Modern Philosophy
UNIT 4 G.W. HEGEL
Contents
4.0
Objectives
4.1
Introduction
4.2
Hegel’s Metaphysical Foundations
4.3
‘The Phenomenology of Spirit’ and Concept of Absolute
4.4
‘The Philosophy of Nature’ and Organic System
4.5
‘Philosophy of Spirit’ and Dialectic Method
4.6
Hegel’s Contribution to Philosophy
4.7
Let Us Sum Up
4.8
Key Words
4.9
Further Readings and References
4.0 OBJECTIVES
Hegel was the last of the main representatives of a philosophical movement
known as German Idealism. Hegel’s thoughts on the history of philosophy made
that topic a philosophical discipline in its own right. The unit elaborates on the
philosophical contribution of Hegel through his three major works such as
phenomenology of Spirit, Philosophy of Nature and Philosophy of Spirit,
from where his idea of the dynamic Absolute, organic physics and Dialectic
method concretely emerged.
4.1 INTRODUCTION
Hegel was born on 27 August 1770 in Stuttgart, son of a Württemberg official.
In autumn 1793, after successfully completing this period of study, Hegel became
a private tutor in Berne, Switzerland, and remained there until 1796. Thanks
to a legacy, Hegel was able to abandon his position as a tutor and pursue
his academic ambitions. With Schelling’s energetic support Hegel qualified as
a Privatdozent in the autumn of 1801 with a thesis on natural philosophy. Initially,
Schelling and Hegel worked closely together, a fact which is documented by
a philosophical periodical which they published jointly from 1802 (although it
ceased publication following Schelling’s departure from Jena in 1803). In 1805
Hegel was appointed Extraordinary Professor, but financial difficulties forced him
to abandon his activities at the University of Jena in the autumn of 1806. In
November 1808 the same friend then ensured that Hegel was nominated rector
and professor at a grammar school in Nuremberg. After a few years in this
capacity, Hegel was able to return to university life. Hegel died in Berlin during
a cholera epidemic on 14 November 1831, at the height of his fame.
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Hegel devoted his life wholly to academic purists. Hegel’s works can be divided
into three groups: (1) texts written by Hegel and published during his lifetime;
(2) texts written by him, but not published during his lifetime; and (3) texts
neither written by him nor published during his lifetime. His science of logic,
dialectical reasoning, encyclopaedia of philosophical sciences, philosophy of Right
– all provide an intellectual foundation for modern nationalism. Hegel was an
idealist who methodically constructed a comprehensive system of thought about
the world. Compared to other philosophers, it is rather very difficult and harder
to understand Hegel. He differs from Parmenides and Spinoza in conceiving
the whole, not as a simple substance, but as complex system like an organism.
In Hegel’s view, world is not an illusion. The apparently separate things of the
world have a greater or a lesser degree of reality and their reality exists in
the aspect of the whole. Hegel calls, ‘The Whole’, in all its complexity as ‘The
Absolute’.
G.W. Hegel
4.2 HEGEL’S METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATIONS
Hegel’s systematic philosophy attempts to comprehend reality in all its manifestations
as a self-representation of reason (Vernunft). His conception of what he calls
‘reason’ combines various specifically Hegelian connotations, both ontological
and epistemological. Reason is reality, and that alone is truly real which is
reasonable. At least three different convictions make up this basic precept of
the ontological dignity of reason. Hegel calls this primary structure ‘the absolute’
or ‘reason’. For Hegel, therefore, this conviction does not require detailed
philosophical justification. Hegel’s second important conviction relates to the
internal constitution of the structure which he characterizes as reason. He
understands this structure to be a complex unity of thinking and being. The
third conviction which enters into Hegel’s basic assumption of reason as the
primary structure constituting reality and thus being ultimately and only real is
that this structure constitutes reality and thus its own objectivity in a teleological
process which must be understood as a process of knowledge. It is this
conviction which leads to the characteristically Hegelian dogma that there can
be no adequate theory of reality without a dynamic or process-oriented ontology.
This process is described as ‘self-knowledge of reason’ (Selbsterkenntnis der
Vernunft). Hegel tries to integrate within this formula various aspects of his
conception of reason. The first aspect is that it is necessary to take reason,
understood as the primary structure, as something which is essentially dynamic.
The second aspect Hegel has in mind when he speaks of ‘self-knowledge of
reason’, describing a process which must indeed be understood as that of the
self-realization of reason, is that this process represents a process of recognition
for reason. The project of exhibiting reason not only as the basis for all reality,
but also as the whole of reality itself, was Hegel’s sole, lifelong philosophical
goal.
4.3 ‘THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT’ AND
CONCEPT OF ABSOLUTE
The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) is Hegel’s most influential work. It serves
as an introduction to his philosophical system by means of a history of the
experience of consciousness. A discipline which Hegel calls ‘logic’ is intended
to fulfil its introductory function by raising our ‘normal’ thinking, which is
characterized by its confinement to irreconcilable oppositions, to the level of
‘speculation,’ Hegel’s term for philosophical thinking. For him, ‘reflection’ is that
thinking which by its insistence on oppositions simultaneously maintains their basic
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Modern Philosophy
irresolvability. According to Hegel, it is now the task of logic to carry out the
destruction of the finiteness of reflection or of the thinking of the understanding,
thereby simultaneously leading to the standpoint of speculation or of the thinking
of reason.
In ‘Phenomenology of Spirit,’ Hegel pursues this dual goal in a complex and
ambitious thought-process, which attempts to combine and position within a
comprehensive context a wide range of themes. This whole thought-process is
based on two convictions which govern Hegel’s entire construction: (1) It is
possible to conceive of all epistemic attitudes of a consciousness towards a
material world as relations between a subject termed ‘cognition’ (Wissen) and
an object termed ‘truth’ (Wahrheit). For the Hegel of the Phenomenology of
Spirit, and of the writings which were to follow, knowledge in the strict sense
is thus really self-knowledge. In characterizing the various epistemic attitudes
of a consciousness to the world in the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel takes
as his starting point something which he calls ‘sense certainty’. Hegel demonstrates
the untenability of this attitude by attempting to prove that in such an immediate
reference to objects nothing true can be claimed of them. According to Hegel,
however, even this attitude is not tenable. Although, according to Hegel, this
interpretation of the objective world through the cognizing subject also produces
neither a truthful concept of the cognizing consciousness nor of the object in
question, it none the less leads to the enforcement of an attitude according to
which consciousness, when referring to an object, is referring to something which
it is itself. The realization of this insight - that consciousness, when referring
to objects, in reality relates to itself - converts consciousness into selfconsciousness.
The various ways in which consciousness deals with itself and the objective
manifestations corresponding with these ways as reason and spirit are
comprehensively discussed by Hegel in the remainder of his Phenomenology
of Spirit. The conclusion of the Phenomenology of Spirit forms what Hegel calls
‘absolute knowledge’. Hegel characterizes this knowledge also as ‘comprehending
knowledge’ (begreifendes Wissen), aiming thereby to highlight two ideas: (1)
that this knowledge is only present when the subject of the knowledge knows
itself to be identical under every description with the object of that knowledge.
From another point of view, Hegel describes the phenomenological process as
‘self-fulfilling scepticism’. For Hegel, the modern age is characterized by the
fact that unity has disappeared from people’s lives. The Phenomenology of
Spirit describes this process of destruction and foundation-laying. While the
phenomenological process thus concedes a philosophical value to scepticism,
in Hegel’s understanding it simultaneously overcomes this scepticism by claiming
a truth-revealing function for it. It is also Hegel’s intention that the Phenomenology
of Spirit should in this respect be understood as a treatise on the cathartic
effect of philosophical scepticism.
Concept of Absolute
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Absolute is not a Being separate from the world, nature or even individual
persons, thus not making a sharp distinction between appearance and reality
as in Plato’s philosophy. In Hegel’s view, nothing is unrelated and whatever
we experience as separate things, will upon careful reflection, lead us to the
other things to which they are related, until at last, the process of dialectical
thought will end in the knowledge of the Absolute. Still, the Absolute is not
a unity of separate things. Hegel describes the Absolute as a dynamic process,
as an organism having parts but nevertheless, unified into a complex system.
Therefore, the Absolute is not an entity which is separate from the world as
Kant’s Noumena, but it is in the world in a special way.
G.W. Hegel
4.4 ‘THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE’ AND
ORGANIC SYSTEM
Hegel’s philosophy of nature is an attempt to explain how it is possible that
we can recognize nature as a complex whole standing under a set of laws.
Hegel’s philosophy of nature is of interest mainly in three respects. The first
concerns the way in which he transforms his logical theory into an interpretation
of natural phenomena. The second relates to the question of how far Hegel’s
conceptions in the field of the philosophy of nature take into account the scientific
theories current at the time. The third leads to the question of what we should
make of Hegel’s approach to a philosophy of nature within the framework of
present-day philosophy of science. This way of looking at nature makes it the
object of what Hegel calls ‘mechanics’. Hegel’s philosophy of nature consists
of the so-called ‘organic physics’ or ‘organics’. Hegel interprets subjectivity as
an essential characteristic of organic life and nature as a hierarchy of organisms
or as an ‘organic system’. Hegel links the last part of his philosophy of nature
to his philosophy of spirit by means of an analysis of the phenomenon of the
death of an individual natural being.
The relation of the Absolute, the Whole to its parts like an organism – is
the basic conception of Hegel’s philosophy. The conception of the relation
between the parts and the whole in an organism is extended by Hegel to all
truth and reality. Hegel explains this organic theory of Truth and Reality with
an example of a work of art.
This reality is Absolute, Divine and
Abstract, but it is Concretized through different types of expressions in nature
and humans. It is ‘thought - thinking’ itself, ‘a unity of the subjective and objective
Idea’. According to Hegel, there is no truth except the whole truth. So, Absolute
is the synthesis of Subjective Spirit and Objective Spirit because, Reality is
Rationality. Man’s knowledge of the Absolute is actually the Absolute, knowing
itself through the finite spirit of man.
Hegel believes that this Absolute is the ultimate reality, which passes through
the different stages of development in time and becomes conscious of itself in
human reason. Yet, this absolute is timeless, eternal, all embracing, self completed
whole. The sense of fragmentation and discreteness is alien to the spirit of Hegel’s
philosophy. The self positing and self negating spirit of wholeness is the very
nature of Hegelian reality. Man’s unity with nature and Man’s unity with his
own self and other selves. According to Hegel world is intelligible, reason being
at the heart of things. Man can understand this truth through its faculty of
reason. Pure reason, as opposed to practical reason has formal existence, as
opposed to material existence. Pure reason though is beyond space and time,
it exists in the abstract sense with as much reality as the existence as the other
concrete things. The reason for the world has a logical temporal priority to
the world, just as a mathematical problem has a logical non-temporal priority
for its solution. Hegel calls this Absolute – ‘The Idea’, ‘The Spirit’, ‘The Mind’
etc. In other respects, Hegel differs from Plato. ‘The Idea’ is not static and
self subsistent. Hegel laid great stress upon logic believing that knowing and
being coincide.
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Modern Philosophy
Check Your Progress I
Note: Use the space provided for your answers.
1)
How does Hegel equate reason and reality?
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2)
Explain Hegel’s organic theory.
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4.5 ‘PHILOSOPHY OF SPIRIT’ AND DIALECTIC
METHOD
Hegel’s philosophy of spirit is divided into a theory of subjective, objective
and absolute spirit. The philosophy of subjective spirit contains Hegel’s
philosophical psychology; his philosophy of objective spirit is devoted to his
theory of law and politics and his conception of world history; and his philosophy
of absolute spirit presents his theory of art, religion and philosophy. Hegel
presented his philosophy of subjective spirit and in particular his philosophy of
absolute spirit to a wider public only in outline in a few paragraphs of the
Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. The philosophy of subjective spirit
contains an anthropology, a phenomenology of spirit and a psychology. In these
sections Hegel describes and analyses all the phenomena that influence the
somatic, psychophysical and mental characteristics, conditions, processes and
activities of the individual. While the philosophy of subjective spirit really only
attracted attention up to the middle of the nineteenth century, Hegel’s philosophy
of objective spirit, in other words his theory of law and politics, received a
great deal of attention during the nineteenth and especially the twentieth century.
Finally, the third conviction consists in an application of the principle which shapes
Hegel’s whole philosophical enterprise, namely, that political philosophy must
play its part in the confirmation of the thesis that only reason is real.
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Hegel fulfils his self-imposed demand for the integration of freedom by making
the conception of free will the fundamental concept of his philosophy of the
objective spirit; this is where his characteristic conception of freedom comes
into play. For Hegel, self-determination means to refer willingly to oneself, that
is, to will oneself. In his theory of law, Hegel makes his contribution to the
discussion of the philosophical foundations of civil and criminal law. According
to Hegel, however, legal relationships and moral standards are founded in social
institutions. In Hegel’s language, ethical life as the basis for the possibility of
law and morality is the truth of free will, that which free will really is. For Hegel,
ethical life appears in three institutional forms: family, bourgeois society and the
state. This diagnosis is grounded in Hegel’s analyses of a society founded solely
on economic relationships. Hegel thinks of the state as a constitutional monarchy
with division of power. For Hegel, the constitution of a state is in no sense
the product of some constitution-creating institution or the work of individual
persons. Hegel’s theory of the powers of the state (Staatsgewalten) recognizes,
in addition to the princely power (fürstliche Gewalt) which represents the
instance of ultimate decision-making within the constitutional framework, the
governmental power (Regierungsgewalt) and the legislative power (gesetzgebende
Gewalt). Hegel forges the link to his theory of the spirit, which contains his
political philosophy, by interpreting what he calls ‘ethical life’ as the ‘spirit of
a people’. Now, Hegel believes that this development has taken place during
the course of a historical process which he calls ‘world history’. Hegel now
interprets this reconciliation as the conclusion of the process of the selfrecognition of reason.
G.W. Hegel
Hegel’s philosophy of absolute spirit contains his philosophy of art, his philosophy
of religion and his theory of philosophy. Although from the very first all these
subjects had a fixed place in Hegel’s attempts at a system, and although his
philosophies of art and religion were to become very influential (the one in the
history of art and the theory of aesthetics and the other in theology), none the
less these sections of Hegel’s philosophy are relatively little elaborated in the
works published by Hegel himself. In philosophy, the self-reference of reason
is accounted for in the mode of cognition. By way of example Hegel takes
the lion, which symbolizes strength. Hegel interprets the various individual arts
as realizations of styles of art in various materials. Although each individual art
can present itself in each style of art, there is for each individual art an ideal
style, which he calls its basic type. The first individual art which Hegel discusses
is architecture.
The remaining individual arts are painting, music and poetry, whose basic type
is represented by the romantic style of art. Music is the romantic style of art
par excellence. Hegel could not resist the temptation to use his theory of individual
arts and styles of art as a model for the interpretation of the history of the
development of art. In the philosophy of religion Hegel holds that only in
Christianity are the conditions fulfilled which are characteristic of the representational
self-knowledge of reason. Philosophy of religion has as its subject not only God,
but also religion itself, and for Hegel that means the way in which God is present
in the religious consciousness. The second part of the philosophy of religion
discusses what Hegel calls ‘determinate religion’. This exposition starts with socalled natural religion, which according to Hegel assumes three forms: the religion
of magic, the religion of substantiality and the religion of abstract subjectivity.
Natural religion finds its historical concept in the Oriental religions. Hegel regards
the ‘religions of spiritual individuality’ as a second stage; these assume the forms
of the religion of sublimity, the religion of beauty and the religion of teleology.
Hegel puts the Jewish, Greek and Roman religions in this category. According
to Hegel, this idea of religion was first realized adequately in Christianity. Hegel’s
philosophy of religion greatly influenced theological discussions and points of
view. Philosophy is the representation of this process in its necessity. This
philosophical process also has its appearance in time in the form of the history
of philosophy. Only in societies in which free constitutions exist can philosophical
thought develop. Hegel divides Western philosophy into two main periods: Greek
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Modern Philosophy
and Germanic philosophy. Hegel regards it as a great merit of his philosophy
that it adequately explains this, and thus reconciles reason with reality in thought.
Dialectic Method
Every thesis for an argument has its anti thesis as life and death, love and hate,
day and night, youth and old age. Whole nature is a reconciliation of opposites
and Hegel’s dialectic shows that any thesis implies its anti thesis and that the
two are united in a higher synthesis in which the opposition between the two
is reconciled and overcome in a lager unity. The Absolute Idea passes through
a dialectic of many triads – each of which has its own Thesis, Anti Thesis and
Synthesis. In the thesis, a certain aspect of reality is revealed and in the anti
thesis, a contrasting aspect appears and the two are synthesised in a higher
synthesis. Hegel uses the term Abstract or Immediate to thesis and Negative
or Mediate to anti thesis and Concrete to synthesis. Hegel’s concept begins
with the concept of being and this is the thesis. Hegel believed that the inner
essence of the absolute could be reached by human reason because the Absolute
is disclosed in nature as well as in the working of the human mind. What connects
these three – the Absolute, nature and man’s mind is thought itself. Nature is
the objective self, as opposed to the conscious self. The second basic triad
of nature is matter, life and mind. In matter, the thesis we do find that parts
are related mechanically and in life, the anti thesis, they are united organically.
The higher concept, mind is a union of matter and life. Mind or the subjective
spirit is the synthesis of the evolution of matter and life. This mind in man is
capable of controlling both the material body and the principle of life in man.
In fact, the mind is the union of both matter and life in man who can reason
with self-consciousness. Hegel calls this self consciousness – mind or spirit. The
basic triad of this part are subjective spirit (thesis), which refer to the inner
working of the human mind and the objective spirit which represents the mind
in its external embodiment in the social and political institutions become the antithesis and at the apex of knowledge stands the absolute as its synthesis.
The objective spirit is explained by Hegel with reference to the social
consciousness or the society in general. This concept of right has three
implications – Right to property (Thesis), Right to contract (Anti-Thesis) and
Right to punish (Synthesis) respectively. To unite the above thesis and anti-thesis,
a higher level of concept called, right to punish arrives as a synthesis. If, claiming
certain rights from the society called the concept of right becomes the thesis,
then discharging certain duties to the society with duty consciousness called the
concept of morality becomes the anti-thesis. The unity of reality finds richest
expression at the man-society level. Our consciousness of the absolute, says
Hegel is achieved progressively as the mind moves from art to philosophy through
religion. In the object of art, mind apprehends the absolute as beauty. Since
no sensuous form can convey adequately the profound spiritual truth, the dialectic
passes from art to its anti-thesis in religion. Religion occupies an intermediate
position between art and philosophy. Ultimately, in philosophy, according to Hegel
– the thinker is the Absolute, the subject matter of thinking is the Absolute
and the medium through which the absolute thinks is also the absolute. Thus
Hegel places philosophy as the highest point of development of human
knowledge. The history of philosophy is for him, the development of the absolute
self consciousness in the mind of man. The philosophical mind discovers the
absolute in all stages of the dialectic and in so doing man becomes rational.
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4.6 HEGEL’S CONTRIBUTION TO PHILOSOPHY
G.W. Hegel
Hegel was convinced that the philosophy of Kant did not represent the final
word in philosophical matters, because it was not possible to conceive a unified
theory of reality by means of Kantian principles alone. For Hegel a unified theory
of reality is one which can systematically explain all forms of reality, starting
from a single principle or a single subject. For Hegel, these forms of reality
included not only solar systems, physical bodies and the various guises assumed
by organic life, for example, plants, animals and human beings, but also psychic
phenomena, social and political forms of organization as well as artistic creations
and cultural achievements such as religion and philosophy.
For Hegel, the fundamental principle which explains all reality is reason. Reason
is not some quality which is attributed to some human subject; it is, by contrast,
the sum of all reality. In accordance with this belief, Hegel claims that reason
and reality are strictly identical: only reason is real and only reality is reasonable.
Since reason is the whole of reality, this goal will be achieved when reason
recognizes itself as total reality. It is the task of philosophy to give a coherent
account of this process which leads to self-knowledge of reason. Hegel
conceived this process by analogy with the model of organic development which
takes place on various levels. Hegel thought of a living organism as an entity
which represents the successful realization of a plan in which all individual
characteristics of this entity are contained. In accordance with these assumptions,
Hegel distinguished the concept of reason from the process of the realization
of this concept. He undertook the exposition of the concept of reason in that
section of his philosophical system which he calls the Wissenschaft der Logik
(Science of Logic). In this first part of his system, the various elements of the
concept of reason are discussed and placed into a systematic context. He
presented the process of the realization of this concept in the other two parts
of his system, the Philosophie der Natur (Philosophy of Nature) and the
Philosophie des Geistes (Philosophy of Spirit). In the Philosophy of Nature,
Hegel aims to describe comprehensively all aspects of natural phenomena as
a system of increasingly complex facts. The Philosophy of Spirit treats of various
psychological, social and cultural forms of reality. For Hegel, examples of such
facts are the state, art, religion and history.
Hegel gave the world a more plausible and comprehensive system of idealism.
His sole concern was to understand the world as it is and to explain everything
logically. He explains adequately, the rational constitution of the universe. Even
God as has been remarked, does not seem to be permitted any secrets which
Hegel’s reason is unable to disclose. Like Berkeley, though Hegel is an idealist,
his idealism differs very much from Berkeley. Berkeley being an empirical theistic
idealist believes that, God created this world and has His own existence,
independent of His creation. While, Hegel being a rationalistic pantheistic idealist
opines that Absolute is the world in its organic unity and not the creator of
it. For Hegel, world is real although its various parts are dependent upon the
unity of the whole. The whole is not a blank, unknowable unity, but it is rational
and knowable in its organic interrelatedness.
4.7 LET US SUM UP
Hegel points out that the Absolute first manifests itself in the categories of logic
and then externalised in the physical nature, subjective mind and objective mind.
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Final culmination is reached in the absolute mind in which the whole reality is
apprehended in its organic unity and completeness. In art, this is done through
the medium of sensuous form, in religion through worship and in philosophy
the absolute is disclosed in the conception of pure thought. Hegel criticises the
traditional epistemological distinction of the objective from the subjective and
offers his own dialectical account of the development of consciousness from
individual sensation through social concern with ethics and politics to the pure
consciousness, the spirit. The result is a comprehensive worldview that
encompasses the historical development of civilization in all its sources.
Check Your Progress II
Note: Use the space provided for your answers.
1)
Give an account of Hegel’ dialectic method.
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2)
How do you estimate Hegel’s contribution to philosophy?
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4.8 KEY WORDS
Absolute
: free from imperfection free or relatively free from
mixture; being, governed by, or characteristic of
a ruler or authority completely free from
constitutional or other restraint (absolute power).
Absolute Mind
: Absolute mind is the state in which mind rises
above all the limitations of nature and institutions,
and is subjected to itself alone in art, religion, and
philosophy. For the essence of mind is freedom,
and its development must consist in breaking away
from the restrictions imposed on it by nature and
human institutions.
4.9 FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES
Beiser, F.C. Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Hegel. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993.
Dickey, L. Hegel: Religion, Economics and Politics of the Spirit - 17701807. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
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Hegel, G.W.F. Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. A.V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1970.
G.W. Hegel
Hegel, G.W.F. Philosophy of Nature. 3 vols. Trans. and Ed. M.J. Petry. London:
Allen & Unwin, 1970.
Hegel, G.W.F. Science of Logic. Trans. A.V. Miller. London: Allen & Unwin,
1969.
Runes, D.D. Living Schools of Philosophy. Iowa: Little Field Adoms and
Company, 1958.
Russell, Bertrand. History of Western Philosophy. London: George Allen and
Unwin Ltd., 1957.
S. E, Stumpf. Socrates to Sartre. New York: McHill Book Company, 1966.
Wright, W.K. A History of Modern Philosophy. New York: The Mac Millan
Company, 1966.
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