
finds Plato's recollection to be "mythological" and "psychological" in contrast
to Hegel's concept); Crites, In the 'lwilight, pp. 78-82 (Crites is relying on
Kierkegaard's critique of both Platonic and Hegelian recollection, a matter I
will take up in Chapter Seven, pp. 143-44); Flay, p. 239 (Flay distinguishes
between the different senses in which what is recollected is "already there'' for
Plato and Hegel).
41. In a recently discovered fragment from Hegel's Jena years ("Uber
Mythologie, Volksgeist und Kunst"), Hegel refers to "Mnemosyne, or the abso-
lute Muse!' Verene cites the whole passage (pp. 36f).
42. T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding (London, 1943), verse V, lines 243-52.
43. Baron, pp. 151, 152.
198 NOTES

Chapter Six

1. This view of history as a progressive path of spirit from an original

"enshrouded consciousness" to a position of self-knowledge is another way of
seeing Hegel's interpretation of the Fall of man. As we saw in Chapter Three,
our "original innocence" is in fact a state of ignorance which can be overcome
only through the "curse" by which we must work to transform our ignorance
into knowledge.
2. Crites, "For the Best Account," p. 145. Shlomo Avinieri asks the same
question in his "Consciousness and History: List der Vernunft in Hegel and
Marx," in Warren E. Steinkraus, ed., New Studies in Hegel's Philosophy jNew
York, 1971), pp. 108f, 115££: Given the fact that "Hegel sees his own con-
temporary age as the apex of historical development, ... what are the
prospects of further historical change? ... what about the future?" I will
return to discuss both Crites' and Avinieri's interpretations of Hegel's
eschatology in Chapter Seven.
3. Lauer, A Reading, p. 5.
4. See Fichte, Wissenscha(tslehre, pp. 115, 117, 217, 269£, for support that
this is indeed his position.
Hegel directs this criticism most usually and persistently against Fichte,
but it is meant to cover the whole course of German idealism up to his own
philosophy. Hegel characterizes the German Aufklarung in general as tending
to "transport the infinite into abstraction or incomprehensibility'': the
absolute, whether it is considered as God or as reason in its transcendent
capacity, is considered as a "Beyond outside of consciousness" IHPh 3:4071.
Hence against Kant, who views the ideas of reason as theoretical illusions,
Hegel makes the same charge as against Fichte, that knowledge remains a
"never ending progress" jv. HPh 3:461, 481, 491£, 494, 498, 501; Iliff 81,
132-34; F&K 168, 170, 172). Hegel repeats this charge against Jacobi
jHPh 3:419f), who parallels Kant in saying that "reason, when it begets objects,
begets phantoms of the brain'' jBriefe uber die Lehre des Spinoza, cited in Hegel's
HPh 3:419). Schelling also comes in for criticism on this score, since, even
though in Hegel's early years he regarded Schelling's notion of an "absolute
indifference point" to be the genuine achievement of Absolute Knowledge, in
his later years Hegel looked more critically at Schelling's idealist system.
Insofar as Schelling is committed to the view that, as he says, "the struggle [of
ego with its object] cannot be reconciled by [any) one act [of consciousness],
but only by an infinite succession of acts;' so that "the ego ... [is] an infinite
becoming" jSystem des transcendentalen Idealismus, cited in Hegel's HPh 3:522fl
- then Schelling is open to exactly the same criticism as Kant, Jacobi and
Fichte.
5. Lukacs, p. 547.
6. Crites, "For the Best Account:· p. 146.
 Notes 199

7. Indeed, there was a literary form which was in use among both the
Jews and Christians during the period from 200 B.C. to A.D. 100 which was
called "apocalyptic" (from the Greek "to reveal"). Hence, much of the New
Tostament is apocalyptic in style. In the Old Thstament, the Book of Daniel
(ea. 167-186 B.C.) is the only fully fledged apocalyptic text, but there are many
examples of prophetic eschatology as well (e.g., Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah,
Ezekiel, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Haggai, and Zechariah). See The Dartmouth
Bible, ed. R. B. Chamberlin and H. Feldman (Boston, 1961), p. 1170; and Inter-
preters Dictionary of the Bible, ed. George Arthur Buttrick et al. (Nashville,
1962), vol. 1, p. 157, and vol. 4, p. 58.
8. Cf. Isaiah 65:17-25:

17. "For behold [the prophet hears the Lord say), I create new heavens
and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into
mind.
18. But be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create; for behold, I
create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
19. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and be glad in my people; no more shall
be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress~

9. Cf. Isaiah 65:17.

10. Cf. Rev. 22:5: And night shall be no more; they need no light of lamp
or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they shall reign for ever and
ever.
11. This is not least because, as G. F. Moore says in his History of Religions
(New York, 1913), "a comparison of Paul with John, and of both with the
deposit of primitive Palestinian tradition in the older Gospels and the first
chapters of the Acts, ... [and with] the other writings ultimately included in
the New Thstament, ... shows what widely diverse conceptions [of salvation
and redemption) existed side by side in the last quarter of the first century"
(vol. 2, p. 144).
A major point of diversity, for example, is that the Book of Revelation is
unique (in the Bible, if not in Jewish apocrypha) in its prophecy of the Millen-
nium - the thousand-year preliminary or interim rule of Christ on earth
before the final victory over Satan and the "second coming" which will bring
final judgment and redemption. The other biblical prophecies suggest that
Christ's return will bring final deliverance (i.e., they do not speak of two
returns).
Interpretations of the Book of Revelation itself differ widely, due in part
to the attempt to read its quite materialistic imagery, which was "appropriated
entire from Jewish sources with only a superficial adaptation to Christian use,"
according to Moore (History, vol. 2, p. 145), in a figurative and more strictly
Christian way; and in part to the attempt to generalize from the specific
historical context of the Roman persecution. The pre- and post-Millennialists,
200 NCYI'ES

for example, differ in their interpretations both of the thousand-year mes-

sianic reign - the so-called first resurrection - as well as the significance of
the "second" or "last resurrection; the final judgment and the "making anew"
of the world.
12. See Interpreters Dictionary, vol. 2, pp. 138, 610, and vol. 4, pp. 61, 69.
This orthodox interpretation is not by any means universal, however.
Theologians like Walter Rauschenbusch, with his "Social Gospel," and Adolf
von Harnack, Horace Bushnell, and Harry Emerson Fosdick, believe that the
redemption is to be continuous with human history, and hence a social and
historical overcoming of tribulation. In this, they share Hegel's nonorthodoxy
exactly. Rauschenbusch, for example, writes that the Kingdom of God (the
New Jerusalem) is nothing but "humanity organized according to the will of
God," "a growing perfection in the collective life of humanity" (cited by Arthur
Schlesinger, Jr., "Reinhold Niebuhr's Role in American Political Thought and
Life:• in Robert W. Bretall and Charles W. Kegley, ed., Reinhold Niebuhr [New
York, 1961], p. 128).
13. Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation
(New York, 1941, 1943), vol. 2, pp. 288, 290 (and Chapter X, passiml.
14. Niebuhr, Faith and History: A Comparison of Christian and Modern
Views of History (New York, 1949), p. 235 and passim.
15. Niebuhr, Nature and Destiny, vol. 2, pp. 287, 289.
16. Lowith, "History and Christianity:' in Bretall and Kegley, ed., Reinhold
Niebuhr, p. 283 (emphasis added).
17. This is a departure from orthodoxy because of its interpretation of the
references in Scripture to the "knowledge of God" in a sense which makes this
knowledge the same as any other theoretical knowledge. The Interpreters Dic-
tionary of the Bible makes two appropriate points: (1) While it is true that in
both the Old and New Thstaments man is exhorted "to know God; this
knowledge is "practically synonymous" with belief. or the exhortation to have
faith in God (vol. 3, pp. 43, 44). [Interestingly, Hegel also speaks of the ultimate
synonymity of knowledge and faith (e.g., HPh 1:63; 3:49lf; Diff 100; F&K 142;
SL Sl). But for Hegel, faith conflates into knowledge, while ~n Scripture
knowledge (of God) conflates into faith.] (2) While Scripture portrays "a God
who wants to be known,• this knowledge depends on God's self-disclosure in
such a way that it is not so much a question of human discc:Nery as it is a matter
of God's gi~. in which man is receptive and humble (vol. 3, p. 44; vol. 4,
pp. 54, 551. For "the sublimity of the redemptive work of God transcends the
natural limits of the human mind; so that God always "remains hidden and
unsearchable" (vol. 3, p. 44).
18. Kierkegaard, Postscript, p. 194.
19. Kierkegaard, Postscript, v. pp. 28-31, 189, 193f, 20lf, 208f, 540.
 Notes 201

20. Kierkegaard, Postscript, p. 219. Kierkegaard explicitly rejects what he

calls the "Socratic view: that an individual's "self-knowledge is a knowledge
of God." This makes "the entire world centered in the individual,• decentering
God (Philosophical Fragments, trans. David Swenson, revised by Howard V.
Hong (Princeton, 1974), p. 14). For Hegel, on the other hand, human and
divine nature ultimately coincide, due to the rational essence of each.
21. Niebuhr, Nature and Destiny, vol. 1, p. 289.
22. Kroner, in his Introduction to Ea.rly Theological Writings, p. 54.
23. Barth, pp. 366, 376, 377.
24. See esp. PhS 126-38, 453-60, 476.
For discussions of the unhappy consciousness, see Hyppolite, Genese,
pp. 184-208 (Hyppolite sees the unhappy consciousness as "le theme fondamen-
tal de la Phenomenologie" (p. 208); so too does Jean Wahl, Le malheur de la con-
science dans la philosophie de Hegel (Paris, 1951)1; Christensen, "Hegel's
Phenomenological Analysis" (comparison with Freud); Flay, pp. 101-11;
Murray Greene, "Hegel's 'Unhappy Consciousness' and Nietzsche's 'Slave
Morality;" in Christensen, Hegel and the Philosophy of Religion; Solomon, In the
Spirit, pp. 465-70; and Tuylor, Hegel, pp. 57-59, 159-61, 206-8.
25. Christ oscillates throughout the Gospels between saying that the
Kingdom of God is approaching and that it has already arrived with his
ministry. See Interpreters Dictionary, vol. 2, pp. 136f for references.
26. PhS 11 lf. The context is the discussion of the Master-Slave dialectic.
27. Chitelet, Hegel (Paris, 1968), p. 161.
28. Lowith, From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution in Nineteenth-Century
Thought, trans. David E. Green (Garden City, New York, 1967), pp. 39, 37f.
29. Lowith, Hegel to Nietzsche, p. 39.
30. Lowith, Hegel to Nietzsche, p. 39.

31. This "highest form" of Christianity is the form in which it has been
interpreted philosophically (see PhS 463, 479). This has sometimes been read
as meaning that for Hegel philosophy is to displace religion, in the sense of
achieving a higher truth. But this is incorrect. Hegel makes it clear over and
over again that "faith and [philosophic) thought are both of them knowledge,•
that they "are thus one" (HPh 3:420; v. 419), and that they both have the same
object, truth (SL S2 Anmerkung; HPh 1:63). Philosophy and religion have the
same content (v. PhM S573 Anmerkung) (although they have different forms,
religion being "representational" - i.e., symbolic - and philosophy being 'con-
ceptual" [v. HPh 1:76; PhS 412, 463, 466-67, 476-79)1, and hence philosophy
is in no way antithetical to religion, nor, consequently, a going beyond its
truth. In fact, Hegel asserts that "philosophy in its development [is] the revela-
202 NOTES

tion of God" (HPh 3:547). See also Letters, No. 466a [1824, to Benedikt von
Baader], p. 572, where Hegel explicitly takes issue with the interpretation that
religion is surpassed by philosophy in his system: "[there is] not merely a com-
munity but indeed an identity of truth content in the two cases [religion and
philosophy]:'
32. Lowith, Hegel to Nietzsche, pp. 38, 39.
33. Important discussions of Hegel's controversial concept of the annul-
ment of time may be found in Hedwig, pp. 143, 149f; Labarriere, "La sursomp-
tion du temps; pp. 93-97; Marcuse, Hegel's Ontology, pp. 315-16; Miller, pp.
206-9; Verene, pp. 108, 112; and Westphal, History and 'I>uth, pp. 219-21.
34. The "Begrif( that is there" expresses the ideal of Hegel's grand syn-
thesis, the unity of thought and being, of Begrif( and Da-sein.
Kojeve has an important discussion of this idea, that time is the existential
shape of the Begrif( !Kojeve, pp. lOlff). His analysis is so important because
it argues very strongly that this notion of time precludes a consistent assertion
of the end of history. But Kojeve does not cite the whole passage - he does
not note that Hegel goes on to characterize the existential-temporal shape of
the Begrif( as incomplete. !See our immediately following discussion.)
35. Lukacs, p. 546.
36. Jiihnig, p. 69.
37. As Viellard Baron writes, Erinnerung is "la rememoration et lfoteriorite
. . . de /'essence qui etait jusque-lfl. immediate" - a bringing into conceptual
thought of the immediate external existence, now conceived in its eternal
significance, its essence (p. 148).
38. The transcendent aspect of truth corresponds to the Hegelian notion
of eternity as "neither before nor after time" but "absolutely present" (PhN S247
Zusatz; cf. HPh 1:287; 2:84f; PhH 79): "Eternity will not come to be, nor was
it, but it is" (PhN S258 Zusatzl. This is a very Platonic conception, insofar as
it seeks to distinguish between a "phenomenal side" of spirit in which "the
universal ... enters into the time-process; and an eternal side, in which "the
idea, spirit, transcends time; ... it is eternal ... because it does not lose itself
[in time]" (PhN S258 Zusatz; and cf. Plato, Timaeus, 3'F-3ge)_
39. Marx, Manuscripts, pp. 345, 348.
40. Both Merold Westphal (History and 'I>uth, p. 221) and George Arm-
strong Kelley (p. 227) make the interesting point that Hegel's "history" is
analogous to what "pre-history" was for Marx. Westphal writes: "In both cases
the distinction is between an epoch of human history in which man's exist-
ence falls fundamentally short of its ideal and an epoch in which that ideal
is concretely realized. At the point of transition Marx says history begins,
while Hegel says it ends. Since this difference is purely semantic, it is ...
 Notes 203

ironical that Marx should have directed one of his sharpest attacks on Hegel
against just this [theory):'
41. Chitelet, p. 161.
42. As Hegel writes in his Encyclopc;Bdia, the becoming of spirit is not
mere "empty repetition, ... a monotonous cycle [i.e., without evolution]," but
"in itself, or in its very principle, [the becoming of spirit] ... contains a pro-
gress" (PhM 5399).
43. This criticism is at the center of Kierkegaard's objections to the
Hegelian system. Kierkegaard, with tongue in cheek, titled his major
philosophic text the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, precisely so as to call
attention to what he viewed as the absurdity of a system which is never com-
plete. In one unforgettable passage, Kierkegaard writes:

I shall be as willing as the next man to fall down in worship before the
System, if only I can manage to set eyes on it. Hitherto I have had no success;
and though I have young legs, I am almost weary from running back and forth
between Herod and Pilate. Once or twice I have been on the verge of bending
the knee. But at the last moment, when I already had my handkerchief spread
on the ground, to avoid soiling my trousers, and I made a trusting appeal to
one of the initiated who stood by: "'Jell me now sincerely, is it entirely
finished; for if so I will kneel down before it, even at the risk of ruining a pair
of trousers (for on account of the heavy traffic to and fro, the road has become
quite muddy)," - I always received the same answer: "No, it is not yet quite
finished." And so there was another postponement - of the System, and of my
homage. . . . For here we have it: a fragment of a system is nonsense
!Postscript, pp. 97f).

Chapter Seven

1. Tom Rockmore points this out in his article, "Hegel on

Epistemological Circularity and Certainty" (pp. 235f): "In many passages, ...
Hegel seems to put forward ... an unequivocal claim to fulfill the philosophic
quest for irrelative knowledge.... But in other passages, Hegel apparently
defends a significantly weaker view. . .. There is hence a clear tension in the
speculative system between an absolute, irrelative view of knowledge as it has
long been the goal of the philosophic quest for certainty, and a weaker, less
traditional view of knowledge as relative."
2. I should mention that I have omitted any discussion of an analogous
eschatological issue in Hegel's philosophy, the famous claim in his Aesthetics
that art is dead. Hegel argues that "the peculiar mode to which artistic produc-
tion and works of art belong no longer satisfies our supreme need," so that "art
is, ... on the side of its highest destiny, a thing of the past" (ARP 32, 34). Just
204 NOfES

as with the two possible interpretations of Hegel's talk of the completion of

history, we may view his talk of the death of art in two incompatible ways:
either we have reached an absolute, final stage of cultural development (in the
poetry of Romanticism, which Hegel regards as the highest achievement of
art), or, on the contrary, while art may have reached its "highest destiny" for
the present, there remain future cycles of evolution of culture, and with them,
future possibilities for the evolution of art. By this second interpretation,
when Hegel speaks of art "no longer satisfying our supreme need." we would
understand this as referring to the need of his own epoch. The death-throes
of art would be like the perpetually recurring death-throes of all spirit, where
from the ashes there springs forth new life.
Nearly all the commentators on Hegel's aesthetics read his eschatological
language in an absolutist way, as announcing the final death of art. And it may
be that this reading most clearly captures Hegel's intentions. I only wish to
suggest the possibility of an alternative reading, one which would be con-
sistent with my proposal for an epochal interpretation of his larger
eschatological theory, an interpretation which seeks to set aside his tendency
to valorize the ultimacy of his own age at the expense of his radical
metaphysics of becoming.
For discussions of this issue, see Curtis L. Carter, "Re-examination of
'Death of Art' Interpretation of Hegel's Aesthetics," in Warren E. Steinkraus and
K. L. Schmitz, eds., Art and Logic in Hegel's Philosophy (Atlantic Highlands,
1980), pp. 91-102; James Crooks, "Irony as a Post-Romantic Possibility For Art:
Kierkegaard's Reply to Hegel." Eidos 3 (1984): 118-134; William Desmond, Art
and the Absolute: A Study of Hegel's Aesthetics (Albany, 1986); William Des-
mond, ·Art, Philosophy and Concreteness in Hegel." Owl of Minerva 16 (1985):
131-46; William Desmond, "Hegel, Art, and History, Curtis Carter (com-
mentator)." in Robert Perkins, ed., History and System (Albany, 1984), pp.
173-94; Henry S. Harris, 'The Resurrection of Art:' Owl of Minerva 16 (1984):
5-20; G. Oliver, "Contemporary Art and Hegel's Thesis of the Death of Art;'
South African Journal of Philosophy 2 (1983): 1-7; Liberato Santoro, Hffegel's
Aesthetics and 'The End of Art;· Philosophical Studies 30 (1984): 62-72; Richard
Tuft, "Art and Philosophy in the Early Development of Hegel's System; Owl of
Minerva 18 (1987): 145-62.
3. Kojeve, p. 148.
4. Although the recollective aspect of Absolute Knowledge is alluded to
in Hegel's saying that science is the knowledge of the •unity in opposition" of
spirit "in its whole development," and that the work of the history of
philosophy is to depict and represent the strife of spirit in "the whole history
of the world."
5. For other discussions of this Calvary/Golgotha passage, see Baron, pp.
157-59; Crites, 'The Golgotha of Absolute Spirit." in Merold Westphal, ed.,
Method and Speculation; Crites, In the 'lwilight, p. 101; Labarriere, pp. 97-98;
and Verene, p. 112.
 Notes 205

6. Stephen Crites also uses the image of the via dolorosa ("Golgotha;
p. 47), and Viellard Baron uses the image of the stations of the cross (Baron,
p. 1591,
7. Crites, ''Golgotha; p. 55.
8. Crites, In the 'lwilight, pp. 101, 104.
9. Fichte's Sonnenklarer Bericht, or Report, Clear as the Sun, for the
General Public on the Real Essence of the Latest Philosophy: An Attempt to Compel
the Reader to Understand, was published in 1801. This was four years after he
had added a Preface to the Wissenschaftslehre, in which he berated those of
his readers who "see nothing but letters on the page," even though he has made
every "endeavor to achieve the utmost clarity" in his writing (Wissenscha{t-
slehre, pp. 420, 4221.
10. This reading of Hegel's eschatological conception of the "new world"
is supported by a passage we have not yet cited from the "Final Result" section
of the History of Philosophy. In this passage Hegel again refers to the "sinking-
inward" of spirit in knowledge, and says that "the deeper, however, the spirit
goes within itself, the more vehement is the opposition [between thought and
reality}, the more abundant is the wealth without; the depth is to be measured
by the greatness of the craving with which spirit seeks to find itself in what
lies outside of itself" (HPh 3:545f). This seems to undermine the interpretation
that the sinking-inward of knowledge in its recollective comprehension of the
history of spirit is a final end. Rather, it points back outwards, to the world;
a recollective resolution of the past has within it an impulse, or "craving;'
towards the future.
See also PhS 490 (shortly before the "new world" passage): "Spirit,
however, has shown itself to us to be neither merely the withdrawal of self-
consciousness into its pure inwardness, not the mere submergence of self-
consciousness into substance.... "This periodic sinking-inward leads always
to a future externalization and "going out" of itself (sich ausgehen) into the
world.
11. See p. 203, n. 43 above.
12. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Dread, trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton,
1973), pp. 80-81. See also Postscript, pp. 194, 505-8.
13. Crites, In the 'lwilight, p. 79.
14. Kierkegaard, Repetition: An Essay in Experimental Psychology, trans.
Walter Lowrie (Princeton, 19461, p. 149.
15. Kojeve, p. 168.
16. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 13.
Ironically, Marx and Engels become hoisted by their own petard in just
the way they accuse Hegel of doing. Hegel's fault, they say, is that he con-
206 NOfES

tradicts his own dialectic by seeking to overcome it in a final resolution of

history: 'The Hegelian method, for the sake of the system had to become
untrue to itself' !Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 27f). But there is this tension in
their own writings as well. They consciously take over Hegel's dialectic
!although stripped of its "false metaphysics"I: "Hegel was not simply put aside.
On the contrary, we started out from his revolutionary side, ... from the
dialectical method" !Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 27fl, The dialectic is the impelling
force of history, the tension of contradiction present in the world, the resolu-
tion of contradiction, and the rising of new oppositions. But Marx and Engels
propose a final resolution of the dialectic - an ultimate overcoming of the
perpetual course of conflict in the world. They speak of the "complete restora-
tion of man to himself' !Marx, Manuscripts, p. 348), and the ''perfected unity
in essence of man with nature" !Manuscripts, p. 3491, which comes with "true
communism" - the "true resolution" and "solution to the riddle of history"
!Manuscripts, p. 348; and cf. Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program, ed. C. P. Dutt
(New York, 1938), p. 161, The dialectic is thus finally au(gehoben with the over-
coming of alienation and the contradiction between forces of labor and pro-
duction, and to this extent Marx and Engels are subject to the very criticism
they lodge against Hegel, that his vision of resolution conflicts with his doc-
trine of the dialectic.
17. Hyppolite, "Le 'scientifique' et l'ideologique' dans une perspective
marxiste" 119711, cited and translated by J. Heckman in the Introduction to
Hyppolite's Genesis and Structure, p. xxxviii.
18. Hyppolite, Genese et Structure, p. 557.
19. Eric Voegelin, "On Hegel - A Study in Sorcery: Studium Generale 24
11971): 337, 349-50.
20. Jahn.ig, p. 69.

21. Kojeve, p. 191; cf. pp. 32, 35, 95, 97f, 237.
22. Kojeve, pp. 158-60 (n. 6).
23. Rosen, An Introduction, pp. 16, xix; and v. pp. 9, 15, 45.
24. Rosen, An Introduction, p. 279.
25. Chatelet, p. 161.
26. Tuylor, Hegel, p. 344.
27. Tuylor, Hegel, p. 349.

28. We have already cited the view of Raya Dunayevskaya to the effect
that Hegel "stopped the ceaseless motion of the dialectic just because his pen
reached the end of his (book)," and Julia Kristeva's claim that Hegel's "paranoia"
led him to a "repressive" closure of history !see Chapter 'Iwo, p. 17 above).
See also Lukacs, p. 546 !Lukacs charges that Hegel reduces history to
 Notes 207

·~ post-festum commentary on the path leading up to ... its consummation");

Enzo Paci, "La Phenomenologie et l'histoire dans la pensee de Hegel." Praxis
(1971): 93-100 (Paci believes that it is Hegel's "absolutizing" of history "qui
em~che a Hegel d'arriver a la praxis' [p. 100]); Verene, p. 108 (Verene says that
with Absolute Knowledge, spirit "no longer lives from stage to. stage but
recollects"); and Westphal, History and 'lhl.th, p. 226 (Westphal speaks of
Hegel's "theory of [history's] culmination (as] ... an unbelievable Deus ex
machina").
29. Shlomo Avinieri, The Modern State, p. 237. See also Avinieri, "Con-
sciousness and History;' p. 117: 'There are therefore far more ambiguities in
Hegel's views about the future than the traditional view, that sees Hegel as
absolutizing his own contemporary world, would have allowed."
30. Richard Kroner, "System und Geschichte bei Hegel," Logos, Band XX
(1931): 243-58.
31. Kroner, •system und Geschichte;' p. 252; and cf. Von Kant bis Hegel
(Tiibingen, 1921), vol. 2, pp. 518ff.
32. See also George Armstrong Kelley, Hegel's Retreat from Eleusis: Studies
in Political Thought (Princeton, 1978): Kelley insists that "[Hegel] does not
foreclose either the temporality of the process nor the empirical addition of
significantly new , , . events" (p. 227), yet he does not seem to take seriously
the other side of the dilemma; and Ephrem-Dominique Yon, "Bsthetique de la
contemplation et esthetique de la transgression: a propos de passage de la
Religion au Savoir Absolu dans la Phenomenologie de l'esprit de Hegel," Revue
philosophique de Louvain 74 (1976): Yon says that "certes, le Savoir Absolu est
bien l'integrale Erinnerung de tout ce qui sest cultive dans le savoir des hommes,
mail ii est encore, comme etre-10. interiorise, un nouvel etre, un nouveau monde et
une nouvelle figure de lespirt" (p. 554), but again, Yon does not seriously con-
sider the conflict of this epochal view with the absolutist reading.
33. See also Viellard Baron, "Hegel, Philosophie de la Reminiscence?"
Baron sees the inner ambiguity in Hegel's position, speaking of "les deux
aspects indissociables, celui de /existence temporelle, qui est l'histoire, celui de ...
l'interiorisation du souvenir clans le recueillement (of absolute knowledge)"
(pp. 157-58). In keeping with the "hesitant" epochal reading, Baron is not will-
ing to simply negate the absolutist side of this paradox, although he does
finally side with the reading which sees recollection as a "new birth" of spirit
(p. 156).
34. Since penning these words, I have discovered that this charge is
unfair to Marcuse. While I remain convinced that in his Reason and Revolution
Marcuse opts for the epochal reading without considering the claims of the
absolutist interpretation, this is not the case in his much earlier work on
Hegel's Ontology and the Theory of Historicity [first published 1932], trans. Seyla
Benhabib (Cambridge, 1987). In that work, Marcuse explicitly refers to the
"unusual double meaning" in Hegel's theory of history, one (the absolutist
210 NOTES

that which '1ies outside the selfs activity" (p. 210) and "of which nothing more
can be said, save that it must be utterly opposed to the self" (p. 2791.
61. W. G. Sumner, Folkways (Boston, 1907). References are to the edited
selection of this work in Oliver A. Johnson, ed., Ethics, 4th edition (New York,
1978), pp. 397-407.
62. Sumner, in Johnson, pp. 397f.
63. Sumner, in Johnson, p. 399.
64. Sumner, in Johnson, p. 401.
65. Sumner, in Johnson, see pp. 401-4, 407.
66. From Absolutism to Experimentalism (1930), cited by Albert Hofstadter
and Richard Kuhns in their Philosophies of Art and Beauty fChicago, 1976),
p. 577.
67. Art as Experience (New York, 1934). See especially Chapters 1, 3, 4.
68. As Hegel says (in the narrower context of the nature of philosophy -
but this context may be generalized), "it is just as absurd to fancy that a
philosophy can transcend its contemporary world as it is to fancy that an indi-
vidual can overleap his own age" (PhR Preface, p. 111; "every philosophy is the
philosophy of its own day, ... and thus it can only find satisfaction for the
interests belonging to its own particular time" (HPh 1:45).
69. Kojeve, p. 92.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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_ _ , Hegel's Theory of the Modern State, Cambridge: Cambridge University
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Berthold-Bond, Daniel, "Hegel on Metaphilosophy and the 'Philosophic Spec-
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_ _ , "Hegel's Eschatological Vision: Does History Have a Future?" History
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Chitelet, Franc,ois, Hegel, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1968.
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 SUBJECT INDEX

Absolute, the: 38, 39, 96, 123, 127, 131, Bacchanalian revel: 10, 16, 27
149, 150, 154, 168 (n42) Becoming: 3-6, 10, 12, 13, 15-18, 27,
Absolute Knowledge: 5, 17, 27, 94, 109, 28, 65-86 (passim), 94, 115, 117, 126,
110, 111-12, 114-16, 128, 129, 134-37, 135, 139, 141, 145-49, 152-56, 158;
141-45, 147-50, 151, 152f, 155f, 158, and being: 3f, 13, 65, 70-71, 74,
204 (n4) 79-80, 141, 155; existential (or
Absolutist reading (of Hegel's eschatology; substantial, or real): 78-81; mere
includes references to synonyms: logical: 75-78; as teleological: 4, 5, 66,
apocalyptic reading; literal reading; 70,115
radical reading!: 7f, 17, 27, 111-12, Begriff, the (includes references to
115-17, 123, 126, 128-29, 131-33, concept and notion): 14, 21, 23, 28, 55,
135-41, 143-46, 148-54, 154-59 106f, 128-29, 170 (n56), 172 (n76)
Abstract, Abstraction: 14, 20, 28-29, Being: 2-5, 8, 12, 13, 15, 21, 23, 27-31,
76-77, 84, 85, 170 (n55), 171 (n68); 37, 42, 49-50, 65, 69-71, 74-79, 82,
and the concrete: 20, 78, 84, 104, 109 113, 115, 134, 141-43, 145, 155-58,
160-61, 166 (n241, 170 (n55); and
Action: 20, 23f, 25, 26, 52, 80, 88,
becoming (see becoming); determinate
143-45, 158-59, 171 (n64)
being (Dasein): 75, 77, 78f;
Alienation (and see externalization): 2, 5, for-consciousness: 19, 29, 31, 156;
22, 35, 39, 56, 91, 96, 100, 104, 122, for-itself: 13, 25, 71; for-others: 25, 71;
127, 136, 141, 144, 145, 156, 157, 161, in-itself (and see Ding an sich): 13, 29,
171 (n62) 31, 43, 47, 49, 67, 69; in-the-world: 14,
Ambiguity, fundamental (in Hegel's 18, 28, 71, 123; and nothing: 71-72,
philosophy; includes references to 75-77, 78-80; and thought
synonyms: ambivalence, conflict, (see thought)
dilemma, tension): 5-6, 16-17, 72-74, Bilthlng: 4, 12-14, 27, 65, 99, 109, 113,
112, 114-18, 124-26, 128, 131, 133-35, 121, 124, 145, 155, 158
137, 138, 140£, 146-49, 150, 152
Anthropomorphism: 18-23, 117 Calvary (or Golgotha: die Schiidelstatte):
Appearance: 3, 29-31, 37, 42f, 49, 52, 133, 136-37
56, 57, 59; as a curtain: 49, 56; and Christianity (and see religion): 26, 27,
essence (see essence! 117-31 (passim), 176 (nl3)
Art, death of: 203f (n2) Circle, Circularity: 62, 68, 106-12, 116,
Atheism: 21, 26, 27, 117, 168f (n44) 142, 148, 151, 153, 174 (n86); circle of
Allfldiirung: 114, 198 (n4) explanation (diallelus): 28, 32-33, 94;
Authenticity: 18f, 25, 122, 124 vicious circle: 106

225
226 SUBJECT INDEX

Common sense (and see consciousness: Empirical, the: 14, 102, 151, 152
natural consciousness): 9, 16, 27, 56, Empiricism: 54, 103, l 73f (n83), 180
76, 86 jn40), 195 (n23)
Community (social being; see also End (see end of history; eschatology;
Gattungswesen): 25, 125 teleology; telosl
Completion (includes references to Epochal reading (of Hegel's eschatology;
synonyms: conclusion, consummation, includes references to synonyms:
closure, (ulfil/ment): 5-7, 16, 17, 27, nonab8olutist reading; open-ended
72-74, 113-15, 117-18, 125, 134-39, reading): 7f, 111-12, 115-17, 123,
140, 145-59, 150-52, 154-56, 160, 161 126-27, 129, 131, 133, 135-44, 145-54
Concept, the (see Begrif/) (passim), 156-59
Concretion: 11, 13-15, 17, 20, 78f, 83, Eschatology (and see history: end o/): 5,
166 (n24), 168 (n40), 171 (n68) 7, 17, 27, 74, 112-15, 117-58 (passim);
Conscience: 14 Christian: 27, 117-31 (passim);
Consciousness land see thought): human Philosophical: 133-58 (passim!
and divine: 10, 20, 26-27, 122f, 125; Essence: 30, 35, 43, 45, 82, 99; Essence-
natural (naive; and see common sense): appearance distinction: 30, 31, 38, 43,
9f, 15, 83, 97; philosophic: 26, 97; and 49, 56
self-consciousness: 57, 61-63, 134, 181 Estrangement (see alienation;
(n521 externalization I
Contingency: 24 Eternity (see time)
Contradiction: 75, 76, 78, 85-87, 152, Ethics, the ethical: 14, 25, 26, 144
187 (n45), 190 (n68) Evolution (see also becoming;
Copernican revolution (Kant's): 32, 42, de11elopment; dialectic; process): 13, 15,
47, 59 16, 35, 68, 69, 94, 97, 104, 112, 123,
Creation (Biblical doctrine ofl: 19-20, 125, 130, 151, 155, 160, 167 (n35)
69, 167 (n34, 381 Experience (Erfahrung; and see sense-
Curse, the: 6, 124, 198 (nll experience): 23, 24, 34f, 52-55, 102-3,
109, 111, 148, 159-60, 192 (n3J
Explicit, the (and the implicit): 13, 63,
Death: 7, 83, 115, 130, 142, 146, 158-59;
104, 184 (n5)
"God is dead": 122
Externalization (BntiiuJ!erung; and see
Demonstration (and see method): 4,
81-82, 93-94, 99, 106-9, 113
alienation): 61, 62, 71, 80-84, 86, 106,
129, 141
Desire: 2, 68-70, 142, 155, 159, 160
Development jsee also becoming;
dialectic; ew>lution; process): 4, 12-13, Faith: 38-39; and reason: 26, 39
15, 17, 66, 83, 85, 97-98, 105, 107, Fall, the: 56, 124, 198 (nll
109-10, 116, 131, 138f, 141, 143, 146, Finite (and infinite): 21, 38, 39
152-54, 157-58, 160 Freedom: 52-53, 82, 88, 114
Dialectic (see also becoming; development;
evolution; process): 4-6, 15-17, 81-91 Gattungswesen:25,26
(passim), 93, 98, 99-103, 105, 113, God: 19, 21-22, 26-27, 69, 117, 119-20,
115-17, 126, 130, 133, 134, 143, 145, 122-23, 125, 126, 157, 176 (nl3I; not a
146, 150, 155-56, 160; and grand "beyond": 22, 27, 120, 125; and man:
synthesis: 100-4 20, 22, 26-27, 39, 121, 122f, 124f, 127,
Ding an sich (see also being-in-itself): 30, 136, 157; as manifest, immanent,
41, 43, 46-48, 50, 60, 105 incarnate: 20, 22, 120, 121; and
Discord: 2, 3, 8, 10, 29, 35, 52, 63, 87, providence: 26; tabernacle of God:
90, 91, 96, 157, 161; and harmony: 124f; the Word: 20, 27, 121
1-3, 10, 36, 39, 83, 87, 90, 157, 160, Grand synthesis, the (and see thought:
161 thought and being): 3-5, 8, 10, 12, 15,
 Subject Index 227

17, 27, 29-31, 35, 37, 39, 41, 52, 56, 85; 'Illylor, Charles: 145; Voegelin,
63, 65, 83, 86, 91, 97, 99, 101, 104, Eric: 144; Westphal, Merold: 207 (n28)
112, 116f, 134, 136, 141, 154, 155, 157 History: 4, 6, 7, 11, 13f, 15, 18, 21, 24,
27, 82, 94, 110, 113, 115-17, 119-21,
123, 125-27, 129-30, 133, 134,
Harmony (see discord)
136-37, 139-43, 145-47, 149-50,
Hegel (works refe"ed to): Difference
151-52, 157-60; end of (and see
essay: 3, 39; EncyclopcBdia: Philosophy
eschatologyl: 7, 17, 73, 111-13, 115-17,
of Mind: 55, 131, 141; Philosophy of
119, 120, 123-27, 129-31, 133,
Nature: 19, 40, 41, 42, 44, 175 (n88);
135-39, 141, 143-45, 149-53;
"Shorter" Logic: 9, 30, 31, 45, 53, 55,
philosophy of: 4, 12, 114; pre-history:
75, 103, 107, 155, 175 (n88), 187 (n42);
19, 202 (n40); slaughterbench: 1
Faith and Knowledge: 175 (n4); History
of Philosophy: 2, 3, 7, 12, 71, 113, 125,
127, 134-36, 138, 139, 141, 149, 157, Idea: 20, 21, 82, 99, 117, 141, 188 ln53)
176 lnl2); Kritisches]oumal der Idealism: 19, 29, 40, 56-63, 169 (n46I;
Philosophie: 175 (n4); Letters (Hegel's Berkeley's: 57, 59; Fichte's: 58, 60, 73,
correspondence]: 96, 168f (n44), 169 156, 169 (n46I; Hegel's: 12, 19, 31, 38,
(n48), 173 (n80), 180 (n40), 190 (n68), 54, 56, 57ff, 85, 91, 104, 114; Kant's:
194 (nl8), 202 (n31); Logic ("larger" 40, 58-60, 169 (n46); Leibniz's: 58; and
Logic]: 23, 77, 78, 144, 149, 154, 186 realism: 61-63; Schopenhauer's: 58;
(n40), 187 (n42, 46), 194 (nl9); subjective: 19, 60f, 73
Phenomenology of Spirit 1, 18, 23, 33, Immediacy, the immediate (and
39, 41, 44, 45, 49, 50, 52, 58, 61, 66, mediationl: 48, 77f, 107
110, 128, 133-40, 148, 149, 155, 171 Implicit (see explicitl
ln67), 175 ln88), 180 (n40), 181 (n52), Infinite, the: 22, 73; bad infinite: 38, 88,
190 (n68); Philosophy of Art: 21, 195f 89, 141, 144; and finite (see finite)
(n71), 203f (n2); Philosophy of History.
21, 84, 141, 149; Philosophy of Right:
110, 142; Spirit of Christianity and its Knowledge (and see absolute knowledge):
Fate: 38, 125, 155; Uber Mythologie, 4-5, 12, 37-63 (passiml, 50, 54, 56, 84,
Volksgeist und Kunst: 197 (n41) 89, 106, 109-11, 114-16, 127, 134,
Hegel: (Critiques of Hegel by other 139-43, 145, 152-60; and experience:
philosophers): Abbot, Francis 53; as instrument or medium: 41,
Ellingwood: 14, 76, 170 (n55); Barth, 44-45, 47, 50; orders of knowing and
Karl: 27, 121; Crites, Stephen: 116, being: 12, 165 (nl2); as riddle and
143-44; Chitelet, Fran~ois: 145; problem: 37, 39-42, 53-54, 57
Dunayevskaya, Raya: 17, 206 (n28);
Engels, Friedrich: 144; Feuerbach, List der Vemun(t (see reason)
Ludwig: 20, 55; Hedwig, Klaus: 20; Logic: 9, 82, 85, 100-1; formal: 99,
Hyppolite, Jean: 23, 144; Jiihnig, 101-2; Hegel's: 75ff, 85, 86, 97,
Dieter: 129, 145; Kierkegaard, 5-ren: 99-102; as a new way of thinking: 9
20, 27, 55, 85, 121, 143-44, 203 (n431; Logos: 19-24, 26, 27, 68, 74, 81, 117,
Kojeve, Alexandre: 136,144,145,160; 121, 125-31, 157, 160, 167 (n341
Kristeva, Julia: 17, 206 (n28); Kroner,
Richard: 121, 146; Labarriere, Pierre-
Jean: 20; Latouche, Serge: 168 (n40); Master-slave: 1, 18, 201 (n261
Luk'-cs, Georg: 115, 168 (n401, 206f Mediation (see immediacy)
ln28); Marcuse, Herbert: 17, 146-48; Method: 4, 33, 81-82, 93-112 (passim);
Marx, Karl: 20, 26, 55, 144, 171 (n62); and dialectic: 99-104, 145; and reason:
Paci, Enzo: 207 (n281; Rosen, Stanley: 96-98; and system: 104-6; and
145; Schrag, C. 0.: 85; Stack, George: teleology: 104-12; as therapy: 30, 98
228 SUBJECT INDEX

Nature: 19, 50, 105; laws of: 14, 40; Renunciation: 25, 26, 52
practical and theoretical approaches Revelation: 120-23; book of: 6, 118-20
to: 40-42, 54
Negative, the: 79, 80, 155 Satisfaction: 1, 2, 56, 82, 100, 115, 124,
Negative space: 79f 142, 155
Negativity: 1, 2, 80-86, 123, 130£, 137, Scepticism: 2, 5, 16, 34, 39, 42-43, 45,
142, 154, 155, 160 57, 59, 86-87, 89-91, 108, 141, 160f
New world, the: 119, 125-28, 131-40, Sense-certainty: 33, 34, 52, 53, l 73f
144, 147, 157, 159 (n83)
Nihilism: 2, 87, 88, 90, 145 Sense-experience: 29f, 40, 54, 55, 102f
Notion (see Begriff) Spirit (Geist): 2, 4, 5, 7, 21, 35, 68, 81,
Nous: 21, 24, 160 82, 111-12, 114-16, 123, 127, 130, 131,
133-48, 150-52, 154-57, 159-60;
Object, the: 13, 19, 28-35, 41-63 as desire: 68, 69; as force, power:
(passim), 65, 80, 84, 85, 89, 110, 123, 68-70; rebirth of: 62, 135, 137, 140
124, 145, 153, 156, l 74f (n881, 176 Stoicism: 2, 18, 52f
(n7, 121, 182 (n571; and subject (see Subject, the: 18, 65, 70, 166 (n241; and
subject) object: 30f, 33, 37, 39, 52, 84, 91, 139,
141, 157, 177 (nl3, 151, 188 (n53), 189
Panlogism: 18, 21-23, 169 (n48) (n561; and substance: 18, 66, 67, 72f
Pantheism: 18, 169 (n48) Substance: 12, 65, 66-74, 82, 106, 116,
Philosophy (and see method): bound to 166 (n24); Hegel and Aristotle: 66-69,
the contemporary world: 210 (n68); 166 (n24); Hegel and Heraclitus:
and disorientation: 9; the "great basic 71-74; Hegel and Leibniz: 69-71, 106;
question": 2; history of (as unity): 16, as movement: 67, 69
96, 103; and pretensions to truth:
94-96; need of: 2-3; philosophic 'Ielos: 63, 68, 73, 82, 84, 109, 113, 114,
spectator: 34, 35; as problem: 9, 39f; 120, 129, 139, 142, 152, 153, 157-59
as quest: 108, 110; task of: 39, 161 Tuleology: 4, 13, 15, 63, 68-70, 82, 93,
Phoenix metaphor: 72, 142 98, 99, 104-16
Fl:>tentiality, potency: 13, 67, 68, 70, 80, Thought: 11, 15, 23, 26-28, 40, 50, 52,
82, 84, 104, 129, 166 (n24) 93, 94, 96-99, 102, 104, 106, 110, 113,
Process (and see becoming; development; 114, 129, 143f, 161, 176 (n7);
dialectic; evolution): 3, 4, 12, 27, 63, 81, alteration of the object by thought: 19,
110, 154 31, 43-46, 48, 50; and being: 3-5, 8,
10, 12, 15, 21, 28-31, 37, 39, 41-43,
Realism: 57-58, 61-63; empirical 50, 52, 56, 63, 64, 83, 85f, 90, 91, 93,
realism: 24; naive realism: 33, 40 101, 104-5, 117, 121, 134, 141, 150,
Reason (Vernun/tl: 4, 8, 21, 23, 26, 35, 151, 155, 157, 161; and dialectic: 83,
38, 39, 87-90, 93, 96-99, 105, 120-21, 84, 86, 90f, 161; as movement: 98,
157-60; List der Vernun/t: 23, 24, 26 104; new way of thinking: 15, 30f,
Recollection (Erinnerung): 94, 109-12, 96-98; as power to transform: 4, 35,
116, 129, 135-37, 140, 142-44, 149, 48; the "thing thought": 29, 33, 50, 56,
159 64
Redemption: 8, 27, 56, 118, 119 Time: 15f, 20, 128-31, 137; and eternity:
Reflection: 35, 45f, 48, 51, 56 19, 20, 27, 129, 130, 143, 153, 159;
Relativism: 5, 15-18, 117, 131, 141, 146, Tilgung, annihilation of: 17, 126,
156-59 128-29, 131, 134, 147; and truth: lOff,
Religion (and see Christianity; faith): 21, 15f, 153
22, 117, 122, 20lf (n311 'Iruth: 4, 9-36 (passim!, 37, 50, 97,
 Subject Index 229
103-7, 109, 110, 114, 115, 117, 127, Understanding, the (Verstand): 87-90,
129, 134, 141, 143, 144, 152, 153, 155, 99, 102-3, 105, 160, 190f (n69!
158, 159; agent of: 18-27; as anthro- Unhappy consciousness (ungli.ickliches
pomorphic: 18-21; correspondence Bewujtsein): 122-23, 127
theory of: 28ff, 50; criterion of: 28-36, Universal, the (and universality): 14, 25,
38, 43, 44f, 5lf, 53, 103; as dilemma: 40, 48; and the particular: 14f, 24-27,
lOff; and the false: 16, 107-9, 190 103
(n68); Hegel's "twist•: 10, 28ff, 31, 50;
as motion: 12, 15, 18, 65; as Weltgeist: 23, 24, 26
panlogistic: 21-22; as result: 12, 107, Whole, the (system, totality): 24, 80, 81,
110; as subject and substance: 15 103, 105-6, 110, 114, 115, 143, 160
Work (labor, die Arbeit): 25, 56, 124
 NAME INDEX

Abbot, Francis Ellingwood, 14, 76, 170 Clark, Malcolm, 169 jn53I, 187 (n461,
jn551 192 (n741
Alston, William P., 195 jn23) Crites, Stephen, 113-14, 116, 137,
Aquinas, Thomas, 12, 30 143-44, 168 jn44), 197 (n401, 204 (n51,
Aristotle, 12, 13, 19, 29, 46, 53, 66-70, 205 jn6)
72-73, 78, 101-2, 109, 165 (n5, 11, 12, Crooks, James, 204 jn21
15), 166 (n241, 175f (n6), 194 (nl91
Augustine, 24
Darwin, Charles, 160
Avinieri, Shlomo, 145, 147, 148, 150, Descartes, Rene, 94f, 108, 164· jn3), 196
163 jn6), 164 (n4), 198 (n21 jn30), 197 (n31)
Ayer, Alfred Jules, 173 jn831 Desmond, William, 204 (n2)
Dewey, John, 158, 159
Baron, Jean-Louis Viellard, 111, 197 Dove, Kenley Royce, 180 jn40), 188
(n401, 202 jn371, 207 (n33) (n521
Barth, Karl, 27, 98, 102, 104, 121, 169 Dunayevskaya, Raya, 17, 206 jn281
(n47), 181 (n47), 192 (nll
Becker, Werner, 174 (n83), 188 (n5ll, Eliot, T. S., 38f, 49, 111
190 jn661 Engels, Friedrich, 2, 130, 144, 205f (nl61
Beierwaltes, Werner, 184 (nl21, 208
(n40J
Bentham, Jeremy, 26 Fackenheim, Emil, 150-56, 163 (n6J, 167
Berkeley, Bishop George, 57, 59, l 77f jn38)
(n221 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 20, 25, 26, 55
Berlin, Isaiah, 170 jn581 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 10, 21, 26, 58,
Buber, Martin, 25 60, 73, 114, 138, 141, 156-57, 169
Burbidge, John, 165 (n51 jn46), 181 (n53), 182 (n62), 192 (n2),
Bushnell, Horace, 200 (nl21 198 jn4J, 205 jn9)
Butler, Clark, 169 jn48), 190 jn681 Findlay, John N., 150, 152-54, 163 (n61,
183 (n741, 184 (nl21, 185 jn28), 186
(n341, 187 (n46), 188 (n51), 190 (n66I,
Camap, Rudolf, 102, 173 (n831, 195 196 (n29), 197 (n371
(n23) Flay, Joseph, 164f (n51, 168 (n40), 174
Carter, Curtis L., 204 (n2) (n83), 181 (n51), 185 (n28), 188 (n51J,
ChAtelet, Fran~ois, 126, 128, 129, 131, 194 (nl81, 197 (n40), 201 (n24)
145 Fosdick, Harry Emerson, 200 (nl2)
Christensen, Darrel, 177 (nl61, 201 (n241 Frege, Gottlob, 11-12, 14
Church, Alonzo, 195 (n231 Freud, Sigmund, 7, 8

231
232 NAME INDEX

Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 6 Koj~e, Alexandre, 21, 61-63, 85, 136,

Gauvin, Joseph, 174 jn87) 144, 145, 160, 165 (n5), 167 (n37), 169
Gibbon, Edward, 24 (n52), 190 jn66J, 202 (n34)
Goethe, Johann, 49£, 180 (n40), 190 Kristeva, Julia, 17, 206 (n28J
(n68), 191 (n69) Kroner, Richard, 121, 146, 167 (n38J,
Greene, Murray, 201 ln24) 175 (nl)
Grimmlinger, Friedrich, 5lf, 169 (n53),
188 jn52) Labarri~re, Pierre-Jean, 20, 174 (n83),
181 (n51), 202 (n33)
Harnack, Adolf von, 200 (nl2) Lakebrink, Bernhard, 165 (n5)
Harris, Errol E., 168 (n40), 169 jn53), Latouche, Serge, 168 jn40)
184 jnl2), 185 (n28), 186 jn34), 187 Lauer, Quentin, 148, 163 jn6), 166 (nl9),
(n46), 188 (n51), 192 jn74), 194 (nl8) 168 (n44J, 174 (n83, 87), 177 jnl3),
Harris, H. S., 167 (n38), 177 jnl5J, 179 194 (nl8)
(n29), 204 (n2J Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 66, 69-71,
Heckman, John, 7 106
Hedwig, Klaus, 20, 164 jn5), 168 (n40), Locke,John, 33, 47
202 jn33) Lowith, Karl, 119, 126-28, 146, 163 (n6)
Heidegger, Martin, 14, 18, 19, 21, 98, Luk4cs, Georg. 115-16, 129, 168 (n40,
167, (n34J, 188 (n51J 44), 171 (n68), 206£ (n28)
Heine, Heinrich, 21, 168 jn43)
Hempel, Carl, 173 (n83), 195 (n23)
MacIntyre, Alasdair, 150, 209 (n47J
Henrich, Dieter, 171 (n68), 187 jn46)
Marcuse, Herbert, 17, 146-48, 163 (n6),
Heraclitus, 2, 66, 71-74, 116, 139, 140,
181 (n51), 184 (nl2), 188 (n51), 202
149, 208 (n44)
(n33)
Herder, Johann Gottfried, 24
Marx, Karl, 18, 20, 22, 24-26, 55, 130,
Hume, David, 42, 57, 196 jn30J
144, 147, 175 (n62), 205 (nl6)
Husserl, Edmund, 182 (n621
Mclaggart, J. M. E., 77, 186£ (n42)
Hyppolite, Jean, 23, 144, 170 (n55, 57,
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 15, 55
61), 174 jn83), 177 (nl8J, 181 (n51),
Miller, Mitchell, 170 (n53), 202 (n33),
190 jn67J, 201 (n24)
209 (n51J
Milton, John, 3, 87
Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich, 26, 169 (n46), Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat
198 (n4) Baron de, 24
Jiihnig, Dieter, 129, 145, 179 (n9J Moore, G. E., 173 (n83)
Moore, G. F., 199 (nll)
Kainz, Howard, 174 jn83) Mure, G. R. G., 187 (n46J, 194 (n18J
Kant, Immanuel, 24, 26, 28-33, 35, 38,
40, 41-52 jpassim), 55, 57, 58-61, 85, Niebuhr, Reinhold, 119, 121
87-88, 90, 99, 100, 105, 165 (n5J, 169
(n46), 171 (n69), 183 jn71), 186 (n40J,
Oliver, G., 204 (n2J
191 (n70), 192 (n73J, 192 jn2), 195
(n26J, 198 (n4J
Kaufmann, Walter, 188 (n52) Paci, Enzo, 207 (n28J
Kelley, George Armstrong, 202 (n40), Panova, Elena, 180 (n45)
207 (n32) Parmenides. 3, 75, 76, 208 (n44)
Kierkegaard, Soren, 20, 27, 38, 55, 85, Perry, Ralph Barton, 170 (n55), 182
121, 143-44, 166 (n25), 175 (n3), 189£ (n57), 187 (n47)
ln65J, 192 (n71), 201 (n20), 203 (n43) Plato, 3, 19, 20, 22, 29, 45, 46, 53, 60,
Klein, Ytashaq, 174 jn83), 190 (n67) 89, 110, 143£, 152, 164 (n5), 179 (n371
 Name Index 233
Popper, Karl, 186 ln35J Sextus Empiricus, 68, 171
Poggeler, Otto, 174 ln87J Smith, Adam, 38, 42
Smith, John, 65n, 76n, 98n, 144n
Quine, W. V. 0., 195 (n23J Solomon, Robert, 9n, 33n, 40n, 54n,
76n, 86n, 129n, 229, 233-35
Spinoza, Benedict, 15n, 17, 132, 182
Rasmussen, Paul, 165 (n5J
Stace, W. T., 70n, 121n
Rauschenbusch, Walter, 200 ln12J
Stack, George J., 134
Reichenbach, Hans, 58, 186 (n36J, 188
Sterling, J. Hutchison, 33n
(n49J
Sumner, William Graham, 248, 250
Ricardo, David, 23
Rockmore, Tom, 170 (n60J, 196
(n27, 291, 203 (nlJ Tuft, Richard, 209n
Rosen, Michael, 187 (n46J, 188 (n51J 'laylor, Charles, 54n, 123n, 129n, 137n,
Rosen, Stanley, 145, 167 (n38J, 183 144n, 139, 192n, 226
(n74J, 184 (nl2), 186 (n34J, 188 jn51J, Toynbee, Arnold, 39
190 ln66J Trendelenburg, Adolf, 121n
Rousseau, Jean Jaques, 26
Royce, Josiah, 188 jn501 Urban, William Marshall, 92n
Russell, Bertrand, 173 ln83J
Vico, Giovanni Batista, 39
Santoro, Liberato, 204 (n2) Voegelin, Eric, 225
Sarlemijn, Andries, 186 (n34J, 188 (n51),
190 ln66J
Wahl, Jean, 192n
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 86, 172 (n78J, 187
Waismann, Friedrich, 162n
jn44J, 188 (n48)
Webb, Thomas, 137n
Say, Jean-Baptiste, 23
Werkmeister, W. H., 32n, 33, 43n
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph
Westphal, Merold, 15n, 33n, 37n, 65n,
von, 57, 167 (n35), 170 (n55), 175 (n4J,
71, 76n, 108n, 202n, 204n, 226n
176f (nl3), 198 (n4)
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 12, 42n, 62, 73,
Schiller, Friedrich, 47f, 111
153-54, 157
Schlick, Moritz, 173 (n83J, 179 (n38J
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 57-60, 179 (n301,
181 (n50J Yon, Ephrem-Dominique, 229n
Schrag. C. 0, 135
 HEGEL'S GRAND SYNTHESIS
A Study of Being, Thought, and History
Daniel Berthold-Bond

This book offers the first genuinely systematic

treatment of Hegel's eschatology in the literature. It
is an investigation into Hegel's project to
demonstrate the ultimate unity of thought and being
(consciousness and reality, self and world). The
author traces the project through Hegel's
epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of
history.

The grand synthesis creates a basic tension, an

ambivalence, that reaches its most acute formulation
in Hegel's eschatological language of a final
completion or fulfillment of history. This conflicts
with his dialectic and Heracletian metaphysics of
becoming. Berthold-Bond concludes that a
substantially new approach to Hegel's eschatology is
needed.

Daniel Berthold-Bond is Professor of Philosophy

at Bard College. He is the author of Hegel's Theory of
Madness, also published by SUNY Press.

ISBN. 978-0-88700-956-7
900QQ>
SUNY
P R E S S

tM87 061
S1a1c t:ni,ersill. of
New York r;•.,
www.sunyprc\).c.<lu