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Hegel, Schelling, and Kierkegaard: Positive Philosophy (Part II)

Schelling’s positive philosophy:

For Hegel, the eventual reconciliation of “thought” and “being” requires a complete and determinate system, e.g. the Absolute Idea. As such, he writes in the Science of Logic:

But in the idea of absolute cognition the concept has become the idea’s own content. The idea is itself the pure concept that has itself for subject matter and which, in running itself as subject matter through the totality of its determinations, develops itself into the whole of its reality, into the system of the science, and concludes by apprehending this process of comprehending itself, thereby superseding (aufzuheben) its standing as content and subject matter and cognizing the concept of the science. (§843)

In this way, the Absolute Idea is “the sole subject matter and content of philosophy” and, furthermore, “[t]he Absolute Idea alone is being, imperishable life, self-knowing truth and is all truth” (ibid. §824). According to Hegel, the Absolute Idea is the proper domain of philosophy, and nothing more. If this is the case, and “Philosophy” is understood as that which is concerned with Knowledge of the Absolute Idea, then all that which falls under the category of “Philosophy” is most certainly complete post-Hegel.

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Hegel, Schelling, and Kierkegaard: Background (Part I)

Kierkegaard’s relationship to Hegel is, well, complicated. Like any lover’s triangle, it’s complicated because of a third party, namely: Schelling.

I should like to recount the story as appropriately as I know how, as this will lead us to best understand how to situate Schelling and Hegel with respect to Kierkegaard’s critique of “Hegel” found in texts such as Ether/Or or Concluding Unscientific Postscript. For a long story short, it’s not immediately clear whether or not Kierkegaard understood Hegel as written, or whether Kierkegaard’s response was to more Danish Hegelians (e.g. Heiberg, Martensen, and Adolph Peter Adler) who arguably themselves deviated from Hegel.

I am inclined at this stage of my thought to believe the latter, in accordance with the work of Jon Stewart as found in Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel Reconsidered (review here). Without getting too far ahead of ourselves, this raises many questions of a “meta-level” between Kierkegaard and Hegel which needs to be explored on its own merit. Eventually, I believe Novalis’ work will help us in understanding and articulating this “meta-level”.

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Hegel and the End of Philosophy: An Introduction

In his series of Lectures on the Philosophy of History, we meet our beloved G.W.F. Hegel in the process of conducting a “scientific” survey of philosophical thinkers of our past. He writes:

What the history of Philosophy shows us is a succession of noble minds, a gallery of heroes of thought, who, by the power of Reason, have penetrated into the being of things, of nature and of spirit, into the Being of God, and have won for us by their labours the highest treasure, the treasure of reasoned knowledge.

In this “succession of noble minds”, or this “gallery of heroes of thought”, we pass through beautiful accounts of Ancient Greek philosophers (including the pre-Socratics), Medieval philosophers, Modern philosophers, Idealists & Scepticists, Scottish philosopher, and at last the proud thinkers of German philosophy. Hegel, by slowly pulsating back-and-forth in a careful navigation of the waters of philosophical thought through time, seeks to demonstrate a certain oscillation which spirals upwards towards the Absolute Spirit.

Towards the end of Hegel’s lectures, under the subheading of “3. The More Important of the Followers of Fichte”, we reach several figures many of whom detracted from the thought of Johann Gottlieb Fichte ever so slightly, including  Schlegel, Schleiermacher, Novalis, Fries. Shortly thereafter, we meet the character of F.W.J. von Schelling, who is often seen as the intellectual bridge between Fichte and our beloved Hegel himself.

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